Comfort Me With Apples

by Comfort Me

  When he returned to the office one of the older men said pleasantly, ‘Did your friend get away all right?’

  James growled, ‘Yes,’ then felt ashamed.

  The man only said, ‘Good, good,’ and returned to his ledgers and James immersed himself in work. Since the day of the wedding he had felt himself set apart and he was sleeping badly, with memories of his childhood and his mother coming back to haunt him. He was consequently tired and irritable, with Frances and with colleagues in the office, snapping at them in a way completely unlike himself.

  The men knew that he kept a photograph of a pretty girl in his desk and the older men smiled knowingly at his ill temper and forgave him. ‘In the spring a young man’s fancy,’ one of them murmured tolerantly and the others agreed.

  Frances also showed no resentment, but only concern for him. She prepared tasty meals but he left most of them uneaten and went out walking or sometimes cycling. Where his mind had been full of images of Dorrie, now he could think of nothing but his mother.

  He occasionally saw his uncle, as their offices were so close, but they never spoke and passed with heads averted. He did glimpse enough to know that his uncle looked suddenly shrunken and old but it was still a shock to hear that he had died.

  James expected to feel a sense of release but instead, the following night, the door he had so firmly closed against his experiences with his uncle seemed to be coming open. James leapt up from his bed, remembering what had happened there, and went to try to sleep in another room but the images pursued him.

  It was the start of a period when James believed he was going mad and Frances became seriously worried about him. Eating and sleeping badly, he was rapidly losing weight and he seemed unable to sit still. He scarcely spoke or seemed to hear what was said to him.

  Frances wondered if he was the same at the office and told him he should consult Dr O’Brien. ‘You can’t go on like this, lad. You’re wasting away. He could give you something to settle your stomach,’ she told him. James mumbled something but he knew that Dr O’Brien could do nothing to help him. It was his mind, not his body, that was destroying him. He was beginning to see and hear his mother everywhere, even now in the kitchen which had been his refuge.

  He had been avoiding the other rooms for some time, particularly the small parlour where he had spent so many evenings with her, and the dining room. There he could always see her, the beady eyes, the small, bitter mouth and the malevolent sneer as poison dripped from her lips. ‘Stupid, fat, clumsy idiot. No use to yourself or anyone else. A laughing stock. Why was I cursed with you?’

  Since his uncle’s death, James had been afraid to go to bed, afraid of the nightmares which came to him, so he had stayed in the kitchen all night, dozing on the old sofa. Now, even that refuge was denied him. His work in the office was suffering, as he often heard his mother’s voice in his head, mocking him, and he made many mistakes. The other men were kind and helpful but his fragile self-confidence was shattered.

  I’d do away with myself, he often thought, if I had the courage. But the idea of hell was very real to him and for him hell would mean being reunited with his mother and uncle. And for all eternity, he thought with horror. But he feared that someday his life would be too unbearable for him to go on.

  Frances was well aware that his bed had not been slept in and that his mind was troubled and she wondered if he spent the nights roaming the streets. She knew that the kitchen fire was kept going all night and that he spent some, possibly short, time on the horsehair sofa. No matter how carefully she probed he never told her the reasons, only looked at her wildly, once even saying, ‘I’m sorry, Frances, I can’t help it. I don’t know why you put up with me.’

  For the first time in all their years together she burst into tears. Lifting the corner of her white apron to wipe her eyes, she sobbed, ‘Oh, lad, lad. I’m worried to death about you. The flesh is falling off you. You’re nothing but skin and bone.’ She tried to recover herself but James was shocked out of his self-absorption and made an effort to eat some food to comfort her.

  A few nights later, after Frances had gone, there was a knock on the door and he opened it to find Dr O’Brien on the doorstep.

  ‘Good evening, James,’ he said cheerfully. ‘As the mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet has come to the mountain. In the kitchen, are we?’ He led the way and James followed, too surprised to speak, but he recovered enough to offer tea.

  ‘No, sit down,’ the doctor said. ‘Never mind the tea for now. I met Frances O’Neill and she said she was worried about you. I can see why. The flesh has fallen off you, to quote her words. She says you’re not eating or sleeping. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ James mumbled.

  The doctor leaned forward to take James’s wrist and pulled out his watch to monitor his pulse, then lifted his eyelid. In a gentler tone he said, ‘The sleeping? Are you unable to fall asleep or do you sleep and wake up?’

  ‘Both,’ James said. ‘I don’t fall asleep quickly but when I do I wake up again.’

  ‘Nightmares?’ the doctor asked in the same conversational tone.

  James nodded and Dr O’Brien said, ‘I think we’ll have that tea now, James. I want to talk to you.’ He asked a few innocuous questions while James made the tea, then as he sipped it he said quietly, ‘Did you see Dorrie Furlong married?’

  ‘Er – no, not married,’ James stuttered. ‘I heard the priest but – but I left.’

  ‘Lovely wedding. Very happy occasion for us. She married my nephew, you know,’ said Dr O’Brien. ‘A good lad and I’m sure they’ll be happy. They’ve gone to live in London.’

  ‘I saw them leave,’ James blurted out.

  He wished he could recall his words when the doctor said, ‘Did you? I didn’t see you at the station.’

  ‘No, I was hiding behind a pillar,’ James said bitterly. ‘That’s when—’

  ‘That’s when this all started,’ Dr O’Brien finished calmly. James’s cup was rattling on the saucer and he took it from him.

  James said, ‘No, no. Before that. The priest said, “Give me the child and I will give you the man.” What hope for me to be sane and ordinary?’

  The doctor went on quietly sipping his tea and James found himself telling him how he had felt that day on Lime Street Station.

  ‘You were all so ordinary and happy and all so at ease with one another and I was where I would always be, looking on. I felt I didn’t belong with ordinary people. How could I, after the life I’d had? I felt as though there was a sort of barrier between me and other people. I’d never been happy and I didn’t know how. It all sounds melodramatic, I know.’

  ‘Not to me,’ the doctor said gently. ‘I know more of what went on here than you realise. I didn’t know at the time, of course, although I suspected it, but you were always such a stoic, James.’ He patted James’s hands as the young man twisted them together in his lap. ‘You hid your feelings so well, pretended to be stupid. I blame myself for not doing more.’

  ‘It was the only way I could get through,’ James said huskily. ‘But I should be happy now. They’re both dead. But it is worse since my uncle died. The nightmares.’

  ‘May he rot in hell,’ Dr O’Brien said suddenly and viciously. ‘Tell me, James. I know you had bad beatings as a child—’

  ‘How do you know?’ James interrupted.

  ‘Your headmaster spoke to me about it. One of the teachers saw your back when you changed for games. He said he had spoken to you but you wouldn’t say anything so he concluded the beating was deserved. He said it was difficult for a widow with a growing boy and you were very sullen.’

  ‘I didn’t realise anyone knew,’ James said. ‘But it wasn’t the beatings I minded so much.’

  ‘This is what I want to talk to you about,’ the doctor said. ‘But I don’t want you to remember things you’d rather forget.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’ James exclaimed. ‘I thought I had shut it all away, but since he
died… I can’t talk about it. Not to anyone. No one would understand or believe me. I can hardly believe it myself but I’m so ashamed.’ He jumped to his feet and began to pace about the kitchen.

  ‘Sit down, James, Dr O’Brien said quietly, ‘and I’ll talk.’ James sat down again and the doctor began, ‘I know your uncle visited here regularly but do you remember a time when he stopped coming for a while?’

  ‘Yes, very clearly,’ James said. ‘I was twelve at the time and when he came again after eighteen months I was never alone with him. Mother was always with us. He never spoke to me and I didn’t speak to him but when I left school Mother said I had to work in his office. I hardly saw him there, either.’

  ‘And you never wondered why he stopped coming?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘I was just thankful,’ James said bitterly. ‘I never wondered about anything, though. Just kept my head down and… and…’

  ‘And endured,’ the doctor finished for him. ‘The reason he stopped coming was because there were rumours about him. There was a good man living at his end of the city, who worried about the street Arabs. He opened a soup kitchen with his own money, for these lads who lived rough, sold newspapers and such to survive. He took his soup handcart round for them at night and he was horrified to see how they slept in odd corners. He wanted to build a night refuge for them so he asked businessmen to help.’ ‘Hasselton!’ James exclaimed. ‘I remember his name.’

  ‘Yes, and your uncle responded. It was fashionable to support charities and he’d put his name to several. Very well respected in the district, he was,’ the doctor said grimly.

  ‘But what—’ James began.

  The doctor continued, ‘I’m coming to that. Your uncle got very involved with the street-Arab scheme but under cover of it he was using some of the boys for sex.’ James started and the doctor nodded his head as though he had confirmed a suspicion.

  ‘You can understand what I mean, James, I see. This happened to you.’

  Few people would have recognised the bluff, hearty Irishman in the gentle man who sensitively drew from James the details of the horrors of his childhood. At the end of it James sat back feeling purged, with a great sense of relief.

  ‘Thank you, doctor,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think I could ever speak about it to anyone, even admit it all to myself.’

  ‘You needed to,’ the doctor said. ‘Ever heard of a man named Sigmund Freud?’

  James shook his head and the doctor said, ‘I’ve just been reading his book, The Interpretation of Dreams. Heavy going but very interesting. Clever man. Understands the mind.’

  ‘But why now, doctor? Why am I like this now?’ said James.

  In the same quiet tones Dr O’Brien explained that he had met Dorrie just as he was growing up and leaving his hated childhood behind him. His infatuation with her had filled his mind with happy dreams and hopes and crowded out unhappy memories.

  ‘You met her just at the right time,’ the doctor said. ‘But, unfortunately, when she married it was a bad time for you to relinquish your dreams. Because you were vulnerable, your uncle’s death opened Pandora’s box and you began to remember what you had shut away.’

  They were both silent for a while, James thinking over the doctor’s words, and Dr O’Brien waiting patiently. Finally, James said, ‘But the street Arabs? What happened about that?’

  ‘He was guilty all right. It had been going on for some time but he made the mistake of using the younger brother of a lad who had refused him. When the older boy found out he went to the police first but they chased him away. A street Arab’s word against a rich man like your uncle! Then the lad went to a clergyman, who wouldn’t believe him. Finally, he went to Mr Hasselton.’

  ‘He should have gone there first,’ James said.

  ‘Yes, but he was a sick man by now. Apparently, he had instinctively distrusted your uncle from the first. He started enquiries – it was all hushed up, of course – and your uncle left the charity. Supposed to be because of unfounded rumours but people close to it knew the truth. They came to see your mother, because of you, but you said nothing and she had hysterics at the very idea. I was sent for.’

  ‘That was the worst of it,’ James said in a low voice. ‘She knew. Even helped him.’

  ‘Yes, and now you’ve spoken about all that and confronted it, James,’ the doctor said gently. ‘You’ve laid your demons to rest. Now we’ve got to get you right physically so you can start enjoying life.’

  ‘I’m so grateful to you, doctor,’ James said with deep feeling. ‘I thought I was going mad. I’d have done away with myself if I’d had the courage.’

  ‘You should have come to me,’ the doctor said sternly. ‘No need ever to keep feelings like that to yourself when I’m here. Still,’ he said more cheerfully, ‘I think we’ve sorted that out now.’ He took a small bottle from his bag. ‘There are two teaspoonsful in this. Take one tonight in hot milk and you’ll have a good night’s sleep and the other one tomorrow night. Come to the surgery tomorrow and I’ll make up a proper bottle for you. When you’re sleeping again you’ll want to eat.’

  ‘I must, for Frances’s sake,’ James said. ‘She’s been so good and so patient with me.’

  ‘Aye, she’s a good woman and very fond of you,’ the doctor said. ‘The first thing you must do when you feel better is get rid of this house. Put all this behind you now and start afresh. Why not move into a boarding house for a while, like that one where Hugh Manly and the other bank clerks live? You’d be looked after and have young company.’

  ‘But what about Frances?’ James said.

  The doctor had looked at his watch and was collecting his hat and stick. ‘Talk to her about it,’ he said. ‘But do something to change your life without delay. Don’t forget to come for that bottle.’

  As James saw him out he tried again to stammer his thanks but the doctor waved them away, smiling. ‘Only trying to do what I should have done years ago,’ he said, walking away with a wave of his stick.

  James went back to the kitchen and sat thinking over the whole amazing evening. The feeling of a burden being lifted from him was still strong and he bent his head and gave thanks to God for a good friend in Dr O’Brien.

  He took half of the contents of the small bottle in hot milk and went to bed, conscious of no presence in the house but his own, and slept dreamlessly until morning.

  When he arrived home from work the next day there was a savoury smell coming from the oven but Frances had not yet returned from her office cleaning. James left a note asking her to stay later, as he wanted her advice, and went to the surgery.

  The maid admitted him and Mrs O’Brien came from a room with a counter across the door, where medicines were dispensed, holding a bottle wrapped in white paper.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Hargreaves. You’ve come for your bottle,’ she said cheerfully.

  At the same moment a gaunt, shabbily dressed man came out of a room, holding a slip of paper which he held out to Mrs O’Brien. ‘I’m the last, ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Brady,’ she said. ‘Go and have a cup of tea while I get this made up.’ She opened a door, through which James could see a large kitchen, and said, ‘Mary, pour Mr Brady a cup of tea.’

  James heard the maid say, ‘’Ee are, lad, sit here. How’s your Alice?’

  It’s not only bottles of physic that are dispensed here, James thought, as he took the white-wrapped bottle from Mrs O’Brien.

  Just then, Dr O’Brien came into the hall, wearing his coat and hat. ‘I’ll just have a look at that confinement in Great Homer Street and a couple of others, my dear. I won’t be long,’ he said to his wife, and to James, ‘I’ll walk along with you. It’s on my way.’ They left the house together and he asked if James had slept well.

  ‘Yes, I took the medicine and slept all night,’ James said. ‘I’m very grateful for your help, doctor. I feel so different.’ He hesitated, then said diffidently, ‘One thing worries me. I think I should have fought
back against my uncle.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ the doctor said. ‘You were a young child, bullied and cowed by him and your mother all your life. How could you? Your uncle had laid his plans, as he did with those street boys. He went after those who were vulnerable. That’s what made him so dangerous and so despicable. No, forget it now. Look forward, not back.’

  ‘I’ve asked Frances to stay late tonight, to advise me about selling the house and all the furniture and clutter in it,’ said James.

  Dr O’Brien laughed heartily. ‘She’ll have the time of her life,’ he said. ‘Sure, you won’t know whether you’re coming or going from now on. She’ll be made up. Still, God knows it’s time she had some pleasure, the life she has.’ He paused. ‘I leave you here,’ he said, turning down one of the steep streets leading down to the river. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ James echoed and walked on slowly, realising how little interest he had shown in other people while he was sunk in his own troubles. Even Frances, who had been so good to him. She never talks about herself and I’ve never asked, he thought, conscience-stricken.

  He knew she cleaned offices early in the morning, then spent the day cleaning his house and cooking a meal for him. Afterwards, she cleaned another set of offices. But he knew nothing of her private life, only that she still lived in the house in Queens Road where she had been born.

  When he reached the house, Frances was waiting for him. ‘It’s hotpot so it hasn’t spoiled,’ she said, lifting a dish from the oven.

  ‘It looks good,’ James said. ‘You haven’t had your meal, have you? There’s enough for two of us there.’ She hesitated and he said persuasively, ‘I’ll eat more if I have company.’

  ‘Go away with you,’ she said, laughing, but she sat down.

  As they ate companionably James told her an edited version of the doctor’s visit the previous night. ‘He says I should get rid of this house and I know he’s right, but I don’t know where to start. I thought you could help me, Frances.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to,’ she said. ‘I’ve said all along you’d be better out of here.’