WHISPER
MARTIN WADDELL
Whisper . . . but why should I whisper? The silence makes me do it I suppose, the silence and the dark tall trees that shroud us. She would come here, again.
Where is she now? She’s standing by the stone and looking away from me. Rosemary says it was a summerhouse, a place to play. Weed guts it now, creepers stray and tangle on the stone seats, our feet sink in the moss. What a place for picnics. It’s too far away from the world, too chill up here. These grey walls, these wet stones, these throttling briars around us . . . it’s so dismal, I don’t know why Rosemary makes me come here. It makes me want to whisper, as though my voice is an interruption. It is as if she were talking to the place.
I don’t know what’s happening to Rosemary.
‘I think we should go.’ It was worth a try . . . but she takes no notice. It is getting dark . . . summer dark, which should be pleasant when things chatter in the grass and the sky burns when the sun has passed away. Should be pleasant . . . but not here. There’s not very much I can do about it . . . Rosemary is not an easy person. Notionate . . . they say. They say so much, they mean so little. There’s much more to it. She feels things, dark things, things that I don’t pretend to understand.
She’s listening to something. What? There’s nobody to listen to . . . nobody comes here. The trees seem to whisper. So let her listen, she’s doing no harm. I don’t want to know what’s happening . . . you know how I feel about Rosemary, I accept these things, her feelings. Listen, I respect her. These things, feelings, they’re not ordinary. She seems to have another sense, an ability to . . . to be someone else, I suppose, when she chooses, and at the same time remain dear Rosemary to me. Why won’t she tell me what’s happening this time, what’s wrong? ‘It’s bad,’ she said, ‘bad,’ but she would say no more, and I don’t think she meant to be evasive. I don’t honestly think she knew herself. These things take time to come through, we’re a long way from the past. They come slowly, these things she thinks she feels, remembers.
Well does she feel, remember? She’s sane. I know she’s sane, I’ve never doubted it for a moment. She must sense something unusual . . . but is it genuine? I don’t know, can’t know, neither can she . . . but I know she fears these moods. There are times when she is not herself, not herself at all. It is as if she goes away and . . . another . . . takes her place. It doesn’t happen often.
‘Listen. Rosemary, it’s getting damn late you know.’
Again she didn’t hear me, or didn’t choose to listen.
I don’t see what else I could have done . . . I couldn’t have been more gentle. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. I really wouldn’t. I took her by the arm . . . I didn’t mean to hurt her . . . didn’t try to . . . but she twisted away, and she cried.
You’ve got to see what she means to me. You’ve got to understand, because otherwise there is nothing, no meaning, no love. There is love, that’s all I can say. The sort of love that can’t hurt without knowing. It wasn’t my touch. It was the . . . the other.
We sat down on the grey stones and I rocked her against me.
‘The baby,’ she said, and it was no more than a whisper.
Listen . . . there is no goddam chemist in this town fit to keep a store at all, let me tell you. Back home there would be a store open where a person could buy some sedative or something, anything to see her through the night. She’s in a bad way. God I hate this country . . . I wish we’d never come. Outback England . . . there’s a chemist in Lytre St Margaret, but what should I do . . . leave her and drive all that way? I’m not going to leave her, not in this state. The best thing we can do is to go right home with a bottle. She’s in no condition to drive around this place.
All the way home in the car she lay there with her head banging on the back of the seat, so limp I was afraid she’d slip right off. Listen . . . it’ s happened before. There’s nothing they can do. She has these turns, it’s her little peculiarity. There’s nothing physically wrong with Rosemary, I keep telling you. People . . . that woman Keeler in particular . . . they all keep saying I should take her back to the States and have her see somebody about these things . . . they just don’t know Rosemary. Right from a child these things have happened to her, on and off, she just accepts them. When it’s all over she’ll be all right . . . she’ll be able to talk about it. She’ll have been somewhere else, literally someone else, she talks as if it really happens . . . goddam if she says it does, it does, that’s how much I believe her. If I took her back home you know what they’d do, that woman Keeler and all her specialists? They’d get together and they’d force her to stop letting it happen . . . and that I won’t allow. When she tries to stop . . . it hurts her. She can feel them . . . feel them at her, she says, trying to get through. It is important . . . sometimes I think she needs the people . . . people? Things? She says people . . . I think she needs the people almost as much as they need her. We’ve all got to go someday, somebody everyday . . . there’s bound to be things left untidy, forgotten, important things, feelings to adjust. If it matters, she says, matters enough, they get through, and she feels things for them.
Why Rosemary? You blame me . . . I shouldn’t ask these questions?
This is my Rosemary, a person I live with, a real person who matters. Some people you stay with, whether you want to or not. It is not possible to go away. So you want to know why I worry when I see the way she lends out her body to these dead . . . these echoes? Listen, I tell her, why should you feel things for them? Yet she listens to them, comes to them like a lover. She takes their poor dead feelings and gives them flesh and blood just once more, warms them up like yesterday’s dinner. This is why I worry, if you wonder why. You don’t have to tell me Rosemary is not normal . . . I would not have her normal. This lust she has . . . this is Rosemary, this call . . . it’s almost all that matters to her, as she is to me. Why? . . . This question does not help matters. It is in Rosemary because she is Rosemary, whether she fears it or not. There is no reasonable why.
Meanwhile I’ve got to carry her into the house because by the time we reach home she has fallen into a deep sleep and I handle her like I am her old mother and there is nothing to me but old soft heart.
Listen . . . I don’t want you to think I get mixed up in these things myself. I’m like anybody else . . . straight, no complications. I’ve just got to protect her, and that’s important.
This last month since we came to England has been lousy. You know, I try not to let these things get to me. Sometimes when Rosemary is . . . involved . . . it upsets her and she takes it out on me. We both know it . . . and it doesn’t matter . . . but this last month has been like no other.
It must be this place.
I never did like England. What did she want to come here for? In this country you can die and the chemist is still in Lytre St Margaret, so you die, go on ahead, nobody’s interested in stopping you. What sort of a country is that to come to?
This house . . . it’s not even in the town . . . you call it a town, I don’t say what I call it out of politeness. This house is by the gates of the Estate at Raple Margaret, a long way lost. Rosemary likes it . . . or the one getting at her likes it, I’ve no way of knowing. She liked the countryside, she said, when she was writing to her brother. Listen . . . there is no countryside. Her brother should get off his Texan backside and come and take a look. Trees . . . all there is is goddam trees, and the only place we ever go is round the estate to the summerhouse, and the only time we ever do that is after dusk . . . why I am not allowed to know. Who wants to look at a clump of bushes in the darkness . . . that’s how she is, you’ve got to live with it, that’s Rosemary.
That’s it you know. It’s not Rosemary.
It’s one of them. It needs this place, seeks out the damp stones, stands by the dark trees in the dusk.
It’s sleeping in my arms. It cried tonight.
I won’t see Rosemary till it goes away.
Whisper. So there is no goddam whisper, just the trees and the wind, this place, this house, this goddam country.
She won’t come out into the sun at all. Today she stayed in her room all day. She won’t talk, she won’t eat, she won’t do anything. To what am I married, I’ve got to ask you? This is how life should be? She wanted to come here, now she’s gone away. Who is . . . what is . . . this other I have in her place? It was like this in Copenhagen once . . . but that was only for a day. This time it has gone on much longer.
It has been like this for days, since she first found the summerhouse. Found it? . . . she knew it was there. It’s hidden in the middle of the thicket . . . but she pushed her way through where the steps had been. You couldn’t know it was there . . . how could you? . . not unless you’d been there before. Rosemary hadn’t. Why do I ask these questions . . . what am I telling myself that I do not know already? It was the other one.
I wish the goddam other one would go away.
Trees. This afternoon I went out on my own because I’m sick of sitting in that goddain garden waiting for something to happen. Rosemary . . . she just lies on her back. So I went out through the trees to the drive . . . and there it was again, that goddam whisper. Listen . . . there is an old curving drive, up to where they used to live. Rhododendrons, and thick redwood trees that blot out the sun, sweetsmelling. The avenue is carpeted with leaves that choke the grass. Dark webs of briar creep from the bushes, mat across the pebbled drive. Green walls of leaves arch high on either side, gashed with scarlet blossoms. Above is a slit of sky with a meek sun let through to blink on the rotting shell of the old lodge. They have left the walls, no roof . . . black beams that jut like bones from granite skin, a skin scorched black by flame, windows bricked like eyeless eyes, stitched for common decency. A ridge rises beyond the lodge, climbs beyond the outhouses to a rough stone bridge where water lurks in lukewarm pockets in the rocks, drips with an incessant tinkle to deep pools below.
It must be that . . . the river. A river can sound like . . . a whisper?
A river cannot sound like a whisper, especially a dried up river. You know it . . . I know it. And yet there is a whisper. . . a whisper that stalks me along this rotting road, that sings between the flowering blooms. An urgent, seeking whisper, a small voice sucked in the undergrowth. It dwells and lilts and somehow . . . warns.
I’ve had enough.
We must go away. I don’t give a damn how much it hurts her, that one that’s in Rosemary. If I take her body away . . . the rest of Rosemary will come back. The other belongs here . . . echoes here, and here it must stay.
When we go home . . . away from this damn country . . . then we can forget it. Listen you
. . . poor whispering thing. It’s too bad . . . you’re not Rosemary’s fault, not her responsibility. She’s done enough . . . I won’t let her do any more. You must give her back. I want her . . . you hear me? I don’t want you in the darkness any more, I’ve had enough. Go and whisper at somebody else for God’s sake. What kind of thing are you? Others used her . . . others let her go
. . . so must you. What do you want . . . a body?
You know what she was doing when I got home? She was out on the lawn in the sun and she was making a daisy chain . . . isn’t that ridiculous? It made me feel better right away, because she’s been penned up in that house too long. I thought she was all right. She sat there and she made conversation just like any other day . . . except she didn’t really talk . . . she didn’t say anything that meant anything. It was like talking to somebody else . . . somebody you don’t know.
‘You stop it,’ I said. ‘Just you snap out of it, Rosemary.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, and then she laughed.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I think we should go away, you know? This is not a good place for you to be. You’re getting all mixed up with this old thing.’
‘Now you know that’s not right,’ she said, and she split one of her little daisies right down the stem with her thumbnail. ‘You know the way it is.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Your brother said I . . .’
‘I don’t want to go,’ she said, and got up from the grass.
‘Why? What’s here?’
‘You know the way it is, Charlie.’
‘You just keep saying that. I know you’re getting sick or something. I don’t like it.’
‘It’s all right. There’s something I’ve got to see to, that’s all. It’s not like you . . . interfering. I’ve got something to work out.’
‘Whatever it is . . . it’s not your problem.’
She kept messing around with those daisies, jiggling them round her wrist, so they gleamed against her skin. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. It was pretty remarkable the way she handled those little green things, playing them through her fingers and twisting the little stems in and out in a tangle. ‘It’s my problem,’ she said, with decision.
‘I know it’s one of your people, Rosemary,’ I said. ‘I know it’s not you. It can’t go on and on. Listen, I want you with me . . . I don’t want some other old dead person getting in the way.’ It seemed a funny thing to say . . . but I said it, because I couldn’t think of any other way to put it.
You’d think she would see that it mattered to me, after I’d said a thing like that, wouldn’t you?
You know what happened? She started to laugh all over the place. Not a nice laugh . . . she was laughing at me, playing me on. She made it into a snigger . . . it wasn’t like Rosemary at all, it was as if she was trying to hurt me. In the middle of all this she suddenly dried up and said, ‘I’m not dead yet you know.’
And that was about all she did say for the rest of the day, because when she’d stopped enjoying her joke she went back up to her room, and she left her little daisy chain lying on the grass . . . every single little daisy had had it’s neck wrung . . . you know what I mean?
Half past ten and she comes down the stairs. This does not surprise me. Why should it surprise me? Every night she comes downstairs at half past ten. Every night she has an old wrap on and she says how about driving out? Every night we drive out. Of course you know where we drive to. There’s no variation to it. We drive out round the back towards that old summerhouse.
Tonight I don’t want to go.
‘I don’t feel like it, Rosemary,’ I say. ‘Supposing we just go down to Lytre St Margaret for a run, if you don’t want to stay home?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Then we’ll just stay home.’
‘You’ve got to come,’ she says, and it’s the worst thing to happen so far, because I just don’t know the voice she says it in. It’s like someone else speaking to me . . . someone imitating Rosemary . . . it is someone else. I see her standing there and I see her lips move and I hear what Rosemary says to me . . . I hear the sound, but I know somehow she doesn’t make it. The person speaking is someone else. ‘It’s important,’ this someone else says, then out jerks ‘Charlie!’ and it’s a cry, but almost a whisper, and this one word sounds like Rosemary.
What can l do? I think I know now . . . I think I understand. I’ve got to go with . . . this someone. If I leave her with this . . . this other . . . how can I know what will happen next to poor Rosemary? There must still be a Rosemary . . . she called my name. Yet I see this other . . . I hear her, and she’s wearing my Rosemary to cover up her old dead soul.
We’re in the car. We’re driving up the driveway and we cross the bridge and swing up to the left towards the high thicket.
‘What’s your name?’ I say, just like that.
‘Rachel,’ she says . . . and then she looks at me. If only she didn’t look at me through Rosemary’s eyes.
‘You can’t stay,’ I say to her. ‘You know that. You’ve got to go back . . . where you came from, when this is all over. I want her . . . do you understand?’
She shrugs. ‘Rachel . . . for now,’ she says, and a smile plays across her face . . . Rosemary’s face.