I interrupted your day.’
‘ No great matter,’ he said. ‘It’s a quiet time anyway, coming up to Christmas.’
When he looked back a fortnight later, that seemed the most ironic statement of all.
*
Gerald Sangster went to see the love of his life on that Thursday before Christmas. The hopeless love. He told himself he realized that now, as everyone else had realized it years ago. But his heart would not allow him to let go of Moira Yates, however clearly his brain spelt out the situation to him.
Dermot Yates tactfully left the pair on their own. He said that he would be glad to get out of the house for a break, to do some belated Christmas shopping. Probably there was some truth in this. The doctor assured him that Moira could be left on her own in the house, but he had not chosen to leave her without company on many occasions as her own reluctance to set foot beyond two or three rooms in the house had become more marked with the passing weeks.
Moira and Gerald Sangster chatted in desultory fashion through the afternoon. They knew each other well enough not to be embarrassed by the long pauses in their talk. But it was the talk of old friends, rather than the intimate exchanges that Gerald always envisaged and never seemed able to engineer. They were easiest when they talked of the old days, when they had been part of a crowd of young people, when they had been the most gifted of a group who played serious tennis, when he had towed the horsebox around the south of England to the scenes of her various equine triumphs.
Nostalgia is a powerful pleasure among old friends, uniting them in happy remembrance of times past, reminding them of common interests, mutual friends, and the joyous successes of years gone by. Carefree times, they always seem, in the retrospective glow of that selective memory which is one of the human defences against darker thoughts.
Sangster brought the conversation back as gently as he could to the present. He tried to explore the depth of Moira’s present depression, for he had researched agoraphobia since she had become its victim, and his reading suggested that depression of some kind lay always behind its fears. Whilst he hinted gently that the only solution lay within herself, she retreated gently behind the fences she had built around her as she had receded into her illness.
When Gerald was eventually irritated into a more definite suggestion, she turned her eyes for the first time to meet his. He expected anger, and for a moment irritation did flare in those large, near-black pupils which had given him so many sleepless nights over the years. Then she relaxed, grinning at him, teasing in a way he remembered from happier days. ‘You mean I should snap out of it!’ she said.
‘ No, I wasn’t thinking of anything so—’
‘ You’re right, though. It’s what the doctors say, too. They don’t put it as directly as that, of course. They say that, “the solutions to psychological disorders of this kind will most usually be found within the patient herself.” I prefer your version, Gerald, “Snap out of it!”’
It gave him a ridiculous pleasure to hear her use his name. She had not done it much during the months of her illness. Not knowing what to say, he found himself bumbling on about his lack of medical knowledge, going nowhere.
This time it was the invalid who had to rescue him. She came across and sat beside him on the sofa in the darkening December room and took both his hands in hers. It was the first time in months that she had volunteered any physical contact with him, and for an instant his blood pulsed in his temples with an absurd hope that it was he who was to be her salvation, he who was to lead her as a lover from the barless prison within which she had caged herself.
It was the opposite. She looked him again full in the face and said, ‘I will come out of this, Gerald. I can feel that, now. But the rest of my life won’t be spent with you, you know. I’m
‘ No great matter,’ he said. ‘It’s a quiet time anyway, coming up to Christmas.’
When he looked back a fortnight later, that seemed the most ironic statement of all.
*
Gerald Sangster went to see the love of his life on that Thursday before Christmas. The hopeless love. He told himself he realized that now, as everyone else had realized it years ago. But his heart would not allow him to let go of Moira Yates, however clearly his brain spelt out the situation to him.
Dermot Yates tactfully left the pair on their own. He said that he would be glad to get out of the house for a break, to do some belated Christmas shopping. Probably there was some truth in this. The doctor assured him that Moira could be left on her own in the house, but he had not chosen to leave her without company on many occasions as her own reluctance to set foot beyond two or three rooms in the house had become more marked with the passing weeks.
Moira and Gerald Sangster chatted in desultory fashion through the afternoon. They knew each other well enough not to be embarrassed by the long pauses in their talk. But it was the talk of old friends, rather than the intimate exchanges that Gerald always envisaged and never seemed able to engineer. They were easiest when they talked of the old days, when they had been part of a crowd of young people, when they had been the most gifted of a group who played serious tennis, when he had towed the horsebox around the south of England to the scenes of her various equine triumphs.
Nostalgia is a powerful pleasure among old friends, uniting them in happy remembrance of times past, reminding them of common interests, mutual friends, and the joyous successes of years gone by. Carefree times, they always seem, in the retrospective glow of that selective memory which is one of the human defences against darker thoughts.
Sangster brought the conversation back as gently as he could to the present. He tried to explore the depth of Moira’s present depression, for he had researched agoraphobia since she had become its victim, and his reading suggested that depression of some kind lay always behind its fears. Whilst he hinted gently that the only solution lay within herself, she retreated gently behind the fences she had built around her as she had receded into her illness.
When Gerald was eventually irritated into a more definite suggestion, she turned her eyes for the first time to meet his. He expected anger, and for a moment irritation did flare in those large, near-black pupils which had given him so many sleepless nights over the years. Then she relaxed, grinning at him, teasing in a way he remembered from happier days. ‘You mean I should snap out of it!’ she said.
‘ No, I wasn’t thinking of anything so—’
‘ You’re right, though. It’s what the doctors say, too. They don’t put it as directly as that, of course. They say that, “the solutions to psychological disorders of this kind will most usually be found within the patient herself.” I prefer your version, Gerald, “Snap out of it!”’
It gave him a ridiculous pleasure to hear her use his name. She had not done it much during the months of her illness. Not knowing what to say, he found himself bumbling on about his lack of medical knowledge, going nowhere.
This time it was the invalid who had to rescue him. She came across and sat beside him on the sofa in the darkening December room and took both his hands in hers. It was the first time in months that she had volunteered any physical contact with him, and for an instant his blood pulsed in his temples with an absurd hope that it was he who was to be her salvation, he who was to lead her as a lover from the barless prison within which she had caged herself.
It was the opposite. She looked him again full in the face and said, ‘I will come out of this, Gerald. I can feel that, now. But the rest of my life won’t be spent with you, you know. I’m
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