Doctor's Wife (19 page)

    He stopped, skidding, in the center of the hall.
“The concierge?” she whispered.

    He turned and, still carrying her piggyback, ran
into the bedroom and kicked the door shut. He let her down and they
stood, listening. It was not the concierge. The hall door did not
open. Instead, after an interval, the doorbell rang again. He
stared at her. “Who?”

    She shrugged in puzzlement. He reached for his
jeans. “Want me to open?”

    She shook her head. The doorbell rang a third time.
He put on his jeans. “I’ll look through the peephole.”

    “No, they might see you do it.”

    She sat on the bed and he sat beside her. She seemed
to be shivering. Again, the doorbell rang as they sat, prisoners of
that sound, waiting. But the doorbell did not ring a fifth time.
After a while she got up, put on her skirt and blouse, and,
barefoot, wearing no underwear, went into the front hall. He joined
her, just as she stooped to pick up the piece of paper which had
been slipped under the door. It was a folded sheet of notepaper and
on the back was written
Miss P. Conway
.

    “For Peg,” she said, but as she did, the paper
opened on the fold. She saw the letterhead.

                54 DUNDRUM
ROAD

                BELFAST

                3:15 p.m.

                Dear Peg,

                I am in Paris
for the night, staying

                at the
Angleterre Hotel. I am very

                anxious to get
in touch with Sheila

                but don’t know
where to reach her.

                If you can help
me, will you get in

                touch with me at
my hotel? In the

                meantime, I will
wait for a while in

                the café on the
corner, in case you

                come home soon.
Best wishes,

                                        Owen
Deane

                P.S. Have tried
your office number

                but they say you
are off for the

                afternoon.

    She handed him the note and watched him read it.

    “Who’s Owen Deane?”

    “My brother.”

    Chapter 12

    • She came up to the corner of the Place
Saint-Michel as though she were at home and had been told there was
a sniper in the next street. For a moment she wondered if he would
be sitting there with Agnes, Agnes who might well force him to
bring her along even on this painful journey. But when she came
into the square, screened by the flow of people moving to and from
the Métro entrance, she saw her brother alone, in Le Départ, down
at the far end of the café, near the rue de la Huchette. He sat
with a beer and a newspaper but he was not reading. Instead, he
seemed interested in the antics of the guitar-playing youths and
girls camped under the winged gorgons and green-slimed fountains in
the center of the square.

    He had not seen her. What an obvious tourist he
looked in his fly-front raincoat and narrow-brimmed green hat. How
old he looked, how failed. For one guilty moment she thought: If I
have to introduce him to Tom, he’s going to make
me
seem
old. But then he pulled out his spectacles and picked up the
newspaper in a studious, preoccupied way which instantly recalled
his younger self. Poor Owen, he must be dreading this meeting.

    She came out from her place of concealment near the
newspaper kiosk and walked past him as though she had not seen him.
But he did not notice her. At the corner of the rue de la Huchette
she paused and looked back. He was staring in the opposite
direction. She hurried into the café, came up behind him, and,
bending over, said in his ear, “Excuse me, sir. Are you a private
detective?”

    He started, swiveled around, and jumped to his feet,
whipping the spectacles off his nose, grabbing at her awkwardly,
sweeping her into an embrace. His cheek felt unshaven although it
was not. “Sheila. You scared the life out of me.”

    She held him, her arms tight about him, she had
never understood it, but when they met, she and her sister and
brothers, suddenly all of their wives, husbands, and children
seemed members of another race, not part of the Family, that family
whose allegiances antedated all others. Even with Ned, the brother
she was no longer close to, her feeling was the same. It was as
though they were survivors of another country, a tiny nation whose
meaningless historical memories were of playing Snap in rainy,
rented houses in Portrush in the summer, of being lined up
two-by-two by Daddy to march to the Pool for an afternoon of
swimming; of being made to compete for medals in embarrassing
verse-speaking contests; of the day a maid called Annie killed a
rat in the attic; of all of them keeping very quiet after supper in
hopes that Kitty would forget to assemble them for the saying of
the family rosary; of ice cream as a Sunday treat when one of the
boys would be sent out to McCourt’s for sliders and two siphons of
lemonade; and of that famous family photograph when Daddy posed
them on a ladder, against a tool shed in the garden, all dressed up
in their good new overcoats, school caps and tarns, four rungs of
the ladder, the oldest at the top, while Kitty, cigarette dangling
from her lips, raised the flash extension and Daddy, peering into
his Rolleiflex, ordered everyone to smile.

    Now, the second from the top of the ladder smiled at
her with new caution. “Did Peg tell you I was down here?”

    “No,” she said. “I was in the flat when you came,
but I didn’t answer the door. Then I saw your note.”

    “Well,” he said and, confused, made a gesture toward
his table. “Sit down, won’t you?”

    “Did you just get in?”

    “Yes, about an hour ago. Will you have a drink?”

    “A coffee, maybe.”

    “Sure you won’t have something stronger?”

    “What’s the plan? Get me drunk and shanghai me
home?”

    He smiled. “At least I’ve found you. I had an awful
vision of coming all this way and
not
finding you. Or
finding you and having you hit me over the head with your
purse.”

    “I might do that yet.”

    “So.” He looked around him. “Paris. It’s beautiful,
isn’t it?”

    “Yes.”

    “The family have all become awful stick-in-the-muds
about travel. All of us going off to Donegal and Galway and the
like.”

    “I know.”

    “Mind you, Eily and Jim took their kids to Spain
last year. They had a great time there, apparently.”

    She made a face. “Those awful British holiday
villages on the Costa del Sol. They might as well never leave
home.”

    “Still, I can’t throw stones,” Dr. Deane said.
“Agnes and I both love Kerry. The children do, too. It’s almost a
second home to them.”

    “How are the girls?”

    “Oh, very well. Imelda passed her O Levels, just
last week. Agnes and I were delighted. We went out and bought a
bottle of champagne to celebrate.”

    She smiled. “And how is Agnes?” she asked.

    “She’s in grand form. Did I tell you, she’s now a
golf champion. She won the Ladies’ Open at the club last
month.”

    “That’s very good.”

    “Yes, and she’s working on her poetry, too. She had
a poem published lately in some religious journal.
The
Messenger
, actually. Still, it’s a start, what?”

    She looked at him. Poor old Owen. “Indeed it is,”
she said. In the pause, he signaled a waiter.

    “Do you want cream in your coffee?”

    “No,” she said. “
Un espress
,” she told the
waiter.

    “
Bien, Madame
.”

    “I always forget,” he said. “You’re quite at home in
France.”

    “Yes. I always was at home here. I don’t feel at
home at home.”

    “Do you remember the time we were here together,
years ago, on our way to see Uncle Dan at The Hague?”

    “Funny,” she said, “I was thinking about that just
the other day.”

    “I remember how impressed I was at the way you told
the porter off in French. Using bad language, too.”

    She smiled and nodded. When would he get down to
it?

    It was as though she had spoken aloud. Her brother
took off his ugly hat and put it down on the chair beside him. How
thin his hair is now: what is he? Eight years older than me? He put
his face up to the gray sky as though he were sunbathing. “Tell me,
Sheila, how are you feeling?”

    “What is it you doctors say? As well as can be
expected.”

    He swiveled to look at her. There were brownish
puffy sacs under his bright-blue eyes. “I saw Kevin the other
night.”

    “So I gather. Who else has he told about this?”

    “Nobody,” Dr. Deane said. “Agnes knows, of course,
but don’t worry, she’ll be like the grave, I promise you.”

    He saw the disbelief in her face. He could not blame
her. He finished his beer.

    “What, exactly, did Kevin tell you?”

    “He said you told him you might not be coming
home.”

    “Anything else?”

    “He said you told him there was someone here.
Another man.”

    “Did that surprise you, Owen?”

    “Yes, it did. Although, I suppose these things
happen. People go through a period of change. They want to change
their lives. Believe me, I see it all the time in my practice.”

    “You mean with women.”

    “Well, I deal with women, of course, but it happens
to men, too.”

    “And why do people try to change their lives, do you
suppose?”

    “Usually because they’re getting on, reaching middle
age. They feel dissatisfied. They want to achieve something.”

    “So you treat it as a medical problem?”

    “I didn’t say that.”

    “Kevin thinks it’s a medical problem.”

    He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Did
Kevin say that to you?”

    “You and Kevin discussed me. You know it. You even
told him about Ned’s breakdown. I think that was rotten of you. One
thing Kitty was right about is, what happened to Ned is his
business and nobody else’s.”

    “Kitty is dead,” Dr. Deane said. “So I’m not going
to criticize her. But I think she was quite wrong. It would have
been easier for Ned if his friends and his family had openly
acknowledged what was the matter with him.”

    “Maybe so. But we agreed not to tell anyone. I never
even told Kevin about it.”

    The waiter came, putting down her cup of coffee,
tucking a check under the saucer. Dr. Deane pointed to his beer
glass and said awkwardly, “
Encore, s’il vous plaît
.”

    “So,” she said. “What exactly has Ned’s breakdown
got to do with this?”

    “Sheila, can I ask you a few questions?”

    “What sort of questions?”

    “How have you been? Have you had any loss of
appetite, trouble sleeping, dizzy spells, trouble concentrating,
irritability. Anything of that sort?”

    “No. I’m very well, thank you.”

    “You haven’t felt depressed?”

    “No.”

    “The thought of leaving your husband and child
doesn’t upset you?”

    “Of course it does. But that’s not depression.”

    “All right, it’s not depression, per se. But surely
you can’t feel happy about what you’re doing?”

    “I don’t know, Owen. It’s complicated. Most of the
time I feel very happy. I feel alive in a way I never felt before.
But the other night I woke up feeling suicidal. I think I know why.
It was because I was still unwilling to face up to what’s happened
to me. I was still looking for some way out. Some way I could go on
feeling like this but not having to pay for it. Now I know that’s
not possible. I’ll have to pay. I’ve accepted that.”

    “And how will you pay, tell me?”

    “I don’t know. But I know that I can’t go home
again. That part of my life is over.”

    “It’s
not
over,” Dr. Deane said. “What
nonsense! You can’t just will your husband and child out of
existence.”

    “I wonder. People escape from their lives. Did you
ever read those newspaper stories about the man who walks out of
his house saying he’s going down to the corner to buy cigarettes?
And he’s never heard from again.”

    The waiter brought a fresh glass of beer. “The point
is,” Dr. Deane said, “you’re not a man, and you haven’t
disappeared. In fact, you might find it pretty difficult.”

    “Women disappear, too.”

    “And what would you live on?”

    “I have my Consuls and those other shares Kitty left
us. They’d give me a start for a few months. My shares are still in
your name, aren’t they?”

    “They are,” Dr. Deane said. “Do you want me to sell
them, is that it?”

    “Yes, please. You could send me the money.”

    “So this new man of yours isn’t able to support
you?”

    “I didn’t say that.”

    “I’m sorry.” Dr. Deane tasted his beer. “Sheila,
what’s wrong? Were you not happy at home?”

    “Are you happy at home? Is anyone?”

    “Do you mean because of the Troubles?”

    “Oh, God, no. The Troubles, you can’t blame the
Troubles for everything. That’s become our big excuse. We have the
Troubles. They’re the only thing we believe in any more.”

    “I’m not sure I follow you, Sheila.”

    “The Protestants don’t believe in Britain and the
Catholics don’t believe in God. And none of us believes in the
future.”

    “That’s a very gloomy prognosis, I must say.”

    “What do
you
believe in? Do you believe
that if you live a good life here on earth you’ll go to heaven? Do
you believe in politics? Do you believe in trying to make this
world a better place to live in? In Daddy’s day, people believed in
those things. The present made sense because they believed there
would be a future. Nowadays, all we believe in is having a good
time. Isn’t that true?”