Free A Ripple From the Storm by Doris Lessing Page B

divorced?’
    ‘You mean, he won’t forgive me for not giving him the opportunity of looking noble in front of Mrs Talbot and Elaine – he’d get months of self-pity out of it.’
    ‘That degree of contempt is really not forgivable, you know,’ he commented at last, his voice ironically aggrieved as if it were he whom she accused.
    ‘Oh Lord, all I want is to be rid of the thing. I keep telling you …’ She stopped. After all, she had had no opportunity of telling him anything, and the you was collective, her old life which was in no way connected with what she was now.
    ‘Ah,’ said Mr Maynard, this time finally. He examined his fine handsome hand, back and front, for a few moments. ‘Well, your altitude seems to be clear, and I’ll take a suitable opportunity to convey your message to Mrs Talbot.’
    ‘I haven’t sent any message to Mrs Talbot.’
    ‘You can’t expect her to approve of you.’
    ‘I don’t see why not. Now she can have what she’s always wanted – that Elaine can marry Douglas. God knows why she wants it, but I always thought she did.’
    ‘Yes, I think you’re right, About this you’re very probably right.’ Martha turned her eyes on him, startled: the way he had said it applied a degree of knowledge – at the moment ironic – of Mrs Talbot that she had never suspected. He raised his eyes from a contemplation of his fingers, saw her look and said hastily: ‘Mrs Talbot and I are old friends.’
    She shrugged, impatient at the idea that he might imagine she was interested one way or the other.
    ‘Well,’ he said, annoyed at her shrug, ‘I shall never succeed in fathoming the complicated depths of your morality, but if you’re shocked, as you appear to be, then I can only say you are quite devoid of a sense of humour.’
    Again Martha shrugged. He examined her, noted she was pale, much thinner than he had ever seen her, and her mouth was set over unhappiness.
    ‘You miss your daughter?’ he inquired.
    ‘No,’ said Martha decisively, wincing.
    ‘Ah,’ he said, on a softer note. ‘Well, well. And you are going to marry that young man of yours?’
    ‘What young man? Oh, you mean William?’
    ‘I didn’t know there was another I might mean.’
    ‘He’s been posted. For taking part in politics,’ she added.
    ‘Quite right too.’
    ‘If people can die for politics I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to take an active part in them.’
    ‘How naïve. Is that the line of that rag there?’ He reached over for a limp copy of The Watchdog and regarded its exclamatory front page with raised black brows.
    ‘So crude,’ said Martha.
    ‘Quite. I prefer my left-wing propaganda put into decent English and appearing in unobtrusive paragraphs in the serious weeklies where only reactionaries like myself can see them. I like them to begin: “According to our correspondent it is believed that there might be a possibility …”’ He smiled at her, inviting her to smile back. She did not smile.
    ‘Why do you call it propaganda? And, anyway, it’s not meant for you.’ She took back the paper and folded it into the pile of others.
    ‘It’s not, I should have thought, for you either.’
    ‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
    ‘Come and have a drink at the Club?’
    ‘At the Club!’ she said derisively.
    ‘Then come and have a cup of tea at Greasy Dick’s.’
    ‘I’m late, I told you.’
    ‘Are you making many recruits among the working masses?’
    She grinned at him, for the first time, saying nothing.
    ‘Well, are you?’
    ‘I must go.’
    ‘No, wait a moment.’
    ‘Why, is there anything else?’
    ‘Actually there is. It’s about Binkie. You do, perhaps, remember my son?’
    ‘Well, of course.’
    ‘He has informed us that he intends to marry someone called Maisie. Do you know her?’
    ‘Don’t you? She was going around with Binkie for months.’
    ‘We were not aware of it. But it appears she is already twice a widow?’
    ‘Oh, so that RAF type got