Going Gently

by David Nobbs

  A rather brusque nurse prised Kate’s lips open roughly and slid in the cold, thin thermometer. Records must be kept. Kate was always very disappointed when it was a new nurse. She relied on fat Janet and thin Helen. She repented of all her unspoken criticisms of them. And she particularly disliked this brusque nurse, who said, ‘Come on, Hilda. Get dressed for me. You’re going home!’ with no sensitivity at all.

  Hilda didn’t reply, but she must have begun to get dressed, because when Doctor Ramgobi returned he said, ‘Getting dressed, Hilda? That’s the ticket.’

  ‘Doctor,’ said Glenda, ‘I want a second opinion.’

  ‘I wish there was somebody here to give you one,’ said Doctor Ramgobi. ‘I wish I had the help I should have. I wish it wasn’t Doctor Hallam’s day for the clinic. I wish Doctor Stringfellow wasn’t off sick. I wish I hadn’t had to work seventy-eight hours last week. I’m afraid you’ll have to take my opinion, Glenda, however much you distrust me.’

  ‘It’s not that I distrust you exactly, doctor,’ said Glenda, ‘but, let’s face it, you are ethnic.’

  ‘Oh, look here,’ said Maurice. ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t have her saying that. Madam, you’re being racist.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, much appreciated, but I can fight my own battles,’ said Doctor Ramgobi.

  ‘I see nothing racist in saying you’re ethnic,’ said Glenda. ‘Anyone can see you are. They only have to look at you. You’re as ethnic as the ace of spades. It’s a fact, not a criticism. I only meant, you probably don’t have health like we do where you come from.’

  ‘Sadly, I think that’s very probably true,’ said Doctor Ramgobi. ‘I come from Huddersfield.’

  When he spoke next he was close to Kate’s bed and he spoke very quietly.

  ‘Thank you, sir, but the lady is dying and deep down she probably knows it, so I make allowances,’ he said. ‘Now, your mother. Her temperature is down again, her pulse is normal, there are signs, minuscule perhaps but still possibly significant, of increased activity. We must be hopeful. In any case I am confident that there is no immediate crisis.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor. I’m sorry I was so impulsive,’ said Maurice. ‘I can’t bear racism.’

  ‘I’m not too keen on it myself,’ said Doctor Ramgobi. ‘Now, a word of warning. I am, I believe, a good, experienced and competent doctor. However, no doctor is right all the time. Despite what I’ve said, your mother may not last the night.’

  Oh yes, I bloody well will, thought Kate. I have a piece of unfinished business to complete.

  10 Dilys

  BEFORE SHE MARRIED Walter for the second time, Kate had another piece of unfinished business to complete. It would be a difficult task, at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. But he telephoned, and she seized the moment.

  She hadn’t had a good night. She rarely did, at that time. She had slept fitfully, drifting in and out of anxious dreams, not quite sure whether the mournful cries of the tawny owls were in the wooded gardens of Dollery Road or in her dreams. Perhaps there were two owls, and one of them was in the wooded gardens, and the other was in her dreams, and that was why they were so mournful.

  Dawn came slowly to the Gables. The day peeped shyly out from its blankets, rubbed its eyes, grew a little lighter and then retreated again. A song thrush sang majestically, clear liquid trills, cascades of joy. Surely this beautiful bird wasn’t just saying, ‘This tree’s mine. Keep off, you bastards.’ Surely it was saying, ‘The sun’s shining, the dew’s glistening, the sky’s blue, the lawn’s green, the world is sometimes breathtakingly beautiful. Oh, and incidentally, this tree’s mine, so keep off, you bastards.’

  Kate felt a deep pit of knotted anxiety in her stomach. She padded naked along the corridor and was just about to put on her dressing-gown to enter Elizabeth’s room when she remembered that all the children had gone to Walter for the night, as they so often did.

  She went back to her bedroom and pulled back the curtains, revealing her naked body in all its splendour to the song thrush, should the song thrush be interested, which it wasn’t. Mist was rising from the lawn as from a drying shirt. She heard the faint metallic clang of letters coming through the front door. She hurried downstairs, forgetting that she was naked, rushed into the hall, grabbed the letters, turned and gave a little scream of shock as she saw the postman peering in through the window in the side of the hall, nose pressed to the glass, eyes wide and hungry, lapping up what the song thrush had not appreciated. They stared at each other in shock for a moment, then she covered her pubic hair with her gas bill; this seemed to release him from his trance, and he disappeared. A moment later, while she was still examining her mail, she heard a mighty crash. She couldn’t worry about that for the moment. There was one suspect envelope. She ripped it open and felt swamped by relief. It didn’t begin ‘We are very sorry to have to tell you that your son has given his life for his country. We are sure it will be a consolation to you to know that he died bravely.’

  As she hurried upstairs to get her slippers and dressing-gown she wondered if they did send letters, or if they called round. She didn’t think that she could bear it if they called round and saw her face crumple up.

  She hurried downstairs again, thinking about how proudly, how eagerly, Nigel had gone off to fight for his country. He was big and strong and she knew that he had felt that his arrival in the war, coming so soon after that of the United States of America, would be the grain of sand that tipped the scales.

  She hurried down the path in her slippers and dressing-gown. The postman was sitting at the side of the bright red letter-box which stood halfway down Dollery Road.

  ‘Set off too fast, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘Fell off my bike. Must have crashed into the letter-box.’

  ‘Ironic.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. Are you badly hurt?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Pity.’

  He looked at her beseechingly. He really did cut a pathetic figure. She could lose him his job. That would be a very middle-class thing to do. So what? He deserved it. She wondered how often he had stared at her.

  She couldn’t report him. After all, he hadn’t brought a letter saying Nigel was dead. Probably he was very unhappy at home.

  She had power over him. She was frightening him. He deserved it, but she didn’t like doing it. She decided to put him out of his misery.

  ‘If you ever do that again, I’ll report you,’ she said.

  He couldn’t speak. She held his bike out to him and he got on. He set off down Dollery Road.

  ‘There is one thing,’ she called out.

  He wobbled and almost fell off again.

  ‘Don’t bother to call for a Christmas box this year.’

  She walked up the tiled path. A wren scolded her. Her phone was ringing, shrill, sinister, bringing bad news.

  ‘Hello.’ She could hardly speak for nerves.

  ‘It’s me. Walter.’

  Relief. Blessed relief.

  ‘Darling! Are you naked?’

  ‘Walter! Of course I’m not. I haven’t been naked since the postman left.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell you later.’

  ‘The children send their love, Kate. Shall we see you for lunch?’

  This was the moment. She had to tell him today. It had gone on far too long. It was ridiculous.

  ‘Walter? Is there someone who can look after them?’

  ‘Well, for goodness sake, Kate. Timothy’s almost seventeen. I can leave them with him. But why?’

  ‘There’s . . . there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  ‘So, what is it you have to tell me?’ he said as he entered the house.

  ‘Let’s have some coffee and go into the drawing-room,’ she said.

  ‘You can sit in the drawing-room. I’ll sit in the lounge.’

  She began to make the coffee and didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s jus
t that . . . I’m a plain man.’

  She snorted.

  ‘You drink plain champagne and eat plain caviare,’ she said. ‘You’re as plain as Croesus.’

  ‘No, but I mean, I’m not artistic. I’d like to be, but I’m not.’

  ‘What’s being artistic got to do with it?’

  ‘The drawing-room. I don’t draw. I’m lazy, and I lounge.’

  ‘You are as aware as I am that drawing-room is short for withdrawing-room.’

  ‘Talking of withdrawing,’ he said, ‘any chance of a fuck?’

  ‘Walter!’

  ‘Sorry. I can’t resist seeing that shocked chapel-girl look you still get, and I do want you most awfully.’

  ‘One lump of arsenic or two?’

  ‘Seriously, though, Kate. We were married. We are engaged. I know it’s usually the other way round, but couldn’t we . . . “resume conjugal relations”?’

  ‘After what I’ve told you today, you may not want to.’

  He walked up to her, put his arms on her shoulders, and pressed his body against her back. She poured the coffee and didn’t look at him.

  ‘It’s serious, then, this thing that you have to tell me?’

  ‘You know it is. That’s why you’re being so jokey. Come on. Let’s go into the . . . well, as we’re going to sit, how about compromising and calling it the sitting-room?’

  The sitting-room was pale and restful, with splashes of bold pink and red from the curtains and lampshades. They sat on the settee. It was half the size of one of Walter’s. He looked far too large for the room. Kate felt full of love for him, and very nervous. He was nervous too. His knuckles were white.

  ‘So,’ he said with a sigh, ‘spill.’

  ‘It’s about . . . it’s about Dilys.’

  ‘Dilys??’ His incredulity was swamped by his relief. ‘I thought . . .’ He stopped.

  ‘You thought?’

  ‘I thought . . . I thought you were going to tell me you had some fatal disease.’

  ‘Oh, Walter!’

  ‘I thought I was going to lose you.’

  ‘No. I may lose you. You won’t lose me. Well, you may lose your idea of me.’

  ‘What is all this?’

  She couldn’t look at him, so she looked at the thrush. It was standing on the lawn, pulling at a long, wriggling worm. How horrid to be eaten alive.

  ‘You probably think of me as a mature woman, Walter.’

  ‘Positively elderly.’ He was frisky with relief.

  ‘Shut up. I’ve done something very silly that isn’t mature at all.’

  She paused. He waited.

  ‘Dilys is dead.’

  ‘Oh, Kate, I’m so sorry. My poor darling.’

  He tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away.

  ‘Oh, I’ve had plenty of time to get over it,’ she said. ‘It happened a long while ago.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘1905.’

  ‘1905??’

  ‘She was five.’

  ‘But . . . your letters to her!’

  ‘I didn’t post them. There wasn’t a lot of point.’

  ‘But . . . that’s crazy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But . . . you’re not crazy!’

  ‘Aren’t I?’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But me no buts.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shakespeare.’

  ‘Ah. Well, I wouldn’t . . .’

  ‘If you say you wouldn’t understand because you’re only a plain man, all you understand is pistons, I’ll hit you.’

  ‘But . . . sorry, but I have to say “but” . . . well . . . how did she die?’

  ‘She was a spastic. Every day, Walter, I watched my twin sister get a little more ill. Every day I grew a little stronger. Every day she grew a little weaker.’

  ‘And you wished the two of you could change places.’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I was so thankful it was her and not me.’

  Walter didn’t say anything. The thrush flew away, as if the garden of the Gables was no longer a wholesome place to be.

  ‘Oh, I cried for her, Walter. I grieved for her. I loved her. I longed for her to be well. I prayed for her to be well. I am human. I also . . . because I’m human . . . resented her sometimes. All the attention. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but . . . I felt she was letting me down. The wonderful closeness of identical twins. Inseparable emotionally. Always understanding what the other was thinking. One of them in Vancouver and the other in Llandrindrod Wells and they both bought identical hats at exactly the same time. The Thomas twins. Uncanny. All that was denied me. So, ever since then, Walter, I’ve tried to escape the grief, the loss, the guilt.’

  ‘There’s never any escape from guilt except by facing it.’

  ‘There speaks the blunt piston manufacturer.’

  ‘No! There speaks a man more intelligent and sensitive than you will ever allow, you snob you.’

  Kate gasped. Walter held her by the shoulders again, and let her head rest on his great barrel of a chest.

  ‘I could never face up to Dilys’s death. I could never have talked to Arturo about it, or Heinz, or you till now, when I’m forty-four. I felt such pain about it, such guilt about it, about being the one who lived, about wanting to be the one who lived, about stealing her life from her, as it sometimes seemed even though I know that’s ridiculous. So, I invented a life for her, to escape the truth. The awful thing is that I invented such a dull life. I wasn’t going to have her upstage me.’

  ‘I must say I’m relieved I’m never going to have to meet that plumber of hers. I’ve nothing against plumbers, but he did seem dreadfully dull. Wouldn’t even have wanted to pop over to Congleton for a pint. Oh, Kate, how could you have needed to do all that?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Fantasy is a very important part of reality,’ she said.

  ‘But . . . I thought you were so strong.’

  ‘Isn’t everybody racked by self-doubt? Except megalomaniacs, of course, and I wouldn’t want to be one of them.’

  ‘But . . . sorry, this will be the last “but”, I promise. But . . . your family! You told me never to mention Dilys to them. How did you get them never to mention her to me?’

  ‘They never mentioned her again to me after she died,’ she said. ‘Never ever. Not one mention. I suppose they thought I’d be too upset. Maybe they wonder if I’ve forgotten. Or maybe they just didn’t know what to say. Not one word.’

  ‘I think that may have contributed to your need for a fantasy.’

  Walter drew her face to his, and licked her tears.

  ‘I don’t know how you could have thought you’d lose me because of that,’ he mumbled into her blouse. ‘You can’t have a very high opinion of me.’

  She drew away from him, laughing now.

  ‘I didn’t hear a word of that,’ she said.

  He repeated it.

  ‘Oh, Walter,’ she said, ‘I’m not a very nice person, am I?’

  ‘You’re beautiful though.’

  He raised his eyes towards her bedroom, questioningly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m ready now. I’m certain of us now, Walter. You do understand that I had to tell you first, don’t you?’

  He picked her up as though she was made of feathers, and carried her to bed. Kate felt that the force of his love would break her in two. Their love that afternoon had an intensity to silence thrushes. Afterwards they lay in silence, looking at the gentle April clouds, had a bath together, feeling that that was really rather daring, in Dollery Road, in 1944, and then Kate made a pot of tea. Walter took great gulps – he was always thirsty, but especially so after sex – and then Kate went to the door to see him off, and he thought she had forgotten all about Dilys for the time being, but at the door she said, ‘It’s funny to think that if she’d lived she’d be forty-four.’

  ‘Well, of course she would,’ he said, slightly irritated that she had gone back to the subject. />
  ‘She’d have been a middle-aged woman.’

  ‘Not if she was still identical.’

  Again they married very quietly. It seemed the only appropriate way, the second time around. The children came, of course, including the newly demobbed Nigel, who had just won the Second World War, with a bit of help from his friends. There were no other guests. They didn’t invite Kate’s parents because they had been shocked by her divorce, and they didn’t invite Walter’s parents because they hadn’t invited Kate’s.

  They didn’t expect any wedding presents, but Walter’s father gave them an amazing gift. He retired and left Walter in sole charge of the firm, the Boothroyd side having given up its interest long ago. Walter was an only child, and the apple of his father’s eye. His father, Harold, had an even bigger house than Walter’s. It looked like a cross between a minor château of the Loire and the clapboard Georgian mansion of a Kentucky horse trainer.

  After the wedding they went to Swansea to make their peace with John Thomas Thomas and his beloved Bronwen. Kate’s second divorce seemed to have shaken them even more than the first. That had been an aberration. This looked suspiciously like a habit. That had been Walter’s fault. This time the fault seemed to be Kate’s.

  The situation was not made easier, for Kate, by the ironic fact that Maurice, Walter’s only child, wasn’t with them, while Elizabeth, Heinz’s only child, was. Maurice was staying with friends. Elizabeth hadn’t any friends with whom she could have stayed, had she wanted to, which she wouldn’t have, even if she had had friends, for she was an irritatingly clingy child, worryingly so for seven.

  Nothing was said, over tea, about Walter and Kate’s remarriage. Her parents were in their seventies now. Her mother was beginning to look like a little old lady. John Thomas Thomas’s hair and moustache had become as white as fresh snow. Remote behind a book of essays, with his hearing-aid not switched on, he looked like a god. He had mellowed slightly in his old age, and had now removed the photograph of Lloyd George altogether, believing that his brood were old enough not to need Awful Warnings any more. Kate knew that he must be disappointed in her. She felt dry in the mouth. Even three cups of tea couldn’t assuage her thirst. She’d never realised before just how deeply she needed her mother’s love and her father’s approval. ‘I’m not really wild,’ she wanted to say. ‘I’m steadfast. It may be my fourth marriage, but it’s only my third husband, after all, and I didn’t actually leave Heinz, he left me.’ But she felt that her life had been more chaotic than they could fully accept, and that these arguments would have seemed like mitigating circumstances rather than a complete defence, and in any case she was too proud to defend herself at all.