The doctor lifted his bearded face now and there was a touch of merriment in the back of his eyes as he said, ‘A what is a stiffish brassière, Maisie. It’s for conditions such as you’ve got, mastitis. If you wear it, it will keep your breasts firm and stop them…’ He didn’t say wagging from side to side, but he moved his hand descriptively, and almost immediately I had a mental picture of a herd of cows, and me on all fours in the middle of them. We were all wearing camp brassières, and the only difference between us was that their udders were swinging one way and mine the other.
Why did I see the funny side of things even when I was in pain? There was a very odd side to me, I had to admit.
I leant my elbow on the table and covered my face with my hand, and he said to me, ‘Well now, what’s funny?’
‘Just that I’ve seen myself amidst a herd of cows all wearing camp brassières, and their udders were…’ I moved my hand as he had done; then added, ‘but mine wouldn’t work like that.’
When he let out his rare roar of laughter I knew I’d be in for another funny look from the receptionist when later I passed through the waiting room.
After a moment, his face became straight and he rose and came round the desk and, looking at me full in the face, he said, ‘How did you come by this business anyway?’
‘I was hit with a tennis racket.’
I saw small globules of moisture on the end of his moustache as he leant towards me, his eyes screwed up. ‘Come again,’ he said.
‘I was hit with a tennis racket.’
‘On both breasts?’
‘On both breasts.’
‘How come?’
‘He was supposed to be practising, when I went into the kitchen.’
‘Supposed to be practising?’
‘Yes. He did a back and forward drive. Bang! Bang!’ I demonstrated. ‘I think he was aiming for my face, but missed.’
He now turned his head to the side and pulled at his ear, as if he was thinking; then he said, ‘If somebody doesn’t talk to him, the police certainly will one day. You’re a fool of a girl for staying. You know that, Maisie. The house just isn’t worth it.’
‘It’s all I’ve got.’
‘Yes’—he nodded—‘I can understand that. But still I feel something should be done. I’ve tried. I couldn’t get through to him; he’s too smooth, too crafty. You’re sure it was no accident?’
‘If he had just hit one side, yes, but not both. It was too neatly done.’
He sighed now and said, ‘Well, go along, but take care. Come and see me next week.’ Bending towards me now, he added, ‘And I won’t grumble at the sight of you.’
‘Very considerate of you.’ I nodded at him.
‘Go on with you.’
He opened the door for me and I walked through the waiting room as if I was a privileged person, and felt it, because I’m sure it wasn’t very often, in fact, never to my knowledge, that he had opened the door for a patient.
No matter how rough and brusque his manner, I felt, underneath it, I had a friend and that he had been there for a long time.
PART THREE
FULL BLOOM
One
How did the years pass? How does any year pass? By months, weeks, days, minutes. And the days sometimes seem as long as the years. Yet looking back, I seemed to have kept myself busy. I must have, looking at the mass of writing I’d turned out, and apparently to no avail. Until one day, the one day that lies buried deep in the heart of everyone who has ever taken up a pen to tell a story.
I was now thirty years old and I had been married for twelve years. Had there been a time when I had never been married? Had there been a time when I hadn’t shared this house with a man called Howard Stickle? A forty-year-old man who didn’t seem to have aged at all in the last twelve years. He was still tall and fair; nothing about him seemed to have altered except perhaps his manner towards me, which at times made me imagine that I didn’t exist, because he seemed to look beyond me; at times he would bump into me, almost knocking me off my feet, and never once with a word of apology. The last occasion he apologised was when he hit me with the tennis racket.
He had by now had all my money with the exception of a few pounds that I had saved from my typing. He had got his second-hand car; but that hadn’t satisfied him. A year later, he’d had a better second-hand car; eighteen months later he had a new car. At one period he said he had been invited to go abroad with Mr Hempies for a fortnight and would need two hundred pounds to cover his expenses. I had stuck out at that, until I accidentally fell downstairs; the clips that held the brass rod had become loose. I became really frightened after that. My arms and legs were black and blue with the tumble and Doctor Kane had said, ‘Now you’ve got to do something. Nobody else can do it; it’s up to you.’ And I knew it was up to me. But what proof had I? Because as Howard had made great play of knocking the clips back into the stairs, he had pointed out to me that there was woodworm in the treads.
It was three months ago he got the last of the money that was in Gran’s care. She had given up offering me advice. However, once she surprised me by saying, ‘Do you care for the fellow?’
Care for him? The idea sounded preposterous, but she came back with, ‘Well, there’s no other thing I can think of that’ll make you stick with a man like that.’
‘It’s my home,’ I had said.
‘Well,’ she answered, ‘he’ll have you out of it, in a box. You mark my words. And nobody’ll be able to say a word against him, because, like a damn fool, you’ve kept your mouth shut all these years, and because you’ve kept yourself to yourself too much. You’ve got a funny name among the neighbours. Do you know that?’
Oh yes, I knew that. I also knew that Howard’s standing with the neighbours was high.
It was also about three years ago that I started dropping into the church, the Catholic church, not for the services, but just going in and sitting quietly and looking at the side altar. It was very peaceful. Sometimes I had a word with Father Mackin. He was always jocular and very nice to me. It had been in my mind for some time to talk to him, in a form of confession, and tell him about my life, what I was going through, what I was afraid of. And I did just that. The result was rather surprising.
On this particular day I was very down. I hadn’t seen Gran for over a week. By the way, George had now married his lady with the four children. There was Betty, now fourteen, John thirteen, Kitty twelve, and Gordon nearly eleven. They were nice children. I had met them a number of times and liked them. But George was no longer my George. He was the children’s George and Dad, and his wife’s George and husband. That was another pain I couldn’t get rid of. Anyway, there I was this day sitting in the pew when the priest came out of the vestry, accompanied by a fat young woman and a young man who seemed little more than a boy. They stood in front of the main altar, the priest talking to them. It was when she turned round that I saw she was very pregnant. A few minutes later, after he had seen them out of the church, he came to my side and, after genuflecting, he sat down in a pew beside me, saying, ‘Well, now. Well, now, here we are again. Did you see that couple? They are going to be married.’
It was jealousy of her condition that prompted the thought, not before time, and I had voiced the first two words when I stopped myself, and he put in, ‘Oh yes, yes, condemn. Not before time, you were going to say. Well, better late than never, I say.’
As I said, I’d been feeling very low this day, but of a sudden my depression lifted when I saw Hamilton galloping up the aisle, dressed all in white, and on his hoofs four big navvy’s boots. I lowered my head and made a slight choking sound. And now the priest’s voice came to me, saying, ‘Some of us are luckier than others, and they get through life without making mistakes.’
I lifted my head quickly, my face straight now. ‘Oh, Father,’ I said; ‘I…I wasn’t laughing at them. You see, it’s…’ I turned my head to the side. ‘Well, how can I put it? It’s a quirk I have.’
&n
bsp; ‘A quirk?’ He leant towards me and repeated. ‘A quirk?’
‘Well, that’s the only way I can describe it. You see, even today when I’m feeling very down, sort of low and depressed, even at times like this I sometimes think of very funny things. Well, you see, it’s like this, Father.’ I began to look from side to side before I went on, ‘I suppose I could tell you in a sort of confession like.’ There I was using the word like, the same as Gran did. ‘I suppose it’s because I’ve always been rather alone. At one time I just used to natter to myself. You know, like people do.’
He nodded at me now, a smile on his face as he said, ‘Yes, yes, I understand. We all natter to ourselves. But go on. Go on, my dear.’
So I went on, and by the look on his face the next moment I think he wished I hadn’t, because I could see his opinion of me taking rapid strides towards the asylum.
‘Well, you see, Father, I talk to this horse.’
His eyes became round.
‘I…I call him Hamilton.’
His mouth fell open.
‘He appears quite real to me.’
His eyebrows took on points.
‘For instance, what made me laugh a moment ago was that the young lady changed into him and he galloped up the aisle all in white, with boots on.’
His head moved slightly downward, his lips formed a kind of rosebud.
I became a little apprehensive and I said, ‘I’m…I’m not daft, or…well, anything like that, Father.’
His head moved slowly from side to side.
‘I suppose he’s just a figment of my imagination, but it’s very strange. When I want the truth about anything he gives me the right answers. I don’t always pay heed to them. But on looking back, I wish I had.’
His chin seemed to draw his face to the side now and his pointed eyebrows and round eyes, his puckered mouth, were joined by his nose, which was twitching, and the dreadful thing about it all was that there was Hamilton standing to the side, looking at him and shaking his head slowly as if he was sorry for the poor man and the position I’d put him in. But surely priests, I thought, were used to listening to all kinds of things, murders and such, but what I had just said seemed to be affecting him more than if I had confessed to something terrible.
His dog collar now jerked so quickly that it caught him under the chin and it seemed to affect the way he spoke. ‘Have you talked, well . . .’ his voice went falsetto, ‘about this to anyone else…your doctor?’
‘No…not my doctor.’
He now joined his hands between his knees and bent over them and surveyed them for a time before he said, ‘Have you had a breakdown of any kind?’
‘No, Father, no; but I’ve been troubled with nerves.’
‘Yes, yes, I can understand. Yes, troubled with nerves.’
‘Father’—I leaned towards him trying to look into his face—‘I’m not bats.’
He straightened up quickly, and now his voice quite loud, he said, ‘No, no, of course you’re not. Who said you were? There’s no suggestion of it, no, no. But about this horse. What did you say his name…you called him?’
‘Hamilton.’
‘Hamilton. It’s a very nice name, very nice name for a horse. And…and you say he acts the goat a bit?’
‘He does a bit, and all at the wrong moments.’ I’d say he did at the wrong moments. ‘That’s what I mean by this quirk in me seeing…well, I suppose the funny side of things. It’s sort of like the bishop and the banana skin.’
‘Ho! Ho!’ His head went back now and he laughed. ‘Yes, yes, the bishop and the banana skin…dignity defiled.’
‘Yes, yes’—I agreed with him—‘it’s always funnier with people like that who are…well, up to the eyebrows in God, so to speak.’
Oh dear me, dear me, that had nothing to do with Hamilton. Now, why had I said that?
The priest’s face was working again, but without the contortions of astonishment on it. Then I noticed the front of his tunic starting to bob, and I knew he was laughing inside. Presently, he said, ‘You are a funny girl, you know. I’ve heard a lot of descriptions about us but that’s a new one on me, up to the eyebrows in God. By the way, do you go out to work? I mean, do you do anything other than…well, housework?’
‘I do typing in my home: people’s stories, you know, and articles; anything they want doing.’
‘You do? Well now, I should have thought you would have seen an opening in that line for yourself. Have you ever thought about writing? All these funny little things you think about, this horse business?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve written lots about Hamilton. For years and years I’ve done bits on him.’
‘You have?’ His voice was now high with surprise, and he went on, ‘Well now, well now, you should put all those bits together into a book. I could see it as a bestseller.’
I smiled at him now in a patient sort of way. I must have typed dozens of stories for the members of the Writers’ Circle and others over the past years, and the percentage of publications had been painfully small.
But it was at that moment that the priest’s suggestion set something moving in my mind. I remember he set me to the church door and, looking down on me, he said, ‘You’re not so troubled now, are you?’
‘No Father,’ I answered, ‘if you can talk things out with someone it’s half the battle.’ It was then he said, ‘Can’t you talk to your husband about it…I mean, what troubles you?’
Looking at him fully in the face and because he was a priest and, I understood, had to keep things to himself, I said, simply, ‘He’s my trouble, Father, if I had a good husband I wouldn’t need Hamilton…’
I’ve seen him at intervals since that time and we’ve always had a laugh together. But, I remember, I went straight home that day and up into the attic and sat on the floor reading through the pile of bits and pieces I had written since the very first day I’d given Hamilton a name. And I found myself laughing out aloud at some of the things, and at others hardly being able to suppress my tears, such as, the page I had written the night George had left, and then again, my lacerated feelings after the first few days of my marriage. And the fears seemed to leap freshly from the scribbled lines as I read.
It was from then that my mind got to work on how to go about putting all these pieces into book form. I’d learned a great deal from the mistakes of others over the years and, up till now, without any thought of putting what I had learned to my own use in a big way. So it came about that I set out the plan of a story.
It didn’t have any plot, so to speak. They were always going on about plots at the Writers’ Circle. I had never been able to see why plots were so important. To my mind, if you got a couple of good characters they made the story themselves; the environment you set them in created all the incidents. Hadn’t I proof of that in myself? The fact that I was made as I was and had the good or bad fortune, however you looked at it now, to own this house, had attracted May and her brother to me, and in that setting, because of our diverse characters, the incidents had seemingly happened naturally; they hadn’t been plotted. Yet, hadn’t they? What about Howard?
But I found the arranging of all these bits and pieces much harder to do in actual fact than it had appeared in my mind, and as I could only type for myself at odd times, and then each day see what I’d done was safely deposited underneath the floorboards once again, it was nearly two years before I had completed the story of Hamilton.
When at last, I reread it through, to my surprise I realised I had been telling the story of my own life up to that time, and I also realised that the story hadn’t turned out the way I had intended. What I had imagined to be screamingly funny parts had resulted in a sort of pathos. What I’d written as straight serious parts turned out to be amusing when read. There were times when I wrote about myself being deeply worried, but in some strange way they read as the funny bits.
But it was completed. Now, I asked myself, what to do with it? And up came the question of markets. The m
embers of the Writers’ Circle were always yammering on about markets. I suppose they were right up to a point, markets meant publishers. So I went to the reference library and got out the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, and there they were in their hundreds. Which one was going to have the honour of reading this daft story? Because that’s what it would be called, a daft story about a nondescript woman and a talking, laughing, sad at times, merry at others, mad galloping horse.
Needless to say, Hamilton came along with me that day, and after I had been pondering for some time which publisher to choose he put his left front hoof on the page. It looked very dainty at this moment, and didn’t obliterate any of the print, and I saw it was pointing to Houseman and Rington, Ltd., 42 Chapman’s Yard, London, WC2B 3AR.
‘So that’s it,’ I said to him.
That’s the one, he answered.
Well, Houseman and Rington, get yourself fortified, because here we come.
The next day I took my manuscript, all neatly parcelled up together with an enclosed very short note, to Gran’s.
It was half past nine in the morning and she said, ‘You’re up afore your clothes are on, lass. What is it now?’
I showed her the parcel, saying, ‘It’s a kind of book I’ve written. I’m sending it off, and it will likely come back. I’ve given this address, so I’m just telling you like’—there I went again; I was getting as bad as her—‘that when it comes back you’ll know what it is. Oh yes, and I’m calling myself Miriam Carter.’
‘Does he know about it?’ She laughingly pointed to Bill, and I said, ‘Yes, he knows all about it, every word, even as much as Hamilton.’
The name had slipped out, and she screwed up her face at me and said, ‘Hamilton? Who’s he, Hamilton?’
I knew my face was red, and I said, ‘I must tell you about him some day.’
‘A fellow you know?’ Her expression became bright, and I said, ‘No, no.’ And at this she said, ‘Oh, it’s all right, you needn’t blush; I wouldn’t blame you if you had three fellows on the side every night.’
Hamilton Page 16
