DORIS LESSING
569
the holidays, she tried to have him when she could, but she worked,
she held down a very good and very demanding job in the publicity
department of a big firm.
It
was only once a year she could claim
Stephen for a real holiday together. She knew the child was growing
apart from her-had grown apart; she seemed increasingly exotic to
him, she knew. She wanted to take Stephen to Colorado where her
family ranched, for a long holiday, and she was sure Stephen wanted
this, but Stephen's father claimed this would seriously unsettle an
already disturbed boy. She was selfish, he ,said. She said he was
selfish. "We quarrel every time we meet." But added, "We don't ac–
tually meet, I don't want to set eyes on him again, ever. But we talk
on the telephone and we always end up shouting."
Angela listened gravely to all this, sometimes inclining her
head towards J ody as the wind tugged and tore at these messages of
discontent. "Thank God Henry and I have remained good friends,"
she shouted. "At least there's not that."
Soon they reached a pub, the goal of this walk and, it ap–
peared, of all their country walks. A squat white building self–
respectingly confronted the winds of the exposed hillside . Outside it,
on a flat flagstoned area stood half a dozen white painted tables and
some chairs, but these seemed about to slide away into fields and
scattered gorse bushes. On this chilly day only a few people were
outside, mostly those with children, exposed against a background of
churning trees, rapidly moving skies, and the shimmer of the racing
grasses. Inside the pub no concessions were being made to summer.
A darkish room was not too well-lit with red and yellowish wall
lights, and about thirty people stood or perched along the bar
counter. Into this scene Henry, Angela, and Sebastian fitted them–
selves, as if doing it for the thousandth time, and Jody was politely
welcomed. It was evident that everyone here knew these so frequent
visitors from London, and in no time they were being included in
the talk which, however, Jody could not follow, being gossip and in–
formation about local people, happenings and animals. This talk
was loud, confident, jokey, and-from the variety of accents-in–
cluded not one or two classes, but probably several: the voices of the
Londoners added notes to a diapason. Not for the first time the for–
eigner was being made to reflect that the famous class divisions of
this island were capable of easy resolution - as in this pub , for in–
stance, where a collection of people enjoying the ritual of pre–
Sunday lunch drinking in a darkish room that had something of the
aspects of a cave were united by the mellow light, which, as if
