by Sara Alexi
The pen changes then to pencil. It seems like a good time to stop reading, and she really should start cooking, but Saabira is drawn in by the first words of the next entry.
‘One thing that is finalised is your name. You remember that your work at Hogdykes required you to have a bank account and I took you to the bank? Do you remember that snooty girl at the bank? She was full of herself saying that you couldn’t open a bank account without a full name so I gave you mine. Remember? Then she said that I couldn’t do that, just give you a name, so I said, “We’ll see about that.”’
‘Well, as you know, we ended up giving Hogdykes my bank details which has worked out fine all these years. (Which reminds me, I’ve left my bank card on the mantelpiece, and you must remember to go to the bank and get your money from the machine in the wall every week until something new is sorted. You remember the number. It’s the year you were born. In case you forget it I’ve written it in pen on the back of the understairs door.)
‘Anyway, back to that girl in the bank. She made me cross and I was determined to get even, so, and I know it has taken me some time because – well, I had that spell in hospital with this damn disease, then I buried myself in things I felt I had to do to ignore the inevitable, and I admit for a while I forgot about it. But anyway, after sending mountains of letters backward and forward to your primary care worker and the Care in the Community team and even the council, I finally registered you officially with the my surname. Mr Cyril Sugden. So that’s you now. And I’ll tell you what, it wiped the stupid smile off the girl in the bank’s face when I went back in there because she still had a record of your signature from the last time.’
Saabira is not sure what she thinks of all this. Archie seems to be rather a pushy, arrogant man. Who names another adult after themselves and why on earth would it be useful? She shuts the book with a snap and a cloud of dust hovers over it.
She must go and put the food on. She carefully puts the book back in its place and leaves the room, but then goes back in and snatches it up. She’ll take it with her.
‘We’ve had a bath,’ Aaman announces, holding up Jay, who has a huge towel wrapped around her and a small towel like a turban on her head. She is dripping slightly, and there is a striking resemblance to Aaman’s father.
‘I have cleaned the floor and windows and Cyril says that it’s alright to remove the cooker and clean upstairs.’
‘Well, the dogs got a little muddy, but I took them through a stream on the way back and I hosed them down before they went inside, so it will still be clean, if a little wet.’ He turns to Jay. ‘We liked the dogs, didn’t we? Do you know,’ he continues to Saabira, ‘that if you walk straight up out of the back of here you get to an official walk called the Peninne Way? It says it is 286 miles long. I love how England is organised in that way, with walks that have markers to follow. Can you imagine a 286-mile walk, just for fun? That is longer than the Hunza Valley.’ Saabira loves it when Aaman gets all animated like this. ‘You could do it, couldn’t you?’ He turns back to Jay.
‘Yes, if she was strapped to your back.’ Saabira puts the kettle on to start the food.
Archie’s diary stares down at her from the kitchen shelf.
Chapter 36
Later, when Jay is asleep, Aaman and Saabira curl up in front of the fire.
‘What a day!’ Aaman says. He sounds tired but pleased.
‘Cyril seems to be sleeping a lot,’ Saabira says.
‘It’s nature’s way of healing.’
‘I want to show you something.’ She gets up to take the diary from the shelf. ‘This is Archie Sugden’s diary.’ Saabira sits on the rug at Aaman’s feet as he lounges on the sofa. ‘He said that Archie told him there was something in it that was important for him but he hasn’t read it.’ The room is thrown into high contrast by the fire, the orange flames picking out the folds on Aaman’s shirt.
‘Do you want me to take it up to him?’ Aaman doesn’t look like he wants to move anywhere. Dark shadows are deepening under his eyes, and his limbs are without life.
‘No. I had a talk with him. I am not sure, but I think he cannot read. But he also didn’t want to know what it said. He seems to have this idea that everything written down is bad news.’ Aaman strokes her hair lazily as she speaks. ‘So I offered to read it for him.’
He smiles and gives a little snort of laughter. ‘Is it interesting?’
‘I am not sure Archie was such a good man. He took Cyril into his home for money.’
‘Go on then, read a little to me.’ Aaman lets his head rest back, closes his eyes. The hand that is stroking her hair becomes still.
Saabira opens the book and finds where she had read up to.
‘It’s not dated. I don’t think it’s that sort of diary. It is entitled “The Diary of the Final Days of Archie Sugden”.’
‘Ah, he knew it was his time,’ says Aaman fatalistically.
‘Shall I not read, then?’
‘No, go on.’
‘So, this entry starts, “Today I have felt even worse. I don’t want to tell you.”’
She breaks off. ‘By the way,’ she says, ‘he is addressing all this to Cyril.’ Aaman grunts his acknowledgment. ‘So, where was I? Oh yes…’
‘Today I have felt even worse. I don’t want to tell you because I know you will worry, but I can write about it here because by the time you read this I will be gone and I won’t be suffering any more. I just feel particularly weak today and this cough feels like it is ripping the lining off my lungs – which for all I know it probably is. The pain is indescribable. I know what you would say. You are all for letting in the witches from the hospice to inflict their smug patronising charity on me. But that is not for me.”’
‘You are on the moors right now with Marion. What I would give for a last wander up on the tops, with the dog by my side, the curlews protecting their nest with their swoops and dives, to hear the grouses coarse machine-gun calls as they skim the bracken. Just for the clean moor air on my face, the sudden skirmish of startled sheep in the heather, and the endless open space that has always drawn me closer to nature and made me realise how insignificant my life really is compared to the beauty and the longevity of this planet.’
Saabira stops to look at Aaman, who is so still, with his head resting back on the sofa and his eyes closed, that he could be asleep.
‘Go on,’ he murmurs. She turns back to the book, the light of the flames dancing amongst the letters.
‘But as I sit here, pondering the enormity of the cosmos and the speck that I am in comparison, one thing keeps returning to me and lies rather heavily in my mind. I’m sure you remember the paving stone scam? Well, the first year it just seemed like an obvious thing to do. I had rung them and written to them about fixing that paving stone just outside of here. It made me cross the way they never took me seriously. I pointed out someone could trip and seriously hurt themselves, but these council people really don’t care. They are just doing a job.’
Saabira stops reading, but she leaves her finger poised under the next word.
‘This word “scam”, it means to take advantage by tricking someone?’
‘Um.’ Aaman acknowledges with minimal effort, giving no indication if he knew this or not.
Saabira returns to the book, her finger at the ready, and she slightly alters her voice, makes it lower, gruffer, almost as if Archie is talking.
‘So when you did trip it was just perfect timing and I couldn’t let such an opportunity get away. I know I pushed you into making more of it than it really was and I know how reluctant you were to sue them. As I sit here, now, thinking in retrospect, I believe it was perhaps not such a fair thing to do. All these emotions are overpowering me these days and they let me see things from a different view, and now I see how it might have been for someone as sensitive and honest as you.
‘If I had just done it that first time when you did actually trip I might not feel so bad but when I pushed you into prisi
ng up that paving stone the next year and making you play the same scam, and the year after as well, I feel pretty rotten. I thought the compensation they paid me was everything at the time. But I didn’t consider it from your point of view, and indeed, until all this recent soft sensitivity I am plagued with, I am not even sure that if I had thought about it I would have been able to understand – not on an emotional level. Not fully.
‘So, suffice it to say I understand now.’
An ember spits and the colours twist and flicker in the fire.
‘He wasn’t a nice man, was he?’ she asks Aaman. ‘I cannot understand why Cyril was so fond of him when he used him and took such advantage of him. I mean, he took Cyril in for the money he could make and then he made Cyril do this trick for money, and, if you were listening, he talks about his compensation, not Cyril’s.’
A log suddenly hisses a blue jet of flames which then dulls to a yellow, then flickers and is gone.
‘What do you think?’ Aaman does not reply, and Saabira is not surprised, when she turns to look at him, to find that he is asleep. Her eyelids are feeling heavy too, and tomorrow she must clean upstairs in Cyril’s house. Should she wake Aaman to make him to go up to bed, or bring down a blanket and make him cosy on the sofa? She never had this sort of dilemma back home. They ate and lived and slept in the same room. But also, back home she would not have to find a blanket to cover him.
She shivers as she stands and moves away from the fire. Perhaps she will bring a blanket big enough for both of them.
Chapter 37
Sunday afternoon flies by, and Cyril’s house is cleaned from top to bottom.
‘He is like a different person upstairs.’ Saabira puts the broom, mop and bucket back under her stairs. ‘The furniture is all in better repair and there is no sign of his hoarding like in the downstairs room. He could probably benefit from a chest of drawers in his room, though. All his clothes are in an open suitcase on the floor.’
Aaman is encouraging Jay to walk on unsteady legs, tightly grasping his finger with one fist, and with a big grin on her face. Aaman counts each step.
‘One, two, three! You are so clever.’ Then Jay’s legs give way and she sits heavily on the floor, cushioned by her nappy. He looks up at Saabira. ‘You have finished then?’
‘All done. Upstairs, downstairs. I even cleaned the kitchen cupboards and the cupboard under the stairs. Do you think the skip should be gone before they come to inspect tomorrow?’
‘I don’t see why.’ He claps his hands and Jay copies. ‘Can you stand?’ Jay dutifully stands. ‘Can you walk?’ She wobbles, but looks determined. ‘Come on Jay, come to me.’ He jangles the front door keys. ‘Come on, come and get the keys.’ Aaman drops the keys into his shirt pocket, out of sight, and Jay’s eyes shine. She takes one step, then another, eyes wide open, her eyebrows high and her mouth open in a sustained grin as she celebrates what she can do, gasping at her own abilities. She makes a final lunge and her fingers fiddle with Aaman’s shirt until she retrieves the keys and holds them up to show everyone her prize.
‘You are so clever,’ Aaman tells her. Jay turns to Saabira to see if her mother agrees.
‘Who’s my clever girl?’ Saabira claps her hands and Jay copies, the keys rattling between her palms.
They make their evening food together. Aaman takes a plate up to Cyril and he stays up there for quite a long time, talking. Saabira feeds Jay, who then falls asleep before she is even put down. When Aaman comes back downstairs he suggests that an early night would do them all good, so, after they have eaten, Aaman insists the pots are left until tomorrow and they climb the stairs together, Aaman behind her, his hands on her hips, half pushing, half helping himself up.
Morning brings hazy white mist rolling down off the moors, making everything so much stiller. It seems a little odd that the birds are nevertheless singing; the low cloud suggests that the world should also be silent. After feeding Jay, Saabira sets about making Aaman his breakfast, and wonders if Cyril is awake. He must be so bored of being stuck in bed. Maybe between them they can help him to come downstairs today, if he feels up to it. A change of scenery might cheer him, and not having to run up and down the stairs with cups of teas will cheer her. Not that she needs cheering – clearing Cyril’s house has given her such a sense of purpose over the weekend that, now it is done, by comparison, the day that is laid out before her lacks direction. She needs to find something to fill her time apart from Jay. Beautiful Jay. She watches her daughter’s eyelids flicker. Her first nap of the day is getting shorter and shorter. She still has her mid-morning nap as well as her afternoon sleep, but Saabira is aware how quickly things are changing. Soon her baby will be a toddler and will be walking freely. They will have to find a way to make the hot Aga safe. They might need a lock for the cupboard under the sink, too, where all the cleaning things are kept.
The sound of creaking floorboard tells her Aaman is up and she puts the kettle on and gathers the cups to make tea. Three cups. One for Cyril.
The crunching of tyres on the cobbles outside and the banging of a car door are a most unwelcome intrusion into the stillness of the beginning of her day. With the street being so narrow, those who live in Lotherton leave their cars down on the main road. It is unusual at the best of times for anyone to venture up this cul-de-sac, except on foot. In fact the only car she has witnessed coming up is Dawn Todman’s.
The banging on Cyril’s front door echoes in the emptiness of the cleared room. Its clarity through the wall is unexpected and Saabira jumps.
‘What on earth is that noise?’ Aaman comes down the stairs, his hair sticking up in every direction. He tries to flatten it with his hands, yawning, and rubs his face with his palms. The banging is repeated.
‘Is that next door?’ They both peer out of the front window into the grey dawn light.
‘That is Dawn Todman’s car. She must be here to inspect.’
‘Why so early?’
‘I suppose we had better go round and let her in?’
Aaman does not answer, but heads to the back door whilst Saabira steps out of the front.
‘Good morning, Mrs Todman,’ she says to Dawn, who is peering into the skip, ‘My husband has gone round to open up for you.’
‘Is this all from the house?’ Dawn says without a word of greeting, still eyeing the skip.
‘Yes.’
‘There must be nothing left!’
‘He has very little furniture now,’ Saabira agrees.
‘Well, if that Mr Brocklethwaite doesn’t get his way and get Septic Cyr… er, and get Cyril evicted, then there are several routes he can go down to get some furniture. There’s lots of help available for that sort of thing.’
‘Oh.’ Saabira feels caught off guard. ‘Aren’t you helping Mr Brocklethwaite to get Cyril evicted?’
‘No.’ Dawn sounds emphatic.
‘Oh,’ Saabira repeats.
‘Aye. He’s bit of an octopus after he’s had a sherry.’ She pauses, her lips twitching towards her nose in a sneer. ‘And his wife only just in the kitchen as well!’
Cyril’s front door opens a crack and Aaman pushes the dogs back to let the woman from Health and Safety in.
‘Oh yes! The porch! It’s gone!’ Dawn says. ‘So much better, and no smell. He’s not done all this by himself, has he?’ She pats Coco and scratches her behind the ears as she goes in.
‘We all helped,’ Aaman says.
‘Well, the transformation is amazing. I have to admit I’ve not been in here before, but I saw it through the door, just stuff piled high to the ceiling, and the stink.’
Coco pushes her nose into Dawn’s hand and she responds by patting her and holding the animal’s head against her leg. ‘Who’s a lovely girl, then?’ she whispers.
‘Well, I don’t think anyone can complain against this.’ She is smiling and she looks like another person. ‘But,’ and her smile fades. ‘I don’t know about all these dogs. How many are there?’ She fusses over ea
ch in turn.
‘That’s Coco, she’s Zaza, Sabi, and Blackie Boo is the black one. Teddy Tail, Gorilla Head and Mr Perfect.’ Aaman points to each in turn. Saabira feels very proud of Aaman for learning all their names. She only knows Coco, Blackie Boo – and Mr Perfect, because he is so golden, almost orange.
‘The trouble is, if they get out they’ll go around in a pack. People find that intimidating.’ She crouches down to look Gorilla Head in the face. ‘Have they all been to the vet recently?’ She feels around the dog’s ears and under its chin, and it makes a whimpering sound, grateful for the attention, and Dawn pats its flank before standing again.
Saabira exchanges a glance with Aaman. ‘I am afraid we have no idea,’ she says.
‘Hmm.’ Dawn crouches in front of Zaza and feels her ears and neck. ‘Well, they’ve no ticks, they’re not scratching and they all seem pretty healthy. What’s the rabbit situation?’
The image of the large rabbit, too fat to move, tightens Saabira’s mouth.
‘What is it?’ Dawn does not miss Saabira’s discomfort.
‘Nothing,’ Saabira lies, but she does feel concern for the big rabbit. Dawn pushes through the dogs to the back door.
‘Well, it’s not a health and safety issue but that big one needs a run, or something,’ she says, eyeing the creature critically. ‘Where is Cyril, anyway?’
‘He had a fall, and has broken his leg, so he has been recovering at our house while this one was being cleaned,’ Aaman explains.
Dawn Todman looks over incredulously, first at him and then at Saabira. A frown comes and goes on her forehead and her mouth opens as if to say something but then closes again. She looks back at the rabbit, deep in thought.
‘That is very kind of you,’ she says finally, making eye contact with Saabira. She nods her head vigorously. ‘Right. Well, I’d better be going. I’ll write up my report based on what I’ve seen. Tell Cyril that he has nothing to worry about as far as I’m concerned, except he might have to reduce his dogs’ numbers. The RSPCA can help him find new owners.’ She turns to leave. ‘On an unofficial note, and I’m not saying this as a Health and Safety officer, mind, this is just from me – if he wants to relieve himself of the big rabbit, well, I used to keep them when I was little. It might be quite nice to have one again.’ She flushes. ‘It might be better for the rabbit as well, because I have a little garden at mine and I could make a run.’ She pats the dogs again and makes her way back to the front door, where they are all startled to find Mr Brocklethwaite standing with legs wide, elbows out, sleeves rolled up, with an angry scowl on his face. ‘Ah, Mrs Todman,’ he growls, ‘have you evicted him yet?’