Doris Lessing - The Four-Gated City

Now the new rulers announced that everything would go on as before: this was the magical city, it was open to everyone. They were going to run it, with their priests and their soldiers.

But of course, they hadn’t the secret, and now the old city of the legend became exactly as the outer city had been. But it was from this time that the city in fact reached history – before that it had not been known, except to the people who lived in it and around it. Now it reached a great climax of fame and power; and it spread out into a kingdom and then an empire, which attacked other cities and countries. It had a fine literature, and an art of its own, and was envied for its richness and achievements. And a whole branch of its learning was to do with the history, based on legends which persisted, of the old lost city; and this particular aspect of its culture was in the hands of a priesthood.

In this version the original city was built in a desert, in North Africa perhaps, or in Asia. Nothing but hundreds of miles of sand under a blazing sun. Then the oases became more frequent. Then, starting in the desert, so that the great roads running inwards began, literally, in sand, was the city.

Travellers coming in from the desert found it hard to say when the exact moment was when their feet found the right road. Then trees appeared, on either side; then in the distance, the first houses of the city. For leagues of hot dusty travelling, a silent yellow sand, and then the white city, with its sharp black shadows and its shaded gardens, and over it, a blue sky where birds wheeled, into which rose domes and spires and the sounds of voices.

Mark was pleased with the second version, and Martha began to type it. Then he asked her to stop. He wanted to do more work on it. It turned out that he planned to turn it into a kind of novel: something much more worked out, detailed. But she was leaving in less than a fortnight.

She heard that the flat on which she had paid a deposit was not ready. It was in a big new block of flats built on a bombed area near Notting Hill Gate. It was not going to be ready for at least another month.

Francis was going to be home for a half-term. It would be nice if Martha could be there.

Martha suggested that she should stay on another month. It was agreed that at the end of March, she would leave.

Meanwhile it was still February. There wasn’t very much for her to do. She wrote some business letters, dealt with accounts, kept the house, put linen and cutlery and so on into the basement. A great deal of her time was spent in her room, with the black cat whose attitude so clearly was, as he arched his back under her hand, and settled at the foot of her bed, that she was a visitor, in this, his home.

She was waiting again! Always waiting for something! – so she discovered herself muttering crossly.

On the whole it seemed that her job was to protect Mark – from journalists, from people ringing up on this or that pretext – from anybody who didn’t understand the pressure Mark was under.

Which was why she protested when Margaret rang up to say she planned an election party: an election was due in a couple of weeks.

Martha said: ‘I don’t think Mark would feel up to it,’ and stopped herself from saying: ‘But don’t tell him I said so.’

‘I dare say,’ said Margaret, ‘but I do feel that we ought to try and behave normally, don’t you?’

Which left Martha to think it over that in this family behaving normally meant holding election parties, for it appeared that Margaret always had them. Then why didn’t she hold a party in her own home? As Mark demanded, angrily, when told of the plan. But Margaret felt it would be nicer to have it in London, where people could drop in and out on their way to and from election stations, voting stations, parties at hotels, etc. etc. But this was not the real reason. She had bought a television set, a new toy, and it was not working well in Sussex, unfortunately. She proposed to watch the election on television in Mark’s house.

This was to be the first real television election.

Margaret arrived with the set and an engineer to install it. Mark was in Cambridge.

Martha stayed in her room, listening to Margaret’s loud and capable voice giving instructions to the engineer. Then she watched the man depart along the pavement below her window. She braced herself, for she knew what was going to happen.

There were steps on the stairs – firm steps. Then a knock on the door – a confident knock. In came Margaret, smiling. The trouble was, Martha rather liked her, once she had got past that enemy: the capable middle-aged matron coping with everything by sheer force of long experience.

‘Oh, how hard it is to be a middle-aged woman, who has to stand in for everyone’s difficult mother, and who has to take – and return – looks from younger women examining their futures, exactly as one used to do oneself, and who are thinking, what a short time I’ve got left. Oh how tiresome – and how tiring! – to be the target for such complicated emotions, none of which has anything to do with oneself.

Margaret sat on the foot of the bed before remembering that she ought to ask Martha if she could. Remembering too late, she decided to say nothing. But she looked defiant as she stroked the old cat. ‘Poor old Starkie,’ she said. ‘Well, you look pleased with yourself. Really, you are a spoiled beast.’

Martha had sat herself on a chair across the room.

‘Where’s Mark?’ demanded Margaret.

‘He’s in Cambridge.’

‘He always did this you know – he gets himself involved.’ She was talking as if Colin, her son, were less than a son than Mark?

Continuing, she said: ‘After all, if Colin is going to insist on being silly, then he shouldn’t expect one to – why should he stand up for that man? What’s-his-name? He was only working with him wasn’t he?’ Here she waited to see if Martha could tell her anything. Martha couldn’t. ‘And, of course, Mark has to get on a high horse over it. He always did. Mark’s stubborn. So’s Colin. In different ways. And, of course, there’s Arthur – he’s not likely to be a spy for Russia, that’s something, when he hates them so much. So one is thankful for small mercies.’

Margaret had once been a fine-boned graceful English beauty like Lynda. She was now a tall, handsome, grey-eyed woman with elegant hands. Martha watched the subtlety of the hands as they caressed the cat. The cat started to purr loudly. Margaret picked the animal up and put her ear to it, like a child, to listen to the purring. But the cat didn’t like being picked up, and stopped purring.

‘What do you feel about Mark?’ demanded Margaret.

And now Martha could not help laughing – out of annoyance, really. Also, she supposed, from affection. Margaret smiled a strained readiness to be told why Martha laughed. She put the cat down, who rolled over and began purring. Margaret stroked the cat. She had tears in her eyes.

The tears were very weakening. ‘Listen. Margaret. There’s just one thing that none of you seem able to see. Mark loves Lynda. I do understand why you all – but there it is.’

‘But it’s ridiculous. It always has been. And before Lynda there was an American, a cousin of Oscar’s. Hopeless – a hopeless girl. And she cared nothing about Mark, and he ran around after her like a little dog.’

‘Well, haven’t you ever loved anyone ridiculous and hopeless?’

The cat had moved off, and sat licking its ruffled fur to rights.

The grey look Martha now got from Margaret held irritation. Martha recognized it easily as that emotion one feels when another hasn’t seen that truth obvious to oneself.

‘Yes, I have. I was in love with Oscar. I adored him. But one has to live, you know – one has to. I do know. I could have stayed married to Oscar. But I don’t like – suffering, I suppose. I hate it. Some people enjoy being treated badly. I wasn’t Oscar’s first wife and I won’t be his last – by a long chalk. I’m told the woman he’s going to marry is getting the treatment. Just as I did. Look, Martha dear – I really must – haven’t you any influence at all with Mark?’