At the Jerusalem, page 13
No.
‘I didn’t sleep last night, Celia. I disturbed your father: he grunted at me. I hope to doze in the sun. In the grass. Like the cat does. I shall lie in the grass and rest. Make my mind up for me, please. You say where it is we’re going. Say.’
No.
‘Your hair is lovely in this light. It glows, glows…’
‘Susy’s come.’ Nurse Barrow stood beside her. ‘Susy’s with you.’
‘Yes.’
‘The Home’s so peaceful. Your friends—’
‘Friends? Friends?’
‘Calm yourself. I meant the ladies. They’ve gone to the seaside. What a palaver there was before the coach left! Chattering away, rushing around. They’ve dressed themselves up, put on powder and rouge – you’d have smiled to see them.’
‘Is that my tea?’
‘I am wicked, holding on to it. Here you are.’
‘Where’s my breakfast?’
‘You’ll eat in the dining-hall.’
‘Oh.’
‘The ideal day for the outing, I must say. It will brighten their lives up a bit, give them something to talk about during the winter. Can you picture them, Faith, on the promenade?’
‘Yes. I can.’
‘Only six of us left in the Home. There’s you and me and Cook, and there’s Nurse Perceval to see to Mrs Hibbs and Miss Burns. As I said, we’ll have the dining-hall to ourselves, and after we’ve eaten we can spread out in the sun and feel the benefit.’
‘In the grass.’
‘Little of that out the back. A bench will have to do.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you want the tea?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Gadny drank her tea in two gulps.
‘Where’s it gone?’
Instead of answering, she complained of a headache.
‘Move away from the window.’
Mrs Gadny stood up. She walked across the room and stopped at the door.
‘You shall have a tablet,’ Nurse Barrow said. ‘Are you ready to go down?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can’t go down in only a slip. Find a dress.’
Her dress was on the bed. She held it up.
‘No, Faith, not the wool. Not in the heat. Put your print on.’
‘Where?’ She felt helpless; too weary to look. ‘Where?’
‘Calm yourself. I can see it hanging with your other clothes.’ Nurse Barrow took the orange print from its hanger. ‘I’ll help you. Stick your head in.’
She lowered her head. Nurse Barrow pulled the dress down her body. ‘Shall I comb your hair?’
‘My head aches.’
‘I’ll comb it for you when the pain’s cleared.’
‘Yes.’
*
A breeze stirred the leaves above them.
‘The peace,’ Nurse Barrow said. ‘The peace.’
No babble of voices by the graves. No stones grinning.
Thelma’s heels clicked along the path, then stopped.
‘The peace,’ said Mrs Gadny.
This morning, staring into the water, the brown stain removed, she’d prayed for Celia’s cough to come. She’d called to her – her last call, she knew, rising to a shriek so that the nurse got alarmed, rushed in, hugged her.
—My stay in that house.
—You’re sweating. I’ll dab your face. Come to the sink.
‘You don’t call me “dear”, Nurse Barrow.’
‘I will if you want me to.’
‘I’m grateful you don’t.’
‘What a funny thing to say!’
‘It isn’t. Not as far as I’m concerned it isn’t.’
‘You are a mystery.’
‘Am I?’
You must be, Faith Gadny. You are scarcely understood.
‘Am I?’
‘Have I set you worrying?’
‘No.’
‘You’re no more a mystery, I suppose, than any other person is. Consider Mrs Affery.’
‘With the fur?’
‘Yes. Can you make her out?’
‘She’s simple. A simple creature.’
—If you ask me…
‘Poor old Maggy! She’s always laughed at. They laugh at me, Faith – have you heard them?’
‘No.’
‘At my walk.’
‘Do they?’
‘My mother used to say I walked like a fairy elephant.’
‘Did she?’
‘Yes.’
They’d eaten a pleasant meal in the big dining-hall. Four of them at the trestle table. Cook wasn’t Ada, nothing near, but her chicken fricassee had gone down nicely, settling light. There’d been mushrooms and potatoes cooked with mint and served with butter.
‘I enjoyed my food.’
‘I saw.’
‘Every bit.’
‘This is between you, me and the gate-post but it’s my opinion that Cook only bothers with the food when she’s catering for a small number. Like today. Or when she does for the board – you should see what she does for the board! Most of the time, though, she throws anything on to the plates. Any muck. It brings on ulcers, I swear, just to look at some of her concoctions.’
‘It does.’
‘No word of what I’ve just said to Matron—’
‘No.’
The church clock struck the hour.
‘But I liked my food today.’
‘I saw.’
They sat in the kitchen. Red lights, green lights, switches, dials.
—Maurice will carve.
Beef on a plate.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Nothing.’
—Tough, Marjorie.
—Tough?
Each time he spoke, Mr Nutley appeared to swallow his teeth.
—Tough, Marjorie.
‘I had a meal before I came here, Nurse, that was absolutely disgusting.’
‘At your son’s?’
‘Stepson’s. No. At his wife’s mother’s. At her luxury home in Barnet. My stomach took days to repair.’
‘Was it so bad?’
Mrs Gadny looked in all directions. She whispered, ‘I was in and out of the lavatory—’
‘I meant the meal. Was the meal so bad?’
Mrs Gadny smiled. ‘Worse than you could imagine. Her potatoes were out of a packet. Wet lumps.’
‘Were they?’
‘And the beef! The beef was as tough as a boot.’
‘Cook’s is sometimes.’
‘Not tough like hers that Sunday. My pieces were curling up on my plate. My wrists ached, I had to work my knife so much.’
‘Were you embarrassed?’
‘I was. My knife would keep crashing on to the plate and there was Mrs Nutley smiling, smiling.’
‘She’s your stepson’s wife’s mother—’
‘She is. Blue hair. Powder and paint.’
‘One of those.’
‘As you say. There she was smiling while I struggled with my beef. I feared for my teeth, Nurse—’
‘Doctor Gettrup was very impressed with them, Faith.’
‘She said she was amazed. When she found how many were real.’
‘She was.’
‘Mrs Nutley said I’d look prettier with false.’
‘Silly woman.’
‘She is a silly woman, Nurse. I thought so when I met her. I was never pretty, anyway, even when young. I was plain.’
‘You couldn’t have been plainer than me.’
‘No.’ She should have said: Yes, I was. Yes, I was.
‘You’re not a flatterer.’
‘No.’
‘Your Celia was pretty?’
‘No. She was plain.’ She thought she sounded drunk. She’d been drunk once, during the victory celebrations – the truth had poured out of her. This was the truth: ‘Celia was plain. If she hadn’t been, she might have left her mother; she might have married.’
‘I see.’
‘If she’d been a beauty she might not have loved her mother so much; she wouldn’t have depended—’
‘You can’t really say.’
‘No.’
‘A person’s nature’s what counts.’
‘Yes, Nurse.’
‘She was sweet-natured?’
‘Yes, Nurse.’
Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Tom said he had an angel for a daughter. She was a loving child – head on her father’s knee, against her mother’s cheek. Her hair caught the light as she bent over her book.
Glowing.
‘Lost.’
‘What is?’
‘Nothing.’
Tom watched the fire, sighed, drank his beer. Celia in bed, Henry out of the room, he took her hand, pressed it. Certain nights, he told her, the guns went in his head – akk, akk: he made the noises from the back of his throat. Looking down, she saw the blue bulges on his hands. She raised them to her lips.
—Kiss my palms for a change.
—Turn them round.
Good faces were blown away, he said on one occasion. Blood spurted. Feet sank into mud. After the guns and shells a wailing went up.
That one occasion, his face as white as his last night in the hospital, his mouth at her breast, he said into her jumper:
—Ease me.
—How? His hair between her teeth. How?
—Undo the buttons.
The top one wouldn’t budge; some loose strand of cotton. She opened the slit in his pants. There was a moment of trouble taking it out.
Then it rose. She remembered to be gentle with the skin at the tip; pulled it back slowly. She heard him say:
—My darling.
So she gripped it firmly. She looked at his small bald patch.
—Love. Love.
It stopped growing. It throbbed.
—Oh, love.
He jerked and let out a moan and the warm cream was on her fingers.
When it was over, fingers sticking together, she realized what she had done. She feared he would weep and add to her embarrassment.
But he moved back into the sofa.
—We must wash ourselves. You, your hands; me, my – my—
—Yes.
‘My husband was a great one for his Bible.’
‘A religious man.’
‘He never went into churches. He hated vicars as a race. He said I could go to services if I liked, it was my life, but I only went once a year. On Christmas Eve, for the carols.’
‘Watch night.’
‘Yes. He wouldn’t join me. Us, rather. I took Celia with me. And she never missed her Sunday school.’
‘He read his Bible though?’
‘Yes, Nurse. He said he liked the stories. Jeremiah. He took to reading it when he was out in Flanders.’
*
They noticed a good many changes. The change that struck them most was the train on the pier – the first one had been a delight, a bit of the old world. Those chains that had kept you in your seats, those lamps! Getting to the end of the pier now was just like travelling on the tube. Automatic, it was. Electric.
At noon they filled themselves to bursting with cockles, mussels, winkles. (Mrs Capes chose prawns.) They drank stout, bitter, cider, port. (Mrs Capes had a gin with Matron.)
What did they want to do? Matron asked from the top of the table after begging for a little quiet.
They wanted to laze in the sun until tea. There was enough amusement to be had from the sight of the bathers – the bosoms and Burns wobbling past.
Mr Green was going to show Matron the eleventh-century priory – which of the ladies were interested? Mrs Capes definitely was – it was educational. Any other volunteers?
‘Not me.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Thank you for the invitation, Curate—’
‘Yes, thank you for the invitation.’
‘I have these ruins to look at, Mr Green, without seeing any more.’
‘Edie!… I’ll stay with my friends, thank you kindly, Curate.’
Outside the cafe they formed two groups: the priory party to go one way, the beach party the other. Nurse Trembath and Doctor Gettrup said they would take charge of the rebels, whom they led off along the sea front.
Mrs Affery stopped in front of the Ivy House – the bar was filled with husbands in shirt-sleeves, steadily getting plastered. Dan had done a week’s hard drinking in that bar on their honeymoon.
‘Come on, Maggy.’
Her mouth was sore; her gums itched. She turned her back on the women – who waited a few yards ahead – and took out her replacement teeth. She wrapped them in her nearly clean hanky and dropped them in the carrier-bag she had brought for souvenirs.
‘Maggy!’
They were smiling when she joined them.
‘Close your eyes,’ said Mrs O’Blath, her hands behind her back, ‘and promise not to open them.’
Mrs Affery closed her eyes.
‘Don’t open them till I give the word.’
Mrs Affery felt something on her head.
‘Open.’
Mrs O’Blath held on to her knees to stop herself biting the pavement.
‘What is it?’
‘And she’s lost her gnashers!’
‘What you put on me?’
‘Can’t you see, Maggy?’ said Mrs Crane. ‘A cowboy hat.’
‘A stetson, Maggy.’
People walked by slowly, staring and pointing at Mrs O’Blath.
‘It has words on it.’ Nurse Trembath took Mrs Affery’s arm.
‘What words?’
‘It says “Calamity Jane Novelty Hat”.’
*
In the coach coming back they sang ‘If you were the only girl in the world’ and ‘The Old Bull and Bush’. Mrs O’Blath sang a verse of an Irish song no one had ever heard of in a voice that turned out to be very sweet and true.
Some minutes out of London the coach was stopped for Miss Trimmer. Mrs Gross helped her towards a ditch and held her as she groaned.
*
‘Why’m I plagued with your bloody voice?’ she shouted at what was now the ceiling. A second ago Thelma had been there, a hand on her hip, leaning against the doorpost.
The ceiling drifted away. Thelma walked towards her, arms swinging like a soldier’s.
‘Photograph.’
One, two; one, two.
If I count, she thought, I will stop her speaking. I might even sleep.
‘One—’
She swallowed the drop of water that fell into her mouth. It had a salty taste. Before she could continue, Thelma had taken over the counting.
—Two. Three. Four.
Photos were the answer. Plus concentration. Tom said to Henry that concentration and perseverance were the tests of a man’s character. Some boys with slow brains were known to achieve wonders later in their lives simply because they had forced themselves to persevere.
She would concentrate on the photos as soon as she had the energy to step out of bed.
Tom said it was no use – that boy had willed himself not to listen. Henry made contact with no one.
—I wanted to see the boy cry. When I tanned him.
Instead of appearing for his meals and sitting by and going to his room. A visitor to the house.
—All he is. A visitor. Not a son to me.
Eyes small as a pig’s.
—Do as you please, boy, as you will. You do right to leave. Let me finish my beer in peace.
Thelma slammed her book shut.
—He owes you nothing.
—If you wish to insult me, Thelma, insult me when your mouth’s empty.
—How have you thanked him? You’ve made his home a place of misery—
—You read too many rotten books. A place of misery!
—Christ!
—You shouldn’t blaspheme, even if you don’t—
—Is it four o’clock? Grant me strength if it isn’t.
Any photograph. This, that or the other. Tom or Celia, even herself, Mrs Barber or her Rose. Any photograph would do the trick so long as there was a face on it.
She dragged her special case from under the bed. She opened it. Her choice underwear, yes. Tom’s Bible, yes, which she hadn’t the heart to open and read. Lavender in its bag.
‘They’re under my cap.’
But, she discovered, they weren’t.
‘Think.’
The pieces fell to her feet. She stood up. More pieces fell. A pile formed.
‘No.’
She’d laughed. She’d been serenely happy. The one called Capes and the nurse without the hairs had drawn back from her. The sky outside the ward was purple. She’d managed, that beautiful evening, to keep their hands off. Their hands could come this minute, she thought, and smother me and I’d be just as happy. The pain she felt when she heard the cough was pleasant compared to the pain that came with Thelma’s words. The weeks at Roselea were weeks in the wilderness. She’d faced pettiness every single day. She’d tried to accustom herself to a loveless existence. To think of that awful time was worse than the sight of Celia above the sheets. That house had brought her down. She’d gone into it with some opinion of herself. She left it a thing, waste to be disposed of; the barometer at Fine.
It was this room that was the cause. Downstairs, with Capes and the creature and the staring woman, her mind hadn’t been bothered. Downstairs, she had only thought about Tom and Celia. Not her and him and old Granny Grunt from the corner of the Terrace and that dreadful pair in the luxury factory.
She wanted Nurse Susy to kiss her to sleep again, to laugh as the hairs tickled her cheek.
*
‘All was well until nine at night, Matron,’ said Nurse Barrow. ‘Cook gave us a delicious chicken fricassee and Mrs Gadny ate her plate bare. In the afternoon, as it was still hot, we went out into the grounds – the two of us – and we sat on a bench together and soaked in the sunshine. And there we stayed for hours. We chatted away merrily. It was a surprise to me, the way she talked. She usually just mutters.’
‘She does. Tell me what she talked about.’
‘Her husband. But her daughter mostly. She must have told me everything about her, Matron, from cradle to grave. I know what colour her eyes were, when her wisdom teeth were removed, how good she was about the home – I feel I must know her inside out. After tea, which we took late, she muttered a bit – different names came up. I had to strain to catch them.’
