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Mrs Fortescue
499
tucked into a white fichu over which it stared at the opposite wall
where an eighteenth-century girl held a white rose to her lips. Fred
pushed Mrs Fortescue over dark-red carpet, till her knees met the
bed. He lifted her, dropped her on it, neatly moving the doll aside
with one hand before she could crush it.
She lay, eyes closed, limp, breathing fast, her mouth slightly
open. The black furrows beside the mouth were crooked; the eye-
lids shone blue in wells of black.
'Turn the lights out,' she tittered.
He turned out the pink-shaded lamp fixed to the headboard. She
fumbled at her clothes. He stripped off his trousers, his underpants,
pushed her hands aside, found silk in the opening of the gown that
glowed cherry-red in the light from the next room. He stripped the
silk pants off her so that her legs flew up, then flumped down. She
was inert, he fumbled. Then her expertise revived in her, or at least
in her tired hands, and he achieved the goal of his hot imaginings
of these ugly autumn nights in one shattering spasm that filled him
with no less disgust. Her old body stirred feebly under him, and he
heard her irregular breathing. He sprang off her in a leap, tugged
back pants, trousers. Then he switched on the light. She lay, eyes
closed, her face blurred with woe, the upper part of her body
nestled into the soft glossy cherry stuff, the white legs spread open,
bare. She made an attempt to rouse herself, cover herself. He leaned
over her, teeth bared in a hating grin, forcing her hands away from
her body. They fell limp on the stained silk spread. Now he stripped
off the gown, roughly, as if she were the doll. She whimpered, she
tittered, she protested. He watched, with pleasure, tears welling out
of the pits of dark and trickling crookedly down her face. She lay
naked among the folds of cherry-colour. He looked at the greyish
crinkles around the armpits, the small flat breasts, the loose stom-
ach; then down, at the triangle of black hair where white hairs
sprouted, obscene. She was attempting to fold her legs over each
other. He forced them apart again, muttering: Look at yourself,
look at yourself then . . . while he held his nausea, deepened by the
miasmic smell which he had known was the air of this room.
'Filthy old whore, disgusting, that's what you are, disgusting. . . .'
He let his grasp slacken on her thighs, saw red marks come up even
as the legs flew together and she wriggled and burrowed to get
under the cherry-red gown.
Then she opened her eyes and looked straight up at him. For the
500
- Doris Lessing
first time this evening she looked at him, straight in the eyes. He
fell back a step, looking away from her, hearing his own breath
coming in gasps of disgust.
She sat up, holding the gown around her — cherry-coloured
gown, pink coverlet, pink walls, pink pink pink everywhere and
the dark-red carpet: he felt as if the whole room flamed with dis-
gust.
'That wasn't very nice, was it?' she said, quavering, but re-
proachful. Her voice broke in a titter, but she brought her lips to-
gether at last and said again: 'That wasn't at all nice, Fred, it wasn't
nice at all.' Without looking at him, she let her feet down (he could
see them trembling) over the edge of the bed, and she peered over
to fit them into pink-feathered mules.
He noted that he had a need to
help
her fit her pathetic feet into
the fancy mules; and with a muttered exclamation of horror, fear
and shame, he fled out, down the stairs, into his box, where he
flung himself face down on the bed. Through the ceiling-board an
inch from his ear he heard his sister move. She had been waiting
for him.
She said, low, so the parents couldn't hear, all the flip jauntiness
of her voice gone, breathless with accusation and hurt: 'Very clever,
I
don't
think . . . very clever.' She waited, but he did not answer. 'I
know you're there, don't pretend.' He kept silent, waiting for her
to tire, if I was as clever as you I'd go and drown myself, when I
saw that gun on my pillow I thought I'd faint, I suppose you think
you're just too clever to live. . . .' He waited until she got tired, and
he heard her turn over and away from him. Then he put the back
of his hand against his clenched teeth, and pulled the pillow down
over his head so that no one could hear him.
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