Call Nurse Jenny (41 page)

‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he said in the same flat tone.

Now was the time to say something. ‘What can I do?’ she said simply.

He turned his eyes to her, dark with the grief that was eating him. ‘I don’t know.’ He wasn’t telling her to mind her own business, that there was nothing she could do, just that he didn’t know.

‘If there is anything I can do, Matthew. If you need me. I’ll be here.’

She spoke few words now, not that earlier inane chatter. Words that had some meaning, she hoped. She saw relief flow into his eyes, saw him incline his head in a small gesture of acceptance and she knew they would talk again and little by little he would release into her keeping all the suppressed grief and rage and hopelessness that was within him and perhaps in this way she would lighten the burden that at this moment seemed unbearable.

Even now he was on the verge of saying something. She waited while he contemplated what he needed to say. He, who had once been unstoppable with ready quips and digs and careless laughter, must force himself to look at every word, each drowned in a mire of unspeakable memories, having to be wrung from him, and now with an added reluctance after what had been done to him by one who he had thought had stood by him.

‘Jenny …’ he said at last. ‘Jenny … I have to see her. I’ve got to talk to her. Somehow. If I could see her … There’s no one, no one who’ll help. They say I … I mustn’t …’

Now he halted altogether, but she knew what he was trying to say. His parents’ well-meaning efforts to defend him against the wife who’d caused him such hurt had resulted only in antagonising him more. They were too close in their shared grief to be of any good to him. But could she do any better?

Now wasn’t the time to broach it. The least said at this moment …

There was movement in the house, the sound of voices, one of them high, childish. Matthew brightened immediately as a small figure came out in a rush. Jenny turned to see a small girl of around three-and-a-half pull up sharp at the sight of her, a stranger, while Jenny, relief surging over her at this timely interruption, smiled down at her. ‘Hello.’

Mrs Ward stood behind her granddaughter. ‘Matilda, say hello to daddy and Miss Ross.’ Jenny caught the coupling of her and Matthew’s names, as though she’d have liked to see them as such.

Shyly, Matilda stood her ground, her head dropping as she surveyed Jenny from under a generous dark fringe of hair. She was a beautiful child, softly rounded, sweet-faced, her eyes cornflower-blue, the rest of her hair cascading down behind her small shoulders.

Jenny glanced at Matthew. He was regarding his daughter, his eyes suddenly tender, a faraway look in them. Was he thinking of Susan? Did his daughter look like her?

She turned back to the child. ‘And where have you been?’ she asked.

No reply was forthcoming and the little rose-red lips began to pout in childish self-consciousness. But her grandfather, who appeared in the doorway, went to her rescue.

‘We’ve been out, haven’t we?’ he said in an indulgent voice. ‘We’ve been to Epping Forest. I came by some extra petrol so I took her out for the day. Matthew’s mother stayed here for Matthew’s sake. He didn’t want to come along.’

‘Not much point, was there?’ Matthew’s remark was sharp, but his father chose to ignore it, turning his attention to the child, bending towards her encouragingly.

‘And what did we see in the woods? We saw squirrels, didn’t we?’

‘Squiddles,’ repeated Matilda, picking up the spirit of it.

‘And what else? What else did we see?’

‘Squiddles.’

‘And? Tell daddy what you saw. And … what flies in the air?’

At last she was in full command, embarrassment forgotten. ‘We seed some birds and squiddles and …’ She broke off to twist round to consult her grandfather who mouthed something at her, she in turn working at it. ‘Pheasints!’ she cried in triumph. ‘And lots of sheeps.’

‘That’s really nice,’ Jenny offered, bending down to be rewarded by the girl coming forward to put a small soft hand in hers. ‘She’s lovely.’ Jenny turned to Matthew but his eyes had grown hard, not looking at any of them, so she turned hastily back to his parents, who nodded their wholehearted concurrence.

‘She is,’ Mrs Ward said, a little sadly. ‘And very well behaved.’

‘Yes.’ More a sound from Matthew than a word, it was weighted with bitter incrimination leaving Jenny wondering if it had been directed at his mother, who would have insisted on good behaviour even from a three-year-old, or at his wife, whom this child obviously took after. Not a bit of Matthew could be seen in her.

‘At least in that,’ his mother turned on him, ‘she takes after you, thank the Lord. And she has your colour hair, and …’

‘So Susan’s hair isn’t dark?’ he shot back at her, almost viciously. ‘She takes after her in everything.
Her
eyes,
her
stature. And who does she take after for tantrums? There’s only one. Well-behaved, yes, sometimes, but there are times when even you can’t control her. If that’s not Susan I don’t know what is. Why don’t you bloody well admit to it?’

‘Oh, Matthew,’ his mother’s exasperated voice rang out. ‘Why can’t you put that woman out of your mind? Why must you always bring her up?’

‘Because I still love her. You can’t see that. All you can see is your own damned righteousness. She was alone. She had no one. I wasn’t there. I should have been. Instead I was … I was … Christ, if you’d only see how it must’ve been for her. So she’s done the dirty on me, found someone else. But you’re not helping make it any bloody easier for me.’

Jenny got to her feet awkwardly, an outsider witnessing family dissension. This was a side to Matthew she had never seen. Even all that time ago when he had spoken against his mother’s efforts to encourage him to go for a commission at the beginning of the war, it had not been this acrimonious, his hatred of people trying to help, the world itself. It wasn’t what he was saying but the way the words were being spat out with such vehemence that was so frightening.

Matilda was looking from one to the other, her pretty face animated with anguish, nearing tears. On impulse, Jenny gathered her to her with one arm around her and the child came readily, huddling against her.

Matthew had got out of his deckchair to stand glaring at his mother, and without thinking Jenny found her voice, directing it at him.

‘You’re frightening your daughter, Matthew.’ It amazed her how calm her voice sounded and he shot an enraged glance at her, instantly modifying it as their eyes met. He took a deep breath, a shuddering sigh, and his posture sagged a little.

‘I’m sorry, Jenny, that you should hear all this.’ His whole mien seemed to diminish and, appalled, Jenny let go her hold on Matilda and went towards him. He must not be diminished.

‘Oh, my dear. Don’t. It’s not your fault. I started it.’

Of course she hadn’t, but it felt like it. He was breathing hard. He began coughing, small, sharp little coughs. He looked all in, had worn down what energy he had; the disease still lurked in him. She put an arm about him, supporting him while she looked at his parents.

‘I think he ought to rest,’ she ordered, she the nurse in charge, and they, like admonished children, moved back before her as she went with their son into the house.

Once Matthew was installed in bed in his room, she apologised as a formality to his parents for her being here, for being a disruption to their private life. She waved away their insistence that she hadn’t been, but she was still in her role of nurse, advising as she saw fit.

‘I think he ought to be got to a sanatorium for a while, you know. His mind must rest as well as his body, and it’s not being rested here. He’s too near his wife. I think he needs a few months away, in spite of what he says.’

It was gratifying to see them nod agreement, but Mrs Ward surprised her on taking her to the door by putting a hand on her arm before opening it.

‘You are of course, quite right, my dear.’

There wasn’t a lot he could do about it. Between them all, his parents, his doctors, Jenny Ross, whom he alternately turned to for support and backed away from, he knew that if he wanted to get better he must bow to their superior judgement, submit to being packed off to the sanatorium.

He did need to get better, to be well again to claim Susan back from that bastard who’d tempted her away. Susan was easily led. It wasn’t her fault. She had this thing about sick people, but once he got himself back on his feet, all that would disappear.

The sanatorium was bright, two-storeyed, with more windows than walls, and verandas positioned to catch every vestige of sunlight. The grounds had the benefit of sea air to help with the cure, and with one of the mainstays of cure being to keep up the patients’ spirits, make them feel at ease with the world, the nursing staff were attentive and cheery. He too was expected to feel at ease with the world, but he wasn’t. He was an inconvenience, to be put away. He had no means of getting to Susan from here, for the sanatorium was effectively a prison too. At home he might in time have evaded his mother’s eagle eye, boarded a bus for Mile End Road and burst in on Susan in the hope, vain perhaps, of getting her back. Here he could only wait to be declared fit before ever being allowed to escape and be his own man to do as he pleased.

Do as he pleased! That was a laugh. It seemed all his life he’d been in captivity. Home, the Army, prison camps, hospitals; his mother, even Jenny Ross joining the ranks of his keepers. Where had all that free spirit gone he’d dreamed of in his youth? At twenty-eight he felt every bit an old man. There had been such thoughts before the war of one day leaving home to soar free as a bird. He had left, but merely to swap one form of imprisonment for another, and there was no way he would ever be free. Only with Susan had he been free, tasting a tiny morsel, enough to reveal the golden glory of it, before it had all been snatched away.

Stuck here in this place, this morning watching his parents’ cautious approach like that of people about to confront a time bomb, he wondered what was the point of all the efforts to make him well while inside memories both wonderful and evil entwined in a form of torture until he could no longer tell them apart. These memories could not be shared with anyone because no one understood what it was like to love and have it snatched away, to be strong and have that snatched away, to ache for beauty and see only misery and privation and degradation and betrayal, to contrast the wife he had loved and trusted with the truth he had come home to face. Only one sure way to be free remained. This he contemplated with strange detachment as he sat watching his parents’ progress along the clean, bright ward towards him, and when they had each kissed him and asked how he was, he answered with a sort of perverse wish to witness their horrified reaction, a despondent need to gain their attention.

‘Tell the truth, I’ve just about had enough of everything. What’s the point of it all? I’d be better off finishing it and being no more worry to anyone.’

His remark was ignored.

‘It’s time you started thinking what you’re going to do about Susan.’ He turned his face away from his mother’s probing eyes. ‘All this hoping for miracles, it’s just ludicrous, Matthew. She wants a divorce and she’s not particular how she gets it.’

His eyes remained averted. No point responding when she got on this track, leaping on it the moment she arrived, and Dad putting his oar in as well.

‘If you think she’ll ever come back now, Matthew, you’re just banging your head against a brick wall, son.’

‘If she did come back,’ his mother’s tone sounded righteously adamant, ‘I for one wouldn’t give her the smell of my dish rag, much less house room …’

But she wasn’t in love with Susan. At times his chest felt as if it was being torn out. Even his father no longer took his side. Matthew felt totally alienated seeing his father nodding at every word his mother said.

‘We’ve spoken to a solicitor, Matthew. He has written to her on our behalf advising her to get one of her own in this matter, and she’s done that now.’ All this had been done without once consulting him. ‘They both agree that the marriage is unsalvageable. Susan is quite happy to be cited as the guilty party.’ She was as eager as that? Something inside Matthew plummeted. ‘Apparently this Crawley fellow has no objections to being cited as her lover. His wife is apparently thinking in terms of divorcing him anyway. Pity it all has to take so long, and meantime the solicitor is running up a nice fat fee.’

Was that all they cared about, costs? He kept his face turned away.

‘It’s up to you, Matthew. How much longer are you going to let things drag on? There’s nothing you can do. She’s made up her mind, the slut.’

Now he turned. ‘Don’t say that!’

‘I will say that, Matthew. Because that’s what she is.

How can you feel anything for her after what she’s done to you, you a prisoner of war, all you went through, while she enjoyed herself playing fast and loose.’

How could he, even if he wished, tell them what he’d gone through and how it had been Susan alone who had kept him going? He still believed that, fervently, still believed she
had
thought of him, willed him to live. This adultery had come later. It didn’t matter what they said, there had been a time, at first, when she had willed him to live, prayed for his safe return, cried for him. If everyone would only stop interfering, he and she could come together again. He would forgive her everything. The war had done this to them, had taken all good things out of their hands. And he could, would forgive her. If only she would come back to him.

‘There’s nothing you can do about it, Matthew.’ This from his father, his tone pleading. ‘It’s gone too far. Gone on too long. You’ve got to file for a divorce, son. There’s nothing more you can do.’

What did they bloody know? He looked at each of them, his eyes ice-hard, but there were no words he could say and he turned away again. Let them get on with it. They would, no matter what he said. But once he was out of here, then they would see a different Matthew. No longer did he contemplate suicide. He’d fight for what was his – once he was strong again.