Fraser's Line

by Monica Carly

  But would she be able to remember everything when she needed to? That was another problem. Her deteriorating mind kept playing stupid tricks on her. How strange it was that she could close her eyes and see scenes from those early happy days, as clearly as if they had happened yesterday, and yet she frequently struggled to remember what she had been about to do, or why she had gone into the kitchen, or where she had put her glasses this time!

  It wasn’t surprising that her days felt disjointed because she kept falling asleep. She’d put on the television to watch Countdown, and it would be all over, and she hadn’t seen any of it. She couldn’t seem to stop her head falling forward, then her eyes closed, and she was off. Of course it was a different matter when she was in bed at night. Then she often tossed and turned for hours. But for some reason the day time passed in a series of dozes, some longer than others.

  When did Fraser say he would come? She thought he had said Saturday. She wondered what day it was today, and decided she should get up and go and look at the calendar. She would do so in a minute. As soon as she felt a little stronger. And as soon as the nagging pain had died down. Meanwhile she would just sit there a little longer, just a few more minutes.

  Her head drooped forwards, and she slid into unconsciousness once more.

  Chapter 12

  Michael had a puncture. It was most annoying because he was on his way to pick up the twins and this meant he would be late. The children were not allowed to go outside – quite rightly, as they were very young – and a teacher or carer always stayed until the last pupil had been collected. However, it wasn’t a nice feeling to be the last parent to arrive on the scene. You were always eyed rather aggressively, and the question as to why you were late and had kept them waiting hung unspoken in the air.

  He prided himself on being able to change a tyre quickly, but even so it was going to mean twenty minutes that he hadn’t bargained for. And the spare didn’t look too healthy. He should have kept a check on it, instead of leaving it until the need arose. But you always think these things aren’t going to happen today, and then they do. He wondered if there was enough air in it to limp along to the nearest garage, which, of course, would add another five minutes to the time.

  Suddenly he realised he was thinking like Sarah! Under her influence he seemed to be measuring out his days in valuable time slots which, once allocated, could not be changed without causing a major disruption.

  When did she get like that? She wasn’t when he had first married her. She had been fun, in those days. Now the fun element seemed to have evaporated, along, sadly, with much of the love-making, since she always appeared stressed. She kept him going on promises, such as, ‘When we’ve got the new bathroom sorted out, with the extra shower, it will be a lot easier to get us all ready in the morning, and things won’t be quite so frantic.’ But they had been, because now the twins had to take additional things with them, since their day contained extra activities, and rounding up something that was missing put the mornings firmly back on the ‘frantic’ list once more.

  He realised that they had got into a spiral, and couldn’t see how to get out of it, or when things would calm down. He had been all in favour when Sarah had suggested having her own small business – but he had thought it would just be a part-time occupation, something for her to do working from home, that she could easily fit in during the day, and which would give her an interesting outlet for her energies. That’s how it had started, but it had grown rather bigger and become all-encompassing, so that now she rented a small office and had an employee working for her. When the twins were babies she had used a baby-minding service, but now they were of school age the whole thing had got incredibly complicated. He did what he could, but he had his own computer enterprise, which fortunately was lucrative. This was just as well, since there seemed to be no end to the demands for money these days.

  Michael felt stifled by it all, as the pressures squeezed tighter. What he needed was a breath of fresh air from time to time. Surely every chap had a right to that? He did not know how he would survive if he wasn’t able to escape briefly every now and again. But it wasn’t easy to manage it. And it was getting harder and harder.

  The car wheel was changed. He must get some more air – and then face the wrath of whoever was looking after the twins today.

  Chapter 13

  That Saturday morning the sun was shining brightly, although, with the approach of Autumn, it brought little warmth. The leaves had a wonderful golden glow, marvellous to behold, but heralding to all who looked up that they were about to die. The seasons were moving on.

  Fraser had set off early, wanting to arrive at his mother’s house before she had a chance to get too tired. He had rung her the previous day to remind her that he was coming, and had found that she did know, and hoped to have everything ready for him. But her voice had sounded subdued, and the usual liveliness was missing. The call had left him with a worried feeling, and he was glad he was going to be seeing her that day.

  Perhaps Margaret was right and it really was time she went into a care home so that she could be looked after properly. Then he suddenly had an idea. She could come and live with him! He could probably afford to have his place adapted for her needs – put in an extra bathroom – perhaps make a sort of little granny flat on the ground floor! Then he could engage some daily help to see to her needs, do some cleaning and cooking. Now that would be a great advantage – perhaps they might even know how to cook sausages! Of course, Margaret would help too, so everything wouldn’t be entirely on his shoulders. He was warming to the idea, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. Honesty compelled him to admit that it would not have been a possibility when Edie was alive – there would have been too many difficulties to surmount. Edie would probably have resented all the thought and effort he would have had to put in for the arrangement to be possible, and then she wouldn’t have liked him spending a lot of time with his mother. No, it would have been unthinkable before – but now …

  He wondered why Edie had stopped coming with him in the later years when he went to visit Marjorie. For many years she used to accompany him on most of his visits, and Marjorie, as he would have expected, had swept her up in the warmest of welcomes and always showed great pleasure at seeing her. He could not really remember when the excuses had begun – perhaps it was about five or so years ago. Whenever he had told Edie he was planning to visit Marjorie, she would say she had a headache, or there were too many things she had to get finished, or she really needed to shop for an item that was urgently required. It took some time, because Edie was so convincing, before he realised that in fact she had no intention of coming any more, and he did not ask her why, for fear of upsetting her. Once, in a roundabout sort of way, he had tried to raise the subject with his mother, but she had simply replied that probably Edie had very good reasons, and did not seem offended about it. So Fraser had not pursued the matter.

  A vague feeling of doubt was beginning to stir inside him. Had he been deluding himself all these years? He couldn’t have been so mistaken, could he? It was true that Edie was, well, a bit moody, and he was never quite sure whether he would find the happy, laughing, attractive woman, full of vitality, who so fascinated him – or the unresponsive one who brushed aside his approaches and seemed to be engrossed with her own thoughts. But he had learned to ride these times out. He prided himself on knowing how to handle her. He was constant in his attitude towards her – always sunny and affectionate, knowing that before long she would revert to the loving wife who was so dear to him, and eventually she would reward his patience in ways that took his breath away.

  In the days just before she died – it was still difficult to think those words, let alone say them – she had been at her scintillating best – bright, sparkling – a joy to watch and to be with. He could not believe that one cruel blow of fate had, in a matter of seconds, taken her away.

  His mind dwel
t on some of the many happy times – often they were when he had taken her away for a short break, or a holiday. He had always booked the best he could find so that she would be thoroughly pampered. Once the girls had grown up and they were free to go away together, they had travelled abroad as often as he could spare the time. In fact it hadn’t always been easy to take those weeks away from the business but he had felt it necessary to make the effort, since Edie seemed to get such a lift from these experiences. He had put that down to her childhood upbringing which, although not one of poverty, had certainly not been lavish. Edie had seemed to get so much pleasure from a few touches of luxury.

  There had been many good times, and he recalled some of the highlights. There was the romantic weekend in Paris where she had loved trying out her quite good French, and going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, with its incredible views over the city. Then there had been a week in Madeira, with its dramatic cliffs, and botanical gardens, and they had both revelled in the experience of taking tea on the verandah at Reid’s Palace. They had been served by deferential waiters and waitresses, in beautifully starched black and white uniforms, who produced the most delicate of sandwiches, and wonderful warmed scones with cream and jam, and cakes – everything so quintessentially English except for the setting! In Crete the amazing Palace of Knossos, built over 4000 years ago, had fired Edie’s imagination, but then a strange thing had happened. On the return journey the knowledgeable guide had regaled her coach load of tourists with the story of the successful kidnapping of Generalmajor Karl Kreipe, war time commander of the German occupying forces, by a group of daring British officers, immortalised in the book ‘Ill Met By Moonlight’ by W. Stanley Moss. Edie had suddenly gone quiet, and looked very uncomfortable. Fraser had never understood why, and had really forgotten about the incident until now, when these memories were flooding back. Perhaps the loveliest setting, and the one they had both enjoyed the most, had been Bermuda. The beaches, with their soft, powdery, pink sand had brought out the child in Edie, and she had run barefoot, laughing, delighting in the sand between her toes. There had been many happy times to remember and Fraser felt pangs of longing as he recalled these events.

  He was almost there. Now that he had conceived the idea of his mother living with him he was pleased – a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He parked the car outside her cottage and swiftly covered the short path up to her front door. Using his key to let himself in he called out, as he always did when he arrived: ‘Hello, Mother! It’s me, Fraser – I’m here!’ Usually he would hear her reply, ‘Come in, dear!’ but this time there was no response. She must have dozed off while she was waiting for him.

  He pushed open the lounge door, gently so as not to frighten her. Marjorie was in the armchair, and her head had fallen forward. He went over to wake her, and kneeling down beside her chair, reached for her hand. Between his large, warm ones her small hand lay still. It was very, very cold.

  Chapter 14

  John parked the car outside Joanna’s block of flats and then went upstairs to ring her doorbell. After some delay Joanna opened the door, looking rather dishevelled – as if she had just quickly thrown on a few clothes.

  ‘Good morning, Joanna,’ John greeted her. ‘Your chariot awaits.’

  ‘I expect you’d like to come in,’ she said, and led him into the small lounge, where he moved a few magazines so that he could sit down.

  ‘Here’s the paperwork. Your father has organised insurance for you, and I’ve seen to the road tax, so the car is at your immediate disposal.’

  ‘How kind. What have you got me? I suppose it’s a boring old Ford Fiesta.’

  ‘No. It’s a reliable little Renault Clio. It’s not quite three years old, low mileage, the bodywork is excellent, and the interior is unmarked. I have tried to do exactly as Fraser asked, and find you something that won’t let you down, and be reasonably economical to run, if driven with care.’

  ‘It sounds,’ she said, ‘as if you have carried out your commission to a T.’

  ‘I did take some trouble to find the right thing. Fraser’s had a tough time recently. I was glad to be able to do this for him.’

  ‘I’m sure my father has every reason to be inordinately grateful to you.’

  John looked up. Something in her tone troubled him, and he wasn’t sure how to react.

  ‘I thought you’d be thrilled,’ he said. ‘Not many young people get a nice car handed to them on a plate. Your father has been very good to you.’

  ‘Has he been good to you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. Of course he has. He has trusted me over the years, and he trusted me to get this car for you.’

  ‘And you’ve justified his trust, I presume.’

  ‘Well, we’ve worked together in partnership for over twenty years, and there have never been any problems between us. I admire your father’s standards – both with regard to his work, and in his personal life. I’ve thought of him as a good friend over the years, and I hope he feels the same way.’

  ‘That would be good,’ replied Joanna. ‘It makes everything so neat. Tell me, does Sadie know you are here?’

  ‘Know I’m at your flat? Probably not, but she knew I was sorting out a car for you. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just wondered how much she knew of your affairs.’

  ‘What on earth has it got to do with you? But since you ask, she knows most of what I do. We’ve always been a couple who shared things.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Joanna, looking as if she was musing over a problem, ‘whether my mother shared everything with my father.’

  ‘They seemed to me to have a very good marriage. Your poor father was devastated by her death. I offered to cover everything at work for him, for a while, so that he could have some time to get over it, but he seems to want to be involved still. He said it helped to have something else to think about.’

  ‘I think,’ Joanna said quietly, ‘that my mother was a bitch.’

  John was visibly shocked. ‘However can you say such a thing?

  ‘Probably because I’m one too – it takes one to know one.’

  Your mother was the sweetest …’

  Joanna interrupted. ‘Are you claiming to know her better than I did?’

  ‘Of course not. But it pains me dreadfully to hear you speaking of your mother like that. Whatever would your father think? He would be so upset.’

  ‘My father has blind spots – fortunately for some he cannot see what is going on under his nose.’

  John was getting irritated. ‘I can’t understand why you’re talking like this. Where’s your gratitude for all your parents have done for you? Where’s your respect?’

  ‘Where’s yours?’ asked Joanna.

  Now he was floundering, and quite out of his depth with the conversation. Feeling decidedly uncomfortable the only thing was to leave. As he moved towards the door he looked back, and said in exasperation, ‘Oh, go to hell.’

  ‘See you there,’ she replied.

  Chapter 15

  The funeral had gone well, really, Margaret thought. Of course, Marjorie’s death had come as an awful shock. However inevitable such an event may be – and at 85 years of age it was realistically on the cards before too long – it still knocked you sideways when it happened. And poor Fraser! Fancy going to the house and finding her stone cold like that! He had been distraught when he had phoned her. She wished she was the sort of person who knew what to say in these instances. However moved she felt in her heart her mouth seemed unable to express the sympathy she wanted to convey.

  Her mother had been very different – warm and gracious – people loved her because she could make them feel good about themselves. Fraser, too, had that comfortableness that made people like him. Marjorie clearly adored her son, and Margaret had felt in his shadow all her life. She knew her mother loved her dearly as well, but som
ehow there was this deep-seated feeling of being an also ran. Fraser had already established his place in their mother’s heart by the time she, Margaret, had come on the scene. Fortunately there was Derek, who had been a good husband for many years. Perhaps he was not the most thrilling person out there, but he never found fault with her, and she could feel at ease with him.

  They had decided to have the funeral at the local crematorium, and had arranged this with the undertakers. The trouble with making it to your nineties was that most of your peer group were no longer around. However, that kind neighbour Sally had come, along with one or two of the villagers who knew her quite well, and of course all the family members had been present, including more distant relatives that they did not see very often, and some of their friends, too. She had also noticed that strange, dark-haired woman who had been at Marion’s party slip in at the back. The vicar had taken the service very well, even though he did not know Marjorie – he had managed to make her presence felt, using the information she and Fraser had supplied and endowing it with an enthusiasm which had, briefly, brought her to life. Fraser, with great effort, had managed to contain his emotion most of the time, but Margaret had noticed that Joanna was visibly distressed. That rather puzzled her. She did not think that Joanna had been particularly attached to her grandmother.

  When the service was over she and Fraser had thanked the vicar, and had stood outside the door to greet people as they came out. The dark-haired woman passed by – was her name Angela? – shook their hands briefly, offered her condolences, and then disappeared. Seeing her there reminded Margaret that she was the person who had caused a commotion over an umbrella at Marion’s party, and when it was over she had realised that Fraser was no longer anywhere to be seen. Oh well, she couldn’t really blame him for going early. At least he had made the effort to come, even if he hadn’t been able to enjoy it. He really was cut up about Edie’s death.