Doris Lessing - Briefing for a Descent into Hell

The eyes of Violet Stoke had the same effect, that of negating the rest of her appearance — and perhaps of saying the same thing.

As if it were all not enough of a challenge, the shocking contrast between formal black dress and the lower nakedness, the smooth dancer’s hair and the sad moist patch below, the social position of “the cardplayer” and the isolation spread around her by her fear and hatred, as if these were not enough (to which must be added the social and possibly less important comment made by the expensiveness of her dress, shoes, handbag, any of which was a week’s salary for the poor nurses) there was this other contrast. The girl’s black eyes looked directly out of the picture, and if you followed that gaze, let yourself slide inwards, so that you slid into her head, what you became part of was not the violence of hatred, but a puddle of tears, and a little girl’s tears at that: Oh love me, hold me, forgive me, and never let me go, don’t make me grow up. What she was feeling inside that façade of upsetting contrasts, was what a very small girl feels when she has been beaten or ill-treated by a powerful parent, and she knows quite well it will happen again next time the parent is angry or drunk or frightened himself — or herself. She was all victim, betrayed, tormented, vulnerable, and a sponge for love.

She had been sitting there, playing patience in a way which was the cry: Why do you all make me stay alone like this? when into the public room came a tall good-looking man of about fifty. He had wavy dark grey hair that had been black, he had blue eyes, he had a good smile.

Unlike others who had come in while she sat there, saying silently: I dare you to come and sit with me , and had gone to sit elsewhere, he went straight towards her, sat down, and immediately pulled a pipe out of his pocket and started on the business of filling and lighting it. He wore a casual jacket, and a dark blue sweater under it. He looked like a man who had been an amateur athlete.

He was Professor Charles Watkins and he and Violet were friends.

Now, without asking him, she swept her cards together and began dealing for a poker game which was a favourite of theirs, which meant that each played three hands, seven cards a hand, with four cards wild, and high-low into the bargain. She nearly always won these games, not because she was brighter than the Professor, but because she cared more.

“Threes, fives, sevens, Jacks wild,” she announced, in a companionable girl’s voice.

They played. She won.

She shuffled and said: “Did you see him today?”

“Yes, Doctor X is away.”

“What did he say?”

“He says I’ve got to be moved somewhere. I can’t go on here the way I am.”

“Why, why can’t you? Oh, it is too much!”

“He just keeps saying that this is a reception hospital and he can’t bend the rules any more.”

“Don’t you let them send you to the North Catchment then, whatever else.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

She dealt.

“Twos and sixes and Queens wild,” she said.

They played in silence. She won.

“Haven’t you got any money at all?” she cried, a petulant and wilful child, as it were demanding a new doll, or dress.

“The Professor is quite loaded, so they tell me,” he said. “But that doesn’t help me much, does it?”

“I could get a job and earn, I have had jobs. Never for long though.”

“I’m sure I could too. I’m very handy around the wards, after all. I could wash up in a restaurant or work in a bar?”

“Would we earn enough to live on?”

“We could try.”

“Oh do let’s. Oh please.”

“Yes … we wouldn’t — force each other. We wouldn’t — impose.”

“No. We’d help each other, I’m sure of that.”

She dealt. It was for five cards.

“We’ll play it straight, cool and classical,” she said.

They played. She won.

“Aren’t you cheating at all?” he enquired.

This meant, was she identifying more than was inevitable with one or other of the hands she was playing, for in this personal version of poker they had evolved, the different hands stood for aspects of themselves. They might or might not know what each other’s different hands stood for. But he knew now that when she dealt for the classic game, this meant she was feeling calmer and more in control of her different selves than when she dealt three hands each and with so many cards wild. And so on.

Yesterday morning, she had let him win the first game, making it clear that it was because she knew he had had a bad night.

“Was I cheating? Did it look as if I was? I was trying not to.”

“Well perhaps I was too, a little.”

“But I won,” she claimed fiercely. “I won, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did, Violet. You always do.”

“Yes, I do, don’t I?”

She dealt again, three hands each, five cards.

They played, she won.

“Are your sons coming to see you?”

“No. She won’t bring them.”

“Don’t mind. Oh please don’t. I’ll go and make you some tea. Would you like some?”

“I’d like some tea, yes, but I don’t mind that they aren’t coming. What I mind is, that I don’t mind, when they are so sure that I ought to. Who are they , though? I know you. I suppose you are my daughter. They say I haven’t had a daughter?”

“Oh I wish I was your daughter. Oh I do so wish I were. But you’d be like the rest, I suppose.”

“Perhaps I would. How do I know I am a good father to my sons? But that is then . You are now. I am good for you, Vi? Am I?”

“Yes. But you like me, you see. My families don’t.”

“Yes, I do like you Violet. Very much.”

She went off to the little kitchen used by patients to make themselves tea, cocoa, toast, sandwiches. When she returned with two cups of tea, a woman patient had sat herself near the handsome and distinguished Professor, but at Violet’s killing black glances, she hastily withdrew.

“I heard Doctor X say that Doctor Y favoured you unfairly.”

“Yes, Doctor Y told me that too.”

“And Doctor X said to Nurse Black that he thought it was possible you are shamming.”

“That I do remember?”

“That you remember more than you let on.”

“What I remember they won’t have at any price, that’s my trouble.”

“Doctor X said there was a case last year when a man went on pretending he couldn’t remember his wife, but then Doctor X caught him out and he had to go home.”

“I don’t remember my wife or my mistress. I am very attractive to women, that’s clear enough. They both hate my guts.”

“I don’t think that is very funny, if you do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“No, but you aren’t a woman.”

“No. Oh no, I’m not. Oh no, no.”

“You look very like my girl, the one that was killed in Yugoslavia.”

“You never were in Yugoslavia.”

“But I — oh very well. I don’t see why you should mind that.”

“But I do mind. They know you weren’t in Yugoslavia.”

“All the same, you do look like her.”

“Perhaps I am the first person that belongs to your new memory. I mean, the people in the ward and me and Doctor Y and Doctor X, we are what you’ve made your new memory out of?”

“Not Doctor X!”

“Oh, I don’t know, I suppose he’s not as bad as that. I mean, why do we all hate Doctor X? They aren’t all that different, are they?”

“Yes. Oh yes, they are.”

“Well all right, I’m sorry, oh, please don’t get upset.”

“All right.”

“But when you do start remembering all the people in your life, what will happen to me? I mean, I was thinking last night, now I’m an important person in your mind …”