Love on My List

by Rosemary Friedman

  Our client informs us, wrote Messrs Curly, Curly & Bright that during your visit to his house on the above date you assaulted his rosewood piano (Bechstein Grand) with the result that the instrument sustained considerable damage.

  The cost of repairing the said piano is Two pounds Ten Shillings and Sixpence and our client looks to you for payment of that amount.

  We shall be glad to receive your cheque for this sum, failing which would you kindly give us the name of your solicitor who will accept service of proceedings.

  Yours faithfully,

  ISOBEL JONES,

  p.p. Florian Curly

  of Messrs Curly, Curly & Bright.

  I made up my mind never again to play chopsticks uninvited, and since I was sure that nobody would ever invite me, blamed Mr Pompey Lodwick for bringing my musical aspirations to an untimely end.

  I rang Phoebe Miller, since the old man was her patient, and told her what had happened, and also, jokingly, that she was liable for the two pounds ten and six since she was technically responsible for my actions in the capacity of her locum. Never at a loss, she replied promptly that if I persisted in going round assaulting pianos she would have to suggest to the others that my name be removed from the rota. She then laughed heartily and said not to worry; she would deal with Mr Lodwick and she could guarantee I would hear no more from Curly, Curly & Bright.

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked, curious.

  “Ways and means,” she said mysteriously. “When you’ve been in practice as long as I have you’ll have them eating out of your hand too. Even the grubby, libidinous old Pompey Lodwicks.”

  I still don’t know what she threatened him with, but I never heard any more of either Pompey Lodwick or his decrepit piano. The incident left its mark, however, and since then I have confined my curiosity over other people’s possessions to the visual. Many is the time I have stood alone in various lounges, halls or dining-rooms and clasped my itching hands firmly behind my back before a vase I could swear was Ming, or a Picasso print which I was convinced was hung the wrong way up. I even stopped, for a while, perching my thirteen and a half stone on occasional tables while I wrote prescriptions, and for the first time was careful where I put my case. I had no desire to be branded as an “assaulter” of my patients’ belongings, and the name of Pompey Lodwick lingered for quite a while in my mind.

  I was getting into the car, ready to do the morning visits, when I heard the familiar eight-cylinder, throaty boom-boom-boom of Archibald Compton’s Allard coming down the road. Deciding to ignore the now familiar, condescending wave of yellow string glove as we passed each other on our rounds, I busied myself with some Elastoplast tins on the back seat. To my surprise, the Allard pulled up behind me and Compton, all hair-cream and smiles, stuck his head through my opened window.

  “’Morning,” he said affably; “I was going to ring you.”

  “Oh! yes?” I looked to see if there was any Elastoplast in a tin which I could feel was empty.

  “A little girl came to see me. Wants to transfer to my list. Said she knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Who’s that?” I said, trying to think of any small girls I might have offended lately.

  “A Miss Trotter.”

  “Oh! her!” I said ungrammatically. I might have known he’d been referring to a big little girl.

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have mentioned it except that she’s got a lump in the breast. I’ve had her admitted and Scriven’s doing a biopsy this afternoon.”

  “A lump in the breast!” He now had my attention. “I don’t think I’ve ever examined her,” I said. “She’s never complained of anything.”

  Archibald Compton examined his gloves carefully.

  “That’s odd,” he said; “she told me she’d not only been to see you in the surgery but that you’d been in ‘constant touch.’”

  He waited for an explanation.

  “She’s nutty,” I said, pulling out the starter; “she thinks she’s in love with me.”

  “Oh!” Compton said. “How strange. She told me she couldn’t stand the sight of you.”

  I shrugged and pulled the starter again, nothing having happened the first time. “I must rush,” I said against the agonised throbbing of my engine. “I’m sorry about Renee Trotter, but as a patient you’re welcome to her.”

  He stood watching me as I drove off. He looked sad. Whether he was grieving for my medical incompetence or the fact that I imagined all my young girl patients to be in love with me, I don’t know. With my mind on Renee Trotter, I had again forgotten to ask him about the Hart family. After a meeting with Doctor Compton I always felt prickly and irritated. Whether it was his superior air or his calm assurance of making good in the district, I don’t know, but in any of our brief encounters I always seemed to lose on points.

  I did my visits with frequent glances at various clocks on various walls and mantelpieces, and with half my mind on Sylvia. She had been worrying me a little lately as she had been getting frequent headaches which she said were quite unpleasant, and in view of her raised blood pressure I wasn’t too happy about her. She laughed at me for chasing her round with my sphygmomanometer at frequent intervals. I didn’t let her see, as I took her blood pressure, that I didn’t consider it a laughing matter. This morning I had sent her off for an extra visit to Mr Humphrey Mallow and was waiting for twelve o’clock, when she should be back, to see what he had to say about her.

  I went home between an asthma injection and a whooping baby and found Sylvia in the bedroom, packing a small case.

  “Oh! Sweetie,” she said, coming to put her arms round my neck although we couldn’t get as close to each other as before, “I’ve got to go into hospital for some investigations. They’ve got a bed this afternoon. You’ve to phone Humphrey and he’ll tell you what it’s all about.”

  Upset, I rang Mr Mallow immediately. He told me that because of her high blood pressure and headaches he wanted to take her into hospital for a couple of days to make sure that she had no kidney trouble. He was certainly taking every care.

  “What is it?” Sylvia said when I’d put the phone down. “Will I be all right?”

  “Of course you will. It’s just that it’s more comfortable to have these tests while you’re lying in bed in the hospital than to hang around the draughty corridors as an out-patient.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “What about it?”

  “There won’t be any trouble, will there?”

  “None at all,” I said, more light-heartedly than I felt. “By this time next year we’ll be deafened by the patter of tiny feet.”

  Sylvia smiled.

  “What are you laughing at?” I said.

  “You. They don’t patter at seven months.”

  “Ours will.”

  They had no private room available at the hospital, and since Humphrey Mallow wanted the tests done immediately, Sylvia had agreed to go into the ward for a couple of days. I left her by her bed between a large grey-haired woman who was sitting up knitting and a pale-faced girl who watched from her pillow with sad dark eyes, and went outside while she got into bed.

  When the mousey-haired probationer told me she was ready, I went back and found her sitting in bed, demure in a pink and white striped nightdress.

  “Don’t look so sad,” she said, taking my hand as I sat on the bed. The woman next door knitted extra busily, pretending not to listen.

  “I’m not. It’s just that I’m not used to seeing you in that hospital nightie.”

  Sylvia laughed. I couldn’t see the joke.

  “You are a pet,” she said. “It’s not a hospital one. I bought it specially on my way home this morning. I didn’t seem to have anything in my trousseau suitable for sitting up in a general ward. So you needn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for me.”

  I was just about to say something when the knitting woman, without interrupting the rhythm of her needles, said:

  “She’ll be all right, dear. We
all look after each other here.”

  She jerked her head towards the young woman on the other side of Sylvia. “She only got done this morning. She’s not prop’ly round yet. I’ll give ’er a drop of my Lucozade later.”

  The rest of the day passed slowly. As I finished my work I felt worried and upset as I thought of Sylvia in the hospital. For the first time I knew what it felt like to be a patient when one of the family was ill, and I didn’t like it a bit. I thought of the number of people I shunted daily off to hospitals, and the number of relatives I told glibly how happy and well looked after they’d be. Next time I wouldn’t be quite so glib.

  I ate my dinner in a quiet house, lonely at the dining-room table. With Sylvia away, even Iris seemed to have lost some of her bounce and came despondently in and out with the dishes. While I was eating my dessert which came out of a tin she had opened, there was a ring at the front door. Iris said it was a Mr Brindley who wanted to see me urgently. Worried about Sylvia, I felt I wasn’t in the mood for H H Brindley’s problems, but told Iris to put him in the drawing-room. When I joined him his appearance gave me a shock and my concern for Sylvia slid temporarily into the background.

  Sartorially he looked the same, from his highly polished, handmade shoes to his perfectly folded breast-pocket handkerchief with its maroon HH neatly embroidered. Inside his clothes he stood like an old man. His voice had lost its bombast. He came straight to the point.

  “You know about our Tessa.” It wasn’t a question.

  I pulled up a chair for him and switched on the stove.

  “Yes,” I said.

  It seemed to have hit him even harder than I had thought it would.

  “She told you the name of the father?”

  “Yes,” I said, without realising the implications of his question.

  “Well, you’d better tell it to me. I can’t get nowt out of Tessa.”

  “I only know his Christian name,” I said, now understanding what he was getting at.

  “That’ll do,” he said. “It’s a start, any road. It won’t take H H Brindley long to find him.”

  “Look,” I said, “what good will it do?”

  “It won’t do him much good.” Brindley’s eyes were sharp with anger. “I’ll break every bone in his body.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can’t tell you his name if Tessa doesn’t want you to know.”

  “Tommyrot,” he said, getting angry. “Tessa’s a child. I don’t care what she’s done, she’s still a child, and she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “That may be,” I said, “but what Tessa told me was in confidence and I’m bound by the tradition of professional secrecy.”

  “Professional – !” he said. “Whether you tell me or not I’ll find him. It’ll just take me a bit longer with nothing to work on. I’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” I said, “but there’s no question of me telling you his name. If Tessa doesn’t want you to know, there’s nothing I can do to help.”

  He said, more quietly: “Tessa says if I try to find out who it is she’ll kill herself. You don’t think she’s serious, do you?”

  “She may very well be,” I said. “She’s emotionally perturbed. She’s worried; anxious about the future…”

  He held up his hand. “Don’t you think I know?” he said slowly, “I’d have given anything, anything at all, to see my girl happily married. That’s why I’m so dead set on finding the chap that’s done this to her.”

  “But if it’s going to make Tessa even more unhappy?” I said.

  “Tessa won’t know,” he said determinedly. “But me mind’s made up: I’ve only the one daughter and I’m going to find this chap. He’s a married man and he should of known better. Tessa should have known better too, but that’s neither here nor there. Tessa’s suffering for it, and if H H Brindley tells you this young man, and I don’t care who he is, isn’t going to get off scot- free, he means it.”

  “What are we going to do about Tessa?” I said, in an effort to calm him down.

  “Whatever you say. You’re her doctor, and she wants no one but you to look after her.”

  “Don’t you want her to see an obstetrician?” I asked, knowing that people like the Brindleys usually wanted specialised attention.

  “Tessa says she wants no one but you. You do deliver babies, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. I could take her into a private nursing home or she could have it at home. In the circumstances…”

  “I shall be sending her down to our country place,” Brindley said; “it only takes an hour by car from here. I want you to look after her for me.”

  I hesitated. In his customary manner, a result of his own life story, he misinterpreted my silence.

  “I don’t care what it costs.”

  “It isn’t that,” I said. “It’s just the journey. If I happen to be busy…”

  “Please don’t refuse,” he said, sufficiently worried to be asking instead of demanding. “I know it’s not very convenient. But Tessa seems to be pinning her hopes on you. She said you’d stand by her. There’s a nursing home nearby,” he said hopefully.

  “All right,” I said, unable to refuse. “What’s going to happen when she’s had the baby?”

  H H Brindley stood up. “We shall see when the time comes, if not before,” he said, and by the threat in his voice I knew that he was determined to find Tony. “My main concern is Tessa.” He looked at me with a plea for reassurance in his eyes. “She’ll be all right, won’t she? Our little Tessa.”

  “I see no reason why she shouldn’t be.”

  “You’ll come whenever she needs you then?”

  “Yes,” I said, “don’t worry.”

  “No matter what?”

  “No matter what,” I promised.

  “That’s one thing off me mind then. Tessa’ll be glad.”

  At the door he said: “Sorry for taking up your leisure time.”

  “Only too pleased to help,” I said.

  He put his hands in his pockets and stepped on to the path.

  “It’s tekken the wind out o’ me sails, rather.”

  I felt pity for him as I watched him go.

  Fourteen

  Without Sylvia the house felt horrible, and I couldn’t imagine how I had managed on my own for a year while waiting for her to say “Yes.” I was cold in bed, had no one to talk to, and noticed that Iris put the milk on the table in the bottle and wandered round the house in her slippers. Yet it was more than just that. On the second day I had a hot-water bottle, told Iris she looked sloppy and had Loveday round to keep me company, but it was no better. It was obvious that what I was missing was what was commonly known as my “better half,” and that no calculated accumulation of the comforts she provided could compensate for her flesh-and-blood presence. I discussed with Loveday the peculiarities of marriage.

  “It’s odd,” I said, “how one particular woman, for no one particular reason, is the right one.”

  Loveday, always loyal, didn’t think it at all odd.

  “It’s purely a question of genes,” he said, examining the glowing end of his cigar, “or instinct, if you like. Marriage is rarely a rational process. A man thinks he loves a woman for her hair, her glorious eyes, and concord of their thoughts; a woman thinks she loves a man because of his self-confidence, his helplessness or his child-like solemnities, but what has really happened has been that in some mysterious way beyond our ken, 3,000 genes which constitute the blueprint of him have conferred with her 3,200 in secret sessions of intense emotion, and have come to the conclusion that if each sends about 1,500 of their number they may, with luck, produce something which will stagger on with the race.”

  “So for ‘love’ substitute the mutual attraction of the genes?”

  Loveday nodded.

  “That’s right. Otherwise, how on earth could you account for the hundreds of most presentable men who choose the oddes
t-looking wives or the good-looking women who settle for ugly, roly-poly men?” He sat forward in his chair. “If I were to provide you with an identical, physical copy of Sylvia now, but one composed of a different set of genes, do you think she’d be acceptable?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, there you are,” he said, and held out his glass. “What about some more of that apricot brandy?”

  I poured out his brandy and thought of what he had said. He was probably right in his theory about the genes, but I had been married too recently to want to reduce marriage to such logical terms. It made me remember a party, given by one of Sylvia’s model friends, to which we had gone shortly before our marriage. The friend had met us at the door and warned us that she wanted the party to be exceptionally gay, and that we must separate for the evening. Sylvia and I, willing to enter into the spirit of the thing, had kissed each other goodbye in the hallway and agreed that it was our last chance to see if we could find anyone we liked better. It was a large party and, as parties go, had everything. I danced with some of the most beautiful girls in London who were more than willing to twine their arms round my neck and lead me into corners; had a session at the bar to see if perhaps my soberness accounted for my distinct reluctance to be led into corners; and ended the evening sitting on the floor discussing Existentialism with a wide-eyed brunette who was both pretty and intelligent. I laughed, drank, ate sausages on sticks and did the cha-cha, trying not to look too often to see what Sylvia was doing. I did my genuine best to imagine I was fancy-free and having the most wonderful time, yet the only highlights of the evening were when I allowed myself a quick glance in Sylvia’s direction and invariably found her eyes searching for mine. When the evening was over we thanked our hostess politely and with as much enthusiasm as we could manage and escaped into the darkness of the early morning. Driving home, we sat close together in silence, each a little stunned to have discovered how useless we were without each other.

  “Well,” I said to Loveday, “you can stick to your genes; I still prefer to call it love.”