Stories by Doris Lessing

because they annoyed his landlady, with whom he bickered continually. After office hours he used to walk home thinking that after supper he would make the dog bark so that she would come in and make a scene. These scenes usually ended in her crying; and then he could say: “I am alone in the world, too, my dear.” Sometimes she made him a cup of tea before going to bed, saying bitterly, “If you won’t look after yourself I suppose someone must. But don’t let that damned dog spill it all over the floor.”
    After she had gone to bed, and there was no chance of meeting her in the passage, he cut out pictures from magazines, sent off postal orders to addresses he was careful to keep hidden from her inquisitive eyes, and was not in the least ashamed of himself. He was proud of it; it was a gesture of defiance, like getting drunk every Friday. He chose Fridays because on Saturday mornings, when he was really not fit for work, he could annoy Miss Ives by saying: “I went on the loose last night.” Then he got through the hours somehow. A man was entitled to something, and he did not care for gardens.
    The rest of the week he used to sit quietly at his desk, watching them talk together as if he were simply not there, and wish that Miss Jenkins’ dog would get ill, and she would ask him for advice; or that Miss Ives would say: “Do help me with my ledger; I have never seen anyone who could calculate as fast as you”; or that Richards would quarrel with his girl and confide in him. He imagined himself saying: “Women! Of course! You can’t tell me anything.”
    Other times he stood looking out of the window, listening to the talk behind him, pretending not to, pretending he was indifferent. Two stories down in the street, life rushed past. Always, he felt, he had been looking out of windows. He dreamed, often, that two of the cars down below would crash into each other, and that he was the only witness. Police would come stamping up the stairs with notebooks; the typists would ask avidly, “What actually happened, Mr. Brooke?”; the boss would slap him on the shoulder and say: “How lucky you saw it. I don’t know what I would do without you.” He imagined himself in court, giving evidence. “Yes, your worship, I always look out of the window at that time every day. I make a habit of it. I saw everything….”
    But there never was an accident. The police only came once, and that was to talk to Miss Jenkins when her peke got lost; and he hardly saw Mr. Jones except to nod to. It was Miss Ives who was his real boss.
    He used to peep through the door of the typists’ room, where six girls worked, when the boss went through each morning, and go sick with envious admiration.
    Mr. Jones was a large, red-faced man with hair grown white over the ears; and after lunch every day he smelled of beer. Nevertheless, the girls would do anything for him. He would say breezily, “Well, and how’s life today?” Sometimes he put his arm round the prettiest and said, “You’re too cute to keep long. You’ll be getting married….” He said it as if he were handing out medals, something one had to do, part of his job. It’s only to make them work harder, thought Mr. Brooke bitterly, surreptitiously shutting the door and listening to how the typewriters started clattering furiously the moment Mr. Jones left. Then he used to go to the washroom and look at his own face in the glass. He had no white hair himself; he was quite a good-looking man, he thought. But if he put his arm round a girl’s shoulder he would get his face slapped, he knew that.
    It was the year he was fifty-five, retiring age, that Marnie de Kok came into the office as a junior, straight from school. Mr. Brooke did not want to leave off working. He couldn’t live on what he had saved; and in any case the office was all he had. For some weeks he looked crumpled up with apprehension; but Mr. Jones said nothing, and after a while he took heart again.He did not