The Jeweller's Skin (10 page)

But what did I do about finding Violeta?  She watched a barge go past, low in the water, tarpaulins tied across a heaped cargo.  I remember how good it was, to be on my own.  I sat in the drawing-room and played the piano.  The housekeeper, Mrs Rubinstein, brought me tea.  And then I persuaded her to teach me cooking.

She shook her head, and moved away from the railings.  A bus was turning the corner from the bridge.  On impulse she ran across the road, and jumped on as the bus slowed behind a taxi.  ‘Careful now,’ the conductress said, as she steadied herself again and went upstairs, into the stale smoke. 

*

The bus lurched sharply around a corner, and stopped.  She looked out.  There were naked walls, with blue and cream wallpaper and black fireplaces, teetering over a crater of stone and weeds.  She stared down horrified at the rubble of buildings, the blackened beams sticking up at an angle, the piles of unidentifiable matter.  The bus started up and she turned in her seat to keep the wall in sight, the delicate blue of the chimney-breast almost the colour of the winter sky.  They passed a square church-tower in dark stone, but again when she looked down there was no chancel, only half-fallen walls and an empty window.  On the other side, vast and oblivious, was St Paul’s.

So this was what people had talked about: the bombing.  No-one else on the bus looked at the bomb-sites.  A man in the front was reading an evening paper, one arm leaning on the back of his seat.  A woman was talking disapprovingly to her children.  Perhaps they had lived here all through the war.  There was a reproach to her in all this.  It seemed a specially brutal demolition, that left the wallpaper someone had chosen, the fire he or she had sat by, and made them irrelevant, demolishing floorboards and carpets and chairs.  And people too, she understood, a second later.  Beneath that rubble would be the bones of people.  So many people had been killed like this, in their own homes, at night; or injured, like the war casualties at the asylum.  And then there were the ones killed abroad, like the son of the woman on the train: Teddie, she’d called him. 

Didn’t I ever think that Violeta.. ?

She got up hastily and went down the stairs of the bus, just as it turned a corner, wrenching her arm as she gripped onto the rail.  The conductress grinned.  ‘It’s the lights,’ she called, but Narcisa leapt away, onto the pavement.

She headed up a side street, walking quickly.  There were as she remembered the pompous buildings, banks she supposed, with great carved doorways and elaborate window-frames, and men in black with umbrellas entering.  She turned a corner and found another church, intact this time, and a walled graveyard with white box tombs.  Then she crossed a street and another bomb-site loomed, a spindly tree growing out of the debris, and two small boys clambering over the stones.  She watched till one of them saw her and called something.

She sat down on a low wall.  All these years I thought I was longing for her, and I never even worried she might be dead.  In a bombing raid; or illness, like anyone.

For a while she watched the people passing.  A young men ran down a flight of steps, his arms full of parcels.  A van stopped and a boy threw out newspapers, tied in a bundle, into the doorway of a little shop.  The woman on the train: she must have been worried all the time, about both her sons; the other one would have been in the forces too.   And then how did she hear?  A telegram?  It was beyond imagining, the ordinary woman with all that grief.  How she lived with the grief, and still was able now to get on a train and enjoy afternoon tea with her sister; and still of course the pain would be always there.

But I do know about the grief, she thought, and stood up, cold.  All the time after they took Violeta.  Crying at night in the ward, screaming.  And even when I came out again.  She had walked at Twickenham, along the tow-path for miles, hugging herself because of the aching space where the three-year-old child who lived god knew where would never press against her.

She went on walking, here through the city streets that were glittering cold under the street-lamps, with tears in her eyes that wouldn’t fall.

*

‘Victoria Station,’ the bus conductor called.  ‘Who was it wanted Victoria?  Was it you, darling?’

Narcisa stood up hastily, then waited in the aisle of the bus while a man in a worn coat hauled a vast suitcase out from under the stairs.  The conductor watched cheerfully, one hand on the bell.  ‘Oh, come
on,’
someone muttered, standing behind Narcisa.

On the pavement she looked around, disoriented.  The bus sped on, past dingy stuccoed hotels.  The man with the suitcase was waiting to cross the road.  She followed him, towards a row of half-glazed wooden doors, in a low building set back from the road.  As she crossed, a taxi drew up, and a family emerged, calling to each other and laughing: two young boys, an elegant woman with a veil on her hat, a girl of eighteen or so with bobbed hair. 

Was this the station? 
Paris Brussels Geneva
said one of the signs.  A man with a neat grey beard got out of the taxi, and the family headed towards a door marked
Golden Arrow,
a porter following with a pile of leather cases on a barrow.

At last she found the passage through to the station.  People were hurrying towards a centre platform.  Two men passed her, one either side, arguing in French: ‘Tout à fait idiot, tu comprends pas?’  An elderly woman was asking anxious questions of a very tall man in uniform.  A small boy waved to Narcisa from his father’s shoulder.

She stood, at the edge of all this excitement, looking along the platform.  People opened carriage doors and pushed their luggage up before them, or leaned down from windows to talk to those on the platform.  At the barrier a man was checking tickets and passports.

‘Paris, madam?’  someone asked beside her.  It was the very tall man with the peaked cap.

She looked at him.

‘Excuse me, madam.  Are you for the night train to Paris?’

‘Am I.. ?    Oh, no, no.’

He began to move away.  She was aware of the sour taste of the smoke.  ‘It goes to Paris?’ she asked quickly, to keep him.

‘That’s the Golden Arrow, madam,’ he said, proudly.  ‘It leaves here at eleven pm, and at Dover they load it into the hold of the ship - yes, onto the ship; and then at Calais they change the gauge, the breadth of the wheels, because they have a different track over there.  And the passengers, they don’t know nothing about it, they just wake up as it comes into Paris at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘They stay on the train?’  She stared at a woman in a travelling coat.  The journey seemed some kind of modern magic, that only people in London would understand.

‘That’s the beauty of it,’ the man said.  ‘They can have a night-cap tonight, and go to sleep, and wake up in time for breakfast and there they are, Paris.  Excuse me, madam,’ and he turned to examine a ticket in a young woman’s hand.

Narcisa wandered away across the station.  So simple, she thought.  I have been living in this little town, when all I had to do was come up to London, and get on a train.  The continent had swung back into view, Paris, the Swiss Alps, Milan, Venice, the shining parallel lines laid in one long straight path across the countries, the way she had come before the First World War.

She walked through the arch to the second part of the station.  The board showed platform eight for Epsom, at five past ten.  She looked round for the station clock; it was quarter to.  I didn’t even check the last train, she thought.  I could have missed it and been stuck in London.

She found her ticket, and stood close to the barrier to wait.  The station had cleared since the afternoon; the flower stall had gone, the chemist’s and the bookshop were closed.   A rattling sound made her turn, in time to see the metal shutter pulled down over the Left Luggage office.  A woman came out of the Ladies’ Waiting Room, pulling on her gloves.

A train drew in, the steam hissing and spreading out against the roof.  A few people got off and walked slowly towards the barrier.  She turned to watch two young women in high heels cross the concourse briskly to the tube.

A little group of men was heading towards her.  There were two policemen, pale-faced and solemn under their helmets, walking one either side; and two strong-looking men in heavy coats, holding a thin young man by the elbows.  The young man seemed scarcely to walk, as if his two companions were lifting him.  He looked down, away from the few people watching idly as they waited for their trains.  She thought he looked exhausted, and defeated.

‘Evening, Mrs H.’  She recognised one of the men just as he spoke: it was Jim Morris, one of the male nurses, back a few months ago after the war.  The group of men stopped as he addressed her, the policemen bored, the young man thin and unhappy between them.

‘You been having a night on the town, then?’

She smiled.  The other nurse looked curiously at her.

‘This young man,’ Jim went on cheerfully, ‘had an idea of seeing the sights of London.  Didn’t you, lad?  So me and Mike here had to come up and get him.’

The young man flushed and looked over Narcisa’s shoulder.  She wanted to say something comforting to him; but even her presence was a humiliation.

There was a silence.  Eventually she said, ‘Perhaps you should get on.  You will need to find a compartment to yourselves.’ 

She watched while they walked along the length of the train, then found herself one of the little half-compartments, one bench and a blank partition, and sat looking out of the window onto the tracks.

She had to remind herself where the registry was, right at the end of the front corridor, past Dr Bosanquet’s and Matron’s rooms.  She stood outside, then walked away again, out of the front door and down the steps.  The wind was so cold it made her nostrils hurt.  At least there was sun, the sky such a pale blue it was almost white, the shadows thin like smoke on the crisp lawn.  She walked along the front of the building to the corner.  Through the last tall window she could see a desk, and rows of ledgers on dark book-shelves.  Someone, Mr Rathfelders she supposed, moved across the window towards the fire.

She went back inside and knocked on the registry door.

She had forgotten about his missing hand.  He greeted her courteously, walked round his desk to pull up a chair for her: a good-looking young man, with a thin, intense face and hooded eyes.  The awareness of his injury swept into her, how his life must have changed; have stopped, she thought; he had become someone else.  She remembered him on his bike, before the war, slim and graceful, waving as he passed her on the lane. 

‘Well, what can I do for you, Mrs Humphreys?’  He was waiting; but there was that strained note in his voice.  Of course, he knows about me; he’s embarrassed.  She settled more firmly on the upright chair.

‘I believe you have seen the letter that came for me?’

‘The letter: yes.  Yes, I have it here.’  He bent to open a low drawer in his desk.  For a few moments, all she could see was his back, the navy-blue jacket of his suit.  Then he sat up, the little blue envelope in his hand.

She stopped herself trembling.

‘I am afraid I cannot give it to you,’ he said, a little curtly.  ‘Since it was addressed to the hospital.  But if you would like to read it?’

Her hand wanted to reach up and grab the paper. 

Her eyes were hurting.  Not in front of him.

‘Thank you, but no.  That is not what I wanted.’  She made her voice harden.  ‘Mr Rathfelders, can I ask you: have you answered the letter?  I am sorry, but you see, I need to know.’

She watched while he fidgeted the paper out of the envelope with his one hand, and flattened it out on the blotter in front of him.  If she leaned forward, she would be able to read it all. 

There were so few lines.

She sat back, and looked away, towards the fireplace.  A few small flames flickered over large coals.

‘I understood that Dr Bosanquet had informed you.  I am sorry, I had assumed you would reply.’  He seemed perturbed.  ‘Normally of course we answer letters within a few days.  Perhaps I misunderstood?’

‘No, Mr Rathfelders, please, it is my fault.’  She rubbed at the swollen joint at the base of her thumb.  There was a silence.  She started reading the spines of the red ledgers:
Farm income.  Needleroom supplies.  Staff wages 1906 - 1910.

He said, ‘It must have been a surprise.’

She looked quickly at him.  He was sitting very straight in his leather chair, the useless arm at his side.  She had a sudden, illicit picture, herself in tears, the Clerk beside her with his one hand on her shoulder.

‘Thank you,’ she said steadily.  ‘I am afraid I also have not replied.’  How could she explain this?  He would think any mother would long to hear from her daughter.  ‘Mr Rathfelders,’ she went on.  ‘Please, I want to ask you a favour.’

‘Whatever I can do.’  He looked puzzled.

‘Please, will you write to - to the person who wrote the letter.  And tell her..’   What did she want him to say?  ‘Tell her you have not yet found..’  But that was lying; she couldn’t ask him to lie.

A car engine stuttered and stopped, out on the drive.

‘Would you like me to tell her that we are making enquiries?’

She considered.  ‘Yes, that will be very good.  Please.  You are still making enquiries, and..’

He looked down at the blue letter again.  ‘I think I should say that we have found your name - the name she gives.  It seems only..’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, drenched with relief.  ‘What you think best.  Only not that you know I am working here.’  She looked at him again, the hooded brown eyes.  ‘I need more time, that is all.’   She was making excuses.

‘I quite understand, Mrs Humphreys,’ he said, and stood, the empty cuff of his left sleeve swaying slightly.

*

She entered the kitchen and could sense something.  There was a faint smell of stewing tea.  Two of the patients were loading cups onto a heavy trolley, ready to wheel through to the dining-room; someone else was lifting down a stack of saucers.  June Ragless was intently slicing bread, and the untidy girl, Peg, was buttering. 

Perhaps the bakery had not sent enough cake again.  Narcisa was about to ask ‘What’s wrong?’  but the tall, bulky figure of Rosaleen Shaw, drying her hands by the draining board, discouraged her.  ‘This is all very good,’ she said awkwardly.

She thought she saw the Assistant Cook raise her eyebrows.

June put down her bread-knife.  ‘Please, Cook, there’s been trouble with one of the patients.’

‘I thought we agreed,’ Rosaleen Shaw said sharply, and June flinched.  ‘It’s all in hand, Cook, nothing to worry about.’ 

So this is it, Narcisa thought, as though she had been waiting for weather to break.  She will tell Dr Bosanquet.  ‘Thank you,’ she said, the effort already becoming familiar, ‘but I like to know what happens in my kitchen.’  She turned to the patients, two thin, greasy-haired women.  ‘You can take that trolley through and lay the tables.’  She watched as they steered it reluctantly though the door.

‘It’s just routine,’ Rosaleen Shaw said, though her lifting accent seemed to contradict her.  ‘One of the patients arrived unfit to work.  It seems like the nurses had problems with her too.  I sent her to the infirmary and back to the ward.’

‘Unfit?’

‘Her wrist was swollen; I would say sprained.  Well, she wouldn’t be much use to us like that.  The left wrist too, and unfortunately she’s left-handed.’

June was evidently desperate to speak.

‘Very well,’ Narcisa said.  ‘I will see what has happened.  Thank you.  Now we must serve the tea, or they will be complaining.’

After the meal June Ragless busied herself, wiping down the trolleys, cleaning drips of jam off the kilner jars, till the others had finished and Narcisa, doing the books, had let them go.  June washed out the dish-cloth and put it to dry over the side of the sink.  Then she stood by the table, looking urgently at Narcisa.

‘All right, June.  Sit down.’

The girl sat forward, fidgeting with her fingers.  She was pretty: blue eyes with maybe a smudge of last night’s make-up, not allowed while working, and a clear, pale skin.

‘You want to tell me something about the patient?’

She watched the flush spread up across June’s throat.  ‘You won’t tell
her?
’

So June Ragless is afraid of that woman.  Narcisa felt her own anger surge again.

‘Never mind Miss Shaw.  I am still the Cook, I think.’  She shouldn’t have said that: not professional.  ‘I want to understand what has happened.  I do not even know which patient it is.’

‘Esme something, you know, the youngest one?  A bit round-shouldered.’

‘She was working this morning.  She was well then?’

‘She was OK, she was telling me about all her brothers and sisters, there’s ten of them.  It’s all right, Cook, we were getting on with the work, I just thought it didn’t do any harm.’

‘But this afternoon?’

‘She came back and her face was all puffy, you know?  And she was holding onto her wrist, like this.’  June demonstrated.  ‘So I said what’s wrong and she didn’t want to tell me.  Only I made her show me, and it was all swollen, and it hurt when I touched it.  You weren’t in yet, so I said: We’d better tell Shaw.  Sorry, Cook, Miss Shaw.  She was right about one thing, Miss Shaw: Esme couldn’t have worked with her hand like that.  But Esme didn’t want to tell.  She said..’

June stopped and picked at the side of her nail.

‘What did Esme say?’

A small tear made a smudge of the black make-up.  ‘She said one of the nurses did it.  She said this nurse wanted her to do something, something stupid, and Esme wouldn’t do it, and the nurse got hold of her and banged her arm up hard against the wall.  And then she said Esme wasn’t to tell.  Cook..’

Narcisa sat still.  The young cook in the picture tiles opposite made her pastry as if nothing was going on.

People are like that, she wanted to tell June; people have a little power and they use it.  Instead she asked, ‘So what did you do?’

‘Well, I said to Esme something should be done.  And then Miss Shaw came up and I said to Esme she had to tell her.  So she did, she didn’t want to and she just said a nurse did it, but not how.  But, Cook, she - Miss Shaw - she just said Esme must have got out of hand, and as a punishment she wasn’t to work today.  And it was only because I said she should have it seen to..’

Narcisa looked away, over June’s shoulder, at the dresser shelves.  A saucer had been put on the wrong pile, on top of the tea-plates.

‘The thing is, I’m worried I’ve got her into more trouble.  It’ll come out that she told, and then the nurse..’

‘Let us hope Esme is sensible and will lie.’ 

June Ragless opened her mouth and closed it again.  After a moment she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

*

The infirmary nurse was sitting at her desk, making notes in a ledger. 

‘Hello, Cook.  What brings you up here?’

It was still a shock to her to be recognised.  Still there was something about those broad cheek-bones.   ‘I remember you,’ Narcisa said cautiously.  ‘Before the war, yes?  You were working here?’

‘May Gemmell,’ the nurse said flatly.  ‘I left to get married, but he was killed.  I started back last October.  You might have known my husband too, he worked in the metal shop.  Harold Bunce?’

It came back to her: shortly after she’d started, two young people and an older man, standing smoking one night outside the back door, the young man offering her a cigarette.  ‘I am sorry,’ she said awkwardly.  ‘He was fighting?’

May Gemmell was visibly older, her face drawn, her hair under the cap a duller brown.  ‘That was what was so stupid,’ she said, as if exhausted.  ‘He’d been in Egypt.  Lots of his mates got killed and he didn’t have a scratch.  No, he was on leave, visiting his mum.  An air raid.’

There was always something she’d liked about this woman.  Though the night of the cigarette they’d been taunting her; or the husband had. 

‘You came down once to find me in the kitchen?’  It was not quite a memory: an odd sense of excitement, with May, tall and supple, leaning in the doorway.

‘Maybe.  I can’t remember.  To be honest, I’m not that thrilled to be back here.  But I’ve got two kids, you’ve got to do something, haven’t you?  Anyway’ - she folded the ledger shut - ‘nice to see you again.  Did you want something?’

She wanted to ask May Gemmell about leaving, what life was like outside here; or perhaps, she thought, how you start your life again.  Her shoulders ached a little; she flexed them.  ‘One of the patients who works in the kitchen: Esme Washbrook.’

‘Oh yes, the sprained wrist.  I strapped it up.  She probably shouldn’t use it for a day or so; after that, if you can find her something light to do.’

She could see the nurse was wanting to get on.  ‘Did she tell you how it happened?’

‘I asked, but she just said an accident.’

‘She told one of the girls that a nurse banged it on the wall, to punish her.’

There was a silence.  I am taking a risk, Narcisa thought.  She is a nurse too; she may think it’s nothing.  Or that I’m making trouble.  She looked round for a chair, but there wasn’t one.  ‘I know her, she has worked nearly a year in the kitchen.’

‘You believe her?’

‘I have not seen her; I was not there.  But I do not think she would lie.’

‘Oh Lord.’  May Gemmell leaned her elbows on the desk, and pushed her fingers into her hair beneath the cap.  Then she stopped suddenly and looked at her hands.  ‘I shouldn’t be doing that.’

She opened the ledger again and ran her finger down the day’s entries.  ‘Washbrook: she’s on D Ward.  That’s Sister Healy.  I suppose you could talk to her.’

‘What will she say?’

‘Look, to be honest, Cook - what’s your name?  Nora isn’t it?  I don’t know, Nora.  Some of them I could tell you, yes, they’d do something, the nurse would be up on a disciplinary.  Healy - maybe.  You know how it is.’

Do I? Narcisa asked herself.  It seemed as if she had managed not to know.  ‘Very well,’ she said.  ‘I shall have to think.’

‘If it was worse,’ May Gemmell said.  ‘I mean, heaven forbid, but if it was more obvious.  A sprain, well, she could have fallen.  She looked up at Narcisa.  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said.  ‘I think there’s a fair chance she’s telling the truth.  But I’m saying, to get them to do anything about it.  Unless you’re in with Bosanquet, that is?’