She said, ‘They’ll be all right. They’re just . . . confused,’ and hoped that might be true too. She had nothing to offer beyond hope. No true control, no knowledge. ‘It’s a nurse’s trick, that we use on difficult patients in the wards at night. Like hypnosis, only cruder. Men are very suggestible by torchlight. I really shouldn’t have hit that first one, I didn’t need to, only he startled me. If you go now, I don’t think they’ll remember seeing you here. Tell me their names, and get you gone.’
‘They’re Dolley and Rawlinson. But I’m not leaving you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the danger to me now, not them. I’ll bring them round and march them back to their beds and give Major Black an earful about sending men to terrify innocent sleeping nurses, apologize to Colonel Treadgold in the morning for breaking one of his fine noses, and that’ll be that. So long as nobody sees the two of us together. Go on with you, get away and leave me to manage these.’
She was striving to sound competent and in command, manifesting Matron, all the matrons that had ever terrified him at school and since. Poor boy, he had come for a romantic erotic adventure, and had found something utterly other. Even now she had to round on him and drive him off. He went, though, the perfect example of his class and species: cowed and mannerly and anxious, still wanting to stay but with no resources to override her crispness. Another few years would put weight on his shoulders and stiffen his spine, he wouldn’t be so easily bullied. If he had another few years, if she could win them for him.
He went. She lit him down the stairs with that admirable torch, and then went back to the befuddled twosome. She said a prayer, nearly, and reached out a hand to each because that felt right, because that was what you did; although in fact she hadn’t needed to be touching either of them to make this happen, and she thought she didn’t actually need to now. She thought she could feel what she had done, what she called Peter like a rope tangled all about them, and she still had a grip on this end of it. Him. Whatever he was, whatever she had made of him.
A weapon. Yes. Not meant that way, but you used whatever you had to hand, whatever came. Peter himself had taught her that. He wouldn’t mind. If it was him, if there was anything of him in it, in this thing, this horror she had constructed.
It was horrible, utterly. She knew. She couldn’t bear that she had done this to them, wilfully; but it hadn’t felt wilful at the time, only necessary. So long as she could undo it now . . .
Peter, come back. Release them, let them be. I’m safe now, you can let them back. Bring them home. Please? Don’t leave them to fall forever.
She had done this, or else the house had done this: not Peter. She did know that. But whatever had been conjured here, however it had happened, it had the shape of Peter in her head and she could only deal with it as though she dealt with him. As she always had dealt with him: tenderly, intensely, honestly above all.
If there had really been a rope, it would have fallen slack in her hands. She could have hauled it in.
That was, in a way, how it felt. As though she had a fish on the end of a line, a dog on the end of a lead. As though she was, after all, in control here.
Gently, gently. If it was some aspect of her own mind that had assaulted the two men, she eased it back: like drawing the needle from a patient’s arm, unhurriedly, not to leave a bruise. If it was in fact something outside herself, she had her touch on it, like a hand laid on the shoulder of a tiger. She could soothe it, persuade it, call it back.
Call it and it would come. Hand over hand, reel it in.
Release them.
She could see it in each of them, that moment when the fog lifted. The slumped one shuddered suddenly, and lifted a hand towards his bleeding nose. The standing one dropped down, to sit hard on the reassuring floor and lay both palms against it, feel its fixity, how it yielded not at all beneath his touch. How he really wasn’t falling after all.
She didn’t want to shine a light in their faces. She waited, and after a little while she saw the torch’s glitter reflected in two pairs of eyes, open and bewildered, turning to her.
‘Well,’ she said briskly, to both of them impartially. ‘Are you feeling better? You’ve had a nasty turn. I’m not quite sure what made you so dizzy; something in the atmosphere, perhaps, if it wasn’t something you ate. I’ll have these rooms put out of bounds, for fear there’s something noxious stored up here. But let that be a lesson to you, not to go sneaking about in the dark, disturbing honest nurses. I won’t have you troubling the staff, whatever mission Major Black may set you. I’ll be seeing him in the morning, you can depend on that. Dolley, I’m afraid your new nose is badly squashed. But what Colonel Treadgold can do once, I’m sure he can do it again. Though I’m equally sure he’ll grumble. Come on now, the pair of you, up you get. Lean on each other, that’s the way. I’ll see you back to your ward, and send your excuses to the major.’
Like that, washing them along on a river of words, which really was an old trick learned in the wards and known to every nurse. They offered her no resistance as she coaxed them out of the dormitory and down the stairs, still by torchlight, letting them see no more than she could help. Not giving them a chance to wonder quite what had happened, let alone remember a face half glimpsed, a body half naked, another figure in the dark.
THIRTEEN
True to her word, true to her temper: Ruth went in search of Major Black, once she’d handed the two men on to the night sister to be cleaned up and coerced or coddled into bed. ‘Give them a draught, if they won’t sleep by themselves,’ but she rather thought they would. Shaken and disorientated, they’d find sleep a haven, and be that little further distanced in the morning, that little less likely to remember, that little bit more muddled between what had happened before the fog and in the fog and in their dreams afterwards.
She hoped.
No more that she could do about them now. Resolute in pursuit of a fiction, constructing the story she wanted to tell, she marched down to the major’s domain and found him where she expected, in the old ballroom with others of his black-clad troops.
He cocked an eyebrow at her, waited with apparent interest. She said, ‘You’ll be two men short at roll call. Dolley and Rawlinson are on the sick list, and I’ve put them to bed.’
‘Have you, indeed?’ Her bristling aggression didn’t seem to trouble him at all. He made a note on the clipboard in his hand and said, ‘May I ask what’s the matter with them?’
‘Dolley has a broken nose, I think. Rawlinson passed out.’ There, let that stand as the official record. No doubt he’d want to debrief them, but not until the morning, and even then she didn’t think they’d make much sense. Meanwhile, attack was still and always the best form of defence. ‘May I ask what you think you’re doing, sending men to break into the women’s quarters at dead of night?’
‘Training. They’ll do worse things, if I pass them fit.’
‘I’ll do worse things, if I catch them at it again.’ Which was as good as to say I disabled your two tough fighting men, I alone, a startled girl. Which was as good as to guarantee he would not find them fit. Dolley and Rawlinson, I may just have saved your lives, although they would not thank her for it. ‘I will not stand for this, Major Black. Have them sneak around their own wing as much as you like, but I have better things to do than patrolling ours. I want your word, please: no more missions on the women’s corridor. I’m sure it adds a little spice to the occasion, but it’s not necessary for them, and it’s not fair on us.’
He made a noise of non-committal, which was fuel to her fire. She snapped, ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then. In the colonel’s office. Ten o’clock.’ Colonel Treadgold would back her up, he’d do anything now that worked against the major, however petty; and she could play the petty tyrant guarding her girls, and slather one more layer of deceit and hypocrisy over what she had done tonight. And what she had meant to do.
She really wasn’t sure that they could do it again, she and Micha
el. Already that was an ache in her heart, something missing, a new-found treasure lost. But the attics would never feel like safe ground again, and she didn’t know where else they could go. It was a big house, there were sure to be other rooms, empty corridors; and there were outhouses, sheds, possibly lodges in the woods. But she hated that sense of hole-in-the-corner conspiracy, and didn’t want to seal it in Michael’s head that sex, love, romance was something to be conducted in the shadows. There was a legitimate thrill, of course, in the illicit rendezvous, in secrecy and private codes and hidden places. She could feel the surge of it in him with every public glance and every dangerous liaison. He loved what lay between them, the hush of it as well as the rampant. And she loved that, she loved the simple excitement in him as well as she loved his more complex character, as well as she loved his handmade face. Even so, she would so much rather be making love to him with the lights on. Teaching him that there was no disgrace in it, in any of it, not in her nor him nor anything they did together.
And she couldn’t have that, and didn’t quite see how she could have him at all any more. I’m afraid I may have to give you up, my beautiful boy, and she couldn’t bear the thought of it but of course would bear the reality, as she had borne so much already. That was what one did. One kept calm and carried on. And tried to save the life of one’s beloved, regardless of whatever private vows one made to give him up.
The morning’s interview would only be a skirmish, no victory for either side. Really she wasn’t pursuing it to disgrace Major Black, only to lend more cover to the night just gone, further to muddy a story that was already far from clear. To keep anyone from placing Michael anywhere near her.
She put herself to bed, and waited for sleep. And waited, and waited, and refused to let her weak and skittish mind dwell on what she was missing: a hot body and male sweat, youthful energy and awkward affection, all his clumsiness and hunger to learn. Hunger to touch. Oh, she did miss being touched. That above all, perhaps, that licence to be familiar with someone else’s body.
So she lay there wanting and so not sleeping, although she waited for it. Waited till the sun rose and so did she, weary to the bone of her and so very much not looking forward to the day.
She did her duty, by both staff and patients. She ate a bite of breakfast because that was a duty too – one had to keep healthy for one’s work – and scrupulously avoided anywhere she might have seen Michael. And time methodically inched around to her ten o’clock appointment, and that was a duty too, to throw some sand into the machinery of Major Black’s project. To support the colonel in his campaign, hopeless though she thought it. To do whatever she could to limit the major’s scope, to slow him down, to give him pause for thought.
To save Michael’s life, if she could only manage that.
If she could manage only that.
At ten o’clock sharp, she tapped on the colonel’s door.
‘Come in!’
She had the door open and was halfway through before she realized. That was not the colonel’s voice that summoned her, nor the major’s either.
It was Aesculapius who sat in an easy chair before the fire, who smiled up at her and gestured her towards the other chair.
A quick glance around confirmed that they were alone in here.
She took the proffered seat cautiously. ‘I’ve been ambushed, haven’t I?’
‘No, no, not at all. We simply felt that it would be more useful if you talked to me rather than the major.’
You’re a major too. But you like people to forget that, don’t you? Aloud, she said, ‘Actually, I wanted to speak to the major and the colonel together. I suppose you must have told him, unless you make free of his quarters as liberally as he does of yours. But—’
‘We all felt it would be better for you and I to talk. Of course the colonel had a voice in that decision; this is his facility, after all. And, as you say, his office. Which he has been gracious enough to cede to me for the nonce, so that we can have this little chat in circumstances that don’t include the, ah, tools of my profession.’
His couch, he meant. I don’t think you’re crazy, he was saying. Only misguided.
And, what, she should let him be her guide?
Sooner than that, she tried to take charge herself. ‘Well then, you talk to me, if you speak for the triumvirate. Explain to me why anyone should think it’s all right for Major Black to send his men to break into the nurses’ bedrooms while they’re asleep, and rifle through their things, and—’
‘Sister Taylor,’ he said, with a smile that was not yet long-suffering but could clearly turn that way, should the occasion demand. ‘This isn’t really going to be a discussion about exposing innocent nurses to moral danger, is it? I don’t believe for a moment that that’s actually what’s troubling you. Our female staff is as carefully chosen, every one of them, as you were yourself. I should know, I did the choosing. There’s not a shrieking Nancy among ’em. Nor a shrinking violet. If men come down their corridor, I’m confident that every one of them would know what to do.’
Goodness. He couldn’t truly be saying what she thought she was hearing. Could he? Perhaps he could. She was fairly sure that there were only nurses here at all for the benefit of the men’s morale; male orderlies were perfectly able to do all the work of the wards. She could see the colonel and Major Dorian on the same side for once, perhaps uniquely: the sight of a pretty face and a soft voice in their ears, a soft hand where they’re most sore, the two of them nodding in agreement, it’ll do wonders for the men.
It would be no surprise, if Aesculapius meant more than that. Or if he expected more.
Or if he knew more, that too. She said, ‘To be sure, we can look after ourselves. And each other. But we shouldn’t need to, that’s my point.’
‘No, indeed. You’re here to look after the men.’ He was . . . growing harder to misunderstand. She supposed she ought to be shocked. Then he said, ‘I’m sure there’s not a woman on your corridor who wouldn’t behave exactly as you do yourself, should the occasion demand it,’ and she was truly shocked, because he might as well have spelled it out.
Had Michael talked? Bragged? Confessed, perhaps, to his psychiatrist as he might have to his priest? No, she didn’t believe that. Wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t be so careless of her welfare. He might have perfect trust in Major Dorian – or more, he might be desperately eager to satisfy the man who could sign him off as fit for Major Black’s enterprises or do the other thing, stand him down, forbid him utterly – and she still thought he would have better care of her.
If anything, she thought he was less eager now. She thought she had taught him to find a value in himself and in his life. Not enough yet to have him stand himself down, but that would come. Nothing worked so well on a young man’s self-image than knowing himself beloved. She still wished that she could kiss him in the light, to show him that it wasn’t his face they had to hide. She’d kiss him in the dining hall if she could, under the stare of the whole hospital. She’d told him that, but her words would never have the impact of her lips on his skin.
Presumably something in her or in him, something between the pair of them had too much visible impact, even when they sat at separate tables. Aesculapius had picked up on it, and was obliquely letting her know. Enjoying himself.
Was it a threat? She wasn’t sure. Which made it a poor threat, which meant that it was something else, because he wouldn’t leave her in any doubt if he meant to threaten her. Mind games were his profession and his stock-in-trade. He wanted her to know that he knew about Michael, and to be sure that he would keep it quiet; which meant that this meeting really was about something other than its ostensible purpose, her ostensible protest.
She might as well just sit back, then, and wait for him to tell her what he wanted.
He said, ‘I don’t know exactly what happened last night, and I don’t propose to put you through the mill to make you tell me.’
She said, ‘I’ve written out a
full report.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I’ve read it. You heard a noise upstairs, and quite properly girded your loins, took up your torch and went to investigate. You were assaulted in the dark, defended yourself admirably, and then found that your assailants were Major Black’s trainees.’
‘Colonel Treadgold’s patients,’ she corrected him. ‘Yes. So I took them back to their ward.’
‘Indeed. And then you bearded the major in his den, and so this. Quite so. Some of the major’s trainees – I beg your pardon, some of our patients – are grown quite adept at interrogation, and I have no doubt they could win a different story from you, given time. Or at least a more thorough one, with fewer puzzling lacunae. I know how Dolley got his broken nose, but I’d love to know what happened to Rawlinson.
‘Still,’ he went on, waving her response aside before she could even begin to form one, while she was still drawing breath without a notion what to do with it, ‘you’re free, white and twenty-one, and we can hardly give over a British subject to the major’s less salubrious methods. Actually, I’ve half a mind to put your name forward to join Major Black’s team in your own right. You’re clearly lethal in an enclosed space, and yet you look so naive, no one would ever suspect you of anything worse than gullibility. How is your German, by the way?’
‘Non-existent,’ she said, determinedly cheerful, while her palms sweated on the arms of her chair.
‘Well, Herr Braun could attend to that. You’re clearly very bright. Too bright for your own good, I’d suggest – but not too bright for ours. What I’d actually like to propose, Sister Taylor, is that you should help us to train the men for Major Black’s adventures. In addition to your regular duties, of course. It’ll eat into your free time, I’m afraid’ – you won’t be able to slip away so readily with young Tolchard, he was saying – ‘but we all have to make sacrifices in these times, and I do believe that your input would be useful. More than useful.’
House of Doors Page 22
