by Paul Scott
*
Before the taxi reached the Officers’ wing of the military hospital the rain stopped. She arrived in bright sunshine and, mounting the steps to the pillared entrance, took off Aunt Fenny’s heavy-duty macintosh. She had changed from uniform into mufti – a plain cotton dress whose lightness she was glad of in a humidity that was higher than she had ever experienced. After she had spoken to the English corporal at the desk and been asked to wait she sat and smoked, but the cigarette was damp. She dropped it, unfinished, into the sand-tray. The corporal answered the telephone, then spoke to a colleague whose uniform bore no chevrons. The private came across.
‘Miss Layton for Captain Merrick?’
She nodded, followed him out of the reception hall into a corridor where there were lifts. The smell of ether-meth was settling on her stomach. She felt slightly faint. The private gave instructions to the Indian lift attendant then said to her, ‘Sister Prior’ll meet you at the top.’ She thanked him, noticed – and was sorry for the embarrassment they must cause him – the septic spots on cheek and chin, vivid under the glare of the lift lights. He did not meet her glance. He smelt strongly of cheap hair oil. The attendant closed the mesh gates. Slowly they ascended. The letter from Ronald Merrick had been signed by a nurse in the QAIMNS. But she could not remember the initials. Had it been P for Prior? No. It might have been P, but not for Prior because the letter had come from Comilla. There had been no letter from Calcutta.
The lift stopped and the attendant opened the gates. She thanked him and stepped on to the landing. The smell was stronger than ever. A window gave a view of trees and light to a table with flowers on it and chairs for waiting. But she was the only visitor. There was no sign of Sister Prior; the corridors left and right of the waiting-room were empty. Had the lift man let her out on the wrong floor? Or the boy with the pimples misheard the corporal? She went to the window and stared at the trees and the view between them and the vast maidan beyond which was the low-lying clutter of the city. A door shut somewhere along one of the corridors, and presently she heard the sound of a woman’s footsteps. She turned, waited, and in a moment the woman entered the waiting-room area: a girl, rather, no older than herself, with dark hair rolled under a neat cap.
‘Miss Layton? I’m Sister Prior.’ She put out her hand, which Sarah took. The overall scrutiny she was under did not escape her. She wondered whether Sister Prior was the sort who would fall in love with a patient – in love with Merrick, for instance – and be jealously possessive of him. But she had scarcely had time.
‘Am I upsetting regular visiting hours?’ Sarah asked. Her hand had been let go of rather suddenly.
‘That’s all right. The message from your – uncle? Colonel—?’
‘Colonel Grace.’
‘Grace. Well, he said you’d come a long way.’
But Sister Prior made no move. They eyed each other levelly. The same height, Sarah thought, as well as the same age.
‘I didn’t quite get the relationship. You are a relative, aren’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I thought it was odd. I’d always understood he had none. I mean none at home let alone out here. But matron was under the impression from Colonel Grace there was a family connection.’
‘I expect he mentioned my sister. Captain Merrick was best man at her wedding.’ She paused, intending not to explain further, but found herself doing so. ‘I’m really here on her behalf. We had a letter from him when he was in Comilla.’
‘Yes, I see. I haven’t told him you’re coming. I thought I wouldn’t in case you didn’t turn up and he was disappointed. But I’ll go and tell him now. If I just say Miss Layton will that be enough?’
‘Enough, but a bit of a surprise. I live in Pankot.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s a hill station north of Ranpur.’
‘Oh. Yes, you have come a long way, haven’t you? Is your sister in Calcutta, too?’
‘She couldn’t travel.’
‘Isn’t she well?’
‘She’s having a baby. It’s due in three weeks.’
‘I see. I hope you don’t mind my asking all these questions. Ronald is rather a special case with us. He’s been wonderfully brave. But we think terribly lonely. Do you know anything about his family?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘His record shows his next-of-kin as a cousin of some sort. Both his parents died before the war. I think it was a late marriage. I mean they were quite old. And he has no brothers and sisters, and then of course he’s never married himself. And until we heard from Colonel Grace today we were under the impression he had no close friends. I mean the only letters he gets are the official sort. And since he’s been here he’s never asked me to write a personal letter to anyone, so I’ve been wondering, I mean how you knew where he was.’
‘He wrote us from Comilla and said he was being transferred to Calcutta. Someone on General Rankin’s staff at Pankot checked for us and got the hospital in Comilla to send us a signal where we could contact him. My sister’s concerned rather specially. Captain Merrick was wounded at the same time her husband was killed.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. About her husband.’
Sister Prior had not once let her glance fall away. Sarah felt her own fixed by it. ‘I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, and I do appreciate your coming such a very long way, but I hope you won’t find it necessary to ask him too many questions on your sister’s behalf. We try not to let them dwell too much on what happened.’
‘I haven’t come to ask questions. I’ve come mainly to tell him how grateful my sister is for what he tried to do to help her husband, in spite of being wounded himself. We don’t know exactly what it was he did do, and I’m sure he won’t talk about it even if I ask, but it was something that led the divisional commander to send in a recommendation.’
‘A recommendation?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean for a decoration?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does he know that?’
‘Probably not.’
‘I hope you won’t mention it.’
‘I won’t mention it.’
‘I suppose decorations serve some sort of purpose. I never see what, myself. But then I’ve seen too much of what earning them involves. I always think a thumping great cheque would fill the bill better. What can you do with a medal except stick it on their chests and leave them to stick it in a drawer? I expect that shocks you. With an uncle who’s a colonel.’
‘My father’s a colonel too.’ About to add: And it doesn’t shock me: she changed her mind and said instead, ‘I’ll wait here while you break the news to Captain Merrick that I’ve called to see him.’
Sister Prior nodded. A smile – of distant irony – momentarily broadened her pretty lips. Sarah turned, embattled behind the barriers of her class and traditions because the girl had challenged her to stand up for them. Hearing Sister Prior’s retreating footsteps she realized the opportunity to prepare herself for whatever it was she had to face in Ronald Merrick’s room had gone. Perhaps in any case it would have been deliberately withheld. The sight might be shocking, and it might please Sister Prior to watch how she took it. She lit another of the damp cigarettes, gathered her things together: Aunt Fenny’s macintosh, the box of fruit, the carton of two hundred Three Castles cigarettes packed in four round tins of fifty each. She wished to be ready to go with Sister Prior directly she returned. But the minutes ticked by. It was nearly five o’clock. Occasionally there were footsteps in the corridors, and the sound of doors opened and closed. Voices, once. And the rising clank and whisper of the lift. At five o’clock a dark-skinned Anglo-Indian nurse appeared, coming from the direction Sister Prior had taken.
‘Miss Layton? Captain Merrick will see you now.’
She followed the girl down the corridor. Reaching a door numbered 27, which bore beneath a circular observation window a card in a metal frame in which was written in black ink, Captain R. Merrick
, the girl tapped, opened and said, ‘Miss Layton to see you, Captain Merrick,’ and stood aside. Entering, Sarah halted abruptly, shocked to see him on his feet and coming towards her, aided by a stick, dragging the weight of one plastered leg – until, coming to her senses, she saw the man was not Merrick but a tall burly fellow who smiled and said, ‘He’s all yours. Ignore me. I was just visiting.’ Automatically she smiled in return and looking beyond him saw Merrick in the bed by the window – or anyway a figure lying there, propped by pillows. A complex of bandage and gauze around the head, like a white helmet, left only the features and a narrow area of the cheeks exposed. The sheet that covered his body was laid over a semi-circular frame. She could see nothing of him except the small exposed area of the face and blue-pyjamaed chest and shoulders. His arms were under the arch of the sheet. His head was inclined a little to one side. He was looking at her. As she moved towards him she heard the door shut.
She said, ‘Hello, Ronald,’ and was then at the bedside. The down-draught from a fan whirling gently above held the sheet pressed against the frame. She could see the pattern of the mesh. She had an unpleasant idea that there was nothing beneath the frame, that what she could see was somehow all that was left of him, although she knew that was not possible. Embarrassed, she switched her glance quickly back to his face, determined to hold it there. He looked younger than she remembered, younger even than in that one and only photograph, as if pain had smoothed out his face and brought a glow of innocence to his complexion. She could not see his chin, but the upper lip was shaved. She wondered how he managed. And then remembered Sister Prior.
‘I’ve brought some fruit and cigarettes. I hope that’s all right. I remembered you smoked.’ She put the packages on the bedside-table which was empty except for an invalid teapot from which she imagined he was given water. She glanced at him again as she did so, and saw him swallow. Perhaps he had difficulty with his voice. His eyes were closed now, but as she moved round to sit on the chair at the other side of the bed he opened them and watched her. Yes, they were blue. Extraordinarily blue. He swallowed again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I thought Sister Prior was playing some kind of practical joke, or that I was funny in the head because she’s not really the joking kind. How is Susan?’
‘She’s fine. She sent her love. And Mother of course. And Aunt Fenny. She and Uncle Arthur are in Calcutta now. She’ll come and see you in a day or two. She asked me to be sure to find out if there’s anything you need.’
‘That’s very kind of her. And kind of you. Are you in Calcutta long?’
‘No, I go back tomorrow.’
‘To Pankot?’
She nodded.
He said, ‘Do smoke. There are some in the drawer.’
‘Can I light one for you?’
‘I’m afraid it involves more than that. I can’t hold anything yet.’
She lit a cigarette from her own case, then – overcoming the reluctance she felt to do so – a mixture of embarrassment and faint revulsion – she stood, leaned forward and held the cigarette near his lips. He moved his head to help her place the tip in his mouth.
‘I’m afraid they’re very damp.’
He released the cigarette, let his head back on to the pillow and blew out slowly, without inhaling. After a moment’s hesitation she inhaled from the cigarette herself. The sharing of the cigarette was an unexpected intimacy. For a while they smoked alternately.
‘Your hands,’ he said, ‘smell so much nicer than Sister Prior’s. She’s a bit of a dragon.’
‘A very pretty dragon.’
‘You think so?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘A man in hospital’s no judge. All the nurses look pretty, but it’s their hands and throats and elbows that count in the end. Sister Prior has very cold hands and red elbows. I’m not sure she hasn’t got goitre too. The fact is she depresses me a bit. Sister Pawle in Comilla was much more like it. She’s the one who wrote that letter for me. I was beginning to wonder whether it reached you. But this is miles better. Miles, miles better. And thanks for just turning up. You get used to taking the days as they come and it’s better not to look forward to anything that isn’t routine. But when you’ve gone I’ll have something special to look back on, and count by, that I wasn’t expecting.’
She held the cigarette for him but he shut his eyes briefly and thanked her, said he’d had enough. He couldn’t actually stop smoking, but it did make him a bit dizzy. Sister Prior was slowly breaking him of the habit.
‘What time do you go back tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘I ought to catch the midday train.’
‘Then I shan’t see you again.’
‘I could come tomorrow morning. Would you like me to?’
His eyes were shut again.
‘Oh, I should like it. But they wouldn’t. They have other plans for me tomorrow. It’s a good thing you turned up today.’
She waited for an explanation. When it seemed there wasn’t to be one she asked him directly, ‘Is it the surgery you mentioned in your letter?’
He nodded. He opened his eyes but didn’t look at her. ‘They were going to do it sooner. But I didn’t travel as well as they expected. They made me feel like a bottle of wine when they said that. That I hadn’t travelled well.’
‘Did they fly you out?’
‘Yes, it was fun. I’ve never flown in my life before, until all this. They flew me out of Imphal first, and then from Comilla. I’ve clocked up about three hours, I think. On my back though. It’s an odd feeling flying on your back. You think of yourself as totally invulnerable. Well, you do taking off and in the air. Landing’s a bit of a jolt. The chap who was in here when you arrived pranged on Dum-Dum a couple of weeks ago, coming in from Agartala. Extraordinary. The plane was a write-off, but he only bust a leg.’
She said after a while, ‘Do you want to tell me about tomorrow, about what they’re doing?’
He turned his head towards her, as if to study the depth of her interest.
‘Oh, they’ll poke about and come up with something and tell me afterwards. And don’t be fooled. I look as weak as a kitten, I know, but I’m full of beans under this dopey exterior. Otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it yet.’
‘What time are they doing it?’
‘Nine o’clock. Unless there’s an emergency. I mean, not me. Someone else. I’m not a priority. Don’t worry. I’m all right.’
‘If I rang at about midday I expect they’d tell me how it went.’
‘Yes, I’m sure they would.’
‘Then I’ll do that.’
‘Thank you.’ A pause. ‘Teddie told me Susan was having a baby. He was very proud.’
‘It’s due next month. In about three weeks.’
He said, ‘I expect she hopes it will be a boy.’
‘I don’t think she minds.’
Again he shut his eyes. ‘What do you say?’ he asked. ‘She was such a happy girl. It’s the happy people who are hardest hit when something like that happens. Teddie was a happy sort of man, too. They seemed made for each other. Well, I suppose that kind of happiness means there’s a basic resilience, and that when she’s got over the shock she’ll come up smiling. Although—’
‘Although what?’
‘She struck me as happy in the way a little girl is. Perhaps that’s a protection too. It interested me, the difference between you both.’
He brought the sentence to an abrupt end. She felt the full-stop. They had entered a zone of silence. For a moment she imagined he had fallen asleep, exhausted by the visit and unable to cope with the demands it made on him. Perhaps he was already under sedation, in preparation for whatever they were going to do to him in the morning. She felt a stirring of morbid curiosity, the beginning of a distasteful urge to draw the sheet away and observe the condition of his legs and abdomen, and arms from elbow downwards.
‘I expect there are things you both want to know.’
She glanced up quic
kly.
‘I hope my letter didn’t worry you,’ he added. ‘Did you show it to Susan?’
‘Yes, I did.’ She hesitated. ‘It did worry us a bit.’
‘I’m sorry. Did anyone ever write to her from the division?’
‘She had one the day before from Colonel Selby-Smith, so she knew you and Teddie had been together when it happened. He said you’d helped him. That’s one of the reasons I’m here, to tell you how grateful she is. Well, all of us. And of course she’s looking for reassurance, that you’re all right, or going to be. The letter from Colonel Selby-Smith seemed to hint that what you tried to do to help Teddie made things worse for you. What worried us about your letter was that it had to be dictated.’
‘Yes, I see.’
She waited, expecting an explanation, or a comment; the reassurance that she could take back to Susan. When it did not come it was, perversely, not concern for him – which might have filled her – but renewed reluctance to be drawn towards him which she felt; and this seemed to empty her. She thought, almost abruptly: He lacks a particular quality, the quality of candour; there is a point, an important point, at which it becomes difficult to deal with him. He isn’t shut off. It isn’t that. He’s open, wide open, and he wants me to enter, to ask him about the legs I can’t see, the forearms I can’t see, the obscene mystery beneath the white helmet of bandages. But I won’t. They, or their absence, their mystery – these I find appalling as well. It’s unfair, perhaps unhuman of me. On the other hand, it can’t be inhuman because I feel it, and I belong to the species, I’m a fully paid up member.
He had turned away, aware – possibly – that the purely physical equation of their eyes, meeting, lacked a value. When he began speaking she wondered whether the way in was being widened; salted, like the way in to a dangerous, derelict mine. She found herself exerting pressure on the ground with the soles of her feet and on her chair with the small of her back.
‘I thought it might be something else that worried you,’ he said, ‘that thing I said about the business lying heavily and wanting to talk about it. Get it off my chest. As if I had some sort of confession to make.’
