Human Voices

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  Willie peeped out. It was as he well knew, John Haliburton, the Senior Announcer.

  ‘I rather thought I heard a woman’s voice in here. But if it’s empty.…’

  The Halibut was carrying a kind of dark lantern, and wore the correctly creased uniform of the BBC’s Defence Volunteers. Everybody knew, although he himself never mentioned it, that he had been wounded at Le Cateau and should be allowed to rest whenever possible. Willie steeled himself.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t come in, Mr Haliburton.’

  Lise began to make a prolonged low sound that was not a groan but an exhalation, like a pair of bellows pressed and crushed flat to expel the last air in a whimper. Willie retreated towards her.

  ‘Willie … can you count? You can help me if you can count … you have to tell me how many minutes between each contraction.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he whispered, struggling to recall his Red Cross Handbook.

  ‘It’s a sort of pain.’

  ‘Where do you feel the pain?’

  ‘In my back.’

  ‘Oughtn’t it to be in the front?’

  ‘If you are in any difficulties,’ suggested Haliburton from outside, ‘I advise you to report to the First Aid posts, or to fetch someone competent. I believe Dr Florestan, at the European News Desk, has medical qualifications.’

  In spite of his predicament, Willie did not really want Mr Haliburton to go away. Whatever it was that supported the Senior Announcer, his four years at the Western Front, his training under Sir John Reith, his performer’s vanity – all these together gave him a superb indifference to the tossing and snoring shambles around him, and an authority which made Willie plead: ‘Just a minute, Mr Haliburton.’

  Lise groaned again, and this time the noise rose above the permitted level of sounds in the darkened hall. Willie thought he could hear a faint tick, as of liquid splashing onto the floor in small quantities. Meanwhile the Halibut, who had, as he remembered too late, a Deaf Side, passed sedately on.

  It’s too bad he couldn’t rest his leg a bit, Willie thought confusedly.

  The prospect of looking after them both – the correct Old Servant and the agonizing girl – side by side under the same too narrow blanket, flashed upon him like a nightmare. Without trying to work things out any further he felt for Lise’s damp hand and held it.

  ‘Strike some more matches.’

  ‘I’d better save them, I think.’

  ‘Are you still counting?’

  ‘I can hold my watch to my ear and count the sixty seconds.’

  Lise heaved, and now once again she was like a young beast wallowing, and marked out for destruction. While Mr Haliburton had been there, the sleepers nearest to them had remained relatively tranquil, soothed by his familiar voice, reassuring even in a whisper. But now that he was gone they became restive. I must calm her, he told himself.

  ‘I’m not criticizing you, Lise,’ he said, bending close to her. ‘I believe every human being should follow their own bent, and I assume that’s what you’ve been doing. Probably you didn’t envisage this situation.’

  She clung on, yet he felt separated from her by many miles. He wouldn’t have believed that a girl could grip like that, so that his hand felt numb, with the tarsus and the metatarsus, was that right? – crushed together. The British character was at its finest in adversity. Lise, though, was half-French, if he’d got that straight. In any case, there mustn’t be pain like this after the war was over. Everyone, people like himself, must carry a range of simple medication, then you’d be able to be of real help to anyone you happened to meet in a situation like this during the course of the day.

  His palm was stuck to hers with sweat like glue.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ muttered Lise. ‘Go and fetch somebody. Stay here. Don’t tell them in First Aid. Go and get somebody straight away.’

  What was needed before anything else, in Willie’s view, was something to mop up the floor with. He knew every room in the building, as part of a comprehensive survey he’d made of the defence facilities. The nearest cloths and hot water would be three doors to the left, where there was a messengers’ room, and they would be off duty now. As he edged out of the concert-hall he saw Mr Haliburton, propped against the wall to ease his leg, and talking quietly to a small group.

  ‘Sir John always expected us to wear dinner jackets to read the late news … on the other hand, informality can, I think, be carried too far.…’

  In the harsh overhead light of the messengers’ room Willie felt sick. There was a bath in there, round the inside of which Accommodation had painted a red line, to remind the staff not to use too much hot water. For some reason this red line also made him feel sick. When he looked down and saw that there was blood on his shoes and trousers it became clear to him in an instant that he couldn’t carry on any longer on his own responsibility. He had no hesitation at all about where to go for help.

  ‘Mr Haggard, sir.’

  DPP looked up from his desk without hope, alarm, or irritation. He could see that the juvenile who had just come into the room was bloodstained here and there, and that as he was not apparently bleeding himself, the blood must have come from somewhere else.

  ‘I don’t think you remember me,’ said Willie, grasping the back of the visitors’ chair.

  ‘I do remember you,’ said Jeff.

  ‘You may think it very queer my coming up here to see you like this.’

  ‘Queer, but not very queer. You’d better sit down. I don’t think you gave me your name when we last met.’

  Willie gave his name. ‘Junior Recorded Programme Assistant,’ he added.

  He felt it would help him not to be sick if he attempted a measure of formality. ‘It’s Lise, sir, I mean Miss Bernard, really perhaps I mean Mrs Bernard.’

  He glanced down at the knees of his grey trousers.

  ‘Perhaps the thought’s passing through your mind that I’ve murdered her.’

  Jeff saw that he was in a bad way.

  ‘Never mind what I think. We can discuss that later. Who is Miss Bernard?’

  ‘Well, she’s having a baby, Mr Haggard. I suppose she may have had it by now, but these things take some time, you know. That is, she’s giving birth to a child, in the concert-hall.’

  Jeff paused before replying, but scarcely any longer than usual.

  ‘In the concert-hall, you say?’

  ‘It’s one of those curtained off bits, just as you go in. I just happened to be passing. I had a ticket for tonight, that was all in order. No, sir, I’m not telling you the exact truth, I hoped perhaps if it was free I might go in there myself. It’s the one next to the door, so usually it’s kept for the Senior Announcer.’

  ‘But at the moment it’s occupied by Miss Bernard, who is in an advanced stage of labour?’

  Willie nodded.

  ‘Is the Senior Announcer in there as well?’

  Willie shook his head, but with an expression which made DPP ask him whether he was actually going to be sick. Willie thought not yet, and perhaps not at all if he kept his head still.

  ‘Look, William, there are three First Aid Posts on floors one, five, and seven of Broadcasting House, with nurses on permanent duty, and there is also a Home Guard dispensary. I’m only employed here in the capacity of planning the Corporation’s programmes. What made you come to me?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t really remember me, sir. We were on the Red Cross course together, for all staff without consideration of status. We all thought it good of you to come along, considering you must have seen a lot of casualties already in World War One. In the end we both had the same special chapter for our certificates, sir – frostbite, sunstroke, and sudden childbirth.’

  DPP rang through to RPD’s office and told him that he had reason to be concerned about two of the junior members of his department. William Sharpe had been made to lie down in the fifth floor First Aid post. Lise Bernard had been sent along the road to the Middlesex Hospital. It was for
tunate, since of course there were no ambulances free to fetch her, that his taxi had, once more, been available.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Jeff. Have you been knocking them about?’

  ‘Bernard was in the second stage of childbirth, Sam. You remember telling me on a number of occasions that your junior staff, past and present, were a particular responsibility to you.’

  ‘Of course they are. What has that got to do with it?’

  ‘Naturally enough they weren’t at all anxious to take her in at the Middlesex, they’ve got emergency beds two deep in the corridors. We just have to be grateful that hospitals, like the rest of us, enjoy feeling powerful. They allowed themselves to be persuaded.’

  ‘I still don’t see why you should have been involved in all this.’

  ‘Nor do I. The matron told me some people made the war an excuse for everything.’

  Sam appeared to reflect for a while.

  ‘Do you know I’m very glad you told me about this?’ he said at last, with warmth. ‘I’m very glad indeed that it happened. These two programme assistants, a girl and a boy, who you’ve never met, who in fact you’ve never seen or heard of before come to you with their problems, problems, too, of an unfamiliar kind, and although you must have been somewhat bewildered by the part you were called on to play, you did your very best for them – I believe that, Jeff. And that shows that all this appearance of coldness and of not caring a shit for what other people suffer is just what I’ve always suspected it was, a pretence. I congratulate you, Jeff. You tried to help.’

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ Jeff replied. ‘The time is now 1.47. I’m occupied in sorting out the difficulties of Religious Broadcasting, who want a full-length service of praise and thanksgiving if the unexploded bomb outside St Paul’s is removed, but not if it isn’t. I rang you because this young woman, as I said, is or was a member of your Department. I think she joined you in May.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call my juniors young women, Jeff. They’re just girls.’

  ‘Not when they give birth on the premises.’

  ‘I must say I can’t see why she should have wanted to do that.’

  ‘You remember the name, I take it.’

  ‘Bernard. Yes, yes, she’s been on extended sick leave.’

  ‘Which has now happily drawn to a close.’

  ‘No … well … she’s been away for some time … I’m not sure why it was exactly … I admit I’ve rather lost track there … you see, Jeff, it’s my opinion that the memory has only a certain capacity. The model would be, let’s say, a brief-case, where the contents are varied, rather than a sandbag. Under pressure of work, and hindrances, and total misunderstanding, and emotional stress, the less essential things simply have to be thrown out.… Something does come back, though … I think she was partly French.’

  He had forgotten about Willie Sharpe’s plight. Lack of curiosity about anyone not actually in the room protected him to an astonishing degree. He might, perhaps, given this protection, last, like some monstrous natural formation, for hundreds of years.

  ‘Sam, are you human?’

  ‘If I’m not, I can’t see who is. That reminds me, I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you about a new assistant who’s joined my Department, really rather an exceptional person, I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone exactly like her.’

  ‘Have you got her there now?’

  ‘She’s gone to get me a sandwich. By the way Jeff, it’s just struck me that all this business, arranging about the hospital and so on, must have been a bit of an inconvenience for you.’

  ‘You mustn’t give it a thought.’

  11

  Lise had always felt that she was particularly unlucky, and furthermore that being unlucky was a sufficient contribution to the world’s work. Other people, therefore, had to deal with the consequences. This system worked well, both for herself and her offspring.

  There was nothing deliberate, however, in what she had done. After a few nights’ and days’ drifting, the charitable nuns had taken her in again, as a victim of war’s cruel chances, and had arranged for her to go to a good Catholic nursing-home. But on her way back from the cinema she had felt queer, and remembering that she still had her concert-hall ticket she had gone into Broadcasting House for a lie down. The nuns had not liked her going out during the air-raids, or even to the cinema at all, and she was glad not to have to face them again.

  Mrs Milne had looked forward to talking over Lise’s disaster with Mrs Staples, and had been ready to amalgamate the whole incident, as a narrative, with the bomb stories; morals were relaxed, hearts were broken, while outside the old landmarks fell, and now Harrods Repository had been reduced to dust. But to her amazement Mrs Staples met her braced and poised, as though for a personal attack. When Mrs Milne began by saying that she had no idea where the unfortunate girl was to go to, as her parents seemed unwilling to have anything more to do with her and she could hardly return to the convent, Mrs Staples replied: ‘She is coming to me.’

  ‘But what about the infant?’

  ‘They are coming to me.’

  ‘What did they say at the hospital?’

  ‘They were pleased to have somewhere to send her to. I have a good deal more room in my flat than I need. I think I told you that I found myself talking to the furniture. I shan’t have to do that now. Lise is perfectly healthy and I imagine that they’ll discharge her soon.’

  ‘You’ll never get rid of her!’ cried Mrs Milne.

  ‘She didn’t stay long at Broadcasting House,’ said Mrs Staples calmly. ‘However, since I suppose she has received basic training in the work of your Department, I see no reason why she shouldn’t eventually return to you as an RPA.’

  ‘And who would look after the child then?’

  ‘I should not mind doing so,’ said Mrs Staples. ‘He looks quite a little Frenchman already,’ she added, and Mrs Milne perceived that she was in the grip of a force stronger than reason.

  Willie, without RPD having to be disturbed over the matter, was given a day’s sick leave. He went straight to the RAF recruitment centre, but failed to persuade them that he was even as much as seventeen. After that he borrowed an old bicycle from the married sister with whom he lived, and biked furiously up to the heights of Hampstead. It might have been more sensible to get off and push when he got to the last and steepest hill, but such a course did not occur to Willie. By the time he reached the summit, close to the Whitestone Pond, his breath came as painfully as a hacksaw cutting through his ribs. However, he had earned the right to get off and sit on the ground.

  He found himself looking for wild plants among the coarse flat grass, just as they’d been made to do on outings from Primary School. Some dusty-looking clover flowers were still out, and two kinds of cudweed, besides the daisies. He collected the hooked pods from a trefoil almost too small to see, took out the tiny black peas, and planted them. Then he lay on his back for a couple of hours in the sunshine. The sky was a limpid blue from one horizon to the other, with no condensation trails, without a cloud, without one aircraft. It seemed to Willie that he was beginning to see things in rather better proportion. Perhaps he might recommend Annie to come up here one day.

  Annie, although she had never met Lise, and only knew Mrs Staples from her first interview at BH, was asked round to tea. This was the result of a delusion that Lise needed cheerful company; in fact it made her cheerful to be unhappy.

  The RPA rota was improvised from day to day, with unspecified breaks, and Annie had just enough time to get there and back from the address she had been given in Maida Vale. The large flat had certainly been tidy once, but never would be again while Lise was there. Everything seemed to be temporarily out of place, although Lise herself was perfectly motionless on the living-room sofa. The baby, wrapped in a silky white shawl belonging to Mrs Staples, breathed gently, as though simmering, in a wicker basket by her side.

  Annie had brought a small pair of socks, knitted while waiti
ng for talks producers. Lise received them indifferently. She let Annie hold the baby, said to weigh eight pounds. Annie could hardly credit that, he felt very warm but light as a doll, staring at her without blinking.

  ‘What’ll you call him?’

  ‘I haven’t thought.’

  ‘His father was Freddie, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Who told you about him?’

  ‘Vi.’

  The conversation appeared to be running into silence.

  ‘Do you think you’ll return to BH?’ Annie asked. She was trying for no more than politeness. Lise, suddenly glowering, burst out: ‘That RPD was supposed to look after us all.’

  Annie’s heart jumped and sprang.

  ‘I can’t see what he could have done,’ she said. ‘From all I’ve heard, you left without telling anyone.’ She added, with an effort. ‘Would you like him to come and see you, then?’

  ‘What good would that do?’

  ‘I thought you might find it a comfort.’

  This wasn’t the right word, as she saw at once. She was beginning to sound like the Parish Visitor.

  ‘Comfort!’ Lise said. ‘He’d only talk about himself.’

  ‘Did you get to know him well, then?’

  ‘He told me I looked like some portrait or other. He was very great on the personal contact. But it wasn’t him that took me round to hospital, and he never did remember which portrait it was, either.’

  Lise was making an unusual effort. As always, even the thought of Sam Brooks generated energy in unlikely places.

  ‘Someone ought to tell him, Annie.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘Tell him that he can’t deal in human beings the way he does. Mind you, that’s what men are like,’ she added.

  The effort was altogether too much for her, and she began to doze.

  Mrs Staples came in with the tea. ‘I’ve brought some of my ration,’ Annie said, in the subdued voice appropriate to the subject. Mrs Staples took the little packet and nodded in the same respectful way. Just a cup each, she murmured. The milkman must have been puzzled out of his wits when she’d suddenly begun to order three pints a day, and National Dried as well. Annie reflected that milkmen were hard to surprise, but she didn’t say so, for fear of spoiling the drama of the situation.