The Cultured Handmaiden, page 21
She just checked herself from saying, ‘He must be mad not to try and move.’ Yet for a man like that to be told that he was suffering from anything appertaining to hysteria would clamp down on any attempt at trying to move; should he succeed it would go to prove there was a weakness in him, a mental weakness. And she felt she understood him enough to know that he couldn’t face up to that. His was an outsize ego; he was a big man in his own eyes; a car crash wasn’t going to deprive him of that conception, not right away, at any rate.
‘Dr Turner is bringing a specialist to see him next week. We’ll have to take it from there. By the way—’ His voice softened a note as he now added, ‘You look as tired as I feel. I’m sorry I’ve kept you up. Where have they put you?’
‘In the room opposite.’
‘Oh.’ He pursed his lips and jerked his chin upwards as he said, ‘That wasn’t a good move. You’ll be getting calls in the night; there’s an intercom there. He’s awake now in the early hours. I moved from there; I just had to. He’s got to learn some kind of discipline and recognise that people can’t be up all day on their feet and all night too.’
As she looked into the face before her she saw the lines of deep strain on it. He had, she surmised, been pressured almost beyond his strength these last months. Doubtless, his private life had been disrupted too; his present way of living wouldn’t leave much time for his girlfriend.
She wondered what type of girl he had chosen. She must have been sufficiently attractive to make him leave home, leave this house and what had, under his mother’s control, been a life of easygoing luxury. He wasn’t an unattractive man, and in happier moments and his face without strain, she could imagine that he would appear quite good-looking in an austere kind of way. She said, ‘Will you be waiting up for Lucy?’
‘I certainly shall,’ he answered.
‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said. No names were exchanged.
Before entering her own room she quietly opened the opposite door and through the dull pink glow from the bedside lamp she could see the head turned on the pillow; the eyes were closed, and from the look of him he could have been dead, all dead. Yet he was alive. Down to his thighs he was alive. She wouldn’t have believed it.
Minutes later as she was undressing for bed, she visualised what he would be able to do with the use of his body: he could get about in a wheelchair; he could get into a car; he could go back to the office.
He could go back to the office.
Two
‘If he’s able to walk about the hospital floor he’s able to walk about this house.’
‘John thinks…’
‘Never mind what John thinks; I’m sick of listening to what John thinks. Jinny’—Bob lifted his hand slowly towards her—‘I want to see my lad. It’s been months. They’ve had three goes at him. The way I see it, if he’s not any better now he’s never going to be any better. As John reports, he can walk and he can talk…’
‘Yes, but it’s how he can talk.’ She was nodding towards him now. ‘John’s only trying to…well, to prevent you from being further hurt because…’
‘Aye, go on.’
‘Well, you’d better have it.’ Her voice was cold. ‘Only the truth will get through to you and it’s this: you’ll never see Glen again as he was. His mind has reverted…back, gone back…’
They stared at each other now for a while; then he said, ‘Reverted to what? Gone back to what?’
‘Well, from what I can gather, he’s gone back to his childhood; he doesn’t remember anything about the accident. Well, he did the once, and then he became aggressive.’
‘Aggressive, you say? And now reverted to a lad?’
When he closed his eyes she said, softly, ‘He’s had no aggressive turns since the last operation, and they don’t think they will recur.’
He was looking at her again. ‘All right,’ he said quietly, ‘he’s a lad once more; what’s to stop him acting like a lad in his own home? And if he needs any looking after, there’s Willie. Willie has a job to fill up his time with me. An’ there’s you: you have a job to fill your time with me; yet, if you would do what I ask you might be doing something towards earning your keep.’
‘Oh, really!’ For the first time since coming into the house she lost her temper with him; and she almost barked at him now, ‘Let me tell you that just being with you is paying dearly for my keep, and I consider myself vastly underpaid. But I can alter that tomorrow. No, today, this very morning. There’s another vacancy in Peter’s office. Nell is begging me to go back there. She was only on about it on Friday when she was here…’
‘Oh, to hell with Nell! And all the bloody lot of you, you especially. If you don’t know what I mean now when I open me mouth and let me frustration out you never will. Go on, get out!’
She turned from him and went quickly from the room, and she almost ran into John. Closing the door behind her, she stood looking at him in silence as she gnawed on her lip; and he, jerking his head towards the door, said quietly, ‘He’s hit you where it hurts at last, has he? You’ve amazed me you’ve stood it so long without retaliating.’
‘I’m amazed myself.’ Her voice certainly wasn’t quiet as she went on, ‘I think I’m mad. Yes, I am mad, because I seem to spend my life putting up with thankless people. Well I’m not too old to change that.’ She almost thrust him aside, then marched across the landing and down the stairs. And John stood looking after her for a moment before opening the bedroom door and going in.
When he reached the side of the bed he stared at his father: ‘You’ve done it this time, you know,’ he said. ‘The mood she’s in she could up and go.’
‘Let her.’
‘Let her, you say?’ John’s eyebrows moved upwards. ‘You would know it if she did. Who do you think’s been running the place? Not Lucy; I can tell you that. And Dorry and Cissie do what they’re told. They always have done. As good as they are there’s no initiative there. What was it all about anyway?’
‘If you want to know, it was about you baulking me with regard to Glen.’
‘Oh.’ John turned from the bed, saying now, ‘Well, I’ll go tomorrow, and if the doctors say it’s all right I’ll bring him back with me.’
‘You will?’ Bob’s voice was quiet now, and John, turning to him again, said tersely, ‘Yes, I will. But I want you to prepare yourself, because your Glen is no more.’ Leaning towards his father now and his voice dropping low, he said, ‘He was your pride and joy, wasn’t he…Glen? Wasn’t he…Glen? There was nobody like Glen. He had it all up top, and in the right places. But now, Father, you’ve got to face the fact that Glen has nothing left up top, except memories of a young boy, about twelve I’d say. And why he’s reverted to that age nobody can tell. But he talks of school and passing exams, and he writes poetry, little rhymes. Do you remember? Do you remember that stage? No, I don’t suppose you do, because you would have thought it silly, so he wouldn’t have told you that he went through the arty stage, as I did, only mine lasted much longer and it got your back up. He knew that, so that’s why he didn’t let you into that part of his life. But now, he’ll present you with it from the minute he shambles in the door and you look on him.’
‘There’s a cruel streak in you, you know, John.’
‘Well, I know where I get it from. It didn’t come from my mother. Now I’ll have to take meself and my cruel streak downstairs and see what I can do with Jinny, because, frankly, I’ve never seen her look like she did a minute ago. There’s more to her than meets the eye, you know, Father.’
‘You can’t tell me anything about Jinny.’
‘No?’
‘No. She came on to my horizon with a chip on her shoulder as big as a plank, and she’s spoken to me as nobody else has dared do. You can’t tell me there’s another side to Jinny.’
‘Well, that being so, the other side is very much in evidence at the present time. The only thing I’m surprised about is she’s lasted so long without rebelling.’
‘You make me out to be a bloody tyrant. You always have done.’
‘Well, to use an old phrase of yours, I speak as I find.’ And on this he turned and walked from the room.
On the landing he stood looking down towards the carpet. How unfair life could be where love was concerned. For as long as he could remember he had longed for the love of that irascible man lying in that room. He could recall waiting for him to come home at nights just to see if for once he would look at him like he did at Glen. But he never did. If he put his hand on his shoulder he could rest assured that his other arm would be hugging Glen to him. And he himself had loved Glen too; and Glen had been understanding of the situation. There were times when they had talked, when his elder brother had tried to persuade him that their father was as fond of the one as of the other. Glen could see his need, his father never.
He found Jinny in the office. She was sitting behind the desk, sorting out some bills, and she didn’t lift her head when he entered the room.
Pulling up a chair on the opposite side of the desk, he sat down, then said quietly, ‘I’m the representative from the firm of Meek, Meek, & Meek, ma’am; I’m their conciliatory agent. My client in question is in a poor state at the moment. Such is his unusual state of mind that he cursed only twice during a five minute conversation.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Jinny’s lips moved one over the other in an effort not to smile. She clipped a number of bills together, pulled open a drawer in the desk, threw the bills in before pulling another small pile towards her.
‘Jinny.‘ John’s voice was without jest now. ‘He’s in a bit of a state; so I told him I’d bring Glen back tomorrow, that’s if they’ll allow it.’
She lifted her eyes to his as she asked, ‘Does he know what to expect?’
‘I’ve told him bluntly, but I didn’t tell him that what he’s feeling now will be nothing to what he’ll go through after a couple of days of Glen. I’ve been with him for only a few hours at a time, and it’s wearing. He chatters, never stops. It’s so pitiable. You want to cry, and at the same time land out and box his ears as you would do a boy that kept rattling on senselessly. Yet, I shouldn’t say senselessly because what he talks about makes sense to him and would have to any young boy in the late Sixties. But then of course, he’s not going to be the only one that’s to be affected. There’s you. It’ll be Willie’s job to look after him, and he’s used to all kinds of cases, but you’ll be in contact with him too for most of the day.’
He stopped speaking and looked at her, and she returned his glance but paused before saying, ‘Well, as I said a little while ago, I can walk out, that’s my position, but you, you can’t, not any more. And if…Well, Glen has already got on your nerves after a couple of hours of him, what’s going to happen when he’s here twenty-four hours of the day?’ She now leant her elbows on the desk and, joining her hands, lowered her chin on them as she now added, ‘I was thinking the other day, there’s no reason why with Willie and me being here, and Lucy, that you can’t have a little private life, like you used to.’
His expression didn’t alter. He rarely smiled, which she thought was a pity because he looked most attractive when he smiled. He was a sad person, was John, which his caustic tongue, very like his father’s but without the colouring words, did not hide. Over the past months she had come to know him fairly well, and she knew that the more she saw of him the more she liked him, because in a way she recognised something in him that she identified with. It was a sense of loneliness. Undoubtedly, the reasons for such a feeling were different for each of them, but it was there.
Her own expression altered to one of mild surprise as he, as if imitating her stance, put his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands and drooped it slightly to the side before saying, ‘Are you suggesting that I should be happier if I spent my nights in sin?’
She let out a long breath, pursed her lips, then said, ‘Yes, I suppose I am. Yes, I suppose that is just what I am advocating that you should do. You have a flat, and you have a girlfriend…’
‘What makes you think I have a flat and girlfriend?’
‘Well, haven’t you? You had. You left home to pursue this course, so I understand.’
‘That was not the sole reason I left home, there were many, and the main one is lying upstairs. But to return to the girlfriend and the flat. What makes you assume that I have a girlfriend at the flat?’
She shook her elbows from the table and rested her hand on the blotter, and her lips parted, then closed and parted again before she said, ‘Well, I just…assumed, as you say, that…that when you went out…Oh, what does it matter?’
She tossed her head.
‘It matters. It matters to me, Miss Brownlow, what you think, for, in a way, I have to live with you. Just in a way, of course.’ His face stretched now, and he nipped at his lower lip, his expression indicating laughter. But she didn’t respond, she didn’t feel like laughing. There was still some annoyance left in her, and she was tired. For the first time she had admitted to herself, what Nell had for some time been stressing on her weekly Sunday visits, she was tired, deeply tired, and it was showing.
As if he was picking up her thoughts, he said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s the wrong time for the funnies. You are tired, and no wonder. And thank you for your concern. I mean, for me and my…private life. But I can tell you now that I haven’t a flat, and I haven’t a girlfriend. And what is more, I hadn’t had the flat and I hadn’t had a girlfriend for a long time before my New Year visit.’
As her eyes widened he nodded at her and said, ‘I was in digs with a Mrs Burrows in Bog’s End; in fact that’s where my flat was; I couldn’t afford this end of the town.’ A small grin spread over his face; then he went on, ‘I must tell you this, Jinny, and please don’t be annoyed, but Mrs Burrows had a daughter who was a hairdresser.’ As he watched the colour flood over her face he said, quickly, ‘Now I asked you not to be annoyed. Betty, that’s the daughter, came back one night and told us what had happened. Her employer, Mrs Smith, apparently knew all about you, even if you didn’t know about her. She knew you had worked at Henderson and Garbrook. Your dear friend, Mr Campbell, had put her in the picture, just to allay her jealousy I suppose. Well, whatever it was, I put two and two together. And as you might have gathered, I don’t laugh much—well, there’s nothing much to laugh at in this life—but I laughed until I cried. What with you having a bash at Miss Cadwell, then going for that swine of a pervert and his trollop, well, I thought: Never believe your eyes, John; there goes a fighter.’
‘Oh, be quiet!’ She got up and walked towards the window; one cheek of her face cupped in the palm of her hand. And now on the verge of tears, she said, ‘I’m no fighter. I…I never want to fight, or argue, or…But well, I’d had so much of it, I could stand no more. And the circumstances were such…’
‘Jinny—’ His arm was around her shoulders, and he turned her about to face him, saying, ‘Don’t apologise for being a fighter. Be glad you are. You should offer up a prayer that there’s some part of you that resists. If I could only do that, strike out physically. But what did I do? I turned and ran; like a hotheaded teenager I ran away from home. And what did I do next? Being spiteful, I did what I knew would hurt him most, I shacked up with a girl instead of in the first place standing up to him and telling him what I thought, what I felt. And now here I am, still without the courage to tell him what I feel, because now it’s too late. He would think it pity or at best compassion; he would never take it as love.’
She had the urge to let the tears flow, not for herself now but for him; she had the urge to put out her arms and hold him, as she sometimes held his father, yet differently. Oh, yes, differently. She drew back from him. ‘It’s never too late to tell someone of that kind of love,’ she said.
‘Just that kind of love?’
She was walking from him now towards the desk, and she turned and said, ‘Yes, just that kind of love. The other kind just asks for trouble.’
‘You seem to have made up your mind firmly on that score.’
‘I have. Oh yes, I have.’ She was now seated behind the desk, and he stood looking down on her bent head for some seconds before he said, quietly, ‘Well, I’d better be off now. I’m to go to the factory once again and get a report from Waitland. It’ll be the same as before, and Father knows it. They’re telling him nothing.’
‘I can tell you one thing. Those reports are faked; they make no mention of the order we were negotiating in January…Perhaps they’ve lost it. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. Then there was the business in Hamburg. No mention of that either. It did mention a new contract in Belgium, but that’s all; just a contract with a firm. And he’s worried about the looks of things in the steel industry. There could be trouble there. They’re closing down right, left and centre.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about that; I feel just like an errand boy.’
‘There is something that could be done.’
‘What?’ He had turned from the desk but was looking at her once more, and she answered, ‘Well, you could get information on how things are really going from someone in the offices, or from a worker on the floor. You could walk round and have a word with them, and ask them to come up and see your father.’
He shook his head slowly as he said, ‘Espionage.’
‘Yes, if you like to call it that.’ Her voice was flat. ‘There’s Mr Meane. He’s in the drawing office. And also the head clerk, Mr Bury. They’re friends, Mr Meane and him. They would know how the land lay, at least contract-wise, I should think. Then there’s the shop floor.’ She smiled now. ‘Jack Newland and Peter Trowell; and there’s a Jimmy Moford. They are the spokesmen down there. Always looking for trouble, but any one of them would know the temper of the floor and what’s going on. You could have a natter with them and say your father would like to see them. Yes, that’s an idea. Any one of them. Oh, particularly Jack Newland would feel he was getting somewhere if he came here. And you’d get more out of them than you’ll ever get out of Mr Waitland or Mr Garbrook, or Pillon…Arthur Pillon, who dubs himself assistant works manager.’ She grinned now. ‘He runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds, and he’ll likely tag on to you if he sees you around the shop. Get rid of him if you can.’
