Note by JRW: The following is an extract from a handwritten letter by Myatt, addressed to me. He dated it One Humid Day in June.


 

 

"People Can Be So Cruel..."

 

There is nothing to do this hot, Sunny, humid early evening after work but sit in the shade and sigh. The shade is from the tall Ash tree that grows in the hedge in this corner of the field. In one part of the sky, clouds build, rising, giving a hint of a storm, and, rested a little, I wander over the low, old, wire fence broken here in three place, through the grass and willow-herb down to the damp ground where bull-rushes grow. There is a small part of this rough ground between two trees of Willow - one broken, old - and the scrub bush, which is shaded for most of the day, and the small pool of now clear water is still there, days after rain, frequented by birds, insects, and home to a myriad of minute living things eking out their brief existence in their own cosmos, three hands long, less than one hand wide and now less than the width of my forefinger deep.

So I sit again, and again shaded but this time by Willow, and sigh. For here by this very field on this very day in late June I have slipped out of love with she who these past four long months has governed my life. I would wake, after a few hours sleep, to think of her - to desire her; to want to be with her, remembering the moments, the hours, of passion we had shared - as I would wait, hours, days, for those telephone calls that she never made. I was the cause of her split from her intended - but our shared time, together, was brief, for she, afraid perhaps of my intensity, the depth of my love, my passion - of something - withdrew to leave me wondering, for weeks. She wanted friendship only then, and I with my love obliged, holding onto hope as we who love do. For four months - except for five days - I had put her feelings, her wishes, before mine. But then came that deed to leave me more hurt than I have ever been. We had talked of sharing, of me moving in; but she said she wanted time to think. And then - the storm breaking after days, nights of humid sleepless hours - she told of he, her friend, who was moving in with her that very day we met again to talk.....

So I sit, with no wind to cool me down. But there has been a calmness, these past hours and - for the first time in five days - my dull, persistent, headache has gone. There is no haste, here, and I am glad of this half hour before I walk back to the farmhouse, for tea. So I am alone, again, released; part sad; part happy. I am happy, because this place where I sit has become like a home - a refuge, where I am me; where I do not have to pretend. I can be the innocent boy, inside, pleased by the sights, sounds, smells, life, around. No need for words; no need to explain; no misunderstandings. Only that - trees, bush, birds, grass, plants, sky, insects, soil, Sun - which I am and which are me.

 

So I sit, this new notebook on my knee, pen in hand, with no measure of passing time except the change of light, shade, as a memory, forgotten for many, many years, rises, unbidden by me, as the Sun, rising each day, is unbidden by Earth.

It is the story - the sad story - of a young woman I knew and whom I briefly nursed in those days, long ago now, when my then still early life served a different and perchance more noble purpose. She was on the Ward where I then worked, recovering from a routine operation and, as I changed her bloodied dressing one warm day, we fell to talking as people do. She had been reading Howards End - then a favourite book of mine - and it was not long before we discovered a mutual love of Mozart. Whenever time, my duties, permitted, we talked - as that evening, some days later, after my shift had ended. We talked for hours, as late afternoon turned to evening

Why she confided in me - almost a stranger - I did not know. But she showed me a letter she had written to her lover, a letter she feared to send. She wrote of her love, her hopes, her feelings, as she spoke to me of her past - the betrayals; the manipulation; the self-doubt; the suicide attempt, only months ago. "People can be so cruel," I remember she had said, as I remember that she seemed to me, then, as now, a delicate, gentle, life - a rather shy, awkward, innocent girl in a young woman's body, so taken advantage of by others, by men. I remember how her eyes brightened when she spoke of Mozart; of how she happily showed me photographs of a family trip to Austria; and revealed the pressed Edelweiss she kept as a memento. I remember how she almost cried as she spoke of how her lover - how several others - had said she should "grow up".

I was there when she left, clutching her little unfashionable bag full of the things people need for a stay in hospital. I was there, by the swing-doors which gave entrance to the Ward. I was there hoping that someone would come to meet her; to hold her. But no one did. I was there, sensing that she wanted me to do something, to say something: sensing that she herself was too shy to do, say, what she felt, needed. I was there, wanting to hold her, wanting to ask for her address; for her telephone number - but there was something, something, which held me back. It was my honour; for I had pledged my loyalty to the woman I then loved.

Not long after, I learnt that my favourite patient was dead. She had killed herself. Was this, I thought, the price of my honour? Could I have done more? I should have done more. For weeks afterwards, her death haunted me. I felt such a failure, as a Nurse, as a human being. It was such a waste of a beautiful life. We two human beings had made a connexion - a deep connexion. We two, who perhaps felt too much; who felt what others felt, and who often retreated into ourselves because the words of others, their feelings, even sometimes the way they looked at us, could wound us. I knew we two had shared something human, special, just as I knew that she was a better human being than those who derided her, who demanded she "grow up". Grow up - and become like them? Insensitive; forgetful of, or never having known, the pure innocent joy of those wondrous, civilized moments such as being captivated by a beautiful, sublime piece of music heard for the first time, bringing tears. Become like them? - laughing at the treasured keepsake? Become like them? - cheating; scheming; lying to impress.

All she needed was a simple, uncomplicated, giving, gentle, love. Such a waste of a beautiful life. Such a regret, for me, in me. And now my own life has returned to the feelings of that time, that place, filled as they were then by that beautiful, brief, life. For years, for many, many years - too many years - I forgot her; forgot the feelings engendered then; the understanding given by her, through her. I tried in those long years to "grow up"; to behave, act, scheme, like others. But there is no need to "grow up", here, in this my quiet, special, rural place where Nature lives. I can be myself, again, as I was, once, with her. Perhaps she, my favourite patient, is here - or somewhere nearby. I would like to believe so. Perhaps she lives as long as I, someone, remembers her.

How easily I, we, forget. But I shall strive to never forget her, again.

 

 

DW Myatt