Doctor's Wife (6 page)

    “Oh, years ago,” Mrs. Redden said, thanking her,
following the porter up to room 450, which had been reserved in
advance. In the lift, she asked about Monsieur Guy and was told
that he had died. It was on a Sunday, the porter said, in the
height of the season, it was very awkward, the
direction
had decided not to mention it to the guests, people were on
vacation after all, a death in the house is not gay. So Madame and
the family just carried on and the funeral took place in
private.

    “How long have you worked here?” Mrs. Redden asked
as the porter drew the shutters open, showing the familiar view of
la rade
.

    “Ah,” he said. “I am old in the service. Ten years,
at least.”

    When she had tipped him and he had handed over the
key and bowed his way out, Mrs. Redden walked about in the room.
She had reserved it specially; it was the one they had had on their
honeymoon and commanded the best view of any room in the hotel. The
furniture was much as she remembered it; the bed would be
different, but was no bigger than the one Kevin had fallen out of
with such a thump that first afternoon, when they came back from
the beach and made love. And there was the same sort of dressing
table, and imitation green leather armchair and, out on the narrow
balcony, the same little table and two iron café chairs where,
their second morning, they had breakfasted
en terrasse
,
taking their tray outside to find the couple from the room next
door doing the same thing. Stiff with embarrassment in their
honeymoon dressing gowns, they sat down in silence, aware that
their neighbors were British. Then, on an inspiration, she spoke to
Kevin in French and he grunted a reply, and the Brits nodded to
them politely and left them alone. Afterward, in the bathroom, the
door shut, she and Kevin shrieked with silly laughter. We laughed
in those days: the fun we had.

    Well, times change. She began to unpack her
suitcase, first taking her toilet case into the bathroom, laying
out her toilet things, making sure she had not forgotten to pack
her diaphragm. Then she hung up her dresses in the bedroom, leaving
plenty of closet space for Kevin’s clothes. After Paris, she felt a
bit lonely. She had brought some paperbacks, and unpacking them,
she thought of taking a book and going down to the terrace to sit
and read and watch the people stroll past on the quays.

    When she finished unpacking, she lay, face down, on
the bed. The hot sun came in at the open window; she could smell
the sea and hear the slow stammer of a small boat’s engine as a
fisherman went out around the
rade
. Kevin was the one,
whenever we’d come up to this room to change, the wine in us, the
minute I’d take my dress off, he’d be pulling down my knickers,
with a big cockstand on him, always wanting. We did more in this
very room, and more often, than ever again. After Danny, it
changed. As Kevin says, people are not really married until they
have a child. I was lazy. The only job I was offered was teaching
at Saint Mary’s and that would have meant going on living at home
with Kitty. Daddy dead, Eily married, Owen away doing an
assistantship, my mother and I alone at home and always at each
other. I married to get away, God forgive me.

    It’s true. I haven’t had such a bad life, though.
Nor such a great one, either. This morning, it was great. This
morning I walked in the Luxembourg Gardens with someone I wanted to
be with, and we laughed and it was exciting, he’s someone I could
have fallen for. But that’s silly, it’s over.

    She got up, changed her dress, and did her face. I
could
send him a postcard from here. I could ring up Peg
to thank her and offhandedly get his address.

    There was no writing paper in the drawer by the bed
table, no envelope either. I could go downstairs and buy a
postcard, just to pass the time.

    •

    Later, wearing the good linen dress she had picked
out the year before last at Donald Davies in Dublin, she came back
slowly along the quay, past the four restaurants which faced on the
port, having read the printed menus outside each and gone into all
the shops at the end of the quay, having sat on the sea wall
looking across to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, having inspected the
yachts and small craft tied up along the lower quays, having
selected four postcards and bought a tube of Nivea Solaire, Crème
Bronzante, and even taking all that time, when she looked at her
watch, not more than two hours had passed. If you were alone in a
place, the time was very long.

    She decided to sit outside the Welcome, have a
coffee, and look at that novel by Muriel Spark. She would write the
postcards later. She had read a good review of this book, but after
a few pages she put it aside: these new novels were strange, not
like the early ones, and besides, her mind went back to Tom Lowry
walking her to the Atrium last night, and then this morning, in the
Luxembourg Gardens, and at the airport, riding out on the bus with
her. What an odd chance it had been, meeting him. If you lived in
Belfast you never met anyone really new. She must phone Peg and get
the address, then think of something funny to say on the card. Or
say, in some subtle way, how she’d enjoyed their meeting. How she
missed him. But could she say that without making a fool of
herself? She decided to have her bath and think about it, then
write the card here on the terrace while she had a leisurely drink
before dinner.

    In the lift, she was squeezed in with a French
couple, a youngish man and his wife. The man looked up at her in
that cold, appraising French way, and then dismissed her. Too tall.
It was all done in a moment, familiarly, with no malice. She got
out alone on her floor.

    In the small bathroom, Mrs. Redden ran hot water,
then went to the bedroom and took off her clothes. Naked, she
looked at herself in the dresser mirror, thinking about a good tan.
She was slim and her height made her seem more so; a girlish body
with white milky skin that Kevin used to say made him think of sin.
She liked hot baths, the hotter the better. She lay now in the
water, letting the tub fill, her right hand resting on her stomach,
her fingers riffling the wet bush of her pubic hair. Sometimes in
the bath she would feel herself, touching and fondling her breasts,
thighs, and stomach as though her body were not hers. Sometimes she
would think of men and would drift off into a little story, an
imagining, and, in the hot bath, would make herself come. She
always felt lonely after that.

    Now, lying in the bath, she thought of phoning home.
Would he announce another delay? All of her life, it seemed, he had
forced her to wait. He was the breadwinner: he made the plans, and
he changed them. He rarely consulted her. He was the man, he paid
the bills: he played on that. My God, how he played on it.

    When she got out of the bath it was after six. Mrs.
Milligan would be frying up some awful mess for supper while Kevin
and Danny watched the television news. As she began to dry herself,
she decided she would ring in half an hour’s time. She must
remember to ask Danny about his rugby match. But as she finished
toweling her back, the phone rang in the bedroom. Naked, she ran
from the bathroom to answer.

    “
Il y a quelqu’un en bas pour vous,
Madame
.”

    “
Qui
?”

    “
Un monsieur. Voulez-vous descendre
?”

    Mrs. Redden did not answer.
What
gentleman?

    “Will you come down,” the voice repeated in English,
“or do you wish the gentleman to come up?”

    “I’ll come down.” But I’m not dressed, my hair or
face fixed. “In a few minutes,” she added.

    Dressing, she told herself it must be a mistake, or
perhaps it was someone from British Airways, something to do with
the airline tickets? If Kevin had changed his mind and was here, he
would have come straight up to the room. Hurrying, she put on bra,
pants, her Donald Davies dress, and sandals, a quick touch of
lipstick, a comb through her damp hair, and out and down in the
lift. When the lift reached the ground floor and paused for that
litde airbrake moment before it finally settled, all at once she
knew. The lift door opened, showing the lobby, him standing there,
throwing his head up at sight of her, very excited, smiling,
awaiting her reaction. “Hello, Sheila. Mind if I join you?”

    It was then she saw how nervous he was.

    “But what on earth are you doing here?”

    “I hate to be left behind at airports.”

    She stared at him. “When did you get here?”

    “I just arrived. I got myself a room in a little
place up the road. It’s called Les Terrasses.”

    “You got a room?” she repeated stupidly.

    “Look, you don’t
have
to see me.”

    “Oh no.” She felt herself blushing. “As a matter of
fact, I was thinking about you. It’s nice to see you again.”

    “I mean, you said you’d be alone till Friday. I
thought you might like some company till then.”

    “As a matter of fact, I was just going to call home
and find out if Kevin is coming on Friday.”

    “Oh,” he said, embarrassed. “Well, don’t let me
interrupt. I mean, if you’re going to ring now.”

    She glanced up at the hotel clock. “Look, I’ll just
go upstairs and make the call. And then let’s have a drink
together.”

    “Okay. Should I wait for you?”

    She remembered her face and hair. “No, let’s say
I’ll meet you here at seven. All right? In an hour?”

    “Fine.” He seemed disappointed.

    As she went into the lift, she looked over her
shoulder and he waved to her. It was, she thought, the unconfident
gesture of someone who was afraid she might not come back.

    Twenty minutes later, as she sat on the bed drying
her hair with a hand drier, the call came through. “
Parlez,
c’est Londres à la ligne
.” London put her through to Belfast.
She heard the phone ring at home and thought of the black receiver
sitting on the worn whorled top of the monk’s bench in the hall
below the carved elephant tusks, which held an old brass dinner
gong once owned by Kevin’s grandfather. The phone rang and rang.
But she knew they were there, sitting in the den at the back, stuck
in with the damned telly.

    “Double-four-one-double-five,” said Mrs. Milligan,
giving the number the way Kevin had taught her.

    “Mrs. Milligan, this is Mrs. Redden.”

    “Is it yourself?” Mrs. Milligan said in her Donegal
accent. “Are you all right, missus? Are you in France or where? Do
you want me to get the doctor?”

    “Yes, I’m grand. How’s everything there?”

    “They done Divis Street last night,” Mrs. Milligan
said. “A big bomb. They say it was the UDF. Anyway, there’s two
dead and a whole lot of people hurt. One family was patients of the
doctor. The poor doctor, he was out half the night.”

    “Is he in now?”

    “Aye, certainly, he’s ate-ing his supper. Hold on
now, I’ll get him for you.”

    Kevin came on. “Sheila?”

    “Yes, how are you?”

    “Busy.”

    “Mrs. Milligan said you were out last night.”

    “Yes, a bomb in Divis Street, blew in the front of a
house, patients of mine. The father, poor bastard, was killed and I
have two of the kids up in the Mater now with their faces half
blown off.”

    “Oh, God,” she said, but she felt nothing. She had
heard it so often, had felt sick so often.

    “So, how are you?” he asked. “How’s Villefranche,
has it changed much?”

    “Not one bit. Listen, what about Friday, do you
think you’ll still manage?”

    He did not answer at once, pausing just long enough
to let her know he hadn’t thought about it. “I’m not sure. I have a
patient going into emergency surgery on Thursday morning. It’s one
operation I really should do myself.”

    “Kevin, do you not want to come, is that it?”

    “No, that’s
not
it. It’s just that a lot of
things have happened all at once. I’m sorry. I wish I could be more
definite.”

    “Well, don’t worry about it.” When she heard herself
say that, it was as though some shocking stranger spoke inside
her.

    “Look, I’ll give you a ring Thursday morning,” he
said. “You’re having a good time, are you?”

    “Yes, it’s lovely here.”

    “Not too lonely?”

    “No. It would be nice to see you, though.”

    “I know.”

    “Listen, is Danny there? Can I have a word with him?
Is he all right?”

    “Oh, he’s in great form,” Kevin said and there was a
sudden cheerfulness in his voice, as though he had suddenly guessed
that he might not have to come to France at all. “Trouble is,” he
said, “he’s not here. I let him go off to spend the night with
young Kearns.”

    “Oh, well. Tell him I was asking for him, will
you.”

    “I’ll do that, Shee.”

    Shee was his private name for her. He used it
rarely. “Well, good night, Kevin,” she said.

    “Good night.”

    She hung up. If I put a few rollers in now, I can
still be downstairs by seven. She sat again in front of the
dressing-table mirror and saw that there was a special mirror
light, which she switched on, the light coming on all around the
edge of the glass, as though she were an actress in her dressing
room. She began to sing, her voice small, wavering,
reminiscent:

                Dancing in the
dark,

                Till the tune
ends, we’re dancing in the dark . . .

    •

    She was on time at seven. The bar was crowded and
waiters kept coming up to the counter to fill drink orders. “Why
don’t we go for a walk instead?” she said.