MARCH HOUSE

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘I walked.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Just anywhere.’ She looked at me, clenching her hands, on the verge of the unreasonable anger which so often flared up. ‘God! You don’t understand, do you, my own child and you don’t even begin to understand! In London I can walk along the street, any street, and no one knows me; I don’t have to explain myself to anyone . . .’

  ‘But you don’t have to explain yourself here.’

  ‘All the bloody time!’

  ‘It’s because you’re a Londoner you feel so at home there,’ I temporised.

  ‘ “You feel you’re at home there”,’ she mimicked. Although she was not clever, she was very quick to catch a meaning even before the speaker was fully aware of it. She began to sing an exaggerated, sentimental parody of ‘London Pride’. I laughed because she did this kind of thing well, and she laughed, too, her anger forgotten. She took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Oh, duckie, let me try . . . There was this little street off Camden High Street . . . I hadn’t noticed it before, though goodness knows I’ve walked down that high street often enough . . . but there it was, half-a-dozen terraced houses, so quiet you could tuck yourself away there and no one would know . . . And yet a few hundred yards away there was the High Street and all the lovely Cypriot shops, the greengrocers and the delicatessens; and all the people coming and going; people you’d pass once and never see again. I could just imagine myself in one of those little houses, with a bed close by the window, lying there, listening to it, all that bustle and hustle, not needing to go out if I didn’t want to, just having it all come in through the window . . .’ She closed her eyes and tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘Perhaps in the evening the smell from the restaurant would tempt me . . .’ Her plump fist clenched against her breast. She looked so bereft that I wanted to comfort her, but had no idea what it was that she needed.

  ‘Did you get your dress?’I asked.

  She pushed my hand away, recognising that I was treating her like a child and asking her to show me her pretty things. ‘No, I didn’t get a dress. I just walked. You’ve got a silly mother, Ruth.’

  Sometimes when she set out on a weekly visit she would say she was going to the theatre, but she never went. Occasionally, she met one of her family, but most often she walked, or sat alone in a café taking a long time over a meal.

  ‘Oh Mother, why?’ Suddenly I was crying quietly. ‘Why? Why . . .?’ I could no more have finished that sentence than she could have done.

  The tears gave me a headache but brought no relief. I wasn’t even sure what it was that needed relief. My eyes and throat ached and when I went to bed I could not sleep. The air was oppressive, and some time after midnight the curtains stirred and a flash of lightning lit up the room. The thunder was still distant. The door of my father’s room opened and I heard him walk along the landing to the bathroom. I wondered whether he had a headache, too. Heavy drops of rain plopped on the window sill, on the leaves of the trees. Downstairs, Punter began to whine. My father went downstairs and soon I heard them both coming upstairs. My father said softly outside my door, ‘Are you awake, Ruth?’

  I said, ‘M’yes,’ making my voice sound sleepy.

  ‘There’s a storm coming up. Better close your window.’

  I said that I would, but I left the window open and lay listening to the rain which was now falling steadily. The curtains billowed out like a wind-sock. The smell of wet earth was pleasant but the air was still heavy.

  The storm circled around but did not come directly overhead. The wind rattled doors and wood creaked. Amidst all this noise I sometimes imagined that I heard the floorboards creaking in my father’s room and I wondered if he was upset and whether I should go to him. I remained propped up in bed, watching the lightning flashes briefly lighting up the garden and wondering why I did not go to him.

  Chapter Three

  Across the fields from the clinic, its chimneys visible between trees, stood the Mill House which had been in the ownership of the same family for over two hundred years. The present occupant was the last of the line and played the part with sufficient force to ensure that the name would survive long after her death. As a child I could remember seeing Miss Maud Leveridge dressed even then a little eccentrically, but still acceptably because at that time she was elegant and only part dotty and could carry off what were regarded as ‘arty’ clothes. Now, probably in her seventies and considerably more eccentric, Miss Maud wore the same long flowered gowns, much faded, torn and mud-stained. Her hair was dyed a rusty black and her thin, fine features were made up in the exaggerated style of the thirties’ movies. She lived alone except for her cats whose company she preferred to that of human beings. The clinic staff were her nearest neighbours and she paid us constant visits. She told us that over the years she had murdered more men than she could remember in the Mill House. When she was not telling us about the men she had murdered, she was giving advice to our clients. She was doing this when I arrived on Thursday morning, having first delivered a report to one of the local doctors. It was half-past nine. One of Iris’s clients was sitting outside the reception room with her teenage daughter.

  Miss Maud, wearing a mangled straw hat and a long, ominous purple dress, was advising the client, ‘My dear, he’s writing out a prescription before you walk in the room, now isn’t he?’

  Mrs. Libnitz, who did not believe that her job involved her in any loyalty to the health service, nodded in vigorous agreement.

  ‘Drugs,’ Miss Maud went on, ‘are as much a mystery to the G.P. as the source of his spells are to the witch doctor. As far as he is concerned, they have one magic power: they enable him to do his surgery without actually examining any of his patients. Did Dr. Jones examine you?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘Then tear up that prescription.’ She tweaked a piece of paper from the teenager’s hand and tore it in pieces.

  ‘That was my raffle ticket!’

  ‘All you need is out there.’ Miss Maud pointed out of the window. ‘Nature provides the cure: the drug companies make it expensive, that’s the only difference.’

  ‘Now you’re being very naughty, Miss Maud.’ Iris hurried out of her room to claim her client. ‘What’s this that you’ve torn up?’

  ‘It’s my raffle ticket!’

  ‘Raffle ticket? You shouldn’t be spending your pennies on raffle tickets, Sharon.’

  ‘I sold it to her.’ Mrs. Libnitz pushed her head through the enquiry hatch.

  ‘You shouldn’t be selling tickets on these premises . . .’

  ‘It’s for multiple sclerosis . . .’

  ‘I don’t mind what it’s for . . .’

  Miss Maud watched this little scene which she had set up with satisfaction. I walked quietly across to my room, but it was no use; she pounced on me before I could close the door.

  ‘When is the new psychiatrist starting?’

  ‘New psychiatrist?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I know you have a new psychiatrist.’ She followed me into the room. ‘Why are you so secretive about it? His name ought to be proclaimed in the stars, or at least put up on the notice board.’

  ‘Miss Maud, you know you don’t trust doctors . . .’

  ‘But I love psychiatrists. They are so amusing. When can I meet this one?’

  ‘You want an appointment?’

  ‘Now don’t be clever with me, child, because I’m much more clever than you are. I just want to come and have a chat with him. After all, we are both in the same line of business. I, too, am a healer.’

  I wanted to say, ‘what about all those men you murdered?’ but I was a little afraid to take on Miss Maud; it was quite true that she was more clever than I was. I think she was more clever than Dr. Arnold.

  ‘I don’t know when he is starting,’ I said. ‘You’ll probably know before we do, Miss Maud.’

  ‘It would be nice if he would call on me. But the days of old-fashioned courtesy have gone. Nevertheless, perhaps you
will tell him that I shall be glad if he will join me in a glass of wine, say, next Wednesday, at twelve o’clock?’

  ‘I’ll make a note of it.’

  She watched me write it down. Then she said, ‘Now that your mother is dead, do you intend to go on working in this place?’

  I looked at her, too startled to speak.

  ‘It’s a frightful waste. You do realise that, don’t you? Simply frightful.’

  ‘Waste?’

  ‘Of you, child. Get right away from here.’

  ‘I can’t leave my father,’ I said involuntarily, not meaning to enter into a discussion with her.

  ‘Hate your father!’ she said vehemently. ‘It’s too late to hate your mother; but hate your father. Don’t you know your commandments? He talked a lot of sense, you know; as well as saying some rather silly things.’

  She turned away abruptly and left the room. In the corridor I could hear Mrs. Libnitz saying to Douglas, ‘I’d like to see it in writing . . .’

  ‘I shouldn’t let it trouble you, Mrs. Libnitz.’

  ‘I’m not troubled. But she said I shouldn’t sell them on the premises and I’d like to see it in writing . . .’

  ‘Perhaps it would be better not to sell them to the clients?’

  ‘Does it say so in writing?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Douglas came into my room and shut the door.

  ‘You’ve just missed Miss Maud,’ I told him.

  He sat down in the armchair which was usually reserved for clients who were waiting.

  ‘You’re going to visit Mrs. Harrison at ten,’ I reminded him. ‘What am I doing advising Mrs. Harrison? Her husband has left home because he couldn’t put up with Mrs. Harrison and the four children any longer. What am I supposed to say? That I know exactly how he feels?’

  ‘Poor Mrs. Harrison. She didn’t produce four children unaided, did she?’

  ‘She likes babies. As soon as the youngest gets past the baby stage, she wants another. Charlotte was just the same.’

  ‘Maybe Mrs. Harrison feels she is good with babies?’

  ‘Why don’t you see her for me? You would do it much better. You have so much sympathy for her.’

  I did not answer. He watched me, biting his lip. He was in one of those moods when he seemed to warn others to keep their distance and yet looked at them with eyes which begged something of them. Women found him hard to resist and I was no exception. He said quietly, ‘You do sympathise with Charlotte, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘It hasn’t been easy for me, Ruth.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for her and the children.’

  ‘There are things you don’t know.’

  I was silent and he said, ‘You are very obstinate in your quiet way; I would hate to have a battle of wills with you.’ He was angry that his appeal had failed. His expressive eyes had gone very dark and I was afraid of what he might say. He could be spiteful when he was hurt. He said, ‘I suppose you haven’t had enough experience to realise that life isn’t all black and white. If there is one thing marriage does for a person, it makes them tolerant of failure.’

  ‘Mea culpa, Douglas. I didn’t mean to be unsympathetic.’

  ‘Which is just another way of saying that you don’t sympathise, of course. It’s hard for you to understand about me and Charlotte. Your parents were very devoted, no doubt.’

  I began to type a court report. He sat in the chair, watching me. ‘What goes on in your head, I wonder?’ he mused. ‘You do the work impeccably and you bear with our faults; you are sympathetic to the clients but never intrusive; you are, as your reference said, a model of “patience, good humour and discretion”. You demand very little for yourself, except privacy.’

  ‘Is that bad? Privacy?’

  ‘You are a very private person, and this makes me wonder whether you aren’t also rather self-concerned.’

  I finished the page and replaced the carbons. Douglas got up and went out of the room. My concentration wavered. Douglas and I had developed an odd, uneasy relationship and for some reason that I could not understand he seemed to observe me in order to find a weakness in my capacity for giving and then expose it. He had told me that as well as being intolerant I was self-concerned. What bloody cheek! I thought, mangling the paper as I wound it into the machine. Self was what this clinic was all about: self-knowledge allowing self-forgiveness from which would come self-awareness leading to self-reliance culminating in self¬fulfilment. What was wrong with a little self-concern? Our clients were all people who were having trouble with self; women with children preventing their self-fulfilment and husbands with demands in conflict with the woman’s own needs; the husbands themselves prevented from developing self to the full by their marital ties, the financial burden of home, wife, children. Even the people who were free of all that and lived together without admitting any ties or responsibility had trouble fulfilling themselves. In a world full of people constantly impinging on one another it is very difficult to help people to preserve their selfhood intact. If I had gone some way to preserving mine, Douglas should surely have applauded me.

  While I worked this over in my mind, I knew that I should not have been upset by Douglas’s reproach if it had not brought to mind my resistance to my father’s wish that we should go on holiday together.

  I had refused to go to university. There had been such tension about that, I had forgotten how bad it had been until my father brought it up again. But why should I be so distressed about it now? I hadn’t liked Douglas giving me a run-down on my character. At the clinic I was an observer; an observer isn’t part of the charade; I didn’t want them to try to draw me into it, make me participate. I wasn’t going to have that any more than I was going to university. There was a connection missing somewhere in my thought process, but that was something that had never bothered me in the past; the difference was that this time instead of confusing other people I was confusing myself.

  Iris poked her head round the door to say that she was taking Mrs. Haines to the hospital for an appointment.

  ‘Do you want to sign this report before you go?’

  She came into the room followed by Mrs. Libnitz carrying the electric kettle. ‘There’s something I shall have to add to it. Can you hold it?’

  ‘The hearing is tomorrow.’

  ‘Let me have the carbon and I’ll think about it while I’m out. I’ll be back in the afternoon, four o’clock at the very latest. That will give you plenty of time, won’t it?’

  She went out of the room, leaving the carbon copy behind. I ran after her with it. Mrs. Libnitz had put a cup of coffee on my desk by the time I returned. She was sitting on the window seat looking into the garden. It seemed suddenly peaceful.

  Mrs. Libnitz said, ‘However you put up with them, I don’t know.’

  ‘Douglas says I am self-concerned.’

  Mrs. Libnitz said something expressive in her own language. We drank our coffee. Doors opened and closed, feet descended the stairs. The side door opened and closed. I looked at my watch. It was half-past ten. Douglas was out visiting Mrs. Harrison and Di would not be in until this afternoon. Mrs. Libnitz and I sat in companionable silence. I could see the head and shoulders of a man on a tractor moving slowly above the hedgerows which bordered the lane. Beyond, in the far distance, were the chimneys of the Mill House. I had been there once as a child when old Mr. Leveridge had invited me to pick mulberries. He had taken me through the hall to the back door, pausing to speak to one of the maids while I looked at what I could see of the rooms on either side which were furnished quite differently to our house with couches and china cupboards and brass-framed mirrors. It had all seemed very handsome and hushed, bathed in a cool green light because one wall of the house was shaded by a vine. I wondered what the house was like now.

  Mrs. Libnitz said, ‘The snowdrops are out all around the base of the tree.’ Each year she was surprised by the English spring. There was a breeze blowing puffs of cloud
across a pale blue sky and in the garden little tremors shook the leaves of the laurel.

  A voice proclaimed dramatically, ‘ “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there!” ’

  He was standing in the doorway, a short, square man with bright ginger hair and beard. He was wearing a striped blue suit with a hectic pink shirt and he reminded me of the buskers who used to entertain the queues at the county agricultural show. All he needed was a straw hat. Mrs. Libnitz eyed him with disfavour and said, ‘This is March.’

  ‘March House?’ He struck a questioning pose; the music hall was obviously in his blood.

  ‘The month of March.’ Deadpan. She had no gift for crosstalk. ‘And in England, I hope? “Meadows of England in the rain/ Open up your daisied lawns for me again . . .” Is it daisy time yet? Perhaps not . . .’ He held both hands out like a conjuror who has completed a trick. Mrs. Libnitz did not clap. He said, ‘Try again. “Daffodils that come before the swallow dares and take the winds of March with beauty.” How about that? Very appropriate, don’t you think? Month of March . . . March House.’ He looked at me. ‘Have we daffodils?’

  The proprietary ‘we’ took me by surprise. He was certainly not one of our clients. Perhaps he was one of the drug representatives? But March is a mad month and drug reps, are dull people; so I opted for madness and said, ‘Dr. Laver, I presume.’

  He looked at me as though I had asked more of him than that he be Dr. Laver and must myself make some comparable avowal. I said, ‘I’m the clinic secretary.’ He had very bright blue eyes which conveyed the impression that he already knew something about you and a naive expectation that you would find this acceptable. I thought that he was a man who would make enemies without realising it. I said, ‘You’re not what I expected.’