Chapter Three
Martha spent a good deal of time anxiously during the next few days because it seemed that she alone among ‘the group’ knew no one who was ‘ripe’. She had no relationships with anyone but the group, Mrs Buss and Mrs Carson. True that in her capacity as member of so many committees she had been presented suddenly with several dozen new acquaintances, all in love, in their various ways, with the Soviet Union because of the new, exultant public spirit; all willing to attend an indefinite number of meetings and lectures on the most diverse subjects. But she did not think they were ‘ripe’. She felt guilty that she had not been ‘working’ on them, so that at least some may have made the journey from a willing compliance with the yeasty new mood to the utter self-abnegation which was the essence of being ‘ripe’.
The people who were going to be brought to the decisive meeting all had close personal ties with members of the group. Martha pondered over this, and decided she was at fault because she had spent too much time with William; that the ardour she had devoted to William would, had she been a real communist, as Anton used the word, have been spent on several people. But it was only with half her mind she was able to believe she had been at fault. If she had longed for nothing else steadily all these years it was for a close complete intimacy with a man. She realized it was not Jasmine who had made her a member of the group, but William. If, then, she wished to influence other people to join the group, she would have to give them what she had given William? But it was impossible.
There is a type of woman who can never be, as they are likely to put it, ‘themselves’, with anyone but the man to whom they have permanently or not given their hearts. If the man goes away there is left an empty space filled with shadows. She mourns for the temporarily extinct person she can only be with a man she loves; she mourns him who brought her ‘self’ to life. She lives with the empty space at her side, peopled with the images of her own potentialities until the next man walks into the space, absorbs the shadows into himself, creating her, allowing her to be her ‘self’ – but a new self, since it is his conception which forms her. Such a woman is recognizable often enough not by her solitude but the variety and number of her acquaintances and friends with whom she may be intimate but who, as far as she is concerned, do not ‘really’ know her.
Martha knew, with William gone, she was not so much lonely as self-divided. Her loneliness, the moments when she said to herself, ‘I am lonely,’ had a pleasurable pain; her old enemy, the dishonesty of nostalgia, was very close, and the ease with which she succumbed to it made her irritated with herself. For she was being nostalgic for something she had already outgrown. Her ‘self’ with William was something she had never been before, it was true: they had been like two children, playing inside the shelter of the group, they had been almost brother and sister. They had spoken of meeting after the war, but that was in their roles of being in love, being lovers, and it was not the truth. Already Martha was impatient to be rid of that image of herself, so much less than she was capable of being. But who, next, would walk into the empty space? She knew of no one; not one of the men about her now fed her imagination, or at least, not more than for a few moments of fantasy.
Meanwhile, she told herself, she must become a good communist. And she must recognize that while she had certain capacities as a communist others would always be beyond her. For instance, she could never ‘work’ on people. She would find Anton at some suitable moment and ask if a real communist, a good comrade, could simply admit to herself that she had limitations.
The thought of this interview with Anton gave her sensuous pleasure. The individual members of the group had all exchanged personal confessions, in a compulsive desire to share everything of themselves. Anton did not. One could not imagine him doing so. At the end of a meeting, or during an interval between meetings, when the others sat around in couples, talking of their pasts in a way which made them offerings to the future, he would dryly excuse himself and go off back to the hotel room where he lived.
But they all knew that in the same hotel stayed the Austrian woman Toni Mandel; and while his private life was certainly his own affair (even though they all insisted their private lives must be subordinated to the group) they could not help feeling she was not worthy of them. At meetings she would clutch his arm with both hands, looking up into his face with a great deal of arch vivacity. Walking along the pavements towards or away from meetings she tripped beside Anton, letting out small cries of laughter. She was an elderly girl, rather lean and dry, wearing strict broad-shouldered suits in the style of Marlene Dietrich; her fair frizzy hair bounced and swung below her collarbones on either side of a long face irregularly patched with colour, which peered and poked and bridled and coquetted with life from behind stray locks of hair. It appeared that never for a moment did she feel free from the necessity of being gay. But once or twice, at meetings, when conversation and intimate whispers really were not possible, Martha had observed that this woman tended to stare in front of her, her mouth fallen open a little, her eyes fixed. As for Anton, he would regard the Austrian with a small smile which was tender, indulgent, fatherly; but Martha felt that this protective smile was for the arch little girl, and not for the haunted woman who was a refugee from Europe like himself. It was precisely this intuition that enabled her to think of discussing her deficiencies with him.
They had arranged to meet at six before the decisive meeting. On that afternoon Martha was busy delivering bundles of The Watchdog, the communist paper from down South, to various cafés and restaurants and stores which had agreed to sell it. Jasmine, who had been selling twelve copies of it for years, had handed over the organization to Martha, clearly feeling that she would do better to keep it in her own hands. Martha now sold fifty dozen. The glories of Stalingrad had created inexhaustible stores of goodwill and tolerance towards the inflammatory doctrines of The Watchdog in the bosoms of a couple of dozen penny-splitting shopkeepers. Martha had only to enter one of the Greek or Jewish cafés, or Indian stores with a bundle of Watchdogs whose headline was likely to be: Red Army Recaptures Rostov or The Heroic Defence of Kharkov, to find the proprietor smilingly agreeable at the idea of selling them for her. On this afternoon she set off on her bicycle as usual for the lower part of the town, going from one store to another. They were crowded with Africans. Their doorways were hung with bicycle frames and garlands of tyres, ropes of beads, garlic and lengths of bright cheap cotton. Each had a portable gramophone set on the pavement outside it, and the thin tinny jazz vibrated among the sunwaves which oiled and shimmered over the pavements and mingled with hot heady sweaty sun-fermented smells of the lower town. Sometimes a black man danced beside the gramophone, patting and feeling the pavement with his great cat’s feet, rolling his shoulders and his eyes and hips in a huge goodnature of enjoyment, while his eyes swivelled among the groups of passers-by, men and women, inviting them to join in, or at least to share his pleasure. Or he would look sombrely before him, nostalgic, Martha was convinced, for the veld. For she could never enter the lower town without being attacked by longing for the veld, and for her childhood. In each store she lingered a while at the counter among the bales of cottons and the jars of poisonous-bright sweets, sniffing in the smells of strong cheap dyes and sweat and soap, talking to the soft-faced smiling young Indian assistants, some of whom came regularly now to the Progressive Club meetings. Finally, her handbag heavy with small change, she directed her bicycle back towards the respectable part of the town, and with reluctance. On this afternoon it was nearly six when she had finished, and she was cycling past the station when she saw Mr Maynard at the wheel of a car parked outside the Magistrates’ Court. Beside him sat Mrs Talbot. Mrs Talbot was now cutting Martha; or rather, when her beautiful grey eyes happened to encounter hers one felt always by accident – they assumed an expression of stunned grief, and lowered themselves, while her face put on a look of sullen withdrawal. She was wearing a grey silk suit, and there was a bunch of dark violets
at her throat, and her pale face glimmered through a mist of dark pink gauze which emanated from some point towards the top of her head, where there were more violets. Clearly she had been one of the assistants at a wedding where Mr Maynard had been officiating. The wedding guests, stiff in dark suits from which sunburned hands and faces incongruously protruded, or in floral silk dresses and unaccustomed gloves and hats, were still dispersing along shabby confetti-dappled pavements. Mrs Talbot must have climbed into the car, Martha felt, as fast as she could, to save the scene embarrassment because of her incongruity in being part of it. Now she had one agitated hand on Mr Maynard’s dark-clothed arm, and he was leaning forward, his heavy, dark-jowled face above hers. ‘She’s asking advice about investments again,’ Martha decided; for she had observed that Mrs Talbot was never so helplessly feminine as when doing this. She passed the car in such a way that Mrs Talbot would not have the irritation of having pointedly to ignore her existence; but Mr Maynard’s melancholy bloodhound’s eyes rolled towards her and he said through the open window: ‘Wait for me, I want a word with you, young woman.’ Martha nodded, annoyed because of the ‘young woman’, but aware it was for the benefit of Mrs Talbot who – she perfectly understood the justice of this – would always exact from other people temporary fallings-off from their usual standards of behaviour. Martha wheeled the bicycle along the edge of the pavement and waited until Mr Maynard came level with her and said, with nothing of the ‘young woman’ in his tone: ‘Can you rest that machine a minute? I want to talk to you.’ Martha put the bicycle against the wall, and climbed into the car beside him, her arms full of Watchdogs.
Mr Maynard sat frowning. He was annoyed, but not with her. ‘What’s this I hear,’ he said at last, ‘about you refusing to give young Knowell a divorce?’
‘I can’t imagine.’
‘It did not strike me as likely, I admit.’
‘I’ve got to be somewhere at six,’ said Martha.
‘I took it for granted you would have to be somewhere – you always have. But it’s already past six, and you might as well make your apologies for a worthwhile lapse in punctuality.’
Martha thought of Anton waiting for her, fidgeted, and sat still.
‘It has been put to me,’ said Mr Maynard, abrupt because of his dislike at having to say any of this, ‘that you have allowed it to be understood that if young Knowell starts divorce proceedings against you you will start counterproceedings against him on the grounds of adultery.’
Martha was half-numbed with anger and distaste. She said: ‘In other words, Mrs Talbot is frightened that her precious Elaine might be cited as co-respondent and has asked you to plead with me.’
‘You could put it like that.’ She turned her face away from him, fiddling with the door-handle as if about to jump out of the car. At the look of angry repulsion on her face he said quickly, laughing: ‘Any intelligent person knows that when two people get divorced, even if they are normally the most delightful and veracious couple in the world, not a word either of them says is to be believed.’
‘In that case, I don’t know why you bother to ask me questions.’ She opened the door and was about to leave him.
‘No, do wait a moment. Do wait.’ He, in his turn, had coloured: the handsome, heavy face was suffused with blood. He passed his hand over his eyes, which were closed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been put in a false position. I don’t know why I agreed to talk to you at all – but I suppose I must. Take me as an emissary. Just tell me, there’s a good girl, and let’s get it over with.’
‘All this business makes me sick,’ said Martha. ‘I don’t know why it has to be so – disgusting. I saw Douglas a few days ago, and he said he would divorce me for desertion and I agreed. Why shouldn’t I agree? I’m not going to get mixed up in all this.’
‘Mixed up? But aren’t you?’
‘No, I’m not.’ At his ironical expression she went on: ‘If they want to make something ugly of it it’s their affair.’
‘Not yours?’
‘No. If Douglas tells Mrs Talbot I’m making a fuss it’s not because he wants an excuse not to marry Elaine, I’m sure he does …’
‘Why? I’m not sure at all.’
‘Obviously. The sooner he marries someone else the sooner his pride will be soothed, won’t it? Obviously he’ll marry someone or other before the year’s out – and there’s Elaine all conveniently on hand. He’ll marry the day after the decree’s absolute, just to show everyone.’
‘You mean, to show you?’
‘Me?’ said Martha, genuinely surprised. ‘Why me? He doesn’t care about me. He cares what people will say, that’s all.’
‘Ah,’ commented Mr Maynard.
‘And if Mrs Talbot knew anything about Douglas she’d know he’s only saying I won’t divorce him so that she and Elaine can feel terribly sorry for him, that’s all.’
‘I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that Douglas will never forgive you for not asking him to be chivalrous and allowing himself to be divorced?’
‘You mean, he won’t forgive me for not giving him the opportunity of looking noble in front of Mrs Talbot and Elaine – he’d get months of self-pity out of it.’
‘That degree of contempt is really not forgivable, you know,’ he commented at last, his voice ironically aggrieved as if it were he whom she accused.
‘Oh Lord, all I want is to be rid of the thing. I keep telling you …’ She stopped. After all, she had had no opportunity of telling him anything, and the you was collective, her old life which was in no way connected with what she was now.
‘Ah,’ said Mr Maynard, this time finally. He examined his fine handsome hand, back and front, for a few moments. ‘Well, your altitude seems to be clear, and I’ll take a suitable opportunity to convey your message to Mrs Talbot.’
‘I haven’t sent any message to Mrs Talbot.’
‘You can’t expect her to approve of you.’
‘I don’t see why not. Now she can have what she’s always wanted – that Elaine can marry Douglas. God knows why she wants it, but I always thought she did.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right, About this you’re very probably right.’ Martha turned her eyes on him, startled: the way he had said it applied a degree of knowledge – at the moment ironic – of Mrs Talbot that she had never suspected. He raised his eyes from a contemplation of his fingers, saw her look and said hastily: ‘Mrs Talbot and I are old friends.’
She shrugged, impatient at the idea that he might imagine she was interested one way or the other.
‘Well,’ he said, annoyed at her shrug, ‘I shall never succeed in fathoming the complicated depths of your morality, but if you’re shocked, as you appear to be, then I can only say you are quite devoid of a sense of humour.’
Again Martha shrugged. He examined her, noted she was pale, much thinner than he had ever seen her, and her mouth was set over unhappiness.
‘You miss your daughter?’ he inquired.
‘No,’ said Martha decisively, wincing.
‘Ah,’ he said, on a softer note. ‘Well, well. And you are going to marry that young man of yours?’
‘What young man? Oh, you mean William?’
‘I didn’t know there was another I might mean.’
‘He’s been posted. For taking part in politics,’ she added.
‘Quite right too.’
‘If people can die for politics I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to take an active part in them.’
‘How naïve. Is that the line of that rag there?’ He reached over for a limp copy of The Watchdog and regarded its exclamatory front page with raised black brows.
‘So crude,’ said Martha.
‘Quite. I prefer my left-wing propaganda put into decent English and appearing in unobtrusive paragraphs in the serious weeklies where only reactionaries like myself can see them. I like them to begin: “According to our correspondent it is believed that there might be a possibility …”’ He smiled at
her, inviting her to smile back. She did not smile.
‘Why do you call it propaganda? And, anyway, it’s not meant for you.’ She took back the paper and folded it into the pile of others.
‘It’s not, I should have thought, for you either.’
‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
‘Come and have a drink at the Club?’
‘At the Club!’ she said derisively.
‘Then come and have a cup of tea at Greasy Dick’s.’
‘I’m late, I told you.’
‘Are you making many recruits among the working masses?’
She grinned at him, for the first time, saying nothing.
‘Well, are you?’
‘I must go.’
‘No, wait a moment.’
‘Why, is there anything else?’
‘Actually there is. It’s about Binkie. You do, perhaps, remember my son?’
‘Well, of course.’
‘He has informed us that he intends to marry someone called Maisie. Do you know her?’
‘Don’t you? She was going around with Binkie for months.’
‘We were not aware of it. But it appears she is already twice a widow?’
‘Oh, so that RAF type got killed after all?’
‘As you remark. The RAF type got killed. And so did her first husband.’
‘Well, that’s not her fault, is it?’
‘Binkie is on leave and he insists on marrying Maisie at once. I saw her and when I asked her if she insisted she replied that she didn’t mind. Is she always so enthusiastic about her fiancés?’
‘Well, yes. She’s – good-natured,’ said Martha.
‘Good Lord.’
‘What do you want to find out about her?’
‘My wife has been in tears for three days now, but she is clearly on the point of finding Maisie a sweet girl. What I want to know is, shall I find her so?’
‘She’s not of your class,’ said Martha, ‘if that’s what you mean?’ She was conscious, in using the word to him, of paying tribute to old habits of their friendship: she had learned to use it politically and not socially. Again she felt dragged back into something she had outgrown, and resented him for it.