The Long Corridor

by Catherine Cookson

  It was twelve o’clock when Paul saw Jenny and Lorna off from Newcastle. He did not indulge in the usual platitudes, exhorting them to have a nice time and to enjoy themselves, but when he had found them seats he took Lorna in his arms and kissed her, and was again grateful for her response. Then taking Jenny’s hand he held it for a moment as he looked at her, and there came a softening to his face when he said simply, ‘Thanks, Jinny.’

  She let him go along the corridor without a word, but when she saw him alight onto the platform she called, ‘Paul! Paul!’ and hurried after him. Looking down on him she said what was usually said at partings: ‘Take care of yourself’; but her tone wasn’t light and her words were heavy with meaning.

  ‘I’ll do that.’ He smiled again.

  ‘Let me know what happens, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll write. But don’t worry; I don’t think anything more can happen. Goodbye, Jinny.’

  It was as if the incident in her sitting room had never taken place.

  As he passed down the platform he saw Lorna standing at the corridor window and he paused and looked up at her, then moved on.

  When he got outside the station he knew a sense of relief—relief that Lorna was going away—yet the relief was coupled with a sense of loss. But the loss wasn’t attached to Lorna, it was attached to Jenny. Sometimes he never saw Jenny for months on end, as during the period of this last post of hers; yet he knew now that it had been a comfort to him that she was always within reach, within a car ride or a phone call. Well, he could still phone her; distance was no object to phoning. Yet now it was different. This morning had made it different. He would never phone Jenny or contact her in any way.

  When he returned to the house at lunchtime he was struck immediately by the silence. There was no banging of doors and running feet and swirling into rooms…That was Lorna. Yet she hadn’t swirled, or dashed about the house so much of late, which he had put down to her growing. How blind you could be to those nearest to you. He even missed Bett’s high voice reprimanding or criticising someone or other.

  As he took his hat and coat off in the hall his eyes were drawn to the stairs. He had to face her some time.

  He walked slowly into the kitchen, and Maggie, turning from the stove, said, ‘They got off then?’

  ‘Yes, they got off.’

  ‘Doctor Price has been. He said to tell you he’d be back later.’

  ‘Oh!’ He paused, then asked, ‘Has she had anything?’

  ‘She had a drink around eleven.’

  He was about to walk out of the kitchen when she said, ‘I’ll serve you now.’

  ‘Hold it a minute, Maggie. I’m going upstairs.’

  ‘Take my advice and have somethin’ to eat first.’

  ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  Outside Bett’s door he braced himself before knocking. When there was no answer he knocked again; and when there was still no answer he slowly opened the door and went into the room. She was lying well down in the bed. Her face looked swollen, hot, and sweaty. What could he say? How could he begin? How could he convey to her that he wasn’t repulsed by her, that he understood, that he had to share the blame for what had happened to her? He forced himself to look at her kindly as he would at a patient who was frightened and ill, and he said, as if to that patient, ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Huh!’ She stared up at him over the rim of the bedclothes. Then again she said, ‘Huh!’ And the sound was rusty and told him of the soreness of her throat. ‘How do you expect me to feel? But then you wouldn’t know how I feel, would you?’ Her voice was uneven, the words cracked.

  ‘You…you can soon get well.’

  ‘You think so? You think I can ever be the same again. Go on, tell me, tell me how I’m to go about it?’

  ‘We’ll talk later, when you are feeling better.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake come off your pedestal.’ For the first time her body moved, and bringing up her hands she covered her eyes as she went on speaking, ‘I could bear you shouting, storming, better than this sanctimonious front. And it doesn’t cover up anything, I can see through it. Oh, I know you…I know you would like to kill me.’

  ‘Strangely enough, Bett, I don’t. I’ve been wrong and you’ve been wrong. I mean it when I say we’ve both got to bear the consequences.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake go away. Go away! I tell you I can’t bear you like this. It’s worse than when you are your natural big-headed self.’ She took her hands from her eyes and glared at him. ‘Look, we don’t change, we’re still the same under the skin.’

  Striving to keep the seemingly calm demeanour, he picked his words. ‘We can try. At least in our attitude.’

  Her body became quite still again, and looking down the length of the bed, she said, ‘I don’t want you to forgive me, not about anything, you understand? I couldn’t change towards you, not in a hundred years, ever. It’s over, finished. As soon as I’m able I’m going away. As I said yesterday, when everything’s settled I’ll have enough money to live on. Even if you bring this out in the divorce you’ll still have to stump up, because what’s happened to me now is through your neglect, and judges are sympathetic to women, especially wives who have been neglected.’ She raised her bright, hard eyes to him. ‘You see, I couldn’t change. I’ll feel this way about you till the day I die.’

  Gazing down at this fragile-looking woman, he again thought of the compressed fierce driving power of small women. Their frames never seemed big enough for their emotions, and when the emotion was hate…She was right, she could never change.

  He turned from the bed and walked towards the door, and as he opened it she said to him, ‘Where’s Lorna? I haven’t heard her.’

  ‘She’s gone away for a holiday.’

  ‘What!’

  He turned and looked at her again. She had raised herself up on her elbow. ‘She’s gone with Jenny to Switzerland. They left on the twelve o’clock from Newcastle.’

  ‘Damn her!’

  He watched her drop back on the pillow; then he went out, closing the door softly. It wasn’t Lorna she was damning, he knew, but Jinny, who she had used all her life, Jinny who had always taken her side. And now Jinny had left her when she most needed her. Not only that, she had taken Lorna with her. He pondered at this moment that Jinny, who must have always loved him, had for the first time in their long acquaintance tipped the scales in his favour.

  As he went down the stairs he heard the bedroom door being pulled open and the next moment Bett’s voice came croaking loudly at him. ‘You and her won’t get away with this. She’s mine. You have no claim on her and she’s coming back here. She’ll take a holiday when I say so. D’you hear?’

  He heard.

  Seven

  Paul awoke to Maggie’s voice saying, ‘Come on now, sit up and have this cup of tea. Come on now.’

  With an effort he pulled himself up through the thick layers of sleep; then turning on to his side he forced his eyes open and grunted. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘It’s turned eight.’

  ‘Turned eight!’ The sleep slid from him and he sat up and pressed his two hands over the top of his head.

  ‘How far turned eight? You shouldn’t have let me lie so long.’

  ‘Aw, just about ten past. I’ll run you a bath. Get yourself into it an’ you’ll be as right as rain. Drink that tea first.’

  His hand shook as he lifted the cup from the side table, just as if he’d had a skinful, yet he had got to sleep last night through sleeping tablets, not the bottle. He had needed that sleep. He rested his head against the bed panel, and as Maggie went towards the door he said to her, ‘Did you have a good night?’

  ‘Aye, I didn’t raise me head until after seven, that old couch is better than a bed.’

  ‘Were you warm enough? That morning room’s like death.’

  ‘Aw, warm as toast. I left one bar of the fire on.’

  ‘Maggie…have you taken a tray along?’

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nbsp; ‘Not yet.’ She had her back to him as she spoke. ‘I’m just after setting it. I’ll get your breakfast first, then see to it.’

  ‘Take it up now, Maggie, will you? See to it now.’

  She made a movement with her shoulders which said she would do as he wished, then went out.

  Slowly he got out of bed; he still felt a bit dopey. After his bath he had a cold shower and a brisk rub-down, and he was naked when he went back into the bedroom, there to come to a dead stop when he saw Maggie standing with her back to the door. She looked as if she was leaning against it. As he grabbed at his pants and pulled them on he asked quickly, ‘What is it? Are you feeling bad?’

  He went to her and took hold of her arms and watched her trying to speak. ‘Maggie! Maggie! What is it?’

  ‘Put…put something on,’ she said. She pointed to his trousers. ‘You’d…you’d better come.’

  He glanced to the side of her, towards the wall, in the direction of Bett’s room; then pulling on his things he went hastily along the corridor, Maggie following slowly.

  Bett’s door was open. Bett herself was lying sprawled across the floor. The bedside table was overturned and on the floor was a travelling clock, a glass, and a bottle. He knelt down and turned her over and felt her heart; then reaching out he picked up the bottle. It was the one from which he had taken his two sleeping tablets last night. The same bottle that he had locked up in the medicine cupboard in his surgery. That was after he had handed John two tablets to bring upstairs to her.

  He looked down at his wife. Her features were contorted as if she had died in an agony or struggle. Oh, the pity of it. Oh, the waste, the waste of energy and temper, of bitterness and resentment. He wanted to lay his head down on her small breast and cry. He knew all about the remorse that comes with death. Remorse for not having done enough for the one who has gone. This happened to people who had no need to feel such remorse. But now he himself was filled with it, justifiably filled with it. Oh! Bett, Bett. This was what was meant by the irrevocability of the last chance. He knew, as he knelt there looking at this girl who had been his wife—and she looked a girl, for the years had not turned her into a woman—he knew that until the day he died he would carry with him fragments of the feeling that was in him now.

  He lifted her on to the bed; then turned about to see Maggie standing, not in the room, but out in the corridor. He went towards her and they stood looking at each other in guilty silence. He had no doubt that she, too, was experiencing some of his own feeling, for she had been against Bett from the beginning. He saw that her old body was shaking, and so, taking her arm, he led her down the stairs to the hall, and after sitting her in a chair, he went to the phone and got through to John Price.

  It was forty-eight hours later when John Price, standing in the drawing room and facing Paul squarely, said, ‘I know you’ll think it a callous thing to say, Paul, but, between you and me, it’s the best thing that could have happened to her…and you.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Paul held his hands out to the fire as if he were cold, and it was some seconds before he added, ‘But I can’t get rid of the feeling that she must have been in a dreadful state of mind to do it; it wasn’t like her. You know yourself self-preservation was her slogan, and although she was ill she was full of life, aggressive life, when I last spoke to her. She was still determined to go through with everything she had set her mind to.’

  ‘That was likely just a front she was putting on. A thing like that happening to her was bound to affect her. The very fact that it might become known must have worried her.’

  ‘Will…will it have to come out at the inquest?’ He slanted his glance towards John.

  ‘No, of course not, you know that. Not publicly anyway, but…well,’ John Price bit on his lip, ‘I think there’s one man in particular who should be told of it.’

  ‘One man? Who?’

  ‘Beresford.’

  ‘Beresford! Good God, no. No! Anyway, why him, him of all people?’

  ‘You mentioned self-preservation a minute ago. Well now, this, to my mind, is a vital matter of self-preservation. You see, Paul, I was talking to Beresford yesterday, and if I hadn’t known already about that letter, the letter Bett sent him—oh yes, she told me it was she who did that—I would still have thought his manner slightly odd when speaking of you. But as it was I could see him putting two and two together. He’s got a good idea now who sent that letter…if he hadn’t before, and he’s just got to say a word in the right quarter and what will happen at the inquest? There’ll be an investigation. Wait a minute, wait a minute, Paul.’ He held up his hand. ‘You were, let’s face it, having an affair with another woman; your wife found out about it, and she wrote to your colleague; the colleague in turn spoke to you about the matter and you were furious…Moreover, and what is much more important, you were the only one in the house with her who had access to the medicine cupboard; in fact there was no-one else in that night except Maggie, and I think we can rule her out…Now you see what I mean? You see how one thing can lead to another? Now what I propose to do is to go and have a talk with Beresford. As Bett’s doctor I can do this. And once he has the facts he’ll see things in their right perspective. He’ll have the reason why she took her life…You know the first thing he asked me was had I informed the police, and I told him of course I had. And what you must realise too, man, is that if such a rumour started it would put paid to your chances of getting that appointment.’

  ‘That’s been put paid to already, for the simple reason that I’m not going before the Board,’ Paul put in quickly.

  ‘Don’t be a damn fool, Paul. This time next week when the inquest’s over you’ll feel differently. You’ve got on the shortlist and you’re going before that Board, if I’ve got to drag you there.’

  ‘It’s no use, John.’ Paul began to pace the floor between the window and the couch. ‘Beresford’s had it in for me for a long time. I would rather lose my practice than you go to him, I’m telling you.’

  ‘Paul, look, you don’t seem to have understood me. It’ll be more than the practice at stake if I don’t go. Now you leave this to me. But with regard to the appointment you lay too much stock on Beresford; he’s really very small fry in that quarter. You talk as if he were actually on the Board.’

  ‘He might as well be, he’s a pal of Bowles, and his son trained under Bowles too. Oh, don’t underestimate Beresford’s connections. Do you think his locum would have got on the shortlist without Bowles’ aid?…But look, John, don’t think I’m ungrateful. I’m grateful in all ways, for I don’t know where I’d have been these past few days without you, but I’m just not bothered any more about the appointment. A few days ago it was important, I meant to fight to get it, but now I don’t feel that way, it just doesn’t matter, so I’m going to withdraw my application.’

  ‘You’re a damned fool, Paul.’

  ‘Maybe, but there’ll be other posts, if not here, in some other place.’

  ‘You know what Beresford will think? He’ll think he’s frightened you off.’

  ‘Well, let him have that satisfaction and then he can go to church and give thanks to God for His benefits to a just and moral man.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you’ll have it your own way. Look, let me take surgery for you tonight. Crawford will do mine.’

  ‘No, no thanks, John; you’ve done more than enough this week. No, I’ve got to start some time, the sooner the better.’

  ‘By the way, when are you expecting Jenny and Lorna back?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’re not? What do you mean?’

  ‘I haven’t told them and I’m not going to.’

  ‘But, man!’

  ‘Look, John, I think it’s too soon for Lorna to come back. She’s got to do a bit of thinking on her own, to adjust herself to the new relationship with me, and Jinny is the right person to help her. They were to be away for a month, so I’ll leave it like that. I’ll tell them just before they return, that�
�s if they don’t see anything in the papers. But I doubt it, out there.’

  ‘There’s always the possibility of someone talking, someone from these parts on holiday.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to take that chance, but that’s the way I want it, John.’

  ‘It isn’t right you being left here on your own; it isn’t good for you.’

  ‘I’m not quite on my own, there’s Maggie. She’s a rock is Maggie.’

  ‘Well, just as you say. But I don’t agree with you; I think you should let them know. Now I must be off. I’ll look in tomorrow…You wouldn’t like to come round for a drink after you’re finished?’

  ‘Not tonight, John, thanks.’

  ‘All right. I’ll be seeing you.’

  ‘Thanks for everything, John.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet…Until tomorrow then.’

  After John Price had gone Paul stood in the drawing room staring before him. His mind was taken up at this moment with a question which centred around Beresford and the selection committee. What, he was asking himself, was the real reason he wasn’t going before the Board? Was he really afraid of Beresford and what he might say about the circumstances of Bett’s sudden death? To this he gave an emphatic no. Then what was the reason, if not fear? He could find no answer to this except to say he was tired, tired of it all.

  He looked around the room. The cushions in the two big armchairs were rumpled; they would never have been like that if she had been here. Nor would the evening paper be lying on the table; it would have been in its correct place in the paper rack. Her finickiness in this way had always annoyed him, yet at this moment he had a longing for her to walk in, and in her maddening way put the room to rights. His world was suddenly empty; everyone that mattered in one way or another, for good or bad, had gone from him. Ivy, Lorna, Jinny, Bett. He had a sudden longing for company, not company outside his house as he would have had if he had gone to John’s, but company inside, family company. As the loneliness weighed on him he began to think of Ivy. Had she heard about Bett, and what did she think? Did she wonder if he would have married her? Would he? He didn’t know. But she’d be committed now. Ivy was as dead for him as Bett was. He had a sudden impulse to go and phone Jinny. He had only to phone her and she would be home like a shot. But as he had said earlier to John, he had Lorna to consider. This news coming so soon on top of the revelation of her birth might affect her adversely; she wasn’t ready to receive another shock so soon, because she, too, would suffer in the same way as himself. She, too, would be filled with remorse, for she hadn’t loved her mother, she hadn’t even liked her. He had been long aware of that. In a way he had taken Lorna from Bett. It had been a form of retaliation for Bett’s deception, subconscious perhaps but nevertheless real.