The Sisters Mortland

by Sally Beauman

  My silence and inattention have finally registered. Veronica’s story dwindles and stammers to a halt. She apologizes. She says she’s sorry, she can see she’s boring me. Only fifteen minutes have passed, but I can’t take much more of this vacuity. The thought of Violet brow-beating Stella, even with Julia by her side, is making me uneasy. “Maybe I should go back upstairs,” I say. “They must have finished this conference by now.”

  “Oh no, don’t go yet,” she says eagerly. “They won’t have finished—you have no idea how Violet talks. Stella will be fine, Stella’s actually quite tough, don’t you think? She has Julia there, and Julia’s super, isn’t she? She’s so beautiful. And clever. She makes me feel frightfully stupid and frumpy.…” She pauses. I say nothing. “Besides,” she continues, blushing again, “it’s not fair. I’ve told you all about myself—and I don’t know anything about you. How do you know the Mortlands?” She hesitates. “Are you Julia’s friend? I did wonder—I thought maybe—”

  “Julia’s friend? No. Not in any sense of the word. Rather the reverse.”

  “Do you live near Wykenfield? You sound… I wasn’t sure. I thought you might be Irish.”

  “No. Born and bred in the village. My father’s a farm laborer there. My grandmother is the cleaner at the Abbey. I’ve known Julia and Finn since we were children.”

  I’m wondering what the reaction will be, and it doesn’t disappoint me. She takes several seconds to recover. “I’m sorry,” she manages finally. “I didn’t realize. I thought—you look, you sound… Your eyes are so dark, and your hair, too.”

  “I have Gypsy blood. My grandmother brought me up, and she’s pure Romany. So you can cross my palm with silver, Veronica, and if you do, I’ll read your fortune.”

  “Heavens—are you teasing me? I can’t tell whether you are or not. Romany—are you truly? I don’t believe you can tell fortunes. I don’t believe in that kind of thing… not really. On the other hand, sometimes I do get a strange premonition about something. Or someone.… That can feel so unsettling.” She darts a glance at me. “Has that ever happened to you, Dan?”

  “Yes, it has happened to me,” I reply solemnly. It’s hard to keep a straight face, and I know I should stop it right there—she can’t help her manner of speech; I bear her no particular ill will. Yet somehow the temptation to push it further, to see whether the laborer’s son can overcome two years at a Swiss finishing school and an upbringing that will have taught her to distance herself from someone like me—the temptation’s too strong. And the possibilities are too amusing. “You choose, Veronica,” I continue. “I’ll tell your fortune for you, but which method? Tarot, tea leaves, or palmistry?”

  “Well, the tea’s made with bags,” she replies, smiling. “And I can’t believe you carry a tarot pack round with you. Besides, those tarot cards are frightening. A girl at school got hold of some, and I hated them. So I suppose it will have to be the palm.” And she holds out her sweet pink hand, with its large diamond-and-sapphire engagement ring.

  “Will it take long?” she asks breathlessly.

  “I very much doubt it,” I answer.

  And I make her change hands, because she’s right-handed and that’s the palm I need. I glance down at it. The mons veneris is soft and plump; the lifeline is long. I’ve read Veronica, and there’s little this palm can tell me that I don’t already know. I turn her hand sideways and examine its edge. I have scant faith in palmistry, but according to the marks below her little finger, Veronica will marry only once and have only one child.

  “Well, well, well,” I say, sighing. “Veronica, you have hidden depths. You surprise me.”

  I’m well tutored by Bella, and I know this approach is tried, tested, and virtually infallible. As a child, Bella watched Ocean employ it to great effect everywhere from Yorkshire to the racecourse at Epsom. With a woman, I’ve never known it to fail. I accompany the remark with a dark-eyed glance—a technique I’ve added to the repertoire.

  I speak for some while. By the time I’ve finished, Veronica is pale and seems stricken. “I can’t believe this,” she says uncertainly. “I can’t believe that you can know me so well. We’ve only just met, but it’s as if you’ve known me for years. It’s uncanny. I’ve never met anyone like you in my life. You’re—extraordinary, Dan. Truly extraordinary.”

  “I’m working class,” I reply. I’m irritated. “That may be extraordinary to you. To most people, it’s only too workaday ordinary.” This is too easy, I think; it’s tiresome.

  “That’s not what I meant at all,” she says with a quick flash of anger in her eyes that makes me like her marginally better. “Don’t say that—it’s horrid. I’m not a snob. I couldn’t care less about class. Those days are over.”

  “You think so, do you, Veronica?”

  “Yes, I do.” She takes a deep breath. “I’d like us to be friends. You already know me better than most of my friends do, anyway. Here…” She takes a card from her handbag and scribbles on it. “That’s my telephone number. I’m sharing with two girls from school, Victoria and Virginia—people call us the Three Vs! We have this adorable little cottage in Chelsea, just off the King’s Road. I’d love you to come and have dinner with us. Say you will, Dan—it would be such fun. You could bring your tarot cards—I wouldn’t mind if you read them for me. I wouldn’t feel frightened then, and…” She stops. She’s seen the expression on my face.

  “I don’t do party tricks,” I answer. “I’m not for hire. Sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that—why are you so touchy? Please, just take it. It can’t do any harm. Look, just take it. You don’t have to call if you don’t want to.”

  I take the card from her. Her tone was insistent; her expression is offended, possibly sulky. I glance at the card, then tear it into small pieces and toss them into the ashtray. “Bad idea,” I say. “Bad idea, Veronica. Trust me.”

  And that is the truth. She does not, of course, believe me.

  Without further remark, she follows me out of the cafeteria and back through that hospital labyrinth. We return to Maisie’s ward without a single word being exchanged. In the ward, we find Violet, and Stella, and a tight-faced, angry Julia.

  “There you are, Veronica,” Violet says as we enter. “I was wondering where on earth you were. In the cafeteria? Well, I hope you haven’t been chattering away. I’m sure Mr., Mr.—I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten your name—but I’m sure we’re keeping you—”

  “Daniel Nunn,” I reply. “And on the contrary, I’m in no hurry to be anywhere.”

  Violet’s ice blue gaze sweeps across my face once more. It’s a brief scan, but I sense I’m now being committed to memory. She turns back to the bed, on which a silent Maisie is still lying, in the same position as before, eyes closed, and unmoving. Attached tubes pulse with nutrients and waste. A monitor is flickering.

  “Stella, I will say this one last time,” Violet begins. “Ask yourself: Do you wish to prolong this suffering? It’s not only Maisie we have to consider. This whole affair has made Henry desperately ill. You’re worn out, Stella—and if you continue like this, you’ll have a breakdown. It’s terrible for Julia and Finn. So a decision is going to have to be made, and by the end of the year at the latest, if not sooner, in my opinion. I know your inclination is always to put things off, but in this case, you can’t. This situation is not going to improve. Maisie’s condition is degenerating—and that is evident to all the doctors and nurses. It’s painfully evident to everyone, Stella.”

  Maisie’s eyes fly open. They open wide at exactly the moment Violet pronounces the word degenerating. They fix themselves upon Violet at the end of her bed. And that gaze, alert, fixed, and baleful, carries a strong charge—just as it does in Lucas’s painting. It’s this once familiar expression of Maisie’s that Lucas caught in his portrait—I’d never realized that before. Even Violet, armored as she is in virtually impregnable self-esteem, is unequal to it. She steps back with a small nervous exclamation.

/>   Slowly, and with great difficulty, Maisie turns her head on the pillow and looks directly at Stella. Her lips move. No sound emerges, but her lips do move. And then, in a way that makes my skin go cold, Maisie begins to move her right hand. She moves it jerkily, and she is impeded by the intravenous drip in her arm, but this movement could not possibly be dismissed as involuntary. She moves her hand, which is white skinned, bruised, and thin, across the white cotton bedspread, moves it an inch at a time. Her hand seems possessed of its own creeping volition, though an expression of intense concentration is visible in her face. Stella, leaning over the bed, appears transfixed. Maisie’s hand inches crabwise toward her mother’s, stops, inches again. With one last effort, Maisie manages to lift her fingers; they make a spidery progress across the back of her mother’s hand and scrabble at it. Stella turns her palm upward, and Maisie’s grip tightens. She makes a low growling sound in her throat. I could not have said with any certainty what that growl signified, but Stella was in no doubt as to its meaning.

  “I’m here,” she says. “Maisie, I’m here, darling. Oh, I knew you could hear us. I knew you’d recover.…” She gathers Maisie awkwardly in her arms, tears spilling down her face. “Julia,” she says, “Dan. You saw that. You witnessed it. Quickly, go and fetch Sister, get the doctors, now—I want them to see this.…”

  The nurses and various ranks of doctors duly arrive. During the ensuing melee, Violet departs, accompanied by a wordless Veronica. I move across to the bed, to kiss Maisie’s forehead and wish her good-bye. I feel this moment is for Julia and Stella, not me—and, warned by Nick, I know such apparent progress does not rule out a relapse. I don’t want to witness that or betray my fear of it to Stella.

  As I bend over her, Maisie’s eyes meet mine. She looks at me directly, a steely look, as if we were greeting each other for the first time, as if in my eyes Maisie saw someone she recognized as her co-conspirator or her familiar or her confederate. Something implacable in Maisie’s expression shocks me. I realize I must be imagining it; even so, I step back sharply.

  I walk out into the hospital corridor. Julia, to my surprise, follows me. “You don’t learn, do you?” she says without preamble. “Thanks for all the help, Dan. Tea in the cafeteria—that poor girl looked as if she’d been struck by lightning. Leave Veronica alone. She’s a sweet-natured child. She’s an uneducated innocent. Tell yourself, just for once, that you have nothing to prove. You could break her with your little finger, and we both know it.”

  “For God’s sake, what are you talking about?” I answer. “I was having a cup of tea—end of story. And dying of boredom, I might add. She’s about to get married. She’s been in a Swiss finishing school for two years—and she took two years to tell me about it. If you think that girl’s remotely my type, you really don’t know me. The sweetness alone would asphyxiate me.”

  “Good. She’s been very kind to Stella, and I don’t want to see her hurt. And I do know you, Dan. I see right through you. You can’t resist conquests.”

  “No, you don’t know me, Julia. You don’t know the first fucking thing about me. I’m not thinking about Veronica. I’m thinking about Maisie. What’s the matter with you? Not jealous, by any chance?”

  “Get lost,” she replies, and slams back into the ward. The doors swing shut behind her.

  I start walking through that endless hushed maze of hospital corridors. Within minutes I’ve forgotten Julia’s accusations: I’m thinking about Maisie, and the moment when her hand began to move, and how strange, how disconcerting, that moment was. It made Stella joyful; it should have made me joyful—and yet it didn’t. There was something stealthy about that hand, moving so purposefully across the bedclothes. For no reason I could define, I was mesmerized by that hand, and I found it disturbing.

  I finally find my way back to the hospital’s main entrance and go outside; it’s dusk. I can hear the rumble of London’s traffic, the sound of sirens; an ambulance is pulling in, blue light flashing. From a wall, a shadow detaches itself, approaches, and tugs at my sleeve. I turn and, to my astonishment, find this shadow is Finn—a Finn I scarcely recognize.

  “Dan?” she says. “I’ve been waiting and waiting. Where can we go? I must talk to you.”

  [ twenty-five ]

  Fin

  I can’t see Finn properly—I realize that now, lying here featherbedded, not sure whether night’s day, or tomorrow’s yesterday. Time is displacing, and although that loop—Finn and I, standing there in the dusk, a blue light shining and flickering—is running and rerunning, I see her only in snatches. I see her pale face lifted to mine, her gloved hand on my sleeve, and the expression in her eyes, which is agitated, opaque, and distracted. I’m trying to understand how a few weeks, four (or is it five?) since I last saw her, could effect such a transformation. Finn has put on weight; her face looks swollen and pale, and I can see she’s been crying. She’s bundled into layers of drab woolly garments: a thick skirt to the ankles, a sweater that envelops her from neck to thighs, a loose woolly cardigan over that, and over everything else, a huge baggy tweed coat that she’s hugging around herself; she’s shivering violently.

  I can’t hear myself as I watch that loop, and I’m not sure what I was saying. I was trying to ask Finn what was wrong, I suppose. I was probably trying to understand why she hadn’t come up to the ward, why she should wait for me here; and at some point, I think I must have tried to tell her about Maisie.

  “No, no, no,” she says, backing away. “I’m not going up there now. I can’t face it. I can’t bear to see it—all that hope on Stella’s face. Maisie isn’t coming back, Dan—she’s not coming back. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I promise you, Finn—this was different. There is a change. I saw it.”

  “How much of a change, Dan?” Her face flared at me, blue lit, out of the dusk. “Is Maisie going to walk again, talk again?You know she isn’t. The damage is irreparable. Nick explained that to me—at the Abbey. I’ve been in the library, the university library—I’ve been there for days, reading all these medical textbooks, and—and some things are irreversible. That’s what they are, irreversible. There’s no changing them, there’s no going back, or undoing or rewriting, Dan. That’s it, forever and ever.”

  And she begins to cry. I can see those tears spilling from her eyes, blue tears in a blue light, and then her face is in shadow. She’s plucking at my arm again. “Look, where can we go?” she’s saying. “Somewhere we can talk. There must be somewhere—some little café, there’s hundreds of cafés round here. You must know one.”

  I don’t know one. I suggest we could go back into the hospital and talk in the cafeteria, but Finn shies away again when I suggest that. “No, no—not in there. I hate hospitals. All that hush, and death behind every door. And we might see Stella or Julia—was Julia there? I don’t want to see either of them, not just now, not yet. Let’s just walk, Dan—please, just walk with me. We’ll find somewhere.”

  And we do find somewhere, in the maze of narrow adjacent streets: a Greek-Cypriot coffee bar. After the dusk outside, its fluorescent lights are dazzling. They throw blue skull shadows under Finn’s eyes and drain her face of all color. We are the only customers. We sit at the back, in a warm fug of cooking smells and steam from the coffee machine. The noise of this machine, the clatter of cups and plates in some dishwasher, the soft conversations in a foreign tongue between the owner and his assistant: Well, for mine own part it was all Greek to me, and Finn and I were islanded. It was intimacy of a sort, the two of us, facing each other across a speckled red Formicatopped table. There was sugar in a dispenser and paper napkins; Finn began to fiddle with these objects, first the dispenser, then the scarlet napkins. She pleated them between her black-gloved fingers, scarlet and black, and when I couldn’t bear to watch her do that anymore, I put my hand over hers and said, “Finn, tell me.”

  “I’ve done a terrible thing,” she said. More tears spilled. “You’ll never forgive me.”

  �
�Finn, there’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t forgive. And forgiveness doesn’t enter into it, you know that. Not for us. Now tell me.”

  “Do I look different?” She raises her eyes to my face. “Tell me what you see, Dan.”

  I hesitate. I can feel the premonition then, and it scares me so much that it’s hard to speak. “You don’t look well,” I begin slowly. “You look desperately upset, Finn, and tired and pale—”

  “Do I look stupid?” she asks, cutting me off. “Do I look stupid to you? Because that’s what I am, Dan. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought I was clever once. Intelligent, anyway. That’s what people told me. I had a brain, a good brain, and I was going to go to Cambridge, and they’d teach me how to use it. And I was so happy about that—it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. Go there—and read, learn to read for three whole years. Imagine the luxury of that. Imagine the joy of that. Well, I’ve thrown that away—along with a few other things, my self-respect, not that that matters much, I can do without that. My sense of who I am—yes, that’s gone, that’s definitely got lost by the wayside. I don’t know who I am, and… Dan, I’m sorry. I can’t talk anymore. I can’t think anymore, not the way I used to. My brain isn’t working. It just goes round and round, like a rat in a trap. And it’s making me selfish. I can’t think about Maisie, not properly, or Stella, or Gramps. And I haven’t been able to think about you, either, not the way I want to think—and that makes me feel so wicked and guilty—”