Children's Ward

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Yours?’ she looked at him, pulled her body away from the nearness of his, suddenly wanting to get away. ‘No – not really.’

  ‘I’ve made you unhappy – more than unhappy. Ill. You look – ghastly.’

  She managed a smile at that. ‘You’re looking pretty grim yourself,’ she said huskily. And indeed he did, his face seeming more heavily lined than ever, his eyes grim in shadowed sockets.

  ‘I’ve been trying to think,’ he said heavily. ‘Trying to make some sense out of this mess, but it’s no use. I can’t. You – you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, but I’m afraid – afraid to hold onto you. I can’t believe that we could ever –’ He stopped, seeming to struggle to find words. ‘Already, I’ve done this to you – made you look ill, made you so miserable you forget to eat, so that you faint –’

  ‘I’ll get over it,’ she said, pulling the shreds of her pride round her. ‘I’ll get over it –’

  There was a long silence. Then he said heavily. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? It wouldn’t work for us, Harriet. I’m no use to you, any more than to myself. If I thought I had it in me to make you happy, to be the sort of – of husband you deserve, I – I can’t tell you what it would mean to me. But I know I couldn’t. It’s finished, Susan – destroyed me.’

  She looked at him, at the face she cared for so much that it hurt, and said gently. ‘You’re making too much of this, Gregory. Far too much. It would take more than a Susan to destroy you, whatever you think now. She’s hurt you – hurt you dreadfully, but you could recover –’

  He shook his head, getting up to walk restlessly about the room. ‘I can’t take the chance. I can’t – not when it’s you that will suffer. If I married you, and – failed to –’

  ‘God Almighty, Gregory!’ Suddenly she was angry, wanted to shake him, locked in a fury that pulled her from the couch to stand swaying a little beside it. ‘Is that all you think a marriage, is? Just sex? Do you think that that’s all I need from marriage? A – a mate, as though I were an animal? If I were like that – if I needed sex so desperately, don’t you think I’d have found it out about myself before now? I’m twenty five years old, remember? Would I still – still be the virgin I am if I was the same sort of woman Susan was? I know sex matters, but it’s not the only thing! Doesn’t respect, companionship, simple love, have any place? What do you think I am, for Christ’s sake? I’m a woman that loves you – and it’s all of you I want – not just the – the sexual satisfaction you seem to care about so much!’

  He came to stand beside her, to hold her face between cold hands.

  ‘Dear Harriet,’ he said softly. ‘Dear Harriet. How can you know? How can you? I felt like that once – before Susan. But I know now, as you can’t possibly, just how important it is. When you love someone – really love them, sex does matter. It mayn’t be the only thing – but if that goes wrong, it poisons everything else. Companionship and love and friendship – none of them matter when you can’t – express what you feel properly. I saw what the failure of sex did to Susan – and I’m not going to let it happen to you. There’ll be someone else for you, Harriet. Someone else will make you happy as I never could. Try to believe me.’

  She looked up at him, and her heart seemed to fill with defeat. There was no answer she could make, no argument she could set against the flatness of his eyes, nothing she could do to convince him he was wrong.

  And then, almost against her will, thought welled up in her, thoughts that showed her the one argument she could make, the only way she could show him he was wrong.

  ‘All right,’ she said, pulling away from him, turning to the glass fronted instrument cupboard to use it as a mirror as she fastened her collar, and straightened her crumpled uniform. ‘All right, Gregory. I’ll try to believe you,’ and her voice sounded cool and composed.

  ‘Thank you, Harriet,’ he said. ‘That’s all I ever seem to say to you, isn’t it? But I mean it –’

  Without turning she said, ‘I’m taking Davey down to Devonshire tomorrow. My sister is going to foster him. I know he’s not – not your child, but you are – connected to him. It’s only fair that Sybil should know the whole story, don’t you think? If she’s to help him as he should be helped? Could you – could you come down too, meet her, help me explain to her?’

  He stood very still, and then said. ‘I see. Tomorrow, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I – I suppose I owe him that at least. Whatever happened, it was none of his doing. I’ll – I’ll get someone to stand in for me for a couple of days.’

  ‘We’re taking the ten o’clock train from Paddington,’ she said, and turned to look at him. ‘Will you travel with us?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there,’ and he put a hand out towards her, an odd look of appeal on his face, but then dropped it, and turned and went.

  Harriet went off duty in a sort of dream, her head filled with only one thought. As she packed a case with the few things she would need in Devonshire, as she bathed and got ready for bed, that thought went round and round.

  ‘If he thinks that sex is all that matters, I’ll show him. Prove to him he needn’t be afraid. I’ll show him –’

  But even as she thought, her mind refused to go further. Quite how she would show him, as she put it, she wasn’t sure. But she would. Somehow, in the peace of the country, away from London and all the memories of Susan that London held for Gregory, she would show him.

  She sat in the window of her bedroom, the room she always had when she stayed with Sybil, staring out at the garden, letting the warm peace that was so much a part of this house wash over her. She could smell the warm drift of flowers from below, see the faint glimmer of white from the big bed of cottage pinks under her window, and she closed her eyes gratefully.

  It had been a long day, and she could still feel the sway and rattle of the train journey in her bones, almost smell the oily dusty reek of the long rushing over the miles, still feel the weight of Davey on her lap, as he had sat there all through the long hours, refusing to move from her arms.

  Gregory had sat beside her throughout, speaking only of commonplaces, getting food for them from the restaurant car, because Davey seemed to panic at any suggestion that they move from their compartment, helping her feed him, wrapping a rug round him when he fell asleep on her lap afterwards.

  Sybil and Edward had met them, Sybil clucking over Davey in a way that seemed to reassure him, so that he had gone to her without demur, allowing her to bath him and put him to bed in Jeremy’s room, falling into an exhausted sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

  And after the children had gone to bed, the four adults sat long over their belated supper, while painfully, Gregory told Sybil and Edward about Davey, leaving out as much as he could about his own relationship with Susan, about the causes of the failure of their marriage.

  Edward had said little, only listening, but Harriet felt that he knew somehow, understood what lay behind Gregory’s halting words, felt his eyes on her own bent head, aware of the sympathy and affection in them.

  And now, the day was over. Sybil and Edward had gone to bed, Sybil hugging Harriet warmly as she went, saying nothing, just holding her close in a sympathetic lovingness that brought tears to Harriet’s weary eyes. And Gregory had said goodnight stiffly, and gone up to his own room at the other side of the house, avoiding looking at Harriet, including her in his impersonal politeness.

  She opened her eyes and looked round at her room, a room that was home to her. The furniture sat shadowed in the darkness, comfortable and shabby, and the narrow bed with its patched cover looked inviting. For a moment, she wanted just to run to it, to bury her head under the covers, and fall into the oblivion of sleep.

  But Gregory was going back to London tomorrow. Tomorrow. If she was to make any effort to hold him, to convince him there was a future for them together, now was the last time she could make that effort. After tonight, it would truly be too l
ate.

  She stood up, suddenly cold, pulling her thin nylon nightgown round her, and with a lifted head, moved across the room to pick up her cotton housecoat. As she put it on, she shivered, painfully aware of its flimsiness.

  ‘I can’t,’ she thought with sudden panic. ‘I can’t – not me – I’m not like this really. I’m not – I can’t –’ But part of her mind said with cold repetition, ‘You must. It’s the only way. You must –’

  The door creaked slightly as she pushed it open, and slipped out into the dimly lit hall, and she stood poised in sick fear, waiting for Sybil and Edward’s door to open, desperately trying to think what she would say if they did come out to see why she was prowling about in the silence of the night. But there was no movement, no sound but her own uneven breathing.

  Her slippers moved softly over the carpet, as she walked along the wide hallway towards the blank door at the far end, and she tried desperately to control her uneven breathing, tried to stop her legs shaking against the folds of her thin nightdress.

  It was as though she were someone else, a tiny Harriet perched high in the corner of the hall, looking down in sick disgust at the figure standing in front of Gregory’s silent door.

  ‘What are you?’ this small Harriet jeered from her distant place. ‘What are you? Are you going to make a fool of yourself – at best, a fool of yourself? Or will you be able to do this? Can you crawl to this man, beg him to make love to you, be the sort of woman who cares so little for her own self respect – can you?’

  ‘I must,’ she thought desperately. ‘I must. It’s the only answer – I must –’

  She pushed the door open, stepped inside, and closed it behind her to lean against the panels in numb terror.

  The curtains were wide open, moving gently in the breeze from the open window, and the light of a late moon filled the room with a dim radiance. He was lying in bed, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes staring at the window, and he moved sharply as the door closed behind her.

  He reached out, and switched on the small bedside light, so that the moonlight disappeared in a rush of yellow light that made her blink.

  ‘Turn it off,’ she said breathlessly. ‘God, turn it off –’

  After a long moment when he stared at her, he did turn it off, and Harriet breathed deeply in the grateful darkness.

  She could hear the soft rustle as he got out of bed, pulled his dressing gown across his shoulders.

  Then, with a last burst of resolution, she crossed the room, came to stand beside him, close to him, looking up at his face shadowed in the soft moonlight.

  ‘Gregory –’ she could feel the warmth of his body close to hers, could feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and she moved closer, putting her cold arms around his neck.

  ‘Gregory, I love you – I love you. I need you, Gregory. Don’t send me away – don’t – please –’

  She couldn’t believe this was herself, that this woman straining her body so close to the rigid one she held in her arms was Harriet, that she could possibly be behaving like this.

  ‘Don’t send me away,’ she whispered again, and put her face up, seeking his mouth with cold lips, pulling his head down into a long kiss.

  For a moment he resisted, pulling back from her, rigid with control. Then it was as though a wall had fallen, had burst in her arms, and he was holding her close, kissing her with a violence she couldn’t have believed was in him.

  ‘Harriet – Harriet,’ he murmured at last, lifting his head to look at her. ‘My Harriet –’

  And then he was kissing her again, holding her in a grasp that seemed to melt her bones, pulling her against him, so that they fell against the bed, till they were lying locked together in an embrace that seemed to Harriet to last an eternity.

  And then she knew, knew she was right. She could feel the passion in him, feel the urgency of his whole body as he held her close, as his hands moved on her cold skin in desperate caresses that made her tremble in answering need, that made her body shiver with sensations she could not have imagined possible.

  ‘Harriet,’ he said again and again, the sound of his voice a caress, full of a longing that every fibre of her answered.

  And then, suddenly, the curtain at the window moved again, rustling softly against the sill, and it was as though she were pulled out of herself, pulled out of her body to think logically again, to be the person she always was.

  She was aware of every detail about her, of her slippers where they had fallen from her feet onto the floor, of the tumbled bedclothes under her, of the way his hair showed tousled against the brightness of the window, of the furniture seeming to stare at her with watchful eyes.

  And with every ounce of strength she had, she pulled back from him, away from his arms and urgently caressing hands, to huddle crouched against the door trying to pull her dressing gown around her.

  ‘What am I doing? My God, what am I doing?’ she said in a wondering voice. ‘What am I doing? –’ and then she was crying, shaking against the door in an agony of shame and fear, her head down so that her hair fell against her cheeks to stick against their wetness in wispy strands.

  He was very still, half lying on the bed, staring across the dim room at her huddled figure, his body seeming to shake in answer to her own trembling.

  Then he was beside her, picking her up like a child, cradling her in his arms, rocking her gently as he murmured in her ears.

  ‘It’s all right, my darling – it’s all right – hush, my love, hush –’

  Gently he crossed the room, to sit in the deep armchair by the window, holding her on his lap, her head against his chest, soothing her gently.

  ‘I – I wanted – I wanted to show you,’ she began at last in a thick whisper as her tears stopped. ‘I had to show you you were wrong, but I can’t – I can’t do it – I love you so, but I can’t.’

  ‘It’s all right, my darling,’ he said again, and there was an exultant lilt in his voice, as he held her close again, rested his cheek against hers. ‘It’s all right –’

  She pulled away from him, to peer into his face in the dimness, and her voice was full of appeal, when she spoke.

  ‘I’m not – I’m not really like this, Gregory. Truly I’m not. But I love you, Gregory – I love you. I couldn’t bear to lose you, I had to show you –’

  ‘Harriet, my own love,’ he said, his voice full of a tenderness she had never heard before. ‘I know – I know what you are – what sort of person you are. I know just how hard it must have been for you to do this – to come to me like this – and oh, Harriet, you can never know how wise you were –’

  He put his head down and kissed her, a long gentle kiss that made her shiver and then relax, that filled her with a peace as unlike the passion she had felt before as it could possibly be.

  Then he gently pushed her head down onto his shoulder.

  ‘I was so wrong, my love – so wrong. When you came to me, when you held me as you did, you seemed to break down all the misery of years. You’ve killed all that fear I had, you’ve made me feel – I can’t tell you, my love, I can’t tell you. Holding you as I did then, touching you, it was as though – as though we were one person. Not two people battening on each other – one person. You and me, together. We – belonged,’ and then he threw his head back and laughed with pure joy. ‘It’s all right, Harriet darling, it’s all right! Can you understand? You’ve made it all right –’

  And she breathed deeply, filling her body with the peace she had always looked for with him, feeling the same sense of being one person he had felt, for the first time in her life knowing what love would be, what it could offer her.

  They sat together in the darkness, watching the window as the faint light of the moon disappeared as it sank behind the trees, letting the peace and silence of the old house wash over them.

  Then, gently, with infinite tenderness, he carried her across the silent hallway, back to her own bed, to lay her softly on the pill
ow, to kiss her eyes, her mouth, her cold cheeks, wrapping her in love and gentleness.

  ‘Goodnight my darling,’ he murmured. ‘Goodnight. Soon we won’t ever say goodnight again, my love – we’ll never leave each other. Not yet, my love – not yet for either of us. We – aren’t the sort of people to spoil things for each other, are we? Not now. But soon – we’ll be married, Harriet darling – and then it will be all right –’

  And Harriet smiled up at him in the darkness, and with a soft laugh in her throat murmured, ‘All come right – just like algebra –’ and she fell asleep as suddenly as a baby.