To Room Nineteen by Doris Lessing

circle – Mrs Baxter, Mrs Justin-Smith, and Mrs Jones – her voice conveyed the degree of difference. And Mrs Baxter would say, kindly as always, ‘Ah well, we none of us know what’s in store for us when we’re young.’
    They were about to leave towards the end of July. A week before, Tommy Rogers produced a piece of paper on which were set out certain figures. They were much lower figures than ever before. ‘Oh, we’ll manage,’ said Mary vaguely. Her mind was already moving among scenes of blue sea, blue sky.
    ‘Perhaps we’d better book at the Plaza.’
    ‘Oh, surely no need. They know us there.’
    The evening before they left there was a bridge party in the Baxters’ house for the jaunting couple. Tommy Rogers was seen to give his wife an uneasy glance as she said, ‘With air travel as cheap as it is now, I really can’t understand why …’
    For they had booked by train, of course, as usual.
    They successfully negotiated the Channel, a night in a Paris hotel, and the catching of the correct train.
    In a few hours they would see the little village on the sea where they had first come twenty-five years ago on their honeymoon. They had chosen it because Mary Hill had met, in those artistic circles which she had enjoyed for, alas, so short a time, a certain well-known stage decorator who had a villa there. During that month of honeymoon, they had spent a happy afternoon at the villa.
    As the train approached, she was looking to see the villa, aloneon its hill above the sea. But the hill was now thick with little white villas, green-shuttered, red-roofed in the warm southern green.
    ‘The place seems to have grown quite a bit,’ said Tommy. The station had grown, too. There was a long platform now, and a proper station building. And gazing down towards the sea, they saw a cluster of shops and casinos and cafés. Even four years before, there had been only a single shop, a restaurant, and a couple of hotels.
    ‘Well,’ said Mary bitterly, ‘if the place is full of tourists now, it won’t be the same at all.’
    But the sun was shining, the sea tossed and sparkled, and the palm trees stood along the white beach. They carried their suitcases down the slope of the road to the Plaza, feeling at home.
    Outside the Plaza, they looked at each other. What had been a modest building was now an imposing one, surrounded by gay awnings and striped umbrellas. ‘Old Jacques is spreading himself,’ said Tommy, and they walked up the neat gravel path to the foyer, looking for Jacques who had welcomed them so often.
    At the office, Mary inquired in her stiff, correct French for Monsieur Jacques. The clerk smiled and regretted that Monsieur Jacques had left them three years before. ‘He knew us well,’ said Mary, her voice coming aggrieved and shrill. ‘He always had room for us here.’
    But certainly there was a room for Madame. Most certainly. At once attendants came hurrying for the suitcases.
    ‘Hold your horses a minute,’ said Tommy. ‘Wait. Ask what it costs now.’
    Mary inquired, casually enough, what the rates now were. She received the information with a lengthening of her heavy jaw, and rapidly transmitted it to Tommy. He glanced, embarrassed, at the clerk, who, recognizing a situation, turned tactfully to a ledger and prepared to occupy himself so that the elderly English couple could confer.
    They did, in rapid, angry undertones.
    ‘We can’t, Mary. It’s no good. We’d have to go back at the end of a week.’
    ‘But we’ve always stayed here …’
    At last she turned towards the clerk, who was immediately attentive, and said with a stiff smile: ‘I’m afraid the currency regulations make things difficult for us.’ She had spoken in English, such was her upset; and it was in English that he replied pleasantly, ‘I understand perfectly, Madame. Perhaps you would care to try the Belle Vue across the street. There are many English people there.’
    The Rogerses left, carrying their two