Doctor's Wife

    
The Doctor’s

    
Wife

    
Brian Moore

    
Farrar, Straus and Giroux • New York

    Copyright © 1976 by Brian Moore

    All rights reserved

    First printing, 1976

    Printed in the United States of America

    Designed by Cynthia Krupat

    
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication
Data

    
Moore, Brian. / The doctor’s wife. / I.
Title.

    
PZ4.M81QDOC3 /
[PR6063.06] / 813’.5’4

    76-21294

    
For Jean

    
The Doctor’s

    
Wife

    Prelude

    • The plane from Belfast arrived on time, but when
the passengers disembarked there was a long wait for baggage. “This
plane is full seven days a week,” said a chap who stood beside Dr.
Deane watching the first suitcases jiggle down the conveyor belt.
“It’s the best-paying run in the whole of the British Isles,” the
chap said. Dr. Deane nodded: he was not a great one for
conversation with strangers. He saw his soft canvas bag come down
the ramp looking a bit worn at the edges, and no wonder. It had
been a wedding present from his fellow interns twenty years ago. He
picked up the bag, went outside, and took the bus to Terminal II to
catch the twelve o’clock flight to Paris. It was raining here in
London. It had been very blustery when he left home this morning,
but the weather forecast had predicted clear skies over the
southeastern part of the British Isles. In the airport lounge,
after being ticketed and cleared, he decided to have a small
whiskey. It was early in the day, but he thought of the old Irish
licensing law. A bona fide traveler is entitled to a drink outside
normal hours.

    On his way to the bar, Dr. Deane stopped at the
newsstand and, after browsing, bought the
Guardian
and a
copy of
Time
magazine. He then went and stood, a tall
lonely figure, at the long modern bar. “John Jameson you said,
sir?” the barman asked, and found the bottle. When Dr. Deane saw
the amount of liquid poured in the glass, he remembered that he was
in England. “Better make that a double,” he said.

    “A double, very good, sir.”

    He tasted the whiskey. Over the intercom a voice
announced flights to Stockholm, Prague, and Moscow. He still found
it odd to think that people could walk out of this lounge and get
on planes for places which, to him, were just names in the
newspaper. When he had finished his whiskey, he took two Gelusil
tablets. He had ulcers, a family ailment, had had two bleeds over
the years, and was supposed to be careful. Lately, he had been the
opposite. Of course everyone at home drank more these days. It was
to be expected.

    When his flight was called, he was one of the first
to board the bus that took the passengers out to the waiting
aircraft. On the bus, he unbuttoned his fly-front raincoat,
revealing a green tweed suit, a yellow shirt, and a green tie. The
colors made his face seem failed and gray. His wife liked to choose
his clothes for him. She had no taste. He knew this, but did not
argue with her. He was fonder of peace than she.

    Ahead, like wound-up toys, a line of planes crawled
toward the takeoff point. Dr. Deane watched a huge American jet
begin its lift-off into the rain-filled sky and wondered if he
himself were taking off in the wrong direction. And then, with a
rush of engines, his own plane was airborne and he was watching the
English countryside below. If you could call it countryside. So
many more houses and roads and people than at home. Fifty million
on this island and less than five million in all of Ireland.

    The plane came through rain and cloud to the clear
skies predicted in that morning’s forecast and, after a while, the
stewardesses came around selling cigarettes and drinks. He ordered
a Haig and noted that, duty free, it cost a quarter of what he had
paid for the Jameson in the airport bar. Unbuckling his seat belt,
he lifted the glass, looking at the pale yellow of the Scotch. His
wife was dead against his making this trip, needle in a haystack,
wild-goose chase, all the clichés she had in that head of hers. He
had warned her to tell nobody, but perhaps that was asking more
than she had in her. He looked down, saw that the plane was already
over water, and craned his head back trying to catch a glimpse of
the white cliffs of Dover. The stewardesses were coming up the
aisle again, bringing trays of cold lunch. He thought of the letter
that had turned up in Paris two days ago, a letter from the
American, addressed to Sheila, in care of Peg Conway. His
tachycardia began. It’s just nerves, my heart’s all right. I’m all
right. I’m going over to see Peg and to talk to that priest. To see
what I can find out.

    The stewardess leaned in from the aisle holding a
plastic tray on which were a plate of cold meat, a cream puff, and
a green salad. “Are you having luncheon, sir?”

    Dr. Deane did not feel hungry but there was his
ulcer to be fed. He accepted the tray.

    •

    Peg Conway, a small woman, came in again from the
front hall of her flat to stand like a child before Dr. Deane’s
lonely height. Old-fashioned, he had risen from the sofa as she
re-entered the living room. “Please don’t get up,” she reassured
him. “Here it is.”

    Dr. Deane turned the letter over in his hands,
noting the American airmail stamps, the address to which it had
been sent:

                MME SHEILA
REDDEN

                C/O CONWAY

                29 QUAI
SAINT-MICHEL

                PARIS, 75005

                FRANCE

                
Faire
suivre, s.v.p.—

                
Urgent.
Please forward

    And the address from which it had been sent:

                T. LOWRY

                PINE LODGE

                RUTLAND, VERMONT
05701

                U.S.A.

    “You’ll see that it was posted in Vermont on the
second. That’s four days after they were supposed to leave
Paris.”

    Dr. Deane lowered himself back down on the worn
brown velvet sofa. He tapped the envelope on his knee.

    “Why don’t you open it?” Peg said.

    He smiled nervously, and looked at the letter again.
“Ah, no, I don’t think I should do that. It wouldn’t be right.”

    “It’s an emergency, after all.”

    “I know.”

    “Look,” Peg said. “She’s supposed to be in America.
Well,
is
she? Look at the date on the envelope. If he
wrote her that letter, it means they’re no longer together.”

    “Not necessarily.” Dr. Deane lit a Gauloise from a
crumpled pack. “She might have got cold feet that night, then
joined him later.”

    “After the letter was posted?”

    “Exactly.” He inhaled and blew smoke through his
nose.

    “I thought doctors didn’t smoke nowadays.”

    “I backslid.”

    “So, what’s your next move?”

    “I was thinking,” Dr. Deane said. “It’s just
possible she’s with him now, at that address in Vermont. I might
try ringing her up.”

    “You mean, ring up America? That Pine Lodge
place?”

    “Yes.”

    “You’d rather do that than open the letter?”

    “Yes.”

    “Well, all right, then,” Peg said. “It’s an idea.
Look, I’ll go and get supper started. That way you won’t be
disturbed if you do reach Sheila. The phone’s over there.”

    “I’ll find out the charges on the call, of
course.”

    “Don’t worry about that.”

    He stood up as she left, then heard her shut the
kitchen door with a loud noise, indicating that he would not be
overheard. A big tabby cat came stalking in from the hall, arching
its back, then leaning against his trouser leg. He looked again at
the address on the envelope, and went to the desk where the phone
was. Through Peg’s French windows he could see the Seine far below,
winding through the city; to his left, the floodlit spire of the
Sainte-Chapelle behind the law courts, and, downriver, the awesome,
sepulchral façade of Notre-Dame. To look out at a view like this,
so different from any view at home, to pick up the telephone and
speak words which would be carried by undersea cable to that huge
continent he had never seen. It was as though he were not living
his own life but acting in some film, a detective hunting for a
missing person or, more likely, a criminal seeking to make amends
to his victim. And now, dialing, and talking to an international
operator, within a minute he heard a number ring, far away, clear
and casual as though he were phoning someone just down the
street.

    “Pine Lodge,” an American voice said.

    “I have a person-to-person call from Paris, France,”
the operator said. “For a Mrs. Sheila Redden.”

    “I’m sorry, we don’t have anyone registered by that
name.”

    Dr. Deane cut in. “Do you have a Mr. Tom Lowry
there?”

    “Sir, hold on, do you want to make that
person-to-person to Mr. Lowry instead?” his operator asked.

    “Yes, please.”

    “Thank you. Hello, Vermont? Do you have a Mr. Tom
Lowry there, please?”

    “Okay, hold on,” the American voice said. “Tom?
Paris! Take it on two.”

    “Hello”—a voice, young, very excited.

    “Mr. Lowry, I’m Sheila’s brother and I’m calling
from Peg Conway’s flat in Paris. My name is Owen Deane.”

    “Oh.” The voice went cold. “Yes?”

    “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Sheila. I
want to talk to her about some money I’m supposed to send her. Is
she there?”

    There was a moment’s hesitation. “I’m sorry, I can’t
help you.”

    “I’m calling because there’s a letter here from you,
addressed to Sheila. We thought she was with you. Naturally, we’re
worried about her.”

    “I’m sorry.”

    “Well, look, if you know where she is, would you
please pass a message on to her? Would you tell her to ring me
collect in Paris at the Hôtel Angleterre? I’ll give you the
number.”

    “I’m sorry. Goodbye,” the boy’s voice said. The
receiver clicked.

    Dr. Deane stood, holding the phone, his heart
starting up with the tachycardia that had affected him ever since
this business had started. He put down the receiver, saw his pale
face in the mirror, and, again, thought of what she had said to him
that day.
Forget me. I’m like the man in the newspaper story,
the ordinary man who goes down to the corner to buy cigarettes and
is never heard from again
. To think it was only four weeks
since she came here to Paris to start a perfectly ordinary summer
holiday. She came to this flat, she stood in this very room. His
eyes searched the mirror as though, behind him, his sister might
reappear. But the mirror room gave him back only his own
reflection, his Judas face.

    
Part 1

    Chapter 1

    • Put your things in the spare room, Peg had
written, and make yourself at home, because I won’t be back till
six. Sheila Redden let down her heavy suitcase and felt under the
carpet runner on the top step of the stairs where Peg’s letter said
it would be. She pulled the key out, put it in the lock, and the
door opened inward with a groan of its hinges. As she bent again to
pick up the suitcase, a big tabby cat bounded past her, skipping
into the flat. Would that be Peg’s cat? Mrs. Redden went inside,
calling “Puss, Puss,” although Puss wouldn’t mean much to a French
cat, she supposed. Weren’t French cats called Minou? She went into
the front hall, still calling “Puss, Puss,” damned cat, but then
she saw it, very much at home, lapping water from a cat dish in the
kitchen. So that was all right. She took off her coat.

    It was quiet here: this far up, the street noises
blurred to a distant monotone. In the living room, thinking of the
great view there must be, she unlocked the middle set of French
windows and stepped out onto the narrow balcony. Below her, the
Seine wound among streets filled with history no Irish city ever
knew and, as she looked down, from the shadowed underside of the
Pont Saint-Michel a sightseeing boat slid into sunlight, tourists
massed on its broad deck staring up in her direction. If they saw
her, she would seem to them to be some rich French woman living
here in luxury, right opposite the Ile Saint-Louis. The sightseeing
boat slid sideways, as though it had lost its rudder, but then,
righting itself, went off toward Notre-Dame in a churn of dirty
brown water. Mrs. Redden leaned out over the iron railing to look
down six floors to the street, where white-aproned waiters, tiny as
the bridegroom figurines on a wedding cake, hurried in and out
among sidewalk tables. Into her mind came the view from her living
room at home. The garden: brick covered with English ivy, Belfast’s
mountain, Cave Hill, looming over the top of the garden wall, its
promontories like the profile of a sleeping giant, face upward to
the gray skies. Right opposite her house was the highest point of
the mountain, the peak called Napoleon’s Nose. She thought of that
now, staring out at Napoleon’s own city. L’Empereur on his white
charger Marengo, riding into the Place des Invalides, triumphant
after Austerlitz; clatter of hoofbeats on cobblestones, silken
pennants, braided gold lanyards, fur shakos, the Old Guard.
Napoleon’s Nose. And this. She stepped inside again, closing the
big windows, going to the front hall to get her suitcase. But
then—it put the heart across her—heard someone moving about inside
the flat.