The Nightingale's Nest

by Sarah Harrison

  ‘Well it’s not going to happen in real life!’

  ‘I do so want it to! I want you to be his nemesis, Pamela – nemesis in a neat grey suit!’

  We parted happily, as friends, still laughing at the idea of me as an unlikely femme fatale. But almost imperceptibly our conversation had planted a seed which was already starting to take root. In early November Alan returned to Edinburgh to sit his exam. At the end of the month he received a letter from the Edinburgh Infirmary, offering him a place at the School of Clinical Psychology. We could no longer avoid the issue of our future. We met in town on a Sunday, and went for a walk in St James’s Park, following the long paths beneath a tracery of branches. The sky shone glassy blue but there was a bitter wind, and we kept our heads down.

  He made it very easy for me.

  ‘I do hope you’ll be able to come and visit me, Pamela.’

  ‘Try and stop me,’ I said, and meant it.

  ‘If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I’d be doing this.’

  ‘I’m sure you would. But I will come.’

  We sat down on a bench by the water. At once a flotilla of hopeful ducks moved our way. Alan spread his hands apologetically.

  ‘Sorry, chums, nothing for you . . .’ He thrust his hands back in his pockets and said, still looking out over the lake: ‘I hope you know how much I still love you.’

  I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

  ‘That’s why I can accept your not coming with me, for the time being, anyway. It would be torture for both of us if you weren’t happy.’

  I found my voice, but it was a poor, weak thing. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. You’ve never been anything but good for me. And to me. Even when you didn’t feel like it. You probably don’t want me to say this, but you’re a truly good person and you’re not sure yet what it is you want. There’s nothing wrong in that. What would be wrong would be for you to do something against your nature and instincts because you felt you had to.’

  ‘That sounds like a charter for the selfish.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to. Or at any rate, I couldn’t be happy knowing that you weren’t, so it works both ways. All that matters to me is that I keep your love, in whatever form it comes. If the price is that we spend time apart, and don’t have marriage lines to tie us together, then it’s a small one, and I’ll pay willingly.’ He smiled. ‘In advance if necessary.’

  Even as I wept, finally, on his shoulder, letting out all the doubt and tension of recent weeks in a slow tide of tears, I thought how incredible it was, and how undeserved, that in one short lifetime I had been loved by two such gentle, proud men. And how ironic that having been robbed of the first I was wilfully turning my back on the second.

  ‘Don’t cry, my darling . . .’ He leaned his head against mine, and wiped my wet cheek with his hand. ‘You mustn’t cry. We haven’t lost a thing. We’ve just rewritten the plan a bit, to suit us both.’

  ‘I wish,’ I began, ‘I do so wish . . .’ But I wasn’t sure what I wished.

  ‘Don’t let’s. I wish too, but it’s a waste of time and energy. Look at us – here we are, close as anything.’ He tilted my face towards his, and I saw that he was smiling. ‘The worst thing is we’ll be disappointing your mother, and we can handle her between us.’

  We ate lunch in the little restaurant where we’d had dinner that first time and, as we came out afterwards, Alan said: ‘Why don’t we go and visit your friend Barbara?’

  We walked back through the park, and then along Piccadilly and down Jermyn Street and Manns Place, to St Xavier’s. In the corner of the churchyard we found the new grave with its simple wooden cross. I was slightly shocked at how quickly the grass and weeds had reasserted themselves, and we both kneeled down and did some weeding, digging and pulling with our cold, bare hands until the plot was tidy again.

  Alan stood up first, dusting the mud off his trousers. ‘Why don’t I nip up to the corner and get a few flowers, show the flag?’

  ‘Would you? That would be nice.’

  ‘It would make both of us feel better, I suspect. Shan’t be long.’

  I got up too, and as I was standing there, wiping my hands on my handkerchief, I saw John Ashe standing by the church’s north door. He was wearing his big black coat, and carrying his hat. His crooked face looked very pale and intent; it seemed to be etched more distinctly than other people’s – over a distance of some fifty yards I could see it quite clearly. My heart hurtled as I lowered my head and fumbled with hankie and handbag, unsure whether he’d seen me or not. When I glanced back up, he’d gone.

  Five minutes later Alan came back with some shaggy orange and white chrysanthemums.

  ‘Not terribly inspiring, but it’s the thought that counts. Now then – something to put them in, I hadn’t thought of that. And unlike hospital, we can’t ask a passing nurse.’

  ‘They’re bound to have something in the church.’

  We went in by the north door. To our right we noticed a big double-fronted cupboard. I looked around, but although lights were on in the transept, and at the east end of the nave, there didn’t seem to be anyone to ask. Apart from ourselves the only people were a couple of the usual patrons sitting, hunched and patient, in the side pews. The cupboard door wasn’t locked, and inside we found plenty of vases, jam jars, candlesticks and the like. None of them looked valuable, so we selected one of the taller pots to take outside.

  As we left one of the seated men turned round and I saw that it was Ashe, and that this time there was no doubt he’d recognised me. My skin prickled as we went out into the grey shutting-down of the afternoon.

  I didn’t mention what I’d seen. When we’d filled the vase at the outside tap and arranged the flowers in it as best we could on the uneven turf, Alan said:

  ‘Poor thing, she needs a headstone. Do you think she had any relatives at all?’

  ‘Only her parents, as far as I know. And she was estranged from them.’

  ‘Terrible, isn’t it? How people can let that happen.’

  ‘It was their fault, not hers,’ I said, touchily, as though I’d been accused of something. ‘And I’m going to get her a headstone.’

  In all the months I’d been employed at Crompton Terrace Dorothy, in spite of her erratic timekeeping, had never missed a working day. So when she was off sick for a week in mid-November there was a noticeable gap in the life of the household. I asked Amanda Jarvis if she knew what was wrong.

  ‘I’m afraid, I’ve no idea . . . Her young brother came round with a note to say she wasn’t well and would be back next week. So I gather from that she’s not been taken into hospital or anything, it can’t be too serious. Still, it’s not like her. She’s such a sprightly, robust little thing, we’re awfully fond of her . . .’

  And they depended on her, too. It was quite an eye-opener. During that week I did a good deal of Dorothy’s work as well as my own. Amanda didn’t actually ask me to polish the tables, sweep the porch and do the washing-up but it was pretty clear that if I didn’t, nobody else would. Also, I had acquired a reputation for initiative and reliability of which I was secretly rather proud, so I did such chores as I had time for and which caught my eye willingly, even happily. The activity deepened my sense of being an essential part of the household, and was the very antithesis of the tense, oppressive calm of Ashe’s office. I didn’t tell my mother who, in spite of her almost evangelical enthusiasm for order and cleanliness, would have been horrified to learn that her highly qualified daughter was doing another woman’s dusting.

  I asked Chef if he knew what was the matter with Dorothy.

  ‘Search me,’ he said, ‘she was right as rain on Friday. What I do know is, the sooner she gets over it the better. I can’t manage this kitchen on my own for ever.’

  At the end of that week, on the Saturday, I went to the funeral director and ordered a headstone for Barbara. He presented me with the monumental mason’s brochure, from which I selected the simplest model (sti
ll exorbitantly expensive), a plain slab of arched granite, with the letters ‘Barbara Chisholm, Rest in Peace’. The funeral director asked me for her date of birth, and my inability to supply it may have contributed to the slight frostiness with which he told me that there was a long delay on this particular model of headstone, and that it was unlikely to be in place until February.

  A new girl had moved into Louise’s room during the week; there could scarcely have been a starker contrast. She was an accounts clerk at Maples, short and homely with a fuzz of curly hair and bright eyes behind round glasses. She was nice enough, but so commonsensical that within twenty-four hours it was I who felt like the newcomer. She created a system for organising the post in the hall, and another for ensuring that everyone got at least one hot bath a week. A doormat appeared outside her room. It was clear that there would be no more drinking, smoking and gossiping, let alone men being smuggled out of the building in disguise. Her arrival gave the whole house a different atmosphere. She brought the place to heel, and now I became the outsider, the woman from the second floor at whom the landlords looked askance.

  I had changed. But so, too, had Dorothy. The following Monday she was already there when I arrived, mopping the floor tiles in the porch.

  ‘Welcome back,’ I said. ‘We missed you.’

  She stood with her arm resting on the mop. In spite of her exertions her face was colourless. ‘That’s not what I heard. I heard you did your job and all of mine, too.’

  ‘Scarcely!’

  ‘I’d never have bothered coming back if I’d known. Except I need the money.’

  ‘I’m extremely glad you did. A fraction of what you get through in a day was far too much for me. Anyway, how are you? Properly recovered from whatever it was?’

  She dunked the mop vigorously in the bucket and began swabbing again. ‘Not bad. Getting there.’

  ‘Because you shouldn’t be doing that if you’re not,’ I said.

  She didn’t look up. ‘Don’t worry. It’s all sorted out.’

  I’d been told to mind my own business, and I did. But as I sat at my desk in Jarvis’s office, listening to the familiar sound of Dorothy’s footsteps up and down the hall, I was puzzled by her choice of words.

  Whatever had been ‘sorted out’, the job was an imperfect one, because a couple of days later at four o’clock, when I was about to leave for Ashe Enterprises, Chef burst out of the kitchen in a state.

  ‘Hey – Mrs Griffe! Can you come – it’s her! I knew she wasn’t right!’

  The Jarvises were up in their room and hadn’t heard. I didn’t alert them immediately, but ran into the kitchen. Dorothy was on the floor beside the table, attempting to drag herself up, using the seat of a chair as a prop. Her face was a damp, greeny white and with each laboured breath she uttered a little moaning sound.

  ‘Quick!’ I barked at Chef. ‘Help me!’

  Together we eased her on to the chair. ‘Fetch some water! Please.’

  He brought a glass, slopping in his haste, and I held it for her. But she was already rallying, and took it from me.

  ‘Thanks. That was pretty stupid . . .’

  ‘Dorothy, we have to get you to a doctor. No, better than that, I’m going to tell Mr Jarvis what’s happened and he can call for one.’

  ‘No!’ Her hand groped for my wrist, and then gripped it. Her fingers felt cold, but the grip was surprisingly tight. Because her skin was rough, it felt like a bird’s foot clinging to me. ‘No, there’s no need. And don’t tell anyone, either.’

  Chef made an explosive sound of exasperation, half-sigh, half-snort, and went out of the back door. She pulled on my wrist, making me lean down to her.

  ‘Promise? Pamela, you promise?’ More than anything, her unprecedented, instinctive use of my Christian name alerted me to the importance of what she was saying, but I was in an impossible position.

  ‘No, Dorothy, you know I can’t, it would be quite wrong of me to make any such promise when you’re clearly very unwell.’

  ‘I know what’s the matter with me better than any doctor. I’ll be myself again in no time,’ she said. And in fact I could see that she was beginning to revive; some colour was returning to her cheeks and her breathing had become more even.

  ‘Tell me, then,’ I said. ‘You can’t ask me not to worry and not to get any help unless you confide in me. It isn’t fair.’

  She looked up at me, and I could see how difficult it was for her to decide. She had let go of my wrist but now, having reached her decision, she slipped her hand into mine in a gesture that was trusting and confiding as a child’s. I saw her glance anxiously at the back door, beyond which Chef was calming his nerves with a cigarette, and I leaned down again to be sure that only I could hear.

  ‘I was expecting,’ she said. ‘But I’m not any more.’

  ‘Dorothy!’ How had I failed to guess? I tried to put my arm round her, but she stiffened. As if apologising for the rebuff, she gave my hand a squeeze before releasing it.

  ‘All done and dusted,’ she said. ‘But I’m still getting some cramps.’

  ‘Was it Jimmy’s?’ I asked.

  She gave me a sharp, reproving look. ‘What sort of girl do you take me for? Whose else would it be?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So you should be.’

  ‘I mean, about the baby.’

  ‘Yes. Well . . .’ She placed her hand flat on the table and eased herself, slowly but quite steadily, to her feet. ‘It had to be done.’

  I heard these words uncomprehendingly to begin with and, after their full implication dawned on me, I was still knocked for six when Chef came back in.

  ‘Feeling better, girl?’

  ‘Yes thanks.’

  ‘Thank Gawd for that,’ he said in an ungracious, grumbling tone. But at least he had the good sense not to ask her to do anything immediately.

  ‘Would you like to go outside for a few minutes?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you think that’d be all right?’

  ‘I think some fresh air would be just the thing – it’s what Mrs Jarvis would advise.’

  As luck would have it, Christopher Jarvis, in his best suit, was coming downstairs as we made our way across the hall.

  ‘Hello – Pamela, I thought you’d be gone. All well?’

  I took charge. ‘Dorothy’s feeling a bit under the weather; she’s going into the garden for a moment for some air.’

  ‘Good idea. Dorothy, I’m so sorry. Not yet quite shaken off the illness?’

  ‘Looks like it, sir. Nothing serious, though.’

  ‘Mrs Jarvis will be down shortly, perhaps we could take you home?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, sir.’

  ‘Well, we’re in your hands.’ He looked at his watch, then at me. ‘Hadn’t you better head off to Soho Square? We can deal with things here.’

  ‘It won’t matter if I’m a little late,’ I said. ‘We’re not that busy at present.’

  The truth was, I didn’t care. I sensed that my unspoken pact or understanding with Ashe had entered into another phase. I was unlikely to be dismissed for one instance of unpunctuality.

  We went out into the garden. It was cold, and almost dark except for the light spilling from the house.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’ asked Dorothy. She lit up and stood there with her arms folded. The red spark of the cigarette dilated and contracted as she drew on it.

  ‘Who—’ I began.

  ‘My sister knows someone. I’m not stupid, I wouldn’t go to a stranger.’

  ‘But this person wasn’t qualified.’

  ‘She knows what she’s doing.’

  I remembered things Alan had told me. ‘There’s a risk of infection. You should be examined by a proper doctor.’

  Dorothy snorted. ‘Don’t make me laugh. I may not have much of a reputation but I’m not going to ruin what’s left.’

  ‘I know one who’d check you over. Make sure everything’s as it should be.’

  She
turned towards me. Even in the darkness I could make out her incredulous expression. ‘You mean, see your boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s a good doctor and he’d be completely discreet.’

  ‘No thank you!’ She shook her head, ‘I’d have to be desperate! Still—’ her voice softened. ‘If I am, you’ll be the first to know.’ John Ashe wasn’t in the office when I arrived. The doors of his office, and the studio, were locked, but that of mine stood open and some letters lay on the desk. On top of them was a note in his immaculate handwriting – each letter stood separately, neat and elegant as a soldier, shoulder to shoulder with its neighbour.

  Dear Mrs Griffe,

  You had not yet arrived when I had to go out. Please see to

  these. I’m not expecting anyone, but refer any queries to me tomorrow.

  Yours, John Ashe

  I was almost disappointed to miss the opportunity for the little scene I’d rehearsed, in which he would offer that steely hint of reproof and I would meet it with a confident composure.

  It didn’t take me long to deal with the correspondence, but I didn’t leave at once. I sat there in the perfect silence of the empty office, conscious of my isolation. I had thought myself part of this other world, but I wasn’t, any more than I was part of the one I’d left.

  I was on my own. But not, I realised, lonely. And I experienced an extraordinary sense of something almost like power: an independence that had nothing to do with money. At that moment I knew that no matter what happened, I would never be like Parkes, or even Louise. I would never depend for my happiness on someone else, especially not a man. I had helped Barbara, albeit imperfectly and too late. I could and would help Dorothy if she would let me.

  And then there was Suzannah, the most completely lost of all. I would find her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  John Ashe met my request for more money with his customary air of mild civility.

  ‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘You haven’t been here very long.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed.

  ‘And I believe – you’ll correct me if I’m wrong – that I am paying you more, pro rata, than your other employers.’