by
Andrew Parkin
Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.
E-book Edition © 2014
Print Edition © 2014 Andrew Parkin – ISBN: 978-1-63135-290-4
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the publisher.
Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.
12620 FM 1960, Suite A4-507
Houston, TX 77065
www.sbpra.com
ISBN: 978-1-63135-508-0
Design: Dedicated Book Services (www.netdbs.com)
BOOK REVIEW
“This novel is a page-turner.” — Jack Stewart. Canadian writer
“Kudos to Andrew Parkin for writing a must-read, cannot-put-down novel. Private Dancers or Responsible Women is based on the life of Paul Wills, a freelance journalist, and his interworking relationships with long-time friends Mary Rao, a physician in the United Kingdom, and Graham Curtis, a university professor in Vancouver, BC. Both were friends of Paul’s during their university days. Paul has had several strange encounters with a beautiful, mysterious woman whom he believes he sees almost everywhere he goes. Kalitza, the mysterious woman, is actually an agent or preventor. Her missions protect people from terrorists’ attacks. Andrew Parkin has worked each character to the fullest extent to get the most from them. Again, this is a most interesting novel and a must-read.” — Diane Pepper Smith, American writer
For Françoise
Review Requested:
If you loved this book, would you please provide a review at Amazon.com?
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
I am indebted to Jack Stewart who read with great attention an earlier version of this book and to my editors and proof readers who saved me from a number of errors.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of its characters to real people is coincidental.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
CHAPTER ONE
“It was such a gentle landing that there was a round of applause for the pilot. After a few minutes of taxiing, we were able to deplane. I stepped from the jet into that elephant’s trunk tunnel reaching into the terminal building. It took only thirty-five minutes to go through immigration, find my suitcase on the baggage belt, and walk through Nothing to Declare. Straight to the car rental counter in the main concourse at Gatwick.”
Paul took another gulp of very cold beer. “I was one of the weary bunches of red-eyed travelers in the terminal building,” he continued. “Outside, the fresh air hit me and I was wide-awake, walking fast, and excited to be in the United Kingdom again.”
Paul Wills, fair-haired, looked at his friend, Graham, as if challenging him to find England exciting. He raised his eyebrows above his dark blue eyes. They were having beers in a waterside pub near the small fishing town of Steveston in British Columbia. Flower baskets overflowed with green trailing foliage, fringing small red, blue, and white flowers outside the windows.
“That’s pretty good going for exiting the airport hassle,” said Graham Curtis, looking at his friend expectantly. He pushed his mop of dark hair back from his forehead.
“And I rented a category B car from their list. I drove to Cheltenham, where I stopped for a snack in a stale, smoke-smelling lounge of an old AA hotel. After that, I drove on to Malvern and checked into an old coaching inn called The Abbey.”
“Sounds very British. Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous! I know the scene. Dusty drapes and worn carpets. Go on,” commented Graham.
“It was quite good, actually. I settled in and wasn’t hungry, so I went for a walk outside and then wandered into the bar for a drink and a few nibbles before turning in. Jet lag was catching up on me.” Paul took a gulp of his beer.
“Cheers,” said Graham and took another dose of the cold bitter he was drinking.
“Each cluster of events sprang without warning and in a particular place,” Paul continued, lowering his voice. “They seemed at the time totally unanticipated and isolated from one another, until I associated them with an extraordinary woman.”
“Ah, now we’re getting there.” Graham smiled, showing perfect front teeth.
“Seriously! I’m convinced that these events influenced my major decisions, the ones, I mean, that I took later. Did the events cause or bring about these decisions? Frankly, I don’t know. Decisions that turned out to be lucky for me followed the events. Causes? Results? These remain . . . mysterious. Looking back, though, I feel that I was helped, perhaps guided, in ways I cannot understand, by a force that seems perfectly natural, yet in some ways totally unreal. I cannot explain, or explain away, what I experienced in Malvern and later.”
“ ‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we may,’ says the Bard. Was she good in bed?” Graham’s pleasant Canadian accent added an edge to both remarks.
“There you go again. You married men! It wasn’t like that.” Paul laughed.
“You disappoint me. I thought this was going to be the beginning of a glorious new something after that unfortunate live-in affair you barely survived . . . what, a year ago?”
Paul raised his eyebrows, grinned, and then ignored Graham’s remarks. “How many people encounter beings or forces who have helped them—or led them astray—forces that they cannot rationally assess?” Paul asked.
Not waiting for an answer, Paul added, quite suddenly, and in French, “ ‘Qui peut donc refuser à ces célestes lumières de les croire et de les adorer?’ Pascal’s Pensées. In other words, ‘Who could thus deny to these celestial luminaries belief and worship?’ Now, after what has happened to me, I won’t deny them.”
“Nice translation, Paul. And who indeed would deny them anything, these extraordinary women!”
“Thanks, professor. A year after the Malvern episode, I had changed my life completely.” After another sup of his beer, Paul cleared his upper lip of suds with a paper napkin and went on, “They simply happened, these events. I didn’t plan them.”
“Yes, but what events? Get on with it, man!”
“Why do visitors go to old churches and graveyards, Graham? Before going into the bar for my nightcap, I wandered out and unerringly homed in on the abbey’s graves. My hotel overlooks the old abbey. The real one. I’m always intrigued by the ages of people at death. I deciphered some of the inscriptions on the flaking stones and felt the sadness of the deaths of the very young, while awarding a good innings to old codgers of eighty or more.”
“I do that, too—a lot of people do that.”
“I was too tired for sweaty discos, even if they exist in Malvern. I expect they do. So I went back to the hotel bar for a Chivas Regal served by a blousy barmaid, a ragged blonde with a Yorkshire accent. Her remarks to passing waiters usually ended with a “what?” rendered more as a statement than a question. A small jug of water came with my Chivas. The peanuts and raisins were enough to stay my stomach before I toddled off to bed at almost ten o’clock. Yes, that night in May . . . another life ago, because after that time in Malvern everything changed.”
“Did the barmaid creep in for a goodnight roll in the sack?”
“She did not. In fact, I took a bath in the old tub with little curved feet—chic once more—and marveled at an Edwardian WC designed with a sort of shelf, so that whatever one deposited in the toilet could be inspected, presumably for any irregularities, before being flushed away.”
“I’m not surprised that design went out,” observed Graham, pushing his dark hair back from his forehead.
“Don’t worry. Some smart designer will bring them back at double the price of a normal one! They’ll turn up on eBay, if not already there, you mark my words. Anyway, the abbey clock struck ten. The bliss of being horizontal in a real bed, however old fashioned, flooded through me, though the hiss of aircraft air-conditioning still seemed to be with me.”
“I know the scene all too well.”
“Sleep! And then suddenly I was awake. The abbey clock struck and I counted seven chimes. I turned on the bedside light. My watch was showing 6:00 a.m. And I’d already changed it to local time, GMT, and all that.” Paul leaned forward.
“Maybe you never learned to count properly. No, you probably missed out one or two circles of the old watch face,” smiled Graham. Paul sat back and looked at his friend intently. Their eyes met, and they both smiled. They were old friends.
“No, Graham, I don’t think so. The bedroom was now enormous. In fact, I appeared to be no longer in bed, but in a vast hangar-like building. I found myself walking rapidly towards the far wall, when a couple of swing doors were flung open and a hospital bed on wheels appeared, pushed by a bald, portly man in a white coat.”
“Portly! Haven’t heard that for a while.”
“Yeah, well, he was an orderly, not a doctor, though his natural tonsure suggested some kind of monk. On the trolley-bed, a white sheet totally covered a person—newly dead? As I came up to him, the monk-like chap turned, indicating the trolley, and said in a South London accent, as barefaced as you like, ‘Here you are, mate, wheel this into that room. I need a smoke break!’ He just nodded his head in the direction of another pair of swing doors a few yards to my left. It never occurred to me to remonstrate or even to speak. I obediently, as one does in dreams I suppose, wheeled the corpse through the other swing doors, nudging them open with the end of the trolley.”
“Always obey orders from barrow boys, Sunshine!” remarked Graham, taking another sup of bitter.
“If there are any barrow boys still barking around in London. I was in a small, clinic-type room with white tiles from floor to ceiling and a canister of liquid soap and a roller towel fixed to the wall. There was a sink and a cupboard with glass doors. Medical supplies were stacked on its shelves. I don’t think there was a smell of disinfectant. Hospital smell! Not a sniff of one. Are there smells in dreams?”
“Search me,” remarked Graham, smiling again at his friend.
“I was suddenly shocked to notice that a dusty brown lizard about seven inches long was standing in the sink, motionless. The tip of its tail was in the plug hole. Did this indicate that it had got in through the drains? Before I could speculate further, the corpse under the sheet sat up.”
“No kidding!”
“The sheet slipped down, revealing a woman of extraordinary physical beauty.”
“There you go!”
“She stepped from the trolley, perfectly alive and smiling,” said Paul, as if he had not heard Graham. “She was naked. Her slender body was a milky coffee color. Her dark eyes were large and shone with attractive intelligence. Her breasts, perfectly formed, were beautifully finished by the darker nipples and aureoles.”
“Aha!”
“Shut up, Graham. Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Okay, okay, carry on.”
“Her hair was long and shiny black. She was so lovely that I felt no fear. Was she a vision? Was she a ghost? Was she a nurse playing a trick?”
Paul sounded serious, perhaps intense. Paul saw Graham smother an impulse to laugh.
“She approached me, holding her arms out slightly to the side so that she could hug me, and hug me she did. As she came closer, I looked into the velvet depths of her eyes and felt warmth and energy flooding into me. As she held me, I put one arm around her, feeling her soft curves, and, as I closed my eyes, felt the warm imprint of her lips on mine. My left hand reached down and stroked her pubic hair. It was not silky, but tightly curled and scratchy—like a Brillo pan scourer!”
Graham let out a guffaw.
“No kidding. When you want to glow, get Brillo!” Paul gave Graham a do-me-a-favour look with a dismissive shake of the head.
Graham looked serious again. He wanted to hear the rest.
“I’m sorry, but that was the exact texture. I held her now in both arms, but it seemed that she held me in a stronger grip. My hands felt her back’s silken flesh and then the unmistakable overlapping of feathers as on a great wing. She retreated from me, smiling, and turned to climb back on her trolley. Her arms had grown tawny, speckled feathers, like the ones on a thrush’s breast, but edged with gold, and these framed her slender back, the wonderful buttocks, and the lean backs of her thighs and calves. She settled back on the trolley and closed her eyes. I walked to her, feeling immense longing and loss as I realized she was certainly dead.”
“Dead, resurrected, dead. We sleep, wake, sleep. I get the picture.” Graham smiled. He felt that he had gone too far. This was not a ribald barroom story. It was obviously important to Paul.
“Her nose was slightly more prominent now, her lips drawn back a little from her teeth, and her feathers were thick with dust, as though from spending millennia in some desert tomb. I covered her with the simple sheet, taking one last look at her altered face, rigid with its calm repose, as it confronted death. As I let the sheet fall over her, I hoped that if there’s a God, her spirit would be blessed.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Paul,” said Graham, again keeping a straight face.
“You can laugh all you want, but I felt a sharp pang of loss once more. My eyes even filled with tears. I wiped them on my sleeves. Somewhat irrelevantly, I noticed that the lizard was no longer in the sink. I wondered whether I should wheel the trolley back or simply leave her in the room. In fact, I turned, still undecided, to find that I was miraculously outside the building and in a great sloping meadow of wild flowers.”
“What did you do next?”
“I ran, holding up my left hand high in the air with my thumb extended. With this hand I had touched that lovely girl so intimately and instinctively. Now I seemed like a sort of priest, blessing the people coming up the slope towards me. I bounded along in that beautiful field, blessing everyone.”
“Bless ‘em all!”
“Oh God!”
“What? Go on. Honestly. You know me.”
“Behind me I heard the abbey bell. I counted and, as it reached seven and stopped, I was sitting cross-legged like Buddha on my bed in the hotel bedroom.”
“Seven again! Must be your lucky number. You’re at a real crossroads, Paul. Seriously! Malvern’s British camp, ancient Egypt, Buddha—that’s heavy stuff.”
“I am serious. The events of that dawn are as real and vivid to me now as they were then. I can’t explain it, that hour, or non-hour, or where I had been, or whom I had met. Did I sleep or was I awake? Was it a dream or a vision? I know I was awake. Was it an out of body experience? The touch of that girl was very much an in body experience. Poets have spoken of waking dreams. Was this a waking dream? It seemed more substantial than a dream. I was aware of the abbey clock or bell striking seven when my watch showed six, and then it seemed it struck seven again. One hour or not of unaccountable, inexplicable vision, of dream-like reality or a realistic dream that I cannot explain took hold of me that dawn and seduced me. Yet, I was left with a greater sense of freedom, of limitless possibilities, of the welcoming mystery of life itself! I now felt no loss or sadness. This was a visit. I was privileged in some way I didn’t really understand. And these words came to me out of somewhere, but from where I cannot say:
“Malvern Abbey’s bells swing metal tongues across soft evening air. The weathered headstones imperceptibly subside above commemorated dust. Some tawny girl awaits me here at dawn. Fine high fashion bones grow living flesh again and worms have left intact that silken skin. Four thousand years focus on an image here. No breath, no sounds, come from her smiling mouth.”
“Hey, that’s okay. Not bad, Paul. Is it another quote?”
“I don’t know. As they came tumbling into my head from somewhere dark and obscure, I scribbled the words down on a pad with a pencil I found on the little table next to the bed—the kind of night table that has a Bible in the drawer. But the words come back to me anyway. A few days later in a book I picked up in a library, I read, ‘Our real tomb is the memory of the living; we are truly dead when they have forgotten us.’ It was in a book by a couple of French writers, the Tadiés, called Le sens de la mémoire. Otherwise known as The Meaning of Memory.”
“Well, you’re a lucky man. Everything drops into place, without the drop of a hat.”
“What was it, Graham? A dream? It all seemed real.”
“Well, I think it was what used to be called a waking dream, just as you thought it was. You mingled Egyptian images with Gray’s Elegy and Langland’s long poem, “Piers Plowman,” which begins in the Malvern Hills with a fair field full of folk.”
“Hmm. I never thought of that. But what does it mean?”
Graham finished his beer. “I think it means that you were at a crisis point after your last love, and you need another one. You are also more creative. You’re in touch with your Jungian anima, the sensitive, female part of yourself. That’s what I think. You want another beer?”
CHAPTER TWO
The neat but tiny semi-detached house had door and window frames painted light blue and white. Mary parked her Volvo outside. She’d had an emergency earlier, but arrived in time to check that all was going normally during Nurse Reynolds’ delivery of the baby.
There were no abnormalities evident during Mrs. Baxter’s pregnancy and, as labour had already started, the midwife had assured Mary there were no complications so far. Mary had no objections to another home delivery by this midwife. The next tiny Baxter to arrive would be Nurse Reynolds’ five thousandth delivery and counting, with another month to go before she retired.
Nelly Baxter was following the breathing exercises of the natural childbirth group Mary had recommended. She was sweating as she panted and pushed. The birth, it turned out, took less than four hours. It was Nelly’s second baby. Nelly’s husband, Ted, a blonde, prematurely balding young man with a frank smile and dimples, had opened the door, before Mary rang the bell. Alison, Nelly’s slightly freckled, younger, and unmarried sister, was hovering on the stairs behind Ted. Mary swept a stray wisp of her black hair over one ear as she followed Ted Baxter and Alison up the narrow stairs, carpeted with an oatmeal-colored matting, like woven sisal. She loved Alison’s auburn ponytail. Mary guessed that the girl had a boyfriend. The bedroom was not large, yet it was spacious enough for a double bed, built-in wardrobe, small kidney-shaped dressing table, two chairs, probably from a dining set, and a small cupboard near the little white cot waiting for the new baby. There was a bright yellow and rose-pink flower design on the curtains, a dash of color contrasting with the off-white matte paint of the walls. Mary gave cheery greetings to the pale young mother and elderly, rosy-cheeked midwife. Ted had arrived a few days earlier, back from work abroad.
“Tea anyone?” asked Ted. “I’ll make it,” he added, going to the kitchen, followed by Alison. It was just 11:15 a.m. when, after Nelly Baxter’s final efforts of pushing and panting, her new baby came into the world in Sutton Coldfield and yelled with brand new lungs.
“It’s a boy!” exclaimed Nurse Reynolds, beaming.
“Oh my, we wanted a boy this time,” gasped Nelly. Ted ran in from the kitchen, leaned towards Nelly, and kissed her hair and hands. They had not urged their doctor to let them know the sex of the new baby. They wanted a surprise.
“Well, nurse, he’s got a big sister as well as Mum and Dad to look after him,” said Mary. She had looked after Nelly Baxter three years ago when Patricia—Patty as she was known—was born. They quickly wrapped the baby and put him into his mother’s arms.
“Isn’t he just grand?” asked Nurse Reynolds of the world in general.
“He’s a lovely baby, Mrs. Baxter. You’ve done a wonderful job. Worth all that hard work, eh?”
“Ooh, yes, Doctor Rao. I’m glad I did that natural method. Thank you, nurse, and thank you, doctor.” She smiled at her new baby and stroked his pink, slightly crinkled cheek. She thought, He’s got a look of Ted’s grandpa.
After Mary had checked mother and baby, and had seen there was no need for any stitches, Nurse Reynolds dealt with the placenta and recorded the baby’s weight: 7 lbs. 2 oz. She measured him with her tape, which flopped, like a tongue, out of the mouth of a plastic Scottie dog.
“It looks like he’ll be as tall as or taller than his father,” said the midwife.
“Didn’t you say he’d be a William or a girl would be a Karen?” asked Mary.
“John it is, after his granddad,” said Ted.
“He’s as pleased as Punch is Mr. Baxter! Just look!” Nurse Reynolds observed. “Yes. Who’s a little scamp, then?” Ted, grinning broadly, stroked his son’s head.
“Hairy little chap, isn’t he? Not a lot of the Winston Churchill about this one, so far as hair is concerned.”
Mary had heard her English mother say that although there was a song about Lloyd George’s supposed promiscuity, all new babies nevertheless looked more like old Winnie. Mary glanced at the watch pinned at the midwife’s ample bosom and checked her own wristwatch.
“Ted’s got quite a few days before he has to be back at work?” she asked.
“Yes, little John took us all by surprise coming a day or two early,” Ted grinned. He was very much a proud father. “He’s a little eager beaver!” he announced, as he held out his little finger, hoping the baby would grasp it.
“But it works out all right, Doctor Rao, because Ted has two weeks of leave to be with us,” said Nelly, once again a proud mother. Nurse Reynolds dabbed Nelly’s forehead with a cool, dampened facecloth.
“That’s good,” nodded Mary, asking if Ted would be going abroad again.
“Yes, but not permanently. He goes back to Bahrain for a month, we’re not sure when, and then he’s posted back here for the next few years,” Nelly informed her, as Ted held out a thick forefinger and stroked his baby’s little puckered brow.
“Well, that’s good. He’ll be glad to see the children growing, when he gets back home. Well, I must be off. Surgery won’t wait,” said Mary, picking up her bag of tricks, as she called it.
“I’ll call by tomorrow to see Master John and his mum. By the way, where’s Patty?”
“She’s out with Granny choosing a pair of white bootees for baby and a pair of sandals for herself. They’ll be back any minute.” Mary was about to leave, assuring Mrs. Baxter that she could telephone any time, if she needed help.
Alison, grinning and still sipping tea, suddenly said, “I can see you out, doctor.”
“Oh, I’ll let myself out, Alison, you finish your cuppa. Call me if you need me. But I’ll look in tomorrow in any case.”
“Thank you for everything, Nurse Reynolds and you, doctor,” said Ted. Mary smiled, nodded, and went down stairs to a chorus of bye-byes.
Her cell phone rang as she got into the Volvo. It was Liz, her receptionist, who told her there was a confused old lady at the surgery with her daughter. It seemed quite urgent.
“I’ll be five to ten minutes,” said Mary.
She drove carefully, but quite fast through the housing estate, slowed as she passed the Elmsway Junior School, and then turned into the main road leading to her High Street surgery. It was raining and the streets were dismally wet. Sutton Coldfield, on a day when the sky was a huge wet blanket, was definitely not tourist brochure material. Mary was already thinking of taking her annual holiday in Goa. She parked at the back of the building and went into her premises by the rear door.
“I’m back, Liz,” she said over the intercom system and pressed the green light button. The door opened and Liz, a confidant nurse-receptionist in her late twenties, showed a Mrs. Amphlett and her frail old mother into the office, announcing that she had already taken down the relevant details. Liz, glancing at her watch, went back to her desk at reception. There were no other patients as yet. One appointment had cancelled.
“We’re not your regular patients, doctor, on account of we’ve not long moved here. But my mother got lost and ended up at the news agent’s shop round the corner.”
“I see. Well, let’s check your mother’s blood pressure. How are you feeling, Mrs. er . . .?
“I’m Mrs. Horton, doctor. I’ve been a widow for twenty years,” she added, with a note of pride in her quavering voice.
“Is that so? Well, Mrs. Horton, let’s see now. It’s Mrs. Amphlett, isn’t it,” said Mary, turning to the daughter.
“Who’s Mrs. Amphlett?” demanded the old lady, looking from one to the other.
“I am, Mother. I’m Mrs. Amphlett. Tessa, your daughter.”
“I know Tessa’s my daughter,” snapped the old lady. Tessa Amphlett looked at Mary with raised eyebrows. She sighed. Mary realized that Mrs. Horton had had a slight stroke. She discovered from the daughter that the old lady had been lost once before, just after they moved to the new neighbourhood.
“Not surprising, really, doctor. A move to a new place is a bit of a strain, especially for Mum. Besides, what else could you expect with identical houses and identical streets everywhere?”
Mary nodded and made a couple of notes. But this was a different, deeper confusion in the old girl. “Where’s your new place?” asked Mary, jotting down the blood pressure figures.
The daughter gave her the address and then said, “The road from home to the paper shop, it’s dead straight. It’s only a five-minute walk. Luckily the girl in the shop had our address and telephone number, because we’re now regulars and have papers delivered.” Mary listened and then said she would get Mrs. Horton into hospital for observation. The daughter was a bit alarmed.
“Oh, it’s better to be safe. They’ll make sure she’s comfortable and she’ll probably be fit enough to be home again in a few days. Her own doctor and I can get her a bed in there.”
“Well, doctor, if that’s best, we’ll do that; it’s Dr. Anderson, only he’s now a bit far away from the new place. He’s on Handsworth Wood Road,” said Mrs. Amphlett.
Old Mrs. Horton, peering from watery blue eyes, stated, “But I haven’t been near a hospital or a doctor since Fred died. He always said they’d not get him under the knife.” She lapsed into silence and stared ahead of her, perhaps into the past.
“You’ll need a nightie and your toilet things. Glasses, books, or favourite magazines. There’ll be TV, too,” advised Mary.
“Well, when can she go in?” asked Mrs. Amphlett.
“Oh, straight away, after you’ve collected her things in an overnight bag. Don’t worry. We’ll phone Dr. Anderson. And the hospital. They’ll be expecting you and your mother. You’re lucky, Mrs. Amphlett. I know that just now there are some spare beds for a change.”
“Who’s Mrs. Amphlett?” asked the old lady.
Mary looked at the daughter who raised her eyebrows higher, as much as to say, There she goes again. The daughter had been undoing and then fastening again the little bone toggles on her light grey duffel coat throughout the consultation.
“I’m Mrs. Amphlett, Mum. It’s me, Tessa!”
“Oh, yes, that’s a good girl.” She looked at Mary before continuing, “She’s a good girl is Tess. Always has been. Always will be. She was brought up that way you know.”
“Tessa, Mum. Tessa.”
“I’m sure she was, Mrs. Horton,” said Mary.
Since it was almost lunchtime, Mary suggested they take something with them to the hospital, perhaps sandwiches, because by the time all the formalities were completed, they might be hungry and lunch for patients would have finished.
Mary saw another patient (tummy trouble) and then asked Liz to ensure that Mrs. Horton and her daughter were coping with the admission to hospital. Frankly, Mary felt that the daughter was feeling better, even if Mrs. Horton herself were suffering from the inescapable effects of “anno Domini” as a colleague called it. The daughter looked tired and a little sheepish, as if she could be held responsible for her mother’s condition and lapses of memory. She would appreciate having professionals take care of her mother for a few days. She certainly needed a break. Mary would phone Dr. Anderson for him to see Tessa Amphlett again later to convince her she was not in any way responsible for what was happening. It was nature showing her hand.
That afternoon Mary saw a procession of people with colds, then an adolescent with a fury of acne, another case of tummy trouble, and a frightened teenage girl who turned out to be pregnant. By the time she had finished for the day, she was exhausted. Liz appeared at the door, ready to go home, with make-up refreshed, and her streaky, highlighted, urchin cut teased up a bit.
“Doctor, this came for you. Anything else before I go?”
“Thanks, Liz. No, see you tomorrow.”
Mary took the fat envelope Liz held out for her. Papers of some sort. Bedtime reading. More medical reports? No! It was from Paul Wills of all people. A brief note and a wad of papers.
CHAPTER THREE
Mary had almost decided to go to a chamber music concert that evening, but she didn’t feel like venturing out in the rain after dinner. Instead, she went home where she checked the contents of Paul’s thick envelope and found that it was a story of some sort. That could wait. But she could picture Paul as he was when she had last seen him. They got on well together. Always had done. Good friends. Or was there something more? She sighed. Then she added a little more to her fund of knowledge by reading a journal article about some of the latest developments in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Then she made a pot of Chinese tea. When it was ready, she settled down with a cup of the pale, yellowish-green tea and began to read what Paul had sent. Had it simply been a letter, she would have read it before leaving the office. There was, in fact, a very brief note and a wad of A4 typing paper. As she read, she felt that she needed to see him again. Did he need her? His packet occupied what was left of her evening. When she had finished reading, she knew she must see Paul and get a little closer to him.
Mary wondered what had really taken Paul, her good English friend, to Paris. She had, she remembered, felt at the time that he had been at a crucial point in his life. She wondered if he had made a decision to try to resolve a perhaps subliminal problem, or at least one that he did not want to discuss. Why did he now send her this account of some psychic turbulence? Did he seek her professional advice, no fees attached? She thought not. It was more a statement about himself. Perhaps, she decided, it was a revelation of himself that he was now intent on sharing with her. It was not a cry for help. It was more: this is what has happened; bear with me; I hope you will still be close, even though I am irrational and superstitious. It was almost, but not directly, a question: Could you want this person as more than a friend? A close friend? She let the matter rest at that.
Most people are superstitious and irrational, and Mary, despite her medical education, or perhaps partly because of it, knew she was, at times, capable of irrational lapses. She put the packet on the coffee table and went over to a bookcase. She took out a photograph album. Yes, there she was with some other students on the day she finished her internship. Paul was laughing, but looking away from the camera, distracted by someone, or boyishly shy. Ah, he had been a boy, really, even in his early twenties. Paul, she recalled, had been in town for a story. “A Crooked Alderman”? No, that was another article. In any case, the “gang” had gone for an Indian meal after the photograph. She had written to her father that she was keen on a young journalist. English. He had sent her a telegram saying, ‘Nothing against them, now we’re independent. Don’t do it. Practise medicine before taking it!’ Typical! It had arrived not very long before his death in a train accident in Uganda. He had been a good father, but was too often away on business. On the other hand, the deals he had done had left Mummy very well off. Mummy had liked Paul, though she had not seen much of him, and she had occasionally asked after him. Mary’s most recent snap of Paul showed him with one arm over her shoulder. He was a man in this one. She would write to him when she had time.
***
About a week later, Mary received another package. It contained more autobiography and a postcard of an image of the disturbing statue in the Luxembourg Gardens of the giant Polyphemus surprising the lovers, Acis and Galatea. Mary had remained fairly close to Paul in her thoughts, even though actual meetings had of late been infrequent. Neither he nor she had proposed living together, and she didn’t know what she would do if he were actually to suggest marriage. It seemed clear from his papers, as she thought of them, that he was searching for a true mate. Both of them were still unmarried. He no longer had a significant other. What a phrase, she thought. He had lived with someone, but he had been alone for about a year now. She had better read the sheets and then write to him. She opened the second packet he had sent and read the contents at a sitting.
Events in Vancouver, British Columbia
The adventure was not finished and, I am sure, will continue until the end, whatever and wherever that may be. I am sure of this because of the events that followed the strange interlude in Malvern. On the flight back to Canada, my next stop, I read a little, drank a little, ate a little, and slept a very little. I planned my article on the Gold Rush Theatre in the Yukon and British Columbia. From time to time, my mind and my heightened senses felt again the presence of that angelic girl. I decided to give her a name. It was not easy. Nothing came to mind with that instant recognition of rightness. The letter K was as far as I got. I thought of her as someone beginning with K—but certainly not Kafka nor Kierkegaard! What I realized, as the plane touched down in Vancouver, was that I would attempt to write more prose poetry as well as verse. I was vaguely aware that one part of me was telling the rest of myself what to do. I knew also that now I would in some sense always be British as well as Canadian. The Pacific coast was like a vast mirror, its frame embossed with islands and mountains. I had come as far West as one can go from England. To go further was to go to the Far East. Perhaps that was also a portion of my destiny. Yet, I was now further from Egypt, the land that I knew unmistakably to be the origin of my Malvern angel. Was the vision a parting gift to one who must leave Malvern, passing that iron bridge that cradled the Industrial Revolution, and choose the modern, the new world, the immense promise of Canada itself?
Mary broke off to get an atlas. She looked at the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States. It was remote! The Canadian cities seemed like small clearings in a vast forest. They probably were. It was the back of beyond. But California was there, too. Why did she not think of California as the back of beyond? He gets around, she thought. Journalism, she supposed, involved travel and dislocation. The land mass was huge. She settled down again to read.
Not long after I got to my digs, I made my way through the Vancouver suburbs to West Point Grey and went to look up some Celtic literature in the university library. Down in the stacks, I followed the usual path towards Irish literature. Suddenly, irresistibly, and irrationally, I turned down a different alleyway of books leading to another section. There was a T-junction ahead, and on the shelves blocking my way, a book commanded my attention. It seemed placed deliberately in my path. The book was by Flaubert. I took it down and opened it at random. I read, “Effect of her necklace between my teeth.” I found an account of Flaubert and a friend taking a boat to a river town in Egypt. They had heard enticing accounts of a famous almeh or dancer, an expensive prostitute, called Kuchuk Hanem. Led to her house by a maid who pulled along with her a sheep, its wool dyed yellow, as a sort of advertisement for her employer, the two men encountered their object of desire. They paid her and, after a few customary preliminaries, they mounted her, one after the other. Kuchuk Hanem speaks to Flaubert with words I do not invent, but which come from my Saxon throat, on my Norman tongue, between my Yorkshire teeth, in a mid-Atlantic accent: “You call me ‘star among almehs.’ Does that mean you pay –Yes, I’ll settle—more than the others? And I’ll be your pet lamb, my fleece golden with henna! I’ll use merely this tongue to repay indignities, this tongue you made a fetish. My kisses smack of luxury; your tongue is agile with foreign words. You seek your image in the mirror of my race. In the scent of roses warm from my breasts. I can see you still, my necklace of gold coins between your teeth. You stare into my eyes. As you spend, you growl like a tiger.”
What impulse had sent me this outburst? Was it the ancient beauty I knew only as K? Was it the ghost of Kuchuk Hanem? Did my scarcely articulated K signify Kuchuk? I could not answer. I recognized, all the same, a heightened awareness in myself induced by the waking dream in Malvern and then by my chance encounter with Flaubert’s Egypt! I felt the excitement of coincidence, coincidence that can be interpreted as a signal, a nod in the direction of some overall plan. I felt that I was involved with forces using me, doubtless for some purpose of their own. Yet, I was not the loser by this contact. I sensed benevolence and beauty of a strange order, rather than mischief or evil. This new consciousness of contact with a mysterious, liberating, yet demanding force, gradually faded, though, as the days of routine work swung me this way and that, caught in their momentum.
Mary stopped. She thought of Paul, wondering about forces. It seemed obvious to her that he was a man of his age. He was sweet. He was shocked by Flaubert’s typical male escapade of certain nineteenth century artists. Paul had a sensitivity to the female that Mary found attractive. She felt sure that he respected her work. Hmm. Was he actually sublimating his desire for a good, satisfying, sexual relationship? Perhaps even a readiness for marriage? She looked at the page she was reading:
Then one morning over breakfast, I opened the local paper to find that an exhibition of Egyptian antiquities from the time of Ramesses II was to open in Vancouver. Immediately I thought of drafting a popular piece, “Egypt, the Mystery and the Magic.” And then I favoured rather an essay on this exhibition linking the Romantic poets, the early copiers of Egyptian hieroglyphics and tomb pictures, with Napoleon and his project for the description of Egypt, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the early interest by British amateurs, including Byron’s friend, Bankes of Kingston Lacy House, the seminal John Wilkinson, the most professional of early explorers, and, of course, Shelley’s response in “Ozymandias”—all these could wonderfully enrich the study of the period. So could a lively account of the decoding rivalry of the English and French scholars. That would sell a translated version to French editors. And this rivalry between French and British and others trying to decode the Egyptian hieroglyphics could actually be very exciting. All this came boiling up in my head. What an essay I would write! It would be scholarly, yet not stuffed with jargon. It would be lavishly illustrated and I’d sell it to an extremely glossy magazine. It could reveal how the Egyptian sources wound their way into the rich flood plain of nineteenth century European decadence, symbolism, and beyond—finding their way to Gustave Moreau and to Epstein’s flying sphinx on the tomb of Oscar Wilde. The greater Vancouver public, and the tourists of course, would enjoy the exhibition, because of the stunning beauty of the artifacts as well as popular ideas of ancient Egypt, the curse of the Pharaohs, strange picture writing, tombs with treasure, and bandaged mummies that resurrect to go on a rampage.
Mary’s phone was ringing. She put down Paul’s papers and answered. It was Nellie Baxter. She was agitated.
“Yes, I can be there in about ten minutes. Give him some water in his bottle. Don’t worry.” She rang off, got her bag of tricks, and rushed off to see what was wrong with Master John Baxter. On the way to the house, her thoughts kept coming back to Paul. His articles were selling. He was freelancing rather successfully now. Maybe she would invite him over to see her. She remembered her father’s remark and smiled. Parents never quite realized just how worldly wise their children could be. “Don’t worry, Daddy, I’m a big girl now and I know what I’m doing!” she said to herself and smiled as she parked. The front door of the Baxter’s house opened as she was picking up her bag. Mary followed Alison who held hands with Patty Baxter, a chubby, auburn-haired, three-year-old with a friendly little face.
“Mum’s upstairs and doesn’t know what to do. Dad’s out. It’s something to do with going back to Oman,” Alison informed her. Mary could hear the infant. Hiccups! There it was again. Nellie was nursing her little son and looked worried.
“I know it’s only hiccups, but he just won’t stop, doctor! It’s on and on!”
“How long has it been going on, Nellie?”
“Over an hour. What can we do?”
“Let’s see.” Mary took the baby and rubbed his back and his tummy. He hiccupped again. “Do you have a bottle with a little warmish water and rose hip syrup?”
“Yes, I’ll go and make it,” volunteered Alison.
Mary examined the baby. No real problem. Perfectly healthy. He hiccupped. She picked him up and burped him again, patting his back.
“Here, doctor, here’s that bottle.”
“Thanks, Alison. Good. That’s the ticket.” Mary tested to make sure the syrupy water was warm, but not hot. There was a sound of contented sucking. Mary removed the bottle. The little brow puckered. Hiccup! She gave him the bottle again. He finished the drink. She removed the bottle. No more hiccups.
“Here, you take him again, Nellie.”
A sudden, pungent smell filled the little room.
“Oh, he needs changing.”
“That’s nothing new,” said Alison and grinned.
“That’s nothing new!” said Patty and chuckled.
“Thank goodness for disposables!” exclaimed Nellie with a sigh as she undid the little plastic pants.
“Stinky poohs!” said Patty.
A sudden stirring and a jet of urine arced into the air before the new nappy was in place.
“Well, well, well!” said Mary, “What goes in must come out!” They all laughed. “He’s more comfortable now. No hiccups.”
“I’m sorry I troubled you, doctor, I was that worried when it kept on and on.”
“Better safe than sorry. A boy of ten once had hiccups day and night for eight days—or perhaps eight weeks! Nothing much happened, it seems. He got back to normal. It’s a little spasm of the diaphragm. But don’t hesitate to call me.”