Then she would go up to the landing and call out, ‘I’m just off now. See you later!’ and wait, one hand on the top of the banisters, feeling a little flutter of apprehension, for a response from him. Sometimes there would be a long pause before he answered, ‘Cheerio, Ruthie!’
She did not know what she would do if, one morning, her farewell was met with silence. She would have to go in and see that he was all right, and to enter his bedroom would feel like trespassing. They had navigated each other’s privacy so adroitly during their many years of living under the same roof. Ruth almost never entered his room nor he hers, and Ilse also was physically reticent. The three of them managed, somehow, to share the bathroom without inconveniencing each other: no one ever tried the door when someone was in the bath, or on the loo.
In the early years, Christopher had sometimes come down in his dressing gown to make tea. The dressing gown was very familiar to his niece, the same one he’d had ever since Ruth could remember, thick wool the colour of teddy bears, with a rough texture not unlike a toy bear either. It had maroon piping and a shiny maroon and fawn cord, like a bell pull. But after Ilse came to live with them he only appeared downstairs dressed, and the dressing gown was seldom seen. Christopher still wore a tie every day, usually a single-coloured wool one, even on days when he did not leave the house. He was untidy, but fastidious: piles of old newspapers folded at articles he meant to read and copies of the Listener and letters from the RSPB accumulated, but he himself was always shaved and neat. Ruth and her uncle very seldom touched, unless she had been away, in which case she kissed his cheek on her return. She did the same on special occasions, like birthdays. Ilse had more contact with him, often putting a hand on his sleeve when she wanted to emphasise a point, or when he made her laugh. Sometimes they spoke in German together, which Christopher enjoyed, having learned the language in his schooldays. It was Ilse too who played chess with Christopher. None of them had ever exchanged a word in temper.
But now something wasn’t right, Ruth could feel it. The colour had drained out of his face and he seemed listless, as if his limbs had become heavier. More than once, while she moved about the downstairs rooms, switching off the lights before bed, after having bade him goodnight, she had discerned his form on the unlit half-landing, slightly bent over, pausing as if to gather his strength to complete the climb upstairs. She had given no sign that she’d seen.
Alone with Ilse, she fretted.
‘Why don’t you take him to the doctor, if you are worried?’ Ilse asked.
‘I don’t think I could. It would be too interfering. We’ve never done anything like that.’
‘For sure. But if you are really concerned …’
‘Perhaps I’ll leave it for another week or so. See if there’s any change,’ Ruth decided.
There didn’t seem to be much change, for good or otherwise. Sometimes he appeared a little breathless, or was she imagining it? And was he less talkative over dinner? For some time now he had not gone out on a Monday night as he used to, but only on Thursdays, returning, as he always had, early the next morning. Then one Thursday, about a month after Ruth had begun to notice a change in him, he had not gone to open the garage to get the car out as usual. Instead the doorbell had rung at half past four.
‘Car for Mr Browning?’ the man asked.
Ruth, who had gone to the door, looked doubtfully at the driver.
‘Can you just wait a minute? I’ll go and see,’ she said, turning to go into the house and find out.
‘Oh, there you are,’ she said, taken aback to find her uncle just behind her in the hall, his coat ready buttoned. Christopher shot a brief, apologetic smile in her direction.
‘See you tomorrow then.’
When Ilse got home, just after five, Ruth was still puzzling over the taxi.
‘Why wouldn’t he take the car? There’s nothing wrong with that car. He hardly drives it; it’s always been serviced and looked after. Why would he take a taxi?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ilse. ‘Perhaps the garage doors are becoming too heavy for him. Perhaps he can’t see so well. You should ask him.’
But Ruth knew she couldn’t.
It was a busy time. Several students were preparing for examinations, requiring extra lessons, and Ruth’s choir was rehearsing for an especially ambitious concert, in aid of the church hall, which was chronically damp. One of the music teachers at the girls’ school had developed shingles and wouldn’t be back at work for a month at least, so she had to cover her colleague’s lessons as best she could. Ruth was out of the house a great deal. It was normal that Christopher should seem older, she reassured herself. He was bound to slow down a little, seem rather less spry. And anyway, he seemed better now. More colour in his cheeks.
Weeks passed. During a fifth former’s piano lesson – a girl with red hair called Hettie Gilbert – there was a knock at the door and the school secretary came in.
‘Hettie, can you go back to your form room and see if you’ve got any prep to finish off? There’s a good girl,’ she said. She waited until the girl had gone. ‘There’s been a call for you, about your uncle. He’s been taken into the infirmary at Worcester.’
‘Is he all right?’ asked Ruth. It sounded such a stupid question, even as she was saying it.
‘Apparently his friend told the nurse your whereabouts and she got the school’s number from directories. So I assume he’s conscious. But we don’t know any more, I’m afraid.’
‘What friend? Was it my … was it a woman with a foreign accent?’
‘I don’t know any more, I’m afraid. It was a nurse who telephoned the school.’
Ruth went at once to the station. There was a Worcester train in seven minutes: she would be there in less than half an hour. She ran from Foregate Street station to the infirmary, without stopping for breath. She could hardly speak, once she got there, to ask what ward her uncle was on. She walked along what felt like miles of hospital corridors, her shoes squeaking faintly on the linoleum.
Sitting in an orange plastic chair beside her uncle’s bed was a man in a brown tweed suit, his hand resting on top of Christopher’s. His clothes seemed too formal, or old-fashioned, she wasn’t sure which. Christopher smiled at Ruth. His face was the colour of putty. The stranger at once stood up to proffer the chair.
‘Here’s Ruth,’ said her uncle. ‘Ruthie, this is Peregrine.’
The man shook her hand. ‘How very nice to see you,’ he said quietly. She didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t expected someone else to be with her uncle. The chair stood empty.
‘Are you all right? What happened?’ she asked Christopher.
‘They think it was a heart attack,’ he said. ‘It felt awfully peculiar. Thank God I was in the hall, so I was able to get to the telephone for an ambulance. I think I may have lost consciousness on the way, because I can’t remember the actual journey.’
‘When was this?’
‘This morning sometime. I lost track of time, I’m afraid.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Ruth. ‘I don’t know why I asked actually. It’s just the shock.’
‘Would you like to sit down?’ Peregrine asked her.
‘Thank you, yes, I will,’ she said.
‘I’ll go and see if one of the nurses could find you a cup of tea,’ he said.
Ruth said thank you. ‘Do you need anything from home?’ she asked, once she was seated. ‘I mean, how long are they going to keep you in for?’
‘I’m all right. Perry brought some pyjamas, as you can see.’ He was wearing unfamiliar pale-blue cotton pyjamas with white piping. ‘Actually, you could bring me something to read. There’s a W. H. Hudson by my bed at home. They haven’t said how long I’ll be here.’
‘Oh, OK,’ said Ruth. She paused. ‘But how did he, you know, know you were here?’
‘Perry? Well, he didn’t. I rang him to begin with. It was he who insisted I get the ambulance. Arrived at exactly the same moment as a matter of fa
ct, so he must have driven at an awful lick. He came with me from the house.’
‘Oh,’ said Ruth.
Peregrine came back. ‘She’s going to bring some tea in a minute.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ruth, again.
The tea was brought and Ruth sat, sipping. It tasted of metal, as if the tea leaves had been exchanged for iron filings, but she didn’t mind. She felt only relief that Christopher was here, alive, beside her. After a further quarter of an hour she stood up.
‘Well, I mustn’t tire you. Will you be all right? I’ll come back tomorrow after school, shall I, bring your book? Then we might know more. About how long you need to stay here.’
‘That’s it,’ said Christopher.
‘Let me see you out,’ said Peregrine.
He walked beside her along the corridors, not speaking. When they got to the entrance he said, ‘The thing is, we were lucky this time. He was near the telephone and he didn’t take a fall. But it could happen again.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Ruth. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I don’t believe you have my telephone number,’ Peregrine went on. ‘So I wonder if I might trouble you to take it? Then perhaps you would be kind enough to let me know, if Christopher were ever unable to get me himself.’
‘No, of course. Yes. Do,’ said Ruth.
From an inner coat pocket he produced a slender silver pencil, of the sort that took a tiny independent shard of lead. The lead could be extended by clicking the top and then retracted after use, so it didn’t break, by twisting the narrow writing end of the pencil. Ruth remembered having had such a pencil, as a girl. Spare leads were stored in a little barrel – like tiny bullets in the chamber of a gun – which was revealed when the top was unscrewed. The silver of this pencil was dented in one or two places, suggesting long use.
‘I’ve only got a used envelope, I’m afraid,’ he said. He pronounced the word ‘omvelope’.
He took a letter from the envelope and put the folded paper back into a pocket. He wrote a number, then handed the envelope to Ruth. She put it in her bag without looking at it.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I hope we meet again.’
On the train home, Ruth took the envelope out and turned it over. It was addressed to Mr Peregrine and Lady Celia Darby, Brensham Court, Severn End, Upton upon Severn.
‘What does he look like?’ Ilse asked her later, when Ruth recounted the scene at the hospital.
‘Nice. Twinkly. A bit like Wilfrid Hyde-White,’ said Ruth.
‘I don’t know who that is,’ said Ilse.
‘Of course,’ said Ruth, ‘there’s no reason on earth why you should. He’s an actor … he’s an actor who plays nice, old-fashioned, rather grand minor characters, like the solicitor who has to read out the will in an Ealing comedy. He’s one of those people whom you can’t imagine as a child, or even a young man. But likeable, always. You couldn’t not like him. Peregrine’s the same. The sort of man you’d trust.’
‘And you never heard your uncle talk about him?’
‘Never.’
They sat in silence for a time.
Christopher returned home after two days in hospital. The doctors said he had had what they called a coronary episode. He was to rest – which made him laugh, since he said he could hardly do less than he already did – and start taking a number of pills. Edward and Helen came to the house to visit him the day after he came home.
‘Dear girl. Aren’t you good?’ said Helen, kissing her step-daughter on one cheek.
‘Oh no, it’s nothing, I …’
‘Fearful smell of damp in the breakfast room,’ announced Edward, who had undertaken a tour of the downstairs rooms as soon as they arrived. ‘Are you remembering to leave the Dimplex on in there, occasionally?’
It was a source of irritation to her father that the Malvern house was still without central heating, to which he was a late but ardent convert.
Christopher appeared in the hall.
‘You’re dressed!’ said his brother, almost indignant.
‘Yes. Well, you know, life goes on.’ He smiled.
The autumn deepened. The air smelled clean, like apple peel. Christopher didn’t cook any longer: Ilse made soups with pearl barley or dumplings, to tempt his dwindling appetite. He seemed vigorous, apart from eating less. In the evenings they listened to concerts on the Third Programme, or read by the fire in the study. They ate pieces of Bournville dark chocolate, passing round the bar in its gold foil and red outer paper. If there were any clues unsolved from the day’s crossword, Christopher would read them out. To Ruth’s shame, Ilse got more answers than she did.
Ruth’s shortest working day was a Wednesday. She taught only three lessons, two in the morning, the third during the first period after lunch. She was generally home by half past two.
She and Christopher usually went for a walk together once she got back and sometimes they went to a tearoom afterwards. On the first Wednesday that November, she came in through the back kitchen door as she always did, putting her music case down on one of the chairs. As soon as she’d taken off her coat she became aware of a great stillness in the house, an empty quiet.
She felt very calm and unhurried. She moved slowly, up the stairs and along the landing. Some reticence made her knock quietly at Christopher’s door, even though she half knew he could not hear her. She opened the door and saw that he was not in his bed, but lying across the rug in front of the window, his back facing the door. He didn’t look quite tall enough; it was this small diminution, even more than the stillness of him, that made her sure he had died. She stepped just across the threshold into the room, but she did not want to have to see his face and came no further. There was a funny smell in the room. A solitary late wasp buzzed at the glass. Perhaps, she thought, Christopher had been going to let it out when he fell. Ruth moved like a swimmer underwater, as if her limbs were meeting great resist- ance. She retraced her steps and, at the foot of the stairs, looked in the frayed address book on the telephone table for the doctor’s number.
When the doctor arrived she showed him up the stairs and into her uncle’s room.
‘He hasn’t been there long, lunch time or thereabouts, I’d guess,’ he told her.
Ruth had the odd thought that he somehow wished to be congratulated for this intelligence.
He handed her a piece of paper. ‘You need to take this along to the registrar. He’ll give you the green slip for the funeral directors. Have you considered arrangements?’
Ruth looked at him blankly. ‘What sort of arrangements?’ she asked.
‘Rung the undertakers, that sort of thing,’ he said.
She had not thought of that, and said so. The doctor offered to telephone for her.
‘They’re very good. Local people,’ he said. ‘I play squash with the son occasionally.’
It had never occurred to her that undertakers could be either good or bad, nor that they played games in their spare time. She’d never thought of undertakers doing anything but undertaking or possibly sitting sombrely between undertakings. After making the call, the doctor hovered, evidently wanting to take his leave.
‘Please, don’t feel you have to wait,’ said Ruth. ‘I’m all right.’
‘If you’re sure,’ he said, advancing towards the front door.
After he’d gone she went to the telephone and rang the number Peregrine had written on the envelope. Then she went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. She didn’t ring the school to summon Ilse, there seemed no point. It wouldn’t make any difference, her coming back early, Christopher would still be dead when she got home. She made the tea and stood drinking at the kitchen table.
After a time there was a subdued knock at the front door. Two men in dark suits stood before her. It was clear, she wasn’t quite sure how, that the taller and younger man was senior to his partner. Almost as soon as she had shown them into the house, Peregrine too appeared.
‘Might I …?’ he said, as he took of
f his hat.
‘Yes, of course. Go up,’ Ruth said.
While Peregrine was upstairs, she offered the undertakers a seat and a cup of tea. They murmured a polite refusal.
‘We suggest that you come in to discuss arrangements in a day or two. Give you time to talk over any preferences with other family members, if need be. And you will be required to bring the form, from the registrar. If you wish to pay your respects at that time, that will be possible, in our chapel of rest. All right?’
‘Yes,’ said Ruth. ‘Shall I ring you tomorrow to fix a time?’
‘At your convenience,’ said the undertaker. ‘If you have any queries, day or night, you can reach us by telephone.’
Ruth thanked them. The men stood at the foot of the stairs, heads slightly bowed. They didn’t seem to mind being kept waiting. Ruth felt awkward standing with them, so she went into the study and stood looking out of the window at the trunk of the monkey puzzle tree. At last Peregrine emerged. His eyes were dry, but rimmed with pink.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Ruth asked.
‘Do you know, I think I will,’ said Peregrine.
‘Brandy?’
‘Please.’
Ruth poured the drink and then stepped out into the hall. ‘I’ll take you up now,’ she told the taller of the two undertakers.
‘Thank you, madam,’ he said. Madam sounded like a lovely word, so tender, so consoling. It was as if it was a word she’d never heard before, reserved for just this occasion.
She led them up the stairs and along the landing.
‘We would advise that you attend downstairs,’ said the younger man.
‘Of course,’ said Ruth, relieved. She didn’t want to watch them take her uncle’s body away. She felt a rush of gratitude, almost like love, that they were sparing her this sight, that they would take care of everything. There seemed to her to be infinite gentleness just beneath the surface of their solemnity.
‘I’ll just be in the study, second door on the left, if you need me,’ she said. She went back downstairs and into the study, closing the door behind her.
Peregrine stood with his back to the fireplace.
My Former Heart Page 16