Martha Quest

  They sat at opposite ends of a long dining table, served by a native in the conventional uniform: red fez, white starched tunic, an impassive face. This man brought in a tray for Donovan to examine. There was nothing on it but some bread, a boiled egg and a lump of quivering green jelly.

  ‘My father has ulcers,’ announced Donovan, as if this was a personal affront to himself. ‘Take it away,’ he said, waving his hand at the servant; then: ‘No, wait.’ The tray was returned for Donovan’s inspection; and with a slow, wicked smile very like his mother’s, he took the yellow poppy from his lapel, tucked it into the napkin ring, and waved the tray away for a second time. ‘Well,’ he said, with grumbling grace, ‘you have a glimpse of the home life of the Andersons.’

  But he looked at Martha challengingly, and Martha could not immediately meet the challenge. She was sorry for Donovan, but elderly ladies (she must be at least fifty) with the wayward charm of Mrs Anderson had never come her way before. Also, the word ‘ulcers’ had struck a deeper chord than she liked. At last she sighed and said, ‘Yes, it’s all very difficult, isn’t it?’ But this was too strong a note, and he began to defend his mother and explain what a terrible life of it she led with Mr Anderson.

  When the meal was finished, he said, ‘And now we must hurry. I suppose I should take you to meet my papa? But no, you don’t want to meet him, do you.’

  Martha therefore followed him to the car; and during the weeks she was to visit this house, she saw the old gentleman no more than half a dozen times. He had been an important civil servant—something to do with finance, Donovan airily explained. If he came down to a meal, he sat silent, as Martha was accustomed to see a father behave, while Donovan and his mother kept up a lively conversation. In the drawing room he never appeared at all; there sat mother and son, on the low purple satin chairs, flirting, chattering, teasing, and always with a watchful look in their eyes. Martha was as relieved as they when he chose not to descend from his room, for a nerve in her, sensitized long before its proper time, predisposed her uncomfortably to watch Mr Anderson, that morose, silent gentleman, rather like a dapper little monkey in his careful clothes—but an old and misanthropic monkey; she looked from him to the charming young man, his son, and wondered how soon the shrill and complaining strand in his character would strengthen until he too became like his father, a bad-tempered but erudite hermit among his books—but no, that transformation was impossible to imagine. And where did Martha gain the idea that Mr Anderson was erudite? Simply from the fact that he spent his time reading. She had an altogether romantic picture of him, and the background of that picture was the wall of a library, sober with dark, leather-bound volumes.

  One afternoon Martha came into the house to find it empty, and climbed the stairs to Mr Anderson’s room, aided by the self-possession of an attractive girl accustomed to find herself welcomed, and opened the door and went in—but she was not to be allowed into his room under any such passport. Mr Anderson was reading in a big chair by a window which framed a view of veld crossed and recrossed by telephone wires. When he demanded gruffly what she wanted, she instinctively switched off the charming manner, sat down, and asked him about his book, confident that that was the key. But no, he thankfully laid the book aside. She saw it was called Three Days to the Moon, and on the cover was a picture of something that looked like a bomb with a window in it, through which peered a man and a girl, both half naked. Beside his chair were stacked dozens of similar books. On the table, however, were blue books, reports and newspaper clippings; and she understood at last where his heart was, when he began to talk of a recent Government commission on population, and as abruptly stopped himself with the bitter comment, ‘However, at sixty it seems I’m too old to take an intelligent interest.’

  Rather nervously, she mentioned Donovan; and Mr Anderson appeared to be dismissing both of them when he said gruffly, ‘Of course, I suppose you find this sort of thing dull. But at his age…However, nowadays it seems sex is enough.’ She was embarrassed, but not for the reason he imagined.

  There were voices and laughter downstairs, and she got up and thanked him (automatically ‘charming’ again, under the invisible influence of mother and son, whom she was to join) for entertaining her.

  ‘Well, well,’ Mr Anderson said forbearingly, and picked up his science fiction again. She left him, with a pang for that window and its view of the sun-soaked grasses; and another, much deeper one, of fear that at sixty a window, some tedious reports and bad novels were all that one could reasonably expect to enjoy.

  But on that first evening, her idea of Mr Anderson was crystallized by an invalid’s tray, with a crumpled yellow poppy stuck into a silver napkin ring.

  When Martha asked what film they were going to see, Donovan replied that he always went to the Regal, in his manner of pointing out something she must copy. She was still silent, trying to approve this way of choosing one’s entertainment, when they arrived. The Regal was a large, shabby building in the centre of town, decorated to surface splendour with coloured lights and posters of film stars. As they walked towards it, Donovan took Martha’s arm, and she looked instinctively to see why, for this was not the sort of gesture one associated with him. She found they were progressing slowly through groups of people whom Donovan was greeting, and when she examined them she felt his obvious pleasure and excitement affect her: the pavement was a dull city pavement, the posters on the wall were garish, but the place was transformed into something very like one of her private dreams. Everyone was young, throngs of young men and girls were everywhere, and they all knew each other, or so it seemed; for as she and Donovan slowly pressed their way through, she found herself introduced to faces who smiled through a blur of excitement, she found herself shaking dozens of hands; and as they left the crowded foyer and climbed the staircase, she heard him say, ‘Well, you’re a great success, Matty, they were all wanting to see the new girl come to town.’

  She was startled, and glanced back to see this crowd under the new light of a unifying ‘they’, and saw that she was being watched by what seemed to be dozens of pairs of eyes. Straightening herself and tossing her hair back, she climbed onwards, still supported by Donovan’s arm, which, however, withdrew itself the moment the crowd was left behind.

  He said again, with a self-satisfied note, ‘There, now, you’ve made your début.’

  Martha was resentful; or rather, a small critical nerve in Martha was struck unpleasantly. At the same time, excitement was flooding into her at the idea that she was being displayed; and this confusion of feeling persisted while they entered the cinema and once again Donovan began waving and calling to innumerable people. She was prepared to become absorbed by the film, for this was the first she had seen, apart from the few shown at school; but it soon became clear that seeing the film was the least of the reasons which brought Donovan to the cinema. While it was running, he talked to her and to the people behind him; in fact, there was a continuous murmur of talk, and when someone shouted ‘Hush!’ it hushed only for a moment.

  At the interval, Martha ate ice cream in the foyer with a group of young people to whom, it seemed, she had already been introduced; for they called her Matty, and knew not only where she worked but where she lived; and one youth asked if he might pick her up at Mrs Gunn’s the following evening, only to be informed curtly by Donovan that she was already engaged. Martha was annoyed. As they returned to their seats, he said, ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in that Sports Club crowd, my dear, they’re not in our line.’

  After the film was over, Martha found herself going into McGrath’s together, it seemed, with everyone who had been at the cinema. McGrath’s lounge was a vast brownish room, with a beige ceiling of heavy plaster divided into squares, like a mammoth slab of staling chocolate, which had been further moulded to form superimposed circles and scrolls and shells and flowers, and finally swabbed with pailfuls of gilt. The walls were also sculptured and panelled and made to glitter with gold. The room was divided
down the centre with heavy fluted and gilded columns. But the floor of this old-fashioned room was crowded with slender black glass tables and chromium chairs, and these were crowded with young people. After some minutes, Martha realized that a band was playing, and on a platform decorated like an altar with flowers and statuary she saw half a dozen black-coated men making the movements of those who create music; and straining her ears, she heard the ground rhythm of a waltz. The musicians were talking and laughing with each other as they played, and with the people at the tables under the platform; the waiters who hurried through the crowd carrying trays laden with glass mugs of beer smiled when they were hailed by their Christian names. It all had the atmosphere of a festival, and Martha found herself transported into delight, and forgot her resentment, and sat by Donovan drinking beer and eating peanuts and talking to the people around her so animatedly that she was not at first aware of Donovan’s silence. When she looked around, he appeared sulky, and as soon as their beer was finished he refused to join in another round, and said, ‘Matty and I must be going.’ There were humorous groans from the young men; and Martha was astounded and infuriated to hear them calling out to the dignified Donovan, as he walked with her to the door, ‘Oy-oy! Spoilsport! Meany!’

  On the pavement he said gruffly, ‘Don’t take any notice.’ But he was certainly pleased; and that pleasure offended her; and she could not help glancing back to where the light spilled from the great columned door, with the music and the sound of laughter and young voices. They were singing now, inside; and unaccountably her eyes filled with tears. It seemed as if she were being snatched away from her birthright before she had even stretched out her hands to take it.

  Donovan strolled beside her to the car, and said, ‘Well, it’s quite early, what shall we do? Of course, we’ll follow the custom. You haven’t been up the kopje, have you? That’s where all the boys and girls go, to look at the lights and hold hands.’ He was now light and careless again; and they found the shabby but correct little car and drove away downtown, through the slums and kaffir stores, until a low hill rose before them. They spiralled slowly up it; and near the top there was a flat space, filled with parked cars, lightless and apparently deserted. Donovan at once got out and led her to the edge of the flat space. For a moment Martha felt herself carried away, for it was with a violent mingling of fear and delight that she struggled with the sensation that she was back home, looking away over the darkened veld, under the stars. But now the great hollow before her was scattered with light—it seemed as if a large hand had flung down stars caught from the sweep of the Milky Way over her head, to mark the streets and houses of the little town. At her feet rustled the veld grass, and the scent of the violet tree swept across her face. But Donovan said, ‘And so here we are, we must admire the lights and feel romantic.’

  At once she sobered, and listened as he pointed out the compact blur of light which was McGrath’s Hotel; an irregular dark space, surrounded by light, which was the park; and away over a blank darkness that seemed to suffuse with an internal glow, to the sparkle which was his own house, where the smart new suburb would soon rise from the veld grasses. What a small town it was, seen thus from above! And its smallness defined in Martha’s mind what had till then mazed and confused in streets, parks, suburbs, without limit or direction. They were all here, her experiences of the last few days, shrunk to a neat pattern of light. They were dismayingly shrunk and at once her mind tugged to soar away from Donovan and from the town itself; but he kept pulling her down, pointing out this building and that, once even gaining her willing attention by directing her gaze to a building that stood by itself, so brightly lit that even from here she could make out the tiny black strokes which were the pillars of the veranda.

  ‘The Sports Club,’ he said, and she heard the reluctance in his voice. ‘I’ll take you there when there’s a nice dance.’ She did not answer, but he continued, ‘And while we’re about it, I’m booking the Christmas Dance, and the New Year’s Dance, and the Show Ball.’ He added, grumbling humorously, ‘It’s disgusting, booking a girl up months ahead, but what can one do, one must pay the penalty for living in the colonies, where there’s a woman shortage.’

  She laughed and, examining her experiences of that evening, realized that in those crowds there had been far more men than girls; and immediately her heart lifted on a wave of reckless power. She laughed again, and there was an unscrupulous note.

  ‘You’ll get spoiled,’ said Donovan gloomily. ‘You all do. All the same, it does go against the grain to book one’s girl up a year in advance.’

  It was in this manner that Martha learned she was Donovan’s girl; and instinctively she turned towards him, in a moment of swelling gratitude and warmth; she was prepared to accept him in short, as her man, since he had lain that claim on her; but Donovan was standing there, hands in his pockets, staring moodily down at the lights of the town. The moment passed, and she was left feeling blank, rather foolish, and unaccountably tired.

  ‘Well,’ he remarked, ‘so now we’ve done the expected. Come on.’

  They stumbled back over the stony ground, past a big beacon, a great post stuck into a heap of whitewashed stones. She stopped to look at it, and he said, giggling, ‘Just imagine the pioneers climbing all this way to stick the flag on the top of a kopje.’

  As they descended, a curve of the hill shifted, slightly, and she saw below her another expanse of sparsely lit country, though this time there was no neat pattern of streets, only an apparently limitless darkness irregularly marked by small yellow lights, ‘The location,’ said Donovan indifferently. ‘Kaffirtown.’ Involuntarily, she stopped. ‘The cemetery’s this side of it,’ he added. ‘Come on, do, Matty, it’s getting late.’ She followed him obediently, with a glance downwards at Kaffirtown. Her social conscience was troubling her, pointing out that she should remonstrate with Donovan; it was also saying that Donovan was an unworthy successor to Joss—she had forgotten Billy altogether by this time. However, follow him she did, for she was intoxicated.

  They were now passing the silent and darkened cars, and, as if he was reminded by them of something he should do, he put his arm carelessly about her, and so they went to theirs. At the door of her room, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, which Martha accepted as the seal she was instinctively waiting for.

  ‘And now,’ he said firmly, ‘let’s fix up.’ He took a little book from his pocket and turned so that the light from the street lamp might fall on it. ‘Tomorrow evening?’ he inquired.

  ‘I’m going to take lessons at the Polytechnic,’ she replied uncertainly; and she would have thrown it all up at a word from him.

  But no: he said approvingly, ‘That’s a good girl, we must all get efficient and earn lots of money.’ He considered for a moment, and said, ‘You must arrange to be finished by seven every evening, otherwise it will be ever such a dull life for both of us. I’m supposed to be studying for some kind of an exam myself. We can fit it in.’ He put away his book, waved a cheerful goodbye, and went away to his car, leaving Martha to go to bed if she chose.

  But she could not. She was walking, in that familiar dazed and delirious condition, for some hours around her room; it was not until the stars were dimming that she dragged herself unwillingly to bed; and she was late for the office next morning.

  Maisie was a few minutes later; and, as always, she walked composedly through her already busy companions, pulling off her white beret and smiling in vague goodwill. She lazily settled herself, took off the cover of her typewriter, and lit a cigarette, which she smoked to the end before beginning work. The main filing cabinet was in front of Martha’s desk, and as Maisie pulled out the drawers and began sorting files, she said pleasantly to Martha, ‘Well, did you have a good time last night?’

  ‘Why—were you there?’ asked Martha.

  ‘You didn’t see me,’ said Maisie, laughing suggestively. ‘And you looked through me at McGrath’s too.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’


  ‘It’s OK.’ She laughed again, and said, ‘So our Donny-boy’s got hold of you, has he?’

  This had more than a suggestion of contempt, and Martha replied quickly, ‘My mother knew his mother.’

  Maisie worked for a few moments in silence, humming under her breath. She wore a tight white linen dress, and as she lifted her arms to slide the drawers the soft bulges of flesh above her petticoat, and the lace of the petticoat itself, showed clear through the thin white. Also, there were large wet patches under her arms, and the tendrils of loose hair on her neck were damp. From time to time she paused, and gazed out of the window in gentle reflection, towards the kopje that rose above the dingy, slumlike streets, while she rested her hand on the edge of a drawer. Those damp patches, and a dust mark on the white skirt, seemed inoffensive, even attractive, on this cheerful slattern whose whole appearance, way of talking and happy-go-lucky movements took their assurance from the life she led outside the office. And when Mrs Buss asked, with indignant politeness, if the filing was finished, she replied, ‘It’s going along fine,’ and gave a calm laugh. Before she sat down she inquired, ‘Good-looking young lad our Donny?’ and waited for an answer.

  Martha assented, though oddly enough she had not thought of Donovan as good-looking; and now she was asking herself why she had not, since of course he was—now it had been pointed out, she could see it. Could it be that this had something to do with that notion (firmly inculcated in her by her mother, whether she liked it or not) that one loved a man not for his looks, but for what he was? Mrs Quest, who believed this, had married an extremely good-looking man—but this was an altogether unsettling line of thought, and Martha’s mind refused to follow it; for it grew dim, and she shook her head to clear it.

  Maisie said comfortably, ‘Well, we’ve only got one life, that’s what I say, so let’s enjoy it.’ She went back to her desk, where she lit another cigarette.