DORIS LESSING
557
sat looking at a dead television set, as if it might suddenly grant in–
formation. He was much more disturbed than he felt he ought to be.
A few months later it was he who rang her.
"Jody? Sebastian."
"Hi, Sebastian," she said, deliberately ofThand, he was sure.
"I hope you don't mind," he said cautiously, "but I remembered
you rang me once."
"So I did."
"Well, it's like this. Henry asked me to ring you to say he has
gone off with Angela to see Connie in her school play. He tried to get
you and couldn't, and he can't see you this weekend." A silence .
"You see, he had forgotten about the play. Connie, you know-the
child."
A cautious stifled voice, which seemed to be trying out each
word, listening to it. "You mean, Henry,
my
loved one, asked
you,
his ex-wife's loved one, to ring
me
about
him
not seeing
me?"
"That's about it, yes."
A sound that could have been a sob, a curse, a prayer.
"Well," said he, "There you are."
"Excuse me, but how do you come to be in a position to be
passing on messages from Henry?"
"I was with Henry and Angela last night, as it happened."
"A threesome?"
"No, actually a foursome. My wife-well, my former wife, was
there too. Olga."
"Listen," she said, in a voice kept muted with an effort, "I think
that's all shit. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too. But what is?"
"Henry tells me I am a barbarian. That's what he says. I don't
go for all this sweetness and light. It's not natural. It's not healthy.
And it's
stupid.
There's nothing but pain in it for everyone."
"A point of view, I suppose."
"Oh
God,
if you only knew how I hate this humorous sterilizing
of everything. "
"Everything
real?"
"You said it. Right. Exactly so. Everything real."
"And you don't believe people should be friendly after a
divorce?"
"Once my divorce was through I said I never wanted to see him
again. And I haven't. My ex-husband. Marcus."
"Ab."
