She bent her head slowly and thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes – that will do very well.’
That was just a little bit enigmatic, but I wasn’t going to question it. Instead I said: ‘I hope you’ll let me help you with anything there is to do in the house. You mustn’t let me be idle.’
She smiled a little.
‘Thank you, nurse.’
Then she sat down on the bed and, rather to my surprise, began to cross-question me rather closely. I say rather to my surprise because, from the moment I set eyes on her, I felt sure that Mrs Leidner was a lady. And a lady, in my experience, very seldom displays curiosity about one’s private affairs.
But Mrs Leidner seemed anxious to know everything there was to know about me. Where I’d trained and how long ago. What had brought me out to the East. How it had come about that Dr Reilly had recommended me. She even asked me if I had ever been in America or had any relations in America. One or two other questions she asked me that seemed quite purposeless at the time, but of which I saw the significance later.
Then, suddenly, her manner changed. She smiled – a warm sunny smile – and she said, very sweetly, that she was very glad I had come and that she was sure I was going to be a comfort to her.
She got up from the bed and said: ‘Would you like to come up to the roof and see the sunset? It’s usually very lovely about this time.’
I agreed willingly.
As we went out of the room she asked: ‘Were there many other people on the train from Baghdad? Any men?’
I said that I hadn’t noticed anybody in particular. There had been two Frenchmen in the restaurant-car the night before. And a party of three men whom I gathered from their conversation had to do with the Pipeline.
She nodded and a faint sound escaped her. It sounded like a small sigh of relief.
We went up to the roof together.
Mrs Mercado was there, sitting on the parapet, and Dr Leidner was bending over looking at a lot of stones and broken pottery that were laid in rows. There were big things he called querns, and pestles and celts and stone axes, and more broken bits of pottery with queer patterns on them than I’ve ever seen all at once.
‘Come over here,’ called out Mrs Mercado. ‘Isn’t it too too beautiful?’
It certainly was a beautiful sunset. Hassanieh in the distance looked quite fairy-like with the setting sun behind it, and the River Tigris flowing between its wide banks looked like a dream river rather than a real one.
‘Isn’t it lovely, Eric?’ said Mrs Leidner.
The doctor looked up with abstracted eyes, murmured, ‘Lovely, lovely,’ perfunctorily and went on sorting potsherds.
Mrs Leidner smiled and said: ‘Archaeologists only look at what lies beneath their feet. The sky and the heavens don’t exist for them.’
Mrs Mercado giggled.
‘Oh, they’re very queer people – you’ll soon find that out, nurse,’ she said.
She paused and then added: ‘We are all so glad you’ve come. We’ve been so very worried about dear Mrs Leidner, haven’t we, Louise?’
‘Have you?’
Her voice was not encouraging.
‘Oh, yes. She really has been very bad, nurse. All sorts of alarms and excursions. You know when anybody says to me of someone, “It’s just nerves,” I always say: but what could be worse? Nerves are the core and centre of one’s being, aren’t they?’
‘Puss, puss,’ I thought to myself.
Mrs Leidner said dryly: ‘Well, you needn’t be worried about me any more, Marie. Nurse is going to look after me.’
‘Certainly I am,’ I said cheerfully.
‘I’m sure that will make all the difference,’ said Mrs Mercado. ‘We’ve all felt that she ought to see a doctor or do something. Her nerves have really been all to pieces, haven’t they, Louise dear?’
‘So much so that I seem to have got on your nerves with them,’ said Mrs Leidner. ‘Shall we talk about something more interesting than my wretched ailments?’
I understood then that Mrs Leidner was the sort of woman who could easily make enemies. There was a cool rudeness in her tone (not that I blamed her for it) which brought a flush to Mrs Mercado’s rather sallow cheeks. She stammered out something, but Mrs Leidner had risen and had joined her husband at the other end of the roof. I doubt if he heard her coming till she laid her hand on his shoulder, then he looked up quickly. There was affection and a kind of eager questioning in his face.
Mrs Leidner nodded her head gently. Presently, her arm through his, they wandered to the far parapet and finally down the steps together.
‘He’s devoted to her, isn’t he?’ said Mrs Mercado.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s very nice to see.’
She was looking at me with a queer, rather eager sidelong glance.
‘What do you think is really the matter with her, nurse?’ she asked, lowering her voice a little.
‘Oh, I don’t suppose it’s much,’ I said cheerfully.
‘Just a bit run-down, I expect.’
Her eyes still bored into me as they had done at tea. She said abruptly: ‘Are you a mental nurse?’
‘Oh, dear, no!’ I said. ‘What made you think that?’
She was silent for a moment, then she said: ‘Do you know how queer she’s been? Did Dr Leidner tell you?’
I don’t hold with gossiping about my cases. On the other hand, it’s my experience that it’s often very hard to get the truth out of relatives, and until you know the truth you’re often working in the dark and doing no good. Of course, when there’s a doctor in charge, it’s different. He tells you what it’s necessary for you to know. But in this case there wasn’t a doctor in charge. Dr Reilly had never been called in professionally. And in my own mind I wasn’t at all sure that Dr Leidner had told me all he could have done. It’s often the husband’s instinct to be reticent – and more honour to him, I must say. But all the same, the more I knew the better I could tell which line to take. Mrs Mercado (whom I put down in my own mind as a thoroughly spiteful little cat) was clearly dying to talk. And frankly, on the human side as well as the professional, I wanted to hear what she had to say. You can put it that I was just everyday curious if you like.
I said, ‘I gather Mrs Leidner’s not been quite her normal self lately?’
Mrs Mercado laughed disagreeably.
‘Normal? I should say not. Frightening us to death. One night it was fingers tapping on her window. And then it was a hand without an arm attached. But when it came to a yellow face pressed against the window – and when she rushed to the window there was nothing there – well, I ask you, itis a bit creepy for all of us.’
‘Perhaps somebody was playing a trick on her,’ I suggested.
‘Oh, no, she fancied it all. And only three days ago at dinner they were firing shots in the village – nearly a mile away – and she jumped up and screamed out – it scared us all to death. As for Dr Leidner, he rushed to her and behaved in the most ridiculous way. “It’s nothing, darling, it’s nothing at all,” he kept saying. I think, you know, nurse, men sometimes encourage women in these hysterical fancies. It’s a pity because it’s a bad thing. Delusions shouldn’t be encouraged.’
‘Not if they are delusions,’ I said dryly.
‘What else could they be?’
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. It was a funny business. The shots and the screaming were natural enough – for anyone in a nervous condition, that is. But this queer story of a spectral face and hand was different. It looked to me like one of two things – either Mrs Leidner had made the story up (exactly as a child shows off by telling lies about something that never happened in order to make herself the centre of attraction) or else it was, as I had suggested, a deliberate practical joke. It was the sort of thing, I reflected, that an unimaginative hearty sort of young fellow like Mr Coleman might think very funny. I decided to keep a close watch on him. Nervous patients can be scared nearly out of their minds by a silly joke.