For a moment she utterly hated him. ‘A good death,’ she said, ‘doesn’t reside in the dignity of bearing but in the disposition of the soul.’
Suddenly he hated her. ‘Prove it,’ he said.
‘Disprove it,’ she said wearily.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I’ve forgotten to ask how you are keeping. How are you keeping, Jean?’
‘A little stronger, but the cataract is a trouble.’
‘Charmian is gone to the nursing home in Surrey at last. Would you not like to join her there?’
‘Godfrey is left alone with Mrs Pettigrew, then.’
‘You would like to be with Charmian, surely.’
‘No,’ she said.
He looked round the ward and up to the noisy end. There the senile cases were grouped round the television and so were less noisy than usual, but still emitting, from time to time, a variety of dental and guttural sounds and sometimes a whole, well-intentioned speech. Those who were mobile would occasionally leave their chairs and wander up the ward, waving or talking to the bedridden. One tall patient poured herself a beaker of water and began to raise it to her lips, but forgetting the purpose before the act was accomplished, poured the water into another jug; then she turned the beaker upside down on her head so that a little water, left in the beaker, splashed over her forehead. She seemed pleased with this feat. On the whole, the geriatrics were keen on putting objects on their heads.
‘Interesting,’ said Alec. ‘The interesting thing is, senility is somewhat different from insanity. The actions of these people, for instance, differ in many particulars from those of the aged people whom I visit at St Aubrey’s Home in Folkestone. There, some of the patients have been mad most of their lives. In some ways they are more coherent, much more methodical than those who merely turn strange in their old age. The really mad old people have had more practice in irrational behaviour, of course. But all this,’ said Alec, ‘cannot be of much interest to you. Unless one is interested in gerontology, I cannot see that their company, day and night, can be pleasant to you.
‘Perhaps I’m a gerontologist at heart. They are harmless. I don’t mind them, now. Alec, I am thinking of poor Godfrey Colston. What can have possessed Charmian to go away just when her health was improving?’
‘The anonymous telephone calls were worrying her, she said.’
‘Oh no. Mrs Pettigrew must have forced her to go. And Mrs Pettigrew,’ said Miss Taylor, ‘will most certainly make Godfrey’s remaining years a misery.’
He reached for his hat. ‘Think over,’ he said, ‘the idea of joining Charmian in the nursing home. It would so please me if you would.’
‘Now Alec, I can’t leave my old friends. Miss Valvona, Miss Duncan —’
‘And this?’ He nodded towards the senile group.
‘That is our memento mori. Like your telephone calls.’
‘Good-bye then, Jean.’
‘Oh Alec, I wish you wouldn’t leave just yet. I have something important to say, if you will just sit still for a moment and let me get my thoughts in order.’
He sat still. She leaned back on her pillow, removed her glasses, and dabbed lightly with her handkerchief at one eye which was inflamed. She replaced her glasses.
‘I shall have to think,’ she said. ‘It involves a question of dates. I have them in my memory but I shall have to think for a few minutes. While you are waiting you may care to speak to the new patient in Granny Green’s bed. Her name is Mrs Bean. She is ninety-nine and will be a hundred in September.’
He went to speak to Mrs Bean, tiny among the pillows, her small toothless mouth open like an ‘O’, her skin stretched thin and white over her bones, her huge eye-sockets and eyes in a fixed infant-like stare, and her sparse white hair short and straggling over her brow. Her head nodded faintly and continuously. If she had not been in a female ward, Alec thought, one might not have been sure whether she was a very old man or a woman. She reminded him of one of his mental patients at Folkestone, an old man who, since 1918, had believed he was God. Alec spoke to Mrs Bean and received a civil and coherent answer which came, as it seemed, from a primitive reed instrument in her breast-bone, so thin and high did she breathe, in and out, when answering him.
He stepped over to Miss Valvona, paid his respects, and heard from her his horoscope for the day. He nodded to Mrs Reewes-Duncan, and waved to various other occupants of the ward familiar to him. One of the geriatric set came and shook hands with him and said she was going to the bank, and, having departed from the ward, was escorted back by a nurse who said to her, ‘Now you’ve been to the bank.’
Alec carefully watched the patient’s happy progress back to the geriatric end, reflected on the frequency with which the senile babble about the bank, and returned to Jean Taylor who said:
‘You must inform Godfrey Colston that Charmian was unfaithful to him repeatedly from the year after her marriage. That is starting in the summer of 1902 when Charmian had a villa on Lake Geneva, and throughout that year, when Charmian used often to visit the man at his flat in Hyde Park Gate. And this went on throughout 1903 and 1904 and also, I recall, when Charmian was up in Perthshire in the autumn — Godfrey could not leave London at the time. There were also occasions at Biarritz and Torquay. Have you got that, Alec? Her lover was Guy Leet. She continued to see him at his flat in Hyde Park Gate through most of 1905 — up to September. Listen carefully, Alec, you are to give Godfrey Colston all the facts. Guy Leet. So she gave him up in the September of 1907, I well remember, I was with them in the Dolomites, and Charmian became ill then. You must remember Guy is ten years younger than Charmian. Then in 1926 the affair began again, and it went on for about eighteen months. That was about the time I met you, Alec. Guy wanted her to leave Godfrey, and I know she thought of doing so quite often. But then she knew Guy had so many other women — Lisa Brooke, of course, and so on. Charmian couldn’t really trust Guy. Charmian missed him, he did so amuse her. After that she entered the Church. Now I want you to give these facts to Godfrey. He has never suspected Charmian, she managed everything so well. Have you got a pencil on you, Alec? Better write it down. First occasion, 1902 —’You know, Jean,’ he said, ‘this might be serious for poor Godfrey and Charmian. I mean, I can’t think you really want to betray Charmian after all these years.
‘I don’t want to,’ she said, ‘but I will, Alec.’
