by Jane Gardam
Marsh held out his hands.
‘There’s me trunk undert bed and me bag. Them’s me own, mind, and you can git gone while I packs them.’
She pulled the trunk out. It was a cardboard affair with poor brass clasps turning black, and plywood bands. Flinging it open she revealed a heap of dirty washing, which she crammed into a corner and then began to fling in clothes from the chest of drawers. Marsh shouted, furiously, ‘You made me.’
She laughed, ‘An’t yer goin’ after ’er? That’s the first word you’ve spoke.’
He walked across and stood beside her as she knelt at the trunk, but she at once got up and began to walk frenziedly about, gathering up more clothes, her nightdress from under the pillow and an armful of things off the dressing-table. She hurled them all at the trunk and the scent of Devonshire Violets flooded through the room.
She was shaking. It might have been with tears, but when she knelt beside the trunk again and he put his hand on her hair she flung round and her great ramshackle face was not sad but furious.
‘You near got me. D’you hear that? You damn near got me. Yer bringin’ in the sheaves and God’s love and all God’s children has wings. Put yer burden on the Lord and all that muck. What Lord? What Lord?
‘No Lord goes trampin’ the mountains and woods after me. There’s bin plenty others after me I’ll tell yer sin I were eleven year old—our dad an’ all. But no Lord. Our Dad layin’ about the ’ouse all day, me Mam wi’ eight on us an nowt but the dole. There was plenty after me an’ none worth owt. None of them. An’ I gets in to service at the last an’ all’s changed. Told there’s love of me—more love than what’s obvious. More to everythin’ than what’s obvious. More than food and drink and gettin’ work and like you said. More to it than pickin’ up what you can get where you can get it. You said. Being good, you said. Stoppin’ sayin’ yes every time. Withstanding temptation, sez you. Thinkin’ of others sez you.
‘Not that I ever did owt but think of others, seems to me. No chance of owt else in our ’ouse—me Mam useless, wore out and me Dad a devil and kids to get fed. To get to school even, some’ow. Some on them any rate. Him drunk Saturdays. Then drunk most other days and nowt left to eat in the end foreby fish an’ chips if we’s lucky.
‘We’d not got lino on our kitchen floor. There now! Nowt but old boards. No bathroom. One lavvy for the street, down tother end ont railway bank. We’d o’ bin hungry many an’ many a time without me being round the pub of a night gettin’ what I could get.
‘So I comes ’ere—and that were a mystery; some mistake—an’ it’s all God’s love. Four good meals a day. Easy, Easy. Train rides on a Wednesday to be comp’ny for a lass. A marriage as quiet and grand as in the Woman’s Weekly. Jesus of Nazareth Sundays, an’ prayers twice a day and thoughts all above the usual. Beautiful singing. Readings. People caring . . .
‘You cared for me. That’s what you said. You cared different. You was the daftest, differentest man I ever saw. Comin’ out over them rocks after me in your smart clothes and there’s nowt—not owt—distracts you, not even when I teks me stockin’s off, not even when you falls down flat on yer face int’ water. It wasn’t me body you was after. Me body’s not owt.
‘Thinks I. Thinks I. Bloody great fool I is.
‘Yer allt same. The bloody lot. There’s not one man different. Yer face is poker straight and there’s not a spark of desire about you an’ it’s back and forth yer go to that Bank day in day out an’ off to yer Turner Street, steppin’ out like Holy Jerusalem. But the same dirt’s below—no better’n our Dad.
‘Worse. A lot worse’n our Dad, seein’ he’d all the excuse to go wrong as any man ever needed. Never a job in six years and me Mam wi’ the face of a dead monkey an’ kids wi’ their noses runnin’ and their mouths hangin’, Bishop Auckland not bein’ exactly the Garden of Eden you knows so much about.
‘An so you should an all, livin’ this place. Bloody seaside every day of your life an’ not just for outin’s. When I were a kid I never seed it but for twice on day-trips an then it was only Sea’ouses and bitter cold and windy and rain teeming down. And you’ve got all this—all the grand sands and the waves runnin’ in, as well as the woods an all—bands playin’ people laughin’ and spendin’ money, singin’ and dancin’ and the chaos for the ice creams and the ladies in their ’ats that must have cost a good pound, and the red and blue flowers in the cut-out beds, and the blazing sunshine!’
She was sobbing into her hands but when he moved she jumped up and turned on him furiously.
‘You an’ yer Jesus Saves and all yer want is yer ’ands up me drawers the minute I gets near yer, stretching for fruit! You’re the serpent, that’s what you are Mr Holy Jesus Marsh, yer no God Almighty, yer the bloody serpent that had all the luck. Adam an’ Eve gits kicked out, right? An’ who stays back to enjoy it, eh? In the flamin’ Garden of Eden? The serpent what was there from the start, from the first moment when He separates the light from the dark and the land from the sea an’ starts messin’ about wi’ fishes. Like Margaret said, why din he stop there, wi’ the light and the dark? The serpent won, din’ he? An’ there’s trouble an’ misery an’ sex forever.’
She fastened the trunk clumsily, still crying, and threw herself on the sagging bed.
‘So I can’t stay ’ere. Can I? An’ she’ll give me no reference, so it’s good-bye service an’ back ont street corners. And God ’elp them kids—an’ thy kids I mean, not me Dad’s. Me Dad’s kids’ll make out best int’ end, not bein’ buggered up wi’ Jesus.’
22.
When the rockets went up, Nurse Booth was spooning a second sugar into her tea, watched admiringly by Mabel Danby, the wife of the Chaplain, in the lodge at the gates of the Hall. The Danbys lived in the lodge and could see the Hall from it and the Chaplain was at present standing looking up the drive out of his sitting-room window at the curious darkening sky, and jingling the money in his pockets.
He was an immediate, enthusiastic man—the kind who comes up very close when he speaks, full of Welsh urgency and good will—but he thoroughly disliked Nurse Booth and was wondering whether the sudden rain and the threatening twilight sky were excuse enough for him to hear the call of duty and do a round of the wards.
‘Gracious me—whatever’s this,’ he said.
‘Thunder—well, I’m not surprised,’ said Mabel, never taking her eyes off Booth. She passed a plate of little cakes across the dumb-waiter and Booth who was sitting knees-apart by the fireplace helped herself to a couple.
‘Maids of honour,’ said Mrs Danby.
‘I sugar my tea,’ said Booth. ‘You can always tell a nurse by the sugar she puts in her tea.’
‘Really,’ said Mabel.
‘We always said on the Somme, the better the tea the better the nurse. And the better the nurse the better the tea.’ She looked round her for acclaim.
‘Fancy.’
‘My word, but it’s a storm. It is a storm,’ said the Chaplain. ‘Now whoever would have thought at dinner time . . . ’
‘The only time I never drank tea,’ said Booth, ‘was in Singapore. And that’s very funny really, very satirical, considering that Singapore is the home of tea.’
‘Yes. Well of course. Why . . . ?’
‘Too hot. Much too hot. The sweat poured from us. Poured from us. We drank water—plain water. Eight bottles a day.’
‘Good heavens.’
‘Mind, the food made up for it. Rice for breakfast of course. Great fat prawns.’
‘Prawns, fancy!’
‘That was lightning,’ said the Chaplain, ‘I wonder where Drinkwater is? He’s not fond of lightning.’
‘Not that you couldn’t get an excellent steak and kidney pie.’
‘More . . . er . . . tea, Evan?’ Mabel Danby’s big eyes asked her husband to turn round but he still jingled his pockets. Soon he began whistling through his teeth.
‘In the Mess,’ said Booth, ‘you could get English cooking at its best.
But out on the street stalls—the size of the prawns!’ She lay back and opened her mouth and put into it a big piece of Sally Lunn. ‘I always feel of course that one has never really lived unless one has been to the Far East.’
‘Really.’
‘Oh no.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Never the same again. You’re never the same again.’
‘It must have been a great experience.’
‘Oh yes. It spoils one. It rather spoils one. One tries not to be uppitty, but well, everywhere else feels a little bit of a comedown. I mean, Eastkirk and the Hall is such a very small pond.’
‘It must be.’
‘Poor Mrs F. One has to curb one’s tongue a little. If she had travelled of course. You don’t get this regal attitude in the ones who’ve been about a bit.’
There was a grinding, shuffling noise from the window.
‘Abroad all the officers—are always so approachable. I only nursed officers of course.’ Booth’s stomach and great chest were as one, and though she was off-duty with no trace of starch, the spread from armpit to armpit cried out for medals. ‘I was Major Booth then of course. I still take Major.’
Mabel, who had heard it all before, decided on a daring question.
‘Didn’t it . . . er . . . rather tend to sort of put the officers off?’
Booth looked hard at her and picked up a piece of Victoria Sponge. ‘One thing I missed I really did miss,’ she said kindly, ‘and that was a real English tea. You could get it of course—Raffles, the Cricket Club . . . but . . . ’
The rockets went off again and this time made Mabel jump.
‘I think it’s rockets,’ she said.
‘Rockets?’
‘Rockets. Somebody in trouble.’
‘And that of course,’ said Booth munching, ‘is another thing I miss here. The fireworks. The Chinese love fireworks, you know. They’re an excitable people, excitable. Nonsense to say they’re inscrutable. I understood them very well indeed. I felt really very close to the Chinese. I’ve a very good skin of course. And a flat back. And I love a bit of excitement—plenty going on. I suppose that’s why I’ve never really hit it off in Eastkirk.’
The Chaplain put his head on one side rather in the manner of Mr Drinkwater, ‘Sister . . . ’ he began.
‘Major,’ she corrected, ‘I still take Major.’ She had become quite flushed with tea. ‘You know I still like Major, Chaplain.’
‘Major . . . Drinkwater. D’you think he’ll be all right? He doesn’t care for storms. D’you know where . . . ?’
‘Oh, he’ll be with Mrs F. Let’s hope she’ll decide to have the windows shut at last. Now don’t you worry, Chaplain. Yes, just a small slice please—they’re happy enough. The old love birds. Never fret.’
‘Fret?’ said the Chaplain. ‘Fret? It’s not fret.’
‘Laughing away together. Of course she’s getting as soft as him. I always say, you know, we’ll all get the same way. Living here. They say that, don’t they? You work in these places and you get just like them. One of the reasons I don’t think I can see my way to staying very much longer.’ She looked ruthlessly over at the Chaplain, ‘It’s you and me next, Evan.’
Mabel, astonished at the use of her husband’s Christian name, laughed oddly and Booth began to twirl one of her feet and continued to look over at the Chaplain’s back. Booth’s eyes narrowed. ‘Poor old virgin,’ she said, and Mabel gasped.
‘Nurse Booth! Mrs Frayling has two children . . . ’
‘Nothing to do with it!’ said Booth largely. She flicked crumbs off her chest with short clean fingers. ‘You can always tell,’ she said, ‘if you’ve been around a bit. Unfulfilled.’ She leaned forward and nodded slowly. ‘And dreaming half her life away. Fantasy world. Living in the past. Couldn’t even keep peace with her children. That poor daughter comes . . . but the son never. Cut herself right off. It’s what’s known as a Fantasy World. Lives in the past. Mind she’s lucky—she’s lucky.’
‘Lucky!’
‘Oh yes. There’s still money there. Oh yes!’
The rain began to slash down and blotted out the drive, the trees and the big, limp dahlias which the Chaplain and his wife grew devotedly in a cherry dump at the front door. They were meant to give a hopeful look to the mental-hospital gates and encourage the visitors. ‘The dahlias will be quite dashed,’ said Mabel.
‘A bit of money makes all the difference.’
‘Sorry. I’m off,’ said the Chaplain, fled the room and returned buttoned up to the chin in his mackintosh and shaking out an umbrella. He kissed his wife, nodded towards Booth and said, ‘Upsetting. Upsetting for Drinkwater. And some of the others. Mrs Frayling . . . ’
‘Now don’t you worry about our Roaslie,’ Booth called. (Rosalie! thought Mabel, Roasalie! She’s drunk. Or is it the weather—there’s a very queer light.) ‘Our Rosalie’s all right. No trouble to anybody if you mind your ps and qs and curtsey at the door. You’ll not believe this but I like her. I really don’t dislike her. It’s—’ she picked up a chocolate biscuit and looked at it, considering where to bite, ‘It’s always been a really nice case.’
‘Nurse Booth,’ shouted the Chaplain from the porch, letting the wind and rain blow in, ‘if you will forgive me . . . ’ His Welsh accent became strong when he was angry and his face if she had bothered to look up at it was as flushed as her own. ‘I suggest you make the most of it because it will be a very short one now.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that, padre,’ she said, leaning forward easily for sugar again and stirring. ‘Not long now.’
The Chaplain left.
‘I ought not to say this,’ Booth looked up. ‘I’ve never talked about a case. Never. I’m a professional—and of course a soldier. I ought not to say this . . . ’
Mabel swallowed. ‘A piece of Genoa?’ she asked automatically. Then, torn between astonishment that Booth had accepted a large piece after so very much else, the horror at Booth’s hypnotic, almost salacious excitement, she watched the nurse lick every finger-tip and at last say cunningly, ‘About three, I’d say, Mabel. It’ll be about three weeks.’
23.
Mrs Frayling heard the rockets too, but did not stir. Mr Drinkwater behind her in the conservatory heard them and cried out, ‘Ship ahoy.’
He was sitting and listening to the noise in the near dark and to the rain, and watching the attack it made on the old green and black glass. Fusillades: yet they didn’t seem to cut the roof moss. Outside green branches tossed in the greenish air.
Drinkwater sat in the splintery basket chair beneath the splintery vine and got wet from huge cold drops that fell on him through the cracks. There were holes to take glasses in the arms of the basket chair, but these were more like bird’s nests. Mr Drinkwater was filling them with feathers from an old and hideous feather fan. The rockets added to the general feeling of eerie disturbance.
‘Charles?’ Rosalie called through.
‘Ship on the rocks,’ he called and shambled to Rosalie’s room. She lay eyes-right on the pillow, thoughtfully. Her pillow-case and counterpane shone blue-white in the dark room. Her tiny head looked darker and smaller than ever, a shrunk coconut, but her eyes were gigantic and bright.
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘The rockets are the sign for the lifeboat. Somebody is stuck on the rocks. There will be more in a minute. Wait and see. They signal twice to call the lifeboat men. In case they don’t hear the first time. They all down tools and run. I saw them once. It’s a good sight. Ancient.’
‘Not a ship in distress?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’ Her voice was surprisingly clear and firm and thoughtful.
‘Magnificent sight—ship in distress.’
‘You’ve never seen one, Charles.’
‘No. Well—Turner. Van de Velde. Might just stroll down to the sea perhaps, if . . . ’ He looked at her. ‘I’m not Charles,’ he said, ‘ . . . if you don’t mind being left.’
‘I am perf
ectly all right, but . . . ’
‘Don’t care to leave you. Think I ought to stay about.’
‘My dear Edwin—I am perfectly all right and how on earth do you think you could go out in this? You’ve always hated storms.’
Lightning lit the room and made the pillow dazzle round her face.
‘Should care to paint you,’ he said, then turned embarrassed to the open window. The world streamed and rattled with rain.
‘Not allowed out anywhere, come to that,’ he said, ‘I’ve got me green ticket. That’s what we used to say at the Slade—we’re all going to finish with green tickets. That’s what I’ve got.’
‘What?’
‘Not allowed to do anything,’ he yelled. ‘Can’t hear meself speak either.’
‘You’re allowed to help me,’ she said. ‘Oh . . . !’
‘What is it?’
Rosalie was looking beyond him and outside. Rain had soaked an arc in to the old green carpet inside the open french doors. One of the curtains lifted and dropped again, flapping. It had grown cold.
‘I saw . . . ’
‘What is it?’
‘A child. I saw a child looking in.’
Drinkwater peered about. ‘Shut the window?’ he asked. ‘Better shut it now at last.’
‘She didn’t look like . . . ’
‘What?’
‘She was different. Ill. Edwin—could you get Booth?’
‘Booth?’
‘Yes—quickly. Could you get Booth?’
‘No children here,’ he said, making a poor job of trying to close the French doors, rattling and bumping the closing bar and adding to the pandemonium of the rain.
‘Stop it, Edwin—do leave me. But it was the same one.’
‘What’s that?’ he said. He had begun to run a finger down the window then to place his hands on the pane and watch the warm marks they made fade when he had removed them. ‘Same what?’
‘It’s the child we saw—we both saw—before. She’s out there in the garden.’
‘What child?’
‘The child you were talking about.’