The Closed Harbour (29 page)

"A good journey to you, Madame," he said, as the train began to move, and he stood waving to her, his face wreathed in a smile, the apple-red face with its quivering grey beard. She waved him back.

"Not a thought in his head," said the old woman to herself, "perhaps a happy man."

She sat alone in the carriage. She huddled in the corner, the train gathered speed, flashed through the tunnel.

"I shall never understand why she would not come."

"There was his way and there was mine. Nowhere did we meet. There will be no questions, and there will be no answers. I will see him, and then it is finished. He is overthrown and that is just."

Sometimes she would glance out of the window, watch the flashing fields, the flying telegraph poles, and sometimes she lay back and closed her eyes.

"He died on me long ago," she thought, and felt again this rising dread. "But I suppose I must."

At the station she was confused, helpless. She stood alone on the platform, the world rushed by. Then a porter came up and enquired where she wanted to go. She gave him the address. He put her into a taxi, she gave him ten francs, and he thanked her and the taxi drove off.

"This is the most dreadful place I've ever been in. Now I can see why he came here."

At the hospital entrance she paid off the taxi, it rolled away, and for a moment or two she stood on the pavement edge, a little nervous, hesitant. Then she walked slowly to the entrance. In answer to the porter she gave her name and her business.

"You will sit there, Madame," he said, and pointed to the long wooden bench set against the wall.

On this many people were already seated. Seeing the old woman come forward the crowd moved up a little, but not too much, one waited so long, one fought for one's comfort. Madame Marius sat down.

She felt assailed by smells, by the enormity of this waiting-room, by the pressure of the people on the bench, it was like fighting to hold one's tiny place in the swarming, onrushing world, and with one hand she gripped fiercely to the end of the bench.

Above her head hung the great clock, but she did not look at this, its tick was enough. Nurses passed up and down the corridor, a draught was blowing in through the half open door, it had not occurred to anybody to close it. Her feet began to feel cold upon the stone floor. A nurse came in, passed by.

The old woman saw only the flash of feet, the black shoes and grey stockings. She began wondering when her name would be called. Once she looked round, far down the bench, the row of faces immediately turned in her direction, and she lowered her eyes.

"Is it that I am lucky and others are not?" she thought.

A telephone bell rang, a burly porter put his head through the door, surveyed the assembly, then called over his shoulder, "No" in a loud, nerve-shattering voice.

Looking up at the porter Madame Marius imagined herself to be listening to the harsh voice of this city.

Huddled at the end of the bench she listened now to the steady monotonous tick of the clock, and this ticking suddenly fell beneath the wheels of the rushing train, and the sounds were clear and distinct in her ears. For a moment she saw Madeleine buried under a cloud of linen, her son flat upon his back in the rotting room.

"Madame Marius?"

She looked up.

"You are Madame Marius?"

"I am Madame Marius."

Heads turned, bodies moved, the bench creaked, faces lighted up with natural curiosity. She saw a young, white-coated man standing over her, looking at her from behind a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. She stood up.

"Please come this way," he said, and she followed him out. He fell into line with her as they walked up the corridor, at the end of which he stopped, and the old woman saw the glass fronted door, and read the name upon it in large black letters. DR. PARETTE.

The young man knocked.

"Dr. Parette. Madame Marius from Cassis."

"From Lyons," Madame Marius corrected.

Dr. Parette came out, a small round, bright-looking man, whose manner was quick and nervous, whose greenish eyes blinked at her, and he too, wore horn rimmed spectacles. For a second he looked at the woman.

"You are the mother of the man Marius?"

"I am."

"Please come inside, Madame Marius."

The door closed. "Please sit down," he said, placing a chair for her on the other side of his desk.

"Thank you."

They both seated themselves. Again he was looking at her.

"Brought here nine to ten days ago," he said.

"That is it."

He relaxed in his chair. "I see."

"Where is he?"

"Upstairs," Dr. Parette said.

Noticing her tenseness, he said very quietly as he arranged some notes on his desk, "relax, Madame. Nothing will be difficult."

"Thank you."

"There is little we can do," he said. "Perhaps he may recognise you. Certain people have been here, a Madame Lustigne, a man by the name of Varinet, a Lucy Briffaux
...
"

He saw her hands crumble, tremble on her knees.

"Did the parcel arrive here, doctor. Posted yesterday. They were all the things I had."

"He is wearing them," Dr. Parette said.

"Where are you staying?" he asked. "Your daughter, you have a daughter I understand. She did not come?"

"She could not come," replied the old woman. "We are now at Lyons, and will remain there."

"We shall want your help," he said.

"Help? What help?"

"His present condition has not simply fallen upon him from the air."

"When may I see him?"

"In a moment or two," replied Doctor Parette. He sat up suddenly in the chair, "d'you mind if I smoke, Madame?"

"Not at all," she replied, and was amazed at the size of the pipe that he took from the drawer of his desk. He lit this, and slowly puffed.

"I shall not keep you very long," he said. "You are not of these parts?"

"I am an utter stranger here."

"There are many others," the doctor replied. "Would it be true to say that your son has been looking for a ship for some time and has been un-successful, has been shipless many months."

"That is perfectly true. I have a feeling he came here to see one particular person who would not see him," replied the old woman.

She lowered her eyes, studied the prominent veins on the back of her hands.

"All these questions. Asking me what he already knows, I have no doubt," she thought.

"In the shipping world things are not always assured, Dr. Parette. If one is a sailor, things are not always cosy. One may have bad luck, and ships are as fragile as men, anyway I have seen the proof of it
...
"

"You are of a seafaring family, Madame Marius?"

"Yes.
All
my people, what there were," she replied.

He detected a certain hostility, a grudge. He got up and coming from behind his desk he stood by her. Then he patted her shoulder and said, "you are not very helpful, Madame. Perhaps you do not realize the seriousness of the matter
...
"

"My son has been suffering an illusion for some time, he has persuaded himself that he is a ship's captain, and is angry when nobody will recognise that. What is the use of my answering what you already know, Doctor. Please take me to see my son. I have come some distance, and I am not young, and I have a train to catch which I cannot miss, since it is the last of the day."

"There was great difficulty in reaching you, Madame, and it was necessary that you should come, since, owing to his condition it would be necessary for you to assent to his being removed from here to another place. I do not wish to distress you
...
"

"I could not be distressed further," Madame Marius said, and she moved back a little to allow him to pass through the door. She followed him. They walked very slowly down the corridor.

"When first I saw your son I said to myself, 'what a fine man this is, such splendid physique, such a fine presence, here is an intelligent man,' but when I talked to him it was very different. He was like a gentle clown. I could not imagine that such a man had ever met the blows of the sea. I thought perhaps he might have violent tendencies but such are markedly absent. He does not know who he is. But what he does know is that he is under way, is in fact aboard ship, and she is in ballast, she is moving towards the Greek islands. He keeps on telling us that.

"There is in the grounds at the back of this hospital, a lake, and he sits at the window and stares out at this for long periods, and yet though the sight of water should find some response in a seaman, he is yet inert, not a muscle of his face moves, he might be looking out at a solid brick wall. He talks to himself a lot. Once I distinctly heard the name, Manos. Does that have any connection in your mind, Madame?"

"None at all."

"Or the name Madeau?"

She shook her head. They had reached the end of the corridor. At the foot of the stairs she waited for a few moments whilst the doctor spoke to a passing nurse. They then began to mount towards the first floor.

"There is no lift here, unfortunately, Madame, though we are soon to have one."

"Is this place full of madmen?" she asked.

The question, seeming to leap out at him, he stopped dead on the stairs.

"Are you afraid?"

He placed a hand on her arm.

"I am not afraid."

"We will rest for a moment at the top of the stairs," Dr. Parette said. "He is on the second floor. It is a small room, and he is quite alone, since he is harmless, and very quiet. Nobody will bother him and he will bother nobody. When you go in you will see a man seated in a chair. There is nothing to fear. I will go in and speak to him, you will wait a moment at the door. When I come out you may go in. We are hoping he will recognise you, since he recognises nobody else."

They climbed again.

"To what blackness am I walking?" the old woman asked herself, "to see the ruin of a life, the end of my name. I pray to God he does not recognise me."

She hesitated a moment on the stair, and he waited for her.

She saw him suddenly as child, puling, cradle snug.

"After that nothing is safe."

She went on.

"God has drawn down the blind. That is only just. If there is nothing inside that head but the tallest ship and the roar of the sea then I am thankful, for thus the horror is shut out, and my day's end will be hidden and secret in me. Even now it is hard to believe."

They had reached the door.

"A moment," Dr. Parette said.

She heard him speak through the door.

"Captain Marius, a visitor has come to see you."

A moment's silence and then the louder voice. "Your mother is here."

She wanted to hear this voice, she dreaded to hear it. She leaned against the door. The doctor went in. She waited. When he came out again he drew the door after him but did not close it.

"It is as I said. He has been like that this past hour. Something out there attracts him, what we do not know. There is a chair behind the door. Sit there, but do not speak for a minute or two. He will hear you, and when he turns round you will tell him who you are."

Madame Marius looked at the doctor.

"If I were not to see him, perhaps it would be for the best," she said.

"Madame Marius. It would be humble for you to go in." Gently he pushed her through the door.

He closed it so quietly that she would never have heard it.

He sensed her fear, he even saw her hand trembling on the back of the chair. He listened.

"They've even dressed him in his Captain's suit," she said.

Marius, seated in the chair was slumped in such a way as to give the body an appearance of being boneless. Looking at him she saw her husband and her son.

"Look at the arm that struck, hanging at his side like the dead branch of a tree. Look at the length of him, fallen. How early he seemed to smell the gutter, Look at his life. Look at the Captain."

Mumbling, she lowered her head, and when she raised it again he was looking at her, he had turned round in his chair. Madame Marius buried her face in her hands.

"And he sat high, and imperious and alone in his high tower," the words came suddenly into her mind, moved across it, weighted as stones.

"I will go to him," she thought, "I will go to him," she said, willing herself to rise, to drag clear of the chair, and slowly she went towards her son.

He looked at her as she approached, but seeing his eyes, she realized that he would not know who this person was. She stood still, looking down at him.

"It is another person," she thought, "I do not know this man."

She spoke. "Who are you?"

His smile frightened her and she drew back a little.

"Lucy," Marius said, making to rise, not rising, falling back again.

"Who am I?"

"Lucy," Marius said.

She put out a hand to touch him, drew it back, she retreated slowly back to her chair and sat down.

Her head sunk forward, she clasped her hands, her finger twined and untwined.

"That fine forehead," she said. "I can yet see my husband there, and yet it is crushed. How horrible life can be. It is only by some visitation of grace that one endures it."

Gradually, and almost shyly she looked up, looked about this room. He was standing now, leaning against the window, his head touching the pane, his raised hands pressed against the sash. She might never have entered this room, she might never have existed.

"A bare room," she thought, "just like the rooms at the Home."

Against her very will she found herself staring at him again.

"I am looking at a wreck. He doesn't even know himself."

From where she sat, she could see, by craning her head forward, a patch of water. That would be the lake, she thought.

"The distance between us is greater than any sea. I shall go back. She will be there, who paid the most and never once opened her mouth to complain."

A whisper behind her made her start, and she exclaimed, "Oh!" Dr. Parette was behind her, bending over her chair.

She turned and looked at him.