In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [77]
‘You don’t know about the Rent Act,’ said Rose. ‘That keeps them safe. Flo and Dan didn’t understand it either, at first, and they tried to throw the old people out. Then they barricaded themselves in. That’s all I’m going to tell you. What’s eating Dan and Flo, I don’t have to tell you, is that eighteen shillings. They could get four or five pounds for that flat if it was done up. Don’t worry, I heard Flo and Dan talking. They’re coming up to tell you, all crocodile tears, about what they suffer, so you’ll know.’
‘Who’s right and who’s wrong?’
‘Who can say now? I’m sorry for the old people, they’re on the old age pension, and when they’re kicked out they’ll have to go to a Home. But if Dan and Flo go on like a pair of wild beasts, then so does the old lady. The old man’s neither here nor there, he’s too old for anything but being silly in the head. Now if you keep your eyes open along the streets you’ll catch sight of her, lurking and hiding behind her curtains. And that’s all I shall say.’
The street was full of old ladies. Sometimes it seemed as if the cliff of grey wall opposite, jutting with balconies and irregularly hung with greenery and flowers, was the haunt of some species of gaunt and spectral bird. As soon as pale sunlight came creeping along the street, each window, each balcony, was settled with its old lady, reading newspapers, knitting, or peering over the barriers of sill and railing down at the pavements where the children played among the screeching wheels and protesting horns of cars and lorries. No child was hurt while I lived there; but every time I looked out of the window I was terrified: the old ladies were considerably tougher than I. They sat immobile, the light glancing from their spectacles and their working needles; and between them and the children was a bond that appeared like pure hatred. From time to time, like a flock of birds propelled into space by some impulse, the old ladies would rise and screech warnings and imprecations into the street. Brakes screamed, horns wailed, and the children set up a chorus of angry Yahs and Boos. Slowly the grey crones settled into their nooks, slowly the traffic flowed on, and the children continued to play, ignoring their guardians above. Sometimes an old lady would descend from her perch and stalk cautiously down the street, laden with shopping bags, baskets, handbags, purses, umbrellas, ration books. She would stop at the edge of a group of children and hold out a bag of sweets. The children, cheeky and affectionate, approached as cautiously as small birds to an apparently harmless old hawk. They darted forward, grabbed the sweets, and ran off laughing; while the old lady grumbled and scolded and smiled: ‘You’ll get yourself run over, you’ll get yourselves killed, you’ll be the death of me yet.’ Immediately forgetting her, they resumed their play and she her progress to the shops or the market, smiling gently to herself because of the children.
From time to time, the anxiety boiled over into a shower of angry protesting notes carried across from the old ladies to the harassed mothers of the children, by the children themselves. The whole street fomented spite and resentment; fathers, back from work, were pressed into battle; and for a day or two the children, who had acquired a sense which enabled them to evade lorries and cars, had their attention continually distracted by their mothers who would appear in the windows and balconies beside the old ladies, in order to call out: ‘Do look out there!’ or ‘Goodness gracious me!’ Futilely wringing their hands, or waving dishcloths, they agitatedly peered into the street where