by Angela Huth
Prue reported to him every sighting of a rural cottage, to show she was trying, and they carried on living together in cautious harmony. Johnny made several more gates for Ivy. Prue, who had moved from Dickens to Jane Austen, spent most of her time at the Old Rectory.
Gerald turned up unexpectedly one afternoon. He stayed for a polite hour, talking mostly to his aunt, then was gone again. There was no mention of another evening out. Must have forgotten, Prue thought, and felt pleased not to mind very much.
One day in early October Ivy came into the sitting room, where Prue was reading Emma. She looked excited. ‘I’ve just had a call from my old friend Arnold Barrow,’ she said. ‘Such a surprise. I thought he was living in Switzerland. Well, it seems he’s not. He’s back in his house near Amesbury and he wants us to go over, look at his garden. Would you mind?’
‘Of course not.’ In truth Prue, happily engaged in her book, was not overjoyed by the plan but she managed to look enthusiastic.
Ivy sat down on the sofa, a little breathless. She put one hand on her chest. ‘You may think I have a curious lack of friends,’ she said. ‘I sometimes think the same myself. But then after so many years abroad a lot of them are scattered. And of course a good many of them are dead. But Arnold! I’m so pleased he’s still around. What a lovely surprise. He was a colleague of Ed’s. We shared a house with him for a while in Delhi. Ed was so fond of him.’ She paused, smiled to herself. ‘To be honest, I rather thought he was particularly fond of me, though of course he was much too much of a gentleman to indicate any such thing . . . But let’s be on our way, shall we? It’s not far.’
Not long after they had set off in the Sunbeam, the gold October air dulled a little and there was a brief shower.
‘Never mind,’ said Ivy. ‘Arnold will have umbrellas. I seem to remember he had a proud collection from all over the world.’
They drew up at a handsome house, though smaller than the Old Rectory. ‘Queen Anne,’ Ivy said, who took every opportunity to educate her companion. Prue had never seen her get out of the car so fast: the cane thrashed about, hindering rather than helping, and her long black skirt became tangled in her eager legs. Briefly she agreed to Prue’s help in untangling the muddle, then almost ran to the front door.
When Arnold opened it Prue felt close to laughter, for he was so exactly like the illustrations of old men in Dickens’s books. Silver whiskers encircled his red face and merged at some imperceptible point with a splurge of white hair. His screwed-up eyes looked as if they had set that way from constant laughter. Prue tried hard to imagine that he had ever been attractive, the object of a sly glance from Ivy. Old age plays such tricks, cheats so cruelly on remembered youth.
‘Ivy! My dear, dear Ivy!’
‘Darling Arnold! Such a long time.’
They embraced. Arnold’s lumpen fingers played on Ivy’s shoulder: hers played the other half of the duet on one shoulder of his fine tweed jacket. At last they drew apart, observed each other with fond honesty.
‘Just as beautiful! Just a shade paler, your hair.’
‘Are those new teeth, Arnold? They’re wonderful.’
They laughed.
Prue was introduced, her presence not explained. The plan was to go round the garden before it rained again.
Prue followed them at a distance. They tottered along, side by side, Arnold so stooped it was an effort for him to raise his eyes to the tall hollyhocks. Ivy was particularly upright, scorning her cane for moments at a time as she pointed to things in the buxom herbaceous border. From time to time Prue heard squeals of delight and laughter. Then they would pause in their horticultural journey, move their heads closer, recall something, somewhere, that Prue would never know. She wondered if in sixty years’ time she herself might be tottering round a garden with some old man, and if so, who would he be?
The subtleties of planting had never interested her: Mrs Lawrence, she remembered, used to tease her for her lack of knowledge about plants. ‘Daffodils are the only things you recognize,’ she would say. Well, daffodils had been the only flowers she’d seen in Manchester, Prue had snapped back. At the Old Rectory, she had tried, for Ivy’s sake. She’d learnt to recognize a few papery shrubs, and had come to love the scent of roses, but to study plant after plant, as Ivy and Arnold were doing with such pleasure, she found infinitely boring. She hung back. Eventually she made her way to a small terrace by the house, and sat on one of the ironwork chairs. She could still follow the old things’ progress. They did not notice that she was no longer close behind them.
She had no idea how long she sat, no thoughts troubling her. The lawn was a glorious smoothness of emerald green, faintly glittering from the last shower of rain. A cat ran along a wall and jumped onto the branch of an overhanging tree. A bird tried out a complicated song – blackbird? She knew a certain amount about stormcocks, but she had had only one chance to exercise her knowledge. There were no stormcocks in the Old Rectory’s garden, though Ivy had seemed interested in all Prue had had to say about them.
She saw the old couple pause. Ivy stretched out a hand. Arnold took it. The knot of their arthritic fingers moved up and down, in some secret agreement, then parted. A large dark cloud, with no warning, rose over the herbaceous border and covered most of the blue sky. A few single drops of rain, heavy as coins, fell onto the flagstones of the terrace.
Ivy and Arnold were now approaching the house as fast as they could. There were darker spots on Ivy’s skirt. Arnold’s hand was under her elbow, perhaps more for his own support than hers.
Time, Prue felt, slowed in a strange way, dream-like. But at last the two friends were through the french windows of the sitting room. They made no mention of the rain. Ivy filtered round the room admiring a collection of faded watercolours. Arnold rang a bell.
Again, Prue kept herself a little apart. She sat on a velvet stool by the fireplace when she wasn’t handing a plate of cucumber sandwiches or pouring China tea. Never had she felt so invisible, and she was glad to be so. She was fascinated listening to the two old friends recount tales of the Raj. They spoke of many people with peculiar names – Calypso, Euphemia, Lalage, Candida, Eugénie – the last pronounced by Ivy with a perfect French accent. Prue tried to imagine them all at parties under a full Indian moon, dancing with Clarence, Edgar, Erskine: the names came tumbling out as Ivy and Arnold seemed high on remembrance of their long-dead world. The mutual pictures of times past gave them such pleasure that they kept unconsciously touching each other. A finger alighted on the other’s knee or an arm, briefly as a butterfly.
Ivy did not suggest leaving till after six. ‘Oh, Arnold, such, such fun.’
‘So good we’re so near at last. You must come often.’
‘And you to me. Soon, soon.’
‘I most certainly will.’
‘Dear Arnold. Thank you so much.’
‘Dear Ivy.’
They stood in the stone porch, the three of them, looking at the rush of hard rain that bent the trees. The sky was nightfall dark, no streak of light. Arnold did not suggest fetching an umbrella from his collection. Perhaps Ivy had misremembered that part of the past. He suggested, in a brave voice, that they all make a dash.
The short journey to the car, through thrashing rain, was perilous. Prue took one of Ivy’s arms, Arnold the other, which impeded rather than helped the treacherous journey. Somehow the door was opened and Ivy was bundled in. Prue stooped to pick up her long damp skirt, Arnold bent awkwardly into the car to give his old friend a farewell kiss. Prue stood patient, soaked, while his face awash with raindrops slid across Ivy’s sparkling cheek, and they both muttered promises Prue could not hear.
Farewells over, Arnold had difficulty in regaining an upright posture outside the car. Prue heaved at one arm. Ivy pushed at him with both her small hands while he uttered several ancient curses that made both women laugh. At last he was securely on his feet, rain pouring through white whiskers and hair, and dazzling his scarlet cheeks. Prue ran to the d
riving seat.
‘That’s right! Make a dash! Good girl.’ Arnold waved. They drove away.
‘Oh, what fun that was, wasn’t it? I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for ages. Isn’t Arnold a dear?’ Ivy wiped the rain from her face with a tiny handkerchief.
Prue was peering through the fan shape of clear windscreen made by the wipers. It only lasted a second before rain obliterated everything again. It was impossible to see anything clearly. She switched on the headlights.
‘I think we should hurry home, dear Prue,’ Ivy said.
‘I can’t hurry in this. I can’t see anything.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Ed used to drive fast in all conditions. He said he liked a challenge. He was very skilled, but I must admit we did have a few mishaps. It was exciting, though. But I’ll let you concentrate.’
Prue drove slowly along the lanes, listening to the noisy swish of water parting beneath the tyres and the battering of rain on the windscreen. She considered stopping altogether till the worst had passed, but thought Ivy would regard that as feeble. On a straight stretch she put her foot on the accelerator harder than she meant to – her wet shoe slipped – and the car bounced forward. Ivy squealed with delight.
Two headlights appeared round an invisible corner in the middle of the road, coming straight towards them. Prue’s hands on the steering-wheel turned to liquid.
‘Fast, Prue! Left, and we’ll miss him. There!’ Ivy shouted, her voice so high it tumbled over itself, prepared for one last screech of encouragement. ‘Good girl!’
Prue missed the oncoming vehicle but skidded violently into the trunk of a huge oak tree by the side of the road. There was a very loud bang, a crunch, an almost inaudible whimper from Ivy. Then, just the thud of the rain.
Prue glanced to her left. Ivy had been thrown forward onto the windscreen, which had shattered. Prue herself, also thrust forward, had been saved by the steering-wheel. She tried to sit upright, but acute pain severed her ribs. She tried again, succeeded, and pulled Ivy gently back into her seat. Strings of blood moved in various directions over her face. She was deadly pale. Her eyes were shut. Prue whispered her name. There was no answer. She looked through the clouded liquid windscreen, could see that the scarlet bonnet of the Sunbeam had reared up and was scrunched into a weird shape. The ghostly outline of a van, or a large farm vehicle, was just visible.
Prue held Ivy’s hand, kept whispering her name. The passenger door, which she tried to open – the effort pierced her ribs agonizingly – was stuck. She did manage to wind down the window a few inches. A blast of horizontal rain shot through the space. It would not shut again. She sat there, in the cage of attacking rain, wondering, stunned, and moved her hand to Ivy’s wrist. She thought there was a very faint pulse. She did not like to feel Ivy’s heart, did not know if she could even tell if it was beating. In a misted way she wondered what to do. How long till someone came?
She had no idea how long it was – minutes? half an hour? – before a scared face loomed at her through the passenger window. A farm worker, she thought he must be, his clothes sodden and dark.
‘Awfully sorry, my duck,’ he said, his voice shaken. ‘I was trying to avoid . . . You all right?’ He peered into the car. ‘The old girl looks . . . There’s a pub up the road. I’ll go and ring for an ambulance.’
‘Thanks,’ said Prue. She bent forwards, trying to ease her own pain, but did not let go of Ivy’s cold wrist. The rain began to jitter before her eyes in a way rain did not normally behave. The raised smashed bonnet of the car moved sickeningly from side to side. Prue wondered if she was going to faint. Several times she begged Ivy to say something. But still there was no answer.
An immeasurable time later, from a long way off, she heard the wail of an ambulance, the now familiar slash of tyres cutting through water. She felt a rush of cold as the stuck door was pulled open. Then there were gentle hands and gentle voices. She heard distant words: ‘old girl unconscious’. . . ‘could be broken ribs, the young ’un’ . . . ‘Better hurry.’
They must have hurried, these gallant men, for suddenly – time was unaccountable – Prue saw curtains jumping with bleached flowers all round her. A dull ache had replaced the acute pain. There was a stifling smell of cleanliness. A young nurse, blown about by her starched white headdress, pushed through the curtains like a modest singer. A word came up in Prue’s mind as if it was being typed on a sheet of white paper, each letter separate: ‘h o s p i t a l’.
‘How’s Mrs Lamton?’ she asked, surprised to find she had a clear voice. ‘Where is she?’
Ivy was in a room some distance away, but Prue was not allowed to see her until her condition had been further assessed by the doctors.
‘So she’s not dead, then?’
The nurse looked shocked, ignored the question and enquired how Prue felt.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. There was some kind of strapping round her ribs. She could feel it beneath the hospital nightdress. The nurse moved to help her try to stand. She felt nauseous, still, and dizzy, but remained on her feet.
‘I should get back into bed just now,’ said the nurse. ‘Someone will be coming round for details.’
‘Details?’
‘Names of relations to be telephoned. The old lady’s name and address. And someone who could bring you clean clothes. They’ll want you in overnight, but I’m sure you’ll be able to go home in the morning. Cracked ribs heal quite well once they’re bound up.’
‘Right,’ said Prue. ‘But please tell the doctors I want to see Mrs Lamton as soon as possible.’
‘Are you a relation?’
‘She’s my grandmother.’ The lie might be her only pass to see Ivy.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said the nurse, and sailed back through the horrible curtains.
Prue was taken to see Ivy later that evening. A young doctor in a white coat led her along passages that smelt of disinfectant mingled with another, more lurid, smell. He had a wide, appealing face. Different time, different place, Prue might have thrown him an interested look. As it was, walking was painful. She found it difficult to keep up with him.
‘Your gran, is she?’
‘That’s right.’ The doctor opened the door into a small white room.
Ivy lay propped on a mound of pillows in the high bed. Her eyes were shut, her face had been cleaned of the blood. Now the white skin was covered with a tracing of thin scratches, as if she had been caught by a bramble bush, nothing more. A single piece of plaster secured a wad of lint at the corner of one eye. Prue put a hand on the bed, avoiding the ridge of Ivy’s legs. ‘Will she be all right?’ she asked. ‘How long till she comes round?’
The doctor shrugged. He put a large hand round Ivy’s wrist. ‘Who knows? We don’t think there’s any internal bleeding. Could be just shock. Chances are she’ll be OK. But she’s not in her first youth, is she?’
‘Can I stay with her?’
The doctor gave a sympathetic smile. ‘As far as I’m concerned, but I’m not in charge – I’m very junior,’ he added modestly. ‘Why don’t you just stay till someone turns you out?’
When he had gone, Prue moved closer to Ivy’s head, very small on the large pillows. The white hair, the bun, was awry. One side of her mouth was turned down, the other seemed stuck at the beginning of a smile. Her hands were clenched into two small fists: Prue had never seen them like that. Gently she tried to prise open the fingers of one hand, so that they could lie straight out, as they always did on her skirt while she talked. But they would not move. It was as if rigor mortis had already set in. This thought made Prue back away. She did not want to see Ivy dead: she wanted to remember her alive. At the moment she did look dead, but the fact that her heart was still beating made her less alarming.
Prue sat on the chair beside the bed. She could not think what to do. She could not think what might happen. She shifted her position to try to relieve the aching of her ribs, but it did no good. A
bove her was Ivy’s profile: beautiful cheekbone, closed eyelid the shape of a horizontal petal nesting in its purple hollow. The side of her mouth that was turned down made a long thread to her jaw. Prue longed for her to wake, smile, so that the line would disappear. She turned away. She could only think that it was her fault.
It was getting dark, but she did not want to put on a light, make new shadows on Ivy’s face. For something to do, she got up and drew the curtains. They were made of hard green rep, covered with bad drawings of parrots, hardly the sort of thing to cheer a patient. But maybe this room was reserved for patients who were too ill to be affronted by hideous birds.
There was a knock at the door. A nurse Prue had not seen before came in. ‘You’ve a visitor,’ she said. Johnny followed her into the room. He carried a small case. The nurse left.
‘Oh my God,’ he said, quickly glancing from the bed to Prue. ‘I’m not staying.’ He put down the suitcase, laid a hand on Prue’s head. ‘Just brought you something to wear, your toothbrush. They rang me, said you’d given our number. How badly are you hurt?’
‘Hardly at all. Just my ribs.’
Johnny nodded. ‘And Mrs Lamton?’
Prue shrugged. ‘No one seems able to tell me. Apparently there’s no huge physical damage. Perhaps it’s just shock.’
‘Hope so. Some of these old things are tough as anything. What happened?’
‘Terrible rain, I could hardly see a thing. Then two headlights in the middle of the road. I knew I had to avoid them.’ Her voice sounded faraway, flat, metallic. ‘I did avoid them. But I skidded. I couldn’t see a thing in the mist. There was this tree . . .’
‘What about the car?’
‘I don’t know. Pretty bad. I don’t know what to do about it . . .’ Her eyes went back to Ivy.