The Touch (60 page)

When Dolly awoke she found her mummy there and held out her arms for those hugs and kisses. How lovely she smelled after a peaceful night! Oh, Dolly, be happy! Accept the truth when you hear it as something that doesn’t matter one iota as much as love.

WHEN SHE went down to breakfast in the conservatory Lee was there with Alexander. This was the Lee she liked best, in old dungarees and an old shirt with its sleeves rolled up.

“Why,” she asked, sitting down and accepting a cup of tea from Alexander, “don’t you men cut the sleeves off your shirts?”

They both stared at her blankly, then Alexander began to laugh, his arms above his head as if in triumph.

“My dear Elizabeth, an unanswerable question! Why don’t we, Lee? It makes perfect sense, like sherry in big glasses.”

“We don’t, I think,” said Lee, smiling with that touch of the inscrutable Chinese, “because it’s always been mandatory that, upon meeting a lady or a bank manager or a solicitor, we must roll our sleeves down immediately to look like gentlemen.”

“In this kind of clobber? I’m game to chop mine,” said Alexander, offering his wife the toast rack.

“If you are, I am.” Lee rose to his feet. “I’m off to the cyanide plant—there are problems with the electrolysis, we’re losing too much zinc. Elizabeth, your servant.”

She inclined her head and muttered something; once Lee had gone she buttered a slice of cold toast and made a show of eating.

“What do you intend to do today?” Alexander asked, taking a fresh pot of tea from Mrs. Surtees. “Here, this is hot.”

“Spend the morning with Dolly, then perhaps ride.”

“How’s the new mare?”

“Very nice, though it’s hard to replace Crystal.”

“All creatures must go,” he said gently, wondering how he was going to tell her that Anna would die soon.

“Yes.”

“What do you call this one, since it’s a dappled grey?”

“Cloud.”

“I like it.” He got up, frowning at her. “Elizabeth, you aren’t eating. Last night you pecked, this morning you’re not getting far with that toast. I’ll ring for fresh.”

“Please don’t, Alexander. I prefer the butter unmelted.”

“It doesn’t look like it to me.”

But, having said his piece, he departed, and Elizabeth could abandon the toast. The tea she drank, as always without sugar; when she stood up her head whirled. He was right, she wasn’t eating enough. Lunch. If Lee’s busy down in the cyanide plant, he won’t be here, so maybe if I tell Mrs. Surtees to have Chang make something I really like, I’ll be able to eat.

Mrs. Surtees came in while Elizabeth was still steadying herself and went to support her. “Lady Kinross, you’re ill.”

“I’m all right, just light-headed. I can’t seem to eat.”

Mrs. Surtees poured another cup of tea and loaded it with sugar. “Here, drink this. You won’t like it, but it will make you feel better. I’ll put a jug of orange juice on the table at lunch. It’s amazing how long our oranges last if they’re left on the trees.” Satisfied that Elizabeth had drunk enough of the tea during this little homily, she smiled and went to the kitchen.

The sweet tea had worked; Elizabeth went to find Dolly, not having discussed the lunch menu. Which didn’t matter. Chang and Mrs. Surtees were quite capable of deciding menus. And I have to think of things that don’t involve Lee…

Who succeeded in manufacturing excuses for not dining at the house: either the refinery needed his attention, or the research center geniuses had struck a problem, or this, that, the other.

A puzzle for Alexander, who liked to talk business with Lee over lunch, but accepted all the reasons Lee produced in good faith; to Alexander, they were symptoms of how difficult it had been to run the Apocalypse smoothly in Lee’s absence. Gone were the days when he had found fault with everything Lee said or did; these days Alexander admitted that Lee was knacky, competent, knew about everything and did have a business head. Having learned that Lee usually found the time to lunch with his mother at the hotel, since it didn’t involve a time-consuming trip to the top of the mountain, Alexander decided to lunch at the hotel too.

Constance Dewy had gone back to Dunleigh; Elizabeth had the house to herself. If she wondered why she hadn’t seen Ruby, she put that absence down to Lee, sticking to Kinross town and the foot of the mountain like a burr to a fleece.

SUMMER CAME in very hot and very dry, a weight of motionless air that pressed down so remorselessly that there was no escape from it anywhere, inside or out.

Alexander took the time off to build a shallow pool for Dolly in the shade of some trees the cicadas didn’t like, and taught her to swim.

“But it’s a small volume of water, easy to change when it grows algae and whatever else,” he said to Elizabeth, who was enormously grateful for his thoughtfulness. “I’ve got Donny Wilkins working on the concept of public swimming baths—how to keep a huge volume of water clean and healthy. I mean, we solved the sewage problem with one of the new treatment works, so why not give the town swimming baths?” He grinned rather diabolically. “But I insist on mixed bathing—won’t that upset the Methodists? I fail to see why the pleasure of cooling off in public baths should be constrained because a family can’t frolic together. Think what a thrill it would be for a young fellow to see a girl’s erect nipples through a wet bathing costume!”

Elizabeth couldn’t help smiling. “That’s the sort of thing you should save to say to Ruby,” she said, no sting in her voice.

“Where do you think I got it from? Only she went further—thought the girls would get just as big a thrill from seeing the young men with wet costumes plastered against their—er—”

“Disgusting!” said Elizabeth, laughing. “Soon there will be no mysteries left.”

He also installed big fans at either end of the house attics to draw in cooler air and pull out hot air. Elizabeth was amazed at the difference that made, even to the ground floor. No doubt the Kinross Hotel was getting the same treatment, all the bigger buildings, and probably sooner or later the houses with at least a crawl space above their ceilings. Apocalypse subsidized the town’s electricity and gas supplies, so it was feasible. He could never rest, Alexander, he was always looking down new avenues. But would Lee be the same when Alexander was gone? Elizabeth genuinely didn’t know. Still, that was for the far future, one that she knew how to face. Dolly would be grown up and married, so there would be nothing to hold her here. At long last she would be free to go elsewhere, and she knew where she was going—to the Italian lakes. There to live in peace.

NELL ARRIVED home for Christmas.

Her appearance shocked her mother and father. Shabby! The awful dresses were even more awful—completely shapeless, of much laundered cotton in dull browns and greys. Colors that did not suit her, didn’t bring out the striking blue of her eyes or the creaminess of her skin. She didn’t own a single pair of shoes, just flat-heeled brown boots that laced up past her ankles; she wore thick brown cotton stockings, cotton underwear, short white cotton gloves. The only hat she owned was Chinese coolie.

“We’re much of a muchness except for height,” Elizabeth said on Christmas afternoon, with a crowd coming for Christmas dinner. “I have a brand-new lilac chiffon that you’d find very comfortable, and Ruby sent up a pair of shoes because she says you have the same-sized feet. A pair of sheer silk stockings too. You needn’t wear corsets—the new fashions don’t require them if you don’t like them. Oh, Nell, you’d look so lovely in lilac chiffon! You—float. I noticed it first thing.”

“That’s because I walk without wiggling my hips or bottom,” said this unimpressionable child. “I call it a disciplined walk. You can’t wiggle and wobble around a hospital ward—every HMO would crucify you.”

“HMO?”

“Honorary Medical Officer—the big boys in private practice who are apportioned the beds. Can you imagine it?” Nell demanded wrathfully.

“I’ve seen the foyer of Prince Alfred Hospital jammed with a hundred poor men, women and children waiting for a bed, and only one bed available because the HMOs hog them for their paying patients! Some of the poor die still waiting.”

“Oh,” said Elizabeth limply. She tried again. “Wear the lilac chiffon, Nell, please! It would make your father happy.”

“No, I bloody won’t!” said Nell fiercely.

Though she did make an effort to be pleasant during dinner; Elizabeth had seated Lee on one side of her and Donny Wilkins on the other, deciding that if all else failed, the three of them could talk mining shop. But Nell looked so odd, so drab and—well, mannish.

It was Ruby who went to the heart of the matter as soon as the dinner guests rose and repaired to the large drawing room. She herself was looking magnificent in a soft, flowing marmalade silk gown and beltlike links of gold set with amber. Since Nell had always loved her, she made no objection when Ruby pounced on a pair of armchairs, shoved Nell into one and plumped herself in the other, green eyes gone a little yellow from so much orangish gold. Her figure, the clinical Nell had to admit, had gone back to superb after that temporary weight explosion; Ruby wasn’t at all likely to die of apoplexy. In fact, Ruby had probably worked out how not to die at all.

“It wouldn’t have killed you to tart yourself up a bit,” said Ruby, lighting a cheroot.

“Those things will kill you” was Nell’s rejoinder.

“Don’t avoid the issue, Nell. You know what your trouble is? It’s simple. You’re trying to turn yourself into a man.”

“No, I’m just trying not to remind anyone that I’m a woman.”

“Same difference. How old are you now?”

“Twenty-two on New Year’s Day.”

“And still a virgin, I’ll bet.”

A deep flush stained Nell’s cheeks; her lips tightened. “That is none of your bloody business, Auntie Ruby!” she snapped.

“Yes, it is my business, little Miss Medicine. You know what all the parts look like, you know how all the parts work. But you don’t have a fucking clue what life is all about because you don’t live a life. You’re a grind, Nell. A machine. I’m sure you’re brilliant at all the things that please your teachers. I’m sure that they respect you even if they’d rather not, given your sex. You’ve carved your way through your chosen career the way your father carves into this mountain. Every day you see death, every day you see tragedy of some sort. You go home to that flat in Glebe Point Road and there’s your dying sister, one more horror. Yet you don’t live a life of your own. And if you don’t, Nell, there’s something lacking in how you regard your patients, no matter how kind and compassionate you seem to them. You’ll miss something vital that’s been said to you, some tiny human fact that could make all the difference to a diagnosis.”

The vivid blue eyes were looking at her, startled and confused, as if at a statue that had come to life. But Nell said nothing, her anger ashes on the cold dark hearth of reality.

“Darling Nelly, don’t retreat into a mold so masculine that it will end in ruining your career. I agree that what you wear is absolutely suitable for hospital and laboratory work, but it isn’t suitable for a young, vital woman who should be proud of her femininity. You’ve crashed the barriers, but why give fucking men the victory by becoming one yourself? The next thing you’ll be wearing trousers—again, sensible in certain environments—but you can’t grow a prick, no matter how big your balls are. So make a few changes before it’s too late. You can’t tell me that there aren’t medical school parties and balls, times when you can remind the bastards you’re a proper woman. Remind them, Nell! And keep the practical gear for practical occasions. Go out with a few blokes, even if you don’t fancy them. I’m sure you can fight them off if they get too stroppy. And if there is one you really fancy, pursue the relationship! Get hurt! Suffer a little on your own behalf! Go through all those ghastly self-doubts when the affair breaks up and you’re convinced it’s you, not him, it has to be you. Look in your mirror and weep. That’s living a life.”

Her mouth was dry; Nell swallowed, licked her lips. “I see. You’re quite right, Auntie Ruby.”

“No more ‘Auntie’ stuff, it’s just Ruby from now on.” She extended her hands, clenched and unclenched them, glared at them. “The fingers aren’t behaving tonight,” she said. “Play for me, Nell. But not”—she drew a breath—“Chopin. Some Mozart.”

It was her one relaxation; Nell hadn’t neglected the piano. So she smiled at Ruby and moved to the grand piano in her awful brown dress, there to entrance the company with merry Mozart and tzigane Liszt. Later Ruby joined her to sing operatic duets, and Christmas night ended with all the guests singing their favorite songs, from “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” to “Two Little Girls in Blue.”

So when Nell’s birthday dinner came around on New Year’s Day she wore the lilac chiffon. It was too short for her, but Ruby’s silk stockings and stylish lilac shoes turned that into an advantage; what showed of Nell’s legs was shapely. Her hair was arranged to flatter a long face that revealed the skull beneath, and Elizabeth’s amethysts glittered around her graceful neck. Content, Ruby watched the astounded admiration on Donny Wilkins’s face, and the delight on her father’s. Good girl, Nell! You’ve saved your bacon, and just in time. I wish Lee looked at you the way Donny does, but his eyes are on your mother. Jesus, what a business!

NELL LEFT two days later, but not before she had talked to Elizabeth about Anna. Consultation with her father had been a heartache, though perhaps it fell into Ruby’s definition of suffering on her own behalf, and was therefore living a life.

“I hate to put the burden on you, Nell,” Alexander said, “but you know all too well how things stand between your mother and me. If I tell her what’s going to happen to Anna, she’ll withdraw into her shell and not have any companionship in her grief. If you tell her, there’s at least a chance that she’ll be able to give vent to her grief.”

“Yes, I know, Dad.” Nell sighed. “I’ll do it.”

And do it she did, weeping herself, which gave Elizabeth the chance to enfold another body in her arms, do the mourning and keening that goes with terrible, helpless, hopeless grief. Nell’s greatest dread was that Elizabeth would ask to see Anna, but she didn’t. It was as if, in that eruption of sorrow, she had closed a door.