would not have begrudged a kiss, I knew. But all the same . . . Maybe it is the vulnerability that is revealed in a sleeping form. It makes you feel like a peeping Tom, his eye to the keyhole, watching two lovers at play in a walled garden. And you know the slightest noise, such as the crack of a twig underfoot, will reveal your presence and destroy their joy; sully it with the pall of having been observed.
I leaned forward to kiss her cheek below the ear.
‘Hello, Louie.’ A voice crashed through the serenity like a felled tree. ‘She looks lovely, don’t you think?’
I jerked round to face the intruder. It was a nurse, with a fat boyish face, standing stiffly and shapelessly in a white pinafore dress. The dress was too tight; the buttons strained and divided her torso into segments like a giant millipede. Damp patches of sweat darkened the fabric of her blouse under her arms. Her hair was straw-coloured and cropped in a way that suggested a pair of kitchen scissors and a head bent over a bowl on a kitchen table, a bowl which on other occasions would be used to soak feet.
‘I made her look nice. I knew you would come today.’
I smiled uncertainly.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
‘Er . . .’
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to pretend. My name’s Glenys. We were in the same class in school.’
‘Oh . . . I . . .’
‘You don’t remember, I can see it in your face. Please don’t pretend.’
‘It was so long ago.’
‘Yes. It doesn’t matter. You needn’t worry about me. Why should you? You’ve come to see Myfanwy. She’s much better. Would you like me to wake her?’
‘No, please. Don’t wake her.’
She needlessly plumped up the pillow. ‘The ribbons are mine, I wore them for my second baptism. I knew you would like them. Are you sure you don’t want me to wake her?’
‘Yes. I’m quite happy sitting here.’
‘It’s ever so easy. You just put your hand over her mouth and hold her nose. She wakes up in a jiffy. I do it with all the patients. You’re looking well.’
‘Thanks. You too.’
‘I’ve put on weight, specially round the knees.’ She looked down and my gaze followed of its own accord. She was wearing tan woollen tights on legs without shape, the tights wrinkled at the fat ankles. Below them were black sensible shoes with scuff marks on the toes. ‘It’s all this running around after the invalids, you see. They treat me like a bloody servant. My legs were my best feature in school.’ She began to smooth down the bed and apply herself to tidying chores. I wished she would leave.
‘Five years I sat behind you and you never turned round once.’
‘As I say—’
‘I sent you a Valentine card and you thought it was from the girl from the estate. You asked her out and she said no.’
‘I remember that.’
‘She’s dead now, so they tell me. Brain haemorrhage.’ She picked up a litter bin and walked out.
Myfanwy sighed and shifted position. There was something deeply calming about that sigh. A sign that wherever it was she was wandering, whichever somnambulant world closed to us, it was nice there and bathed in warm sunshine. Perhaps she was walking through the marram grass at Ynyslas in summer. The day we had our first picnic. A hot blue sizzling day when you had to squint to look at the sea; a day of champagne and strawberries and whispered words; a day I keep locked away in a vault and seldom take out, for fear that exposure to the sun will fade it, and the joy it brings will seep away, like a perfume slowly loses its scent with time.
I walked to the window and looked out at the town. A woman wandered in and sat on the chair I had vacated. She was in a dressing gown, and wore her grey hair in pigtails like a Red Indian squaw. Her features were finely drawn and hinted at lost beauty. There were bandages on both her hands. She took Myfanwy’s hand and spoke.
‘I do envy you being able to sleep like this. I haven’t slept a wink for thirty years—’ She made a tiny startled movement, like a gazelle which picks up the scent of a predator on the breeze. ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered. ‘There’s someone here. Someone by the window . . . I can smell liquor.’ She sniffed the air. ‘Captain Morgan rum, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘I’m sorry, I was . . .’
‘A man! Oh, you must be Louie.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m blind, you see. Myfanwy always talks about you.’
‘That’s kind of you to say.’
‘How old do you think I am?’
‘Oh, I . . .’
‘Don’t say it, you’ll upset me. I’m only forty-six. That shocked you, didn’t it?’
‘No.’ She looked twice that.
‘I can tell from your voice that it did. I’ve had a hard life. I’m the oldest resident. Did you know that? That’s what fooled you, you see. I haven’t got my stick. That wretched nurse keeps hiding it.’
‘Is Myfanwy your friend?’
‘Yes. My name’s Evangeline . . . Miss not Mrs. I was never married. Who would want me? Oh, but there was a time, oh yes, a time when I was desired.’ She stood up. ‘Well, I must be going. I know better than to play gooseberry to two young sweethearts.’
‘You’re very welcome to stay.’
‘This place used to be a seminary, did you know that? “Seminarium” means nursery garden, from the Latin for seed, like semen. A place where they grow priests; you need to spread a lot of dung to do that. I knew a priest once, many years ago; he used me as a seed bed but they didn’t believe me. He was a beastly priest, or was it the other way round? Heigh-ho, there is a willy grows aslant a brook . . .’ She paused as if trying to recover a lost train of thought. ‘I was desired once, too. But that was long ago.’
She stepped slowly to the door and I said, ‘Does Myfanwy really talk about me?’
‘All the time.’
She reached the door and added, ‘Myfanwy says you drink too much rum. I think she was right.’
‘It’s my aftershave.’
‘Well, then, you drink too much aftershave.’
Before leaving, I dropped in on the doctor. He was sitting at his desk showing a series of cards to a small mongrel dog who sat on a chair. The cards showed pictures of various objects that might interest a dog.
‘The vet says he needs worming,’ the doctor explained without looking up. ‘Please take a seat.’
I pulled up another chair to the desk.
‘That’s their answer to everything: worm tablets. But what’s the point of removing the parasites if you don’t address the fundamental psychosomatic causes?’
He held out a card with a picture of a cat and the dog growled. The next card had a bone on it and the dog licked his nose.
‘You see!’ said the doctor as if this proved something.
‘Dogs have psychological problems, too?’
‘Of course. They have two eyes like us, a heart like us, two lungs like us, a brain like us. Why do people suppose they don’t also have the same neuroses?’
‘I’ve just been to see Myfanwy.’
‘Yes, she’s looking better.’
‘She seems to sleep a lot.’
The doctor paused and put on his concerned face. ‘She seems a bit – how should I say it – a bit reluctant to join the party. It’s as if she’s happier in dreamland or wherever it is she goes.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘We need to coax her back. We need to help her see that life is worth living and she will be happy again.’
