FAMILY CIRCLE

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Wouldn’t it be as well to have a word with her?’

  ‘I don’t think it would serve any purpose at all, my dear. People are entitled to their privacy, particularly if they are upset.’

  She made me feel as though my concern for Margaret was motivated by morbid curiosity. I retired to the bathroom in bad order.

  While I bathed and dressed, I could hear the Routh family moving about. Constance had come in. As usual she wasted no time on ceremony. I heard her greet Timothy, ‘My little lost brother, wherever have you been?’

  ‘Now give him time,’ her father remonstrated gently.

  ‘He’s overdrawn on that account already,’ she retorted.

  Timothy said, ‘Get to the kitchen, woman, and see about my fatted calf!’

  There was a thump and a protest, then footsteps thudded down the corridor. I think it was Timothy who ran away.

  In spite of the hilarity, the atmosphere was uneasy when we forgathered for supper. Timothy’s features seemed more delicately sculptured than ever and their sensitivity was enhanced by what we used to call his ‘doomed youth look’. Mr. Routh looked across the hall at his wife as she came down the stairs.

  ‘Margaret with you?’ he asked, and he smiled, as though by resolutely ignoring discord he could actually achieve harmony.

  She said quietly, ‘She’ll be down presently, I expect.’

  Constance marched up the stairs. ‘Supper is ready!’ She emphasized each word with a loud thump on the door of Margaret’s room. Mrs. Routh put her arm on my elbow and steered me in the direction of the dining-room; Timothy and Mr. Routh followed us.

  We had just taken our seats when Constance and Margaret came in. Constance looked plump and serene as a Botticelli angel. Beside her, Margaret was sullen and extremely plain; her features tended to be heavy and her body was rather stocky, one noticed these things when the light within her was extinguished. Mr. Routh looked at her, his eyes screwed up like those of a child who bites on a fruit and finds it bitter. Mrs. Routh flicked a quick glance at her younger daughter and looked away again, her expression one of weary amusement. Margaret addressed her dinner plate.

  ‘Hullo, Timothy.’

  ‘Hi, there!’ He was extremely embarrassed and sweating slightly.

  There was a pause during which the silence was broken only by the clink of silver against glass as Constance helped herself to salad. ‘Now come along!’ she addressed us all. ‘You’re none of you going to be allowed down until this is finished.’

  Her father smiled at her as he passed the salad bowl to me. ‘How wonderfully you look after us, my dear.’ As though seconding this vote of thanks, we all helped ourselves generously with the exception of Margaret who took a small lettuce leaf and a section of tomato. Timothy began to talk about Italy. His father listened eagerly and plied him with questions, to which Timothy did not always respond with very precise information. From time to time, his gaze shifted to his mother’s face. I remembered how often as a child he had sought her approval. She had given it sparingly, because she judged it was not wise to encourage his tendency to show off. Now, however, she was grateful to him and though she could not but be candid, her candour was tinged with tolerant amusement.

  ‘I did not know they had nude bathing in Italy,’ she said once, in genuine surprise.

  Timothy looked flustered; the nude bathing incident, I suspect, was authentic enough, but not the location. His father, misunderstanding his confusion, brought his considerable forces to the rescue.

  ‘And why not?’ he asked. ‘Surely this sort of thing is much more healthy than the attitude which has prevailed in the past; the nude figure has greater dignity and purity than the figure with the strategically placed underclothing designed to titillate the senses! Don’t you agree?’ He turned to me eagerly.

  ‘I suppose so.’ I wondered whether he thought that the corollary applied and that nudity could not be so arranged as to titillate the senses. I helped myself to a piece of treacle tart.

  He took me up on my slight hesitation. ‘But surely our present attitude to sex is more healthy! As a race we have in the past been completely inhibited.’ He was angry: there was a deep reservoir of anger within him, so that although he was so kind to those around him, he seemed to find it necessary to create an unseen presence on whom this anger could legitimately be vented. He was addressing this presence now; one was aware of this because of the bitterness of his tone which, in another man, might have seemed to verge on violence. ‘No doubt the current vogue for erotic display is another aspect of Puritanism; this I would allow. We are still trying to free ourselves, to arrive at a stage where we can accept sex as a part of life, easily and naturally, as we were meant to do. But to reach this stage we have to liberate ourselves from all the ridiculous prohibitions of the past which gave rise to so much fear and pain and cruelty. We have been crippled by these prohibitions, so that something which should be beautiful, which should dignify and enrich our lives, has become a source of shame, a thing to be pushed into the dark corners, the blind alleys of existence. I, too, hate obscenity; I, too, believe that unbridled promiscuity will do us irreparable harm …’ Mrs. Routh was watching his plate; in spite of a few preliminary stabs with a knife, he had not yet eaten anything. ‘But even so, I have nothing but contempt for these virtuous men and women who deem it necessary to witness these erotic displays merely in order, so they would have us believe, to satisfy themselves that they are morally degrading and worthy of condemnation! It would be much wiser to leave well alone. These things have come about because there is a need in our society for this kind of release; when we have learnt to live more richly and fully, the need will go and this kind of entertainment will be of interest only to the poor, incomplete creatures who cannot get their pleasure in any other way. Yes, Constance; what is it that you are trying to say, my dear?’

  ‘There’s cream if anyone would like it. It’s by your elbow, Daddy.’

  Mr. Routh started the cream on its journey and said to me, ‘Don’t you agree?’

  I swallowed a piece of treacle tart and reached for a glass of water. ‘I suppose so.’

  Margaret said, ‘What is so healthy about a lot of middle-aged men sitting in a theatre masturbating?’

  Timothy said, ‘I’ve probably been a bit misleading about this nude bathing. It’s not laid on, or anything … I mean, it’s just a case of finding an isolated stretch of coast …’

  I pushed a piece of tart round my plate, soaking up excess treacle.

  Margaret said, ‘I want Daddy to tell me what is so healthy about a lot of middle-aged men sitting masturbating in a theatre.’

  ‘No one said that that was healthy, my dear,’ Mrs. Routh said.

  ‘Daddy said that our attitude to sex today was much more healthy, so this is one of the practices which he thinks is liberating.’

  ‘Could this wait until after supper?’ Timothy suggested.

  Margaret got up and left the room. Mr. Routh put his hands on the table and scraped back his chair. Mrs. Routh said sharply, ‘No. Don’t do any more, please, Oliver!’

  He looked at her in amazement, the strong features sagging ludicrously so that the whole structure of the face was threatened. She said gently, recovering herself, ‘She’ll be all right. Just leave her alone, my dear.’

  Timothy gave a nervous bray of laughter. ‘Poor old Maggie! She always was rather tempestuous, wasn’t she?’

  Constance said, ‘I wouldn’t have said so.’

  He opened his mouth as though to argue and she thrust the cream jug at him.

  As soon as the meal was over, I said, ‘I’ll do the washing up. No, really, I insist! It’s so long since you’ve been together.’

  Saul was not pleased to see me. It was his practice to go to bed early and he did not like to be disturbed. Routine was important to him. He raised bloodshot eyes from the smelly, blanketed box which was his bed; every time I passed anywhere near him he wrinkled the top of his mud-encrusted nose and dis
played yellow teeth. ‘You don’t need to worry,’ I told him. ‘I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last male on earth.’ He wrinkled his nose again and growled. He had bad breath to add to his other misfortunes.

  I took my time, cleaning the sink, about which Constance was not very fastidious, and removing pieces of treacle from the top of the oven. By the time I returned to the sitting-room, another person had joined the family group. Dr. Ahmed had arrived. He was dressed very formally in a trim navy suit with a white-striped shirt and a navy tie; his shoes were navy, too, and well-polished. He looked very alien. He was much more serious than anyone else in the room, treating even the most light-hearted subject with respect as though it might turn round and bite him. The situation was obviously quite beyond him and I think he would like to have left but could not conceive a plan to get himself out of the room.

  We talked for a long time. It seemed that everyone was having difficulty in getting out of the room. Eventually, Constance suggested a last drink. Dr. Ahmed refused and said that he would leave, but he seemed to feel that he could not do this while Constance was in the kitchen. He kept looking anxiously at the clock and then casting imploring glances at the door as though it barred his way to some imagined bliss that awaited him in the dark lanes of Stanford. At a quarter to one, while we were finishing our milk drinks, he was still making rather unconvincing apologies, directed mainly at Constance who was ignoring him. It was then that the noise started. At first I thought that Saul was having a fit, the noise was so hideous and so full of pain. Mrs. Routh was the first out of the room and I think that I was next. In the hall it was obvious where the noise was coming from. We raced up the stairs. Margaret was standing in the doorway of her room, her hands to her head, uttering sharp, broken screams like a frightened animal. Mrs. Routh put her arms round her and this she allowed. The air was chill now and she was wearing only a brief cotton nightdress; I grabbed a blanket from the bed and we draped it round her. She was shaking violently but seemed to respond to our attentions. We drew her into the bedroom and then stood back to allow Dr. Ahmed to come to her. I saw him clearly, although it must have been as much of a shock to him as the rest of us, he was perfectly calm; there was nothing in his manner to explain what followed. As soon as she saw him, she shrieked and held her hands out in front of her as though to ward him off. She cried out with a terrible urgency, ‘Oh God! Oh God! Don’t let it happen.’ He stepped towards her and she gave a high-pitched wail that was hardly human; she began to throw herself about the room, at one time banging her head against the wall. He said, ‘I shall have to go away. Try to get her on to the bed; but do not use force with her, just stop her from hurting herself. I will get Owen.’ When he had gone, Margaret stood staring after him. She said over and over again, ‘Oh God, God, God, please God …’ Her hands were clenched at her sides, her body was rigid, sweat streamed down her face. Mr. Routh went towards her saying, ‘My darling, let me …’ She screamed, ‘No, no! Not you! I can’t bear it!’ Her eyes became wild as though some civilizing veil had been stripped from them. She began to lunge about the room again. We formed a circle round her. We tried to keep her from any piece of furniture on which she might injure herself and at the same time we tried not to present her with too solid a resistance; it developed into a grotesque dance in which we constantly formed and reformed our positions. Finally, she fell into a wicker chair by the window; we tried to get a blanket round her, but she tore it aside. She stayed in the chair, her fingers gripping the arms, and began to talk very fast. ‘I can’t see what’s coming next. Will you go out and tell them? Oh, why doesn’t one of you help me?’ She stared at us reproachfully as though we really understood but were tormenting her by pretending not to. ‘What am I to do with you all, then? The timetable, the timetable, why doesn’t someone find out? There’s one in the hall’ She never drew breath. Sometimes the words formed complete sentences, but mostly it was a series of half-statements. ‘Oh God, I can’t, I can’t, can’t you see that I can’t …’ repeated over and over again until some mechanism jogged the brain on to the next sequence. ‘I won’t, I won’t be able to, what can I do? What am I to do? …’ The words came terrifyingly fast. Across the back of her chair, I caught a glimpse of Constance’s face, white as salt. The front door bell rang. Constance dashed out of the room and I went after her. Dr. Ahmed had opened the door and we could hear him talking. Constance ran down the stairs.

  ‘Owen, oh Owen, thank God! Please, please come quickly!’

  They were coming, up the stairs, Constance bobbing up and down in front of Dr. Lander so that I could not see him properly.

  ‘She won’t stop talking,’ Constance said. ‘She’s gone out of her mind, Owen.’

  ‘Is she making sense?’

  Constance said ‘no’ and Dr. Ahmed said ‘yes’.

  ‘Then she isn’t out of her mind.’

  He was wearing dark slacks and a frayed green sweater, but his authority was unquestioned.

  ‘There are far too many people in here,’ he said as he went into Margaret’s room. ‘All we need is someone to tidy the bed and restore order generally. You perhaps,’ to me. ‘The rest of you …’

  The room was cleared in a matter of seconds and Margaret was sitting in the chair with the blanket around her. The nightmare was over: we were still in trouble but we had come out of the skid. I kicked off my shoes and padded softly round the bed, making myself as inconspicuous as possible while he talked to Margaret. There was no suggestion that a miracle could be worked with her. He sat by her, holding her wrist and speaking to her very gently, and she appeared to take no notice of him; had it not been for his light touch on her wrist, one felt that they might as well have carried on their dialogue, if such it could be called, from different parts of the universe. She was calmer physically, however, and there was a change in the tempo of her speech, as if a torrent had settled itself into the more relentless rhythm of a steady downpour. When I had finished, I whispered to him, ‘What now?’ He answered quietly, ‘I want to get her to bed if I can.’ He kept his eyes on Margaret’s face while he spoke and I was again conscious of his formidable powers of concentration.

  I stood well back, waiting. Margaret was a pitiful sight, her face heavy as though the features were bluntly moulded in lead, the resentful eyes rimmed with dark shadows, the hair dank with grease. For a moment, I too wondered if she could ever come through this sane. It took him a long time to get across to her the idea that we were going to put her to bed. I got the impression, however, that his words were beginning to penetrate; there was an obstinacy about the set of her mouth, and in the watchfulness of her eyes, that suggested resistance. She was like a person fighting to remain under an anaesthetic. One felt she might continue like this indefinitely. I began to understand why it is that people are sometimes driven to violence by mental cases and I marvelled at the patience of this otherwise impatient man. Eventually, he got her to her feet so gently that she did not realize what was happening to her until she was standing upright. Then her face suddenly flared with alarm and it seemed that the whole performance might start again. She had been murmuring all the time, now her voice became more shrill, ‘No, no, no, you don’t understand… .’ Her head lolled about alarmingly. ‘All right.’ He held her steady while I held my breath. ‘All right.’ The little flash of energy subsided and the voice resumed its murmuring. It was only six paces to the bed, but he would not allow me to hurry her and it seemed an eternity before we had her lying down with the bedclothes drawn neatly, but not tightly, about her. She was still talking. By this time my store of patience had shredded away. I was glad when he said, ‘Thank you. That’s all you can do. Except to open the window a little wider.’ The room, at any rate, seemed cool and sane when I left.

  I could hear the clatter of crockery from the sitting-room. I don’t think I have ever craved tea more than at this moment. The occupants of the sitting-room, however, did not appear to be refreshed. As I entered, Timothy was saying, ‘I tell you,
nothing dramatic happened.’ There was an edge of desperation in his voice.

  Constance said impatiently, ‘Something must have happened.’

  I went across to the trolley and poured myself a cup of tea, strong, with very little milk. Mr. Routh came over to me.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She seems a bit calmer,’ I said, glad to be able to tell him this because he looked so stricken.

  Mrs. Routh was still talking to Timothy. ‘We simply must get this straightened out …’

  ‘Then don’t expect me to do it! I’ve been pitchforked into this without any idea of what is going on.’

  ‘But she was staying with you!’ Constance protested. ‘You must have some idea …’

  ‘Oh, all right!’ Timothy hunched forward, his hands pressed to his face; the attitude won him a breathing space which he badly needed. Everyone looked at him expectantly. He took his hands away from his face and examined his fingernails.

  ‘Well, she was rather upset. But I didn’t think it was going to lead to anything like this, of course, or I wouldn’t have let her travel home alone… .’

  ‘Upset about what?’ Mrs. Routh brushed his excuses aside.

  Timothy writhed about in his chair. He seemed genuinely distressed at having to betray Margaret’s confidences. It was a worthy enough attitude, but maddening in the circumstances. Mrs. Routh studied him with cold distaste and said:

  ‘Do you realize how ill she has been?’

  Timothy winced. ‘I’m sorry. Yes, of course, I can see I’ve been looking at things from the wrong angle.’ He could never withstand pressure. He blurted out, ‘It was this job she had got herself …’

  ‘Job?’ Mr. Routh echoed in bewilderment.

  ‘The job was perfect for her,’ Mrs. Routh said crisply.

  ‘She didn’t think so. It seemed to be preying on her mind.’