LESSING
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Once, when Ben had gone with Mary to the village to carry groceries
back, he was stopped by a man who said to him, "You're with the
Grindlys, they say. Are they doing right by you?"
"What do you want?" asked Ben.
"What are they paying you? Not much if I know the Grindlys. I'll
make it worth your while to come to me. I'm Tom Wandsworth..."–
he repeated the name, and then again, " ...and anyone around here will
tell you how to get to my farm. Think about it."
"What did he say?" Mary asked, and Ben told her.
Ben had never been given a pay-book, and terms and conditions of
work had not been mentioned. Mary had given him a couple of quid
when they went to the village so he could buy toothpaste, that kind of
thing. She was impressed that he cared about his personal cleanliness,
and liked his clothes neat.
Now she said, "I'm keeping your wages for you, Ben. You know
that."
How could he know? This was the first time he had heard about it.
Mary believed that he was stupid, like her brothers, but now saw trou–
ble loom.
"You don't want to leave us, Ben," she said. "You'd not do better
with anyone else. I've got a good little bit of money put aside for you.
You can have it any time."
She pointed to a high-up drawer in her room. Then she fetched a
chair, made him stand on it, and held the back steady. There were rolls
of notes in the drawer. To Ben it seemed more money than he had imag–
ined possible.
"Is that mine?" he asked.
"Half of it is yours," said Mary.
And when he had gone out of the room, she hid it somewhere else.
It
was Mary he did not want to leave, though he was fond of a cow
and enjoyed the antics of the pigs. He thought Mary was good to him.
She mended his clothes, bought him a new thick jersey for the winter,
and gave him plenty of meat to eat. She was never cross with him, as
she was with her brothers.
He had a life the others did not guess at. They all went to bed early,
with nothing to occupy their minds, and no television: Ted was usu–
ally drunk and snoring by nine or ten, and Mary listened to the news
on the radio, and went to her room afterwards. Ben slid out over the
sill of his window when the house was quiet, and went about the fields
and woods, alone and free-himself. He would catch and eat little ani–
mals, or a bird. He crouched behind a bush for hours to watch fox
