The Mallen Litter

by Catherine Cookson

  When his gaze became fixed on her face she looked back into his eyes and she smiled shyly while asking herself uneasily whether she should talk or remain quiet. Nurse Conway had given no instructions along these lines. She decided to talk.

  Her voice faltered slightly when, nodding towards the window, she said, ‘It’s a beautiful morning.’ She paused. ‘The gardens are looking lovely.’ Another pause. ‘It’s…it’s a pity they’ve dug a lot of them up for vegetables.’ Now she swallowed, or rather gulped, then she said, ‘It’ll…it’ll be nice when you’re well enough to take a walk.’ Her voice trailed away as she imagined she saw the skin of his face move. It was like a faint ripple; it was there one second and then it was gone, she must have imagined it. She did not talk any more but tried to assume a calmness under his vacant stare.

  It was with genuine relief that she rose to answer the tap on the door, and when the young ward maid pushed a tea trolley towards her she said, ‘Oh thanks, thanks. We can do with that.’

  After closing the door she drew the trolley towards the window. He was still looking straight ahead as if she had never left the chair. She talked now as if to herself, saying, ‘Oh, toasted teacakes. I must say they do you well here. Can’t grumble about the food. Bread and butter, jam. Ah, strawberry! I wonder if the pips are wooden.’ She glanced towards him, smiling, then shook her head at herself.

  She poured out the tea, brought the trolley close to his side, then, lifting his hand from his knee, she placed the cup and saucer in it. He could feed himself, they said, which was odd she considered, for why, when he could move his muscles, did he assume a rigidity that made him appear paralysed for hours and hours on end? She stood watching him as he drank the tea. He did not sip it, but poured it down his throat, hot as it was, almost at one go. The action was rough, almost uncouth.

  ‘You’re thirsty,’ she said and took the cup from his hand and refilled it, but before she gave it back to him she put a plate into his hand with half a buttered teacake on it. Now his eating took a different form; he nibbled at the teacake and then chewed slowly before he swallowed. When she offered him the other half of the teacake he made no attempt to lift it to his mouth, and so she began to coax him. Her hand on his shoulder, bending forward, she looked into his face and said, ‘Come on, try. Just have this other bit. It’s very nice. You must eat. You’re a big fellow you know, you’ve got to get some flesh on those bones.’ At this point her mind chided her for treating him as a child, but what else could she do, she asked herself, he was a child.

  ‘All right then, if you don’t want it.’ When she went to take the plate from him his fingers formed a grip on it, and then he was lifting the teacake to his mouth, and as if she had achieved a victory she laughed gently as she said, ‘There now, there now. You wanted it after all, didn’t you?’

  When he had finished eating she said, ‘I won’t press you to any bread and butter, and really, I always suspect the jam.’ She leant towards him, her face smiling again. ‘You know my father swears he knows of a factory where they make wooden pips to put in raspberry and strawberry jam.’

  She felt slightly silly and not a little guilty at mentioning her father to him. As his eyes surveyed her, she turned to the trolley and, picking up a piece of currant loaf, she said, ‘Try this, it looks nice.’

  When her hand and the plate were pushed slowly but firmly aside and he reached out to the trolley and picked up a piece of bread and butter, she stood gazing at him. Well, well; he knew what he wanted. There must be times when his mind worked in an ordinary fashion; could that mean he understood what was being said to him? She’d better be careful, they should all be careful and not treat him as a mental child. Poor soul. Poor soul.

  He reminded her in some ways of the stories of her childhood. He was like the giant who was locked away in the fortress of a bigger giant, and was being slowly starved to death. But he had put his hand out and taken that bread and butter. She must tell Nurse Conway about that.

  An hour later she told Nurse Conway about it, and Nurse Conway said, ‘Did he really? Are you sure?’ and she answered, ‘Yes, he pushed the currant bread away and put his hand out and took half a slice of plain bread and butter.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll report that to Sister and she’ll tell Matron. The doctor will likely be interested to hear that an’ all…’

  But the great news didn’t get as far as the matron, for the sister informed Nurse Conway that Captain Bensham had shown such signs as this in hospital, but they hadn’t lasted, in fact according to his record he had regressed after such an effort; efforts tired him.

  Every afternoon for the following week Hannah relieved Nurse Conway, and it was on the Friday afternoon that she met his father and Mrs Bensham.

  She hadn’t seen ‘the old lady’ since the day she came for interview, and then she had only caught a glimpse of her going to the lift, and she hadn’t needed to be told that the shrunken little woman with the straight back was Brigie. Even without the attention being meted out to her, she would have recognised her.

  It was around three o’clock in the afternoon when the matron herself heralded into the room the old lady and a slightly built man, who looked about fifty and who bore no resemblance whatever to the patient sitting by the window.

  The matron had a loud and cheerful voice. ‘Here we are then, Captain Bensham, here we are, two visitors for you, your father and…’ The matron never knew what title to apply to Brigie when connecting her with this man, so she ended still on a loud note, ‘Mrs Bensham.’

  The figure in the chair didn’t move; it was as if he were stone deaf, like his mother.

  Matron now turned from Brigie and Dan towards Hannah, saying ‘This is Nurse Pettit. Nurse Conway is off duty, and I’m afraid Nurse Byng has gone down with tonsillitis, and the winter over. Dear, dear! One doesn’t expect such things.’

  As Matron motioned her, with a discreet movement of her hand, towards the screen, indicating that she make herself scarce Hannah thought, What a stupid thing to say. And her a matron and all. And the winter over. But then, likely she was embarrassed in her own way. It must be very difficult ushering the owner of a house into one of her own rooms as if she were nothing more than a visitor.

  Matron was saying now, in a low voice, ‘The nurse will be on hand should you need her,’ then she made her adieu and left.

  Hannah sat behind the screen in the far corner of the room; she opened a book and attempted to read. Then after some moments, curiosity getting the better of her, she made no further pretence at reading but strained her ears to catch what was being said, and as she listened she shook her head, for the father was talking to his son like everyone else, as if he were addressing a child.

  And this was exactly how Dan did see Ben, as a child. As always, he was finding it difficult to talk to him. If he had been called upon to speak the truth he would have admitted that he hated to come into this room because, when he looked at his son, this son who had been ‘the big fellow’, tears seemed to ooze out of every pore in his body.

  Poor Ben! Poor fellow! It would have been God’s mercy if he had gone with the other two; oh yes, yes. Yet he was selfish enough at times not to wish him gone, because he was all that was left of his own flesh and blood; besides John, of course, but John was a different sort of flesh and blood.

  It was hard at times to believe that this was his son he was looking at, this great shell of a man who had twice been mentioned in dispatches but whose mind had eventually been burned out in the fires of war, shell-shock they called it, on top of slight gassing. Ironically the gas from their own lines had turned back on them, driven by a contrary wind one day in September 1915. Minutes later a shell had burst which should have blown him to pieces, but it had left no physical mark on him, it had just turned him into a living corpse. Yet he was much better, if one could use the word better, than he had been some months ago in that hospital. God, that hospital! He would have gone mad himself if he’d had to visit there just one more time
. The agony of seeing grown men rocking themselves like babies and, like babies, crying with the same whining frustrated cry of a hungry infant was too much.

  The doctor said Ben’s case wasn’t unusual; withdrawal symptoms he called them. He said he had frozen and had placed a wall of ice between himself and reality as it were, but he would gradually thaw—he hoped.

  And he had thawed, but his second state was worse than the first, for, unless heavily drugged, he continued to talk, wail and shout for hours on end, and not only that but he would also attack anyone who went near him.

  His thawing caused him to be put under stricter confinement, until gradually he took up the pattern of immobility for much longer periods and his outbursts became verbal only.

  Dan had had to pull a lot of strings before he could get him transferred to the Hall, for the military had passed it to be used only for what they surprisingly termed mild cases of shock and recuperation.

  He had begun, as he always did, ‘Can you hear me Ben? Can you understand me? You…you are much better. You—are—doing—fine. The doctor’s report is—good.’ He looked into the unblinking eyes and nodded. ‘Brigie is here. Aren’t you going to look at her? She has come all the way from upstairs to see you.’ He still spaced his words.

  ‘Oh! Don’t put it like that, Dan.’ Brigie’s voice was low and thin; but it had no tremor to it, it still retained the timbre of the Miss Brigmore tone. Still low, she went on, ‘Treat him normally. I’m…I’m positive he understands; behind it all I’m sure he knows and understands.’

  She recalled that Katie used to talk to Lawrence like this. Katie. Dear, dear Katie. She would miss Katie.

  There was a movement behind the screen as if a book had dropped and they both looked towards it. Then Dan said, ‘Yes, yes, perhaps you’re right.’ He coughed before resuming, and slowly and sadly now, he said, ‘Your Aunt Katie died yesterday. Poor dear Katie. You remember your Aunt Katie?’

  Their eyes were drawn to Ben’s knee on which his first finger was tapping, and Brigie muttered, ‘There, there, what did I tell you! I’m sure he wants to say something. He’s trying; look at his face.’

  Brigie now put out a thin wrinkled hand and turned Ben’s face towards her, and as she did so there was a sound as if he had clicked his tongue forcibly against the roof of his mouth, yet his lips hadn’t moved. The sound was repeated louder this time, and now his lips did open and as the words tumbled from his mouth Hannah came quickly from behind the screen.

  ‘Murphy!—Murphy!—Hell’s—flames—Murphy—bleeding—guts—over—you—go—High Command—High bloody Command—Hell—Imbeciles—Imbeciles—Imbeciles—Over—you—go—Murphy!—Murphy!’

  Hannah, who was now holding his hands, which were twitching as if from slight electric shock, turned her head to where Dan was assisting Brigie to her feet and said quietly, ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  Dan nodded at her, and the expression on his face was almost as sad as that on his son’s.

  When the door closed behind them, the agitation in Ben’s hands lessened a little and his words were spaced more evenly. As he talked his head nodded, but all the while he kept his eyes on her face as if pleading with her.

  When big slow tears spilled over his lower lids her own blinked rapidly and she murmured, ‘It’s all right. There, there, it’s all right,’ and she put her arms about him as she would have done with a child, and pressed his cheek tight against her shoulder trying to still the flow of his words, but all the time he went on talking. From what sounded like gibberish she recognised here and there place names, battle place names; then he began to repeat words that sounded like poetry. Over and over again he kept saying, ‘Swimming—in—the—womb—like—a—tadpole—in—a—jar, held—by—a—string—in—the—hand—of—God.’

  He must have repeated it ten times when she lifted his head away from her and pressed him back into the chair, and the movement checked the rhythm of his words. His voice less agitated, he began chattering about Murphy again, and she sat by his side and took his limp hand into hers and asked gently, ‘Who is Murphy?’

  ‘Murphy. Murphy—towards his dissolve—Murphy—dissolve—’

  ‘Who is Murphy?’

  ‘Murphy. Murphy—all guts, Murphy.’

  ‘Who is Murphy? Tell me, who is Murphy? Your friend, another officer?’

  ‘Murphy. Wise Murphy, wise Murphy.’

  The door opened and the Sister entered.

  ‘Having trouble?’

  ‘No, Sister, just…just a little spasm.’

  ‘People are so thoughtless, people who should know better, they should never have told him about his aunt. His father said he thought that’s what brought it on,’

  Sister Deal now looked at her watch and said, ‘You’ll be relieved in half an hour, and it’s your day off tomorrow isn’t it, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘You’re lucky you live so near and can go home.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘There now, there now.’ She flicked a thread from the front of Ben’s dressing gown, saying, ‘Dear, dear; it’s untidy we are,’ then went straight on, ‘It’s a pity Mrs Bensham has an antipathy towards motor vehicles or else someone could have driven you over the hills tonight.’

  ‘That’s all right, Sister. Jacob’s van will get me across first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Is it very far?’

  ‘About seven miles.’

  ‘Your people have a farm, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, Sister. Wolfbur Farm.’

  ‘Do you like these parts?’

  ‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Yes, I like them very much.’ And she did. If her home had been happy she would have been content to stay among the hills for life.

  ‘I wish I did.’ The Sister now looked at her and, the dignity of her position slipping from her for a moment, she was just one young woman talking to another as she said, ‘I’ve never been in such a benighted place in my life. What…what did you find to do, I mean before the war?’

  ‘Oh’—Hannah lifted her shoulders—‘everything. At, least, looking back it seems that there was never a spare moment; and the highlight of the week was going into Hexham with my father…’

  ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, he’s off again.’

  They both turned towards Ben who was now yelling unintelligibly at the top of his voice, and the Sister said, ‘I think we’d better get him back to bed. I’ll give him a shot to quieten him down; it’s been too much for him. I still say they should never have told him about his aunt.’

  Up on the floor above, Brigie, watching Dan walking back and forth, said suddenly, ‘Stop that and sit down. It won’t get you anywhere.’

  Dan sat down; then he leant forward, put his elbows on his knees, and dropped his face into his hands.

  Brigie did not speak for some moments. Her tongue flicked in and out over her wrinkled lips until she stopped it by sucking them inwards as if pressing them down on some emotion, which was exactly what she was doing.

  At ninety-five she knew that her heart could not stand the pressure of too much emotion, emotions wore one out, and of late years she had been grateful for the habit that she had been forced to acquire during her governess days of disciplining her emotions. She could count on one hand the times she had allowed them to get the better of her. Now, it was imperative to her very life that she did not allow old age to weaken her defences. Her voice was calm as she said ‘He is better than he was; you should he grateful for small mercies.’

  ‘Sometimes I think I would rather see him dead.’

  She endorsed this statement wholeheartedly but she didn’t voice it; what she said was, ‘He’s in good hands, he’s getting every care, but the one we must think about now is Lawrence. What’s going to become of him? Poor, poor Lawrence, one won’t be able to say of him he’s in good hands and he’s getting every care, if he goes into one of those homes. With all the money in the world, you’ll never get the right people to look after him.’
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  Dan straightened up and passed his hand tightly over his chin before he said, ‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about Lawrence, Brigie. You have to make your mind up on that.’

  ‘I don’t agree with you.’

  He turned his head and looked at her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, and now, Dan’—she raised her finger and moved it once in his direction before going on—‘before I tell you what’s in my mind, I must ask you not to condemn it out of hand. I may be old in years and I admit my body, although not decrepit, is not what it used to be, but my mind is still as clear today as it was thirty or forty years ago, and, I consider, much wiser than it was at that time. Now.’ She folded her bony hands on her lap, put her head slightly to the side and continued, ‘I’ve always been very fond of Lawrence. I…I could communicate with him long before anyone else could and as I’ve said many times, and to you yourself, there is wisdom in Lawrence that would not shame some professors. If it hadn’t been for one of the doors in his mind closing, he would, I am sure, have done great things. As it is we have a five-year-old boy in a thirty-year-old frame, so what I propose, Dan, is to…to bring him here. Now, now.’ She lifted her finger again. ‘I know I may die soon, next week, or this very night, but I may live for a year or two, in fact I may even reach a hundred if I give my mind to it.’

  ‘You certainly won’t if you take on Lawrence.’

  ‘Sit down, sit down, Dan. Why, you speak as if the poor boy were obstreperous. He’s as gentle as a…’