by Jane Gardam
“Oh, Harry’s always happy.”
They fell silent and Elisabeth said, “I didn’t know you played chess.”
“It’s just to keep up with Harry in the holidays.”
“Does Elsie . . . ?”
He gave her a look.
“Give Harry my love,” she said. “Is Elsie . . . ?”
“It’s Saturday. She’s at the racecourse. Elisabeth, are you going to live here always with Edward?”
“Why?”
“Because if you are I’ll have to go. I’m going to apply for a judgeship in Singapore. Hong Kong, the English Bar here—it’s too small.”
She said nothing for a long time and then they heard the women coming back down the steps of the temple and passing by them through the courtyard above.
“I want to go back to London now,” she said. “I was so happy there after the—honeymoon.”
“And Edward?”
“Who knows where Edward is happy? He belongs to Asia. He was born here.”
“So they tell me. Betty, we can’t go on. Both of us living here. You look so ill. So sad.”
“We may change.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And I will never leave Edward. I must go. They’re shrieking about, looking for me.”
“Give me your London number.”
“It’s—we’re—in the phone book. Don’t ring me.”
She ran up the track and joined the other women in the car.
“Elisabeth!—Where were you? You look exhausted.”
“Just wandering about.”
They roared off, erratic and talkative, towards the rocking-horse maker.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Elisabeth began to be elusive. She was not seen at anything. She sat staring out to the harbour below and said very little. “You’re not picking up,” Edward said one evening at the Repulse Bay Hotel where he’d taken her for dinner, the stars and moonlight magnificent. “Betty, they’re telling me you are ill.”
“Who?”
“Well, Willy and Dulcie, among others.”
“And are you worried?”
“I want you to see a doctor. Have a check-up. You were told to go back to a hospital in three months.”
“Was I?”
“You were. When they let you travel out here with me, you promised to see someone. They said the medicine here is very good. Well, we all know it is.”
“Oh, I’m just low.”
“I know. You are bound to be. It will take time. They told me you would need—er—cherishing.”
“And do you cherish me, Edward?”
“Well, I try. You frighten me these days, Elisabeth. I—well, I still can’t”—the stutter threatened—“quite get over my luck in having you. All the time.”
“Edward, how sweet!”
He looked at her. Watched for a sneer. Betty—sneering!
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m scared of losing you,” he said.
One day, while he was at work, she rang up Amy who said, “Come over.”
“Could you come here, Amy? It’s not easy for me,” and Amy soon—though not as soon as she would have done once—arrived, and without a child in tow. They sat in Elisabeth’s smart sitting room with drinks.
Amy said, “You’re drinking whisky.”
“Yes.”
“In the morning.”
“Yes. It’s for the pain.”
“What pain?”
“Well, if you want to know, I’m bleeding. Most of the time.”
“You’re what?! Great heavens, I’m taking you straight to the hospital. Now!”
“Oh, it’s all right. I’ve always had trouble. For years after the Camp. There was nothing for years. Nobody menstruated. Then with me it began to go the other way. Embarrassing. Scarcely stopped. One of the pleasures of pregnancy was the relief from it.”
“Does Edward know?”
“Of course not. I don’t think he’s ever heard of menstruation. We sleep apart now, mostly.”
“But someone . . .”
“No. I’d probably have told Delilah. But you know we don’t talk about it, do we? Look at novels.”
“Be damned to novels, you’re seeing a consultant.”
“Well, let’s keep it from Edward.”
“Not on your nelly,” and she rang Edward to say she had made an appointment with a mainland-Chinese gynaecologist. Edinburgh-trained.
“Ah, Edinburgh-trained. That sounds very good, Edinburgh.” (The Scot speaking, though he had never been to Scotland.) “I perhaps should go with her?” he said faintly.
“I don’t want him,” said Elisabeth.
But the consultant thought otherwise and, after X-rays and examinations, telephoned Edward to tell him that he was to come with his wife to the hospital and bring with him a decent bottle of wine.
He told Edward that Elisabeth needed surgery. There was every sign of trouble. He believed that a complete hysterectomy might be necessary.
“But I’m not even thirty. I’m childless. No!”
“You’ve put your body—no, history has put your body—through hard times. You were half starved in the Internment Camp. And I believe you lost your parents?”
“Yes. It was all jolly rotten.” (Who is this speaking through my lips?) “But I’m basically strong as a pit pony. Well, I look like a pit pony, don’t I?”
Nobody laughed.
“Think about it. I can do the operation here or I can send you to the best people in London. No, no—not Edinburgh. Too far from home. Your friends will be in London.”
“But Edward’s in the middle of an Arbitration.”
“Think about it. But not for long. You should have it done now.”
Edward said, clearing his throat in his embarrassed and famous roar, “Are you suggesting this might be cancer?”
“It’s possible. I’ll leave you to talk it over. Oh, dear—oh, hold on . . .”
Edward was gripping the edge of the doctor’s desk and sliding to the floor.
“For heaven’s sake!” Betty was holding him up in her arms and glaring at the doctor. “Open the wine,” she said. “Have you a corkscrew? Then you shouldn’t have told us to bring it. Water, please.”
Amy was breastfeeding the newest child when Elisabeth arrived, the previous baby now crawling about and heaving itself up on supporting objects such as Mrs. Baxter’s difficult leg. Mrs. Baxter was deep in a missal.
“Don’t worry about her,” said Amy. “She’s not listening. Let me think.”
Elisabeth took the child on her lap. “All I need to decide,” she said, “is whether to get it done here or in London.”
“Oh, London,” said Amy. “No question. You’d be O.K. here but they’re better with Chinese than European cancers. There are different treatments. Look—go home at once, have it done, and let Edward fly back to see you when the thing adjourns. When is it? Within a month?”
“Yes. He’s in a bit of a state. He doesn’t speak.”
“Well, he’ll be in a worse state if you go into hospital here. He’ll have to be coming to see you every day from the other side of Kowloon. Maybe for two or three weeks. He’ll concentrate better if you’re far away.”
“D’you think so? Edward can always concentrate.”
“Yes, I do think so. And we’ll all look after him.”
“You mean I just buy myself an air ticket and turn up in the Westminster Hospital all by myself?”
“Certainly. Why ever not? The bloke here will send them your medical records. What would you do if you weren’t married? You’d get on with it by yourself.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Baxter, waking up. “You must now be the Bride of Christ.”
“I always think that sounds blasphemous. And silly,” said Elisabeth.
“Well, Christ would say get on with it. Trust me,” said Amy. “Think of the woman with the issue of blood for twelve years. Trust. You’ll be rewarded.”
“Reward?” said Mrs. Ba
xter. “Is there any reward? I’m beginning to doubt it.”
“Oh, Mrs. Baxter, do shut up.”
“I am lonely and bored,” intoned Mrs. Baxter. “Reassure me, Good Lord.”
“Mrs. Baxter!”
“And inform me about it. Is there any reward? I’m beginning to doubt it. Poor child, poor child,” she said. “And scarcely left the altar.”
Elisabeth and Amy began to laugh. “Wherever did you get that awful verse? This isn’t a tragedy.”
“Not yet,” said Mrs. Baxter.
It was from the moment of laughing that Elisabeth knew that she would recover. The knowledge that she would never have children lay deeper and she did not, presently, disturb it. Taking one thing at a time.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The haemorrhaging that had been heavy but monthly had become fortnightly and then almost continuous so that she travelled to London first class. She spent many of the fourteen hours’ flight in the aircraft toilet to the distress of other passengers.
On landing, things let up for a while. The car that Edward had ordered was waiting for her and she was back in the embrace of the little house in Ebury Street within two hours of landing. Flowers had been sent by Edward and arranged on the black table by Delilah, with trailing leaves and swatches of blood-red roses falling like a ballerina’s bouquet. There was food in the fridge, a bottle of wine, the bed made up. She rang the hospital, which expected her the day after tomorrow. “You need to settle after the journey,” said the Almoner. “And well done.”
The phone rang and it was Edward. The familiar lovely voice, the familiar understatements. Case going well. Missing her. Desmond and Tony taking him out to dinner. Very civil of them. Amy had rung. He had forgotten to ask Betty if she had enough money.
“Yes. And I have forgotten to remind you that before long, I shall be thirty and come into my inheritance.”
He was not interested and only said several times how much he felt he should be with her. But his voice did not convince.
The haemorrhaging came and went. She had begun to get used to it. She’d be glad to be rid of the whole beastly business. Blood, blood. Women and blood. The “blood line.” Lady Macbeth. The phone rang again and it was Delilah next door. Should she come round? “No. Sleep’s what I want,” said Elisabeth lying down on the bed.
But sleep is no part of jet lag, and blood and sleep are not good bedfellows. “Oh, dear God,” she prayed in the beautiful plain bedroom with its lime-washed walls. “Maybe I’d better ask them if I can go in now.” Tears came. “Dear God—oh, it sounds like a letter—dear God, I can’t suffer any more. No child will come out of this. I’m suffering more than if it was labour, and nothing at the end of it.”
The phone by the bedside rang and it was Veneering, in Hong Kong. “You went Home then. Someone said so. Thank God. Look—Elisabeth, there is a very bad thing.”
“What? Edward? Not Edward, oh, God, no. No, we just spoke.”
“It’s Harry. My son, Harry,” and the line fell silent. At last, when it revived, Veneering was in mid-sentence: “. . . operate tonight.”
“I missed that. The phone cracked up. What’s happening?”
“Harry is very seriously ill. They’ve just had the X-ray of his leg. His femur. He’s been limping . . .” The voice faded again.
“Yes? Terry?”
“The school had him to the local hospital and the X-rays show . . .” Emptiness again. Then “show a hole in the femur the size of a hen’s egg. The leg is on a thread. It’s about to break. They want to operate tonight.”
“Tonight! Tonight? Where?”
“In south-west London. It’s not far from you. It’s a small hospital and there’ll be a bed for you there. In Harry’s room. It’s the hospital this man likes—he’s said to be the best surgeon in the world: but they always say that—it’s where he likes to operate. I’ll give you the number. The Housemaster’s taking Harry in now and he’ll stay until you come. He said he’d stay all the time, but was there somebody closer? I can’t get there until tomorrow. I’m taking the first plane out. Will you go? Just be there during the operation?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a miracle you’re back in London. It was just the slightest hope. I had to ring. Yet I was sure you were in Hong Kong.”
“Tell me exactly where and when. I’ll phone the school now.”
“He loves you, Betty.”
“And Elsie—?”
“Oh, she’s coming over, too. The day after me.”
“I’ll go at once. I’ll try to be there ahead of him.”
“I love you, Betty.”
Ordering the taxi, scrabbling in her still-packed luggage for night things—medication, sanitary towels, sponge bag—she found that the haemorrhaging had stopped and she no longer felt ill. She thought of the woman in the Gospel whose issue of blood of twelve years had stopped as she touched Christ’s garment so that he felt faint with the love she had drained from Him. Christ understood women. He romanticised nothing.
She arrived at the little hospital near Barnes Common ahead of Harry, and was told to wait in the room they were to share until he went down to theatre. Someone came in and asked her to go to see the surgeon who was standing in his consulting room examining X-rays, slotting them up on a wall against lights.
“Ah, come in and look at these, Mrs. Veneering. Good afternoon.”
“No, I’m not a relation, just a close friend. I’m sorry. I’m a bit squeamish. I can’t look. The father will soon be here. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be squeamish. By tomorrow this X-ray will be far out of date.”
He flung down into a pedestal chair that began to revolve, this way and that. The music goes around and around, she thought. But no, it does not. The end is silence.
The surgeon stretched out his legs and rested his heels on a window ledge, the back of his head towards her. They both stared at the sun setting over Barnes Common.
“Mrs. Veneering”—she thought: Oh, let it go—“Mrs. Veneering, we shan’t know that this is cancer until I have seen it with my eyes, but when I do, I shall know at once. The cyst seems to have sharp sides to it. Cancer usually has a woolly edge. A turbulent look. I believe that there is just a hope that this is not cancer and if not I shall go on at once to fill the cavity with bone chips which we’ll take from another part of Harry’s body where we hope they will coagulate. The cavity is very big. The operation to fill it will take most of the night. The longer you wait the more hopeful you can be. If I come to see you quickly it will mean that it is bad news and we shall be stitching him up at once. Then you and I and Mr. Veneering will talk together about the next step.”
“You mean there might be an amputation?”
“Oh, we won’t talk about that now.”
“If it is cancer, how long will Harry live?”
“About eighteen months.”
“Does Mr. Veneering know?”
“Yes. We spoke. But you will know the diagnosis before he does, as we are not able to reach him during the flight from Hong Kong. I want you, please, to stay here until he comes.”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
“You’ll be in Harry’s room and we’ll see that you have supper. Don’t drink any alcohol. It does not help.”
“Thank you.”
They shook hands and she said to him, “How do you manage?” and his glance moved away from her and he began to straighten the pages on his desk.
“How do you manage?” he said. “As a parent?”
When she got back to the room with the two beds there was Harry sitting waiting with his Housemaster from school. He was bright-eyed and making jokes, and when she came in he leapt to his feet and flung his arms round her neck.
“If it isn’t Mrs. Raincoat! Why ever are you here?”
“Your father sent me my orders.”
“He does have a cheek, my dad. I’m glad you’re here, though. There’s a great do on about my leg.”
“He’s
worried.”
“He’s crazy. I’m fine. I mean, they’re not going to cut it off. Goodbye, sir. Thank you for bringing me in. Sorry. I’m fine with Mrs. Raincoat.”
“Your old nanny?”
“No,” said Elisabeth. “But don’t be embarrassed. It’s been said before.”
“The school will be in touch all the time. You have the number?”
“I’ll stay until Harry’s father arrives.”
“Goodbye then, Veneering. Good luck. We’ll be saying our prayers for you in Assembly.”
“It must be bad, then,” said Harry. “That’ll make them sit up. I’ll be playing cricket again next season, sir. That’ll disappoint them.”
“He got out pretty quick, didn’t he? Was he glad to see you! Hey, Raincoat, what’s it all about?”
“We’ll know in the morning. Your father will be here. He’s flying over now and I’ll be standing by till he arrives.”
“Staying here? In the hospital? You must all be nuts.”
“Yes. I am, anyway. Now, be quiet and say your prayers. Here are a lot of people and a trolley, and they’ll take you down to start things off any minute.”
“They’re coming to take me away, tra-la,” said Harry. “Goodbye. See you tomorrow, Raincoat.”
She left him being told to take off his shoes and she walked down the long green corridor towards the glass doors and the canteen and the trivial world. She took some food and coffee and sat down with it and looked at it. Then she got up and walked out of the hospital into the Upper Richmond Road where the people were tramping or driving or walking or biking about, and the grit was blowing in their faces. When she got back to the room it was empty and Harry’s bed had only a sheet on it. Hers was turned down neatly for the night. The hospital was quiet and she felt light, without sensation or presence, and sat down on the basket chair that faced the door.
A nurse put her head round it, her face trying to disguise her pity with a smile that showed huge teeth. There was a row of the ugly new biro pens along her starched top pocket.
“There you are, Mrs. Veneering. All right? Harry is in theatre now and I expect you’d like a cup of tea.”