Taking Stock

by A. L. Lester

  It would only be neighbourly to pop in and see if he was all right. That’s what people did in the country, didn’t they? Phil had been here months now, apart from a brief visit to Aunt Mary over Christmas and New Year, and if he was going to be here much longer he should probably make an effort to get to know people properly.

  That made him pause for thought. Was he going to be here much longer?

  He didn’t know.

  He walked through the farmyard cautiously. He knew enough to go to the back door, not the front. The two sheepdogs who had cursorily examined him earlier in the week shot out of the open porch and circled round, barking and wagging cheerfully. No need to knock, then. He did, regardless and called out, “Anyone home?”

  “In here,” Laurie’s voice answered, distantly. “Come in, whoever you are!”

  He stepped into the porch, past a downstairs bathroom, and through the scullery with its stone-flagged floor, and pushed the door into the kitchen fully open.

  Laurie was washing up. His stick was hooked on the drainer and he was resting against the sink with one hip. He turned as Phil came in, propping the final plate on the pile beside the soapy water and reaching for the tea-towel flung over his shoulder to dry his hands.

  “Mr McManus! Phil, I mean,” he corrected himself, “what can I do for you?”

  Phil paused. He hadn’t got this far in his head. He had just…walked.

  “Erm. I was just passing?” he tried. His voice lifted at the end, in a question.

  “You were?” Laurie looked at him, one side of his mouth twisted up in a little smile. Or was that the side affected by the stroke? He didn’t know. Didn’t matter, anyway.

  “Yes. I was.” He made his voice firmer. “Sally is at my place this morning, so I thought you might let me hide here.”

  “Only if you’ll let me retreat to your place when she’s cross with me,” Laurie replied. “Although that will probably mean I have to move in, at least for the moment.” He pulled a face.

  “Have you upset her?”

  “No. Yes. Sort of….” He turned toward the Rayburn and dragged the kettle onto the hotplate. “She wasn’t very happy about me over-doing it the other day. Patsy told tales on me.”

  “Ah. Yes, I can see that. She obviously cares about you a great deal. She talks about you all the time when she comes up to do the cottage.” He paused. “Have you been together long?”

  Laurie choked and dropped one of the teacups he was moving from the drainer to the table. He fumbled for it and at the same time Phil stooped to catch it. They both missed and it smashed on the stone floor into a thousand tiny pieces. “Shit!” Laurie said, trying stifle his coughing. “That was one of the good ones, too.”

  He bent to pick up the pieces, still choking and Phil said, “Stop it, you bloody fool, let me. It’s everywhere.” He put his hands on Laurie’s shoulders and pushed him upward from his bent position and then back and down, in to one of the kitchen chairs. Laurie’s leg gave as he sat and he made the final descent with an unglamorous wobble.

  He was still coughing. “Sally!” he got out, around between coughs. “Bloody hell!”

  “Where’s the dustpan?” Phil asked, ignoring him.

  Laurie gestured to the cupboard under the sink. “Under there.”

  It was the work of moments to sweep it all up, on his knees at Laurie’s feet. Thankfully it had been empty. He rested back on his heels with the full dustpan. “Where does it go?”

  “Put it in one of the flower-pots on the windowsill,” Laurie said, gesturing. “I’ll stick in the bottom of a pot for drainage when I plant the new ones up.”

  Phil nodded and got to his feet. He lurched as he did so and steadied himself on Laurie’s knee as he rose. Warm, he thought. The man smelled nice. A mixture of soap and fresh air and woodsmoke. “Ooops,” he said, pushing himself upright. “Sorry.”

  Laurie grinned at him as they briefly made eye contact. Something flickered in his eyes. “Not a problem,” he said. He pointed at the windowsill behind the sink. “Knock those dead chives in the middle pot out the window into the yard.” He grinned again, but it was a different sort of smile this time, with slightly too many teeth. “I can’t really balance to water them properly at the moment anyway.”

  Phil opened the window and emptied the dead plants outside ad then tipped the pieces of crockery in as instructed. He replaced the dustpan under the sink and stood up and leaned against it, crossing his arms. “Doesn’t Sally help with that sort of thing?” he asked, looking down at the other man.

  “No. Yes. Sometimes.” Laurie wouldn’t meet his eye and started to stand. “Sit down, let me get a new cup.”

  Phil put his hand back on his shoulder and gently but firmly pushed him back down on to the chair. “What do you mean?” he asked, in a voice that matched his grip, “No-yes-sometimes covers all the wickets.” He removed his hand and turned round to collect another cup and saucer, moving past Laurie to put it on the table beside him and then reaching to pull the kettle off the Rayburn and put both tea-leaves and the boiling water in the teapot.

  He brought the teapot over and put it on the cork table-mat in the middle of the table before opening the pantry door and rummaging in the fridge for the milk-jug. Laurie sat and let him, watching him slightly warily.

  As Phil sat down and folded his arms again, waiting for the tea to brew, Laurie muttered, “I told her not to do it.”

  “You told her not to do it?” Phil repeated. “Ah, I see.” And he did, in a way. He wouldn’t be in Laurie’s shoes for anything.

  Laurie worked his thumb over and over one of the whorls of wood in the table top. It was smoothed from long use. “I hate it, Phil,” he said in a low voice. “I hate not being able to do all the simple things. It makes me feel useless, having them all run round after me.”

  “You’d rather let the plants die than accept help?”

  Laurie bit his lip and continued to worry at the knot in the table. “It sounds daft when you put it like that,” he said.

  Phil didn’t say anything.

  “Okay, I know it’s daft.” He looked up and met Phil’s eyes, his own anguished. “But I hate it,” he said, vehemently. “I hate it, Phil.” He seemed to notice the action of his thumb on the table and clasped his hands together firmly. Phil got the sense that he was holding on to his composure in the same tense, clenched fashion.

  “Like I said to you the other day, I hate that I’m dependent on them all. I hate that I can’t have a proper bath without having Sally within earshot in case I slip and can’t get out. I hate that I can’t walk up to the pond and sit by the standing stone and just be by my fucking self for half an hour without someone coming to check whether I’m all right.” His voice raised in volume until the last few words were shouted at Phil across the table and he pushed himself to his feet with a laboured motion and spun round, weight on his stronger leg, until he was leaning against the sink, gripping it with his good hand and staring out to the yard.

  “I hate it,” he said, in a soft voice.

  It was quiet for a moment. Laurie was clearly crying and trying not to let Phil see. What to do?

  In the end, he stood up quietly and moved around the table until he stood behind the other man. He stepped close, until he could feel the warmth of Laurie’s back against his chest and Laurie must be able to feel him in turn. Close, but not touching.

  Very carefully, very gently, he put his hands on the curved knobs of Laurie’s shoulders, warm under his shirt. Laurie could shake him off easily if he so desired. Phil didn’t say anything. He just offered silent support.

  Laurie was thin under the soft cotton. They stood for a while, doing nothing but breathing and looking out the window. Gradually Laurie relaxed and as he did, he swayed back, just a little, until some of his weight was resting on Phil. It felt nice, to take the weight for someone else.

  Eventually, Laurie dashed his good hand over his face. Wiping his eyes, Phil thought. “Tea’s getting cold,” La
urie said.

  Phil gave a slight squeeze to the vulnerable shoulders and stepped back. “Shall I be mother?” He strove for a normal tone of voice.

  “Please.” Laurie turned behind him and sat down again. “I expect it’ll be brewed to your taste, anyway.”

  Phil coughed. “I like it to taste like tea, that’s all!” he said, affronted.

  “That’s one way to put it.” Despite the almost normal bantering tone, Laurie wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Sorry,” he continued. “We barely know each other and you’ve seen me with my skin off twice, now.”

  “It’s all right,” Phil said. “I do understand. Like I said before, it’s easier, sometimes, to talk about these things to someone you don’t know all that well.”

  “What’s your story, then?” Laurie asked, cupping his hands round the teacup Phil passed him. The tea was still perfectly warm.

  “My story?” He swallowed.

  Chapter 11: Neighbourly

  Laurie watched Phil carefully. There was no problem avoiding his perceptive eyes now. Phil was doing as much examining of the table as Laurie has been a moment earlier.

  “Well…” Phil drew it out cautiously. “I suppose. I…”

  “Don’t tell me,” Laurie said, suddenly. “I don’t want to pry, not if it’s that painful. It’s not important. Let’s talk about something else.”

  There was a little silence and then Phil swallowed with an audible click of his throat. “I…Would that be all right?” he said. “I’d rather not, just yet, if you don’t mind? Not today.” He drank some of his tea. “It’s a beautiful day. I was just going for a walk. I walk a lot.”

  “I used to, too,” Laurie said, taking the turn of subject in good part. “I miss it. I used to do some of my best thinking while I was walking.”

  “The opposite for me,” Phil said. “Walking means I don’t have to think. Just move. I’ve done lots of exploring, round and about. I usually go up Ball Lane on to the top of the hill and on from there.”

  Laurie nodded. “Once you’re up on the top you can go anywhere. And you can see for miles. It clears the mind.” He caught himself gazing wistfully into space and drank some of his tarry tea to bring himself back to earth.

  “What brought you this way instead, then?” he asked curiously.

  Phil flushed a little. “Just being neighbourly, I suppose?” he said, his voice lifting up at the end to almost make the statement a question. “I enjoyed talking to you the other day. I thought you seemed to enjoy it too. I thought you might appreciate a change of face.”

  “Invalid visiting, then?” Laurie said, slightly crisply. “I can do without your pity as well, thank you very much.”

  Phil shook his head at him across the table, that flush increasing. “No,” he said. “Not like that. Not like that at all. I just enjoyed talking, that’s all. You made me laugh and I haven’t laughed in a while.”

  That was painfully honest of him, Laurie thought. Not many people would come out and say it straight like that. Although Laurie had shown enough of his own soft underbelly this week, he supposed.

  “Sorry,” he said, brushing his nose. “Bit sensitive.”

  “I can see why you would be. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Laurie looked at him. “Why?” he asked, finally. “Why would you do that? Offer to help, I mean. We barely know each other.”

  Phil paused, thinking. He clearly hadn’t given the question any thought before now. “I…” he said. “I’ve been thinking I should get to know the neighbours,” he said, hesitantly, finally. Up until now I haven’t really met anyone properly. I’ve been hiding, I suppose.

  “If I’m going to stay down here for a while…I think I’d like to stay…there’s not a great deal for me back in London, I’ve discovered recently. I’m here. You’re here. It looks like we could both do with a friend.”

  Laurie nodded, watching him speak. “A friend,” he said, slowly, feeling his way around it. “All right, then. But as for the help…I’ll ask if I need it, all right? I’m sick of people asking if they can help and none of them actually being able to do what I want…make me better.”

  Phil nodded back at him. “I can do that,” he said, quietly. “I won’t push.”

  Chapter 12: Cat

  “What are you doing?” Cat’s voice surprised him. He hadn’t heard her come in behind him.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” he replied irritably, without turning round. “I’m peeling the bloody potatoes.”

  She came over and stood beside him, hands in her pockets. “For dinner?” she said.

  “Yes. Thought it was something I could do while Sal went to the shops.”

  She nodded and continued to watch him silently.

  Over the last few weeks she had started coming in for a meal in the evening after everyone else went home and she’d begun to use the bathroom rather than the antiquated earth-closet out behind the barn. The farm workers had done as he’d asked and let her be in her holt at the end of the barn and she’d returned the lack of interference by gradually coming out more and more.

  By tacit agreement she seemed to have taken on looking after the poultry, letting the hens out and shutting them up, cleaning out the turkeys and geese and feeding them all twice a day. Laurie had paid her five pounds at the end of last week and told her that if she wanted to do more, then she should come and see him and talk about it.

  “Did you need something?” he asked, after a moment or two.

  “Can I help with the milking?” she said, diffidently. She had her hands in the pockets of her baggy corduroy trousers and was poking at one of the slightly irregular stone flags of the floor with the toe of her boot.

  He thought for a moment. Jimmy was in charge of the milking. He and Paul dealt with it during the week and up until it happened, Laurie had stepped up and taken over at the weekend, so they had alternate weekends off. It was Jimmy’s domain.

  “Did you speak to Jimmy?” he asked. He knew the two of them had formed a tentative truce over the turkeys.

  She stepped forward and picked up the brush he was using to scrub the potatoes before peeling them and began to help him. “Yes. This morning. He said it was fine with him if you said yes. He said that having someone else around on weekends would be useful, if I was going to learn the ropes.”

  Good for Jimmy. He had three or four children, twice that many grandchildren and was starting on great-grandchildren now. He knew how to talk to youngsters.

  He fumbled a potato with his bad hand and jabbed himself with the peeler. “Bugger,” he said. He was trying to hold them still with his weak left hand and peel with his right. It wasn’t working all that well because he didn’t have the use of all of his fingers. They were still curled up and crabbed and not really getting any better, despite the stretches he was doing.

  She watched him for a moment as he swore under his breath.

  “What about sticking it on that spike thing she uses for baking them?” she asked, suddenly. “You could hold that under your arm, then.”

  He shook his head and then thought about it. “Maybe?” he said. I think it’s on the top of the Rayburn.

  She went and got it. “Here. Stick this one on it and see…” She helped him get it settled. It looked a bit like a lance crowned with a potato, jabbing out from where he was holding it steady against his body with his elbow. It didn’t work, it was too high up.

  “No,” he said. “Worth a try though, thank you.” He didn’t want to push her away.

  “Hmm.” She eyed him thoughtfully. “Sit down at the table. You can keep it steady with your arm against the table then, instead of against your side.”

  They maneuvered everything around…him, the chair, the bowl of potatoes, the saucepan of cold water, the spike thing, the newspaper for the peelings, the peeler itself. It worked pretty well.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That makes it much easier.” She was still standing watching him. “Can you put the kettle on? I sa
id I’d parboil these for Sally. And you could make a cup of tea.”

  She nodded and did as he asked.

  “Milking tonight, then?” he asked her, as she poured them both a drink and cautiously sat down opposite him to drink hers.

  “Is that all right?” she asked. “I really want to learn. I’d like to stay and work for you. But not just because you feel sorry for me.”

  “Are you running away?” he asked.

  She bit her lip and stared at her tea. “Maybe?” she said. “I’m old enough now, though. I turned eighteen last week.”

  She rubbed her hands on her thighs. “I know I’m allowed to do what I want when I’m eighteen, now the law changed. He can’t make me go back.”

  “Who can’t?” he asked, gently.

  A pause.

  “Dad. He told me to get out, but when I went to stay with my friend, he came after me and her mother said I had to leave, she didn’t want trouble. So…I left.”

  She put both hands round her mug and sipped the tea. There was clearly more to the story, but Laurie didn’t want to pry. Even coming into the house was a big step forward. Telling him this much was immense for her.

  “Well, there’s work for you here, if you want it,” he said. “But I won’t pay you to be a passenger. I’ll pay you ten pounds a week all found and you can have one of the rooms in the house—” She flinched and he backtracked swiftly. “—or we’ll make the old quarters more comfortable for you, and sort out a lock and a key. You can have your meals in here if you want. And after the summer, if you’re doing the same work as everyone else, you can have the same wage they do, minus your board.”

  She glanced up at him as if she couldn’t quite believe him. “Yes?” she said.

  “Yeah.” He dropped his peeled potato in to the saucepan of cold water. “And if you keep coming up with clever ideas like this one, I’ll probably pay you a bonus.” He grinned at her and was delighted when an answering grin was coaxed across her face.