FAMILY CIRCLE

by MARY HOCKING

  It was obviously important that we should begin in a civilized fashion, so I said:

  ‘I hope you will not think me impertinent.’

  ‘I can’t say yet, can I?’ He was watching my face as he spoke and chose to soften the impact of this remark by adding, ‘But I doubt it. You have known Margaret Routh for some years and you feel that you have things to tell me about her. Is that it?’

  ‘About the family, yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s possible.’ He was not one to close his mind to miracles, but it was going to need a miracle.

  ‘I have known the family for a long time,’ I said. He sat with his head slightly bent, the eyes slanted up at me. ‘They are a rather unusual family. They are very close, but the atmosphere isn’t claustrophobic, and they are not in the least possessive with one another. The children have always been free to develop in their own way, quite remarkably free.’ Although he was listening intently,

  I had an uneasy impression that he was not taking note of the things which I regarded as important, and that I was, in fact, telling him something quite different from what I intended. I began to lose the thread of my evidence, the important thing that I felt I alone knew seemed to be eluding me. It was like one of those occasions when you are impelled to write poetry, and when the result is down on paper the very thing that inspired you is not there, the poem has no heart. I forced myself to go on speaking, ticking off virtues like a school mistress. ‘There’s a tremendous amount of understanding there, a great tolerance of one another’s shortcomings and weaknesses. Margaret could be anything she wanted to be, do anything she wanted to do, no one would stop her. She could go to Khatmandu if she chose! They don’t try to influence one another.’ It was folly to have come here just to utter these trite statements, it had done the Rouths no service; there was something else, there had to be something else. ‘There’s no tension there,’ I said.

  ‘You stayed with them often as a child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you found the atmosphere an enlightened and unrestricted one. That is what you want to tell me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said eagerly.

  ‘And one into which you fitted quite easily?’

  ‘I …’ The words would not come, my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth. He watched me. My face was burning. ‘I was not a child who fitted in easily anywhere.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It was just that they were different to my own parents.’ I was trying to retrieve the situation, but when I said this it came to me with some surprise that this was the truth. It was my own parents who had stopped me fitting in; my father had never said that they did not entirely like the Rouths, but I had sensed this. And, rightly or wrongly, I had clung to my own parents. I was now so confused that it would be better not to say any more.

  ‘Is that all you wanted to tell me, Miss Brett?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you. I will bear what you have said in mind.’

  ‘It was a great mistake for anyone to ask me to stay here in the first place,’ I said, feeling that he must accept some responsibility for what he obviously regarded as an abortive and time-consuming interview.

  ‘By no means,’ he answered. ‘Margaret Routh needs a companion of her own age.’

  ‘But I know nothing about mental illness.’

  ‘I said a companion, not a nurse,’ he corrected dryly.

  ‘But I ought to know something if I’m to help her.’

  ‘There is nothing very special about mental illness.’ Although he spoke quietly, and with a shade of weariness as though this was something he had repeated more than once lately, he held my attention completely. My mind was impaled on his. ‘You simply need to understand that the brain is very tired and incapable of functioning as effectively as usual. And when you are tired, small things present big problems. It is a great effort to decide that you will get out of bed, and having got out of bed you then have the problem of assembling your clothes and putting them on. And once this is accomplished your day begins and you are faced with a whole series of small decisions which don’t seem small to you. So it is helpful if someone else does some of the decision-making for you, and I mean decision-making, not persuasion or suggestion, simply telling you when to get up and what clothes to wear.’

  ‘That sounds appalling,’ I said.

  ‘Nervous illness is exhausting, Miss Brett. There is nothing particularly appalling about being exhausted, is there? It is quite natural in certain circumstances. It is nothing to be frightened about. One just has to deal with it sensibly. If you fainted from exhaustion you would not expect me to stand over you and say, “Now I wonder whether you would like to get up.” You would expect me to help you. What Margaret Routh needs is someone to take the load of responsibility and decision from her until she is better able to cope. It is no use arguing with her and certainly it is no use reasoning with her. It is the reasoning mechanism that has broken down. And it is no help to try to involve her in serious discussion, or to encourage her to think things out for herself. It is no use saying, “I wonder if it would be a good idea, Margaret …” She has no ideas at present; she hasn’t the mental stamina for ideas. She needs rest, mental rest. She needs to have someone to think for her.’

  ‘Think for Margaret!’

  ‘Yes. If you had a broken arm you would hope someone else would offer to fetch and carry for you, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then suppose you try to do it? Why not start by planning her day for her? Always allowing for the fact that the plans must be flexible and readily adapted to her needs. Try taking her out for walks; that will do her no harm provided you don’t undertake anything too strenuous. Above all, let her talk to you. I imagine you are a good listener.’

  ‘But suppose something happens, she gets worse?’ I found myself ticking off a list of questions which had been forming in my mind.

  ‘If she gets worse that won’t be a matter for you. But if ever she should become hysterical at a time when immediate help is not available, then be firm but try to remain sympathetic and don’t get angry. Anger has to be very carefully calculated in these situations. She needs sympathy, patience and comfort, like most sick people.’

  This led to my next question; I had meant to rehearse it rather more carefully but the cue was too good to be missed. ‘I couldn’t help hearing you speaking to her the other night. It struck me that you were being fairly abrasive with her.’

  It was not said gracefully, I have never found it easy to sweeten the pill. He did not take kindly to criticism, his eyes were startled and angry; but to my surprise, he controlled himself well and answered calmly:

  ‘Small injections of truth are sometimes necessary. Since only a little is absorbed at a time, the result is not traumatic provided you know what you are doing.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Is there any other way in which you think I have acted inadvisedly?’ He had recovered himself now and had apparently decided that I was amusing.

  I said, ‘I haven’t been here long enough to judge.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘But there is one thing that worries me as far as my role is concerned. How does one tackle this loss of memory?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I should ignore it, if I were you.’

  ‘But suppose it comes back?’

  ‘There’s unlikely to be a sudden revelation.’ The subject was brushed aside; he did not intend to discuss Margaret’s memory. He glanced at the clock. ‘Is there anything else you would like to ask me, Miss Brett?’

  We got up. He was now markedly less at ease; his social resources were not commensurate with his professional skill and I had the feeling that he was not quite sure how best to bring the interview to a close. As I am not good at this kind of thing either, there seemed no reason why we should not continue to confront each other indefinitely. He eyed me rather uncertainly; in a sense he had conjured me up and perhaps he was now sli
ghtly dismayed. He said, ‘Don’t get too involved, Miss Brett. You’re not the kind who becomes too involved, are you?’

  ‘On the contrary, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Time will cure that.’ He said it mechanically; quite suddenly, he was played out. The power which had held us together in this room, which had forced us to concentrate until we seemed to be working together to a common end, was switched off. It affected me physically, I felt cold and unsure. He took me through the front of the house and let me out of the main door; we shook hands formally and bade each other good-night. In the light from the lamp in the porch, his face was yellow. I walked back to Baileys rather slowly.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning I was again woken by Constance. But this time there was none of the trauma of being dragged precipitately from the womb of sleep; instead I woke immediately and with a sense of lightness as though a burden had been taken from me. In the night, in that miraculous way that it has, my subconscious had been busily sorting out problems and had come up with a very simple solution. I was going to take Margaret for a walk.

  Triumphantly, I grabbed towel and sponge-bag and beat Mr. Routh to the bathroom. The day was fine, as I knew that it must be. Margaret, when she appeared shortly after ten o’clock, was willing. By half-past ten we were on Firle Beacon.

  It was a clear day; to the north we could see the crowded, over- intricate patchwork of fields, villages, woods, while to the south there was nothing but the abstract humps of the Downs bordered in the far distance by the sea. Apart from a herd of cows, we had the Downs to ourselves.

  For a long time we walked in silence. Then it occurred to me that I was being rather selfish, using Margaret as a means of enjoying my favourite pastime. Far below, to the north, there was some sort of folly incongruously imposed on the pattern of fields. I turned to Margaret with a question prepared: but there was no need to ask it. When she was a child, one had expected her to grow into a beautiful woman. Now, the woman one had imagined was beside me. Her face had that quality of repose which is most lovely in a woman provided it is free of sullenness; and at this instant the sullenness of the last few days had been replaced by an inner contentment. She looked at me, the slow smile warming her face. I did not spoil the moment by saying, ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

  Later, we ate our packed lunch, sitting on the spine of the hill from which the great flanks curved away, completely destroying our relationship with the agricultural landscape of East Sussex which was now visible only as a rather over-decorative frieze bordering the horizon. Margaret lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. She said:

  ‘This is my natural habitat. Will you explain to my parents that I am going to stay here always? They may come and see me on Mondays and Fridays—bringing a hamper, of course. It would take a while to learn to live off the Downs, I expect.’

  ‘St. Margaret of the Downs!’ I said, entering as best I could into the spirit of the thing: this was not her normal manner of speech. ‘When you die people will make pilgrimages to your shrine.’

  ‘That won’t matter, I’ll be dead. It will be the pilgrimages during my lifetime I shall find hard to endure.’

  She rolled over on to her back where she lay gazing up at the sky.

  In the distance, a man had appeared accompanied by a tattered black and white dog which pranced around him, yapping incessantly. Margaret said, ‘May the earth open beneath them!’ But it did not, and we watched their advance resentfully. The man stopped close to us and called out that it was a glorious day for the time of year. When we had agreed to this, he asked where we had come from, and then he told us where he had come from; he said that the dog’s name was Patch and that it was eight years old although no one would think so. The dog certainly had a lot of energy and was obsessively friendly. The man stood by and smiled while we repulsed its overtures. ‘He does this to everyone,’ he assured us fondly. We were eventually saved by the bleating of sheep some way below; the dog was off like a rocket with the man in anxious pursuit.

  ‘I wonder if anyone has ever been killed for intrusion on solitude?’

  Margaret said. ‘Those unsolved murders, bodies in lonely places— why look for any other motive?’

  ‘Most of them were raped,’ I pointed out.

  ‘But they had committed rape of a kind, so perhaps they deserved

  it.’

  She lay back on the grass and closed her eyes. I looked at my watch. It was half-past two. We had walked very leisurely, but even allowing for this it was unlikely that we would reach the car before half-past three, I did not want to overdo things on our first outing.

  ‘We had better go back now,’ I said, remembering that she needed to have decisions made for her.

  She said, without opening her eyes, ‘You go.’

  I began to collect things, pieces of paper, uneaten sandwiches, apple cores, all to be stowed away in the hold-all I had carried with me. I emptied the last trickle of coffee from the thermos flask, I wiped the stopper and cup with a paper handkerchief; I put the biscuits in the airtight plastic container. Then I went over to Margaret and said firmly, ‘We will go now.’

  She said, ‘See you later, alligator.’

  Dr. Owen Lander had said, ‘If she gets worse, that won’t be a matter for you.’ So, Dr. Owen Lander, where are you now? Although he was not here, the recollection of him was sufficiently vivid to quell any more undisciplined reactions. This was neither the time nor the place to have a confrontation with Margaret.

  ‘You’re staying here?’ I asked.

  She clasped her hands at the back of her head and gave a great sigh of contentment. ‘I rather think I am.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll both stay.’

  I let the hold-all drop on her outstretched legs and dumped myself down beside her. I, too, gazed up at the great expanse of blue sky. Memories came back. It had not always been Constance who was provoking. I remembered Margaret up an oak tree, insisting that she was never coming down; it had been nearly dark and I had been tired, hungry, and a little frightened. Appeals to her better nature had served only to rouse her worse nature. Whereas Constance would take pity when she had gone so far, Margaret could be surprisingly cruel and would go to unexpected lengths to maintain a ridiculous position. The fire brigade had had to get her down from that tree. I hoped it would not be necessary for a rescue operation to be mounted on this occasion.

  We lay in silence for what seemed a long time, then she said:

  ‘Aren’t you tired of being your brother’s keeper?’

  ‘Not really. It’s the last occasion.’

  ‘You mean to resign your appointment?’

  ‘Of course not. But when they find it hasn’t turned out well, they won’t let us do it again. Not the two of us, at any rate.’

  She turned her head so that her cheek rested against her upper arm, her eyes looked at me reproachfully.

  ‘It’s true, Margaret.’ I had the right note now, calm, without anxiety or appeal. This was of no great importance to me. After all, I could come up here on my own any time I wanted to, while she was dependent on me.

  ‘I’ve been so happy here,’ she said, with more than a hint of self-pity.

  ‘You can be happy here another day,’ I said easily. ‘The Downs won’t change before tomorrow.’ I seemed to have unearthed a store of clichés.

  But the Downs did not always satisfy her. We walked a lot during the next week. She was good company, prepared to venture out in all conditions, laughing on the occasions when the rain poured down when we were far from shelter. Margaret was undaunted by adversity, in fact it seemed to tap a hidden vein of gaiety. It was beauty with which she could not cope. At some of the loveliest moments during our walks it was as though the loveliness pierced some chink in her armour. We had one glorious walk from Kingston, the late autumn sun casting dramatic shadows on the hills. I revelled in it, until towards the end it seemed to be overlong and I said as we climbed yet another hill, ‘It goes on for ever
.’ My mind dwelling on tea and toast.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she replied. ‘Over the brow of the next hill you will get a view of Rottingdean. Nothing goes on very long in England.’

  There was a surprising bitterness in her voice, not this time the whine of self-pity, but an authentic anguish at the coming of the end of all things lovely. But when I asked her what was the matter, she would not answer me. Indeed, during our walks she showed no tendency to confide in me and I gained the impression that she valued my company simply because she felt that no confidences were expected. I also had the impression that her loss of memory did not disturb her as much as might have been expected. It conferred a certain freedom on her. I tried out this theory on Constance when we were drinking coffee one evening after the others had gone to bed.

  ‘I suppose it could be a kind of relief to lose one’s memory, do you think? When one is very sick, there is that feeling of letting things go, isn’t there? Watching all the little irritations and problems slide away, knowing someone other than you will have to resolve them. And the knowledge that nothing can be expected of one is very comforting.’

  ‘How right you are!’ Constance took the path I had so tentatively explored and romped down it. ‘The sooner everyone stops fussing about Margaret’s illness the better! It’s so stupid. People forget things they find painful, so why try to make them remember? Margaret is happy without her memory.’

  ‘But something must have gone wrong in the first place.’

  ‘Of course it must! And this is Nature’s way of covering up.’

  ‘But we must know …’

  ‘Why? Sheer vulgar curiosity. Unpleasant things are so much better not known. Margaret has had the sense to forget them. So let it rest at that.’

  But it was not Margaret with whom she was really concerned, it was her mother and father for whom Constance grieved.

  ‘They’re bleeding internally. I can’t bear it. And she’s so beastly to them, particularly to my father. Poor Daddy is like a dog that expects to be kicked at any minute; he practically crawls on his belly as soon as she appears.’