and she could not really ask him to tell lies on her behalf, apart from his being bound to think it meant a lover.
Suppose she really took a part-time job, which she could get through fast and efficiently, leaving time for herself. What job? Addressing envelopes? Canvassing?
And there was Mrs Parkes, working widow, who knew exactly what she was prepared to give to the house, who knew by instinct when her mistress withdrew in spirit from her responsibilities. Mrs Parkes was one of the servers of this world, but she needed someone to serve. She had to have Mrs Rawlings, her madam, at the top of the house or in the garden, so that she could come and get support from her: 'Yes, the bread's not what it was when I was a girl. . . . Yes, Harry's got a wonderful appetite, I wonder where he puts it all. . . . Yes, it's lucky the twins are so much of a size, they can wear each other's shoes, that's a saving in these hard times. . . . Yes, the cherry jam from Switzerland is not a patch on the jam from Poland, and three times the price. . . .' And so on. That sort of talk Mrs Parkes must have, every day, or she would leave, not knowing herself why she left.
Susan Rawlings, thinking these thoughts, found that she was prowling through the great thicketed garden like a wild cat: she was walking up the stairs, down the stairs, through the rooms, into the garden, along the brown running river, back, up through the house, down again. .. . It was a wonder Mrs Parkes did not think it strange. But on the contrary, Mrs Rawlings could do what she liked, she could stand on her head if she wanted, provided she was there. Susan Rawlings prowled and muttered through her house, hating Mrs Parkes, hating poor Miss Townsend, dreaming of her hour of solitude in the dingy respectability of Miss Townsend's hotel bedroom, and she knew quite well she was mad. Yes, she was mad.
She said to Matthew that she must have a holiday. Matthew agreed with her. This was not as things had been once?how they had talked in each other's arms in the marriage bed. He had, she knew, diagnosed her finally as unreasonable. She had become someone outside himself that he had to manage. They were living side by side in this house like two tolerably friendly strangers.
Having told Mrs Parkes, or rather, asked for her permission, she went off
.
2556 / DORIS LESSING
on a walking holiday in Wales. She chose the remotest place she knew of. Every morning the children telephoned her before they went off to school, to encourage and support her, just as they had over Mother's Room. Every evening she telephoned them, spoke to each child in turn, and then to Matthew. Mrs Parkes, given permission to telephone for instructions or advice, did so every day at lunchtime. When, as happened three times, Mrs Rawlings was out on the mountainside, Mrs Parkes asked that she should ring back at such and such a time, for she would not be happy in what she was doing without Mrs Rawlings' blessing.
Susan prowled over wild country with the telephone wire holding her to her duty like a leash. The next time she must telephone, or wait to be telephoned, nailed her to her cross. The mountains themselves seemed trammelled by her unfreedom. Everywhere on the mountains, where she met no one at all, from breakfast time to dusk, excepting sheep, or a shepherd, she came face to face with her own craziness which might attack her in the broadest valleys, so that they seemed too small; or on a mountaintop from which she could see a hundred other mountains and valleys, so that they seemed too low, too small, with the sky pressing down too close. She would stand gazing at a hillside brilliant with ferns and bracken, jewelled with running water, and see nothing but her devil, who lifted inhuman eyes at her from where he leaned negligently on a rock, switching at his ugly yellow boots with a leafy twig.
She returned to her home and family, with the Welsh emptiness at the back of her mind like a promise of freedom.
She told her husband she wanted to have an an pair girl.3
They were in their bedroom, it was late at night, the children slept. He sat, shirted and slippered, in a chair by the window, looking out. She sat brushing her hair and watching him in the mirror. A time-hallowed scene in the connubial bedroom. He said nothing, while she heard the arguments coming into his mind, only to be rejected because every one was reasonable.
'It seems strange to get one now, after all, the children are in school most of the day. Surely the time for you to have help was when you were stuck with them day and night. Why don't you ask Mrs Parkes to cook for you? She's even offered to?I can understand if you are tired of cooking for six people. But you know that an au pair girl means all kinds of problems, it's not like having an ordinary char4 in during the day. . . .'
Finally he said carefully: 'Are you thinking of going back to work?'
'No,' she said, 'no, not really,' She made herself sound vague, rather stupid.
She went on brushing her black hair and peering at herself so as to be oblivious
of the short uneasy glances her Matthew kept giving her. 'Do you think we
can't afford it?' she went on vaguely, not at all the old efficient Susan who
knew exactly what they could afford.
'It's not that,' he said, looking out of the window at dark trees, so as not to
look at her. Meanwhile she examined a round, candid, pleasant face with clear
dark brows and clear grey eyes. A sensible face. She brushed thick healthy
black hair and thought: Yet that's the reflection of a madwoman. How very
strange! Much more to the point if what looked back at me was the gingery
green-eyed demon with his dry meagre smile. . . . Why wasn't Matthew agree
ing? After all, what else could he do? She was breaking her part of the bargain
3. Live-in foreigner who serves a family in 4. Charwoman. exchange for learning its language.
.
To ROOM NINETEEN / 2557
and there was no way of forcing her to keep it: that her spirit, her soul, should live in this house, so that the people in it could grow like plants in water, and Mrs Parkes remain content in their service. In return for this, he
