Briefing for a Descent Into Hell - Doris May Lessing [85]
DEAR DOCTOR Y,
Can I “assist” you in “rehabilitating” Charles Watkins? I don’t know. Yes, I do know him, very well indeed. How very tactful you are. I was his mistress. You must know that or otherwise why did you write to me? I would be interested to know who told you, but I don’t expect you will. Well, now, about Charles … he has lost his memory? He can’t remember who he is? I am very sorry to hear it, but how does it concern me? No, don’t think I am being dishonest. I wish it did concern me, but as it happens, I think you should ask his wife Felicity Watkins. I suppose you must have done. Did she tell you to contact me? If so, it is no more than I would expect of her. What I mean by that, specifically, is that it would be so damned high-minded and above every normal human emotion, just like Charles. I am sure these things rub off. They say married people get to resemble each other, but of course I wouldn’t know.
After (believe me) due thought, I am simply sending you the enclosed letter. The letter is one I wrote to Charles. That letter was written after due thought, too. Years of it. What I mean is, I could have written that letter before I did, but I was a fool and didn’t.
I sent that letter (the enclosed one) to Charles at his home address. Not out of spite, but I didn’t have another address. He came posthaste. When I say posthaste, I mean, for him. About ten days went by. He came by train to Birmingham. He brought my letter with him. It was, as it might be, a goodwill visit. He stayed the night. Why not? Old habits die hard. When he left in the morning, the letter was lying on my night-table. The point is, but I don’t expect you to see it as a point, he hadn’t left it there on purpose, or for post-departure comment—we had after all, touched on its contents the night before. To put it mildly. No, he forgot it. It slipped totally out of his mind. So I’m taking this opportunity of returning it to him, via you. He might like to refresh his memory—when he gets it back.
Sorry I can’t be of any use.
With my good wishes,
CONSTANCE MAYNE
DEAR CHARLES,
Don’t be alarmed, this isn’t one of those drivelling slobby wet letters I wrote you when you decided you’d had enough of me. No fear. I’m very far from that now. I woke up this morning and thought it was three years this June since you left me.
The thought of you
So sweet and true
For dreary years
Has been boo hoo.
Boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoo. BOO!
It occurred to me that far from boo hoo, far from it, I was in a good old paddy, a good old rage. Fury. It occurs to me Charles Watkins that what I feel for you is not boo hoo at all, I hate you. More than that, I simply can’t get over your sheer damned preposterousness.
Now let me tell you a tale.
There was once an earnest idealistic young student taking Literature and Languages, who went, God help her, to a lecture, an Introduction to Old Greece, and heard a mad professor claim that there was only one literature and one language, namely Greek, (Ancient, not Modern). And such was his persuasive force that this stupid student dropped her lovely useful literature and French and Spanish and Italian, and went over to Useless Old Greece, just because this professor said so. Three years passed while this stupid student sweated and got full marks all for the sake of an approving smile or two from the Mad Professor. The day she heard she had got her B.A. behold, it happens this Silly student is in London and there is the Mad Professor giving a lecture on the television about Greece, the Cradle of European Civilisation. Intellectual this and Moral that, and so it went