The Happy Prisoner

by Monica Dickens

  Heather, who was rather a snob at this age, said, as they drove away: “I never knew you were so democratic, Ollie.”

  “Brewers and I? Bosom pals—must make that one of my ports of call,” he said, and forgot all about them until Mary turned up nearly five years later on a bicycle in a round hat and a long blue coat to wash him on Nurse Sanderson’s first day off. She had not changed at all. Her work was very hard, but it satisfied the rapt, idealistic qualities in her, and because she loved it, it left no marks of wear and tear. Her capacity for service was infinite, and for Oliver, of course, she would have died. He did not notice her devotion at first, but once Heather had gleefully pointed it out, he was embarrassingly aware of it all the time. That explained, of course, why she was unnatural with him, although quite at her ease with his mother and sisters. She could laugh and joke with them, and order them about or turn them out of the room with the self-confidence born of proficiency and ten years of handling all sorts of people. With Oliver, however, she was awkward. She was too polite, too apologetic if she hurt him, she laughed too much at the feeble jokes with which he tried to leaven the strain of their sessions.

  These half-hours twice a day were delicious agony to her. She was in heaven and hell at the same time. The time was all too short and yet it was a relief when she could relax from the terror of saying or doing the wrong thing. As she pedalled away misty-eyed down the drive between the paddocks, she went over and over the things that Oliver had said and pondered what he meant by them. She lived for his nurse’s week-ends off and wondered whether they would give Elizabeth a holiday at Christmas.

  She never told Oliver any of this, of course, but now that he was on the lookout for it, he saw it written all over her face every time she came in. It was bad luck on her that Oliver should be having a mood this week-end, but he thought it was worse luck on him that Elizabeth should go away just when he needed her most.

  She washed him and did his dressing before she left early on Saturday morning and either did not or pretended not to notice that he was in a bad temper. He did not say “Have a good time” when she said goodbye. Why should she have a good time when he was trapped here, tied to his bed at the mercy of women?

  At lunchtime, Cowlin’s terrier stood like Tantalus, smelling the cooling meat on Oliver’s plate. When Mrs. North came in with his pudding, her concern for his appetite was aggravated by the memory of her long, sycophantic conversation about the butcher’s family, and the care she had taken over cooking that piece of liver, and the staleness of the fish which she and the rest of the family were eating.

  “I thought you loved liver, darling!” she exclaimed. “It does upset me so to see you leave your food. Let me get you something else. Would you like an egg?” She would never learn that if she would just take his plate away as if she did not care whether he starved to death or not, he would have found more satisfaction in eating his food than in leaving it.

  “I’m not hungry, thanks,” he said.

  “Oh, darling. You’ve been eating chocolate, I suppose. You ought to have more strength of mind.”

  “I finished my chocolate long ago,” he said, aggrieved.

  “Perhaps you should have had a drink before lunch,” she pursued. “It might have given you an appetite. You’ll enjoy your pudding, anyway. It’s apple charlotte, with the top off the milk; it was quite creamy today.”

  “Oh, Ma, not apples again. Is there nothing else in that damned garden of ours? What’s happened to all the pears?”

  “Why, I thought you were so fond of apples! You always say you can never get enough of them. I can open a bottle of fruit if you like, but I wasn’t going to touch-them till later in the year.” She had not yet realised what state he was in. Later, when the mood had become an accepted factor of the household, she would know that if she had brought pears he would have wanted apples.

  “Well, just try and enjoy this, dear.” She put the plate down on his tray. “The crust is so nice and crisp, and I put a lot of sugar in the apples, but just taste it and see if you want any more.” He ate a spoonful of apple in a martyred way. “It’s all right, thanks,” he said listlessly. When she came back, he had pushed the bed-table as far away from him as the cradle would allow, with the pudding half uneaten. She could not help thinking how the children had asked for more milk on theirs when there had been no more to give them.

  “Would you like coffee today, dear?” she asked. He wished she would not pronounce it cawfee.

  “I don’t mind,” he said. He knew he was being impossible, but he could not help it when he felt like this. Once he had gone over the edge and given himself up to depression, he seemed unable to struggle back to civilised behaviour. He was even beyond being ashamed of having so little will-power.

  When his mother produced the last two ounces of her chocolate ration and, laying it lovingly on the bedside table, went away without referring to it, he was a little ashamed, but not enough to prevent him eating it during the afternoon.

  Oliver cheered up a little at cocktail time. David always made him feel better. Heather had come in first without him to ask: “Are you sure you want the kids in tonight?”

  “Of course I want them,” he said. “Dammit, I see little enough of them as it is.” So he had read aloud to David from an astonishingly dull book about trains which consisted mostly of statistics about total mileage of rails, numbers of passengers carried and meals served, and pictures of trains in acute perspective and women in low waists and cloche hats. Although David seemed to know it by heart, he could never hear it often enough and listened rapt, correcting Oliver if he skipped anything, and forgetting his milk and biscuits.

  “Drink up,” Heather kept saying, until Oliver stopped in the middle of a description of Euston station to complain: “Must you keep using that dreadful expression?”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “‘Drink up’ and ‘eat up’. It’s the sort of thing people say who call their children the Kiddies.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that?” Heather would not have dreamed of calling David and Susan that, but if Oliver wanted to be argumentative, she could be too.

  “Common. Sorry, David—‘In the sorting office, the mail sorters divide the bags into the various postal districts—’”

  “Well, really, Oliver. You are impossible.” When she was annoyed, Heather would jerk back her head with its forelock of curly fringe, like a pony tossing at its bit. “You always say I’m a snob. Why don’t you practise what you preach?”

  “If you must natter, for God’s sake don’t natter in platitudes—all right, Davy, I know—‘Before loading on to the red mail vans with the monogram G.R. entwined on the side.’ Why on earth do they use such ridiculously long words in kids’ books? I could write a better book than this myself.” Heather did not answer. Oliver decided to improve David’s education. “G.R. stands for George Rex, you know. That means King George.”

  “‘All is bushle on number ten platform,’” droned David, unheeding. “‘The Flying Scotsman Expresh from Invernesh and Perth is due. Porters with troyies—’”

  Oliver felt better after David had gone to bed and reflected that only children and dogs knew how to treat you when you were irritable. He chatted quite cheerfully to his mother and sisters and then Mary Brewer arrived, accepted a drink and said: “Now I’m going to turn you good people out. There’s work to be done!” She rolled up her sleeves over thick, freckled arms whose white skin showed up the redness of her hands, blunt-fingered as if they had been planed off at the tips. She wore a grey-blue dress of a material which bore some relationship to sacking and kept on her crushed little blue hat. Under it, her strong red hair, square cut, stuck out at the angle to which her bicycle ride had blown it. What she had to do for Oliver, she spun out longer than was necessary and succeeded in dispelling his flash of good temper. He missed Elizabeth and wondered what she was doing. What did she do in London? She did not divulge much more about her week-ends than “I stayed
with a friend” and “Yes, I had a lovely time, thank you”. She never seemed to go home, although he knew that her father lived in London. Her mother was dead. She had told him that much in a manner that discouraged further enquiry.

  Violet was so excited. After dinner, something happened which would cheer Oliver up, and she was going to be the one to break the news. He heard her coming all along the passage from the drawing-room, clattering across the tiles of the hall with a change of sound like galloping hooves crossing a road, and then the latch of his door crashed up and she was upon him, her body coming faster than her feet so that she lurched and almost fell across his bed. He put up a defensive arm as she urched to a standstill against the step of the window recess.

  “Ollie, what do you think—what do you think?” Her gruff voice rose to a sudden squeak, like a clarinet inexpertly played.

  “Spill it,” said Oliver.

  “Jenny’s coming back!” Jenny was Oliver’s horse, requisitioned by the Army four years ago. He had never expected to see her again. “Some man rang up from Chester. Fancy, she’s been quite near us all the time and we never knew. Some Captain Something-or-other—decent, he was. He says they’re moving on and don’t need her, and if we want her we can have her back.”

  “If we want her! What about keep, though? Can she go out to grass?”

  “I asked him that. Bit of a snag; she’s been in, apparently, since September and not got much of a coat, but Fred would have her in one of his boxes and we can scrape up enough corn.”

  “Think she’ll eat dried grass?”

  “Have to. Oh, Ollie, isn’t it super? This Captain bloke said he’d run her over tomorrow in a horse-box. I’m going to clean her tack tonight when I’ve bedded that sick cow. I can’t wait to get on her and see what the Army’s done to her manners. You are pleased, aren’t you, Ollie? Are you excited?” She was like a child wanting confirmation of the success of a birthday present.

  “Rather.” Violet’s pleasure was tremendous. She might be no use in a sickroom but at least she had done more for Oliver tonight than anyone else. When she came back late from the harness-room, she went whistling into the larder and then whistled on the stairs and in her bedroom, where, as she got ready for bed, she appeared to be holding a steeplechase over the furniture.

  She was so excited that it was not until the next day, when the bay mare arrived in charge of an amiable young captain, that she realised another side to the situation. When the horsebox had driven away, Violet brought Jenny round to the lawn so that Oliver could see her from his window. Her years in the Army had done her no harm. She had lost some of the youthful abandon with which she had gone away, but she was fighting fit on Army rations and shone like copper on Army grooming.

  “Isn’t she a grand mare?” said Violet, tugging at the halter to try and make her come nearer the window. “She’s filled out and muscled up a lot. She never had those quarters on her when she went away before. Remember that post and rails she made such a mucker of the last day you hunted her? She’d clear it with a foot to spare now. Oh, Ollie, isn’t it sad?”

  “What is?” He was devouring Jenny with his eyes, loving every line and every movement of her.

  “To think that you’ll never be able to ride her again. Oh, isn’t that awful, when you broke her and schooled her and everything. She never went so well for anyone else as for you. Remember that handy hunter finals at Shrewsbury?” She might have gone on for ever, plugging this depressing theme, had not Mrs. North appeared in Oliver’s room and cried out in horror it the thought of iron-shod hooves on the lawn.

  “Take her off at once, Vi! How can you be so thoughtless when Cowlin takes such a pride in that lawn?”

  “I had to show her to Ollie. She won’t hurt. Look how light she is on her feet,” as the mare wheeled round, churning divots out of the grass. “Isn’t it ghastly to think Ollie won’t ever be able to ride her again?”

  Oliver saw his mother making faces at her, which Violet could not see. “D’you remember, Ma,” she pursued, “when he first got her, and she took charge of him down the hill field and you got so windy, and when he came back she’d jumped the gate into the spinney and he’d fallen off—sorry, Ollie. I know she same down—and he had a lump on his head like an egg. We used to have some fun in the old days. Remember when we rode up the Wrekin in that gale and nearly got blown off the top. Oh, it does seem a rotten shame—”

  “Be quiet, Violet,” said Mrs. North sharply. “And take that horse off the lawn right now. I don’t expect to have to ask you twice at your age.”

  “Thirty-five next week!” sang out Violet. “And I can still vault on to a sixteen-hand horse. Watch me, Ollie!” Jenny trampled the lawn in circles as Violet leapt, thrust down with her arms braced on the mare’s bare back and with a convulsive leave of her whipcord behind and a fling of her long legs was astride the mare, hopped her over a box hedge and clattered found the flagged path at the side of the house.

  “That girl,” said Mrs. North despairingly, straightening up from the difficult position she had adopted to see what Violet was doing without touching Oliver. “Never mind, darling, I’m sure you’ll be able to ride again one day.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Oliver. “On a nice safe old plug, and get my cork leg caught up on every gatepost. Jolly.”

  “Don’t talk like that, dear. What’s the matter with you? It’s not like you to be so bitter. Anyway,” she brisked up and gleamed her glasses at him, “I came to see what you’d like for lunch. We’re having stew, but I could make you a Welsh rarebit if you like, or scrambled egg?”

  “Oh, anything, Ma,” said Oliver. “I don’t care.”

  “There’s a piece of corned beef, if you’d like that. I could ash it for you if you don’t want it cold.”

  “Not that stuff,” he said, “I’m sick to death of it.” She knew we liked corned beef. He had loved it since he was a boy, so there.was no reason why he should suddenly stop now. She sighed. So he was not out of his mood after all.

  He was still in it when Elizabeth came back on Monday morning. She went upstairs at once to change her grey flannel suit for her overall and cap and slipped into work as unconcernedly as if she had never been away. When she had remedied the defects which she fancied she detected in Mary Brewer’s careful arrangement of him, she asked him how he had been.

  “Low,” he said. “You’ve been lucky to be out of the house. Why do I get so depressed, Elizabeth? I know all the time that underneath it I’m perfectly content, yet somehow I can’t shake it off. It’s like a great weight sitting on my head and then suddenly it moves off and I’m quite normal again. Thank God, it doesn’t happen often now. I used to get it a lot in hospital. ‘Got the blues, dear?’ one of the nurses used to say. I can see that little black doggie on your shoulder.’ Promise me you won’t ever say that.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Perhaps it was because you weren’t there. I missed you a lot. Perhaps I need you.” He tried sometimes, experimentally, to flirt mildly with her, but it slid off her unheeded. “Tell me what you’ve been doing. It might cure me to take an interest in somebody else. I’ve been brooding on myself all week-end. Did you have fun?”

  “Yes. I stayed with a friend of mine, a girl I trained with. She’s married now, but her husband’s still in the Army, so there’s room for me in her flat.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, let’s see. She met me at the station and we had a late lunch, then we went to the cinema.”

  “What did you see?”

  “The new Lauren Bacall.”

  “Never heard of her. Lord, I’m getting out of the world, aren’t I? What did you do in the evening?”

  “I went out to dinner,” she said, as if that were all she meant to tell about it.

  “Who with—your friend?”

  “Elspeth? No.”

  “Another friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man or woman?” It was hard work, but he persevered Eliza
beth did not seem quite so reticent as usual. She had a ruminating, slightly distracted air, as if she were not giving hei whole mind to resisting his curiosity. He might catch her out yet. “Man or woman, I said.”

  “Oh, a man.”

  “Ah. Your boy friend.”

  “Just a man I know.”

  “What’s his name? Don’t think I’m being nosey, but you never tell me anything off your own bat, and, oddly enough, I am interested.”

  “Arnold Clitheroe.”

  “Oh. What did you do? You had dinner—

  “Yes, and we danced.”

  “Does he dance well?”

  “We dance quite well together.”

  “You enjoyed yourself, in fact.”

  “Yes, I always do with Arnold. He—” She was about to add something and then stopped.

  “Go out with him on Sunday?” asked Oliver casually. “Yes.”

  “He is your boy friend. I know it. Tell me something about him, Elizabeth. Why are you being so coy?”

  “I’m not being coy.” It was the first time he had ever seen her angry. “And I don’t see that it’s any of your business. What’s the idea of this stupid cross-examination? If you’re trying to make fun of me, I’m afraid I can’t see the joke.” She banged out of the room. She had never banged his door before. This was interesting, most interesting. Oliver leaned back, tapped his finger-tips together and smiled. He was feeling better already. This was how it always was. Suddenly, between one sentence and the next, for no particular reason, the heaviness of his mind and body would lift and take itself right away. He imagined it sometimes as a shutter, rolling back inside his head; it was like someone coming into a darkened room full of stale sleep and pulling up the blind and opening the window to let in a sunburst of morning air.

  Already his room, instead of being the prison it had seemed for the last two days, empty of consolation, was filling with its own warm, comfortable atmosphere. He could almost imagine he heard the furniture creaking as it relaxed. Outside, the pale November landscape was beautiful. The orange sun was like a woolly toy. Far away on the side of the hill, he could see Evelyn leading down her half-broken young Exmoor pony. Soon she and Violet would start struggling with it in the meadow at the bottom. He would watch that; it was always good fun.