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The Water Bus

Mrs Hargreaves didn’t like people.

She tried to, because she was a woman of high principle and a religious woman, and she knew very well that one ought to love one’s fellow creatures. But she didn’t find it easy – and sometimes she found it downright impossible.

All that she could do was, as you might say, to go through the motions. She sent cheques for a little more than she could afford to reputable charities. She sat on committees for worthy objects, and even attended public meetings for abolishing injustices, which was really more effort than anything else, because, of course, it meant close proximity to human bodies, and she hated to be touched. She was able easily to obey the admonitions posted up in public transport, such as:‘Don’t travel in the rush hour’; because to go in trains and buses, enveloped tightly in a sweltering crowd of humanity, was definitely her idea of hell on earth.

If children fell down in the street, she always picked them up and bought them sweets or small toys to ‘make them better.’ She sent books and flowers to sick people in Hospital.

Her largest subscriptions were to communities of nuns in Africa,because they and the people to whom they ministered, were so far away that she would never have to come in contact with them, and also because she admired and envied the nuns who actually seemed to enjoy the work they did,and because she wished with all her heart that she were like them.

She was willing to be just, kind, fair, and charitable to people,so long as she did not have to see,hear or touch them.

But she knew very well that that was not enough.

Mrs Hargreaves was a middle-aged widow with a son and daughter who were both married and lived far away, and she herself lived in a flat in comfortable circumstances in London – and she didn’t like people and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

She was standing on this particular morning by her daily woman who was sitting sobbing on a chair in the kitchen and mopping her eyes.

‘ – never told me nothing, she didn’t – not her own Mum! Just goes off to this awful place – and how she heard about it, I don’t know – and this wicked woman did things to her, and it went septic – or what ever they call it – and they took her off to Hospital and she’s lying there now, dying . . . Won’t say who the man was – not even now. Terrible it is, my own daughter – such a pretty little girl she used to be, lovely curls. I used to dress her ever so nice. Everybody said she was a lovely little thing . . .’

She gave a gulp and blew her nose.

Mrs Hargreaves stood there wanting to be kind, but not really knowing how, because she couldn’t really feel the right kind of feeling.

She made a soothing sort of noise, and said that she was very very sorry. And was there anything she could do?

Mrs Chubb paid no attention to this query.

‘I s’pose I ought to have looked after her better . . . been at home more in the evenings . . . found out what she was up to and who her friends were – but children don’t like you poking your nose into their affairs nowadays – and I wanted to make a bit of extra money, too. Not for myself – I’d been thinking of getting Edie a slap-up gramophone – ever so musical she is – or something nice for the home. I’m not one for spending money on myself . . .’

She broke off for another good blow.

‘If there is anything I can do?’ repeated Mrs Hargreaves. She suggested hopefully, ‘A private room in the Hospital?’

But Mrs Chubb was not attracted by that idea.

‘Very kind of you, Madam, but they look after her very well in the ward. And it’s more cheerful for her. She wouldn’t like to be cooped away in a room by herself. In the ward, you see, there’s always something going on.’

Yes, Mrs Hargreaves saw it all clearly in her mind’s eye. Lots of women sitting up in bed, or lying with closed eyes; old women smelling of sickness and old age – the smell of poverty and disease percolating through the clean impersonal odour of disinfectants. Nurses scurrying along, with trays of instruments and trolleys of meals, or washing apparatus, and finally the screens going up round a bed . . . The whole picture made her shiver – but she perceived quite clearly that to Mrs Chubb’s daughter there would be solace and distraction in ‘the ward’ because Mrs Chubb’s daughter liked people.

Mrs Hargreaves stood there by the sobbing mother and longed for the gift she hadn’t got.What she wanted was to be able to put her arm round the weeping woman’s shoulder and say something completely fatuous like ‘There, there, my dear’ – and mean it. But going through the motions would be no good at all.Actions without feeling were useless.They were without content . . .

Quite suddenly Mrs Chubb gave her nose a final trumpet-like blow and sat up.

‘There,’ she said brightly.‘I feel better.

She straightened a scarf on her shoulders and looked up at Mrs Hargreaves with a sudden and astonishing cheerfulness.

‘Nothing like a good cry, is there?’

Mrs Hargreaves had never had a good cry. Her griefs had always been inward and dark. She didn’t quite know what to say.

‘Does you good talking about things,’ said Mrs Chubb. ‘I’d best get on with the washing up. We’re nearly out of tea and butter, by the way. I’ll have to run round to the shops.’

Mrs Hargreaves said quickly that she would do the washing up and would also do the shopping and she urged Mrs Chubb to go home in a taxi.

Mrs Chubb said no point in a taxi when the 11 bus got you there just as quick; so Mrs Hargreaves gave her two pound notes and said perhaps she would like to take her daughter something in Hospital? Mrs Chubb thanked her and went.

Mrs Hargreaves went to the sink and knew that once again she had done the wrong thing. Mrs Chubb would have much preferred to clink about in the sink, retailing fresh bits of information of a macabre character from time to time, and then she could have gone to the shops and met plenty of her fellow kind and talked to them, and they would have had relatives in hospitals, too, and they all could have exchanged stories. In that way the time until Hospital visiting hours would have passed quickly and pleasantly.

‘Why do I always do the wrong thing?’ thought Mrs Hargreaves, washing up deftly and competently; and had no need to search for the answer. ‘Because I don’t care for people.’

When she had stacked everything away, Mrs Hargreaves took a shopping bag and went to shop. It was Friday and therefore a busy day. There was a crowd in the butcher’s shop.Women pressed against Mrs Hargreaves, elbowed her aside, pushed baskets and bags between her and the counter. Mrs Hargreaves always gave way.

‘Excuse me, I was here before you.’ A tall thin olive-skinned woman infiltrated herself. It was quite untrue and they both knew it, but Mrs Hargreaves stood politely back. Unfortunately, she acquired a defender, one of those large brawny women who are public spirited and insist on seeing justice is done.

‘You didn’t ought to let her push you around, luv,’ she admonished, leaning heavily on Mrs Hargreaves’ shoulder and breathing gusts of strong peppermint in her face.‘You was here long before she was. I come in right on her heels and I know. Go on now.’ She administered a fierce dig in the ribs.‘Push in there and stand up for your rights!’

‘It really doesn’t matter,’ said Mrs Hargreaves.‘I’m not in a hurry.’

Her attitude pleased nobody.

The original thruster, now in negotiation for a pound and a half of frying steak, turned and gave battle in a whining slightly foreign voice.

‘If you think you get here before me, why not you say? No good being so high and mighty and saying’ (she mimicked the words) ‘it doesn’t matter! How do you think that makes me feel? I don’t want to go out of my turn.’

‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Hargreaves’ champion with heavy irony.‘Oh no, of course not! We all know that, don’t we?’

She looked round and immediately obtained a chorus of assent.The thruster seemed to be well known.

‘We know her and her ways,’ said one woman darkly.

‘Pound and a half of rump,’ said the butcher thrusting forth a parcel. ‘Now then, come along, who’s next, please?’

Mrs Hargreaves made her purchases and escaped to the street, thinking how really awful people were!

She went into the greengrocer next, to buy lemons and a lettuce. The woman at the greengrocer’s was, as usual, affectionate.

‘Well, ducks, what can we do for you today?’ She rang up the cash register; said ‘Ta’ and ‘Here you are, dearie,’ as she pressed a bulging bag into the arms of an elderly gentleman who looked at her in disgust and alarm.

‘She always calls me that,’ the old gentleman confided gloomily when the woman had gone in search of lemons.

‘ “Dear”, and “Dearie” and “Love”. I don’t even know the woman’s name!’

Mrs Hargreaves said she thought it was just a fashion. The old gentleman looked dubious and moved off, leaving Mrs Hargreaves feeling faintly cheered by the discovery of a fellow sufferer.

Her shopping bag was quite heavy by now, so she thought she would take a bus home.There were three or four people waiting at the bus stop, and an ill-tempered conductress shouted at the passengers.

‘Come along now, hurry along, please – we can’t wait here all day.’ She scooped up an elderly arthritic lady and thrust her staggering into the bus where someone caught her and steered her to a seat, and seized Mrs Hargreaves by the arm above the elbow with iron fingers, causing her acute pain.

‘Inside, only. Full up now.’ She tugged violently at a bell, the bus shot forward and Mrs Hargreaves collapsed on top of a large woman occupying, through no fault of her own, a good three-quarters of a seat for two.

‘I’m so sorry,’ gasped Mrs Hargreaves.