remained seated. ‘I’ll see the lawyers tomorrow and if it’s easier to cite William, I’ll let you know,’ he said.
He’s trying to make me plead with him not to involve William, she thought. He was watching her with a self-consciously wistful smile. She said nothing. His face swelled into hatred and he said: ‘It would serve him right.’
What for?’
‘Breaking up our marriage.’
But not even he could believe this. He hastily looked away, and said: ‘The lawyers will write to you. We must have no communication of any kind until the divorce is over.’
‘Of course.’
He lingered by the door, again wistful. She thought: I’ve lived with this grown-up schoolboy for four years, and we’ve had a child together. I ought to feel something that I don’t: I ought to feel degraded or ashamed or regretful – something like that. Well, I don’t. It simply didn’t concern me. While this thought went through her mind she felt her knees shaking again, and she understood she was terrified. His sideways glances at her were full of an avid hate: it was ludicrous, the effect of the ugly eyes in the formally sentimental and appealing face. She thought: If I don’t say the right thing, he’ll embrace me or hit me – it will be horrible. There’ll be a horrible scene. She said, ‘I’ll ring you up in a day or two and ask what the lawyers said.’ Her voice was casual and friendly. His face changed and became stiff. He nodded, and went out, carefully closing the door after him as if locking her in. And when she tested it she found that he had turned the key in her lock.
Now she wanted to cry. But she would not allow herself tears. Just as tenderness, moments of real emotion with William left her exposed to her need for Caroline, so did tears, even brief tears, open her to a feeling of deep, impersonal pain that seemed to be lying in wait for her moments of weakness like an enemy whose name she did not know, but whose shape and attributes she was learning because of its shadow, deepening steadily outside the bright shell she lived within.
She went to sleep at once, without thinking of Douglas.
These days she always woke early, and with delight, no matter how late she had been in getting to bed. For the first time in her life waking was not a painful process of adjustment. The shrilling and twittering of the birds who filled Mrs Carson’s garden every morning, or the roar of aircraft overhead, sank into her sleep like a premonition of the day’s excitements, and before she had opened her eyes she was already poised forward in spirit, thinking of the moment when she would rejoin the group and her friends.
Before she could join them, of course, she had to put in an obligatory eight hours in the office. She had returned as junior typist to Robinson, Daniel and Cohen, now reduced because of the war to Mr Robinson. Mr Max Cohen was two years dead of a heart attack. Mr Jasper Cohen was helping to run the army in North Africa. Mr Daniel was fighting in it. Mr Robinson’s young, lean, tightly-sprung body must conceal some weakness, for it was known he had tried to reach the war and failed. When Martha had applied for a job in her old firm she had done so thinking of the gentle kindliness of Mr Max Cohen. There was such a shortage of women workers for the offices that Mr Robinson was pleased enough to see her. That Martha disliked him as much now as she had always done seemed irrelevant, when her working life was irrelevant to her real interests. There were two women in the office now, herself and Mrs Buss. That two women were enough was because of the efficiency of Mrs Buss, who never let Mr Robinson or Martha forget this truth, which led to her salary being increased almost monthly. Neither Mr Robinson nor Martha begrudged her this: in fact Martha imagined that when he signed the pay cheques and handed hers to Mrs Buss he must feel embarrassed because he was paying for her entire life: her devoted, jealous watchful interest was concentrated on Mr Robinson, not as a man, but as the unworthy representative of the absent senior partners. Sometimes he remarked, almost resentfully, that there was no need for her to work at nights, or arrive at the office so early in the mornings. Whereupon she faced herself at him like a quarrelling little bird, and said: ‘Mr Robinson, I know my job. I had my training in Britain, not like these Colonial girls.’ ‘Oh well,’ he would say, escaping hastily, ‘I suppose it’s all right, if you don’t mind.’
Mrs Buss tolerated Martha; it was because the Colonial spirit she despised was too strong for her. Martha had been married to one of the up and coming young men of the town, and would probably marry another. Society, it seemed, owed her this job as an interim support, and efficiency was scarcely demanded of her. Mrs Buss felt that Martha was one of the drones – ‘one of the marrying kind,’ as she put it, with kindly but critical titter, although not married at the moment. She, Mrs Buss, was not, although she had a husband. On this basis the two women enjoyed an amiable working relationship.
On that day Martha worked through the lunch-hour, not for Mr Robinson, but addressing envelopes for the Sympathizers of Russia. After lunch she was telephoned by Jasmine who said that Jackie Bolton had telephoned her; he and William were posted and leaving that night for some necessarily unnamed destination. They must all meet on the station for the farewell at six. The two girls consoled each other and agreed to meet at the group office after work. There they sat, smoking, for once idle, out of a feeling that their impending loss must be paid due to in some way. They were talking of how the four of them would meet after the war, and continue this friendship which was subordinate to the Revolution. They did not specify the country where they would meet: the world was open to them. As Jackie often remarked: When you’re a communist you can go to any country in the world and be with friends at once. When members of the group talked of the future, it was as if they were interchangeable with each other, one country the same as another: they were part of the great band of international brothers, and as they talked their eyes met, exchanging looks of infinite devotion and trust.
Now Jasmine and Martha leaned at the window looking down into the street, and both their minds were so occupied with visions of the future that the fact their lovers were leaving them in an hour seemed unimportant, even proof of their belief that the time was coming soon when pain would cease to exist
A small ragged, barefooted black child, pot-bellied with malnutrition, hesitated on the opposite corner outside McGrath’s holding a note in his hand. He had been sent by his white mistress on some errand and could not find the right address. Martha and Jasmine smiled at each other, saying in the smile that because of them, because of their vision, he was protected and saved: the future they dreamed of seemed just around the corner; they could almost touch it. Each saw an ideal town, clean, noble and beautiful, soaring up over the actual town they saw, which consisted in this area of sordid little shops and third-rate cafés. The ragged child was already a citizen of this ideal town, co-citizens with themselves; they watched him out of sight around the corner smiling: it was as if they had touched him with their hands in friendship.
Soon, the entrances of McGrath’s were again clogged with people, this time because it was sundown hour, and they knew that if they were to be in time to see William and Jackie off they should leave for the station. At the station the train for the South already stood waiting. Down the long platform stood groups of men in uniform, waiting.
When the two men arrived, it was in separate groups, one of officers and one of airmen. They stowed their belongings away in the train, and slipped away to join Martha and Jasmine in a compartment where it could not be seen that the natural divisions of wartime organization were being flouted. The four of them sat laughing together, while the two men, half-sardonic, debated where they wished to be sent, like tourists choosing a holiday place. William settled for India; Jackie for the Mediterranean. In the next compartment a group of aircraftsmen were chanting in a variety of British voices: Join the army and see the world.
The train whistle shrieked, but Martha and Jasmine, with a long experience of seeing trains off from platforms, did not move. They were both of them instinctively avoiding an emotional farewell.
