Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis (48 page)

She was clad in a grubby elasticised white bathing suit. Her bare feet were thrust into a pair of silver evening sandals which might have been her mother's, so large were they. She rose to her feet lithely, and began to teeter along in the grotesque shoes, looking, for all the world, Susan thought, like Minnie Mouse.

Suddenly her amusement changed to pity. There she was, poor child, about the same age as she had been on that far morning of sparkling light and infinite airiness, but doomed to spend the day in a noisy prison of stone and brick. It was all wrong! No child should be forced to endure this claustrophobic squalor!

For that matter, no one—child or adult—should have to endure such conditions.

The memory of the snowdrops, the memory of Miss Davis, the memory of the calves and the emptiness beyond their endearing heads, flooded back to Susan. Why not go back?

She knew in her heart that these two worlds still existed side by side—the small and the limitless. Too long she had suffered from being penned. It was time to find her true self again, and for that she must have space and air and beauty.

It could be done. She could give in her notice tomorrow, telephone to her mother and ask if she could come for a week or two's holiday. She knew how joyously she would be welcomed. Who knows? She might find that job in Caxley after all.

But that was in the distance. All that mattered immediately was to escape—to put her affairs in order, in this swarming filthy ant-hill she had once thought so glamorous, and to find quietness and space for the survival of her body and mind.

Perhaps that had been the secret of Miss Davis's strength, she thought suddenly. She went at her own pace, and had time to relish all the lovely natural things in Springbourne and thereabouts. And when the occasion arose, that happiness, fed by inner serenity, could succour the weak and give, as Susan could so poignantly recall, strength and heart to those who needed it.

She went into the bedroom and began to pack in readiness for a longer stay at home than usual. She was not going to make up her mind one way or the other. No doubt London would pull her back before long, just as Springbourne tugged her now with an urgency her starved spirit must obey.

But she would go forward with her immediate plans. Her spirits rose as she moved about her work in the sultry heat. Soon she would be out on the windy hills above Springbourne, where the small happy ghost of Emily Davis had beckoned her.

Her mind raced ahead. She saw herself at the booking office in the deafening and dirty London terminus. Aloud, she rehearsed the words:

'Single to Caxley!'

A
WEEK
or two after Emily's funeral, Doctor Martin sat in his surgery at Beech Green, awaiting the first of the clay's patients.

The morning was warm and rather close for October, and the windows looking on to his garden were wide open. A bed of mixed roses stood immediately below the windows, and in the quietness the doctor could hear a blackbird busily scrabbling the earth for worms. Now and again a delicious whiff of the roses' scent wafted into the room, giving the old man much pleasure. His love of roses grew greater as the years passed.

He glanced at the silver clock on the mantelpiece. Ninethirty. Time he opened shop, he told himself.

He smoothed his grey hair and opened the door into the little waiting room. Not many today, thank heaven. Fine weather cut his queue by half. It was in January and February that extra chairs had to be put in the waiting room.

'Good morning! Good morning!' said Doctor Martin cheerfully.

'Good morning,' replied his sufferers, with varying degrees of joy.

Doctor Martin consulted his list.

'Mrs Petty?'

A stout young woman rose, carrying a toddler, and followed Doctor Martin into the surgery. She was, in fact, Miss Petty, but the birth of Gloria, who now accompanied her, accounted for the change to a married title.

The Pettys were a large family, originating in Caxley. They ran to fat, were short-necked and inclined to respiratory diseases. They were also good-tempered, happy-go-lucky and quite incapable of keeping to any diet prescribed by their various doctors for weight reduction.

'Well now, what's the trouble?' asked the doctor kindly.

It appeared that Gloria's 'summer cold' refused to go. She complained of a sore throat, and had a stubborn cough which grew worse at night.

'Let's have a look,' said Doctor Martin, fishing the spatula from a glass of disinfectant.

Gloria began to wail.

'Give over, do!' begged her mother. 'And open your mouth.'

Doctor Martin expertly held down the child's tongue during one of the lulls in her whimpering.

'Tastes nasty!' whined the child when the instrument was removed.

'Maybe,' said the doctor amiably. 'I should think most things taste nasty with that throat.'

He pressed her neck glands, and then took out his stethoscope. After the examination, he sat at his desk and wrote the prescriptions.

'Now, this one is for tablets which she must suck slowly. Not more than six a day, mind you. Read the label carefully. You can read, Mrs Petty?'

The question was asked casually. There were still several people among Doctor Martin's patients who were unable to read despite a century of compulsory education.

'A bit,' replied Mrs Petty

'Not more than six during the twenty-four hours. They should settle the infection.'

He held up the second slip of paper.

'This is the cough cure recipe. A teaspoonful when it is troublesome.'

She took the two papers almost reverently, and put them carefully inside a dilapidated patent leather handbag. She was about to leave when Doctor Martin motioned her to the chair again.

'This child's tonsils want attention. Bring her back in a fortnight. And her teeth have caries—are going bad. That means the second ones may be infected. She's having too many sweets, Mrs Petty. Cut them out.'

'But she likes a bit of chocolate! Her gran brings her a bar every day!'

'Ask her to bring an apple instead. Chocolate will rot her teeth and make her too fat. She's overweight now. You're storing up trouble for the future, if you don't feed her properly. We've talked about this before.'

'Well, I'll try,' said Mrs Petty grudgingly, 'but it's her gran you ought to talk to.'

'Are you still working?' asked the doctor, showing her to the door.

'Every afternoon,' said the woman, her eyes brightening. 'Down the new fish shop. It pays for me bingo, Mondays.'

'D'you take the child too?'

'No, Gran comes up. I leaves a bit of tea for 'em both.'

Doctor Martin had seen those teas once or twice. Bought pies, packets of crisps, sliced wrapped bread, glutinous shop jam and a pot of well-stewed tea. Not a ha'p'orth of nourishmerit in the lot! Even the milk was tinned. He had seen the opened tin standing on the table, with a large blow-fly in attendance.

'See the child gets eggs, fresh milk, some meat and plenty of fruit,' said Doctor Martin for the hundredth time. 'She needs building up.'

He opened the door, and Mrs Petty made her departure.

'Building up,' she echoed, when she gained the lane. 'He's gettin' past it. Says the kid's too fat and then, in the next breath, wants buildin' up.'

'Can I have an ice-cream?' cried the child, as the village shop came in sight. 'Can I, mum? Can I?'

'I'll see. Doctor only said: "No sweets." Yes, all right. I'll get you a lolly, love.'

She felt quite sure an ice-cream wouldn't hurt her. After all, mothers always knew best.

***

Doctor Martin worked his way steadily down the list of patients. There were a few unexpected visitors among them, such as Joe Melly the shepherd, who had nicked the top off a troublesome spot on his wrist, and who now had a fat shiny hand which throbbed painfully, and a dangerous red line creeping up his arm.

There was seventeen-year-old Dicky Potts, with yet another boil to be lanced. There was garrulous Mrs Twist, who enjoyed fainting fits when life became too much for her—or she was getting the worst of an argument. Jane Austen would have diagnosed the vapours. Doctor Martin could do little more. There were the two youngest children of Minnie Pringle, smothered in spots, hot, flushed and tearful, with furred
tongues and high temperatures, who were despatched to bed promptly by the old doctor.

'And I'll call in on my rounds,' he told scatter-brained Minnie, who stood looking more like a bewildered hen than ever. 'They've got measles. You should have had more sense than to bring them out, Minnie.'

Might as well talk to a brick wall, he told himself, watching the trio depart up the lane.

'Who's next?' he asked of the two or three remaining patients. Mrs Barber, a comparative newcomer to Beech Green, rose with her daughter, a fair-haired schoolgirl, and the two followed Doctor Martin into his surgery.

'What's the trouble?' asked Doctor Martin of the mother. She gazed at him in silence and, to his dismay, her mouth began to tremble and her eyes fill with tears.

The doctor turned to the girl who was looking at her mother with mingled impatience and disgust.

'Are you the patient?'

'I s'pose so,' the girl shrugged.

Mrs Barber produced a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily.

'We think she's in trouble,' she said tremulously. There was only one condition which was described to Doctor Martin in these terms.

'Then I'd better ask you a few questions,' said the old man gently.

He put them simply, and the girl replied in an off-hand way. Obviously, the mother was more upset than the daughter.

'Lie on the couch,' directed Doctor Martin, 'and we'll have an examination. There's nothing to fear.'

When it was over, and the suspicions confirmed, the doctor told them that the baby would be born early in March, and gave them the address of the ante-natal clinic. He was kind and uncensorious, doing his best, by being completely matter-of-fact, to ease the tension of the unhappy situation.

'Perhaps you would wait outside a moment, while your mother has a word with me,' he said.

When the girl had departed, the mother's tears began to flow again.

'The shame of it! Only sixteen—barely seventeen when the baby comes—and no father! What will the neighbours think? We've given her everything she wants, tried to bring her up nice, and now look what's happened!'

Doctor Martin let her run on in this vein until she had had her outburst.

'Did you explain the facts of life to the child?'

'Well, no. It's so embarrassing, isn't it? You know, it never seems the right moment. Anyway, the school should teach her that these days.'

'These days,' said the doctor, 'are much the same as any other days. Parents still have duties towards their children.'

'I blame her Gran,' said Mrs Barber, sniffing. 'She was supposed to go there straight after school on the days I was working. She never bothered if Audrey was late. I bet all this happened then.'

'And how old is her grandmother?' asked Doctor Martin mildly.

'Eighty—but very healthy.'

Doctor Martin felt some sympathy with this absent and elderly scape-goat, and said so.

'It's no good casting round for someone to blame,' he continued. 'You know the situation—it's all too common, unfortunately—and you must all make the best of it as a family.'

'That boy'll have to marry her,' said Mrs Barber fiercely.

'If he loves her, he'll want to,' agreed the doctor, 'but I can't see anyone benefiting from a shot-gun wedding, least of all your daughter and the baby.'

He patted the woman on the shoulder, and walked with her to the door.

'Say as little as you can to her until you've had time to cool down. You'll say things you'll regret all your life if you are too hasty now. Look after that girl of yours. She needs all the help she can get, silly child, and you're the one she'll turn to, if you'll let her.'

He watched the two depart, and beckoned his last patient into the surgery.

Elaine Burton was fifty-two, as Doctor Martin knew well, but she might have been sixty-two from her haggard looks. Her husband worked at a printer's in Caxley and her two children also worked there. They were unmarried and still lived at home.

Mrs Burton's main problem was her old mother, now nearly ninety, who lived with them. Brought up in a strict Victorian way, the old lady remained a martinet despite failing health. Her daughter, acting as buffer between the demands of the younger generation and the old, came off worst in the household, as Doctor Martin knew well.

'I think I need a tonic,' said his patient wearily. 'I'm tired all day, and when I get to bed I can't sleep. Mother needs seeing to at least twice in the night, and I think I've got into the habit of being on the alert all night. It's really getting me down, Doctor Martin.'

He surveyed the woman with an expert eye. She had been pretty once. He remembered her as a young woman with her first baby. She had been trim and lively, with soft dark hair, and a quick smile which revealed dimples.

Now she was running to fat, and was pale and listless. Blue smudges under her eyes bore testimony to lack of sleep. Her hair was lank, her neck decidedly grubby. Her whole bearing spoke of exhaustion and self-neglect.

'I'll put you on some iron tablets,' said the doctor, drawing his pad towards him. It was plain that the woman was anaemic and over-worked.

'How's your appetite?'

'I don't fancy much. By the time I've spooned mother's food into her, I don't want my own.'

'Do you have a cooked meal?'

'When the others get home, but I don't really want it then.'

'Milk? Eggs?'

'I could never take them, even as a child.'

The old doctor sighed. Here was yet another case of the dying sapping the living, but what could one do?

'And how is your mother?'

'To be honest, a terrible trial, doctor.'

'Can't your brother have her for a while? To give you a break?'

Mrs Burton snorted.

'He's under his Ethel's thumb, and she refuses point-blank to give any help with ma. Besides, ma hates her like poison. It would never do.'