The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  “Jesus!” I cried, getting over the gate and helping Billy up. “Are you hurt?”

  He didn’t answer. Blood was beginning to seep through his overalls from the cuts on his shoulders and he when he stood up, his eyes were wandering all over the place. He was still dazed.

  “Come on, our Billy,” I said and led him to the gate. He was in no state to climb over, so I pulled back the latch and led him through.

  “Good work, Ernie,” I called over my shoulder and then shouted to one of the other men who was just driving into the yard on the tractor and looking out of the Perspex window wondering what was going on, “get in the pen and help Ernie with the bull. Fasten the bugger to something heavy.”

  The wind was bitterly cold off the mountain that day as I helped my brother inside but I don’t think that was the only thing that was making him shiver. He’d been frightened. Maybe for the first time in his life.

  Chapter 29

  He’s so tired now. I pleaded with him last night to stop and rest for a few days but he shook his head.

  “It has to be told,” he whispered. “All the things that happened. I want to say it while I can.”

  He looked over at me then and must have seen something in my face because he spoke again, stronger now and more forcefully. “You needn’t look like that, girl,” he said. “I haven’t got much longer to go now and well you know it. That idiot Clewes has told you, hasn’t he?”

  He did when he came round the other day. He put his stethoscope against Richard’s thin chest and listened for a moment before replacing the pyjama top.

  “Constitution of an ox, Mr Wilde,” he said heartily.

  All Richard did was snort. “You’re a lying little bastard,” he grunted, “and I’m a fool for letting you come to the house.”

  Nurse did her tut tutting thing. She is respectful of medical men and hates it when Richard treats the doctors like ordinary mortals, but all Donald Clewes did was to grin. I was standing by the door, but Richard called to me, his voice breathless and wavering with the effort.

  “You don’t want him in the house, do you, Sharon?” Without waiting for my reply he turned back to Clewes. “No. See? She doesn’t, so you can bugger off.”

  Afterwards, in the kitchen, while he was writing another morphine prescription, Donald got his own back.

  “The old boy is losing it. He’s throwing little strokes, I think. Its making him confused and inclined to say odd things.”

  “I haven’t heard any,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, he sounds perfectly rational.”

  That shut him up and I’m glad. Richard was right; I don’t want Donald Clewes in the house. Life’s complicated enough.

  I’m writing this at one o’clock in the morning. Thomas has been fast asleep for hours and I think Richard is dozing. I’ll look in on him before I go up. He’d like that. I’ve copied the last recording: all that stuff about his brother and the way Elizabeth was so mad at him for staying on at home. She never understood him. If I can see that he had responsibilities to the farm, why couldn’t she? Why would she never cut him any slack? I don’t know how he put up with her. He never blames her, in fact, in the entire story that I’ve written on this computer, he hardly blames her at all. Only once, or twice, maybe. When she married for the money and the farm and then, later, when Richard thought she had got pregnant by Billy.

  After recording that last piece, he lay back on the pillows and gestured to me to give him that photograph of the three of them as youngsters. It was lying across his chest when he went to sleep and the frame was sticking into him. I took it away because the slightest bump brings him out in a huge bruise. I’ve glanced at it before from time to time but now I studied it carefully and, no doubt, Elizabeth was beautiful, all that hair blowing around her face and those eyes that look straight into the camera. It’s almost as if she knew then that people years later would be looking at her and that she is trying to tell them something.

  The brother, on the other hand, is nothing much. He isn’t even smiling, only looking with dull eyes and sort of exasperated expression. It’s as though he thinks that having his photograph taken is a waste of time. I expect he did; from what Richard has told in his story, Billy had no patience with frippery. And there is Richard, at seventeen. Tall and gawky, in an open neck shirt, with his eyes turned away from the camera, towards Elizabeth. I wonder if he knew he loved her then?

  I’m finishing now; too tired.

  I had to get Donald Clewes back this morning. Richard had some sort of attack in the night. He couldn’t catch his breath and for a while, his left arm dangled out of the bed and he couldn’t lift it up.

  Nurse said he’d had a proper stroke and that he would be crippled now for the last few days of his life, but when I went to him after breakfast, that arm was tucked up beside him and to my astonishment, he managed to wiggle the fingers at me in a little gesture of ‘hello.’

  “I wish you’d stop frightening me like this,” I said, pretending to be cross.

  “It’ll be soon enough, girl,” he muttered and then gave me a little grin.

  It broke my heart. “You old fool,” was all I could manage as I wrapped my arms around him.

  “I want to get on with the story,” he said when I drew away.

  I nodded. I don’t care what Clewes and the nurse have said about him resting. This matters more to him than anything. “OK. Let me get my notebook and the recorder,” I said and went out of his room. Thomas met me in the hall.

  “Can I go in and see Mr Richard?” he said.

  He seems to be growing up so quickly, his legs look knobbly at the knees like a young colt’s and the sleeves of his sweatshirt never reach his wrists.

  Richard watches Thomas all the time, seeing himself, I suppose, because I have no doubt that we are related in some way. I don’t think Mum knew much about my father’s family. He was a boy from the village and Mum is a townie, as she likes to tell everyone. But she did know about his aristocratic background. Perhaps she hoped that there would be some money to go with it. Sadly disappointed, she was. My dad never had a penny to spare; it all went on the horses. And then she got in with my step-father, whose money went straight from his pay packet into the pub. What a pair they were, she and Barry, how I hated them. They shamed me.

  My father’s name was Thomas.

  “Mum,” said Thomas again, when I didn’t answer.

  “What?”

  “Can I go in to Mr Richard? Nurse said no, he’s not well. But he expects me, every morning. I have to tell him about the weather and what’s coming up in the garden. Anyway, I haven’t told him about the fox cubs Jason and I saw. Jason says he’ll have to shoot them.”

  “Oh!” I said, wondering how to soften this new blow. “How awful.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mum. They’ll grow up and get the chickens and maybe the young lambs next year. They’re no bloody use to man nor beast. Shootings too good for them!”

  He saw the frown on my face. “That’s what Jason says,” he said, defensively and beginning to blush when he realised that he’d used the sort of bad language that I complain about.

  “Go in now. Tell him about the foxes,” I said, “while I get my notebook.”

  Nurse was in the kitchen with the cleaning woman. They were sitting at the table over the teapot, both gloomily shaking their heads and I heard Nurse say that Richard was on his last legs.

  “This extra dose of morphine will finish him,” she said, leaning closer to the cleaner and lowering her voice, “but it will be a happy release. Life has nothing for him now.”

  She spoke with that sort of almost gleeful anticipation that comes over people when they are awaiting a death. I hated her at that moment. It’s early March now and another rainy day outside so that the kitchen was steamy and close, with the smell of last night’s dinner still clinging to the air. I went straight to the window and opened the half light.

  “Oo,” Nurse shivered, “I’m not sure we need the window o
pened.”

  “I am,” I said and pretended not to see the look that passed between them. They think I’m getting above myself. After all, officially, I’m still only a lodger here and, even worse in Nurse’s eyes, someone who arrived here, courtesy of the council, as a carer. Not qualified like Nurse. I have no real status as mistress of this house. It’s just that Richard trusts me, and loves me. He does, I know that. And he loves my Thomas.

  Andrew Jones turned up then. I saw him through the window, sloshing across the garden from his car and he gave me a wave. I waved back and went to the kitchen door to let him in.

  “Hello, Sharon,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. I could feel another look passing between Nurse and the cleaner.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” I said, “Did you get a call from someone?

  He shook his head. “I met Dr Clewes in the village, just now. He said Mr Wilde had taken a turn for the worse. I thought I’d call and see how he was.”

  “So much for professional discretion,” I said and didn’t bother to keep the contempt from my voice.

  “It was kind of you to enquire,” said Nurse from behind me, putting on her caring, confidential voice. She thinks I’m rude to these professional men and that anyway she has the only right in the house to talk about medical matters. “Mr Wilde has taken a turn for the worse and we fear that he has only days left.”

  I wanted to kill her, the old bitch. How dare she measure out Richard’s life like that? My face must have gone red, for Andrew put a warning hand on my shoulder. “Get your mac,” he said, “and come for a walk round the yard. I want to talk to you.”

  I hesitated. I’d promised Richard to go back with my notebook and the tape-recorder and I didn’t particularly want to talk to Andrew, but I needed a breath of fresh air. The atmosphere in the house was stifling.

  The rain had eased a little as we walked across the yard towards the home field. I could see blue sky over the mountain and the clouds were scudding furiously away to the east. Somehow, this year I have missed the season changing from winter into spring. My mind has been entirely taken up with Richard even to the extent that I have ignored my set work from college and am behind in handing in my essays. I haven’t even been taking flowers into Richard and I know he loves them so much.

  Why hasn’t he asked me? He always used to. Poor Richard, his mind is taken up too. This blessed story is obsessing him and he is desperate to put the record straight before he goes. I’ve guessed what happened, and to me, it doesn’t seem to be such a dreadful thing. What does it matter that Billy did away with himself? People commit suicide every day and as he was mentally ill, well, it would not be unexpected. In those days they didn’t talk about it, did they? They were so concerned about family pride. I’m sure that is why Richard is so ashamed. He thinks he didn’t do enough to save him.

  Perhaps it was for the best. What if Billy had really been a murderer and been caught? They hanged people then.

  “Did you know that Richard had an older brother?” I asked Andrew as we leant against the field gate.

  “Yes,” he nodded. “I’ve seen all the deeds and wills of the Wilde family. William wrote a will in favour of his brother in 1944. It superseded one he’d written earlier in favour of his son. It wasn’t legal, of course. The wife would have had first call. But we have a notarised letter from her a few years later, removing herself entirely from the inheritance. I have presumed that the child was dead.”

  “He was killed in the blitz,” I said. “In Liverpool.”

  He nodded slowly. “I didn’t know that,” he said, “it must have been a dreadful blow for the family.”

  I had another thought then. “When did Richard inherit?”

  “I think it was in the early fifties,” Andrew said. “The brother was assumed dead because he disappeared and he was never found, dead or alive. They wait seven years, you know. There’s a copy of a police report, saying that they thought he’d killed himself because he was suspected of committing a murder. The local bobby, Sergeant Darlington, had a theory that he’d gone to Llandudno and drowned himself. Apparently that’s where they went on holiday, as kids and he was fond of the place. There’s earlier reports too, from when he was taken in for questioning.” He laughed, lightly. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? When you know this Mr Wilde and know what a decent chap he is.”

  I didn’t say anything. Richard had believed it, although he never actually said it.

  “Sharon,” Andrew took off his cap and gave it a shake. It had stopped raining now and the sun was shining on the mountain. Everything was fresh and I could smell the wind blowing across the young grass in the hay meadows.

  “What?”

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  This is the third time he’s asked me. Once when we were away last year and then again after Christmas. You have to give him points for persistence and when all’s said and done, he’s not a bad person. In fact, I like him. You don’t find many as honest and hardworking as he is. But I don’t want to marry him; I don’t love him.

  You see, Andrew would take me away from here, to town, where I would have to become part of his set. All those things he goes to, like the Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce – all those functions where I would have to dress up and pretend to be having a good time. And if I married him, I would have to pretend about loving him too, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. You can’t play fast and loose with that sort of thing.

  I looked round at him. He’s heading for forty now and I noticed for the first time that his hair is going grey. In a year or two, he’ll look distinguished and will be a catch for anyone.

  “Why haven’t you married before?” I said, putting off the inevitable answer.

  “I never found anyone I truly loved.”

  He said it quite simply almost like a child might, like Thomas tell me things, straight, without any nonsense. And there it was: the whole difference between us. In a way, it was the nicest thing he’s ever said to me and I couldn’t resist putting my hand up to his face.

  “You are a really good person,” I said, “but I can’t marry you. You could be my best friend, Andrew. The person I could turn to, someone I trust absolutely, but not my husband. I don’t love you like that.”

  He looked away then and over the fields towards the river and my eyes followed his. I could see the tractor in the water meadow. Jason was there driving backwards and forwards, dressing the field so that the pasture would be ready for when he turned the cattle out.

  “Is it him?”

  I nodded. “I think so. He wants us to marry after…” I left the end of the sentence. He knew what I meant.

  We were silent for a minute and I waited, praying that he wouldn’t persist this time. He didn’t. When he turned round, he bent his face down and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Friends will have to do then,” he said and casually linked his arm in mine as we walked back to the house. I pretended not to notice the damp patches on his cheeks.

  “I thought you’d forgotten me,” said Richard when I went into his room carrying a bunch of paper-white narcissi. His voice was weak and every now and then he would stop to catch his breath. He watched as I put the flowers into a vase, arranging them so that the light from the window shone through the fragile petals. They brought a sharp fresh scent of the spring garden into the room.

  “No. I haven’t forgotten you,” I said and, leaning over him, fastened the microphone to his pyjamas. His body was shaking slightly and he felt hot. “I was talking to Andrew Jones.”

  “Offering again?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d have a good life with him. Big house in town. Holidays in Spain.”

  “I don’t love him,” I said.

  He was quiet then and I waited for a few seconds before asking, “Are you up to this now, Richard? Maybe you should rest.”

  He ignored me. “I loved Elizabe
th all my life. Even when I knew she’d rejected me and after, when she wouldn’t have me. When Billy was declared legally dead and we could have married and been together, she said no. Wouldn’t come back to the farm, you see and I, like a fool, wouldn’t leave it.

  Fred Darlington asked me about her after I came back from the lawyer in town. We’d been to hear the reading of Billy’s will, Mother and Marian and me. I left the women at Marian’s house and came on home alone. I wasn’t sorry that they’d decided to stay; I needed the time alone in the car to think about what I’d just heard.

  It was as I was driving through the village, that I saw Fred. Over the last few years, our friendship had waned; too many difficult memories, both of us feeling guilty. But today, I suddenly felt that it was all behind me and I stopped beside him, just past the school and got out of the car.

  “Hello, Dick,” he said, taking my hand in his firm shake. That was something in itself. We weren’t like that in those days. You only shook hands with people you didn’t know well, or on special occasions. But I think he was glad I’d stopped and wanted to show me that he had no hard feelings.

  “Fred. Nice to see you.” He had grown heavy over the years, both in fat and muscle, which stretched his uniform jacket to bursting. I suppose it was Miranda’s cooking and the contentment that his three daughters brought to them. The eldest, Jackie, had done very well in school and surprised the whole village by going on to university. I remembered that little girl with her black ringlets, always holding on to her daddy’s hand in the garden. How she loved him. I was envious of him, I won’t deny that.