Brief Encounter

by Alec Waugh

  ‘No.’

  ‘You recognized each other?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she waved at me.’

  ‘A friendly kind of wave?’

  ‘A very friendly wave.’

  ‘How did she look?’

  ‘She looked very good.’

  ‘A redhead still?’

  ‘She’d probably done something to it, but it looked just the same,’ and that was what having an affair with a married woman amounted to. Excitement to begin with; a high adventure. And for quite a while it went on being an adventure, but gradually complications intervened. It became a strain, a chore. It became as much a routine as marriage, so that at the end you were ready to welcome the easiest way out. Was that what she had been for Graham, the easiest way out? A strange thought that: if he hadn’t been involved with a tiresome intrigue, he would not have been so keen on marriage. He might not have admitted it to himself, but at the back of his mind there must have been the thought, ‘Anna will be a convenient exit.’

  She shrugged mentally. It was all such a long while ago. And was she herself now on the brink of a similar experience? Was this what was awaiting her. Excitement, rapture, a sense of being alive in every nerve cell, and then bit by bit a mounting sense of strain, so that in two years’ time, she and her doctor without admitting it would be looking for a convenient exit, manipulating it in such a way that neither’s feelings would be hurt too much, so that face and pride were saved, and so that ten years later they could pass each other in the lobby of a hotel, with a friendly wave.

  Five hours ago she had been lying in a hedge, beside a man of whom a month ago she had not even heard. She had had a sense of peace, of belonging, of being herself greater than she had ever known; she had been shaken by a physical sensation more intense than she had ever known, so intense that she had not conceived of herself as being capable of feeling it and here she was now, seated opposite the husband of seventeen years’ comradeship and he was describing to her, graphing for her the geography of the road on which her feet were set, and in spite of the emotion that she had been shattered by five hours earlier in the arms of another man, she felt closer to him, warmer, more ardent towards him than she had in her days of courtship.

  Later when he came into the bedroom, she stretched out her hand to him. She took him by the wrist. She drew him down into the bed beside her. She wrapped her arms round his neck. She pressed herself against him, urging, cajoling his response. Nothing could have been more different from the sensation that she had experienced that afternoon, but nothing could have been more deep, more tender; she sighed, she quivered in his embrace, deepening, prolonging it.

  Later, a long while later: ‘I hope that you don’t miss that redhead of yours too much,’ she said.

  XII

  The fine weather did not last; the next morning threatened to develop into one of those grey toneless days when there is neither sun nor rain, though both seem imminent.

  ‘I see you’re not wearing those bright pants of yours this morning,’ Graham said, when he looked into the dining room before leaving for his office. She had put on a dark coat and skirt. She felt that that would go better with the kind of day that stretched ahead of her.

  ‘When are you going into Winchester?’ he asked.

  ‘As soon as possible. Get it over with.’

  ‘Will you be back for lunch?’

  ‘I may be. I don’t know; I may take in a movie.’

  ‘You’ll probably need something to cheer you up after a session with Mrs. Gaines.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall.’

  And she might at that. It depended on how the day panned out.

  She reached the office at her usual time. She had scarcely opened her files, when Grace popped her head round the door.

  ‘Telephone, Anna. It’s for you.’

  A brisk impersonal voice was at the other end.

  ‘Is that Mrs. Jesson?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I’m speaking from the county hospital, on behalf of Mrs. Gaines. Her son asked me to call you.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘An overdose of sleeping pills.’

  ‘Is she …’ Anna hesitated. What was the second question in a case like this. ‘How is she?’ she asked.

  ‘She’ll be all right. The eldest boy gave the alarm when she couldn’t be woken up to feed the baby. We brought her round here right away.’

  ‘Is she conscious yet?’

  ‘She’s in a daze. Doesn’t know where she is.’

  ‘How did you get my name?’

  ‘From her boy. He said she set big store by you.’

  ‘When can I see her?’

  ‘Not just yet. If you looked in at the end of the day for a few minutes it would cheer her up.’

  ‘I’ll do that certainly.’

  ‘I’ll tell her right away. It’ll give her something to look forward to.’

  If I hadn’t changed my day, she thought, this would not have happened. She crossed into Grace’s office. ‘This’ll be a warning,’ she said, ‘I won’t change my day again.’

  ‘It would be easier for us all if you didn’t.’

  ‘Wednesday, it’ll be in future.’

  And that meant lunch every Wednesday with her doctor and that final half-hour in the station waiting room. There was no point in being cautious now. She had passed the point from which there was no retreat; the point of no return. Of what was to come now, she had no idea. It was up to him.

  She reached the hospital shortly after five. Was this one of her doctor’s hospitals? Anyhow the routine would be the same. She had not been to an English hospital so very often. Illness was not part of her routine. It was one of the things she had been spared through making her home in England. She had no cousins here, and Graham’s family was a healthy one. Whenever one of his family was sick, it was a distant relative in another part of the country. There was no need for her attendance. As she walked through the gateway of the hospital, she thought, ‘Is this his world. I suppose it must be.’ It is in this atmosphere that he lives.

  She made enquiries at the desk. She was impressed by the friendly efficiency of it all. She had heard Graham’s local friends assert that the Health Welfare Services had destroyed the old doctor-patient relationship, that nothing was as cordial as it had been; that everything now was stereotyped and impersonal.

  That was not her impression. Everyone seemed very welcoming and cordial and efficient.

  ‘Mrs. Jesson to see Mrs. Gaines. Of course, yes, we’ve a note of that. You’re expected: but I’m afraid that you mustn’t stay very long. Five minutes at the most.’

  Mrs. Gaines was in a ward that contained a dozen single beds. It all looked very clean and calm. She looked about her quickly. Each of the beds were occupied. Some of the patients, she supposed, were very ill. Terminal cases, possibly.

  She was led to a bed in the centre of the room. Mrs. Gaines was lying on her back with her eyes half closed. She was lifted up among the pillows. She was very pale, except for her right cheek which was badly bruised. Her eyelids flickered at the sight of Anna.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘sorry.’

  Anna sat beside her. She took one of her hands and stroked her wrist.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘You’re not to worry.’

  Mrs. Gaines tried to say something, but Anna could not hear it. She went on stroking Mrs. Gaines’ wrist.

  ‘You’re not to worry,’ she said. ‘Everything’s all right.’

  Mrs. Gaines seemed to be quite content, lying there having her wrist stroked. The minutes passed. What a long time five minutes was.

  Mrs. Gaines’ eyes remained half closed. Her lips were parted. She was breathing gently. ‘I guess this is doing her good,’ Anna thought.

  The minutes passed. A nurse came in and touched Anna on the shoulder. ‘Time’s up,’ she said.

  Anna disengaged her hand. She rose. She patted Mrs. Gaines’ cheek.

  ‘You’re f
ine,’ she said. ‘You’re fine. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  She stroked Mrs. Gaines’ cheek. Was there a flicker in her eyes? She liked to think there was, she hoped there was.

  She talked to the sister in the corridor outside. ‘How is she?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s fine. Provided she stays that way.’

  ‘What am I to take that to mean?’

  ‘That a patient can recover easily from an attempted suicide, but if she’s in a suicidal mood, she may make the attempt again.’

  ‘In other words, we have to protect her against that mood.’

  ‘You don’t think that this suicide is an isolated episode, do you?’

  Anna hesitated. She remembered how she and her doctor had talked together about suicide. Which was the easiest way. An express boat train on the way to the coast? Was it a recurrent mood? Mrs. Gaines had got over this experiment, but would the mood return?

  ‘You think that this is likely to happen again?’ she asked the nurse.

  The nurse shrugged. ‘Who can tell, with this kind of woman: one can never be sure whether they really want to kill themselves. There’s usually a subconscious self protective mechanism at work, so that they either take too little or too much, which comes to the same thing in the long run. This one took too much.’

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ Anna said.

  That evening over their pre-dinner drink she talked it over with Graham. ‘I’m not sure how it was,’ she said, exactly. ‘I feel it’s my fault in a way for not being in the bureau when I said I would be.’

  ‘How early did you leave the office?’

  ‘As much time as it takes to buy a chess set. At about twenty past.’

  ‘Only ten minutes. You surely don’t need blame yourself for that.’

  Only ten minutes, but he did not know that she had not been to the bureau at all yesterday. She had told another lie. How many lies would she not have to tell, before this autumn had become this winter? Every step one took demanded its own explanation.

  ‘It’s an awful bore,’ she said. ‘But I suppose I shall have to go in again tomorrow.’

  Three times within three days. Perhaps she would have to build up a whole new pattern of attendance. They had asked her to come in twice a week. Why should she not go in oftener. Twice every week, or three times maybe. She would have to build up a pattern of alibis.

  ‘It’s my fault, I suppose,’ she said, ‘for not being there when-she expected me.’

  ‘How long were you away getting that chess set?’

  ‘Only a quarter of an hour.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s any right to complain on that score.’

  One quarter of an hour, no. But it wasn’t a question of a mere quarter of an hour. She had been away all the day. Mrs. Gaines had an occasion for complaint. And she had lied in telling Graham that she had been only away for a quarter of an hour. Lie after lie after lie. And the maddening thing about it all was that she could no longer tell the truth to the one person in the whole world to whom she wanted to be in a position to tell the truth. Wasn’t that the great thing about marriage, that you had one person with whom you could be completely open, with whom you could lay down your cards, face upwards upon the table? If you could not do that, what was the point of marriage?

  Next morning Anna took her usual morning train into Winchester. She went to the hospital straight away. She was warmly welcomed by the matron.

  ‘Mrs. Gaines was so touched at your having been round to see her. She’s been so excited about your coming round this morning.’

  Anna had brought with her a small bunch of roses. Mrs. Gaines clapped her hands.

  ‘How kind of you. How more than kind of you. All the others will be so jealous. Yes, please bring me a vase, nurse. Oh, thank you, thank you, Mrs. Jesson.’

  There was colour now in Mrs. Gaines’ cheeks, so that the discoloration of her face was less apparent than it had been on the previous evening. Mrs. Gaines was now colloquial and informative: more lively than she had ever been in the bureau.

  ‘I knew where he was, you see,’ she explained. ‘I’d been told so I came round to see you, to get the benefit of your advice. But you wasn’t there. You wouldn’t be there all day, they said.’

  ‘I’d changed my day.’

  ‘That’s what they told me. So I thought I’d go round and have a talk with her. That’s what I thought I’d do. I’ll have a talk with ‘er.’

  ‘With her?’

  ‘Yes, ‘er: that bit ‘e’s taken up with. I knew when ‘e was away three weeks, there must be someone. ‘E can’t look after ‘isself.’

  ‘You went to see her.’

  ‘I just went over: went over after tea-time. Tommy was home from school. Oh but you should see ‘im with the baby, missis: an angel that’s what ’e is, with that baby. Tea-time it was. She knew who I was the minute I clapped eyes on ’er. We had a conversation, well I suppose that’s what you would call it; at any rate it started as a conversation, then it became well, you know how it is, when things begin as one thing then become something else.’

  She rambled on, her eyes were bright. She was clearly enjoying herself immensely. She had an audience. She had no work to do. She was being fed and fussed over and made to feel important.

  I must get her to the point, thought Anna.

  ‘What did you talk about?’ she asked.

  ‘As to ’ow it all began. The rights and wrongs of it.’

  ‘Did it become a fight?’

  ‘Well, I suppose that somebody like you would call it that, but we, it’s all part of the give and take, you know.’

  Was that how she had got her black eye. Had they had a real set-to. If that was what happened, it must have been quite something. In Naples in her childhood, she had seen women fight. The way they would go for another; no holds barred. Tearing at each other’s hair, gouging at each other’s eyes, scratching at their cheeks. She looked with contrite pity at the wretched creature. ‘And your poor eye,’ she said.

  Mrs. Gaines laughed. ‘That wasn’t ’er. She couldn’t do a job like that. I’d have seen ’er in the next world first. I could take on four of ’er. No, that was Bill.’

  ‘Your husband,’ she said it on a gasp. She was really shocked. She had seen men beating up their wives. It had shocked, it had disgusted her.

  ‘How did it happen? Did he come back and find you there?’

  ‘No, ’e came round to me. It was after I’d been round to the bureau that I went on to ’er. I wanted to ask your advice. You’re so wise always about everything. But I found you out.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It shan’t happen again.’

  ‘If I’d found you in, I don’t think I’d ever have gone round to ’er.’

  ‘It’s all my fault.’

  ‘No, no, it ain’t. It ‘ad to come some time, I suppose. If it’s not then, it’s later. Better to bring things to a head, I fancy.’

  ‘Your husband went to see her and found you there?’

  ‘No, no, I’d left before ’e got there. I went back ’ome. I was feeling very glum. I can tell you. I was just sitting brooding there. Tommy was with me. ’E’s a good boy is Tommy; sitting there quietly at the table, doing ‘is ‘omework.# 8217;E gets such good marks, you know. Then Bill comes in a tearing temper. “I ‘ears as how you’ve been making a nuisance of yourself,” he says. “Now I ain’t going to ’ave no more of that, you understand me?” And then he lifts up his fist and lands me one. You don’t think, do you, that that ninny could raise a one like that.’

  There was a glow of pride in her voice, at her husband being capable of blacking an eye so effectively.

  ‘Oh you poor dear,’ said Anna.

  There was a tone of such pity, such disapproval, such shocked disapproval in her voice that Mrs. Gaines felt herself forced to defend him.

  ‘Oh, well, you know miss, ’e still is my ’usband. ’E ’as ’is rights. The trouble was that Tommy had to interfere. Can’t bear seeing me k
nocked around ’e can’t. And Bill when ’e’s got his temper up, can’t bear being interfered with; of course ’e got a ’iding, a good one too.’

  ‘But Tommy’s only eleven.’

  ‘I know, I know; but Bill’s that way. And Tommy knows ’e is. ’E brought it on ’isself. Silly it was of ’im, real silly. And that of course meant I got another one. Not one that shows that time, but it ’urt me worse. And then Bill went off swearing, vowing that if I ever came round like that again, I wouldn’t get off so light. And there was both of us in tears: and me feeling so bad because Tommy ’ad ’ad that ’iding. Not that ’e didn’t deserve it, mark you, interfering between an ’usband and ’is wife. Even if that wife is ’is mum. That’s one of the first things a young man should learn. And then Tommy, ’e goes out alone, leaving ’is ’omework. And I gets the others off to bed; and I sit listening to the wireless, and all the news is so depressing, nothing romantic, no engagement for Prince Charles, nothing like ’is sister. Oh, but I was thrilled by that. Such a lovely couple—the ’orses and all that, of course you can’t expect that kind of thing very often; once in a lifetime they say, in whose lifetime I say, not in mine, nor in anyone’s I know; ’as it in yours; perhaps it ’as in yours; you look so young. Can’t believe you’re older than me; all that older than me; perhaps it’s being happy that keeps you young. I ’opes it is, for you: so sweet you are: there was a music ’all singer that my grandfather used to talk about, ’ad a fantastic house like a Christmas cake; all pink and pure. Marie Lloyd that’s what ’er name was, yes, that’s it, ’ad a song that went, my grandpa used to hum it, “A little bit of what you fancy does you good.” That’s what I likes to hear on the wireless, a little bit of what you fancy. And there wasn’t anything of that on Wednesday.’

  She rambled on, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. She was having a fine time; there was no doubt of that. She was the centre of attraction. Anna did her best to be sympathetic. The poor woman had had a bad time all right.

  ‘But, really, Mrs. Gaines, to take all those pills,’ she said. ‘You do see, don’t you, that …’ she paused: what was there for Mrs. Gaines to see. Mrs. Gaines caught her up. ‘I know, I know. But I was that depressed. Depression. That’s what those pills are for, ain’t it: for depression. That’s what the doctor said to me. Take one or two when you feel depressed.’