The Hive

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Now you’re sounding like someone presenting his credentials. James French, F.R.C.P., etcetera, capable, intelligent, hard working and decently married.’

  ‘It’s true, all the same. People are only too ready to gossip about unmarried consultants. I’m married, so I’m safe.’

  ‘Are you? You mean you’re going to stay safe inside the palings of domesticity?’

  He looked at her, and smiled slowly, and she let her own face relax into the same sort of smile before reaching for a cigarette.

  He lit it, and said, ‘To get back to what we were saying before. You’ve assessed your own emotional needs in relation to your job?’

  She seemed relieved at the change of subject.

  ‘Mmm, I think so.’

  ‘And what conclusion have you reached?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t ask. Even if I had a taste for pointless chatter, I wouldn’t indulge it with you. It was never necessary in the past, and I don’t suppose it is now.’

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  He bowed ironically.

  ‘What conclusion did I reach?’ She sounded reflective. ‘You know, if I put it into words, it will sound—chill. Rather ugly, perhaps.’

  ‘What if it does? The truth often is ugly. Another cliché.’

  ‘We’ll chalk it up.’ She sounded absentminded, as though she were thinking of something else. Then she raised her head and looked at him very directly.

  ‘I’ll tell you then. I realised a long time ago that as a normal woman—normal in the biological sense, that is—I need a mate, and I need offspring. That’s what I was born for.’

  ‘Biologically speaking.’

  ‘Biologically speaking. However, on an intellectual level, I can think of nothing more soul destroying than a life devoted to domesticity. That’s the trouble with the world we live in. If a woman satisfies her biological drives, she’s got to stifle her other drives. She can’t help it. No—perhaps stifle is the wrong word—redirect would be a better one. She’s got to use up the bulk of her energy on the dreary details of domestic life. For me, that’d be hell. Cooking and cleaning and house management bore me stupid, the needs of children are altogether too vociferous for my taste, and to spend my whole life pandering to them would make me resentful, to put it mildly. QED, I’d make a god-awful wife and mother.’

  ‘So you are a matron instead.’

  ‘A nice semantic point! Yes, I’ve the label of mother, I suppose, but in the best possible way, as far as I’m concerned. I can channel my biological need for children into my job in a very useful and personally comfortable way.’

  ‘But of course, that’s only part of your biological need.’

  ‘Don’t rush me!’ She smiled at his quick comprehension. ‘So you’re a jump ahead of me! Shall I stop telling you, in that case? If you already know?

  ‘But I don’t! I may know what your other need is—but not what you intend to do about it! For me, that’s what will be really interesting.’

  ‘Perhaps I intend to channel that, too. Use all the energy I might expend on sex in my job?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He looked at her for a long moment, and then he said, ‘That would be fine for a woman who had not already—shall we say—become aware of how much can be gained by not channelling that energy?’

  ‘If you are asking me whether I’m what I seem—a rather elderly virgin——’

  ‘Never elderly!’

  ‘Thirty-five is elderly for a virgin,’ she said equably. ‘But you need have no fear for my frustrations. I’m not. I’m just not married.’

  He looked at her with real curiosity. ‘To be completely blunt, Elizabeth, did this—did your status change before you knew me or afterwards?’

  She laughed with real amusement. ‘James, my dear man! Why the euphemism? It isn’t really necessary, is it?’

  He reddened. ‘Put it down to Jennifer’s softening influence. She’—he let his mouth quirk into a smile—‘she feels that some things are too sacred to be talked of too easily.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to be feminine again. I’m not going to tell you. If I say I first had an affair before I met you, you will think I wanted one with you and was disappointed. If I say it was afterwards, you will suspect that I suffered from an attack of romantic love for you, and drowned my sorrows in someone else’s bed. I’m not going to give you the pleasure of either conjecture.’

  ‘You may be giving me both by not telling me.’

  ‘That’s a chance I’ll take.’

  There was a pause, then he said curiously:

  ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do about these needs of yours—and clearly you have them.’

  ‘Because I’m “awakened”? Another euphemism. Yes, I have them. Of course I have, I think all women have them—awakened or not. They just don’t know it, most of the time.’

  ‘But you do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you have a plan to deal with them.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘That sounds rather too cut and dried. I have—ideas, shall we say.’

  ‘And what form do they take?’

  She shrugged. ‘To be practical, I must seek my—pleasure—where I can get it.’

  ‘Who’s begging the question now?’

  ‘All right, then,’ she said impatiently. ‘I shall find a man—or men—to have a sex life with, where and when I can. So there you have it. Are you shocked by the ugliness of that?’

  ‘Shocked? Why should I be? It doesn’t sound so very ugly. Just practical. I—applaud your good sense.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said ironically, and then laughed again. ‘And that is quite enough about my needs for one night. Let’s talk of other things. The hospital, for example.’

  For a moment, James felt chagrin. He had directed their conversation along the lines it had followed with deliberation, using his own knowledge of her to do so. And it should have been he who had chosen this moment to change the subject to his own interests, to leave her dangling without an answer to what had been the frankest invitation she had ever offered, even during the days when he had been unencumbered with a wife, and when she had had a romantic attachment for him, deny it though she might. But she had herself taken the initiative and he didn’t like it.

  She seemed to sense the faint chill in him, and slid away from the subject she had originally meant to discuss—the committee meeting on the next Monday.

  ‘It’s an interesting place, in some ways. The sisters—I find them—a little difficult.’

  He relaxed. He felt that after all she had not taken the initiative from him, and she allowed amusement to rise in her as she watched him, knowing quite well what he was thinking. For all his ability and the swiftness of his mental processes, she thought, he’s still a very immature man in some ways. He needs just the same cossetting and gentle handling they all do. The realisation warmed her. For all her appreciation of his intellect, she would have found him less desirable without this very human male pride.

  ‘Difficult?’ he was saying. ‘In what way? Resenting the newcomer?’

  ‘That, of course. But it goes deeper than that. They’re—well, they’re such an anachronism, somehow. I feel they live in a sort of encapsulated world of their own—one that belongs to the old days, when hospitals were almost convents.’

  ‘They live in hospital, of course. It’s an extraordinarily unnatural existence for grown women.’

  ‘Precisely. For the student nurses, the communal life is fine. An extension of school, really, and they need it. But for women in their thirties and forties——’ she shook her head. ‘They’re like bees.’

  ‘More biology?’

  ‘They seem to me to live in a lot of separate cells. They think they live in a big hive, you know, but they don’t. They’re cut off from each other, all in their own private translucent cells. They can see each other, and they can hear each other, but th
ey have no real contact——’

  ‘That’s a lot to have discovered about them in so short a time.’

  ‘I know. It may sound facile to produce a judgement on them quite so soon—but it’s true, all the same. I haven’t spent the years I have in a psychiatric hospital without developing a quick appreciation of people’s reactions to each other—and to me. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s how I see them. I’ll know more when I get the group going.’

  She told him of her plan to start group discussions among the sisters, and he listened carefully, with mounting interest.

  ‘It sounds an extremely valuable idea,’ he said when she had finished. ‘It gives me ideas——’

  ‘Now we are coming to it,’ she thought, smoothing her face.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s partly political, in a way——’ he said slowly.

  ‘You’ll have to explain, James. I’m a new bug, remember?’

  ‘Yes—well, look, it’s like this. I want to do some research——’

  ‘So I gathered on Monday.’

  ‘Yes—it was a bit ham handed, wasn’t it? Sisson and Jamieson—they’re a pair of complete asses. I doubt if either of them could have the remotest understanding of what I really want, or what it means——’

  ‘They’re opposing you, I gather?’

  ‘To put it mildly! The Light Department’s being converted into a ward—ten bedder, in two five bedded rooms. Sisson wants them for a gastro-intestinal unit—which he doesn’t really need. He’s got plenty of beds already. Jamieson—he’s just trying to expand his empire, that’s all. He wants them because he wants anything that’s going——’

  ‘Not a bit like you——’

  He grinned. ‘Of course not! No, I want them for a genuine reason. I want to do some research into psychoneuroses. I want to see if there are any physical bases. I’m not completely sold on the Freudian ideas——’

  ‘It sounds fascinating——’ She became all nurse, then, more interested in the techniques of her job than the personalities. ‘I’ve seen some reports on similar work done on the psychoses——’

  ‘Precisely. Diet, drugs, surgery——’

  ‘The committee favours whom?’

  ‘No one yet—but I think they might come down for Sisson. They dislike Jamieson on personal grounds—justifiably, I think—and they’ll oppose me on two main ones. One is the cost, but the most important will be the nursing. One or two people will think that having a unit with psychiatric patients will make the place less attractive for nurses, and they’re very worried about the nursing strength——’

  ‘And you want my help.’ She nodded with immediate understanding. ‘If I can show them the nursing won’t go down—and even manage to lift the recruitment figures——’

  ‘They might give me the beds. Exactly. You see my needs very quickly, Elizabeth.’ He paused for a fraction of a second. ‘Just as quickly as I understand yours.’

  There was a silence and then he smiled very gently.

  ‘It would all be so—tidy—if we could help each other deal with our problems as easily as we understand them.’

  It was her turn to look at him, to consider, behind a calm exterior, precisely what he meant.

  ‘It would be tidy,’ she said at length. ‘But it isn’t often that things are as tidy as one would wish.’

  ‘No. Not often. But it happens sometimes.’

  She became brisk.

  ‘Well, James, I can clearly make no promises of allegiance until I know more about it all—the pros and cons of Jamieson’s and Sisson’s demands, for a start. Monday’s meeting should give me some idea about that——’

  ‘My dear Elizabeth, I wouldn’t for a moment have you think I was trying to—suborn you in any way!’

  ‘Oh, perish the thought!’ she said, with laughter in her voice. ‘As if you would!’

  ‘As if I would indeed!’ He smiled too, highly satisfied, and then stood up. ‘Another drink?’

  ‘A small one,’ she said and watched him prepare it, her legs stretched out before her, thinking with some complacency of the way they had both so neatly stated their positions. It had been, from her point of view, a most valuable conversation.

  When the bridge players joined them, the Chestertons full of ill-disguised pleasure at their small winnings, Peter slightly sulky because he had lost money as a direct result of Jennifer’s tinkling giggles as she played excruciatingly bad bridge (her giggles and stupidity had so enraged him, his own play had become wild) James and Elizabeth were discussing the research he planned with a good deal of enjoyment; she liking her position as his confidante, he basking in the rare pleasure of having an intelligent woman to listen to him. But they broke off their conversation without apparent regret, and James finished the evening talking to Chesterton, entrenching himself in his esteem even more strongly, while Elizabeth embarked on a cosy womanly discussion about clothes with Mrs. Chesterton and Jennifer.

  As they undressed that night, Jennifer stretched with carefullissomeness after she had taken off her brassière and girdle, displaying her soft round body to her husband with all the self-awareness of a wife of less than a year’s standing, and smiled at him through her up-stretched arms.

  ‘Poor Miss Manton! I wonder why she never married? Was it because of you, darling?’

  ‘Me? Never! No, sweetheart. She just isn’t the marrying kind, isn’t Elizabeth. No, I just took her out because she was someone to talk to in those days. I used to be—lonely—before you.’

  ‘Poor James! Were you? Not now.’

  ‘No, not now. Come to bed, monkey. Standing there like that! Shameless hussy!’

  Their love-making followed its usual pattern, for Jennifer reacted strongly to any attempt by James to behave in what she considered ‘unusual’ ways. James, lacking the intense sexual drive he might have had, did not mind her unadventurousness in the least, finding it restful; it had only been on one or two occasions in the very early days of their marriage that he had made any such attempts. He was abstracted tonight (not that Jennifer noticed; she was always too involved with acting out her own pattern of unwillingness, shyness and final ecstatic whimpering surrender to notice his reactions at all) remembering his conversation with Elizabeth.

  He had not been quite as much in control of it as he had meant to be, but he had got the results he wanted. And for a brief moment, he wondered how Elizabeth would be in bed, and then dismissed the thought. There was little doubt that he would be forced to find that out sooner or later; Elizabeth had made it abundantly clear that this was to be her share of the bargain. But he hoped it would be a good deal later than sooner. The longer he could delay such a consummation, the more he would get out of her.

  SIX

  When the sisters had finished their reporting on the first day of Miss Manton’s second week at the Royal, she settled to assessing how far she had been successful in persuading them to accept her discussion plan.

  She wrote a list, in her strong looped handwriting, and sat surveying it before setting out on her ward round.

  The assistant matron and the administrative sister who occupied the office next to hers had opted out. She had fully expected this. She had told them of the plan apart from the others, partly because she knew that such separate treatment was due to their status, and partly because she didn’t want them to join in anyway. They were important to the day-to-day running of the hospital, to the detailed part of it, but she did not want them to be too much a part of what she considered the essence of her job—the relationship between herself and the ward and departmental sisters, and student nurses.

  For all her interest in and genuine belief in the value of good therapeutic relationships, she was human enough to want to remain the most important member of the staff. The two administrative sisters were far too near to her in the hierarchy to be encouraged to share in this discussion idea, she thought. She had worded her invitation to them with care, and successfully. ‘Like the Latin qu
estion that demands the answer “no”’ she thought with satisfaction.

  Dolly East had opted in. That was rather a surprise. Elizabeth was aware of the older woman’s hostility, and fully understood it, even approved of it. Had Dolly accepted her defeat too easily, been fawning rather than angry, Elizabeth would have despised her. In fact, she had a grudging admiration and sympathy for her. But she had not expected her to join in the group discussion, and was rather puzzled.

  ‘She may see it as a way to get at me,’ she thought. ‘And if I join in properly—and I must, of course—she may be right. It’s a hazard I’ll have to face. I’ll watch her carefully——’

  Gladys McLeod was on the list. ‘Colourless,’ thought Elizabeth. ‘A dreary woman in a dreary job. But I’m glad she’s in. She can have quite an effect on students. If I have any success with her, it can really do some good to the girls. I must work on her.’

  Susan Phillips. Daphne Cooper—‘There’s malice in that woman,’ she thought. ‘That’s why she’s in——’ Ruth Arthur—‘I’m not sure about her. Empty headed man-chaser or something more? More perhaps. She isn’t the sort to give up an evening’s off duty for nothing——’ Sylvia Swinton—‘A puzzle, that one. Face full of intelligence, but blank—closed really. Difficult to get behind her——’ Mary Cotton. Josephine Cramm—‘My God, but that woman’s neurotic. She smells of anxiety——’

  Eight. Nine with Elizabeth herself. That was almost the whole of the senior nursing staff, only three departments being unrepresented. One absentee from the list was the sister on male medical. She was on extended sick leave, her ward being run by a staff nurse until she could return.

  ‘With luck,’ Elizabeth thought, ‘she won’t be back. Rather elderly, that one——’ She looked up the file on Sister Garrett and nodded in satisfaction. Nearly sixty. ‘If she does go, I can put someone rather stronger in—give it a month or two before I follow this up——’

  The sister from the private unit had refused the invitation to join in the group. That wasn’t surprising. She regarded herself as an autonomous individual, running the small private wing as a nursing home within the hospital itself. There were no student nurses on her staff, only staff nurses, since the consultants were always too anxious about the welfare of their private patients to risk having untrained people caring for them. She had no staff problems; her nurses stayed with her because although she was sometimes harsh and difficult, the side benefits were good. Elizabeth had no illusions about this. She knew quite well that the nurses on a private wing were offered and accepted money gifts from their patients, that was why they worked there. Elizabeth strongly disapproved of nurses being tipped like barbers or taxi drivers, but she knew she could do nothing about it. The patients wanted to do it, and anyway if they were stupid enough to pay for treatment they could get for nothing in the general wards, then she was not particularly interested in them. Elizabeth had mildly left-wing leanings, and had a scorn for people who chose to behave as though medical care were a commodity that could be bought like cars or clothes. She was therefore not particularly concerned either about the private patients or the nurses who looked after them. Better to have Sister Kelly out. She wasn’t worth bothering about, in the group discussion context.