“Perhaps you’d come and show me where exactly you had this nasty fall?”
“What a lovely name it is—Ballad.”
“Thank you.”
“Without a song,” she said, “the day would never end. Did you know that? Without a song the road would never bend. Without a song a man would lose a friend. I was always extremely fond of singing,” she added.
He smiled politely.
“People say I have a quite delightful voice. And I’m now going to tell you something. A pretty girl is like a melody.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
But his responses were becoming increasingly abstracted. He was trying to remember how long it was since he had last seen Mrs Poynton. He had only the haziest recollection and believed she must have been treated by one of his partners more often than by himself. But whenever he had last seen her he was convinced she hadn’t behaved like this—or even looked like this. A rather nondescript sort of person he might have said. Quiet; unassuming. He wished he could remember her more clearly.
“If you were the only boy in the world,” sang Marsha, “and I was the only girl…nothing else would matter in this world today…we could go on loving in the same old way…”
He put his hand out and touched her arm.
“I’m so sorry to have to stop you, especially since I was enjoying it so much—yes, you have a most delightful voice—”
“As I said, all the gentlemen will go on telling me that. ‘The life and soul of the party,’ they declare—‘a personality just as enchanting as her face!’ Oh, it must get so boring for the remainder of the girls! ‘Please,’ I beg. ‘Please! Pay a little attention to Monica or Deirdre or Suzanne!’ But no—it’s always, ‘Well, we will if we have to. But only if you’ll sing us something first. I’ll Be Your Sweetheart—or Someday He’ll Come Along—or Even When The Darkest Clouds Are In The Sky…’”
“But I’m afraid I do have other cases to attend to. Even at this late hour.”
“Oh, yes, of course. A doctor’s life is such a busy one. I was just saying as much to my brother.”
“How is your brother?”
“My brother’s fine. Just the same as usual. Infuriating—placid—kind.” A look of unmistakable tenderness crossed her face. “Trusting. Very trusting.”
“I wonder if I might see him for a minute?”
“Oh, no, I’m afraid not.” It seemed to him that again she answered fast. Unnaturally so. Fast; even sharply.
“Not?”
“He’s out.”
“Oh, I see. Will he be long?”
“I don’t know. He went to the pictures.”
“Ah! And your sister-in-law? Is she at home?”
“No, certainly not. That’s why he went to the pictures. It was something which she wanted to see—some sort of sentimental rubbish. But we wouldn’t have liked it if she’d gone alone.”
“No, obviously. In that case how doubly fortunate that you didn’t hurt yourself when you fell. But now, please, would you like to come and show me where it was?”
On his way to the door, however, she called him back.
“In the hall will you speak very softly,” she requested. “You see, the neighbours are likely to complain.”
He said: “Oh, surely one should be allowed to speak quite normally in one’s own hallway.”
“But I’d much rather you didn’t. Anything you have to say…I’d much rather you said it in here.”
He saw that she was getting perturbed. He decided not to press the point.
“Well, there’s just one more thing, Mrs Poynton. I wonder if I could ask you to call Miss Clementson at the surgery—perhaps early tomorrow morning? The examination you’ve just had was only cursory. There might be ill effects we haven’t bargained for. Maybe we could arrange for you to spend a day or two in hospital; purely for observation, you understand. It would be a safeguard.”
“A day or two in hospital?”
He nodded.
“For observation?”
“Just in case there’s something I might have overlooked.”
She smiled. “You’re right. A very sensible precaution. I’ll telephone your surgery, then, before ten tomorrow.”
“Good. I’ll warn Miss Clementson. I mean—I’ll tell Miss Clementson.”
“Perfect. It will be charming to be renewing our acquaintance so very soon.”
She was smiling again as she shut the front door. She was smiling because Dan hadn’t come out of the dining room; she’d been very frightened that he might. (And what would she have said then, dear Lord? The suspense had been terrific!) She was smiling because Dr Ballad had forgotten to look at the staircase; she felt she had rather caught him out in that, after all that terrible fuss he had been making! And she was smiling as well because in at least one further respect she knew she had outsmarted him. (For indeed Dr Ballad was very pleasant but he wasn’t really all that bright, was he?—which again reminded her a little bit of Andrew.) After all, how could she ever think of leaving Daisy or of leaving Dan? Even for an hour or two; let alone a day or two? They needed her; how they both needed her!
No, Miss Clementson. I think there’ll be no appointments necessary. No need for any warnings. Mrs Poynton will not be calling on Dr Ballad. Nor taking up the time of anyone who might be keen to study her, or snoop on her, or listen to her telephone conversations, or follow her around to the bathroom and suchlike, in any nosy interfering hospital.
And Dr Ballad would find no one at home next time he called upon Mrs Poynton.
Nobody would.
She would tell them so, quite clearly and unmistakably, through the letterbox.
49
That night Marsha sat up with Daisy and every time Daisy moaned, as she did quite often, Marsha applied a cold flannel to her forehead and wiped the sides of her nose and her cheeks and her chin with it too. And as she did so, the makeup came away. It was as though years and years of makeup came away, like layer upon layer of heavy wallpaper, and the cold water in the pudding basin which Marsha had placed at the bedside soon became a stagnant khaki pool with orange tints, leaving a thick sediment at the bottom when she emptied it. Marsha hadn’t seen Daisy without makeup for nearly half a century and the face just didn’t look like Daisy’s: pallid, featureless, embarrassingly bare: although Marsha once or twice had little flashes of remembrance in which she could suddenly imagine all those years had rolled away and she was once more looking at her sister-in-law as a comparatively young woman. At those moments she remembered two things more clearly than any other: Daisy posing statue-like in front of Andrew and threatening to remain fixed, and Dan saying, a little more recently—and yet, how strange, it didn’t seem more recent, could she possibly be getting mixed up?—“Oh, at Shangri-La one never grows ancient!”
Many times, too, during the night Daisy did more than merely moan. She actually cried out. Then Marsha would start up from her doze and say, “There, there, Daisy, I’m here, don’t be afraid. Is there anything you’d like? That lovely boiled egg I did you earlier, or a nice refreshing cup of tea, or a couple of aspirin with a glass of water?” But she was always relieved to find that Daisy didn’t answer, because she really wasn’t up to the effort of making tea or even of going to fetch that egg from the fridge and of having to spread some bread-and-butter soldiers.
However, she did rouse herself sufficiently to get the aspirin bottle from the bathroom cabinet (for it had suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t had a wee since before the neighbours came). But when she brought it back to Daisy’s room and pulled out the cotton wool she was dismayed to find only four tablets remaining. She prided herself on being a good housekeeper. She would have to ask Dan to buy another bottle in the morning.
Then she thought that perhaps while he was about it he ought to get two bottles. At which point Daisy gave another moan and this seemed like total confirmation. Encouragement more than just agreement. Yes, why not two? Then they wouldn’t have to worry again about
aspirin for…well, oh not for ages. She smiled. By that reckoning, she told herself, if he were to buy a hundred bottles, instead of merely two, they would probably last forever. Ten thousand aspirin…didn’t that sound peaceful? One thing which could be struck off her shopping list for all time. She didn’t enjoy going shopping any more, except when she occasionally met people whom she liked, and anyway what was the use of that?
Besides. Even running into people whom she liked couldn’t take her mind off her problems, not for very long. And the situation was rapidly growing worse. She kept expecting things to happen, all sorts of horrible, shadowy things. She breathed a sigh of relief each time she got home and could put the chain across the door. Safe. They can’t reach me here, she thought. Or not so easily. The handbag-snatchers, the rapists, the disease-carriers, the maniacs, the murderers in their motorcars. Not only them; they were just the fringe of it; all the others as well. She was so thankful to be home, even though she would only have to screw her courage up all over again the following day and pray that once more she could run the gauntlet without mishap. They watched. They waited. She knew that they might pounce at any time. She wasn’t quick enough to avoid them.
“Them,” Daisy had once said. “Who’s them?” And Marsha had laughed, fully aware of her own absurdity. “No, don’t tell me, dear. So terrible that no word can ever describe them!” In 1954 Daisy had taken her younger nephew to see Them! at the Regal in Harrow Road.
“No, not giant ants,” Marsha had answered, almost hanging her head in shame. “Just the wolves and the bears or their grown-up equivalents.”
“Yes, I know, dear. I think you must be loopy.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised! But when I was a little girl I really half believed that if I trod on the cracks in the pavement the wolves and the bears would instantly make a rush for me. I used to imagine what it might feel like to be gobbled up by them.”
“Uncomfortable I have no doubt.”
“I used to dream about the Christians being leapt upon by lions. I had a vivid imagination.”
“Whatever happened to it?”
“What?”
“No, just my little joke, dear. They don’t feed Christians to the lions any more; not even here in Hendon. Or so they try to tell me.”
“It was horrible in some ways being a child. I used to think I might be struck by lightning even when I was inside the house. It would see me through the windows, flash through the glass and get at me. I can remember thinking wouldn’t it be nice if the windows were all boarded up—or at the very least extremely dirty, so that I could lurk in the gloom and the thunderbolts would find it difficult to spot me. Also, the prowlers.”
“Prowlers as well, dear? My word, you had a busy time.”
“Oh, yes. Even in a top-floor room I sometimes used to think that if I looked up too suddenly I should meet a pair of chilling eyes staring blankly through the window. So I hardly ever did. I would try to give the intruder plenty of warning. I would only raise my own eyes very, very slowly.”
Marsha shrugged, then laughed again.
“And yet I think I was a happy child.”
“Well, just so long, dear, as you’re not planning to try to recapture all that lost happiness! I can fight spiders but I draw the line at wolves and bears and lions in arenas. And thunderbolts, too, and prowlers up on stilts.”
Yes, they’d had one of their happier and more companionable moments. And of course—all that irrational fear of hers—it was ridiculous.
But she didn’t even like sending Dan out in case something might happen to him. So she wasn’t thinking only of herself.
She fantasized, half sleeping, half wakeful, being jerked up automatically and stumbling to the bedside each time Daisy moaned. Well, to begin with, it was certainly every time. Gradually, however, she got used to it.
She fantasized.
Supposing that Dan drew all his money from the bank? It wasn’t very much but it was a little over two thousand pounds. Supposing he bought enough aspirin and toothpaste and dentifrice and tissues and toilet rolls to last them for a lifetime? She imagined the dining room stacked to the ceiling with toilet rolls. Supposing he bought enough meat and fish and macédoine and milk and steamed pudding, and almost anything that you could get in tins, to last them for a lifetime? Supposing he bought enough jars of coffee and packets of tea and sugar and Ryvita and pasta and Patna rice to last them for a lifetime? And lots of containers, especially for the breakfast cereals and the crispbread? Why not? Why not? It all seemed so very feasible. Of course it would need immensely careful planning and it would obviously mean having to do without fresh fruit and vegetables but so what, you could still achieve a moderately balanced diet? Yes? And then of course it would also mean that Dan was shopping regularly for weeks and that she was stacking regularly for weeks. But Dan was still strong enough, wasn’t he, and she was certainly tidy enough and it would even be rather satisfying, very satisfying, stocking and organizing a fortress: independent, immune, impregnable? And after those few frenzied, concentrated weeks, it would all be over, no more to worry about ever again, and how blissfully peaceful did that sound? Their own little island, their own little desert island, miles away from anywhere; their own little castle, surrounded by a moat.
She mustn’t forget the salad cream. Daisy had said how much she liked the macédoine mixed up with salad cream. She mustn’t forget the batteries for that silly old hearing aid of hers! Of paramount importance! Marsha wasn’t so sure though (as someone who, herself, had long ago managed to kick the dreadful habit!) whether or not they should lay in a stock of cigarettes. Maybe a packet or two, just to break her in gently.
Oh, but it was all going to be so good!
And even during those few necessary weeks of shopping and stacking she could imagine that she’d be just too busy to worry about Dan and the dangers that might be besetting him outside. She’d have no time to stand there watching the clock, running to the front door to look out for him (usually with the garden broom in hand but, once, with the downstairs toilet brush!), wondering what in heaven’s name was taking him so long, trying to convince herself that all her fears were totally irrational.
Even the thought of all that hard, hectic activity didn’t make her feel bone-tired—no, on the contrary, it enlivened her. It would be creative; it would be exciting; it would be once-and-for-all…and not a bit like cleaning, for instance, which you knew would have to be done again tomorrow; tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Oh, how she was coming to hate the cleaning! Oh, how she had come to hate the cleaning! But if they were going to have no visitors from now on—and that was all a part of it, wasn’t it, having no visitors?—then it wouldn’t really matter if things weren’t always spotless. It wouldn’t really matter if things weren’t ever spotless!) She laughed. Oh, what fun! What fun!
Yes, she was so tired of it all! She was so tired of having to dust and polish and hoover. Tidy up. Sweep the stairs.
She was so tired of having to launder and iron and put away the clothes. Make the beds and air the blankets. Clean the bath, the basins and the lavatories. Plan the meals. Cook the meals.
Wash up. Scour the saucepans. Clean the cooker.
Empty and defrost the fridge.
She was so tired, even, of such little things as having to wipe the milk bottles and boil the dishcloths.
Of having to look after the garden, front and back, and scrape away the pigeon droppings off the side path.
Of having to wash the windows. Shine the brass. Scrub the doorstep.
(Oh, yes, and whatever you do, my girl, you’ve got to remember to put out the dustbins, before they start to smell. And then, of course, to disinfect the dustbins.)
The list was endless. It was endless. It was endless.
But in their new Shangri-La—now so much more than just a painted name on a piece of wood—why should they need to concern themselves with all those little things; little things that grew so large they could debase
your whole existence? For what on earth was the point? Life was altogether too short.
(Although at Shangri-La, of course, didn’t you get to be three hundred and still look like a beautiful young woman? Have all the energy of a beautiful young woman?)
So…? Was she at last, then, about to come into her own, the state for which she had been born? Why otherwise, when she was a girl, had she been known as such a bubbly young gadabout, such a pretty and fun-loving butterfly? Until, that was, her husband had managed to put an end to all that! Andrew, Mr Stuffiness Incarnate! Well, how glad she was that earlier this evening she had had the good sense and the willpower really to send him packing, that man! You didn’t get taken in twice! Not by the same broad shoulders and the same fair hair. Oh, thank heavens she’d been allowed to realize this in time! Thank heavens the spell of the spiteful godmother was finally lifting. Now everything was going to be so wonderfully all right.
Because:
Apart from the toilet rolls and the food, they would buy lots and lots of magazines and nice romantic novels for their fine new citadel. Lots and lots of records. And when she wasn’t reading she would dance.
She would sing.
She would drink champagne.
She would dream of princes who had come to wake her with a kiss.
She would—
Oh dear. Another shriek from Daisy.
But Daisy’s discomfort would only be a very temporary thing. And, anyway, she had brought it on herself. Totally! And afterwards, when her poor broken body had mended, Daisy, hobbling merrily to and fro on crutches, would be as happy as she had ever been. They would all be as happy as they had ever been. Happier, because wiser.
(Dan might have to go as far as John Bell & Croydon, she supposed, to buy that pair of crutches.)
But it all seemed so completely feasible. Tomorrow she would talk to Dan. Tomorrow she would arrange everything. Dear Dan. She knew she could rely on him—his gentle, easygoing nature. He would fall in with whatever she suggested. Marsha knew best, Marsha would take care of them. She had already told him that.
When I Was Otherwise Page 28
