LESSING
359
finding it: he did not have in his mind a pattern of streets, smells, bushes,
gates. What now? A desperation like a howl made his chest hurt, and
then he thought, "Wait, the park, that's where she'll be." And he went to
the little park where he had played so often with his brothers and sisters.
Or rather, where he had watched them play, because they complained he
was rough. When he played it had been by himself, or with his mother.
There was a bench he knew well. His mother loved that park, and
that bench, and she would sometimes sit there all afternoon. But the
bench was empty. Ben understood one thing, that if he walked about a
place for too long people would start noticing him. He did walk about
for as long as he dared, glancing into people's faces for "the look," and
then sat on a bench from where he could see
the
bench, which he
thought of as his mother's. He waited. He was hungry again. He left the
park to find the little cafe he had used with his gang of mates, the gang
he had bossed and led, but the cafe had gone. He bought a meat sand–
wich from a machine, and returned to the park, and there he saw her,
he saw his mother, sitting with a book in her hand. Her shadow lay
across grass almost to where he stood. He was repeating in his mind all
the things he must ask her, her new address, his exact age, his birth date,
did she have his birth certificate? A loving happiness was filling him like
sunlight, and then, ready with his questions, ready to greet her, he saw
coming towards her across the park grass-Paul; it was Paul, the
brother he had hated so terribly that thoughts of killing him once and
for ever had filled hours of his childhood. There he was, a tall, rather
weedy young man, with long arms and bony hands, and his eyes-but
Ben knew those eyes without having to see them: large, hazy blue eyes.
Paul was smiling at his mother. She patted the bench beside her and Paul
sat down, and the mother took Paul's hand and held it. A rage so terri–
ble that Ben's eyes darkened and seemed to bleed was shaking him. He
wanted to push him down and....There was one thing he knew, and
he knew it very well, because of so many bad things....There were cer–
tain feelings he had that were not allowed. Until this rage, this hate, left
him alone he could not go anywhere near his mother, near his brother,
Paul. But the feelings were getting worse, he could hardly breathe, and
through a red glare he watched his mother and that tormentor, that
impostor who had always stood between him and his mother, get up
and walk away together. Ben followed, but at a good distance. His rage
now was being used up by a determination not to be seen. He did not
crouch: that was for forests or woods, and he stood upright and walked
quietly, well behind the two he followed. Then, there was a house, a
rather bigger one than the one they had moved into first, in a garden,
