Olive reached out and put a comforting hand on Maddie’s arm. ‘But you know you’re lucky, too, don’t you? And there’d be an awful lot of people envying you and thinking you’re a right Moaning Minnie. That development you live on? It’s pretty gorgeous by all accounts. Your boys took care of you; they found you an easier life. Probably because of love for you.’
Maddie dismissed this with a tight-lipped shake of her head. ‘Love? I don’t think so. Love goes hand in hand with respect and they never, never asked me what I wanted. Not once. Everything they did they did to me, not with me or for me. And yes, I sound ungrateful, because I am ungrateful. I had a home and I’d chosen a lifestyle that suited me and I cannot forgive them for ripping me out of that house.’
Olive moved her hand from Maddie’s arm to her hand and squeezed it reassuringly as fat tears rolled down Maddie’s face.
‘Silly me, I’m crying. But I’m not sad. I’m angry.’
Olive, also on the brink of tears, comforted her with her own furious version of the same tale. ‘You’re angry and you’re sad and both are fine, you know. I’m angry with my kids, too. I’m angry they left me. I’m angry I don’t know my own grandchildren. And I’m angry they’ve made me have to choose. If I want to see my grandchildren grow up, I have to give up the farm. I have to give up everything I know and love. I don’t want to do that. And I’m angry that this makes me a bad person somehow, that I’m not maternal enough – after everything else – to want to relinquish it all for some grandchildren I’ve never even met.’ Olive paused, again conscious that she knew very little of Maddie and might be causing untold offence. She swallowed loudly before asking, kindly, ‘What about you, dear? Have you any grandchildren making your life better?’
‘Yes, I have four. And they’re dear enough children, but I don’t really know how to be a grandmother in that house. I barely know how to be a human being. What am I supposed to do? What can I show them? What can I possibly teach them? I think I would have liked my grandchildren to know the farm. I could have shown them where their lunch comes from. They could have learnt to sow carrots. That would have been enough. I keep some jigsaws for them, but they just put the telly on and we sit and gawp at it together and then they go home. It’s no wonder they’re not really interested in me. I’m not an interesting person.’
Doubler experienced a pang of guilt and vowed to teach his grandchildren to sow carrots. Of course he must. Society might slip backwards entirely if nobody knew how to sow carrots. By wallowing in self-pity for all these years, he had shunned his responsibilities. The grandchildren should each be able to chit potatoes by now, he realized, but just as he banged the table to draw the women’s attention to his terrible shortcomings, Olive spoke.
‘You know, Maddie, this is absolutely ludicrous. All of it.’
‘It is?’ she asked, her bottom lip trembling a little.
‘Yes. You’re living in a place you hate, waiting to die. I’m here living up at the farm, your idea of heaven, where there are animals to be fed and carrots to be sown. And I’m not going to leave here until I’m carried out in a box, and even then, quite frankly, I’ll be kicking and screaming. I’d rather be buried down at the bottom of a field somewhere.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Doubler, looking from one woman to the other and back again.
‘Can’t you see? It’s obvious. Come and share the workload here at the farm with me, Maddie.’
‘Here?’ Maddie asked with undisguised horror on her face.
‘Well, I know it sounds preposterous, but the truth is, I’m not really equipped to cope here on my own. I was never really much of a farmer, more a farmer’s wife. Come and show me the ropes. I want to get my fingernails dirty again too.’
‘But you barely know me!’ squealed Maddie, affronted more than flattered.
‘All I know is my own shadow, and to tell you the truth, I’m sick and tired of it. I just want to start again; I want to do something different with this next chapter. Let’s take back control!’
This piqued Maddie’s interest. She had been feeling wildly out of control for too long now. ‘Is that possible? Aren’t we too old?’
‘Heavens, no! As far as taking control is concerned, we are in our prime. We get to do whatever we want to do for the rest of our lives, don’t we? If we have earned anything at all, we’ve earned that. And you can see your days out sowing carrots if that’s what you want.’
Olive could see the light in Maddie’s eyes. She could see Maddie imagining this as a possibility, so she pressed on. ‘I’m not sure you’re equipped to live on your own, either. From what I hear, you’re a bit of a liability. But perhaps if we look after each other, we can keep each other out of harm’s way.’
‘Are you inviting me to visit as an occasional guest, or are you inviting me to come and go as I please? I’m not entirely sure what you’re suggesting.’
‘Come and go as you please. I’ve got room for you and your things here, Maddie.’
Maddie fell silent while she focused on the practicalities. She continued to quiz Olive anxiously, her worries visible in the crease on her brow. ‘How much room do you have? Will I get under your feet? Will there be space for a few of my things?’
‘This place is so big that even with the two of us here, we’ll still rattle around.’ Olive assessed Maddie carefully before adding, ‘You wouldn’t do anything daft, would you? You’re not going to kidnap the animals or set fire to my farmhouse? You’re not actually mad, are you, Maddie?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think I’m mad. I think I’m just lonely, but it’s quite possible that is driving me a bit bonkers.’
Doubler smiled to himself. He had rather hoped when he drove Maddie here that something like this might happen. Recently, everything had seemed possible. But that didn’t stop him bubbling over with happiness at the thought that these two women might be able to complete each other.
‘Olive, you’re an absolute genius. It’s not a bad idea, Maddie. You could help each other around the place and keep each other out of mischief. And you’d have Percy right next to you, so Thomas can find him if he does come home.’
‘Oh, Thomas would love it here. I know he would. What about Thomas, Olive? Could he come here too if he ever gets better? He might make a recovery if he thinks there’s some earth to dig.’ Maddie hesitated. A stark memory swept in and swamped her mind, drowning the thrill of potential she’d experienced for a few brief moments. ‘Percy hates me,’ she said quietly, to the table.
‘Well,’ said Doubler a little crossly, ‘you didn’t always do the right thing by that donkey, did you? Who wants to live in a garage, for God’s sake? You think you suffered moving from the countryside to a housing estate? Imagine the trauma that poor beast suffered. A donkey deserves the earth beneath its feet, that’s for sure. But . . .’ he said, softening, ‘Percy will learn to forgive you. I expect donkeys manage forgiveness quite well.’
‘I don’t know about that – donkeys are the silent-suffering types. That donkey will always make me feel guilty. Have you seen the way he looks at me?’
‘Well, perhaps he will learn to love you again when you start taking him some carrots every day and stop trying to run away with him,’ Olive spoke up, her voice also carrying a trace of admonishment, and Doubler realized that she was not going to be a pushover. Maddie was going to have to earn her keep.
‘He was happy the first time I broke him out of the farm, I swear. He trotted down the bridle path like he thought he was going on an adventure. He was an angel.’
‘Because he thought he was going home!’ Olive tutted. ‘He probably thought you were taking him to see Thomas.’
‘I suppose he did. Thomas was always his favourite.’
‘And instead you locked him in a garage with no light.’
‘The garage had a window. I’m not crazy. Though I suppose it was north-facing.’
Doubler nodded sternly. ‘Exactly. One small north-facing window does not ma
ke for a happy retirement home for a donkey. But you can make it up to him now. Grow him some carrots and then when you go to visit Thomas, you’ll have some stories to tell him. You can talk about Percy, about your veg; you can tell him when you’ve seen the first bluebells of the year, the first swallows, or heard the first cuckoo. Maybe he’ll be less miserable there when he knows you’re less miserable here.’
Maddie recovered from the scolding quickly and was focusing on the possibility of a clean start. ‘It’s a very attractive proposition. Taking back control, I love the sound of that.’
‘And you’ll owe me a favour or two, so in return you can both help me take back control from the Colonel. I’m rather fed up with being cut out of the shelter and what goes on here. It’s disrespectful.’
Doubler interjected. ‘Really, he doesn’t want to cut you out. He’s just a bit frightened of hysterical women.’
‘Hysterical? Me? He hasn’t seen anything yet. Let’s see how he copes with one hysterical woman and one completely unhinged one. That will give him something to think about.’ Olive looked at Maddie and winked, the two of them enjoying the solidarity.
‘But two farmers’ wives? Will that work?’ asked Maddie, running the same thought through her busy, confused mind again and again to try and straighten some of the knots into bits of information she could properly hold on to.
‘You were never a farmer’s wife; you were always a farmer. And I’d love to learn a bit more. I stopped learning the day Don died, but there are definitely plenty of things you could teach me.’
Maddie sat up a little straighter, hearing the praise and soaking it up. ‘It would be an honour. I’d like to see what I still remember. There must be something useful rattling about in here,’ she said, sounding unconvinced.
‘I can keep an eye on you, you know, if you come unstuck?’ offered Doubler grandly.
Olive laughed. ‘I don’t think we’ll be needing the help of a potato farmer, thank you very much. But you can certainly lend us your tractor from time to time.’
Doubler winced at the thought of letting anyone loose with any of his much-treasured farm equipment and nodded some sort of acquiescence, though he secretly hoped the women would be downgrading their ambitions before he had to do any such thing.
Olive turned back to Maddie, serious once more. ‘If we’re going to make a go of it, we’ll need to be productive – we can’t just sit here crying into our tea about our awful families or how much we miss our husbands. We’ll do some farming; we will grow a bit of veg; we’ll get our fingernails dirty again. That has to be the deal. It will feel more like hard work.’
Maddie’s eyes shone at the prospect. ‘It will either make me live much longer or it will kill me. But either way, it’s better than dying a slow, agonizing death of boredom.’
‘Well, I can’t see any prospect of us being bored together. I suspect it will be far too much of a rollercoaster. But let’s make a pact now that we’ll smother each other with a pillow rather than die of boredom.’
Doubler let out a gasp. ‘Watch your mouth, Olive. This one will be far too quick to take you up on your offer. You’ll only have to yawn once and she’ll come at you with a cushion to put you out of your misery. I’d stay alert and keep the two of you busy if I were you.’ He laughed, but he fixed Maddie with a stare, who was looking innocently at him, blinking her bright eyes slowly.
Let’s hope I’ve done the right thing, thought Doubler, slapping his hands on his thighs to indicate the end of the meeting.
‘I take some comfort from the thought that neither of you will be any worse off,’ he said, then stood and looked out at the view, a view not as grand or as endless as his own but charming in its own way and undoubtedly an improvement on the laurel hedges of Maddie’s own.
The women talked excitedly behind him as Doubler wondered, a little proudly, what Mrs Millwood would make of his meddling.
Chapter 29
The next morning, Doubler awoke with a start, sensing that something was very wrong. Grabbing a fistful of bed sheet in each hand, he sat up, looking wildly around him. The noise of something falling was reverberating in his ears through the silence, competing with his own heartbeat. Certain that a sudden clatter must have awoken him, he listened intently for sounds of an intruder, unable to determine if the noise still echoing in his head was dreamt or real.
After several moments of adrenaline-fuelled panic, he collapsed back against his pillow, realizing that it was the unusual light in his bedroom that had given him cause for alarm. For the first time in over twenty years, he had overslept.
He ran through a mental checklist of anxieties, working one by one through the worries of every day that he automatically focused on as he woke and, ticking each one off, found himself remarkably free of concern. Somehow, the things that usually propelled him out of bed at sunrise seemed less pressing in the context of yesterday’s successful introduction of Maddie to Olive. Reliving the conversation, he suddenly felt wide awake anticipating the moment he could relay the day’s successes to Mrs Millwood.
He wrapped his dressing gown round him and wandered downstairs, the small guilt at his later than usual start comfortably outweighed by the glow of a good night’s sleep. But as he descended the stairs, he caught sight of a brown package on the doormat and cursed himself for his complacency. Peele was back.
Doubler was fleetingly tempted to hide the parcel away in the dresser drawer for another day, but as he passed the telephone, Mrs Millwood’s voice seemed to float across the hallway: ‘You’re a brave man, Mr Doubler.’ Emboldened, he took a decisive step towards the door and, picking up the parcel, tore at the packaging.
Inside was a small illustrated book, a paperback guide to English garden birds. A postcard of Hever Castle was tucked inside. Turning it over, he read the note, written in Camilla’s careful handwriting.
Dear Dad, I hope you find this useful for your new hobby.
The blackbird, page 28, is my favourite! I used to think they were a bit dull, but there’s so much more to them than meets the eye
. . . Remind you of anyone?! Loving you always, Camilla.
(PS I took the kids to Hever Castle and picked this postcard up for you. Do you remember?)
He read the message again from start to finish. Dropping the packaging on the doormat, he wandered into the kitchen, where he began to brew himself a pot of tea. He leafed through the bird book while he waited for the kettle to boil. Turning to page 28, he examined the picture of the blackbird. With its bright yellow beak and matching eye ring, it didn’t look dull to Doubler. It looked handsome and sure of itself. Who should it remind him of? he wondered. He admired the bird again and ruled himself out. Perhaps she meant herself. Or perhaps she meant somebody else entirely. That husband of hers was certainly dull.
Doubler measured the tea leaves into the pot and stirred them absent-mindedly, trying to recall the significance of Hever Castle. He was sure he must have been there once but was quite unable to dredge the memory to the surface. Was it a good memory for his daughter, or had it been another opportunity for him to disappoint her? Try as he might, he couldn’t remember the details, so he deduced that it must refer to a happy occasion, since it seemed to Doubler that the painful memories were so much easier for him to hold on to. Was this the same for everyone? Doubler resolved to discuss it with Mrs Millwood when she called.
When she did call, Mrs Millwood wasn’t quite as pleased with Doubler as he had hoped. In anticipation of a thoroughly pleasurable conversation, one he assumed they’d both wish to prolong, he had brewed a fresh pot of tea, laid a tray with biscuits and carried it carefully through to the sitting room. He positioned the telephone beside him and made himself perfectly comfortable while waiting confidently for the phone to ring.
When it did ring, he barely paused to enquire of Mrs Millwood’s comfort as he regaled her with the full account of recent activities. ‘Who’d have thought it, Mrs M? Me, a matchmaker? And a match of Maddie and Olive n
o less!’ He chuckled happily. ‘I do believe they are going to be the most wonderful companions. Oh, I have no doubt they’ll get on each other’s nerves from time to time, because, let’s face it, both of them are equally capable of having their moments, aren’t they? But I think they’ll be able to provide so much stimulation for each other. They already sound like a couple who have been married for ever and are very happy to forgive each other’s faults because they know the pleasures far outweigh the moments of discomfort.’
Doubler took a generous sip of tea and wriggled himself even more comfortably into his chair, preparing himself to settle into his delighted account of recent events. Mrs Millwood had been waiting for this pause, the first with room for an interruption.
‘And how are you, Mr Doubler?’
‘Me? I’m grand, Mrs M!’ he exclaimed, barely drawing breath. ‘You should have seen Maddie’s face when Olive first suggested she should help her up at the farm. Between you and me, I had hoped something like this would happen, but I had no idea it would be suggested so quickly and naturally. It was priceless!’
‘Mr Doubler?’ said Mrs Millwood sternly. ‘I asked how you are.’
‘I said I’m quite fine, Mrs M!’ Doubler exclaimed, inhaling deeply to carry on with his soliloquy.
‘Midge isn’t so sure. She’s worried about you. And if I’m honest, so am I.’
‘Oh, Mrs M! I’m not the one to worry about. I’m fit as a fiddle!’
‘Doesn’t it seem strange to you, Mr Doubler, that you’re running around fixing other people’s problems but you’re not addressing your own? Because it certainly seems strange to Midge and to me.’
Doubler frowned in response and thought about this before continuing at a pace, ‘My own problems, Mrs M? I don’t think I have any problems to call my own.’ He rushed on blithely. ‘Oh, and I’ve had a heart-to-heart with Maxwell! Who’d have thought it? It’s just you now, Mrs M. If we can get you on the mend and home, then I’ll be the happiest I’ve been in decades. Perhaps ever. I’ve not heard a peep from Peele, so I was obviously worrying about nothing. As if that good-for-nothing GM propagator could really be a threat to Mirth Farm. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
Mr Doubler Begins Again Page 26