Four Gated City (46 page)

Mrs. Quest, weeping, wrote to her son. She was not feeling well. She was very tired. She was much too old to be on her knees scrubbing floors, and standing on ladders cleaning windows. A few days in bed was what she needed, she really didn’t feel…

Martha brought trays at mealtimes, but her mother jerked up from her pillows, looked guilty, scrambled into a dressing-gown, insisted on going down to the kitchen to cook herself food. So she was neither ill, nor not ill; yet in bed she lay with arms and legs stretched out, unable to move them because of the arthritis.

In Dr Lamb’s room the dialogue, or monologue, or process which was the shadowy accompaniment to that which was unfolding itself in Radlett Street, came to a climax.

‘You know that you have to tell her to go.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then?’

‘I can’t. I can’t.’

‘Why can’t you?’

‘She’ll go anyway, ’ Martha muttered.

‘A sort of passive resistance, that’s what you are doing?’

‘If I did what you wanted, shouted and screamed at her-that’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?’

‘You haven’t, have you? Not ever in your life?’

‘No. If I did that, it would be healthy, I would be saved?’

‘Why don’t you try it?’

‘Who would I be shouting at? It would be like hitting a child.’

‘Excepting that she isn’t, is she?’

‘I keep looking at her face, that face, that awful, miserable old face…’

He was silent as this cycle came around again for what, the tenth time?

‘What you say, what you keep saying it’s no good, it’s no use-if it’s intellectualizing to wonder all the time, what’s wrong with us all-because it’s not just me. You fight your parents-everyone does-you have to do that? If you don’t then you’re sunk. So I didn’t fight, not the right way. But that isn’t the point. What is the fight? Who’s fighting what? Why is it that we all of us have to get out from under awful parents who damage us? Because what are they? She’s a pathetic old woman. All my friends, everyone I’ve known. It’s taken for granted. And it’s true-one has to. But was it always like this?’ (Martha, listening to her own voice, knew it was like the voice of her mother, during one of those muttering monologues to which she listened, appalled, fascinated, helpless.)‘Because there’s another point, all the time: if either I or my brother said: Right, we give in, do run our lives for us, she’d never have another day’s illness-she’d live till she was ninety or a hundred. But if I kick her out I sign her death warrant. I know that.’

‘So you feel guilty that you are murdering your mother?’

‘No, I don’t feel guilty. It’s not my fault. If it were my fault that would be easy. Or if it were her fault. But I wish I didn’t always know what’s going to happen. It’s like watching Paul and Francis-you know what’s going to be eating them in twenty years’ time. It’s not their fault, it’s not Lynda’s fault, it’s not Mark’s fault…’

‘But it’s your fault?’

‘No. You’re on the wrong track, I tell you …’

Am I?’

‘Yes. If I wallowed around
mea culpa
, that would be a good mark? That’s not intellectualizing? No, that’s easy enough. No. And if you say one shouldn’t be asking the other questions-why? Was it always like this? What’s gone wrong with us? Then you’re wrong, you’re wrong, what question is there to ask? Or are we just children, and not responsible at all, ever, for what we live in?’

‘You need a historian perhaps, or a sociologist?’ The sarcasm, carefully measured as always, no longer affected Martha.

‘All right then-a different expert for every different type of question. But it’s the same question always.’

‘Mrs. Hesse, what you want is for me to kick your mother out because you haven’t the courage to do it.’

‘Yes, yes, ’ muttered Martha. ‘I do. I know that. But what difference does it make who actually does it? Because she’ll go anyway
-she’s not getting what she wants, so she’ll have to go … Will you see her?’

‘I’ve already suggested that, I think. But you said no.’

‘I’ll try to get her to come.’

‘If
you
can’t do it, make yourself do it.’

‘She’ll break her leg, something like that.’

‘There are hospitals.’

‘Hospitals and old age homes.
What’s wrong with us all
?’

‘I have time at ten o’clock on Thursday.’

Mark and Martha lay in each other’s arms, in a cave of soft protective dark.

‘If you like, I’ll talk to her, ’ said Mark, infinitely kind.

‘It’s my battle, it’s not yours.’

‘Well, Martha, speaking as an onlooker …’ Here they both laughed, helplessly, and then she began crying. ‘The fact is, that your mother’s upstairs in one room, in one bed, and you are downstairs in another. If neither of you can break it, then I’m going

to.’

‘No. No. Of course I must.’

Martha sat in her room, remembering how a few weeks ago she had fought, fought for her own memory-such energy! Where was it now? She made herself go upstairs to her mother’s room. She stood outside it. From inside came the old voice, in its painful monologue. She made herself open the door and go in. The voice went on.

Mrs. Quest lay, her painful arms stiff on the covers. Her eyes very bright with anger. ‘Filthy creatures, ’ she was saying, or remarking. ‘Sex. That’s all they think of. That’s all they do. Well, I could live in this house too if I was ready to earn my living with my legs in the air.’

‘Mother, ’ said Martha.

Mrs. Quest looked at her daughter-or rather, looked at her differently, for she had been looking at her while she delivered her monologue. ‘Oh, is that you?’ she inquired cheerfully.

Martha said:’ You don’t mean a word of it-why do you say it?’

She stared at her mother, at the miserable old woman, trying to speak to the person in her who didn’t mean one word of it.

Mrs. Quest began singing:’ Lead, Kindly Light.’

‘I want you to see a friend of mine, ’ said Martha.

‘Who, dear? “

‘His name is Dr Lamb.’

Here we go, thought Martha, one of these idiotic conversations-well, we’ve been having them ever since I can remember.

‘I don’t remember your mentioning a Dr Lamb.’

‘Didn’t I?’

‘I’ve seen too many doctors. I’m afraid I’ll have to live with it. After all, a lot of old people have arthritis.’

A pause. Martha looked at the innocent, frightened old face on the pillow.

‘I don’t think I want to, really.’

‘I think it might be a help.’

‘Well perhaps, if I’m well enough.’

‘I’ve ordered a taxi for half past nine tomorrow. I’ll come up and help you dress.’

‘Very well, dear, if that’s what you want.’

Martha left. She leaned outside the door, too tired to move farther. Almost, she collapsed where she stood, lay like a dog outside the door. Inside Mrs. Quest was singing:’ Rock of Ages Cleft for Me.’ Then:’ Filthy pigs. I’m expected to clean up after their mess, pigs. I’m nothing but a servant and she’s a whore. Pig. Let me hide myself in Thee. They think I’m going to be their servant and do all their dirty work

When Martha came up next morning at nine, the voice was still talking. It continued as she went into the room, drew the curtains and said good morning. It went on, while Mrs. Quest looked through Martha as if she did not see her. ‘Whore, ’ she said. ‘A decent woman shouldn’t be under the same roof…”

‘Mother, the taxi will be here soon.’

‘I don’t really feel up to it, ’ said Mrs. Quest brightly. ‘How are you today? Are you better?’

‘I am quite well.’

She fetched her mother’s clothes and stood by the bed with them.

‘I don’t think I can move today, ’ said Mrs. Quest, cowering under the clothes, holding them to her chin like a shield.

Martha stayed where she was. Suddenly Mrs. Quest flung back the covers, got up, and began to dress.

‘It’s a very nice day, ’ she said.

‘Yes, it is.’

When she had dragged vests, bloomers, skirt, jersey over her
ancient body, displayed carelessly, brutally to Martha, as if making a point, she clung suddenly to a wall and said she was in too much pain to go out.

‘I’ll help you, ’ said Martha. She assisted her mother downstairs. Mrs. Quest clung to walls, banisters, and handles of doors, and crawled with two sticks into the taxi.

She came back that afternoon, walked up the steps and then up the stairs into her room where she began packing. Martha went in, and Mrs. Quest said, in a normal, almost jolly voice:’ I’ve changed my ticket. I’m flying tomorrow.’

‘Aren’t you going to be sorry to miss the sea voyage?’

Oh I don’t know. It’s rather tiring really-those big boats, they’re not very nice.’

She did not mention Dr Lamb.

Martha telephoned Dr Lamb who said that he had been standing at his window waiting when the taxi drew up with the old lady in it. She had skipped out, paid the taxi-man, with a haste which said how much she longed for the moment she could be face to face with Martha’s friend. She ran up three flights of stairs, was met by Dr Lamb at his door, and without saying more than ‘I am Martha’s mother’ ran into the room, sat down, and began to abuse Martha. She did not ask:’ Who are you? What kind of a doctor are you?’ She sat, and out of her flooded years and years and years of resentment, all focused on Martha. Dr Lamb had sat and listened. He had asked just one question:’ If you two don’t get on, perhaps it would be better if you weren’t in the same house?’

Oh, she needn’t think I’m going to stay there, just to be a servant, ’ she had said, and continued with her complaint. At the end of an hour, reminded that someone else was waiting to see Dr Lamb, she had not heard. Twice, thrice, she did not hear; and then, suddenly, she jumped up, said:’ It was so nice talking to you-it’s not often Martha lets me meet one of her friends, ’ had shaken Dr Lamb’s hand, and had run all the way downstairs again. She had walked rapidly away out of sight. Straight to the travel bureau? She did not say. It was not mentioned.

When the time came to drive her to the airport, Mrs. Quest refused to be driven: she wanted to leave at the air terminal-she did not wish to be a trouble.

They went to the air terminal in a taxi, both silent, avoiding each other’s eyes, miserable, wishing to cry.

They chatted about small topics till the flight was called, then, as she vanished from her daughter’s life for ever, Mrs. Quest gave a small tight smile, and said:’ Well, I wonder what all that was about really?’

‘Yes, ’ said Martha, ‘so do I.’

They kissed politely, exchanged looks of ironic desperation, smiled and parted.

Martha went back, into a collapse. She went to bed. She lay there, one day, two days, three days. She had an appointment with Dr Lamb. She cancelled it. Then she cancelled another. She got out of bed and began testing her memory, prod, prod, was that still there? That incident intact? Yes, she had lost nothing of what she gained in the long battle before Dr Lamb. There was a great deal more she had to do: for instance, her mother’s visit had gone into blackness, a blank. She had to get it back. She went to Dr Lamb, there was a violent explosion of emotion-she was back in bed. When she got out she knew she could no longer go to Dr Lamb: it was economics, psychic economics; she needed energy. She wrote and told him she would not come back, thanked him for’doing what she supposed she had gone to him for’. He replied that he was pleased to have been of use, and enclosed his account.

Martha began getting up very early in the mornings, to have an hour or so of quiet, so as to work on her memory, the salvage operation. She did not like leaving Mark, and he did not like waking to a bed cold beside him. But she told him she had to do it. Now, not seeing Dr Lamb, it meant that the focus of her life was on the two hours in the early mornings, before breakfast with Mark; and then again in the evenings. She knew Mark had looked forward to her mother’s departure, so they could return again to the evenings, closed-in, sheltered, shut off from life, the curtains of love-making drawn around them. But she wanted her evenings, she had to have them. She was miraculously restored to energy again. She was able, again, to say: Today I will do this, and then do it. After dinner, she went to her room, and worked on her own mind, with her mind. The weeks of her mother’s visit came back, each scene fought back into memory against lethargy, pain, reluctance. Afterwards she crawled into bed, worn out. Then Mark came in, to hold her and comfort her. She wanted this, very much. But also, she didn’t want it-she had to stop being this helpless creature who clung and needed.

It was not that they ceased to be lovers-they were, but differently.

She knew that soon they would not be lovers. And he was hurt, deeply, where it mattered, not anywhere on the surface where it could be talked about. For the second time, or the third time, Mark had given everything that was good in him, all his strength and patience and warmth, to a woman who said, Save me, Save me, and who then had-not been saved, or who had gone off to doctors, or at any rate, had not needed him.

They did not plan it or decide it, but soon it was at an end. Besides, there were the children, and Paul was a person from whom one could conceal nothing.

Part Three

We can usefully think of air as an ocean in which we are submerged. Everywhere in this ocean currents swirl and eddy, torrents flow, masses as homogeneous as whales sink and rise while travelling in the effort for equilibrium of hot and cold
.

*

Air is a fluid mixture of gases and solids. 78 per cent of it is gaseous nitrogen. It is nitrogen which is the principal food of plant life. Nitrogen is shocked into chemical existence by the action of lightning, and rain washes it down to the surface of the earth
.

*

A lightning flash is only a spark which bridges cloud and earth or cloud and cloud. But in order for this spark to happen, one place must be negatively charged and the other positively charged
.

*

Lightning is the parent of fire on our earth. It has its birth in clouds, which are water vapour suspended in air. This vapour falls in rain when drops can form about minute particles of dirt or solid matter. Thus, in a drama miles above our heads earth is host to rain which is suspended in air where fire is implicit in the separation of cloud and earth masses
.