How to Measure a Cow

by Margaret Forster

  But she slept, and without sleeping pills. She had no nightmares any more either, or even proper dreams, the sort of dreams she’d been used to having. Something was changing, then. Peace of mind would come eventually, they’d said. In time. A new rhythm would establish itself and sweep away the old order. This will be slow, they’d said, and you have to do your bit, give yourself to your new life. So she must be giving herself more successfully than she had estimated. How had she done it? By not struggling against Sarah Scott, she supposed. Sarah was so dull, so obedient, so entirely without any spark. She ate, she worked, she slept, and that was about it. She didn’t seem to notice anything, react to anything. She tottered through each day keeping her head down, doing what she had to do, never making any complaint. But she didn’t have nightmares, she was calm. There was no pain any more. That, she told herself, made being Sarah Scott worthwhile.

  She’d always known there were people like that in the world, those fortunate few who drifted placidly through their lives, untroubled by rages or depressions or ambition, but she hadn’t known how they did it, what the trick was. Now, as Sarah Scott, she should know, but she still didn’t quite grasp the essential secret to such harmony. Sticking to a rigid, and easy, routine was, she could see, part of it. If you had a routine, there was no need to think, and it was thinking, especially wild random thinking of the sort that Tara had indulged in, which caused havoc. But following a routine couldn’t, she felt, explain everything. There was an element in this woman Sarah Scott which was about self-abasement, which was not commendable. It made the price too high. She thought she couldn’t go on being so terribly humble and feeble without starting to hate herself. Hate Sarah Scott. Surely, somewhere in this creature she could find a flash of individuality to make her existence worthwhile? It might be dangerous for her to attempt to deviate from what she had allowed to become the new norm but a little risk was what Sarah needed to take or she would drown in her own dreariness.

  She couldn’t explain any of this to the Woman when she met her (a woman this time, though it was supposed to be the same person every three months for the first year). They met in Morrisons café, as before when she met the Man, and followed the same procedure. The Woman was quite smiley, very pleasant, or at least determined to appear so. She had tea, nothing fancy, no Earl Grey or anything. She said Sarah was doing well. Tara kept her expression blank, wondering how this judgement was made. Did it rest on the fact that she’d kept her excruciatingly boring job? Was it because she’d caused no trouble of any kind, or none that had come to the notice of any of the authorities? Or was it because she hadn’t had a nervous breakdown with the strain of becoming a new person? It didn’t matter, really, but she would like to have known how the assessment that she was ‘doing well’ was made.

  The Woman asked if there was anything she needed help with, any difficulties she was experiencing. Tara took the opportunity to say she would like to get her driving licence back and she would like to have a car which she thought she could afford. She wanted to get out at the weekends and see something of what she’d heard was beautiful countryside. Ah. This was a problem. She couldn’t have her old licence back, because of the name. She’d have to apply, as Sarah Scott, for a licence and this would mean, of course, sitting the test. Did she think she was up to it? Not just the driving, but the mental strain of it all? Tara said she thought she was. Very well, the Woman said, though she looked doubtful. It’s more complicated these days, she added, there’s an online test first. Tara raised her eyebrows and smiled. I didn’t mean, the Woman said, that you wouldn’t be up to it, just thought I’d point it out in case, with being out of circulation, you hadn’t realised. Thank you, Tara said. She was a nice person, this one.

  There was the first tiny awareness of something close to excitement when she went to get the necessary forms to apply for a driving licence. She half expected to find that she didn’t have the right documentation but what she’d been issued with passed muster (in fact, it was hardly scrutinised). Booking a few refresher lessons was easy, and the instructor, an amiable middle-aged man, recognised at once that she had driven before.

  ‘Lost your licence, did you?’ he said.

  If he was waiting for a story about how this had come about, she didn’t give him one. Her driving was so smooth and expert he soon gave up directing her and wondered aloud why she’d thought she needed any lessons. Not that I’m complaining, he added, it gives me a holiday.

  Maybe it was the exhilaration of driving again that made her careless. The driving instructor dropped her off at the end of her street and she walked briskly down it, her head held high for once. She might even have been humming. Her thoughts were of what sort of second-hand car she would buy. Once she’d had a Ford Escort, then a Fiat, but now she’d try to find a VW Polo, though maybe even a five-year-old Polo might be too expensive. With all this small contentment taking up her mind, it was a shock to discover that her keys were not in her bag. Slowly, trying to be careful and thorough, she put her bag on the windowsill and methodically emptied the contents. There were not many. She unzipped the inner compartment where she kept her money: it was all there. But no keys. She told herself to stay calm and think. The thinking only told her what she’d realised already. The only person who had a key to her house was the landlord and she did not have, in her bag, his telephone number. More thinking, all of it done while she stood absolutely still in front of the house, led to the inevitable conclusion that she would have to break in. This would mean smashing the front window, a rather large piece of glass. The front door was solid wood, no glass panels. What could she do it with? There were no stones lying around, no handy implements. There was no back entrance either: the yard at the rear ended in a wall with a similar yard on the other side. Trying to get into her house that way would mean walking round to the parallel terrace and asking the owners if she could climb over their wall. Even then, she’d have to break a window, though the kitchen had a small one which would be easier to smash. Still she stood there, thinking.

  Nancy, watching, waiting, understood at once.

  III

  ‘DON’T TELL HIM,’ Nancy said, ‘never tell him. It might be against the law.’

  Tara started to say that she didn’t think having a neighbour’s house key could possibly be against any law, but Mrs Armstrong (not yet known by her Christian name) said you couldn’t be certain. He, the nephew, the landlord, was a nasty bit of work. No examples of nastiness need be given. Her word should be taken for it. So Tara took it.

  It turned out that this key had been in Mrs Armstrong’s possession for years and years.

  ‘I was never asked for it back so I never gave it,’ she said. ‘Nothing wrong with that. That nephew of hers never knew I had it, and she used to have mine. But I saw ahead. Minute Amy fell ill, I got it back. I could see what was coming. Now, don’t you touch it. It might be aiding and abetting. I’ll do it.’

  So the key was produced and fitted into the lock and the door creaked open. It went straight back into Nancy’s pocket. Nancy patted it.

  ‘Safe,’ she said, ‘no harm done.’ After that, refreshment most definitely had to be offered.

  ‘Please,’ said Tara, ‘let me make you a cup of tea. I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know what I’d have done. Broken a window, I suppose.’

  She led the way into the kitchen and put the kettle on, wishing there was somewhere to sit down, but it wasn’t that sort of kitchen. It was for cooking and washing dishes and that was all. Mrs Armstrong stood in the doorway, seeming as uncertain as Tara herself.

  ‘Not much change,’ she said. ‘It’s how Amy had it.’

  Tara wasn’t sure whether this was a criticism or praise. When the tea was made, she said, ‘Shall we go and sit down?’

  Mrs Armstrong seemed surprised. ‘No need for any ceremony,’ she said, but followed when the way was led to the living room.

  The electric fire was switched on, both bars, but it hardly made any difference
to the freezing atmosphere. Gulping her tea, Tara thought longingly of her electric blanket.

  Mrs Armstrong didn’t appear to be drinking her tea at all. She perched on the edge of her chair, clutching the cup with both hands and looking into its contents as though she were seeing something other than tea there.

  ‘You’ve been very kind,’ Tara said. ‘I’m very grateful.’

  ‘He’s been in,’ Mrs Armstrong said. ‘Upstairs too.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Tara said.

  ‘The nephew, him, the landlord. He came and poked around.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Tara said, ‘last week. He said he would. He left a note.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Mrs Armstrong said, with a strange kind of emphasis on the ‘did’.

  ‘Everything was satisfactory apparently,’ Tara said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it was,’ Mrs Armstrong said, nodding in a significant way, though Tara couldn’t begin to understand what this significance was.

  The fire was beginning to take the worst of the chill off the room, though not enough completely to clear the dull mist on the inside of the window.

  ‘You could write your name on that,’ Mrs Armstrong said, pointing to the window. ‘No proper heating, in this day and age. The cold killed Amy, that’s what I believe. He could’ve put central heating in, or them storage heaters, but did he bother? No.’

  Tara couldn’t think of a response, but her silence didn’t halt her visitor.

  ‘It’ll cost you a fortune,’ she went on, ‘having to use the electric. The bills! You’d be better off with gas. Have you thought about gas? Getting him to put gas in?’

  Tara shook her head.

  ‘Well, you should. I’ve got gas. Warms the room lovely. Used to the warm, were you?’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Tara.

  ‘Where you were, before, you were used to the warm.’

  It was said as a statement, not a question. She wondered for a second how to reply to it. Yes, she’d been warm. Nobody suffered from cold temperatures even if from many other things about the conditions. Funny, she hadn’t appreciated the warmth, how civilised it was always to be comfortably warm even in the depths of winter. She had a quick flash of the snow falling outside the high, narrow skylight, how pretty it had looked, how it made her long to be outside in the cold and not inside, in the warm. But Mrs Armstrong was waiting, watching her. What had the question, no, the non-question been?

  ‘Yes,’ Tara said, ‘I was used to rooms being quite warm, but I manage, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Thermal underwear,’ Mrs Armstrong said, ‘that’s the way to deal with it. It’s pricey, but there’s nothing like it, November to May, April if we’re lucky. You should get yourself some.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Tara said.

  How many times had she already thanked this woman? It was so feeble to go on saying it. She should show some interest in Mrs Armstrong, be friendly. Be friendly … How was it done? She’d forgotten.

  ‘Have you lived in your house long?’ she found herself asking, sounding like the Queen. Hearing herself saying it, feeling quite pleased with how interested it sounded, without being too inquisitive, she repeated a variation. ‘I was just wondering if you’d lived in this street a long time.’

  ‘Forty-eight years,’ Mrs Armstrong said, with obvious pride.

  ‘Goodness,’ Tara said.

  A sense of achievement glowed in Mrs Armstrong’s face. ‘Forty-eight years. 1966, May second. It was raining.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Tara said, again, ‘that is a long time.’

  ‘I’ll only leave feet first, in a box.’

  Neither ‘wow’ nor ‘goodness’ would do in answer to that.

  ‘Not for a long time – years, I hope,’ Tara said.

  To which Mrs Armstrong replied, ‘There’s no telling.’

  Her tea had only been sipped. Tara could see the cup was still almost full. Oh God, how could she carry on, trying for small talk, exhausted already with the strain. But Mrs Armstrong showed no sign of moving. She sat with her legs slightly apart, her coat buttoned up, her headscarf tightly tied under her chin, staring at Tara. It was, Tara decided, a challenging stare, daring her, but daring her to do what? Come up with another banal query? What? Then she realised that quite likely Mrs Armstrong was waiting for her to tell her something about herself. There should be some sort of exchange, surely. Something to match the revelation that Mrs Armstrong had lived in her house for forty-eight years. She wasn’t going to ask directly, but she would be wanting to know why she, Tara – no, Sarah – had come to live here, and how long she was going to stay.

  Maybe there was something wrong with the tea.

  ‘Would you like more milk, more sugar?’ Tara asked, indicating the undrunk tea.

  Mrs Armstrong shook her head. ‘You’ve put a blind up, in the bedroom,’ she said.

  Did she say it accusingly? Tara wasn’t sure.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I prefer a blind. It lets in more light.’

  ‘They were good-quality curtains,’ Mrs Armstrong said. ‘Kept the cold out.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Tara said.

  This could not go on. At the rate the tea was being sipped there would be another half-hour of this torment. Then, suddenly, in a tremendous gulp, the tea vanished down Mrs Armstrong’s strong throat.

  ‘I’ll have to go, I can’t stop,’ she said.

  Tara was on her feet instantly, full of more thank-yous, endlessly expressing her gratitude, and they were at the front door, and it was over.

  She went straight to bed, curling up under the duvet, weak with the effort of trying to be friendly.

  Nancy had made sure that she brought the key for Amy’s house back with her. She put it in the place she’d always kept it, inside an old box which still smelled of the talcum powder it had once held. Lovely, a lovely faint lavender smell. She put the powder puff on top of it, and then put the box in her dressing-table drawer. Safe, quite safe.

  She was a queer one, that Sarah Scott. She looked peaky. Nancy had thought about telling her she looked peaky, and should think about going to a doctor’s and asking for a tonic, though probably these days tonics were out of fashion. She was a funny little thing, nothing to her, scared of her own shadow. People like that annoyed Nancy. She found their lack of spirit irritating. No confidence in themselves, always so apologetic. She liked people who looked you in the eye and had a bit of life about them. If you had two legs, two arms, two ears, two eyes, what did you have to look so miserable about? Unless you had some ailment that wasn’t obvious. She had to allow for that, she supposed.

  She could have asked Sarah Scott where she worked. There would’ve been no harm in that, but she hadn’t been able to think how to word it. She could’ve said, maybe, ‘I notice you leave the house early every weekday,’ and then waited. But she had held back from using the word ‘notice’. It suggested spying. Better to have said, ‘You’ve settled here, then,’ and waited. Something might’ve come from that. It was an opportunity missed. And the tea was awful. She would show her how to make a proper cup of tea when she came over. This would have to be arranged. Hospitality must be reciprocated, even if Sarah Scott’s hospitality had been in return for Nancy’s good deed.

  She’d done a good deed. Nancy smiled to herself. Oh, she’d certainly been a Good Samaritan, saving Sarah Scott from breaking windows and all sorts of bother. It was a very nice feeling. The beginning of something promising. A proper friendship, maybe.

  There was a new routine now, or rather another tiny element added to the existing one. Every morning, as Tara left her house, she saw Mrs Armstrong at her window waving her hand. She appeared to be opening her curtains wider, and this wave was nothing more than a gesture, almost royal the way it was done. Tara raised her own hand in acknowledgement. Now it had to be done every weekday morning. She suddenly remembered Liz waving in that way, the tentative way in which Mrs Armstrong had done. She’d give this little flap of her hand, which could just as well have
been swatting away a fly as a wave of greeting. Tara could see her clearly in her head, Liz rushing through the crowds to meet her, giving this movement of her hand. They were both living in London then. They met sometimes at the Curzon cinema in Shaftesbury Avenue where they had a snack before the film and brought each other up to date on what was happening in their lives. Tara never gave much away, but Liz unloaded the lot. She’d married Mike at nineteen but was having an affair with Alan, a passionate affair apparently. She left no detail out. It then emerged that she was using Tara as her cover.

  ‘But,’ said Tara, ‘suppose he checked your story out, and I hadn’t known you were using me as a cover.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Liz, ‘he’d never do that, and even if he did, I knew you’d be quick on the uptake and back me up.’

  Tara had been quite startled. Would she have understood and backed Liz up?

  ‘Don’t tell Molly or Claire,’ Liz went on, ‘especially not Claire. God knows what she’d do – ring Mike and report me, I expect.’

  Yes, Tara had agreed, it was just possible Claire might do that. Then they both laughed.

  Oddly, the impulse to send a reply to Claire sprang from this memory of Liz’s confession. She found herself thinking about Claire and the letter all day, and as a consequence behaving more like Tara than Sarah Scott. She didn’t shuffle along the aisle on the bus but barged her way to the door and was first off when it stopped. On the return journey, in the afternoon, instead of listlessly trailing down the street she almost ran, so eager was she, after a whole day of thinking, in her desire to reply to Claire. She had a point to make. The point was, well, there was a point, to do with loyalty, to do with standing by people and trying to see things from their perspective. There was certainly a point to it. She settled down to write a letter. It was exhilarating writing it until it began to turn into an accusation, full of long-suppressed resentment and bitterness. If the impulse to reply to Claire’s invitation was going to be indulged, then it could not take this form. A rant was damaging (to herself). A measured tone was needed. The things she really wanted to express could be implied but not so crudely slapped down. The art was to slip the blade of the dagger in without it being noticed till the pain registered.