FAMILY CIRCLE

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Margaret can’t help it,’ I protested. ‘She’s ill.’

  ‘Then she should take herself off somewhere until she’s better.’

  ‘She did try.’

  ‘But not for long. It was very careless to allow herself to be found in that railway carriage.’

  Constance’s plump face was flushed with distress. Margaret, until her illness, had always spoken of her parents with deep respect; Timothy had seemed to be a little in awe of them. Constance’s attitude was different. She loved her parents, but the qualities which other people so much admired, their idealism and uncompromising integrity, she accepted in much the same way as she would have tolerated a vegetarian diet. She treated her mother and father with protective affection, and her loyalty to them was absolute. She had made sacrifices for them. There had been the long battle of the ballet lessons. It had been a very civilized affair, of course; Mrs. Routh had put the case for ballet with great fairness.

  ‘It is a way of life. An all-consuming passion. There will be no energy left over for anything else or anyone else. You must give not only your body but your soul to it.’ This kind of dedication to an art, lifting it to the realm of the religious, was distasteful to her; yet she encouraged Constance to follow her calling. Thus, on the first fitful spring day, ‘You will need to be single-minded about it, darling. Bigger things will be involved than Saul missing his walk.’

  In the end, Constance gave up ballet and took up riding. She gave way with an unresentful gracefulness quite beyond my childish comprehension. There was no bitterness in Constance. Provocative, she might be, high-handed and imperious on occasions she undoubtedly was; but what she had to give she gave ungrudgingly and in full measure. How surprising it was that she had not married yet! Now, sitting opposite to me on the hearth rug, the dark hair curling softly about her shoulders, she looked not merely attractive but voluptuous. This would have embarrassed me at one time, but now I was stirred and not unpleasantly. Perhaps thought, or, more likely, sensation, was transmitted. She said:

  ‘I used to think you would never marry, do you know that, Pug? I thought you were clenched up tight like a bud the frost had caught, and that your little withered petals would never unfold.’

  ‘Thank you for that!’

  ‘But you will marry.’ She reached forward and took my wrist, turned it and studied the palm of my hand. ‘You will be married by this time next year, and you will enjoy marriage.’ She gave my hand a little squeeze and said, ‘It’s true. You must believe that. Marriage will suit you very well.’

  ‘You can’t possibly tell!’

  She laughed softly and said, ‘In less than a year.’

  She was so warm and desirable herself that I was ready to believe her possessed of special knowledge; some of her certainty passed in to me and made me feel well-suited to marriage, a thing of which I had not been at all assured before.

  ‘And you?’ I whispered.

  ‘I shall not marry.’ Her cheeks dimpled; in the firelight her face glowed merry and untroubled. ‘But it doesn’t matter in my case.’

  I should have liked to ask more; but I could never get the knack of conversing with Constance. So I went to bed and had very happy dreams.

  The next day Margaret and I walked again. It was very pleasant, but I was beginning to be slightly uneasy. Although I was impressed by some of Constance’s predictions, I did not subscribe to her theory that it would be better for Margaret’s memory to remain lost. And it seemed to me that far from helping Margaret to recover it, I might be encouraging her escape impulses. This worried me. I wished I had mentioned this possibility to Dr. Lander.

  Once or twice on our walks Margaret and I had talked about the past, but always the more distant past of childhood. This time I tried to bring our reminiscences up to date; I spoke of my experiences at London, hoping that she would respond with tales of Oxford life. She did not. I tried another avenue.

  ‘What happened to the Rydalls?’

  ‘They still live in the old schoolhouse near the church.’

  ‘And Peter?’

  Peter was the son, a friend of Timothy and a great admirer of Margaret.

  ‘He is a stockbroker.’

  ‘Do you still see him?’

  ‘Sometimes. He has a flat in Battersea, but occasionally he comes down at week-ends, just to give the yokels a treat. He is very sophisticated and well-groomed; we all gape and touch our forelocks as he zooms past.’

  ‘What a shame! I used to weave romances about you and him.’

  ‘I believe I did myself.’

  ‘Perhaps the sophistication is just a façade?’

  ‘What matter? It would never do anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of my father.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘My father would accompany me to the gates of hell but not to the doors of the stock exchange.’

  She said it quite venomously. It was a shock to hear her speak like this about her father of whom she had always been particularly fond. If it had been her mother I could have understood it a little better; Mrs. Routh was very patient but sometimes her patience was that of a slow-burning fuse and this might well be wearing for a sick person. But he was such a gentle, well-meaning man, so impulsive if a little clumsy, so easily wounded. It seemed wiser not to make an issue of it, however, so I said lightly:

  ‘I’m sure your father’s charity would extend to a stockbroker.’

  ‘Charity, yes! It’s those who don’t need his charity that he can’t deal with. Dr. Lander is an example of that. Dr. Lander’s wife attacked him one night; my mother and father had him up to the house afterwards. He came round to thank them the next day. If they could have accepted him as he was, they could probably have helped him. But my father wanted him to be a lame duck, like the prisoners he has to stay here, and the coloured people he gets so worked up about. And Dr. Lander wasn’t prepared to play the victim. He needed help from one adult human being to another, and this is something with which my father can’t cope. He has no adult friends of his own standing, hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘It would hurt him to hear you talk like that.’

  ‘I hurt him all the time. Hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘But why, Margaret?’

  ‘Because I hate him. I hate him and I hate my mother. I hate them both.’

  I did not reply. Something over-dramatic in her manner told me that she wanted a shocked reaction. I remembered the half-heard conversation outside the surgery waiting-room. Did she go to Dr. Lander to talk about her parents?

  Margaret persisted, ‘Most children hate their parents. Don’t you know your Freud? I’m just being honest about it.’

  ‘I don’t hate my parents.’

  ‘Your mother is dead.’

  She did not mean to be hurtful. She was like a child who wants to know how far it can go, who wants someone to exert discipline and so misbehaves more and more outrageously waiting for the blow that is never struck. Somewhere inside myself I saw this quite clearly; but I was angry and could not trust myself to deal with her sensibly. We finished our walk in a silence that was far from companionable. She said that she was going to have tea with Nurse McIver and I refused to join her.

  I strolled back to Baileys. It was four o’clock. Constance had gone into Brighton and Mr. and Mrs. Routh were out at meetings. The prospect of tea and toast alone was delightful; I had not realized until this afternoon how much I longed for time to myself. But even as I went through the front door, I knew that something was wrong. I went into the sitting-room. It was quiet; Mr. Routh’s copy of The Guardian was lying where he had tossed it on the sofa, the city page had tumbled on to the floor. The shade on the standard lamp was askew because Constance had adjusted it for reading last night and it had not been put straight since. There was a pile of committee reports on the side-table, and I could see notes in the margin in Mrs. Routh’s neat, incisive hand. The wild flowers in the vase on the mantelpiece were fading and pe
tals and seeds were scattered in the hearth together with ash from yesterday’s fire. It was the ash that gave me the clue to my unease. Those ashes had ceased smouldering a long time ago, but I could smell smoke. I went into the kitchen.

  Timothy was standing by the stove, stuffing it with bags with a supermarket label. He jumped when he saw me and sent the lid of the stove clattering down beside Saul who reacted with predictable hysteria.

  ‘It’s Flora, Flora Brett,’ I assured Timothy, who seemed to be considerably frightened by the sight of me.

  ‘Flora!’ He wiped a hand across his face, leaving a smear of dirt on one cheek. ‘I’ve been having a snack; I felt like Billy Bunter caught in the larder.’ He picked up the lid of the stove, cuffed Saul affectionately, and replaced the lid. ‘It’s quite marvellous to see you, the last person I expected. Do you mind if I don’t embrace you, I’m in a filthy mess. What are you doing here? I thought we were fraught with all sorts of anxieties and not in the entertaining stakes.’ He was talking very fast and making a lot of vivacious grimaces; it was not the easy-going, relaxed Timothy that I remembered.

  ‘I’m supposed to be alleviating the anxieties,’ I told him.

  ‘Ah, the faithful friend rallies round, I see, I see. All becomes clear.’ He sat on the edge of the table and nearly upset a thermos flask which he righted nervously. ‘Tell me about yourself, my dear. You look absolutely splendid, by the way.’

  He looked good himself, if only he would be still for a second or two. He was very bronzed, not the smooth tan that comes from plenty of oil applied while lazing on a beach, but a harder, more durable weathering. The bronzed skin made his blue eyes seem lighter than ever.

  ‘You tell me about yourself,’ I said. ‘Wherever have you been?’

  He made a comic gesture of hunching one shoulder and ducking his head as though averting a blow.

  ‘My goodness! I bet I’ve got a bit of explaining to do, haven’t I? Are they all mad with me?’

  ‘Worried, naturally.’

  ‘Lord, yes.’ He nodded his head and registered sympathetic dismay; he had always been quick to register what was expected of him. ‘Be a dear and give me a run through. What are people saying?’

  ‘I think they are waiting for you to do the saying.’

  ‘But what do they think?’

  ‘They don’t know what to think until you tell them.’ I felt he was labouring this a bit. ‘Their powers of diagnosis are bent on Margaret,’ I reminded him.

  This seemed to cheer him. He laughed and said affectionately, ‘Dear old Pug! The same gift for trenchant remarks. Yes, I’m not the centre of the drama, am I?’ He straightened his shoulders and stretched his arms wide, flexing his muscles and then letting them relax. He really seemed to have benefited from my tart response in some way that I could not understand.

  ‘The truth is …’ His voice took on that extra throb of sincerity which usually means that a person does not intend to tell the truth. ‘I have been away on holiday in Italy, roaming about and sleeping rough, real vagabond stuff, you get the idea … and I didn’t know anything about this high drama of Margaret and lost memory until I got to Paris and grabbed an English newspaper.’

  I did not accept any of that. Timothy had never told the truth; he had developed early a habit of telling convenient stories. It had been done endearingly with the purpose of pleasing people and one could never be cross with him. On this occasion, I thought that perhaps a girl was involved. In any case, it was something for him to straighten out with his parents. A word of warning seemed advisable, however, so I said:

  ‘Margaret was a nine-day wonder; she doesn’t make the news any more.’

  He looked rather sick and said, ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘No one is very interested in what you’ve been up to,’ I assured him. ‘Your parents accept that their little boy is now a man.’ I smiled at him to show that I accepted it, too, and he responded rather wanly. ‘They just want to know all that you can tell them about Margaret.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘You know that she has lost her memory?’

  ‘All of it? Or just bits and pieces?’

  ‘All of it, seemingly.’

  ‘From what date approximately?’

  ‘She remembers everything up to the beginning of the holiday— nothing after that.’

  ‘Poor Margaret.’ He looked down at his feet, brown and rather dirty in canvas sandals; he raised the toes, resting his balance on his heels, and then lowered the soles of his feet slowly on the ground. He did not seem disposed to say any more.

  ‘I’m going to get tea,’ I said. ‘Do you want a cup?’

  We were drinking tea in the sitting-room when Mr. and Mrs. Routh came in.

  Mrs. Routh said, ‘Timothy!’ and then, under her breath, ‘Thank God!’

  Timothy laughed and made a rather gauche, flapping gesture with his hands. ‘The Prodigal Son!’

  Mr. Routh laughed and clapped him on the back. ‘And very welcome, too! I’m sure Constance will produce something in the way of a fatted calf.’

  Mrs. Routh sat on the sofa. ‘You look very fit.’ She turned to me, ‘Would there be another cup in the pot?’

  ‘Plenty. I’ll get cups.’

  ‘No, no! I’ll do that!’ Mr. Routh leapt to the door, rubbing his hands together. ‘My goodness, we must …’ He left the excited sentence half-finished and went out of the room. I think he was glad to get away for a moment; he was overjoyed to see his son, but found it difficult to cope with the emotional demands of the reunion. Mrs. Routh held emotion firmly at a distance.

  ‘The police got in touch with you?’ she asked Timothy conversationally, in much the same way as she might have asked if he had had a good crossing.

  He said, ‘Yes,’ relinquishing the story of the newspaper with an uneasy glance at me.

  ‘Well, it’s nice to have you back.’

  Mr. Routh came in, clattering cups and saucers on a tray, followed by Saul who dodged between his legs and threatened to bring him to the ground.

  ‘This is marvellous!’ Mr. Routh said, setting the tray down beside me and then looking as though he would have liked it back again.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he repeated, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs.

  ‘Yes!’ Timothy nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, it’s great to be back, just great.’ He dragged a hand through his rather long blond hair.

  Saul hung his head over a plate of bread and butter and gave a hearty sneeze. It created a wonderful diversion. When I came back with fresh bread and butter, Timothy was talking about Italy and Mr. Routh was listening, bouncing Saul up and down on his knees. Mrs. Routh was staring pensively into an empty cup.

  I said to her, ‘More tea?’

  She dragged a smile to her face and said, ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I think this is a marvellous way of getting to know a place, absolutely marvellous.’ Mr. Routh gave Saul a particularly heavy bounce and Saul growled. ‘When I was a child people stayed in private hotels in towns so exactly like the ones they had left behind they might just as well have stayed at home. Young people today are so much more adventurous.’

  Mrs. Routh put her cup down and pushed it away from her. She looked across at Timothy. He met her eyes, and for a moment I thought he was going to brace himself to talk about Margaret. But Mr. Routh intervened with more thoughts on camping. He must have been as anxious as Mrs. Routh to find out what Timothy had to tell them of Margaret’s illness, yet he seemed to be in the grip of a compulsion to help Timothy to escape if that was what Timothy wanted. They were all so sensitive to each other’s feelings that this kind of situation was agony to them. I felt an overwhelming desire to bring the matter out into the open, and lest I should give way to it, I busied myself collecting tea things and departed to the kitchen. After I had finished the washing up, I went into the garden and talked to Joshua until I saw lights in the upper part of the house.

  Mrs. Routh was in the sitting-ro
om. I could tell that she did not want to talk to me, but there was something important that had occurred to me.

  ‘Is Margaret in yet?’ I asked.

  She was pulling the curtains across the french windows; she paused, her arms upraised, then she drew the curtains firmly across and smoothed down the folds.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ She sat on a hard chair near the window. She seemed very tired; she pushed her hair back from her face and let the fingers drag down her cheeks. ‘Oh dear! Wherever is she?’

  ‘She went to tea with Nurse McIver.’

  ‘Then she ought to be back by now. Nurse will be at the surgery.’

  She went across to the other window. ‘The lights were on in here. She would have seen us from the road. Why ever didn’t she come in and join us?’

  She stood with her hands on the sill, her forehead pressed against the window pane; I don’t think she was really trying to see out.

  ‘Shall I go and look for her?’

  ‘I think perhaps you had better.’

  I was on my way out when I suddenly had a mental picture of the back of the house as it had been while I was talking to Joshua. The first light to come on had surely been in Margaret’s room. I raced up the stairs and rapped on her door.

  ‘Margaret, are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded very subdued.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, go away. Please go away!’

  I did not feel that it was for me to persist. This was something for Mrs. Routh to handle. I ran down the stairs and met her in the hall.

  ‘Oh good,’ she said, when I told her that Margaret was in her room.

  ‘She sounds rather upset.’

  ‘Does she? Well, leave her alone for the moment. We don’t want to create any sense of drama about Timothy’s return.’

  It was her tendency to play things down, not only because she believed that a calm atmosphere was a healthy one, but because she had a strong personal distaste for emotional confrontations. On this occasion, however, I thought that she had rather misjudged the situation. The drama was there, whether we liked it or not.