MARCH HOUSE Read online

  He drew up a chair and sat close to me. ‘What did you expect?’ He asked the question as though the answer mattered. Whatever his gift for crosstalk, he appeared to have little understanding of small talk.

  ‘I thought you’d be more my idea of a psychiatrist,’ I answered, deliberately mundane.

  ‘Do tell me what your idea is; I should so like to be what you desire.’

  Mrs. Libnitz gave me a look which indicated that disapproval was in order. I rearranged the papers on my desk so that they were not facing him, in case this wasn’t Dr. Laver at all but some lunatic at large, and said, ‘Anxious and uptight, for a start.’

  ‘It’s important to run true to form?’

  ‘Oh, very. Your backers aren’t stable people; an unpredictable psychiatrist would bankrupt some of them.’

  He reached out a hand and for a moment I thought he was going to pick up the case notes, but he said, ‘FELT PENS!’

  I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Do you mind?’ He picked up my notebook and tore a sheet from it. ‘I do so love felt pens. May I use this one? Can you draw Mickey Mouse? I remember a boy at school showing me. A half circle for each ear, then you join them with another larger one, then a curve . . .’ He was sketching a quite passable Mickey Mouse.

  Mrs. Libnitz placed a cup of coffee on the desk in front of him and he acknowledged it earnestly. ‘How enchanting! Thank you so much, that means you have accepted me.’ He looked round the room. ‘Well I suppose it’s better than a haystack in a wet field . . .’ Mrs. Libnitz returned to the switchboard, shutting the door firmly behind her. Dr. Laver winked at me. Through the window I saw Iris walking towards the lane where her car was parked; Mrs. Haines was with her.

  ‘That’s our clinical psychologist,’ I said. ‘Shall I fetch her back?’ Dr. Laver went to the window and watched Iris opening the door of her car. ‘Snow White or the Valkyrie?’

  ‘The smaller of the two is Iris,’ I replied, trying to preserve dignity. ‘She is probably taking Mrs. Haines to the hospital because the bus service is so bad.’

  ‘I don’t think we should condemn poor Mrs. Haines to a long wait for the bus.’

  ‘Iris will probably do visits in town. She may not be in again until tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I can see her tomorrow.’

  ‘Are we having you two days a week? Dr. Arnold only came once.’

  ‘This place has a neglected look.’ He swivelled round and surveyed the room like an actor in an empty auditorium. ‘I feel it needs me. So, whatever happens subsequently, I shall come back tomorrow. Provided I don’t die in the night, of course.’

  ‘We shall be delighted.’

  ‘Shall you? Does delight go with being anxious and—what was the other predictable quality—uptight?’

  ‘We’d be glad of a little delight.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see what we can do about it.’ His beard pointed in my direction. He reacted to the most casual utterance as though it was important which surprised me because in my experience psychiatrists are not very interested in people other than their clients. He said, ‘Delight would not be impossible with that auburn hair and pale skin and although you seem a trifle muted at the moment there was earlier a brightness in your eyes.’

  ‘I wasn’t speaking personally . . .’

  He snapped his fingers. ‘Of course you were speaking personally. How else do we speak?’

  I dislike the personal, so I said, ‘Well, I’d be delighted to be delighted. But I expect what you really want is to see some of the case files.’

  He shrugged. ‘If that is what you want.’

  ‘We’ve got a stack of cases lined up for you.’

  ‘What is your name, auburn-haired lady?’

  ‘Ruth Saunders. Iris Bailey is our clinical psychologist and Douglas Gulliver is our psychiatric social worker. Di Brady is our nurse. They will be so relieved that you have come.’

  ‘What do they expect that I will be able to do that they can’t do?’ He pointed a finger at me. ‘You are blushing, Ruth Saunders! Tell me what you are thinking.’

  ‘Iris doesn’t expect you to do anything she can’t do; neither does Douglas, but he would like the failure to be yours.’ I had had no idea I was going to say this and was surprised to hear the words come out so boldly.

  ‘So, when I see the clients there will be more of Douglas’s because Iris will hold hers back?’

  ‘No, you will see more of Iris’s clients because she considers they are more important; and because Douglas feels guilty about wanting to get rid of his.’

  ‘What does Di think?’

  ‘It won’t worry her either way.’

  ‘And you? Who do you think I should see, Ruth?’

  ‘How can I say?’

  ‘False modesty. The clinic secretary always knows better than anyone else. Fetch the papers and tell me which eight clients you would take on your desert island. That way we shall cover the first month.’

  ‘It won’t be popular.’

  ‘Nothing about the way I shall conduct this clinic will be popular.’

  I laughed. There was something untoward about Dr. Laver to which I responded.

  ‘Your face changes when you laugh. There is another, less careful person, that takes over. There now! She’s gone. Why?’

  ‘I don’t want to be taken over by anyone.’

  ‘Mmmh . . . Well, tell me about these . . .’ He flipped a finger up the side of the pile of papers I had produced.

  He listened without intervening while I talked. When I had finished telling him about the cases, I saw that he had drawn up an appointments list for the coming weeks. The list was not one which would commend itself to either Iris or Douglas; and it was not the list which I would have drawn up if it had been left to me.

  ‘Do you have a principle that you work on?’ I asked, interested to know how these people came to find themselves in the same company: autocratic old Mrs. Mapleton who disdainfully resisted all attempts to make life more tolerable for her; Josie Wilmer who forgot everything including her husband; Angus Brodie, the urbane, wife-beating civil servant; and Don Knight who fought for the rights of the workers but made his wife negotiate each week for her pay.

  ‘Principles are very dull, don’t you agree? I’m more effective if I’m interested—at least, I stay awake then. You look shocked. I suppose Iris and Douglas would be shocked, too? I always forget how seriously the lower orders take these matters.’

  ‘The lower orders!’ I thought of Iris who secretly believed that psychiatrists were redundant.

  ‘Mrs. Brodie is too long-suffering to be credible, don’t you think?’ He was turning over the case notes. ‘I wonder how she makes out in her dream life.’

  This did not seem to call for comment.

  ‘Do you talk with the clients while they are waiting, Ruth?’

  ‘If they seem to want it.’

  ‘I’m sure you are very good at it.’ He looked at me in a way which I found disturbing; the eyes knew nothing of the reserves which govern most adult exchanges. He said, ‘Perhaps you can introduce the subject of dreams. Tell Mrs. Brodie about your own.’

  ‘I don’t have dreams.’

  He looked at me, his head to one side. ‘I don’t have dreams,’ he mimicked. ‘We don’t have nasty things in our night life.’

  ‘Nice or nasty, I don’t have them.’

  ‘Someone has them. Who is it, then, if it’s not you, this other person you have around at night whom you won’t acknowledge in the daytime?’

  ‘I don’t dream.’ I was beginning to feel exhausted and it was all I could trust myself to say.

  ‘Do you think you might manage to invent a dream or two to tell Mrs. Brodie?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Doesn’t dream, not inventive, very stubborn.’

  This was too much. Tears came into my eyes. He was not embarrassed but observed me steadily. I have never cried in public before. For an appalling moment we gazed at each oth
er and shared my crying. His eyes regarded me with an understanding unclouded by sentimentality. I found this unforgivable. Like most people, I wanted to be understood on my own terms, not unconditionally. He put his hands on my shoulders and said, ‘Bless you, my child, there’s nothing to be upset about; I’ll soon have you dreaming nasty dreams like everyone else.’

  I ran out of the room. In the cloakroom I cried for a little and then studied my face in the mirror. I had never been very concerned with my appearance and was not quite sure whether the present image of a pale, thin face with strained pink eyes did me justice or not. It didn’t seem a promising subject for delight. There had been a lot to do over the last few weeks and it must have tired me more than I had realised because it took several minutes for me to calm myself. When I came out of the cloakroom he was at the reception hatch talking to Mrs. Libnitz. He had found the invitation from Miss Maud and Mrs. Libilitz was telling him how to get to the Mill House. ‘. . . or you can just walk across the fields . . .’

  I waited in the doorway to my room for Dr. Laver to return, but he picked up a small suitcase which he appeared to have left in the hall and went out of the main door. Mrs. Libnitz and I watched him turn into the lane where presumably he had left his car.

  Mrs. Libnitz said, ‘In England you have a saying, “mad as a March hare”, yes?’

  Chapter Four

  It had been a hard winter and it was a particular joy to see the green shoots appearing, the leaves still clenched tight about the buds. Eleanor had come for the week-end to look through Mother’s things to see whether there was anything she would like to keep. The garden tempted her, however, and she went out to help my father.

  ‘You must tell me what to do,’ she said, which pleased him.

  Lethargy had seized me this week-end and it was an effort to move; so I sat on the grass with Punter and watched the two of them.

  Eleanor wore a brown tweed skirt and a Fair Isle sweater; this was not her usual style, yet the garments had the look of being well-worn. Her shoes were sensible and she had gardening gloves which were undoubtedly new. It was apparent to me, if not to my father, that she had planned this week-end with the garden in mind.

  ‘I worked so hard on the garden for Lillian,’ my father said, resting a foot on his spade and looking down at the turned earth. He looked baffled. Yet when she was alive he had sought no explanation but seemed to accept their differences philosophically. It was she who became angry and made demands.

  ‘Lillian was restless,’ Eleanor said without looking up from her weeding. ‘When she was in London she wanted to escape, and when she was in the country she wanted to get back to London.’

  ‘I wondered sometimes if I had made a mistake coming here.’ He turned his head to look over the garden wall at the long view of fields and scattered trees. ‘Whether it was too isolated . . .’

  Eleanor sat back on her haunches, thinking; apparently she decided to offer no comfort for she picked up the trowel and absently uprooted a columbine without my father noticing.

  ‘I may have been selfish,’ he conceded tentatively, as though exploring a nerve to see if it would jump.

  ‘I think you probably were,’ Eleanor replied. ‘But not more than most men.’

  He began to dig again. ‘It wasn’t always easy for me, Eleanor.’

  That was what Douglas had said to me about Charlotte, I thought. Eleanor took it in her stride. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose it was.’

  ‘She had no idea of the pressure under which I work. I tried to make her understand that gardening was the only way I could relax. But I have been wondering lately whether I should have tried to get out a little more with her.’ Eleanor came across another columbine and hesitated.

  ‘That’s a columbine, Eleanor,’ I murmured. They are such graceful things, I could not bear to see them all savaged. She eased round and furtively extricated the uprooted columbine from the pile of weeds.

  ‘But once you start that kind of thing in the country it tends to snowball,’ my father said. ‘You have to make a decision from the start whether to socialise or not.’

  Eleanor replanted the columbine and pressed the earth around it with the flat of her gloved hand.

  I wanted to stop my father talking about Mother. In the past when he had come home obviously tired after a day’s work I had understood his longing to find peace and quiet at home and I had sympathised with him when Mother created tensions. But there was no need for him to defend himself in this way: it made his behaviour seem arguable.

  ‘Miss Maud came into the office last week,’ I said to change the conversation.

  My father said, ‘She sent a wreath, that was kind of her.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that. I don’t think I’ve got her name on the list.’

  Eleanor asked, ‘Is she the dotty one who lives in the Mill House?’

  ‘I don’t know that she’s dotty.’ I felt a need to stand up for Miss Maud. ‘She just lives the way she wants to.’

  ‘To do that you have to be mad or rich,’ Eleanor said bitterly.

  ‘I don’t think Miss Maud is rich. I think that one day she simply decided not to try to please people any more.’

  ‘They were a bad family,’ my father said. ‘The old man was very harsh.’

  ‘He let me pick the mulberries. I went into the house. I wonder what it’s like now.’ I was very interested although I had not given it a thought until recently. A picture of the hushed, old-fashioned room, shaded by the vine, came into my mind.

  ‘I wouldn’t talk to anyone but you like this, of course,’ my father was saying to Eleanor. ‘You were very close to her.’

  Eleanor ran her hand slowly along her thigh. He was talking without giving thought to what he said, but she was thinking as carefully as though she was taking an oral examination. Eventually, she said, ‘We weren’t alike, Stewart.’ She was very composed and even now, when she was wrecking the flower border, she had the air of being effective. But her plain, rather heavy face was not happy. On reflection, I didn’t think I had ever seen Eleanor when she looked happy. She had always looked as though she was making the best of things. She had lived a different life to her sister’s but seemed to have ended up as unsatisfied and less hopeful.

  ‘You work,’ my father said. ‘So you understand what it’s like to come home at night wanting to relax.’

  ‘I have to come home at night and do the housework.’

  ‘Oh? Mmmh . . .’ He frowned severely at the flower border. He seemed affronted that she should lay claim to problems of her own. ‘Don’t take up too many of the foxgloves. I like to keep some of them.’

  She sat looking down at a fat worm wriggling in the turned earth; she studied it as though she was completely absorbed by it, mind and body concentrated and disciplined.

  My father walked along the border inspecting it. He said, ‘For all I know you may be an excellent business woman, Eleanor; but you are no gardener.’

  She stood up and brushed earth off her skirt. I think she was annoyed, because she had worked hard and deserved rather more than that; but she said pleasantly, ‘How about a cup of tea?’

  ‘Ah, now you are talking!’

  When she had gone into the house he said to me, ‘She hasn’t the slightest idea what she’s doing. Look at this!’ He sounded pleased rather than annoyed.

  After tea they worked in the garden until it was nearly dark and I took Punter for a walk. The Mill House was to the north of our house and some miles east of March House. I walked along a cart track to where there was a view of it across the flat fields. This did not please Punter who was very conservative and expected to be taken down to the river in the evening. There was one light on in a downstairs room in the Mill House. I wondered what Miss Maud did in the evening. It occurred to me that I should have thanked her for sending a wreath when I saw her at the clinic. Punter snuffled half-heartedly at rabbit holes and an old grey horse ambled across the field and put his head over the hedge; I
rubbed his nose and he pressed against my hand, grateful for company. I wondered whether Dr. Laver would accept Miss Maud’s invitation to a glass of wine next Wednesday. Punter pushed his head against my leg, agitated because he did not understand what we were doing here. I turned and walked him briskly in the direction of the river. Dr. Laver was going to make a difference to the clinic. Douglas had said he thought he would get things moving, and Iris had said he would be stimulating; but they had both seemed a little uneasy. I was uneasy, too. For years I had known exactly what to expect each day when I went into the office and although this was sometimes boring there was a comfort in the unvarying routine. There is much to be said for comfort.

  When Punter and I came up the lane from the river my father was standing at the gate waiting for us. ‘You were out a long time,’ he said.

  ‘You mustn’t fuss me.’

  ‘You’ll have to bear with me. You are all I’ve got now.’

  We went indoors. Eleanor had offered to cook the evening meal and we ate in the kitchen, the door open and the smell of turned earth and damp grass giving a feeling of satisfaction to the gardeners. Eleanor was a good cook and we enjoyed the meal. While she and I washed up my father talked about the Home Secretary, and the burden of working with a man who had so little grasp of the affairs of his Department; he talked about the problems created by the media and Lord Longford; about the incompetence of prison governors and the indulgence of prisoners. It was unusual for him to talk about his office. When we had finished washing up he said that we had all worked so hard he thought we should have brandy with our coffee. He seemed to want to please Eleanor and to put her in her place at the same time. When we were drinking our coffee, he said:

  ‘What exactly is it you are doing now, Eleanor?’

  ‘I’m personnel officer at the Armitage Life Assurance Company.’