The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing Page A

children came home, they were told Ben had gone to stay with someone.
    “With Granny?” asked Helen, anxious.
    “No.”
    Four pairs of suspicious, apprehensive eyes became suddenly full of relief. Hysterical relief. The children danced about, unable to help themselves, and then pretended it was a game they had thought up then and there.
    At supper they were overbright, giggling, hysterical. But in a quiet moment Jane asked shrilly, “Are you going to send us away, too?” She was a stolid, quiet little girl, Dorothy in miniature, never saying anything unnecessary. But now her large blue eyes were fixed in terror on her mother’s face.
    “No, of course we aren’t,” said David, sounding curt.
    Luke explained, “They are sending Ben away because he isn’t really one of us.”
    In the days that followed, the family expanded like paper flowers in water. Harriet understood what a burden Ben had been, how he had oppressed them all, how much the children had suffered; knew that they had talked about it much morethan the parents had wanted to know, had tried to come to terms with Ben. But now Ben was gone their eyes shone, they were full of high spirits, and they kept coming to Harriet with little gifts of a sweet or a toy, “This is for you, Mummy.” Or they rushed up to kiss her, or stroke her face, or nuzzle to her like happy calves or foals. And David took days off from work to be with them all—to be with her. He was careful with her, tender. As if I were ill, she decided rebelliously. Of course she thought all the time of Ben, who was a prisoner somewhere. What kind of a prisoner? She pictured the little black van, remembered his cries of rage as he was taken away.
    The days went by, and normality filled the house. Harriet heard the children talking about the Easter holidays. “It will be all right now that Ben isn’t here,” said Helen.
    They had always understood so much more than she had wanted to acknowledge.
    While she was part of the general relief, and could hardly believe she had been able to stand such strain, and for so long, she could not banish Ben from her mind. It was not with love, or even affection, that she thought of him, and she disliked herself for not being able to find one little spark of normal feeling: it was guilt and horror that kept her awake through the nights. David knew she was awake, though she did try to hide it.
    Then one morning she started up out of sleep, out of a bad dream, though she did not know what, and she said, “I’m going to see what they are doing to Ben.”
    David opened his eyes, and lay silent, staring over his arm at the window. He had been dozing, not asleep. She knew he had feared this, and there was something about him then that said to her: Right, then that’s it, it’s enough.
    “David, I’ve got to.”
    “Don’t,” he said.
    “I simply have to.”
    Again she knew from the way he lay there, not looking at her, and did not say anything more than that one syllable, that it was bad for her, that he was making decisions as he lay there. He stayed where he was for a few minutes, and then got out of bed, and went out of the room and downstairs.
    When she had got her clothes on, she rang Molly, who was at once coldly angry. “No, I’m not going to tell you where it is. Now you’ve done it, then leave it alone.”
    But at last she did give Harriet the address.
    Again Harriet was wondering why she was always treated like a criminal. Ever since Ben was born it’s been like this, she thought. Now it seemed to her the truth, that everyone had silently condemned her. I have suffered a misfortune, she told herself; I haven’t committed a crime.
    Ben had been taken to a place in the North of England; it would be four or five hours’ drive—perhaps more, if she was unlucky with the traffic. There was bad traffic, and she drove through grey wintry rain. It was early afternoon when she approached a large solid building of dark stone, in a valley high among