AN IRRELEVANT WOMAN

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘I don’t suppose you got an answer?’ the informant said with satisfaction.

  ‘He is coming,’ the manager said. ‘He didn’t even seem surprised. It was as if he was waiting for the call.’

  Janet only spoke to Murdoch once on the way home, ‘Somewhere out there,’ she said, looking across the heath, ‘there is a house.’

  Malcolm arrived on the twelve-forty bus. His mother often met him at the bus stop and he was disappointed to see that on this occasion she had not done so. Usually, when she did not come, he enjoyed the gentle downhill walk, seeing the stream glinting between the trees, waiting eagerly for his first glimpse of the village, stringing together images of childhood more idyllic than real. But today he was particularly concerned to reach the house by one-thirty when Mrs Thatcher was giving a television interview. Malcolm revelled in Mrs Thatcher. He saw her as one of the great bad performances of all time and considered it a privilege to watch her on every possible occasion. On one of his rare trips to London, which happened to coincide with the Falklands War, he had endeavoured to meet her. He had stationed himself outside Number 10 Downing Street and shouted ‘Long live Argentina!’ He had imagined the door flung open and himself in personal combat with his idol; but Malcolm’s dreams were seldom realised outside the theatre and on this occasion he had been confronted by a drearily unimaginative policeman.

  ‘I shall go to the East End and start a riot,’ he had threatened as he was pointed in the direction of St James’s Park.

  ‘If you say that kind of thing in the East End you’ll get yourself lynched, my lad,’ the policeman had told him, insufferably worldy-wise, ‘You’d best go and tell it to the ducks.’

  It was twenty past one when Malcolm reached his home. The french windows were open and he hurried through the sitting room into the small television-room, announcing his presence by singing ‘I’ll see you again, whenever spring breaks through again’, a song which he considered appropriate to Mrs Thatcher’s style if not her period. He had switched on the television and was listening to the interviewer making the most of his introduction – presumably in the knowledge that he was unlikely to have many lines hereafter – when it occurred to him that no one had acknowledged his arrival. He backed towards the door, keeping his eyes on the screen, and shouted, ‘I have spent my substance on riotous living and am returned. Did no one see me afar off?’ He stopped, not because the golden image on screen was now speaking, but because of the silence in the house. He went into the hall. ‘ “Tell them I came and no one answered. That I kept my word, he said”,’ he said. The silence was disturbed by scratching and whining at the kitchen door, Malcolm opened the door and Humphrey reared up, placing his paws on Malcolm’s shoulders, licking his face. Matilda was sitting on the kitchen table. She twitched her tail defiantly. The room smelt of fresh air and nothing else.

  Malcolm whirled out of the room and went up the stairs two at a time. He flung open the door of his parents’ bedroom. The bed had not been made. He said to Humphrey, who had by this time toiled up the stairs, ‘What’s happened? Where are they?’ Humphrey wagged his tail.

  Malcolm ran down the stairs to his father’s study. Curtains stirred in the breeze from the open window and pages of the manuscript on the desk fluttered. In the television-room Mrs Thatcher was saying, ‘Of course I care; but, you know, Gordon . . .’ Malcolm switched off the picture. He went through the sitting room, out of the french windows, to the garage. The doors were open, the car gone. Malcolm ran across the grass and out of the gate pursued by Humphrey.

  It was five to two when they arrived in the village, both in rather poor condition. Deutzia was standing at her front door. Malcolm ran up to her. ‘My mother isn’t there,’ he said. Humphrey lifted a leg and sprayed Deutzia’s shrub roses.

  Deutzia looked at her watch and gazed down the village street. ‘Your mother went into town this morning, Malcolm.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t go when I was coming.’

  ‘She had probably forgotten to get food or something.’

  ‘But my father isn’t there, either.’

  ‘Your father not there?’ Deutzia was surprised into attention.

  By the time the doctor’s wife arrived Deutzia was as disturbed as Malcolm. ‘We must see the vicar,’ she said, this being the only figure of authority known to be in the village at this hour.

  ‘He’ll be having his lunch,’ Ann Bellamy protested. ‘He only came back ten minutes ago. I saw him drive past.’

  ‘He doesn’t have all that many calls on his time,’ Deutzia said, enjoying a rare moment of importance. She set off up the street followed by Malcolm, Ann Bellamy and Humphrey.

  Mrs Beaney had developed a migraine and the vicar, an austere, troubled man, was left unprotected. ‘Your father caught a bus,’ he told Malcolm. ‘I saw him waiting just before I turned off the main road.’ He had thought there was something odd about this, but had not stopped to enquire in case anything were demanded of him. It seemed that, as was His wont, God had been swift to punish this lack of charity.

  ‘Something dreadful has happened,’ Malcolm exclaimed.

  Mr Beaney said, ‘Oh, I do hope not!’

  ‘A car accident,’ Deutzia said firmly. ‘Janet must be in hospital. That is where he was going.’

  Surely an unjust way of making me repent of my dereliction of duty, Mr Beaney thought despairingly.

  Ann Bellamy protested, ‘But surely in that case he would have asked one of us to give him a lift.’

  Mr Beaney bowed his head, aware that the very one who could have given the lift had passed by on the other side of the carriageway. Deutzia said, ‘Murdoch always does everything on his own. We must go to the hospital and you must come with us, Mr Beaney. You may be needed.’

  Mr Beaney, acknowledging that this indeed was just recompense for putting the pangs of hunger before pastoral duty, agreed that Deutzia was right and furthermore that as his was the larger car he should drive. Deutzia sat in the front and Malcolm and Ann Bellamy sat in the back with Humphrey between them.

  ‘Might it have been wiser to telephone?’ Mr Beaney wondered, his mind refusing quite to relinquish all thought of food.

  ‘When Elsie Marshall telephoned to find out about her mother they told her the old lady was on her way home in an ambulance when in actual fact she was in intensive care.’ Deutzia fanned herself, flushed with excitement.

  Even in her younger years, however, Deutzia had been unable to sustain any degree of emotional intensity. By the time they reached the hospital she was displeased with the entire expedition. One look at the bored damsel at the information desk convinced her that it was going to be difficult to create the sympathetic atmosphere necessary to the recounting of the few facts at their disposal. She therefore passed all responsibility to Mr Beaney. ‘You had better explain.’

  ‘But surely you would like . . . I mean, you know the family so well . . .’

  ‘I didn’t see Murdoch at the bus stop. I have just been drawn into all this.’

  ‘It was at your suggestion, dear lady . . .’

  ‘I may have said something or other, I don’t recall. I certainly didn’t expect to be swept along like this. We came to you, Mr Beaney, for a mature judgement and you have led us here.’ She turned to Ann Bellamy. ‘I must find somewhere to sit. All this rushing about has made me feel quite faint.’

  Ann led her away while Mr Beaney and Malcolm endeavoured to engage the interest of the young woman at the desk.

  ‘We should have gone to the police,’ Deutzia said. ‘After all, they could have been kidnapped.’

  ‘But who would want to kidnap them?’

  ‘Who would want to kidnap that nice Mrs Guinness, but someone did.’

  ‘Murdoch isn’t connected to any dynasty.’

  ‘He is a very important writer,’ Deutzia said huffily.

  ‘But he’s not a bestseller, is he? I mean, I don’t think people get kidnapped for . . . well, aesthetic reasons.’

  �
�You probably know more about that than I do. I have never laid claim to aesthetic judgement. I’m afraid I can’t say any more. I have tried to be helpful and the result is that my whole afternoon has been ruined.’

  Mr Beaney came across to them. ‘She has made enquiries at Casualty and it seems that Mrs Saunders is not there. Malcolm is trying to persuade her to telephone Out Patients. I thought he might do better on his own.’ His eye followed the passage of a trolley bearing hot drinks and a selection of sweets and biscuits. ‘I suppose if all else fails, we might . . .’

  Ann Bellamy stood up. ‘This is preposterous!’ She flushed with surprise at her own temerity. ‘I am going to telephone my husband’s surgery. We should have done that in the first place.’

  Deutzia said, ‘I quite agree.’

  Ann walked away in search of a call box and returned a few minutes later, looking grave. ‘Your mother is at home,’ she said to Malcolm who had now joined Deutzia and Mr Beaney. ‘Murdoch telephoned the surgery half an hour ago. My husband is with your parents now, I imagine.’

  Malcolm’s face went grey and Deutzia said, ‘Malcolm, sit down and put your head between your legs or whatever it is one is supposed to do.’ She whispered to Ann, ‘He has always been far too attached to his mother.’

  ‘I must ’phone my father. I must find out . . .’

  ‘I asked the surgery to ’phone your father and tell him you are on your way back,’ Ann said firmly.

  ‘Yes.’ Mr Beaney was immensely relieved. ‘We must get you back immediately.’

  In the car Deutzia said, ‘I am afraid this has all been rather a strain for me. Perhaps you would drop me in the square. If I have a little sit down and a cup of tea I shall soon recover.’

  Mr Beaney said, ‘Oh dear . . .’ and Ann Bellamy, sensing irresolution, said, ‘If you come back on the ten to five bus I will meet you.’

  Deutzia fanned herself. ‘One does so hate to be a nuisance.’ Humphrey leaned forward and sniffed her cheek.

  After she had departed they travelled in silence until they reached the heath where Humphrey became agitated, sniffing the air and whining. Malcolm exclaimed, pointing, ‘A fire!’ As they came nearer they could see pieces of burning straw blowing in the wind.

  ‘It’s the fair at Molt Magna,’ Mr Beaney said. ‘They do this each year. Some pagan custom or other.’ He had wondered whether he might work it into his sermon on Pentecost but had so far failed to make a connection. Great orange tongues leaped from the heart of the fire and even at this distance they could hear the snap, splutter, crackle and, beneath the fizzling ferment, a sound like a swelling drum roll celebrating this inexorable consummation. ‘Quite dangerous unless you know what you are doing,’ Mr Beaney said.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Leave her,’ Dr Potter said omnisciently.

  ‘Her daughter is very concerned,’ Dr Bellamy protested.

  Dr Potter found this amusing. ‘She needs protecting from that daughter – and seems to have arranged it quite well.’

  Dr Bellamy looked around his consulting room, seeking protection which he failed to find. ‘I feel I should be doing something.’

  ‘She is sleeping a lot and she is therefore resting.’ Dr Potter stabbed the air with a cigar which she had been threatening to light for some time. ‘Your worry is that you didn’t induce this condition. You are uneasy because you feel it is she, and not you, who is in charge of this breakdown. You will have to learn humility in such matters.’

  ‘I am uneasy about just leaving it to run its course like a bad cold,’ he said with some spirit.

  ‘So what do you want to do? Pick at her, prod her, stimulate her? And then, when you have worked her into a fine old state, put her on tranquillisers?’

  Dr Bellamy said unhappily, ‘It seems so unorthodox . . .’

  ‘Orthodoxy got her where she is now.’ She put the cigar away and closed her handbag. ‘I don’t know about you, but I need refreshment.’

  ‘I have sandwiches,’ he said primly.

  ‘And your patients would not like to smell drink on your breath,’ she said sympathetically.

  ‘I don’t know what I am going to say to the daughter,’ he said as Dr Potter prepared to take her leave.

  ‘You don’t think it is the husband you should be addressing yourself to? After all, whatever the daughter may say, you will need his permission for any treatment you propose.’

  ‘His attitude is rather hard to understand, don’t you think? It strikes me that he doesn’t want to come to terms with his wife’s illness.’

  ‘The impression he gave me was that it was the medical profession he didn’t want to come to terms with.’

  ‘One might almost think they were in collusion, he and his wife.’

  ‘Without a peradventure!’

  ‘And Dr Potter is little better,’ Andrew Bellamy said to Ann that evening.

  ‘Is it such a bad idea to leave her alone for a little while?’

  ‘Women have this tremendous feeling about being left alone.’ He was shaken to find a hint of it in his own wife. ‘I had no idea . . .’

  ‘Anyway,’ she said evasively, ‘she couldn’t come to much harm, could she?’

  ‘Yes, she could!’ He was vehement. ‘You remember that boy who fell down the mine shaft last month? He lodged on a shelf. If people had just walked away and left him, there would have been no way he could have climbed out on his own. And the real danger was that the shelf would give way and he would fall right down to the bottom.’

  ‘Exactly!’ She was equally vehement. ‘So they had to go about the rescue very warily – in case they dislodged his one support and sent him spinning down.’

  ‘But they did do something! For one thing, they located where he was. I don’t even know where Janet Saunders is.’

  ‘But they took their time. Give Janet time.’

  ‘It’s dangerous, though. You don’t understand how dangerous it is. I was up there at that mine shaft. I looked down.’

  Janet had felt very frightened when Doctors Bellamy and Potter came to see her. Murdoch had been in the room, too. Three was too many.

  This fear of being in a room with a number of people had been growing for some time. She had first been acutely aware of it at Christmas. It was not the pressure of offering hospitality to so many people. She was good at that and enjoyed it as all artists must enjoy the exercise of their gift, while accepting its burden. The difficulty had come when the last meal of the day had been consumed and the washing-up done by the children. ‘Now you can rest,’ they had told her, meaning, ‘Now you can be happy,’ seeing nothing but drudgery in her contribution to the celebration of Christmas Day. They had settled down companionably in the sitting room and there it had started – the statements winging from all corners, fast, like arrows. Her brain could not sort out the many thrusts of conversation. By the time she was in bed her mind was in a tangle and she had spent much of the night trying to get the knots untied. She had attempted to replay the scene, taking it slowly, breaking it down into manageable portions. First Hugh had said, then Katrina, then Hugh again, Malcolm . . . And Stephanie, who was not usually so silent? There must be a part of the conversation which she had forgotten or wanted to forget. As the hours passed she had become more and more confused and distressed.

  After Christmas it had been better with just herself and Murdoch, occasional visits from Patsy, who did not expect structured conversation, and Deutzia who did all the talking. The light had begun to dim, the world to assume a bloodless aspect, but she had managed. Then, at Easter, when the children came again, the fear had developed a new dimension. Up till then she had simply felt excluded by her inability to knit conversations together. But by Easter she was aware that although she did not understand, she was nevertheless at the centre of something. Her children had turned against her. Her gifts, which had meant so much to them when they were young, had fallen out of favour. But the gifts were a part of her and could not be taken away and replaced by more
appropriate ‘skills’. A remodelling of the person was required. And so they must set about refashioning her in their own image.

  The children had some excuse. She and Murdoch had, after all, created, without their consent, the setting in which they had passed their childhood and perhaps this was their revenge. But how had it come about that she had fallen foul of Doctors Bellamy and Potter? They were more powerful than the children. People laughed at Patsy and her friends and called them witches. But the doctors, they were the modern descendants of Hecate. If they did not think her personality acceptable they could give her potions which would change it beyond reversal; if her brain did not function as they decreed, they could unleash the power of electricity against it. The minerals of the earth yielded to them, the elements obeyed their command. She cowered among the sheets while they stood on either side of the bed shooting their poisoned darts across her body.

  Murdoch sat on the edge of the bed. He held her hand and fear ran down her arm to the tips of her fingers into his palm. He confronted Dr Potter like an uncouth farm-labourer. ‘I don’t want her messed about, you do understand me?’

  ‘Perfectly. But tell me how you think she got in this condition.’

  ‘That’s my problem.’

  ‘So long as you see it as a problem, I wouldn’t quarrel with that statement.’

  Dr Bellamy had remained silent during this exchange, looking down into Janet’s eyes as though he saw himself drowning in their depths.

  I can drown him, she had realised and a sense of her own power had come to her. But now that they had gone and there was no means of exercising the power, she was more frightened than ever. She had repulsed those who had menaced her, but what was the significance of this success? What would become of her if she refused to let them interfere with her? If she were to be left alone, unaided, this event towards which she had seemed to be moving for so long would happen. The darkness would close around her. People had gone through operations without pain-killers, but operations took place within a limited time scale. How long does darkness last?