Fruitful Bodies

by Morag Joss

  Hugh took his hand from the steering wheel and patted her knee. ‘Buck up, sausage,’ he murmured. ‘Only one more.’

  ‘One more what?’ Petronella asked, still thinking about her pregnancy.

  ‘Visit, sausage. Visit to your mama. Just grit the gnashers, let her go on about toxins, listen to her symptoms and tell her she looks wonderful. After we’ve got it over with we’ll be off to France and she can sit it out for the rest of August in the Sulis.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can be so callous. Poor Mummy.’

  In the silence that followed Hugh felt like a brute, but dammit, it wasn’t as if Petronella wouldn’t, in another mood, say exactly the same thing herself. He did rather wish she would make her mind up about her mother. To know one’s own mind on most matters was the mark of a sound chap. Petronella’s ambivalence about her blessed mother was not the sort of thing one expected in a sound chap’s wife. Some days it was all Poor Mummy and how she, with her little-and-often history with men, had never received real love from anyone except Petronella. On others it was Poor Petronella, rejected because her mother had never really wanted her and had been too taken up with the men to give her any proper love.

  He said, ‘But look, it’s not as if she’s not perfectly happy there, is it? Especially with the new admirer. She wouldn’t want to come with us.’

  ‘What was his name again? Warwick, that’s it. It’s sick.’

  Petronella was fishing angrily in her Mulberry bag and brought out an envelope.

  ‘Don’t read it again, Pet. You know it just gets you all het up,’ Hugh said mildly. Petronella ignored him and unfolded the letter.

  ‘I should have known something funny was going on when she wrote at all. She’s only written me about half a dozen proper letters in my life. This is the bit—’ She began to read aboud but could have recited from memory.

  Petronella waved the sheet of paper with annoyance.

  ‘She’s obviously going gaga. Look at her writing for a start, it’s gone so shaky. It never used to be shaky.’

  Hugh recognised that his role in this conversation was to play things down. As he had already said many, many times in the three days since the letter arrived, he said again, ‘She is in her eighties, now, Poppet. We have to expect things like shaky writing.’

  ‘But I really do think she’s going gaga. She can’t remember a thing she’s told me.’ She was still waving the letter. ‘I heard most of this last time we went anyway, before Warwick turned up to join us for tea. You remember, all about how she roped him into sitting for her stupid art therapy. “Such a marvellous head”, how stupid that sounds. What worries me is this talk of afterwards. She doesn’t say how long she’s invited him for, he could almost be moving in. God, Mummy is the limit.’

  This last comment clarified things, a little. Two minutes ago it had been a Poor Mummy day; now there was a definite gust of Poor Petronella in the emotional weather. Must be because she was in pod again. Hugh braced himself for another eight months of mood swings and resolved to keep a closer eye on the barometer. Earrings and lipstick before nine and a morning of competent soup-and-bread-making meant invariably a spell of Poor Mummy, whereas dressing gown at noon, scowling at the Aga and fried eggs for Sunday lunch were all clearly indicative of Poor Petronella.

  ‘Well, it does mean we don’t have to have her with us. He’s doing us a favour, really.’

  Petronella sighed with exasperation. ‘Oh, I know. But she really is the limit. He must be at least ten years younger than she is. I can’t think what he gets out of it.’

  Hugh swallowed a snort at Petronella’s apparent naïveté. He said, ‘Perhaps he’s in love with her. Plenty of men have been in love with her, after all, according to you. Perhaps it can happen, even at their age.’

  There was a depressed silence until Petronella said, almost as if she had been taking the suggestion seriously, ‘Not even Mummy could marry again at eighty-one.’

  Hugh sighed and went on driving instead of asking out loud, Oh couldn’t she?

  After another three miles Petronella suddenly announced, ‘Look, Hugh, we’re mad going to France. We can’t afford it. We should have cancelled when I found out about the baby, never mind the pig prices. We can hardly manage next term’s fees. And soon there’ll be three lots. And that’s without,’ her voice rose rather wildly, ‘a new oboe for Rupert. And not counting Miles’s orthodontics.’

  ‘Poppet, we’ll find a way. Everybody goes away in August and we need a holiday. I’ll have a quiet word with ma-in-law today and get her to set up a trust for this one, too. That’ll help.’

  ‘She’s not made of money, Hugh. I know she’s done it for Rupert and Miles but she’s not expecting to do it for another one.’

  ‘Darling—’ Hugh searched his lexicon of un-mercenary euphemisms for a way to say that actually his mother-in-law was made of money, but found it empty. He contented himself with thinking that at least Petronella was an only child and Bunny wasn’t immortal, and by saying, ‘You’ve got to look on the bright side. Don’t want little sproglet in your tum-tum getting upset, do we? They can sense it, you know.’

  Hugh had read something once in Horse and Hound about a mare’s temperament affecting the hormones reaching the fetus in the uterus and was terribly pleased that the memory of it came to his aid now, and rather proud that he had managed to find the nursery terms, sproglet and tum-tum, that Petronella preferred when her own gynaecology was under discussion. So often he could not remember the point he wanted to make nor, even if he did, find the right way of putting it. In fact, it sometimes seemed to him that the more deeply he felt or believed in a thing, the less able he was to say a word about it.

  CHAPTER 20

  SISTER YVONNE STOOD fuming at the window of the empty drawing room and watched the progress of the black Saab up the rain-soaked drive. She had just reached a bad-tempered impasse with Hilary about what should be done about Bunny Fernandez and was still too cross to be curious about whose car it was and why it should be making its way towards the front entrance of the clinic and not heading for the small visitors’ car park nearer the gate.

  Five minutes ago Hilary had raised both hands pompously and said, ‘Yvonne, it is not good for me to be having this conversation. I have been hurt by some of the things you have said, and I am going to leave the room now. You have the right to tell me that you are angry, but you do not have the right to insult me or my work. I shall come back when you are calmer. Goodbye.’

  Bloody Hilary. The matter of Bunny Fernandez was quite clear. If Dr Golightly was not on the premises then she, Sister Yvonne Cartwright, the only other medically qualified person on the staff, was entitled to judge whether or not a patient required his attention. Not Hilary Golightly, who was not a nurse, who was nothing but a failed artist. Bunny Fernandez did not need the doctor and it was she, Yvonne, who was the one to judge, and having judged should have been listened to. But oh no, Hilary Golightly puffs herself up and suddenly she’s the one arguing the toss and thinking she should be making the decisions.

  Acrid bile rose in Sister Yvonne’s throat. She reached into her uniform pocket for a couple of indigestion tablets because something, perhaps the bacon and egg butty she had bought at the garage halfway down Bathwick Hill on her way to work and eaten for lunch, had started striking matches in her intestines and was trying to set fire to itself. Not strictly along clinic guidelines, that sandwich (white bread, butter, smoked streaky, egg and mayo) but it wasn’t as if the clinic employed her stomach, was it? And it wasn’t as if she ate in secret, she just ate very quickly without bothering anyone in the basement staffroom while the others were busy preparing for the patients’ lunch. And it was not strictly along clinic guidelines either to stoke up on Rennies throughout the day but this place got to you sometimes. She popped the tablets into her mouth, bit on them sourly, and as they crumbled in her copious saliva she went over the conversation with Hilary again. Although, Yvonne considered, it was not just a matt
er of what had been said, it was a question of what had been implied.

  Mrs Fernandez’ daughter and son-in-law had come for the day. That was the crux of the whole thing. They had sat with her during lunch—the daughter had even had a bowl of that chilled green soup, for some reason that must have been unrelated to either enjoyment or hunger—and almost straight afterwards Bunny had complained of feeling strange. She was a madam, that one. Yvonne had not bathed, massaged and pandered to her for all these years without spotting that. As she chewed and fumed, Yvonne’s anger with Hilary writhed, rose up and grew tentacles which curled around and squeezed Bunny too, in a most satisfying way. The symptoms she had complained of had been delivered with her usual imperious certainty, but had been vague. With her head drawn back, she had described ‘a sort of irritation’ in her spine. She could sort of see things that she knew could not really be there: bright colours and sort of flashing lights. She was cold but sort of hot, thirsty and sort of wanting to go to the loo at the same time, restless and sort of wanting to sleep. Sort of asking for a smack round the face was Yvonne’s professional opinion. Bunny was either getting a bit senile and confused or she was being a manipulative, attention-seeking old haddock and Yvonne knew which, and she could tell by the look she had exchanged with that Petronella that that was what she thought, too. Nevertheless Yvonne had taken her patient off to bed and Bunny had fallen into a half-sleep, or was faking it. She was definitely faking the occasional jerking of her limbs under the covers. The daughter and husband had followed, she looking guilty, he bemused, to sit with her.

  It should have been the start of a quiet afternoon. The other patients had all taken themselves off to rest by the pool or in their rooms, leaving Yvonne and Hilary alone. But then in had jumped Hilary with her hand-wringing, clucking Yorkshire nonsense about how it was not like Bunny to miss her afternoon art therapy, especially now that her head of Warwick was coming along so strongly. So she must be really ill, and Dr Golightly (though of course Hilary said ‘Stephen’ with special emphasis) should be called in. Honestly—head of Warwick! Warwick was another one that Yvonne felt she could cheerfully drown in the hydrotherapy pool. The only head of Warwick that Yvonne could have cared anything for would be one on a platter with a kiwi fruit garnish, the fraudulent old goat. Not like Bunny to miss working on her head of Warwick, her arse. According to Yvonne, and she could tell Petronella Cropper agreed, it was exactly like Bunny to mount a little guilt-inducing drama for her daughter and son-in-law’s benefit on the last visit they would make before going on holiday for three weeks.

  The black car had now stopped and a lean, dark-haired woman dressed in jeans and an expensive-looking white shirt was getting out, making a wry face at the rain which was tipping down steadily. Yvonne thought she recognised her as Mr Ballantyne’s friend, the one who’d visited yesterday. She was obviously bringing in some of his things (though what would James want with another table lamp, especially that one?) in anticipation of a long stay, so presumably her conversation with Dr Golightly the other day must have left her thinking that her friend was not going to be getting better any time soon. Well, she’d be disappointed if she wanted to see him today. Yvonne softened as she thought about poor Mr Ballantyne who really was quite poorly, so much worse than yesterday that he was having a day’s juice fast and bedrest. That was the sort of patient she liked, a really ill one. There were hardly ever any properly ill people here, just over-indulged, hysterical hypochondriacs whose families didn’t want them and who could blame them.

  Now there was another woman, much older, and—oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph—a dog. They were unloading so much stuff from the car it looked as though the three of them might be moving in. Yvonne sighed, supposed dimly that she should go to help and stayed where she was, just out of sight behind the tasselled turquoise curtain. Her thoughts returned to Hilary and with them returned a sense of grievance which began to swell and burst like yeast bubbles in fermenting dough, because this old woman outside, now that Yvonne could see her properly, looked very like another of Dr Golightly’s lame ducks.

  How many more were there to be? There was Leech, for a start. Yvonne, by inclination and training, was uncomfortable with loose arrangements, and she had tried months ago to explain to Dr Golightly that this casual set-up at the allotment, with that beggar Leech just turning up, squatting in the shed and practically being taken on, was dangerously loose. Anybody with any sense could see that he was a homeless down-and-out through choice. But Dr Golightly had been very firm. There was, he had said, nothing loose or dangerous about it, but a simple equilibrium. He was disappointed that Yvonne could not see it. Leech was not a beggar; he was damaged and in need. He had sought shelter in their shed. He had been made welcome and comfortable by Hilary, and now he repaid the favour with his labour in the garden. Ivan needed the help. Leech maintained his dignity. Hilary was happy because Ivan was under less pressure. Oh well, if Hilary’s happy, she had said, and Dr Golightly had smiled in agreement. But Yvonne had gone on thinking that Hilary’s handling of father and son over the matter of Leech had been disturbingly neat. And now it meant that they all had to put up with Leech sometimes rolling up in the van with Ivan to deliver the fruit and veg, and probably giving the patients the creeps, any who might be up and about, anyway.

  Yvonne, still watching the younger dark-haired woman struggle with baggage, dog and the old duck in the rain outside, swallowed. Her insides felt milky, soothed, and her feelings softened. It wasn’t Dr Golightly’s fault. He might even be right about Leech and, seen another way, Hilary was just another lame duck herself. The doctor was practically a saint and the trouble with saints was they sometimes needed saving from themselves. It was a further trouble to someone like Yvonne that they seldom knew this, and so she admitted that it rankled, Hilary’s way of going to him at any old time of the morning or night with any trivial little thing she liked, using up his time. She never knocked and waited at his door, as everyone else had been instructed to, Yvonne had noticed. She was never asked to come back later, as others were, but was treated as if her bloody mucking about with clay and paint were of supreme importance.

  Yvonne checked her anger just as it reached the dangerous stage of being transferred to Dr Golightly, territory on to which she would never stray. No, he was not perfect. Perhaps rather easily taken in but practically a saint, and a wonderful doctor. He was just being kind to Leech and to Hilary, too, and the only reason for that was because at the root of everything lay the matter of Ivan. Yvonne had heard enough about Ivan’s past to understand why Dr Golightly took such pains to see that he remained well. She had seen the scars on Ivan’s arms. And to give Hilary her due, she obviously cared about Ivan’s health too, but honestly, as if art therapy mattered. Nobody in the place except perhaps that mad Bunny would give a celery stick for it.

  Yvonne took several deep breaths to settle a new attack of dyspeptic belching. This place was bad for a person’s health. It was ironic that she spent all day doing massages and whatnot to get people to relax, while the way that Hilary wound nice, gentle Ivan and his father round her little finger got her mad enough to explode. Yvonne clicked another two Rennies out of the foil packet and crunched them so loudly in her jaw that she hardly heard the door open and close behind her, and it was more the change in the room’s atmosphere brought by an unwelcome presence that made her turn and acknowledge that Hilary had come back, as annoyingly sure of herself as before.

  ‘I’ve just been up again. She’s still asleep,’ Hilary whispered, caringly.

  ‘I don’t want you disturbing my patients.’

  ‘I’ve been down to the kitchen and told Ivan about our little talk earlier. And I’d like you to know that he’s reassured me. He’s very calm about it. He thinks if she’s fallen asleep then sleep is what she needs. And so I said if he’s happy I am, and we wouldn’t call Stephen in to look at her.’

  ‘Oh, so now she’s Ivan’s patient?’

  Hilary folded her arms, then dropped
them. ‘Yvonne, I don’t wish to be confrontational but we’re supposed to work as a team. Anyway, of course she’s Stephen’s patient. You’re a nurse.’ She did not have to say ‘only’; her tone inflicted the word’s wound as surely as if she had. Yvonne realised that she hated not just everything Hilary said, but even her actual voice, that puddingy Yorkshire accent that made everything sound so smug and complacent. ‘In my opinion, she is ill,’ Hilary insisted, stepping forward and joining her at the window. ‘But I always listen to Ivan.’

  Yvonne continued to stare out, with her jaws locked. ‘And in my clinical judgment, there is no reason to disturb Dr Golightly. At this stage, my patient’s condition is perfectly manageable with nursing care. And whether you like it or not, my judgment goes.’

  ‘Well, I feel sure that what Stephen would want—Oh! Who’s that out there? That must be the new music lady. She’s getting ever so wet.’

  Yvonne turned and said, trying to hide her surprise with acidic courtesy, ‘The new what?’

  ‘The old one. With the cello case and the dog. She’s the new music therapist. Stephen said she’s moving in today, she’s having the same room as what’s-her-name had, Alex.’ With a regretful smile which didn’t fool Yvonne for a second she added, ‘Aww. Hasn’t Stephen told you?’