Henry Green - Back

“Don’t you pay attention. But it is kind to come and visit us old folks. The dreadful part is that father’s so ill just now. He’s had a stroke. He’s paralysed all down his right side, I’m afraid. He’s quite conscious, which is the terrible thing, because he’s lost the power of speech.”

“That’s bad,” Charley said, recovering.

“I’m afraid he’s done,” Mrs Grant said, and silently cried some more. “Sometimes I thank providence Rose is not here to see him.”

“She never liked illness,” Mr Summers tried to comfort her.

“Oh this would have been different,” Mrs Grant softly objected. “She would be sitting up all night with her father if she was anywhere she could get to him. She’d never allow to have it mentioned about strangers, could she? But you were different. You remember when you had mumps so bad just before she married. Why, we had to have the doctor in to tell her it wasn’t as serious as all that.”

“I never knew,” Charley muttered, examining in himself what he still felt for Rose, and finding nothing much.

“I often wish she had married you after all,” she said, squeezing his hand again.

“There it is,” Charley said. He had to be careful not to show he no longer cared about Rose. There was a silence.

“And how have you been?” he asked, because it frightened him that she should not remember his previous visit.

“Oh I’ve not been at all well,” she replied. “But now this has happened to father, of course I’ve no time for my small bothers, have I? Charley, could I ask you something?”

“Why, go ahead.”

“I’ve a little matter nagging me. There’s a person should learn about Gerald. It’s very awkward but I can’t get in touch with them direct. They’re a sort of relative. They should come down really.”

“Who’s that?” Charley asked, knowing full well, but anxious, for Rose’s sake, to hear it from the old lady herself. Dreadfully anxious, he realized he was.

“A Mrs Phil. White,” she replied. “Now, mind, father doesn’t know I know about her, as a matter of fact,” Mrs Grant went on. “But I’ve been in touch on and off with her mother all these years. It’s one of those little misunderstandings that occur in family life,” she explained, while Charley felt surge all over him an exquisite relief. He felt this was the final confirmation that Rose was truly dead, that Nance was a real person.

“She isn’t Rose,” he brought out in a low voice, forgetting himself.

“Then you’ve known all along,” Mrs Grant said gently, missing what he had said.

“Only just recently,” he answered, still quite vague, still at cross purposes.

“There’s nothing to it,” she said, to soften his embarrassment, as she thought. “It was just one of those things. I’ll tell you. I wasn’t at all in good health soon after we married, and he met this Mrs Whitmore with someone I hope you’ll never come across, for she’s a wicked woman, Mrs Frazier the name is. Then they had this girl. Oh now I see.” As, at last, she had done. “You noticed the resemblance?”

He could find nothing to say. He just looked at her, and blushed.

“Oh Charley,” she gently said.

He stood there.

“Why, they were not at all alike, really,” she went on. From her voice he could tell that she was not blaming him.

“But how terrible for you to come back to that,” she wondered aloud. “Whoever put you on to her?”

“It was Mr Grant,” he blurted, to excuse himself.

“That was cruel,” she agreed. “Yet you mustn’t lay blame, Charley. You know, poor dear, she lost her husband? Father was ever so worried. Oh, he thought I was in ignorance, but you can’t live all those years with a man without you learn. And I didn’t say anything to let on. Now he’s so ill, the doctor thinks he can never get better, and there’s the question of the little allowance he used to give. Then she should say goodbye, as well.” Her tears began to come faster.

“She’d never take money from me,” he objected, hardly knowing what he was saying.

“Whoever asked her to?” she explained. “Her coming down here is what should be arranged. She should. That’s the only right thing, before it’s too late. It’s settled then. I knew I could rely on you, Charley. Now perhaps you’d like to see him.” She began to dab a handkerchief at her round face. “Remember, he’ll be able to hear every bit we speak,” she warned, as she led the way into the house, and up the stairs.

Mr Grant rested like a log in bed. All that was alive was his eyes. Charley stammered a good evening, adding a word about how well he was looking.

“Oh, he’s not,” Mrs Grant broke in, “he’ll never be better the doctor says,” she announced loudly. “This is John, — I mean Charley Summers, dear,” she went on in the same tone of voice. “Isn’t it kind to pay you a visit?” Mr Grant did not even blink. His shining blue eyes expressed nothing, although there was a sort of look of astonishment upon the whole frozen face.

It was some time before Charley could make his escape. In spite of the warning she had given, Mrs Grant carried on in front of her helpless spouse as if he were deaf, and the man could give no sign that he heard. Charley supposed this was a judgement on Mr Grant, but found it painful to watch, it was so innocently carried out; although Mrs Grant’s remarks on his hopeless state must come, it was plain, from an excess of feeling for her Gerald. And, when he did leave, he was not to get away at once, because he had hardly reached the bottom of the front garden before a car, with “Doctor” on the windshield, drew up at the gate.

“Good afternoon, young fellow,” the elderly man inside said to Charley as he got out. Summers halted in his tracks, as though challenged. “You’ve been visiting here, I take it? I wonder if I might have a word. About Mrs Grant,” he said.

Charley waited.

“Quite impossible to get help these days,” the doctor explained. “And it’s too much for her. She has to do everything, you know.”

“Can he hear?” Charley asked.

“What d’you mean, can he hear? Of course he can. I trust you haven’t been saying one damn thing after another in front of my patient.”

“I have not,” Charley assured him, but with a great look of guilt.

“That’s right,” the doctor said, suspiciously. “I should hope not, indeed. No, what I wanted to impress upon you is, that we can’t go on like this, with Mrs Grant carrying everything on her own shoulders. I take it you’re a relative? Because the burden’s too much for her.”

“When I was down, before he fell ill, she didn’t recognize me,” Charley said.

“Perfectly natural in her condition at the time,” the doctor replied. “I’ve a number of cases like that, now. Comes from the bombing. After you’ve reached a certain age, as you’ll find when you get there, nature provides her own defence, she’s merciful, she draws a blackout over what she doesn’t want remembered. Or rather the nervous system rejects what is surplus to its immediate requirement. But in a crisis everything is thrown overboard, of course. She recognized you today because of the shock Mr Grant’s health has been to her system. But we’ve got to get assistance to her, or she may slip back.”

Charley had not understood. “Yes,” he said.

“Very well, that’s settled then, I’ll rely on you,” the doctor called to Charley, who was already moving away. “Excuse me,” he added, “but what’s the matter with your right foot?”

“It’s off,” Charley meekly explained. “Artificial leg.”

“Really?” the doctor said. “I thought I noticed something.”

He rang Nance to fix a date, then went to tea. He found quite a spread, fried fish warmed up, and an imitation chocolate cake she had wangled somewhere.