Doris Lessing - Love, Again

At the house it was lunchtime. Elizabeth and Norah were off for the day to attend a music festival in Bath. He asked Sarah what she would like to do, and she said she would enjoy seeing something of his life.

'Then I hope you are not going to find me too much of an eccentric.'

'But it's part of your role to be an eccentric.'

A new building, which would turn these semi-amateur Entertainments into so much more, was nearly finished. It stood near the great lawn — the theatre — and was concealed by shrubs and trees. The plans had become even grander in the weeks since she had been here: they were thinking of doing operas. Until now more ambitious spectacles had been impossible, with the big house a couple of hundred yards away, too far for actors, singers, dancers, to make costume changes. Now there was going to be plenty of room for costumes, lighting equipment, and musical instruments, and ample rehearsal space. The place had been designed by an architect to take its place unnoticed among these historic buildings. It would look similar in style without making any claims for itself.

Two workmen were laying bricks on an internal wall. One straddled the wall, the other was handing bricks to him. Stephen spoke to them and came away: 'I'm not needed. Sometimes I can be useful. But these are not our people; they are a firm in town.'

They walked slowly through trees, away from the house. She was thinking, for she could not stop herself, of that young man who was with his 'mate' in France: Bill had said he would use the opportunity to be a tourist for a week. No, she certainly did not see a girlfriend. 'Perhaps my girlfriend will get over for a few days.' She wondered if Stephen was thinking of Molly, who was also there somewhere. After they had been silent for some minutes, he said unexpectedly, 'It occurred to me, thinking it all out, you know, that I must be lonely. It seems improbable, but there it is. No, no, believe me, Sarah, I'm not trying for sympathy. I'm trying to understand it all, you see.'

'Did you know Elizabeth loved women when you married her?'

'She didn't, not then.' Taking her silence for criticism, he defended himself, with a stubbornness, a determination, she could see was because he had made a decision to tell her all this. Because he needed to hear how it sounded? 'No, you see, we have known each other all our lives. We really married because… you see, we both of us came to grief at the same time.'

'A good phrase, that, came to grief.'

'Yes, it is. Not that I understood it until… you see, something I hoped for didn't happen.'

'You were in love — impossibly?'

'I didn't think it was impossible. It wasn't impossible. She was married, but I hoped she would leave her husband and marry me. But she changed her mind. And Elizabeth was hoping to marry someone… he's a good chap. He's a friend of mine. Well, in fact he's on the next estate. But he was engaged to be married, and it was all too difficult. And there we both were, the two of us, Elizabeth and I.'

They sat on a log in a hot dry shade. At least fifty feet above them, on the other side of the beech canopy, burned an un-English sun.

'It all fitted in. She was in trouble with money. A complicated will — that sort of thing. And if we married, her problems would be over.'

'And you were happy?'

'We were… content.'

'That is a very big word.'

'I suppose it is. Yes, it is. And then I began to feel… ' He contemplated what he had felt, and for a pretty long time.

'Did you feel there was no conviction in it?'

'That's it, exactly. I began to feel like a ghost in my own house — no, well, it's not my house. Better say, in my own home. I tried to… earth myself. I learned to do all kinds of things. I'm a pretty good carpenter now. I can do any kind of electrical work. I can do plumbing and lay drains. I did it all deliberately — do you understand? Yes, of course you do. To make me part of the place. And to stop me… I felt as if I were floating away. Well, it has certainly made all the difference to the estate. We stopped losing money. We never have to call in workmen. Except for a big building job.'

'And all that didn't help?'

'Yes, it did. To a point. And then… I came to grief. That's it. I don't understand it. It was as if there was a hole in my life, and blood was pouring away. I know that is very melodramatic. But that's how it was.'

'So when did Julie come into it?'

'She slowly took possession. I heard her music at the festival — you know all about that. And then I went in search of everything to do with her. It was enjoyable at first, like a treasure hunt. And then… it was La Belle Dame sans Merci, all right.'

'Whatever it is, it will pass,' she quoted.

'Do you really believe that?'

'Yes. At least, I haven't experienced anything different.'

It was at this point she was tempted — and almost began on her confession — to tell him of her state. But she was in a certain role with him: someone strong, to whom he could show his weakness and not be afraid. Would their friendship survive her saying, 'I am in love to the point of insanity,' with a young man, and one he didn't have much time for? No, for him to be in love with Julie was certainly crazy, but for a woman her age to be in love with a beautiful youth… Even if the said youth was in love with her. He was, to a point. In love: there are people who keep a lock of hair or a piece of cloth in an envelope, sometimes come on it, and tenderly smile. In love: a glow of tender lost possibilities, like the light left behind in the sky at moonset. That would be appropriate to her position: in fact people would like it. Ah me, my sweetly fractured heart that aches gently like a rheumatic knee with the approach of bad weather. As for Bill, what he would like probably would be a kiss and a good cuddle. (At this a savage and forgotten sexual pride raised its head and remarked: Yes? I'd show him better!) Apart from anything else — cowardice was the word — it would be unkind to tell this suffering man who relied on her (who had put a desperate hand into hers), 'I am weaker than you are. Worse, I'm ridiculous,' and expect him to add this burden to his. He would have to overcome, for a start, some pretty orthodox reactions. Most men and more women — young women afraid for themselves — punish older women with derision, punish them with cruelty, when they show inappropriate signs of sexuality. If men, they are getting their own back for the years they have been subject to the sexual power of women. She consoled herself with: When this business with Bill is forgotten, I shall still be Stephen's friend.

He said, 'I suppose what I feel is, well, if I could spend one night with her, just one night, that's all, then everything marvellous would be given to me.'

'One night with whom?'

'Yes, all right,' he said, but he was not conceding an inch to common sense.

They sat on, for a while, in silence. Rather, in a jubilation of bird sound. Birds, disturbed by their arrival, had forgotten about them. She could actually feel the sounds, loud, shrill, sweet, soft, ringing along her nerves. Surely nothing like this had happened to her before: that sounds, even the sweetest, were dangerous, made her feel over-exposed? She got up, to escape the assault; Stephen did too, and they strolled towards the house. She was telling him, making a humorous thing of it, about the two tiny children and their tree house, about her pain, as a child. It occurred to her she was entertaining Stephen, making funny stories as one does with an acquaintance or somebody one doesn't want to come too close: the counterfeit offered to most of the people one knows. A glance showed that he was painfully listening, and he remarked, 'I think one's early experiences are mostly pretty awful. I don't like thinking about them myself.'