Tom looked at Donald Herbert and tried to analyse what he felt. None of it nice: a bit sick, shocked, scared, and yes, disillusioned. That was almost the worst. Actually, he felt most of these things most of the time these days; his life, once so hopeful, so happy, so under control, had become a quagmire, where nothing was as he had thought, nothing as it had seemed.
He had believed so fervently in the beginning, in the early days, in the power of politics to right wrongs, rectify injustices, level inequalities; its practitioners, like-minded, idealistic people, using that power wisely and well. Gradually, he had come to see it was not like that at all, that the very people able to achieve the most for others wanted to achieve things also for themselves and were the best placed to do so: and that power did indeed tend to corrupt, and absolute power corrupted absolutely.
For the gist of what Donald had said was that the prospects of the party winning any new seats in the election, even one as promising as Purbridge, were remote, and that Tom stood almost no chance of getting in.
‘The party want you there on the back benches, and the National Agents told me they’re proposing to drop you into a dead cert. Trim-worth South, up near Leeds, Labour majority last time twenty-two thousand. Chap there desperate to retire and you’d stroll in, your profile being what it is now, and some other young hopeful can take over Purbridge.’
‘But—’
‘Tom, don’t turn this down. You need to get in, or it’s God knows how many more years in the wilderness. It means a bit of extra work of course, by-election almost straight away, new people to impress, but we’ve still got six weeks, it’ll be a doddle. No offence, old chap, but they’d vote Labour if the candidate was a donkey.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Now don’t get aerated, Tom. Just take the chance and be grateful. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’
Tom looked at him; thinking of all the friends he had made in Purbridge – his agent, all the local Labour councillors. All right, not exactly friends perhaps, but warm acquaintances, most of them. He thought how welcoming the people had always been, how he had come to know the head of the boys’ grammar school quite well, how he’d promised the staff of the secondary modern that he would work tirelessly to get it improved so that a place there would be an opportunity, not a mark of failure. And Alice, hoping to move there, spend the summers on the golden beach at Sandbanks, how she too had made a few friends, even in the short time she had spent there, including the matron of the local hospital. They trusted him, these people, trusted him to improve things for them, take up their causes, be on their side. Now they were to have some stranger dumped upon them, who they might like less, and find less hard working.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said to Herbert.
‘You’re allowed twenty-four hours. If you decide against this proposal, you’re a bigger fool than I ever expected. You finished with Diana Southcott yet?’
This came out so suddenly, so shockingly, that it was impossible to do anything but answer.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And no.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean, for Christ’s sake?’
He had to tell him; he’d find out soon enough. ‘She – she said if I stayed away from her, she’d come and see Alice, tell her all about it. And that she’d go to the press.’
‘Christ Almighty. That’s all we need just now. You’re a bloody idiot. You should have listened to me the first time I warned you about her.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I thought the only thing was to keep seeing her. She – she said once a fortnight would do.’
Donald Herbert laughed loudly.
‘She really has got you by the short and curlies, hasn’t she? Some woman, that one. Brains and beauty. You must have some pretty special qualities, Tom, I’ll give you that. Not much use in this situation, though. You’d better agree to my other proposal, or I really will give up on you.’
He walked out of the bar. Tom watched him, feeling, as he did most of the time these days, extremely sick.
It was Sunday again; they seemed to come round with gratifying speed, too fast really, Jillie thought, given their absolutely finite lifespan. They had taken the Morris out in the Sussex direction, along the Hog’s Back; had a sandwich at a pub, chatting about the rally the following week as they got into the Morris again.
‘What I loved best about the Old Crocks Day when I was a little girl,’ said Jillie, switching on her engine, ‘were all the people on the way watching by the road, waving and cheering. I used to pretend I was the Queen. Oh, I really am so excited!’
She looked at him and smiled, and he smiled his slow, careful smile back; and then, quite without warning, he said, ‘You are so very sweet, Jillie, I do love being with you,’ and he leaned forward and kissed her. On the mouth. And it started safely and innocently, and then it became dangerous, hugely so. She felt herself responding, fought against it, couldn’t, just couldn’t, kissed him on and on, hungry, greedy, unable to believe what was happening to her, to both of them. It was like an electric shock, her whole being was jolted by it; and then he drew back and said, ‘Oh, dear.’
No more was said by either of them, but she put her foot down and drove home as fast as she could, parked outside the house without even turning the engine off; and waited for him to get out. But he put his hand out onto hers and said, ‘That was my fault – incredibly stupid of me. I do hope you’ll forgive me.’
She said, her voice cool as she could manage, ‘I think it was both our faults, and I actually don’t think there’s anything to forgive. Goodbye, Julius. I hope you enjoy next Sunday.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and there was clearly no question of his arguing about it, for which at least she was grateful.
She went indoors, and ran up to her room, and shut the door and cried. The pain was awful, dreadful, but even in the midst of it, she knew it was not as bad as it might have been, had they progressed further. There was no harm done, Nell had no idea, nobody knew. Really, she was lucky, it had just been fun, lovely charming fun, like Julius himself indeed, and now it was over.
What was the matter with her, she thought, starting on a new hanky, that she couldn’t find an ordinary, nice, unattached, attractive man who was attracted to her, a man who was free to love and to love her; did she have an unhappiness wish, as some people had a death wish? Whatever the reason, it was over; she must not, could not even consider, seeing Julius again. He was barred from her: as he should have been from the beginning, and for that she told herself, in a fresh wave of misery, drenching the clean handkerchief, she had only herself to blame.
She managed to arrange to be on duty the next Sunday, and was lucky to find herself extremely busy: three C-sections, a breech birth, and a hysterical midwife who had missed a clear case of pre-eclampsia, which Jillie spotted just in time. When she got home that night, weeping with exhaustion rather than sadness, her mother, having comforted her with the unbeatable combination of nursery food (fish pie) and a couple of glasses of rather grown-up wine, said, ‘Oh, your friend Julius Noble telephoned you. He asked if you could ring him back. At home.’
She nodded and said all she wanted to do was have a bath and she would ring him next day; which, exerting enormous self-control, she did.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Jillie.’
‘How was yesterday?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, me too. Look, Jillie – Jillie, I wonder – could you regard what happened as a bit of foolishness? We’re such good friends, and we do enjoy our Sundays – and it’s not as if we’ve fallen in love or anything. And I thought – well, I would so like us to stay friends. Go for the odd drive. It seems silly to throw all that pleasure away.’
Either he was extremely stupid, Jillie thought, or he was a fantasist. Or he really couldn’t face life without her. Whatever the reason, she knew what she must do.
‘I mean – it won’t happen again,’ he said. ‘The – the foolishness, I mean. So what do you think?’
‘I think,’ she said, trying to keep her voice calm, ‘that’s not a good idea. I really do. I’ve enjoyed our Sundays too, but – no, Julius. Goodbye.’
And she put the phone down. It had been quite horribly tempting. A reprieve at least from pain and loneliness and disappointment: but only a reprieve.
For a little while, she felt a glow of virtue and calm from knowing she had done the right thing. It didn’t last for very long.
‘Mr Welles! Glad I caught you. Wonder if you could spare me a minute of your very valuable time.’
It was the chairman of the board of governors of St Luke’s, Sir Neil Lawson, a gentle-voiced tyrant and professor of cardiology; it was said that he was the only living being who could make Matron feel nervous. Ned was certainly no exception.
‘Yes, of course, Sir Neil. Now?’
‘No time like the present. My office, five minutes?’
‘I’ll be there.’
Sir Neil’s office was large, overlooking the gardens of the hospital; every inch of wall space was taken up by framed certificates, telling of triumphs in examinations, honorary degrees of universities, international awards, and photographs of himself at what were clearly important ceremonies, or shaking hands with distinguished people from the Duke of Edinburgh downwards.
He was a tall, thin man with a shock of white hair and steely grey eyes, and wore, no matter what the season, a black worsted three-piece suit with a white shirt and a bow tie in a rather bilious green with white spots.
Ned knocked on the door, and on the imperious command of ‘Come’ went in. He knew at once he was for it; Sir Neil had his back to him, studying the gardens, and did not turn round for a full minute. When he did so, he greeted Ned with a charming smile.
‘Mr Welles, do please sit down.’
Ned sat on the chair on the other side of the desk, and waited.
It didn’t take long to begin.
‘Mr Welles, I understand you are doing the most splendid work in paediatrics; particularly in the area of premature infants and their incompetent lungs. We are fortunate to have you with us.’
Ned waited. This in no way accounted for the general aura of displeasure, conveyed by Sir Neil’s icy stare that had immediately followed the charming smile. He was right.
‘However,’ said Sir Neil, ‘I have received some – complaints would be too strong a word – criticism, about one aspect of your wards and your running of them.’
‘Really?’ said Ned.
‘Yes. I speak of what appears to be almost a fixation about the children in those wards and their mothers. You will know, I imagine, to what I refer?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Ned. ‘And if it appears a fixation, then that only reflects the depth of my concern.’
‘Which is?’
‘That the children are not just unhappy, but disturbed by the disappearance of their mothers for several days and at worst, weeks, at a time.’
‘Yet they respond to your treatment or surgery, they recover, they are reunited with their mothers and they go home healed.’
‘Apparently healed,’ said Ned. ‘Physically, yes, but I have come to believe, talking to the mothers when they bring their children for post-operative checks, that the trauma to the children of the separation is considerable. They have nightmares, they are anxious, clinging, they cry easily.’
‘Oh, please. All children cry.’
‘Not to the extent some of these children do.’
‘Could it be that they are the more difficult, over-sensitive children, hospitalised or not?’
‘It could,’ said Ned. ‘But I do not believe so. When I do my night rounds, I invariably find several of the children weeping silently, in a state of what I can only describe as despair. I try to comfort them, to reassure them, but—’
‘Yes, and it is this that various sisters have complained about.’
‘Complained? They haven’t done so to me.’
‘Well, that would be difficult for them, wouldn’t it? Your being their consultant. But I understand that other children wake, there is a general air of confusion, disarray, in the wards – and this isn’t a good thing in a hospital. Calm and quiet is what we look for in all our wards, Mr Welles. But particularly in the paediatric ones. Calm and quiet heal as much as good medicine and good nursing do.’
‘Forgive me, Sir Neil, but I would put it to you that the calm and quiet we require of these children is frequently the calm and quiet of despair, not order.’
‘And I would put it to you, Mr Welles, that in the opinion of myself and several of my colleagues you are wrong, that you disrupt and disturb the children in your reforming zeal.’
Ned was silent; then Sir Neil said, ‘I hear that you have some idea that if the mothers stayed with the children all day, then the children would be happier.’
‘Yes, and recover faster, sleep better –’
‘And do you not think the mild chaos you are causing at night would be hugely multiplied by day, wards full of ignorant mothers, getting in the way of the nurses?’
‘With respect, Sir Neil, I think the mothers could be a great help with washing, feeding, playing with their children, reading to them –’
‘Mr Welles,’ said Sir Neil, his voice heavy with distaste, ‘we are trying to run a hospital here, not some kind of children’s party. Now can we have no more of this, please.’
‘So you won’t even consider my ideas?’ said Ned. This was a mistake.
‘No, I won’t. And I don’t want to hear them mentioned to anyone. Next thing we know, the mothers will be demanding access to their children whenever they fancy and I will not have it. Is that quite clear?’
‘Yes,’ said Ned, careful with his words as always. ‘Quite clear. Thank you.’
‘Josh? Tom Knelston.’
Josh felt a rush of panic. He had tried very hard to forget the image of Tom on Diana’s doorstep, being greeted by what could only be described as an inviting kiss – and failed.
He had been shocked: profoundly, morally shocked. He was aware that this was scarcely a suitable emotion for a journalist to experience. But while Tom and he might not have been the close friends people assumed, given that he had been best man at his wedding, they were friends; and until then he had liked him as a man, and admired him as a politician in waiting. Far closer, though, was the other link: that his cousin Jillie was Alice Knelston’s best friend. Jillie adored Tom, she thought he was wonderful.
‘Yes?’ he said now, hearing his own voice cooler than usual.
‘This a bad time? If so, maybe we could meet. I need your advice – and it might even be a story for you.’
It couldn’t be, could it? Josh wondered. He couldn’t actually be calling him to talk to him about his infidelity. He decided he needed time to think and said, ‘Yes. Bit busy right now. Could we talk tomorrow after work? I presume it’s not desperately urgent.’
It could be, he supposed; Alice might have found out about Diana, delivered an ultimatum, and demanded an answer by tomorrow. Well, if that was the case, tough.
‘No, no, not terribly, tomorrow evening will do. I’ll warn Alice. She gets pretty sick of me being out every other night.’
I expect she does, Josh thought; poor, sweet, weary Alice. The last person to deserve such treatment. ‘We can make it quite early,’ he said, more from a wish to save Alice than anything else. ‘I have to be back for a conference at six, could have a quick drink somewhere near here at five.’
‘Fine. See you then. Please give my love to Alice,’ Josh added. The poor girl needed all the support and affection available to her.
‘I will. She’s pretty fed up, little bugger’s really huge now. Thanks, Josh.’
Bastard, thought Josh. Absolute two-faced bastard.
Tom had been speaking the truth about Diana. He had told her that he didn’t want to see her any more, it had been wonderful while it had lasted, that he would miss her of course, but that Alice was growing suspicious; she was about to have a baby and he owed it to her to try to be a good husband and father.
‘Besides, once this one is born, I’ll be even more needed at home. I won’t be able to spend hours out of the house every other night.’
‘Darling! Would that it were every other night.’
He was silent.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘This is a bit of a bombshell. I’m sorry, Tom. Friend Tom. Can we still be friends?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. It wouldn’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if I was with you I’d have to go to bed with you.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s something. To soothe my ruffled ego.’ Silence. Then, ‘And – I must admit, my feelings too. There must be something wrong with me. First my husband, now my lover, both want to get rid of me.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with you, Diana. You’re a very beautiful, very clever woman.’
‘Not clever or beautiful enough, it seems. Well, Tom, thank you for being honest with me. I appreciate it. And it has been fun. Such fun, indeed, I think we should have just one last glimpse of it, before you go.’
‘Diana, no!’
‘But why not? What harm can it do? You’re here, you’ve made your getaway for the evening. You’ll be out for an extra hour or so; what’s that, set against this blameless future you envisage?’
‘Diana, I’m sorry but no. It’s over. It would be – well, a travesty, to – to –’
‘What? Oh, Tom, come on. For old times’ sake. No? All right. Just kiss me goodbye. Please. Dear Friend Tom –’
And at that he was lost. The goodbye kiss went on and on, Diana collapsing under him, laughing, just as she had that first night, wanting him as she had that first night – she became irresistible again.
‘Well,’ she said, sprawled naked on the sofa, watching him dressing, unable to meet her eyes, his face a study in guilt and remorse. ‘You know what, Tom? I don’t fancy life without that occasionally.’
‘Diana, I said—’
‘Oh, I know what you said. It made me very sad. So au revoir, then, I think, dear Friend Tom,’ she said. ‘Not goodbye.’
‘Diana—’
‘No, I really don’t want to lose you now. I decided that about – what? – twenty minutes ago. Just as I – well, you know what I mean. Anyway, I want you to continue your visits. I need them, you know. I spend many, many evenings alone here. You have your Alice – who do I have? Occasionally Jamie, sometimes a few friends, but most often just me. So I need you, Friend Tom, I really do, and I don’t want to do without you. So please continue to come and call—’
He interrupted her. ‘Diana, that’s impossible, I told you, very sadly for me at any rate, it’ s—’
‘If you don’t come,’ she said, her voice quite different suddenly, ‘if you insist on saying it’s over, then I’m afraid I shall have to visit Alice and explain where you’ve really been all those evenings. I’d love to meet the children, I do really like children, as you know, and I’m also quite curious to meet Alice.’
Tom sat down abruptly on a small gilt chair that stood next to the drawing-room door; it creaked ominously. Rather like his life, he thought. His legs had become shaky and jelly-like, an unpleasant accompaniment to the nausea rising in him.
Diana was pulling on the silk robe she had been wearing for his arrival; he looked at her and she smiled brightly, as if she had just offered him a cup of coffee.
‘Or – or should I say, I could go to the press. That would never do so near the election, would it? When you’ll need all the good write-ups you can get. So, what with one thing and another, Friend Tom, I think you’d be much better preserving the status quo, don’t you? Shall we say two weeks from now? For your next visit? Now, will you excuse me, darling, I’ve got to change – I’m having dinner with a girlfriend.’
She walked over to him, kissed him briefly on the lips, and then disappeared up the stairs. Tom somehow dragged himself onto his feet, let himself out of the house, and stumbled down the mews.