He shook his head. “They’ve washed their hands of her. If she goes on smoking, her coughing will only get worse, her lungs less efficient until…” He gloomily drank some brandy.
“Is there anything I can do in London?”
“I don’t think so. We could have yet another opinion, I suppose, but…” He looked up at me. “You know, sometimes I think she’s doing it on purpose—”
“No!”
“I mean it. I ask myself sometimes if she’s … if she’s trying to kill herself, if deep down she’s depressed and wants to end it all.”
“Depressed? Mother? She’s always seemed perfectly sane to me— brutally so at times.”
“Hmm. That’s what I mean. She’s been profoundly affected by this war—I mean, we all have, but your mother’s angry about the whole show; the stupidity has really got to her.” He lifted himself out of his chair, fetched the whisky and brandy decanters, and refilled our glasses. “You know she’s always been fiercely moral—and, well, I rather think she feels this war is just about the most immoral thing that could happen. All those young men being sent to their deaths— and young women too. It’s eating away at her insides.”
“But that wouldn’t make her clinically depressed, would it?”
My father shrugged.
After a pause, I said, “Perhaps I can help after all. There are one or two new psychiatric techniques about at the moment. Shall I try to find someone?”
“It’s an idea,” he said. “But whoever you found would have to be prepared to come down here. There’s no way she will travel to London. How is your own situation?”
“Still the same. I’m still happy, content. You don’t need to worry.”
“I don’t worry, but nor do I approve. What you are doing is not right, Hal, it really isn’t. We can’t tell your mother.”
I let the subject drop. I could hear my mother and Einstein in the hall. Izzy had mentioned something about psychiatry, when we had dinner in Stratford, and Sam, too, was reading this Freud man. I decided to explore the possibility of a specialist when I returned to London. It would make me feel useful. I had never dreamed my mother might be depressed.
Dear Ma and Pa,
When I had to stop writing last time, I was telling you about Alan. You, Ma, probably fell over at the point when I said he was married!! Try not to worry. (Though I know that you will!!) He’s a lovely man and I didn’t just meet Alan and fall head over heels for him. We worked together for weeks, for months, before anything happened! The feeling between us grew slowly and, now that we’ve talked about it, we know it was perfectly mutual.
Blame it on the war, if you like. Our war—near the Front, dealing in so much blood every day—is not as dangerous as is the war of the soldiers who are stuck in the trenches, but believe me, what we do is quite wearing enough. In these circumstances—and I haven’t mentioned the physical conditions: the mud, the lack of privacy, the lice, the smells it seems hardly right that we experience, the lack of fresh water (forget washing; what water there is goes to the injured), the sameness of the food, the intimate company of rats—in these circumstances it is only natural that our unit should grow closer together. We have special skills that set us apart, and me being a woman sets us apart too.
Partly this is because in a few cases—in a very few cases—we can do something, save lives, give people hope. It keeps them going, but it keeps us going too. It makes us—and this may sound strange—more optimistic than many others. It is a relief being optimistic. To be here at the Front, as an ordinary soldier, even as an officer—like Hal was—must be the most soul-crushing experience anyone can have. Ma, Pa, I don’t think any of us properly understood Hal’s feelings when he found out that he couldn’t have children. Now that I know what he’d been through, and then to have that news on top of everything, it must have been—I don’t know what to say, but horrible.
Alan is a doctor—I think I mentioned that last time. Alan MacGregor is his full name. From Edinburgh, from a family of doctors. He’s been married for six years, to a woman from the Highlands he met in Edinburgh, when he was at medical school there. I know what you are thinking and the