Smut: Stories (4 page)

Mrs Donaldson liked this as it made it seem more like home (though not one she had ever had) until came the day when Gwen called unexpectedly to find Andy making himself some toast in the kitchen, and having that minute left Laura in bed, just in his underpants.

‘I didn’t know where to put myself,’ she said to her mother, ‘whereas he seemed to think it was perfectly normal. Took his bread and jam, said “Cheers” and went upstairs. Does she do the same? Parade about half-naked? Just some skinny little pants. I thought they’d gone out, pants like that. Our Justin doesn’t wear them any more. Justin’s gone back to boxers.’ Justin being about as unbecoming as his mother, this wasn’t a thought Mrs Donaldson wanted to dwell on.

‘They live here,’ she said apologetically.

‘Correction,’ said her daughter, ‘they lodge here. I blame that hospital. Since you’ve started going there you’ve got really…lax.’

‘Lax?’ said her mother.

‘I don’t know what Daddy would think. You used to be so shy.’

‘At least they don’t play music,’ said Mrs Donaldson. ‘If they played music there might be something to complain about.’

‘It seems to me’, said Gwen, ‘you’d be quite in order making it a rule that whatever they do in the bedroom they keep their clothes on in the house.’

‘A dress code, do you mean? They live here.’

‘So do you.’

‘They’re company,’ said her mother.

‘How can they be company? They’re eighteen.’ They were actually twenty, but Mrs Donaldson didn’t think there was any point in saying so.

Other than this loosening of the proprieties where the lodgers were concerned nothing much changed. And of course the loosening was one-sided. Laura might slip downstairs in the minimum of clothing but not Mrs Donaldson. She understood instinctively that for her appearances must be rigidly maintained. She must be her age.

Since working at the medical school she had ceased to be intimidated by the young or, her lodgers apart, even to be interested in them much. Some were appealing, she could see that, but fishing for a diagnosis or floundering over her body they were too soft-shelled to make much of an impression.

In less vulnerable moments (i.e. when Ballantyne wasn’t around) they were friendly enough, treating her she decided rather like their granny as ‘a bit of a sport’ (her word) or ‘cool’ (theirs) but never without a degree of condescension. Like the artist’s model that daughter Gwen had identified her with, she was both there and not there, a frame on which to hang symptoms.

Dr Ballantyne put Mr Maloney in the picture.

‘This is Mrs Dickinson. She has come to see her GP not for the first time about some recurrent eczema. Previous visits have not succeeded in uncovering any particular cause; all the usual remedies have been prescribed but the eczema always returns. Her GP has now begun to wonder if there is an underlying psychological cause, the eczema a symptom of a deeper malaise. Which is for you to uncover.’

Maloney nodded sagely.

‘Good hunting.’

Dr Ballantyne laid a caring hand on Mrs Dickinson’s supposedly itching and weeping arm before giving them both a wide smile and loping off to another cubicle.

‘I hate these mental jobs,’ said Maloney and put one foot on the table. ‘You never know where you are with them. Give me an old-fashioned tumour any day.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Mrs Dickinson.

‘Oh come on, love. This psychosomatic stuff. So you’ve got eczema. Wrong soap. Wrong washing powder. Diet, I suppose, maybe…there’s generally a physical cause. But these days just for form’s sake we have to go down the psychological route.’

Maloney’s sights were set on surgery; all the rest was a waste of time. If eczema could be cut out on the operating table he’d have been interested.

‘So. What’s the story. How did she get it?’

‘How did I get it?’ the proto-patient primly corrected him.

Maloney sighed. This was one of the tiresome individuals who insisted on playing the game.

‘It’s not a spin-off from the menopause?’

‘I don’t believe I’ve had the menopause,’ said Mrs Dickinson.

‘Oh. So you’re still doing the rounds. Maybe that’s it?’

‘I’m not still “doing the rounds” as you put it. I’m happily married.’

‘Good for you. Hurray. Do you smoke?’

‘No. And cigarettes wouldn’t cause it anyway.’

‘I know that, dear, I just thought we could nip out and have one behind the bins.’

‘I’m in pain,’ said Mrs Dickinson. ‘I’m itching. My back is red raw.’

‘Yeah yeah,’ said Maloney.

‘Tell you what. Why don’t you give me the upshot of the case, the conclusion you’ve got written down in your brief and then we can cut the whole business short. After all, even if it is all in the mind it’s not going to make much difference. Nobody goes into dermatology, we all know that.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said the supposed Mrs Dickinson. ‘Perhaps we should get back to the case notes. And then you could ask me when this eczema first occurred.’

‘She made me go through the whole rigmarole, stupid bitch,’ said Maloney in the pub afterwards. ‘Why should she care? I thought she was the one who was supposed to be cool.’

RENT DAY WAS COMING UP AGAIN and Mrs Donaldson had been readying herself for the encounter. She had already decided that if a repeat performance was suggested she would feign reluctance on financial grounds before eventually giving in on the same terms as before. However on the Friday in question nothing was said until bedtime when Mrs Donaldson happened to be in the kitchen where Andy was making Laura a hot drink.

‘Oh before I forget,’ he said and brought out some £20 notes. ‘I think this covers it.’

Not sure how many notes there were and not wanting to count them there and then she just smiled and put them in her bag.

‘We’re improving,’ Andy said.

Mrs Donaldson left it a few minutes before she went upstairs and as she sat on her bed she thought she could hear them laughing.

Now she gets ready for bed, putting on her dressing gown and not for the first time takes one of the flimsy bedroom chairs from beside the bed and puts it by the dressing table. Perched on the chair and with a blanket round her shoulders and an eiderdown round her legs she presses her ear to the wall.

Somewhere on the other side of the city Ballantyne is keeping his own vigil, running and re-running the tape he had taken months ago on his camcorder. Whenever Mrs Donaldson appears he freezes the frame, wishing he had the technology or the know how to close in. Sometimes she looks directly at the camera and he feels she is looking at him and this is a small satisfaction. But mostly he just looks at her.

Mrs Donaldson’s adventure had given her something of a boost. Though her own attractions had not been at issue in the scene of which she had been a witness, in some undefinable way seeing it (and to that extent participating) meant that she partook of the charms of the love-making couple. She imagined herself younger, she looked brighter, and ludicrous though she knew it to be, she felt she was still in the game.

But not for long.

Mrs Donaldson was not vain. She had never thought she was all that much to look at while at the same time recognising that she was probably more attractive now than she had been when she was younger. She was not petite and quite sturdy in fact but she had good skin, nice crisp hair that she kept neat and well-curled, and it was not surprising (and she was not surprised) if she appealed to men of her own age…women too maybe but she had no means of knowing that nor had any inclination to find out.

Still, she was fifty-five, an age when should she take her clothes off full light was to be avoided, hotel bathrooms always dangerous places.

That the young people had not minded having her in their bedroom even from economic necessity meant a lot to her though had she had to participate, a wild speculation she these days entertained more and more, she would have been grateful for the candles. Fifty-five or not it had reassured her that she wasn’t wholly repellent to look at.

The daily proximity of youth made this illusion difficult to maintain. She had been experiencing palpitations and periodic dizziness and someone in the first year had been put up to listen to her chest. This involved a slight loosening of her clothing – no more than a button or two of her blouse – a procedure to which normally and unless specifically required to behave otherwise she remained indifferent. But he was a handsome boy who undid her buttons with practised ease and she watched him as he listened to her heart. He was looking, too, and she caught his slight but unmistakeable revulsion as he touched the age-puckered skin of her breast which, since he was a bright boy, he was able instantly to convert into a frown of concern.

It wasn’t quite quick enough to deceive Mrs Donaldson, though, who spotted it not as the patient but as herself and whereas she might ordinarily have taken some mild and wholly unacknowledged pleasure in his touch, now, looking at the unpuckered and slightly furred flesh of the young man’s ear a few inches from her face, she felt soiled and withered and wholly without value.

‘Good,’ said Ballantyne. ‘But what did Mr Adams do wrong?’ The boy looked suddenly crestfallen and Mrs Donaldson felt herself blushing. Ballantyne must have spotted his distaste too and now her carnal shortcomings were to become a means of instruction.

‘Come along. How did he mishandle the patient?’

Various suggestions came from the class, all of them rejected.

Ballantyne sighed.

‘Expert as I’m sure you are at undoing ladies’ buttons, Mr Adams, you should allow the patient to do that for herself. Unless the patient is incapable…and Mrs Donaldson is certainly not that. You don’t just go for it.’

The young man nodded ruefully.

‘Otherwise excellent and even in such a routine procedure as this the patient has been left with her dignity intact. Thank you, Mrs Donaldson.’

‘Conceited fart,’ said Delia in the canteen. ‘But face it, we’re all of us curling at the edges. They never like my varicose veins.’

‘I thought I’d got used to it,’ said Mrs Donaldson.

‘Does one ever?’

Once upon a time, i.e. before she had her secret, she would have let a setback like this depress her. Now it made her what Ballantyne would have called feisty and rekindled her animosity towards the young.

PRENTICE TOOK HIS SEAT at the table on the dais. She knocked at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Prentice.

Having come in she waited and Prentice got up.

‘My name is Backhouse. I’m here to see my husband. He had a little fall this morning and they brought him in as a precaution.’

Prentice stood back from the table, looking at his clipboard.

‘I know already Mr Backhouse is dead,’ said Ballantyne. ‘Or thereabouts. Why, anybody?’

A hand went up. ‘When she came in he didn’t look at her.’

‘Quite so,’ said Ballantyne.

‘But does that mean…’ this was another student, ‘that he should have looked at her? Isn’t not looking at her a way of preparing her for the fact that there is going to be bad news?’

‘That depends’, said Ballantyne, ‘on whether Mrs Backhouse picked it up. Let’s see.’

‘The nurse told me he wasn’t here.’ Mrs Backhouse looked at the young man. ‘Where is he?’

‘I’ll just go and get a nurse,’ said Prentice.

‘No nurses available,’ said Ballantyne. ‘Nurses’ outing. They’ve all gone to
The Sound of Music
.’

‘Would you sit down,’ said Prentice.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Ballantyne.

‘Mrs Blackhouse –’ said Prentice.

‘Backhouse,’ said Mrs Donaldson. ‘Not Blackhouse.’

‘Mrs Backhouse. When your husband had his fall –’

‘Look at her,’ said Ballantyne. ‘You know what’s happened. Don’t hide in your papers.’

‘When your husband had his fall…Do you know anything about the brain?’

‘Mrs Backhouse doesn’t know about the brain,’ said Ballantyne. ‘She wants to know about her husband.’

‘Actually I do know a bit about the brain,’ said Mrs Backhouse. ‘I was in the St John Ambulance Brigade.’

‘I stand corrected,’ said Ballantyne.

‘Has he had a stroke?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Prentice, ‘though there was some bleeding.’

‘I know. I saw the blood. That’s why I rang the ambulance.’

‘We took him into intensive care but he went into a coma…’

‘He’s dead.’

Prentice looked at Ballantyne.

‘You see, this is where a nurse would help.’

‘Nurses still not back,’ said Ballantyne. ‘Gone for a fish and chip supper. Tea and bread and butter. You’re on your own.’

‘Could I get you a cup of tea?’

‘Never mind tea. You haven’t told her her hubby’s gone.’

‘He is dead I’m afraid. Would you like a cup of tea?’

Ballantyne groaned. ‘There is no tea. There’s been a power cut. The canteen is closed. Don’t run away from her. Tea, a nurse, your clipboard…why are you hiding from this woman. She’s your responsibility.’

‘Is there anybody you’d like to ring,’ said Prentice. ‘You could use my mobile.’

‘She’s got one of her own,’ said Ballantyne.

‘Have you been married long?’ said Prentice.

‘A quibble,’ said Ballantyne, ‘but since he’s dead it’s, “Had you been married long?”’

There was a giggle from the class.

Prentice took Mrs Backhouse’s hand and someone guffawed. ‘I don’t know why you’re laughing,’ said Ballantyne. ‘And why are you oafs nudging each other?’ A grinning student at the back shook his head and did his best to look serious.

‘Go on Prentice.’

‘I think I’d just sit here holding her hand. Let her do the talking, you know,’ said Prentice, ‘only…’

‘What?’

‘What if it’s a man?’ said Prentice, ‘and you can’t hold his hand?’

‘Arm round the shoulder? Christ, you’re the tactile generation. Only no hugs, for God’s sake. Just feel the situation. You’re human beings, the majority of you anyway. There’s no drill to sympathy.’

So Prentice sat for a while holding Mrs Backhouse’s hand.

‘He was a bastard,’ said Mrs Backhouse.

‘Come again,’ said the young man.