The Jeweller's Skin (17 page)

She had been dreaming of Howard Rathfelders.  She woke with this in her mind, an image of him silhouetted against the long bay window, both arms outstretched, the left one ending abruptly above the wrist.  She pulled the covers up over her shoulder and lay in the half-light, trying to piece the improbable dream together.  There was something he had said: something that in the dream had made her flinch and run away, out of the main gate, but he had caught up with her in the lane.  Then later she had been standing in a field, leaning her back against a tree-trunk.

That was how it was with dreams, she thought, warm, still relaxed, her hand slipping down between her legs and finding the place wet.  But the truth was that for years she had rarely dreamed.  These days she would wake with a sense of something, a taste, a voice calling out some important phrase; and for the first half-hour, until she unlocked the door of the kitchen, it would stay with her, as if she were missing someone.  This one at least had left her with an image.

She closed her eyes and let the sensation flow out along her body.  He was not bad-looking, Howard Rathfelders: a dark, intense young man.  She remembered again how he had been before the war, on his bike, taking a bend in the lane, fast, standing on the pedals, the bicycle frame tilted out to one side.  What would he look like without the brown suit?    He was still slim, she supposed; the rib-cage would be outlined under sallow skin, the hip-bones looking fragile as porcelain. 

He was standing naked in front of the bay window, in silhouette, giving instructions to her, in a calm commanding voice.  She stood as he ordered and he came over to her.  The figure of Howard become half-anonymous, his one hand touching her roughly as she stood; or perhaps it was the other, the missing hand, that had the power to make her want his anger?

*

It was as she was dressing that the memory came back, as if she had not quite understood it before.  She had woken up - that was the only way to put it - she had woken in the kitchen, with the Shaw woman staring at her.  Someone had said, ‘Cook, are you all right?’  And she’d sat down, not ill, only terrified.  Someone had poured her a cup of tea, and she’d sipped it, though it was much too sweet, because it was safer to do what she was told.  Of course she couldn’t tell them what it was.  June Ragless had said, ‘I thought she was going to faint,’ and she’d let them believe it.  All the time the knowledge, that she had lost four hours, became hard inside her, like a bone she’d swallowed, that stuck in her stomach and couldn’t be absorbed.  In those four hours, she realised, sitting still, she could have done anything, said anything: she could have lost her temper again with Rosaleen Shaw, or hit a patient, even; there was no way of knowing.  Shaw had hustled the others back to work, and she had sat there, drinking the tea as slowly as she could, because when it was finished she’d have to do something.  More time had gone, fifteen minutes perhaps? but she had known about it, every minute, with Rosaleen Shaw keeping her in sight, and the girls whispering, and one of the patients starting to whimper, till Peg took her aside.  And then, because there was nothing else to do, she’d stood up, and said, as firmly as she could manage, ‘Thank you.  I am better.  We will continue.’

But it was frightening, to have lost time.  Pulling on her stockings, fastening the suspenders, she tried to think what it meant.  Was it something like epilepsy, a kind of seizure?  There was a type where you didn’t have convulsions; someone, Mrs Olby she thought it was, had worked at the epileptic colony down the road, and told her about it.  People felt strange afterwards, she remembered that.

She stood in front of the window and brushed her hair.  But surely it wouldn’t come on in your fifties?  If it wasn’t epilepsy, it might be something else that affected the brain.  A tumour?  Or they said that the new kind of therapy they used, with electricity, made you lose your memory. 

You’re avoiding the issue, she told herself, leaning both hands on the dressing-table to stare in the mirror at this frowning person, with shadows beneath her eyes, who behaved so strangely.  It wasn’t physical, she was sure of it.  She ran both hands down over her face.  It had never happened before; or she thought it hadn’t; but if back then, in her first year as a patient, or after Violeta was taken, she’d lost some time - she didn’t know how else to describe what had happened - no-one would have noticed.  Not even me, perhaps, she thought, and flinched.

Perhaps she really was going mad again.  Dealing with the complaint about the gammon, she had dismissed the idea; but it might be true.  After all, I can’t remember the time before Edwin had me admitted; or not much of it.  Perhaps it is true that you’re never really cured.  These last weeks I’ve been angry all the time.  And then with Anthony..

She turned away from the mirror, and took a clean overall out of the wardrobe.  There was nothing she could do about it, nothing.  Just watch herself, and be ready to tell someone if it got too bad.

And the dream about Howard Rathfelders; did that mean anything?  Was that mad, or only strange?  She looked round the room, as if for a secret message, then made some movement to pull her wayward body into form, and went out to the landing and locked the door.

*

When breakfast was cleared she went again to the main block.  The door was open; she could hear Mr Rathfelders speaking to someone.  ‘And the discharge records, please.’  She knocked, and a young woman in a dark-green wool suit came from the far corner and looked at her.

‘I have come to speak to Mr Rathfelders.  If it is a convenient time.  I am Mrs Humphreys.’

‘Oh.’  The woman blushed and turned away.  She knows about the letter, Narcisa thought.

‘Good morning,’ he said, coming out from behind his desk.  ‘This is Miss Carrington, Assistant Clerk.’ 

The young woman blushed again and held out her hand.

‘We will go over the discharge records later,’ he said.  Miss Carrington ducked her head and walked away, into the next room.

‘I am not disturbing you?’  She felt awkward now, as if her dream had in some way damaged him.

‘Of course not.’  He gestured for her to sit down.  It seemed for a moment as if she were starting again, as if their first meeting was yet to happen.

She made herself speak.

‘Mr Rathfelders, I have waited very long.’  She wanted to tell him why; but was there a reason?  ‘Now I think I must reply to the letter.  To my daughter.’

‘Very well,’ he began to say; but then sat up, eyes wide, his hand covering his mouth for a moment.  ‘Oh my g..’  - he stopped himself.  ‘Mrs Humphreys, I must apologise.  How terrible.  There is another letter - I meant to tell you.  Now where is it?’

He pulled open the drawer of his desk.  His face was pale.  Poor young man, she thought, as though it were nothing to do with her.  Then he put the letter before him on the desk, another blue envelope, just like the first.

She found herself trembling.

‘Please,’ he said, and pushed the letter towards her.  ‘You will want to read it?’

She reached out and took the envelope in both hands.  The writing was large, the letters carefully formed.

‘I am sorry,’ she said at length.  ‘Please read it to me.’

Again she watched him weigh down the envelope with his maimed arm, and fumble to take out the folded letter.  He looked it over.  ‘It is very short,’ he said, and began reading.  ‘
Dear Mr Rathfelders.  Thank you for your letter of 7 March
.  - That was when I wrote, as we agreed,’ he said, looking up.  ‘To say we were still making enquiries.’  He went on.  ‘
I do not wish to cause the hospital any trouble.  If it is easier I will carry out any -
I’m sorry, I can’t read this -
any enquiries myself, if you will send me details.  I look forward to hearing from you.  Yours sincerely
.’

‘Is that all?’

‘That’s all.’

She sat still for a moment.  Then she asked, ‘What is the name?  The signature.’

He looked down at the page again.  ‘Miss Violet - no, I am sorry, it is not Violet; Violeta Humphreys.’

She sighed.  It felt almost peaceful to sit in the leather armchair, in the Clerk’s office.  Outside she could see small acid-green buds on one of the trees.  The sky had cleared slightly; it hadn’t rained.

Mr Rathfelders moved his blotter an inch to the left.

‘Well,’ she said.  ‘I have decided.  I will have to tell her.’  Then the fear rose in her throat, and she looked down again.  A typewriter clattered in the room where the woman had gone.

‘You intend to write to her?’

How formal he is, she thought.  Is that because of his job, or does he hide himself?  There were those deep-set brown eyes, hooded, careful, and a small scar high up on his right cheekbone.  She wondered if that too was from the war.

Something about him forced her to be honest.  She spread her hands.  ‘Mr Rathfelders, you will think I am a barbarian, but I have never written a letter in English.  Not in many years.  Or only to the butcher, the fishmonger.’

He fiddled with his pen, considering.  ‘Of course,’ he said.  ‘If you wish I can reply.  The letter is addressed to me, after all.  But you might want..’

‘I do not know what I want,’ she said, and laughed.

They sat together in the chill high-ceilinged room.  The typewriter stopped and started behind the wall.

‘If I may,’ he said.  ‘It strikes me..  I mean, you could write just a short letter.  To say you are here.  That this is your address.’

She hadn’t thought what she might say in the letter.  ‘Not explain, you mean?’

He looked away, at the grate, where the coals hadn’t caught.

‘Please,’ she said.  ‘I do not know what I should do.  If you have any idea, please tell me.’

‘Well,’ he said slowly.  ‘I just thought: I mean, I assume you haven’t seen her?  For a long time?’

Since she was six months old, she wanted to say, but couldn’t.

‘Well, you don’t know - forgive me, Mrs Humphreys, but you don’t know what sort of person she is.  Of course,’ he said hastily, ‘she is your daughter, and I imagine..  But perhaps it is better to wait until you meet her, before you tell her very much.’  He ran his hand through his straight dark hair.  ‘But of course I don’t know.’

How kind he is, she thought.  He is not judging.  She breathed out slowly.  ‘Thank you,’ she said.  ‘I think perhaps you are right.  I will have to think.’ 

The blue letter lay on the blotter between them.  ‘May I?’ she asked, and picked it up.  ‘Of course I will return it to you afterwards.’

When he shook her hand she could have held on much longer.

*

In Epsom she had bought daffodils for her room.  But then she had nothing to put them in: she stood in the middle of the floor, the edge of the bedspread just touching her shin, and gripped the stems, looking round at the wardrobe, the wash-basin, the dressing-table.  In the end she laid them carefully in the basin, and went down to the kitchen.  Half an hour before the staff would return.  Some almost-memory made her climb on a chair to rummage in the back of the jug cupboard.  That was it: a white milk-jug without a handle.  She locked up after her and carried it guiltily up the stairs to her room.

When she came off duty, three were already out, big double-daffs with frilled, yolk-coloured trumpets.  The rest were fat buds, a chink of yellow pushing out through the sepals.  They might have been all day soaking up the sunlight.

She took off her overall and found a cardigan.

I have been putting it off, she thought.  After supper she had been busy around the kitchen, supervising the girls as they cleaned up, planning to drain the fish-fryers in the morning.  She sat, and opened the dressing-table drawer.  There were the writing-pad and envelopes she had bought that morning, square-cut, white.

Well, she said to herself, and let out a long sighing breath.  The paper was very smooth, cool like marble under her hands.  And not only today I’ve been putting off writing.

She looked round.  The curtain fluttered a little in the draught.  A windy night; it had been blowy all day.  She had cycled hard, into a head-wind, enjoying the effort.  So I still have some strength in this ageing body.

She pulled one of the daffodils towards her.  How delicate it was: she could see her fingers through the open petals.  Why am I so reluctant to write to her?  It was the first time she had asked herself.  Most women - Clara for instance - would have been overjoyed; would have got the address from Dr Bosanquet and written at once, or gone straight to the house:
Here I am, your mother.
  And the truth is, when I was younger so would I.  If a young Violeta had come to Miss Grey and Miss Ainsworth’s, knocked at the door and announced herself, I would have run to hug her, and never mind what those two old women thought.  Even if I’d lost my job, and I might well have. 

But is that true? she wondered, and leaned on the dressing-table.  The scent of the flowers reached her faintly, like a doubt.