Doris Lessing - The Diaries of Jane Somers

‘I want to know about it,’ I said. ‘I have been thinking that I did nothing to help.’

She said finally, ‘No, you didn’t,’ and she wouldn’t have said another word. I had to digest that she and Tom had attitudes about me, my behaviour, that were established and set, Jane was this and that and the other; and probably these were Mother’s attitudes too, and Father’s.

I said, ‘It has only recently occurred to me that I never lifted a finger all the time Granny was dying.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she said, in the same shutting-you-out way.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘recently I’ve had a little to do with an old person, and I know now what Mother had to cope with.’

‘I suppose better late than never,’ said Sister Georgie.

This was much worse than I had expected. I mean, what she thought of me was so much worse that I was burning with – no, alas, not shame, but it was embarrassment. Not wanting to be so badly thought of. I said to her, ‘Can you tell me anything about it?’

‘Well, what on earth do you want to know?’ She was exasperated. Exactly as if some small child had said to her, she having hit her thumb with a hammer, Does it hurt?

‘Look, Georgie,’ I said, ‘all right, I’ve seen recently that … I could have done more than I did. All right? Do you want me to grovel? It is better late than never. I want to know more about Mother.’

‘She was in your flat for two years before she died,’ said Sister Georgie, making a great amazed incredulous astonishment out of it.

‘Yes, I know. But it was since then that I …’

Georgie said, ‘Look, Jane, I’m sorry but … you just turn up here after all that, and say, I’d like a nice little chat about Mother. Jane, it simply isn’t on ,’ she said. She was literally inarticulate with anger. And I, with surprise. I realized that there were years of resentment here, criticism of little sister Jane.

I made a last try. ‘Georgie,’ I said, ‘I am sorry. I am sorry I didn’t help Mother with Granny, and I want very much to discuss it all.’

‘I suppose one of these weekends I’ll get a telephone call, when you’ve got nothing better to do, and you’ll turn up, all fine and fancy free, not a hair out of place, and you’ll say, Oh, Georgie, I was wondering what was it like having Mother here for ten years, with four kids, no help, and she becoming an invalid …’

At which point the telephone rang outside and she went to answer it. I sat there, I was numb. That was the word. Not that I hadn’t felt bad about Mother living with Georgie all that time, for after all I was working, and we did only have a small flat, Freddie and I, and … and … and. But it had never occurred to me that Georgie was not going to talk to me this weekend. If ever. She was too angry. She was, and she is, so angry and bitter about me.

When she came back, she said, ‘I’m going down to the station to get Tom and the kids.’ She said to me, ‘I’m sorry Jane, but if you are beginning to get some sort of sense of responsibility into you at last, it might perhaps occur to you that it isn’t easy to have you just turning up with a light question or two: How about Granny dying? How was it? Did it hurt? It was all awful, Jane. Do you understand? It was dreadful. I went down there when I could, pregnant as hell or with the baby, and found Mother coping. Granny was bedridden at the end. For months. Can you imagine? No, I bet you can’t. Doctors all the time. In and out of hospital. Mother was doing it all. Father couldn’t help much, he was an invalid himself … Anyway, I’ve got to go to the station.’

And off she went.

I nearly ran after her, to ask to be put on a train home, but stuck it out. Tom and the kids filled the house with clatter and clang, the record players went on at once of course, a radio, the house vibrating with din. Tom came in and said. How are you? – and went. The kids banged into the kitchen, where I was, Jilly, Bob, Jasper, Kate. Hi, hi, hi, hi, all round. It is established that I think Georgie’s kids are awful and spoiled brats, but they might be all right when they grow up. I am the glamorous Aunt from London and the High Life. I send them presents of money at Christmas. When we meet I tell them I think they are awful and good for nothing. They tell me it is because I don’t understand them. It is a cheerful game of mutual insult. But I do think they are awful. I cannot understand how they are allowed to do as they like, have what they like, go where they like. I have never heard either Georgie or Tom say once, No, you can’t have that. Never. The whole house is crammed with their possessions, clothes, toys, gear, mostly unused or used once or twice. I keep thinking of growing up during the war and having nothing. And recently I have been thinking about the Third World having nothing. Of course, Georgie would say It is trendy to have such thoughts, but, as she would say, Better late than never.

Anyway, I sat in the kitchen and listened to the sheer din of those kids all over the house, and Georgie came back and I could see she was ready to talk, if I wanted, but suddenly I found myself saying, ‘Georgie, you are ready enough with criticism of me, but look at those children of yours.’

‘Yes, I know what you think,’ she said, her back turned to me. And I knew at once that this was a sore point.

‘Tell me,’ I said to her, ‘when have they ever done anything they didn’t want to do? Have you and Tom ever tried to teach them that the world isn’t a celestial milk bar with milk shakes and cream topping for ever there at the touch of a button?’

‘You may well be right. I’m not saying you are not,’ said she, making it humorous, ‘and now I have to get the lunch. If you want to help, stay, and if not, go and talk to Tom.’

I took her at her word, went to find Tom, but he did not want to talk to me, being busy at something. I found the decibel level in the house intolerable, pulled on my big boots and went for a walk in the snow, came back for lunch. As usual, the parents were like appendages to the scene of the four children, who did not let them finish a conversation if they had the temerity to start one, or talked across them at each other, and behaved exactly as if Georgie and Tom were useful servants they could treat as they liked.

How has it come about that this is what families are like now? In the living room, afternoon, this was the scene. Jilly, seventeen, nagging because she had wanted to visit a friend and couldn’t for some reason, so she was sulking and making the whole family pay for it. Bob, sixteen, an over-fat good-looking boy, practising the guitar as if no one else existed. Jasper, fifteen, whining and nagging at his father to go with him to some local football match. Kate, thirteen, cheeks flaming, hair wild, tarting around the room in one of Georgie’s dresses, in a sort of locked hysteria, the way teenage girls get. This was for my benefit, because she wants to come to London and ‘be a model’. Poor girl! Tom was sitting in a corner trying to read, and answering questions from his offspring in an abstracted irritable voice, and Georgie was waiting on all of them, in perfect good humour and patience; shouting to make herself heard from time to time, Yes, all right, Kate. Yes, Jilly, I’ll do it tomorrow. Yes, Jasper, it’s under the spare-room bed. And so on.

I said at last, ‘Well, this wicked Aunt is about to leave. No, don’t bother, I shall go to the station by myself.’

With what relief did I turn my back on this scene of happy contemporary family life and went out to the front door, followed by Georgie.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘don’t say it, I don’t understand what children are, and I am not entitled to say a word, because of my selfish childishness, but all I can say is …’