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.Visiting Marcia had always seemed an awesome prospect, hardly even to be contemplated.'You never thought of coming to see her, living as near as you do, just a few steps across the common?' Father G.'s tone was enquiring rather than reproachful.'I thought of it — once or twice I came near to it — but I never did.'Father G.finished his tea and stood up, holding the cup in his hand.'Do you think we should.?''Wash up? Oh, I think Mrs Brabner, the social worker, will probably see to that.I don't think we should get involved.'So the men left the house, remembering to lock up behind them.Neither had commented on the state of the kitchen and hall, the dust and other evidences of long neglect.Father G.genuinely did not notice such things and Edwin, with a general impression that all was not quite as it should be, still preserved the same detachment towards this as towards other aspects of Marcia's life.What he did carry away with him was an irrelevant detail, the sight of a half-opened tin of luncheon meat still on the draining board.It had always surprised him how ineffectual women were when it came to opening a perfectly simple tin.It was natural for them both to feel the need of a strengthening and reviving drink when they found themselves some distance away from Marcia's house.They had undergone an unexpectedly upsetting experience.Little had Edwin imagined that a casual stroll across the common in the direction of Marcia's house could have such an outcome.Yet what had the outcome been? Marcia had been found in a distressed condition, but she had been taken away in an ambulance to hospital where she would receive the best possible care.There was nothing further that anyone could do.All the same, the need for a drink was uppermost in his mind, and then supper — the events of the last hour had delayed the evening meal and it was well known that an upsetting experience had unexpected results, not necessarily the most suitable or desirable ones.There was a hollow feeling in his stomach and he remembered that he had not eaten since lunch.'You'll stay and take pot luck with me?' he said to Father G., knowing that there would be little cheer at the vicarage.He at least had the remains of a casserole in the larder.'That's good of you — I'm quite hungry.'Edwin poured sherry.Had it been the kind of upsetting experience that called for brandy? he wondered.On the whole he thought not, for it did not touch him personally.All the same, he ought to get in touch with Letty, who would no doubt want to visit Marcia in hospital.Come to that, he supposed they all ought to; the three of them should cluster round her bed.Again he found himself wanting to smile, almost to laugh, and if Norman had been with him at that moment instead of Father G.he felt that the smile might have turned most regrettably into laughter.It was disconcerting the way this happened — any idea of the women now seemed to be a subject for comedy.But with Father G.it was different.In the midst of life he was so continually in death.'Do you think I should visit her in hospital?' Father G.was asking.'I easily could — the chaplain there is an old friend.She might feel that as I saw her, found her, as it were.''I don't know what Marcia would feel.But I'm sure she would like to have a visit,' said Edwin uncertainly, for he was not at all sure.How could anyone be sure about Marcia?The next morning Edwin had to break the news to Norman.'I should've thought a loony bin would have been more to the point than hospital,' said Norman, in a rough way that might have concealed an obscure emotion.'What are we expected to do — send flowers by Interflora — have a whip round in the office?' He was standing by the window and shook himself like an angry little dog coming out of the water.'I'll get some flowers and take them round — the hospital's not far from where I live,' said Edwin soothingly.'And I'll get in touch with Letty.'Norman fumbled in his trousers pocket and produced a fifty-pence piece.'You'd better say they're from all of us, the flowers.Here's something towards it.''Thank you.I won't ask to see her, just leave the flowers,' Edwin said.It was a relief that the general embarrassment of the situation had not made them burst out laughing, as he had feared.Perhaps there were some things, hospitals especially, that were still sacred.'I wouldn't want to go and see her,' Norman said.'I did go when my brother-in-law, Ken, was in hospital, but then he had nobody and being the blood-tie and that I felt I had to.'Edwin was about to point out that a brother-in-law wasn't exactly a blood relation but he thought it best to leave the subject, and if they got to talking about people having nobody it might well be remembered that Marcia also came into that category.In Mrs Pope's house the telephone rang just as she and Letty were settling down to watch television.They quite often did this now, and although it had started by Mrs Pope suggesting that Letty might like to watch the news or some improving programme of cultural or scientific interest, there was now hardly an evening when Letty did not come down to watch whatever happened to be on the box, whether it was worthy of attention or not.'Oh, bother, who can that be?' said Mrs Pope, going out into the hall.It's for you,' she said accusingly to Letty.People ought not to ring up at such a time.'Letty went apologetically to the telephone.Of course there was really no suitable time to ring people in the evening now that television had been invented, for with the choice of three programmes one of them was certain to be the one somebody was watching.Even the worst had their adherents and who was to judge what was 'worst', the kind of thing that nobody could possibly want to see?When Letty came back into the room, Mrs Pope looked up expectantly.Letty did not have many telephone calls and never seemed to make any.'It was a man's voice,' she said encouragingly, 'so I knew it couldn't be your friend in the country.''No, it was Edwin Braithwaite.''Oh, Mr Braithwaite,' Mrs Pope waited for Letty to go on.'He was ringing to tell me that Marcia Ivory who used to work in the office had been taken into hospital.''Taken into hospital!' Mrs Pope's interest was immediately aroused and Letty had to repeat what Edwin had told her about Marcia's collapse and the summoning of the ambulance
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