by Susan Hill
The next day she sought out Miss Marchesa before breakfast, in the brown cubby-hole she spoke of as her office, and asked to be given a table to herself. Something about her coolness and self-possession, her confidence in speaking out, made the woman (who had been quite willing to patronise) feel in some way criticised and set at a disadvantage, so that from that morning she did not conceal her indifference to Flora’s welfare, and a measure of straightforward dislike.
But the single table was made available, wedged across a corner by the door into the kitchen, so that she had to ease awkwardly in and out, and could not easily see her food in the dimness.
Mrs and Miss Vigo, and the secretary, affected not to notice, and, beyond the faintest of smiles, ignored her. Flora drew her own isolation about herself like a curtain. Behind it, the air was cold as ice. But she preferred that to any encroaches upon her. She took a book into meals, and felt suddenly older, in a dry, austere way that was not altogether comfortless.
Twenty-Two
The hot September blended into an autumn of translucent early mists over the river, out of which the sun rose. The days drifted down imperceptibly, and Flora felt herself caught up in them effortlessly, lightly, untouched by reality. And if she made no close friends, out of choice, she did at this time acquire a companion. Leila Watson came to an afternoon class in the history of classical civilisation. It was a passion – she was training to be a school teacher in Surrey, and travelled into London by train. She was twenty-five, and a widow. Her husband had been killed a week after their marriage. She had told Flora the bare fact, and stared out of slightly prominent, green-flecked eyes, defying questions. Flora asked none. They spent an hour together and then, before Leila caught her train, ate poached eggs or cheese on toast in a tea room, and looked at antiquities in the British Museum.
The cool, pale statues and grave ancient images impressed her. She felt respectful of them, and in some awe. But they did not move her, as pictures did. She saw Turners, and the painting of the light, the speed, airiness of the sun bursts and the blown spray and cloudscapes, lifted her heart. The dim, tranquil interiors of the Dutch satisfied something different in her. The wise, still expression of men in velvet robes, and the pale women with high foreheads, as well as the scenes within scenes, landscapes beyond landscapes, of the Renaissance, were altogether delightful.
*
‘What will you do? Do you plan to teach the history of art?’
They sat on the steps of the Albert Memorial. It was five o’clock. Flora looked at the beautiful curve of the prince’s stone back.
‘What will you do?’
Children were playing with a little dog, chasing around and around, and a small boy held the hand of a man, a kite in the other.
‘What will you do?’
But she did not know. She had not thought of a future, only of this present, in which she exulted in knowledge and pictures and the life of London. Her bank book showed a sum of money that was becoming smaller, drop by steady drop. (She ate the poached eggs with a single cup of tea, but no sweet, and walked everywhere.)
‘What will you do?’
But there was no future, and the past was not allowed to exist. (Though she had begun to invent a different past for herself, and to tell it, as a small child will create another life, in fantasy. And while doing so, it occurred to her that, as she might become anyone, so, in some terrifying sense, she was nobody.)
Now, she sat watching Leila Watson walk away from her across the Kensington grass, for the bus which would take her to Victoria station, and her real and unknown life.
‘What will you do?’
(You. Who?)
I am Flora Hennessy.
But the words were peculiar, a pattern of sounds only, making no sense.
The park was emptying, children and dogs and nurses going away down the long paths and out of sight. Leaves were spilling down. Over the rooftops of the Palace, the sky was lilac and rose-red. The beauty of London, and of the last, late days of this summer, might save her. Or perhaps they would not. Perhaps, like all the pictures in the galleries, they were not themselves enough, were apart from her, and impenetrable, as self-contained in their way as she was in hers. Yet she had nothing else, nothing at all. The thought was like a chip of ice, lodged in her heart.
Twenty-Three
Night after night they sent for him. He was scarcely at home. Three deaths came together, as well as the slow death of the place itself, like that of a tree severed at roots deep below ground, so that it stood and yet was withering, branch by branch, the life blood draining away. Leaves fell. But the real leaves on the chestnut and beech trees held on, the days were still warm, the sun lingered into October. The doors were opened for most of each afternoon.
Molloy sat with them, listened to whimpers and mumblings and confusion, little starts and cries of fear.
At the beginning there had been visits from officials, meetings had taken place all around them, strangers came and went in the old building, making it their own. But as the summer trailed on and the old ones died, the people left and the place was quiet again. They had the last of its life to themselves. It was not worth anyone’s while to resettle them now. They had only a little time to wait, and the job would be done. After the swifts had flown, the swallows and housemartins seethed about the eaves and ledges in a panic of feeding and final fledging, but went at last (and the next year, would return to nothingness, to empty air, and desolation).
Meals were brought in now from kitchens miles away in heated metal containers that were never hot enough. Gravy and sauces and sweet custard congealed on the plates.
For Molloy, whose life was shrinking and shrivelling with them, and with the buildings, the last days were rich, and he savoured them. None of his past work seemed to him to count for anything. The injuries and sicknesses dealt with, children delivered, limbs set, wounds dressed and blood staunched, all rolled away, dropped out of sight into a black pit and were forgotten, of no consequence. He clung to those who were here, listening, touching but little else.
They liked him to sit with them. The nurses kept out of his way. He was more than just the doctor, now.
‘Is there a secret?’
The old man gripped his hand. They had called him, thinking that here was to be another death, grown accustomed to them. But when Molloy had walked down the ward full of rolled, chrysalis-like bodies to the lighted tent at the far end, he had known better. They left him, just the same. He had helped the old man to sit up against the pillows.
‘Is there a secret?’
‘What is it troubles you?’
‘You’d tell me the secret.’
‘I surely would.’
‘If you knew it.’
‘If I knew it.’
‘Am I to die?’
‘Not yet.’
‘We’re all to die.’
‘As to that, yes.’
‘I’ve no one. They’re gone.’
‘It happens.’
‘Is there a soul?’
‘I believe it.’
‘You don’t know it.’
‘I’ve never doubted it.’
‘You’ll be with me when I die?’
‘I cannot promise that. How would I?’
The room was silent. No one coughed, no one stirred or cried out for a few moments. The man beside him had been a tall man, and strong, his hand was still huge on the sheet.
‘They’re leaving us to die.’
‘But there is some summer left. The days are warm in the sunshine. Think of that.’
‘We’re not given enough to eat.’
‘Rubbish, man.’
‘They’re starving us to death.’
‘I said, rubbish.’
‘There’s words tumbling about in my head like stones in water.’
‘Words?’
He had a strong, a good, sound voice. It rang out of the curtained cubicle and down the ward.
‘They that go down to the se
a in ships,
‘That do business in great waters.’
The response came to Molloy’s lips before he knew it.
‘These see the works of the Lord,
‘And his wonders in the deep.’
‘Were you ever an altar boy?’
‘I was Protestant.’
‘The heavens declare the glory of God,
‘And the firmament sheweth his handiwork.’
Then they sat in silence, and presently the old man slept, tranquilly, his head resting back upon the high pillows. The pulse beat, vigorous and steady in his neck.
Sister Mcgale brought tea.
‘You’ll be weary of it, doctor. Night after night. But he was shouting after you. I thought it best.’
‘I’d rather.’ The tea was weak, but hot, rousing him. ‘You can be sure of that.’
‘There’s not many like that,’ she said to the night nurse, hearing the sigh of the door as he left the ward. ‘Not many.’
And she did not, like some of them, think it peculiar, the way he was so ready to attend upon a death.
At the end of the ward, the old man slipped sideways off his pillows, snoring. They settled him deftly.
Out on the empty night road, the rain came suddenly, lashing off the sea into Molloy’s windscreen, startling him, and the rain marked the end of summer. The words set going like a ticking clock by the old man, went around his head, phrase after phrase.
‘What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?’
He had them by heart.
Autumn raced in with gales and great, bulbous clouds over the countryside. The roof leaked.
They locked the doors of the terrace and bolted them, for the last time.
Twenty-Four
The Bible was on the kitchen table. She found it after he had gone, with a marker slipped into the Psalms.
Save me, O God.
For the waters are come into my soul.
I sink into deep mire, where there is no standing.
I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
At one time, he had read the Old Testament aloud to her, in his soft voice. His love of the words, and any understanding he had of their poetry and wisdom, came from his mother, he had said. (Though he rarely spoke of that.)
She wondered now, throwing crumbs out of the window to the birds, how it could be that she could have lived with him and yet not with him, known him and yet never known him.
He would not go to church. When she had asked to be taken, at Christmas or on Easter Day, he had always driven her up to the door, and helped her into the pew, before leaving to wait in the car, or at home, until the service was over and he collected her. For years, the Bible had gathered dust on the shelf, between the black leather dictionary and her father’s old Pharmaceutical.
Hath the rain a father?
Or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
One corner of the page was creased down. She did not read on, but turned her mind to him, nevertheless, as the rain came in sharp bursts on to the window, concern and the desire to know quickening again in her.
Twenty-Five
It was the last day of summer. Everyone knew that afterwards. But Flora knew it at the time, from the very intensity of things, the way people enjoyed themselves with such passion, throwing themselves into each moment (and no moments were wasted). There was an odd brightness about the light, a sheen on things, hard as varnish.
On an impulse, she took a steamer down the river, stepping up the plank from the Embankment behind a family all wearing hats, with a picnic basket and a little brown dog, wanting to be part of them, though on the boat she moved away and sat separately, looking up the river, and did not speak or try to intrude. She had learned that any eagerness to attach herself to others sent out a signal of loneliness, or some other inadequacy. People gave off loneliness like a smell. She would never acknowledge any need of them, and on this day, in any case, knew none. She was content to have paid out a little of her precious money on this pleasure, and, now, to sit among the families, the couples and children, and the cheerful elderly, watching the steam puff up rhythmically out of the funnel and the water rise, fold over and fall away. The sun shone. It was the second week of October. The river smelled of fish and tar.
That morning, there had been two letters beside her plate in the dining room at Miss Marchesa’s. Few of the other women were down, because it was the weekend. They would sleep on, or else had left already, on outings to relatives or to the shops of the West End.
Miss Pinkney had little items of news, and some brisk encouragement and affectionate concern, a newspaper cutting about an exhibition of art, due to arrive in London from Berlin. Flora had never been oppressed by her attention. They maintained a polite, adult distance from one another, a certain respect and reserve that she appreciated, and tried to imitate carefully in her replies.
The letter from her mother was entirely of complaint, the pages steeped in whining discontent. Olga had been unwell, had been seen by a specialist, which had cost a good deal of money, had an infection in her kidneys, or her blood. Her mother could not help her mind dwelling on all the illness on their father’s side. The roof tiles had slipped in a storm, and would leak through the coming winter, because there was no money for repairs. The great elm had been struck by lightning and fallen, toppling part of the walls. Neighbours did not call. Old friends had moved away. There were mice in the house. Did Flora plan to remain in London indulging herself forever? Had she work? Should she not think of returning home, to find a position? Olga’s illness had prevented her from going to a private party at the Hall, where she would have met many of the County children. The doctor’s bills were worrying. She had had to let Eileen go. (Which in any case was for the best. A young man had come calling, hanging about the yard for her, and even been discovered trying to talk to Olga.) Her own back had ached for the whole of that summer.
Flora had skimmed the words, and did not alight on any of them, so that minutes later they had left no trace on her mind. Yet the mood of the letter affected her own, dulling and greying the brightness of the day. But the wide river and the great trees that lined its banks as it ran out of London, and the laughter of the others on the steamer, filled her heart.
When they moored, everyone spilled down the gangplank at once, and on to the grass, spread out rugs and opened baskets and drank beer and lemonade from the bottle with their heads tipped back. She looked, and saw them as a picture (and so it was to remain, frozen as a bright canvas forever in her memory).
The boat moored beside the river bank for an hour. It was the early afternoon, still cloudless, still warm, the shadows soft upon the grass. She sat looking at the water, and the willows that dipped into it. The leaves were yellow, scattering down. A horse chestnut tree was half bare, its lower branches still full, like dropped petticoats falling about its feet. Flora, held within the day, knew suddenly, piercingly, that this was all, and the last of summer, and looked and looked, at the picture of the people on the grass, wanting in some way to make this scene, this bright, late day that was before her, into something more than a memory.
The steamer hooted, and there was a stirring, laughter and packing up and the crying of children. The picture broke into fragments. But, looking back at the empty bank, as they turned and moved slowly away, she saw everything in that green and golden empty space as it had been until a few moments ago, fixed indelibly, out of time, in some other, immortal dimension.
She turned from the rail. A breeze blew chill off the water, and the sun was setting, not as it had set day after day for these past weeks in a blaze of scarlet and violet and gold, but hazily, sinking into sullen, leaden cloud. The banks dropped dully away. The trees were gaunt.
It is over, she said.
A tune was being played on an accordion, and people began to sing. A woman made room for her on the slatted bench, sharing her own rug. A bottle of beer came round. When she drank, it was bitter-sweet and curious i
n her mouth. The woman’s child fell asleep and, in sleeping, slumped against Flora, and she moved a little, to make it comfortable. She had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and now the beer came round again and she drank more and the accordion and the singing blurred and swayed together inside her head. The dusk crept in from the banks on either side, as the fog began to rise off the river.
And then, out of nowhere, she saw the face of the boy, Hugh, his sloe eyes looking at her out of his pale face, and, feeling the other child heavy against her, she began, shielded by the darkness and the singing and the sound of the steamer’s engines, to weep the tears she had never wept, but, seeing them, nevertheless, the woman reached for Flora’s hand and held it under the warmth of the rug, and then they simply sat in silence and the gathering dusk and the air was raw and chill and smelled suddenly of winter.
Twenty-Six
The summer was paid for at once. There were no clear, cold, bright mornings, with early frost crisping the grass. The days never came fully light. An acrid fog clung about the buildings of London, yellowed the streets.
She woke to the gurgle of the basins above, and the sheets of her bed felt damp, the windows were smeared with fog. The faces of the women at Miss Marchesa’s were pinched and sullen at breakfast. Everywhere, people coughed. But in the Institute the rooms were overheated by coke boilers and their stuffiness felted her lungs. She retreated again into the cold galleries. But pictures had inexplicably become dead things, and she found no comfort there. She read John Ruskin, on the painters of Italy, Florence and Venice and Rome, and longed for them, and for the warmth and the sunlight.