Cottage Hospital

by Claire Rayner

  What he drank seemed to have little effect on him, in the way drink is supposed to affect people. That is, he didn’t become stupid, or over hilarious. His speech became more clear, his eyes sparkled, his laughter remained within bounds. But he responded to Barbara’s provocative glances with a firmer hold on the arm she had linked into his. He began to play up to her, capping her jokes with more, leading her along so that she was able to sparkle more than ever. They behaved like two people delighted with each other.

  It was nearly eleven when Barbara, with a murmured excuse, managed to extricate herself from the centre of the group, and made her way across the room to the hall. She stood there for a second, in the blessedly cool dimness, and pressed her hands to her aching head. She had hardly realised that her head did ache.

  She dropped her hands to the back of her neck and flexed her shoulders a little. As she looked back into the brightly lit drawing-room, she had a sudden revulsion of feeling.

  “How could I have behaved so abominably?” she thought drearily. “It was a revolting display –”

  “Auntie Bar.” The whisper that drifted from the staircase brought her round sharply. She peered into the darkness of the staircase, and as her eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, she could see Josie sitting curled up at the bend of the staircase, her fair hair drooping over her face, her dressing-gown pulled tightly round her thin shoulders.

  “Josie! What on earth?”

  “I’ve been watching the party,” Josie said softly. “I usually do. Mrs. Lester gives me sandwiches and things. Are you enjoying yourself?”

  Barbara climbed the stairs and slid down beside the child putting an arm across her bony little back.

  “Oh, I suppose so,” she said lightly. “That’s what parties are for, aren’t they?”

  “Daddy doesn’t usually like them.” Josie turned her head and stared through the banisters to the brilliant patch that was the drawing room doorway. “But he’s liking this one. I’ve been watching you.”

  Barbara suddenly went hot with shame. The thought of this sensitive child watching her display of girlish flirtation sickened her – and that her favourite aunt had been flirting with her father must have upset the child.

  “Josie,” she began awkwardly, but Josie snuggled her head against her aunt’s shoulder and went on dreamily, “I’m ever so glad he likes this party, Auntie Bar. He doesn’t like many things really, so it makes a nice change for him. You are nice to help him like it, Auntie Bar.”

  Barbara looked across the fair head to stare down into the room below. There was something infinitely pathetic about Josie, with her odd mixture of childish incomprehension, and almost motherly concern for her father’s welfare. For a moment, Barbara remembered the way Josie had burst out with her dislike of her mother, and she felt sick again. The adults in this child’s life seemed to make life dreadfully complicated.

  But now Barbara was too tired, too confused to think much about anything. “Josie,” she said gently. “You must go to bed, love. It’s awfully late, and it’s school tomorrow –”

  “Oh, not yet, Auntie Bar! Please. Let me see them going home. They all look so funny, the way they nod away at each other, and they always say the same things – please, Auntie Bar!”

  Before Barbara could answer, Mary came out into the hall below. “Barbara?” she called.

  Josie slid back into the shadows, seeming to shrink into something too tiny to be seen. Barbara, after a moment, stood up and walked sedately down the stairs, as though she had come from the top. It would be too cruel to expose Josie to her mother’s wrath.

  “Yes?” she said coolly, as she reached the bottom. “Did you want me?”

  “Not me, darling,” Mary was bubbling, “everybody else does. You’ve made a tremendous hit, my dear. You’ve been hiding your light under a bushel all these years. Come along!”

  Barbara grimaced a little at the cliché, but obediently followed her sister into the drawing-room, with a last look back at the drift of deeper shadow on the stairs that was Josie.

  But, somewhat to Mary’s chagrin, the party had begun to break up. People were drifting towards the door, murmuring platitudes, collecting handbags and dropped handkerchiefs and cigarette cases. The lights in the hall snapped on, and the guests began to shrug themselves into coats. Barbara looked sharply up the stairs, but the bend where Josie had sat, while still in the shadow, seemed empty.

  She shook hands in farewell, smiled at the people who said consciously charming things about her, helped others find their scattered belongings. Peter Blake was almost the last to go, and he held on to her hand, his palm a little damp, as he said goodbye.

  “Marvellous party, wasn’t it – so tidy –” and he laughed loudly again at what he thought was Barbara’s exquisitely funny joke. She managed to smile, and with a deft turn became involved in saying goobye to the few remaining people. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Peter Blake going slowly and disconsolately through the front door, and managed to avoid looking at him. It was Geoffrey who came, a little unexpectedly, to her aid. He firmly escorted the last guest to the door, swept him and Peter Blake on the way to the cars, and left Barbara standing quietly in the hall.

  Beside her, Mary sighed happily. “One of the best Mondays ever,” she said contentedly. “You really are naughty, Barbara! To listen to you, anyone would be entitled to think you were the complete mouse! We must have more parties –” and she nodded happily, looking as contented as the cat who had stolen the cream.

  Barbara was too tired to say a word. Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll explain. Tomorrow.

  “I’m going straight up, Barbara. You needn’t wait, my dear. Geoffrey will lock up – Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight!” Barbara echoed, and watched her sister climb the stairs. Josie must have gone to bed, she thought. Mary walked past the bend in the stairs without a glance, and she must surely have seen the child had she been there, wide though the staircase was.

  Geoffrey came back through the open front door, and closed it sharply behind him. He stood there for a second, and then he smiled at Barbara.

  “Sister-in-law,” he said gaily. “Sister-in-law, you are a positive angel.”

  He was still flushed and bright-eyed, cheerful from the drinks he had had. “I told you you’d make this party bearable, for me, didn’t I? And you did more – you made it real pleasure. Come and have a drink!”

  Barbara shook her head, and started to walk to the stairs. “No thank you, Geoffrey,” she said. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, but I’m so tired I could sleep on my feet. And I’m on duty at eight in the morning –”

  “Oh, so what?” He followed her, and pulled her back beside him. “I insist – if it’s only soda water. Come along.” He led her back into the drawing-room. Barbara, genuinely tired, too tired to argue with him, sank into a chair.

  “Oh, all right then,” she said wearily. “Soda water, and that’s all –” and she closed her eyes against the bright lights that made her head ache more.

  And then, suddenly, she felt strong hands grasping her elbows and she was pulled to her feet. She opened her eyes sharply, and stared at Geoffrey’s face suddenly so close to hers.

  “Geoffrey! What in hell? –” But she could say no more. His arms were round her, and he buried his face in her shoulder, murmuring something she couldn’t hear. She tried to push him away, but he was too strong for her, kissing her neck, seeking her face, as she twisted and turned in an attempt to escape.

  “Geoffrey – you – stop it –” But with one firm hand he took her chin, and pulled her face round to meet his. For a fraction of a second he stared at her, and then his mouth was on hers, burning hot, urgent, almost bruising her mouth in the intensity of his kiss.

  She struggled violently, but it was as though she were a kitten, so little effect did her attempts have. He went on, murmuring thickly, kissing her again and again. And then she managed to get an arm free, and brought it back sharply to deliver a sting
ing blow on to the side of his face.

  There was absolute silence for a second. Then he dropped his arms and stood, rigid and absolutely still, staring at her, his face chalk white except for the flaming marks Barbara’s fingers had left.

  “Oh my God,” he said, almost in a whisper, taking a deep shuddering breath. “I must be – Barbara –” He put a hand out towards her, almost beseechingly, but she pulled away from him, to stand, still and angry, looking at him, her mouth twisted in disgust.

  “You’re drunk –” Her voice was icy. “Revoltingly drunk –”

  He shook his head, muzzily, as though to clear it. “Yes – I must be –” He rubbed his head with a suddenly shaking hand. “Please forgive me – Barbara, please. I beg your pardon. I don’t know what came over me.” He looked at her helplessly for a moment, the sparkle and personality that had invested him during the party quite gone, his old drab self again. “You looked rather like Mary for a moment – the Mary I first knew. You are both – beautiful – I’m sorry.”

  Barbara, rubbing her forehead wearily, felt suddenly deflated. Her rage and disgust evaporated almost as fast as they had come. “Forget it,” she said dully, “it was as much my fault, I suppose. I’ve been behaving like a – like a tart all evening – Oh yes I have,” she rode over his protests. “And you have drunk too much. Forget it. I’m going to bed.”

  She turned and went to the door, and then she stopped. “I’ll arrange to move into the Nurses’ Home tomorrow,” she said, her back to him. “I don’t think I should stay here, after all.”

  There was silence for a second. Then Geoffrey said, evenly, “I think perhaps you are right. It might be better all round. Goodnight, Barbara. And please forgive me.” She nodded, wearily, and still without turning, went out and on up the stairs. As she went into her room she thought she heard a door close softly across the corridor. She turned her head to look, but all the doors were closed, Jamie’s, Josie’s, the spare bedroom, their blank whiteness gleaming at her in the dim light.

  She pulled her clothes off and dropped them haphazardly on the floor, something she had never done in her life before. And after a moment’s thought, she took a small bottle from a box in her bedside cabinet, and swallowed one of the bright red capsules it contained. She needed to sleep tonight, more than she needed anything. And without help, that would be impossible.

  Chapter Five

  “I’m sorry, Mary,” Barbara said again, trying not to sound mulish. “I just think it would be better for all of us if I lived at the hospital. And anyway, there might well be times when I shall have to be on call at night – when Matron’s away. You won’t want the house disturbed by the ’phone ringing in the middle of the night –”

  “That is absolute nonsense,” Mary snapped, “and you know it. By all means sleep at the hospital on nights you must be on call but there is no reason at all for you to live anywhere but here while you are in Sandleas. You are just being stupid and silly.”

  Barbara’s mouth tightened. This discussion had been going on for nearly a quarter of an hour now, and how she had kept her temper she didn’t know. She had tried everything she knew to persuade Mary that living in hospital would be the best thing for her to do – everything, that is, except the truth. Now, for a wild moment, she almost blurted out the truth. “I can’t stay here any longer because your husband kissed me last night, and neither he nor I want to live in the same house any longer.” But how could she? Particularly as Barbara still felt a sick shame when she remembered the way she had used Geoffrey as someone to flirt with. So she tried again.

  “Mary,” she said with all the patience she could muster, “I’m not used to living in an ordinary house. I’ve lived in a nurses’ home for the past ten years. I’m just more – well, more at home living in hospital –”

  “Then it’s time you made an effort to learn how to live in an ordinary house. Shutting yourself up like that won’t get you anywhere.”

  This time Barbara’s control snapped. She stood up from the breakfast table where she and Mary were sitting, and resting both hands on it, she stared at her sister with naked dislike on her pale face.

  “I’ve told you till I’m hoarse that I don’t want to be settled, as you so elegantly put it. I’m not here to be trotted round and shown to various men until one of them takes me off the marriage market. Do you understand? I know exactly what you mean by ‘not getting anywhere’ but I’m quite happy as I am. Just because you have a mind that doesn’t go beyond running your house and bullying your husband and children and anyone else you can find to bully, you think that’s the only way to live. Well it isn’t the way I want to live, thank you. I’m a nurse, and I like being a nurse. If I marry it will be incidental – not just something that’s convenient, and comfortable, but something that happens by itself.” Barbara stopped, trembling a little, and stared at her sister’s rigid white face. For a brief moment she wanted to stop, to make an effort to re-establish the uneasy relationship they used to have. But it was too late for that.

  “You make me sick,” she said, her voice, usually so low and quiet, pitched to an almost hysterical shrillness. “You see the world as something that exists just for your convenience. People are something you push around as though they were – were pawns on a chessboard. You’ve made your daughter into a frightened neurotic child, your husband is a pale carbon copy of the man he ought to be – thank God your son’s got enough strength to keep his mind to himself. Well, I’m a bit like him, I hope. I’ve got a mind of my own, and I’ll run my own life. I’m damned if I’ll let you decide what I shall do, and where I live – I’ll see you in hell first! I’m moving out of this house, and I never want to see you again as long as I live –” and she threw her napkin, still clutched in her cold hand, on to the table in front of her, and ran, almost blindly, from the dining-room.

  She slammed the door behind her, and stood shaking and sick in the hall outside, her eyes closed as she tried to regain her calm.

  After a second she opened them – and saw Josie standing very quietly in front of her.

  “Josie –” she said after a moment, “I thought you’d gone to school –”

  “I forgot my algebra book.” The child didn’t look at her, keeping her head bent as she fumbled in the satchel slung over her shoulder. “I had to come back for it –”

  “Oh, I see –” Barbara tried to make her voice sound normal and relaxed. “Have you only just come back, or -?” Had Josie heard her shouting so bitterly at Mary? After the emotional storm Josie had had, when she had said that she hated her mother, the last thing Barbara wanted was to let the child realise that her aunt, too, felt the same way.

  But Josie merely said “Mmm?” and brushed past her into the drawing-room, looking vaguely about her for the missing book. After a second or two she came back, and still not looking at her aunt, said, “I must have left it at school – I’d better go. I’ll be late. ’Bye Auntie Bar –” and she ran towards the hall door.

  “Jo –” Barbara ran after her. “Look Josie, I’m afraid I won’t be here when you get back today – I’m going to live in the hospital. It might be easier if I do –” she said lamely.

  Josie stopped, and without turning, said, “Oh – are you?”

  “I have to be on call at night, you see, sometimes, so I have to be there. Perhaps – perhaps you’d care to come there to tea with me one afternoon?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Josie said, “Yes – that would be nice. I must go, I’ll be late – ’Bye Auntie Bar.”

  Barbara watched her as she ran off down the drive, her heavy satchel thumping against her legs as she ran.

  “Josie must have heard,” she thought dully. “Poor Josie. Whatever I do it seems to be the wrong thing. I’ll meet her after school one afternoon – perhaps I’ll be able to explain –”

  Then, squaring her shoulders, she turned and went into Geoffrey’s study.

  As she dialled the number of the hospital on the telephone, s
he heard the rattle of brooms and buckets in the hall outside as Mrs. Lester started the day’s work. Then Matron’s voice was clacking tinnily at her from the telephone.

  Succinctly she explained that she had, after all, decided to take a room in the Nurses’ Home. Would Matron mind if she arrived late for duty this morning, and brought her luggage with her?

  “My dear, by all means! It will be nice to have you here but won’t you miss that lovely house? We aren’t nearly so comfortable here, I’m afraid –”

  “Not at all,” Barbara said crisply, “I’m used to nurses’ homes. I’ll be there as soon as I can make it, Matron.”

  Whether it was because Mary had planned it that way, or by accident, Barbara didn’t know, but she saw no one as she hurried up the wide staircase to her room. She packed her cases with the speed and method that had been developed during the years of the rigid discipline of nursing, and, with her head high walked out of the pretty blue room, and down the stairs. She could hear the whine of Mrs. Lester’s vacuum cleaner above the sound of “Housewives’ Choice” on the kitchen radio, but that was all. Mary’s voice, usually raised loudly as she gave the day’s instructions to Mrs. Lester, or arranged one of her countless committee meetings on the telephone, was silent.

  Barbara wondered if she should go and look for her sister to say goodbye. “After all,” she told herself, “it’s common courtesy to say goodbye when one leaves someone’s house –” but she didn’t. Whatever efforts Barbara made, the sisters were parting in acrimony. Seeking Mary now might merely lead to more bitter words, more anger. Better to leave things alone, bad as they were.

  So, humping her two suitcases herself, Barbara walked out of the big comfortable house and down the well-kept drive. And even though she still felt upset by the argument, still ashamed of her behaviour at the previous evening’s party, still embarrassed by Geoffrey’s unexpected amorousness after the party, her main sensation was one of overriding relief. She was going back to where she belonged – to live in hospital.