by P. D. James
She waited. Nothing happened. There was still no sound from next door but Grace’s harsh and regular breathing. The next step was easy; she had done it twice before. She dropped both her pillows on the floor and, manoeuvring her body to the edge of the bed, let herself drop gently on top of their soft cushion. Even with the pillows to break her weight it seemed that the room shook. Again she waited. But there were no quick footsteps hurrying down the passage. She raised herself upwards on the pillows against the bed and began propelling herself towards its foot. It was an easy matter to stretch out her hand and withdraw the cord from her dressing gown. Then she began her painful progress towards the door.
Her legs were powerless; what strength she had was in her arms. Her dead feet lay white and flabby as fish on the cold floor, the toes splayed like obscene excrescences vainly scrabbling for a grip. The linoleum was unpolished but smooth and she slid along with surprising speed. She remembered with what joy she had discovered that she could do this; that, ridiculous and humiliating as the trick might be, she could actually move around her room without the use of her chair.
But now she was going farther afield. It was lucky that the modern insubstantial doors of the annexe rooms were opened by depressing a handle and not turning a knob. She made the dressing gown cord into a loop and, at the second attempt, managed to throw it over the handle. She tugged and the door quietly opened. Discarding one of the pillows, she edged her way into the silent passage. Her heart was thudding with such power it must surely betray her. Again she slipped the cord over the handle and, manoeuvring herself a few feet down the passage, heard the door click shut.
One single light-bulb, heavily shaded, was always kept burning at the far end of the corridor and she could see without difficulty where the short staircase led to the upper floor. This was her objective. Reaching it proved astonishingly easy. The linoleum in the passage, although never polished, seemed smoother than that in her room; or perhaps she had gained the knack of progress. She slid forward with almost exhilarating ease.
But the staircase was more difficult. She was relying on pulling herself up by the banister, step by step. But it was necessary to take the pillow with her. She would need it on the floor above. And the pillow seemed to have swollen into a gigantic, soft, white encumbrance. The stairs were narrow and it was difficult to prop it safely. Twice it tumbled down and she had to slide after it to retrieve it. But after four steps had been painfully negotiated she worked out the best method of progress. She tied one end of the dressing gown cord around her waist and the other tightly round the middle of the pillow. She wished she had put on the dressing gown. It would have hampered her progress, but she was already shivering.
And so, step by step, gasping and sweating despite the cold, she pulled herself up, grasping the banisters with both hands. The stairs creaked alarmingly. She expected any minute to hear the faint summons of a bedside bell and hear from the distance Dot or Helen’s hurrying footsteps.
She had no idea how long it took to reach the top of the stairs. But at last she was sitting crouched and shivering on the final step, grasping the banisters with both hands so convulsively that the wood shook, and peering down at the hall below. It was then that the cloaked figure appeared. There were no warning footsteps, no cough, no sound of human breath. One second the passage was empty. In the next a brown cloaked figure—head bent, hood drawn well over the face—had moved silently and swiftly beneath her, and disappeared down the passage. She waited terrified, hardly daring to breathe, huddling herself as far as possible out of view. It would come back. She knew that it would come back. Like the dreadful figure of death which she had seen in old books, carved on monumental tombs, it would pause beneath her and throw back the concealing hood to reveal the grinning skull, the eyeless sockets, would poke at her through the banister its fleshless fingers. Her heart, beating in icy terror against the rib cage, seemed to have grown too large for her body. Surely its frantic thudding must betray her! It seemed an eternity, but she realized that it could only have been less than a minute before the figure reappeared and passed, beneath her terrified eyes, silently and swiftly into the main house.
Ursula realized then that she wasn’t going to kill herself. It had only been Dot, or Helen, or Wilfred. Who else could it have been? But the shock of that silent figure, passing like a shadow, had restored in her the will to live. If she had really wanted to die, what was she doing here crouched in cold discomfort at the top of the stairs? She had her dressing gown cord. Even now she could tie it round her neck and let herself slip unresisting down the stairs. But she wouldn’t. The very thought of that last fall, the strangling cord biting into her neck, made her moan in agonized protest. No, she had never meant to kill herself. No one, not even Steve, was worth an eternity of damnation. Steve might not believe in Hell, but what did Steve really know about anything that mattered? But she had to complete her journey now. She had to get hold of that bottle of aspirin which she knew must be somewhere in the clinical room. She wouldn’t use it, but she would keep it always within reach. She would know that, if life became intolerable, the means to end it was at hand. And perhaps, if she just took a handful, and left the bottle by the bed they would realize at last that she was unhappy. That was all she intended; all she had ever intended. They would send for Steve. They would take some notice of her misery. Perhaps they might even force Steve to take her back to London. Having come so far at such cost, she had to get to the clinical room.
The door presented no problem. But when she had sidled through, she realized that this was the end. She couldn’t switch on the light. The low bulb in the corridor gave a faint diffused glow but, even with the door of the clinical room ajar, it was inadequate to show her the position of the light. And if she were to succeed in switching it on with the dressing gown cord, she had to know accurately at what spot to aim. She stretched out her hand and felt along the wall. Nothing. She held the cord in a loop and flung it softly and repeatedly where she thought the switch might be. But it fell away uselessly. She began to cry again, defeated, desperately cold, suddenly realizing that she had the whole painful journey to do again in reverse, and that dragging herself back into bed would be the most difficult and painful of all.
And then, suddenly, a hand stretched out of the darkness and the light was switched on. Ursula gave a little scream of fright. She looked up. Framed in the doorway, wearing a brown habit open down the front and with the hood flung back was Helen Rainer. The two women, petrified, stared at each other speechlessly. And Ursula saw that the eyes bent on hers were as full of terror as her own.
III
Grace Willison’s body jerked into wakefulness and immediately began to tremble uncontrollably as if a strong hand were shaking her into full consciousness. She listened in the darkness, raising her head with difficulty from the pillow; but she could hear nothing. Whatever noise, real or imagined, had woken her was now stilled. She switched on her bedside lamp; nearly midnight. She reached for her book. It was a pity that the paperback Trollope was so heavy. It meant that it had to be propped up on the coverlet and since, once stretched into her conventional attitude for sleep she couldn’t easily bend her knees, the effort of slightly raising her head and peering down at the small print was tiring both to her eyes and to the muscles of her neck. The discomfort sometimes made her wonder whether reading in bed was the pleasant indulgence she had always believed it to be since those childhood days when her father’s parsimony over the electricity bill and her mother’s anxiety about eye strain and eight hours good sleep each night, had denied her a bedside lamp.
Her left leg was jerking uncontrollably and she watched, detached and interested the erratic jump of the coverlet as if an animal were loose among the bed clothes. To wake suddenly like this once she had first fallen asleep was always a bad sign. She was in for a restless night. She dreaded sleeplessness and for a moment was tempted to pray that she might be spared it just for tonight. But she had finished her prayers and it seeme
d pointless to pray again for a mercy which experience had taught her she wasn’t going to receive. Pleading to God for something which he had already made it perfectly plain he wasn’t disposed to give you was to behave like a peevish, importunate child. She watched her limb’s antics with interest, vaguely comforted by the sensation which was now almost self-induced of being detached from her unruly body.
She lay down her book and decided instead to think about the pilgrimage to Lourdes in fourteen days’ time. She pictured the happy bustle of departure—she had a new coat saved for the occasion—the drive across France with the party gay as a picnic; the first glimpse of the mists swirling around the foothills of the Pyrenees; the snow-capped peaks; Lourdes itself with its concentrated business, its air of being always en fête. The Toynton Grange party, except for the two Roman Catholics, Ursula Hollis and Georgie Allan, were not part of an official English pilgrimage, did not take Mass, grouped themselves with becoming humility at the back of the crowd when the bishops in their crimson robes made their slow way round Rosary Square, the golden monstrance held high before them. But how inspiring, how colourful, how splendid it all was! The candles weaving their patterns of light, the colours, the singing, the sense of belonging again to the outside world but a world in which sickness was honoured, no longer regarded as an alienation, a deformity of the spirit as well as the body. Only thirteen more days now. She wondered what her father, implacably Protestant, would have said about this keenly awaited pleasure. But she had consulted Father Baddeley about the propriety of going on pilgrimage and his advice had been very clear. “My dear child, you enjoy the change and the journey, and why not? And surely no one could believe themselves harmed by a visit to Lourdes. By all means help Wilfred to celebrate his bargain with the Almighty.”
She thought about Father Baddeley. It was still difficult to accept that she wouldn’t ever again be talking with him in the patients’ courtyard or praying with him in the quiet room. Dead; an inert, neutral, unattractive word. Short, uncompromising, a lump of a word. The same word, come to think of it, for a plant, an animal or a man. That was an interesting thought. One would have expected a distinctive, more impressive or momentous word for the death of a man. But why? He was only part of the same creation, sharing its universal life, dependent on the same air. Dead. She had hoped to be able to feel that Father Baddeley was close to her; but it hadn’t happened, it just wasn’t true. They are all gone into the world of light. Well, gone away; not interested any more in the living.
She ought to put out her light; electricity was expensive; if she didn’t intend to read it was her duty to lie in the darkness. Lighten our darkness; her mother had always liked that collect; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night. Only there was no peril here, only sleeplessness and pain; the familiar pain to be tolerated, almost welcomed as an old acquaintance because she knew that she could cope with the worst it could do; and this new frightening pain which, sometime soon, she would have to worry someone about.
The curtain trembled in the breeze. She heard a sudden click, unnaturally loud, so that for a second her heart thudded. There was a rasp of metal on wood. Maggie hadn’t checked the window fastening before bedding her down for the night. It was too late now. Her chair was at the side of the bed but she couldn’t get into it without help. But all would be well unless it were a stormy night. And she was perfectly safe, no one would climb in. There was nothing at Toynton Grange to steal. And beyond that fluttering curtain of white, nothing; nothing but a black void, dark cliffs stretching to the unsleeping sea.
The curtain billowed, bursting into a white sail, a curve of light. She exclaimed at the beauty of it. Cool air streamed across her face. She turned her eyes to the door and smiled a welcome. She began to say:
“The window—would you be good enough …?”
But she didn’t finish. There were three seconds only left to her of earthly time. She saw the cloaked figure, hood well down obscuring the face, moving swiftly towards her on silent feet like an apparition, familiar but horribly different, ministering hands that held death, blackness bearing down on her. Unresisting, since that was her nature and how could she resist, she did not die ungently, feeling at the last through the thin veil of plastic only the strong, warm, oddly comforting lineaments of a human hand. Then the hand reached out and delicately, without touching the wooden stand, switched off the bedside lamp. Two seconds later the light was switched on again, and, as if by afterthought, the cloaked figure stretched out a hand for the Trollope, gently rustled the pages, found the pressed flower between the fold of tissue, and crumpled them both with strong fingers. Then the hand reached out for the lamp again and the light went out for the last time.
IV
At last they were back in Ursula’s room. Helen Rainer closed the door with quiet firmness and leaned back momentarily against it as if exhausted. Then she went quickly over to the window and swept the curtains across in two swift gestures. Her heavy breathing filled the little room. It had been a difficult journey. Helen had left her in the clinical room briefly while she positioned Ursula’s wheelchair at the foot of the stairs. Once they reached it all would be well. Even if they were seen together in the ground-floor corridor it would be assumed that Ursula had rung her night bell and was being helped to the bathroom. The stairs were the problem and the descent, with Helen half-supporting, half-carrying her, had been exhausting and noisy, five long minutes of laboured breathing, creaking banisters, hissed instructions, of Ursula’s half-stifled moans of pain. It seemed now like a miracle that no one had appeared in the hall. It would have been quicker and easier to have moved into the main part of the Grange and used the lift, but the clanging metal grill and the noisy engine would have woken half the house.
But at last they were safely back and Helen, white faced but calm, pulled herself together and moved away from the door and began with professional competence to put Ursula to bed. Neither spoke until the task was completed and Ursula lay in rigid half-fearful silence.
Helen bent her face close to Ursula’s, unpleasantly close. In the glare of the bedside lamp she could see the features magnified, coarsened, pores like miniature craters, two unplucked hairs standing like bristles at the corner of the mouth. Her breath smelt slightly sour. Odd, thought Ursula, that she hadn’t noticed it before. The green eyes seemed to grow and protrude as she hissed her instructions, her dreadful warning.
“When the next patient goes, he’ll have to start admitting from the waiting list or give in. He can’t run this place on less than six patients. I’ve taken a look at the books when he’s left them about in the business room and I know. He’ll either sell out completely or hand over to the Ridgewell Trust. If you want to get out of here there are better ways than killing yourself. Help me to ensure that he sells out, and get back to London.”
“But how?”
Ursula found herself whispering back like a conspirator.
“He’ll hold what he calls a family council. He always does when there’s something important affecting all the household to decide. We all give our views. Then we go away to meditate in silence for one hour. Then we all vote. Don’t let anyone persuade you to vote for the Ridgewell Trust. That way you’ll be trapped here for life. It’s hard enough for local authorities to find a place for the young chronic sick. Once they know you’re being looked after, they’ll never transfer you.”
“But if the Grange does close down, will they really send me home?”
“They’ll have to, back to London anyway. That’s still your permanent address. You’re the responsibility of your own local authority, not of Dorset. And once back, at least you’ll see him. He could visit you, take you out, you could go home for weekend leaves. Besides, the disease isn’t really advanced yet. I don’t see why you shouldn’t manage together in one of those flats for disabled couples. After all he is married to you. He’s got responsibilities, duties.”
Ursula tried to explain:
&
nbsp; “I don’t mind about responsibilities and duties. I want him to love me.”
Helen had laughed, a coarse, uncomfortable sound.
“Love. Is that all? Isn’t that what we all want? Well, he can’t stay in love with someone he never sees, can he? It doesn’t work like that with men. You’ve got to get back to him.”
“And you won’t tell?”
“Not if you promise.”
“To vote your way?”
“And to keep your mouth shut about trying to kill yourself, about everything that’s happened here tonight. If anyone mentions hearing a noise in the night, you rang for me and I was taking you to the lavatory. If Wilfred discovers the truth he’ll send you to a mental hospital. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
No, she wouldn’t want that. Helen was right. She had to get home. How simple it all was. She felt suddenly filled with gratitude, and struggled to hold out her arms towards Helen. But Helen had moved away. Firm hands were tucking in the bed clothes, rocking the mattress. The sheets were drawn taut. She felt imprisoned, but secure, a baby swaddled for the night. Helen stretched out her hand to the light. In the darkness a white blur moved towards the door. Ursula heard the soft click of the latch.
Lying there alone exhausted but strangely comforted she remembered that she hadn’t told Helen about the cloaked figure. But it could be of no importance. It was probably Helen herself answering Grace’s bell. Was that what Helen had meant when she warned, say nothing about anything that happened here tonight? Surely not. But she would say nothing. How could she speak without betraying that she had been crouching there on the stairs. And everything was going to be all right. She could sleep now. How lucky that Helen had gone to the clinical room to get a couple of aspirin for a headache and had found her! The house was blessedly unnaturally quiet. There was something strange, something different, about the silence. And then, smiling into the darkness she remembered. It was Grace. No sound, no rasp of snoring breath came through the thin partition to disturb her. Tonight even Grace Willison was sleeping in peace.
