An Indecent Obsession Page 24

  The sick horror of discovering she could lash out at someone beloved as she had lashed out at Michael had faded to an almost apathetic self-disgust. And right alongside it had crept a hunger for self-justification. Hadn’t he done to her what no man should ever do to any woman? Hadn’t he indicated a perverse preference for Luce Daggett? Of all the men in the world, Luce Daggett!

  This was fruitless. Round and round and round in ever-diminishing circles, getting nowhere, achieving nothing. She was so tired of herself! How could she have allowed this to happen? And who was Michael Wilson? There were no answers, so why bother to ask the questions?

  Mosquito nets suffocated. She threw hers back impatiently, not having heard the tiny dive-bomber sound of a mosquito, and forgetting that the rain would have drowned the noise of a real dive-bomber. There was never enough light within the confines of the net to read, and she felt better; she would read for a while and hope sleep came.

  A leech dropped with a soundless plop from some crevice in the unlined roof, and landed wriggling obscenely on her bare leg. She tore at it in a frenzy, gagging at the feel of it, but could not dislodge it. So she leaped to light a cigarette, and without caring whether she burned herself, she applied the red-hot tip to the leech’s slimy black string-like body. It was a big tropical leech, four or five inches long, and she could not have borne to wait the process out, invaded by it, watch it grow bloated and congested on her blood, then finally roll off replete like a selfish man from a woman after sex.

  When the thing was fried enough to shrivel away from her skin she ground it to smeared pulp beneath a boot, shivering uncontrollably, feeling as violated and besmirched as any Victorian heroine. Loathsome, repulsive, horrible thing! Oh, God, this climate! This rain! This awful, eternal dilemma…

  And then of course the place where the leech had fastened its blind seeking mouth kept bleeding, bleeding, the tissue impregnated with an anticlotting factor from its saliva, and it had to be attended to immediately or in this climate the wound would ulcerate…

  It was not very often that she found herself reminded so physically of Base Fifteen, its difficulties, isolation, introspection. Of all the places she had ever been, she thought, dealing with iodine and sterile swabs, Base Fifteen had made less impression than any. In fact, almost no impression at all. As if it were a stage set, without substance or real meaning of its own, simply a claustrophobic backdrop for a complicated interplay of human emotions, wills, desires. Which was logical. Base Fifteen as anything more than an insubstantial backdrop didn’t make sense. A more sterile, dreary institution had never been erected; even the wet canvas world of a casualty clearing station had more personality. Base Fifteen was there to serve a war, it had been dumped where the convenience of war dictated, without respect to the ideal site, staff contentment, or patient welfare. No wonder it was a painted cardboard world.

  And, leg propped up on the wooden chair, the walls oozing sweat and speckled with great patches of mildew, the cockroaches waving their antennae from every dark cranny, itching for the light to go off, Sister Langtry looked around her like someone doubting the reality of a dream.

  I shall be so glad to go home, she thought for the very first time. Oh, yes, I shall be glad to go back to my home!

  Part 6

  1

  Sister Langtry came into the sisters’ sitting room about four the next afternoon feeling more like herself, and looking forward to a cup of tea. There were five sisters scattered in two groups about the room, and Sister Dawkin on her own, sitting in one chair with her feet propped up on another, her head nodding toward her ample chest in a series of jerks which culminated in one large enough to startle her into waking. Eyes about to close again, she saw who was standing in the doorway, waved and beckoned.

  As Sister Langtry walked across to join her friend a strong wave of dizziness provoked a sudden panic; she wasn’t sleeping and she wasn’t eating properly, and if she wasn’t careful she would become ill. Contact with the men of X and their problems had educated her sufficiently to understand that her present symptoms were escapist, a means whereby to manufacture an end demanding her removal from ward X without the humiliation of having to request Matron for a transfer. Therefore pride dictated that she sleep and eat. Tonight she would take a Nembutal, something she had not done since the day of the incident in the dayroom.

  ‘Sit down, love, you look knocked up,’ said Sister Dawkin, tugging at a chair without getting up herself.

  ‘You must be pretty knocked up yourself to snatch forty winks in here,’ said Sister Langtry, seating herself.

  ‘I had to stay on the ward last night, that’s all,’ said Sister Dawkin, disposing her feet in a new position. ‘We must look like Abbott and Costello to the rest of the room, me like the wreck of the Hesperus and you like a poster to recruit army nurses. That tomfool of a woman, even daring to suggest there was any ulterior motive! As if you’d ever stoop to anything vulgar or underhand!’

  Sister Langtry winced, wishing that Matron had had the good sense to hold her tongue. But the stupid woman had blabbed to her best friend, who had blabbed to her best friend, and so on, and so on. The whole nursing staff (which meant the MOs as well) knew that Sister Langtry—of all people!—had kept a soldier in her quarters all night. And of course the place was buzzing about the hara-kiri suicide; it was no use hoping such drama would not be talked about. Though luckily her own reputation was so good that few indeed believed there was anything more in her conduct with the solider than an urgent and understandable desire to keep him out of harm’s way. If they only knew, thought Sister Langtry, feeling the eyes on her from the two other tenanted tables, if they only knew what my real troubles are! Inversion, murder, rejection. Though murder has gone, thank God. I don’t have to worry about that one.

  The kind fading eyes that forthrightness saved from being commonplace were looking at her shrewdly; Sister Langtry sighed and moved a little, but did not say anything.

  Sister Dawkin tried another gambit. ‘As of next week, me dear, it’s back to dear old Aussie and Civvy Street,’ she said.

  Sister Langtry’s cup just missed making contact with its saucer, and slopped tea all over the table. ‘Oh, bother! Now look what I’ve done!’ she exclaimed, reaching into her basket for a handkerchief.

  ‘Are you sorry, Honour?’ Sister Dawkin demanded.

  ‘Just taken by surprise,’ Sister Langtry said, mopping up tea with her handkerchief and wringing it out into her cup. ‘When did you hear, Sally?’

  ‘Matey told me herself a few minutes ago. Came sweeping into D ward like a battleship in full sail and let it drop with her mouth all pursed up as if she’d been eating alum for a week. She’s devastated, of course. She’ll have to go back to that poky little convalescent home she ran before the war. None of the big hospitals or even the district hospitals would touch her with a barge pole. It beats me how she ever got so high up in the army.’

  ‘It beats me too,’ said Sister Langtry, spreading her handkerchief out to dry on a comer of the table, then dispensing more tea into a fresh cup and saucer. ‘And you’re right, none of the decent hospitals would touch her with a barge pole. Somehow she always reminds me of a night-shift forewoman in a big food factory. Still, if the army will keep her on she might remain in the army. She’d be better off. Better pension when she retires, too, and she can’t be all that far off retirement.’

  ‘Hah! If the army keeps her it will be better luck than she deserves.’ Sister Dawkin reached for the teapot and replenished her own cup. ‘Well, I know I’m going to be sorry to go home,’ she said abruptly. ‘I hate this place, I’ve hated every place the army has sent me, but I’ve loved the work, and God, how I’ve loved the freedom!’

  ‘Yes, freedom is the right word, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve loved too… Do you remember that time in New Guinea when there was no one else fit to operate but you and me? I’ll never forget that as long as I live.’

  ‘We did all right, too, didn’t we?’ Si
ster Dawkin smiled, swelling visibly with pride. ‘Patched those boys up as if we’d got our FRCSs, and the boss recommended us for decoration. Ah! I’ll never wear any ribbon with more pride than my MBE.’

  ‘I am sorry it’s over,’ said Sister Langtry. ‘I’m going to loathe Civvy Street. Bedpan alley again, women patients again. Bitch bitch, moan moan… It would be just my luck to land on gynae or obstets. Men are so easy!’

  ‘Aren’t they? Catch women patients lending you a hand if the staff situation’s desperate! They’d rather be dead. When women hit a hospital they expect to be waited on hand and foot. But men pop on their halos and do their best to convince you that their wives never treated them the way nurses do.’

  ‘What are you going to down Civvy Street, Sally?’

  ‘Oh, have a bit of a holiday first, I suppose,’ said Sister Dawkin unenthusiastically. ‘Look up a few friends, that sort of thing. Then back to North Shore. I did my general at Royal Newcastle and my midder at Crown Street, but I’ve spent most of my nursing career at North Shore, so it’s more or less home by now. Matron ought to be glad to see me if no one else is. As a matter of fact, I’m in line for a deputy matronship, and that’s about the only thing I am looking forward to.’

  ‘My matron will be glad to see me, too,’ said Sister Langtry thoughtfully.

  ‘P.A., right?’ asked Sister Dawkin, using the universal nursing slang for the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

  ‘P.A. it is.’

  ‘Never fancied a hospital quite that big myself.’

  ‘Actually, though, I’m not sure I want to go back to P.A.,’ Sister Langtry remarked. ‘I’m toying with the idea of going to Callan Park.’

  Since Callan Park was a mental hospital, Sister Dawkin sat up very straight and subjected Sister Langtry to a hard stare. ‘Seriously, Honour?’

  ‘Deadly earnest.’

  ‘There’s no status to mental nursing! I don’t even think there’s a certificate to collect. I mean you must know that mental nurses are regarded as the dregs.’

  ‘I’ve got my general certificate and my midder, so I can always go back to proper nursing. But after X, I’d like to try a mental hospital.’

  ‘They’re not the same as X, though, Honour! Troppo is a temporary thing, most men get over it. But when a patient walks through the gates of a mental hospital he’s facing a life sentence.’

  ‘I know all that. But maybe it’s going to change. I like to hope it will, anyway. If the war helps it as much as it’s helped things like plastic surgery, lots of things are going to happen in psychiatry. And I’d like to be in on the ground floor of the changes.’

  Sister Dawkin patted Sister Langtry’s hand. ‘Well, ducky, you know your own mind best, and I never was one to preach. Just remember what they always say about mental nurses—they wind up dottier than their patients.’

  Sister Pedder walked into the room, looking around to see which group would welcome her most cheerfully. On seeing Sister Dawkin and Sister Langtry she gave Sister Dawkin a wide smile and Sister Langtry a frosty nod.

  ‘Have you heard the news, young Sue?’ called Sister Dawkin, nettled by the girl’s rudeness.

  Common courtesy therefore compelled Sister Pedder to approach the table, looking as if there was a bad smell in the vicinity.

  ‘No, what news?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re almost a thing of the past, dearie.’

  The girl’s face came alive. ‘You mean we’re going home?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Jiggety-jig,’ said Sister Dawkin.

  Tears sprang to Sister Pedder’s eyes, and her mouth hovered between the twisted tremble of weeping and the softer curve of smiling. ‘Oh, thank God for that!’

  ‘Well, well! A proper reaction at last! Easy to tell the old war-horses among us, isn’t it?’ asked Sister Dawkin of no one in particular.

  The tears began to fall; Sister Pedder saw how she could rub it in. ‘How am I ever going to be able to face his poor mother?’ she managed to articulate between sobs, so distinctly that all the heads in the room turned.

  ‘Oh, dry up!’ said Sister Dawkin, disgusted. ‘And grow up, for pity’s sake! If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s crocodile tears! What gives you the right to judge your seniors?’

  Sister Langtry sprang to her feet, appalled. ‘Sally, please!’ she cried. ‘It’s all right, truly it’s all right!’

  Neither of the other two groups of nurses was making any pretense at disinterest any more; those with their backs to the Langtry table had frankly swung their chairs around so they could watch comfortably. It was not a malicious interest at all. They just wanted to see how Sally Dawkin handled that presumptuous young monster Pedder.

  ‘In your quarters all night with Sergeant Wilson, t-t-t-t-t-treating him for shock!’ said Sister Pedder, and brought out her handkerchief to cry in good earnest. ‘What luck for you there’s no one else in your block these days! But I know what’s been going on between you and Sergeant Wilson, because Luce told me!’

  ‘Shut up, you silly little bitch!’ shouted Sister Dawkin, too angry now to remember discretion.

  ‘It’s all right, Sally!’ begged Sister Langtry, trying desperately to get away.

  ‘No, dammit, it’s not all right!’ roared Sister Dawkin in the voice which made probationers shiver. ‘I won’t have such talk! Don’t you dare make insinuations like that, young woman! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! It wasn’t Sister Langtry in over her head with a man from the ranks, it was you!’

  ‘How dare you!’ gasped Sister Pedder.

  ‘I dare pretty bloody easy,’ said Sister Dawkin, who somehow still managed in spite of posture and stockinged misshapen feet to gather the awesome power of a senior sister about her. ‘Just you remember, my girl, that in a few weeks it’s all going to be mighty different. You’ll be just another pebble on that big civilian beach. And I’m warning you now, don’t ever come looking for a job anywhere I am! I wouldn’t have you on my staff as a wardsmaid! The trouble with all you young girls is that you climb into a smart officer’s uniform and you think you’re Lady Muck—’

  The tirade came to a sudden halt, for Sister Langtry gave such a horrifyingly despairing cry that Sister Dawkin and Sister Pedder forgot their quarrel. Then she collapsed onto a settee and began to weep; not soft, fluttering sobs like Sister Pedder’s, but great grinding tearless heaves which seemed to the worried eyes of Sister Dawkin almost like convulsions.

  Oh, it was such a relief! Out of the angry atmosphere, out of the misguided affection of Sister Dawkin and the dislike of Sister Pedder, Honour Langtry finally managed to give birth to the terrible lump of suffering which had grown and chewed inside her for days.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ snarled Sister Dawkin, lumbering out of her chair and sitting down beside Sister Langtry. ‘Go away!’ she said to Sister Pedder. ‘Go on, skedaddle!’

  Sister Pedder fled, terrified, as the other sisters began to gather around; for Sister Langtry was well liked.

  Sister Dawkin looked up at the others, shaking her head, and began with infinite kindness to stroke the jerking, shuddering back. ‘There there, it’s all right,’ she crooned. ‘Have a good cry then, it’s more than time you did. My poor old girl! My poor old girl, so much trouble and pain… I know, I know, I know…

  Only vaguely conscious of Sister Dawkin beside her, talking so kindly, of the other sisters still gathered around and concerned for her too, Sister Langtry wept and wept.

  2

  A kitchen orderly brought the news of Base Fifteen’s imminent demise to ward X, transmitting it to Michael in the dayroom, and grinning from ear to ear as he babbled incoherently about seeing home again, home for good.

  Michael didn’t move back to the verandah at once after the orderly had gone; he stood in the middle of the dayroom with one hand plucking at his face and the other pressed against his side, kneading it. So soon, he thought dully. So soon! I’m not ready because I’m frightened. Not depressed, and not unwilling, eit
her. Just so frightened of what my future holds, what it’s going to do to me, what it’s going to make me. But it has to be done, and I am strong enough. It’s the best way for all concerned. Including me. Including her.

  ‘This time next week we’re all going to be on our way back to Australia,’ he said when he returned to the verandah.

  A leaden silence greeted his news. Reclining on the nearest bed with a Best & Taylor he had wheedled out of Colonel Chinstrap held up in front of him, no mean feat of strength, Nugget lowered the enormous book and stared. Matt’s long hands closed into fists, and his face became still. Busy with a pencil and a piece of paper, Neil dropped the pencil onto the drawing, which happened to be of Matt’s hands, and looked ten years older than his age. Only Benedict, rocking back and forth in a chair that had never been designed to rock, seemed uninterested.

  A slow smile began to dawn on Nugget’s mouth. ‘Home!’ he said experimentally. ‘Home? I’m going to see Mum!’

  But Matt’s tension didn’t lessen, and Michael knew he was thinking of that first encounter with his wife.

  ‘What a pisser!’ said Neil, picking up his pencil again, and discovering that the repose of the beautiful hands was quite destroyed. He put the pencil down, got up, strolled to the edge of the verandah and stood with his back to everyone. ‘What a bloody pisser!’ he said to the palms, voice bitter.

  ‘Ben!’ said Michael sharply. ‘Ben, do you hear that? It’s time to go home; we’re going back to Australia!’

  But Benedict rocked on, back and forth, back and forth, the chair creaking dangerously, face and eyes shut away.

  ‘I’m going to tell her about it,’ said Michael suddenly, strongly. He spoke to any and all of them, but it was at Neil he looked sternly.

  Neil didn’t turn, but his long slim neat back subtly altered; all at once it didn’t appear slack or weary or without resource. The back looked as if it was the property of a powerful and an aggressive man.