I don’t think I’ve ever driven so fast in my life! My cottage was nearer than the Manor, so we went there. I must say, the emergency services were absolutely first class, and everyone else was pretty good too. When I got through to Nell, she said the Redfords weren’t back from their do yet, but Bernie and the two boys had formed a search-party and were already on their way to the wood. As it turned out, they arrived at the lime pit before the ambulance people and were a tremendous help. As to Cyn Westover, after that dreadful night I’ll always regard her as someone I’d like to have beside me in a crisis. The rescue people said that without her detailed knowledge of the terrain, they might well have had to wait until morning to get you and Tib out. By the way, did you know there were hourly bulletins about you both on Radio Stourwick? Fame indeed! Anyway — enough of all that, you’ve no doubt heard most if it before, in any case.
Things at the Rectory seem to be running with commendable smoothness. I’ve taken over nursing Tib — although he’s way beyond that stage now, and as fit as a flea — because what with one thing and another, Nell has quite a lot on her plate. I also pop over now and again to help out with the garden. I don’t think anyone realised just how much work you put into it until you became hors de combat.
I’ve had a card from Diz and JP in the Lakes. They say they’re enjoying themselves, but wonder whether it will ever stop raining. What else?
My book moves slowly. I always hate this part. To add to everything else, my publishers are threatening some sort of pre-publication publicity; I always thought they’d get me sooner or later, ours is a strictly love/hate relationship. Anyway, if in two or three months time you happen to come across me sitting all by myself in a bookshop in Stourwick surrounded by unsold copies of my book — take pity!
Sorry to write at such length, but once started, couldn’t stop. Sorry too I was unable to visit you in hospital, but the powers-that-be decreed otherwise. However, no such embargo on Napton Park. How about three-fifteen next Wednesday —and would flowers do, or would you prefer books??
All my love — please get well very, very soon —
Don
P.S. Tib sends his love too.
Bet carefully folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. What a nice person he was, and what was more, it seemed as though he really was in love with her. Would she marry him? Well, she might; Miles would approve, she was sure of that. But perhaps she would wait just a little while before she made up her mind. At least until she’d learned to cope with her new-found freedom — new indeed, but nonetheless precious; until she’d had a go at some of those things she was sure now were waiting just round the corner for her to have a go at. That she didn’t yet know what the things might be, somehow didn’t matter. She knew they would be exciting and demanding and possibly even fun, and that she would do them. Meanwhile ... well, it was great to have found a friend like Don, and she didn’t deserve him, or such luck. But then, if everyone came by their deserts ...
Funny, though; he’d been around all through the drama; no one had told her that: But then no one had told her anything much about the night of her accident, and to be honest, she hadn’t bothered to ask.
And now for that other letter. The one postmarked Tangier, the one that had come by the second post, and that she hadn’t had the courage to open — until now ...
Villa Backhouse PO Box 20
Tangier
Sunday
My dear Titania
I never write letters and I never apologise, and here I am breaking the habit of a lifetime — you really do have an odd effect on people, don’t you. Cyn tells me you’re on the mend now, and I’m glad. I shan’t forget my last sight of you in a hurry, that’s for sure. Nor shall I forget the sight of your family, every man jack of them in varying stages of hysteria, including that love-sick archaeologist of yours. Marry him, Bet, and put the guy out of his misery — for all our sakes.
Now for the apologies, and I can assure you they don’t come easy. I’m sorry, Titania (I can go on calling you Titania, can’t I, I seem to have got used to it), sorry for the whole damned stupid mess. I could say we met too late, only it sounds so bloody hackneyed. Things moved so fast, I found I was up to my neck before I knew what was happening, and yet I knew all the time (as I have a feeling you did, too) that it was hopeless, that we’d never make a go of it together. It just wasn’t on. Then up comes Mademoiselle Liza Dupont, the perfect let-out. By the way, that girl is absolutely useless in a crisis. I’ll never forget sitting in that bloody cottage with you and Tib, both in what seemed at the time to be the last stages, wondering whether that stupid little bitch had made it to the Manor, or fallen down a pothole and simply given up. What was I saying? Oh yes. Well, that’s how it was and that’s how I am, and I assure you I’m not proud of it.
One more thing. I’d better tell you now, you’re sure to hear pretty soon anyway, as I don’t doubt your sister is a dedicated reader of the Telegraph. When I’ve done here —care-taking for Johnny Backhouse; free food and drink, plus pool, but too many ex-pats around for my liking — Cyn and I are getting married. Don’t be too surprised. In a way I suppose it’s always been on the cards. Cyn was my first woman and she’ll no doubt be my last. We’ve always got on, in our own weird way, and she doesn’t seem too averse to the idea. I have plans, believe it or not, for having a bash at giving poor old Hopton a bit of a face-lift, it needs one badly after years of Cyn in charge; my Dad and I owe it that, at least.
Take care then, Titania. I’ll be lord of the manor yet, and write a best-seller — you see!
Cheers,
Simon
P.S. By the way, did anyone tell you Liza has run off with Alfonso — or is it vice versa? Whichever way round, I reckon they deserve each other.
P.P.S. Now we’re not lovers, let’s be friends, eh??? — S.
Bet sat quite still for a moment, the letter on her knee, looking blindly out across the lake. Then slowly, imperceptibly, like the rainbow that follows the storm, she began to smile and then to laugh outright. Indeed, her laughter became so noisy and unbridled that it disturbed the friendly sparrow perched on the stone balustrade beside her — who, after squirting out a quick message of disapproval, fluffed out his feathers and flew off in a huff. So that was it! Cyn Westover. It was the one thing she’d never thought of, and it had been staring her in the face all the time.
Inside the house a bell rang; she must go in to supper. ‘You look happy, Mrs Brandon.’ It was lovely Dr Roberts, finishing his rounds. Bet, still giggling, got up stiffly from her chair and reached for her stick. ‘It’s nothing. Just something rather funny has happened, that’s all ... ’
*
‘Oh, do stop boring away over those papers, Si, Mr Partridge really does know what he’s doing.’
‘If Partridge knows what he’s doing, then I’m head of the civil service. I’ve never seen such a bloody cock-up in my life! Now what I’m suggesting is, we dump all this stuff in a cardboard box, put it in the car, and drive the whole lot over to that accountant of Pogo Nicholson’s. Pogo says he’s damned good, and that if he can’t make sense of it, no one can. Then, depending on what he says, we can — ’
‘Will you shut up, Si, I’m beginning to wish we’d never got married! You’re becoming an absolute bore about all this.’
‘Nonsense, girl, you love it, you know you do. I can’t think why we didn’t do it before. I might at least have made a push to prevent the place from collapsing round our ears.’
‘Simon Morris, if you don’t belt up I’ll ... I’ll jump on you, and I can promise you you won’t like it. I’m a big girl now — ’ ‘You don’t need to tell me that, my sweet!’
‘I’ll kill you, Si, you see ... Oh Si ... ’
And the dog, Oxford, waiting patiently to be let out, gave up, finished cleaning the mud from his rear end, put his nose on his paws and went to sleep.
If you enjoyed A Change of Pace you might be interested in Running to Paradise by Virginia Bud
d, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Running to Paradise by Virginia Budd
Prologue
Evening. Summer lightning intermittently flashed across the grey-green sky, as though some inter-galactic signaller were trying to get a message through to the misguided denizens of planet earth. Thunder rolled far away and storm clouds spiralled. It was very hot. The people in the grey village houses shut their casement windows, left open to catch the least vestige of the sultry air, anticipating the coming storm. The people on the executive housing estate at the northern end of the village reached for their digital telephones to warn their friends that evening’s barbecue was cancelled and what about a blue video session instead. The people in the council estate ignored the coming storm. They were most of them out anyway; there was nothing to do in the village on a Saturday night.
At the southern end of the village, in a small, bright, antiseptic room in St Hilda’s Home for the Elderly, Charlotte Seymour lay dying. She lay on her back in the neat bed, covered by a pale blue eiderdown, her head propped up by pillows. She no longer smelt the scent from the stocks that grew beneath her bedroom window, nor saw the spruce fir silhouetted against the flashing sky, nor indeed heard the rumble of thunder: she felt neither heat nor cold, she had already entered the anteroom to death. An elderly man sat beside the bed, his large, baggy frame fitting with difficulty into the plastic-seated chair. He snored from time to time. Death was long in coming and he had drunk heavily as was his wont, that evening.
Charlotte Seymour’s breath rattled and scraped; her eyes were closed and her hands, each finger ring-encrusted, each fingernail a vivid scarlet, were still. But her mind, the mind she had lived with for over eighty years, that mind which had so frequently served her so ill, was awake alright, wide awake, as though at last, too late, prepared to use and employ the latent power within.
A few heavy drops of rain splashed on the window sill and the man in the chair awoke, gazed owlishly round the room, as though wondering where he was, then struggled to his feet and closed the window. He yawned, scratched his chest and looked down at the woman in the bed. It would have been hard to tell by his expression whether the look was one of indifference, anticipation or dislike; it was not a look of love. Charlotte opened her eyes suddenly.
‘Go home,’ she whispered, ‘I can die without your help.’ The man, however, did not seem to hear her. He reached in his pocket for a cigarette, then saw the notice above the bed. ‘Visitors are respectfully requested not to smoke.’ He sat down again in the chair, which wobbled dangerously under his weight, and closed his eyes.
Charlotte’s eyes, too, closed: they would not open again.
Let go, Char Osborn, let go. There’s nothing left — no point in hanging on — the party’s over now. But had it been such a party? Had it...?
1
The Sunday Char died I wondered if things would ever be the same again. To feel so bereft, so disorientated for the loss of one’s ex-wife’s mother verges on the eccentric, I suppose, but I loved her; for all her manifold faults, I loved her.
The day before she died I felt both oppressed and depressed and London sweltered in a grey, sticky heat. I did a bit of shopping in the Kings Road in the morning, then squash with Jack Pemberton, from the office, in the afternoon. He asked me back to dinner afterwards, but I refused. I wanted, suddenly, to be on my own.
The storm started around seven o’clock. I sat by the sitting-room window and watched the lightning crackling over Chelsea Reach and great globules of rain slowly turn the river from slate grey to muddy yellow. I was on my third Martini when George rang.
‘Guy? I’ve been trying to get you all day. George here.’
‘Sorry, I was playing squash, but I’ve been in since six thirty.’ Somehow George always manages to put one on the defensive; it was none of his damned business where I’d been.
‘Char’s not too good.’ Was this one of his euphemisms? Was Char, in fact, dying? Why else, God help him, would he be ringing?
‘How bad?’ I asked.
‘Well, you know what these doctors are; she’s got bronchial pneumonia, her breathing’s terrible. They say there’s nothing more they can do.’
‘What about hospital? Last time—’
‘Too ill to be moved.’ Was there a note of triumph; hard to say.
‘They’ve given her the Last Rites and all that sort of thing, but of course she’s had them before, when she had that stroke two years ago — you remember.’ Yes, I remembered, and what a party that had been. Dr Weil insisted on ordering up a bottle of wine, and there we all were, George, Beth, myself and a nurse or two, sipping away like mad, allegedly helping Char into the next world and by the following morning she was sitting up in bed laughing her guts out.
‘I’ve been with her all day.’ George assumed his pathetic ‘ill-done-by’ voice, ‘but Mrs McTavish, that’s the new warden, said to go home for a kip and come back later.’
‘D’you want me to come down?’
‘Not yet. I’ll let you know.’ He sounded evasive.
‘What about Beth and the others?’ I said. ‘Have you told them?’
‘Look, could you ring Beth, then she can ring the others. I seem to have lost her phone number. Everything’s so chaotic here.’
‘I’d rather not speak to Beth, if you don’t mind. I can give you her number, if you’ve really lost it.’
‘Oh, alright, but I thought you two were back on speaking terms.’ Now he sounded huffy and put upon. Why the hell shouldn’t he tell his step-daughter her mother was dying?
‘You’ll let me know, won’t you, if...’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll let you know.’ Odd how neither of us could mention the word death.
The storm stayed around until gone eleven. I made a bit of supper and watched some nonsense on TV, but all the time thought of Char: as I last saw her, as I first saw her, and all the time in between. I went to bed, but couldn’t get to sleep, not until the small hours, anyway, and woke to the bells of Battersea Church ringing for Holy Communion. I lay in bed listening and then the phone rang.
‘George again. Sorry to wake you, but Char died between two and three this morning. I thought you’d like to know.’
For the life of me I couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. Then at last: ‘Did she speak? Were you with her when—’
‘I was with her, but she never spoke again, not after the priest left her.’
‘I should like to see her,’ I said, ‘just once more.’
‘Well...’ He sounded doubtful. ‘They want to get the body out of the Home as soon as possible. They need the bed, you see.’ Char was just a body now.
‘What about at the undertakers, couldn’t I see her there?’
‘I suppose so,’ he sounded grudging. ‘Are you coming down? There’s a hell of a lot to be done and I don’t feel too well this morning. It’s been a bit of a shock.’
‘I’ll be down soon after ten a.m. Give me time for a cup of coffee and a shave and I’ll be on the M4 by eight o’clock. OK?’
‘OK,’ he said.
Char had three husbands and five children, but it’s me, her ex-son-in-law, who always takes responsibility for her. Is it because I loved her and they didn’t? No, that’s far too simple an explanation. Perhaps I wanted to have the responsibility and they were only too glad to relinquish it. I just don’t know. ‘I’m leaving you to sort things out after I’m dead, Guy,’ she had said, looking at me witchily over the top of her frightful ‘butterfly’ glasses. ‘You can be a sort of literary executor. My children just don’t care, you see.’
‘And you know I do?’ I held out an ash tray to catch the dripping ash from her cigarette.
‘Yes, darling, I know you do,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you are a sort of historian after all, so going through a few papers wouldn’t be too arduous, would it?’
‘It’ll need more than a historian to sort out your affairs, love.’
Char only smiled. �
��But you will, won’t you, my warrior?’ she said.
‘I suppose so...’
I had an absurd thought while I was stirring my instant coffee in the kitchen, later, after George rang. Should I wear a black tie? Death, after all, was a fairly formal occasion. In the end I compromised and wore my better weekend trousers and the corduroy jacket Char used to like. She said it reminded her of ‘nice young poets in the thirties’.
There wasn’t much traffic on the M4. Thunder was still about and those foul little thunder flies were creeping everywhere inside the car. Black clouds billowed over the Downs and the grass looked parched from the long, hot summer. Where, I wondered, was Char now?
‘D’you want coffee, or something stronger?’ George at the door of the grey stone house in the grey stone street. The house he’d bought for Char when everything was breaking up.
‘Coffee would be great, thanks George.’ The kitchen smelt of cat and something else, hard to define. George looked ghastly, his face, sagging, putty coloured, unshaven.
‘Can’t do a bloody thing,’ he burst out suddenly. ‘It’s Sunday, you see.’ He led me into the long, dark sitting-room. Char’s stuff all over the place: the photo on the mantelpiece of her and George’s wedding just after the War, Char in pre-War shoes and a tiny hat like a muffin perched on her forehead, George in uniform, looking handsome and happy. We sat down.
‘Shall I,’ I asked, ‘make a list of what we’ve got to do?’
A Change of Pace Page 22