The Happy Prisoner (15 page)

Where were you when David was born? Of course, you were in Scotland, weren't you? I don't suppose I've ever told you anything about it. It was just another instance of the very thing that should have brought us together sending us farther apart. I don't mean the actual having David, but the adversity we both went through. You're supposed to come together in adversity, aren't you?

I don't know whether you know anything about that nursing-home, Burley House. I expect some of your friends' wives have been there. A lot of Service people do; they get reduced rates—and, my God, reduced amenities. I'll never forget arriving there. John took me. He was at home at the time, taking a course. Things started to happen about two o'clock in the morning. He was marvellous then, of course, just what I wanted, rushing about with rugs and a wrinkled face and conjuring a taxi out of somewhere—I didn't care where. When we got to this place, just outside London, he wanted to come and see me safely into bed. They laughed at that, of course, but I remember, while I was almost passing out in the hall, I remember being disappointed to see how meekly he obeyed them. He's always had a holy fear of rules of any kind, no matter who makes them. He's the sort of man who always walks on the right in the Underground, so, of course, when the nurse said: ‘We never allow anything like that,' he just blew me a despairing kiss over her head and faded away.

Oh, Ollie, I did have an awful time. It's all right, don't get nervous. I'm not going to give you any grisly details. I just want to tell you about the night sister they had there. She was the same shape in front as behind, with yellow hornrimmed spectacles and a nose like a boathook. Before I'd even opened my mouth, she said: ‘Now we don't allow any fuss. People have babies every minute of the day and night, so you needn't think you're anything extraordinary. I don't want any fuss.' I wasn't going to fuss. I had thought of asking her to get my night things out of my case, but I changed my mind. I was practically collapsing, but she just stood over me and watched me undress, looking at my underclothes in a sneering sort of way, though I'm sure they were better than hers. When I'd turned down the bed and got in, I discovered I hadn't got a hankie, so I had to crawl out again and get one. D'you know, that bloody woman watched me drag myself all the way to the dressing-table and back. God, if she ever has a baby, I wish they'd do to her what the Germans did to pregnant women; but she won't, of course, until they come in test-tubes.

Need I say that she didn't send for the doctor in time? That's a favourite trick of theirs. They love to be able to greet him with the baby already arrived when he turns up. Not that the nurses didn't manage me and David all right on their own, but I was paying for that doctor, and he might have stopped the night sister slapping my face at one crucial moment.

They wouldn't let me see John the next day. I heard him whistling outside the window until they chased him away. I
whistled back, but of course he couldn't hear me, and I didn't dare get out of bed even if I could have. When they did let him come, I was having my tea. He'd had quite a day, and no lunch, so I rang the bell and asked humbly if I could have another cup. The nurse wasn't exactly rude, but she didn't bring the cup, and when I was going to ring the bell again, John wouldn't let me. Rules again, you see. However, when she came to tell him he must go, he was rash enough to ask if she could bring in his son into the room? She was appalled. He could go with her and look at David through glass if he liked. He told me next time he came that they had brought a baby to the other side of a hatch and shaken it at him for about half a minute, and from his description of it I'm sure it wasn't David.

Those were just a few of the things wrong with that place, but the most wrong of all was that John sat down under it. I kept on at him to make a row, and really it was pathetic to see the struggle between his two very decent emotions—chivalry towards me and the hatred of giving any trouble. A lesser man would have raised hell. John just did his Blessed-are-the-Meek act. That was when I started to realise his inadequacy, and he realised mine when I came home and he saw what an inefficient mother I was. I'm pretty good now. I know you think I make a fetish of it, but honestly, Ollie, don't listen to anyone who tells you you can look after children and do anything else besides, and that's one of the reasons I'm worried about John coming home. I made a pretty good hash of being a wife as well as a mother when I only had one baby. What'll it be like with two? He was always wanting me to go out, you know, and as soon as I'd got my figure back I wanted to as well, but I wouldn't pay anyone to come and sit with David, even if we could have found somebody. At least I said it was the money, rather righteously, but really I wouldn't have trusted anyone alone with David. I would hardly trust John. If I left them together while I went shopping, and David was crying when I got back, I'd make out it was John's fault, which wasn't fair, because he was better with the baby than I was. He was silly with him, though; he used to put on an inane face when he talked to him and waste his energy playing all sorts of games that the wretched child was far too young to understand. That was why I was so annoyed when Fred tried to make Susan listen to his watch—I don't know if you noticed—because that was what John used to do to David when he was only about a month old.

Well, there you have us. John at the War Office, upset because he hadn't been sent abroad yet, but determined to do
his duty where it lay, coming home every night to an unenthusiastic wife and strings of wet nappies hanging in front of the sitting-room fire. Our life was drab. That was what made us decide to go on that holiday to Doraig, when John got his embarkation leave at last. Although we never admitted it to each other, I know we were both thinking that if we could get away on our own, we might get back some happiness.

A second honeymoon, and everyone thought it so wonderful. ‘You'll always have that to remember,' Ma, said. She was right. I don't think I'll ever forget it. To start with, it rained all the time. That was nothing. We could have been blissful in the rain. Ridiculous—the first thing I can think of that annoyed me was the sort of water-chute cape on the back of John's raincoat. It shows how neurotic I was getting. It was a perfectly ordinary Army one, I suppose, but it annoyed me in the same way as those little woolly hoods on golf clubs. Frightfully practical, but somehow old-maidish. We used to walk a lot in the rain—there was nothing else to do up there if you didn't fish. I was still feeling tired, but I never gave myself a chance to be anything else. Instead of taking it easy at first and gradually working up to longer walks, I forced myself on for the masochistic pleasure of being able to feel resentful with John for having dragged me all those miles, although he spent most of them urging me to turn back. In the evenings, long, long evenings they were, he thought he'd read to me while I knitted. Cosy idea, but he chose something above my head and was disappointed that I didn't appreciate it. I tried to pretend that I did, but he knew, because I never remembered where we'd got to, and I'd interrupt him in what was apparently a key passage to go upstairs for more wool.

That's another thing—he's so polite. I mean, I'm his wife and we'd been married more than a year, yet he'd still leap up like a scalded cat if I got up and dashed upstairs for something I could have found much easier myself. It's rather nice, but somehow in an Englishman it isn't normal, and I can tell you, it makes a girl feel uncomfortable.

I was worrying about David, of course. John was worrying too, but I used to make out I was the only one.

Of course, we did have some happy times up at Doraig. I was still in love with him—I am now, only somehow it doesn't work. I loved him for being so good with the Scots. The old boy who ran the hotel was a real Highlander. You know—cinnamon-coloured tweeds an inch thick and photographs of clan gatherings all over the walls, and very courteous. John knew just how to talk to him and they used to spend hours
standing outside the hotel in a drizzle discussing life with people who came along driving cows. I was proud of the way he looked too, and thought we made a nice pair in the dining-room. Oh yes; that was another thing, so silly really. The food was lovely, but they only knew one way of cooking potatoes—in their jackets. The first meal, we both said: ‘What nice potatoes'; the second meal, we said: ‘Ah good, those nice potatoes again'; the third and fourth meal I didn't say anything, and after the fifth I never ate one, but John was still bravely saying: ‘Ah, baked potatoes!' for the benefit of the waitress, who was deaf, anyway.

On the way home, I tried to talk to Johnny. There we were, shut up in our little coffin of a sleeper, rushing through the night eating venison sandwiches and oatcakes. One could have got very close, but each time I approached the subject he sheered away, patted my hand and told me I was tired. I thought him obtuse at the time, but I see now it was because he'd longed so much for this holiday alone with me that he wouldn't admit, even to himself, that it hadn't been much of a success.

Well, then he went away, and my God, I missed him. I got to thinking about myself, and how it was all my fault and I was just ripe for meeting someone like Blanche Aubrey, who seemed to have such peace of mind.

She was in the nursing home where I had Susan—
not
Burley House. She was up, and she used to come into my room and talk and talk, and she was such a sweet person herself, I thought perhaps it made you like that, being a Roman Catholic. Well, you know the rest. I thought I might find the answer to everything. As you've probably gathered, I haven't, so it's made things worse. I can tell from his letters that John doesn't like the idea; its only excuse for him will be if it has made me easier to live with, but he'll find it hasn't. I haven't had time. I haven't understood it properly yet, or got it straight in my mind, and I need to be on my own to do it. I'm not ready for John to come home. I'm a wretched creature, Ollie. I do all the things you're supposed to do, and I pray, and I struggle and struggle to find what Blanche has found, but nothing happens.”

.…

“Perhaps you try too hard,” said Oliver.

Heather suddenly regretted her confidences, went red in the face and stood up. “You don't understand. What do you know about it, anyway? No one likes me being a Catholic. You're bigoted, the lot of you. Sorry I've bored you so—I don't know why I did. You and Elizabeth can have a good laugh about it.”

Elizabeth, who had come in as Heather banged out, asked: “What can we laugh about?”

“Nothing. We can cry if you like. I feel just ripe for a good howl.”

“Save it for tomorrow, then. It's my week-end off.”

“So it is. Oh Lord, two days of Mary Brewer in that dreadful little hat.”

Elizabeth looked slightly superior, as she always did when Mary was mentioned. “There's really not much need for her to come twice a day,” she said, “now that your leg's so much better.”

“Poor girl,” Oliver said. “Don't deprive her of her only fun.”

“She can't go on nursing you for the rest of your life,” said Elizabeth quite acidly, “any more than I can. Don't forget to ask her where she put the surgical spirit; I can't find it anywhere, If she's taken it, she must get us some more. There was exactly half a bottle. And tell her not to change that dressing. I don't want all my good work undone.”

“You certainly have done a good job of nursing on that leg,” Oliver said. “If only Hugo would let me up, I'd be able to get fitted for a cork one. I must say it would be nice to be out of here by the spring.”

“Don't count on that too much,” said Elizabeth, “after what he said last time he came. I wish I had a stethoscope like his,” she mused. “I could hear all sorts of tiny little things in your heart when he let me listen.” She went over to the fire to warm her hands, for it was cold by the bed with the window open. Oliver wore a sweater and a brightly checked lumber jacket, which his mother had brought back for him years ago when she last visited America. He had worn it for winter sports and then forgotten about it until Mrs. North had fished it triumphantly out of a trunk in the attic when he scorned her offer of a shawl to wear in bed.

“Ah,” he said gallantly, “no wonder my heart said all sorts of little things with you bending over it.”

“Don't be silly,” Elizabeth said coldly, leaning with one arm laid along the mantelpiece, and kicking gently at a log. “That's the kind of thing senile old men say in hospital.”

“Sorry. It was rather. I feel a bit senile tonight, though. Life seems to be passing me by.”

“I thought you were quite happy here,” she said. “You always say you are.” She had taken lately to talking at him in rather a defiant tone. He wondered sometimes if she were getting sick of him and tired of the job.

“I am really,” he assured her. “It's just that one gets to feel
a bit static sometimes. You see people in here and they talk to you and you think you know them. Then you realise their existence only begins when they get outside this room, and you want to follow them and meddle in their lives; but because you can't, you lie here and give sententious advice, which they never take even if they've asked for it.”

“So long as you don't start meddling in my life,” said Elizabeth defensively.

“I'd love to. I'm sure you're running it all wrong, but I don't get a chance because you never tell me anything. What are you doing this week-end? Meeting your boy friend?”

“I might.”

“Going home?”

“I don't think so.”

“Your father doesn't see much of his only daughter, does he?” Oliver said experimentally. “You know, don't you, that you could have him to stay here any time you liked if he'd care to come.”