Read Online The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing - Free Book Online
Authors: Doris Lessing
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oiling the wheels—had nothing to do with it? She had supplied to that committee the same quality as Kate did for its organisation and peripheral problems.
If she, Kate Brown, were to become a permanent employee of this organisation, what would her real function be? Well of course, for one thing, she would spend inordinate amounts of time talking to Charlie Cooper and drinkingcoffee with him, and in conference with men talking about how to organise this or that. Working.
If she did stay, then it was likely she would soon inherit Charlie’s job, while he, as seemed to be the law, would be promoted upwards. She would fit his job; but he, higher, probably would be uncomfortable, at a loss, feel out of place, but never know why this was so.
What he was good at was to be the supplier of some kind of invisible fluid, or emanation, like a queen termite, whose spirit (or some such word—electricity) filled the nest, making a whole of individuals who could have no other connection.
This is what women did in families—it was Kate’s role in life. And she had performed this function, together with the beautiful young woman from Africa, for the committee that was now over. She was going to fill the role again in Turkey. It was a habit she had got into. She was beginning to see that she could accept a job in this organisation, or another like it, for no other reason than that she was unable to switch herself out of the role of provider of invisible manna, consolation, warmth, “sympathy.” Not because she needed a job, or wanted to do one. She had been set like a machine by twenty-odd years of being a wife and a mother.
In a corner of a restless noisy room sat a collected figure, female, holding in well-tended but overcompetent hands that day’s newspaper, her eyes lowered, her shoulders rather hunched: they were set to withstand the sort of cold a living animal must feel if its skin is ripped off, or the cold a new lamb feels emerging from the wet warmth of a belly, dropping onto frozen ground in a sleety wind.
It would be easy to hold the cold wind off, of course: she could do it indefinitely. It would be easy for years yet. All she had to do was to say to her family—news that theywould greet, she knew, with relief—that she had decided to take a job. And then find the right kind of job. Here, probably, why not? What could be more useful than to work for Global Food? Then she would nourish and nurture in herself that person which was all warmth and charm, that personality which had nothing to do with her, nothing with what she really was, the individual who sat and watched and noted from behind the warm brown eyes, the cared-for skin, the heavy curves of her dark-red hair.
But for three weeks, a month, she would be far too busy to think of these things: she would be caring for others. And by this time tomorrow—so she reflected on the eve of her departure to Istanbul—what she was feeling and thinking now, the results of three days’ carefully guarded solitude, would seem pretty remote. The best she could do there, very likely, would be to remember that she
had
come to these conclusions, essential ones, and hold on to them. Even if she was not able to remember this for more than a snatched few minutes in every overfull day.
That night the dream came into her sleep again—the continuation of the dream about the seal. Now, because it had appeared twice, it was announcing its importance to her. She had half-forgotten the first instalment; now she must remember it … so she was worrying, even while the second part unfolded.
The seal was heavy, and slippery. It was hard to keep it in her arms. She was staggering among the sharp rocks. Where was the water, where was the sea? How could she be sure of going in the right direction? Panic that this was not the right direction made her swerve off to the right along a level place on the hillside, and she went on for a while, but the seal began to make restless movements,
If she, Kate Brown, were to become a permanent employee of this organisation, what would her real function be? Well of course, for one thing, she would spend inordinate amounts of time talking to Charlie Cooper and drinkingcoffee with him, and in conference with men talking about how to organise this or that. Working.
If she did stay, then it was likely she would soon inherit Charlie’s job, while he, as seemed to be the law, would be promoted upwards. She would fit his job; but he, higher, probably would be uncomfortable, at a loss, feel out of place, but never know why this was so.
What he was good at was to be the supplier of some kind of invisible fluid, or emanation, like a queen termite, whose spirit (or some such word—electricity) filled the nest, making a whole of individuals who could have no other connection.
This is what women did in families—it was Kate’s role in life. And she had performed this function, together with the beautiful young woman from Africa, for the committee that was now over. She was going to fill the role again in Turkey. It was a habit she had got into. She was beginning to see that she could accept a job in this organisation, or another like it, for no other reason than that she was unable to switch herself out of the role of provider of invisible manna, consolation, warmth, “sympathy.” Not because she needed a job, or wanted to do one. She had been set like a machine by twenty-odd years of being a wife and a mother.
In a corner of a restless noisy room sat a collected figure, female, holding in well-tended but overcompetent hands that day’s newspaper, her eyes lowered, her shoulders rather hunched: they were set to withstand the sort of cold a living animal must feel if its skin is ripped off, or the cold a new lamb feels emerging from the wet warmth of a belly, dropping onto frozen ground in a sleety wind.
It would be easy to hold the cold wind off, of course: she could do it indefinitely. It would be easy for years yet. All she had to do was to say to her family—news that theywould greet, she knew, with relief—that she had decided to take a job. And then find the right kind of job. Here, probably, why not? What could be more useful than to work for Global Food? Then she would nourish and nurture in herself that person which was all warmth and charm, that personality which had nothing to do with her, nothing with what she really was, the individual who sat and watched and noted from behind the warm brown eyes, the cared-for skin, the heavy curves of her dark-red hair.
But for three weeks, a month, she would be far too busy to think of these things: she would be caring for others. And by this time tomorrow—so she reflected on the eve of her departure to Istanbul—what she was feeling and thinking now, the results of three days’ carefully guarded solitude, would seem pretty remote. The best she could do there, very likely, would be to remember that she
had
come to these conclusions, essential ones, and hold on to them. Even if she was not able to remember this for more than a snatched few minutes in every overfull day.
That night the dream came into her sleep again—the continuation of the dream about the seal. Now, because it had appeared twice, it was announcing its importance to her. She had half-forgotten the first instalment; now she must remember it … so she was worrying, even while the second part unfolded.
The seal was heavy, and slippery. It was hard to keep it in her arms. She was staggering among the sharp rocks. Where was the water, where was the sea? How could she be sure of going in the right direction? Panic that this was not the right direction made her swerve off to the right along a level place on the hillside, and she went on for a while, but the seal began to make restless movements,
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