Doris Lessing - The Diaries of Jane Somers

There was nothing ‘charming’ about me, I was so angry.

‘Why do you keep me out in the cold?’ I said, and went in, past her, making her move aside. She then went on ahead of me down the passage, a hand on a wall to steady her.

In the back room, a heap of dead cinders in the grate. There was an electric fire, though; one bar, and it was making noises which meant it was unsafe. The place was cold, dirty, smelly, and the cat came and wound itself around my legs miaowing. Maudie let herself slide into her chair and sat staring at the grate.

‘Well, why didn’t you let the nurse in?’ I shouted at her.

‘The nurse,’ she said bitterly. ‘What nurse?’

‘I know she came.’

‘Not till Monday. All the weekend I was here by myself, no one.’

I was about to scream at her, ‘Why didn’t you let her in when she came on Monday?’ but saw there was no point.

I was full of energy again – anger.

‘Maudie,’ I said, ‘you are the limit, the end, you make things worse for yourself. Well, I’ll put the kettle on.’

I did. I fetched coal. I found the commode full of urine, but no worse, thank goodness. Thank goodness was what I thought then, but I see one gets used to anything. I then went out into the street with a carrier bag. A grey sleety rain. There I was, in all my smart things from Munich, scrabbling about in the skip for bits of wood. And again, faces at the windows, watching me.

Inside, I scraped out the grate, clouds of dust flying about, and laid the fire. With a fire-lighter. Wood and coal. Soon it was burning.

I made tea for both of us, having scalded the filthy cups. I must stop being so petty about it. Does it matter, dirty cups? Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes.

She had not moved, but sat looking at the flames.

‘The cat,’ she said.

‘I’ve given her some food.’

‘Then let her out for a bit.’

‘There’s sleet and rain.’

‘She won’t mind.’

I opened the back door. A wave of cold rain came straight in at me, and the fat yellow cat, who had been pressing to get to the door, miaowed and ran back again, to the coal cellar.

‘She’s gone to the coal cellar,’ I said.

‘Then I suppose I’ll have to put my hand in it,’ she said.

This made me so angry! I was a seethe of emotions. As usual, I wanted to hit her or shake her and, as usual, to put my arms around her.

But my mind luckily was in control, and I did everything I should, without, thank God, being ‘humorous’ or charming or gracious.

‘Have you been eating at all?’

No response.

I went out again to shop. Not a soul in the corner shop. The Indian sitting there at the cash desk looked grey and chilled, as well he might, poor soul.

I said I was buying food for Mrs Fowler, wanting to know if she had been in.

He said, ‘Oh, the old lady, I hope she is not ill?’

‘She is,’ I said.

‘Why doesn’t she go into a Home?’

‘She doesn’t want to.’

‘Hasn’t she a family?’

‘I think so, but they don’t care.’

‘It is a terrible thing,’ he said to me, meaning me to understand that his people would not neglect an old woman like this.

‘Yes, it is a terrible thing, and you are right,’ I said.

When I got back, again I thought of death. She sat there, eyes closed, and so still, I thought not breathing.

But then, her blue eyes were open and she was looking at the fire.

‘Drink your tea,’ I said. ‘And I’ll grill you a bit of fish. Can you eat it?’

‘Yes, I will.’

In the kitchen I tried to find anything that wasn’t greasy, and gave up. I put the fish on the grill, and opened the door briefly to get in some clean air. Sleet notwithstanding.

I took her the fish, and she sat herself up and ate it all, slowly, and her hands trembled, but she finished it and I saw she had been hungry.

I said, ‘I’ve been in Munich. To see all the clothes for the autumn. I’ve been seeing all the new styles.’

‘I’ve never been out of England.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you all about it when you are a bit better.’

To this she did not respond. But at last, just when I thought I would go, she remarked, ‘I’ve a need for some clean clothes.’

I did not know how to interpret this. I did see – I have become sensitive enough for that – at least that this was not at all a simple request.

She wanted me to buy her clothes?

I looked at her. She made herself look at me, and said, ‘Next door, you’ll find things.’

‘What?’

She gave a trembling, discouraged sort of shrug.

‘Vest. Knickers. Petticoat. Don’t you wear underclothes, that you are asking?’

Again, the automatic anger, as if a button had been pushed. I went next door into the room I knew she didn’t like me in.

The bed that has the good eiderdown, the wardrobe, the dressing table with little china trinkets, the good bookcases. But everywhere piles and heaps of – rubbish. I could not believe it. Newspapers dating back fifty years, crumbling away; awful scraps of material, stained and yellow, bits of lace, dirty handkerchiefs, shreds of ribbon – I’ve never seen anything like it. She had never thrown anything away, I think. In the drawers, disorder, and they were crammed with – but it would take pages to describe. I wished I had the photographer there – reflex thought! Petticoats, camisoles, knickers, stays, vests, old dresses or bits of them, blouses … and nothing less than twenty years old, and some of them going back to World War One. The difference between clothes now and then: these were all ‘real’ materials, cottons, silks, woollens. Not a man-made fibre there. But everything torn, or stained, or dirty. I pulled out bundles of things, and every one I examined, first for interest, and then to see if there was anything wearable, or clean. I found at last a wool vest, and long wool drawers, and a rather nice pink silk petticoat, and then a woollen dress, blue, and a cardigan. They were clean, or nearly. I worked away in there, shivering with cold, and thinking of how I had loved myself all these last days, how much I do love myself, for being in control, on top; and thought that the nearest I could get to poor Maudie’s helplessness was remembering what it had been like to be a child, hoping that you won’t wet your pants before you get to the lavatory.

I took the clothes into the other room, which was very hot now, the flames roaring up. I said to her, ‘Do you want me to help you change?’ The sideways, irritable movement of the head, which I knew now meant I was being stupid.

But I did not know why.

So I sat down opposite her, and said, ‘I’ll finish my tea before it’s freezing.’ I noted that I was drinking it without feeling sick: I have become used to drinking out of grimy cups, I noted that with interest. Once Maudie had been like me, perpetually washing herself, washing cups, plates, dusting, washing her hair.

She was talking, at random I thought, about when she had been in hospital. I half listened, wishing that doctors and nurses could hear how their hospitals are experienced by someone like Maudie. Prisons. Reformatories. But then I realized she was telling me about how, because she had not been well enough to be put in the bath, two nurses had washed her in her bed, and I understood.

‘I’ll put on the kettles,’ I said. ‘And you must tell me what to do.’

I put on two kettles, found an enamel basin, which I examined with interest, for I have not seen any but plastic ones for a long time, and searched for soap and a flannel. They were in a hole in the wall above the sink: a brick taken out and the cavity painted.

I took the basin, kettles, soap, flannel, a jug of cold water, next door. Maudie was struggling out of her top layer of clothes. I helped her, and realized I had not co-ordinated this at all. I rushed about, found newspapers, cleared the table, spread thick papers all over it, arranged basin, kettles, jug, washing things. No towel. I rushed into the kitchen, found a damp dirty towel, rushed into the front room and scrabbled about, seeming to myself to be taking all day. But it was really only a few moments. I was bothered about Maudie standing there, half naked, and ill, and coughing. At last I found a cleanish towel. She was standing by the basin, her top half nude. There is nothing of her. A fragile rib cage under creased yellow skin, her shoulder bones like a skeleton’s, and at the end of thin stick arms, strong working hands. Long thin breasts hanging down.