Doctor's Wife

by Brian Moore

  •

  Later, in the middle of the night, the telephone rang. She woke, startled, as it pealed loud in the night quiet. She got up in a rush, grabbing her raincoat, pulling it on as she ran into the living room. As she groped for the table light, she felt her leg wet and, when she found the switch, saw a trickle of menstrual blood running down her inner thigh. She turned in panic, pulling a wad of Kleenex from the box on the table, then seized the receiver, as though it were her enemy. “Hello?” She heard the silence of an open line. “Hello?” she said again.

  “Mum, is that you?”

  “Danny? Are you all right? What’s the matter? Is your father all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Danny, how did you get this number? Is your father there?”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Well, what is it? Danno, what is it?”

  “Nothing. I want to talk to you.”

  “But it’s the middle of the night.”

  “Is it true you’re not coming home?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Uncle Owen was here tonight. I heard him telling Dad.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said you told him you’re not coming back. And that you’re going to New York to live with an American.”

  “Does your father know you heard this?”

  “Yes, he does. I asked him about it.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “And how did you get my number?”

  “I found it right here beside the phone. Dad’s been ringing you for days. Don’t you even know that?”

  “Danny, listen to me. This is not something I’m going to talk to you about on the phone.”

  “Why not? Are you going to leave us, or aren’t you?”

  “Look, Danny, this is a grownup matter. I’m sorry but it’s too hard to explain. Now, I’m going to say good night.”

  “So, you are going to run away. I think that stinks. It stinks, do you hear me, Mum? It stinks.”

  He was crying, she could hear him. “Oh, Danno,” she said, “listen, don’t cry. Don’t worry, please. Listen, I’ll ring you up tomorrow or Monday, all right?”

  “What do you want to go to America for?” He was bawling now, childishly. “It’s not fair to Dad, so it isn’t.”

  “Now, stop that, Danny. Stop it. Stop that crying. Be a big boy. Go on back to bed.”

  “It stinks. You stink!”

  He hung up the receiver there, far away. She could imagine him, barefoot, in his pajamas, his cheeks apple red with angry rubbing, smeared with the oil of his tears. Her child, the child she remembered always that day he was photographed in his first suit of clothes, in a tiny gray flannel jacket and short trousers, standing at the top of the stairs at home, waiting to come down when Kevin said he was ready, a smile on his fat little face, drunk in his baby pride. She waiting at the bottom of the stairs, Kevin snapping pictures. And at the last step Danno ran to her, hugging her, her only son, his little arms tight about her neck. She turned from the phone and found Tom Lowry waiting in the darkened entrance to the living room.

  “Was that your kid?”

  “Yes.”

  He came to her. “Poor Sheila.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Did your husband get him to phone?”

  “No, it was his own idea.”

  Again she felt the blood trickle down her inner thigh. She turned from him and went alone into the bathroom. But later, when she came back to bed, he was waiting. In bed he held her, his arms around her, holding her until he believed she was asleep.

  Chapter 15

  • She was asked to put her handbag on the table. The United States Marine guard inspected its contents and then she and Tom went out across a very French courtyard to enter a room marked PASSPORT OFFICE. The office, like the building, seemed French rather than American, but beyond the waiting area she saw a large American flag, impeccably clean, impressively displayed, so that it seemed more like the symbol of a religion than a national banner. For a moment she was caught up in a premonition of what America would be like, a clean, flag-waving country whose people spoke in voices foreign yet familiar, people whose habits seemed strange but who were, in an odd way, like relatives, for they were the true denizens of that Other Place she had gone into dark picture houses to watch all her life. And there was something of this strange dichotomy in the manner of the consular officer who called her to the desk and questioned her, something avuncular yet ominous in this pleasant-faced man with his aviator-style glasses who went over the visa application form, asked her about her husband’s occupation and if she was going on a regular or charter flight. She had made out a statement, saying she was visiting a friend who had invited her, giving Tom’s sister’s name and address, and explaining how she had a son and a husband in Ireland and would return in two weeks. The consular officer read it carefully, as she waited, sure in her heart that his disturbingly friendly manner would soon turn to cold dismissal. But nothing of the sort occurred. After a few more questions, her form and photograph were put in a folder and she was told to take a seat. Shortly afterward she was called back to the desk. Her visa application had been processed and her passport was stamped with the visa. It was after two o’clock when they walked out of the office in the rue Saint-Florentin, and suddenly Tom whooped like a madman.

  “We did it, we did it!” he said. “Man, was I scared there’d be some foul-up.”

  “But you said it would be easy.”

  “And it was. Wow, it was great. But, Jesus, supposing they’d said they had to check with your husband. That’s what scared me. But never mind. We got it. That’s a good omen.”

  She kissed him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now we’re going to celebrate. We’re going to go up to Le Drugstore and I’ll buy you an American lunch. Hamburgers and beer.”

  “All right. I’ve never seen you so happy.”

  “Well, why not. It’s happening, isn’t it. I was so scared when I watched you at that counter. Still, I guess your being married and with a husband and child, that helped.”

  He flushed as he said it. “Sorry. Well, you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I saw the consul look at my wedding ring. I’m sure it helped.”

  But he was still embarrassed, still flushing. “It’s just— look, I know what you’ve had to go through. Your kid phoning you Saturday night. I get scared sometimes that all of that will get to you. And then, today, I saw you apply for the visa. Oh, Sheila, it’s going to be great. You’re going to love it in Vermont. Look, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m grateful that you decided for me.”

  She kissed him. “Shut up.”

  But half an hour later, as they sat in the glassed-in terrace of Le Drugstore, he seemed to want to talk about it again. “You know, I don’t feel guilty about taking you away. I suppose I should. But I don’t. I just feel so grateful—to you, to the embassy, to everyone. It’s as if this is my birthday.”

  She stared through the glass at the Arc de Triomphe up ahead. On top of the monument, tiny as toys, people were parading about, peering down at the city below them.

  “What I mean is,” he said, “I don’t know what I’d have done this week if you’d said you wouldn’t come away with me.”

  “Look at those people.”

  “Where?”

  “Up on top there.”

  “I was up there once. There’s a fantastic view of Paris.”

  “How do you get up?” she said. “Climb steps or what?”

  “No, there’s an elevator.”

  She pushed aside her hamburger. He noticed she had hardly touched it. “Can we go up there now?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  “All right, then. Let’s go as soon as you’re ready.”

  •

  Four tourists talking Dutch with the loud confidence of people who know their conversation is not understood crowded into the small elevator with them, for the trip t
o the top of the Arc de Triomphe. When they emerged on a surface of white stone and walked to the edge of the plinth, she saw that there was no safety rail. Below, like the spokes of a wheel, the avenues spread out from this central hub.

  “Isn’t it great?” he said.

  She looked down the Avenue de la Grande-Armée and then over at Sacré-Coeur and the Eiffel Tower. “It’s like a cemetery. The buildings are like gravestones.”

  But he did not seem to hear. “In New York the great view is from the Empire State Building. Imagine. Next week you and I could be standing up there, looking down at Central Park and the Hudson River and the U.N. and all of it. Let’s do that, okay?”

  “I’ll miss Paris.”

  “If you get homesick for Paris, would you settle for Montreal? It’s only about an hour from where we’ll be in Vermont.”

  She moved closer to the edge of the parapet, leaning over, looking down. She sensed him come up behind her.

  “I wonder, do many people jump?” she said.

  “It wouldn’t be hard. Why in hell don’t they put up a guard rail?”

  She sat down on the stone plinth, dangling her legs over the parapet. Her hands gripping the edge of the plinth, she leaned out, staring at the tiny figures far below. She leaned farther.

  “Sheila? That’s scary. Come on back.”

  She leaned out, her vision blurring. She felt his hands grasp her shoulders. She caught her breath and leaned back against his legs. “Aren’t you scared of heights?” he asked.

  “I used to be. Terribly.”

  “Come on. Get up.”

  She eased her legs back and stood, dusting her skirt. “I’m sorry. Let’s go down, then.”

  Chapter 16

  • Mrs. Milligan put a slice of rhubarb pie on a plate, placed a small silver cream jug beside it, then took the tray into the den. He had hardly touched his pork chop and potatoes.

  “Ah, Doctor, have you not eaten your chop? It was a lovely one, too. The butcher kept it for me special.”

  “Is Danny asleep?”

  “Yes, he went right off.”

  “He took the pill?”

  “Aye, I gave it to him myself. Now, ate your dinner. Go on.”

  “No, I’ve had enough.”

  “I’m just going to have to give it to Tarzan.”

  Tarzan, hearing his name, rose up from the rug, his ears forward, his thick bushy tail clumping against the coffee table.

  “Well, Tarzan looks hungry enough, don’t you, boy?” his master said.

  “Oh, he’d ate till he burst, that dog,” Mrs. Milligan said, picking up the dinner plate. She put the rhubarb pie down in its place. “Now, try a bit of this. I made it myself.”

  “All right. And what about coffee?”

  “I’ll be in with it in a minute, Doctor.”

  Tarzan’s eager Alsatian eyes went from Mrs. Milligan to his master and, suddenly, received the sign. Making token jumps at the tray, he followed Mrs. Milligan down the back passage to the kitchen.

  Kevin Redden listened to her go. Does she know anything? Did Danny say anything to her? He had warned him to hold his tongue. He looked at the television set. On the screen contestants in a ballroom-dancing contest: an English plumber in white tie and tails swept his evening-gowned partner across a sprung, polished floor to the strains of the Anniversary Waltz. Mrs. Milligan came back in and put down a tray with his coffee. Except that it was not coffee, it was a coffee pot filled with hot water, and instant in a coffee jar. Sheila would not have allowed that: instant served in the jar. “Will that be all, Doctor?”

  He nodded, but she did not notice. “Will you be wanting anything else?” she repeated.

  “No thanks, Mrs. Milligan. Good night, now.”

  “Don’t forget to eat up that bit of sweet.”

  “All right. Good night.”

  He heard her leave the room. In a few minutes she would finish the dishes and go upstairs. She was living in for the two weeks of Sheila’s holiday and they had rented a telly for her room. Once up there she would not stir down again tonight. He pulled a prescription pad from his pocket and looked again at the notes he had jotted down:

  Say about how D overheard.

  And Owen’s visit here.

  Will go Wed.

  Want talk now.

  He put a fork in the pie and, for Mrs. Milligan’s sake, ate two bites of it. He made instant coffee and turned the television sound off, listening for the housekeeper’s footsteps on the stairs. Ghostly ballroom dancers whirled and twisted on the screen. When he heard her go up, he put the prescription pad in his pocket and went into the front hall where the phone sat on a monk’s bench, under large elephant tusks, which supported a brass dinner gong. When he was a little boy, he remembered the gong being rung for dinner in his father’s house. And in his grandfather’s day it had been used to summon to meals as many as fifteen people, parents, children, and spinster relatives. Now it was never used. He dialed France, then Peg Con-way’s number. Anger heated in him as he let the phone ring for a full two minutes. He replaced the receiver and put the prescription pad back in his pocket. He might as well lock up. He went to the front door, first opening the inside door and then the heavy outer door. It was raining. On the rim of light around the porch lamp, he saw the shadows of the driveway and the front gate, beyond which were the street lamps of the Somerton Road. He locked and bolted the front door, then the inside door. From habit, as he came back into the front hall, he tapped the glass of the barometer on the wall. The barometer had never worked properly. Now the needle moved to Fair. He went back into the den, passing the television set and its swirling, ghostly dancers, going through to the kitchen to lock the back door. When he switched off the kitchen light and looked through the glass door panel he saw that McCusker, the gardener, had left the wheelbarrow out in the rain. In the scullery Tarzan rose up, tail wagging, from his bed of potato sacks. He patted the dog, shut him in again, then, returning to the front hall, went upstairs to the first-floor landing and looked into his son’s room. The light was on and Danny was asleep, his mouth open. Redden turned off the light, then went into the master bedroom, where, facing him, was the extra-large bed they had bought when they moved into this house. The right side of the bed was his: for almost two weeks now the left side had not been disturbed. He turned away, abruptly, as though he had seen something that displeased him, and went out again to the landing. From Mrs. Milligan’s room on the third floor he heard taped laughter from the television set. He went down the landing toward the rear of the house and entered a doorway, groping for an unfamiliar switch. Finding it, he flooded the small space in a harsh, unshaded light.

  This was her room: her sewing room, the room in which she paid household bills, read sometimes, and did God knows what else he knew nothing at all about. It was untidy: there was an ironing board set up in the middle, a dressmaker’s dummy with a pattern pinned on it stood in the far corner, and there was a small Singer sewing machine on an old-fashioned tabletop, next to a large, irregular pile of women’s magazines. Floor to ceiling, two walls of the room were books, arranged in old, dark-painted bookshelves she had brought from the Deane house when her mother died. He went now to the shelves, staring at book spines, as though he might find hidden in them some proclamation of who she really was. Those large volumes on the bottom shelves had been her father’s: sets of blue Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope; green and gold volumes of the works of George Bernard Shaw. There were two shelves of Everyman editions, faded and worn; then Penguins, and some French books, Gide and Valéry and Anatole France: they must be the books she used when she studied French at Queen’s. There were small books of poetry, mostly in French—Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and other writers whose names were unfamiliar to him. And Hemingway and Saki, and Joyce’s Ulysses, which he remembered dipping into years ago as a dirty book. He wondered if she had other dirty books hidden away somewhere on these shelves. On the top row were schoolgirl romances and such. He pulled out an odd-looking
red clothbound book from this row, but, opening it, found it was an atlas, with her name in schoolgirl copperplate. Sheila Mary Deane, Jun IV, Sisters of Mercy Convent, Glenarm. N. Ireland. He put the book back on the shelf. Always stuck into books: poetry, plays, and novels. A lot of rot. He remembered her chatting with Brian Boland about “modern writers.” Rubbish. As if reading some bloody novels makes her better than me.

  He sat in the small old wicker chair beside the sewing table. On the wall calendar nearby she had circled a date. It was, he realized, the date she left for France. Below the calendar was an old chest of drawers with framed photographs on top of it. He got up and went to look at them: maybe they were the clue? Of course, in pride of place was her Uncle Dan, the ambassador, the cause of a lot of her silly notions. He picked up the uncle’s photograph: a big fat twit of a man in a morning coat, presenting his credentials to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands; ambassador smiling at Queen, two fatties the pair of them. He put the photograph down and looked to see who else she had up here on her private altar. Her two brothers, Owen and Ned, long ago in some seaside place. And one of her father, old Professor Deane, she a little girl getting a piggyback ride on her daddy’s back. And that photo I took of Danny on the stairs in his first suit of clothes, when he was a wee boy. And where am I? I ask you.

  But then he saw, behind the other photographs, a large framed picture of himself and Sheila in their wedding clothes, cutting the cake at the Imperial Hotel, his hand on hers, guiding the knife, both of them smiling at the photographer. He peered closely at the bride’s face, oh, she was pretty, her smile a bit silly that day, for she was a little tight on champagne, wearing a tulle headdress which made her even taller, so that she towered over both mothers, his and hers, who stood behind them puffing on cigarettes, rival chieftains briefly joined. And then, with pain, remembered how, after the wedding reception, he and she had flown to London and on to Villefranche, where, in that hotel room, he first saw her with all her clothes off. The same place she was last week with some Yank, maybe in the very same bed we were in for our honeymoon. You bitch, you dirty, bloody bitch.