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Fortescue
493
now understood that this sound, water running into and then out
of a basin, was something he had heard at this hour all his life. He
sat listening with the ashamed, fixed grin on his face. Then his sis-
ter came in; he could hear her sharp sigh of relief as she flumped
on the bed and bent over to take off her shoes. He nearly called out
'Good-night, Jane', but thought better of it. Yet all through the
summer they had whispered and giggled through the partition.
Mr Spencer, her regular, came up the stairs. He heard their voices
together; listened to them as he undressed and went to bed; as he
lay wakeful; as he at last went off to sleep, feeling savage with
loneliness.
Next evening he waited until Mrs Fortescue went out, and fol-
lowed her, careful she didn't see him. She walked fast and effi-
ciently, like a woman on her way to the office, not looking at
people. Why then the fur coat, the veil, the make-up? Of course, it
was habit, because of all the years on the pavement; for it was a
sure thing she didn't wear that outfit to receive customers in her
place. But it turned out that he was wrong. Along the last hundred
yards before her door, she slowed her pace, took a couple of quick
glances left and right for the police, then looked at a large elderly
man coming towards her. This man swung around, joined her, and
they went side by side into her doorway, the whole operation so
quick, so smooth, that even if there had been a policeman all he
could have seen was a woman meeting someone she had expected
to meet.
Fred then went home. Jane was dressing for the evening. He fol-
lowed her too. She walked fast, not looking at people, her smart
new coat flaring jade, emerald, dark green, as she moved through
varying depths of light, her black puffy hair gleaming. She went
into the underground. He followed her down the escalators, and
on to the platform, at not much more than arm's distance, but quite
safe because of her self-absorption. She stood on the edge of the
platform, staring across the rails at a big advertisement. It was a
very large dark-brown gleaming revolver holster, with a revolver in
it, attached to a belt for bullets; but instead of bullets each loop
had a lipstick, in all the pink-orange-scarlet-crimson shades it was
possible to imagine lipstick in. Fred stood just behind his sister, and
examined her sharp little face examining the advertisement and
choosing which lipstick she would buy. She smiled - nothing like
the appealing shamefaced smile that was stuck, for ever it seemed,
494
Doris Lessing
on Fred's face, but a calm, triumphant smile. The train came
streaming in, obscuring the advertisement. The doors slid open,
receiving his sister, who did not look around. He stood close
against the window, looking at her calm little face, willing her to
look at him. But the train rushed her off again, and she would
never know he had been there.
He went home, the ferment of his craziness breaking through his
lips in an incredulous raw mutter: a revolver, a bloody revolver
. . . his parents were at supper, taking in food, swilling in tea, like
pigs, pigs, pigs, he thought, shovelling down his own supper to be
rid of it. Then he said: 'I left a book in the shop, Dad, I want to get
it,' and went down dark stairs through the sickly rising fumes. In a
drawer under the till was a revolver which had been there for years,
against the day when burglars broke in and Mr (or Mrs) Danderlea
frightened them off with it. Many of Fred's dreams had been spun
around that weapon. But it was broken somewhere in its black-
gleaming interior. He carefully hid it under his sweater, and went
up, to knock on his parents' door. They were already in bed, a large
double bed at which, because of this hideous world he was now a
citizen of, he was afraid to look. Two old people, with sagging faces
and bulging mottled fleshy shoulders lay side by side, looking at
him. 'I want to leave something for Jane,' he said, turning his gaze
away from them. He laid the revolver on Jane's pillow, arranging
half a dozen lipsticks of various colours as if they were bullets com-
ing out of it. His parents' bedroom was in darkness. His father was
snoring and his mother did not answer his good-night.
He went back to the shop. Under the counter stood the bottle of
Black and White beside the glass stained sour with his father's tip-
pling. He made sure the bottle was still half-full before turning the
lights out and settling down to wait. Not for long. When he heard
the key in the lock he set the door open wide so Mrs Fortescue
must see him.
'Why, Fred, whatever are you doing?'
i noticed Dad left the light on, so I came down.' Frowning with
efficiency, he looked for a place to put the whisky bottle, while he
rinsed the dirtied glass. Then casual, struck by a thought, he of-
fered: 'Like a drink, Mrs Fortescue?' In the dim light she focussed,
with difficulty, on the bottle. 'I never touch the stuff, dear. . . .'
Bending his face down past hers, to adjust a wine bottle, he caught
the liquor on her breath, and understood the vagueness of her
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