The Long Corridor Read online

  It had happened on a day in 1938 when she was twelve. The two families had decided to go to Wales for a seaside caravan holiday, and for five glorious days the sun shone down on them and they lazed on the sands, or went swimming; sometimes the brothers, taking a small boat, went out fishing. It was on the afternoon of the day before they were to return home that the freak storm occurred. The sky became overcast making it like night, then the wind came with terrifying swiftness and what had been gentle waves were lashed into gigantic mountains of water. Jenny could recall how her mother, crouched on the floor of the caravan, had held her tightly in her arms as she prayed. And beside them had crouched Bett and her mother. She remembered Bett, who was only nine then, saying, ‘Daddy’ll get wet, won’t he?’

  The next morning they had found the remains of the boat on the rocks along the coast, and three days later the brothers’ bodies came in with the early morning tide, and strangely they had lain only four feet away from each other, and about two hundred yards from where they had set off in the boat.

  After the numbness of the shock wore off and loneliness hit them, the two widows decided it would be better if they joined forces and pooled their small resources. So they rented a four-roomed downstairs-house, as it was termed, near the children’s school, and Jenny’s mother resumed the office work she had been doing before she married, while Bett’s mother returned to the stocking counter in Weaver’s Drapery store in the High Street, at which she had started years previously when she was fifteen.

  The arrangement worked amicably enough for two years, until Jenny’s mother, still lonely in heart and with not much will to live, gave in to a severe bout of influenza. And so Jenny, at the age of fourteen, was left with Aunty May.

  Under the circumstances Aunty May had been kind to her, although she did take all the three hundred pounds that her mother had saved from her father’s life insurance. But then, of course, Jenny knew, even without Aunty May giving her to understand, that she had to be fed and clothed until she could work. Jenny had learned one lesson very early in life. It was: if you made yourself useful, people put up with you. She had made herself useful to Aunty May, and also to Bett, and they had both accepted her usefulness without question. Should anyone at times, as they did, praise her for her industry her Aunty May, and her cousin Bett, would always say, ‘Oh, Jenny’s made like that.’

  But Jenny knew that she hadn’t been made like that. There had been lots of things she had resented doing, especially for Bett, for she knew that her cousin looked upon her as a kind of servant, at best someone who should make herself useful out of gratitude for a home. Deeply she had resented this, but she had the power to hide it. She also had the power to hide the pain that her reflection in the mirror caused her. And in her teens she had dared to protest against the reflection, for there was Bett, dark, vivacious, pretty, referred to as a live wire and a spark, attracting attention wherever she went; holding people with her bright chatter, apparently happy about everything in life that affected her, except her name. The name Chilmaid had become a source of irritation, even shame, to Bett from the time when she was fifteen and a boy, punning the name, had said. ‘Bet you’re a chill maid.’ She had come home in tears that day, and from then onwards her name had taken on a kind of phobia. She wanted rid of it, and the only way to be rid of it was to get married. It was on this same day, when Jenny had tried to comfort her, that she had rounded on her, crying, ‘It’s all right for you, you look like a chill maid and always will.’

  There are some things, silly things, that burn deep into the mind, and even when they heal with the years you can still feel the scars. Jenny hadn’t realised how deeply she had resented, even the scars, until she had talked to Ben. Ben had been like a dredger cleaning her mind.

  As her thoughts drifted over the years she was suddenly aware of Bett’s voice.

  ‘Jenny, listen. What’s the matter?…You’re nearly asleep. Are you tired? I don’t believe you’ve heard a word I’ve said.’

  ‘Yes, I have. You were saying that James Knowles had come to work in the new laboratory attached to the Burley Group and had called in last week.’ Jenny smiled.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it was that, but you looked miles away.’

  ‘Is he still with his wife?’

  ‘No, he divorced her.’

  ‘You mean she divorced him.’

  ‘Well, whichever way it was, they’re divorced. You never did like him, did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I could never stand a man who wanted to tell you a dirty joke before he’d been in your company two minutes.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Jenny.’ Again Bett rose to her feet. ‘James just does that to you because he knows it shocks you. I’m sure he doesn’t do it to anyone else.’

  ‘Shocks me!’ Jenny’s eyebrows moved into points, lengthening her face still further. ‘Four years on hospital wards, and a good part of the last ten spent nursing men…I’ll take some shocking. No, James Knowles talked to me as he talks to all women. He’s dirty. There are men like that.’

  ‘Jenny.’ Bett was smiling tolerantly at Jenny now. ‘You’re so naïve; sometimes I think you’re younger than Lorna.’

  When Jenny made no comment on this Bett turned from her and threw her half-burned cigarette into the heart of the fire. And at this point Paul entered the room carrying a tray.

  ‘There you are.’ He put the tray on a table on the opposite side of the hearth from his wife, and sitting down beside it he poured out a cup of tea, and handing it to Jenny with exaggerated ceremony, he said, ‘There you are ma-dam. Cream off the top of a new bottle and two lumps, and if you take my advice you’ll improve it with a dash of whisky.’

  ‘This is one time I’m not taking your advice.’ Jenny took the cup from him. ‘Thanks, Paul.’ Her eyes smiled at him. Then looking him up and down, she said, ‘I do believe you’re losing weight.’

  ‘I am.’ He nodded at her brightly. ‘I’ve lost half a stone this last month, down to fourteen two.’ He pulled his trousers away from his waist. ‘I’m terrified they’ll drop off in the street, or, worse still, at the clinic. Not that the mothers would mind, but ooh! Sister Reilly. Imagine! How did that woman ever become a Sister, even a nurse? She should be in a closed order.’

  Jenny had at one time worked with Sister Reilly, and what Paul had said struck her so funny that she laughed with him loudly, until, seeing Bett’s straight face, she let her laughter fade away. That was another thing she had learned. In a divided house you laughed with the woman if you wanted peace.

  Yet need she bother now? Was caution necessary any more? Did it matter any longer if she annoyed Bett or not? Yes, yes it did. For it was true what Aunt May had said, she was made in a particular way. She had always wanted peace, and she had bought peace, and the price had meant the submerging of her own individuality, so deeply that bringing it to the surface again would, she imagined, be almost an impossibility.

  ‘Well now, I’m waiting. Come on, let’s have your news.’ Paul pulled his coat sleeve up and looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got half an hour. That includes my eating time; say ten minutes for that. Can you get through your lurid life story during the past months in twenty minutes?’

  ‘I think so.’ Jenny straightened herself, pressed her back against the corner of the couch, then wetted her lips preparatory to speaking again. But no words came, and after looking from one to the other and shaking her head and lowering it, and putting her cup down on the little wine table at her side she took a handkerchief from the pocket of her suit and blew her nose.

  ‘What is it?’ Paul asked quietly. ‘Are you in trouble, Jinny?’ He was sitting on the edge of his chair now, leaning towards her. Bett, too, had also moved towards her from the other end of the couch.

  ‘Is Mr Hoffman worse?’ Paul narrowed his eyes as he asked the question.

  ‘He’s dead.’ Jenny again blew her nose. It had a loud sound as befitted a large nose.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. But then’—he nodded—�
�in a way I suppose it was best. He’s been bedridden lately, hasn’t he?’

  Jenny inclined her head slowly. And now Bett put in, ‘I’ve never seen you upset like this before. Somehow I thought you had got used to people dying.’

  ‘You never get used to people dying.’ Paul was not so much answering his wife as making a statement.

  And Bett, going on as if she had not been interrupted, said, ‘You’re not worried about getting another post surely? Why, you’re as rare as gold dust these days. If it’s a job you’re after there’s one waiting right here any time you like, you know that.’ Bett’s smile was accompanied by an expansive movement of her hand which indicated the whole house.

  Jenny looked up at her now. ‘I won’t be wanting another job, Bett. You see…well, Benjamin Hoffman was not just my patient, he…he was my husband. We were married six months ago.’

  ‘Jinny!’ Paul fell slowly against the back of the chair, and he pulled his chin in and pressed his head to the side as if to bring Jenny’s face into focus.

  ‘Is it so surprising that I should marry?’ She was addressing him pointedly, and the question brought his big head thrusting forward. ‘No, no, my God, no. Only why didn’t you tell us? It isn’t like you to hold out on anything. You never said a word in your letters.’

  Jenny picked up her cup and gulped quickly at the tea, and after she had swallowed she said, ‘I…I meant to, every week I meant to, but somehow I just couldn’t write it down. And then the time passed so quickly, and he became so ill.’

  Paul stopped himself from asking the question, ‘Were you happy?’ It was unlikely that she was happy, other than in her job, being married to a partly paralysed bedridden man. And yet, who knew but that she was happy. It surprised him that in an odd kind of way he felt saddened by the idea that Jenny could be happy married to a total invalid, an old, total invalid, for in spite of her looks he knew that she was very much alive inside. If she had been happy it meant that she was reconciled at thirty-nine to middle age and was becoming grateful for anything. It hurt him to think she had reached that stage; she deserved something better. She’d had no life.

  ‘When did it happen?’ he asked now.

  ‘About a month ago.’

  ‘A month ago?’ Bett put in quickly, her voice high. ‘You mean he died a month ago? Well, where have you been all this time?’

  ‘Oh.’ Jenny smiled weakly. ‘There was a lot to see to. I sold the house and the furniture. I just kept a few good pieces. I did…I mean I’m going to do all that he wanted me to.’

  ‘Had he money?’ It was a soft enquiry from Bett.

  ‘Yes, but—’ Her face took on a stiffness. ‘But I didn’t marry him for that. I didn’t know what he had…what he was worth before I married him. In fact I thought he was afraid I would leave him because his money was running out or something, and it was one way to keep me…At least that was how I thought for a little while, and then I found out that he…well…’ She shook her head and lowered her gaze again. She could not say, ‘He loved me’; it would sound too ludicrous to these two people who knew all about her, who were all the family she’d had until Benjamin had made her his wife.

  ‘Well! He had money then? Go on.’ Bett had screwed herself to the edge of the couch until she was almost sitting in front of Jenny. ‘I mean real money?’

  Jenny gave a little smile. ‘I suppose you would call it real money; my share was forty-seven thousand.’

  Bett did not repeat the sum, it was as if she had been stunned by the force of the amount. Forty-seven thousand pounds! A man had left that amount to this long, thin, odd-looking creature. Oh, granted she was kind, and good, and thoughtful, but what else could anyone be who looked like her at thirty-nine. You had to be something different to make up for a face like Jenny had. Yet a man had married her and left her forty-seven thousand. It wasn’t fair…IT WASN’T FAIR. Bett remembered that when her own mother had died and left her five hundred pounds she hadn’t offered Jenny a penny; and she could have done because it happened just after she had married Paul when she had the idea she was sitting pretty for the rest of her life. If only she had given her something…Oh, what was the use? She lifted her eyes up to her husband; he was standing over Jenny holding her hand, saying, ‘If anyone deserves a slice of luck you do, Jinny. But tell me, what did he want you to do? You said he wanted you to do certain things. Aw, don’t cry.’

  Jenny was crying unrestrainedly but quietly now, the tears running unchecked down her unmade-up sallow cheeks. ‘He…he wanted me to enjoy myself.’

  ‘Good for him. I wish I had met him; he sounds like a man after my own heart. Had he any relatives?’

  ‘A son. He came over from America for the funeral. He…he seemed pleased that I had married his father, ever…ever so pleased.’ Jenny’s head moved as if she still couldn’t believe this fact. ‘I…I thought he might question the will but no, he even seemed pleased about that an’ all. He had the same amount but he doesn’t need anything. He’s got a big bacon-curing business of his own. He’s a widower himself and no children.’ She smiled as she cried, and her tear-drenched face looked odder still. ‘He said that if ever he became ill he would send for me, solely on the recommendation of his father’s letters. He…he made me laugh. In a way he was very like his father because we laughed a lot, Ben and I, and he said, I mean the son said, it would be a funny thing if I were to marry him an’ all.’ Her voice cracked, her face falling into painful lines, the tears spurted from her eyes, and from her throat were forced hard, broken sobs.

  Paul, sitting on the edge of the couch, put his arm about her and drew her head against his chest, and looking towards his wife he said softly, ‘Pour a drop of brandy out.’

  Without demur Bett did as she was bidden. Going to the cabinet in the far corner of the room she poured a good measure into a glass and brought it back to the couch. ‘Here, dear, drink this up,’ she said.

  Jenny gulped at the brandy, then drying her face with a large handkerchief Paul held out to her she said, ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to go on like this.’

  ‘You go on as much as you like, it’ll do you good.’

  ‘Your room’s still ready for you,’ said Bett now. ‘I’ll switch on the blanket and you have an early night; you’ll feel better in the morning. Then you must stay and have a long rest.’ She smiled sweetly down on her cousin, and Jenny, looking up at her, nodded and said, ‘Thanks, Bett, but…’ She hesitated. They were kind; they were both kind. Jenny’s mind evaded the knowledge that Bett’s kindness, in particular, was a self-seeking kindness. Also she didn’t dwell on Bett’s invitation for her to rest; there was no rest for anyone in this house. The emotions were too taut, but at this moment she would sooner have stayed than say what she had to say. ‘I’ve…I’ve got to go up to town tomorrow, Bett. Thanks all the same.’

  ‘Well, what’s in that? You can come back in the evening.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean Newcastle, Bett; I mean London.’

  ‘London!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you going to do in London?’

  ‘I’ve a bit of business to see to.’ Jenny turned her eyes from Bett and glanced at Paul where he was still sitting on the edge of the couch, and he said, ‘Is it the money? Isn’t it settled yet?’

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s all right. It’s…it’s just something I’m going to do.’ She dropped her eyes from his and muttered under her breath, ‘Don’t ask me what it is, it would appear so silly. I’ll be back in three weeks and then you’ll know all about it.’

  ‘Is it such a mystery? Can’t you give us an inkling?’ There was an impatient note in Bett’s voice, and before Jenny had time to answer, Paul, looking at his wife, said, ‘It’s Jinny’s business. She says she’ll tell us later, so we’ll just have to wait, won’t we?’ He rose from his seat, his eyes still on his wife, and as he watched her face tighten he warned himself to go steady, not to start her off and Jinny not in the house five minutes; so changing his tone an
d forcing himself to smile, he said with weak jocularity, ‘She’s holding out on us. It’s my guess she’s going up there to open a nightclub.’ He turned his smile on Jenny, and she, closing her eyes, said, ‘Oh, Paul! A nightclub…Me!’ Then again, ‘Oh, Paul!’ She sniffed on a laugh and blew her nose once more.

  As Paul, about to carry the joke still further, bent towards her, the drawing room door opened and a young girl came in, crying, ‘Mammy, have you seen…?’ Her voice stopped with her feet, and then, her expression stretching her mouth wide, she cried, ‘Aunt Jenny! Why, Aunt Jenny!’ In a bound she was on the couch, her arms about Jenny, repeating all the while, ‘Oh, Aunt Jenny.’

  Jenny, holding her close, buried her face in the young girl’s soft, jet-black hair. Then after a moment, pressing her away, she scanned the face that looked like a warm wax cameo. She had never seen anyone with skin like this girl’s, nor a face like hers, a face that seemed built without the support of bones. The eyes were almond-shaped and grey, the upper lids full and smooth, lending to the whole an oriental look. The lips were not bow-shaped nor yet full as in young girls. They appeared somewhat shapeless, yet the mouth looked soft and fascinating. Jenny had always loved to watch Lorna talk, simply to see her lips move.

  ‘They told me you hadn’t grown,’ she said, casting an accusing glance from Paul to Bett. ‘Why, you’ve put on inches.’

  ‘I have? You think so, Aunt Jenny? Coo! Goodo.’ Lorna’s vocabulary was girlish and her voice slightly husky. She galloped on: ‘When did you come? Why didn’t you come upstairs to my room? How long are you staying?…Ooh!’ Again she had Jenny enfolded in her fierce young embrace, and moving her cheek against her aunt’s, she said, ‘Aw, it’s lovely, it’s lovely to have you back.’

  ‘Well, stop rumpling her like that,’ Bett put in sharply; ‘and get your feet off the couch.’ She slapped at her daughter’s legs. ‘And you can stop kidding yourself that you’re going to have someone waiting on you hand and foot during the next few weeks because your Aunt Jenny is leaving in the morning.’