LITMIR.BIZ

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free from the necessity of being gay. But once or twice, at meetings, when conversation and intimate whispers really were not possible, Martha had observed that this woman tended to stare in front of her, her mouth fallen open a little, her eyes fixed. As for Anton, he would regard the Austrian with a small smile which was tender, indulgent, fatherly; but Martha felt that this protective smile was for the arch little girl, and not for the haunted woman who was a refugee from Europe like himself. It was precisely this intuition that enabled her to think of discussing her deficiencies with him.

      They had arranged to meet at six before the decisive meeting. On that afternoon Martha was busy delivering bundles of The Watchdog, the communist paper from down South, to various cafés and restaurants and stores which had agreed to sell it. Jasmine, who had been selling twelve copies of it for years, had handed over the organization to Martha, clearly feeling that she would do better to keep it in her own hands. Martha now sold fifty dozen. The glories of Stalingrad had created inexhaustible stores of goodwill and tolerance towards the inflammatory doctrines of The Watchdog in the bosoms of a couple of dozen penny-splitting shopkeepers. Martha had only to enter one of the Greek or Jewish cafés, or Indian stores with a bundle of Watchdogs whose headline was likely to be: Red Army Recaptures Rostov or The Heroic Defence of Kharkov, to find the proprietor smilingly agreeable at the idea of selling them for her. On this afternoon she set off on her bicycle as usual for the lower part of the town, going from one store to another. They were crowded with Africans. Their doorways were hung with bicycle frames and garlands of tyres, ropes of beads, garlic and lengths of bright cheap cotton. Each had a portable gramophone set on the pavement outside it, and the thin tinny jazz vibrated among the sunwaves which oiled and shimmered over the pavements and mingled with hot heady sweaty sun-fermented smells of the lower town. Sometimes a black man danced beside the gramophone, patting and feeling the pavement with his great cat’s feet, rolling his shoulders and his eyes and hips in a huge goodnature of enjoyment, while his eyes swivelled among the groups of passers-by, men and women, inviting them to join in, or at least to share his pleasure. Or he would look sombrely before him, nostalgic, Martha was convinced, for the veld. For she could never enter the lower town without being attacked by longing for the veld, and for her childhood. In each store she lingered a while at the counter among the bales of cottons and the jars of poisonous-bright sweets, sniffing in the smells of strong cheap dyes and sweat and soap, talking to the soft-faced smiling young Indian assistants, some of whom came regularly now to the Progressive Club meetings. Finally, her handbag heavy with small change, she directed her bicycle back towards the respectable part of the town, and with reluctance. On this afternoon it was nearly six when she had finished, and she was cycling past the station when she saw Mr Maynard at the wheel of a car parked outside the Magistrates’ Court. Beside him sat Mrs Talbot. Mrs Talbot was now cutting Martha; or rather, when her beautiful grey eyes happened to encounter hers – one felt always by accident – they assumed an expression of stunned grief, and lowered themselves, while her face put on a look of sullen withdrawal. She was wearing a grey silk suit, and there was a bunch of dark violets at her throat, and her pale face glimmered through a mist of dark pink gauze which emanated from some point towards the top of her head, where there were more violets. Clearly she had been one of the assistants at a wedding where Mr Maynard had been officiating. The wedding guests, stiff in dark suits from which sunburned hands and faces incongruously protruded, or in floral silk dresses and unaccustomed gloves and hats, were still dispersing along shabby confetti-dappled pavements. Mrs Talbot must have climbed into the car, Martha felt, as fast as she could, to save the scene embarrassment because of her incongruity in being part of it. Now she had one agitated hand on Mr Maynard’s dark-clothed arm, and he was leaning forward, his heavy, dark-jowled face above hers. ‘She’s asking advice about investments again,’ Martha decided; for she had observed that Mrs Talbot was never so helplessly feminine as when doing this. She passed the car in such a way that Mrs Talbot would not have the irritation of having pointedly to ignore her existence; but Mr Maynard’s melancholy bloodhound’s eyes rolled towards her and he said through the open window: ‘Wait for me, I want a word with you, young woman.’ Martha nodded, annoyed because of the ‘young woman’, but aware it was for the benefit of Mrs Talbot who – she perfectly understood the justice of this – would always exact from other people temporary fallings-off from their usual standards of behaviour. Martha wheeled the bicycle along the edge of the pavement and waited until Mr Maynard came level with her and said, with nothing of the ‘young woman’ in his tone: ‘Can you rest that machine a minute? I want to talk to you.’ Martha put the bicycle against the wall, and climbed into the car beside him, her arms full of Watchdogs.

      Mr Maynard sat frowning. He was annoyed, but not with her. ‘What’s this I hear,’ he said at last, ‘about you refusing to give young Knowell a divorce?’

      ‘I can’t imagine.’

      ‘It did not strike me as likely, I admit.’

      ‘I’ve got to be somewhere at six,’ said Martha.

      ‘I took it for granted you would have to be somewhere – you always have. But it’s already past six, and you might as well make your apologies for a worthwhile lapse in punctuality.’

      Martha thought of Anton waiting for her, fidgeted, and sat still.

      ‘It has been put to me,’ said Mr Maynard, abrupt because of his dislike at having to say any of this, ‘that you have allowed it to be understood that if young Knowell starts divorce proceedings against you you will start counter-proceedings against him on the grounds of adultery.’

      Martha was half-numbed with anger and distaste. She said: ‘In other words, Mrs Talbot is frightened that her precious Elaine might be cited as co-respondent and has asked you to plead with me.’

      ‘You could put it like that.’ She turned her face away from him, fiddling with the door-handle as if about to jump out of the car. At the look of angry repulsion on her face he said quickly, laughing: ‘Any intelligent person knows that when two people get divorced, even if they are normally the most delightful and veracious couple in the world, not a word either of them says is to be believed.’

      ‘In that case, I don’t know why you bother to ask me questions.’ She opened the door and was about to leave him.

      ‘No, do wait a moment. Do wait.’ He, in his turn, had coloured: the handsome, heavy face was suffused with blood. He passed his hand over his eyes, which were closed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been put in a false position. I don’t know why I agreed to talk to you at all – but I suppose I must. Take me as an emissary. Just tell me, there’s a good girl, and let’s get it over with.’

      ‘All this business makes me sick,’ said Martha. ‘I don’t know why it has to be so – disgusting. I saw Douglas a few days ago, and he said he would divorce me for desertion and I agreed. Why shouldn’t I agree? I’m not going to get mixed up in all this.’

      ‘Mixed up? But aren’t you?’

      ‘No, I’m not.’ At his ironical expression she went on: ‘If they want to make something ugly of it it’s their affair.’

      ‘Not yours?’

      ‘No. If Douglas tells Mrs Talbot I’m making a fuss it’s not because he wants an excuse not to marry Elaine, I’m sure he does …’

      ‘Why? I’m not sure at all.’

      ‘Obviously. The sooner he marries someone else the sooner his pride will be soothed, won’t it? Obviously he’ll marry someone or other before the year’s out – and there’s Elaine all conveniently on hand. He’ll marry the day after the decree’s absolute, just to show everyone.’

      ‘You mean, to show you?’

      ‘Me? said Martha, genuinely surprised. ‘Why me? He doesn’t care about me. He cares what people will say, that’s all.’

      ‘Ah,’ commented Mr Maynard.

      ‘And if Mrs Talbot knew anything about Douglas she’d know he’s only saying I won’t divorce him so that she and Elaine can feel terribly sorry for him, that’s all.’

      ‘I

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