by Lucy Dillon
Sam called round when the stairlift was being fitted to see if she needed any help. He knew the situation, even before he saw the workmen; Tiffany had told his granny up at Butterfields, who’d told him. The Osbornes were all very sorry, he said; his parents remembered Bernard’s prize-winning roses in the local show.
‘Not Joyce the prize-winning artist?’ Lorna raised an eyebrow. ‘Or the photographer son?’
‘We’re farmers,’ said Sam. ‘It’s all about the crops. Speaking of which, let me take you for a run out. You look like you need to get away.’
She glanced upstairs. ‘Joyce is having a nap, so …’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Fresh air. I want to talk to you.’
He drove her out of town. They didn’t say much, and Lorna gazed at the countryside as it passed – cotton-wool sheep, stocking-stitch green fields. It was good to be out, she had to admit. She felt too numb for any tingles of romance; she assumed Sam was taking her to Rooks Hall when he turned left towards the farm. Maybe to show her the re-decoration? Or to take flowers back for Joyce’s room?
Instead Sam drove up one of the farm tracks, bumping the Land Rover over the grass towards the field where his dad’s Belted Galloways were grazing. He pulled up, and chucked her a fleece and a pair of wellies from the back. ‘There you go, Cinderella. You’re about Mum’s size, as I remember?’
‘Do you?’
‘Pretty sure we had to lend you a pair once. In the dim and distant.’ She couldn’t believe his teenage self had even registered her shoe size. ‘Follow me.’
It was cold, and she wrapped the fleece round her to keep out the November chill as Sam marched confidently towards the cows. They were compact and shaggy, with big brown eyes and the distinctive stripe round their bellies; the way two or three of them approached Sam suggested that they were familiar with humans. His compromise, with his dad. Some of his principles, in return for some of his dad’s joy in life.
‘They look like they’ve been knitted,’ Lorna observed.
‘Don’t they? Hello, my lovely.’ He scratched one on its head, behind the ridge on its head where the horns would be. It butted his shoulder with its hairy nose. ‘They’re gentle creatures, cows. I’ve always found them calming in times of stress. Since I was little.’
‘I know,’ said Lorna. ‘I remember you telling me.’
Sam turned back to the cow. ‘I’ve struggled with the whole “life cycle of farming” thing. But I remember Dad telling me that we’ve all got a time, whether you’re a human, or a cow, or a head of barley. Our side of the bargain was to give that beast the best possible life in the time it had. To treat it with dignity and respect, let it feel the sun and the rain. We argued about that, obviously. Gabriel would say it makes better meat. But when I see these cows in the field, happy and well treated, enjoying every moment to the full extent of their cow-pabilities …’
He was trying to make it light for her, but Lorna’s eyes filled with tears.
‘I just don’t want her to go,’ she managed. ‘I don’t want her to go! Not yet!’
She’d been keeping positive for days on end, but Sam’s attempt at tenderness broke the dam inside her, and big gulping sobs tumbled out, swallowing her words.
‘I’ll miss her!’ she sobbed. ‘I feel like I’ve only just started to get to know her, and now she’s disappearing in front of me! It’s so hard to watch her fading and know there’s nothing we can do. It’s worse than Mum and Dad, in a way.’
‘Oh, Lorna.’
‘There has to be something – would she be better in a hospice? We never really got a second opinion …’ Her mind was running wildly, scrabbling for something to hold on to that might stop the time sliding away, taking Joyce with it.
‘You can’t control this, Lorna.’ Sam held her at arm’s length so she could see his serious, sympathetic expression. ‘This isn’t about your mum and dad. You can’t make up for what you didn’t do then by overriding what Joyce wants now. Be with her, but let her go.’
Lorna gazed at him, struggling for words, and then he wrapped her up in his arms, gripping her tight against his chest. She let him because she didn’t care if this was brotherly or not; it was comforting.
‘I’m sorry about Gabriel.’ He spoke into her hair. ‘I bollocked him when I found out what he’d done. Sending that note to Joyce. What a prick.’
‘Why would he do that?’ She pulled away to see Sam’s face. He was staring grimly over towards the farmhouse.
‘Jealous,’ he said shortly. ‘Of you. Of me. Jealous of anyone who does anything out the goodness of their heart. He doesn’t get it. He never will. I’m hiring another manager for the cottages. I don’t trust him.’
Her heart was beating high and fast in her chest. ‘What do you mean, jealous?’
Sam gazed down at her. ‘Jealous of you, for having a talent for art. Jealous of me, getting out of here, having a life that’s my own. Jealous of us … our friendship.’
It hung there. Friendship . Did he mean that? Was that all it was?
‘Are you moving back to London, Sam?’ Lorna asked. ‘Do you …’ She swallowed; the words were sticking in her throat. ‘Do you have to?’
‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘That’s where the job is. I can’t stay here, I don’t want to. You’ve got a reason to stay – your heart’s in your gallery, Lorna. I’m proud of you. You’re making this place better.’
Lorna thought she’d never be able to tear her eyes from his, the beauty in them was so familiar. Please say something else, she begged in her head. But he pulled her close, with no words spoken, and they hugged, and she wanted to cry but there were no tears left.
‘Mum looked up at the sky this morning, and do you know what she said?’ Sam said over her head.
‘Santa’s come early?’
‘Snow,’ said Sam. ‘She reckons it’s going to snow.’
Back in the gallery, the afternoon passed, and it didn’t snow and Joyce rallied. She sat in her chair downstairs and dozed while Tiffany and Lorna worked around her, sometimes knitting when the gallery was quiet, sometimes talking to customers. The dogs slept by her feet, twitching and leaping awake from time to time, then settling back down again.
Once they went quiet, thinking she was asleep, and Joyce muttered, ‘Keep talking, I love to hear you talking.’
‘What would you like us to talk about?’ Lorna asked.
Joyce’s eyes flickered open. There was a flash of the old imperiousness. ‘Whatever you like. Tell me about your sister, Lorna. The teacher. Tell me how she’s getting on with that husband of hers. And Tiffany, tell me about your mother – has she come to terms with your change of career? Has she got a plan for you to meet someone out here?’
‘Oh God, I had the worst conversation with Mum – she’s found out that some duke has a gun-dog kennel about ten miles away.’ Tiffany rolled her eyes. ‘I should start dog-sitting for the country set. Apparently she’s read that the way to a toff’s heart is through his cocker spaniel …’
Lorna winked. Clearly Tiff hadn’t told her mum that Keir had taken her for a vegan meal the other night, followed by a Jean-Luc Godard showing in the tiny arthouse cinema.
‘Tell me,’ said Joyce. ‘Every detail.’
So they talked, and worked, and the invisible strands of friendship that had brought the three women together looped and knotted around them like stitches, pulling them closer, winding their stories into each other’s lives, carrying them on to the next row.
Nina had warned Lorna that when the end came, it would come suddenly.
‘You’ll know,’ she said, and reeled off a list of physical changes that Lorna had to admit she could see in Joyce, but by Friday night something in the room had changed. Joyce was sleeping most of the time now, and the atmosphere around her bed was close, as if it was filling with a different sort of air. Souls, maybe, or dreams. Hopes, or memories.
‘Don’t be surprised if she starts talking about people coming for her,’ Nina warned as
the nurses moved softly around Joyce, sliding in the pain-relief needle, hiding it thoughtfully under the blanket. ‘Her mum and dad, or her husband.’
Lorna wasn’t surprised by the idea. What surprised her was the powerful yearning she had to pull her own mother close through the still evening, to feel Cathy’s hand on her back as she sat up late into the small hours, keeping Joyce company until the night nurse arrived, as she breathed and dreamed and jerked her stiff hands on the bedclothes as if she was playing with paint, or picking flowers in a garden on the edge of a cliff.
She’d hung the painting of the cottage on the cliff directly opposite Joyce’s bed, so it was the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last thing at night. It gave Lorna comfort to sink into its safe white walls; she hoped it was helping Joyce somewhere.
The town hall clock struck three, and Lorna pulled a curtain back to see what was happening outside. She’d stopped feeling sleepy days ago; she seemed to be running on a weird adrenalin.
‘I think it’s snowing,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember when it last snowed in November. Can you?’
Joyce didn’t respond but Lorna carried on. ‘I always thought the garden looked warm when it snowed, because we used to use cotton wool for snow when we made models at home. I thought the garden had a blanket.’
Bernard stirred by the bed. He’d given up his frantic bounciness; his sole job now was watching, and waiting.
‘Mum never minded us making a mess with our craft things in the kitchen,’ Lorna went on. ‘Glueing and sticking, and painting. Everything covered in newspaper and glitter.’ She smiled to herself. Christmas collages, their annual treat. A rare instance of a childhood activity the three of them enjoyed.
‘When I think about my childhood, it’s all bright colours. Poster paints and plastic macs and Smarties. I bet Ronan’s was too. What a wonderful book of memories you gave him.’
Joyce’s breathing was slowing, with long pauses. Lorna moved round the room, putting the portrait of baby Ronan nearer the bed, just in case Joyce could sense it.
Was he there? Was Bernard waiting?
She looked around, in case there was something else Joyce needed. Nina had said hearing was the last sense to go, so they’d been playing the Motown music Joyce had loved in her art-school youth; they burned lavender and rose candles to remind her of her garden. Lorna had moved most of the knitted flowers up to Joyce’s room so she’d get an idea of what her last beautiful thing might look like, but as the moonlight fell on to the bare grey of the street outside, Lorna was gripped with a powerful urge to do something bigger. Something better.
Joyce took a long rattling breath, and then … nothing. Lorna swung round in panic. Was that it? Joyce’s mouth was open; her chest wasn’t moving. Oh God, oh God, not yet, she thought, and rushed over to the bed.
‘Joyce?’ She bent down, grabbing her mottled hand. ‘Joyce? Hang on. We haven’t finished yet.’
There was a silence, then another laboured breath. Lorna felt the air return to her own lungs as her heart pounded with oxygen.
They had so little time left. No time to waste.
She went through to Tiff’s room, where she was curled up in a ball under the duvet, snoring like a kitten. Lorna shook her awake.
‘Tiff? Tiff? I want to do it now,’ said Lorna.
Tiffany rubbed her eyes. ‘Do what?’
‘The yarnstorm. We have to do it now, before Joyce … before Joyce goes. Please. The night nurse is coming at half three, we can be out for a few hours.’
Tiff sat up in bed. Years of nanny training snapped her awake at any hour. ‘What time is it now?’
‘Just gone three o’clock. I want Joyce to look out of her window and see her flowers in the trees outside. Come on ,’ Lorna finished urgently. ‘We don’t have very long. It’s snowing; the roads are going to get closed.’
‘But, Lorna …’
‘Come on. Please . We need to do this. I don’t want Joyce to go before she sees her final beautiful thing.’
Tiffany looked at her as if she might be dreaming the conversation, then sighed. ‘Fine. Make me a coffee.’
The plastic crates of knitting were stacked up in the office, marked with the street and the type of flower inside. Lorna grabbed everything marked for the high street, the parts Joyce would be able to see out of her window. A thick oak tree for the postbox outside, some sweet-pea netting, a flock of chalky cabbage whites, bright brave red Flanders poppies for the War Memorial …
‘How are we going to do this?’ Tiff shivered by the car, snowflakes floating and sticking to her hat.
‘Do what?’
She pointed at the tree. ‘How are we going to get up there? Fly?’
‘I have a plan. Just start on the flowers and I’ll get on it.’
As Tiff unpacked the first boxes, Lorna took a deep breath and dialled a number. She spoke before he had time to ask who the hell it was. ‘Sam, I need your help.’
His voice was croaky. ‘At half three in the bloody morning?’
‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I’ll never ask you for another favour after this.’
‘What is it?’ His tone changed. ‘Oh. Is this to do with Joyce?’
‘Yes. Please.’ Lorna was barely keeping the tears at bay. ‘I need you to help me put the flowers up. I think she’s going and I need her to see what she’s created, what she’s helped me do, before … Before she …’
‘I’m coming,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right there.’
Chapter Thirty
The yellow street lights threw a supernatural glow over the deserted high street, making it look like a film set. The butcher, the baker, the charity shops … the snow fell in thick clumps, barely swirling in the still air, and settling in the scoops of electric light.
Sam’s Land Rover rumbled down the white road, with ladders lashed to the top. He was wearing his farm coat and a trapper hat, and he pulled off his gloves in a businesslike way that gave Lorna the same reassurance she felt when Nina the care nurse walked in, with her confident, assessing eye fixing problems Lorna couldn’t even see.
‘So, you crazy woman, how do we do this?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘If we need reinforcements I can ring for some – they’ll be getting up with the cows. I reckon the girls can wait an hour or two if it’s important.’
She gazed at him, sinking into the relief of having him there. A pulse was starting in her heart, pushing the blood around even faster. Time was ticking past, for dawn, for Joyce, for the snow, but they were racing it, matching it breath for breath.
‘I want to put apples in the tree opposite Joyce’s bedroom,’ she said. ‘So when she looks out, she’ll see Ronan’s tree bearing fruit.’
Sam turned round to see where she was pointing. The bare branches of the cherry tree were dark against the light, spiking into the night. He didn’t flinch. ‘Right. We can stand on the roof for the lower branches, then I’ll get the ladder down for the rest.’
Tiff and Lorna climbed on to the Land Rover with the box of apples and started bunching them in clumps, stringing them on the branches until the boughs were heavy with fruit. They were streaky Braeburns and red Scrumptious, stuffed with chopped-up tights by the primary-school children. When the lower branches were filled, Sam got his ladder out and Tiffany held it as he slung himself up like the tree-climbing country boy he’d been, stretching out with unexpected grace to hang the apples Lorna passed him.
The tree took half an hour, working fast, and when they’d finished it was the most beautiful thing Lorna had ever seen. A ruby-red crop of apples hanging in the branches of a starkly leafless tree, dusted with the diamond sparkle of frost forming around them. It was magical. She and Joyce had brought summer out of winter, conjured up fruit into a dormant wood.
The truly magical thing was how Joyce had woken the creativity in her too. She’d brought her to life, sparking talent in her she’d never found before.
‘Come on, no time.’ Tiffany clapped her hands
together. ‘Where can we put the sweet-pea nets?’
They pinned and pulled as efficiently as they could as the first traces of dawn began to bleach the sky. The snow didn’t seem to hamper them much; it was falling into thick, crunchy piles, and not melting where it lay. The knitting sat on top of it and the glittery whiteness only intensified the colours of the wool. Soon, lilac and powder pink sweet peas draped with their twisting tendrils over the bus stop; a brown tree trunk was tugged over the postbox, and the spriggy mistletoe woven around it. They tied sunflowers to the iron fastenings of the shop awnings all down the street, and wrapped lamp posts with coiling ivy. And here and there, they fastened Joyce’s butterflies trembling with the joy of summer sun on their fluttering wings.
‘I think we’re done,’ said Lorna finally. ‘Now we just have to show Joyce.’
Upstairs the air in Joyce’s bedroom had changed again. Despite the lavender candles that filled the flat with fragrance, a more medical smell was undercutting it: a mortal, chemical reality breaking into the carefully constructed tableau Joyce had wanted.
The night nurse, Denise, was taking Joyce’s temperature when they came in. Soft jazz was playing in the background and her lids were closed; Lorna couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or just resting her eyes in the semi-trance she slipped into more and more.
She spoke anyway. ‘Joyce, we’ve got a surprise for you. We couldn’t wait until the end of December to see what the yarnstorm would look like, so we went out and put it up now.’
There was no response. Lorna felt disappointed, but why should there have been? Denise indicated that they should keep talking.
‘That sounds lovely, Lorna,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t it, Joyce? Aren’t they good friends, going out in the snow to do that just for you! Where have you put it up?’
‘Right outside the window. So you can see when you …’ Lorna was going to say, when you wake up, then realised she might not. ‘When the sun comes up,’ she said instead.
‘It’s snowing so it looks extra magical,’ said Tiffany. ‘I think it’s going to blow everyone away when they see what we’ve done.’