Homecomings (42 page)

He was thinking out what he could safely say. It caught my eye that his suit was old and shabby, fading at the lapels: he was seedier to look at than when I first knew him as a smart young man: but the seediness did not matter and he was wearing well: his hair was still thick and fair, his eyes bright. This life he had chosen, which had once seemed to me quixotic and
voulu
, was suiting him.

‘Well, obviously,’ he said, ‘it would be slightly far-fetched to look for anything else in the boy’s case. I am a bit of an old woman, and with very small children I can’t help thinking of the rare things that might just possibly happen to them. But I can’t see any justification for suspecting any of them here. No, we may as well call it flu, this brand of flu that seems to be in the air.’

As he spoke, he was setting out to reassure me. But, as well as being a man of strong feeling, he had made himself a good doctor. He knew that he started by being both over-cautious and over-ingenious. With any child – more than ever with the child of a close friend – his temptation had been to spend time over remote dangers. It had meant alarm, it was bad medicines, it was a private irritation. For Charles was a devoted man, but he had an appetite, personal as well as professional, for being right.

When Charles March had gone, the child had a bout of crying, and Margaret went to sit beside him. Afterwards she read to Maurice until his bed-time, making it up to him for having been so long away. It was not until eight o’clock, having spent herself on each in turn, that she came to me.

We were listening for a cry in the next room. She had gone dead tired; she talked, not of the child, but of her father: had she done him any good? When she spoke as she had had to speak to him, she did not like herself much. Ought she just to have left him to himself? She was tired out, she was asking nothing deep or new, just a guilty question from a daughter who had broken loose. I was listening to the next room, but that worry was a little lulled, and she wanted me to strengthen her. To her, who took so much responsibility, to whom much of love meant that, it was a final release of love to shed it.

Listening to the next room, I could lull that worry enough to attend to Margaret. And yet, for both of us, it was only just lulled, so that by a consent unspoken we did not allow ourselves any of the ordinary evening’s pleasure, as though even a glass of wine with our meal, or standing outside on the roof garden and smelling the flowers in the humid air, were a provocation to fate.

THE child woke three times during the night, but he had no more than a sleep-flush when we went in to him in the morning. He was lying on his back talking to himself and when we looked down into the cot he smiled. I found myself asking him, as though he were an adult, how he was feeling: mechanically, imitating his nurse, he replied very well, thank you. I asked if his head were hurting: he looked surprised and then troubled, but at last said no.

When Margaret had taken his temperature, reading the thermometer by the window in the morning sunlight, she cried: ‘It’s gone down. It’s only just over 99.’

Her joy filled the room. Delighted with her because she told good news, I thought how absolute was her capacity for joy. Many thought of her as gentle and responsible: some, who knew her better, saw the fibre of her will: but perhaps one had to love her to feel her capacity for joy. I loved it in her.

I asked, didn’t he seem easier? The catarrh was less, the look of strain had gone. After the night before, no adult would have looked as bright. Yes, we weren’t imagining it, he was far brighter, she said.

As we talked about him over his head, the child had been listening: he knew that we were pleased with him. With something like vanity or gratification, he said: ‘Better now.’

Then he told us that grandpa was a little better, nanny was a little better. Amiably he asked: ‘Are we a little better? Are we quite better?’

He did not object, however, when Margaret told him that he was to stay in his cot. He was content to lie there while we read to him and showed him his toys: as it was Sunday morning Maurice was at home, and so I stayed alone in the nursery, reading Charles’ favourite books time after time, watching for any change in his cough, his hand moving to his head or ear, with an intensity of observation that coexisted with boredom, with an emotion so strong that it seemed incredible I could at one and the same time be bored.

About midday Charles March called. The temperature was still down, and he was satisfied. He was so satisfied that he spoke to us sternly, as though we were careless or indifferent parents, and ordered us to ring him up at once if there were any deterioration. My tongue lightened, I said it was the most unnecessary advice that even he had ever given me: and as Margaret and I laughed he was taken off guard, his professional authority departed, he blushed and then guffawed.

We were standing in the hall, and from the nursery came the child’s voice, shouting for his mother and father. As Margaret opened the door, he called out: ‘What were they laughing at?’

‘Someone made a joke, that’s all,’ she said.

‘They laughed.’

‘Yes, we shouldn’t have made such a noise,’ she said.

The child produced an artificial ‘ha-ha-ha’ which led to a genuine one, not hysterical, but somehow real mirth self-induced.

All that afternoon and evening, there was no change that either she or I could be sure of, I felt in myself, I knew it in her, that state of physical constraint in which one is aware of one’s own footsteps, even knows that one’s own breath is catching. I had seen it before, in a man who was waiting to be arrested. But in us it was a denial of the moment, the more we secretly thought that next day he might be well.

Most of the afternoon I played with Maurice, whilst she took her spell at the bedside. Among his birthday presents Maurice had been given a game similar to the halma I remembered in my own childhood: suddenly that sunny afternoon, refusing to walk with me to the Serpentine, he developed an obsession for it. When I won, he became ill-tempered and muttered to himself, but insisted on more; for a long time I sat there with him – the air brilliant over the park, the sun streaming into the room, our corner shaded – not resenting the occupation, time dripping by that way as well as any other, letting him win. He mentioned the child only once, when without any explanation he referred to him by a pet name, and said: ‘Will he have to stay in his cot tomorrow?’

‘I expect so,’ I said.

‘And the day after that?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And lots and lots of days?’

He did not seem to be speaking out of either malice or affection, but something more like scientific curiosity.

‘Lewis,’ he asked, his handsome face lit up with interest, ‘has anyone had to stay in bed for a
thousand
days?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Has anyone I know?’

He pursued his researches. Had I ever had to? Or Margaret? Or his father? Or his grandfather? Raptly, he asked: ‘Has anyone ever had to stay in bed for a
million
days?’

‘People don’t live as long as that.’

He thought again: ‘If I had a space-ship, I could get to the moon in a thousand days.’

‘Yes, you could.’

‘No, I couldn’t. You’re wrong,’ he cried with superiority and triumph. ‘Of course, I could get farther than the moon in a thousand days. I could get to Venus, you ought to know that, anyone knows that.’

Charles did not go to sleep at his usual time, and cried for his mother to stay with him: he was restless and cried again before nine o’clock; but neither her eyes nor mine could find any change. We stayed up for some time, but there was no sound, and at last we went to bed. Waking out of my first sleep, I was listening at once, but there was still no sound: all was quiet, I did not hear Margaret breathing in her sleep.

Trying to rouse myself, I said: ‘Are you awake?’

‘Yes,’ she replied.

‘Haven’t you been to sleep?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Is anything the matter with him?’

‘No, I’ve been in to see him once, he’s sleeping.’ Her voice was clear, but also, now that I was awake myself, I could hear how wakeful it was, and tight with care.

‘What are you thinking of?’ I asked.

After a pause she replied: ‘Yes, there is something.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I think he’s on the mend, and we probably shan’t need it. Perhaps we needn’t say anything. But I’ve been thinking, if he should have a set-back, I don’t want you to mind, I want you to let me have Geoffrey in to see him.’

In the words, jagged with anxiety, I could hear the hours of her sleepless night: but now I was turned hard and angry.

‘It seems strange,’ I replied.

‘I don’t care what it seems, he’s a first-class children’s doctor.’

‘There are other first-class children’s doctors.’

‘He’s the best I’ve seen.’

‘There are others as good and better.’

My anger was sullen, hers on the flash-point. But it was she, more violent than I was, who controlled herself first.

‘This is a good time to quarrel,’ she said in the darkness.

‘We mustn’t quarrel,’ I said.

‘Let me try and come out with it.’

But she could not make a clear explanation. She had been thinking, she said, just as I had been thinking, what it would be like if he got worse. And there was Maurice, she wanted to be sure that he was looked after. If Charles got worse, it would be too much to bear, unless she had complete confidence in a doctor. Her voice was shaking.

‘Would it have to be Geoffrey?’

‘I should know we’d done the best we could.’

For each of us, the choice was dense with the past. I was jealous of him, yes: jealous as one can be of someone one has misused. Even the mention of him reminded me of the time I had lost her, my paralysis, the period in my life that, looking back, I liked the least. I had avoided seeing him since Margaret came to me. It was part of his bargain, in letting her keep Maurice, that he should visit him when he wanted. He made a regular visit each week, but on those days I had not once been there.

On her side, although she liked Charles March, she felt for him a fainter jealousy, the jealousy for parts of my youth that, except at second-hand, were for her unknown and irrecoverable.

There was something else. In a fashion that seemed right out of character, but one I had noticed in older women, she liked to hero-worship her doctor, make a cult of him; perhaps because of the past, she could not manage to do that with Charles March.

‘All that matters,’ I said, ‘is that he is looked after. We can forget everything else.’

‘Yes.’

‘If you should need Geoffrey, then you’d better have him.’

Very soon, not more than five minutes after, she was sleeping for the first time that night, but it was a long time before I got to sleep again.

In the morning, when we went in together to see the child, that anxiety in the darkness seemed remote. He looked as he had done the day before, he greeted us, his temperature was the same. As soon as Maurice had gone to school, the two of us sat beside the cot all the morning, watching him.

His cough had slackened, but his nose was still running. Otherwise he did not grumble, he lay there being read to, at times apathetic. At other times he became impatient with reading, stopping us when we were half-way through a book, demanding that we start again. It was a trick, I insisted to myself, that he often did.

Just after midday, looking down at him, I could not keep back the question – was he more flushed than ten minutes before?

For an instant I glanced at Margaret; our eyes met, fell away, turned back to the cot; neither dared to speak. Twice I took my eyes away from the child, to the floor, anywhere, while I counted the instants, in the hope that when I looked again I should see it had been an illusion.

Since my first alarm – not more than a few minutes past – I had not looked at Margaret. She was gazing at him. She too had seen. When our eyes met this time, each saw nothing but fear. When we looked back at the child, his expression was also strained with something like fear. His cheeks were flushed, and his pupils were dilating.

I said to Margaret: ‘I’ll ring up Charles March. If he’s not already on the way, I’ll tell him we want Geoffrey too.’

She muttered thanks. As soon as I had returned, she would get on to Geoffrey.

Charles was on his rounds, so his wife told me. He would be calling at his house before coming to us, so I could leave a message. As I was re-entering the nursery the child was crying resentfully: ‘His head hurts.’

‘We know, dear,’ said Margaret, with the steadiness in which no nerve showed.

‘It hurts.’

‘The doctors will help you. There will be two doctors soon.’

Suddenly he was interested: ‘Who are two doctors?’

Then he began crying, hands over his eyes, holding his head. As Margaret went to the telephone, she whispered to me that his temperature was right up; for a second she gripped my hand, then left me with him.

Crying with his head turned to the pillow, he asked where she was, as though he had not seen her for a long time. I told him that she had gone to fetch another doctor, but he did not seem to understand.

Some minutes passed, while I heard the trill of telephone bells as Margaret made calls, and the child’s whimpering. Whatever I said to him, he did not make clear replies. Then, all of a sudden, he was saying something feverish, urgent, which seemed to have meaning, but which I could not understand. Blinking his eyes, his hand over them, he was pointing to the window, demanding something, asking something. He was in pain, he could not grasp why I would not help him, his cries were angry and lost.

Myself, I felt lost too, lost, helpless, and abject.

Once more he asked, imploring me in a jumble of words. This time he added ‘Please, please’, in anger and fever, utterly unlike a politeness; it was a reflex, produced because he had learned it made people do things for him.

I begged him to speak slowly. Somehow, half-lucid, he made an effort, his babble moderated. At last I had it.