Doctor's Wife

by Brian Moore

  She did not answer.

  “No, I suppose you don’t. You’re in what they call the manic phase. They tell me it doesn’t last long, that phase. In a few weeks, you’ll be in stage number two—the depths of depression. And God help that boy downstairs when that starts.”

  She put her comb in the purse and shut the purse. She did not look at him. “Do you have Owen’s letter on you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He took the letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it up so that she could read it. “But don’t touch,” he warned.

  She came closer and read the letter. “It’s not to the American Embassy. It’s only a letter to you.”

  “It will corroborate the statement I plan to make to the embassy.”

  She turned away again and went to the window, looking out at the hodgepodge of roofs in the courtyard beyond. He did not speak. Let her think about it. She turned, went to the bed, and straightened out the bedspread. He was silent. Yes, let it sink in. Give her time to come around.

  When she had finished straightening the bed, she went to the wardrobe, opened a drawer, and took out a fresh pair of panty hose. Turning her back on him, she put them on. He watched her. She put on her shoes and picked up her purse. She went to the mirror, put on her blue sun hat, pulling it down over her eyes. She turned to him.

  “Are you ready?” he said. “Where’s your suitcase?”

  “I’m going downstairs now,” she said. “I’d advise you to go home.”

  “What?” Anger reddened his face.

  “Let me finish. No matter what happens to me, Kevin, I’m never going back to you. That’s final.”

  “Oh, one other thing,” he said. “This kid downstairs must have family over in America. I can trace them through the records at Trinity. I can let them know just what their son is letting himself in for. A runaway wife and mother, with a chance of mental illness, ha ha.”

  “Unlock the door, Kevin.”

  “Not until you tell me you’re coming home with me.”

  She screamed. He ran around the bed to stop her, but she ran from him, screaming, a terrible sound, a sound that frightened him. For the first time he believed she was mad. He turned back and, fumbling, unlocked the door. She stopped screaming only when he opened the door and held it open. “Jesus Christ, you are mad,” he said.

  She went past him and, again, that unpredictable person began to shout inside his head, someone foul with rage, calling after her, “All right, go! But I’m going to have you deported, do you hear? And when you’re sent back to Belfast I’ll divorce you. And you’ve seen Danny for the last time. And you’ll wind up in an asylum, it’s where you bloody well belong.”

  She ran down the stairs and he ran after her, shouting, both of them coming into the lobby, where the woman at the desk was staring up at them, alarmed and disapproving, and where the Yank stood in the middle of the room, looking ready to hit someone. She went to him at once, and he put his arms around her. “Are you all right?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  The boy turned, staring at Redden. The woman behind the desk said something in French, very cross, but Redden did not understand it. He shut his fists and stood staring at the boy, ready to fight. But Sheila linked her arm in the boy’s. “Come on, Tom,” she said.

  He saw them move toward the front entrance. He ran after them, caught her wrist, and said, “If you walk out that door with him, you’re finished. I promise you that.”

  “I believe you,” she said. “Now, let me go.”

  And then he could not bear to look at her any longer. He let go of her wrist and ran into the alcove, grabbing his raincoat and bag. She and the boy were going out through the doorway, but he pushed past them. He was going to be the one to walk out on her. In the street he met a downpour, but did not stop. He ran down the street, the raincoat over his arm, his best dark suit getting soaked. When he reached the junction of the rue Casimir-Delavigne and the rue Monsieur-le-Prince, the taxi rank was deserted. In pelting rain he hurried on, going toward the big boulevards. He did not look back.

  •

  When Mrs. Redden saw him run out of the hotel door like a lunatic, she stopped short. “Wait,” she said. “Let him go.” They stood in the vestibule and watched the rain outside. After a moment she went forward and peered out, looking up and down the street.

  “Has he gone?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What happened up there? Why did you scream?”

  “He wouldn’t unlock the door to let me out.”

  “The bastard. What did he say? What’s he going to do?”

  “Nothing. Just talk. Don’t worry about him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think he’ll be back?”

  “No.”

  Chapter 19

  • It had seemed a pleasant idea when Ivo proposed it over champagne on Thursday night, after serving them his special Yugoslav dinner. Peg and he were to come with them to the Gare des Invalides for one last farewell drink before they took the airport bus. But, in fact, at five minutes past seven on Friday evening, when the taxi turned into a tree-lined avenue outside the Invalides and stopped at a door marked DÉPART, Mrs. Redden, looking very nervous, turned to Peg and said, “I hate these goodbyes. Couldn’t we just say goodbye here in the taxi? Just leave us here?” And Peg, seeing the strain in her friend’s face, agreed, kissed her sentimentally, clung to her, and said, “Oh, Sheila, I wish you luck.”

  “What’s this?” Ivo said. He and Tom were taking the bags out of the taxi’s trunk.

  “They want us to go,” Peg said. “To say goodbye now.”

  “Ah,” said Ivo. “Then I must read my beautiful poem here on the street?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  And so, with the taxi man waiting, Ivo pulled from his pocket a slip of paper which he said was a translation of a Yugoslav classic and, to everyone’s embarrassment, read out a maudlin verse about lovers embarking on the long journey of life. And then there were more embraces and promises to write and Ivo and Peg got back into the taxi and the taxi pulled away from the curb, Peg’s hand waving farewell through the open window. They were alone now, the two of them, leaving Paris at last, she going to wait in the great hall of the aérogare while he hurried off to a window to purchase tickets for the bus.

  Behind her, in the departure hall, clerks consulted schedules, punched computer keys, and filled out tickets. A long line of travelers moved in two queues toward the windows of the bureau de change. A tour group identified by identical yellow flight bags picked over souvenirs in the gift shops and lined up at the news stall to flick through the pages of glossy magazines. Two small boys, inventing ways to kill the boredom of waiting, swooped past Mrs. Redden, arms outstretched, imitating the flight of aircraft. She thought of Danny when he was their age, and turned away, unable to look at them. And then saw Tom coming toward her, his duffel bag over one shoulder, her suitcase in his left hand.

  “All set,” he said. “Let’s get the next bus out.”

  “Let me carry my suitcase.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  •

  At the TWA counter at de Gaulle airport the clerk inspected her ticket, then asked to see her passport. He returned the passport, tore part of her ticket off, asked how many pieces of baggage she wished to check and whether she wanted a seat in the smoking or non-smoking section. Tom then put her suitcase on the weighing scale. The clerk put a baggage-check ticket on it and lifted it onto a conveyor belt. She watched her suitcase move along the belt and disappear through some rubber matting which opened, like a mouth, to admit it. “Boarding at nine-fifteen, Gate 9,” the clerk said. “Thank you, Mrs. Redden. Have a pleasant flight.”

  They had already checked Tom’s duffel bag at the charter airline counter. Now, to leave France and fly away to a new life, they must first be shut in. Their passports were examined by a French police official, their hand luggage and their persons were
searched for weapons, and they entered a limbo of lounges, bars, news stalls, and duty-free shops to wait for their separate planes. They sat on a red plastic sofa, his hand in hers. “So it’s happening,” he said. “Are you nervous?”

  “No.”

  “Your hand feels cold.”

  “I’m all right.”

  He took a card from his pocket. “Now, in case there’s any delay in my flight, here’s what you do. You’ll land in New York at the TWA terminal. Just go to the TWA lounge and ask them to check on the arrival time of my flight. Wait in the lounge until I show up. Here, it’s all on this card, the charter firm name, flight number, and phone number to call. Put it in your purse.”

  On the electronic board facing them, a sudden clicking sound signaled a change. Her flight information did not alter, but his now registered a gate number and the notation that the flight was leaving on time. At eight-twenty his flight was called. He smiled at her, and they stood up together, walking toward the glass doors where a stewardess waited to check the boarding passes. “At least, my flight being first means it’s pretty sure I’ll be waiting for you when you get in,” he said.

  “That’s true.”

  “You’ve got your visa and your passport. There’ll be no problems, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Still,” he said. “Isn’t it lousy to be separated, even for a few hours?”

  They joined the queue of passengers going through the gate. When it came his turn to show his boarding pass to the stewardess, Mrs. Redden put her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she said. “Imagine if we’d never met. I love you.”

  He kissed her. “See you in New York. Listen, why don’t you go over to the bar now and have a drink and a sandwich? You won’t be eating dinner much before midnight, our time.”

  “Yes, all right.” But she held him and kissed him again, holding him until all the other passengers had gone through and the stewardess, waiting, said sympathetically, “Excuse me. Time to go.”

  “I love you,” she said a last time, and watched as he showed his boarding pass and went past the stewardess down the corridor. At the end of the corridor he turned and waved to her. A uniformed attendant came up and the stewardess handed him the boarding passes. “Quarante-huit,” the stewardess said. “Quarante-huit,” the attendant agreed.

  Tears, uncontrollable, started in her eyes. She waved to him. He waved a last time, then turned away. But she waved and kept on waving until he was out of sight.

  Chapter 20

  • The priest came along the side aisle of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame shortly after 11 a.m. and went up the steps of the Chapelle d’Accueil. He went to the table which was placed in the center of the chapel and switched on the reading lamp. He glanced at the confessional on his right, and at the empty altar in the rear, then took off his shabby plastic raincoat and put it away in a small cupboard. In his baggy trousers and worn gray cotton jacket, spectacles askew on his nose, he seemed a comic figure, God’s comedian, preparing some strange theatrical skit. He sat at the table, opened the large ledger, and wrote something in it, using a fine-nibbed pen which he dipped in a bottle of Quink.

  He was still writing when he became aware that a woman had come up the chapel steps and was waiting to speak to him. He looked at her, peering over his spectacles, as she tucked in her auburn hair, which escaped in soft untidy tendrils from under a blue hat. The sun hat was pulled forward to conceal the fact that her eyes were swollen by recent weeping. He noticed such things. He recognized the woman.

  “Good morning, Madame,” he said, raising his large white hand as in benediction, gesturing, splay-fingered, to the seat opposite him. She sat facing him across the lamp’s pool of light.

  “Do you remember me, Father?” Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “My ear is a little deaf.”

  “Do you remember me?”

  “Yes, Madame. You were the lady who said she must make a difficult decision.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And have you made it?”

  “Yes.” Her voice broke as she spoke, and the priest, understanding, leaned a little forward into the pool of light, putting his hand up, his broad stubby fingers covering his eyes as though he were in the confessional, listening to, but not looking at, the penitent. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I was supposed to go to America. But I didn’t because ...”

  She did not finish, but he was accustomed to these things. He knew to wait.

  “I couldn’t,” she said at last.

  “You were going to live in America?”

  “Yes. With someone. I even used the ticket. That’s why I came to see you. I have to get some money. I must pay back that ticket I wasted.”

  “I don’t understand,” the priest said. “You didn’t go, but you used the ticket?”

  “I let the airlines people take the ticket. I went to the airport.” Suddenly she laughed, but the priest did not look up. He knew it was laughter which disguised tears. “I even sent my suitcase on to New York. Every stitch of clothes I have.”

  “Why did you do that, Madame?”

  “Because I didn’t want the other person to know I wasn’t going. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have gone himself. But I don’t want to bother you with that. I came about the money. You see, there’s some money which is due to me. I’d like to have it sent to me in care of you. Could you help me?”

  The priest nodded, his fingers still spread to conceal his eyes. “I think so, yes. Someone will send money here. And I will keep it until you come for it. Is that what you want?”

  “No. I’m going to London. The person who’s to send the money is my brother. He may ask you where I am, but I don’t want him to know. He may tell you I’m ill, mentally ill. But I’m not. So you mustn’t give him my address. I mean, this address I’ll send you from London.”

  “You don’t have a London address yet. Is that it?”

  “Yes. As soon as I find a place to stay, I’ll let you know.”

  “Tell me,” the priest said, “last week we talked about Camus. Do you remember?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You said, when we talked, that you felt a desire to kill yourself. Do you still feel that way?”

  “No.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Oh yes,” she said and laughed again, that laughter which was like weeping.

  “Can you tell me why you changed?”

  “I don’t know, Father. Last night I stayed in an awful cheap hotel. And it was the night I’d decided not to go to America. So, you see . . . Anyway, when I went to the window of the room, I no longer felt I wanted to jump. Not at all. So that’s over.” She opened her purse, found a tissue, and blew her nose.

  The priest joined his large white hands together, as though in prayer. “You said your brother believes you may be ill. Why does he believe that?”

  “Because he’s a doctor and because there’s some history of mental illness in our family. But I’m all right. I am, Father. I won’t ask you to help me unless you believe it.”

  The priest looked at her left hand. “You are married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you left your husband?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  The priest separated his hands, turning them palms down on the ledger. “I see. And now you are going to start a new life?”

  “Yes.”

  “I remember the last time we talked,” the priest said. “You said then that you are not religious.”

  “Yes.”

  The priest looked beyond the pool of light, out into the darkness of the nave. “You do not believe in God?”

  “I did once. But I don’t now.”

  “Why not, Madame?”

  “Because it doesn’t make sense. You can’t go on believing, once you think the idea of God is ridiculous.”

  The priest smiled, showin
g the gap between his teeth. “I can,” he said. “And I do.”

  She looked at him through swollen eyelids. “That’s a funny thing for a priest to say.”

  “I know,” the priest said. “It doesn’t make sense. But believing in God is like being in love. You don’t have to have reasons, or proofs, or justifications. You are in love, voilà tout. You know it.”

  The woman began to weep.

  “I’m sorry,” the priest said. “You want me to help you about this money. I will be glad to do what you say. Just give me the instructions.”

  “And you won’t tell anyone the address. No matter what?”

  “No matter what,” the priest said.

  He felt for and opened a drawer under the tabletop and took out a sheet of cheap, graph-lined paper. “Write your name so that I will know if a letter comes for you.” He dipped his pen in the bottle of Quink and handed it to her. She wrote her name, then added a second name to the sheet. “That’s my brother,” she said. “He’s the one who will be sending the money. I’ll write you my new address as soon as I get setded. And thank you, Father. You’re very kind.”

  She pushed the sheet of paper across the table. The priest looked at it. “Very well, Mrs. Redden. Now, if I were you, I would get some rest.”

  “I’ll be all right. Thank you again.”

  “God bless you, then,” the priest said.

  She went down the steps, going from the small lighted area of the chapel into the shadows of the huge nave, where, day after day, tourists moved like restless, mindless birds up and down the aisles. The priest sat again and opened the right-hand drawer of his table. He pulled out a fat shabby cardboard folder, secured by a large paper clip. He placed the slip of paper with her name in a small rectangular envelope and inserted it under the edge of the clip. He took up his pen and, as an aide-mémoire, wrote across the envelope,