Growing Into Medicine (2 page)

The house had three bathrooms. The green one, between the nursery and the spare room, was used by the children as well as for the weekly wash, when the clothes were boiled in a large, gas-heated cauldron and removed with wooden tongs. The place filled with
steam and the pervasive odour of carbolic soap. The blue bathroom near my parents’ bedroom was specifically for their use. We were encouraged to go in while they bathed. My mother would hang her used sanitary towel on one side of a chair back and the clean one on the other. I am more embarrassed by the memory than I was at the time when, as she intended, I accepted menstruation with no sense of shock. However, this did not help me to cope when my own periods started while I was still in the ‘nursery wing’ at Hinton, the house in Somerset that I also loved. My boarding school had been evacuated there and I was the first of my class to be afflicted by ‘the curse’. It took me three days of stained pants before I found the courage to consult the matron. My mother had sent me to boarding school with cotton pads that could be washed, not realising that modern girls used disposable towels.

The height of excitement in the blue bathroom was when our father submerged the whole of his head. Two or three times a week he soaped the crown and then disappeared under the water, blowing bubbles from his mouth as he did so. When he ran out of breath he shot up like a breaching whale, to much laughter and clapping of small hands.

The third bathroom was at the end of the corridor beyond the room for the two maids. It was poky, being under the eaves and for their use only. A similar space opposite was used to store suitcases until it was converted into a darkroom for Arthur when he started to develop his own photos. As I grew up, I felt awkward about the social stratification epitomised by these hygienic provisions.

After the episode with the cream, Daisy encouraged me to help with Gerda’s bath. I knelt by the side, working the shampoo into a delicious, slippery mass of foam while the dog stood still, pleased with all the attention. My enjoyment of such sensory experiences was in sharp contrast to my mother who needed her fingers to be clean and dry. She never let us eat sandwiches on the beach, as any grain of sand between her teeth made her shudder. She preferred the rocks with their pools, taking no pleasure in the messiness of sand, while I revelled in every squish and squelch.

Bertha, a Dalmatian puppy, arrived during the war and was Biz’s dog. She was very beautiful. As she grew to maturity her developing black spots became more numerous than considered ideal by breeders. They formed an enchanting tick shape on her forehead. Unfortunately she barked whenever the doorbell rang, creating great havoc. My mother’s shouting only encouraged the noise, in the same way that it exacerbated our sisterly screaming.

Daisy was firm with small children but she was also gentle and full of common sense. No one could have told me about the pleasure when she did my hair. It was long and blonde and always in knots. Her patience was inexhaustible. She would sit in her chair while I stood between her legs. The slow stroke of the brush, the teasing comb that helped her fingers untangle the muddles, produced a particular delicious swooning in my head. It was the most sensuous feeling I experienced for many years, only reproduced later at boarding school when we would tickle each other, slowly and with the lightest touch.

I must have been about three or four when I would cross my legs and squat down in the middle of the road when we passed a particular tramp on our daily walk. Despite my psychosexual training and experience I am still upset to admit that the warm feelings were associated with daydreams of him beating my dolls. Here was another shadow, like that of the autistic person clutching at hard edges, which I would prefer to deny.

A third fleeting taste of derangement occurred during the few weeks after my husband died. Although I could work through a whole morning I could not stay in town to shop for more than a few minutes before fleeing for home. I would have expected these passing hints of autism, sadomasochism and agoraphobia to allow me to empathise more deeply with sufferers. But I find they merely highlight the chasm between my experience and that of others, only serving to deepen the sense of how impossible it is, without an imagination more powerful than mine, to see the world truly from behind someone else’s eyes.

Daisy knew that my dolls were very important. I pushed them
about the garden in a dolls’ pram with a brown hood, raised and lowered by a lever at the side. It was stiff, the joint waiting with malign intent to trap my finger. When forced down it fixed the hood so taut that the folds were smoothed away, leaving the surface tight enough to act as a drum. Or I may be muddling it with the big black pram in which I was left in the garden to sleep, a routine demanded by the protocol of the times, until I was at least two years old. During the psychoanalysis with which I indulged my seventies I remembered the dark space under the hood and the fear of being alone.

In my old age, when I crave large gulps of silence and aloneness, I am surprised by that fear. Daisy knew how much I needed company. When I was confined to the spare room with recurrent tonsillitis she would find reasons for a chat, arriving to clunk the vacuum cleaner against the feet of the bed, sending a friendly judder through the mattress. Or she would bring me a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice ordered by my mother before she left for work. The ‘bits’ were never strained out: that would have been a waste of good nourishment. I hated their feel against my teeth but forced it down for the sake of Daisy’s visits. On a table by the bed an elephant bell, brought home by my father from India after the First World War, was left for me to ring in an emergency. I never had the courage. Asking for help did not – does not – come easily.

That gong was rung by Daisy to summon us for meals. At the weekend it would bring my father and brother from the workshop, my mother from the flower border, my younger sister Biz from. . . I don’t know where. Often she would be out across the fields, talking to the farmers she met or to the tramps, solitary men who wandered about with broken shoes and torn carrier bags. Even the resonant elephant bell would not reach that far. But it could reach to our swing, fixed to ‘the’ oak tree.

No other tree can rival that expanse of indented leaves, that crenellated trunk with its huge branches. My father had screwed two thick eyes into the largest arm that stretched out across an expanse of rough grass. A modern child, familiar with the metal stands of
park swings, could not imagine the height of that branch with the swing so far below. Later, it was flanked by a very thick climbing rope, a trapeze and a rope ladder provided for the more athletic Biz.

I would tie one of my ‘people’, a doll or a teddy bear, to the seat of the swing and push until I could reach no higher. If the person fell off, he or she was chastised – hard, usually physically with my hand or a convenient stick, but verbally as well. ‘You must go into the corner until you are sorry.
Can I come out yet?
No, you are not sorry enough.
But I’m hungry I’ll miss lunch
. Naughty girls don’t deserve lunch. You must stay until you are truly, truly sorry.’

But the swing was also a place of escape, where I could pretend I was running away from home, where I could release those forbidden words,
It wasn’t me. . . I didn’t do it. . . I hate you
. And a place to drift, to see snow-covered mountains, rivers, strange landscapes beckoning to be explored. . .

Daisy sometimes had to come to the end of the path leading to the tree, ringing the gong with increasing force, before the sound broke into my reverie. Then dust rose from the bare earth as my feet dragged to bring the rhythmic motion to a stop. When I eased my fingers straight, white indentations remained, relics of sustained pressure.

Another important member of the household was the gardener. To him was given the unpleasant task of drowning extra kittens within a few hours of their birth. Our female cats had large litters. My parents considered they could find good homes for two by putting notices in the waiting room, but no more. Originally my father would use chloroform to kill them but when it became difficult to obtain the anaesthetic he delegated the job with relief. I learned that one should respect animals and treat them with great kindness, but kill them quickly if they were suffering, or if one could not provide them with a happy and caring home.

Each morning, while my father was ensconced in the consulting room working his way through morning surgery, the gardener would clean his car. A concrete base in front of one side of the double garage had been built with a slope from each corner towards the
drain in the middle. The detailed design was an example of the meticulous care my parents took when they built the family home in two acres of raw field. The house was also intended to be a base for their medical practice. They called it Green Gables for the grey-green colour of the tiles. I don’t know if they were aware of the famous book at that time but at least they did not call either of their daughters Anne.

One of the other regular jobs performed by the gardener was to clean my father’s shoes. The high polish was an important part of his persona and dear to me. In my analysis I became enormously attached to the scruffy footwear of my analyst. During the five years we met, I only remember one day when they were polished: I felt deeply betrayed. All father figures should stay in character.

The first gardener I remember was called Slaney. I don’t think even we children called him Mr although his successor Mr Harlow, one of Daisy’s many relatives, was always addressed properly. At various times, members of three generations of her family worked in the house or garden.

It was Slaney who responded to my screams when my brother Arthur put a worm down my neck, perhaps driven to desperation as I trailed him about, asking questions and wanting to help with whatever he was doing. I must have been about five and had a horror of things that wriggled. I had been given a triangle of ground beside the greenhouse for my garden. Much as I longed to prove myself by growing radishes and cornflowers, the first worm that appeared would send me running to the swing, not to try again for several months.

Slaney looked for the worm under my blue aertex shirt but could not find it. He carried me in to Daisy who sat me on the kitchen table and discovered it nestling under the band of my skirt. Despite her cuddles and reassurances my screams, which had started in panic, continued for many minutes. I had to make sure that Arthur realised the enormity of what he had done.

Screaming was an activity Biz and I raised to the level of an art, although this was usually in the presence of my mother rather than
Daisy. Anything my mother said raised the pitch and volume. Only my father, wandering into our bedroom to mend the light or embark on a story from his day, could stem the flow. He was not interested in the causes of our ructions, in the rights and wrongs of the case. He would capture us with the news that the floods were out at Christian Malford, three new puppies had been born to Mr Green’s mongrel or his ‘swag’ for the day was half a dozen eggs and a simnel cake. ‘What is simnel?’ I asked, knowing I did not like it but wanting to show I had recovered enough to take part in a conversation. Arthur bears witness to the fact that Biz continued her storms longer than I did. She was not only younger but has always had a more passionate nature.

Perhaps we screamed with my mother because we saw her mainly in the evenings when we were tired. Or perhaps Daisy’s more placid nature forestalled such tantrums. Certainly her ability to be calm in all situations was useful in a doctor’s household. If the secretary were out she would answer the phone. One gentleman rang asking to speak to the doctor. She told the caller he was out on his rounds.

‘Is Mrs Hickson in?’

‘I’m afraid she is working at a clinic.’

‘Well, perhaps you can tell me, can my wife get up?’

On another occasion a grateful patient wanted to know if the doctor would like a book for Christmas. ‘Oh, he has plenty of books,’ was her reply. An understandable response in view of the fact that she had to dust them all.

All memory is story. We are selective in what and how we remember, changing the truth, whatever that may have been, as we relive our experiences. Some of these ‘Daisy stories’ are the product of family folklore. She could be irritating but we loved her and she was a part of us all.

It seems strange, in view of my ferocious play with my dolls, that during my entire childhood no adult ever raised a hand to me. What punishment I remember was being sent to my bedroom or the threat of a treat removed. Once, Arthur and I turned on the bath
taps and got distracted by a pillow fight. The bath overflowed. We emerged covered in feathers to find the water leaking out under the door and making its way down the stairs. The ceiling of the sitting room below had to be replastered. We were told we would not go to the pantomime that year, but when the time came the threat was not upheld.

So forgiving was the atmosphere that I never consciously felt the discipline to be severe. However Jenny, my second cousin and my best friend for ever and ever, who will play an important part throughout this memoir, was deeply shocked when my mother woke us from sleep one evening to tidy the boothole. The idea of shattering that silence which seeps through a house after the children are asleep, was something her mother would never have considered. We were nine or ten at the time but Jenny, who was always fond of my mother, has remained surprised by that act to this day.

Four years my senior, my brother Arthur seldom misbehaved unless I led him astray. He must have found it a trial to have such a devoted sister. He spent much of his time in silence, designing and making things. I was not good with my hands, or interested in how things worked. Indeed, I was not interested in things or facts at all – only in the feelings of those around me. One of the excitements of writing in my later years has been to discover that I need a modicum of facts, that it can be fun to track them down. In those early days all I wanted was to make people happy and to make them like me, especially Arthur and my father.