Doris Lessing - The Grandmothers

see us, Bets.’ ‘They’d think us lunatics.’ ‘Perhaps we are.’ And the giggles broke out again. These exuberances of healthy vitality, these festivals of self-discovery, innocent because of the flagrant enjoyment of their vanities, ended with Daphne’s miscarriage and Hetty’s getting pregnant. The zest had gone and two sober young matrons looked back on giddy girls. Now they made baby clothes and shirts for their husbands. But in their cupboard hung the results of their early intoxications, and when they arrayed themselves in this dress or that, the other would signal: ‘Oh, Bets, that was a morning, wasn’t it! ‘Daphne, we were inspired that day.’

Now they gave each other the swiftest of once-overs and got on to the serious business of the night. Already cars were delivering soldiers to the two houses, and to the others in the street, and groups of soldiers wandered up, clutching bits of paper with addresses. The gramophone, with its stacks of records, was on the stoep and beside it was the gardener, ready to wind it up and change the records. Dance music came from every house, music and voices.

Daphne checked that the furniture in the living-room had been pushed back, leaving a clear floor, and that the drink was flowing. Betty went back to her house, and both women stood on their steps waving up men and girls: all the girls in the city were available tonight, for dancing at least, each worth her weight in gold. ‘You girls are worth your weight in gold.’ ‘Call your friends, everyone, we must have girls.’

As she stood there, James came, put his arm around her, and they set off, on the stoep, cheek to cheek.

‘It’s all very well,’ she protested, trying to pull herself free.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he crooned, to the music, pulling her to him. And on and on they danced, and when she was interrupted, to be hostess, he came after her, and led her back again to the dance. Everyone was dancing: all that is, who had partners.

The gardener had positioned himself and angled the gramophone so that he could stand and look over to where on Hetty’s stoep Lynda, her maid, was in a parallel situation by the gramophone. He had been pursuing Lynda, without success, and found ‘The Night is Young and You’re So Beautiful’ a perfect expression of his feelings. He put it on again, again, ‘The Moon is High and You’re so Glamorous’, and when some dancer complained there were other tunes, he did put on something else, but returned as soon as he could to ‘The Night is Young …’ Lynda, who told him she didn’t trust him (‘You say that to all the girls,’), played as often as she could get away with it, ‘Boohoo, you’ve got me crying for you, and everything that you do …’ He might riposte with ‘Oh, sweet and lovely, lady be good, oh, lady be good to me …’ And she ‘You left me in the lurch, you left me crying at the church …’

This flirtation went on all evening.

The evening was a triumph, as it was bound to be. Eight hundred? The two gardens between them and the street outside had held a good thousand. The drink held out, if the food didn’t. It was two or later before the cars that were taking some men back to their billets stopped swinging their lights tip into the trees, and the shouts and the singing of soldiers died as they descended towards the sea.

In the Wrights’ house the soldiers went off to their beds and Daphne to her room. The white dress had done her proud she told herself, full of the vainglory of an imagined victory. ‘My God, it’s as good as armour’ - stripping off jetty baubles and stepping out of the skirt which collapsed in white puffs and puckers around her legs. She went naked to bed, turned off the light, and then James arrived beside her, which she had known he would, while persuading herself he wouldn’t dare.

In the very early morning she told him to go back to his room, and he said, ‘I won’t. I can’t.’

‘The maids will be here soon.’

He did leave, and went to his bed on the stoep where already the sun was warming the glass of the bottles rolling about there. He woke to the sound of clinking glass, as the maids cleaned around him.

Down in the garden, under the tree, Daphne was standing with Betty. They were wearing flowery wraps, and James thought he had never seen such lovely women. He told himself that after that voyage, that hell, he’d think any woman an angel, but he was not in the mood for common sense. Those two women in their gowns, in the greenery of the garden, they were a vision. And he stared, as long as they stood there, consciously storing it up in his mind, a picture he could look at later, keep, and hold,

Betty was saying to Daphne, ‘For God’s sake, watch it.’

‘Is it really that obvious?’

‘Yes, it is. Of course, people were noticing.’

‘I can’t help it.’

‘But Daphne …’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Is there going to be another bloody party tonight?’

‘Of course there is. You know that. And tomorrow night too - if it’s four days.’

‘That’s what Joe said.’

They looked down to where the great ship, ominous because of its associations, stood offshore, waiting.

“Why don’t you take him off to the pondokkie?’

‘I had wondered if I should.’

‘You’ve got to get yourself out of sight.’

‘Yes.’

The pondokkie was a little house, not much more than a shed, a couple of hours drive away, by the shore. Daphne went there with Joe, for weekends; Betty and her husband used it.

“Where am I going to get petrol?’

‘I’ve still got a bit.’

‘And then there’s the party, these men, what shall I say?’

‘I’ll tell them you heard someone was sick. We’ll all manage. Don’t worry.’

‘I’ll get James up.’

‘Is that his name?’ said Betty, bitterly. ‘Suddenly, there’s a James. Who is James? If Joe finds out? Someone will tell him, you know.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Daphne again.

‘I’ll say James has gone into a clinic for a couple of days. Well, he looks as if he could do with one. For God’s sake, Daphne, he looks like the walking wounded.’

‘Yes, I know.’

The gardens were already being tidied for that night’s festivities. Soon, the stage would be set, again; the trestles scrubbed, the mounds of plates and cutlery gleaming. The skeins of paper lanterns in the trees were being re-hung and the scorched ones taken down.

The soldiers, both Daphne’s lot and Betty’s, were asleep, but James was sitting on his bed when Daphne came to say: ‘Get on your civvies, leave your uniform, come with me. Yes, now, before anyone wakes.’ He did not argue, but obediently put on Daphne’s husband’s brothers trousers and shirt. She put on slacks and a shirt and let her hair fall on her shoulders: this was like a statement of defiance, but to whom, she could not have said. In the kitchen they drank hasty cups of coffee, ignoring the maids. Daphne put some things into a box, and they set off in her car along the coast.

Betty watched them go, from her windows. She was in a seethe of conflicting feelings but most of all she felt as if her friend had been struck by lightning. Black lightning-if there was such a thing.

The streets ran smooth and citified through the suburbs, then they were on a rough road, the sea on their right hand, and what looked like farmland on their left. Vines and oak trees, a fair and smiling scene, but soon the land was unworked, with only a few scattered sheep. James looked only at Daphne, until she put out a hand and touched his face with her knuckles. ‘Stop it, you’re making me nervous.’

‘I can’t help it,’ he said, as she had earlier. She smiled and he said bitterly, ‘It’s not just an amusement for me.’ And then, ‘Stop the car, stop it now.’