'John Christow… There are too many John Christows in this world…'
'You're wrong,' said Henrietta. 'There are very few people like John…'
'If that's so-it's a good thing! At least, that's what I think!' He got up. 'We'd better go back again.'
Chapter VII
As they got into the car and Lewis shut the front door of the Harley Street house, Gerda felt the pang of exile go through her. That shut door was so final. She was barred out -this awful week-end was upon her. And there were things, quite a lot of things, that she ought to have done before leaving. Had she turned off that tap in the bathroom? And that note for the laundry-she'd put it-where had she put it? Would the children be all right with Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle was so-so- Would Terence, for instance, ever do anything that Mademoiselle told him to? French governesses never seemed to have any authority.
She got into the driving seat, still bowed down by misery, and nervously pressed the starter. She pressed it again and again. John said, 'The car will start better, Gerda, if you switch on the engine.'
'Oh, dear, how stupid of me.' She shot a quick alarmed glance at him. If John was going to become annoyed straight away- But to her relief he was smiling.
That's because, thought Gerda, with one of her flashes of acumen, he's so pleased to be going to the Angkatells'.
Poor John, he worked so hard! His life was so unselfish, so completely devoted to others. No wonder he looked forward to this long week-end. And, her mind harking back to the conversation at lunch, she said, as she let in the clutch rather too suddenly so that the car leapt forward from the curb:
'You know, John, you really shouldn't make jokes about hating sick people. It's wonderful of you to make light of all you do, and I understand. But the children don't.
Terry, in particular, has such a very literal mind.'
'There are times,' said John Christow, 'when Terry seems to me almost human- not like Zena! How long do girls go on being a mass of affectation?'
Gerda gave a little, quite sweet laugh.
John, she knew, was teasing her. She stuck to her point. Gerda had an adhesive mind.
'I really think, John, that it's good for for children to realize the unselfishness and devotion of a doctor's life.'
'Oh, God!' said Christow.
Gerda was momentarily deflected. The traffic lights she was approaching had been green for a long time. They were almost sure, she thought, to change before she got to them. She began to slow down… Still green…
John Christow forgot his resolutions of keeping silent about Gerda's driving and said, 'What are you stopping for?'
'I thought the lights might change-'
She pressed her foot on the accelerator, the car moved forward a little, just beyond the lights, then, unable to pick up, the engine stalled. The lights changed.
The cross traffic hooted angrily.
John said, but quite pleasantly:
'You really are the worst driver in the world, Gerda!'
'I always find traffic lights so worrying. One doesn't know just when they are going to change.'
John cast a quick sideways look at Gerda's anxious unhappy face.
Everything worries Gerda, he thought, and tried to imagine what it must feel like to live in that state. But since he was not a man of much imagination, he could not picture it at all.
'You see,' Gerda stuck to her point, 'I've always impressed on the children just what a doctor's life is-the self- sacrifice, the dedication of oneself to helping pain and suffering-the desire to serve others. It's such a noble life- and I'm so proud of the way you give your time and energy and never spare yourself-'
John Christow interrupted her.
'Hasn't it ever occurred to you that I like doctoring-that it's a pleasure, not a sacrifice! Don't you realize that the damned thing's interesting!'
But, no, he thought, Gerda would never realize a thing like that! If he told her about Mrs. Crabtree and the Margaret Russell Ward she would only see him as a kind of angelic helper of the Poor with a capital P.
'Drowning in treacle,' he said under his breath.
'What?' Gerda leaned towards him.
He shook his head.
If he were to tell Gerda that he was trying to 'find a cure for cancer,' she would respond-she could understand a plain sentimental statement. But she would never understand the peculiar fascination of the intricacies of Ridgeway's Disease-he doubted if he could even make her understand what Ridgeway's Disease actually was. (Particularly, he thought with a grin, as we're not really quite sure ourselves! We don't really know why the cortex degenerates!) But it occurred to him suddenly that Terence, child though he was, might be interested in Ridgeway's Disease. He had liked the way that Terence had eyed him appraisingly before stating: 'I think Father does mean it…'
Terence had been out of favour the last few days for breaking the Cona coffee machine-some nonsense about trying to make ammonia… Ammonia? Funny kid, why should he want to make ammonia? Interesting in a way…
Gerda was relieved at John's silence. She could cope with driving better if she were not distracted by conversation. Besides, if John was absorbed in thought, he was not so likely to notice that jarring noise of her occasional forced changes of gear. (She never changed down if she could help it.) There were times, Gerda knew, when she changed gear quite well (though never with confidence), but it never happened if John were in the car. Her nervous determination to do it right this time was always disastrous, her hand fumbled, she accelerated too much or not enough, and then she pushed the gear lever quickly and clumsily so that it shrieked in protest.
'Stroke it in, Gerda, stroke it in,' Henrietta had pleaded once, years ago. Henrietta had demonstrated. 'Can't you feel the way it wants to go-it wants to slide in-keep your hand flat till you get the feeling of it-don't just push it anywhere-feel it.'
But Gerda had never been able to feel anything about a gear lever. If she was pushing it more or less in the proper direction it ought to go in! Cars ought to be made so that you didn't have that horrible grinding noise.
On the whole, thought Gerda, as she began the ascent of Mersham Hill, this drive wasn't going too badly. John was still absorbed in thought-and he hadn't noticed rather a bad crashing of gears in Croydon.
Optimistically, as the car gained speed, she changed up into third, and immediately the car slackened. John, as it were, woke up.
'What on earth's the point of changing up just when you're coming to the steep bit?'
Gerda set her jaw. Not very much farther now. Not that she wanted to get there. No, indeed, she'd much rather drive on for hours and hours, even if John did lose his temper with her!
But now they were driving along Shovel Down-flaming Autumn woods all round them.
'Wonderful to get out of London into this,' exclaimed John. 'Think of it, Gerda, most afternoons we're stuck in that dingy drawing room having tea-sometimes with the light on.'
The image of the somewhat dark drawing room of the flat rose up before Gerda's eyes with the tantalizing delight of a mirage. Oh! if only she could be sitting there now.
'The country looks lovely,' she said heroically.
Down the steep hill-no escape now…
That vague hope that something, she didn't know what, might intervene to save her from the nightmare, was unrealized. They were there.
She was a little comforted, as she drove in, to see Henrietta sitting on a wall with Midge and a tall thin man. She felt a certain reliance on Henrietta who would sometimes unexpectedly come to the rescue if things were getting very bad. John was glad to see Henrietta, too…
