MARCH HOUSE Read online

  The next day when he had gone to work I lay in bed listening to the noises in the house. I remembered how loving my mother had been when I had childish ailments and I wished that I could hear her coming up the stairs, carrying a tray with some preparation she had devised to tempt me. She would sit on the end of my bed, delighted to have me home with her. ‘Don’t go back to school this week, lovey. A stay at home will do you good.’ We would go to the pictures in Weston Market, feeling agreeably wicked, and she would imitate Miss Petrie, saying, ‘If you are well enough to go to the pictures, you are well enough to attend school.’ Oh Mother, Mother, why aren’t you here now? But it was not her footsteps on the stairs that I could hear, it was someone up above me.

  She is older now and no longer has dolls. At this moment, she is climbing the attic stairs. On the attic landing there is a ladder. She hooks it into place and climbs up to the trap door. She has ceased to be Ruth Saunders. Another family lives up in the loft. There are thirteen children, six boys and seven girls. The boys are Kit and Philip and Anthony and Patrick and John and Michael. The girls run to more fanciful names, mostly of French origin, Rosalind, Jacqueline, Stephanie, Antoinette, Coralie, Marguerite and Imogen: not a plain Jane among them. She is Imogen and Kit is her favourite brother. He is in the army and looks very handsome in his officer’s uniform. Philip is training to be a doctor; Anthony, Patrick and John are still at school. Anthony wants to train horses and Patrick and John are too young to know what they want from one day to another. The girls are chiefly notable for the colour of their hair which ranges from ash blonde to jet, taking in corn, amber, copper, auburn and chestnut on the way. A London friend of Mother’s is a hairdresser and provides swathes of real hair which the girl adjusts to suit the various personalities of her sisters. Imogen (jet) keeps a diary. She is writing it up there now, sitting on the floor, resting the exercise book on an old trunk. She is wearing a school straw hat with two jet pigtails hanging down the sides of her face.

  ‘It is Mummy’s birthday today, so of course we are all together. Kit has got leave and Philip has taken time off from college. At breakfast Daddy said, ‘It is such a lovely day. Would you all like to go for a picnic on our boat? That’s if that is what Mummy would like, because it is her birthday.’ We all looked at Mummy and she frowned and shrugged her shoulders, just like Antoinette does when she has to do her music practice when she’d rather be out playing in the garden. We must have looked so disappointed because she burst out laughing and said, ‘Darlings, there is nothing I would like more!’ and we realised she had been teasing us. The girls helped get the food together while the boys went ahead with Daddy to our boat which is moored at Hunters Quay. We had crusty French bread and cheese and hard-boiled eggs, and a whole chicken, and lettuce and tomatoes and nuts and apples, and several bottles of barley water.

  ‘When we got down to the boat, Anthony was so excited he pushed it out while Daddy was standing astride with one foot on the bank and the other on the side of the boat, which is a FORBIDDEN position! Daddy fell in the river. We tried not to laugh because he was cross at first, but Mummy said, ‘That will teach you, my lad, not to do things you tell your children not to do,’ and then he laughed and we all laughed. We had a lovely day and Patrick got very burnt across the shoulders. In the evening we came home and we all sat in the garden talking and sometimes singing. When it was nearly dark we did our speciality, which is The Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly.

  ‘Mummy and Daddy came to say goodnight to Stephanie and me when we were in our beds, and she said it was the happiest birthday she had ever had. We could hear her talking to Daddy and laughing with him for ages in their room.’

  I could see every word of it as clearly as if I was writing it now. As I read it, I began to cry. It was the second time I had cried recently. This was disturbing, because I was the kind of person who doesn’t cry. ‘There is nothing virtuous about it,’ I used to joke. ‘I must have missed out on the equipment.’ The equipment was certainly impaired by lack of use. The tears did not gush out easily, bringing immediate relief; every muscle and sinew in my body must have been clenched tight: what else could explain the terrible struggle which was taking place? She had stood by the window, with her hands clenched at her sides, saying, ‘I will NOT cry!’ I could see her now, small, resolute and uncomplaining; such a brave little girl. When, or how often, this had happened, I could not remember; quite often, perhaps, because practice had made well- nigh perfect. Only a betrayal of the worst sort could breach such a defence. The adult Ruth Saunders turned and savaged that brave little girl. No use saying, ‘I will NOT cry!’ when the will is no longer there; I wanted to cry, I meant to cry, I fought to cry; and the crying was uncontrolled, immature, appalling. I despised myself; I would never feel the same about myself again. But I cried with my whole body, retching, jerking, thrashing about like a demented creature. Punter, who usually came forward to offer sympathy at the first sign of distress, slunk out of the room.

  By the evening my body ached as though it had been beaten and I was so hoarse I could hardly speak. I told my father that I had a virus; I said I had been to the doctor and that he had given me something for it. All my standards were slipping; I told the lie without the slightest compunction.

  I did not sleep much that night. I sat propped up on the pillows, staring out of the window, listening to the night sounds. There was hardly any breeze, but the temperature had dropped and the air was cool against my face. I was able to examine my grief dispassionately. For whom had I been crying? For Imogen and Mummy and Daddy? They were all right, they lived in a world of perpetual understanding, enjoying every day more than the last and getting better looking all the time. Mummy had had flaxen hair plaited on top of her head; the plaits were thick because she had masses of hair. Occasionally she let her hair down and it streamed around her shoulders and she looked as young as her children. Her face was fresh and rosy like a good apple and her intelligent eyes were grey-blue and full of kindness and wisdom.

  Lillian Jacobs had had golden hair; it was strong and thick and when she was young it was so long she could sit on it. She had a skin like a peach and big, appealing grey-blue eyes which were not intelligent or noticeably full of wisdom. I had not wanted another mother; I had only wanted to make a few alterations in the one I had. I lay back, pondering this fact which I had extricated from my grief, not knowing quite what to do with it. Some time around dawn I fell asleep and dreamt of my mother. She was sitting in a deck-chair in the garden, wearing a beautiful filmy dress. Someone was calling to her, someone out of sight, on the far side of the garden wall. I said to her, ‘Aren’t you going?’ Then I saw that she was tied to the chair. I undid the ropes and said, ‘There! You’re free!’ But she only looked at me sadly and stayed where she was.

  When my father had gone to work, I went down to the kitchen, made my breakfast and carried the tray up to my room. Punter was sitting on the landing. He shifted his tail warily when I spoke to him, but he would not come into the bedroom with me. I had lost his trust.

  I sat in bed, wondering about this new, untrustworthy person. Was she safe to be let out? She might do anything, behave oddly in a train, get into trouble in the street.

  I took the tray down to the kitchen and left it there without washing the crockery. I went back to bed, but I was no longer comfortable. My nerves were on edge. I would have to get up. But what should I do, where should I go? I crouched cross-legged on the bed, trying to think. The clock downstairs in the hall chimed ten. As the last chime died away there was a knock on the front door. Too late for the postman, too early for Mrs. James. I was in no state to receive callers. Punter thudded clumsily down the stairs, barking; the caller knocked again and Punter barked again. Then it was quiet. I wondered what to do, where to go.

  A shower of pebbles hit the window. I went to the window and looked down. Dr. Laver stood on the gravel path, his upturned face, framed in a ginger frill of hair and beard, looking grotesquely as though it was born
e on the platter of his shoulders; he appeared to have little else in the way of a body. It occurred to me that he was a figment of my imagination, an unlikely creature I had conjured up to suit some purpose of my own. He said crossly, ‘I knocked on the door and I also rang the bell. Surely you heard?’

  ‘I’m ill. I couldn’t come down.’

  ‘We must talk about this illness of yours.’ He took hold of the ivy and hoisted himself up a few feet, staring at me intently as though he was a climber and I represented the particular place at which he must today pitch camp. Although it was already very hot he was still wearing the striped suit and pink shirt.

  ‘I’m exhausted and sick,’ I protested. ‘What I need is rest.’

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘That is your answer to everything, isn’t it? Anger, aggression; don’t you ever ask yourself why your vocabulary is so aggressive?’

  ‘Exhausted, sick, in need of rest . . . What an anaemic vision you have of yourself.’ He found footholds and hauled himself up higher; his head and shoulders were now just above the level of the ground floor window. He appeared to be unaware either of the ridiculousness or of the danger of his enterprise. I was his present goal and since he saw no other way of reaching me, he was treading ivy.

  I said, ‘I have been to the doctor and he says I am in need of rest.’

  ‘Your life has been wasted up to now and you are angry about it. So you should be.’ He hauled himself up a few more feet. His face was now a little below the level of the window sill.

  ‘You can’t come into my bedroom.’

  ‘Of course I must come into your bedroom. How can I talk to you like this? It’s very uncomfortable.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come. You’ll have to climb down.’

  ‘I never climb down. And anyway, I have a bad head for heights.’ He hooked one arm over the sill and trod more ivy. The ivy wasn’t so thick here and his foot slipped. I grabbed his arm. ‘You’ll have to pull! Participate, for God’s sake, woman!’ I pulled and he strained. A great heave brought his head and shoulders over the sill. Little bits of cement and an old birds’ nest were dislodged and spattered down on to the gravel path. This gave him an attack of vertigo. ‘I’m finished,’ he groaned, still at an angle where it would be easier to fall outwards than inwards. I leant over him and grasped the seat of his trousers. There followed a few moments when it seemed that even if he came in I must go out, then we were both in a heap on the floor. We lay there, panting and breathless, while Punter barked outside the door. Dr. Laver had got himself entangled in my nightdress. ‘It’s all right, Punter,’ I called, while Dr. Laver was freeing us both of the nightdress. ‘Quiet now, good dog.’ Dr. Laver tossed the nightdress over the back of a chair and I got into bed.

  He stood at the end of the bed. ‘You must trust me if I am to help you.’ He looked at me severely with those penetrating eyes. Now that I came to think of it, his range of expression was very limited.

  ‘You’re not real,’ I told him. ‘When you came into the office I said “Dr. Laver, I presume?” I conjured you up.’

  ‘Nonsense. I summoned you, the real Ruth Saunders.’

  ‘I don’t believe you are a psychiatrist at all.’

  ‘In fact, I am a psychiatrist.’ He sounded as though he found this surprising.

  ‘There’s something wrong with you, though.’

  ‘There is even more wrong with you. But I can put that right.’

  The way in which he drove straight at what he wanted, dismissing anything that did not fit into his design as irrelevant, irritated me. I said, ‘I feel at a disadvantage and I’m sure that’s not therapeutic. Perhaps you should undress?’

  ‘If you feel it will help.’ He began to take off his clothes, looking uneasy at thus discarding his persona and unsure what he would find underneath.

  ‘Wherever did you get that suit and shirt?’ I asked.

  ‘I stole them. I steal all my clothes; it’s so much less expensive.’ He took a hanger from the wardrobe and arranged his jacket on it and hung it behind the door, dusting it lightly with his hands. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and folded it fussily before putting it on the dressing-table stool. He reminded me of old men in launderettes folding their washing with obsessive care because they have nothing else to do and nowhere much to go when they have finished; so they fold and smooth and brood on ‘hours, days, months, which are the rags of time’. But at least when eventually they leave they take their washing with them. When he turned towards the bed his clothes were lying in an anonymous heap like articles found abandoned on the sea shore when the swimmer fails to return. He was in bed before I noticed him; there was no sexual anticipation, only a sense of loss and a smell of deprivation.

  No sooner was he at my side, however, than my perception shifted and I had the dizzying sensation that the room was going slightly out of focus. My little fantasy no longer seemed under control. I had the queazy feeling that I had made a mistake which I might not be able to rectify. We sat with our backs against the bed-rest, not touching or looking at each other. In the long wardrobe mirror I could see us sitting side by side, rather prim, and I thought, ‘I can’t believe that this is really happening. If I will hard enough I shall wake up.’

  But our eyes met in the mirror and I felt his eyes drawing me towards an understanding. He said, ‘You are at a crisis, Ruth, and you are calling on me to help you. Isn’t that so?’

  I hated the unclean smell of him and I wondered why I had not noticed it before; the smell was repugnant, yet fascinating.

  He said, ‘All the time that Iris was talking of the apple tree, I was conscious of a depth of pain that was not in Iris.’

  I looked at the heap of clothes on the dressing-table stool and at my nightdress thrown over the back of the chair. A much greater distance than a few carpeted feet seemed to separate me from them.

  He said, ‘You must understand the past if you are to make anything of the present.’

  Is it possible to tiptoe along the corridors of the past, to open doors which have been forbidden, to find that which has been concealed? I looked at Dr. Laver in the mirror and his eyes told me that he had the keys of time and place, that there was nowhere, past and present, where he could not be. A tremor ran through me. I looked at my nightdress again and at his clothes. The thought of the effort which would be necessary to haul myself from his side daunted me; and worse than that was the thought of dressing, going downstairs and talking to Mrs. James when she came, and later to my father when he came, and later still going to the doctor, getting a certificate, eventually going back to work, with nothing to show for it but the smell in my nostrils.

  I looked in the mirror again and now I saw another room and the people in the bed were not Ruth Saunders and Dr. Laver. I closed my eyes. My skin was cold and slimy. I had seen my mother and father, side by side in bed, unanimated, like characters in a play who have taken up their position before curtain rise. I did not dare to look in the mirror again because that would be to ring up the curtain. I knew so little of my parents’ life together, snatches here and there, half-seen, half-understood, nothing more. What could it benefit me to poke and pry, to violate their past? The voice answered, ‘You must understand the past if you are to make anything of the present and to understand the past you must enter into it.’

  I was on the landing. Had I been to the lavatory? It was hard to tell, the whole house smelt like lavatories in a subway. The walls of the corridor ran with damp and the floor was slimy. I moved forward, my hands over my ears because I did not want to hear voices through clenched teeth, laughter springing from sources I could not fathom. Was it night, or was it afternoon, an afternoon when my father was at work and I should have been at school . . .? The voice said, ‘You are still trying to keep control, you must let the images float free.’ I stood in the reeking tunnel; then, like a criminal, I moved stealthily towards the room. Each step I took gave me an increasing feeling of loss and deprivation; I had not known, unti
l I struggled here, that there was so much to lose. The voice said, ‘You are struggling. Let yourself be carried.’ But I could not go on, there was sickness in the pit of my stomach and my limbs were boneless; I stood, terrified of going forward or backward, and while I was thus petrified, the front door bell rang.

  Dr. Laver said, ‘Pay no attention.’

  But the sound was sweet as a church bell to this nearly-lost soul. I opened my eyes and saw my own room reflected in the mirror and Dr. Laver sitting beside me in the bed. ‘What am I doing?’ I thought. ‘I must be out of my mind.’ The door bell rang again and dear Punter barked.

  ‘It may be something important,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing is more important than this.’

  ‘It might even be the doctor called to see how I am.’ I jumped out of bed. The realisation of what I had done came over me; I had let him into my home, into my mind. How could I have been so foolish? His clothes were on the stool. I picked them up and threw them out of the window. He sat bolt upright, staring as though he could not believe me capable of such idiocy.

  ‘Life has moved on since the days of the Aldwych farces, Ruth.’

  ‘If you want them, you’ll have to go after them.’

  ‘I’ve told you I never climb down.’

  The front door opened and Punter squeaked joyfully. Mrs. James said, ‘I expect she’s dozed off. Lucky I came along.’

  I hissed at Dr. Laver, ‘Get out! Get out! You must!’ There were footsteps on the stairs. Suddenly, he was alarmed; he looked furtive and hunted, a new range of expression. He went to the window and peered down. There was a knock on the bedroom door. Mrs. James said, ‘Can I come in, Ruth?’

  ‘No.’ I went to the door and spoke through the crack. ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a friend of yours here to see you.’ Her voice was coy. ‘A gentleman.’

  I opened the door an inch or two. Mrs. James was standing there with Douglas behind her. I said, ‘Give me two minutes.’