‘Well,’ he barked at me, ‘for the simple reason I haven’t seen a rash like this before.’ He tentatively turned my head to the side, then said again, ‘My God! You can’t put a pin between them. Painful?’
‘Yes, and very irritating. I want to scratch.’
‘You haven’t been abroad? No, no, of course you haven’t. Let me look at your arms. Take your clothes off.’
I took my clothes off.
‘In the name of goodness!’ he said. ‘Well, well, what have we here? What have we here? Put your clothes on.’
I put my clothes on; then I sat down and watched him pick out one book after another from his bookshelf. When he took out a very thick tome, he put it on the table to the side of me and as he flicked the pages I could see diagrams of people in all poses, and he kept talking at me: ‘You haven’t been handling any foreign substance, or eating foreign foods like these package things?’
‘No.’
‘And sure you haven’t been in contact with anybody…well, I mean with somebody who’s been abroad? There are carriers, you know.’
‘No, I’ve hardly been out of the house these last three weeks. Just to take Bill to the P.D.S.A. He’s got mange, and his hair’s dropped out and …’
His hand remained poised over a page. He turned his head very slowly towards me and stared at me for quite a long time; and then his fingers began flicking the pages over at a great rate. When he found what he apparently wanted, he stopped and began to read. After a moment he straightened up, ran his hands through his thick hair that seemed all a part of his face, and, his voice awe filled, he said, ‘You’ve got mange. Trust you. You’ve got mange, woman. There’s only one in a million humans contract mange, but you would have to be that one. You’ve got mange.’
‘What!’
‘I said, you’ve got mange.’
‘Mange?’ I stood up. ‘I’ve got mange?’
I was feeling my face now, my fingers patting it.
‘Well, you’ve just said you’ve been nursing your dog with mange, and his hair’s dropped out. It’s lucky for you that yours hasn’t.’ He closed his eyes tightly, screwed them up, put his head back and held his brow for a moment before, his face returning to normal, he said, ‘Oh, Maisie, Maisie, what next?’
Yes, what next. ‘Well, there’s one good thing,’ I said, ‘you can’t put this down to wind, can you?’
I saw a flicker pass over his face, and, his thick hairy lips moving one over the other, he went back behind his desk and sat down, saying, ‘You don’t believe about the wind, do you? That you can give yourself indigestion and all kind of stomach pains by swallowing wind.’
‘I’ll believe anything after this…mange!’
He was now writing on a pad; then he said, ‘Sheep-dip.’
‘What?’
He straightened up, sighed, then drew the air back quickly into his lungs. ‘Maisie,’ he said, ‘you’ve got the unfortunate habit of using that word, “what”, and in such a way that must be irritating to anyone who’s got to listen to it all the time. It’s irritating to me, and I only hear it now and again, at least on a Monday morning.’
‘Well!’ I was bridling now. ‘Well!’ I found myself almost glaring at him. And there was Hamilton in his usual position when in the surgery, with his feet on the back of the doctor’s chair, nodding at me and encouraging me; and so I went on, ‘Wouldn’t you say what if somebody was writing out a prescription for you to put on your face and your body and they said, “Sheep-dip,” just like that. Sheep-dip.’
‘Maisie,’ he said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to explain to you. The book doesn’t say sheep-dip, but this prescription does a similar job; mange is caused by a mite, and sheep-dip is used to cleanse sheep of vermin, and like them you should be dipped in it. I’m giving you a big bottle of it, at least the chemist will. Now, take it home and cover yourself from head to foot with it, and I mean exactly that. And don’t wear any clothes for three days. And you’d better buy a distemper brush to put it on with.’
‘Wh…at!’
‘What! You heard what I said, buy a distemper brush, a three inch one would do. And I repeat don’t wear any clothes for three days, just a loose kimono or something like that. Then have a bath. And if you’ve done the job properly you’ll be rid of your mange. If not, you’ll have to start all over again. Now, do as I say and don’t leave any parts bare.’ He paused. ‘And remember that. It’s important.’
‘You’re not joking? You expect me to do that?’
‘Joking, woman? Have I time to joke’—he pointed to the door—‘with that menagerie out there waiting to invade? Joking? Good gracious girl, have some sense! I never joke.’
As we stared at each other, there appeared on the screen of my mind a scene: I saw a farmyard, and in it a trough full of sheep-dip, and there I was, starkers, being prodded through it by grinning yokels. I took up the prescription from the desk, turned without another word and went out. I made for Gran’s; she was looking after Bill.
‘Mange?’ Gran squealed. ‘Never, lass! God Almighty! What’ll happen to you next? Mange. And all through that bloody beast. I’d get rid of him. I would, I’d get rid of him. You’ve never known a minute’s peace since you got him.’
‘Gran,’ I said slowly, ‘I never knew what companionship was before I got him. And I can tell you this, if he was to get smallpox and leprosy I still wouldn’t do away with him.’
She looked at me for some seconds; then she said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, lass. I know what it must be like for you, loneliness, I mean. Here’s me gets out and about, yet when I come back in the evenin’ and I know our Georgie isn’t comin’ in half-bottled, or so bottled that he’s popping his cork, I sit down here and I can tell you, lass, I feel very sorry for meself. So what in the name of God you must feel like, I don’t know. Aw’—she went to pat Bill but her hand stayed some inches from him; then she laughed nervously as she laid it on his head, saying, ‘What am I frightened of, anyway? I’ve been sticking zinc ointment all over him since you left the house. My God, just fancy…if I got mange. Eeh! that would be a scream. It would that. It would cause a sensation at the club, and I bet I’d get lots of cheeky offers for them to come’n paint the stuff over me. But it makes me think, can you manage it by yourself? Will I do it for you?’
‘And go home with my face plastered white?’
‘Yes, there is that, I suppose. Well, get yourself off. And take your bloodhound with you. Eeh, just look at him! Isn’t he a sight? Poor bugger. That stuff they gave you isn’t doing him much good, is it?’
‘No; and he’s terrified of it: he’s only got to see the bottle and he goes berserk.’
‘Well, lass, if the stuff the doctor’s ordered you cures you, then it should cure him.’
I smiled at her, saying, ‘You’re right, Gran. You’re right. I never thought about that.’
‘I’ve got a head on me shoulders, lass. I’ve got a head on me shoulders.’
I left Gran laughing as usual, and when I got home I thought it best that I wait to apply the lotion until after I told Howard …
If I’d actually said leprosy, or smallpox, his reaction couldn’t have been worse, for he backed from me; his mouth opened wider than I’d ever seen it, and he looked at me with his face screwed up as if there was emanating from me the most foul smell. And when he brought out the word ‘Mange?’ it sounded unclean.
‘Yes, mange,’ I answered brightly. ‘And I don’t think it will be wise for me to cook for you for the next three or four days as I’ve got to apply an obnoxious liquid. I understand it’s what they dip sheep in to rid them of vermin and such. Ticks, I think they call them.’ As I walked out of the kitchen he shouted after me ‘And don’t you make my bed.’
I turned and, the grin still on my face, I said, ‘Oh, I don’t mind making your bed, Howard. I can do that even with the stuff on me.’
‘I’ve told you. Keep out of my room.’
‘Just as you wish.’
‘
And out of the sitting room.’
Now the grin disappeared from my face as I turned and confronted him squarely, saying, ‘It is my sitting room, Howard. Your bedroom, you may consider you own, as you may the bottle room, but I’ll go where I like in the rest of the house, mange or no mange; and as you are very rarely in the sitting room nowadays I don’t think there’s any fear of your catching anything from where I might sit.’
‘And I’ll be in it less in the future.’
‘That suits me perfectly.’ I turned on my heel and made for the stairs, but stopped abruptly when I heard a yelp coming from the kitchen.
I was back in that room as if I’d been shot from a gun. He was just about to leave by the back door, and Bill was standing holding one of his front paws up; and now, my voice almost a scream, I yelled at him, ‘You do that just once again, just once, and I’ll go into the street and I’ll yell out what kind of man you really are. Do you hear me? I mean it, mind.’
He came back into the room and closed the door and, his voice low now, he said, ‘Sometimes I think you’re not right in the head. Nobody’s touched him.’
‘Look at him!’ I pointed. ‘A dog can’t lie, he’s standing holding his paw up. I heard him yelp from the contact with your boot.’ And then I added, ‘No. No, I won’t do what I’ve just said, go out in the street, but I’ll sell this house over your head.’
When I saw him smile, I felt a shiver go through me, and all my bravery seeped away at his next words: ‘There’s only thirteen months to go,’ he said, and on that he turned and went out …
Three days later, I took a bath, and, like a miracle, my mange was gone. I was back in the surgery the following morning, and I started even before he could get a word in, saying, ‘I haven’t come about myself. Look! I’m clear.’ I tapped my face. ‘It was as you said, it cleared the mange. But I want another prescription. I mean, will you give me another prescription because I’d like to wash Bill in it, to see if it’ll do the same for him.’
‘Certainly. Certainly. My, my; I’ve never seen you so bright and breezy for years. I think it would be a good idea if you contract mange every month.’
‘Don’t be silly…I’m sorry.’ I lowered my head, and when I looked up at him again he was grinning, and as he handed me the prescription he said, ‘Life going all right for you now, Maisie?’
My ephemeral happiness vanished and I answered, ‘If you’re referring to what I think you’re referring, no, just the same, but in a different way. I…I must tell you about it sometime.’
‘Do. Do. But wait till I’m on my holidays.’
‘I thought you were going to Spain for your holidays?’
‘I am.’
I saw what he meant and pulled my lips tight together while my eyes laughed at him. Then thanking him for the prescription, I made to go out, but I turned at the door and said quietly, ‘I’ve made up my mind I’m not going to have anything to do with you for a long time.’
‘Good. Good. Thank God for that.’ His voice could have been heard all over the surgery, and when I passed the receptionist she looked at me curiously and I returned her look with a dignified inclination of my head …
I duly washed Bill in the lotion, and to save him washing it off himself on the carpets I put his collar back on, fastened on the lead, and took him into the park, where I ran him in and out of the trees until the stuff dried into his coat.
Most of the regulars in the park took no notice. I knew I was known to them as ‘That young lass with the bull-terrier’, and their opinions were, I felt, that both of us weren’t representative of the standards of our particular breeds.
I left the stuff on Bill for five days for good measure; then I bathed him, and behold, his skin was clear. And in no time the hair started to grow on it again.
We had both come through a crisis, which had been funny in its way.
Three
Hamilton, I was finding, came and went on my horizon. There were days at a time when I wouldn’t see hilt nor hair of him, and other days when he was jumping about me all over the place. On one of these days the front doorbell rang and I opened it to see George standing there.
‘George! George!’
‘Hallo, hinny.’
I threw my arms about him, and he pressed me to him, then held me away from him, saying now, ‘What’s happened to you? There’s not a pick on your bones.’
‘Come in. Come in. How long are you home for? Oh, it’s good to see you.’ I hung on to his arm as we went into the sitting room, and there he stood in the middle of the room and looked about him. Such was the expression on his face that I didn’t speak for a moment or so.
‘It’s just the same,’ I said.
‘Aye, pet, aye, it’s just the same. But it seems a thousand years ago since I lived in it. In fact, I can’t believe I ever lived here. I suppose it’s the dumps I’ve been in since.’ He punched me gently on the shoulder; then, pulling me towards the couch, he said, ‘Come on, sit down and tell me the story of your life.’
‘I want the story of your life.’
‘Oh’—he pulled a face—‘you’ll hear it from me ma soon enough. She’s up in arms.’
‘Why?’
He turned his head to the side. ‘I’m a naughty lad.’
‘I never knew you to be anything else.’ But my banter died away as I added seriously, ‘You’re not in trouble, I mean, police or …? ‘Oh, no.’ He tossed his head from side to side. ‘Anyway, that’s a small trouble, nothin’ to worry about compared to other troubles I get into.’ He now leant his face close to mine and whispered, ‘Women. Playing the field.’
‘Oh, you are a bad lad. But why should Gran be upset? She knows you.’
‘Oh, it’s a long story. Can I have a sup tea?’
‘I’ll have to think about it. Come on.’ I caught at his hand. ‘Come on into the kitchen and tell me all about it.’
I looked at him sitting at the kitchen table, and the years fell away. I was a girl again and he was there, a bulwark: coarse, loving and kind…common, beautifully common.
He said, ‘I met a lass down in Devon. She was a part-time barmaid, a really canny lass in her twenties. I got into the habit of callin’ into the pub on me trips, and, like it is, we got to know each other and I got fond of her. Aye; aye, I did.’ He stretched his neck out of his collar, his chin knobbled and his lower lip pushed itself out as if in defence of his statement, and he went on, ‘Then…well, I must admit I got a bit of a shock, she had four bairns. Her man had walked out and left her a year earlier afore her last bairn was born, and she hadn’t heard a thing from him except she heard tell in a roundabout way he had joined a ship and jumped it in Australia. Well, I thought, bugger me, four bairns. No, thank you, Georgie. You’ve been in an’ out of women-trouble all your life, but this is a bit too much of a good thing. So I stopped callin’ in. And some months went past; then be-damned if I didn’t run into her and the four youngsters in the supermarket. You see, I’d taken a room in this town and was feedin’ meself. Well, what could I do? I walked along with her an’ the bairns an’ she asked me into her house. House, I said; it was a flat…It still is a flat.’ His head bobbed up and down now. ‘Three rooms you couldn’t swing a cat in, a six foot square they called a kitchen, and a similar place for the bathroom. But what impressed me right away was, it was clean, everything was spankin’ clean and tidy. And the bairns were clean. The youngest about sixteen months old, and the oldest on five. Two boys and two girls, and what they were starved for more than anything was a father, and they picked on me right away.’ He now grinned at me. ‘And anyway, there I am, stepfather again. An’ have been for the past six months, and if we could find out where her bloody man is and she could sue for divorce we’d be married. Aye, yes, you can raise your eyebrows. That’s what me ma did; and she opened her mouth at the same time, and you can imagine what came out of it.’
After I’d placed the cup of tea in front of him, I bent and kissed him on the side of the brow, and
as I did so I whispered, ‘Lucky bairns.’
‘Aw’—he put his arm around me—‘there’ll never be another like you. You were always an understanding lass. I loved you, you know. I still do. Oh aye, I still do. Nobody’ll take your place.’
I knew a moment of deep jealousy: four other bairns had taken my place. How strange I thought, this man who was made to be a father of a large family without a child of his own, yet giving out love in abundance to any child that came under his care.
‘You’d like her, Maisie.’ He pulled a face at me now. ‘She’s not loud or brassy. I don’t know why it is that people think that anybody who serves in a bar is bound to be loud and brassy. Anyway, she’s just the opposite, she’s quiet, even timid. She had a hell of a job gettin’ used to bar life, but it was the only thing she could do, to help keep them. You know, she put me in mind of you when I first met her.’
‘Oh’—I turned my head away from him—‘don’t stretch it, George.’
‘I’m tellin’ you the truth.’ He brought his lips tight together for a moment, then added, ‘Aye, I am. There’s something quite akin to you about her.’
‘Then all I can say is, God help her.’
‘Don’t be so bloody soft.’ Then leaning towards me, he said, ‘How’s he treating you now?’
I could answer honestly, ‘At present, things are quiet;’ the two years weren’t up yet.
‘Do you get on better with him?’
‘We don’t see much of each other. He’s manager now, you know, and he’s in with the boss and goes to his place most weekends.’
‘Oh, rising in the world. Doesn’t he take you with him?’
‘Now would he?’
‘Look’—he half rose from his chair, then sat down again—‘don’t keep knockin’ yourself, woman; you’ve got what lots of the lookers haven’t got, personality and a sense of humour. Put you in a taproom of a pub and you’d go down like a bomb.’
Hamilton Page 14