Doris Lessing - To Room Nineteen - Collected Stories Volume One

‘Thanks,’ she said, hardly glancing at it. Then that terrible bitterness came crowding up, and he heard the words: ‘If you can spare it from her .’

He let that one pass; he looked steadily at his wife, as if seeking a way past that armour of anger. He watched her, passing the tip of his tongue nervously over his lips.

‘Some women know how to keep themselves free from kids and responsibilities. They just do this and that, and take up with anyone they please. None of the dirty work for them .’

He gave a sigh, and was on the point of getting up, when she demanded, ‘Like a cuppa tea?’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’ He let himself sink back again.

While she worked at the stove, her back to him, he was looking around the kitchen; his face had a look of tired, disappointed irony. An ageing man, but with a dogged set to his shoulders. Trying to find the right words, he remarked, ‘Not so much work for you now, Annie.’

But she did not answer. She returned with the two cups and put the sugar into his for him. This wifely gesture encouraged him. ‘Annie,’ he began, ‘Annie – can’t we talk this over …’ He was stirring the tea clumsily, not looking at it, leaning forward. The cup knocked over. ‘Oh, look what you’ve done,’ she cried out. ‘Just look at the mess.’ She snatched up a cloth and wiped the table.

‘It’s only a drop of tea, Annie,’ he protested at last, shrinking a little aside from her furious energy.

‘Only a drop of tea – I can polish and clean half the day, and then in a minute the place is like a pig sty.’

His face darkened with remembered irritation.

‘Yes, I’ve heard,’ she went on accusingly, ‘she lets the beds lie until dinner, and the place isn’t cleaned from one week to the next.’

‘At least she cares more for me than she does for a clean floor,’ he shouted. Now they looked at each other with hatred.

At this delicate moment there came a shout: ‘Rob. Rob!’

She laughed angrily. ‘She’s got you where she wants you – waits and spies on you and now she comes after you.’

‘Rob! You there, Rob?’ It was a loud, confident, female voice.

‘She sounds just what she is, a proper …’

‘Shut up,’ he interrupted. He was breathing heavily. ‘You keep that tongue of yours quiet, now.’

Her eyes were full of tears, but the blue shone through, bright and vengeful. ‘“Rob, Rob” – and off you trot like a little dog.’

He got up from the table heavily, as a loud knock came at the door.

Annie’s mouth quivered at the insult of it. And his first instinct was to stand by her – she could see that. He looked apologetically at her, then went to the door, opened it an inch, and said in a low, furious voice: ‘Don’t you do that now. Do you hear me!’ He shut the door, leaned against it, facing Annie. ‘Annie,’ he said again, in an awkward appeal. ‘Annie …’

But she sat at her table, hands folded in a trembling knot before her, her face tight and closed against him.

‘Oh, all right!’ he said at last despairingly, angry. ‘You’ve always got to be in the right about everything, haven’t you? That’s all that matters to you – if you’re in the right. Bloody plaster saint, you are.’ He went out quickly.

She sat quite still, listening until it was quiet. Then she drew a deep breath and put her two fists to her cheeks, as if trying to keep them still. She was sitting thus when Mary Brooke came in. ‘You let him go?’ she said incredulously.

‘And good riddance, too.’

Mary shrugged. Then she suggested bravely, ‘You shouldn’t be so hard on him, Annie – give him a chance.’

‘I’d see him dead first,’ said Annie through shaking lips. Then: ‘I’m forty-five, and I might as well be on the dust heap.’ And then, after a pause, in a remote, cold voice: ‘We’ve been together twenty-five years. Three kids. And then he goes off with that … with that …’

‘You’re well rid of him, and that’s a fact,’ agreed Mary swiftly.

‘Yes. I am, and I know it …’ Annie was swaying from side to side in her chair. Her face was stony, but the tears were trickling steadily down, following a path worn from nose to chin. They rolled off and splashed on to her white collar.

‘Annie,’ implored her friend. ‘Annie …’

Annie’s face quivered, and Mary was across the room and had her in her arms. ‘That’s right, love, that’s right, that’s right, love,’ she crooned.

‘I don’t know what gets into me,’ wept Annie, her voice coming muffled from Mary’s large shoulder. ‘I can’t keep my wicked tongue still. He’s fed up and sick of that – cow, and I drive him away. I can’t help it. I don’t know what gets into me.’

‘There now, love, there now, love.’ The big, fat, comfortable woman was rocking the frail Annie like a baby. ‘Take it easy, love. He’ll be back, you’ll see.’

‘You think he will?’ asked Annie, lifting her face up to see if her friend was lying to comfort her.

‘Would you like me to go and see if I can fetch him back for you now?’

In spite of her longing, Annie hesitated. ‘Do you think it’ll be all right?’ she said doubtfully.

‘I’ll go and slip in a word when she’s not around.’

‘Will you do that, Mary?’

Mary got up, patting her crumpled dress. ‘You wait here, love,’ she said imploringly. She went to the door and said as she went out: ‘Take it easy, now, Annie. Give him a chance.’

‘I go running after him to ask him back?’ Annie’s pride spoke out of her wail.

‘Do you want him back or don’t you?’ demanded Mary, patient to the last, although there was a hint of exasperation now. Annie did not say anything, so Mary went running out.

Annie sat still, watching the door tensely. But vague, rebellious, angry thoughts were running through her head: If I want to keep him, I can’t ever say what I think, I can’t ever say what’s true – I’m nothing to him but a convenience, but if I say so he’ll just up and off …

But that was not the whole truth; she remembered the affection in his face, and for a moment the bitterness died. Then she remembered her long hard life, the endless work, work, work – she remembered, all at once, as if she were feeling it now, her aching back when the children were small; she could see him lying on the bed reading the newspaper when she could hardly drag herself … It’s all very well, she cried out to herself, it’s not right, it just isn’t right … A terrible feeling of injustice was gripping her; and it was just this feeling she must push down, keep under, if she wanted him. For she knew finally – and this was stronger than anything else – that without him there would be no meaning in her life at all.

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