‘What is it, Hester?’ I demanded. ‘Is Mr Meredith ill?’
She shook her head. ‘Ruby says there was one of those telegram things came last night. Mr Meredith wasn’t here, so they sent the boy on to his lodgings.’
‘And?’
Hester, who I knew to be a soft-hearted girl who could not bear to disturb spiders, and squealed at the tail-ends of mice brought in by Gladstone, the hospital cat, burst into tears. ‘Oh, Mrs Smith, there’s been a terrible accident, and him all alone and catching the midnight train and having to travel for hours and hours. And Ruby says she doesn’t think he’ll ever come back to London again, ever again. And what’ll then happen to the hospital?’
‘I don’t think the charity hospital depends entirely on one man,’ I replied, as gently as I could. ‘The trustees will take over, just as they do when Mr Meredith goes away on business or on holiday.’
‘Oh,’ said Hester, snuffling into her handkerchief, which was growing blacker by the minute.
It was a reasonable question. One that anyone would have asked. So I asked it.
‘Did Ruby say where Mr Meredith has gone?’
‘Home,’ sighed Hester, blowing her nose. ‘Some place with a funny name, in the mountains, where they don’t even speak English, Ruby said. Hours and hours away, even by steam train, and they go ever so fast. Thirty miles an hour, so Ruby says.’
I glanced over to the painting of the pale house, just glimpsed between the trees. I should have known.
‘To Plas Eden.’
Part Two
Chapter Five
Willow Cottage smelt musty as Carys opened the door, with the touch of damp that crept into these old stone cottages when they were left empty for any length of time, even in the summer.
She stepped into the narrow hallway, blinking in the sudden darkness, only just missing stubbing her toes on the coat stand and the grandfather clock that had always been guaranteed to trip up strangers.
The doors to the living room and the old-fashioned parlour had been left open to air the place: all around her light filtered gently in through small, deep-set windows.
They’d certainly known all about insulation two hundred years ago, when the cottage had been built. Forget all that lagging and the stuff they pumped into cavity walls these days. With nothing available to them but the rocks from the mountainside – some almost as large as a horse – and their bare hands, the builders had created walls so thick nothing was getting in or out of there in a hurry.
Even before the double-glazing, Willow Cottage had been toasty warm in the winter and cool in summer. On the hottest days, it was a refuge. Every member of the family would wander back in, Carys remembered, when the heat and the glare of the sun became too much, to feel the delicious chill of the quarry tiles beneath their feet and gulp down Mam’s homemade lemonade or ginger beer.
Her eyes adjusting, Carys took the carrier bags of shopping through the door in front of her and into the kitchen. Here it was lighter. Like most of the cottages in Pont-ar-Eden, the kitchen was a modern extension tacked onto the back of the house, with the bathroom directly above, built in the late 1960s to replace the water standpipe at the roadside and the privy at the bottom of the garden.
On the way back to the car to fetch in the rest of her luggage, Carys stepped inside the open door of the living room. Mam’s Welsh dresser, inherited from her own mother and dark with years of fire smoke and polishing, stood against one wall, laden with Mam’s best plates.
Above the grate of the coal fire, the slate mantelpiece rested in polished splendour, large white china dogs on either side, flanking a reproduction of Michelangelo’s Pieta, a bust of Beethoven and another of Schubert, and a seahorse made of shells that she and Gwenan and Nia had brought back from a day trip to Rhyl, interspersed with family photographs in ornate silver frames.
The familiar smell of coal fires and beeswax polish mingled with lavender surrounded her. Instantly, she was a child again, with Mam cooking up a Sunday roast in the kitchen, Dad fiddling under the bonnet of the car or pottering in the old outside loo, which he had turned into a darkroom where he could pursue his passion for photography to his heart’s content without interruption from his womenfolk, who didn’t understand these things and might do themselves an injury with the chemicals. Gwenan would be out in the garden, organising half the neighbourhood children in some game or other, and Nia would be upstairs, making dresses for her Barbie doll in any material she could lay her hands on.
Where had all that time gone? Carys asked herself, with a sudden ache in her heart. Memories hung in the dust-laden air, as if all those childhood dreams and plans still lingered and were now drawing close around her like ghosts in the silence of the empty house.
Carys shook herself and the moment was gone. She was just Carys again, standing in an empty room, and with the grandfather clock in the hallway warning her she had only a short time before Mam came home.
Her phone beeped loudly in her bag. As Carys grabbed for it another beep followed. Two texts. The first was from Poppy, with instructions to keep smiling, followed by hugs and kisses. The second was an extremely rude joke about sheep from Tanya at work, followed by even more hugs and kisses and three smiley faces.
Had she really seemed that fragile? Carys wondered, as she tapped out her replies. Nothing from Joe. Even though he must know she would have arrived by now. On the occasions she’d visited Mam on her own over the years Joe had always sent regular texts, whatever conference or management course he was attending. It was a weekday, of course. He might be in a meeting.
Carys stashed her phone deep into the bottom of her bag. Up until this morning, when she’d been loading her bags and laptop into the car, Joe had seemed so certain she would change her mind. He’d been charming and helpful for weeks, making sure the bathroom was clean and undertaking more than his fair share of the cooking. He’d even fielded calls from her elder sister, despite his usual determination to avoid Gwenan at all times. But this morning he’d scarcely muttered a goodbye as he left for work, pointedly avoiding her kiss. Joe’s hurt and anger always expressed itself in silence. There was nothing she could do about it. She just had to wait until he calmed down and decided to communicate with her again.
She couldn’t afford to dwell on that now, not with the practicalities of Mam’s return to be dealt with. For all it had appeared the same at first, there were changes to the cottage. Gwenan had had railings put up everywhere and the cloakroom next to the downstairs loo had been knocked through and a shower installed, to make a small bathroom until Mam could get back upstairs again.
Mam’s parlour, on the opposite side of the hallway to the living room had always been kept spotlessly clean and tidy at all times in case of visitors. Now it had been stripped of its glass-fronted sideboard, filled with Mam’s best Stuart Crystal bowls and wine glasses. The upright piano (never played), and the good-as-new cottage suite from the seventies, that always made visitors nervous with its air of being far too fragile to support any substantial weight, had also vanished.
In their place stood Mam’s bed and a brand new wardrobe of stripped pine to replace the large and ancient affair in Mam’s room, which would probably not have survived the journey down the stairs, not without giving any who tried an instant hernia anyway.
Mam would be furious. Carys could feel it in her bones. No one had dared to even reposition a chair away from the scorching of the fire for the past fifty years of the parlour’s existence. Although Gwenan was right, of course: there was no other choice. At least not until Mam was properly back on her feet again. It was just that Gwenan was not going to have to face Mam’s indignation at the sacrilege.
‘Curtains,’ Carys muttered aloud. The parlour curtains, dark, brocaded affairs to add suitably dignified gloom to the room, were still up. At least if Mam had the soft, flowery curtains from upstairs, it might feel more like her bedroom. And if she moved the bed a little, so that it was more or less in the same position, next
to the window, then perhaps Mam might find her way around more easily.
Glad to have a project in hand, to keep the silence and her uncomfortable thoughts at bay, Carys switched on the radio. She fortified herself with a strong coffee, before getting shepherd’s pie (Mam’s favourite) underway, and then turning to attack the offending curtains.
A few hours later, Mair Evans made her way out of the ambulance and up the short path to the front door of Willow Cottage under her own steam. She was slow and careful and leaned heavily on her stick, but she made it without the help of the accompanying ambulance man, her lips set in the thin line of determination Carys knew so well.
‘Cup of tea, Mam?’ said Carys cheerfully, as she closed the door behind them.
‘A paned would be lovely, cariad,’ replied Mair, breathing heavily as if she had just made it to the base camp of Everest. The effort had clearly exhausted her. She took a step forward, looking wistfully up the stairs towards her bedroom.
‘In here,’ said Carys quickly, taking her mother’s arm and guiding her into the parlour. ‘We’ve arranged everything in here for the moment. Just until you’re feeling a bit stronger.’
Mam scarcely seemed to notice the desecration of her best room. She sank into the armchair and closed her eyes. Carys hesitated a moment, unsure whether to stay with her or go into the kitchen to make the tea.
Mam looked frailer than ever in her own surroundings, where she had always been the driving force of the household. When Carys had last seen her in this room, Mam had been a strong, healthy woman, her face tanned from hours spent working in her garden and glowing from the organic vegetables diligently bought and cooked into delicious soups and stews. Now the chair engulfed her, while her fragile fingers groped for the controls on the arm, as if she had forgotten how to use them.
‘It’s this one,’ said Carys, gently, placing her mother’s fingers on the electronic button that set the chair whirring its way into a half-lying position. ‘Is that far enough?’
‘Lovely, dear.’ Mam sounded half asleep already. Her eyes had closed and her mouth had gone slack. A clench of fear knotted itself in Carys’ belly. The reality of looking after a woman who seemed so old and fragile, and so totally unable to do anything for herself, overwhelmed her.
I’m not a nurse, she thought, in panic. Supposing Mam became really ill, all of a sudden? She eyed the clear plastic bag of medication, with notes, horribly aware that she had no real idea what any of it meant. Gwenan had spent half an hour explaining each drug last night, when Carys’ mind had been too swamped with Joe, hovering impatiently in the background with plans for that brilliant Arctic Adventure he’d spotted – a total last-minute bargain if they booked it for two weeks’ time – to take things in. Supposing she made a mistake, and gave Mam the wrong ones, or in the wrong order?
Mam seemed to be scarcely breathing. Supposing she fell, or had a heart attack? Or couldn’t make it on her own to the loo or into bed? Supposing she did it all wrong, and Mam died and it was her fault?
‘Get a grip,’ Carys told herself firmly. ‘Just get a grip.’ Worse things happen at sea, and a lot of other places, come to that.
You cope. That’s what Poppy had said, when Carys had exclaimed in awe at the sheer logistics of trying to feed and change two small babies, neither of whom appeared to choose to sleep at the same time as the other, not to mention trying to keep a business afloat
So, said Poppy: you count two hours sleep a good night and you can never even sit on the loo on your own, and you grunt vaguely to your husband in passing on the stairs, who grunts vaguely back, each of you frazzled and covered in milky sick and chocolate. Sex is something you don’t even dream of any more. And, in any case, you’d both swap passion for a straight eight hours kip … no, Poppy couldn’t have imagined it either, but when it happens, survival mode takes over and you cope.
Maybe looking after your aging parents was not unlike looking after your children, it struck Carys. It isn’t a subject you get taught at school, and nothing prepares you for the reality. It’s still ‘women’s work’, whoever actually does it. Not college stuff. Not what successful, important, real grown up people do. They’re your flesh and blood, and you’re just left to get on with it. Guided by instinct, most probably.
She had a sudden desire to break into nervous giggling. All her working life, she had been through endless training sessions, complete with PowerPoint presentations, flipcharts, flow diagrams, SWOT and SMART analyses and evaluation sheets. But she’d never had training sessions (on a full day’s pay and buffet lunch, with generous breaks for ‘networking’) to prepare her for being in sole charge of a fragile old woman.
Carys had never considered looking for any such thing, and she wasn’t sure it existed, even if she had. She didn’t even remember seeing manuals on the subject, along the lines of the piles of A Child’s First Year Poppy had collected by the time the twins arrived.
‘So, are you making that paned?’ demanded Mam, eyes still closed.
Carys smiled at her. This time, Mam sounded more like herself. Maybe the return home had done her good, after all.
Sod Joe and his bloody dog-sled safari and snow-mobile excursions. Had he really thought ten days of wall-to-wall ice and the off-chance of seeing the Northern Lights would be enough to make her change her mind? And if he thought his silence was about to browbeat her into crawling back for his forgiveness, he had another think coming.
If she was ever to demonstrate to Joe that she meant what she said, she had to carry through with this to the end. If she caved in now and went back to Chester, she would be giving him permission to assume that, when it came to the crunch, he could always alternate charm and the silent treatment until he got his own way. Carys hastily shut her mind to the possibilities of where that thought was taking her. One thing at a time. And she’d enough to deal with, right now.
‘Just going now, Mam,’ she said.
They’d cope, she swore to herself. Between them, she and Mam, whatever happened, they’d cope.
Chapter Six
For Carys, the next few weeks passed in a daze. There always seemed so much to do, interspersed with the visits of the nurse to keep an eye on Mam’s progress.
They were all simple, mundane things she felt she should be able to do in her sleep, but which somehow seemed to take on vast dimensions when combined with constantly keeping her emotional antennae tuned towards Mam’s needs.
At least Joe had stopped giving her the cold shoulder. They had only spoken briefly on the phone, but texts and emails began to arrive after the third day of silence. Joe was cheerful and affectionate as if nothing had happened. There was no mention of ice safaris or the Northern Lights. After the second day without any contact, Carys wondered if he might go without her, possibly dragging along a few of his mates into the bargain, to bombard her with photos and links to YouTube demonstrating just how much fun they were having. Thankfully, he appeared to have forgotten the idea and was busy at work instead.
She was relieved that he was talking to her, but she couldn’t quite help the sliver of unease that remained. Joe might insist on behaving as if this was simply an extended weekend and she’d be back at the flat before long, but they couldn’t go on like this forever. There was a discussion looming, one they couldn’t put off.
For now, Carys did her best to push such thoughts from her mind. She’d quite enough to keep her on her toes without trying to work out how to tackle Joe. Mam had been a proudly independent woman, coping with whatever was thrown at her ever since Dad died, and hated asking for anything. Carys soon gave up asking, given how much it embarrassed them both, and found herself trying to gauge from the smallest of clues if Mam was too hot or too cold, or if the cushion at her back had slipped.
She soon learnt to recognise the slight frown of anxiety that meant Mam had forgotten yet again how to work the DVD remote and was worried that the next bit of the film might turn nasty with no way of sending it back into oblivion.
/> Then there were Mam’s struggles to regain her independence. Even when she was watching TV or snoozing (or, more usually, both at the same time) Carys found she could never quite relax.
Her ears were always listening for the creakings and the whirr of the chair that signalled Mam getting herself upright and setting off to trudge round her room, practising her walking. Or (more alarmingly, from Carys’ point of view) setting off towards the toilet with its step and endless possibilities for tripping over. She had even caught Mam balancing cups and plates precariously in her free hand as she hobbled towards the kitchen to ‘do the washing up’.
Of course she wanted Mam to get better and be able to do things for herself again. What terrified her was the thought of Mam falling and injuring her newly replaced hip, or, even worse, breaking a wrist or an ankle. At times, it felt like being in charge of an overgrown toddler. Except this toddler was the parent of the household who most definitely saw Carys as the child and was fond of telling her where to put the dishes when they were wiped and which bits of washing went with what and at which temperature, if you didn’t want them all to come out a uniform shade of grey.
‘You’d think I’d never had a house of my own,’ Carys muttered to herself, trying her very best not to explode with irritation as Mam supervised the changing of the bed.
‘If you make a fold at each corner, it’ll be much neater,’ said Mam, frowning at Carys’ efforts to smooth down the sheet.
‘It’s a fitted sheet, Mam. It’s got elastic at the corners, see? Saves you doing all that.’
‘That’s not mine.’
‘No, Mam. It’s new. And so’s the duvet cover. Isn’t it pretty? Gwenan bought them for you. She knows you love roses.’
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