Doctor's Wife (23 page)

    He waited.

    “No reaction at all? All right. You don’t have to
make up your mind at once. I just mentioned it. Now, another thing.
I’ve looked up the flights for Wednesday. I can drive down to
Dublin, park at Collinstown airport, and catch a direct flight that
gets into Paris at ten past twelve. We could have lunch together,
just the two of us.”

    “No, Kevin.”

    “Just lunch. Just a talk?”

    “No.”

    “I’ll go back right after lunch and we won’t even
discuss this other matter, if you don’t want to. I just want to see
you. Just for an hour or two?”

    “I have to move tomorrow. I’m going to a hotel.”

    “I’m not talking about tomorrow,” he said. “I’m
talking about Wednesday. You’ll be moved by then.”

    “No, Kevin. Please, don’t. If you come you won’t
find me.”

    It was his worst fear. He had one more card, and now
he played it. “Well,” he said, “maybe I couldn’t have come, anyway.
I didn’t want to tell you this, but Danny is not well. He has a
temperature of a hundred and three. Unless the fever goes down, I
suppose I’d better stay close to home.”

    “Oh, God, what’s wrong with him?”

    “He got sick last night. Listen, what did you say to
him when he rang you up?”

    “Nothing. I told him I wouldn’t discuss it with him.
I said I’d give him a ring in a day or two.”

    “Well, I think you’d better do that, then.”

    “AU right. When will I ring?”

    “Tomorrow, around suppertime. All right?”

    “All right,” she said.

    “And listen, Shee, do you have a number I could
reach you at? In case of an emergency?”

    “Wait,” she said. He heard her put down the phone.
After a while she came back. “It’s Odéon eight-eight-oh-five.”

    He wrote it down. “All right. Is that a hotel?”

    “Yes. What do you think he has? Could it be an
infection?”

    “You know kids. It could be anything.”

    “So I’ll ring you at suppertime tomorrow,” she
said.

    “All right. Good night, Shee.”

    “Good night.”

    He picked up the prescription pad, tore off the
number, and went back into the den. He had forgotten to switch the
television set off and now, mouthing soundlessly, some Protestant
minister stared at him from the set, delivering the late-evening
prayer. He sat down in the dark of the den, in front of the dying
coals of the fire, staring at the minister’s image. Somebody has to
stop her. Somebody has to protect her from herself. She’s mad. Yes,
mad. I’ll say nothing to her when she rings up tomorrow. I’ll tell
her Danny’s a lot better. Not to worry.

    The minister, smiling, bowed his head. The screen
went to blackness. Then the sign-off pattern appeared. The Queen.
Kevin Redden stared at the Queen. He got up, shut off the set, and
went out into the hall. He looked in the address book beside the
telephone, then rang a number.

    “Dr. Deane speaking.”

    “Owen, this is Kevin. I know it’s late, but could I
come over and see you for a minute? It’s urgent, I’m afraid.”

    “Of course, Kevin. I’ll be expecting you.”

    •

    Dr. Deane, waiting for his visitor, had been about
to answer the front doorbell when he heard Agnes moving about in
the bedroom. He went back in to look and found her at her dressing
table, making up her face, wearing her good floral quilted robe
over her nightgown. She turned and smiled at him. “I’ll just come
down for a minute, just to say hello to him. It’s only polite.”

    “Please, dear, don’t.”

    “What do you mean?” Her voice rose to a shout.

    “Shhh. You’ll wake the children. I just think it
would be better if you didn’t come down, dear.”

    He might have guessed when she heard that Redden had
phoned she would not rest until she was in on it. Now she began to
wheedle: “Listen, you go on down, and I’ll make a cup of tea and
bring it in to you. He’d probably like a cup of tea.”

    The doorbell rang again.

    “I’ll give him a whiskey.”

    “Do you not want me to hear, is that it?” He could
tell she was going to start a shouting match. Just this once he
must stand his ground. “Stay here!” he said and shut the bedroom
door.

    “So that’s the way of it. I’m not allowed to go down
and welcome a visitor in my own house!” Her voice came through the
shut door as he turned to find his younger daughter, Imelda,
standing out on the landing in her nightdress. “Daddy, the
doorbell.”

    “Yes, I know. Go back to bed, pet. It’s about a
patient.”

    She nodded, acquiescent, her plump features framed
in the horrible hair curlers he hated so much. As he started
downstairs, the doorbell rang a third time. Didn’t Redden realize
how late it was? He looked up to be sure Imelda was back in her
room before switching on the hall light and unlocking the front
door. His visitor was hatless and coatless, although it was pouring
rain out. He saw Red-den’s big Humber parked in the driveway, saw
that Redden had left the gate open to the road outside.

    “Come in, Kevin, come in,” he said, and led the way
into the sitting room, seeing it, suddenly, as a stranger might,
shabbily untidy, with the furniture hidden by those awful yellow
chintz covers made from material Agnes had picked up at a Parish
Sale of Work. There were records on the floor, scattered by the
children and their friends. He went through to the dining room and
opened the sideboard, coming back with a bottle of Paddy, two
glasses, and a siphon of soda water. “You’ll take something, won’t
you, Kevin?”

    Redden nodded distractedly, going to stand at the
fireplace, warming his rear at the embers, throwing his head up
like a man about to make a public speech. “I’m sorry, barging in on
you at this hour. You were probably off to bed, were you?”

    “Agnes was. But I’m a late stayer-upper,” Dr. Deane
lied. “She’s asleep, as a matter of fact.” He held up the bottle.
“Say when.”

    Whiskey was poured. Redden asked for a splash of
soda, then stared into his glass. “I talked to your sister again
tonight,” he began, using the words “your sister” as though he were
some sort of outside agent beginning a report.

    “And?”

    “I offered her anything she wanted. I even offered
to emigrate. I wasn’t cross with her, I did everything I could to
reason with her. But it’s hopeless. I think she’s going to fly the
coop to America any day now.”

    “You do?” Dr. Deane took a stiff peg at his drink.
His stomach seared him. He had forgotten to take his Gelusil and
now he felt in his jacket pocket for the little roll of pills.

    “It looks like it.”

    “That’s bad news.”

    “I’ve got to stop her,” Redden said. “For her own
sake, if not for Danny’s.”

    “How would you do that, Kevin?”

    “Well, I talked to the American Embassy in Dublin
today. I have a patient who has a pal there. It seems the Americans
have all sorts of regulations about who they let in. No Communists,
no moral turpitude, no insanity in the family, and so on. This chap
said she may have applied for a tourist visa in Paris. It’s
something she can get without much difficulty. But if they find out
she’s running away from her husband and child—and, in particular,
if there’s any history of mental instability in her family—I think
I can put a stop to it. That’s why I came around here tonight.”

    “Oh?” Dr. Deane said. He sat in his old armchair and
stared at the dying fire, the pain ebbing as the Gelusil took
effect.

    “She’ll be angry at me, of course,” Redden said.
“But I think she’ll thank me in the end. I’m trying to help her,
you know.”

    “Mnn.”

    “You could help, too,” Redden said.

    “Me?”

    “Well, on this question of her family history,”
Redden said, then stopped and looked toward the door. Dr. Deane
turned in his armchair and, he knew it, she had come down after
all. She stood in the opened doorway in her floral robe, her black
hair all done up, feigning total surprise. “Owen?” she said, and
then, pretending, “Oh, Kevin, is it you? I saw the light. I thought
this man of mine had fallen asleep again over a book. Kevin, how
are
you? Owen told me your news, of course. I’m
awfully
sorry.”

    “Hello, Agnes,” Redden said, standing up.

    She smiled. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

    “Oh, no,” Redden said hurriedly. “We’re just having
a nightcap.”

    Dr. Deane knew he must do something, and at once. He
got up, went to her, and kissed her on the cheek, for she set great
store by public demonstrations of affection. “You go on up, dear,”
he said. “I’ll be up shortly.”

    But she looked past him, toward Redden. “Any word
from Sheila?”

    Redden flushed, then shook his head. Dr. Deane,
foreseeing more questions, touched her gently on the shoulder. It
was the merest suggestion of easing her on her way, but it made her
turn on him, her face a cartoon image of rage. “Good night, dear,”
he said gently.

    “Good night, Kevin,” she said, turning to give
Redden a strained smile.

    “Good night, Agnes,” Redden said. Dr. Deane closed
the door, shutting her out. “Sorry,” he said. “You were
saying?”

    “Well, I could go over to Paris and talk to the
American Embassy there. If I had a note from you outlining the
family history, it would be a great help.”

    “Ah, damnit, Kevin, I’d rather not do that,” Dr.
Deane said. “My own sister. It just seems unethical.”

    “But I’d use it only as a last resort. Only if they
insist on some corroborating evidence. I mean, if I tell my own
story, it will probably be enough.”

    Dr. Deane finished his whiskey in a gulp. “It
probably will,” he said. “Besides, I’ve no real evidence that
there’s anything the matter with her.”

    “I don’t want you to say anything about her,” Redden
said. “I want you to give me a note about Ned and your mother.”

    “Honestly, I’d rather not. It’s something you don’t
do.”

    “And what
do
you do?” Redden asked loudly.
“What do / do? Do I stand on principle and see my marriage
destroyed and my wife risk a breakdown—if she’s not in that state
already? Damnit, Owen,” Redden said, and Dr. Deane saw now how
overwrought he was, his eyes glistening, his voice high in an
emotional tremor. “I’m asking you to help all of us. I’m asking you
to write a simple statement of fact which I promise I won’t use
with the consul unless it’s absolutely the last card I can play.
And I give you my word of honor it will stay between you and me.
Sheila will never get wind of it. I promise you that.”

    “That’s not it,” Dr. Deane said, his own voice now
emotional.

    “I’m asking you to help me, because I’m at the end
of my rope,” Redden said, and now there was a terrible new sound in
his voice, the faltering of a man who has never wept but is just
about to begin. “Of course, it’s a last resort. Of course, I’m
going over there to talk to her, to reason with her, to tell her I
love her, to try to make her see sense. I’ll do all that before I
try to block her, do you see? I mean, blocking her is the last
thing I want to do, because she’ll not forgive me for it. I know
that. But if our marriage and our son won’t bring her to her
senses, then I have to do something. I thought of writing to this
boy’s family in America, if I could find their address. I thought
of killing the young bastard. I thought of everything, Owen. The
last few days have been bloody hell.”

    “I know,” Dr. Deane said. He rose and poured himself
a very large drink.

    Redden leaned forward, staring at the fire. He had
begun to weep. He wiped his eyes with the knuckles of his hand. “As
I say, I’m still hoping. I love her. I want her back.”

    Dr. Deane stared at his whiskey, then drank it. Pain
from his ulcer hit him in a wave. Kevin Redden was trying to use
him. It was wrong, but what was right? She probably
will
have a breakdown if that boy throws her over later on. Imagine her
sitting paralyzed, like Ned, in some room in New York.

    “All I’m asking you to do is write a note to me
confirming what you told me in our conversation, about your brother
and your mother. Not about her. As you say, we have no evidence of
her being ill. But if you said in your note that you wonder if it’s
wise, under the circumstances, for her to go to America at this
time. Just a letter to me That’s all.”

    Just a letter to Kevin. Dr. Deane drank the rest of
the whiskey. His head seemed to expand in a wave of intoxication.
Just a letter to my brother-in-law, a letter that will probably
never be needed. Just to give him a little help to face the
American consul.

    He rose, went to his desk, sat down a trifle
unsteadily, and unscrewed his old-fashioned fountain pen. And, at
that moment, saw the sepia-brown photograph of his father in
academic robes which he had placed in an honored position on the
mantelpiece. His father, the photograph, was stern, his mouth down
at the corners, his hand clutching his sheepskin. His father’s eye,
grave, hooded, stared at him in familiar, hurt reproof. Stop
feeling sorry for yourself, his father would have said. Do
something. It’s for her own good, isn’t it? Well, is it, or isn’t
it? Make up your mind.

    He began to write:

    Dr. Kevin Redden, M.B., F.R.C.S.

    Merrymount

    408 Somerton Road

    Belfast

    Dear Kevin,

    This is to confirm the facts I outlined to you in
our recent conversation in regard to my younger sister, Sheila. As
I told you

    He paused and raised his head. Pain came, the
familiar ulcer pain. “Kevin,” he said, “get yourself a refill, will
you? And pour me a little, too, like a decent man.”