MARCH HOUSE

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Really? That must be a very good job for a woman.’

  ‘It was; but they have amalgamated with another company and the top personnel job has gone to a man who isn’t even adequate, let alone able.’

  He sipped his brandy. ‘Of course, that is something I can’t understand after all my years in the civil service where women are treated as equal to men.’

  ‘How many permanent under-secretaries are women, Stewart?’

  ‘I hope you’re not a woman’s libber?’ He smiled at the absurdity of the idea. ‘You wouldn’t expect the Treasury, would you? Or the P.O.? Education, possibly . . . Social Security . . .’ Eleanor sipped her coffee. My father sighed and said, ‘There is very little pleasure at the top, believe me, Eleanor.’

  Eleanor put down her cup and studied the handle. ‘Maybe you are right. At any rate, I’ve had enough.’

  As I watched Eleanor it seemed to me that I was seeing someone slowly and laboriously remoulding their personality. I said impulsively, ‘But you cared about it so much at one time, Eleanor.’

  ‘She’s older now, aren’t you, Eleanor?’ my father said, ‘Older and wiser.’

  Eleanor said, ‘Older, certainly.’

  ‘But wiser, too,’ he insisted. ‘There is nothing worse than a career woman; I was afraid you were going to become one at one time.’ Eleanor raised her eyebrows. He went on, ‘Women in authority become very hard. They can’t take it, you see.’

  Neither Eleanor nor I said anything.

  ‘I can’t understand why a woman can’t be happy and content working at home. I would have thought most women would think themselves fortunate to avoid the pressures. I know my mother found it very creative to have a house and garden to look after.’

  ‘She had servants,’ I said.

  ‘Only Dora now. And Mother spends more time looking after Dora than Dora spends looking after the house. But I suppose I’m old-fashioned. I just hope women know what they are doing, that’s all. The ones I see in positions of authority don’t give me the impression they are enjoying it very much.’

  Eleanor had been studying his face while he talked; she looked at him not with sympathy or even with liking, but with a kind of application, just as I imagined her setting to work on a task at her office which was not congenial but which she had set herself to master.

  ‘Do you think it has something to do with age?’ she asked when my father had finished talking about how unhappy working women were. ‘Perhaps it is only when people are older that they see things clearly? I sometimes think we spend the first half of our lives looking forward to some imagined goal and the second half looking backwards to see where we went wrong.’

  She had changed the course of the conversation and my father and she began to talk elegiacally about the past. I left them to it as I found it depressing and went into the garden to see if any of the tools had been left lying about. Punter was out there, grieving for Mother. ‘You must eat, Punter,’ I told him. ‘For my sake.’ He pushed his face up into mine and licked my cheek. I remembered how as a child I had sat in the garden telling my troubles to the labrador, Jess, though I can’t think what troubles I had then.

  Chapter Five

  I had left school over twelve years ago. A lot had changed since then: extra buildings had been provided; many of the staff had left; next year, as a result of an amalgamation, boys were to be introduced. But the Head was still Miss Petrie. She must have been nearly sixty now, but seemed not to have altered since I was one of her more disappointing pupils; an austere woman with a tall, thin body surmounted by a tall, thin head, the hair scraped into a knot on top, giving the effect of a carving on a totem pole. I did not go back to the school unless I had to. Wednesday morning was one of the times when I had to; Iris had asked me to collect a report on one of the pupils which was needed that day for Dr. Laver’s first clinic. The school was on Iris’s route to the clinic, but she had said she could not afford the time to call. She was eager to see the clinic through from curtain rise. I felt the same and was aggrieved that she had not thought to mention the report the day before.

  I took the car and instead of going the more familiar way, I did a detour through the country lanes which brought me out on the main road between Weston Market and Zetherney. The road had been widened and the lay-out changed; as I came up to the crossroads I thought: this is where I went wrong last time. I turned towards Zetherney because the view was so much more attractive that way. Ten minutes later, on my way back, I thought dismally: I always remember that I went wrong before, but I never learn from it, and the next time round I do the wrong thing again—this is the story of my life.

  I realised as I approached the school that it was not the irritation of having to fetch the report which was disturbing me, it was something deeper than that. I parked the car in the yard near the kitchen and wound the window down. I felt reluctant to get out.

  I had not been unhappy at the school. So why should I be so loth to revisit it? Admittedly, a lot had been expected of one; but, even though I personally had not come up to expectations, I was prepared to acknowledge that the school had done well by most of its pupils. I myself had not suffered unduly; no one had been unkind to me because I had failed to achieve. Now, as I sat and looked at the building, I did not feel bitter or resentful. But I did feel very tired, as though I was coming to the end of something that had been going on for a long time.

  While I was sitting there, the familiar feeling came over me that someone was standing just behind me, noticing some sin of omission or commission of which I was unaware but would soon be made aware. There was a strong sense of unseen, pervading disapproval that seemed to rise from the asphalt. Perhaps there had been a notice at the entrance gates saying that cars were not to be parked in the yard today because there was a governors’ meeting?

  I got out of the car; but I did not go back to the entrance gates to see if there was such a notice. I had broken rules before and if necessary would do so again today. I went through the door at the side of the main block. The secretary’s room was opposite the entrance. The secretary was typing the report for Iris; she looked hot and flustered and said I would have to wait. I could see that it was more than she could bear to have the Head waiting in her study for the report and me breathing down her neck while she typed it, so I said that I would take a stroll. ‘As you know, I’m an old girl . . .’ I left the remark hanging, suggesting a nostalgia for old times which I did not feel. In fact, I was glad to escape from the room because I was afraid Miss Petrie might come in and take me off to her room for a talk. It was known that Miss Petrie always made time to see old girls when they visited the school.

  In the corridor I felt, if anything, rather worse. There was a buzz of distant, controlled activity: whistle blasts from the games’ field; the sound of a phrase repeated constantly from the music-room; nearer at hand a young voice reading French with constant corrections of pronunciation. It was just as I remembered it, all stops and starts, mistakes and corrections, trying again . . .

  ‘You can’t say The Pot of Basil is rubbish, Ruth. You can say Tennyson is rubbish if you like, but not Keats.’

  Subsequently, I had written an essay about an aboriginal who came fresh to the English cultural scene; but it had not been a success because I could not think like an aboriginal. The realisation that I could not switch off all the ideas which were being fed into me had shaken me more than the teacher’s ‘try something a little less ambitious next time’. I had had a nightmare vision of myself as a pillar-box, mouth helplessly open, into which other people’s mail was being stuffed so that soon there would be no room for anything addressed to me.

  Now, standing in the corridor, I had the same feeling of suffocation that I had had then. I opened the outer door and went into the playground. But when I was halfway across the playground the flat expanse began to bother me and I felt I was losing my balance. The side door opened and girls began to stream out on to the playground. I had to make my way between th
em, absurdly panicky because the feeling of loss of balance persisted and I was afraid I would bump into one of them. I regained the corridor and found the secretary waiting for me.

  ‘I wondered where you had gone,’ she said crossly. ‘Miss Petrie would like to see you.’

  Before I could protest she opened the door to the Head’s room and held it for me; there was no escape. I went in. Miss Petrie was waiting to greet me, not formally, on the far side of her desk, but coming towards me, hands outstretched.

  ‘My dear Ruth, I heard about your mother; I am so sorry! To my surprise she spoke with deep feeling as though reliving a grief in her own past.

  I said, ‘Oh, I’m quite all right,’ my voice high and unconvincing even to me.

  She looked at me and nodded her head, accepting something I had not known was in need of acceptance. Then, with what I recognised as innate sensitivity (a quality I had not perceived in her before) she began to talk of other things.

  ‘And how is the clinic managing? I heard you were without a psychiatrist.’

  ‘We have one as from last week.’

  ‘That must make a great difference?’ Half-querying, deferring without condescension to my greater knowledge of these matters. We talked for a time of the clinic and its work. She was interested to know how it differed from the clinics run by the County. Did we, for example, have the same trouble getting people to attend regularly, or did they cherish us more because they had to pay for our services?

  ‘They don’t all have to pay,’ I said. ‘We have our version of the “assisted places” scheme.’

  ‘But you are not dependent on the whim of government for your grant?’

  ‘The Foundation can be fairly whimsical.’

  All the time we were talking I was aware of her gaze on me, not analytical as Iris’s so often was, but sad. I could not tell whether the sadness was something new in her or occasioned by me.

  ‘Do you come across the Cooper family?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve heard of them, of course; but they don’t come our way.’

  ‘We have three of the girls with us now. The family lives in a caravan down by the river at present. Very happy-go-lucky people. I have to get the education welfare officer to chase them, and if we are all very severe they attend regularly for a few months. The summer is the worst time. On a sunny day Mrs. Cooper keeps them at home.’ She looked out of the window; her room, no doubt sited as far as possible from the playground, faced north-east. ‘Sometimes when I am sitting here I can imagine them all playing like gypsies and I wonder which of us has got our priorities right.’

  ‘The education office would give you the answer to that.’

  ‘Yet I feel perhaps we should be able to accommodate children like the Coopers better than we do.’

  She smiled ruefully. I had the impression that an offering of a kind was being made, not only to the Coopers and their alien values. Out in the corridor there was the sound of scampering feet and a voice raised in admonition. I said that I must get back to the clinic with the report.

  ‘You like your work at the clinic?’ she asked, rising.

  ‘It’s near home,’ I said, without thinking, just something to say.

  She nodded her head as though I had confirmed what was in her mind. After a pause she said diffidently, ‘I know how fond you are of your home; but do you suppose one day you may feel you want to branch out a little?’

  ‘I’ve never regretted not going to university,’ I said defensively.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’ She spoke as though the idea was irrelevant now. ‘It was wrong to have made an issue of that; there were too many pressures on you.’

  ‘I don’t remember any, only the university thing.’

  She looked out of the window again, meditating; I found that my heart was thudding. Whatever was in her mind, she decided not to put it into words.

  ‘I mustn’t keep you now, Ruth. I hope I may see you another time, though.’ It was there again, that suggestion of accepting something about me that had nothing to do with my academic record.

  It was a relief, on coming into the yard, to find that my car had blocked the passage of a delivery van. The caretaker was waiting for me. ‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘I called out to you when you drove in, but you didn’t take any notice.’ I apologised and he said, ‘Get on with you, you’re not really sorry! You always were a naughty girl.’ I was happier with this verdict than with Miss Petrie’s.

  Iris had asked me to call at the social services department offices in Weston Market and I wasted a lot of time there waiting for a social worker who, it transpired, was in court that day. It was a quarter to one when I returned to March House and I imagined that I would have missed the whole of the morning session. As I came in the front door I realised, however, that this was not so; it seemed I had arrived in time for the final scene. The participants were off-stage, but the door of the room used by the psychiatrist must have been open and I could hear Angus Brodie’s voice raised in complaint. Other sounds came to my ear, a low, soothing murmur from Iris, Douglas’s nervous cough, and a fantastic orchestration of keening and yodelling which must emanate from Mrs. Brodie. Our clinic sessions did not usually end like this. I could see Mrs. Libnitz’s head and shoulders framed in the reception hatch looking as disorientated as a traveller in a space capsule who has come across an unknown galaxy.

  Dr. Laver’s voice, robustly good-humoured, interrupted Mr. Brodie. ‘What’s this? Your wife was serviced only last month and she’s gone wrong already? My dear sir, I’ll give her another overhaul and there’ll be no charge. And while we’re about it, why not have a check on the rest of the family? Any trouble with your son and daughter? Bring them along; I’ll throw them in for nothing. Can’t have dissatisfied customers at this clinic. What about you? Hand a bit unsteady, eyes bloodshot, been at the bottle lately? How about another liver while we’re on the job? You’re going to need one soon by the look of you.’ It was like a knock-about musical hall turn with up-dated patter.

  Steps sounded on the stairs. Mrs. Libnitz abandoned the switchboard and disappeared into the stationery store; Mrs. Brodie ran into the ladies’ cloakroom followed by Iris; and I darted into my room and looked round frantically for something which would indicate that I was so occupied that on no account could I be interrupted however great the emergency. The door opened and Mr. Brodie came in. In this rather frightening game, I was the one who had run in the wrong direction and must now pay the penalty. I looked warily at Mr. Brodie. After Dr. Laver’s contribution, anything seemed possible.

  Mr. Brodie at this moment looked like one of the more despotic Roman emperors in modern dress. The frill of curly hair stood up like a crown of leaves around his balding scalp, the long straight nose flared at the nostrils and the imperious mouth twisted in something that was mid-way between snarl and smile. He looked like a man sated with experience who has miraculously found a new happening to savour. One could almost believe, looking at him, that it was within the power of a very senior civil servant to demand of his minister the head of an offending psychiatrist on a charger.

  In the hope of introducing a little normality into the proceedings, I said, ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Brodie; did you want to fix your next appointment?’

  The door of the room had opened as I said this, and Iris had entered. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head at me; but I had now committed myself to my line of defence and I pretended to consult the diary. Mr. Brodie came and stood beside me; he smelt of gin. I said, ‘Six weeks? Is ten o’clock a good time for you?’

  Mr. Brodie’s eyes opened very wide; they were expressive eyes which on this occasion seemed overcharged with conflicting emotions, astonishment, outrage, contempt and an inappropriate merriment making it difficult to assess his reaction. He looked at the diary and his eyes moved over its unexceptional surface as though it fascinated him and he wanted to possess it. He bared his teeth and sucked in air. Some kind of a struggle seemed to b
e going on inside him. Iris was observing him with interest. Mr. Brodie said, ‘In view of what I and my wife have just been subjected to, we can hardly be expected to wait another six weeks. You will give us an appointment in three weeks’ time, please.’

  I gave him an appointment for April the seventh. He made a note of it, bade us both a courteous good-day and went out of the room. Iris crossed to the window and watched until he left the building accompanied by his wife; then she turned to me. ‘Well, well, that was very instructive. You could see him struggling with the knowledge that he ought to make a fuss, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I can’t understand why he didn’t.’

  ‘There was something about the session this morning that was irresistible to him; he had to come again. Dr. Laver is very clever, of course; but I think he took a risk.’

  Before she could say any more, Douglas and Di came in. Douglas said to me, ‘Who have we got this afternoon?’

  ‘Josie Wilmer.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that! We aren’t likely to have fireworks there.’

  Di said, ‘A pity.’

  Douglas said shortly, ‘Don’t be silly.’ He turned to Iris. ‘Come and have a word with me in my room.’

  ‘I seem to have missed quite a session,’ I said to Di when they had gone.

  ‘He was great. This place needs a dose of salts!’

  ‘Iris thinks Mr. Brodie found it irresistible, a new experience that he can’t pass up.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Do you know, Di, coming in at the end like that, quite cold, I got a different impression.’

  She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I had the feeling he was trying to get rid of them, behaving so absurdly that they wouldn’t come back.’

  ‘He didn’t succeed then, did he?’

  ‘No, because I think Mr. Brodie had the same idea, and he wasn’t going to play.’

  Di shrugged her shoulders. ‘Doesn’t seem likely, does it? What would he do for clients?’

  I didn’t have an answer to that.