by Mary Lavin
‘I’d better go back on an early bus, I think,’ he said at last, and miserably she agreed it might be best.
‘I’ll drive you to the Cross,’ she said.
‘Don’t bother, Vera, I’d prefer to walk. It’s a lovely evening anyway. Why don’t you walk with me? Take your bike; I’ll wheel it along, and you can cycle back.’ It was only March, and early in the month, but the daffodils were out on either side of the drive. As they walked by them the massed flower-heads shone like a lake of light. ‘Who planted them?’ Alan asked idly.
‘My mother, I think,’ said Vera.
Alan turned. ‘You think?’
‘He never mentions her, you know. Someone else told me.’
They walked on.
‘It must be strange to know nothing about her.’
Vera shrugged. But they both stopped and looked back. ‘I never saw so many daffodils,’ said Alan.
‘I dare say they’ve spread a lot since they were put down,’ Vera said. Her mind was not on them, but Alan was still looking back at them meditatively. They’d even spread into the pastures indeed, where many of them were trampled and broken by the cattle, and far off in the middle of the field there were a few stragglers, that like convent girls in a convent park wandered two by two.
‘I suppose you love this place?’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t anyone?’
‘I suppose so,’ he said reluctantly. Then, as they came to the big gates he exclaimed. ‘Now, there’s a marvellous sight. Look.’ He pointed westward to where, clear of the trees, the sky burned like a sea of flame. ‘Do you know what I like about that? I like it because it’s the same the world over. It belongs at the same time to everyone, and to no one.’
But she wasn’t listening. ‘Oh, did you see that?’ she cried. Over their heads a late-returning bird had flown between them and the sun, and for an instant, pierced by the flaming rays, all but its core seemed burnt away.
Alan was amazed too. ‘How strange,’ he said. ‘It’s like a glass bird. You could see right through it, beak, wings, feathers, all gone.’
‘All but its heart,’ Vera said softly.
For a minute he only stared at her. ‘Oh, Vera,’ he said then, and bending he kissed her. ‘I wanted to do that ever since we were out in the fields. And I wanted to say something, only I felt your father was listening, even when he was out of hearing. It was as if he was listening to our thoughts. He doesn’t want any more land. I know what he had in mind.’ But when her face reddened he caught her to him. ‘I’m not blaming him, Vera. It’s only natural he’d want to see you settled. But I can’t stand him meddling. If we are to get married it must be on my terms and no one else’s.’ He paused. ‘Not even yours. It’s bad enough that I can’t live without you.’
‘Oh, Alan!’ The grudging way he said it did not take one whit from her joy
But he was intent on making his meaning clear. ‘Some men want to marry,’ he said. ‘They’re only waiting to meet the right woman. But there are others, like me, who don’t want to marry at all. They are only forced into it by meeting a woman they cannot survive without.’
‘Do you really feel that way about me, Alan?’ she asked timidly.
‘Yes,’ he said firmly, ‘but I can’t share you Vera. It’s me or him. Oh Vera, can’t you see that you’ve let him become so engrossed in you that his whole life has been spent on you. Not that I care about him. But I can’t stand by and see you consumed, too.’
‘Oh Alan, you’re exaggerating,’ she said, but she didn’t know who she was defending, herself or her father. ‘What can I do?’ she added helplessly.
‘You can come away with me,’ he said peremptorily. ‘In fact that’s what we’ve to do, we’re going to go away, for a few years anyway.’
‘You know I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘Bad enough to think of leaving him at all without going far away. And where would we go?’
His face darkened. ‘I knew that would be your attitude. Well, let me tell you something and you can think about it. I am going away anyway, to Australia, with or without you.’
For a minute her mind blurred. ‘When?’
‘This summer.’
‘Well, we can’t discuss it now,’ she said wearily.
‘Why not?’
She came to a stand. ‘There are so many things to be considered,’ she said vaguely. ‘For one thing there’s my father’s age!’
‘And what is that, may I ask? Or do you know?’ When she had to admit she did not know, he shook his head. ‘The trouble with you both is that you’ve lost all sense of identity. Both of you! Do you know what I think? If it weren’t for you hanging around his neck all the time your father might have married again. He might do so yet, if you’d get out of the way. There’s more to life than seeing one generation into the world or another out of it. I bet if you left him he’d be married within a year.’
‘Is it at his age?’ she cried, but she saw at once she’d fallen into a trap.
‘I thought you said you didn’t know his age,’ Alan said scathingly. ‘Oh Vera, can’t you see that without you he might begin to live again.’
Such an entirely new prospect opened before her, her head reeled.
‘What if he got ill?’
‘Is it that man? He’s as fit as an ox. He could see us both down yet.’ Then, as they heard the sound of the bus he took her arm and shook her. ‘Think it over,’ he said.
But oh, quick upon his heels the irony of that last conversation was brought home. As strong as an ox Alan had pronounced him. The words were hardly bearable to her in the light of what followed. Alan should not be left in ignorance of it. It would not be fair to her father. It was, however, several days before she got a chance to write her letter. And when at last she began it the top of the page bore the address of a Dublin hospital.
Dear Alan [she wrote],
I’m writing to tell you that my father is ill. Oh Alan, he is very, very ill, so ill indeed that apart from any consideration of how his illness might affect us I would have written to tell you anyway, knowing you would be sad for him. It was on the very night you sailed the pain first struck him. I feel sure that, like me, you will think that very strange. And I hope that, like me, you will think that fact a sufficient reason for my writing. Anyway I cannot believe that you meant us to drop completely out of each other’s existence. Do you realise that at this moment I do not know in what part of Australia you intend to settle? And that if I do not post this letter in time to reach you at Gibraltar or Aden, I may quite literally lose sight of you forever.
To return to Father, it now appears that he must have been ailing for some time, all winter perhaps. I can’t help an ache at my heart when I think that if we had more patience matters might now be very different for us. Not that I am blaming you, dear, or thinking that you should not have gone, for although there can be no mistaking that Father’s ailment is fatal, nevertheless his illness may be long and painfully drawn-out. Poor, poor Father. I suppose in a way my reaction to your going has been altered by these new circumstances. Perhaps now you can see that there was something to be said for my remaining behind? For my part, in spite of all the happiness I have given up, I am glad, oh so glad, that I too am not at this moment thousands of miles away from him. You will hardly believe me, Alan, but all things considered, I can almost say I am happy. Our parting no longer seems so senseless as it did the night you left.
To keep to what is relevant, I am of course doing everything I can for him, and I may add that Lily has been wonderful, but the fact is that very little can be done. He is to have a small exploratory operation, but the disease may well be too advanced for much to be done. At his age, an operation is always a risk, but the doctors see no reason for thinking he may not get through it. His heart, they say, is as strong as the heart of a young man.
I should tell you that I do not really expect a reply, although I am nearly miserable enough to crave any crumb of comfort. I will leave it to you, dear. Quite frankly at times I cannot believe you are gone.
Vera
P.S. I did not stick down the envelope when I realised in how short a time I would have the surgeon’s report. Oh Alan, things are as the local doctor feared. It is only a question of time. However, there is a further operation advised, not so much in the hope of prolonging his life as of making what is left of it more comfortable. I have given my consent. After that we will be going home, by ambulance of course, which will dishearten him I know, since I am sure he expected to walk out of here on his feet. You can imagine how I hate breaking the bad news to him. We will have to bring back a nurse too, which is another thing he will resent. I can’t say that I myself look forward to having a nurse in the house, but I will try to get a pleasant and agreeable girl. I can tell you that my experience here in the past few days has taught me that they are not all angels. Far from it! But I’ll do my best. Thank God I am here to see to this kind of thing for him. Ah Alan, surely now you can see my point of view? Perhaps I will expect a line from you after all, just a line, although I don’t suppose your letter will alter anything in our situation, I cannot for all that hide the eagerness with which I will look for it.
Vera
The second operation was only successful in that the patient got over it. The pain was bought off, but at the price of new discomfort.
‘I didn’t realise he’d be so helpless,’ Vera said to the nurse as they waited for the ambulance that was to take them home. ‘He’ll hate being carried down on a stretcher.’
‘He’s a lucky man it’s not in his coffin,’ said the nurse practically.
Vera stared at her. In spite of her boast to Alan, she had not in the end been able to pick and choose her nurse. She had to take the first one that came to hand. Indeed she had hardly glanced at her in the hospital, and even when they got into the ambulance she was only aware of how much room the creature took up: she was the big, hefty sort, who sat firmly planted down, with her feet apart. Her face wasn’t bad, although her skin was thick, and the big brown eyes seemed lacking in expression. But there was one point in her favour, the sick man had taken to her.
‘What is your first name, Nurse?’ he asked. And when she said it was Rita, he started to call her that. It was extremely distasteful to Vera.
The ambulance had to go very slowly and so the journey seemed endless. ‘Is it far more?’ the nurse kept asking. And once when they went over a hump in the road she snapped at Vera. ‘You shouldn’t have moved him. You should have left him in the hospital.’
‘We’re nearly there, Nurse,’ she said, ignoring the criticism.
The nurse shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t answer for him if there’s another jolt like that.’
‘Mind would he hear you,’ Vera whispered. ‘I’d rather he’d die on the way home than in hospital anyway,’ she added fiercely. Over the patient’s head their eyes met in hostility.
When at last they got home however, and Lily came flying down the steps, all warmth and goodwill, the nurse brightened considerably.
‘Upsy-daisy!’ Lily cried as the stretcher listed and tilted on its way up the steps, and what might have been an ordeal was made to seem almost a lark.
‘That girl would make a great ward maid,’ said Rita looking at Lily after the patient was finally settled into his bed. ‘Had she any previous experience of nursing, I wonder?’
‘None whatever,’ Vera disclaimed the compliment to Lily as if it had been paid to her, and, feeling that the occasion called for a gesture from her, she called after Lily, who was going to make a cup of tea. ‘Put two extra cups on the tray, Lily,’ she cried. ‘Nurse and I will have some too.’
But the nurse called after Lily. ‘Put mine on a separate tray, please,’ she countermanded. And she turned to Vera. ‘Our regulations strictly forbid us to eat in a sick-room. I’d advise you not to do so either.’
Vera reddened with annoyance. ‘Just one extra cup, so, Lily,’ she called out.
The sad thing was that her father didn’t seem to appreciate her attentions. ‘Where is Rita having hers?’ he asked. ‘Oughtn’t you to keep her company?’
‘I don’t think she cares particularly for my company,’ Vera said.
But he misunderstood her. ‘Oh she will: she will,’ he said. ‘Give her time.’
Irritated beyond words, Vera gulped down her tea and went out again to where, on the landing, the nurse was standing with her cup in her hand leaning down over the banisters. She was staring at the old prints on the wall. The house had made some impression, Vera was glad to see. ‘They’re Malton prints,’ she said proudly and she let her own glance travel with pleasure around the white-medallioned walls and the wide stone stairs that poured down between the iron banisters like a mountain cataract.
The nurse’s voice broke in on her.
‘A bit of a rookery, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It must be bleak in bad weather. Lonely too, I’d say? Or are you used to it?’
Bleak? Lonely? Did that mean the creature might not stay? Vera stared out of the window. Stripped of leaves, the shrubs were tangled in strands of barbed brier. A stranger might think it a prison.
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter to me,’ the nurse said. ‘I’m only here for a while. But how do you stick it?’ A faint curiosity showed for the first time in her eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll stay on here, will you? Afterwards, I mean?’ she said, and she nodded towards the door of the sick-room.
Vera said nothing. She felt a deep resentment. Why should this woman assume that but for her father she would be alone in the world? On a reckless impulse she said something that she knew was dishonest. ‘I may be going out to Australia,’ she said. The next minute she would have given anything to take back those words. It didn’t make her feel any better that the nurse made nothing out of her lie.
‘You’ve people out there, I suppose?’ she said indifferently. ‘I’ve people out there myself. They’re always writing and asking me out. I might go some time too, but I’d never settle down out there.’ Her expression changed. ‘I have other plans.’
Vera stared. There was a kind of smirk in the nurse’s eyes. She had a fellow, that was it. Involuntarily she glanced at the nurse’s left hand.
But the nurse laughed and spread out her bare fingers. ‘We’re not allowed to wear jewellery on duty,’ she said. She laughed again. ‘A ring above all. Bad for the morale of the patients, specially if the patient is a male. Oh, you may not think it,’ she said, as Vera raised her eyebrows, ‘but it’s a fact. You’d be surprised how it depresses them, at any age.’ She nodded towards the sick-room.
‘How ridiculous,’ Vera said. Yet, almost at once Alan’s words came to her mind. But when those words were spoken her father was well. And sick or well, was it likely that a big lump like this would strike a spark in him? ‘I think you over-estimate my father’s capacities,’ she said coldly. But hadn’t she once or twice caught him looking at the young woman with a peculiar expression? And calling her Rita! She turned distastefully away from the creature. ‘If you’ll excuse me, there are a few things I have to discuss with him.’
The nurse drew herself up. ‘He’s not able for much,’ she said warningly. But at that moment, Lily’s voice came up from below in a snatch of song. ‘I tell you what!’ Rita said more humanly, and she caught up the tray. ‘I’ll take this down and give that girl instructions about your father’s meals. I’m dying for a smoke.’ For a big girl she went down the stairs at a good lick. She was probably younger than she looked.
When Vera went in to her father he looked up. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, obviously disappointed.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said flatly. ‘Are you comfortable, Father? Will I fix your pillows?’
�
��No.’ Impatiently he waved her away. ‘Leave them. She’ll do them. She has a knack.’
‘Well, I should hope so. It’s part of her training. I don’t think we should leave everything to her, all the same. Is there nothing you’d like me to do?’
He was lying back looking up at the ceiling but he glanced around the room.
‘You could get her a chair,’ he said, ‘a comfortable one.’ He frowned at the hard bentwood chair beside his bed. ‘She ought to have a big armchair. Where did you put her to sleep by the way?’
‘Up beside Lily,’ she said dully.
‘Isn’t it dark up there under the roof?’ He didn’t actually frown but she could see he was dissatisfied. And then he said something outrageous. ‘Why didn’t you give her your room?’
‘I gave her the room Lily had got ready for her,’ Vera said tartly, but under his stare she weakened. ‘It would have been an awful job to move out all my things.’
He said nothing for a minute and then, when he spoke he was so casual it was positively sly. ‘You’d have time to do it now while she’s downstairs,’ he said.
But from below at that moment there came a sound of laughter. ‘I think it would be a great mistake to move her away from Lily,’ Vera said. ‘They seem to be getting on famously.’
‘She’d be nearer to me if she was in your room,’ he said.
‘You seem to forget, Father, that what would be an advantage to you might not be one to her. She’s not a night nurse, you know. To convenience her during the day seems quite unnecessary. We are paying her after all.’ But she was sorry she mentioned money. ‘Please let me fix your pillows, Father,’ she said quickly.
