When I Was Otherwise (36 page)

She laughed, wiped his mouth again on the crisply laundered napkin (checked that it was still well anchored in his collar and fully spread across his chest), then bent to kiss him gently on the cheek.

“She stoops to conquer!” she exclaimed merrily. “And if you like, Dan, dear Dan, dear Desperate Dan, I'll tell you the whole long story later on. We'll call it ‘The Sleeping Spider', shall we? I think that would be a good and thrilling title. But right now I've got to go and get ready for the doctor. So, darling, if I cut you an extra
large
slice of Swiss roll you'll promise me you won't leave any of it? There's my good boy! Not so much as a single crumb, mind! I don't want to see so much as a single smear of jam!”

Then she went upstairs and sat down at her dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror. My goodness—what a fright! she thought. Oh, somehow I've got to do something about this!

And even twenty minutes later, when the doctor came, she was barely ready for him—although in the intervals between darting to the window to look out for his car she had worked so very fast.

In fact she actually had to keep him waiting a while, but that didn't matter. She had always heard it was good to keep a gentleman waiting; it served to whet his appetite. And Dan wouldn't hear the bell, of course. He never did, poor thing.

She took a final look in her full-length mirror before she left the room—swivelled and glanced across her shoulder, smoothing her hands down carefully, appraisingly, over her bottom. There! Would she pass mustard? She rather felt she would. She had quickly changed her dress; had chosen a little floral thing, simple but quite effective—sweet English roses for an English rose!—which fitted snugly round the hips and really suited her, she thought. She'd put on a spot of fresh makeup. (Indeed, because she'd considered she had been looking a trifle wan she'd put on more than just a spot; had maybe torn a leaf out of
someone else's
book—she hoped she hadn't overdone it!) But she had needed to give herself a boost and with any luck the doctor wouldn't even realize it was camouflage! With any luck he'd think it was the natural
her
! For Dr Ballad was young, you see, and very handsome. He made her think of Andrew.

She ran downstairs; or went as swiftly as she could; her chilblains were worse these days and to add to this she had a corn.

But she reminded herself: not now, not any longer. All that was in the past. Such things belonged, exclusively, to the frightened folk. They existed only in the mind.

She ran downstairs.

“Dr Ballad. How
could
I keep you waiting?”

“Oh, that's all right.” He'd been standing way back in the road, looking up at the house, but now he came swiftly forward. “No doubt you had your hands full.”

“Yes.”

He stepped inside and Marsha found him looking at her in perceptible surprise. Perceptible admiration. Well, he'd never seen her so dressed up before.

She dimpled shyly; glanced down from under spiked, mascara-ed lashes. “Where shall I find Mrs Stormont?” he asked.

“In the lounge, Dr Ballad. Please step into the lounge.”

“This door?”

“
No
!” She said more gently: “No, the other. Allow
me
to lead the way.”

He looked at her enquiringly when he saw an empty room. She closed the door behind them.

“Thank you so much, doctor, for turning out like this; I appreciate your promptness—although your wife did say you'd come the very moment you got back. That
was
your wife, I imagine? She had a sweet voice.”

He nodded.

“Do you love her?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, I know. That was exceedingly personal of me. Please forgive…?” She glanced down again—and dimpled again, demurely apologetic. Then she met his eye once more and started on a new sentence.

“But I only hope I haven't brought you out here on a fool's errand.”

“I'm sorry? I don't understand. You said that Mrs Stormont had had a fall?”

“Yes.”

“Then, please, where is—?”

“I'm afraid it was extremely silly of me.” He was checked abruptly in mid-sentence.

“Silly?”

“You see, I know I did say Mrs Stormont. But I meant
me
. I was rather shaken, doctor; I'd had a very nasty shock. It was the last in a long line of things as a matter of fact—only this morning my older son and his family departed for Australia—”

“And?” Now it was his turn to interrupt. He did this gently but with firmness.

“Well, foolishly—I don't know why it is—I often think of myself as Mrs
Stormont
, not Mrs Poynton. But I'm sure you'll understand. You grow up as
Miss
Stormont, you have a Mrs Stormont living under the same roof, you hear the name so often used… I imagine it could happen to anyone? I daresay it could even happen to you, doctor?”

“Er…yes…I'm certain it could. But the main thing is, Mrs Poynton, it's you who had the fall? Well, at least you don't appear to have hurt yourself too badly—not on the surface anyhow. But, as you say, it must have given you a fearful shock. Do please sit down. Have you taken anything to calm you?”

“No, I haven't, doctor. But would you like to join me in a glass of sherry? I feel certain there's a little left.”

He was holding her wrist. She enjoyed that, and the sherry of course could wait.

“It happened on the stairs, my wife wrote down. Did you fall a long way?”

“No, no; no great distance at all. I'm afraid on the telephone I may have exaggerated.”

“Well, better safe than sorry; especially perhaps—I know you won't mind my saying this—if one happens to have reached a certain age…” He added: “Now, would you say it was three stairs?—four?—more than that, or less, would you suppose?”

“But what has
age
got to do with it?” She laughed. “It's the way you
feel
that counts.”

“Exactly, Mrs Poynton. I couldn't agree with you more. Now if you'd like to lie on that settee for a moment I think I'd better give you a very quick once-over just to make sure.” He helped her from her chair, then went down on his haunches to open up his black bag.

“Shall I take my dress off?”

“No, I don't think that will be necessary.”

“But I wouldn't be embarrassed. Truly I wouldn't. I'm wearing my prettiest set of undies.”

Both the tone in which she made this statement, and the smile with which she accompanied it, heightened his feeling of anxiety. Nor did her giggle, when he used his stethoscope, do anything to reassure him. He kept the physical examination brief. After all, there were patently no broken bones; not even a ricked ankle; no obvious symptoms of internal bleeding. In fact, if it had really been a proper fall, the whole thing was utterly amazing—in somebody of Mrs Poynton's age. And he wasn't happy about any of it. No, not in the slightest.

“Perhaps you'd come and show me where exactly you had this nasty fall?”

“What a lovely name it is—Ballad.”

“Thank you.”

“Without a song,” she said, “the day would never end. Did you know that? Without a song the road would never bend. Without a song a man would lose a friend. I was always extremely fond of singing,” she added.

He smiled politely.

“People say I have a quite delightful voice. And I'm now going to tell you something. A pretty girl is like a melody.”

“Yes, I'm sure.”

But his responses were becoming increasingly abstracted. He was trying to remember how long it was since he had last seen Mrs Poynton. He had only the haziest recollection and believed she must have been treated by one of his partners more often than by himself. But whenever he
had
last seen her he was convinced she hadn't behaved like this—or even looked like this. A rather nondescript sort of person he might have said. Quiet; unassuming. He wished he could remember her more clearly.

“If you were the only boy in the world,” sang Marsha, “and I was the only girl…nothing else would matter in this world today…we could go on loving in the same old way…”

He put his hand out and touched her arm.

“I'm so sorry to have to stop you, especially since I was enjoying it so much—yes, you have a most delightful voice—”

“As I said, all the gentlemen
will
go on telling me that. ‘The life and soul of the party,' they declare—‘a personality just as enchanting as her face!' Oh, it must get so
boring
for the remainder of the girls! ‘
Please
,' I beg. ‘
Please
! Pay a little attention to Monica or Deirdre or Suzanne!' But no—it's always, ‘Well, we will if we have to. But only if you'll sing us something first.
I'll Be Your Sweetheart
—or
Someday He'll Come Along
—or
Even When The Darkest Clouds Are In The Sky…
'”

“But I'm afraid I do have other cases to attend to. Even at this late hour.”

“Oh, yes, of course. A doctor's life is such a busy one. I was just saying as much to my brother.”

“How is your brother?”

“My brother's fine. Just the same as usual. Infuriating—placid—kind.” A look of unmistakable tenderness crossed her face. “Trusting. Very trusting.”

“I wonder if I might see him for a minute?”

“Oh, no, I'm afraid not.” It seemed to him that again she answered fast. Unnaturally so. Fast; even sharply.

“Not?”

“He's out.”

“Oh, I see. Will he be long?”

“I don't know. He went to the pictures.”

“Ah! And your sister-in-law? Is she at home?”

“No, certainly not. That's why he went to the pictures. It was something which
she
wanted to see—some sort of sentimental rubbish. But we wouldn't have liked it if she'd gone alone.”

“No, obviously. In that case how doubly fortunate that you didn't hurt yourself when you fell. But now, please, would you like to come and show me where it was?”

On his way to the door, however, she called him back.

“In the hall will you speak very softly,” she requested. “You see, the neighbours are likely to complain.”

He said: “Oh, surely one should be allowed to speak quite normally in one's own hallway.”

“But I'd much rather you didn't. Anything you have to say…I'd much rather you said it in here.”

He saw that she was getting perturbed. He decided not to press the point.

“Well, there's just one more thing, Mrs Poynton. I wonder if I could ask you to call Miss Clementson at the surgery—perhaps early tomorrow morning? The examination you've just had was only cursory. There might be ill effects we haven't bargained for. Maybe we could arrange for you to spend a day or two in hospital; purely for observation, you understand. It
would
be a safeguard.”

“A day or two in hospital?”

He nodded.

“For observation?”

“Just in case there's something I might have overlooked.”

She smiled. “You're right. A very sensible precaution. I'll telephone your surgery, then, before ten tomorrow.”

“Good. I'll warn Miss Clementson. I mean—I'll tell Miss Clementson.”

“Perfect. It will be charming to be renewing our acquaintance so very soon.”

She was smiling again as she shut the front door. She was smiling because Dan hadn't come out of the dining room; she'd been very frightened that he might. (And what would she have said then, dear Lord? The suspense had been terrific!) She was smiling because Dr Ballad had forgotten to look at the staircase; she felt she had rather caught him out in that, after all that terrible fuss he had been making! And she was smiling as well because in at least one further respect she knew she had outsmarted him. (For indeed Dr Ballad was
very
pleasant but he wasn't really all that bright, was he?—which again reminded her a little bit of Andrew.) After all, how could she ever think of leaving Daisy or of leaving Dan? Even for an hour or two; let alone a day or two? They needed her; how they both needed her!

No, Miss Clementson. I think there'll be no appointments necessary. No need for any warnings. Mrs Poynton will not be calling on Dr Ballad. Nor taking up the time of anyone who might be keen to study her, or snoop on her, or listen to her telephone conversations, or follow her around to the bathroom and suchlike, in any nosy interfering hospital.

And Dr Ballad would find no one at home next time he called upon Mrs Poynton.

Nobody would.

She would tell them so, quite clearly and unmistakably, through the letterbox.

49

That night Marsha sat up with Daisy and every time Daisy moaned, as she did quite often, Marsha applied a cold flannel to her forehead and wiped the sides of her nose and her cheeks and her chin with it too. And as she did so, the makeup came away. It was as though years and years of makeup came away, like layer upon layer of heavy wallpaper, and the cold water in the pudding basin which Marsha had placed at the bedside soon became a stagnant khaki pool with orange tints, leaving a thick sediment at the bottom when she emptied it. Marsha hadn't seen Daisy without makeup for nearly half a century and the face just didn't look like Daisy's: pallid, featureless,
embarrassingly
bare: although Marsha once or twice had little flashes of remembrance in which she could suddenly imagine all those years had rolled away and she was once more looking at her sister-in-law as a comparatively young woman. At those moments she remembered two things more clearly than any other: Daisy posing statue-like in front of Andrew and threatening to remain fixed, and Dan saying, a little more recently—and yet, how strange, it didn't seem more recent, could she possibly be getting mixed up?—“Oh, at Shangri-La one
never
grows ancient!”