The Four-Gated City

  At which Margaret snapped that that was nonsense, Mark was a communist ‘as she thought everyone knew’.

  No one knew; the new epoch had obliterated all others.• The person who had spoken was enlightened in a whisper that he had been attacking her son; and her interjection was put down to natural annoyance.

  After a silence, the subject was changed, and someone took Patty aside to say that Mark ought not to be associated with the committee, if he was a communist-it would make things very tricky. In which case, Patty said, she ought not to be either, she was in the same position.

  Embarrassment was now general. The atmosphere of the sunny afternoon was all darkened with annoyance, embarrassment and doubt. Someone inquired-what all this was about anyway? Quite so, but it was too late to find out. The afternoon had gone wrong. Margaret made her headache public and guests began to leave.

  Patty knew that these circles being as they are, feeding on gossip, talebearing and malice, Mark could expect a telephone call pretty soon, giving him an account of what had happened. In which case, tired of the whole business, he would probably back out. Patty knew what her job was: this was her job; what in fact she earned her large salary for.

  She was going to be, as always, a lightning conductor, a kind of earth. Therefore did she stand in the dining-room, privately angry, indeed, longing for bed and a nice read and a glass of cold milk, but apparently full of public concern and feeling.

  ‘It is too bad, ’ said Graham, ‘I’m simply not going to stand for witch-hunts of any kind. And if Mark has to stand down, I go too.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, ’ said Mark, ‘for goodness’ sake have a sense of proportion.’

  The telephone rang. It was Margaret, wanting to tell Mark that he was not to believe ‘any stories about her-no, she wouldn’t go into details, but what he heard wouldn’t be true-that was all’.

  She rang off. Mark said:’ Look, three days ago I told you, Graham, that I’d sign a petition. That’s what I shall do. It’s perfectly simple.’

  ‘Oh, no really, it’s too …’ Graham exclaimed and objected, while Patty did too, watching both to see how the matter balanced, and glancing at Martha from time to time so that Martha might add fuel, or damp it.

  Patty knew that this kind of emotional blow-up must run its course. Graham must use up an allowance of moral indignation about misdirected moral indignation, and Mark, a slow-burning, stubborn man, must smoulder until Graham stopped, while Martha’the silent sort, damn her!’ wouldn’t be much help … sometimes in the theatre, with a suitable female there, Patty could get such an incident over in a couple of minutes. For years Patty had been fulfilling this function without being conscious of what she did. Sometimes, knowing that outwardly she fizzed and exclaimed while inwardly she remained cool, she might have let out a self-parodying Jewish ‘Oi, oi, oi!’ And when people had said she was hysterical, she had been humorously indignant:’ What, me hysterical?’ At some point, a mechanism had become clear to her: she could often direct it. But not with these two men, one so violent, so sentimental; one so slow to ignite.

  Suddenly Martha put an end to it: she remarked ‘In that case, if people are going to stand on principle, then I don’t think Mark, or you, or Margaret should be involved at all-you’re all family and people working with you might be embarrassed …’ At which Graham exploded into a hundred expostulations about her absurdity-he was very rude. She then became silent; he, raging at a silent woman, could not stand it, and went charging at her, in what looked like an attack but turned into some effusive kisses: Oh God, Martha, I’m so terribly terribly sorry I don’t know what…

  It was over. Patty wondered, had Martha done it on purpose?

  At any rate, she seemed to be employing tactics when she asked Graham to go into the kitchen to find out if Lynda wanted the table laid in here, and for how many, and asked Mark to see if Paul was all right.

  The two women were left alone.

  ‘God knows how you stand it, ’ said Martha.

  ‘It’s the theatre, love, it’s the theatre!’

  ‘It’s not the theatre-it’s everything. However

  Graham now passed the door, and put his head round to say that Lynda thought they’d eat in the kitchen.

  Patty had pushed a chair back from the long formal table, and had sat, off-guard a moment, smoking with her eyes shut.

  The room was hardly used, they all preferred the kitchen. Patty, a jolly fat child in her fashionable nursery dress, sat like a little girl in the heavy, grave, grown-up scene.

  ‘Did you do all that on purpose?’ asked Martha suddenly. ‘Did you?’

  The little girl opened a pair of extraordinarily shrewd dark eyes, and winked at Martha. She shut them again. ‘Golly, ’ said Martha. ‘I’ve just had a sort of-yes. Of course.’

  ‘Of course, ’ said Patty, flat.‘But I tell you, it takes it out of one, it takes … do you think I could have a lie-down before supper-if you are asking me to supper? Please do. I couldn’t face my lonely room tonight.’

  ‘What’s happened to Eric?’

  Oh, you may ask.’

  In another mood, Patty would have discussed it: but the bare bones of her problem remained the same. She was too old for a’real’ marriage. Unless she wanted some old man, or an emotional cripple, she wouldn’t get married at all; in the meantime she was on’the older woman roster-I suppose someone has to do it-it’s a social function I suppose …’ She had been making inquiries about adopting a child.

  Martha sent her up to sleep in her room; and went to the living-room.

  There sat Graham deep in a big sofa, with the two girls on either side of him. He sat all held into himself, his two hands caught between his knees, chin lowered, eyes inflamed. Jill and Gwen, two fair, lustrous blue-eyed morsels were sitting by their witty uncle Graham, but gazing with passionate admiration at their cousin Francis, and his lovely friend Nick Anderson, who had come with him from school. The two handsome boys, the lovely little girls, were engaged only with each other: outside their charmed circle, two Africans, Phoebe’s friends, watched a London scene in polite curiosity, and Graham allowed it to be understood that he suffered torments of lust, for he might dandle, kiss and browse among the bosoms and cheeks of mature women as much as they liked, but here was his truth.

  ‘Are you all right?’ inquired Martha, looking at Graham, with every intention of mockery. And he raised his swollen eyes and muttered:’ No, I’m not.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you perhaps like to come and help me lay the table, Graham dear?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I take it you are staying to dinner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose Lynda knows?’

  ‘Surely she must!’

  Martha went to the kitchen, where Lynda was alone, cooking. She wore a dress, which meant that she intended to eat with them. She often cooked meals these days, but at the last moment escaped downstairs: many people upset her.

  She looked much better. She had put on some weight. The battle of the drugs had not been entirely won, because she took sleeping pills sometimes, but then, as she said, so many people did. A year before she had cracked again, suddenly, over Mark’s assumption that being better meant she was well—he had again suggested she could come back upstairs and be his wife. She had refused to go into a hospital, public or private, even though Dr Lamb had promised she would not be given drugs: she did not trust him, she said. Privately she told Martha that also, she did not trust herself: in an atmosphere where everyone took drugs, where one was expected to take them, she would. She could not stay in the basement, by herself, for she knew she was going to break things, and cry and scream-Paul was in the house now all the time; Francis was in and out from his new school; what was to be done? Suddenly everyone remembered Dorothy and talked about her-she was dead.

  A suicide attempt had succeeded; they believed this had not been Dorothy’s intention. Remembering Dorothy, always so kind when Lynda was’silly’, Lynda got depressed, becam
e worse. Martha looked about for a flat somewhere where Lynda could be silly in comfort. They found one, at enormous expense. Lynda found out how expensive it was, and began blaming herself for everything. A nurse went with Lynda to this flat, and rang up every evening to report on Mrs. Coldridge: a bit better today I think, no, on the whole not so well, I’m afraid … Suddenly Lynda came home, asked them to dismiss the nurse and the flat, and announced she was all right. The nurse reported that she had been extremely quiet and well-behaved.

  Quiet, trying very hard, Lynda had been ever since. The bad area of strain was-Lynda and Paul. Paul now hated Lynda shrilly and cruelly, which was one reason why she found it hard to come to meals. Lynda simply said that Paul was too much for her. She did not understand how badly he had been let down. She did not believe she was a person who had anything to give; she did not believe she had given Paul anything during that long long period when in fact she was his only friend. Withdrawing from him she could not be made to see that she was taking anything away.

  When Francis came home for the holidays mother and son built up, slowly, a friendship. For they were like two very old friends who had been separated and were now allowed to be together. They were patient, tactful, considerate. For days, a week or so, a month, things would go well, then, suddenly, Lynda would be sitting stiffly, smiling too brightly, watching everything with a minute alertness, every gesture and smile and glance exposed overcarefully to everyone’s inspection, while they felt their exposure to her; and then Francis would become very pale, and go off to his room. There, he cried. As he had done as a little boy, he cried now, and would descend, unashamed, to a meal with eyes that showed it. And Lynda, in her basement, cried.

  Then, with the strain and the tension cried out, for both of them, they set themselves to try again.

  In the two months since Mark came back from Moscow Paul had been-but words like better and worse seemed inapplicable. One of the experts consulted had said that the naughtier Paul was, the better: obedience, quietness, malleability, all these were bad. By this yardstick then, Paul was good, and Francis bad. Certainly Francis’s extreme good behaviour had always been upsetting-but could not this also be a form of self-protection, a guard behind which Francis quietly grew and prospered? But Francis’s manner, his way of life, discouraged such questions, particularly when always and all the time there was Paul who took up so much time, so much emotional energy. Judged by what he was demanding from the adults, he was much worse. He was abominable.

  When Mark came back from Moscow he had for a time not mentioned the gramophone records-he felt ashamed, on his brother’s behalf. Then Martha and he and Lynda sat trying to work out whether a present of gramophone records and a vague invitation to drop over to Moscow were better than nothing or the ultimate in cruelty. The discussion, the uncertainty, went on for some days. Whatever effect it all had on Paul remained doubtful, but for the three the incident highlit their condition at that time. Outside, everything was so jolly and easy and liberal, tides of happy warriors flowed in and out of the house, a friendly optimism was the atmosphere; yet this was a world in which they, at least, felt that it might very well be a better education to say: My dear Paul, you, like everyone else, are expendable, and you are lucky to get even a message from your father-after all, so many people’s fathers are dead. And compared with nine-tenths of the world’s population you have nothing whatsoever to complain about … Instead, careful, insightful adults sat around, talking, planning, worrying about the balance and health of this tiny favoured few.

  Should one be thinking like this at all? Oh, very probably not. How was one to know? And, feeling themselves to be in an air, or on a wavelength, at any rate differently orientated to the world than as other people seemed to experience it, was it their responsibility to inflict this on Paul, on Francis? They should rather be protected? Even when one did not believe, not for one moment, that their future experience was likely to be protected, or anything but precarious and violent!

  The records were put in brown paper, and concealed while they waited for Paul to ask a question-after all, he knew Mark had been in Moscow. But Paul said nothing.

  At last Mark went up to Paul’s room, where the television was now installed.

  Paul had been watching a programme much too young for him, and had continued to watch it after he knew his uncle had come in.

  ‘Paul, there’s something I want to say …’

  He had to repeat it, and then Paul turned off the programme.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I saw your father in Moscow.’

  Not a word from Paul. He stared at the blank television screen.

  ‘He sent you these.’

  Mark put the records on a table, and Paul glanced at them, nodded, and turned on the television again.

  But he had been playing the folksongs ever since.

  The house throbbed with recorded emotion; until the others were forced to wonder if he was saying to them: This is what I feel.

  He did not mention Mark’s trip, or his father, or ask for any details of his father’s new life.

  His schoolwork, always erratic, plunged again, and there was a letter from his teacher.

  When he first got to this new school, he allowed himself to be brilliant, for as long as it took to demonstrate that he could come first any time he liked. Then he lost interest. He continued to say that the moment he was legally able to leave school, he would.

  Mark thought that he should be forced to stay; Lynda that he should be allowed to leave. Meanwhile, Martha fought him.

  But he tried to avoid battles with Martha: he liked to fight with Lynda, who got upset, who might shout at him-and then he could feel ill-treated.

  Returning from any trip away from the house, Martha, Mark, would be met by Lynda’s guilt: she had quarrelled with Paul again.

  This afternoon she said:’ Paul came down for a glass of milk.’ It sounded as if she were announcing crime.

  ‘Was he rude again?’

  ‘No. But I think I’ll go downstairs for supper after all. I tell you, one of these days I’m going to hit him so hard …’

  ‘Did he say anything about homework?’

  Oh, Martha-who cares about homework! I never did any in my life!’

  The kitchen was full of good warm smells; a cauldron of soup bubbled. A loaf of bread a yard long lay down the middle of the old table. Salad stood ready to mix. Mark often came in these days to say:’ This kitchen is like what it used to be …’ though of course in those days they never ate in the kitchen. And Mark would stand, waiting, not looking at Lynda, to see if she would stay for the meal, recreate the family, sit at the end of the table, serve soup. And, not looking at Mark, so often she went away. But she cooked. She cooked well and carefully and enjoyed it.

  ‘Did you say to Paul it didn’t matter?’

  ‘I always say to Paul it doesn’t matter. That’s what makes him angry.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘But, Martha, I don’t know what it is-1 simply want to-why do I dislike him so much now?’

  Some months before, Lynda had been talking about an earlier time, when she had loved Paul, and Paul had spent so much time with her.

  One afternoon there had been a violent quarrel between Dorothy and Lynda, with Paul there. Lynda and Paul had been in the bedroom, playing one of their fantastic games, words, music, silence, their images in the looking-glasses, all going to make up some story no outsider could understand. Dorothy was shut out, as always, because she was too matter-of-fact, she spoiled it. This game had gone on too long, or she was in a bad mood, but she had called out through the door that Lynda was forgetting-she was nothing but a child.

  Apparently, Lynda had said to one of Dr Lamb’s subsidiaries that if she was good for nothing else, she knew how to be with children. The doctor had said:’ That’s because you are a child yourself; you feel safe with children. They don’t make any demands on you.’

  Lynda had argued that this was true,
she knew it; but surely it was worth something? The doctor had suggested it was a form of regression, a way of refusing to grow up.

  At any rate, for a time every descent of Paul to the cellar had called forth from Dorothy an attack on Lynda for being nothing-but-a-child.

  She had never been able to feel easy and released with Paul after that-so she claimed now. She agreed she might be back-dating a nearer emotion.

  But in the evening when Martha went down to visit, and Lynda talked about the children, she came back to this again and again-and stopped there. She fought with herself everywhere else but here, where it was as if there was a snarl or knot in her emotions. She hated Paul, and it was Dr X’s fault; she could not even remember the doctor’s name.

  ‘Martha do you know what I think? You and Mark had better be careful, I swear one of these days you’ll come back and find Paul and I have killed each other …” She lowered her voice, though her face was lit with a vicious enjoyment, glancing at the half-open door, where, as everyone knew, Paul so often stood to eavesdrop. ‘And there’s something else. I’d love it-and so would he. I’d like to kill him slowly, really nastily, you know. I never understood torture before, until Paul said to me, Lynda you’d like to torture me, wouldn’t you? And, of course, he is right. I’d enjoy every bit. There’s something about that sort of glossy, soiled look he’s got-you know, as if he had boils on his pretty bum, and he uses the pus to grease his hair? I’d like to suffocate him slowly with a pillow and watch him writhe, or throttle him, or … and he feels exactly the same about me …’ In the middle of this, which she delivered fast, in a low smiling bright-eyed monologue, she went across to the door, quite unconsciously, and closed it, in case someone might hear-she was protecting them, anyone, probably Paul from herself. ‘And do you know why? Oh it’s all quite obvious when you come to think of it, it’s because he’s so damned unhappy. He’s such a poor, sick creature, crippled-like me. Nobody can stand us. No one. That’s the truth, I tell you-what people really want to do is to blot us all out-the healthy would like to just take us all and … only there are so many of us, they can’t … sweep us all up and into the gas ovens, yes