The Long Corridor Page 2

  He looked to the left of him now, to the façade of his own house. Houses would be a better description, for Romfield House was really three houses knocked into one. Romfield House had begun when his grandfather, who had a taggerine business, made prosperous by the inhabitants of Bog’s End, had bought the four-roomed, Georgian-fronted house in Romfield Square, which in those far-off days was on the fringe of Fellburn and not yet included in the vicinity of Bog’s End. And it was in this house that his grandfather, the ambitious scrap dealer, had fostered his own son’s desire to become a doctor. And when that son qualified he had bought him part of a practice in the best end of Fellburn. He had also, through time, bought the two houses adjoining his own—just as a business proposition this. But his doctor son had other ideas, and the outcome of these ideas was that the three houses were turned into one. And later, he brought his practice to the house in which he had grown up.

  In due course Doctor Higgins did for his son Paul what his own father had done for him; he encouraged him in the way he wanted to go, and eventually, during the last years of his life, he had the reward of working side by side with his son and imbuing in him a love not only for his work but also for practising it from this house. But such loves have a way of dissipating themselves. Scanning the quarried stone façade of his house the doctor told himself it was well overdue for a clean-up, but he would have to see the Reverend Conway about getting those iron railings mended, where they were attached to his end wall. These iron railings hemmed in the dilapidated drunken-headstone cemetery, and the equally dilapidated but sober St Matthew’s church.

  This then was the Square. The Technical College along one side, the refrigeration plant along another; then the Salvation Army and the Church of England, with Dr Paul Hugh Higgins’ house in between them. These formed Romfield Square, a part of Fellburn that had now become attached to the slum of Bog’s End. Not a desirable residence, many thought, for a doctor. But although he dwelt more happily in its past association than he did in the present, he still felt himself at one with its surroundings, rough, even grim though they were, and with the inhabitants who were herded, even in new council flats, beyond the Square—the inhabitants who were part rough, part gentle; cunning, honest; bad, yet good. He felt one with them because he knew he had every recognised trait within himself.

  He inhaled deeply again, turned his gaze from where the moon was creeping behind the group of chimneys on the Technical College and went back across the courtyard, through the door marked ‘Surgery’, which he locked behind him, across the waiting room and entered the house proper through the door marked ‘Private’. Here he stepped into another hall; a smaller hall this one, oak-panelled and warm looking. The red carpet covering the floor continued up the shallow oak stairway that rose from the far end, and after the stark lighting of the waiting room the wall lighting of the hall lent a mellowness which was reflected from the two gilt mirrors flanking a side table and the various pieces of brass dotted here and there.

  Having washed his hands in a cloakroom to the right of the staircase, he went into the room opposite which he called the drawing room but which his wife referred to as the lounge.

  His wife was sitting in a deep couch before the fire. She did not turn her head on his approach, nor did he look at her on his way towards the fire. Their lives had been separate for so long that each could pretend that the other wasn’t there. But it was a pretence, and both of them were vitally aware of it, bitterly, irritatingly aware of it.

  He leant his forearm against the edge of the high marble mantelpiece, the mantelpiece that she had wanted ripped out. He had stood firm against this as against most of the changes that would make the old house appear naked; you can’t dress granite and oak up in pearl-grey paint and frills. He stood staring down into the fire for fully five minutes before, his irritation rising, he lifted his head and looked up at the large oil painting of his father hanging above the mantel and said, ‘Well, what about the meal?’

  ‘It’s waiting for you; it’s on the hotplate.’ Her voice sounded controlled, like that of someone trying not to lose her temper.

  Still looking at the picture he asked, ‘Has Lorna eaten?’

  ‘Yes she has. It’s too late to keep her waiting for a meal until seven o’clock.’

  He didn’t ask, ‘And you?’ for knowing that he hated to have his meals alone she would purposely have taken hers earlier.

  Paul turned from the fire and looked at his wife. He looked at her deliberately, as if trying to find something that had escaped him. It wasn’t the first time he had done this, and it wasn’t the first time he had told himself that he had always disliked little women. There was something, to say the very least, irritating about them. They were like little men, pushing, forcing the issue. Anything to make themselves felt, making up in aggressiveness their lack of inches. But of the two, give him little men before little women, with their grim determination and their ruthlessness. Yet these qualities were, he supposed, what usually made little women the best mothers and enabled them to rear successful families.

  From the couch Beatrice Higgins raised her eyes, then dropped her glance quickly away from her husband’s scrutiny. She couldn’t think of anything in this world that she detested so much as his face, his square face. Everything about it looked square; his mouth, his nostrils, even his eyes, the grey eyes that at one time had held a certain fascination for her. His strong sandy hair, as yet devoid of grey, did nothing to enhance his features. If she disliked anything more than his face it was his body, his big lumbering body. Big hands, big feet, chest like a bull. He was all bullish. A big, unthinking, uncouth bull. It was hard to believe that he was only forty-three, seven years older than herself. He could be twenty years older. Her thinking moved along a tangent—he could live another twenty years, perhaps thirty. Even the thought was unbearable and brought her upwards.

  As she stooped to gather up her magazines from the couch she said, ‘When you’re finished put the dishes in the sink in some soapy water.’

  ‘Put the dishes…What do you mean?’

  Bett straightened up and, looking at him over her shoulder, said briefly, ‘Helen’s gone!’

  ‘Helen’s gone?’

  ‘Yes. And for goodness’ sake don’t keep repeating everything I say.’

  There was a dull red glow creeping up beneath his skin. Her manner of speaking to him had the power to infuriate him. ‘Well, be more explicit.’ His voice was a low growl. ‘Then I won’t have to repeat what you say. Why has she gone?’

  ‘Because I told her to…Now go on and say, “You told her to?”’ She moved her head further around and watched him grind his teeth. ‘She used foul language to me, so I had no other option, she had to go. Her Bog’s End education hadn’t been neglected.’

  ‘You were damned glad to get her. You never could keep a maid. And now when you can’t get help for love or money you go and…’

  ‘I go and dismiss her. Yes, and I’ll do the same with your precious Maggie very shortly, so I’m warning you.’ Now she was facing him, the pale skin of her face seeming to be pulled taut across her small bones, her blue eyes dark, giving evidence of rage.

  ‘You just do that. You put your hackles on Maggie and that will be one time when you have gone too far.’

  ‘If I catch her red-handed I’ll dismiss her, and you can do what you damned well like. She’s been robbing me for years, carting away stuff every night, packing it round her. Her bust is twice as big at night as it is in the morning.’

  ‘Robbing you, did you say?’ His voice was deceptively cool. ‘Who pays for the stuff that Maggie takes, eh? I ask you that. Now you listen to me.’ He was growling again as he stabbed his index finger slowly towards her. ‘When my mother was alive she always saw that Maggie’s basket was filled at night, but when you took over everything was changed. But with Maggie, habits die hard. She’s always had it and she always will. She knows that I know she has her whack, so I’m warning you, leave her alone.’
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  They stared at each other for some considerable time in weighty silence. Then Bett, moving her head slowly and her features twisting as if in pain, said, ‘My God, Paul, one of these days I’ll get you where I want you. I don’t know how but I feel sure in here—’ she placed her clenched fist on her breast, ‘I feel sure that you’ll be delivered into my hands some time or other, and then I’ll make up for everything you’ve put me through. Remember that.’ She gave a short, sharp bounce to her head, then turned from him.

  As she made to leave the room there came the sound of the front doorbell ringing, and she went into the hall banging the door after her.

  Paul turned and looked down into the fire. He was shaking slightly with the force of his feelings. He had no doubt that his wife meant every word she said, and did she but know it the weapon was ready to her hand. He turned his head sharply to the sound of her voice, high and pleasant sounding now, coming from the hall, exclaiming, ‘Jenny. Why, where have you sprung from? Why didn’t you give me a ring?’

  When he heard the answering voice he made hastily across the room and, pulling the door open, he too became a different being.

  ‘Hello, Jinny.’ He always called his wife’s cousin Jinny, never Jenny. ‘Aw, it’s good to see you. Why didn’t you let us know? I’d have met you. Get yourself in.’ He pushed the tall woman into the drawing room.

  ‘Give me your hat.’ Bett spoke to her cousin as she extended her hand, and Jenny Chilmaid, laughing, pulled it from her head, saying as she did so, ‘I’m going to burn it.’

  ‘And not before time I’d say.’ Bett looked down at the hat in her hand, and she rumpled it. Then almost skipping across the room, she cried, ‘Come on, sit down…Sit down.’

  Bett Higgins now appeared a pretty, vivacious creature, with sparkling blue eyes and a manner that seemed to set her whole body alight. She moved her hands when she talked, running them girlishly through her short, dark, glossy hair. The doctor’s wife was acting at this moment as she always did when pleasantly excited. No-one seeing her thus could imagine any other side to her—no-one, that is, except the two people in the room, her husband and her cousin.

  Jenny Chilmaid was the opposite in every way to Bett. To begin with she was five foot ten, and thin with it. Her clothes hung on her as they would from a wire coat-hanger. Her face, like her body, was long, but unlike it, it was in proportion in that it had a good bone formation. Her straight-lipped, wide mouth, a fine pair of deep brown eyes, and a head of tow-coloured hair, drawn straight back from her forehead into a bun in the nape of her neck, would undoubtedly have given her some claim to attractiveness, if it hadn’t been for her main feature, her nose. This took the pattern of her body, being much too long and too shapeless to escape comment. When people looked at Jenny Chilmaid they looked at her nose. Bett was looking at it now as she said, ‘Tell me, what’s happened? Are you on holiday? Where’ve you come from today? From Havant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you let us know?’

  ‘Oh, well. It’s a long story.’ Jenny smiled from one to the other before pursing her mouth and adding, ‘And I could do with…’

  ‘A cup of tea.’ Both Bett and Paul ended the sentence for her, and it appeared as if there was no dissent between them. As they all laughed, Paul said, ‘And a cup of tea you’ll have, Jinny. And in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. That’s if you keep all your news till I get back. I won’t be a minute.’

  He, too, was changed. As if a boy had come alive in his large frame, he hurried out of the room, and as he did so Bett sat down on the couch beside Jenny. Then emitting a sigh that relaxed her, she said, ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘And you.’

  ‘Have you finished that job?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenny briefly.

  ‘Good, then you can stay for a while.’

  Bett sounded sincere, and she was, for Jenny was always helpful. She would be a godsend with Helen gone. And what was more, life was always easier when she was around the place. She had a way of anticipating your thoughts, at least about chores and the grind of running a house. Added to this she acted as a buffer between her and Paul. ‘Come on,’ she said now, ‘tell me about everything.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to go over it twice, Bett. Wait until Paul comes back, eh?’

  Bett raised one shoulder; then she looked from under lowered lids at her cousin. She fancied she sensed a change in her, but she couldn’t quite lay a finger on what it was. She still had that quiet withdrawn look, not a reserve—there was nothing in her to reserve. She had worked out her cousin’s character years ago—there was neither high passion nor low cunning in Jenny. She was a neutral; fitted for the things she did best; nursing people and doing tiresome odd jobs unobtrusively. Now and again she thought it was a pity she hadn’t married. But then she wouldn’t, would she, looking as she did? Still it was an ill wind, and she was glad to see her at this moment. And the big fellow was always more civil when she was about. He always wanted to rate good with Jenny…the kind, considerate doctor.

  ‘How are things with you?’ Jenny rested her cheek on the back of the couch and watched Bett reach out and take a cigarette from the box on the table to the side of her, and pat it on the back of her hand before saying, ‘That’s a silly question to ask.’

  ‘Well, it’s eight months since I saw you; a lot could happen in eight months.’

  ‘What! Between me and him? Could you imagine anything good happening between us?’

  ‘Aw, Bett, it could if you tried.’

  Bett struck the lighter, then applied it slowly to her cigarette, and she drew on it once before she slanted her eyes towards Jenny, saying, ‘I stopped trying years ago. I’ve told you before I’m not the humble type to go crawling. I tried it once and I was kicked in the teeth.’

  Turning her head towards the fire, Jenny said very slowly, ‘I’ve thought a lot about you both over these past few months, and you know, Bett, I’m sure if you had talked to Paul in the first place everything would have straightened—’

  ‘Shut up, Jenny.’ Bett bounced to her feet. ‘Look, you haven’t been in the house a minute, it isn’t like you to bring this up. What’s the matter with you? Anyway, you know better than anyone that the pattern was cut years ago and nothing can alter it. He goes his way, I go mine.’

  ‘And Lorna?’

  ‘Lorna is fifteen, Jenny.’ Bett’s voice was quiet now. ‘In two to three years’ time she could be married, and that will be the end of that.’

  They held each other’s gaze. Then Bett, her glance dropping away, reseated herself on the couch and there followed an awkward silence until Jenny said, ‘How is she? I’m dying to see her.’

  ‘Oh. In appearance pretty much the same as when you last saw her. I can see no change in her, outwardly at least, but she’s reaching the difficult stage. Yet that’s to be expected, I suppose. Her mind’s on sex at the moment.’ She thrust one slim leg out as if kicking something away. ‘How anyone can want their schooldays back is beyond me. Talk about a breeding ground of false values. When I listen to her prattling on I could explode. But’—she gave a mirthless laugh—‘her dream-world was a bit shattered last week. One of the girls in the fifth form—not in the sixth, mind you—got herself pregnant. It’s Fay Baldock. You know the Baldocks…the chemists. He’s got a chain of shops now. Well you can imagine how Poppa Baldock reacted when the father-to-be was discovered to be a seventeen-year-old grammar school boy whose family live up in the Venus block, near the pit. Really, the Baldocks have my sympathy, for there’s nothing to choose between the lot that live in the Venus block and the Bog’s End crowd…Bog’s End!’ She screwed up her face. ‘Oh, how I hate all the muck and squalor.’

  ‘But there’s no muck and squalor there now, Bett; most of the old streets have been pulled down.’ Jenny was smiling gently at her cousin.

  ‘That makes no difference, the people are the same. Some of them have twenty pounds a week and more coming in, but
it hasn’t changed them one jot. They look the same, they act the same. They have their cars now and go abroad for their holidays, but they just have to open their mouths. Do you know’—she leant forward and motioned her head in the direction of the kitchen—‘she, Maggie, she brags about her son earning thirty pounds a week and yarps on about him taking his family to Spain last year, and all the while she’s helping herself to anything she can lay her hands on in my kitchen…Oh, it boils me up. And he won’t do a thing about it. And you know that daughter of hers, Lottie, who used to spit when she talked, you remember?’ She raised her brows. ‘Well, she’s married a fellow who’s manager of the big electrical works, a new place. Can you believe it?…Her. And then there’s…’

  Jenny was looking at her cousin as if she was paying attention to her every word, but she was actually not with her at all, for she was thinking how odd it was that Bett should have such ideas about herself, and the width of the gulf between her own upbringing and that of Maggie’s daughter, for instance. Also she began again to think of the freak storm, that spurt of nature which had been the deciding factor in their being brought up together.