Read The Private Patient for Free Online Page A
Authors: P. D. James
saw only the wall of water and, beyond it, trembling smudges of light which marked the distant houses. Usually she welcomed silence and was able to discipline her imagination. She contemplated the coming operation without fear while recognising that she had some rational cause for anxiety; to be given a general anaesthetic was never without risk. But now she was aware of an unease which went deeper than worry about either this preliminary visit or the impending surgery. It was, she realised, too close to superstition to be comfortable, as if some reality formerly unknown to her or thrust out of consciousness was gradually making its presence felt and demanding to be recognised.
It was useless to listen to music above the competing tumult of the storm, so she slid back her seat and closed her eyes. Memories, some old, some more recent, flooded into her mind unresisted. She relived once again the day in May six months ago which had brought her to this journey, this stretch of deserted road. Her motherâs letter had arrived with a delivery of boring post: circulars, notifications of meetings she had no intention of attending, bills. Letters from her mother were even rarer than their brief telephone conversations, and she took up the envelope, more square and thicker than the ones her mother normally used, with a slight foreboding that something could be wrongâillness, problems with the bungalow, her presence needed. But it was a wedding invitation. The card, printed in ornate script surrounded by pictures of wedding bells, announced that Mrs. Ivy Gradwyn and Mr. Ronald Brown hoped that their friends would join them to celebrate their wedding. The date, time and name of the church were given and a hotel at which guests would be welcome at the reception. A note in her motherâs handwriting said,
Do come if you can, Rhoda.
I donât know whether Iâve mentioned Ronald in my letters. Heâs a widower
and his wife was a great friend of mine. Heâs looking forward to meeting you.
She remembered her emotions, surprise followed by relief, of which she was slightly ashamed, that this marriage could remove a part of her responsibility for her mother, might lessen her guilt over her infrequent letters and telephone calls and even rarer meetings. They met as polite but wary strangers still inhibited by the things they couldnât say, the memories they took care not to provoke. She couldnât remember hearing about Ronald and had no desire to meet him, but this was an invitation she had an obligation to accept.
And now she consciously relived that portentous day which had promised only boredom dutifully endured but which had led her to this rain-lashed moment and to all that lay ahead. She had set off in good time but a lorry had overturned, shedding its load on the motorway, and when she arrived outside the church, a gaunt Victorian Gothic building, she heard the reedy uncertain singing of what must be the last hymn. She waited in the car a little way down the street until the congregation, mainly middle-aged or elderly, had emerged. A car with white ribbons had drawn up but she was too distant to see her mother or the bridegroom. She followed the car, with others leaving the church, to the hotel, which was some four miles farther down the coast, a much-turreted Edwardian building flanked by bungalows and backed by a golf course. A profusion of dark beams on the façade suggested that the architect had intended mock Tudor but had been seduced by hubris to add a central cupola and a Palladian front door.
The reception hall had an air of long-faded grandeur; curtains of red damask hung in ornate pleats and the carpet looked grimed as with decades of dust. She joined the stream of fellow guests who, a little uncertainly, were moving to a room at the rear which proclaimed its function by a board and printed notice:
Function room available for private
parties.
For a moment she paused in the doorway,
It was useless to listen to music above the competing tumult of the storm, so she slid back her seat and closed her eyes. Memories, some old, some more recent, flooded into her mind unresisted. She relived once again the day in May six months ago which had brought her to this journey, this stretch of deserted road. Her motherâs letter had arrived with a delivery of boring post: circulars, notifications of meetings she had no intention of attending, bills. Letters from her mother were even rarer than their brief telephone conversations, and she took up the envelope, more square and thicker than the ones her mother normally used, with a slight foreboding that something could be wrongâillness, problems with the bungalow, her presence needed. But it was a wedding invitation. The card, printed in ornate script surrounded by pictures of wedding bells, announced that Mrs. Ivy Gradwyn and Mr. Ronald Brown hoped that their friends would join them to celebrate their wedding. The date, time and name of the church were given and a hotel at which guests would be welcome at the reception. A note in her motherâs handwriting said,
Do come if you can, Rhoda.
I donât know whether Iâve mentioned Ronald in my letters. Heâs a widower
and his wife was a great friend of mine. Heâs looking forward to meeting you.
She remembered her emotions, surprise followed by relief, of which she was slightly ashamed, that this marriage could remove a part of her responsibility for her mother, might lessen her guilt over her infrequent letters and telephone calls and even rarer meetings. They met as polite but wary strangers still inhibited by the things they couldnât say, the memories they took care not to provoke. She couldnât remember hearing about Ronald and had no desire to meet him, but this was an invitation she had an obligation to accept.
And now she consciously relived that portentous day which had promised only boredom dutifully endured but which had led her to this rain-lashed moment and to all that lay ahead. She had set off in good time but a lorry had overturned, shedding its load on the motorway, and when she arrived outside the church, a gaunt Victorian Gothic building, she heard the reedy uncertain singing of what must be the last hymn. She waited in the car a little way down the street until the congregation, mainly middle-aged or elderly, had emerged. A car with white ribbons had drawn up but she was too distant to see her mother or the bridegroom. She followed the car, with others leaving the church, to the hotel, which was some four miles farther down the coast, a much-turreted Edwardian building flanked by bungalows and backed by a golf course. A profusion of dark beams on the façade suggested that the architect had intended mock Tudor but had been seduced by hubris to add a central cupola and a Palladian front door.
The reception hall had an air of long-faded grandeur; curtains of red damask hung in ornate pleats and the carpet looked grimed as with decades of dust. She joined the stream of fellow guests who, a little uncertainly, were moving to a room at the rear which proclaimed its function by a board and printed notice:
Function room available for private
parties.
For a moment she paused in the doorway,