by Rose Tremain
But she had been cared for. That ward of hers had been a bit crowded and it was so hard to sleep, she complained, in that line of wheezing, snoring old ladies, that they had to give her sleeping pills, and that depressed her. The recipe for a good night’s sleep, she’d always said, was to get up early, and so no wonder, because now she never got up at all.
‘Remember those mornings, doin’ Madam’s tray?’
‘Never forget them, Vera, the care you took.’
‘Little sprigs of parsley on ’er butter.’
‘Clean tray cloth every day.’
‘She knew I took trouble.’
‘Of course she did.’
‘Poor old thing.’
Then the tears again. Nodding there on her pillow, her eyes brimming over. Sometimes her freckled nurse would pass and see her crying and come and puff up her pillows and try to think of a joke to crack. Sometimes Vera clung to her arm.
Yes, they’d cared for her, as far as they could. They hoped she’d die, because they knew she’d have to lie there till she did.
No, thought Sadler, whatever was I saying – Vera was all right? She wasn’t all right. She’d lain there for nearly two years, staring out at the long ward. She’d seen people die in beds that were occupied by other people the next day, seen them die and so on and on, until she was the only one left of the original company. Then she died in the night, in her sleep, drugged no doubt, and unaware. Sadler had gone to visit her the following day and found someone else in her bed. She’d been replaced.
No one to replace me, thank God, he thought. He’d seen to that. Left the old neglected house to the state, left it all to the Government, because at least they’d think of something sensible to do with it. They’d see it was filled with pregnant women, or geriatrics, and it would flower, its windows would shine with usefulness, and the infants born there or the old people dying there would, for a day or two, fill their lungs with the air of paradise – for wasn’t it paradise that the place had once been called? And that view from his room, that sky of a moment ago, that was as good a first or last glimpse of God’s heaven as you were likely to get. You couldn’t grumble, if, through eyes half open or eyes almost closed you saw that.
Dreadful, though, to start counting sunsets. A hundred more? Ten more? Only one more? Or couldn’t you be certain even of one? At his age and with this coldness and this feeling of not wanting to move …
Get up. That was it. Get down to the warm kitchen, have a word with the dog, make tea. You’ll feel better if you just get up and dress and get into the warm. You could listen to the wireless and in no time you’ll have forgotten Vera and all this maudlin nonsense about sunsets. And then after tea, you could look for that key again and spend the evening rummaging about upstairs in the room, seeing what’s there, getting absorbed, forgetting to notice time, go to bed late in that narrow bed, sleep through Sunday, sleep without dreaming till it’s Monday again and Mrs Moore comes …
Sadler was going through all this in his mind, but he hadn’t moved. Moving seemed so difficult, his body so sluggish. Downstairs the dog was whining. Tired of the hot kitchen, probably, dying to get out and sniff the dark.
‘Coming!’ Sadler shouted. But still he didn’t move. I could, he thought, if I just had someone to hold on to, to get me started. If I just had Mrs Moore’s skinny arm, or Vera’s nurse’s big freckled one. If someone could just help me to sit up, I’d be all right. I could get my legs going then, swing them out even. Because it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a reason for getting up. Thousands of times, he must have got out of bed to stare at a blank day, days and days empty of purpose and meaning. But today, he’d had this brain-wave about visiting his old room, and he wanted to go up there, he was looking forward to it. He kept imagining how he’d feel as he walked in. He knew it would make him feel better. So why, when for once he had something to do, couldn’t he move?
He put his arms behind his head, raising it up, so that he could watch the gathering darkness more easily. And he thought about lying just like that in a little flat bottomed boat on a hot afternoon, watching the mayfly hatching off the water, lying absolutely still, trapped by the heat, lulled by the sound of the water licking the boat, letting his eyes move now and then, but nothing else, only his eyes moving lazily from the shining water to gaze up at Tom’s face that was pink from the effort of rowing and that now and then smiled at him. That was a stillness he hadn’t wanted to break. It was so perfect a stillness that he hadn’t even dared to move a muscle. Thirty years ago now. Thirty years since he’d loved.
He heard an owl hoot and it made him smile. Because for a long time he’d pretended to be frightened of owls, told Annie that their hooting scared him, so that she’d come closer to him. They hadn’t really frightened him at all, or if they had, he’d soon forgotten it. Owls were just an excuse to make Annie stroke his hair, to drift softly to sleep held in her arm. It was beyond imagining now, that kind of peace.
Carefully, Sadler brought his arms down from under his head. They’d only been there a minute or two and they were stiff already. Then, pushing back the bed clothes, he levered himself up on to his elbows, pushed himself back till he was sitting propped against the bedhead. He reached out and turned on the light. The light was blinding. He sat still and blinked until his eyes were used to it. Then he stared at the room. It was such an empty room, almost nothing in it; just the bed, a bedside table and lamp, an armchair and an electric fire. ‘Can’t abide clutter,’ the Colonel had said, stroking his cupboards. ‘Clutter’s for women. I like empty space.’ But open any one of the cupboards and what would you find but the clutter of ages, the debris of a whole life. And somewhere, among all those discarded things, there was a lock of hair perhaps, or a photograph of a girl he’d called Angel. Just shows, thought Sadler.
It was easier now, with the light on, to get out of bed. He managed it without any pain at all, but his body stank of urine; he’d have to wash that away at least, even if he did nothing about the bed. So he put on his dressing-gown and limped off to the bathroom. He ran some hot water, took off all his clothes and began to sponge his body.
He never looked at himself any more, only at his chin when he remembered to shave it, but never at his body. The sight of it disgusted him. Not that, as a young man, he’d been particularly proud of it. It had been straight enough and quite strong, but nothing you’d want to show off. No, what he would have liked was to be a child, to be the boy he once was. There was a photograph of himself, just the one (taken by the treacherous Betsy), of him and Annie hand in hand. He still had it. Sometimes he’d sit down and stare at it with a magnifying glass, trying to see in that tiny face some connexion, some unalterable relationship with his own. And there was nothing.
Cleaned with soap, at least his body was less repulsive than stinking of itself. Sadler allowed himself the briefest glance at it before he brought it back to the camouflage of its old clothes. He sat down on the bed to put on his socks and the smell of the sheets made him retch. To think that a moment ago he’d been lying there …
‘Smells of piss, this ’ospital, Mr Sadler.’
‘No. It’s only ether, Vera. They all smell of it.’
‘This one smells o’ piss.’
‘Look, smell these flowers, dear.’
Chrysanthemums. They hardly smelt at all.
‘Oh lovely.’
Sadler was dressed now and about to go downstairs. Then he heard the car. With his bedroom light on, betraying his presence, there was no hiding this time from his caller. When he heard the car door bang, he went to one of the windows, trying to see through the reflected room into the darkness beyond. He craned and squinted, but he could see nothing. The lights of the car were turned off. Then the door bell rang and the dog, bristling to his role as guard, trotted out into the hall and began a defiant yapping.
Sadler shuffled out on to the landing and looked down. He could see the dog and he could see the front door, but neither gave him any clue. But he’d have to open the
door. Too late now to turn his light off and play dumb, and there was no one else (not like in the Colonel’s day) no one else to send. He’s got me, Sadler thought wearily. Could be death itself, and I’d trot obediently to the door, open it with a smile.
‘I’m coming!’ Sadler called.
Seeing him come down the stairs, the dog ceased its yapping, looked expectantly from him to the door.
‘Good boy,’ said Sadler.
Sadler opened the front door, brought his eyes cautiously round it.
‘Only me.’
‘Who?’
It was so dark outside with the light gone in the porch, that Sadler could only see the white of a face, not a face he knew.
‘Me. Can I come in?’
The Reverend Chapman was a stubby, rather unkempt man. Just right for the small part of Barrabas he’d played in a crucifixion play at school. His hair, once very thick and black, was thinning; his skin, which looked as if it should be tanned, was yellow. His hands seemed, year by year, to get larger and more clumsy, or his Bible smaller. He wasn’t what you expected a vicar to be.
‘I called earlier.’
‘Did you? That was you, then?’
The dog, his tiny burst of aggression spent, was all friendly docility now. He came a-licking, and the vicar, always trying for the appropriate gesture, bent down and gave him a pat.
‘Silly to say, not disturbing you? Bet I am. I usually am. People are too polite, thank the Lord, to send me away.’
‘No, you come in Mr Chapman. It’s a change for me to have a visitor. Tea?’
‘Yes, thank you. If it’s no trouble.’
‘Come in the kitchen. It’s warm in there.’
The vicar looked about him.
‘It’s a long time since I was up here.’
‘To tell the truth, I don’t remember. Don’t make much sense out of time these days.’
‘Living alone, Mr Sadler. None of us is very good at living alone.’
‘Well I’m good at it, done it for long enough.’
‘Get about much these days, do you?’
‘Oh I totter. The dog’s as bad as I am, both of us old.’
‘I remember you had a dog. What was it you call him?’
‘Nothing. No need.’
The vicar sat there nodding, while Sadler made the tea. When he turned round he saw beads of sweat on the vicar’s head.
‘Too warm for you?’
‘Well, it is warm, yes. I’ll take my coat off, that’d be better.’
‘Feel the cold myself.’
‘Do you?’
‘In the joints.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I’m seventy-six any time now – today even.’
‘Same age as the year.’
‘That’s it. Born in 1900.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sugar, do you?’
‘Well, I do. Except in Lent.’
‘One spoonful or …?’
‘No, no, none, Mr Sadler. It is Lent.’
‘Is it? Forty day and forty nights. Surest way to beat the devil is to grow old. Nothing to tempt you when you’re old.’
‘Very probable. But we all have our little indulgences, even in old age, don’t we?’
Sadler chuckled. ‘Nothing much left to indulge!’
The vicar nodded. He ran his hand through the strands of hair that crossed his bald patch. Without realizing it, he left a few of them sticking out. Then he took one nervous sip at the tea Sadler had poured for him and cleared his throat.
‘I saw Mrs Moore in town today.’
‘Did you? Well, she still comes and does the chores.’
‘I would have called on you, anyway, I daresay. I like to get round all my parishioners from time to time. But I came mainly at her insistence.’
‘Drink your tea, Mr Chapman.’
‘Oh, I will yes. Well, you see she does feel —’
‘Ssh, boy!’ (To the dog who had begun for no reason to whine.)
‘She feels that things aren’t right here, Mr Sadler.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘She couldn’t explain —’
‘Quiet now, boy!’
‘And normally, I never like to intrude, not where I’m not wanted. But a man’s soul lives in a wilderness, that’s how I imagine it, a thirsty wilderness, and I like to see the Church as a clear running stream …’
Sadler smacked the dog’s nose; it turned a cowering little circle and lay down at his feet.
‘As a what?’
‘As a stream, clear running and —’
‘Seen the stream, have you?’
The vicar shook his head.
‘It used to be a nice place to go, but it’s full of muck now. The boy used to build these dams.’
The vicar examined Sadler’s face, and found that it disgusted him. Repulsive old man, he thought, let God punish him.
‘Yes, we used to have fun down in the stream. If it wasn’t so dark and I wasn’t … I could take you and show you.’
‘Another day, perhaps.’
‘The first row’s the difficult one. You must get really big stones for your foundations, or you never get started. But we mastered that little stream; we could have flooded the meadow.’
‘Well, as I —’
‘You’ve got a car, then, Vicar?’
‘A car? Oh yes. I’ve had that some time.’
‘Saves your feet, does it?’
‘Yes.’
The vicar ran a hand through his scant hair again.
‘Well …’
‘You’d like to be getting along?’
‘Oh no. I stay as long as I’m welcome. I try not to intrude, but I’m not a travelling salesman. I come to everyone, not just the good clients.’
Sadler’s head ached. He wanted the vicar to leave.
‘I’m one of your worst, I daresay.’
‘You’re very courteous, Mr Sadler. God will de —’
‘Mrs Moore makes up for me, doesn’t she?’
‘God will judge. But I’m happy you mentioned Mrs Moore again; I’m afraid I —’
‘She prays for me, you know.’
‘I believe she does.’
‘It’s not enough, of course.’
‘I might as well tell you, I told you a bit of a lie just now.’
‘You, Vicar? God wouldn’t like —’
‘Yes, it’s always in circumstances like this, a very delicate choice between constructing a story and giving pain. I don’t like to see pain, Mr Sadler, and I see it every day. Sometimes I feel I can perceive pain where others see none, nothing at all …’
Sadler put down his teacup.
‘I’m puzzling you, aren’t I? Very wrong of me. I should tell you what I came to tell you and I will.’
‘Quiet, boy!’ Sadler kicked out at the dog, whose whining hadn’t ceased.
‘It concerns Mrs Moore. I lied when I said I met her in town. She telephoned me this morning and asked me to talk to you then, before she left, but I believe you were out and couldn’t come to the telephone. She found it difficult to explain things to me. She said she didn’t want to let you down, Mr Sadler, but she’d been trying to tell you for weeks and she didn’t know where to turn, but to me. You see, she’s a nervous woman, not terribly well, and for a long time now, months, I think, she’s been finding it very distressing to work here. She couldn’t really tell me why, but she made me realize what a burden this work was for her. She wanted me to tell you that she won’t be coming any more.’
‘Too untidy, am I?’ Sadler’s voice was very flat.
‘No, no, I don’t think so. But it’s a big house, isn’t it, and she’s not young any more. And I think she’d like more time to herself and more time for God.’
‘I never used to be untidy.’
‘You must understand she didn’t want to let you down. She told me she asked you some time ago to find a replacement.’
‘In the Colonel’s day, there was never any dust here. I supervised
all the cleaning. And there was a lot of furniture in those days. Most of it sold, now, you see …’
‘No, it wasn’t that, Mr Sadler. She had no complaints … she couldn’t pin it down. But I could see pain. I could see pain without seeing her. And I knew she needed my … interception.’
The dog skulked off to its mat by the Aga. With a bright black eye, it watched Sadler and a series of little tuneless whimpers escaped from its body. Sadler thought suddenly, I love the little rat. He thought he would have felt comforted if he could have lifted up the dog and held it close to him. And he felt ashamed that he’d never given it a name.
‘Well …’
‘You going, Vicar?’
‘I’m the bearer of bad tidings, am I? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you relied so much …’
Rover, Fido, Rex … those were dogs’ names, weren’t they?
‘There’s a good delivery service, I suppose, for your groceries?’
But named, the dog would take on too much importance, become indispensable to him and he couldn’t let that happen.
‘Mather’s deliver still, do they?’
Sandy, Bonzo, Scamp … No. Better to get rid of the dog now, quickly before the name came to him.
‘Mr Sadler …?’
No need, in this freezing weather, to have him put down. Just shut him out one night, bury him in the morning.
‘I must be going, Mr Sadler.’
He must do it soon, or the name would come to him.
‘I’ll leave you then. Got to make a few more calls tonight. Never any time on Sunday, not now I cover three parishes. Musical pulpits, a vicar’s life is these days!’
Sadler just nodded.
‘I’ll pop in again, soon.’
Sadler didn’t stir. Not even to take the hand proffered to him.
‘No chance of seeing you at matins in the morning?’
Sadler shook his head.
‘Another time perhaps. Well, I’ll see myself out.’
And so he was gone. Sadler sat still, waiting till he heard the car start up and drive away, and then he shut his eyes, listening very very carefully to the tiny sounds he could hear – the electric clock ticking, the fridge drumming faintly, wind in the trees outside.
Sure then, that he was quite alone, he got up, called the dog without looking at it, opened the back door and sent it tottering out into the night. He shut and locked the door, turned back into the kitchen and with a fumbling hand began searching for the key to his old room. When he found it, he grabbed it like a prisoner might the key to his cell.