Doctor's Wife

by Brian Moore

  “But I can’t go on telling him lies.”

  “Why not? There are times in life when a lie is a kindness,” Peg said. She looked at her friend. Do you ever really know another person? Sheila Deane, of all people, a big shy thing, always with her head in a book when I knew her, always worrying if she would find some man tall enough, and you just knew when she did she would let him boss her, turn her into a housewife, waste the hard work and the studying she did to get her degree. Sheila Deane. Still, isn’t it the quiet ones who surprise you?

  “Madame Chicot, the concierge, has her own key,” Peg said. “She lets herself in to clean. So if anyone else knocks, you don’t have to answer. I’ll come by for some clothes around six this evening and then you’ll have the place to yourselves. I must run now. And stop worrying, promise me?”

  “All right,” Mrs. Redden said. She had dried her eyes. “You’ve been so good to us.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Peg said and got up and went out, shaking her head to herself. The messes some people get into.

  •

  When Mrs. Redden came out of the Métropole a few minutes later, Tom Lowry was waiting for her across the street. They took a 95 bus back to the Left Bank and went straight to the hotel, where they spoke to the woman at the desk. The woman said there had been no telephone calls. “Are you sure?” Mrs. Redden asked. The woman said she was sure. But how could you believe her?

  They checked out. At five o’clock they went around to Peg’s flat with their belongings. The concierge said that Madame Conway had phoned to say if they were going out, they should leave the key under the carpet runner. She would come by at six for her clothes. On hearing this, Mrs. Redden said, “Let’s go and shop. I’d just as soon not be here when she comes.”

  So they went out, exploring the narrow back streets of the quartier. They watched men cook exotic dishes in the front windows of Greek and Tunisian restaurants, inspected the stills outside small cinemas, then, having ordered a cooked chicken from the butcher, they bought vegetables and wine in a neighborhood market and queued for fresh bread at a bakery. By the time they picked up the chicken and got back to the flat, Peg had been and gone, replacing the key under the carpet runner.

  “Perfect,” Mrs. Redden said. “Now, let me cook the vegetables and get dinner on the table. I’ll put the chicken in the oven to keep warm, and you open the wine, will you?”

  As she went into the darkened kitchen to find the light switch, she saw him enter the living room and squat over a pile of Peg’s records, his tight blue jeans straining at his waist to reveal the bare skin of his back down to the beginning of the cleft of his buttocks. Peg’s big tabby cat came up beside him, leaning against him, rubbing its back along his leg. The music came on: baroque. Kevin hated “classical” music. A moment later she watched him get up, come into the kitchen and pour the wine, hand her a glass, then wander off toward the bedroom. She stood abstracted, chopping carrots, her mind filled with him and with the music until, at last, in sudden guilt, she turned to look at the clock on the kitchen table. Kevin would have had his supper by now and be watching the telly; Danny would be lying on the floor of the den, doing his homework with Tarzan, the dog, lying beside him. Kevin she could imagine leaning back in the big wing-tip chair, newspapers strewn about, the telly on full blast. It would be rainy out, and beyond the brick wall at the end of the garden the dark looming mountain peak called Napoleon’s Nose, rising in the night over Belfast Lough. In the center of the city it would be quiet, nobody about except the police and army patrols. She put the carrots in a saucepan of water and turned the gas on, hearing a slight explosion. It was a lie to imagine that Kevin was sitting at home, content in front of the telly. Who could be content after two days and nights of trying to get through to your wife in France, not knowing what she was up to? There’s no excuse for not phoning him. And now is the time to do it.

  She went into the dining room, searched the sideboard drawers, found cutlery and napkins, and set the table. In the living room the record ended, the needle making an ugly scraping noise. He came out of the bedroom and put on a new record. The music came up. Vivaldi, was it?

  Her older brother Ned liked classical music. Tonight, Ned would be in Cork, alone in his bachelor digs. Her other brother Owen would be at home in Belfast with his family. Her sister, Eily, would be helping her sons with their homework in Dublin. All of them, back there in Ireland living their lives out as if nothing had changed. She wondered if Kevin had been in touch with Eily or Owen. She thought not.

  I must phone Kevin. But first I’ll serve the dinner. No, I must phone now, it’s terrible not to do it. I’ll phone him after dinner, when Danny’s asleep.

  A new record came on, a popular one, Françoise Hardy singing a song that everyone in Paris seemed to be singing this year. She went into the living room and he was standing by the window. He took her in his arms and, in time to the music, danced her around the room, the pair of them beginning to sing snatches of the lyrics. He has a nice tenor singing voice. I didn’t know that. What else do I not know about him, this boy of mine? She stared up at his face with its high forehead framed by the dark lion’s mane of hair, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight. Who did he make love with before me, what woman made him so skillful? Does he still think of her, whoever she is, or does he forget, as I forget? Imagine if I could forget my past forever. My past, that small story which is my life. That story which began in my mother’s big brass bed on the top floor of 18 Chichester Terrace, November 7, 1937, and went on through First Communion and Verse-Speaking Contests and National School and Convent Boarding at Glenarm and four years at The Queen’s University, Belfast. We always seemed a crowd at home, we four children and Daddy and Kitty and the two maiden aunts, the house always lively, all of it gone now, quiet as a memory, its only souvenir a few photo albums and old wedding announcements and examination certificates stuffed into the top drawer of the little escritoire in the drawing room of our house in the Somerton Road. And the drawer gets fuller. I added Danny’s baptismal record, my strange baby born by Caesarian section, a fuzz of black hair on his head, his tiny face white and composed because, Dr. O’Neill said, he was cut neatly out of my stomach, not dragged through my vagina. Remember that holiday in Connemara when Danny fell off the pony in Clifden, the bone sticking up white out of the broken skin of his little leg, how frightened I was, worse than my two miscarriages. My son. He is what I did in life. Apart from him, my life will disappear like the lives of my parents, a few more documents will be stuffed in that drawer, and someday the escritoire may be moved to some other house, maybe Danny’s, just as I remember it being moved to ours, the day Kevin and I picked it up with the other pieces from Kitty’s place and brought them to our new house in the Somerton Road. I remember the movers taking it out of the van and leaving it on the pavement; it looked so shabby I thought all the grand new neighbors would be looking through their windows at it. I wanted the men to hurry up and bring it in off the street. Then it didn’t fit with the other furniture in our drawing room, but I insisted it stay there. And there it is. My past. My past in a drawer.

  •

  At nine o’clock she served their dinner in Peg’s dining room. He began to tell her funny stories about the summer he worked as a forest ranger in Maine, and she laughed and listened and did not think of anything else. She was offering him some fruit and cheese when suddenly, loud in the living room, the phone rang.

  It rang again. She did not move.

  “Shall I get it?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It could be Peg.”

  “It might be Kevin.”

  They listened, until it stopped ringing.

  “Why could it be him?”

  “Because,” she said, “if that hotel said we’ve left, he has nowhere else to ring.”

  She turned and went into the living room. Danny, his broken leg, white bone sticking up through the skin. She put down her coffee cup. “Listen,” she said, “would you m
ind going out for a little while?”

  “You mean, now?”

  “Yes. I’d better phone him.”

  “Sure,” he said. He kissed her and went at once into the front hall. She heard the front door shut. She looked up instructions in the French telephone book and dialed Belfast direct. The phone rang just once before it was picked up.

  “Hello,” his voice said.

  “Kevin, it’s Sheila. Is everything all right?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Paris.”

  “I mean, where are you staying?”

  She did not answer.

  “Look. I’ve been calling you since Sunday.” She heard the familiar irritation in his voice. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I was in a hotel on Sunday and Monday nights. I believe you called me there. Peg said you did, but they’re hopeless in that hotel, they never get anything right. I’m sorry.”

  “I thought you were going to stay with Peg.”

  “I wanted to stay in a hotel.”

  “Why?”

  “I just wanted to, that’s all. How’s Danny?”

  “Never mind Danny, Danny’s all right, not that you seem to give a damn. Look, what’s going on?” She heard his breathing, heavy and panting. “There’s something funny going on. Either that, or somebody’s playing a very dirty joke.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All right, I’ll tell you. After I finally got through to your pal Peg Conway this morning and heard a whole rigmarole about people staying with her and then not staying with her, I can tell you I wasn’t very reassured. So I rang this hotel number she gave me and the woman there said, ‘Monsieur et Madame sont sortis.’ That’s what she said. Well, of course, I thought there must be some mistake.”

  “Kevin, I keep telling you, I told you they get everything wrong in that hotel.”

  “Just a minute. I asked the woman in French. I spelled your name, I told her you were a lady traveling on a British passport and I said that she’d got the wrong room. And she said no, the only Redden she had was Madame Redden and she was with a gentleman and they were both out. She was quite definite. So you see what I mean, ha ha,” he said, giving the false little laugh he gave when he was nervous. “Monsieur et Madame. I’ve been bloody well thinking I should get on a plane and come over. And bring a bloody gun, ha ha. You see what I mean, don’t you?”

  Suddenly she decided. “I’m sorry about this, Kevin. I should have told you sooner.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Jesus, you’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “Kevin, wait.” She began to speak, the words badly phrased as though she improvised a lesson she had not prepared. “I was at the hotel, yes, and I wasn’t on my own. I’m not on my own now.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “I should have rung you up before. But I didn’t know what to say.”

  “Say what?” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “I mean, I mean . . .” She stopped, catching her breath. “I’m not coming home.”

  “Now what? Wait a minute, Sheila. What’s happened? What’s happened?”

  “I’m with someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t know him. That’s not the point.”

  “Now, wait,” he said. His voice had become calm; it was the voice he used with patients, controlled, quiet, a voice which handed out verdicts of life and death. “Are you feeling all right? Are you upset about something? Tell me.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “I don’t want to tell you.”

  “Sheila, do you know what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, I’m going to get on a plane and come over. I’ll be there in the morning.”

  “No, Kevin, I don’t want you to. I’ll call you in a few days. It won’t help if you come now. It will just make things worse.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “And what if something happens to Danny in the meantime? How will I get in touch with you?”

  “Please, Kevin, don’t make things worse. I’ll ring you the day after tomorrow.”

  “I suppose Peg Conway’s mixed up in this.”

  “No, it’s nothing to do with her.”

  “All right. I’m sorry. Listen, Sheila.” She could imagine him standing in the hall at home pursing his lips as he did when talking to some patient who was going through a crisis. “I know I’ve made many a joke about your brother Owen. But he’s a first-rate gynecologist, and, look, things like this happen to a lot of women. You’re young for menopause, but we can’t rule out any possibility. There’s something wrong, do you understand? I know it’s hard for you to realize it now, you’re in the middle of it, but, as I say, it happens a lot. Now, listen. If I ask Owen to ring you up, would you talk to him? Would you do that as a favor to me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You and Owen are close, and he’s a good doctor. Just give me a number and a time he could ring you. Please, Shee?”

  “I’m ringing off now. Good night.”

  “Shee, listen,” he began, but she put the receiver down; she had to do it, he was treating her as a patient, it was the only way he knew to deal with trouble. She went into Peg’s bedroom, found Kleenex, and blew her nose to stop the tears she felt coming on again. Then, on an instinct, she went to the front door of the flat and unlocked it. He was sitting on the stairs, half a flight down. He turned to look up at her. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said.

  “I know. Come on up.”

  “You reached him?”

  “Yes.”

  He came up. She slid the chain across the inside lock of the door after admitting him. He put his finger on her cheek. A tear slid onto his fingernail.

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “I wonder, does Peg have any cognac?”

  As she spoke, the phone rang. It rang. They stood facing each other, not moving.

  It rang. It rang.

  He lifted her chin, looked at her, then kissed her clumsily on the lips, and at his touch, she clung to him.

  It rang. It stopped ringing. She kissed his cheek and his ear, stroking his long dark hair, fingering his face as though she were blind. And then, like survivors walking away from a crash, they went, clumsily, uncertainly, arms around each other, into Peg’s bedroom.

  The phone began to ring again.

  He let go of her, turned, and ran out to the hall, snatching the phone off the stand, letting it dangle on its cord. He went back to her, kissed her hurriedly, and began to unbutton the neck of her dress. She stopped him. She went into the hall and picked up the phone, listening. The phone gave off a dial tone. She replaced it on its stand and went back to him. Gently he began to unbutton her dress again, she helping him as though both were children until, naked, they faced each other in the dark room, the blinds not drawn, the night traffic lights from far below on the Place Saint-Michel moving across the shadows of the high old ceiling like kaleidoscope flickers in a ballroom. Below, they heard the hum of traffic, the squealing of brakes, the faint far-off noise of car horns. Holding hands, they went to the big bed and lay down on it, her face still tearmarked, her sorrow and need for him quickly becoming desire, his tenderness changing to sudden, urgent lust. In the half darkness their bodies began to entwine and move.

  The phone rang. It rang, it rang.

  He raised her up, turning her around to kneel with her back to him, her face half buried in the soft pillow, naked to him, like a victim on a block, as he rose up behind her, his penis nudging and thrusting. The phone rang. It rang, but as he entered her, she no longer heard it. At last it stopped ringing, but she did not notice. In the half darkness their bodies continued to thrash and strain.

  Part 2

  Chapter 10

  • When the telephone rang that night, Dr. Deane and his family had already gone to bed. It w
as after the eleven o’clock news, and as he undressed he could hear his daughters playing the record player in their bedroom. Agnes, his wife, went along the corridor to the bathroom and stopped to knock on the girls’ door in warning. “Anne and Imelda, turn that down, you’ll wake the whole avenue up!”

  The phone rang, just at the moment the record player was turned down. He lifted the receiver, expecting a patient. “Dr. Deane,” he said.

  “Owen, this is Kevin Redden.”

  “Oh, hello, Kevin, how are you?”

  “Listen, Owen, I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but I’m in a spot of trouble. Could I come over and see you? It’s about Sheila.”

  “Sheila? Is she sick?”

  “No, no, it’s not that. It’s something else.”

  Dr. Deane heard his wife inside the bathroom, turning on the water taps. He lowered his voice. “Kevin, let me come and see you. That might be better.”

  “Well, I hate to bring you out at this time of night.”

  “No bother,” Dr. Deane said in a quiet voice. He tried to make a joke of it. “I’m used to night calls.”

  He had dressed himself again when he heard Agnes leave the bathroom. She stopped by the girls’ door, as she did most nights, to call: “Imelda and Anne, have you brushed your teeth?”

  “Yes, Mummy.”

  “All right, then. Good night, dears.”

  “ ‘Night, Mummy.”

  He went out onto the landing, buttoning up his tweed jacket. “Don’t switch the hall lights off,” he said.

  “You’re not going out?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Where is it, this time?”

  “Oh, it’s just a case over on the Antrim Road,” he lied. “I’ll not be too long, I hope. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “Take your scarf,” she said.

  It was raining out. In his car, he set the windshield wipers flicking and reminded himself that he had lied to her. He hated to do that. But she had the habit of telling everything to her sister and the sister told the mother, and so it was broadcast to all and sundry. And this did sound like a serious matter. It was not like Kevin Redden to ring up and ask for help. He and Redden were not at all close, a brother-in-law he saw perhaps twice a year at some family occasion, a large, handsome chap with an irritating nervous laugh that was very disconcerting and awkward when you first heard it. He wasn’t at all the sort you’d expect Sheila to have married. She was fond of reading and the theater. Redden seemed just the opposite—never opened a book, liked his golf and fishing and so on. Still, he was clever enough, he had his F.R.C.S. and was on the staff of the Royal, the Protestant teaching hospital, which, when you considered that he was Catholic, meant he knew his stuff. Besides, Sheila had married very young, at a time when she was unsure of herself and her prospects. She was lazy about jobs. Dr. Deane remembered, and she had a restless side to her, too. He remembered their talks about religion and doing something worthwhile with your life. That restless side of her was something that perhaps she didn’t understand too well herself.