When he had gone a woman phoned and asked to speak to him.
‘He’s out,’ Ann said. ‘He’s had to meet someone.’
‘Oh, he’s left, has he?’ said the woman.
‘Can I take a message?’ asked Ann politely, but the woman hung up.
When William returned with Pamela, they climbed the stairs slowly. He supported her round the waist. He moved the sofa against the wall and covered her with blankets. She still shivered. She’d taken the pills as directed, and she said she was in pain. Like a period, only much worse. Agony. William made her several cups of strong tea and went downstairs to borrow sugar from Mrs Kershaw.
‘How do you feel?’ said Ann, at a loss.
‘Awful,’ Pamela said. She wore a perky little smile and there was moisture on her forehead. The straight eyebrows met in the centre above eyes round and brown as a doll’s.
‘We best get her a doctor,’ said William.
‘Wait,’ Pamela said. Like Ann, she felt in these circumstances it would be prudent to avoid calling a doctor. It was illegal, wasn’t it, to take pills for such a purpose?
At five o’clock she sat up and attempted to stand on the carpet. A thin trickle of blood ran down the inside of her leg and splashed her heel. She was sick on to her bare toes before they could fetch a bowl. William washed her feet in warm water and dried them tenderly. He sang ‘The Green Oak Tree’ to her. She lay flat on her back with her arm flung over her eyes and moaned slightly. Tears ran from the crook of her elbow and dripped on to her pointed chin. She was still bleeding at eight o’clock when William went to phone the ambulance.
‘You can’t go downstairs on a stretcher,’ said Ann. ‘Can’t you stand up at all?’
‘I’ll try,’ Pamela said weakly. ‘But I feel awful.’
She appeared to lose consciousness; she lay completely still and lifeless. Ann ran to the top of the stairs to call William. She could hear him on the phone. ‘I’ll maybe drop by later,’ she heard him say. ‘I’m a bit caught up.’
‘William,’ called Ann in terror. ‘Come quick.’
He said she was only faint from loss of blood. He had seen this kind of thing before. They would doubtless give her a blood transfusion.
‘Where have you seen this kind of thing before?’ asked Ann.
‘Here and there,’ he replied. ‘Do you know her blood group?’
‘No,’ said Ann, ‘I don’t.’
She wrung her hands in misery and hoped Pamela wouldn’t die.
‘Who were you talking to?’ she asked William, looking at her cousin’s waxen cheeks and the dark hair limp with perspiration.
‘The hospital,’ he said. ‘They’ll be along in a moment.’
He carried Pamela downstairs in his arms. Ann followed with Pamela’s toothbrush and some magazines. The ambulance men laid her on a stretcher in the hall, folded and packed her neatly in a bright red blanket that glowed against the dull green carpet. She looked like an exotic parcel. She was carried over the gravel, pathetically mewing as she swung gently between the stretcher bearers. William and Ann sat silently inside the dim interior of the van. William leant his elbows on his knees and watched the pale face, luminous above the cheerful rug.
How far we have travelled, thought Ann, though it was not the distance to the hospital she was contemplating, but more specifically her attitude to life, her abandonment of standards. In ten days she had encouraged adultery, committed a breach of promise, given up her job, abetted an abortion. She had not been aware, throughout these happenings, of any unease or distress. She had become like one of those insect specimens under glass, sucked dry of her old internal organs, pumped full and firm with an unknown preservative. She was transfixed by William. I don’t mind, she thought, as the ambulance bounced down the ramp to the hospital. Pamela was conscious now. She made a little moan of protest as she was rolled from the stretcher on to the high bed in a small emergency room off Main Reception.
‘I could kill George,’ said Ann, but it didn’t help anyone.
After some moments, a Sister came and took the patient’s name and that of her doctor in Brighton.
‘Phelps,’ said Ann, lying in case Pamela’s mother was informed. ‘Arnold Phelps, The Parade, Brighton.’ She thought it was rather quick and clever. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t know her blood group.’
When the Sister had gone she told William it wasn’t true. ‘Didn’t I do well?’ she said.
The door into the emergency room was open. They could see Pamela under the raspberry blanket – the tip of her nose, a curve of lip.
‘That’s my girl,’ said William, smiling; but Ann wasn’t sure whom he meant. He was looking at Pamela. Don’t be silly, she told herself, and she shook her head irritably and reached for his hand. He took it at once and his face above the green shirt was broad and solemn. The blue eyes held love. He arched his pale brows and stared at her. His hand lay over hers, white and plump. If men were supposed to be beautiful – if it wasn’t effeminate – then that was what he was, beautiful.
‘It won’t ever be like that for us,’ she said. ‘Will it? You won’t make me take pills, will you?’
She knew he wouldn’t, but it was nice to ask because the answer was so obvious.
‘Never,’ he said, and he did mean it. He pushed her down on to the waiting-room bench, scattering the Woman’s Own and the Country Life, sending them sliding across the polished floor, with his bullet head trapping a section of her hair, his hands beneath her coat pushing her skirt up about her hips. Nobody but them in Reception, the clock ticking on the wall, the gleaming corridors stretching beyond the swing doors, the plastic cushions sticking to her bottom, an edge of crimson blanket like blood against the white wall. She thought she knew now why William behaved as he did. He couldn’t compromise or wait for the right moment or the right place; he loved her so much. He wanted to show her – in this building, silent as a church and sanctified with disinfectant – the discrepancy between one act of love and another. Not quite silent: there was the sound of rubber-soled shoes, an indignant cry – Sister with her safety pin and her watch, her little white hat like knickers on her head – shaking William disgustedly by the shoulder, ordering them out, calling them names, saying she would send for the police.
‘I’m not ashamed,’ said Ann defiantly, once she was in the street and away from censure. ‘I don’t care.’
‘No,’ said William. ‘You’re a great little learner.’ And he took her by the arm and ran her up the alley into Belsize Park, cuddling her like a friend in the warm underground train, proud of her.
Afterwards, though, Ann was dismayed by her behaviour. Poor Pamela, losing her piece of baby in the clinical room. What a time to affirm that she herself was loved and in no such danger. ‘What a dreadful thing to happen’, she said, wide-eyed in the dark. She was thinking of herself lying on the bench with her suspenders showing.
‘Pamela will be all right,’ William said; and he didn’t bother to go and read his children a story, but fell asleep with his face crumpled against her stomach and the sheets flung back like a ripped-open envelope.
The next evening, at visiting time, Ann wouldn’t go to the hospital.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just can’t do it.’
She didn’t like William going without her, but equally she couldn’t face that Sister in Reception. Fretting, she let him walk out of the flat with a bunch of anemones and four oranges.
She read again the letter that had arrived from Gerald earlier in the day. William had torn the University address from the top of the page and made her copy it on to the airmail envelope containing her farewell letter to Gerald; he had taken it with him when he went out to buy the posy and the fruit for Pamela. Gerald wrote that he had settled in and made friends with a young couple who rented a cabin at weekends in the mountains. He didn’t say where. It disturbed her, the whole tone of the letter. Even the bit about longing to hold her in his arms didn’t reassure her, coming as it did afte
r a long paragraph about seeing two bears standing in the driven snow. He sounded so happy. She had been mortified to let William read it. He sounded as if he was perpetually enjoying himself and on some sort of Outward Bound course, instead of working diligently as a lecturer and saving for their future. Of course, there was to be no future now, but he hadn’t known that when he wrote to her. Her own letter, telling him she loved another, would hardly break his stride, would not perceptibly narrow the contour of his eye as he squinted down the barrel of his gun. She would leave no imprint on the virgin snow.
She went downstairs to talk to Mrs Kershaw and met Roddy in the hall. He was on his hands and knees searching for something. There was no furniture to look under, so his position was remarkable.
‘Have you seen a parcel?’ he demanded. ‘A big parcel in brown paper with an Irish postmark?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘When did you last see it?’
‘I’ve never seen it,’ said Roddy.
He wore a judo outfit of white canvas, the trousers halfway up his legs, his feet bare.
Mrs Kershaw was painting a small grey pot dark brown. Her manner, though not unfriendly, was not the same as previously. She was both more relaxed and less courteous. There was a young man with golden hair sitting in a corner of the room with both hands covering his face. She didn’t tell Ann to sit down, nor did she call her ‘Dear’. She neglected to introduce her to the young man.
‘I had a letter from Gerald,’ Ann said. ‘He seems fine.’ She stood by the table that was covered with newspapers and wished she had stayed upstairs.
‘Good,’ said Mrs Kershaw. She didn’t ask what Ann intended to do about her fiancé in America. She bit her lip in concentration and brushed paint on to the earthenware pot. The room was full of artistic objects – pottery and paintings and bits of dried twigs and pieces of rock. Against the window wall was a whole dead tree, its blackened branches curling upwards to the ceiling. Ann couldn’t help thinking it was fortunate Mrs Kershaw didn’t own a dog. How Mrs Walton would have hated the untidiness, the sense of freedom. She wondered if she too ought to start making things, now that she no longer had a job. But she had never been any good at drawing and she supposed it was a little late to start now. Art was surely like learning the violin: the fingers stiffened up if you didn’t begin when you were a child.
‘Has William gone out again?’ asked Mrs Kershaw.
There was the faintest hint of accusation. Perhaps she was annoyed that William was forever taking her bicycle.
‘Yes,’ said Ann, though she couldn’t explain about Pamela.
Roddy came in and threw books and cushions from off the sofa.
‘It’s not here,’ said Mrs Kershaw. ‘I’ve looked.’
The young man raised his head and Ann was concerned to see he had been crying and was continuing to do so. She didn’t want to stare, but it was like seeing a cripple in the street and not being able to look anywhere else. Neither Mrs Kershaw nor Roddy took any notice. The phone rang in the hall.
‘I’ll answer it,’ said Ann in relief, and she picked up the receiver and heard Edna say, ‘May I speak to William McClusky.’
‘He’s not in,’ said Ann. She was pleased to hear Edna’s voice. They had a lot in common – she felt they were almost friends.
‘It’s gone eight,’ said Edna. ‘I wondered what had happened to him.’
‘He had to visit someone … a relative of mine.’
‘But it’s the second night in succession. Dinner will be spoilt.’ The voice was carefully modulated but offended. Ann could tell, because of the training with her mother.
‘Oh, how inconsiderate,’ she said. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘You’re not to blame,’ said Edna carefully. She hoped Ann was well. She asked her to tell William she had rung.
‘Oh, I will,’ said Ann.
Only when she had replaced the receiver did she start to tremble. She was so shaken she didn’t bother to say goodnight to Mrs Kershaw. She ran upstairs and walked about the living room with pounding heart. It was the fact that William had been eating dinners that registered most clearly. Lamb, vegetables and gravy, thick soups. Her mouth watered and her nostrils quivered at the imaginary smells of roasting meat. She saw in full colour a crisp roll smeared with salted butter, the leaves of a cabbage, steaming, sprinkled with black pepper. Not until these visions had subsided, a series of photographs in a cookery book, each item displayed on tasteful crockery, was she aware of other implications. He hadn’t been reading stories to his children after all. He had been at Edna’s. Had he left after his meal and pedalled on his borrowed bicycle to Sheila’s? Did people start work at that time of night? She had no idea where Sheila lived. Was it an hour away, downhill, or round the corner? She was tormented by geographical details, map references, grid systems. She stared out into the darkness of the back garden and tried to visualise the position of the houses he visited, the dimensions of the rooms he sat in. Like a small red star, the rear light on the mudguard of his cycle trailed across the city. Did he eat food with his wives, either of them, and then lie down in a bed? Could men do that? He didn’t seem tired when he returned. Gerald had, on several occasions, done it twice, and complained that she was killing him. And he hadn’t been cycling anywhere. She just didn’t know enough about men. Her mother said they were brutes, self-absorbed and secretive. But William wasn’t like that: he was open and he loved her and he had forced her to meet his wife. It was incomprehensible to her. She dug the pads of her fingers into the corner of her eyes and moaned for her mother. She prowled about the circumference of the room and waited for him to return.
When he did, a little after four, she ran to the door as he let himself in.
‘What the hell have you been doing?’ she asked.
She wrapped her thin arms about herself for fear her hands would fly out and strike him. She stood in the tiled hallway and heard her voice strained and unloving. He handed her two brown leaves of sycamore; she flung them to the floor and ground them with her heel. They broke up like bits of burnt paper; she remembered her mother in the fluffy bedjacket, tossing the conciliatory carnations from the bed.
‘Edna rang,’ he said. ‘Is that what’s upset you?’
He looked tired. Maybe it was only the light bulb casting shadows on his face, but there were hollows she hadn’t seen before and the delicate skin under his eyes was bruised almost to the cheekbones.
‘What did you tell lies for?’ she said bitterly. Though she knew, because she had always told lies – been forced to, since a child. It was other people expecting too much.
‘It wasn’t a lie,’ he said. ‘Will you listen to me.’
He avoided the bedroom. He sat her shivering on the sofa, her white nightdress soiled with egg at the hem. She dug her toes into the cushions for warmth and glared at him.
‘I never said,’ he began, ‘that I wasn’t seeing my wife. I never lied about that.’
He didn’t seem to realise it was the number of his wives that was causing the confusion.
‘Maybe I kept from you how much I saw of her. I’ll give you that.’
He paced the room, turning like a soldier at the window and marching to the door.
‘I have been reading the children a story at night. Not every night, I grant you, or all night. But I have been to see them.’
‘How many times?’ she said tearfully, as if that would make it better.
‘Several times. I haven’t been counting. But Edna needs to look after me. I give her money for the housekeeping … she doesn’t want to be done out of cooking for me. Who am I to deny her that?’
He bent his head humbly. There was a flaw in his argument, she knew, but she couldn’t put it into words. He’d denied Edna everything else; it didn’t seem particularly cruel to tell her he didn’t want any food.
‘But you can’t be eating till four o’clock in the morning,’ she cried.
‘No,’ he said, with the trace of a smile. ‘No, that’s
not possible.’
Then there was silence. He constantly forced her to make readjustments; she had only to get used to one set of circumstances and he faced her with others. He wouldn’t tell her what he did after he ate; he waited to see if she was brave enough to ask. She wasn’t. ‘Don’t you want to know how Pamela is?’ he asked.
‘How is she?’ She forced her face to show concern; she raised her eyebrows eagerly as if it was the only subject on her mind.
‘She’s on the mend. There was a doctor who tried to get out of her what she’d done to bring it on. She didn’t tell him. She’ll be home in a day or two. I thought we might go away somewhere, the three of us, when she’s stronger.’
‘That’s lovely,’ said Ann.
But it wasn’t. It was one more complication. What was he doing visiting her cousin, carrying her down the stairs, making plans to take her on holiday? I loathe Pamela, she wanted to shout; she smashed my sand castles with her spade, she held my head under the sea. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just feel something’s not quite right somewhere. I’m not clever enough to know what, but I feel it.’ And, inspired, she beat the breast of her white nightdress with her fist.
He was slumped on the sofa now, worn out. He yawned and yawned, exactly like a cat, she thought, the tip of his pink tongue on the edge of his teeth and his eyes opening and shutting.
‘There’s nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s just life putting the boot in.’
It was one of his sayings, learnt from Gus. He was holding her bare right foot among the cushions, his fingers uncurling the stubborn snail of her little toe.
‘I’ve never,’ he said, ‘felt like this about anyone. You’ll just have to believe me. I do have compartments to my life, I can’t deny that, but I’ve never loved anyone like this before.’ He looked at her smooth face, the small wanton mouth, the gullible eyes that watched him greedily.
Sweet William Page 7