Martha Quest (16 page)

She was a tall, large lady, firmly corseted, dressed in black-and-white silk, with waved fair hair and large, white, firm hands whose capability contradicted the rest of her appearance, which aimed at an impression of useless elegance. She placed herself on a low purple satin chair, and her son sat in another, immediately opposite, in a way which showed this was a habit of both of them. They proceeded to tease each other, good-humouredly affectionate, about his lateness that morning for breakfast, about her wasting the whole afternoon at the hairdresser’s, about her dress, which, it seemed, was new and expensive. Martha listened, for she was excluded, though they did not mean to be impolite. She understood that this teasing was a way of finding out about each other’s movements without direct questioning: for as soon as Mrs Anderson had learned that Donny had not been late for the office, with which girl he had taken lunch, and what cinema he intended to visit with Martha, as soon as Donovan had told her she must go to bed early—‘because old women need a good night’s rest’—and had been scolded for his impertinence, she rose and kissed Martha again. Or rather, she made all the preparatory motions towards a kiss and concluded by fainly laying her cheek against Martha’s; and asked to be forgiven, for she was going out to dinner, and the young people must amuse themselves. She then asked Donovan to be sure a tray was sent up to his father, who did not feel like taking a proper dinner.

She was moving towards the door, with the voluminous lightness of a sailing ship, her skirts flowing, a scarlet chiffon handkerchief trail
ing from her hand, when Donovan asked, in a voice that held a grumbling, offended note that Martha had not yet heard, ‘Who are you going to dinner with?’

Mrs Anderson paused, her back to them, a stiffened and wary back, and began touching some dark-yellow poppies that stood on a low table beside the door. ‘No one you know, dear,’ she replied cautiously, but with an unmistakably warning note. The scarf caught and dragged out a poppy, so that it lay in a pool of water on the polished table. Martha, who was watching, though Donovan could not since his face was sullenly averted, saw Mrs Anderson’s smooth and handsome face darken with anger. ‘Oh, damn,’ she muttered crossly, and glanced at her son; and then she hastily wiped away the spilt water with her handkerchief, and stood holding the crumpled ball of stuff delicately between finger and thumb, while a smile slowly spread over her face and she gave Martha a long, amused, but wickedly guilty look; and although Martha did not know what misdemeanour she was being invited to share, she could not help smiling back.

When Donovan saw Martha’s smile, he turned to his mother, his eyes accusing. Mrs Anderson came smoothly forward, holding the poppy. She bent over him, and inserted it in his lapel. ‘For my little boy,’ she murmured, and kissed the top of his head. Then she ruffled the carefully arranged hair with the tip of a long, firm finger, so that a lock of hair stood up, giving Donovan a ridiculous look. ‘He looks so beautiful,’ she said. Again, her tongue caught between her teeth, she smiled wickedly at Martha, allowed her eyes to return towards the accusing ones that were fixed on her, and suddenly flushed. ‘I’m late,’ she said firmly, and hurried out, her skirts disturbing the flowers for the second time as she passed them.

Donovan lay stiffly in his chair, frowning, smoothing back his hair with his manicured hand. Martha was astounded when he at last spoke, for this self-possessed man sounded like a deserted little boy, his voice shrill and complaining. ‘She’s out every night, and Father has to lump it. God knows what he does with himself all the time, reading in his room—’ He stopped himself, leaped to his feet, and
said, in a normal tone, ‘Well, let’s go and see what my erring mamma has left us to eat.’

They sat at opposite ends of a long dining table, served by a native in the conventional uniform: red fez, white starched tunic, an impassive face. This man brought in a tray for Donovan to examine. There was nothing on it but some bread, a boiled egg and a lump of quivering green jelly.

‘My father has ulcers,’ announced Donovan, as if this was a personal affront to himself. ‘Take it away,’ he said, waving his hand at the servant; then: ‘No, wait.’ The tray was returned for Donovan’s inspection; and with a slow, wicked smile very like his mother’s, he took the yellow poppy from his lapel, tucked it into the napkin ring, and waved the tray away for a second time. ‘Well,’ he said, with grumbling grace, ‘you have a glimpse of the home life of the Andersons.’

But he looked at Martha challengingly, and Martha could not immediately meet the challenge. She was sorry for Donovan, but elderly ladies (she must be at least fifty) with the wayward charm of Mrs Anderson had never come her way before. Also, the word ‘ulcers’ had struck a deeper chord than she liked. At last she sighed and said, ‘Yes, it’s all very difficult, isn’t it?’ But this was too strong a note, and he began to defend his mother and explain what a terrible life of it she led with Mr Anderson.

When the meal was finished, he said, ‘And now we must hurry. I suppose I should take you to meet my papa? But no, you don’t want to meet him, do you.’

Martha therefore followed him to the car; and during the weeks she was to visit this house, she saw the old gentleman no more than half a dozen times. He had been an important civil servant—something to do with finance, Donovan airily explained. If he came down to a meal, he sat silent, as Martha was accustomed to see a father behave, while Donovan and his mother kept up a lively conversation. In the drawing room he never appeared at all; there sat mother and son, on the low purple satin chairs, flirting, chattering, teasing, and always with a watchful look in their eyes. Martha was as relieved as
they when he chose not to descend from his room, for a nerve in her, sensitized long before its proper time, predisposed her uncomfortably to watch Mr Anderson, that morose, silent gentleman, rather like a dapper little monkey in his careful clothes—but an old and misanthropic monkey; she looked from him to the charming young man, his son, and wondered how soon the shrill and complaining strand in his character would strengthen until he too became like his father, a bad-tempered but erudite hermit among his books—but no, that transformation was impossible to imagine. And where did Martha gain the idea that Mr Anderson was erudite? Simply from the fact that he spent his time reading. She had an altogether romantic picture of him, and the background of that picture was the wall of a library, sober with dark, leather-bound volumes.

One afternoon Martha came into the house to find it empty, and climbed the stairs to Mr Anderson’s room, aided by the self-possession of an attractive girl accustomed to find herself welcomed, and opened the door and went in—but she was not to be allowed into his room under any such passport. Mr Anderson was reading in a big chair by a window which framed a view of veld crossed and recrossed by telephone wires. When he demanded gruffly what she wanted, she instinctively switched off the charming manner, sat down, and asked him about his book, confident that
that
was the key. But no, he thankfully laid the book aside. She saw it was called
Three Days to the Moon
, and on the cover was a picture of something that looked like a bomb with a window in it, through which peered a man and a girl, both half naked. Beside his chair were stacked dozens of similar books. On the table, however, were blue books, reports and newspaper clippings; and she understood at last where his heart was, when he began to talk of a recent Government commission on population, and as abruptly stopped himself with the bitter comment, ‘However, at sixty it seems I’m too old to take an intelligent interest.’

Rather nervously, she mentioned Donovan; and Mr Anderson appeared to be dismissing both of them when he said gruffly, ‘Of course, I suppose you find this sort of thing dull. But at his age…
However, nowadays it seems sex is enough.’ She was embarrassed, but not for the reason he imagined.

There were voices and laughter downstairs, and she got up and thanked him (automatically ‘charming’ again, under the invisible influence of mother and son, whom she was to join) for entertaining her.

‘Well, well,’ Mr Anderson said forbearingly, and picked up his science fiction again. She left him, with a pang for that window and its view of the sun-soaked grasses; and another, much deeper one, of fear that at sixty a window, some tedious reports and bad novels were all that one could reasonably expect to enjoy.

But on that first evening, her idea of Mr Anderson was crystallized by an invalid’s tray, with a crumpled yellow poppy stuck into a silver napkin ring.

When Martha asked what film they were going to see, Donovan replied that he always went to the Regal, in his manner of pointing out something she must copy. She was still silent, trying to approve this way of choosing one’s entertainment, when they arrived. The Regal was a large, shabby building in the centre of town, decorated to surface splendour with coloured lights and posters of film stars. As they walked towards it, Donovan took Martha’s arm, and she looked instinctively to see why, for this was not the sort of gesture one associated with him. She found they were progressing slowly through groups of people whom Donovan was greeting, and when she examined them she felt his obvious pleasure and excitement affect her: the pavement was a dull city pavement, the posters on the wall were garish, but the place was transformed into something very like one of her private dreams. Everyone was young, throngs of young men and girls were everywhere, and they all knew each other, or so it seemed; for as she and Donovan slowly pressed their way through, she found herself introduced to faces who smiled through a blur of excitement, she found herself shaking dozens of hands; and as they left the crowded foyer and climbed the staircase, she heard him say, ‘Well, you’re a
great success, Matty, they were all wanting to see the new girl come to town.’

She was startled, and glanced back to see this crowd under the new light of a unifying ‘they’, and saw that she was being watched by what seemed to be dozens of pairs of eyes. Straightening herself and tossing her hair back, she climbed onwards, still supported by Donovan’s arm, which, however, withdrew itself the moment the crowd was left behind.

He said again, with a self-satisfied note, ‘There, now, you’ve made your début.’

Martha was resentful; or rather, a small critical nerve in Martha was struck unpleasantly. At the same time, excitement was flooding into her at the idea that she was being displayed; and this confusion of feeling persisted while they entered the cinema and once again Donovan began waving and calling to innumerable people. She was prepared to become absorbed by the film, for this was the first she had seen, apart from the few shown at school; but it soon became clear that seeing the film was the least of the reasons which brought Donovan to the cinema. While it was running, he talked to her and to the people behind him; in fact, there was a continuous murmur of talk, and when someone shouted ‘Hush!’ it hushed only for a moment.

At the interval, Martha ate ice cream in the foyer with a group of young people to whom, it seemed, she had already been introduced; for they called her Matty, and knew not only where she worked but where she lived; and one youth asked if he might pick her up at Mrs Gunn’s the following evening, only to be informed curtly by Donovan that she was already engaged. Martha was annoyed. As they returned to their seats, he said, ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in that Sports Club crowd, my dear, they’re not in our line.’

After the film was over, Martha found herself going into McGrath’s together, it seemed, with everyone who had been at the cinema. McGrath’s lounge was a vast brownish room, with a beige ceiling of heavy plaster divided into squares, like a mammoth slab of staling chocolate, which had been further moulded to form superim
posed circles and scrolls and shells and flowers, and finally swabbed with pailfuls of gilt. The walls were also sculptured and panelled and made to glitter with gold. The room was divided down the centre with heavy fluted and gilded columns. But the floor of this old-fashioned room was crowded with slender black glass tables and chromium chairs, and these were crowded with young people. After some minutes, Martha realized that a band was playing, and on a platform decorated like an altar with flowers and statuary she saw half a dozen black-coated men making the movements of those who create music; and straining her ears, she heard the ground rhythm of a waltz. The musicians were talking and laughing with each other as they played, and with the people at the tables under the platform; the waiters who hurried through the crowd carrying trays laden with glass mugs of beer smiled when they were hailed by their Christian names. It all had the atmosphere of a festival, and Martha found herself transported into delight, and forgot her resentment, and sat by Donovan drinking beer and eating peanuts and talking to the people around her so animatedly that she was not at first aware of Donovan’s silence. When she looked around, he appeared sulky, and as soon as their beer was finished he refused to join in another round, and said, ‘Matty and I must be going.’ There were humorous groans from the young men; and Martha was astounded and infuriated to hear them calling out to the dignified Donovan, as he walked with her to the door, ‘Oy-oy! Spoilsport! Meany!’

On the pavement he said gruffly, ‘Don’t take any notice.’ But he was certainly pleased; and that pleasure offended her; and she could not help glancing back to where the light spilled from the great columned door, with the music and the sound of laughter and young voices. They were singing now, inside; and unaccountably her eyes filled with tears. It seemed as if she were being snatched away from her birthright before she had even stretched out her hands to take it.

Donovan strolled beside her to the car, and said, ‘Well, it’s quite early, what shall we do? Of course, we’ll follow the custom. You haven’t been up the kopje, have you? That’s where all the boys and
girls go, to look at the lights and hold hands.’ He was now light and careless again; and they found the shabby but correct little car and drove away downtown, through the slums and kaffir stores, until a low hill rose before them. They spiralled slowly up it; and near the top there was a flat space, filled with parked cars, lightless and apparently deserted. Donovan at once got out and led her to the edge of the flat space. For a moment Martha felt herself carried away, for it was with a violent mingling of fear and delight that she struggled with the sensation that she was back home, looking away over the darkened veld, under the stars. But now the great hollow before her was scattered with light—it seemed as if a large hand had flung down stars caught from the sweep of the Milky Way over her head, to mark the streets and houses of the little town. At her feet rustled the veld grass, and the scent of the violet tree swept across her face. But Donovan said, ‘And so here we are, we must admire the lights and feel romantic.’