by Susan Sallis
He spoke suddenly. ‘Elisabeth. She’s not married to her husband any more. His name is Peter. He’s married to someone called Margaret. Elisabeth’s daughter Maisie is with them at the moment. She’s ten now. A really nice kid. They all get on all right, and Maisie knows about the twins and is dying to see them.’
Viv stared at him, amazed not only by the flood of information, but by the way he had delivered it. She said at last, ‘And you? Do you get on all right with them?’
‘I’m working on it.’
She nodded slowly while silence settled again. Then she said, ‘OK. Here’s my piece. I’m somehow bound into the love story that surrounds that bloody door knob. I don’t know how. Maybe it’s there for all lovers. To open a door in the mind . . . it could be anything. It happened. I wrote everything down about it because I knew I would discount it myself later on . . . or simply forget the details. That was the reason. I am not going to write about the past, Tom.’ She managed a smile. ‘Thank you for telling me about Elisabeth. If it matters to you, I have to tell you I liked her very much. The fact that she, too, has had a difficult time makes me admire the woman she is now. So . . . we have swopped some information. Let it end there.’
He stared at her, surprised by her considered confidences. Then he smiled at the idea that they’d simply exchanged information.
‘OK. I accept that. It’s a nice story. Juniper told you? About George Jackson, who built the lake and cemented the door knob two feet below the water line?’
‘Yes. I’d never heard it before. And David didn’t know it – we used the lake quite often when we came here first, and he would have enjoyed going into its history.’ She paused, and added with wry humour, ‘He didn’t know then. He knows now, of course. Jinx thinks it was a love-token.’
He stared back into the fire, then said, ‘Will you be all right today?’ He glanced up, saw her smile, and added, relieved, ‘I’ll have to bring Ma up tomorrow, maybe Dad as well. I rather think you must be the daughter they never had!’
Her smiled widened and dazzled him. She said, ‘They are my first real friends, Tom. You too, in a prickly sort of way. And I think – if she is willing – Elisabeth.’ Ruefully she turned her smile downwards. ‘I never thought I could be close to anyone until I met David. And even then, we weren’t like other couples. Theatre trips, dinners, we always did them alone. We didn’t have any close friends. Perhaps it was because we were both tainted in various ways. No, it was more than that. It was because we were so wrapped up in each other. I threw it away, of course. I knew I would.’
‘You threw nothing away. You must believe that by now.’
She stood up. ‘You’d better go. Thank you.’
He leaned forward to peck her cheek.
‘You’ll have to write it down, Viv. Seriously. You need to look at it. Not to live it any more. To look at it as David looked at his paintings and his cartoons.’
She ignored that.
‘Tell Hildie to stay in the warm. I’m absolutely fine. They keep ringing from Tall Trees to ask if I need shopping. Everyone is very kind.’
He passed her in the hall, bent to put on his boots, straightened and said, ‘Except you. You’ve never been kind to yourself, have you, Viv?’ He pecked her again to take the sting from his words, then let himself out.
The smell of slush, watery, nearly icy, filled her nose.
She reheated the soup and took it back to the sofa, and ate it straight from the saucepan with the wooden spoon. She wasn’t unhappy. It was frightening the way the whole wretched mess was being exposed, but Jinx had still kept some of it to himself, and no one would ever prise that bit out of her. Eventually . . . it would sink beneath memory, even her own. She almost smiled at the thought of writing it down. If she did, it would mean she could never forget it.
The solid comfort now lay in Tom’s implicit acceptance that she was part of the Hardy family: the salt-of-the-earth family with no real idea of who she was, and what she had done. She looked out of the window, and wished the slush would melt right away so that she could run. But she was so tired. And probably not strong enough yet to run, anyway.
She lay down and pulled the blankets over her. She knew she should feel exquisite relief in the knowledge that she had not been directly responsible for David’s death. But, of course, the fact that he had known, and had wrested the steering-wheel from her, and sent them ricochetting between the beech trees, revealed more than his words that he had hated her; he had hated the baby that was not his; he had hated himself because it could not be his. Writing that down would be facing the fact that she had betrayed David. Her dearest friend, her blessedly sexless lover. Betrayal was so much worse than murder.
She brought down the usual shutter inside her head. The soup and the heat from the fire did their work, and she slept.
Fifteen
TWO DAYS LATER, Viv got the car out and drove to the service station on the motorway, where she filled up with petrol and bought the groceries on the list Hildie had phoned through the previous night. Hildie had said, ‘If you get down to the supermarket when they first open there will be no one there.’ But the staff were all local people. And she was sure the staff at the motorway services knew nothing about her. Their customers were anonymous, too. Itinerant shoppers. As she pulled in she smiled at the thought. She remembered the itinerant agricultural workers down on the Levels. Why not itinerant shoppers? Why not itinerant human beings?
There were no trolleys, just wire baskets. She filled two of them, and drove back on the southbound carriageway, and went straight to the cottage by the river. Hardy opened the door and the sound of crying babies filled the day.
‘Let me take that.’ He reached for one of the plastic bags, and she deftly avoided him and went past into the hall.
‘I’m back to normal, Mr Hardy. Close the door, there’s a wind getting up.’
‘Well, tis March. Always a windy month.’ He patted her arm. ‘Good to see you. I’d rather you called me Mick. It’s what my friends do.’
She must still have been pretty weak, because his words made her tear-ducts flow. She squeezed down the hall and into the kitchen.
He followed. ‘Before you ask how we are – we’re what my old gran used to call “bad about and worse up”. Tom’s got it, though he says he hasn’t. Doctors en’t allowed to catch things from their patients. But Elisabeth idn’t no doctor and she’s real bad.’ He handed her some cheese and a bottle of milk. ‘Tis gone into Hildie’s back, so if you can manage the twins tonight we’d be real grateful. By tomorrow we should be on the mend.’
She nodded and continued loading the fridge. ‘You might think you are, but it’s the weakness. It undermines everything. Let’s see how it goes. If I can manage the twins, and you can manage Tom and Elisabeth, we ought to be back to normal in two or three days. Tomorrow is too soon.’ She closed the fridge door, and glanced at him. ‘Let me make some coffee . . . Mick.’
He grinned. ‘That’d be nice. I’m sick of barley water.’
She put on the kettle and they went in to see Hildie. She was sitting with her back against the radiator, and Tom was on his knees in front of the sofa changing nappies. He looked terrible. Viv patted Hildie’s shoulder, and knelt by Tom. ‘I’ll do Joy.’ She slid off the nappy and used a handful of wet wipes. Joy stopped yelling and cycled her freed legs crazily.
Hildie said, ‘She’s well named. Leave her be a while, Viv.’
Tom clinched velcro fastenings, and Michael’s protests subsided into grumbles. Tom said he sounded like old Jinx, up at the nursing home. Hildie said, ‘Nothing like. These two set each other off. Crying or laughing. One starts, the other follows. They’re friends already . . . they trust each other.’
Hardy brought in the coffee, but Tom shook his head as he staggered to his feet. ‘I’ll have to lie down for a while. I’ll get myself some barley water and take a couple of paracetamol.’
‘What about Elisabeth?’
‘I’ll take up enoug
h for two.’ Tom smiled feebly at his mother. ‘Perhaps this is a test for how we’ll cope when we’re old.’
Hildie made no comment. Hardy said to Viv, ‘We didn’t want her going back home and giving this to her little girl.’
Viv said, ‘Maisie. Such a pretty name.’
Hildie said, ‘Yes. I said just the same thing.’ She called into the hall, ‘Rub some of that ointment on your feet.’
‘It’s a vapour-rub, Ma. Chest, not feet.’
‘Everything starts and ends with the feet. I read about it in my magazine. Rub it on your feet, Tom. There’s a good lad.’ She looked surprised when Viv sat back on her heels almost collapsing with laughter. Tom stuck his head back through the door. He was laughing, too. Hildie said, ‘See? It’s working already!’
Tom disappeared, closing the door after him. Joy punched the air with clenched fists, Michael gurgled. Viv said, ‘This is nice. It’s good to see you again. I’ll keep in touch on the telephone.’
Hardy said seriously, ‘Listen. Tom is set on making them go through the night. If they cry, don’t pick them up. Just stand by them with your hands on their heads and wait.’
‘For how long?’
‘Tis usually about fifteen minutes.’
‘No boiled water? No soothing chats?’
‘Just the hands on the heads.’
‘And then I go? But they’ll start up again straight-away.’
‘Yes. They do. But that won’t go on for ever.’
‘Oh my God.’
Hildie said, ‘We know. Tom hasn’t had one night’s sleep since he brought them home.’ She sighed. ‘Do what you think best, Viv. Boiled water sounds fine to me.’
Viv took them to the bungalow. It was two journeys getting the car-seats and all the other equipment back. And they woke at midnight and again at one o’clock and four o’clock. She gave them the water and talked to them gently. She did not take them out of their car-seats until four, when she winded them one at a time and changed their nappies. They woke at eight and seemed delighted to see her still in her pyjamas. She lifted them from their cots on to the bed, wedged them in with pillows, and got in beside them.
‘Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it?’ She stroked their tiny faces. ‘Those heaters are marvellous . . . we didn’t feel cold . . . we didn’t feel thirsty . . . and we didn’t feel lonely.’ She tickled under their chins and both babies chortled and kicked. ‘Now. If I take your nappies off and pop a big towel under you, will you do your exercises while I make breakfast? You will? Come on, then, let’s give it a go.’ She suited actions to words, and then went into the kitchen opposite the bedroom door. When they chortled, she chortled back. She whipped around, making up their bottles, making herself a thermos of tea and adding a long straw. She felt stronger than she’d felt since this bug had hit them all. She called over her shoulder, ‘We can do this, Michael! We sure can, Joy! We’re the indefatigables!’ She laughed, and they laughed back.
It didn’t last all morning, of course. They slept until a very early lunchtime, and then grizzled while she ate hers. She longed for a nap herself; the rest of the day spread unendingly before her. Then the bell ping-ponged, there was the sound of her spare key in the lock, and Hildie and Mick cooeed their way down the hall.
Hildie was cocooned in coats, scarves, and a woolly hat that practically met beneath her chin.
‘We know this is the time they need something extra – just when you haven’t got it to give! So Hardy piled me into the van, and said it could be our first outing. We’ll play with them while you have a nap. Don’t come out of your room until we come in with tea!’
Hardy smiled at her and the babies. They scooped up a twin each, and herded Viv out of the room. Through the bedroom wall she could faintly hear them going through nursery rhymes. She looked at the rumpled duvet and fell into it, kicking off slippers as she went. But as she lay there, hearing life in the other room, she knew that the ‘blessed bug’ had left her, and her strength was coming back. She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t sleep, but she would make the most of this breathing space, for Hildie’s sake.
The very next instant she opened her eyes to a knock on the door, and in came Hildie with a tray. She had slept for an hour. The best sleep she had had for a long time.
Hildie was bent over the tray, but smiling. ‘There’s some of your marmalade sponge in the tin. Shall we finish it up?’
‘What about the twins?’
‘They can’t manage the peel in the marmalade.’ Hildie’s brown eyes twinkled. ‘No, they’re lying on the floor in front of the guard, watching the fire. Stay put. Hardy’s keeping an eye. And I want to talk to you.’
So they drank tea while Hildie tried to tell Viv how she felt about Elisabeth Mason. Viv sipped her tea and listened, and eventually held up her hand.
‘Do you know what I think?’ she asked rhetorically. ‘I think you were hatching plans to pair off Tom and me.’
Hildie was flustered. ‘Not really. Not like that, anyway. But I thought . . . well, you both need a friend—’
‘But we are friends. Now. We weren’t at first, but since Elisabeth’s arrival we’re . . . all right. I honestly think we’re all right. And if we are, then it’s because of Elisabeth.’ She put her mug back on the tray, and looked at Hildie. ‘She’s nice. A nice woman. And exactly right for Tom.’
Hildie thought about it. ‘Yes. You’re right. It’s just that . . . our Tom doesn’t seem very good about women. And after Della . . . it all seemed such a mess, so I thought she – Elisabeth – would be another mess.’ She tried to smile. ‘You seemed just right for him. I didn’t mean to try and make a match.’
‘Of course not. There’s ten years between us. And I’m too old to be a stepmother. Whereas Elisabeth is just the right age. And with a ready-made sister for them.’
‘And a lot of problems of her own.’ Hildie smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not pleased about that, but it might make her more understanding of Tom’s.’
Viv took the tray into the kitchen and cut the cake, and they joined Hardy and the babies in front of the fire. Hildie wanted to go on talking about Tom and Elisabeth. ‘It’s barely four months since Della died . . . But then of course they had already been together before that . . .’
Viv noticed how skilfully Hardy turned the conversation. ‘You done a real good job out there, Viv,’ he said. He nodded through the window. ‘Everything looks good. Snowdrops is late, though.’
She went to the window. ‘That little cluster around the witch hazel is out. And look at the verbena and jasmine.’
Hildie joined her and looked down the windy, wet garden sadly. ‘I almost forgot about the world. It still keeps turning.’
Viv held her arm, and gently rubbed her back through several layers of clothing. ‘People thought I was still in touch with nature when I did my runs. But I rarely noticed a thing.’
Hardy said, ‘Not surprising. You ran at night, din’t you? A wonder you didn’t break a leg or worse.’ He turned and looked down at the babies, who were now studying their own feet. ‘We ought to go, my maid. Tis getting dark.’
Viv walked with them to the door, and noticed how awkwardly Hildie got into the van. She went back to the twins, made up the fire, and talked to them about the importance of keeping well. They made small staccato sounds in reply. They turned their heads when she brought in the carrycots and warmed the sheets. She smiled at them, knowing that they were watching her. When she left them to make up their feeds, they cried. The crying accelerated when she began the laborious business of positioning them, but then, magically, ended as they began their evening feed. It all took so long. Viv realized that without Elisabeth’s professional help it would take all three Hardys to feed, clean, wind and change these two small babies every three hours. She put them down at eight o’clock and carried each cot into the bedroom. Then she went back to the living room – and just as she collapsed on to the sofa, they started crying.
She simply could not face standing
over their cots with her hands on their heads, so she brought them back in with her. They were so surprised they stopped wailing. She switched on the television without the sound. The fire flickered, the picture flickered, the twins were mesmerized. Two or three times during that night she got up to add another log to the embers; the babies made small animal sounds, but they did not wake until the window was full of grey light. Then Michael opened his eyes and examined the inside of his cot. Then he shouted a greeting to anyone who might be around, and Joy returned it.
Viv looked down at them from the sofa. She grinned. ‘D’you realize we’ve broken every rule in the book, and it’s worked!’
They clenched their fists and shouted. But they did not cry.
Sixteen
THE SLUSH CLEARED, and the overhanging icicles dripped and ran down the windows. Viv took the children over in turn to trace the rivulets with tiny forefingers. She ran two inches of warm water into the bath, and supported them while they slapped it with wide-spread hands. Then she soaped them gently, swilled them off, lifted them on to warm towels and rolled them up.
‘Sausage rolls! Two for a penny!’
She carried them in by the fire and patted them dry. Joy was already making efforts to roll on to her tummy. Viv gave her some help and watched, fascinated, as Joy lifted herself into a press-up position, and pushed one knee forward, but then slipped back.
‘Sausage rolls just roll . . .’
Joy persevered rather too long, and ended up crying with frustration.
‘Listen, little sausage.’ Viv cuddled her consolingly. ‘You’re only four months. Too soon to be crawling.’
She dressed them and propped them deep in the sofa, where they could see across the room and through the window at the melting world. She was expecting Juniper for coffee that morning, and hoped they would delay their nap until Juniper had seen them.
Sure enough there was the familiar ping-pong at the front door before Viv had cleared the bathroom, and there was Juniper’s usual nurse – Belle – at the handles of a wheelchair, and Juniper looking like a member of a Turkish harem, swathed in clothing that revealed her eyes only. There was much laughing as they got her down the hall and into the living room, and then pandemonium as the beautifully presented babies burst into wails of alarm at the sight of the chair and its contents.