Doris Lessing
[1]It was during the week of hot sun, that June.Three men were at work on the roof, where the leads got so hot they had the idea of throwing water on to cool them.But the water steamed, then sizzled；and they make jokes about getting an egg from some woman in the flats under the flats under them, to poach it for their dinner.By two it was not possible to touch the guttering they were replacing, and they speculated about what workmen did in regularly hot countries.Perhaps they should borrow kitchen gloves with the egg? They were all a bit dizzy , not used to the heat; and they shed their coats and stood side by side squeezing themselves into a foot wide patch of shade against a chimney, careful to keep their feet in the thick socks and boots out of the sun.There was a fine view across several acres of roofs.Not far off a man sat in a deck chair reading the newspapers.Then they saw her, between chimneys, about fifty yards away.She lay face down on a brown blanket.They could see the top part of her: black hair, a flushed solid back, arms spread out.“She’s stark naked,”said Stanley, sounding annoyed.
[2]Harry, the oldest, a man of about forty-five, said: “Looks like it.”
[3]Young Tom, seventeen, said nothing, but he was excited and grinning.
[4]Stanley said: “Someone’ll report her if she doesn’t watch out.”
[5]“She thinks no one can see,”said Tom, craning his head all ways to see more.
[6]At this point the woman, still lying prone, brought her two hands up behind her shoulders with the ends of a scarf in them, tied it behind her back, and sat up.She wore a red scarf tied around her breasts and brief red bikini pants.This being the first day of the sun she was white, flushing red.She sat smoking, and did not look up when Stanley let out a wolf whistle.Harry said: “Small things amuse small minds,”leading the way back to their part of the roof, but it was scorching .Harry said: “Wait, I’m going to rig up some shade,”and disappeared down the skylight into the building.Now that he’d gone, Stanley and Tom went to the farthest point they could to peer at the woman.She had moved, and all they could see were two pink legs stretched on the blanket.They whistled and shouted but the legs did not move.Harry came back with a blanket and shouted: “Come on, then.”He sounded irritated with them.They clambered back to him and he said to Stanley: “What about your missus?”Stanley was newly married, about three months.Stanley said, jeering: “What about my missus?”—preserving his independence.Tom said nothing, but his mind was full of the nearly naked woman.Harry slung the blanket, which he had borrowed from a friendly woman downstairs, from the stem of a television aerial to a row of chimney-pots.This shade fell across the piece of gutter they had to replace.But the shade kept moving, they had to adjust the blanket, and not much progress was made.At last some of the heat left the roof, and they worked fast, making up for lost time.First Stanley, then Tom, made a trip to the end of the roof to see the woman.“She’s on her back,”Stanley said, adding a jest which made Tom snicker, and the older man smile tolerantly.Tom’s report was that she hadn’t moved, but it was a lie.He wanted to keep what he had seen to himself: he had caught her in the act of rolling down the little red pants over her hips, till they were no more than a small triangle.She was on her back, fully visible, glistening with oil.