by Morag Joss
“How do you know they haven’t got nerves, or brains?”
Theo giggles and says, “Because all they are is gloop. Ergh, did you see that one?”
I continue to object, in an offhand way. I loathe slugs. Howard would only lift them out from the vegetable garden and fling them away, but I used to slice them with the spade. Is this any different? Mostly I just smile at Theo’s childishness and don’t pretend anymore that I care. I fancy there is a new, mushroomy, almost meaty smell in the room when slug-roasting is in progress, but I keep this to myself. I’m a little ashamed that I’m not altogether disgusted by it, and that I am enjoying in the back of my mind the knowledge that Howard would be horrified, and also that he never found out what I did with the spade.
The water was often cold and the bristles too sharp, especially when, as happened more and more often, the shaving brush was jabbed into his face and neck rather than stroked across. The soap was greasy and astringent and made his nose and eyes prickle and run. Every one of the nicks from previous shaves, which never had time to heal, sang with pain. Howard squeezed his hands into fists inside his sleeves, and he closed his eyes and mouth tight and tried to keep still and quiet, but the smell of the soap brought on hard, stinging sneezes that he was always afraid would cause the razor to slip. Struggling against it all, he couldn’t remember why he’d cut off his beard in the first place, and every time he tried to find words to explain that he’d changed his mind and wanted his hair and beard to grow back—that he wanted, above all, to be left alone—there was even rougher zeal in the shaving and trimming, and harsher warnings about being difficult. But he wasn’t trying to be difficult.
He remembered that getting rid of the hair had had something to do with the heat, although he was no longer sure exactly what, nor how long ago that had been. But as the days wore on—he knew they were now in September—he could hardly bring to mind what heat had ever felt like. Instead he was absorbed by a new misery, quite apart from the fear and pain of the shaving sessions, because without his long thick hair and beard his head was never warm. His skull ached with cold, drafts blew down his neck. His earlobes and the tip of his nose turned numb, and then sore. Cold traveled down his limbs and trunk and seized his fingers and feet. One morning, left alone in his bedroom, he managed to reach the chest of drawers where he thought his sweaters might be but he couldn’t open the drawer with one hand, and ended up falling. To his own surprise, the crash didn’t bring Deborah running—though he didn’t remember her saying she was going outside—and he’d managed to get himself up unaided. He hadn’t really hurt himself, so she never found out. If she’d noticed the bruising on his hip the next day, it hadn’t bothered her enough to put two and two together. He was afraid of what might have happened if she had.
The autumn days, though shorter, took longer to pass. He spent longer spells alone, he thought, stretches of time broken less often than before by some interruption from Deborah with a few words he strived to catch, some attention to his comfort such as a cup of tea. He was very sorry that he got fewer cups of tea in the course of a day than he used to; he might at least have warmed his lips and hands on them. To keep his legs from seizing up altogether, and when he knew Deborah to be out in the garden or checking the sheep on the moor, he took his walking frame and made little tours of the ground floor, pausing to rest in the cold, quiet rooms he no longer used. The front sitting room, for years kept spruce and untouched as the “Residents’ Lounge,” was now hazy with old fire smoke and had a rumpled look, like a carelessly vacated bedroom. The hearth was powdered with wood ash, chair cushions lay squashed and awry. In the hall he stopped under the broken and jagged honor guard of old antlers and shivered in the drafts blowing down the staircase. Once or twice he thought he heard someone upstairs. But the creak of a bedroom door or some small, muted cracking noise could be only the sounds of the ninety-year-old timbers of the landing over his head shifting infinitesimally with another change of season.
Most days he tried but couldn’t manage to get his frozen mouth to articulate the word hat in Deborah’s presence, and when he managed to pat his head to convey what he needed, the gesture was waved away and he was told there was nothing to get agitated about. One desperate time, patting his head with both hands, he was asked if he thought he was conducting along to the music on the television, and there was laughter.
Night-times were a little easier. He often looked forward all day to getting back to bed. He was grateful now for the thick, warm pajamas Deborah made him wear; as soon as he was lying in the dark, he would curl up small and draw the bedclothes over his head until morning.
One day, he was woken by the rasp of the curtains being opened, followed by a clutching and shaking of his shoulder. He felt a smack on the back of his hand as the blankets were prized from his fingers. The covers were ripped back, creating a chill that made him draw his legs up to his chest. He tried to keep his eyes shut but as he was hauled upright felt so dizzy he had to open them again. The room was full of dark shapes, and the window and the world beyond it an empty, blinding square of brightness. It was early. Or perhaps it was late; perhaps that was the reason for the roughness and the hurry. He was led to the bathroom cubicle in the corner of the room, where his pajama trousers were yanked down and he was plonked on the lavatory. A hand pushed his cock between his legs, a voice told him to get on and do his best. As he finished urinating he felt his pajama jacket being tugged off, and he heard the fizzing of the shower. No time was being allowed, then, for the matter of his bowels, which always took longer. Next, he was pulled up, turned around, and deposited on the cold plastic shower seat while a jet of water, almost warm enough, played up and down him. He peered through the curtain of water for a glimpse of Deborah’s face, and tried to speak. But what could he have said? That he was still half-asleep, that he simply couldn’t bear this? That he craved to feel the accidental touches of her arms or her breasts when she brushed against him? That he ached to be handled kindly again? Water poured down his face and into his mouth. Squeezing his eyes shut somehow made him unable to hear as well as unable to see, but over the rushing and gurgling he heard the voice again.
“Picnic today, Howard! Aren’t we lucky? Up on the moor again. Another birthday. Another treat!”
He tried to reply.
“Yes. Twenty-eight today! Remember the twenty-eighth of September, Howard? That’s the day Adam should have been born.”
A flannel was slapped into his good hand and he began listlessly to rub his belly, while other hands pushed against and into him with a cold bar of soap.
“Remember the twenty-eighth? Adam was already more than four weeks old. Still in a hospital incubator. Do you remember that?”
Howard opened his mouth to cry out above the rattle of the shower, and was at once gagged with the flannel.
“Do you? Do you remember anything, Slug Brain?”
Howard spluttered, and swallowed soap. Nothing more was said. The flow of water stopped, he was pulled around by a cold towel and dried, more or less, and dressed. Then he was chivvied along in his walking frame into the kitchen. He could tell that the vague, dark disturbance that fell across one eye was the back door, ajar and swinging in the wind. Some dead leaves had blown across the threshold and a hen had wandered in and was pecking at the scraps bucket next to the pedal bin.
From nowhere, Deborah’s large body loomed in front of him. She shooed the hen outside and rubbed the sole of her sandal on the curl of shit it left behind on the floor. Howard was put at the table in front of a plate with pieces of peeled banana on it. She placed a slice of bread and butter on his plate and cut it into fingers.
“Come on, Howard, quick now,” she said. “I need you done with that before I go. I want to get on and get to Bridgecombe for the shopping and library. You’re staying here, all right? I haven’t got long and you’d only slow me down. Besides, if you went to Stroke Club you’d be too tired to enjoy the moor.”
Howard began, laboriously,
to eat. Deborah, with her back to him, did not notice when, after two or three mouthfuls, his hand grew too tired to lift anything more from the plate, and dropped into his lap.
“Theo says we have to set off for the moor by eleven, because later it’s going to rain.”
She was writing a list, and arranging and rearranging the picnic basket, all the while singing under her breath and looking up from time to time to pause and gaze through the window as if the familiar view of the yard were transforming before her eyes into something wondrous and new. She did not see that Howard was shivering in the wind that blew in through the door she had not closed after the hen.
“Like fried green tomatoes, a plate of mashed potatoes, a scoop of ice-cream on a steamin’ apple pie,” she sang, scraping Howard’s plate into the hens’ bucket and rinsing it under the tap. She took the van keys from their hook, picked up her list, and left, with a slight wave and backward glance. Howard waited for her to go, so she would not see his head slump forward and his lips search along the tabletop for the piece of banana that had fallen from his plate as she snatched it away.
To: deborahstoneyridge@yahoo.com
Sent on thurs 15 sept 2011 at 08.23 EST
What jobs outside, do you mean the sheep or the hens or what? Don’t tell me you’ve started on the weaving again? Mum??!?? But the point is when you’re outside doing stuff what’s Dad doing? Has he got better about being left by himself? You said he got upset on his own. Is the nurse still coming?
Anyway apart from all that, you know I’ve got various issues about this flat, I told you about it a while ago? I’m seriously thinking of moving now. Twice last week it took me an hour and a quarter to get in – the whole transport situation’s getting worse if anything and it’s not as if there’s anything to actually be there for, there’s basically no incentive to live there, the area’s totally dead on the weekends. So I am basically just going back there to crash out and it’s not even convenient to do that, it’s a nightmare. So I’m looking around for somewhere else, I’ve put the word out round the department and a couple of feelers, shouldn’t be too much of a problem, hopefully I’ll get it sorted. Mind you I really haven’t got any time to flat-hunt but you never know something might come up. We’re flat out at the minute because the Q4 assessment round kicks off in ten days and there’s stuff backing up from the regions that has to be signed off before we can progress any of it!
Anyway sorry to go on about my stuff. Is it cold there yet, have you got the heating on? I know what you’ll say about the expense but you must put it on, ok? I can help with that, you know I’d be only too glad to contribute, I mean it Mum.
Give my love to dad and take care, both of you A xxx
To: deborahstoneyridge@yahoo.com
Sent on sun 18 sept 2011 at 08.23 EST
Hi Mum, Chill-out Sunday here, doing nothing because nothing’s going on! Thought I’d give you a ring but can’t get hold of you – you did do the phone stuff like you said? And the HEATING?? Will try again later A xx
Sent from my iPhone
To: deborahstoneyridge@yahoo.com
Sent on sun 25 sept 2011 at 23.10 EST
Hi Mum good to hear your voice a little while ago, hope you really are ok, you sounded good but kind of different! Maybe it’s because we haven’t talked last couple weeks – we should do the Sunday call every week (OK my fault I know I missed a few) – I promise to do better from now on! ;-) Lots of love Adam xxx
Sent from my iPhone
From: deborahstoneyridge@yahoo.com
To:
Sent on wed 28 sept 2011 at 11.12 GMT
Gosh, a torrent of emails! It’s a shame I won’t have time to do them all justice because the plan for today is to get out on the moor again. We’re making the most of any dry weather we get, so I’ve just dashed in to do shopping and check emails – D’s at home, skipping stroke club because that PLUS moor would be too much for one day. Adam darling I’m sure you’re right about the flat, good luck with it all.
Nice to talk last Sunday – not sure what you mean by different! I am a bit taken up with things now I’ve got the bit between my teeth to get on with them. Dad is on his own more but I’m not sure he’s really noticed, which is good. I think he might be a bit keener to move about which is exactly what he should be doing.
The evenings are quite cozy now I’ve got the stove – I quite look forward to the evenings these days.
Don’t let them overwork you!! I always say that but I mean it. lots of love Mum xx
It was probably going to be even worse than the last time he’d been dragged up on the moor. This time the weather was colder, and she was more hurried, less friendly. But there was something familiar about her, though familiar from so long ago it was like discovering something new: it was the way she’d had, once, of being wide awake and easily delighted, ready to be surprised by new things, always on the point of bursting out laughing. But it no longer pleased him. Her mood was altogether too zesty, almost demonic. She larked and spun about, like a child in a story left outdoors too long and gone wild following the wind, turning over rocks and gulping water from streams and pools, wayward and half-possessed. In fact she was ridiculous.
Even as she pushed him toward the hill she was straining to get away from him. Now she was talking again in a distracted, breathy voice to, as far as he could make out, nobody at all; she had broken off her commentary to him before they’d left the house. She prattled on, making no sense. Her words were in a hurry, too, flying on past him before he could snatch at their meaning. Howard was incidental to whatever was going on, he gathered that much, sitting in his wheelchair in the lane while she hoisted armfuls of gear over the stile and dumped them in the field. He was so tired. And what was the point of it anyway, another escapade on to the moor where there was nothing to see or do? He looked up and saw Deborah standing in front of him, breathless and glaring as if he’d complained aloud. There was no appealing to her today, no getting around her.
“Howard, please try! Make a little effort, can’t you?” she said. There was a slight screech in her voice. “I just don’t think you’re trying at all!”
He managed to shake his head, but could not ask what she meant. Trying to do what? He waved his arm and whined, “Why? Why go … up there?”
His voice angered her. “Why?” she said. Her face loomed in close to his, her teeth slightly bared. “Stop it! You love the moor!” she said. “Stop pretending you don’t understand! Today’s a birthday!”
She turned and looked across the stile into the field. The wind had pulled her hair loose, and he could not tell if it was lighter or darker than it used to be, only that with the years it had grown crinkled, and moved stiffly in the wind. When he thought of reaching out to touch it, a tremor started up in his hand. He began to cry, shaking his head from side to side. “No, no, no, no …” he whispered.
She turned back to him. “Oh! Oh, Howard, you’re determined to be difficult today,” she said. “I can see that! Well, you can just wait here.”
She rolled the wheelchair on to the side of the path until it sat, not quite level, in the shadow of the hedge and partially out of the wind. She stabbed the brake down and arranged a blanket around him. Then she pulled a filled feeding cup, a cheese roll, and two chocolate biscuits from the picnic bag and placed them in his lap. “Here! Here, Howard, take it. There you are,” she said. “A nice little lunch! Remember to take little bites, all right? Because if you choke I won’t hear you. So!” She produced a tissue and wiped his cheeks and nose. “There. You’ll be all right, won’t you! I’ll be back in time to take you back for your nap.”
Howard watched her haunches rise and wobble and turn as she swung herself up and
over the stile. After she had gone he sat very still for a long time, afraid that the wheelchair might tip over. In the shade of the hedge he felt colder than ever and he clawed at the blanket to draw it closer around himself, forgetting about the food in his lap. All of it tumbled to the ground and everything except the cup disappeared beyond the periphery of his vision. The cup landed where he could just see it, on the edge of the lane. It rolled away along a stony rut, sprinkling milk as it went, and came to rest against a tuft of couch grass, its spout still spilling gently. Howard watched the trail of white drops behind it soak away into the ground. He moaned and started out of the wheelchair, but collapsed back. His walking frame was several feet away, at the base of the stile. If he tried to stand up, here on the rutted track, he would surely fall. In the house he could move about more or less, using walls and furniture as handholds and leaning posts; out here there was nothing to help him. He gazed miserably around. It was worse than that, it was actually dangerous; a deep uneven ditch ran along the back of the grassy verge and the hedge was a prickly, swaying web of thorns. Bones would break, skin would tear. He would just have to wait.
Howard tipped his head up to the sky in an unconscious search for an idea of the time of day, but could not locate exactly the position of the sun. Anyway, Deborah would be hours. Perhaps he could sleep, if he got warm enough. Or if he just sat very, very still in his wheelchair, the time might pass quickly. He’d be all right until she came back, as long as he didn’t think about her.
But this was not possible. He found he could easily put out of his mind all thoughts of her as he had just seen her, heaving her bulk over the stile, but his head swam with glimpses of her as she’d been when he knew her first. He could not believe that the Deborah who’d clambered down into the field and disappeared was not the Deborah of thirty years ago whom he now saw clearly in his mind. He could remember only with effort a day ago, and a week was almost impossible, but now the faraway past was as vivid as if that life were all still playing out a few feet away and he’d just moved into the shadow of the hedge for a moment’s peace and quiet and a chance to think about it all.