The Long Corridor Read online

  ‘Aw, no!’

  ‘Aw, yes.’ Jenny was laughing now as she nodded back at Lorna’s horrified expression. ‘But I’ll be back in three weeks or so.’

  ‘Three weeks! Then you’re not going on another job?’

  ‘No, not this time, not for a while.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Paul had dropped on his hunkers by the side of the couch and taken hold of Jenny’s hand. ‘Your Aunt Jenny’s married now.’

  ‘Married? You?…Oh! I didn’t mean it like that, Aunt Jenny. It’s wonderful you being married. Fancy you married.’ She opened her mouth wide, but emitted no sound. It was a gesture from her childhood. It usually followed amazement or surprise, and undoubtedly she was surprised now. Then she said, ‘Does it mean that you’ll not be able to come here like you usually do?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. In fact it means that we’re going to see more of her.’ Paul thrust his other hand out towards Lorna. ‘She’ll likely be living with us; won’t you, Jinny?’ He wagged her hand as if to bring assurance from her, and she answered him rapidly, saying, ‘Oh, now, Paul, Paul. We’ll have to see.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, Aunt Jenny. Oh, that would be simply marvellous. Oh, we’d have some fun…But…but what about your husband?’

  ‘Well,’ Jenny said, evenly now, ‘he died.’

  ‘So soon? Oh, Aunt Jenny!’ She looked sad, and Jenny said, ‘It’s all right. We’ll talk about it some other time…Now it’s your turn. Tell me what you’ve been doing?’

  ‘What’s she been doing? I can tell you that,’ put in Paul. ‘Chasing the boys. At least, a boy. And not such a boy either, he’s as tall as me. Brian Bolton. You know, the Mayor’s son. Ah-ha! You didn’t think I saw you. “Can I carry your school bag, Miss Higgins?”’

  His teasing was checked by Lorna giving him a push, which caused him to overbalance on to the hearthrug, and as she went to pounce on him Bett cried, ‘Stop it! Stop that horseplay!’

  Her voice had the power to sober them all, and Lorna, hitching herself back onto the couch, took hold of Jenny’s hand while Paul, straightening his coat as he rose to his feet, said, his voice flat now, ‘I’m going to have a bite, and then I’ve one or two calls to make. I’ll likely see you before you go to bed, Jinny, but if you want to get off early I’ll see you in the morning. What time do you propose leaving?’

  ‘I was going to get the twelve o’clock from Newcastle.’

  ‘I’ll run you there.’

  ‘Thanks, Paul.’

  He went out of the room, across the hall to the far end, and entered the kitchen; and there, taking a covered plate from the bottom oven of the Aga cooker, he placed it on the Formica-topped table by the kitchen window, where was set a knife, fork, and cruet, and slowly and thoughtfully he began to eat. And as he did so the pleasure of seeing Jenny again faded and he became filled with irritation.

  He hated eating in the kitchen. He didn’t mind occasionally, such as last thing at night when he would scrape up something for himself, but even then he often put it on a tray and took it into the drawing room, for the radiator in the dining room was always turned down after lunch. ‘A waste of fuel,’ she said. The new order was: meals after six o’clock would be taken in the kitchen…of course, provided Maggie had gone. He raised his eyes from the plate and looked around the kitchen. It had a clinical look, almost like the operating theatre. The big old easy chair with the sunken bottom was no longer in the corner, nor was the old pouffe that his mother had brought into the kitchen so that Maggie could put her legs up for half an hour after she had done the dinner washing-up. In place of the chair and the pouffe stood a washing machine and spin drier, and on the other side of the stove near the window stood a five foot high, naked-looking fridge. The old dresser had gone and in its place was a cabinet of frosted glass with drawers that stuck unless you used both hands to close them. And under the big working table in the centre of the room stood four plastic-topped stools.

  The change, in the kitchen alone, since his mother had died was drastic. It was a wonder Maggie stuck it. Yet he thought he knew why she stuck it; and the knowledge warmed him.

  He gathered up the dirty dishes and was on his way to the sink when Lorna put her head round the kitchen door. ‘I thought you might have gone.’ She came into the room at a run, adding, ‘I’ve got a good Mrs McAnulty, Daddy.’

  As he turned the tap on the greasy dishes he glanced at her and smiled, saying, ‘I haven’t time for a Mrs McAnulty now. I’ve got an important call; I should be there.’ He continued to look at her. He thought she had finished with the Mrs McAnulty game, as she hadn’t broached it for some time. It was a game that had started years ago when she had demanded he play patients with her. He had been quite willing to let it die a natural death as she was fast growing up, at least she should be, but she was still a very young fifteen for these days. And he was glad of it. Oh yes, yes.

  ‘Aw, it won’t take a minute. It’s a good one.’

  ‘When I come back,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be in bed.’

  ‘All right.’ He nodded, then lifting a detergent carton from the draining board he squeezed some liquid into the water, after which he reached for a towel on the rail by the sink and wiped his hands. ‘Well now.’ He turned to her and adopted an exaggeratingly long countenance, and in a sober tone said, ‘Good evening, Mrs McAnulty.’

  ‘Evenin’, Doctor.’ Lorna too had taken on a pose; she was now imitating the actions of what she imagined was an agitated patient.

  ‘What can I do for you, Mrs McAnulty?’

  ‘Am bad, Doctor.’

  ‘I can see that, Mrs McAnulty. Tell me about it?’

  ‘I’ve got hydro-ceph-alus.’ She had difficulty in pronouncing the word, and as she finished Paul put his head back and let out a bellow of a laugh. ‘Hydrocephalus. That’s a beauty. Where did you come across that one?’

  ‘Ah-ha! Ah-ha!’ She was laughing up at him, wagging her finger in his face. ‘There’s more where that comes from. Just you wait; you’ve met your match at last, Doc-tor Higgins.’

  ‘I should say I have. Well, Mrs McAnulty’—he resumed his stern pose—‘what are your symptoms?’

  ‘Well, Doctor, me head’s grown so big—’ She demonstrated with her hands held level with her shoulders.

  ‘You can say that again.’ As Paul made this aside in a low voice, she cried, ‘Aw, behave and listen. Listen.’ Then slanting her eyes to the ceiling she concentrated her attention there as she went on, ‘The disease made its appearance when I was six months old, and the water collected inside my head, and the bones not yet being set allowed it to form a kind of bag and it grew bigger and bigger until my head was as big as my body…’

  ‘Poor soul.’

  ‘Aw, Listen, will you? They thought at first it was only rickets, but it wasn’t, I had dropsy of the brain, known to the uninitiated as water on the brain…Doctor.’

  Paul thrust out a hand and gripped her chin, and, laughing again, he said. ‘Very good. Very good. Where did you find it?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve bought a gem of a book. It’s called The Family Physician. I got it on Rankin’s Bookstall for three shillings. It’s got one thousand one hundred and seventy-six pages.’

  ‘No kiddin’?’

  ‘It’s a gem. Mr Rankin said it might be worth a lot of money if I keep it a little longer. It’s got a picture of St Thomas’ Hospital in the front and a wonderful coloured paper skeleton. Well, it’s not really a skeleton, it’s the whole body in flaps right into the be-owels. Coo! Doc-tor, it’s beautiful.’

  ‘It sounds it. I’ll have to have a look into this gem. But, Mrs McAnulty’—he was walking from the kitchen now with his arm around her shoulder—‘I wouldn’t go searching for medical books at present, not unless you have a consultation with Dr Higgins first. Understand?’

  ‘But it’s a gem, Daddy. Really, it’s a scream. It gives you all the diseases and all the cures, and there’s six frousty pictures of old men in the front between bon
es and things. One is Sir William Jenner, Bart., KCB, MD, FRS, and some. Oh he looks a holy terror. Some look sort of human but he looks as if he could eat you, like that Professor Wheelan you used to tell me about, remember?’

  As he got into his coat in the hall he said to her seriously, ‘The information is bound to be dated, and quite a number of methods obsolete. We’d better look at it together some time, eh?’

  ‘OK.’ She wagged her head at him. ‘But it’s all practice. In one part it says a nurse should not be so young as to be giddy nor so old as to be useless. And you know, Daddy, it says a woman should stay in bed for three weeks after she’s had a baby, and rest on a couch each day until the end of the month. It’s a scream, isn’t it? Mrs Price was out at the end of a week.’

  ‘Ah, but then, don’t forget Mrs Price is a doctor’s wife.’

  He laughed down on her. ‘I’d better see this great find of yours. And I wouldn’t look upon it as practice yet.’

  ‘Oh, all right, but it’s priceless, Daddy. Aunty Jenny’ll laugh her head off. I was on my way to get it to show her. And oh, isn’t it lovely to have her back? And fancy her being married.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper now. ‘Fancy Aunt Jenny being married, Daddy. She’s lovely, but…’

  In the act of picking up his bag from the side table he paused and, turning and facing her squarely, said, ‘Your Aunt Jinny is lovely, there’s no buts; never judge by looks. Start early in this, Lorna, and practise it. Every time you see someone like your Aunt Jinny, say to yourself, she’s only like that outside, and the outside doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, Daddy. I didn’t mean anything, I…I love my Aunt Jenny.’ Her voice was sober.

  ‘Good enough then.’

  As he turned away she walked with him to the front door, and there she said, brightly now, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, Daddy. Miss Charlton said I should sail through the exam. I came out second in maths in the mock. I could have come top if I’d paid more attention, I know I could, but I will in the real thing. I told her I’d finally made up my mind to be a doctor and she’s all for it. She’s lovely is Miss Charlton.’

  ‘That’s fine. Keep it up.’ He pulled his hat on, pressing the brim down over his brow. ‘Now get inside or you’ll catch cold; it’s cutting out here.’

  ‘Goodnight, Daddy. I suppose I’ll be in bed when you get back.’ She reached up, and he bent down and kissed her. Then she went into the house and he into the car, and as he started it up, and drove with less than his usual caution out of the Square, he repeated to himself, ‘A doctor. She wants to be a doctor.’ It was laughable really. Yet no, there was nothing laughable about it. It just gave you food for thought, a lot of thought.

  PART TWO

  IVY

  One

  It was ten minutes past eight when Mrs Ratcliffe’s companion let Paul out of the front door. ‘Thank you for coming, Doctor, she’ll be better now,’ she said.

  He made no answer to the last, but jerking his head, replied, ‘Goodnight, Miss Thompson.’

  In the car he sat for a moment debating whether he should go straight to Ivy’s or call in at the club. The thought of the club brought his teeth together. He didn’t feel like the club tonight…Councillor Ramsay with his constant, ‘Now this is ’ow I see it. Fair’s fair like.’ And the regulars. Parkins from his solicitor’s platform looking down on Ramsay, despising him but needing him, for Ramsay’s business siphoned money into his pocket. Then old Beresford with his weedy body and outdated medicine. Paul’s mouth twisted as he remembered Lorna’s find, The Family Physician, by the sound of it late nineteenth century. He wouldn’t be a bit surprised if old Beresford used a similar one as a reference book. But it was the thought of Beresford that told him he must visit the club first, that it would be policy to go there as often as possible in the near future if he hoped to get on the shortlist for the assistant physician’s post at the hospital when Travers retired, which would be some time in the New Year. He hated the idea that he was nervous of Beresford, that some part of him feared his power. Beresford was near retiring, but until he died, Paul knew, the old man wouldn’t get over the fact that twice he had failed to be selected for such a post. The first time, in Newcastle, he had been made to feel like a small fish in a big pool. The second failure was even worse, when they voted in favour of a younger man. He had never again applied but he had put his disappointment to use. He had turned it into a whip to flay his own kind. It was a well-known fact that there would be more than one happy doctor in Fellburn when old Beresford disappeared from the scene.

  Paul had never liked Beresford, nor had his father before him, and he would have despised himself if he had felt the slightest inclination to butter him up now. Yet he warned himself not to antagonise him in any way, for the old man had power in his hands, the power of a churchgoing moralist, the power of being a close friend of Bowles, the surgeon, who was on the Regional Board.

  As he entered the lobby he met the Mayor on the point of leaving. Bolton was a man Paul liked, for he carried his mayoral chain with the unusual quality of humility, which was likely one of the reasons he had been re-elected three times; this triple event had never happened before in Fellburn. Paul looked on Bolton as a scrupulously honest man; he did not think of him as ‘a worthy man’—that was Parkins’ phrase, and in an odd way, he surmised, it summed up for Parkins Bolton’s worldly standing, which took the form of a double-fronted stationer’s shop.

  ‘Hello, there, Doctor.’ The Mayor had never called him Paul, nor had he himself called the Mayor Harry, and this in itself he felt engendered a deepened mutual respect. He did not take to the bandying of Christian names; Christian names were for friends, not for the acquaintance of an evening, as was often the case. Yet he would not have minded being called Paul by a man like Bolton.

  ‘Hello, Mr Mayor.’ It all sounded very formal, but they both smiled warmly at each other. ‘Finished your day’s grind?’

  ‘No, not quite, I’m just going to collect Mrs Bolton. We have to look in at a dance…in aid of the old people’s fund; but it’ll only be a look-in, I’ve a full programme tomorrow…And you, Doctor, are you finished?’

  ‘Just one or two calls. At least I hope so.’

  ‘So do I for your sake. Well goodnight, Doctor. My regards to Mrs Higgins.’

  ‘Thank you. Goodnight, Mr Mayor. Goodnight.’

  He passed from the hall into the bar, then took his drink into the main club room.

  Parkins was sitting to the right of the fire, in the chair of honour you might say. It was one of a pair of enormous brown leather chairs with outsize wings, a chair that forced you to walk to the front of it to see its occupant properly, and when Paul saw Parkins’ thin body almost lost in it, he paused before saying, ‘Oh, hello there.’

  ‘Hello, Paul…Busy?’

  ‘So, so. At least during the day. No epidemics at present. But there’s been quite a lot of night shift these past few weeks.’

  ‘I don’t know how you do it; that would drive me mad getting up in the middle of the night.’

  ‘You get used to it.’ Paul looked around. ‘Very quiet tonight.’

  ‘Yes. There’s a special committee sitting late, fighting that Labour bloke, Skiffings. He’s for running up more blocks of flats in Bog’s End. How in the name of God these fellows get on the council in the first place beats me.’

  ‘By the same token that they want to put up the flats: they say they’ll give the voters what they want, and in Skiffings’ case he does just that. Anyway, I suppose we need opposition to keep us on our toes.’ Paul said, ‘us’ but he didn’t mean us, for he had almost voted Labour last time, and with the election coming off soon it would be a pretty near thing this time. In fact, he knew that, with the present set-up, Labour would be almost sure to have his vote. Yet there would have been no issue about his voting if Butler had become Tory leader instead of Home. A man gives his life to a cause and as payment gets a kick in the backside. He didn’t like that. He himself always be
lieved in paying well for services rendered.

  ‘Here a minute.’ From the depth of his chair Parkins motioned Paul to him with a lift of his thin chin, and when Paul stood over him he said in a low voice, ‘Just a word in your ear…You know old B’s assistant, Rankin?’

  ‘I’ve never met him; I heard he had one.’

  ‘Well, he’s just down from Bart’s. Bright boy; taken the lot, I understand, including your pet tangent…What is it?’

  ‘Neurology.’

  ‘Ah yes, neurology. Well, by old B’s account he’s swept the board with that and all the modern isms and ologies they’re packing into them up there now. What I’m trying to say, Paul, is that old B’s betting on him and is already singing his praises to the board, and Travers not yet with his notice in. But you know how thick he is with Bowles. I thought I’d tip you.’

  There came into Paul’s chest a restricted feeling that gave warning of his quick rising anger, and it was with an effort he said coolly, ‘But the fellow hasn’t been in town five minutes, nor has he a practice.’

  ‘I’ve got news for you.’ Parkins deliberately reached out and took a sip from his glass of whisky, and returned it to the table before saying, ‘Brace yourself.’

  Paul waited.

  ‘B’s going to let him have his.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘S’fact.’ Parkins jerked his meticulously brushed head and raised his eyebrows and showed a face full of concern, behind which Paul read the enjoyment his solicitor was experiencing in delivering this blow, this velvet-padded blow. Straightening up he looked hard down at him as he said, ‘I think you’re a blind jump ahead, Roy. You see Beresford can’t hand over the practice to anyone he likes, that’s decided by the local executive council. The days of selling practices are over. Since he was in practice before 1948 he’ll be compensated, but as for handing on his practice to whom he likes…Well, as I said, you’re a…’