She knew that she wouldn't, couldn't, cry for him though she feared she might cry for herself: for the lost years of her youth. He had ground her down with his demands, his selfishness and his dullness and she feared that she may now have lost her zest for life. She feared that she had long ago stopped being a person with ambitions and purposes of her own.
She remembered the day, over twenty years earlier, when she had left him. Derek, their son, had just left home and she had packed a bag and gone to live in a rented room in another town nearby. Mr Caldicot had come after her not because he wanted her but because he needed her. She knew that. He had bullied her and made promises he must have known he couldn't and wouldn't keep. She had gone back to him but nothing had changed and the very effort of making that one break had exhausted her spirit.
All this went through her mind in a fraction of a moment, and during the brief pause the two police officers glanced at each other.
`I'm afraid your husband's dead,' said the policeman suddenly, and more starkly and bluntly than he had intended. He lowered his eyes, blushing with embarrassment and ashamed of his clumsiness.
`They think it was a heart attack,' said the policewoman. `It was very quick. He didn't suffer.' She spoke quietly and sympathetically.
`Oh dear,' said Mrs Caldicot, who, despite knowing what it was that the police officers were about to tell her, had still been shaken by the news. She reached out and held onto the mantelpiece. `Oh dear me,' she said. She went very pale and felt as though she was about to faint. She felt dizzy and damp with perspiration. Her colicky tummy pains started again, gnawing spitefully at her insides. The boy policeman took her arm and gently led her over to one of the two easy chairs.
`I'll put the kettle on,' said the policewoman, anxious for something to do.
A thousand unconnected thoughts hurried through Mrs Caldicot's mind. `He's got his chrysanthemums ready for the show next Saturday,' she said, inconsequentially. `Whatever shall I do with them?' This irrelevance burst to the forefront of her mind as though to give the rest of her brain time to think. Mrs Caldicot was overwhelmed and confused by the way she felt. It had been a long time since she had loved her husband, and she couldn't even remember when she had last felt any real affection or respect for him, but they had grown up and grown old together rather like two trees planted to close together. In her most secret moments she had often wondered what life would be like without him, and now that she was faced with separation for real she felt liberated but also lonely and frightened. She felt like a long piece of Virginia creeper which has suddenly lost its hold on a wall and is swaying around in the wind. `Should I pretend to be sad?' she wondered. `Am I sad?' She thought about it for a moment. `I feel happy and sad,' she confessed to herself. `But more happy than sad. To be honest, I don't really feel very sad at all. I didn't like him and I'm rather relieved that I won't be seeing him again.' She felt as though she had been released from hospital after a long illness or released from prison after serving a long sentence. Then she felt guilty again. She remembered that once she had taken a job in a department store. He had sulked until she had given it up, though in recent years he had allowed her to work as a volunteer assistant in a charity shop. When making her give up the job at the department store he said that if she had a proper job people would think he didn't earn enough money to keep them. He. Him. It was all he ever thought about. All he had ever thought about. She had hated him but he had ruled her life so severely that she had become dependent upon him. And now she was confused, lonely and frightened.
The girl policewoman returned from the kitchen. `Do you take sugar, Mrs Caldicot?' she asked.
`No thank you,' smiled Mrs Caldicot politely. `I've got ham for his tea. He likes a ham salad.' She stopped for a moment. `Liked.' she corrected herself. A tear rolled down her cheek and she realised that she was crying after all. `Oh dear.' The girl policewoman hurried back to the kitchen to busy herself making tea. Kitty the cat, who did not seem in any way discomforted by the news of Mr Caldicot's untimely and unexpected demise, lazily stood up, stretched her legs, jumped down onto the carpet, walked across to Mrs Caldicot, jumped up onto her lap and curled herself up again.
George and Thelma Caldicot had been married for thirty three years, and in the eyes of those who knew them had become an inseparable onesome rather than a couple. Mrs Caldicot had grown accustomed to allowing her husband to make all the decisions in their life. If they went out for the day he decided when and where they went. When they went shopping for wallpaper or furniture he made all the major decisions. They spent their annual holidays in Torquay because he liked it there and they drove a Vauxhall car because he had always driven Vauxhall cars. Now that he was dead she suddenly realised that she was waiting for him to come home so that she could ask him what to do. She wondered what she would do and how she would cope. With a strange mixture of apprehension and excitement she realised that she could do whatever she liked both now and for the rest of her life. She had been given back control of her own life. And she wondered if she would know what to do with it.
Something suddenly occurred to her.
`Where is he?' she asked.
`They took him to the hospital,' said the young policeman kindly. He still felt bad about the way he had broken the news. `Mettleham General.'
`His brother died on the Edgar Johnson Ward,' said Mrs Caldicot. `And his sister died on the Mavis Bates Ward. You can never park round there.'
`Here you are,' said the policewoman, appearing with a cup of tea which she put down on the arm of Mrs Caldicot's chair. She had used one of Mrs Caldicot's best cups and saucers and this, together with the fact that the tea had been made by someone she did not know, made Mrs Caldicot feel something of a stranger in her own home. The two police officers watched her sip the tea, as though it were medicine which would magically and mysteriously soothe her mental aches and pains. Mrs Caldicot felt uncomfortable.
`Do you have someone we could call for you?' asked the boy policeman. `A relative or a friend?'
`I have a son,' said Mrs Caldicot. `Derek. He's in property.' She realised what she felt uncomfortable about. `Aren't you having a cup?' she asked them both, looking first at one and then the other.
`Do you have a number for him?' asked the girl policewoman.
`He'll be at work,' said Mrs Caldicot. `I don't like to bother him at work.'
`I'm sure he won't mind,' said the girl policewoman. She paused. `Considering the circumstances.'
`No,' said Mrs Caldicot. `I suppose not.'
`Do you have a number for him?' She asked again.
Mrs Caldicot gave the policewoman her son's number. `Derek Caldicot is his name but you have to ask for Mr Caldicot.' Mrs Caldicot had a sudden feeling that without her husband to do the bullying her son would take over her life. She wondered if she had ever loved her husband. She supposed she must have once. Or maybe she just thought she loved him. She tried to think back to when they had both been young. She couldn't recall any particularly happy memories and that made her sad. Why, she wondered, had she married him at all? Perhaps because everyone had expected her to. They had met at a cricket club dance. Her father had been a keen player but her husband-to-be had never played. He'd always been a spectator. That just about summed him up, she thought. He'd always been a spectator. And she'd been even worse. She'd merely made his sandwiches. He had watched while life passed him by and she had made his sandwiches and sorted his socks. They had met, danced shyly together, and that was that. Trips to the cinema. Days out watching cricket. Days spent cycling to local churches. An engagement. And then a wedding, a tiny flat, a baby, a small house, a larger house and then this. It didn't seem to have been an awful lot of fun.
The policewoman dialled the number that Mrs Caldicot had given her. The policeman stood uncomfortably in the middle of Mrs Caldicot's living room and Mrs Caldicot sipped her cup of tea. Only when she had nearly finished drinking it did she remember that she hardly ever drank tea and that she much prefer
red coffee.
`Could I speak to Mr Caldicot, please?' asked the girl policewoman.
Mrs Caldicot couldn't hear the other half of the conversation but she could imagine it. `I'm afraid Mr Caldicot is in a meeting at the moment,' the receptionist would say. `Can I take a message and get him to ring you back?'
`It is rather urgent and important that I speak to him,' said the policewoman. She gave her name and rank.
`I'll see what I can do,' the receptionist would be saying.
A moment or two later Mrs Caldicot could hear her son's voice booming out of the telephone. He always sounded rather aggressive though he was not a brave man and would have run a mile if anyone had threatened him with so much as a rolled up newspaper. `If it's about that neighbour of mine then you can take it from me that he's a liar,' she heard him say. `That tree was hanging right over our boundary fence. I've got photographs to prove it.'
`It isn't about your neighbour,' said the girl policewoman, surprisingly gently. `I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you. Could I ask if you're sitting down?'
`Of course I'm sitting down,' said Mr Caldicot, only slightly less belligerently. Mrs Caldicot could still hear his voice. `What bad news? Is it about my car? The aerial has been broken off twice this month already.'
`It isn't about your car,' said the girl policewoman, patiently. `It's about your father.'
`My father?'
`I'm afraid he's been taken ill. Very ill.'
`There must be some sort of mistake,' said Mr Caldicot. `I spoke to him last Sunday. He was perfectly healthy. Are you sure you've got the right Mr Caldicot?'
`Your mother gave us your number,' said the girl policewoman. `We're with her now.'
`At their house?'
`Yes, that's right.'
`I thought you said it was my father who'd been taken ill?'
`That's right. He's at the hospital. I'm afraid your father is dead Mr Caldicot.'
`Dead?'
`I'm afraid so. I'm very sorry to be the one to have to tell you this.'
`A moment ago you said he was very ill.'
`He's dead I'm afraid.'
`Are you sure?'
`I'm afraid so, Mr Caldicot. Would it be convenient for you to come over to stay with your mother?'
`Well it isn't really,' said Mr Caldicot. `I've got an important meeting at 3 o'clock.'
Mrs Caldicot, who had heard all this very clearly, glanced across at the policeman. He was looking at her and lowered his eyes, blushing with embarrassment.
`Your mother suggested that we rang you,' persisted the girl policewoman.
Mr Caldicot sighed deeply. `O.K.,' he said, reluctantly but resignedly abandoning himself to his fate. `I'll be over as soon as I can.'
The policewoman put the telephone down. `Your son will be here just as soon as possible,' she said. `We'll stay with you until he gets here.' She seemed unaware that Mrs Caldicot had overheard the conversation.
CHAPTER THREE
`You'll have to come and stay with us for the night!' Mr Caldicot told his mother firmly. It was much more of an order than an invitation. `Just for a night or two. Jason can sleep on the sofa.'
`I'd rather stick hot needles in my eyes,' Mrs Caldicot found herself thinking, and wondered where on earth the phrase had come from. She shivered at the thought of it. `I'll be all right,' she said politely. `I'll stay here, thank you.' She didn't like staying at her son's house. She didn't get on terribly well with Veronica, her daughter-in-law. In fact, that was something of an understatement. The truth was that she and Veronica had always rubbed each other up the wrong way, though she wasn't entirely sure why.
Veronica was a staunch Conservative party worker who dyed her hair blonde, wore pearls to breakfast and thought that a British passport still entitled you to be treated better than anyone else when coming through customs at Calais.
Mrs Caldicot didn't like her grandson very much either. Jason was sixteen, still went to bed at ten o'clock on weekdays and called his parents `Mummy' and `Daddy', apparently without any embarrassment. He collected stamps, could tell you the current bank rate and always won with ease when they played Trivial Pursuit at Christmas.
She didn't even like her son, Derek, though that wasn't anything new for even as a child she had always found him to be rather stern and humourless.
She wondered idly where all the humour had gone in her life and why no one she knew ever seemed to laugh. Her husband had never been one for laughing; he could never see the point of it. He had, she thought, probably been born pompous. He had been a qualified sanitary engineer and always took umbrage when Mrs Caldicot told people that he was in sewage. And Derek seemed physically incapable of laughter. She remembered that as a baby he didn't even laugh when you tickled him. She wondered why the ability to laugh was spread around so unevenly. Perhaps, she thought, there is only so much laughter allowed in the world and if one person has too much of it then someone else must go without. She wondered who had decided that she was to be cheated of her fair share of fun; to be sentenced to a lifetime of unrelieved solemnity.
`You can't stay here by yourself,' shouted Derek Caldicot indignantly. He was obviously repeating himself because he thought she hadn't heard him. She wished she had the nerve to tell him that nothing he ever said was worth repeating, whether anyone heard it or not. He waved a hand around. He was trying hard to remain patient. `All this has come at a very bad time for me,' he said.
`I'm sorry,' thought Mrs Caldicot, `that your father chose such an inconvenient time to die.' She looked at him. `There's Kitty to look after,' she explained. `And the chrysanthemums.' They were sitting in the kitchen and she looked out through the window at the back garden. Apart from a few square yards of lawn most of the garden was taken up with pink, blue and white chrysanthemums which had been Mr Caldicot's pride and joy. He had won prizes with his chrysanthemums.
`Damn the chrysanthemums,' said Derek. `What do they matter now? And the neighbours will feed Kitty.'
In her heart Mrs Caldicot shared her son's none too subtly expressed feelings for her late husband's chrysanthemums. She hated them. She had always hated them. `I must water your father's chrysanthemums,' Mrs Caldicot insisted. `And I don't like leaving Kitty on her own at a time like this.' She looked at the cat. `She adored your father you know,' she lied. `She always sat on his lap of an evening.' The cat, who had hated Mr Caldicot and had never sat on his lap, pricked up her ears in anticipation and expectation each time she heard her name. Mrs Caldicot, who never normally lied, held her breath and waited for a bolt of lightning to strike her. She wondered why she had lied. She pressed both hands against her lower abdomen as though trying to squeeze away the colicky pains which gripped her.
`I can't stay with you, mother,' said Derek. He always called her mother when he thought she was behaving stupidly. `I've got an important meeting in Wolverhampton first thing in the morning. Come on now; get your coat.' He shouted slightly when he spoke to her as though he thought she was a little deaf. Or maybe he hoped that she, like a foreigner, would be able to understand him better if he shouted. She looked at him and noticed that he had a lush growth of hair in his ears and in his nose. How could anyone take seriously someone who had hair growing out of their ears? She stared at him and wanted to giggle. `Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?' Mrs Caldicot thought.
She stood up, walked across the kitchen, opened a cupboard and took out a can of cat food. It was labelled `Turkey, Duck and Liver' and she looked at it for a moment thinking how odd the phrase looked. It sounded as though Liver were an animal. Or rather a bird. Would you, she wondered, have a flock of Livers? Maybe television programme makers would send teams off to the jungle in search of the missing liver bird. She could see David Attenborough burrowing through the bush. `And just in front of me,' he was whispering, `I can see the wild liver rampaging through the forest in search of the indigenous gin bush.' She opened the can and put several chunks of turkey, duck and liver onto a plate. She peered at
the meat for a moment trying in vain to decide which meat was which. Then she put the plate down on the floor for the cat. When she had done that she opened the back door and went into the small glass-sided conservatory. She started to put on her shoes; an elderly, well-worn pair of black brogues.
`What are you doing?' Derek sounded irritable.
`I'm cleaning my teeth,' she thought. `What the devil do you think I'm doing?' She sighed. `I'm going to see your father,' she replied.
`What on earth for?'
`I want to make sure he really is dead,' thought Mrs Caldicot. `I just want to see him,' said Mrs Caldicot. She paused as she struggled with her laces. `The policeman said they'd want me to identify him,' she lied. That was the second lie she'd uttered and she realised that she had not even blushed. Maybe lying, like cooking, got easier the more you did it.
`I said I'd call in later this evening,' Derek reminded her. `I'll see to all that.'
Mrs Caldicot finished tying her laces, stood up, walked back into the kitchen and took her old brown tweed coat off a hook on the back of the door.
`If you're not coming home with me take your coat off, mother,' said Mr Caldicot firmly and loudly. He was almost shouting. `I can't bring you home if you go the hospital now. I've got to get ready to go to Wolverhampton.' He paused. `It's a very important meeting,' he added, as if repeating this would confirm its necessity.
`I'm not deaf you pompous oaf!' thought Mrs Caldicot. `I'll catch the bus home,' she said, quietly.
`You can't catch a bus!' exclaimed Mr Caldicot, as though his mother had threatened to fly home on a broomstick.
But that is exactly what she wanted to do and that is exactly what she did.
Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War Page 2