by Paul Scott
‘Yes, I do. Obviously Doctor Iyenagar told you to expect me. Upstairs I was afraid there’d been a tiresome lack of liaison. May we please proceed without further delay, Doctor Lal? I should have been at Flagstaff House ten minutes ago.’
The young man looked tubercular. His eyes were enormous. He had studied too hard. He had not eaten enough. He had his qualification. Which should have opened a world to him. But the way into that world was blocked by Beames and his fear of Beames upon whose good opinion his career depended. Contrasting his delicate night-animal’s features with Beames’s bone-fed face she felt instinctively that he had no sanguine expectations of that opinion.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. Did his lower lip tremble? Necessity made him frank. ‘Proceed with what? I am sorry, but Doctor Iyenagar–’
‘What about Doctor Iyenagar? Are you saying you’ve no instruction in this matter? If so we’ll waste no more time. Ask the switchboard for Flagstaff House. I’ll speak to Colonel Beames and ask him to repeat to you what he’s already said to Doctor Iyenagar.’
For a moment she feared that a habit of acting upon the last order given would send him to the telephone. But almost at once he said, ‘It should not be necessary if you tell me what is the problem.’
‘It’s not a problem. Or at least it wasn’t. It’s a question of identification.’
‘Identification? Of what, please?’
‘Doctor Lal, you’re making this extremely painful and tedious. The business is bad enough without prolonging it. I have to see and identify the body of the late Mrs Layton.’
He looked relieved. And then puzzled. He said, ‘Oh, yes. But no one mentioned to me this necessity. Are you a relative?’
‘Yes.’
‘One moment.’
He went towards a door, then came back, moved a chair a few inches from the wall. ‘Please sit.’ She did so. He opened the door and went through. She closed her eyes to pray for grace, for the continued suspension of Doctor Lal’s disbelief. And abruptly opened them, warned by the blankness behind her eyelids. She got up, opened the door he had gone through. The corridor on the other side of it was narrower and lower than any she had been in this evening. But chill. At its end there were closed double doors flanked by fire extinguishers. In each door there was a circular window.
The corridor floor was covered with tiles of some kind of rubber-like composition. She walked silently to the doors and opened them upon an enclosed winter that hummed faintly on a high note so that she seemed to be both deafened and desensitized, projected into a season of frost, a landscape and a time unknown to her. Entering it she became inhuman, like Doctor Lal, like the two white rubber-clothed figures who seemed to be chafing the naked body in a farcial attempt to bring it back to life. The body was on its side with its right arm raised, held by brown hands. There was a yellow pigment in the arm and in the shoulders. It ended just above the pendulous white breasts but spread upwards across the face which was framed by tousled grey hair. The eyes were open and looking directly at the doorway. The mouth was open too and from it a wail of pain and terror was emitting.
*
‘You should not have gone in!’ Doctor Lal shrieked. ‘It is most irregular. Please go back and wait.’ He stood guarding the doors through which he had just pushed her with feverish hands, back into the corridor. ‘Nothing is ready yet. Doctor Iyenagar is saying nothing to me about identification. I am telling the men. But suddenly you come in without permission upsetting everything. It is not allowed. And now you are in a state. Please, please you must sit somewhere and wait and be patient. Why should I be blamed for this?’
The wall supported her. She felt its hardness against the back of her head. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her mouth.
‘No one is blaming you, Doctor Lal. No one will blame you. I shall say nothing. You would be wise to say nothing too. I’ve seen all I need. Just forget I was ever here.’
She went up the corridor and through the still open door into the laboratory. When she got out into the main corridor she saw Mr Maybrick sitting on the bottom step of the flight that led up to the ground floor. Their glances met. She felt that they were people who had known each other a long time ago, too long ago for either of them to presume upon an old acquaintance by speaking first. They ascended silently: he from his reminder and she from her first authentic vision of what hell was like.
*
The blue-haired woman was still on duty. Barbie approached her alone. Outside, in the tonga whose driver had been persuaded to come by the narrow asphalt path prohibited to vehicles, Mr Maybrick sat, still speechless from the shock of that word: Mortuary.
‘I’m afraid an emergency has arisen that makes it imperative for me to see Mrs John Layton at once. It’s in connection with the death this afternoon of Mrs Mabel Layton.’
‘Oh yes. Well, now.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Mrs Layton isn’t a patient so I expect it can be arranged. I’ll have a word with Sister Page.’
‘You’d better tell her I’ve come on behalf of Captain Coley and the Reverend Arthur Peplow. It’s really extremely urgent. It affects the funeral arrangements and of course Mrs Layton has to be informed at the earliest possible moment.’
The blue-haired woman nodded. She had already lifted the phone, pressed one of the red switches and turned a little handle. She asked to speak to Sister Page. It seemed that Sister Page was with a patient. The blue-haired woman gave a careful message, repeated everything that Barbie had told her but had to say names twice. She waited. While she did so the box buzzed. She manipulated switches and said, ‘Pankot Nursing Home, can I help you?’ And then, ‘Just a moment.’ She pressed more switches, turned the handle, listened and then presumably switched herself off from the conversation and back to Sister Page’s extension.
‘Hello?’ she said. She listened. ‘Well, will you do that? Meanwhile I’ll have the visitor brought up.’ She replaced the receiver, banged a bell and said, ‘Sister Page is with Mrs Bingham but Mrs Layton hasn’t gone to bed yet. A porter will take you to the second floor. If you wait at Sister’s desk in the lobby, Sister Page or Sister Matthews will meet you there and then take you to Mrs Layton’s room.’
She told the porter who had come in answer to the bell to accompany Memsahib to Wellesley. Barbie said, ‘Thank you,’ and followed the man. They went up by lift.
Sister Page’s desk was unoccupied. It was surrounded by vases and baskets of flowers taken from the rooms for the night. A clock on the wall behind the desk showed ten minutes to ten. To the right, painted in black, was the legend: Rooms 20-39; with an arrow. To the left a similar legend pointed the way to Rooms 1-19. Barbie turned left along the broad corridor. As she turned a corner into a narrower one a nurse came out of a room half-way down it and walked towards her. She had wide hips and thick legs.
‘Sister Page?’ Barbie asked.
‘No, I’m Sister Matthews. Are you lost?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m here to see Mrs John Layton. They told me downstairs to come up.’
‘Oh.’ The girl looked put out. But then smiled. ‘I understood it was a Captain Coley with a message from a Mr Peplow.’
‘Then they’ve got it slightly muddled. It is a message, and a very urgent one, which concerns Mrs Layton, Mr Peplow and Captain Coley.’
‘Yes, I see. And there I’ve just told Mrs Layton it’s Captain Coley. Well never mind.’
‘How is her daughter, Susan?’
‘Mrs Bingham’s just as well as can be expected.’
‘It isn’t a false alarm?’
‘No. But the pains have settled down a bit. I’m afraid it’s not going to be an easy delivery, she’s so tense. But who can blame her? We’ve been trying to get her mother to take something to get a good night because Captain Travers says it won’t be until morning at the earliest from the look of things. But Mrs Layton’s awfully anxious to get on the phone to her sister and other daughter in Calcutta. We’ve been through once but a dense sort of s
ervant answered, so we’re trying again at eleven tonight. I expect they’re all out celebrating the second front, which is what I should be doing if we weren’t so short-staffed. I’ll take you to Mrs Layton.’
‘Don’t trouble. I know the room number.’
‘No trouble.’ She turned to lead the way but as she did so a door opened and another nursing officer, coming out, said, ‘Oh, Thelma, thank God, come and–’ and broke off, seeing Barbie. ‘Be with you,’ Sister Matthews said and then knocked at room number eight, thrust the door open, glanced round and called loudly, ‘Your visitor, Mrs Layton,’ and stood aside for Barbie to go in.
*
The room was filled with a cheerless festive odour. From what was obviously a bathroom Mildred called, ‘Come in, Kevin. There’s a fresh glass on the dressing-table. Pour yourself one and freshen mine, will you? I’ll be with you in a minute.’ A tap was turned on for a few seconds. ‘What’s happened?’ Mildred asked. ‘I warn you I can’t stand much more today. Bring mine in, will you? There’s an angel. I’m going barmy in this bloody place. I’ve been phoning Calcutta like mad but there’s nobody at Fenny’s except some halfwitted Bengali bearer. Since you’re here you might have a go and see if you can get any sense out of him.’ A pause. ‘Kevin?’
Another pause. The bathroom door swung wide open. As she caught sight of Barbie Mildred seized the edges of her open dressing-gown and quickly covered her nearly naked body.
For a moment she stood quite still.
Then she said, ‘You bloody bitch.’
‘Mildred, no. Please don’t. Don’t talk to me like that. We mustn’t let any unfriendliness come between us and what we have to do. It’s much too important. I’m sorry if there’s been some kind of confusion. But it’s not my fault. I had to mention Arthur’s and Captain Coley’s names because it does concern them and I knew you’d never see me just on my own. But you must realize it’s not my fault if the message was wrong by the time it reached you. Do I look like someone called Captain Coley? It’s pure nonsense, and very wrong of you. But I don’t care. You can call me anything you like afterwards, punish me in any way you like for anything you’ve ever thought I’ve done to you or done you out of. But you must listen to what I have to say and you must do it, you must. Otherwise she’ll never rest. Never. Never. I’ve seen her, so I know. She’ll haunt me, she’ll haunt you, all of us. She’s in that terrible place and in anguish because she knows you’ve forgotten your promise or aren’t going to abide by it.’
Mildred had gone to the dressing-table, and refilled her glass. Now she said, ‘I’ve no idea what you mean. What promise and to whom?’
‘The promise to Mabel to bury her at St Luke’s in Ranpur.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘It’s what she wished. She told me. She must have told you.’
‘At St Luke’s? In Ranpur? I know absolutely nothing about it and it’s quite out of the question. If you don’t want the humiliation of being asked to leave by a member of the staff you’d better go now.’
‘Why is it out of the question? There’s a telephone on that table. All you have to do is ring Arthur and tell him to get on to Mr Wright in Ranpur, tell him this simple thing, that it was her wish to be buried next to her second husband, your own father-in-law, at St Luke’s in Ranpur. Arthur and I will do everything else that’s necessary. But the instruction to cancel the arrangements for St John’s must come from you.’
‘What you will do is leave this hospital at once and stop interfering in matters that aren’t your business. I find your suggestion utterly obscene. It is June. Perhaps you’ve noticed it’s warm even in Pankot. Quite apart from the question of the cost of the ice, I have no intention of having my husband’s step-mother transported like a piece of refrigerated meat to be buried after several days’ delay in a churchyard that so far as I recall hasn’t been used for burials since the nineteen-twenties. And especially I have no intention of doing so at the whim of a half-witted old woman. Even if there were an indication of such a wish in my step-mother-in-law’s Will, or a subsequent written instruction, I should have to override it.’
‘I know nothing about a Will, I only know–’
‘But I do know about the Will. I’ve had a copy of it ever since my husband went abroad and copies of subsequent codicils. She had a horror of people having to grub through papers. In fact she was most meticulous and thoughtful about sparing her family unnecessary bother and anxiety. The gruesome little convoy you seem to think she wanted us to become involved in is quite out of character. After five years of living on what one presumes were fairly intimate terms with her I’m surprised you didn’t know her better. On the other hand–’
Mildred sipped her gin, put the glass down. And smiled.
‘–I’m not surprised. You were born with the soul of a parlour-maid and a parlour-maid is what you’ve remained. India has been very bad for you and Rose Cottage has been a disaster. I imagine you’re paid up either to the end of the month or the end of the quarter. This month it comes to the same thing. I’d be glad if you’d be out before then. As quickly as possible in fact. I’d see that you got a pro-rata refund.’
‘Mildred–’
‘How dare you call me Mildred! To you I’m Mrs Layton.’
‘No, that is ridiculous. That’s just spiteful. Mildred is your given name, your Christian name, given when you were baptized. I shall not call you anything else. Not in His hearing–’
‘Oh, God,’ Mildred said. She covered one ear and bent her body as if to ward off a blow or to ride with the flow of a physical pain. The movement brought her in direct visual contact with the table and the telephone. She moved forward and reached for it. Barbie lunged; grabbed her wrist and found herself off-balance, forced heavily and painfully to her knees. But she grabbed Mildred’s other wrist and hung on, imprisoned by her own violence in this penitential position. She shut her eyes so that the surge of her strength would not be interrupted. It flowed through her arms and into Mildred and they were united in a field of force, an area of infinite possibility for free and exquisite communication.
Tears of wonder, of love and hope and intolerable desire flowed from beneath Barbie’s parchment-coloured lids. For a moment she could not get feeling into her lips. They would not come together to help her form the beginning of the required first word of supplication. She had to dispense with it and begin with a confession.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘sorry, sorry. I am what you say but I loved her so much and it seemed she was my chance, my gift from God to serve Him through her when everything else had been no good hadn’t come to anything and just now she was trying to say help me help me. Please, Mildred. She asked for so little but she did ask for this. Why should I ask for it? Why should I make up a story? I’ll do anything everything you say but please please don’t bury her in the wrong grave. Not that, not that.’
She felt Mildred’s wrists force themselves free and knew the answer. She opened her eyes but could not make anything out clearly. The shock of an impact stunned her. For an instant she thought that Mildred had hit her face with her open hand. But then she felt the coldness of water soaking into her blouse and as her eyes cleared she saw the empty carafe which Mildred held.
Without water there was no ice, no frosty particle, no storm of hail. The devotional machine had come to life in the shape of Mildred and a handy jug. The bathos of this situation shocked Barbie into a perilous composure. She felt capable of killing in cold blood, of burying Mildred alive along with Kevin Coley, a pile of empty gin bottles, some silver from the mess, and one of the mummy-rag-thin flags on top to mark the place.
She held an edge of the table, getting purchase to rise which she did without dignity but perhaps honourably. Who could say? She did not know. Dignity and honour were not inseparable. At times, and this was one of them, they seemed far distant for both of them.
Without another word she retrieved her handbag from the floor where it had fallen and
left the room. She closed the door gently. In the corridor she realized that limp strands of hair clung to her forehead. The front of the heliotrope jacket was blackened by water. Her chest was icy cold. She put her head up and strode past Sister Matthews and another nursing officer, said good night to their open-mouthed faces and clumped down the stone stairs that entwined the lift shaft. On the ground floor the blue-haired woman was busy on the telephone and smiled absently when Barbie called good night. She was spared the shame of a direct encounter.
Mr Maybrick was asleep. He had reclaimed the fibre suitcase from the driver’s seat and sat nursing it, with his head on one side. She climbed in gently and spoke in undertones to the tonga-wallah. When the vehicle jerked forward Mr Maybrick woke, alarmed. She clutched one edge of the suitcase and he another to save it from disaster. And like this they swayed and bucked through the benevolent night guarding her possessions.
vi
Four young officers of the Pankot Rifles took the weight of the coffin on their shoulders. A scratch lot they could have been better matched in height, but the angle of their burden was maintained step by faltering step at a degree several notches above a level that would have led to a bizarre accident. She recognized the pink face of Captain Beauvais, pinker from the exertion of this funereal regimental duty, and wondered whether on his way out he felt the additional weight of a recollection of Bob Buckland, whoever Bob Buckland had been or was. The shortest of the four, he had the right front station and so the coffin had an inclination downwards and moved upon a line that drove logically into the ground beyond the open door to the hastily dug hole for which the woman immediately behind the cortège was responsible.
Beside Mildred walked Kevin Coley; behind these two Isobel Rankin and Maisie Trehearne, and then Clara Fosdick and Nicky Paynton and Clarissa. A thin scattering.
For some time after the coffin had been borne out and the last mourner had followed it through the open door Barbie remained seated in the shadow of a pillar far back in the church, and in the denser shadow of her own bitter and terrible conclusions.