London Observed by Doris Lessing

Author:Doris Lessing [Lessing, Doris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

Among the Roses

Regent’s Park on a warm Saturday afternoon. With the crowds of people strolling among the roses went Myra, a middle-aged lady from Harrow, who had an expert’s book on roses in her bag. Two years ago, inspired by these gardens, she had bought a rose called ‘Just Joey’. This charmer had done well, and she meant to choose another. There was no greater pleasure than this, wandering through roses and deciding, I’ll have you … no, you … no, perhaps … She had already made the circuit from the main gates with their flourishes of gold on ornamental black iron, portals to pleasure, to the right past the bird-loaded lake with the willows on one side and rose beds on the other, across Queen Mary’s Rose Garden itself, and around to the left through lawns and shrubs where you crossed the long path going up to the fountain, then to the left again and by the café, and then between the beds full of tempters to where she had started. Now she was about to make another round.

As she set off, she stopped again, staring. About twenty paces in front of her, her back to her, walked a tall young woman who was striking not only because of the strident scarlet and yellow dress she wore. The dress was too tight, and emphasized a body that managed to be thin and lumpy at the same time, because of big buttocks and prominent shoulders. Myra at once felt a much too familiar anguish, which she chose to ascribe to the tactlessness that permitted that dress on that body. With a bit of luck she wouldn’t turn around … Myra knew exactly the discontented look she would see if this woman were to turn and show her bold, highly coloured face. This was her daughter, Shirley, whom she hadn’t seen for three years.

What was she doing here? The last place! Flower gardens were not her style at all, let alone being by herself. Shirley was never alone, she hated it.

Myra set herself in motion again, adjusting her pace to her daughter’s. Shirley was going slow, and looking at the roses. Wonders would never cease! And then Myra saw something that made her exclaim softly at the expectedness, the aptness, of it. Shirley had slipped a little pair of scissors from a pocket and was cutting off a rose on a long stem. She did not even glance around to see who had noticed her – and others besides Myra had; but her buttocks and back had a characteristic sullen defiance about them. Well, you haven’t changed, Myra silently addressed Shirley. Then she thought, but perhaps she has, she must have! – for she was sure that rose had been cut to put in a pot and make roots. She did not know why she was sure. Shirley into gardening! Was it likely?

Three years before there had been a quarrel, in Myra’s garden. Shirley had come especially to quarrel with her mother.

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