Four Gated City by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online Page A

the use!’
    ‘Very poor, are they? ’ he said quickly.
    ‘Very. But that isn’t the point.’
    He leaned back. ‘Well, aren’t we all, these days? ’
    ‘I should have said not.’
    ‘You weren’t here during the war, ’ he said emotionally.
    ‘I’ve learned that, after that, there’s nothing to be said.’
    ‘You must see, Martha, that it’s going to take time to get this poor old country on its feet again.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘God knows we’re poor-but what more do you people want? You’ve got your Labour Government in, they’re not my thing, far from it. I’m more of a Liberal I suppose, though I vote Tory, but they’re in, they’re doing a job-you’ve got your socialism. Of course there are people who think that five years of Labour Party has ruined this country. I’m not one of those, but there is no class left in this country. What do you want? ’
    ‘But, Henry-well, I really don’t know, how can you say-or believe … Henry, if those people I’ve been with-if they turned up here at this restaurant, they wouldn’t be admitted …’ He froze, attacked, undermined: here was precisely where he could not think or look, therefore it was in bad taste. ‘Not that they would turn up, of course, they know better. After all, I wouldn’t have beenadmitted, probably. They’d have said the place was full. It was only because I gave your name.’
    ‘If they did turn up, I for one’d be only too proud-the salt of the earth. We learned that in the war.’
    ‘Not to mention the other war.’
    There now was rolled towards them the sweets trolley. Henry chose for her and for him, a trifle, though it had another name. Throughout the restaurant, people were eating nursery puddings, under French names.
    ‘I really don’t know what it is you people want, ’ he said pettishly.
    ‘To have things called by their proper names, that’s all. Did you ever actually meet your Uncle Maynard? ’
    ‘No, well of course, he was rather the black sheep, so one gathers.’
    ‘Justice Maynard? Well, I’ve been remembering something he said to me. Ten years ago, more. He said that he couldn’t stick England because no one called a spade a spade. So now he administers law and order in the colonies, where one can. I’ve only just recently understood what he was talking about.’
    ‘Hypocrites, ’ said Henry quickly. ‘Of course, they’ve always called us that.’
    ‘No, no, if you were hypocrites that would be something. A hypocrite is somebody who maintains a virtuous position knowing it to be false. You all seem to me to be-you’re drugged, you’re hypnotized, you don’t seem to be able to see facts when they’re in front of you-you’re the victim of a lot of slogans.’
    Here the wine waiter offered the lady a sweet liqueur and Henry brandy. The lady insisted on asking for brandy. The wine waiter offered Henry a look of commiseration, so far had complicity grown between them. But Henry frowned at him and told him to bring brandy. Martha and the brandy changed the note or current: Henry was able to let slide away any chance there was of their meeting on at least the possibility of there being something in what she said: Martha, gay buccaneer, adventuress, warmed by wine, enabled him to wave over his partner. There arrived at the table John Higham, as charming and as handsome as he, his face presented towards Martha in a look almost transparently eager to taste this phenomenon, who was outside the rules of ordinary politeness—for he examined her openly, boldly: exactly as the dockers, before being made to know by Stella that she was, temporarily, one of their women, were able to call across a street: Hello, darling. She hadbeen outside their circle of humanity. Martha was outside john Higham’s. For a moment the two men sat, united, opposite Martha, eyeing her. It was ugly: behind them, the waiter, and behind him the headwaiter: very ugly. And again, she never would be able to explain why; they would