Henry Green - Back

In the next three weeks he called thrice at Miss Whitmore’s, but had no answer when he manhandled the dolphin on her door. She could only have been out. Finally he realized she must be going to Redham each afternoon. The following Sunday he went down there.

When he rang the bell, she answered as though it was her own house.

“Hullo dear,” she said. He was touched at this.

“Come in. There’s not much change in dad,” she went on. Back in the hall, she dropped her voice. “Art’s here,” she told him.

“Oh,” Mr Summers said, suspicious.

“He’s come out with it,” she continued, almost in a whisper, “he’s lost his job, or rather his firm have written to the M.O.L. to say they want him withdrawn. Poor old Art, it is a shame. And he’s dropped in to find if dad could put a word for him. He hadn’t heard, you see. Mother’s with him this minute.”

“You’ve got your mother back from Huddersfield?”

“No, Mrs Grant, of course,” she answered.

“I see.”

“Oh, I’m glad I came,” she said. “It was too much for her, by far. And he’s so good lying in his bed, with never a murmur of any kind.”

“Can he speak a bit, then?” he asked.

“Of course not. You can tell by his expression,” she explained in a loud voice. “I wondered when I’d see you again,” she added, more quietly.

“Called round on you twice as a matter of fact, and you were out,” he told her.

“That’s nice,” she said. “Now you’d like a word with dad, I expect,” and led him upstairs.

He found Mr Grant lying shuteyed, but otherwise in the same position as previously, motionless, speechless, hopeless as he must have been. After Charley had muttered a greeting, Miss Whitmore rattled on to the sick man exactly as though he was a child. Even if he had so wished, Charley could not have got a word in edgeways. He looked at the lowered lids. He wondered what they covered. Then he saw Nance nod to him. He stammered a phrase, and got out of the room.

“You are mean,” she said, the other side of the door. “I meant for you to talk to him a few moments.”

“I couldn’t,” he explained, as he came down the stairs.

“I know. It is awkward at first,” she agreed. “But you soon get so you don’t notice.”

“Will this go on for long?”

“The doctor says he may be carried off any day. Mother’s being wonderful, simply wonderful”

At this moment Middlewitch and Mrs Grant came out into the small hall, in that order. The four of them hardly had room to move. His manner with Summers was very different.

“Why, hullo, Charley my dear old man,” he cried, at his most effusive. “Well, this is a bit of a surprise, running across you here,” he said, as though he owned the place. “We must have a chat one of these days,” he was continuing, while Charley leant across to shake Mrs Grant by the hand.

“Why, Charley Barley,” she greeted him, quite composed. “It’s good of you to travel all this way to visit us old folks.”

“How is he?” Charley asked.

“You’ve just come from him, haven’t you? I heard you mount the stairs. You noticed the change there is, didn’t you? He’s ever so much easier.”

“That’s fine,” Charley said.

“But the doctor says it might happen any moment,” she went on calmly. Summers turned for the first time to Arthur Middlewitch. But this man’s mind was plainly miles away. He was preoccupied.

“Oh, don’t speak like that,” Charley protested to Mrs Grant.

“It’s got to come to one and all of us, Charley,” she told him, quite composed. “He doesn’t suffer, I know. I know,” she repeated, insistent. There was a pause.

“That’s right,” Charley said.

“Well I must be getting along now,” Mr Middlewitch broke in. “I’ll give you a tinkle one of these days,” he added to Charley. “And it certainly has been grand of you, Mrs Grant, to listen as you’ve just done. I’m sure when I dropped in I never …” and he stopped. Then he hurriedly made his goodbyes, and left.

“I don’t much cotton onto that young gentleman,” Mrs Grant mentioned.

“Now there’s no harm in Art, mother,” Nance said. “He’s worried, that’s all.”

“I must get back to my grand old man,” Mrs Grant announced waving them into the living room. “And I know you two young people must have a deal to say to one another,” she added, arch. Charley looked at her unseeing. He was shy. He could find nothing to come out with. But when Mrs Grant was gone, and Nance was settled down opposite, it was she did all the talking.

“That’s what I’ll never forgive this war,” she began, unexpectedly, “never so long as I live, that at the end I couldn’t be with … with Phil,” she brought out, and turned her face away so he couldn’t see it. Charley stayed miserably silent.

“After all, that’s the least you can ask of life,” she went on, “to have your loved ones round you when you go. But in this war it’s not what anyone can expect with these beastly bombs.”

“Was he killed by a bomb, then?” was all Charley could think to ask.

“No, of course not,” she replied, still speaking in the same quiet voice. “He was brought down in his airplane over Egypt. That’s what’s cruel, my not being there, not being able to hold his darling head. Because dad, now, has got us round him. And he’s very fond of you as well, Charley. Mother told me. But when I had to let Phil go, there was none by him, no one at all. He was alone.”

There followed a silence. At last Charley brought out, “You mustn’t distress yourself,” although she had been speaking quite collectedly. He could not look at her.

“You don’t understand,” she said, soft. “He died for us,” she explained. She had told him this before but it was very different now, it was as if she were making him a gift. “He went out alone without me, that’s what’s so hard for me to bear,” she ended. Then she added,

“That’s why I changed my name.”

There was a long silence.

“Well it certainly is good of you to come down. It’s not as though you didn’t have a job of your own,” he managed to say.

“She’s asked me to live here the next few weeks. They have a splendid train service still. I’d use her room. She takes what rest she can in an easy chair by his bed. She has to do everything for him, you know. But of course she’d rather have it that way. The only thing is Panzer.”

“Panzer?” he echoed, at a loss.

“Why yes, I couldn’t leave my puss the very moment she’s likely to need me, could I? So this is just what I wanted to ask. Would it be all right, d’you think, if I brought her down?”

“I’m sure Mrs Grant wouldn’t …” he began.

“It’s not that. No, what’s exercising me is, will Panzer stay here?” she demanded. “Because if she started off on a long trek back home, I should go right out of my mind. I’m scatter brained enough already, though you mightn’t think.”

“I certainly wouldn’t …” he began again.

“Oh but I am,” she insisted at once. “Why only the other day,” she went on, plunging into a long description of some minor detail she had forgotten while she was doing for Mr Grant. When she finished he casually asked, having, as he thought, got over the awkwardness,

“Does he recognize you?”

She answered, “Would you believe, I’m sure he thinks I’m Rose, you remember that’s my half sister,” she explained, forgetting all about him.

Then the bell rang.

She went to answer the door. His mind was in a turmoil while he heard her say, “Yes?”

But he listened intently when he heard Mrs Frazier explaining to Nance that she was an old friend of the family, and that she had dropped in on the chance of visiting Mr Grant, if he was not too ill.