‘Oh, Michael, Michael. Come and lie down, come on!’ She pulled him to his feet, and when they were in the bedroom she undressed him, and then herself, and ignoring his tiredness, and shameless in her need of him, she made him love her, and love her again.
When it was finally over and they lay looking at each other he saw that she was relaxed and happy, and he considered this a good time to give her a piece of news that he felt she should know. Softly he mouthed, ‘Barbara.’
‘Yes, Michael?’ She was moving her fingers gently in small circles around his face. Her eyes looked dreamy.
He pressed back a little from her and began to speak; then changed his mind and spelled out on his fingers, ‘There is something I think you should know.’
‘Yes, Michael.’ Her eyes were fully open now, staring at him.
He waited a moment, pushed his thick white hair back from his forehead, then again on his fingers, he said, ‘It’s to do with Ben.’
As if controlled by a switch her whole face changed. A dark shadow spread over it, and her voice was high and sharp as she cried, ‘Michael! Michael! You know I don’t want to hear anything about him. I’m…I’m sorry he is the way he is but…but if you’re asking me to go and see him you know it’s impossible. I would have gone to see Brigie after she wrote to me, I would, I would, but he was there, and I can’t explain it to you. I’ve tried, haven’t I? But not even you understand. The other two, I loved them, and they me, but he…he never did. Right from the beginning there was something between us. My fault, yes, I admit, my fault, because I kept seeing that…that Mallen man every time I looked at him. And he grew up to be like what I imagined Thomas Mallen was, big, brash, a woman raper!’
‘It’s all right. Please, listen. Now be calm, Barbara.’ He was holding her hands tightly while shaking them. ‘Listen. I’m…I’m—not—asking—you—to—go and see him.’
‘You’re not?’
‘No; I…I just want to tell you something. He’s…he’s…’
‘Dead?’
‘No, he’s not dead, he’s very much better.’
She lowered her eyes from his lips for a moment, then looked at them again as they moved and said, ‘What I haven’t told you is that Hannah, my Hannah, has been nursing at the Hall for some time, and he is one of her charges…And now listen, Barbara. This might seem very strange to you. And yet why should it be? What I mean to say is…Oh’—he shook his head—‘I may be imagining all this, yet I think there’s something in it.’
Her expression checked his speech; then, her voice a faint whisper, she said, ‘You mean? You can’t mean!’ Her face screwed up in visible protest.
‘Now, now. Don’t get upset. It was just something she said when she was over last week. It might have meant nothing, but on the other hand it might have meant a lot. Anyway, it caused a row in the kitchen as usual. They had referred to him as…Oh’—again he shook. his head—‘it doesn’t matter. But it was in her defence of him that I imagined…What is it?’
‘No! No, Michael.’ She was pressing back from him. ‘I couldn’t bear it. Your daughter and Ben!’
‘Why?’ He leant on his elbow and looked down at her. ‘I should have thought that it would have given you some comfort, that two people who were part of us were going to have some happiness out of this sorry business. I…I thought they could have been you and…’
‘Don’t, don’t say any more about it. It isn’t right.’
‘Why isn’t it right?’
‘It just isn’t, I couldn’t bear the thought of…Oh!’ She jerked herself from his hold and got up from the bed and pulled on her dressing gown.
He dropped slowly back on his pillows and looked at her. He had never imagined her taking the news like this. He had thought she might be a little sad to think that her son and his daughter were reaping the happiness that had been denied them, that was all. But…but she was furious. She was right, he couldn’t understand this feeling that she had against her own son.
He sighed deeply. He was tired, physically and mentally he was tired. He had of late wondered how much longer the situation could go on. But then he had harboured the same thought back down the years. And look how long it had lasted, more than twenty-five years. And for nearly all that time the short hours of their life together had been spent in this cottage, and the payment he had been called upon to pay was hell on earth back there.
The farm that had been the place of wonder and joy to him in his youth had turned into a cage. Yet he had never ceased to love the cage and its setting; it was his gaolers who had made his life unbearable. And where was it going to end, where? They were getting worse, both of them. His threats to sell up were losing their effect. They knew he wouldn’t have the courage to carry them out.
His life as he saw it now had been wasted, utterly wasted; he hadn’t done one good thing with it, except breed Hannah. But would Hannah be able to stand up against them, if what he imagined was growing between her and Ben Bensham should come to anything? She was strong was Hannah, but those two had ways of breaking down strength. If only he had been as strong, really strong, not just stubborn. He had faced himself long ago and he didn’t like the look of himself.
He glanced towards where Barbara was sitting huddled over the gas fire and a wave of shame swept over him. It was true he loved her, and had always loved her, but he hadn’t loved her enough to walk away from that valley, and them. At first he had made the excuse he couldn’t leave his child, and then when his child no longer needed him he fell back on the old tags of duty, the duty that she herself had placed upon him when she had maimed Sarah.
Oh, he was tired, so tired, weary. Where would it end? They were neither of them getting younger. Yet her passion burned as fiercely as when they had first come together, too fiercely for him at times. He was tired, in more ways than one he was tired. He turned slowly onto his side and closed his eyes.
The blood was running down the side of Barbara’s lip where her teeth had broken the flesh. She couldn’t stand any more, she could not stand one more thing. This was the limit of her endurance: Sarah Waite’s daughter—she did not call her Radlet, for she still thought of her as the cowman’s niece—Sarah Waite’s daughter and her son! It made no difference that her son was already dead to her; another insult was being heaped upon her.
She was very much aware that Ben would, on Brigie’s decease, become master of the Hall, besides which, being Dan’s son and a partner in the business, he was already a rich man, and all this would go to benefit Sarah Waite’s daughter.
That the girl was Michael’s daughter also was merely an accident, so her troubled brain told her. She had always been jealous of his love for his child because, she imagined, it lessened his love for herself. The next thing he would be telling her was that his resurrected moral code would not allow him to carry on their association any longer! Men did this kind of thing, she had heard of it, they used the woman for years under the cloak of love, then got religion, or cold feet or whatever name you cared to put to it, and the association was ended. And what happened to the woman? What would happen to her if…if?
She was so alone she was going mad. She couldn’t go back home with her mind in this state, she couldn’t, she couldn’t. And then there were the days ahead thinking of Ben and that girl. He had said there might be nothing in it. Then if he thought that, why had he brought the subject up?
Oh, there was something in it. Oh yes, yes, there was everything in it. And that girl. Once she was married to Ben, what would she do? She’d bring her mother, Sarah Waite, and her grandmother, Aunt Constance, dear Aunt Constance—Aunt Constance whom she had hated all her life—she’d bring them all over to the Hall and there they would live in comfort and grandeur. She saw it all; it passed like a cinematograph picture before her eyes. She saw her Aunt Constance walking leisurely about the grounds, a parasol held nonchalantly across her shoulder. She saw Sarah Waite, not walking with a crutch but being wheeled by a servant through the rose garden towar
ds the lake; and that girl, Sarah Waite’s daughter, dispensing tea on the lawn; then to the side, the picture showed her Dan and his woman, Ruth Foggety, and their daughter, all happy together and laughing like a family; and she was standing outside the gate looking in.
She was gripping the iron bars; she could feel the cold seeping through her body. Now she saw Michael in the picture, Michael accepted, forgiven. She saw him take his mother’s arm and walk towards the woman in the wheelchair. The only person not present was Brigie; Brigie would be dead.
She stared at the fire. No, no! She couldn’t bear this. She had stood all that it was possible to stand. She would break the picture, the contented happy picture. She could do it. Oh yes, she could do it. This was one thing she could do. How? How? Well, if Michael and she were to die here, now, this very day, there would be no coming together of her son and his daughter, not after that. Oh no, not after that. But it must be done now, now, no waiting. She had waited too long. Oh yes, far too long for Michael to be her own.
Pulling herself up from the chair she went quietly to the bedside. He was asleep; he was so little concerned about her feelings that he could sleep. Such was the make-up of men, even of her Michael, her beloved Michael. Oh Michael, Michael. Oh my love, you will understand. Shortly you will understand because we’ll be together forever. No more separations, never again, never again.
She stood staring down at him for a full minute; then slowly and deliberately she walked to the fireplace, turned the gas out, waited until the flame had entirely disappeared, then turned it on again, and to its full extent this time. Then walking swiftly she went to the door and closed it and placed a mat against it, and from there she turned and came back to the bed, and slowly and quietly she lowered herself onto the floor beside it. Putting her arm out across the bed until the tips of her fingers touched those of his, she laid her head to the side and waited. And strangely her last thoughts were not of her beloved Michael, nor yet of her husband, nor of her hated son, but of Brigie, the only mother she had known, and as she drifted into sleep she thought, The shock will kill her, and she’ll be with us too. I’ll like that, for after all I loved her. And she won’t try to separate us again.
Seven
It was around half past two on the Friday afternoon and Hannah was again about to go off duty, and again she wasn’t smiling and had no pleasant word for her patient. At this moment she was feeling anything but pleasant. ‘There’s a Chinese proverb,’ she said, looking at him from the corner of the screen, ‘and it says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with but one little step”.’
‘I know it. And now I’ll tell you one, and I’m sure you haven’t heard it. It goes like this: “Nerves are like guerrilla warfare. You get them out of one sector and they spring up in another.” That doesn’t go far back as the Chinese, it was coined in France…’
‘By one Murphy?’
‘Yes, by one Murphy.’
‘So you know something, Captain Bensham?’
‘No, but I’m willing to listen.’
‘I’m tired of your Murphy and his philosophy and his poetry. I’ve listened to him for months. What you should do is let Murphy drop over the edge of the Earth.’
‘He did, Nurse Pettit, he did drop over the edge of the Earth.’
‘Well then, he’s gone, and you should forget about him because I can’t see that Mr Murphy’s great philosophy did you or him any good.’
‘His name wasn’t Mr Murphy, Nurse. Believe it or not his name was Gerald Pertwee Featherstone-Gore, but he retaliated against it, and because of his inordinate love of potatoes he went by the name of Spuds or Murphy; I preferred Murphy, and he was a very dear friend of mine.’
‘Well, he’s dead, and as I see it there’s nothing so dead as death; it’s final, it’s finished. And I’m as much against those who spend the rest of their lives weeping over the dead as I’m against those who make saints out of sinners once they are dead. Anyway, I’m off duty now and I’m wasting no more of my time persuading you one way or the other to go along that drive and out of that gate. But there’s one final thing I’ll tell you and it’s this. If your Master Lawrence isn’t moved from upstairs shortly, Mrs Rennie is for the road, and the whole place knows it. If I’m right, your idea was to spend the rest of your convalescence in the cottage, right?’
‘Right, Nurse.’
‘Well, as far as I can gather Lawrence would go there quite willingly with you, or Mrs Bensham, and as things stand now I don’t think Mrs Bensham is likely to take up residence in the cottage again, so that leaves you. And don’t forget, although you’ve already had two offers of a manservant, they’re not going to hang around forever…Oh, why am I bothering! After all it’s got nothing to do with me.’
‘No, you’re quite right, Nurse, it’s got nothing to do with you.’
They stared at each other, each face showing hostility, until Hannah’s became scarlet. Then she swung round and marched from the room.
Ben sat perfectly still in what, from outward appearances, looked as if he had returned to the closed room of his mind. But his mind was working and at a furious rate. She was an aggravating woman—girl—miss—missis or whatever you could call her, really aggravating; she always had to be right. Had he talked so much about Murphy as all that? Had he spouted poetry? He couldn’t remember doing that, but he must have. Murphy had been a great one for poetry. He was going to put them all into book form had he survived.
So is my need of you so great,
So great your loss inside my breast,
That void to void so deep a hole
Forever in it sank my soul,
And time, and solace, makes no quest
To draw it back to life’s fast spate,
For what is life without you.
‘So is my need of you so great’…No, no, it wouldn’t do. There were enough complications in this family already, but that would put the tin hat on all of them. He, his mother’s son, and her lover’s daughter coming together? Oh no! No! Not if he could help it.
But one thing she said was right; he must get out of that gate and along to the cottage. And once he got back into life, into ‘life’s fast spate’, there’d be all the women he needed. He’d never had any fear of being without a woman. Yet of late he had not felt the need of one, not as he used to. But it would come back. Oh yes, it would come back. As she said, once he made himself go outside that blasted gate.
But outside the gate the land was bare and wide, stretching into infinity; inside the grounds, there were still many trees left and they bordered the edge of the earth, but beyond the gate were fells, and hills, and all slipping downwards, toppling forever downwards…If the road to the cottage had been sunken it would have helped, but as he remembered it it ran along level ground, and in parts it rose above the level of the fells.
When the door opened he realised that Nurse Byng was somewhat late in making her appearance; he also realised she was in some kind of a state and the bearer of bad news.
‘Eeh, poor Petty! You’ll never guess what’s happened, Captain Bensham.’
He became stiff. He felt sick. A dizziness rushed into his bead and his voice sounded like a squeak when he said, ‘Nurse Pettit? Something has—has happened to her?’
‘No, no, not to her.’
The sickness subsided, his head cleared.
‘What then?’
‘A man’s just come over from the farm, her uncle I think he is, and he’s brought terrible news. Eeh! It’s awful. Her father, her father’s committed suicide.’
‘…No!’
‘Yes. He was found in a cottage with a woman. They had gassed themselves.’
He was in the void again. Everything in him had stopped; there was no beat from his heart, no breath in his body; space, space all about him. He heard a distant voice crying, ‘Oh! Now Captain Bensham. Come! Come! Captain Bensham.’
So was my need of you so great, so great your loss inside my breast…what is life without you? He
was mourning, his whole being was mourning. But who was he mourning? Her? Whose loss? His own? Or Hannah’s? But why should he mourn her? For if she had taken a hatchet and come over here and killed them both before she put an end to herself and her fancy man she couldn’t have severed the unspoken hope that lay between him and Hannah more cleanly. But it was her he was mourning, her in whose womb he’d swum along with the other two like tadpoles in a jar held by a string in the hand of God. The other two she had loved. Yet he was her first-born; it was he who had broken her water and made way for the others—and made way for the others—and made way for the others— Here he was going again, slipping away over the edge, and there was no lifebelt to cling to, she had gone back over the hills—over the hills—over the hills. The thin thread between them could not stand the strain of that distance. It was ended, finished.
Eight
They buried them both on the same day, and by accident, certainly not by design, at the same time but in cemeteries far apart.
There was only one mourner following Barbara. It was impossible for Brigie to attend and for Ben also; John unfortunately had suffered a slight heart attack, and could not travel; and so Dan stood at the graveside alone but for the minister and the gravediggers. And there was in him a loneliness that was fathomless.
Yet over the hills, in the far valley, a long cortège followed Michael; farmers from all around, businessmen from the town, and those he’d had dealings with in the market, they all came to pay their respects, and offer their sympathy to the widow who, God knew, had had it rough all her life. That she’d had to suffer this last indignity was, in their concerted opinion, a bit bloody thick. Yet on the other hand when all was said and done a man’s life was his own.
The Mallen Litter Page 29