When I had started Mr Wentworth had been a sprightly bank manager walking past my house daily to work, bowler hat settled firmly on his head, furled umbrella swinging smartly. Now he hobbled in, older than his years, retired long ago and riddled with the tremors of Parkinson’s disease. He said nothing about the goings-on outside but I read the condemnation in his eyes.
Mrs Anderson had been young too, well youthful anyway but between us we had seen her only child die and now she was old before she needed to be, withered, embittered and at odds with the whole world. If she noticed the chaos she said nothing. Her thoughts were turned permanently inwards by the shabby way that fate had treated her. She imagined she suffered from every sickness under the sun, and punished her husband night and day with her endless complaints for the loss of their child for which he was entirely blameless.
Mrs Slot-Parker was an old friend too. Her husband had also died but she had married again and richly, and came all the way from Mayfair to see me as she had faith in no one else.
These were the ones who cared. I realised suddenly that Sylvia, as always, was right. It mattered not at all if the house was purple or orange or yellow or red. If the garden was full of paintings and the kitchen full of drop-outs. As far as the patients were concerned I could hang mobiles from the ceiling and washing from the chimney-pots. The “scene” was unimportant. It was the person they came to see which made family-doctoring such a satisfying career. I listened to chests, to heart-beats and stories, I wrote prescriptions and sent Lulu scurrying for notes. I gave medicine and advice; help and a sympathetic ear. I was glad I was neither an aseptic Health-Centre nor a once-only Consultant. I realised that I would not have to abandon the friends grown close over years of laughter and sadness. I began to look forward to Bay Tree House.
Eleven
Mrs Glossop, friend and daily help for more years than I cared to remember, took one look and put her overall back in the capacious bag from which she was inseparable. She looked at me reproachfully.
“Not all those stairs, Doctor! Not with me veryclose veins I couldn’t. What is it, four floors?”
“Five, actually.”
She made a horrified “o” with her lips.
“You know I don’t mind obliging and you’ve been ever so good to me but not five floors I couldn’t. I never said anything, not in the other place I didn’t, on account of there wasn’t that many, but I’ve got a sort of thing about stairs…”
“Look, Mrs Glossop, I’ll do the stairs,” Sylvia said, “you won’t even know they’re there. You can absolutely ignore them…”
Mrs Glossop leaned forward confidentially. “It isn’t acksherlly the cleaning of them, it’s the going up and down of them…”
I adopted my best psychiatric pose. “You mean you were frightened in some way by stairs in your childhood. Fell down them perhaps?”
She gave me a withering look. “We ’ad a bungalow at Margate.”
“Please, Mrs Glossop,” Sylvia pleaded, surrounded by packing cases and near to tears. “Just till we get settled in.”
But Mrs Glossop had picked up her bag. “’Snot only the stairs to tell you the truth,” she said, looking round her. “There’s all them winders and the bin men coming to the front door and everyone on top of everyone else, sort of knowing your business and then there’s the washing. There’s nowhere to ’ang your washing.”
“There’s a special laundry room,” Sylvia said with pride.
“’Tisn’t the same as outside a laundryette isn’t. Don’t smell the same. There’s nothing like fresh air. Not for washing there isn’t. I mean don’t think I’m complaining, I’ve never been one for complaining as I think you’ll agree, and I feel ever so sorry you couldn’t keep up the other place, lovely big place that was, room for your washing and your Hoover…”
“There’s a special Hoover cupboard,” Sylvia said quickly, demonstrating it.
Mrs Glossop sniffed.
“Yes, but not for your odds and ends. I mean I’m sorry things haven’t been going too good and p’raps later on you’ll be able to manage something a bit bigger, more healthy for the baby, poor little mite…”
“Mrs Glossop,” I said, “this is a town house and…” I was about to say twice as expensive as the other house but caught Sylvia’s warning eye.
“I mean it might have been worse,” Mrs Glossop said. “One of them flats or something with no faculties at all, not even your bit of green, and the lift getting stuck and having to walk up fifteen floors, that’s what happened to my sister-in-law and the gas pressure was that low…”
“If you need any references,” Sylvia said, seeing that she was fighting a losing battle.
Mrs Glossop was putting on her gloves.
“I don’t think that will be necessary, madam, you see Fred…”
“You can’t work for Fred,” I said. “Not in that madhouse!”
“I rather fancy it,” Mrs Glossop said. “Besides, he’s helping me with me Yoga.”
She clasped her bag to her bosom and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
“‘As a lotus in the water remaineth dry,
As also a water-fowl in the stream –
So by meditating on the Word
Shalt thou be unaffected by the world.’
“I hope you’ll be ever so happy here, don’t worry about it too much, I mean there’s just as many good fish in the sea as ever came out, and love to the kiddies.”
Left with these ambiguous words of wisdom we looked on our departing tower of strength.
Surrounded by the phenominal quantity of possessions we had accumulated over the years, the purple grass-paper and the citron banister-rope, Sylvia and I stared at each other.
“If you say ‘I told you so’,” Sylvia said. “I shall scream.”
“You’ll have all the neighbours running if you do,” I said nastily, gazing at the flimsy partition which divided our house from the next.
Our nerves at fraying point it might have developed into a full scale row had we not realised that we were not alone. Through the front door, left open by Mrs Glossop, had come a delivery man.
“Right old mess,” he said, looking round. “Not to worry. You soon get straight. It’s amazing. We was living with the in-laws until the nipper come along, then we got our own place like, mind you we had a bigger hall than what you’ve got, we had to on account of the pram you see, you could never get a pram not through here you couldn’t…”
We looked in horror at each other and thought of the pram cupboard demonstrated so proudly by Miss Pollock. She had forgotten to point out that it was impossible to get the pram through the hall.
“…it’s amazin’ how soon it sorts itself out, I mean when you get all this ’orrible paper off the wall…” He pointed to the purple grass-paper. “…there’s no accountin’ for what some people will stick up, and get your emulsion on you won’t know the place.” He held out a board and took a pencil from behind his ear.
“Number thirty-five, if you please.”
“What for?”
“I brought yer trees.”
“Trees?”
“The Bay Trees,” Sylvia said.
“In pots they are. Not that I go for pots, but that’s all you can do with a place like this. I like yer limes and yer weeping-willers and a bit o’ grass fer the kiddies. Shall I fetch ’em in?”
“Yes,” I said wearily, “fetch ’em in.”
“You mean out,” Sylvia said.
“I mean out.”
“Either side of the front door,” Sylvia said.
“What about yer bin then?”
“They’re supposed to camouflage the bin,” Sylvia said patiently.
He scratched his head. “Dunno about that,” he said, “might hide a bit though.”
“Remind me,” I said to Sylvia when we had been abandoned by both the removal men and Mrs Glossop, our possessions about our ears, “never to move again.”
“But darling, we shall have to.”
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She was piling books from my outstretched arms to my chin. “What do you mean?”
“Well, this isn’t the sort of house you would want to live and die in.”
I closed my eyes.
“Oh, it’s lovely, absolutely marvellous for now, easy to run and modern, we’re both busy, but it hasn’t exactly got any… I can’t think of the word…any…grace… I suppose you’d call it. When I’m old and white haired…”
“I shall never be old and white haired!”
“…I can’t picture myself sailing gracefully…there’s the stairs for one thing…”
“I thought you liked the stairs!”
“I do. For now I mean, while we’re young…”
I snorted, which was all I could do because the books had reached my nose.
“…it’s nice but when we’re getting on a bit I thought somewhere in the country with trees and roses. What did you say?”
She removed the top book in order to listen to my words of wisdom.
“I said that we had trees and roses in the old house which Fred is now enjoying to his heart’s content.”
She replaced the book.
“Not suburban trees and roses! Real country, with apple trees and perhaps a horse or two…”
I raised my eyebrows which was all I could do. She read the message in my eyes.
“It’s all right, darling. By then I shall have sold the film rights on all my books and we shall be able to retire and Peter and Penny will be able to visit us with the children, their children, a breath of country air will do them good…”
Her imagination once more was running away with her. It was easy to see why she had taken to writing books. I indicated that my arms were aching while she indulged in her fantasies and that I would be glad of instructions what to do with my load.
“The bookcase, darling, outside Eugénie’s room. They’re mostly children’s books and we can sort them out later.”
I took a step forward and wondered where Eugénie’s room was situated; then I remembered. Five floors! Seventy-five stairs!
“Oh, do hurry up darling, we shall never get straight.”
I suddenly wondered whether I shouldn’t perhaps have taken the advice in Punch to those about to get married; “Don’t.”
With such heretic thoughts in my head I began on the first flight.
We had kept Peter and Penny with us in order to help with the running up and down and disposing of our things, but had accepted Caroline’s kind offer to look after Eugénie for the day.
At five o’clock we were collapsed, all of us, even Penny and Peter silenced for once, in what was to be the living-room (split-level) surrounded by packing cases, newspaper, clothes, hangers, shoes, nappies, coffee percolators and such sundry items as the massive oak sideboard Sylvia had inherited from her ancestral home and which, by some oversight, we had forgotten to sell, a lawn-mower and some thousand odd copies of the British Medical Journal in varying stages of yellowing.
“That house in the country,” Sylvia said, grimy from head to foot, her eyes red with exhaustion, “perhaps after all we shan’t bother.”
“What about those lovely horses…?”
“Oh, please!” Penny said. “You know I’ve always wanted a horse. Can we really? I mean just a pony. A small pony…”
“That’s when we next move,” I said, eyeing Sylvia who was looking away. “When we’re old and grey. You’ll be married by then and not the slightest bit interested in ponies.”
“Well, I wish we’d moved somewhere we could have a pony. A girl at school’s got a pony.”
“It’s not allowed anyway. It says so specifically in the lease.”
“A red-setter then?”
I shook my head.
“A rabbit?”
“No!”
“A hamster? I could keep it in my bedroom.”
“Not even a goldfish.”
“I hate this house!”
So did I, but I couldn’t very well rat on Sylvia. I gave Penny a sympathetic and conspiratorial glance which was wasted as she was looking out of the window.
“There’s somebody coming up the path,” she said, “carrying something.”
Sylvia yawned. “It’s probably Caroline with Eugénie. I simply haven’t the strength.”
“It isn’t Caroline. It looks like a patient.”
In a flash Sylvia was on her feet. “I won’t have it! I won’t. We moved to get a bit of peace and quiet, so that we would no longer be persecuted night and day. Move over Penny. Let me have a look.”
At that moment the bell rang.
“I can only see the top of her head,” Sylvia said.
“Well, if you will have living-rooms on the first floor…”
“My God!” Sylvia shrieked.
I was on my feet thinking something terrible had happened.
“It’s Barbara Basildon!”
“Who on earth gave her our address?”
“Fred.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“I’m not going!” Sylvia said. “This is our private house and we don’t have to answer the door if we don’t want to.”
“It’s a bit rude,” I said. “We don’t want to start losing patients just now. Remember the outgoings!”
The bell rang again.
Sylvia sat down. “She can ring as much as she likes. I shan’t answer it.”
I indicated the boiler-suit which one of the builders had left behind and which I had appropriated, likewise his paint bespattered cap which was sitting on the back of my head. “Well, I assure you I’m not.”
The bell rang again, this time more persistently.
Sylvia folded her arms. “Let her ring.”
“Send Penny,” Peter said.
“Lazy lump,” Penny said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“You know I’m no good with messages.”
“Good idea. Run along Penny, there’s a good girl.”
“Run? Do you realise that today I must have climbed five billion, nine thousand and ninety-nine stairs…”
The bell was now pealing continuously.
“I think she’s got an absolute cheek,” Sylvia said.
In a moment Penny was back. She looked at me. “She says she won’t keep you a minute and that it’s absolutely essential.”
I began to unbutton the boiler suit.
“Mug!” Sylvia said. “And it’s no use taking that off, your hands and face are black and I don’t suppose you contemplate having a bath before you reach street level.”
I did the buttons up again and went downstairs, attempting to look dignified in my unaccustomed garb.
I put on my sternest look and opened the front door; at least tried to. I pulled but nothing happened. It appeared to be jammed.
My look was wasted. “You’ll have to push,” I shouted. “The door seems to be stuck. I’ll turn the handle and you shove.”
“I could come round the back,” said Barbara Basildon’s dulcet voice. “I don’t mind a teeny bit. I know how it is when you’re moving.”
“There is no back.”
There was silence while she assimilated the shocking news.
“Now, if you’ll kindly push, as hard as you can…”
She pushed. There was an almighty crash and I faced Barbara Basildon from a sea of broken glass.
After what seemed a lifetime she said: “You did tell me to push, Doctor!”
“Not the glass!” I hissed, picking darts of it out of my eyebrows.
“Your chin is bleeding.”
I searched for my handkerchief which was as grimy as my hands.
“That’s hardly surprising.”
“Let me.”
She produced a square of white lace with which she attempted to staunch my wounds.
“Look here, it really doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can easily run up a new door and get a few hundred stitches put in my face, just tell me what you came for. This is my private residence, I do not have a surge
ry here and I cannot under any circumstances have dealings with patients on these premises. It says so in the lease.”
“Look I really am sorry to trouble you, Doctor…”
She always was. I wondered, tired and bleeding, what it was this time. The baby’s nose-drops or the au pair’s pimples.
“…I mean I really do know what it’s like moving, you see we started off with Herbert’s mother, she’s awfully nice but you know what it’s like, then we went to this furnished flat which was very central but it’s not very nice, other people’s belongings all round you, you like to have your own, then we were lucky enough to get an unfurnished one, it was in the same block true, but it meant moving just the same and we’d hardly settled there when I started Andrew and we only had the one bedroom so naturally we had to start looking…”
“Mrs Basildon,” I said, “if you go round to Dr Perfect, I’m quite sure he’d be only too pleased to deal with whatever it is you’ve come about. I know it should be my night on duty but he’s doing it for me and it isn’t quite surgery time but under the circumstances…look I’ll ring him for you if you like…”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” she said, “nothing medical. I mean I wouldn’t! What must you think of me…”
I kept my mouth tightly shut.
“…it’s just that I know how it is on the first day you move into a new place so I wanted to bring you this.”
She handed me the brown paper parcel she had been holding all the time.
I was at a loss for words.
“I must fly,” she said. “I’ve left the children. Regards to your wife. I don’t know what we’d do without you. I really don’t.”
She stepped through the hole in the front door and out to her car.
Upstairs Sylvia was having hysterics.
“Charming of you to laugh,” I said. “When I’m cut to ribbons.”
“I’m sorry,” she choked. “I really am. I suppose I’m tired and hungry and overwrought but when you said push and she pushed…”
I handed her the parcel.
“See what it is?”
“Not today. It’s probably some ghastly old vase or fruit bowl she picked up in the Portobello Road, knowing Barbara Basildon. Leave it over there till the morning.”
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