The Doctors of Downlands

by Claire Rayner

  “What are you going to do?” I cried, my voice sharp with fear. “What are you going to do -?” and fear rose in me in a great sick wave, making me sway a little on my narrow ledge, so that I had to cling desperately to the rough side of the quarry wall.

  “Do? Nothing - nothing at all - “ And he laughed again.

  “I’m just going to go away, that’s all. And they’ll look for you, I daresay, but they’ll not find you - not till you’ve fallen off that there ledge and landed all twisted and dead on the bottom - and they’ll say - stupid bloody woman, meddling in what didn’t concern her - serves her right, that’s what they’ll say - “

  And then the light disappeared, and there was a scrabbling sound above me. A few pebbles hurtled past my ears, and I shrank against the cold rough wall in terror.

  He was going away. This half-demented, pathetic, twisted creature was going away and leaving me here in the darkness on a ledge so narrow I could only stand on it, leaving me to die.

  I screamed as loudly as I could, and the sound came echoing back out of the quarry with a curiously mocking note in it -

  And when the echoes had died away all I could hear was the faint crack and rustle of the woods, and the hiss of a small wind that had sprung up in the distant trees, and I felt despair fall over me like a great sick blanket.

  I’ll never be able to explain how I felt, hanging there like a fly against the wall, or even how long the hell of it went on. Thoughts chased themselves around my head with sick monotony. I thought of David and Fiona. Of the long happy days so long ago at the Royal. Of Dad and the way he had looked when he gave me my surgical bag, and absurd things like the Christmases I had known in my childhood, when my mother was alive, and school, and University dances -

  And, oddly, about Higgins. I felt no hate for him, no anger. The doctor in me must be strong, I thought wryly, awkwardly moving my numb feet, and shivering again as a few dislodged stones moved beneath my feet and then went tumbling deep into the quarry. I just feel desperately sorry for him, the poor sick creature. Even found myself hoping that somehow someone would persuade him to get the treatment he so needed, hoping that one day he’d be well again -

  I hadn’t even realized I was crying until I heard it, and the distant sound made me catch my breath, made the sobs stop in my chest, and I lifted my head and listened, pouring all the concentration into my ears.

  And heard it again. A shout. A human shout, far away, but then repeated, nearer, and then again -

  I think I must have screamed, and gone on screaming, for suddenly there was a light and sound above me, and a deep voice said, “Stop that - “ and bemused, I closed my mouth, and heard the screaming that I hadn’t realized I was making die away.

  “Don’t move. Just stand perfectly still and do nothing,” the voice said sharply, and I rested my cheek against the wall between my hands, and obediently stood still.

  There was rope, I think, and strong hands, and then I felt my body pulled protestingly upwards, and my hands and face scraped against the stone walls, and I whimpered like a baby -

  And then, I was lying on my back on firm level ground, staring up with dazzled eyes into bright lights, aware of voices around me, and people, human bodies. And I closed my eyes again, and let the terror and anguish that had been so pent up in me well up, and I wept bitterly, feeling the hot tears under my lids and stinging my painful scratched and bleeding cheeks bitterly, feeling the hot tears under my lids and stinging my painful scratched and bleeding cheeks.

  “Don’t - oh, darling, don’t - “ The same deep voice spoke again, the voice that had told me to keep still, to stop screaming, and then I felt myself lifted in strong arms, and felt my cheek held close against another one, a warm rough cheek.

  I put up one hand, wonderingly, to touch the face so close to mine, and felt it wet with tears.

  “What?” I mumbled stupidly. “What?”

  “It’s all right now, my love. All right. You’re safe now, and you’ll always be safe - don’t cry, my darling - don’t cry - “

  And as though I had been waiting for this moment all my life, I sighed deeply, and put my head down on Max’s shoulder, and closed my eyes, and let my body go limp as he carried me away from the edge of that hateful quarry, back to life and safety.

  I sat in the long low lounging chair on the terrace of Downlands, my bandaged hands resting on my lap, feeling the sun warm against my face, and lazily watching Judith and Emma on the lawn under the big copper beech tree. Judith had spread a rug, and was trying to teach the baby to crawl, but she just lay and blinked owlishly up at Judith and grinned her wide toothless smile, and waved her fat arms about, clearly not a bit interested in locomotion while she had an adoring mother to play with her.

  For now Judith was her mother, really her mother. The news of the success of their adoption application had arrived in the post on Saturday morning, and was waiting for Judith and Peter when they returned from their weekend in Surrey on Sunday night.

  Peter had told me this when he had brought me in the car from Fenbridge hospital early this morning. I had been there four days, ever since Max had taken me there on Friday night - or rather, in the small hours of Saturday morning.

  I remembered very little about what had happened after I had been pulled out of the quarry. I had a vague recollection of lights and voices, and a rough car journey, and then being wheeled on a trolley into the Casualty department I had left so short a time before. I could just remember seeing David’s anxious face peering down at me as I lay there, before drifting off into a shallow exhausted doze, could just remember seeing Max, too, as he leaned over me and whispered “good night” after I had been put to bed in the private wing of the hospital.

  I hadn’t seen him since, for as Peter had explained, he had been with the police, searching endlessly for Higgins who had again disappeared. His wife said she knew nothing more about him, although it had been she who had warned Max that her husband was in the area still, and had told him where he had been hiding. She knew her husband was still insanely convinced that I was the cause of all his troubles, knew he couldn’t be trusted, and had decided to tell Max about the fact that he had reappeared.

  “Which was just as well,” Peter told me, as he drove carefully through the bright sunshiny roads back to Tetherdown after solicitously tucking me into the front seat with a blanket - which I protested I didn’t need - around my knees. “If Max hadn’t phoned Langham’s Farm to see why you hadn’t returned by one in the morning, I suppose you’d be in the quarry yet. But knowing where Higgins had been hiding, and seeing your car abandoned on the road, he realized you must be around, and went looking for you - “

  He looked sideways at me, and then returned his attention to the road, and said with a heavily casual voice that didn’t deceive me for a moment, “He was frantic - I’ve never seen a man in such a state as he was when we got back Sunday night. They still didn’t know then how you were going to come through. And he was sick with worry for you. I’d say that he was - very deeply involved with you indeed.”

  I blushed hotly, and Peter looked at me again and chuckled.

  “You too, hmm? I’m delighted. If anyone can get Max over the past and the stupid prejudices it left him with, it’s you.”

  I looked at him curiously, “What past?”

  “You don’t know? He never told you?”

  “He - he’s never told me anything about himself. We’ve never talked at all, really. Apart from discussing thunderstorms - “ and my lips curved as I remembered that strange evening.

  “Well, it’s gossip, in a way - “

  “Not really, it might help. You see, we both - well - misunderstood each other,” I said with painful honesty. “I thought he hated me - “

  Peter laughed. “Did you? Very unperceptive of you. I spotted what was happening between you two weeks ago, even if you didn’t realize it yourselves. All right, I’ll tell you. It might - help to smooth the way for you both.”

  H
e stopped talking for a while, and concentrated on a tricky curve, and then started to talk again, not looking at me.

  “Max was married before - to a girl he’d been at University with. He was very much in love with her, I think. Anyway, when they’d both qualified, he decided to go in for general practice, which he adores, because although he could have had a brilliant career as a specialist, he wanted to practise real medicine. Anyway, she pretended to agree with him, and they worked together for a while - “

  “Yes?” I prompted, for he’d stopped.

  “Well, she deceived him,” Peter said awkwardly. “Just ran off one morning, to go and live with a consultant skin man they’d known in their student days, and left Max in the lurch.”

  “A skin man - a dermatologist. No wonder he was so scornful of Charles,” I said, almost to myself.

  “It didn’t help,” Peter said dryly. “He didn’t talk about it - Max rarely talks to anyone - but I knew how he felt. Anyway, eventually he divorced her, and he’s been living the life of a - a dedicated hermit ever since. Not good. Not good at all. If you can get him out of it, back into normal living again, it will be a wonderful thing for him - “

  “And for me,” I murmured, but so softly that Peter didn’t hear me.

  For I knew now. As I sat there in the warm sunshine watching Judith and her baby, I knew what I had been trying to hide from myself for some weeks now. I loved Max Lester very much indeed, more than I could have imagined I’d ever love anyone. The way I’d felt about Charles had paled into the weak thing which was all it had ever been - a schoolgirlish infatuation. I knew now how Jeremy had felt for me - and knew too how easy it had been for him to get over it.

  It was odd, to sit there waiting for Max to come back, waiting to see him again. I knew now that however long it would be before he arrived, however little he had to say, our relationship was a real and deep one. There was none of the sick frightened anticipation that had been part of the way I’d felt about Charles. There was just a deep sense of peace, a feeling of having come home at last, of having someone else to shoulder my burdens, someone else’s burdens to carry. For that was what love was all about. Whatever happened to David and Fiona, now I had Max to help me. Whatever Max had suffered in the past, now he had me to help him. Peace.

  There was a sound behind me, and I turned my head and saw him standing there, looking at me.

  “Hello”, I said softly, and smiled at him, letting all my feelings show in my too-expressive face.

  “Hello yourself,” he said and came and sat beside me, and took my bandaged hands gently in his and sat and looked at me.

  “Did you find him?” I asked after a long pause.

  He nodded. “Yes. Nothing more to fret about now. He’s in hospital again - and this time they’ll take good care of him.”

  “Good,” I said, and turned my head and smiled at him again.

  He leaned forwards and very gently kissed me, and I let my lips brush his, and knew really and finally that I had found the end of my road.

  And then we turned, and sat together watching Judith playing with a fat baby on a rug under a copper beech tree on a hot summer morning in August. There was all the time in the world for talking, and planning, and exploring each other’s minds and hearts and needs. Right now, we were just happy to be together, sitting in the garden of Downlands, our whole lives spread before us, our whole future in each other’s hands.

  The two of us. Together.