A Particular Place

by MARY HOCKING

  She read the classics avidly, as though each book had been written yesterday and the air still quivered with the energy the author had expended. This is how writers must hope their books will be read, Charles thought, by people thirsty for what they offer, not dead meat to be cut up and analysed. This was what mattered. When all the excitement had passed, this would be the bedrock of their marriage. He might not have the stamina to romp in to old age, but he could happily spend the rest of his life shaping her mind and arousing her sensibilities. He saw them both grown old, sitting on either side of a fire while he read Piers Plowman aloud.

  He was preparing Tabby’s evening meal when Hester arrived home. ‘I hoped I might have Tabby here for you,’ he said. ‘But she is out in the garden.’

  ‘She won’t come in yet. She always has a sulk when I come back, bless her.’ Hester looked at him, noting a contusion on his lip. ‘I trust that wasn’t Tabby?’

  His face went scarlet. How silly of me, she thought, that is the kind of bite Tabby is not equipped to make. Oh dear, oh dear, has it come to this? He had been a good neighbour and she had reached an age when she disliked changes in her life.

  The doctor, who was busy, was at first irritated that a nurse should come to him with the symptoms of middle-life tension. As he read her notes he tapped his fingers on the desk; at one point the rhythm faltered.

  ‘Headaches, you say?’

  ‘Yes, I’m very tense, I can feel that. Being a second wife is even more difficult than I had expected.’ A light laugh. ‘I can feel my spine becoming quite rigid and then, of course, I lose my balance . . .’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘How . . .?’

  ‘How often have you fallen?’

  ‘Once, twice . . . I went down in the graveyard earlier in the year, tripped over a root, perhaps . . .’

  ‘Did you feel anything afterwards – pain in the ankle, perhaps?’

  ‘No. I bruised my seat.’

  ‘Then you didn’t trip, did you?’ He scribbled on his pad and she watched him, looking from the moving hand to the impassive face.

  ‘Second wife, eh?’ He looked up, blandly cheerful now. ‘Do you find yourself getting angry? A bit unreasonable?’

  ‘Angry and unreasonable.’

  ‘Well now . . .’ He tapped the palms of his hands on the desk. She recognized the little mime – what shall we do about this, why not be sensible? He said, ‘I think we might have a few tests. I’ll arrange for you to see Dr Hamilton.’

  Although she remained seated in front of him, her withdrawal was as unmistakable as if she had moved away; her eyes condemned him for betraying a confidence. ‘But he’s a neurosurgeon.’

  ‘Just to eliminate the possibility.’

  She gazed down at her hands, examining the tracery of veins while she thought this over and made a decision. She said, ‘I fall asleep a lot, too.’

  He looked with interest at the paperweight on his desk. ‘Any particular time of day – in the afternoon, after lunch . . .?’

  She released a long breath and said quietly, ‘Any time.’ All the nerviness had left her. She might have been half-asleep now.

  He said bracingly, ‘It could be any number of things.’ She gave a little crooked smile which said, ‘Name them, brother!’ He said reprovingly, ‘Mustn’t start doing our own diagnosing, must we?’

  She raised a hand to her temple, fingers between the eyes. ‘There’s something wrong here.’ Her face crumpled.

  He had not expected this – after all, she was a nurse. ‘There is no need for that,’ he said briskly. ‘The trouble with nurses is they tend to expect the worst. Doctors, too. A professional hazard.’ He ushered her out as quickly as he decently could.

  The sun shone brightly on the slate roofs of the houses and the green hills beyond. She said aloud, ‘I should have noticed before I came to the surgery.’

  ‘And it was such a lovely day,’ she said over the phone to Lois.

  ‘And there will be many more for you to enjoy.’ Worry made the tone the more robust. ‘Would you like to come here until you have the tests?’

  ‘I’ve got Hesketh arriving in a few hours. He’ll be here for several days. Don’t worry about me, my lover. I’ll be all right so long as I can pick up a phone and talk to a friend when I get panicky.’

  ‘And even – just supposing – there is so much they can do nowadays.’

  The voice was crisp at the other end of the phone. ‘What they can do nowadays is to give people who might have died peacefully a year and more of pain and anxiety.’

  ‘Norah . . .’

  ‘And they are not going to nibble me away, either.’

  Lois said, wretched, ‘I don’t blame you.’

  ‘But it may well be all right.’ Norah sounded suddenly bright as a child who sees the clouds lift and has no thought that they will soon gather again. ‘Thanks, Lois. I feel much better now. I am going to make apple and red-currant pie for my lord’s supper. That should ensure a convivial evening, don’t you think?’

  ‘So long as you serve it on time.’

  ‘DON’T BE SO BLOODY SELF-RIGHTEOUS! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am sorry. Forget I said that.’

  Ten days later Hester walked up the path to the Kendalls’ house, fists clenched, trying to control her annoyance at being summoned so peremptorily. Norah was generous with her time; Hester miserly with hers. Hesketh opened the door to her. His face looked rather strange, as though someone had taken hold of the lower half and pulled hard, the fingers leaving dents in the fleshy cheeks. His eyes stared accusingly at Hester. He said, ‘She’s in the kitchen’ and walked away to the sitting-room.

  Norah was ironing a shirt. She looked up as Hester came in and said, ‘I’ve got a brain tumour. Malignant.’

  ‘It’s not possible.’ Hester was chilled, seeing death’s shadow fall across her own threshold.

  ‘Two, in fact – secondaries. The main one is slumbering away in my chest. So there is nothing that can be done. You understand that?’

  Hester came slowly into the room, choking back expressions of comfort which she recognized as being purely selfish. Unfortunately there seemed to be nothing to put in their place. She was shocked to realize that at this moment her mind was entirely occupied with her own reactions.

  Norah said jokily, ‘I had hoped to grow into old age pottering among my roses . . .’ The tears came and she jerked her head away. Hester, moved by the tears, whispered, ‘Oh, my dear . . .’

  ‘At least it probably won’t be too hard.’ Norah brushed her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘It seems I shall probably just sleep more and more. It’s unlikely I shall go ga-ga.’

  Hester wondered how true this was. It seemed to satisfy Norah for the moment, so that was all that mattered.

  ‘How is Hesketh taking it?’

  ‘He was angry. For himself.’ Norah folded the shirt with a precision Hester envied. ‘He covered it up quickly, blustering away about the hospital and asking why they hadn’t kept me under observation. He didn’t feel anything for me but dislike.’

  ‘People react in strange ways to shock,’ Hester murmured.

  Norah was reacting strangely herself. Her own anger needed a focus and Hesketh presented himself irresistibly. ‘He is totally selfish,’ she said, her voice high and angry. ‘Unfortunately it now seems his first wife was something of a saint and I am going to have to listen to quite a lot of comparisons.’ She pressed her hands against her cheeks but could not stop the tears which now came in a bitter flood. ‘I am so very far from being a saint.’ The anger died down as quickly as it had flared up. She put the shirt to one side and Hesketh along with it.

  Hester said, ‘We shall all try to help. All your friends. You can phone me whenever you need to.’

  Norah smiled weakly. ‘Except in the mornings.’

  ‘Any time of the day or night,’ Hester said firmly. She did not mean it, but she recognized this as one of those occasions when an intention must be clearly stated
and the actions made to suit the words. ‘You have done this often enough for other people. You have a lot of credit in the bank.’

  ‘But I’m a nurse.’

  ‘All to the good. You will be able to tell me what to do and between us we’ll muddle through.’

  They stayed talking for a little while and then when Norah seemed calmer Hester left her to get on with the ironing. Before she departed she went into the sitting-room. It would not help Norah were no attention to be paid to Hesketh at this time.

  He was standing looking out into the garden and did not turn round when she came into the room.

  ‘I am sorry about this,’ she said, unable to bring herself to be more direct in her sympathy.

  It did not matter, he appropriated sympathy to himself. ‘Twice,’ he said; then, turning to look at her, repeated as if reproaching her for being deliberately obtuse, ‘The second time.’

  Hester said, ‘Yes, that is hard.’ She could see that it was indeed hard.

  ‘There is Samantha, of course. But she and Norah don’t hit it off. And I’m away so much . . .’ He looked down, cracking his knuckles, waiting.

  Hester said, ‘You needn’t worry about that. We shall all keep an eye on her.’

  ‘You are very good.’ He hated having to say it. He knew his feelings were lamentable but could not do anything about it. Unexpectedly, she felt sorry for him.

  In the kitchen, Norah walked up and down, up and down, hands against her mouth, pressing back the tears. Every so often she stopped and looked about her in astonishment and then the weeping began again.

  ‘The second time,’ Hesketh said when Michael Hoath called that evening. ‘This is the second time this has happened to me.’ He looked as though some higher authority must answer for this.

  ‘How does she seem to be taking it?’

  ‘She’s lying down.’ No humour was intended. ‘When I last looked in she was asleep.’ He ran a hand across his forehead. Michael could see that his fingers were shaking. ‘The second time. They told me that Carrie must have been feeling bad for some time but she never talked to anyone about it. Wanted to spare us the worry. So we never knew.’ He looked fiercely at Michael. ‘A saint.’

  ‘Did they say how long?’

  ‘They told her at the hospital that they could control it for probably a couple of years. But she doesn’t believe that. So she asked the GP and he said he didn’t think she’d see Christmas. Of all the things to say to a patient! Can you understand that? Should be crossed off the medical register. But she seems quite satisfied. I said to her the hospital knows more about it than the GP. She said hospitals are always unrealistic about life expectancy. I don’t know where I am between them all.’

  The door opened and Norah came in. Hesketh said, ‘You are supposed to be sleeping.’

  She said quite lightly, as if he were the patient to whom she must explain the illness, ‘Sleep isn’t going to be a problem. Keeping awake is the difficult part.’ She had not yet looked at Michael.

  Hesketh said to Michael, ‘Perhaps you can have a word with her,’ rather as if he thought she might be talked out of the whole business. He went out through the French windows into the garden.

  They waited until he was out of sight. Even then there did not seem much to say.

  ‘You will help me, won’t you?’ Norah said, still without looking at Michael. ‘I am going to need help from all my friends.’

  He was wounded by the generic description and mortified that he should be wounded at such a time. He drew her on to the sofa and sat beside her, holding her hand. This had happened so quickly; it was like a road accident, the actual experience of which has to be reconstructed in retrospect. At such times his emotions seemed to take themselves off, like panic-stricken survivors fleeing the wreckage. In this case he was not even sure of the physical presence left at the scene – whether lover, friend or spiritual adviser.

  ‘I will come whenever you need me,’ he said.

  She looked at him then, a look in which longing and renunciation were so inextricably interwoven that he felt himself become a symbol rather than a person. He said hoarsely, ‘You are not to think like this!’

  Suddenly she jumped up, her eyes on the mantelpiece. ‘Nine o’clock. I have to telephone my aunt. She’s at Guy’s and they said I would be able to catch her if I rang at nine.’

  She went into the hall and after a few minutes he heard her telling her aunt, ‘It has caught up with me at last.’

  Hesketh came in from the garden. ‘She spends a lot of time on the phone,’ he said.

  After she had spoken to her aunt, Norah telephoned someone else. They heard her say, laughing, ‘Just testing that the support system is working.’

  ‘It will take time for her to compose herself,’ Michael said to Hesketh. It was as if another person said this while he himself stood by thinking ‘pompous idiot’.

  Norah returned looking quite elated. The three of them talked aimlessly for a few minutes and then Michael left.

  Later, in the room where she now slept alone, Norah walked up and down, up and down, trying to gather up the pieces of her personality so that she might confront her death.

  Hester went to see Norah regularly during the following weeks. Sometimes she found her remarkably in command of herself, at others irritable and fault-finding. Hesketh, when present, was irascible, liable to outbursts of childish anger if his clumsy attempts to be helpful were not well received. All this Hester bore with apparent good humour and no little compassion, but she often emerged from these visits with fretted nerves and immediately sought the company of some unfortunate good listener. Proximity made Charles particularly fitted for this role. He, in turn, looked for someone to whom he could unburden himself; and so the shock of grief and anger was passed from one person to another like so many collisions in a shunting yard.

  Shirley Treglowan had recruited a friend on whom she planned to off-load her woe. The friend, who had been lured with promises of lunch and a bottle of plonk, sat huddled on a park bench while Shirley bowled up and down the gravel path, keeping an eye on her small charges who showed a preference for the shrubbery rather than the open expanse of lawn where their activities could be closely monitored. In her multi-coloured play suit Shirley resembled a Russian doll. The friend amused herself by imagining the dismantling of the dolls and the emergence of ever smaller, yet equally rotund, Shirleys.

  Shirley took this play group each morning during the holidays. In the past Desmond had helped her, but now he had withdrawn his services. ‘Get your fellow to help,’ he had said. ‘He’s a teacher, isn’t he?’

  ‘I am a schoolmaster, not a social worker,’ Charles had said.

  ‘You’ve got to be a bit of both as things are today,’ Shirley had told him and he had retorted that people today had things better than they ever had in the past. She had replied that this was all relative and they had had their first quarrel.

  It was a windy day with chaotic cloud mottling the sky. The air smelt of rain. Unemployed young men sat in a circle on the grass, eating chips and playing bowls with beer cans.

  ‘No wonder the place looks like a tip,’ Shirley’s friend said.

  ‘Perhaps they feel they are part of the tip.’ Shirley always felt she must stand up for anyone subject to criticism. Only yesterday Charles had told her – rather shortly – that there was no virtue in being undiscriminating.

  There was one mentally-retarded child in the play group and the other children would not admit him to their games because it frustrated them to go at his slow pace. Shirley’s expert eye selected the child most vulnerable to guilt. ‘You look after Tammy, Hazel,’ she said. ‘Your mummy and daddy play with you when you go home, but this is the only chance poor Tammy has to have a bit of fun.’

  It was evident that this was not the first appeal of its kind to come Hazel’s way. She said, ‘I hate Tammy’ and went into the shrubbery after the other children.

  Shirley knew that the shrubbery was forb
idden territory – an exciting, dangerous place where the moral writ did not run. Desmond had inhabited it as a child and had occasionally allowed his father to cross the threshold, his mother never. She suspected that all this business of studying anthropology was nothing more than a return to the shrubbery. I should have had them out of there, Shirley thought, still holding back. It bewitched them both.

  It had begun to rain and the friend was getting restive. The young men got up, leaving their litter behind them. They looked at Shirley and her friend as they passed by just to make sure they had noticed.

  ‘It’s one of the few gestures they can make,’ Shirley said. The friend said she could think of a gesture or two.

  Hazel emerged from the shrubbery looking shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry about Tammy,’ she said to Shirley. ‘I’m luckier than him.’ Shirley watched her trotting purposefully across the lawn towards Tammy – another martyr to the moral order and no looking back from now on to love and hate instinctively given.

  She said to her friend when eventually they walked home from the park, ‘You know, yesterday, when I was reading the Scottish play with Charles, the most weird thing happened. It was that bit when The Lady is waiting at the foot of the stairs before going up to Duncan’s room and she is psyching herself up to the deed – it suddenly came to me, as if I wasn’t me but another person, how exciting it must be to have murder in mind. Not the doing so much as that moment when you know you are going to take that tremendous leap and find yourself outside all the nagging questions. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Not really,’ the friend said, trudging drearily with bent wet head. She thought Shirley would do well to think about the men who had brought her bad luck instead of indulging in this talk of ‘the Scottish play’ and ‘The Lady’. ‘But then I can’t see why you have this thing about Charles. It’s just the Clifford story repeating itself, isn’t it? Another man who’s no good to a woman.’

  They walked in silence until they came to the high street, then Shirley said, thinking of Charles, ‘It’s really unsettled me, this business of Norah Kendall. She was the person who saw me through that time after Clifford left. It wasn’t that she took charge or anything like that, but I could always phone her or go round to her place in the evenings. She was there when I needed someone. Since then I’ve always felt that if anything bad happened to me she would be there again. It’s been a great comfort.’ She felt like a trapeze artist who finds that the safety net has been whisked away just as she is preparing for a double somersault.