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Close to the shore at Bogany Point, Dr Jagannadham could be found walking in the mid-morning sun. His beard had begun to show some whiteness of late, and with it came an improvement in both his general refinement and his good looks. In one hand he carried a black notebook, and in the pockets of his favourite jacket, less pockets than tweed bags, he stored a number of blunt pencils, a pad of pH paper, an old penknife, and some plastic specimen trays. He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief and skipped over a wall. Daydreaming, he thought of laughter in Madras, he thought of his father reading out loud from the newspaper, and speaking of great events across the sea.
The doctor had three great interests of his own that season: types of fern on the Isle of Bute, the manufacture of soap in Third World countries, and most of all, most pressing of all, the nature of the sulphurated spring at Bogany Point. Dr Jagannadham surveyed the clear blueness of the sky over the island. He was deep in thought about the mineral content of the water in the spring – sulphate of lime, sulphate of soda, chloride of magnesium, silica, and common salt – and he considered it a shame that nobody bathed there now. He wondered if any of his patients suffering from rheumatism could be persuaded to come.
He checked his watch. Reaching the main road and fumbling for his car keys he made notes about the bracken. ‘Unfamiliar height this year. Browner. More persistent like a roll of carpet down to the rocks.’ He then got into his car and drove in the wrong direction round the island, the direction away from his surgery.
The doctor prided himself on the simple notion that no spot of earth or sea was too small for him. He said to his wife many times that a slip of land no bigger than the garden was world enough for a lifetime’s study and a lifetime’s pleasure. Yet his mind was often enough at a great distance, contemplating volcanoes, arguing religion, considering methods of production, converting from fluid ounces, and without this his work at the surgery might have become depressing.
He loved the island. He loved its bizarre Scottishness, its palm trees and mussel-shells: here was Madeira lost and found among the sea-lochs and narrows of the Firth of Clyde; here was another eternity of interesting things and typical sicknesses and pockets of history unexplored or taken for granted. Bute was a place of old habits and new discoveries, all of which saw him emerge in the morning with a special kind of aliveness.
He had the condition of finding nothing boring. His wife had an interest in ornamented beads and in Sigmund Freud: he found all that quite strange, but he would sit down quite happily and discuss them for hours. Dr Jagannadham liked to say the universe was accessed through an infinity of doors; he imagined too that none was truly closed to him, not if he put his eye to the keyhole or fashioned a key to its lock. But those things outside of himself were always the more gripping: he didn’t care to read his own mind or question his own motives, and when it came to the study of people, he found the greatest amusement in looking at his wife and daughter. To him they were always fascinating, always true: it was the very basis of his philosophy, their minds, their hearts, the world they breathed, his love of all that.
He was late as usual and the extra distance he drove that morning added half an hour to his lateness, but he considered it worth the trouble. Driving towards Ascog he thought about his interest in trees and this led him to think about graves. As he drove past the churchyard at Ascog he remembered there was a cemetery of one: only one person, an actor, Montague Stanley, who suffered at the hands of the London critics and died in 1844 with a moderate purse and a single wish, that he be buried against the church at Ascog.
Up ahead, on the way to Kerrycroy, the doctor saw two remarkable ash trees, favourites of his, which stood on either side of the road. The locals called them Adam and Eve. The trees were very old with numerous branches, some of which, like tender fingers, reached out and touched one another above the road. He drove further west over the island and stopped for a minute near Kingarth, breathing the air, looking over the water, and considered his closeness to the ruins of St Blane’s chapel and further inland the standing stones of the Black Park plantation. He turned and smiled into the sun, remembering that women and men had separate enclosures in that graveyard at St Blane’s. There was life in the grass as a breeze came in off the water and ruffled the blades and passed through the leaves overhead; Dr Jagannadham thought of a stone monument hidden in the field, a stone, quite recently chiselled, in memory of Eleanor Watt, 1745, who was taken by the islanders for a witch and a spy. The legend says her tongue was cut out and thrown at midnight into the sea.
Driving the car back to Rothesay, his imagination mingled with the air that came through the open window. He could smell compost and the smell was all over him in seconds. Edmund Kean was another one who would have liked a local grave: the tragedian had kept a cottage on the edge of Loch Fad, and the oak that grew there was once famous, nearly a dozen feet in girth. Kean had asked that his body be buried under that tree. ‘It never happened,’ said Dr Jagannadham. ‘The spot is empty.’
*
There were babies crying in the waiting room. ‘Hello, Dr Jag,’ said several of the women in turn. They sat in two long rows surrounded by scattered leaflets.
‘Hello, ladies‚’ he replied. ‘A good drying day.’
‘It is that‚’ said the one by the door.
The receptionist passed some letters through the window and the doctor disappeared into his room. Dr Jagannadham had never enjoyed the air of his room, which smelled strongly of carbolic. He was friendly as well as proficient; he knew them well, his ‘customers’, and managed to follow with solid interest the progress of Mrs Watt’s catarrh and Mr Kelso’s lumbago, allowing himself the occasional chuckle at the doorstep of adversity, though he was never known to be under-serious when the moment called for it.
After seeing several patients – a case of infant jaundice, a poison-finger needing lancing, an angina, a productive cough – he had ten minutes to himself. He took out the specimen trays from his pocket and scrutinised them, then put droplets of iodine into two of them, took a smear from another one, put it on a slide, and looked at it under the microscope. Ever since he was a young student it had given him a rush: the universe to be viewed under a microscope, familiar cell structures and microbes hurrying past the viewfinder in the mysterious blaze of their short lives.
There was a knock.
‘Can I come in, doctor?’
‘Of course. Oh hello, Rosa. Come and sit.’
Mrs Tambini had her hair in a bun and was wearing a raincoat despite the nice day, a raincoat held together by a belt from another coat, the colour of saffron. Dr Jagannadham smiled unobtrusively as he patted the notes into order. Rosa’s file of cards was more than usually thick, and written on them, in different pens, was a queue of notes, things she had said, doctor’s advice, and details of prescriptions, which he could see at a glance were uniform: powerful sedatives and anti-depressants going back years.
‘I’m that upset,’ she said, and immediately, quite automatically, she brought out a balled-up tissue.
‘Take your time,’ he said.
‘They haven’t even been round to see my new carpet. I got a new carpet put down and you’d think they’d come and see it and how you’re getting on but not one of them. You’ve got no idea the way they carry on. After all I’ve done. I’ve said it before it’s not people outside that hurt me, it’s family. They just walk all over you and they’ve never got any time just to sit down with you and take a cup of tea. How you doing? How you coping with this and that? Half the time they’d walk right past the door and it’s weeks at a time. Two weeks is a long time when you’re just sitting.’
The doctor clasped his hands on the desk.
‘I would fall out with them if I took it into my head. I’d just say don’t bother I don’t need anything from yous. Half the time you think well if that’s the way they want to be, I’ve never done anything but please them, they can just hang as they grow.
I hear other people talk about their families and it’s “Steven and thingmy were round last night” or “Angela was in with the weans”, and sometimes I just pretend mine have been round because I’m that embarrassed about how long they can let it go without a single thought. It’s no as if I’m an interfering woman, doctor. I just wish things were a wee bit normal. It’s a lonely life. When you’re just by yourself all the time it’s lonely and you’d think they’d want a cup of tea or a wee blether. It’s all work and you just feel hurted, it’s really very very seldom you see any of them now. Oh when they need something that’s a different story. Never lift a phone. It’s too dark at night now round here and it’s not my place always to go over to their houses without them asking. I got the man to come and put the wee bit carpet down but you couldn’t ask the likes of them to do a thing for you, I suppose they’re all getting on with their own lives. Maybe it’s just me. I can’t go to them and they’ve got cars doctor, you know.’
‘Has Giovanni been there?’ asked the doctor.
‘You never know if he’s coming or going. First he’s there and then he’s not. Terrible. Even when he’s there it’s no use, he is one selfish man and I’m supposed to just sit and take it and never complain. I’ve had it up to here. I’m not kidding it was easier years ago when we had to struggle and he would disappear but at least when he came back there was something. Now half the time I’m just sitting and I don’t know if he’s in or out and you can’t rely on him to do the café and that’s always been hard work you know. Nobody realises how much hard work and sometimes you just can’t be roasted doing it and it’s bound to get to you at times. I think to myself I’ve made them all welcome but they just go on as if you’ve not got feelings, as if you’re like a brick, and they say oh she’ll just get on no matter what, but half the time you think what’s the point.’
‘Rosa,’ he said, ‘slow down. You stopped seeing the counsellor.’
‘That’s not for me doctor, I mean he’s talking to me as if I’m half-daft, you don’t get anywhere with them people. I’ve taken the tablets but I thought what the hell and I put the rest of them down the sink.’
‘You’ve done that before. I believe they help you.’
‘Well I can see you’re right, but sometimes I just wish my family could be normal and I would be fine. I’ve done more for them than a lot of men and wives and would they lift the phone? What’s the reason? It’s lonely at times believe you me. It’s strange in that house and you don’t know where they are and I know they’ve got their own lives to lead but you don’t just forget the people that’ve helped you get to where you are today. I know my mother and I have never been great ones with each other but you’d think she’d come by. She knows it hurts me and I never see Alfredo, he used to be that good. Giovanni, well, you know he’s hopeless. He wouldn’t give you daylight in a dark corner. My problem is I was just too close to them and it hurts you, I was too close to them, and I’ve never asked for half of their bad feeling but that’s just life.’
‘Calm down. Here, Rosa. Take some water,’ said Dr Jagannadham. ‘And Maria is home?’
‘Her head’s in the clouds. She’s away with the fairies. You can’t talk to her, never could, not since she was a wee lassie when she was a different person altogether. I mean people come into that house and I make them welcome, I say “Take your coat off” and it’s a wee cup of tea and them that’s got babies can lie them kicking on the floor and I’ll go in and make tuna and mayonnaise sandwiches and we have a nice day. But family? I could run a mile. I’ve needed some papering done for a while now but you’d never ask them. I’ll get a stranger to do it. I wish to God it wasnae like that and you wonder sometimes what you’ve done to deserve it.’
‘But Rosa, Maria is not well. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course. She’s my daughter.’
‘Well, don’t you think maybe she needs you to be patient?’
‘It’s not her I’m talking about. It’s not her, it’s them that are in my life all the time. She’s here for a holiday.’
‘Not quite a holiday, Rosa.’
‘Well, she’s never taken much to do with me, doctor. I will do my best and will run here, there and everywhere for her, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting on her to do the same.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘You can’t speak to that girl. She’s always right. You can’t say a word to her, it gets to the stage everything you say to people is wrong.’
‘I think she’s very ill, Rosa.’
‘I don’t know what she’s trying to do. Can she not look around her and see what this eating thing is doing to her family and everybody else? People who have worked hard to put her where she is … I wouldny know where to start helping her. I’ve given her the best years of my life – her and all the rest of them.’
‘How’s your sleep?’
She paused and looked into the broken tissue.
‘Bad. I can’t get a sleep. I’m up all night and now with Maria here I’m worrying half the time. I have bad thoughts, doctor, and I don’t know what to do about them. I wonder half the time if anybody would even notice if I wasn’t here.’
‘No, come now,’ said Dr Jagannadham. ‘I’m reluctant to keep giving you this sleeping medication, Rosa. You know that. It is not a long-term solution, I’ve said that to you. You are depressed. You must try to keep up your sessions with the counsellor and seek to put some balance into your life. Do you understand me, Rosa? I can’t keep on writing prescriptions for ever. It is not the answer.’
‘I know that, doctor. The tablets are just till I sort things out. It’s not as bad as that. It helps me calm down I know that and sometimes if only I can get some sleep I know everything will be okay. I need to sleep.’
The doctor sighed. ‘Please tell Maria I will be round to see her this week. She needs to rest.’
‘That’s what she needs,’ said Rosa, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her hand. 'Things have just been a bit too hectic for her. Just getting on top of her a wee bit too much. A person can’t work like that and not get tired.’
*
The night Maria came back from London, she didn’t go straight home to her mother’s; she stayed with Alfredo until after dark. They had travelled from London on the train and Maria had shivered in her coat most of the way. She said she didn’t feel like going straight to the café, not yet, so Alfredo took her up to his flat on the Serpentine, and he sat her down and made her drink a glass of water.
Alfredo’s flat had always smelled of biscuits. Sitting on the black leather sofa, Maria remembered the smell, and also a day from years before when she and Kalpana had been playing on swings made out of rubber tyres, exhausting themselves, and then had come to Alfredo’s to drink tumblers of American Cream Soda. Alfredo’s coffee-table was the same one, and Maria noticed it was still covered with many of the same objects. Two packets of Silk Cut, a large calculator, a digital clock, a bottle of Tippex and a pile of the Hairdressers’ Journal. Everything was laid out in order, squared off, dusted, as if it had scarcely been moved or touched in years. That was Alfredo’s life: efficiently ordered and prepared, full of privacy and small, undeclared luxury, centrally-heated, shag-piled, and sometimes despondent and always mysterious.
He brought her a blanket and switched on the TV. Maria said she just wanted to sleep so Alfredo let her do that for a little while but then woke her with all his talk about what was going on in Rothesay. At ten o’clock he picked up her bags and said they’d have to go down to the café and see Rosa. Maria started to shiver again when they stepped outside and she took Alfredo’s arm and held on to a metal railing as they descended the steps of the Serpentine to the seafront.
Inside the door at 120 Victoria Street the café was quiet except for a few children standing around the jukebox. They didn’t turn round as Alfredo and Maria came in. Rosa was behind the counter and she nodded over. ‘That’s us closing now,’ she said to the boys. ‘Away ye go.’ T
he boys complained for a minute but then went out the door. Rosa came over and turned the sign to ‘Closed’ and turned the key.
‘Hello, mum,’ said Maria.
‘Heavens above, look at you,’ said Rosa.
She quickly rubbed Maria’s shoulder and helped Alfredo guide her into the back kitchen. They sat down at the table and Maria saw the table was polished. Rosa immediately started talking about something that was happening on a television soap, and asked for their opinions, but Alfredo said he didn’t know it, and Maria just smiled.
Rosa turned. ‘What a state you’ve got yourself into, Maria.’
‘I know.’
‘But we’re gonnae get you back to your old self,’ said Alfredo, and he reached over and patted her hand. He stood up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Rosa,’ he said.
‘Send me a postcard first,’ she said from the sink.
He went out and then Rosa went up the backstairs. The tap was dripping just as it always had. Maria noticed there was new wallpaper over the kitchen and the fridge was new. The room was quiet in a way she never remembered it being. It was as if all sound and life had gone from the house. She sat at the table, scanning the grain for familiarity, but felt she was in a dream, somehow visiting the past in her sleep. She stood up and walked over to the fridge and when she opened it her breathing halted for a second. The fridge was completely empty like the fridge in a cartoon. It wasn’t half-empty. The ribs of the white shelving were pristine in the midst of nothing. There wasn’t a butter dish or a bottle of milk: it was bare and the light at the back illuminated a hollow space.
Personality Page 23