Her son drove her to the hospital where she confirmed that her husband would not be showing his chrysanthemums, eating his ham salad or going to watch any more cricket matches and then when, with a sigh, Derek said that he would drive her home Mrs Caldicot defiantly refused and insisted on walking round the corner to the bus stop.
`You can't catch a bus at this time of night!' said Derek, walking behind her, his voice heavy with exasperation.
`Why on earth not?' demanded Mrs Caldicot. `If they run buses I can catch one!' she thought. `If no one wanted me to catch one they wouldn't run them would they?'
`It isn't safe!' blustered Derek.
`What have I got to lose?' thought Mrs Caldicot who had just £3.17 in her purse and who realised with some slight surprise that she wasn't afraid. `I'll be all right, dear,' she said, soothingly.
When he had gone she wondered why she wasn't afraid and realised that you can only be afraid when you have something you're afraid of losing. Money. Possessions. Health. Life. She had nothing that she feared losing and so she wasn't afraid. She felt very liberated by this thought.
The bus came and she clambered up onto the step (her hip was playing up again and the colic was still terrible). She had a strange vision of being confronted by a highwayman dressed in a mask and brandishing a huge pair of pistols. `Your money or your life!' cried the highwayman. `You choose!' insisted Mrs Caldicot. `I really don't mind.' The highwayman, greatly bewildered by this retreated into the dark of the night and left her alone. She felt rather cheated and wondered if he'd come back but he didn't.
`Come on, love, I haven't got all night,' said the bus driver. `Where do you want to go to?' Mrs Caldicot told him her destination and offered him a note. `Haven't you got a pass?' he asked her. `No,' she said, never having acquired a bus pass because Mr Caldicot thought they reeked of charity, `I'll pay cash.'
When she got home she switched on the floodlight that lit up the back garden. Her husband had it installed so that he could work on his chrysanthemums in the evenings. She picked up the watering can and carefully soaked each of the plants, just as she had seen her husband do on so many summer evenings.
Then she collected a pair of strong scissors from the tiny greenhouse at the top of the garden. The flowers were all neatly tied to stakes and slowly, systematically and with great precision, she bent down and cut through the stem of each chrysanthemum with her scissors. And because they were all tied to stakes, none of the flowers fell over and so from a distance it was impossible to see that anything was wrong with them.
Even though it was cold, she stood on the terrace for a moment and allowed herself a little smile. She wanted the flowers to die slowly. She looked around and a weed growing through the cement between the crazy paving caught her eye. She bent towards it, instinctively reaching to pull it out. Mr Caldicot had never allowed weeds into the garden. Then she stopped herself and allowed her finger tips to just graze its leaves. She realised how strange it was that such a gentle and fragile thing could be so strong.
After she had gone indoors she made herself a cup of hot drinking chocolate and then went to bed without washing the cup or turning off the outside floodlight.
CHAPTER FOUR
When she woke up the next morning the first thing Mrs Caldicot did was to look out of the bedroom window to see how the chrysanthemums were. It was a beautiful sunny morning and she was rather surprised to see that most of the flowers still looked perfectly healthy. It was quite impossible to tell that they were all dying.
She shrugged, went downstairs, leaving the bed unmade for the first time in her adult life, and made herself a cup of strong black coffee that made her shudder when she took a sip. Then she found a large, unopened packet of best bacon in the deep freeze, took two large free range eggs from the fridge, opened a tin of tomatoes and made herself a huge fried breakfast. It was the first time she had ever cooked herself a fried breakfast. Her husband had never liked or approved of big breakfasts. He insisted it was bad for the digestion to eat so much so early in the day. Once, when the Caldicots had been on holiday in the Lake District, they had stayed at a boarding house where the landlady had offered them a cooked breakfast for an extra half a crown. Mrs Caldicot had wanted to try it but Mr Caldicot had looked down his nose at the suggestion and so they ate their usual toast and marmalade.
When she had finished the last slice of fried bread and drunk a second and then a third cup of strong black coffee, Mrs Caldicot got up from the table, deliberately wiped the crumbs from the corners of her mouth with the kitchen tea towel, slid the greasy frying pan and dirty plates into the sink and went back upstairs to get dressed. In deference to her late husband she chose a simple, dark grey dress which she had only worn twice before, a pair of black patent leather shoes and a black cardigan. She looked at herself in the mirror for a few moments before deciding that she looked far too much like a widow. She then took off the grey dress, the black cardigan and the black shoes and replaced them with a white and blue polka dot dress, a pair of white sandals and a white cardigan.
Half an hour later she caught the bus into town and got off at the stop just before the Oxfam shop where she sometimes helped out. She walked the few yards to the charity shop in glorious summer sunshine.
`Thelma!' cried a large, shapeless woman in a heavy, pink and grey flecked suit. `I didn't expect to see you here today.' She put her head on one side and marched towards Mrs Caldicot with her arms held out in front of her. `How are you feeling?' she asked. A cloud of cheap and rather nasty perfume preceded the large woman and almost masked a serious case of body odour.
`I'm fine,' replied Mrs Caldicot. `I'm on the rota,' she explained. `I didn't want to let you down.' She backed away a few inches but failed to avoid the shapeless woman's embrace.
`Oh you silly thing!' said Mrs Leatherhead. `It must have been a terrible shock for you,' she said. `At the cricket match wasn't it?'
Mrs Caldicot wondered how these things got round the town so quickly. She nodded.
`Would you like a cup of coffee?'
`No, thank you,' said Mrs Caldicot, who, probably as a result of her huge breakfast had a touch of indigestion. `What would you like me to do? Unpacking? Pricing? Shelf stocking?'
`Oh, I know,' whispered Mrs Leatherhead, conspiratorially. `You want to keep busy! What would you prefer? I've just got a delivery of books in if you'd like to check through those. They're in the back.' She turned to serve a tall, bony woman in an ankle length garment which had lots of fringes attached to it. She was holding a shawl which she had selected from the rack by the window.
`Fine,' said Mrs Caldicot. She quite liked sorting books and there was always the added advantage that you might find something worth reading. She never felt quite so much at ease sorting second hand clothes. She left Mrs Leatherhead and the tall bony woman haggling over the price of the shawl.
***
One and a half hours later, with the books unpacked and sorted into neat piles Mrs Caldicot put the kettle on and wandered out into the shop to tell Mrs Leatherhead that a cup of coffee was on its way.
`What are your plans now?' asked Mrs Leatherhead as they dipped their ginger nut biscuits into their drinks. `Or is too soon for you to have thought of plans?'
`What do you mean?' asked Mrs Caldicot. `What sort of plans?'
`Oh, you know,' said Mrs Leatherhead, `are you going to sell the house and buy yourself a bungalow or are you going to move in with Derek?'
Mrs Caldicot frowned. `Why should I do either?'
`Oh you won't want to stay where you are,' said Mrs Leatherhead definitely. `Not in that big house.'
`But it isn't all that big,' protested Mrs Caldicot. `It's only got three bedrooms.'
`But, dear, all that garden! And the roof and so on. Oh you don't want that sort of responsibility on your own. Oh no! You wouldn't want to be in that house by yourself at night now, would you?'
Mrs Caldicot, who had slept in the house by herself when her husband had been awa
y attending conferences on sewage, didn't quite know what to say to this. It had never occurred to her that she might have to move house. And why should the roof worry her, she wondered. Was someone going to steal it if she stayed there alone?
`Are you going to be all right for money?' asked Mrs Leatherhead. `Has he left you all right?'
`What business is that of yours?' thought Mrs Caldicot indignantly. Why, she wondered, did Mrs Leatherhead assume that just because she was bereaved she was also bereft of all dignity. `I don't know,' she said. `To be honest I haven't even thought about money.'
`Oh well you must!' insisted Mrs Leatherhead. `And you watch out for solicitors and bank people and the like. My Henry says they're all crooks.'
`I wouldn't listen to anything your Henry said if my life depended on it,' thought Mrs Caldicot, nodding her head as though in acquiescence. Henry Leatherhead always claimed that he was something `rather confidential' in the civil service but in reality Mrs Caldicot knew that he worked for the Department of Employment. He was the daftest, most insipid man she had ever met. She wondered why she had allowed herself to be surrounded by such boring, inept and unattractive people. She thought gloomily of all the evenings that she and her husband had spent having dinner with the Leatherheads. It had always followed a strict ritual. Sherry. Something traditional served with gravy. Cheap wine from the supermarket. And dull conversation about the price of fish. Their evenings together had been as structured and as predictable as a church service.
`Still,' said Mrs Leatherhead. `Whatever you do, you just take your time!' She lowered her head and popped a piece of soggy biscuit into her mouth before it could drop into the coffee beneath it. `Whatever you decide to do you don't want to be pushed into making a decision too quickly.' She winked at Mrs Caldicot. `You'll find yourself surrounded by people who want to give you advice,' she said. `You ignore them all and decide for yourself exactly when you want to move and where you want to go.'
Mrs Caldicot thanked Mrs Leatherhead, but realised that she longed not for sympathy or advice but for simple encouragement. She wondered why everyone always wanted to give advice. Why, she thought, don't they offer me sympathy and support and encouragement for what I choose to do. Whatever it is. She wondered why people were so quick to offer so many answers to her problems when it was patently clear that they had little ability to deal with the problems in their own lives. Derek's life was hardly a domestic success and the Leatherheads would not have won any prizes for enviable domesticity.
`Don't mention it,' said Mrs Leatherhead, helping herself to another ginger nut from the shrinking packet. `It's at a time like this that you really find out who your friends are. Has the doctor given you anything?'
`What do you mean?' asked Mrs Caldicot, genuinely puzzled as to why the doctor should give her anything.
`To help you sleep,' explained Mrs Leatherhead. `For your nerves. You know.'
`Oh,' said Mrs Caldicot. `No.'
`Well you just get yourself along there and have a word with him,' said Mrs Leatherhead firmly. `You can never be too careful at a time like this. My friend Gladys,' she paused, `do you know Gladys Robertson who used to be married to the butcher who had a shop in Vicarage Street behind the multi-storey car park?'
Mrs Caldicot shook her head. `No, I don't think so.'
`He always had good tripe and our Dennis loved his sausages. Well, Gladys was as right as rain one minute, and everyone thought she was coping with it all marvellously and then suddenly, whoosh, there she was in the hospital under heavy sedation suffering from deep depression.'
`Oh,' said Mrs Caldicot.
`She tried to do away with herself,' whispered Mrs Leatherhead. `There's only a few of us who know about it and I promised not to tell a soul but since you don't know her it doesn't really count, does it?'
`It depends how seriously you take a promise,' thought Mrs Caldicot. `No, I suppose not,' she agreed.
`She was on tablets for months and months and they gave her that electrical treatment where they connect your brain up to the mains and give it an electric shock to shake it back into sense, you know.'
`No, I haven't heard of that,' said Mrs Caldicot, shivering a little with distaste and hoping that her own strange compunctions weren't anything very much to worry about. She suddenly remembered the chrysanthemums and hoped that no one would regard that as a sign of madness, though she did think that perhaps she could claim it was the work of vandals if she said she'd heard a noise at night.
`I think I heard people in the garden last night,' she said suddenly.
`Good heavens!' said Mrs Leatherhead. `There you are, you see! They've got no scruples these days, burglars. They hear of a man dying and a woman in the house by herself and they're round there straight away.' She shivered noticeably and a small cloud of face powder floated through a bright beam of sunshine. `The quicker you're out of that place the better. You want to get someone round to have a look at the property for you.' She stopped and snorted. `But then, what am I saying,' she carried on, `you've got your Derek haven't you? In the business and everything.'
`I think it was probably just vandals,' said Mrs Caldicot quickly, immediately regretting the untruth. `Children I expect. In the garden.'
`At least that'll save you a few pounds on estate agency fees,' said Mrs Leatherhead. `Your Derek will be able to get it all done for you free won't he?'
`All what?' asked Mrs Caldicot.
`You know, the estate agency stuff; the boards and the advertising and the solicitors and so on.'
`I don't know. Possibly.
`There you are then,' said Mrs Leatherhead. `That's often the worst of it all. With your Derek to look after things you'll be very well placed.'
`Not the solicitors though I don't expect.' said Mrs Caldicot.
Just then a customer came over wanting to know if the hand carved wooden ashtrays would mark if you left a cigarette end burning in them and Mrs Caldicot took the opportunity to wave goodbye to Mrs Leatherhead and to slip out into the street.
When she got back home the chrysanthemums were looking decidedly glum. Petals were going brown and starting to fall off all over the garden. Mrs Caldicot stared out at them and wondered why she'd bothered. Just then the telephone rang.
`It's Victor,' said a voice she recognised at once. Victor Reynolds. Another keen gardener. Friend of her late husband and long time chrysanthemum grower. `I was very sorry to hear about George.'
`Yes,' said Mrs Caldicot. `Thank you.'
`I was just thinking,' said Victor. `Would you like me to show his chrysanthemums for him? In his name, of course.'
Mrs Caldicot stared out of the window at the drooping flowers and falling petals.
`It seemed a pity not to,' said Victor. `I thought it might be a gesture he would appreciate.'
`I'm afraid it's too late,' said Mrs Caldicot. `The vandals have got at them.'
`The vandals? What do you mean?'
`They've cut the stems,' said Mrs Caldicot. `They're all dying.'
`Oh dear me. Oh dear oh dear,' said Victor. `Oh, that's terrible.' He sounded quite distraught.
`Yes,' said Mrs Caldicot. `It's awful what they'll do, isn't it?'
`I don't know what to say,' said Victor. `I'm speechless.'
`No, you're not,' thought Mrs Caldicot. `You're wittering on and you're making far more fuss over the damned chrysanthemums than you did over George.' `Yes,' she said.
`Well, then,' said Victor. `I don't suppose there's anything to be done.'
`No.' said Mrs Caldicot. `I don't suppose so.'
`Goodbye then,' said Victor. And she heard the receiver go down and the next moment the telephone went dead. She put the receiver down and stared at the dying chrysanthemums, silently hoping that they were suffering.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mrs Caldicot looked out of the bedroom window on the second full day of her bereavement and stared at the garden. `My second day of living,' she thought. The chrysanthemums were mostly dead now. She smil
ed at them with quiet delight then slipped into her comfortable, candlewick dressing gown and headed for the stairs.
As she tied her dressing gown belt firmly around her waist she thought how much she hated the garment. Come to that she hated most of her clothes. In or out of the house she had invariably dressed to please her late husband. For the last thirty years of her life she hadn't ever thought about what she wanted to wear when she had been choosing clothes. She had automatically bought what she knew he would expect her to wear. Some men wanted their wives to wear clinging, feminine garments made of silk; more frilly and chilly than hard-wearing or warm. But Mr Caldicot had favoured sensible, long-lasting suits; sensible shoes and sensible nightwear. Nothing fashionable. Nothing flimsy. Nothing colourful. Nothing frivolous. He had believed that clothes should be functional, hard-wearing and inexpensive. She made a silent vow to go into the shops to buy herself something different.
The telephone began to ring and she hurried to the kitchen to pick it up. `I thought you'd gone out!' complained her son Derek. `Where were you?'
`Drunk in bed after last night's party,' thought Mrs Caldicot. She laughed out loud and then realised with horror that she had nearly said what she had thought.
`What's the matter?' asked Derek, who must have heard the laugh.
`Nothing,' said Mrs Caldicot, quickly. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed. She felt that she was blushing. She picked up her handbag, which was still standing where she had left it on the kitchen table, opened it and took out her make-up mirror. She peeped into it. Her cheeks were bright red. These secret thoughts seemed to be coming thicker and faster than ever now that she was on her own.
`Did you hear me?' demanded Derek, crossly.
`No. Sorry. I wasn't concentrating.' said Mrs Caldicot.
`I don't know what's the matter with you,' sighed Derek. He sounded exasperated. `You've been acting very strangely.'
`You haven't seen anything yet!' thought Mrs Caldicot. `Your father's just died,' she said.
Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War Page 3