The Four-Gated City

Which was why she protested when Margaret rang up to say she planned an election party: an election was due in a couple of weeks.

Martha said: ‘I don’t think Mark would feel up to it,’ and stopped herself from saying: ‘But don’t tell him I said so.’

‘I dare say,’ said Margaret, ‘but I do feel that we ought to try and behave normally, don’t you?’

Which left Martha to think it over that in this family behaving normally meant holding election parties, for it appeared that Margaret always had them. Then why didn’t she hold a party in her own home? As Mark demanded, angrily, when told of the plan. But Margaret felt it would be nicer to have it in London, where people could drop in and out on their way to and from election stations, voting stations, parties at hotels, etc. etc. But this was not the real reason. She had bought a television set, a new toy, and it was not working well in Sussex, unfortunately. She proposed to watch the election on television in Mark’s house.

This was to be the first real television election.

Margaret arrived with the set and an engineer to install it. Mark was in Cambridge.

Martha stayed in her room, listening to Margaret’s loud and capable voice giving instructions to the engineer. Then she watched the man depart along the pavement below her window. She braced herself, for she knew what was going to happen.

There were steps on the stairs – firm steps. Then a knock on the door – a confident knock. In came Margaret, smiling. The trouble was, Martha rather liked her, once she had got past that enemy: the capable middle-aged matron coping with everything by sheer force of long experience.

‘Oh, how hard it is to be a middle-aged woman, who has to stand in for everyone’s difficult mother, and who has to take – and return – looks from younger women examining their futures, exactly as one used to do oneself, and who are thinking, what a short time I’ve got left. Oh how tiresome – and how tiring! – to be the target for such complicated emotions, none of which has anything to do with oneself.

Margaret sat on the foot of the bed before remembering that she ought to ask Martha if she could. Remembering too late, she decided to say nothing. But she looked defiant as she stroked the old cat. ‘Poor old Starkie,’ she said. ‘Well, you look pleased with yourself. Really, you are a spoiled beast.’

Martha had sat herself on a chair across the room.

‘Where’s Mark?’ demanded Margaret.

‘He’s in Cambridge.’

‘He always did this you know – he gets himself involved.’ She was talking as if Colin, her son, were less than a son than Mark?

Continuing, she said: ‘After all, if Colin is going to insist on being silly, then he shouldn’t expect one to – why should he stand up for that man? What’s-his-name? He was only working with him wasn’t he?’ Here she waited to see if Martha could tell her anything. Martha couldn’t. ‘And, of course, Mark has to get on a high horse over it. He always did. Mark’s stubborn. So’s Colin. In different ways. And, of course, there’s Arthur – he’s not likely to be a spy for Russia, that’s something, when he hates them so much. So one is thankful for small mercies.’

Margaret had once been a fine-boned graceful English beauty like Lynda. She was now a tall, handsome, grey-eyed woman with elegant hands. Martha watched the subtlety of the hands as they caressed the cat. The cat started to purr loudly. Margaret picked the animal up and put her ear to it, like a child, to listen to the purring. But the cat didn’t like being picked up, and stopped purring.

‘What do you feel about Mark?’ demanded Margaret.

And now Martha could not help laughing – out of annoyance, really. Also, she supposed, from affection. Margaret smiled a strained readiness to be told why Martha laughed. She put the cat down, who rolled over and began purring. Margaret stroked the cat. She had tears in her eyes.

The tears were very weakening. ‘Listen. Margaret. There’s just one thing that none of you seem able to see. Mark loves Lynda. I do understand why you all – but there it is.’

‘But it’s ridiculous. It always has been. And before Lynda there was an American, a cousin of Oscar’s. Hopeless – a hopeless girl. And she cared nothing about Mark, and he ran around after her like a little dog.’

‘Well, haven’t you ever loved anyone ridiculous and hopeless?’

The cat had moved off, and sat licking its ruffled fur to rights.

The grey look Martha now got from Margaret held irritation. Martha recognized it easily as that emotion one feels when another hasn’t seen that truth obvious to oneself.

‘Yes, I have. I was in love with Oscar. I adored him. But one has to live, you know – one has to. I do know. I could have stayed married to Oscar. But I don’t like – suffering, I suppose. I hate it. Some people enjoy being treated badly. I wasn’t Oscar’s first wife and I won’t be his last – by a long chalk. I’m told the woman he’s going to marry is getting the treatment. Just as I did. Look, Martha dear – I really must – haven’t you any influence at all with Mark?’

The tears poured out, and, as Martha could see, were unchecked because Margaret had noticed Martha was influenced by tears. Martha was now very angry. Months of resentment came pouring out.

‘I know you are much older than me, and ever so experienced, and you’ve always been able to do exactly as you like. But you seem to me like a little girl. You can’t always have your own way. You always have had it, haven’t you? You can’t stop people doing things just because you think it’s no good for them.’

Margaret stared at Martha, not so much surprised, as wary. Then she turned away her wet face and dabbed at it. Martha looked at a reassuring calm back. Martha had even more strongly the feeling that she was an instrument being played upon. When that face was turned to her again, what look would be placed upon it?

No, she was being unfair. Probably Margaret was acting out of instinct – if that made it any better!

Once again, Martha was sitting in the presence of a strong elderly woman, herself a seethe of conflicting emotions, which she could not control. Some time she was going to have to learn to control them.

Margaret turned to her a quiet sobered face.

‘I don’t agree with you,’ she said. ‘If someone’s doing something that’s simply silly, you try and stop them. I wish you’d try and stop Mark. He ought to leave the country for a bit. He could take Francis. He might fall in love with someone that’s some use.’

Martha laughed with resentment. ‘You can’t see that he could never do it? It’s not the kind of thing he could do?’

‘No. I wish you’d try.’

‘No. I’ve got no right – one hasn’t. Not unless you get right into something and – get your hands dirty too. Only if you fight.’

‘And you won’t?’

‘Why should I? It’s not my mess!’

‘You want to get married again I suppose?’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake!’ Martha was becoming incoherent. ‘I don’t want to get married for the sake of it! You talk like a – fortune-teller or something.’

‘Oh! I don’t see why? Why not, if that’s what you want?’

‘Well one doesn’t say, I want to get married and then go out looking – isn’t that what you meant?’

Margaret was almost smiling: she was humouring Martha.

Who now stood up, confronting Margaret. Who stood up, ready to leave. The women were furious with each other.

‘If Mark divorced Lynda, it wouldn’t make any difference. He’d either go pining after Lynda, or he’d be in love with someone else ridiculous and hopeless. Or you’d think she was. Can’t you see that?’

‘Well no,’ drawled Margaret. ‘Frankly, I don’t. But I must bow to your superior wisdom.’

At the door she said: ‘The man’s got the television to work. It’ll be rather fun, watching it on television.’ She laughed, and apparently genuinely. She was looking forward to the evening. ‘In the old days, when I had an election party I had to be careful to keep the left and the right apart – now it’s the left and the left. I suppose Colin wouldn’t come – he can’t, with the case just starting?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Oh well, if you just lump people into a room, they’ll have to behave. But I must say, if Colin’s coming, then it will be tricky with Phoebe and Arthur and Arthur’s wife. I really can’t imagine why they hate the bolshies so much when they’ve got precisely the same aims. If they had their way, this country’d be as bad as Russia – it’s not so far off as it is.’

With this, she went downstairs again, to arrange drinks and food for her party.

By evening the big room, which Martha had only seen as dead and shrouded in enveloping dust-sheets, was full of flowers, and it had a buffet at one end, the television set at the other. Now it presented itself, discreetly festive, as a setting for parties. People started coming early, the attraction being the television set, as much as the election. Most had not got one, or refused to get one, or might get one if this seemed satisfactory. The set was, in short, the focus of the party, almost its chief guest. Margaret was the only person who adored it. Most people seemed apprehensive: in fact one could more or less work out someone’s political bias from the attitude he took towards television.

By ten or so there must have been fifty people in the room in an atmosphere rather like a sweepstake, or the races; and although outside this room, which imposed a truce, they stood for violent antagonisms. Bets were being made, victories and defeats were cheered or booed, everything went on in the greatest good humour.