The Woman at the Window (2 page)

He advanced to the window and made large gestures suggesting an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

‘It's been done before,' Gwilym Hesgyn said. ‘Too often if you ask me.Talking of pulse I think my pressure is going up. Do you think the tablets are strong enough?'

The doctor reassured him that his tablets were of adequate strength. He added the poet would be well advised to take more exercise now that the weather had improved. And perhaps he should drink more soda-water and cranberry juice. When his mind was at rest concerning his blood pressure Gwilym Hesgyn launched himself into an unsparing critique of the doctor's metrical sequence. Quite apart from technical deficiencies, he felt the subject matter was too frivolous. The doctor should dig deeper to find deeper thoughts. The doctor shook his head. He accepted all technical criticism cheerfully, but digging deeper didn't appeal.

‘I'll tell you the advice old Prof Oliver gave me when I told him I was going into general practice. “Remember to keep your patients at a decent arm's length,” he said. “It's their bodies you are paid to cure, not their souls.” Well I feel the same about thoughts, Gwilym Hesgyn. If they lie too deep for tears, let them lie there.'

He gave a roar of laughter that puzzled the poet and then made a sudden change of subject.

‘I hear your noble cousin is settling down very nicely. Don't you think it's time you paid him a visit?'

Gwilym Hesgyn bared his teeth as though the doctor had just made a joke.

‘Take Mrs Fleming with you. It would do her good. She's been looking rather anaemic lately, don't you think?'

‘He had a nerve to come back here. After all the things he's done. People forget things.That's one thing about poets, Doctor Gronw. They don't forget. Their business is to remember. Never forget the present rests on the foundation of the past.'

The doctor frowned as he considered the proposition. ‘You never met Eiry'r Mynydd? No of course not. You're 
too young.'

The doctor showed signs of vague recognition. ‘You wrote a poem sequence about her.'

‘Of course I did. Bright and beautiful she was. A glorious symbol. Her home was in a valley threatened with inundation. We tried to save it. We struggled. We protested. We fought. And who was in the vanguard making the Cause his very own? My cousin Clement Parry. Hero of the hour. And Eiry fell in love with him unfortunately. But when the real testing time came and a prison sentence in the offing, the great Clement became unavailable. Gone off to America on a Fulbright.'

‘Well there you are,' the doctor said. ‘The story with so many politicians.'

Gwilym Hesgyn was unappeased.

‘It's worse than that. When he comes back he dumps her. Breaks her heart. And why, you ask? In order to marry the daughter of a Labour Lord and inherit a safe seat. That's the kind of fellow he is. A sly, duplicitous bastard.'

‘But he's your cousin, Gwilym Hesgyn! Don't forget that!' 

‘I don't intend to forget anything. People may forget, but I don't. And I'll tell you more. I've got chapter and verse written down. Look here.'

Trembling with energy and indignation, from a bureau he produced a black ledger and waved it in the air.

‘Did you know the last time that man was in office he issued a contract to Intruder Services and within six months of leaving the government he was on their board!' 

‘That's politicians,' the doctor said. ‘Most of them do it.'

‘And the way they treat him! Honorary this and that. The University. The Eisteddfod. Instead of being punished he gets institutionalised. I'm going to give him his just desserts. An honest account of our hero's life and work. In the strict metres. A technical tour de force and at the same time the branding iron of fact!'

He was pleased with himself and waited for the doctor to share his pleasure with a robust laugh. Instead the doctor frowned and shook his head as he did when facing an unpromising diagnosis.

‘Where would you get a thing like that published? Libel and all that?'

Gwilym Hesgyn tapped his nose and put his fingers to his lips.

ii

The public lecture which Lord Parry kindly agreed to deliver was very well received: particularly so among the growing numbers of retired English that Gwilym Hesgyn described as ‘Settlers'. The title of the lecture also enraged him. The Second Chamber: an intimate view. ‘Their House of Lords, isn't it?' he fumed. ‘Public Lecture indeed! Anything that gives them an excuse to cluster. In no time at all they'll form a caucus and take the place over, County Council included!' Rhian Mai would have loved to attend the lecture but she dared not risk her father's displeasure. The doctor and his wife were present and to their surprise enjoyed the occasion.

Lord Parry was still impressive to look at and easy to listen to. He played an audience like an instrument, making a virtuoso's use of pauses and hesitations as well as his rich baritone. In no time he extracted laughter with nicely judged touches of self-deprecation; and then nostalgia and fond memories with a hint of sadness in order to end on a note of universal goodwill. The applause verged on the rapturous and comparisons were made with notable orators of the past and a mysterious quality called Dawn Môn.

At the modest reception afterwards Lord Parry circulated graciously among the invited. An important-looking matron introduced him to the doctor and his wife! ‘Dr Gronw Dodd? Author of Medical Matters among the Morisiaid? Could they be one and the same?' It seemed they shared a lifelong interest in the Morris letters. And even when Lord Parry turned his attention to Catrin and learned about her academic past and her knowledge of Hebrew, he was able to recall an official visit to the Holy Land, and how, for ever after, he enjoyed nothing more than browsing in the Old Testament and comparing the various translations. There was so much of mutual interest to talk about, the doctor and his wife were pressed to dine with him at the earliest opportunity. ‘Take pity on a lonely old man,' he said with a cheerful smile. In spite of reservations, Doctor Gronw and his wife Catrin were equally charmed. It was not every day of the week you came across an ex-member of the government showing such a civilised breadth of interests, so much interest in Old Testament texts and the Morris letters.

They agreed that Lord Parry of Penhesgyn knew how to win friends and influence people.

The dinner party they attended at Plas Penhesgyn was a pleasant occasion. Eight persons of consequence sat at the round table and Catrin was flattered to find herself seated next to her host. The meal was prepared by Kazimeira and her daughter Maria. ‘Polish exiles, guest workers if you like,' Lord Parry explained to Catrin. ‘Inclined to be emotional but excellent cooks… as you can judge by their size.' He made further asides in a language the two women had no claim to understanding. ‘They are prone to bouts of hiraeth and to sudden quarrels. Then they are quickly reconciled. Usually in floods of tears. Never a dull moment!' Catrin would have liked to pick up on the theme of reconciliation, but the wife of the Principal of the Further Education College had raised her voice to ask a cheerful question. ‘Why were the things going on backstage always more interesting than the political shadow-boxing taking place in front of the footlights?' Soon the company was enjoying a rich sequence of anecdotes and revelations. As the wine flowed they were warmed by a sense of privilege and well-being. The Principal's wife was emboldened to ask his lordship what in his opinion made a good politician? His reply was only tangential, but he had used it before and found it effective.

‘Broadly speaking you can divide politicians into two classes. Those who expect to serve their country and those who expect their country to serve them. I leave you to decide which camp I belong to!'

Doctor Gronw established such cordial terms with Lord Clement Parry that in the course of time it became just as easy for him to drop in at Plas Penhesgyn as at Gwilym Hesgyn's orchard bungalow. There were minor indispositions to attend to, particularly with the Polish women, and Lord Parry was so grateful for the doctor's help that he urged him to call him ‘Clem'.

After the first jovial flush of comradeship and the occasional convivial session, Gronw confessed to his wife that this new- found friendship made him uneasy. He felt that he was being false at both ends and getting nowhere near Catrin's cherished goal of reconciliation in Rhian Mai's extended family.

‘I don't really care so much about the two old men,' she said. ‘It's Mrs Fleming I worry about. The poor thing is suffering. It's all so unnecessary.'

In the depth of a leather armchair in Lord Parry's well- appointed study, Doctor Gronw resolved to speak up. He balanced a cup of coffee in his large hands, smiled at Polish Maria and glanced briefly at the weather vane above the gable end of the coach house. Not for the first time he compared this limited view with the inspirational panorama to be seen through the window of Gwilym Hesgyn's far more modest and crowded study in the orchard bungalow.

‘You know Clem, you could drop in on your cousin Gwilym. Tell him how much you admire his poetry. That sort of thing. It would do the old boy no end of good.'

Lord Parry parried the petition with ease. ‘Why not? I might indeed do that.'

He had things of greater urgency on his mind that he was eager to discuss with the doctor. A local sense of renewal had to be set in motion. Things had been allowed to slide and there was a need for a positive approach. The village green, for example, where he and his companions of yore had played from dawn until dusk, had been invaded by gorse bushes. They bloomed right up to the War Memorial that itself stood in need of refurbishing. It was in the shape of a Celtic Cross and the names of the Fallen were literally falling off the marble plinth or fading away. Then again the old church school that served as a Pensioners' club badly needed doing up. Why not encourage the natives and the settlers to engage in friendly rivalry in a programme of renewal. He put forward a range of stimulating ideas. The doctor could not but agree.

It was on his next visit, urged on by his wife, that the doctor grew more persistent. If there was to be a renewal, he argued, why not start with a reconciliation?

‘You can move from a position of strength, Clem. The mark of the magnanimous is to show mercy. That sort of thing. You know what I mean.'

Lord Parry took a deep breath, shook his head more in sorrow than in anger, and moved forward in his chair as though he did not wish to be overheard.

‘My cousin Gwil was born timid, you see. That meant he got bullied. In school I always had to defend him. More or less take him under my wing.'

‘Well there you are then!' Doctor Gronw was jubilant as if a magic solution had presented itself.

‘Let me tell you something, Gronw, and let it go no further.' Lord Parry's voice grew deep and solemn.

‘There was a time when Gwilym was in real trouble. And the truth is he has never forgiven me for getting him out of it. He got a headship in Powys. Years ago. Could be on the strength of his eisteddfodic triumphs. Anyway he got on the wrong side of the dinner ladies. As you may have noticed he never found it difficult to get on the wrong side of anybody. He was, you may say, hell-bent on getting a second eisteddfod chair. I suppose people had been telling him he was a genius. He wished to be the biggest fish in his little literary pool. His head was more in the clouds than usual: the dinner money went missing, evaporated in one way or another, and the dinner ladies laid all the blame on him. He was suspended. There was an enquiry and his mother, poor woman, implored me to get him out of trouble. Which I did. I had a devil of a job keeping the whole affair out of court. And he's never ceased to resent being grateful all those years. That's the true source of the grudge, and that's my cousin for you. Eaten up with envy and resentment. So what can I do about it?'

Gronw Dodd was lost for an answer. He stared into his coffee as though the brown liquid had become an inexplicable mystery.

iii

The doctor decided not to let the ancient quarrels of two old men weigh on his stomach. They were so hardened in their attitudes it would need steel chisels to prise them out of them. This was not an operation he had been trained for. For the time being he would give both of them a wide berth. He had more than enough to do with patients in physical predicaments he could do something about. Even in the case of Mrs Fleming he could alleviate her menopausal discomforts. To make up for being deprived of exercises in the strict metres he could immerse himself in pharmaceutical literature, and write out more sophisticated prescriptions. A doctor in general practice needed to cultivate a degree of detachment, otherwise he could get bogged down in emotional quagmires of incalculable depth. He should allow the human comedy to become an amusing diversion from the daily irritations of the National Health Service and the machinations of political parties bent on persuading a gullible public that they had an inalienable right to live for ever.

At breakfast, as he was bracing himself to face the rigours of another heavy day, his wife Catrin once again brought up the vexed subject.

‘I'm very worried about Rhian Mai,' she said. ‘She takes everything so much to heart.'