Part Five

1

‘It might be less disturbing if she didn’t see anyone for a while,’ he says.

He begins to pick his nose. His hand, after lying for some time on the edge of his desk, is slowly raised. The head, as if recoiling, drifts slowly to one side.

His eyes are tired; large pouches hang beneath them, each one encircled by a dark blue line.

‘Does that apply to everyone?’ I ask him.

‘I shan’t insist,’ he says. ‘Though with her mother,’ he adds, ‘I suppose I might.’

‘Could I see her now?’ I ask.

He’s reading the papers on his desk, turning one loose sheet and then another; he tries, as he reads, to give the impression that the papers themselves have to do with her. I can see the name, however, printed on the file: ‘P. D. Collins.’

‘She’s probably sleeping,’ he says. ‘You could ask the nurse.’

He’s on the point, it seems, of seeing me to the door.

‘I’d like to see her before I go,’ I tell him.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I suppose you might. It’s not a prison, you know.’ He begins to laugh. The sound is harsh; it raises an echo in the corridor outside.

I get up from the chair; his original intention to see me to the door has gone.

‘If you’d kept her at home she’d have been all right.’

‘She prefers being with her mother, on the whole,’ I tell him.

‘Is it something to do with you?’ he says.

‘I think I’m a sort of token attempt,’ I tell him.

‘At what?’

‘To live some sort of life,’ I say.

‘The demands you make, in the end, might prove too much.’

‘If she asks me to go I’ll go,’ I tell him.

‘Is there anyone else?’

I shake my head.

‘I’ve had a strange letter,’ he says, ‘from a Mr Newman. He wonders if the relationship you’re having with his wife might not be having a debilitating effect upon your own.’

‘Have you told him I’ll sue him if he writes again.’

‘Perhaps you ought to have a talk with him,’ he says.

‘I’ve had a talk with him,’ I tell him.

‘It’s nothing to do with me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I just thought I ought to mention it,’ he says.

He gets up, briefly, from behind the desk.

‘Have you written to the college yet?’ I ask.

‘I’ve sent a note to your Principal. Setting his mind at rest. Though I can’t see what he’s objecting to,’ he says.

He sits down once more behind the desk.

‘Will you write to Newman, too?’

‘I’ll send him a note.’ He looks across. ‘Saying it’s no concern of mine,’ he says.

I open the door.

‘If you’ll see the nurse. And tell her you’ve got my permission. Though if Mrs Freestone’s sleeping,’ he says, ‘she mustn’t be disturbed.’

I go down to the ward. There’s no one in the matron’s office; when I go through to the ward itself I find all the beds are empty.

I go back to the dining-room. A nurse, working in the kitchen, has raised the window.

‘Your wife isn’t down here any more,’ she says. She jerks her thumb towards the ceiling. ‘It’s the Flora Bundy Ward.’ The name itself has raised a smile. ‘Straight up the stairs, on the second floor.’

I go back down the corridor to the hall, climb the stairs, past Lennox’s office and the corridor with the waiting patients, and go on up to the floor above.

All the windows are barred. The ward, superficially, looks like a conventional hospital interior, austere, unpretentious. Two women without teeth are playing cards in an ante-room; a third woman, in a long dressing-gown, is standing at an open window, gazing out between the bars.

A nurse comes out of an office beside the door; presumably she’s been talking to Lennox on the phone: when she sees me there she comes across.

‘Your wife is awake,’ she says, ‘if you’d like to see her.’

She gestures off, vaguely, towards the ward itself.

‘At the far end,’ she says. ‘We’ve told her you were coming.’

Whether this is true or not I’ve no idea; Yvonne, when I get to the bed, shows no expression at all.

She’s sitting up, her back supported by pillows, gazing vacantly before her. She seems, suddenly, to have acquired more weight; her cheeks are fatter, her face is red. There’s some sort of magazine lying on the bed, open, as though it’s being read by someone else.

I call her name; she seems unconcerned, nodding slightly as if at the end of some hour-long conversation.

‘More open up here.’ I point to the windows. ‘A better view.’

‘Have you brought some flowers?’

Her hands hang down, limply, on the cover of the bed.

‘I haven’t,’ I tell her.

‘I thought they said you’d brought some, then.’

‘How’re you feeling, then?’ I say.

‘I feel all right.’

‘You’re looking much better,’ I say, ‘already.’

‘They give you good food,’ she says, ‘I’ll grant you that.’ She looks along the ward; one or two other figures are lying in the beds, a woman with white hair, a woman without any teeth, and a woman with bright red lipstick and brightly rouged cheeks who’s smiling now in my direction.

The nurse I’ve spoken to at the door comes down the ward.

‘And how are you today, Yvonne?’ she says.

‘All right.’ She glances at the nurse, then looks away.

‘She’s just woken up from a good night’s sleep.’ The nurse consults a watch pinned to her tunic. ‘That’s thirteen hours,’ she says. ‘She’ll be setting a record if she keeps it up.’

‘What’s the record?’ Yvonne has said.

‘I’ll have to look it up,’ she says.

She moves on, calling to the women as she passes by the beds.

‘Are you allowed to smoke in here?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. She shakes her head.

‘Do you know any of the other patients here?’ I say.

She shakes her head.

The woman with the make-up on has left her bed. She’s halfway down the ward already: ‘How are you feeling today?’ she says.

‘All right,’ I tell her. I nod my head.

‘I saw you yesterday, you know,’ she says.

‘I wasn’t here yesterday,’ I tell her.

‘I saw you,’ she says. She begins to laugh.

She has on a pink dressing-gown, pinned at the neck.

Yvonne, stiff-backed, upright, has fixed her gaze on the opposite bed.

‘I have a boy-friend,’ she adds, ‘like you.’

‘Does he come here every day?’ I ask.

‘He’s always here.’ She gestures round. ‘He’s up here now, as a matter of fact.’

We both look round.

‘He’s just talking to the doctors. He’ll be coming back.’

The nurse, at the far end of the ward, has turned.

‘He’s bigger than you. You should see his chest.’

She pushes out her own and hits it soundly with either fist.

‘I’d better keep out of his way,’ I tell her.

‘He’ll find you,’ she says. She laughs again.

‘Mr Freestone wants to talk to his wife,’ the nurse has said. She takes her arm.

‘I was telling him he’d better look out,’ she says.

‘Oh, he knows that well enough,’ the nurse has said.

She leads her back towards the bed.

‘I’ve seen him here before.’

‘Oh, he’ll be coming up quite often,’ the nurse has said.

Their conversation drones on for a while from the other bed.

‘Is there anything you need?’ I say.

‘I’ve got everything in the cupboard,’ she says.

I open the door of the cabinet beside her bed.

Her clothes are folded up inside, though not her dress.

There’s no sign, either, of her coat or shoes; her slippers have been tucked beneath the bed. There’s her handbag, a toothbrush and a torn-up packet of cigarettes. On top of the cabinet is a cup of cold tea standing in a saucer.

‘Do you need any washing done?’ I say.

‘They’ve taken it away.’

She waves her hand, vaguely, towards the door.

‘You’ve put on weight.’

‘What?’

‘The food.’

‘I don’t eat much.’

She glances down the ward.

‘Did my mother say she’d come?’

The shadows darken around her eyes.

‘I haven’t seen her yet,’ I tell her.

‘Will you see her tonight?’

‘I can give her a message.’

‘I don’t know why she doesn’t come,’ she says.

‘Have they been up to see you from the ward below?’

She shakes her head. Her thoughts, it seems, have wandered off.

‘I wrote her a letter. I can’t remember when it was,’ she says.

She rubs her head.

‘It wasn’t long ago.’

The nurse, smiling, has wandered back.

She widens her eyes, still smiling, then nods her head.

‘Time for your husband to go,’ she says. ‘He’s been granted a special privilege, you know. Visiting at this time. You realize that?’

I lean over Yvonne and kiss her cheek.

The nurse, still smiling, pats down a pillow.

She pulls up the covers; Yvonne slips back.

‘I’ll come up soon,’ I say. ‘And bring some flowers.’

‘She’s so much better,’ the nurse has said.

When I reach the end of the ward the woman with the makeup waves. Yvonne herself is lying on her back, her face hidden now by the angle of the pillow.

I wave in any case, get another wave back, and go out through the door to the stairs to the sound of women’s laughter.

The bracketed light that normally burns above the rear entrance of the college has suddenly gone out. As I lock the modelling-shed door I hear a step in the yard itself and turn round to see a figure, its arm raised, standing immediately above me. I hit out instinctively, the keys still in my hand.

The figure moves back: it goes on one knee; a second figure materializes from the darkness by its side. There seem, in that instant, to be four or five.

I move back against the wall; I swing my fist. The keys fly off.

Somebody’s boot comes up between my legs.

There’s a flash, like a sheet of lightning, inside my head. It comes again. A moment later I’m lying on the ground. Other boots appear. A club comes down.

A light goes on across the yard; feet run off. An engine starts in the street outside.

Hendricks is standing on the steps; he holds the door open behind him, the light shining out across the yard.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’ve fallen down.’

He flicks the switch. ‘The light’s gone out.’

‘That probably explains it.’ I indicate the steps.

‘Can I give you a hand?’

‘I was locking up the modelling shed,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve gone and lost the keys.’

‘I’ve a torch in the car,’ he says. ‘I’ll look around.’

A few minutes later a pale beam of light starts wandering round the yard.

‘Got them,’ he says.

He comes across.

‘Are you all right?’

He holds my arm.

‘You could sue the college, you know, for that. They’re responsible for lighting the steps,’ he says.

He holds the door.

One of my eyes, it seems, is closed; the other’s half-obscured by a swelling below.

‘My God,’ he says. He gazes at my face in the corridor light.

‘I’ll go into the bogs,’ I tell him, ‘and wash it up.’

I step into the toilets and fill a bowl; in the corridor outside, as I wash my face, I can hear Wilcox talking to one of the cleaners then, seconds later, Hendricks’s voice: ‘Mr Freestone’s fallen down the steps, Mr Wilcox. The light doesn’t work.’

‘What light?’

‘The outside light, Mr Wilcox,’ Hendricks says.

‘It worked all right a minute ago,’ the Principal says. ‘I switched it on myself.’

I’m aware of his figure, vaguely, as he stands inside the door.

‘I’ve been telling him he ought to sue the college, Mr Wilcox,’ Hendricks says.

‘He’ll do no such bloody thing. I can tell you that.’

‘If he’s fallen down the steps and the light doesn’t work, it’s the college’s responsibility,’ Hendricks says.

‘Are you trying to blame me, then, Hendricks?’ Wilcox says.

‘I thought you’d be on our side. Against the college,’ Hendricks says.

‘I am the college, Hendricks,’ Wilcox says.

There’s a moment’s silence. The white-tiled room with its row of basins, its two glaring figures, seems slowly to be spinning round and round.

‘There’s a first-aid kit in my office,’ Wilcox says.

‘If Hendricks can take me home,’ I tell him, ‘I think I’ll be all right.’

‘Are you sure, then, Freestone?’ Wilcox says. He sounds relieved.

He watches me move out to the corridor and then, feeling the wall, along the corridor towards the door.

Hendricks, after a moment, holds my arm.

‘I say, shouldn’t you go to the hospital?’ he says.

‘You don’t want the hospital brought into it, Hendricks,’ Wilcox says. His voice is reasonable, cajoling. It’s developed, almost, a kind of whine. ‘A lot of fuddy-duddies there. Fuss about nothing, I can tell you that.’

‘I’ll be all right, old man,’ I tell him.

He holds the door.

Once in the car my mind goes blank; there’s an aching in my head, a blur of light, then Hendricks is leaning over me and saying, ‘We’re there, old man. You’ll be all right.’

I catch a glimpse of Ferguson’s moustache; a lighted stair.

A clock booms out. I count the hours.

Elizabeth, when I wake, is sitting by the bed.

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ she says. ‘I could have come yesterday, if you’d only got in touch.’

She kisses my one good eye, hesitates over the other, then runs her lips, circumspectly, across my cheek.

‘Was it Nev?’

‘Or Leyland.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘There were four of them, at least,’ I say.

She kisses my mouth, my hand: she presses her lips once more against my eye.

‘I’d have thought,’ she says, ‘it would have been Leyland.’

‘I can’t understand,’ I tell her, ‘what they hope to gain.’

She draws back her head; her eyes are dark; recently, it seems, she might have been crying.

‘Do you think it’s Nev?’

‘I don’t really mind. One or the other. They’re two of a kind.’

The cathedral clock begins to boom. It’s almost dark. The eerily-lit face of the clock glows out, yellowish, from the darkness of the building.

She hasn’t, as yet, removed her hat; her coat she’s already taken off. Underneath she wears a dark brown dress: the sleeves are transparent and, like nearly all her dresses, buttoned at the wrist. There’s a small brooch, in the shape of a silver wing, pinned beside her collar. She’s on her way, I imagine, to some other appointment: she wears no make-up; even her eyes, usually masked in with mascara, she’s left untouched.

She goes to the kitchen. There’s a tinkle of a glass: a bottle’s opened; when she comes back in she offers me a drink.

She watches me then for a while from the angle of the door.

‘Would you ever leave him, Liz?’ I say.

‘Neville?’ she says.

She shakes her head.

‘Has he got too much?’

She begins to smile.

‘He’s hoping, I think, to get me fired.’

‘I don’t think,’ she says, ‘he’s got much chance. You’ve nothing to lose. You’ll keep your job. You have my promise on that,’ she adds.

She moves to the window.

‘They’ve changed our man.’

She’s gazing down.

‘The one we have now has got red hair. Just like the man below.’

She turns to the bed.

‘I suppose it’s all a game,’ she says.

‘For me,’ I tell her, ‘it’s a way of life.’

‘You don’t know what he’s like. He hates to be crossed. He can’t bear to lose. He’ll never let me go whatever I do.’

She sits on the bed. For a moment, faded, she’s poised there like a child, slender, antagonistic, her arms thrust out.

‘He’ll never release me.’ She glances down. ‘It’s something he almost seeks,’ she says.

She stays the night.

The following morning, as we’re lying in bed, the door bursts open and Rebecca comes in.

For some time I’ve been listening to the lock, to the key being turned, to a piece of wire; only as she enters do I call out from the bed.

She says nothing for a while. I think, for several seconds, she doesn’t recognize her mother at all; only slowly does she come across.

Elizabeth lies back.

Her eyes half-closed, she gazes over at Rebecca and shakes her head.

It’s like waiting for a child, impatiently, to be taken from a room.

Rebecca turns to the door; I get up from the bed.

By the time I’ve reached the landing she’s half-way down the stairs. There’s a vague, ‘Anything I can do, Miss?’ from Ferguson in the hall, and the outer door of the house is closed.

I see her from the window, crossing to the car; she climbs inside: the door’s pulled to.

‘I never knew she had a key,’ Elizabeth says. She lies back in bed.

‘She’s got in the habit,’ I tell her, ‘of picking the lock.’

‘Hasn’t the lock been changed?’

‘I never saw the need.’

The car drives off.

I go back to the bed.

‘Have you got a light?’ she says. She reaches for her bag, releases the catch, takes out a cigarette.

I flick the lighter.

‘My God, you’ve had it all the time,’ she says.

She holds it in her hand.

‘Honestly,’ she says. She slips it in her bag.

She smokes for a while; I begin to dress.

‘Is there somewhere you have to go?’ she says.

‘I’ve an appointment,’ I tell her, ‘to see my wife.’

‘Is she going to get better?’

‘I don’t think,’ I tell her, ‘she’ll ever get well.’

‘Do you mind a great deal?’ She turns her head. ‘You could even divorce her. Nowadays, incompatibility isn’t difficult to prove.’

When I mention Rebecca she begins to smile.

‘Honestly, what can a mother do? Should I take precautions? It’s a wonder we don’t have bulletins pinned up outside.’

She begins to laugh.

‘It’s the only thing Neville will never countenance,’ she says. ‘I’d love to be there when he gets his report.’

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ I tell her, ‘if you’ve time to pop in.’

‘There’s a party at the house,’ she says. ‘For Beccie.’ She adds, ‘It’s her birthday, you see: I thought you knew.’

‘That’s probably why she came,’ I say.

‘An invitation!’

She begins to laugh.

‘And would you have gone, supposing she had? Invited you, I mean,’ she says.

‘I might.’

‘You’re a glutton for punishment: I’ll grant you that.’

She puts up her arms.

‘I’ll see you,’ she says, ‘as soon as I can.’

I can still hear her laughing as I close the door.

Ferguson comes out of his room as I reach the porch. I keep on going when I hear his door and am round the corner before I hear his shout.

I get on the bus and climb upstairs: with one eye closed and the other half-shut I watch the outskirts of the town pass by, and it’s not until the asylum’s reached that I realize, in my present state, I might do more to alarm than reassure and, having paused at that empty gate, gazing in myopically towards that fettered house, set off back, on foot, towards the town.