“No, but thanks.” He sat across from her. The light above the table made her less pale. Her hair when clean would probably be the colour of straw. “Are you sick? I mean as in ill, not as in throwing up.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “Something happened and now I have seizures. That’s why I can’t go upstairs alone or make a cup of tea.”
“You don’t look like you have seizures. What’s your name?”
“Hazel. Is there a seizures look?”
“I’m Freddie,” he said, forgetting his earlier introduction. “There certainly was when I was at Lourdes. You could tell the people who went in for them. Everything had gotten shaken loose. They didn’t know their heads from a hole in the ground. One old guy, Matthieu, was convinced I was his father. Am I a good boy, Papa? he kept asking. Then he’d start rocking like a Holy Roller.”
The word “Roller” had barely left his lips when a sense of his own tactlessness hit him. What was he thinking? Hazel was staring towards the floor; he wished he knew her well enough to squeeze her hand or tell her a joke. “That was different, though,” he said firmly.
“Why?”
“Because most of the people were either lifelong sufferers—they’d never had a chance to get their minds organised—or very elderly. The seizures were another part of the body breaking down. You’re neither.”
“I got hit on the head.” She mimed a blow, fist to forehead, and again glanced down, just long enough for Freddie to wonder if she was still upset, then back up, and instead he wondered if there was a name for eyes like that, with the white visible all the way around the iris. “What were you doing at Lourdes?” she asked. “Do you have seizures?”
“Only the ordinary kind,” Freddie said, charmed by her readiness to include him. He was in the middle of telling her about the stretcher bearers when footsteps sounded in the hall.
“Hazel?”
As Mr. Littleton came through the door, Freddie’s hackles rose. He recognised the kind of guy who claimed to be six foot when he was barely five-ten. The lower part of Littleton’s face looked as if it had been dipped in iron filings. But that wasn’t the problem. Nor were his clothes, a trendy black turtleneck and cords. No, it was his eyes, the complete opposite of Hazel’s, so guarded that he might as well have been wearing shades.
“Who are you?” he demanded, fists muzzled by his sides.
Again Freddie accounted for his presence. “Hazel let me in,” he added, and watched in amazement as the man’s eyes clicked like a combination lock. Was it because he’d used her name? “Could I see the roof? I’m on a pretty tight schedule.”
Littleton laid a hand on Hazel’s shoulder. “Are you all right, darling?”
Beneath his touch she seemed to shrink. “I think so.”
Freddie followed Littleton into the hall and up the blue-carpeted stairs to a room at the back of the house—a study, judging by the books and computer. “There,” said Littleton, pointing to a corner where the wallpaper dimpled and peeled.
“How long has it been like this?”
“Since Christmas.” For a second he sounded like a normal person. He offered a chair to stand on.
“Thanks. You may need new plaster. Once it gets this soggy, it doesn’t always dry out right.”
“Not your problem.”
Why am I here? thought Freddie, slipping his hand through the seams in the paper. The answers lined up neatly. Because Trevor had recommended him while he and his mother were visiting cousins in Newcastle, and because Felicity had been there when Mr. Littleton phoned again. Since the empty-cupboards fiasco, he didn’t dare turn down jobs in her hearing. But surely even she wouldn’t have wished Littleton on him. He had a sudden flash of his father’s reaction when he quit his summer job bagging groceries. The trouble with you, Frederick, is you don’t know how to take orders.
“What’s your opinion?” Littleton was leaning on the windowsill; against the light all Freddie could see was the black of his turtleneck and the sheen of his jaw.
“My opinion,” said Freddie, hopping off the chair, “is that I’d better have a look outside.”
This time, the first since Mr. Early’s, he had no problem with the ladder. He carried it through the side door, propped it against the back wall, and climbed steadily. No slates missing or cracked. No nails gone, as far as he could tell. The rear roof, like the front, was in surprisingly good repair.
On the ground again, he tried the back door and stepped inside. “I’m going to have another look upstairs,” he called in the direction of the living-room. Silence. She’s sick, he thought, and he’s a jerk. Then he reminded himself that he was no longer a stretcher bearer—Hazel and her seizures were none of his business—and headed up the powder-blue stairs.
Without Littleton’s glowering presence, he felt free to take in his surroundings. On the desk were stacks of files with dates and categories on the spine: December 1993, January 1994, plumbing, roofs, subsidence. Perhaps the guy worked in construction. The damp patch was farther over than he’d remembered, and the wetness, he saw now, was worse by the party wall. Outside, back up the ladder, he discovered the flashing loose in several places; on the other side, at number 39, it was virtually flapping in the breeze.
With some people he’d have bid low to get the job, worked almost for nothing, but with this guy he guessed that would be a mistake. He carried the ladder round the house and stayed there, leaning on the wall, until he had a diagram and a list of figures. Then he rang the bell.
“Found the problem?” Littleton said, hands in pockets.
No way, Freddie thought, he was going to be invited in again. He reported the faulty flashing, and Littleton responded with a barrage of questions: how much, when, would Trevor guarantee his work? Freddie gave his estimate, explaining the variables.
Littleton nodded. “That sounds in line with Trevor’s prices. When could you come?”
“Tuesday?” Another gamble—he might have said tomorrow—but a workman with no work is suspicious, and Littleton grudgingly agreed.
Although he had sworn not to offer one more shred of advice, Freddie mentioned it might be worth checking whether the insurance would cover the damage. Most of his customers were glad of such suggestions, but Littleton simply said, “See you on Tuesday.”
As the door shut behind him, Freddie started to recite Reds scores under his breath. Reds 5, Braves 3; Reds 1, Dodgers 4. He was almost at the corner when he heard a shout. “Your ladder,” called Littleton. “You’re not going to leave it, are you?”
“No, just getting the van.” Reds 2, Giants 6. Reds 3, Cardinals 2. He hadn’t been so rattled since that day at Mr. Early’s when the sky was falling.
• • •
“I suppose that’s a good idea.” Hazel tweaked a couple of dead fronds off a fern; an editor she worked for, Jonathan forgot which one, had sent it along with a get-well card. “Assuming she’s not some vixen. You could do with a break from me.”
He couldn’t see her face, bent over the plant, but he could tell from her sullen tones that she was less than thrilled at the news of Bernadette. “Of course she’s not a vixen,” he said, “and I don’t need a break from you, silly goose.” Odd how endearments that would once have made him cringe now sprang from his lips. “But I do have to start showing up at the office. If you don’t like her,” he added, “we’ll find someone else. Nothing that you don’t want is going to happen.”
“Is that a joke?” She turned to look at him and, tossing the fronds into the air, left the room.
Jonathan watched her go. He couldn’t be sure when he had begun to think of sex all the time. After Maud left the night before, he had, scarcely daring to breathe, climbed into bed beside Hazel. She was already asleep, in one of her quiet phases, and he hoped that instinct would prevail, but when he pressed his lips to hers she lay motionless and when he touched her breast she shrugged his hand away. He stayed for an hour before getting up to prowl the house and, eventually, bring himself off in
the spare room. Now, as she returned with a jug of water, he found himself scrutinising her thick green jumper, wishing her jeans were less enveloping.
“Sorry,” she said, drenching the cheese plant. “Wobbly moment. What time do we have to be at the hospital?”
“That’s not until tomorrow, ten a.m.” He spoke unthinkingly. Then he saw her lips quiver. “Darling, it’s all right. Hogarth just wants to see how you’re doing. There won’t be any students.” Towards the end of her stay in hospital, Hazel had grown to detest the medical students who flocked to her bedside, asking the same questions over and over. I feel like an exhibit, she’d said. The world’s craziest woman. You ought to charge admission.
“No, it’s not that.” She clutched the jug. “I was so sure the appointment was today. I know I’ve lost part of the past. What I can’t bear is losing the present too. It makes me feel there’s nothing I can count on.”
He came over and put his hands on her shoulders. “You can count on me. I may have made a mistake when I first told you. You shouldn’t assume you’re the only one who gets things wrong.”
Slowly, as if the air between them had thickened, she leaned against him. He stroked her hair, longer now than he had ever seen it.
Later that afternoon, when Maud arrived, Jonathan visited the hives. In the cold weather he took his veil and gloves but decided against the smoker; the poor beasts had enough to put up with. He felt his usual reluctance at leaving the women together, but walking to the bottom of the garden he was glad to be outdoors, and alone. Lighted windows glowed in his neighbours’ houses, and in the lint-coloured sky a waxing moon hung paper-thin. He heard the sharpness of his own footsteps and, from the Holloway Road, a hundred yards away, the undifferentiated throb of traffic. Dimly he recalled the charts in some schoolbook showing how sound waves alter with temperature.
At the hives he pressed his ear to each in turn, like a doctor listening through his stethoscope. All three emitted a faint, reassuring hum. Not exactly a buzz, he had explained to Hazel, but the sound of the bees clustered together, wings rubbing, legs touching. And when he lifted off the lids his confidence was confirmed. A few bodies on the floor of the middle hive, but fewer than last week, and almost none in the other two. He filled up the sugar and water and checked the insulation. The last month of winter was often the most dangerous; the bees might be tricked by a brief spell of warm weather, or exhaust their supplies of food.
By the time he turned back the moon had gained weight, and in his yellow kitchen the two women were talking. He loitered for a moment beneath the elder tree. Hazel was speaking, Maud nodding and listening. Then she spoke, and Hazel laughed and raised her hand to pat her chest.
As he came in, silence ruled. Hazel sat down, like a schoolgirl caught frolicking out of her desk. “Everything all right,” said Maud, “down at the hives?”
“Fine. What was the joke?”
“What joke?” said Hazel.
“I saw you laughing.” He gestured behind him. “From the garden.”
“Oh, nothing. We were just talking.”
Before he could question her further, Maud jumped in. “We were saying it would be useful to get one of those wall calendars. That way you can keep track of the nurse, doctors’ appointments, whatever.”
Jonathan hung up his veil. Keep calm, he told himself, it’s only a calendar. But it was a glimpse of what he dreaded: the women forming an alliance that would steal Hazel away from him again, bit by bit. Suddenly he realised they were both watching him, waiting. “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll bring one home from the office.”
They had also planned the evening. The three of them would make risotto, and Maud had rented a video. “Now that George and Nora are gone,” she said, “we can revert to our old, bad ways.” She left the kitchen and music filled the room. Jonathan paused in peeling an onion. He couldn’t name the singer but he recognised one of Hazel’s favourites and, after a few more bars, that it dated from the missing years. Christ. He set down the onion. Could he plead a headache or claim he wanted to hear the news?
“This is what we used to do,” Maud said cheerfully. “Listen to music and cook. Do we have any wine?”
“Red or white?” said Jonathan.
“Whatever’s easiest. You know me—I’ll drink anything.” She launched into an account of her first wedding anniversary. Her husband had bought vintage wines for each course of the dinner they’d planned, and she and a friend had polished off two of the bottles the night before. “It was like Vesuvius when he found them in the dustbin next morning. Looking back, I think that was the beginning of the end. I never recovered from him being so snotty, and he never recovered from my lack of penitence.”
“How was the wine?” Hazel was slicing mushrooms.
“Okay, as far as I recall. Jan and I were having a heart-to-heart. We weren’t worrying about tannin and body.”
A new song started. Hazel stopped slicing, head cocked. “What is this music?”
“Michelle Shocked,” said Maud. “You used to like her.”
He watched Hazel’s eyes, the corners of her mouth. She sat very still and then, praise be, the knife fell from her hand and she was gone, a good neck-locking, heel-drumming, all-out seizure. He held her head while Maud rushed to pull chairs out of the way.
“Who will pay?” Hazel asked. “Stupid bugger.”
“Oh, god,” said Maud.
“Fetch a blanket and a flannel.”
The seizure was the worst since the hospital. Foam dabbed her lips. She kicked frantically. “Shall I call an ambulance?” asked Maud, offering the flannel.
“Not yet. Turn off that damned music.” She scuttled out of the room again. “Hazel, it’s all right. I’m here. Don’t fight it. Relax. You’re quite safe.”
He wrapped his arms and legs around her, a straitjacket of affection. But the seizure went on and on. Her limbs thrashed, and he could feel his grip weakening. Maud hovered anxiously. Maybe she was right. “Give it one more minute,” he said. “She’d hate to end up back in hospital.”
As if she heard his threat, Hazel began to kick less strongly; her breathing slowed; soon she was barely trembling. Maud suggested they carry her up to bed. They tucked her in and he managed to give her her eight o’clock pills.
Back in the kitchen, Maud poured them each a brimming glass of wine. He dragged the chairs over to the table, and they collapsed. “Hell’s bells,” said Maud. Beneath her red shirt her breasts moved rapidly. “Just when it seems she’s getting better, something like this happens. I can’t imagine how she feels.”
“Exhausted, for one thing.” He himself felt a shaky exhilaration, as if he’d won a race or a fight.
“You were great.” She smiled. “So calm. I’m sure she can sense what’s going on, and people panicking only makes it worse.”
“I’ve had a bit of practice these last few weeks.”
“This was a bad one, though, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. He was longing to ask if she thought the music might have been a factor, but hesitated to utter even a syllable that would break their unspoken truce. “I’m starving,” he said.
“Me too.” She sounded surprised. “I can make risotto if there’s a recipe. Did you finish the onion?”
“Almost.”
Half an hour later they were on the sofa watching Truly, Madly, Deeply. Jonathan had been to check on Hazel twice. Each time she was sleeping soundly, with no sign of the disruption that had knocked her to the floor. He switched on the monitor he had bought and set the listening device on the table.
Around nine they paused. Maud cleared the plates and he opened a second bottle of wine. When they sat down again, the distance between them, he noticed, had narrowed; during the next twenty minutes, he could not have said quite how, they edged closer and closer until, ineluctably, their bodies adjoined from shoulder to ankle. A single whimper came from the monitor and, as they both turned to listen, was supplanted by the soft, oceanic sound of breathing.
At the end of the film, Jonathan pressed rewind, drained his glass, and let his arms encircle Maud. We’re old friends, he was thinking; she slipped her hand inside his shirt, he reciprocated, and they were falling upon each other.
“Come,” she said, and they moved to the hearth rug.
Jonathan’s brain, the thinking part of him, seemed to have taken a leave of absence. This ought to have been one of the most astonishing events of his life, fucking Maud on the living-room floor, the TV glimmering above them, but he was all skin and blood, tongue and prick. Even more astonishing, Maud was in the same state, so naked, so unabashed, he could scarcely believe this was Hazel’s dour friend. Who would’ve thought she could utter such groans as he ground himself against her?
Afterwards, the room roared with silence. Now surely, thought Jonathan, I’ll know I’ve done something mad, unforgivable. No such sentiments, however, came into view. Instead he felt calmer than he had in months; at last he’d acted with his whole self. As for Maud, whom he expected any moment to raise the flag of propriety, she nuzzled her head against his shoulder and murmured his name. It was quite possible, he thought, his breathing lapsing into time with the monitor, that neither of them would ever move again.
When he opened his eyes, Maud was saying something about the bathroom and slowly unwrapping herself from him. She stood over him, naked. Come back, he thought. But she was pulling on her clothes, clever girl, and leaving the room. Alone, he gazed up at the odd W-shaped crack he had filled both times he painted the ceiling, and which always reappeared within a month. Cassiopeia.
Maud was back, holding out a glass of water. “You’ll get cold.”
Sitting up to drink, he realised he already was and that his ardour for Maud had cooled too. While he swallowed half the water, the last glimmerings died away. He was desperate to be rid of her. The transformation was over, for both of them. She perched on the sofa, knees primly together, hands clasped in her lap. As he reached for his trousers, she said, “I’ll kip here, if it’s all right with you.”
No, he wanted to say. Absolutely not. Just the thought of her under the same roof made his palms itch. He’d happily have bought her a room at the Ritz. But she overruled all suggestions: a cab, a lift.
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