by Barbara Vine
‘She said she'd like some biscuits and orange juice,’ Dr Lombard said.
Why these innocuous words should have been the trigger for Zorah to get to her feet and depart for her rooms upstairs, who can tell? Perhaps her exit had nothing to do with the words but only with the voice which uttered them and its possessor. Dr Lombard watched her leave with the same rueful expression.
‘How long will she be – er, incapacitated?’
It took Eric to ask this question. Perhaps the others had not quite liked to. Dr Lombard said it was hard to tell. Mrs Cosway was no longer, as he put it, in her first youth.
‘Nor her second,’ said Eric as if delivering a profound philosophical principle.
‘It may be a couple of months before she can walk without crutches.’
‘We're getting married in just under five weeks.’
‘It's quite obvious,’ Winifred said, ‘that the wedding will have to be postponed. I can't get married without Mother being there.’
She might have disguised her delight a little. She sounded triumphant and Eric seemed to notice how exultant she was, for he frowned and gave her a puzzled look. Even intelligent clergymen, I have noticed since then, need breezy platitudes and comforting sweet nothings amongst their stock-in-trade, and Eric now brought one of these out for the cheering-up of the company.
‘What a blessing you have Kerstin here! There must be so many little tasks performed by Mrs Cosway she can take over now she knows the ropes.’
Did I know the ropes? Perhaps, but that was not to say I liked them. I could see I was faced with several dilemmas, one of them major. Some rejoinder was probably expected from me but I said nothing. Ida looked at her watch and, keeping to her inevitable eternal role, said she would get tea for everyone. I offered to help her and followed her out to the kitchen.
Rain was still streaming down the windows and although the clocks wouldn't go back for a month, it was dark enough in the middle of the afternoon to have lights on. Ida started on a low murmured catalogue of all the things Mrs Cosway used to do and would be unable to do now, of the folly, however understandable, of carrying too many articles in one's hands when walking downstairs at the age of seventy-nine, and when and if her injuries would ever at her age fully mend.
I paid very little attention to this. My mind was occupied with John, still locked away and still silent, responding not at all to Dr Lombard's efforts outside the door to cajole him out and Eric's exhortations to him to be ‘a good chap’. Knowing he would come out eventually, I would have left him alone. I was far more troubled by Mrs Cosway's accusation. No, not troubled, angered. John, I knew, would never push her or anyone, and this would not be due to morality or love for her or fear of consequences but simply because to push you have to touch. And you have to care enough to hate. Why had she accused him? I knew she couldn't have believed it herself. The motive she might have had, the desire to be rid of him, was too dreadful to be thought of.
Eric went away at last and Dr Lombard went. I don't know when John came out but early in the evening I came upon him in the drawing room, gently stroking the Roman vase as if it were a pet animal.
15
The rain fell all evening and the wind, rising to a gale, tore off the first of the red leaves to fall that autumn. A lake of water, quite deep in places and whipped by the wind into little waves, had spread across the drive in front of the house by the time John went to bed. This was at eight rather than at seven, the first departure from his routine.
He seemed to take a longer time than usual arranging the ballpoint, the plaster, the dice and the rest at his bedside. The pattern, always precisely the same, slowly took shape. It was like someone setting out counters on a board for a table game. Satisfied, he shed his dressing gown and got into bed. I wondered why I – or anyone – had to be there. To prevent him doing something dangerous or harmful? Perhaps, though he showed no sign of diverging from his rigid routine.
I knew he would refuse the phenobarbitone. He had refused to take it from me the evening his mother went to fetch his prescription and he would again. I didn't attempt to give it to him. But after he was asleep and throughout that evening I kept asking myself what right I had to find prescribed drugs unnecessary. Unattractive as the prospect was, I would have to ask Dr Lombard. I would have to go to his surgery and consult him.
As it happened, he came to Lydstep Old Hall to speak to me.
This meeting seemed even more urgent in the morning. Uncertain what to do about getting John up, I went into his bedroom at about seven but he was gone. On his own, he had gone upstairs to run his bath. I noticed too that the objects from the bedside table were gone; back, I supposed, in his dressing-gown pockets.
Ida was of course up, a draggled sight, her hair fastened back with an elastic band, her tweed skirt fastened at the waist with a safety pin and the kind of carpet slippers my grandfather used to wear on her bare feet. When she saw me she said, as if it were eleven in the morning, ‘I thought you were never coming. Have you forgotten we have to give John his tablet?’
The Largactil. She must have taken it from Mrs Cosway's medicine chest the previous evening. Now she handed the bottle to me and said, ‘You have to put it on his plate and let him pick it up himself. He won't want it if you've touched it.’
John was watching me. He followed with his eyes the progress of tablet from bottle to spoon to plate, where it rolled a little before coming to rest. Then he looked hard at me and said, ‘No.’
Ida said, ‘Why not, John? You know Kerstin. You like her, don't you?’ There was no response to this, no sign in his expression that he had even heard. ‘Suppose I do it, then. I know, why don't I pick up your pill like this? In a different spoon and put it on a different plate? How's that?’
A slow horror was breaking over me as I heard her speaking in this tone to a middle-aged man who had been a child prodigy and was obviously very clever still. But there was nothing I could do and nothing John would do. He was determined not to touch that pill.
‘Try a glass dish like the one he has in his room,’ I said.
Showing more weariness than she ever did in her mother's presence, Ida sighed, opened the sideboard and found a small glass dish. The white tablet was dropped into it and the cajoling began again in much the same words. Exasperated beyond patience, John picked up the glass dish with the pill in it and, while his sister waited in breathless anticipation of his finally swallowing it, hurled both across the room, where the dish hit the wall and broke in pieces and the pill disappeared behind the sideboard.
I thought Ida was going to tell him he was a naughty boy. ‘There's nothing we can do,’ I said quickly. ‘We have to leave it.’
She set up a sort of wail. With a look of angry bitterness at John, she got on to her knees and began scrabbling about under the sideboard, cutting her fingers on broken glass, a prefiguring of things to come, almost an omen. There she discovered two other pills, one white but a different shape, and one red, a number of needles and hair clips and a lens from a pair of glasses, but not the Largactil. I said nothing and she took my silence for disapproval, which is what I suppose it was.
‘They are very expensive, you know. They can't just be written off like that.’
Surely Mrs Cosway obtained them on the National Health Service? I thought it wiser not to ask. Winifred and Ella came downstairs together, as they often did, though on no less prickly terms than they usually were. Hospitals had quite rigid visiting hours in those days and Ella wanted to know when these were. No one could tell her, Winifred reminding her that finding out this sort of thing was what the phone was for. Ida cut into the ensuing argument by telling them of John's failure to take his pill.
‘It's useless telling me,’ said Ella. ‘I know nothing about it.’
‘You don't suppose I do, do you?’ Winifred gave her elder sister a bleak look. ‘That sort of thing isn't my province. I am nearly out of my mind with worry about my mother, which doesn't seem to concern the rest of you at all.’
Eventually it was she who discovered from the hospital that visiting was from six-thirty to eight every evening except Sundays. Mrs Cosway was ‘quite comfortable’. While they argued about who should go to see her that evening and whether taking Eric along would be too much for her, I made bread and marmalade triangles for John. He took them and said, to my astonishment, ‘I could do that myself, Shashtin.’
His sisters looked at him as if he had committed some social solecism.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You can do it tomorrow.’
Dr Lombard's morning surgery ended at ten and I was about to leave the house and walk down to see him, when he arrived. His last patient had gone and no more were expected.
‘Ah, the very one I wanted to see,’ he said when I opened the door to him. ‘I'd like a word with you, young lady.’
He seemed tired and it occurred to me that he was a very old man to be still running a GP's practice but perhaps he had a partner. Either Ida or Winifred had told me he was a few years younger than Mrs Cosway, so probably he was getting on for seventy-five. I realized he looked younger than he was because, as it does in some rare cases, his hair had remained copious and dark, scarcely touched with grey. The great hooked nose gave him the look of an old eagle, predatory and irritable.
He knew better than to attempt touching John's hand. Most of the things I wanted to say and ask could hardly be brought out in John's presence and Selwyn Lombard seemed to know this too for, after greeting him and asking him if he was all right, he led me with a proprietorial air into the dining room.
‘Now Mrs Cosway is temporarily away,’ he began, seating himself in a chair at the table, ‘I should like to give you some instructions regarding John's tablets. Sit down, sit down.’
I sat.
‘The tablets labelled phenobarbitone you will find in Mrs Cosway's medicine chest – in her bedroom, that is – are administered to him one at a time at bedtime. The Largactil or chlorpromazine are the ones I believe Mrs Cosway gave you. Exactly seven, one for each day she expects to be in hospital. If she should be there longer I will come and allot you any further tablets you need. Now is that clear, young lady?’
‘It's perfectly clear.’ You wouldn't like me to call you old gentleman, I thought. ‘My name is Shashtin, Dr Lombard.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Kerstin, as you say.’
I had expected him to object to my correcting him but he showed no sign of offence. ‘Dr Lombard?’
‘Yes, yo – Kerstin?’
‘What exactly is wrong with John?’
‘Ah. It started with something we call childhood schizophrenia, the result of brain damage brought about by a shock. An emotional shock, that is.’
I looked inquiring but he had evidently decided not to enlighten me on the nature of this shock. ‘Since then, it has developed into a full-blown psychosis. The result is that he may be violent, harming himself and others. No doubt, he hears voices telling him how to react against his nearest and dearest. It is likely he suffers from all kinds of delusions as to who he is and who they are and possibly from hallucinations. There, does that satisfy you?’
I nodded, though it didn't. Later on I found that in every respect Selwyn Lombard's diagnosis and catalogue of symptoms were wrong and his recommended palliatives ill-judged and harmful. Even then I recognized obvious inaccuracies but I was no further towards understanding what was wrong with John.
‘Swedish, aren't you?’ Dr Lombard said suddenly.
‘That's right.’
‘Descartes spent a long time with Queen Christina of Sweden. René Descartes. He was a French philosopher, you know. Well, there's no reason to think you do know, is there? He felt the cold up there, poor thing, spent most of his time in an airing cupboard.’
This was the first anecdote I ever heard him tell that was apropos of something under discussion. Inevitably, I knew what would come next and it did. ‘“I think, therefore I am”’ he said. ‘A bit above your head, I expect. I must be off. Don't hesitate to phone me if you have any problems with John.’
I thought of the problem Ida and I had already had. Should I tell him? Perhaps wrongly I decided not to. But I had an unpleasant feeling, possibly quite unfounded, that he might try to force that Largactil down John's throat. I saw him to the door and because the sun was shining and the day was milder than of late, I went outside with him, avoiding the puddles which were all that remained of the previous evening's deluge, and stood for a moment in the sunshine. Together we looked back at the house and its covering of crimson leaves.
‘Extraordinary sight,’ he said. ‘They'll all drop off, you know, and a fine mess they make.’
For the rest of that day I watched John to see if he suffered any adverse effects from being deprived of his chlorpromazine but there seemed to be none. Beneficial effects there were in that he was more alert and while out with me seemed to enjoy his walk, taking an interest in his surroundings, though speaking no more than usual. He prepared his tea in his usual way, covering each quarter slice of bread with a different spread and, to my surprise when I handed him his teacup, said, ‘Thank you very much, Shashtin,’ pronouncing my name correctly as he invariably did.
From what I had seen since my arrival at Lydstep Old Hall, I had decided that Ida was Mrs Cosway's favourite child. Apart from the fact that she was the eldest by several years, I had no idea why this should be. Winifred and Ella looked more like their mother and talked more like her, both in their ways having a similar ruthless attitude to life, a talent for snapping and a rude manner when they chose to show it. Ida's was a much weaker character. She was dull and never had much to say for herself, her reproofs seldom going beyond an ‘Oh, Mother!’ She was untidy in her person and, I suspected, none too clean, but Mrs Cosway loved her best – if she loved anyone apart from Dr Lombard. Still, it was Winifred and Ella who went most often to see Mrs Cosway, coming back with stories about the ghastliness of the food, the awful hospital smell and the ‘lower-class' people with whom their mother had to share the small ward.
‘I wonder if she would like to see Eric,’ said Winifred. ‘It might be a comfort to her.’
Ella sniffed but said nothing. While they were out and I was with John, in his bedroom, Zorah had appeared and was sitting in the drawing room, her expression one of acute boredom.
‘I suppose you'll go in tomorrow,’ said Ella, supposing no such thing.
‘I've had flowers sent.’
Once I knew Zorah's story, it was interesting to observe the enjoyment she apparently took in being as rude and provocative as she liked while knowing that offending other members of this household could harm her not at all. I imagined her feelings on her husband's death, if not before, when she must have realized that the people who had treated her with dislike and contempt were now in her power. She had judged that their greed would overcome any principles they might once have had about taking charity or flattering her for the largesse she could give them. Watching their faces and hearing them wheedle must have been like a stimulating drug to her, particularly when she heard and saw Winifred's reaction to the offer of £300-worth of kitchen equipment.
I wondered what was in the note which must have accompanied the flowers sent to her mother. No doubt it had been coolly and subtly offensive. It was only when in the presence of Selwyn Lombard that she lost her sangfroid.
John could never be violent, I was sure of that, no matter what Dr Lombard said, no matter what absurd accusations his mother made, but I was wrong. It had never occurred to me that there would be an argument over the administering of the Largactil at breakfast time. It wouldn't be administered, that was all. John had been fine the day before, brighter if not more talkative, and I could see no reason not to forget about the drug once more. Ida thought otherwise. I suppose she was afraid of her mother. She was waiting at the table for John when I came down, and the tablet was already in a glass dish identical to the one he had upstairs, a glass of water at the ready.
H
e took his seat, ignoring her, and reached for his egg. Usually someone else sliced the top off for him but that morning he did it himself and very expertly too. Ida said, ‘Your pill, John. Better take it before you start to eat.’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Now come on, you always have your pill.’
Those words, for some reason, started a train of thought as I remembered reading somewhere that Largactil should not be given over a long period. One of its effects could be a tremor in the hands and difficulties of movement. What was a long period? I took my coffee, keeping my eyes on John. He seemed to be ignoring Ida but when she repeated what she had just said, he laid down his spoon and said in a much louder than usual voice, ‘I am not taking it, so you can give up.’
It was the longest sentence I had ever heard him utter.
‘Suppose Kerstin gives it to you?’
It cost Ida something to say this. Like her whole family, she wouldn't have cared for anyone to be preferred over herself. But she desperately wanted John to take that pill and if she paid the price of rejection for it, so be it.
‘I don't think so,’ I said.
Ida shrugged, looking angry, and stupidly she spooned up the pill and thrust it into his face. Quick as a flash he lashed out at her with his right arm, bending it towards his chest at the elbow, and, flinging it wide and hard, struck her across the face. She jumped up with a cry. She put both hands up to cover and hold her mouth where he had hit her.
I was frightened. John was mad, everyone else said so, and we fear the mad. I did my best not to show fear, telling Ida in a voice I tried to keep from shaking that she should leave the room, go upstairs, anywhere for the time being. She went, scurrying, carpet slippers flapping. After taking two or three deep breaths, I forced myself to go on eating. John, who had gone momentarily bright red in the face, was now continuing calmly with his breakfast.
Ida was much upset by the incident. She sat at the kitchen table for hours, her head bent and sometimes held in her hands. It made me think of one of those servants I had read of who, though they have a bedroom of their own, look on the kitchen as their natural habitat, a place in which to live and move and have their being. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that Ida secretly undressed and got into her nightgown there, washing hands and face at the sink. I made her a cup of tea in the middle of the morning; Winifred, having changed her mind about giving up work, had gone out to cook for someone's luncheon party and Ella of course was at school.
