An open lorry which must have been travelling ahead of us turned off down a lane bordered by beautifully laid hedges, towards one of the farms. There were half a dozen young women in it, holding implements of some kind; Amazons, again. One of them, looking back, drew the attention of the rest to us. They raised their hands in the same sign that the others had made, and then waved cheerfully. I waved back.
Rather bewildering, I thought: Amazons for domination and this landscape, for passive security: the two did not seem to tie up very well.
We trundled on, at our unambitious pace of twenty miles an hour or so, for what I guessed to be three-quarters of an hour, with the prospect changing very little. The country undulated gently and appeared to continue like that to the foot of a line of low, blue hills many miles away. The tidy farmhouses went by with almost the regularity of milestones, though with something like twice the frequency. Occasionally there were working-parties in the fields; more rarely, one saw individuals busy about the farm, and others hoeing with tractors, but they were all too far off for me to make out any details. Presently, however, came a change.
Off to the left of the road, stretching back at right-angles to it for more than a mile, appeared a row of trees. At first I thought it just a wood, but then I noticed that the trunks were evenly spaced, and the trees themselves topped and pruned until they gave more the impression of a high fence.
The end of it came to within twenty feet of the road, where it turned, and we ran along beside it for almost half a mile until the car slowed, turned to the left and stopped in front of a pair of tall gates. There were a couple of toots on the horn.
The gates were ornamental, and possibly of wrought iron under their pink paint. The archway that they barred was stucco-covered, and painted the same colour.
Why, I inquired of myself, this prevalence of pink, which I regard as a namby-pamby colour, anyway? Flesh-colour? Symbolic of an ardency for the flesh which I had insufficiently gratified? I scarcely thought so. Not pink. Surely a burning red … I don’t think I know anyone who can be really ardent in a pink way …
While we waited, a feeling that there was something wrong with the gatehouse grew upon me. The structure was a single-storey building, standing against the left, inner side of the archway, and coloured to match it. The woodwork was pale blue, and there were white net curtains at the windows. The door opened, and a middle-aged woman in a white blouse-and-trouser suit came out. She was bare-headed, with a few grey locks in her short, dark hair. Seeing me, she raised her hand in the same sign the Amazons had used, though perfunctorily, and walked over to open the gates. It was only as she pushed them back to admit us that I suddenly saw how small she was – certainly not over four feet tall. And that explained what was wrong with the gatehouse: it was built entirely to her scale …
I went on staring at her and her little house as we passed. Well, what about that? Mythology is rich in gnomes and ‘little people’, and they are fairly pervasive of dreams, too, so somebody, I am sure, must have decided that they are a standard symbol of something, but for the moment I did not recall what it was. Would it be repressed philoprogenitiveness, or was that too unsubtle? I stowed that away, too, for later contemplation and brought my attention back to the surroundings.
We were on our way, unhurriedly, along something more like a drive than a road, with surroundings that suggested a compromise between a public garden and a municipal housing-estate. There were wide lawns of an unblemished velvet green, set here and there with flower-beds, delicate groups of silver birch, and occasional, larger, single trees. Among them stood pink, three-storey blocks, dotted about, seemingly to no particular plan.
A couple of the Amazon-types in singlets and trousers of a faded rust-red were engaged in planting-out a bed close beside the drive, and we had to pause while they dragged their handcart full of tulips on to the grass to let us pass. They gave me the usual salute and amiable grin as we went by.
A moment later I had a feeling that something had gone wrong with my sight, for as we passed one block we came in sight of another. It was white instead of pink, but otherwise exactly similar to the rest – except that it was scaled down by at least one-third …
I blinked at it and stared hard, but it continued to seem just the same size.
A little farther on, a grotesquely huge woman in pink draperies was walking slowly and heavily across a lawn. She was accompanied by three of the small, white-suited women looking, in contrast, like children, or very animated dolls: one was involuntarily reminded of tugs fussing round a liner.
I began to feel swamped: the proliferation and combination of symbols was getting well out of my class.
The car forked to the right, and presently we drew up before a flight of steps leading to one of the pink buildings – a normal-sized building, but still not free from oddity, for the steps were divided by a central balustrade; those to the left of it were normal, those to the right, smaller and more numerous.
Three toots on the horn announced our arrival. In about ten seconds half a dozen small women appeared in the doorway and came running down the right-hand side of the steps. A door slammed as the driver got out and went to meet them. When she came into my range of view I saw that she was one of the little ones, too, but not in white as the rest were; she wore a shining pink suit like a livery that exactly matched the car.
They had a word together before they came round to open the door behind me, then a voice said brightly:
‘Welcome, Mother Orchis. Welcome home.’
The couch, or stretcher, slid back on runners, and between them they lowered it to the ground. One young woman whose blouse was badged with a pink St Andrew’s cross on the left breast leaned over me. She inquired considerately:
‘Do you think you can walk, Mother?’
It did not seem the moment to inquire into the form of address. I was obviously the only possible target for the question.
‘Walk?’ I repeated. ‘Of course I can walk.’ And I sat up, with about eight hands assisting me.
‘Of course’ had been an overstatement. I realized that by the time I had been heaved to my feet. Even with all the help that was going on around me it was an exertion which brought on heavy breathing. I looked down at the monstrous form that billowed under my pink draperies, with a sickly revulsion and a feeling that whatever this particular mass of symbolism disguised, it was likely to prove a distasteful revelation later on. I tried a step. ‘Walk’ was scarcely the word for my progress. It felt like, and must have looked like, a slow series of forward surges. The women, at little more than my elbow height, fluttered about me like a flock of anxious hens. Once started, I was determined to go on, and I progressed with a kind of wave-motion, first across a few yards of gravel, and then, with ponderous deliberation, up the left-hand side of the steps.
There was a perceptible sense of relief and triumph all round as I reached the summit. We paused there a few moments for me to regain my breath, then we moved on into the building. A corridor led straight ahead, with three or four closed doors on each side; at the end it branched right and left. We took the left arm, and, at the end of it, I came face to face, for the first time since the hallucination had set in, with a mirror.
It took every volt of my resolution not to panic again at what I saw in it. The first few seconds of my stare were spent in fighting down a leaping hysteria.
In front of me stood an outrageous travesty: an elephantine female form, looking the more huge for its pink swathings. Mercifully, they covered everything but the head and hands, but these exposures were themselves another kind of shock, for the hands, though soft and dimpled and looking utterly out of proportion, were not uncomely, and the head and face were those of a girl.
She was pretty, too. She could not have been more than twenty-one, if that. Her curling fair hair was touched with auburn lights, and cut in a kind of bob. The complexion of her face was pink and cream, her mouth was gentle, and red without any artifice. She looked back at
me, and at the little women anxiously clustering round me, from a pair of blue-green eyes beneath lightly arched brows. And this delicate face, this little Fragonard, was set upon that monstrous body: no less outrageously might a blossom of freesia sprout from a turnip.
When I moved my lips, hers moved; when I bent my arm, hers bent; and yet, once I got the better of that threatening panic, she ceased to be a reflection. She was nothing like me, so she must be a stranger whom I was observing, though in a most bewildering way. My panic and revulsion gave way to sadness, an aching pity for her. I could weep for the shame of it. I did. I watched the tears brim on her lower lids; mistily, I saw them overflow.
One of the little women beside me caught hold of my hand.
‘Mother Orchis, dear, what’s the matter?’ she asked, full of concern.
I could not tell her: I had no clear idea myself. The image in the mirror shook her head, with tears running down her cheeks. Small hands patted me here and there; small, soothing voices encouraged me onward. The next door was opened for me and I was led into the room beyond, amid concerned fussing.
We entered a place that struck me as a cross between a boudoir and a ward. The boudoir impression was sustained by a great deal of pink – in the carpet, coverlets, cushions, lampshades, and filmy window-curtains; the ward motif, by an array of six divans, or couches, one of which was unoccupied.
It was a large enough room for three couches, separated by a chest, chair and table for each, to be arranged on either side without an effect of crowding, and the open space in the middle was still big enough to contain several expansive easy-chairs and a central table bearing an intricate flower-arrangement. A not-displeasing scent faintly pervaded the place, and from somewhere came the subdued sound of a string-quartet in a sentimental mood. Five of the bed-couches were already mountainously occupied. Two of my attendant party detached themselves and hurried ahead to turn back the pink satin cover on the sixth.
Faces from all the five other beds were turned towards me. Three of them smiling in welcome, the other two less committal.
‘Hallo, Orchis,’ one of them greeted me in a friendly tone. Then, with a touch of concern she added: ‘What’s the matter, dear? Did you have a bad time?’
I looked at her. She had a kindly, plumply pretty face, framed by light-brown hair as she lay back against a cushion. The face looked about twenty-three or twenty-four years old. The rest of her was a huge mound of pink satin. I couldn’t make any reply, but I did my best to return her smile as we passed.
Our convoy hove to by the empty bed. After some preparation and positioning I was helped into it by all hands, and a cushion was arranged behind my head.
The exertion of my journey from the car had been considerable, and I was thankful to relax. While two of the little women pulled up the coverlet and arranged it over me, another produced a handkerchief and dabbed gently at my cheeks. She encouraged me:
‘There you are, dear. Safely home again now. You’ll be quite all right when you’ve rested a bit. Just try to sleep for a little.’
‘What’s the matter with her?’ inquired a forthright voice from one of the other beds. ‘Did she make a mess of it?’
The little woman with the handkerchief – she was the one who wore the St Andrew’s cross and appeared to be in charge of the operation – turned her head sharply.
‘There’s no need for that tone, Mother Hazel. Of course Mother Orchis had four beautiful babies – didn’t you, dear?’ she added to me. ‘She’s just a bit tired after the journey, that’s all.’
‘H’mph,’ said the girl addressed, in an unaccommodating tone, but she made no further comment.
A degree of fussing continued. Presently the small woman handed me a glass of something that looked like water, but had unsuspected strength. I spluttered a little at the first taste, but quickly felt the better for it. After a little more tidying and ordering, my retinue departed leaving me propped against my cushion, with the eyes of the five other monstrous women dwelling upon me speculatively.
An awkward silence was broken by the girl who had greeted me as I came in.
‘Where did they send you for your holiday, Orchis?’
‘Holiday?’ I asked blankly.
She and the rest stared at me in astonishment.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I told them.
They went on staring, stupidly, stolidly.
‘It can’t have been much of a holiday,’ observed one, obviously puzzled. ‘I’ll not forget my last one. They sent me to the sea, and gave me a little car so that I could get about everywhere. Everybody was lovely to us, and there were only six Mothers there, including me. Did you go by the sea, or in the mountains?’
They were determined to be inquisitive, and one would have to make some answer sooner or later. I chose what seemed the simplest way out for the moment.
‘I can’t remember,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember a thing. I seem to have lost my memory altogether.’
That was not very sympathetically received, either.
‘Oh,’ said the one who had been addressed as Hazel, with a degree of satisfaction. ‘I thought there was something. And I suppose you can’t even remember for certain whether your babies were Grade One this time, Orchis?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Hazel,’ one of the others told her. ‘Of course they were Grade One. If they’d not been, Orchis wouldn’t be back here now – she’d have been re-rated as a Class Two Mother, and sent to Whitewich.’ In a more kindly tone she asked me: ‘When did it happen, Orchis?’
‘I – I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember anything before this morning at the hospital. It’s all gone entirely.’
‘Hospital!’ repeated Hazel, scornfully.
‘She must mean the Centre,’ said the other. ‘But do you mean to say you can’t even remember us, Orchis?’
‘No,’ I admitted, shaking my head. ‘I’m sorry, but everything before I came round in the Hosp – in the Centre, is all blank.’
‘That’s queer,’ Hazel said, in an unsympathetic tone. ‘Do they know?’
One of the others took my part.
‘Of course they’re bound to know. I expect they don’t think that remembering or not has anything to do with having Grade One babies. And why should it, anyway? But look, Orchis –’
‘Why not let her rest for a bit,’ another cut in. ‘I don’t suppose she’s feeling too good after the Centre, and the journey, and getting in here. I never do myself. Don’t take any notice of them, Orchis, dear. You just go to sleep for a bit. You’ll probably find it’s all quite all right when you wake up.’
I accepted her suggestion gratefully. The whole thing was far too bewildering to cope with at the moment; moreover, I did feel exhausted. I thanked her for her advice, and lay back on my pillow. In so far as the closing of one’s eyes can be made ostentatious, I made it so. What was more surprising was that, if one can be said to sleep within an hallucination or a dream, I slept …
In the moment of waking, before opening my eyes, I had a flash of hope that I should find the illusion had spent itself. Unfortunately, it had not. A hand was shaking my shoulder gently, and the first thing that I saw was the face of the little women’s leader, close to mine.
In the way of nurses, she said:
‘There, Mother Orchis, dear. You’ll be feeling a lot better after that nice sleep, won’t you?’
Beyond her, two more of the small women were carrying a short-legged bed-tray towards me. They set it down so that it bridged me, and was convenient to reach. I stared at the load on it. It was, with no exception, the most enormous and nourishing meal I had ever seen put before one person. The first sight of it revolted me – but then I became aware of a schism within, for it did not revolt the physical form that I occupied: that, in fact, had a watering mouth, and was eager to begin. An inner part of me marvelled in a kind of semi-detachment while the rest consumed two or three fish, a whole chicken, some slices of meat, a pile of vege
tables, fruit hidden under mounds of stiff cream, and more than a quart of milk, without any sense of surfeit. Occasional glances showed me that the other ‘Mothers’ were dealing just as thoroughly with the contents of their similar trays.
I caught one or two curious looks from them, but they were too seriously occupied to take up their inquisition again at the moment. I wondered how to fend them off later, and it occurred to me that if only I had a book or a magazine I might be able to bury myself effectively, if not very politely, in it.
When the attendants returned I asked the badged one if she could let me have something to read. The effect of such a simple request was astonishing: the two who were removing my tray all but dropped it. The one beside me gaped for an amazed moment before she collected her wits. She looked at me, first with suspicion, and then with concern.
‘Not feeling quite yourself yet, dear?’ she suggested.
‘But I am,’ I protested. ‘I’m quite all right now.’
The look of concern persisted, however.
‘If I were you I’d try to sleep again,’ she advised.
‘But I don’t want to. I’d just like to read quietly,’ I objected.
She patted my shoulder, a little uncertainly.
‘I’m afraid you’ve had an exhausting time, Mother. Never mind, I’m sure it’ll pass quite soon.’
I felt impatient. ‘What’s wrong with wanting to read?’ I demanded.
She smiled a smug, professional-nurse smile.