by A. J. Cronin
‘Of this Scots town of your birth, dear Caterina, you speak seriously? Is it not nice?’
‘Far from nice.’
‘But before I am believing it is fine, historique, eine noble Stadt?’
‘Who could have told you such an untruth? It’s a small, ugly, working-class, shipyard town. All day you hear nothing but hammering of rivets.’
‘But surely … I am confuse … surely there is a fine castle, on the river?’
‘That’s just a tumbledown old ruin by a dirty stream.’
‘No one still lives therein?’
‘Only the rats.’
‘Ach, so! And the peoples are not Hochgeboren?’
‘No. Of course, some think they are.’
Hulda’s voice, which had risen in tone, octave by octave, in a crescendo of forced amazement, now dissolved in a fit of laughter. Then, wiping her eyes:
‘Here, in Schweitz, if some silly Scotsman believes he is ein König, he must be put straight away in Krankenhaus.’
Equally disturbing was the Matron’s remark on the following morning when Lotte, disregarding my injunction never to telephone me, had rung up to say she had an unexpected free day. I couldn’t blame the big stupid Swede since at another time I would gladly have joined her in Zurich. But it was Hulda who took the call and afterwards, in a tone impossible to mistake, she had inquired:
‘Your professor from the Zurich Kantonspital, Herr Doktor?’
Well, what of it! I was still the boss. Yet when I thought on the instigator of all these scheming little tricks, these dropped hints and innuendos, I felt like wringing her neck or, better still, setting up a good rough bedroom scene with her. What the devil was she after? Beyond the recognition of that strain of antagonism which had always existed in our complex relationship, especially in our early days when she had tried to get the better of me, I could not even guess. Seeing her every day, in the same house, made it worse. Recovered from the journey, refreshed by the mountain air, she had shed a few years, lost that beaten look, and in the words of that murky ballad, begun to bloom again.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in!’ I shouted.
Daniel’s head appeared inquiringly round the lintel. He smiled.
‘Are you busy, Dr Laurence?’
‘I’m busy trying to get enough calories out of this bloody bad breakfast.’
‘It doesn’t look too bad.’
He advanced and sat down. He was still in his Maybelle dressing-gown and pyjamas, holding his infernal pocket chess board.
‘It’s just that Mother and Matron have gone shopping in the car. I was wondering if, since we are alone … we might try a few moves.’
So they had paired off again. I glared at him.
‘I believe I told you to stay in bed until I came to examine you.’
‘Well … I had to get up.’
‘What for? To piss?’
‘No,’ he said, adopting my vocabulary. ‘To puke.’
‘You were sick?’
‘I only threw up a little. It’s a bit of a habit I seem to have developed.’
‘Since when?’
‘Just the last few days. I think it’s the codliver oil. What comes up all tastes of it.’
I looked at him and nodded.
‘That’s probable. It’s pretty foul stuff. We’ll knock you off it and put you on extra milk. Now back to your room.’
‘Won’t you? I’m rather tired of playing against myself.’
I finished my tepid coffee and pushed the tray aside leaving the ballons conspicuously untouched.
‘Come on then. I’ll give you a game. Then you must come to the dispensary and have your injection.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s a deal,’ and began to set out the board.
Although I was no Capablanca I played chess off and on with the kids during wet recreation hours, and I meant to knock him off quickly, partly to take him down, but also to eliminate the nuisance of further games.
We began calmly. I had the first move. But why make a song about it. There is no disguising the sordid facts. This unnatural little upstart mated me in exactly six moves.
‘That’s extraordinary.’ He smiled. ‘I never knew the Giuoco Piano opening succeed so easily. I fully expected you to use Petroff’s defence.’
‘You did?’ I said sourly. ‘Well, I don’t go for Petroff. Suppose you play me another without your queen.’
‘Certainly. In that case you’ll probably open with the Ruy Lopez.’
‘Not on your life. I’m anti-Portuguese.’
‘Oh, Lopez was a Spaniard, in the sixteenth century, Dr Laurence. He invented his attack – where caution and safety are essential for the defenders. And I’m sure you’ll remember to respond with P to K4.’
‘That impertinent remark costs you another three pieces,’ I said, removing his two bishops and a castle. ‘Now I’ll give you and Petroff a damn good licking.’
Even so it was no use. I was cautious but not safe. When he looked at me reproachfully, sparing my feelings by not saying ‘checkmate’, I scattered the pieces back into the box and stood up.
‘I’m used to playing with experts: when I’m up against a beginner it throws me off balance.’
He laughed dutifully.
‘You’re just a little out of practice, Dr Laurence,’ he said apologetically, following me into the dispensary.
‘Don’t hand me that eyewash.’
I gave him his injection – I had put him on a course of colossal iron – then told him to go and get dressed. In the office I had some paper work to get through but I could not settle to it. My thoughts were depressingly clouded by the campaign that almost certainly had come into being against me. Before this went further, counter action, I clearly perceived, was demanded of me.
The ladies, if I may use the word, returned in excellent spirits and a continued sense of intimacy which persisted during the midday meal. Once or twice I caught Matron’s button eyes upon me with an admixture of inquiry and that sly glint of jocular malice which, in the Swiss, passes for humour. But as I had wisely decided to say nothing, the expectation that I would complain about the breakfast was frustrated. This at least afforded me a minor satisfaction and for the rest I maintained an attitude of quiet dignity, reserve and, let me add, determination. I had fully made up my mind to have things out with the soidistant Caterina.
She had the habit now of walking after the Mittagessen, taking the uphill path beside the little stream that tore down through the pasture with picturesque abandon, between banks of meadow sweet and celandine. Today she did not disappoint me. After she set off, I established Daniel on the terrace and followed her with such discretion that she remained unaware of me until she had actually seated herself on the grassy hillock that marked the end of the lower slopes before the mountain took over in a steep glissade of scree. Beyond, the massed pines climbed darkly into a rarefied world of their own.
‘You’ve discovered a favourite spot of mine,’ I said, companionably.
She looked up, without surprise or any sign of welcome.
‘I suppose you’ve noticed the heather …’ I had to keep talking, ‘not the usual Swiss erica, real Scottish moorland heath. And there’s lots of harebells among the bracken.’
‘Quite like home sweet home for you,’ she said. ‘Should it remind me of our happy days together?’
‘Well, it ought to arouse your botanical instincts.’
‘I’ve lost all my instincts.’
Her response wasn’t encouraging but I maintained my air of sweetness and light.
‘May I join you?’
‘Why not? I half expected you.’
I parked myself on the short heathery turf. Glancing sideways surreptitiously I had a sudden warm appreciation of the change wrought in her by alpine air and the Maybelle cuisine. Bareheaded, in a simple Swiss blouse and dirndl skirt which I strongly suspected Matron had bought her that morning, she looked younger and, this came
to me with a start, definitely bed worthy. But enough! After a pause of recollection, in a tone which combined both conciliation and reproach, I began:
‘It’s true, I’ve been hoping for an opportunity to talk with you. I’ve had the strangest and most unnatural feeling that in spite of all I’ve done and intend doing for you and your boy you’ve … well … turned dead set against me.’
‘I have. And I am.’
The brief reply, delivered without emotion, shook me.
‘For heaven’s sake why?’
She turned slowly and examined me.
‘Quite apart from your character, Carroll, which is unspeakably and sickeningly detestable, you’ve always been a sort of evil genius for me. Yes, from the day I first saw you on that railway platform. If you want it in a few sloppy words, I’d say you have botched up my life.’
Speechless, I could do no more than gape at her. She went on.
‘I never thought I’d have the chance to even the score. Now I have.’
Was she out of her mind? I struggled to find words.
‘But Cathy … how can you … it’s inconceivable that I should want to injure you. I’ve always been fond of you and I have every reason to believe that you …’
‘Yes, at first sight, on Levenford Station, I had the misfortune to fall for you, head over heels. And I couldn’t shake it off. It was you broke up my attachment to Frank. I might have had him if I had tried. I didn’t try. You were always on my mind. I wanted you. I was sure you would come back when you graduated. Well, you did. And then …’
‘You were engaged to Davigan.’
‘Never. That was just a phase of weakness. I would never have married him,’ she paused to achieve a more deadly effect, ‘if you hadn’t sneaked off like a rat at six that morning before I was awake.’
So it was out, as I had feared. She had hit the nail on the head. There was a long and for me an uneasy silence. I pulled myself together, cleared my throat. I meant to speak soulfully and in the circumstances the throb in my voice came almost naturally.
‘Cathy,’ I said, trying to make it ring true, ‘I hope we’re not going to desecrate what was, at least for me, the most wonderfully memorable experience of my life. When we said goodbye after that ghastly celebration for Frank’s ordination you must have sensed how much I needed you and how much, thinking of your attachment to Davigan, I was fighting it. As you know, I set out for my train but had, simply had, to turn back to you. I won’t embarrass you, now, by dwelling on the warmth with which you welcomed me. A night we could never, never forget. But when morning came, what a position I was in. On the one hand your engagement to Davigan, on the other my commitment as ship’s surgeon. I had signed ship’s articles, I must report to the Tasman or be posted as a deserter. I simply had to go. The least hurtful way was to slip out without disturbing you. I thought of you continually during my enforced absence. But when I got back … you were married to Davigan.’
Incredulity had almost supplanted the bitterness in her expression. She gave me a short laugh.
‘My God, Carroll, I wouldn’t have believed it possible! That you could hand me that line. You’re more of a twister than ever. I’ll swear you even succeed in deceiving yourself. Yes, I married Davigan.’
‘Then why blame me? He made you a good Catholic husband.’
‘You’ve said it, Carroll. He was the best Catholic husband the Pope ever invented.’
‘Meaning what?’
She took a cigarette from the pack in the pocket of her blouse and lit it.
‘Since we’re letting our hair down let’s not spare our blushes. You’ve got to hear it sooner or later.’ She drew on her cigarette, eyes looking back in time. ‘You know what I’m like, how I’m made. At least you ought to.’
‘Yes, indeed I’ll never forget how exciting …’
‘Cut it, Carroll. You gave me the first taste of honey. And it was the last. Daniel Davigan! That man! Well, because he’d been part of the town joke for the sixteen births in his own family he was compelled by a single monstrous obsession … to prevent me becoming pregnant. Not by means that would help me or meet my needs, but within the permitted canon law.’
‘But, surely, there was little Dan.’
‘The fact that he came early made everything worse. Nothing ever took place at the natural times when you wanted it. Only at the mid term when I was flat out. Timing it by the calendar! Have you counted the days? I wonder if it’s safe? Then the quick get rid of it, followed immediately by the “get up and make your water, squeeze hard, that’s not a douche, it’s permitted and it’ll help”. God, what a sacrifice of all fundamental decencies and dignity, and the wants of a woman’s unsatisfied nature. Love according to the Catechism! Am I shocking your delicate feelings, Carroll, you’re such a sweet man? Then for days after, the waiting and pestering, “have you not come on yet?” And his sickening look of relief when I had. No expression could be lower, more hideously hypocritical than that which greeted me when I was out of action. Actually he always knew, for the deprivation I suffered intensified the distress of my periods, especially when forced at such times to listen to the Reverend Francis in the pulpit extolling the scared bonds of matrimony. Even when I went to him in Confession all I got was some soulful advice at no cost to himself – prayer, proper feelings, and submission to the will of God. When I pointed out that desire cannot be summoned up by the calendar I didn’t get an ounce of sympathy.’
These revelations, delivered with no sense of propriety, would have made tasty hearing as a demonstration of the farce of unsatisfactory conjugal performances had they not been so shamelessly bitter or so relevant to my present situation. Any temptation to laugh was stifled by my need to placate. I also already had in distant view the future possibilities in this dammed-up flood of desire. And when, after a decent pause, I thought fit to make a murmur of medical sympathy, suggesting that her tribulations were over and could be redressed, she fixed me with a look that would have chilled a polar bear.
‘None of that, doctor. After what I’ve been through I’m a different woman. The very mention of sex sickens me now.’
‘Well,’ I sighed, ‘you must blame Davigan for that, poor fellow.’
‘Poor fellow! A low, sickly, priest-ridden coward. I came to regard him with as much disgust as the sediment in his own chamber pot.’
This was plain speaking. I felt myself justified in exploiting the situation.
‘It must,’ I said tactfully, ‘have been a relief to find yourself free.’
‘A God-given relief.’ She turned and faced me. ‘ I bless that gust of wind that blew him over.’
Blew him over, what was this? I had to know more. I said, thoughtfully:
‘Thinking it might distress you … I’ve been reluctant to press you as to how …?’
‘He fell off the top of the new tenement … just when they were finishing the upper storey. He was proud of it in a stupid sort of way, the tallest block of flats in Levenford with a view, God help it, of Ben Lomond. He’d had to do with the erecting of it and of course it was on land the Davigans once owned. So that Sunday afternoon he took the boy and me up to show us. I didn’t want to go, it was so windy, but he insisted, was out cat-walking on the parapet, gassing away, when …’ She shrugged indifferently.
So that was it. I felt like saying: a sort of Ibsen-ish ending, the Levenford Master Builder, but this was no moment to be smart.
‘He was killed?’ I spoke with becoming seriousness.
‘On the spot.’
‘Well, he’s gone beyond recriminations. What good did they ever do? For that matter, if I’ve offended you in any way …’ I paused significantly.
‘Why don’t I let you off too? No, no, Carroll. I have no malice towards you. Nevertheless …’
‘Yes?’
‘I have a use for you.’
My imagination jumped ahead of me. I smiled engagingly, with just a touch of disbelief.
‘After what you just said?
You’re kidding.’
‘Far from it.’ She glanced at me in a manner that augured ill for my future. ‘If you want to keep your soft, cushy, useless, no-job here, to hold on to it by the skin of your teeth, you’ll have to go along with me.’
What was she after? Obviously she hated me and wanted her own back. But what else? She went on:
‘I’m just as sick of Levenford as you ever were, Carroll. The only offer I got there was to keep the house for old Dr Ennis when his wife died last month. Cook, clean, scrub out the surgery. And he’s so far gone on the bottle now he’s hardly ever sober. No, no, I don’t want to go back to that stinking, scandal-ridden hole, not ever. I like it here, I like it a lot, it’s heaven after what I’ve been through. The Matron has taken to me and she’s so short of help she needs me. To cut it short, I see a chance that I never expected, to remake my life. And you’re going to help me to it.’
Suddenly it struck me. Could it be that after all these years she finally wanted to snaffle me. If so, what a hope.