enough to suppress it when she observed the two of us in serious conversation; though not before I’d said, ‘Any chance you could run down to the canteen and get Mrs Cruikshank and me a round or two of sandwiches? Cheese and pickle and ham, in my case, I don’t know what she might want?’
And Maguire, efficiently interpreting the brief signal for the same order from my patient, was off and back again with a reassuringly piled plate of sandwiches, plus some of the ropy fruit, a wizened orange and an over-red, Snow White apple, which the canteen palmed off on us.
It is said that when we touch pitch we are defiled. But when we touch, or are touched by, another’s story that also affects our being, and more radically. I can still recall the almost visceral sensation with which I intuited something large and cold roll away inside my patient, as she embarked on the tale that, for so many years, I was to learn, she had had shored up inside her.
As she had already told me, as a young librarian she had rented a run-down flat, up in the roof of one of the big, white, stucco-fronted houses in Camden Square. The flat was sparsely furnished by a stingy landlord, and among its several deficiencieswas an erratic immersion heater which regularly broke down. While she was prepared to put up with a good deal she shared another of my mild obsessions: a fondness for baths.
People shower more nowadays but I still prefer the comfort of a warm bath. It was my patient’s love of baths which brought about her meeting with Thomas Carrington.
A sculptor, Cecil Bainbridge, rented the flat below and one morning, when the landlord had promised, and failed for the third time, to call for an inspection of the faulty heater, my patient decided, for her unusually, to take independent action. Bainbridge’s air of absent-minded shabbiness had softened her customary defences. They’d exchanged a few pleasantries, so with no one else to turn to she knocked on his door to enquire about a plumber.
‘You’re welcome to borrow my bathroom while I’m away,’ he offered. And, gratefully, she accepted a spare key and the use of his hot water in return for some minor plant-watering duties.
Some days later, as she lay in the bath, enjoying a sense of daring at the temporary tenure of a strange environment, she heard a voice. Someone who wasn’t Cecil Bainbridge was speaking in the next room where, secure against intrusion, she had left all her clothes.
The unexpected voice startled her. But she was surprisingly unafraid. There was something in the timbre which reassured her. Or didn’t, at least, alarm her.
Helping herself to Bainbridge’s bathrobe, she listened at the door. The voice appeared to be conducting a conversation, but there was no answering participant in this dialogue. Maybe whoever it was was on the phone and in the room where without a second thought she had left all her clothes.
She called out, ‘Who is that?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I might ask the same question.’
The bathroom door was pulled back and a tall, beaky-nosed man stood there, his glasses steaming up in the warm air.
‘I’m a friend of Bainbridge’s’ and ‘I’m a friend of Cecil’s’, they simultaneously explained.
‘I should hope so,’ the man continued, ‘seeing that you’re practically naked as nature intended in his bathroom.’
She explained, still less embarrassed than she might have been, about the plumber and the landlord.
‘Plumbers and landlords are not natural bedfellows.’
‘Is “naked as nature intended” a quotation?’
‘A film. It used to be on at a seedy cinema in Piccadilly where they showed non-stop porn. Or what passed then for porn. It wouldn’t now. As a boy, I was beside myself to see it.’
‘And did you?’
‘Sadly, no.’
‘Is there someone else here?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I heard you talking to someone.’
‘Only to myself. Don’t you talk to yourself?’ He had taken off his
And Maguire, efficiently interpreting the brief signal for the same order from my patient, was off and back again with a reassuringly piled plate of sandwiches, plus some of the ropy fruit, a wizened orange and an over-red, Snow White apple, which the canteen palmed off on us.
It is said that when we touch pitch we are defiled. But when we touch, or are touched by, another’s story that also affects our being, and more radically. I can still recall the almost visceral sensation with which I intuited something large and cold roll away inside my patient, as she embarked on the tale that, for so many years, I was to learn, she had had shored up inside her.
As she had already told me, as a young librarian she had rented a run-down flat, up in the roof of one of the big, white, stucco-fronted houses in Camden Square. The flat was sparsely furnished by a stingy landlord, and among its several deficiencieswas an erratic immersion heater which regularly broke down. While she was prepared to put up with a good deal she shared another of my mild obsessions: a fondness for baths.
People shower more nowadays but I still prefer the comfort of a warm bath. It was my patient’s love of baths which brought about her meeting with Thomas Carrington.
A sculptor, Cecil Bainbridge, rented the flat below and one morning, when the landlord had promised, and failed for the third time, to call for an inspection of the faulty heater, my patient decided, for her unusually, to take independent action. Bainbridge’s air of absent-minded shabbiness had softened her customary defences. They’d exchanged a few pleasantries, so with no one else to turn to she knocked on his door to enquire about a plumber.
‘You’re welcome to borrow my bathroom while I’m away,’ he offered. And, gratefully, she accepted a spare key and the use of his hot water in return for some minor plant-watering duties.
Some days later, as she lay in the bath, enjoying a sense of daring at the temporary tenure of a strange environment, she heard a voice. Someone who wasn’t Cecil Bainbridge was speaking in the next room where, secure against intrusion, she had left all her clothes.
The unexpected voice startled her. But she was surprisingly unafraid. There was something in the timbre which reassured her. Or didn’t, at least, alarm her.
Helping herself to Bainbridge’s bathrobe, she listened at the door. The voice appeared to be conducting a conversation, but there was no answering participant in this dialogue. Maybe whoever it was was on the phone and in the room where without a second thought she had left all her clothes.
She called out, ‘Who is that?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I might ask the same question.’
The bathroom door was pulled back and a tall, beaky-nosed man stood there, his glasses steaming up in the warm air.
‘I’m a friend of Bainbridge’s’ and ‘I’m a friend of Cecil’s’, they simultaneously explained.
‘I should hope so,’ the man continued, ‘seeing that you’re practically naked as nature intended in his bathroom.’
She explained, still less embarrassed than she might have been, about the plumber and the landlord.
‘Plumbers and landlords are not natural bedfellows.’
‘Is “naked as nature intended” a quotation?’
‘A film. It used to be on at a seedy cinema in Piccadilly where they showed non-stop porn. Or what passed then for porn. It wouldn’t now. As a boy, I was beside myself to see it.’
‘And did you?’
‘Sadly, no.’
‘Is there someone else here?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I heard you talking to someone.’
‘Only to myself. Don’t you talk to yourself?’ He had taken off his
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