by Rosie Harris
‘Very well,’ Sally agreed with a nod. ‘Would you like me to telephone Tim and tell him what’s happened?’
Peter hesitated. ‘Thanks. I suppose you’d better do that,’ he said shaking his head from side to side as if aware of the recriminations that this would bring down on him.
The minute he had sat down the ambulance men closed up the back of the ambulance and they were away. One paramedic stayed at Betty’s side, monitoring her breathing, checking her pulse and doing what he could to make her comfortable.
Peter felt at a loss as the ambulance drew up outside the A & E department of the hospital and the stretcher with Betty on it was unloaded and taken inside. He ran a hand over his chin as he followed it and saw her being wheeled into a small cubicle room. There were no doors at the front, only curtains, and as soon as Betty had been transferred from the stretcher to the narrow bed the curtains were swished across by the nurse who had been assigned to look after her.
Peter stood outside uncertain what to do next.
‘Excuse me,’ he found himself moved aside as a white-coated doctor wearing a stethoscope moved past him into the cubicle.
He was still standing there when the doctor emerged, so Peter plucked up his courage and pulled aside one of the curtains.
‘Can I come in?’
The nurse who was inserting a canella into the back of Betty’s hand looked up frowning. ‘Are you with this lady?’ she asked.
‘Yes. She lives with me.’
‘So, what happened?’
Before Peter could answer the curtain was pulled briskly to one side and Peter looked round to see Tim standing there.
The nurse looked up ready to order him out, but Peter explained quickly, ‘This is Mrs Wilson’s son.’
‘If you are going to talk between yourselves then will you go out into the waiting room or go for a coffee. My patient needs to be able to rest,’ the nurse told them in a clipped tone.
‘Is she conscious?’ Tim demanded, looking sceptically at the prone, white-faced figure of his mother.
‘She soon will be if she isn’t left in peace and quiet,’ the nurse retorted briskly.
‘Come on, I want details,’ Tim said grabbing Peter’s arm and propelling him into the waiting room.
Peter shook off Tim’s grasp. ‘Let’s go for a coffee and I can tell you all about what happened.’
‘It’s no good trying to avoid the issue,’ Tim snapped. ‘I want to know now.’
‘And I want a coffee,’ Peter stated.
They walked down the corridor to the restaurant in silence. Peter ordered the coffees but Tim pushed him aside and paid for them. They carried their drinks to a far corner of the room where they would be left alone.
‘So, what happened?’
Peter took a long drink of his coffee before putting the mug down on the table and getting himself comfortable. Then he recounted everything that had happened that morning; from the time he’d left home to go to the dentist until he had come back home again.
‘So Sally Bishop was with her when it happened,’ Tim mused.
‘I don’t think so. I think I reached home just as Sally was about to step inside your mother’s house to look for her. She had already been to my place apparently and searched everywhere and couldn’t find her.’
The coffee seemed to have calmed both men down and, once he had heard how his mother came to be on her own, Tim was more concerned than angry.
‘Mother must have taken it into her head to go and look round her house, knowing that you were safely out of the way,’ Tim said thoughtfully.
‘She must have been in the garden for a while because when I found her she was clutching a bunch of snowdrops,’ Peter told him. ‘If Sally had been a few moments earlier going around to my place for coffee then none of this might have happened.’
‘If only, if only,’ Tim muttered to himself. He looked bewildered, as if he needed a motive for her being in there. ‘What was she trying to do in the living room when everything in there is blackened and charred,’ he asked out loud.
Peter remained silent for a moment. ‘She had snowdrops in one hand but in the other there was a shard of vivid red glass. It was so bright that at first I thought it was blood.’
‘Her precious vase that my father bought her for one of their anniversaries,’ Tim said with a smile. ‘I suppose it was still on the shelf and she saw it and made a grab for it and that was what brought the shelf down.’
‘Something like that, I imagine,’ Peter agreed.
Tim pushed his coffee cup away from him and stood up. ‘We’d better be getting back. By now they might know just how badly hurt she is.’
Peter followed him without a word.
There was a doctor just leaving the cubicle where Betty was when they returned, so Tim stopped him and asked for news of his mother’s injuries.
‘She has regained consciousness but she has no recollection at all about what happened. I think it will be best if you don’t question her. Leave her to tell you if and when her memory of what happened returns. The blow on the head left her unconscious and the heavy wooden object, which you believe to be a shelf, managed to break two of her ribs. Apart from that there is surprisingly little damage. She will be feeling stiff and sore for a few days and it will take several weeks for her ribs to heal. Apart from prescribing painkillers, there is not a lot we can do about the ribs; it’s up to her to rest and take things easy.’
‘So can we take her home?’ Peter asked hopefully.
‘Perhaps later today. We need to do a brain scan first to make sure there is no underlying damage from the blow she’s received on the head.’
‘What happens now?’ Tim asked the nurse as the doctor left.
‘As you heard, Mrs Wilson is to go for a head scan and if that reveals no damage has occurred, then we will release her either today or tomorrow. She will have to come back again in a couple of days’ time for a further check-up,’ she added.
‘Can we talk to her?’ Peter asked, moving towards the bed where Betty lay with her eyes closed. He picked up her hand and spoke to her in a very quiet voice.
She opened her eyes and stared at him and, for one terrifying moment, he thought she didn’t recognize him. Then she gave a tiny smile and squeezed his hand.
He moved aside so that Tim could speak to her. The reaction was much the same. It was as if she was too tired to talk.
‘I’ll wait here until they say she can go home if you want get back to your office,’ Peter told Tim.
‘Are you sure?’ Tim looked relieved. ‘Phone me if you have any doubts or problems of any kind,’ he added. ‘Take care of her.’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
At the door Tim paused and looked back at his mother and then at Peter. ‘Did you come by car?’ he asked.
Peter shook his head. ‘No, I came in the ambulance.’
‘Do you want me to wait and take you home?’
‘No, no. It may be hours yet. I’ll get a taxi.’
Tim opened his wallet and drew out a couple of notes. ‘This should cover it,’ he said holding them out.
Peter was about to refuse then he remembered that he hadn’t even stopped to pick up his wallet and he didn’t think he had enough small change on him to cover the taxi fare, so he accepted the money gratefully.
‘Telephone me as soon as you get her back home,’ Tim said as he left.
Seventeen
Betty wasn’t discharged from hospital that day, or for several days afterwards, and when she was finally allowed to go to Peter’s home she was utterly bemused by her surroundings.
‘This isn’t my home,’ she would state in a puzzled voice. ‘It’s very similar and there are some of my things here but it’s not the home I remember.’
Time and time again Peter explained that she had agreed to share his house and that she had moved in with him, but she seemed to be unable to take it in.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ she asked in a bewildered tone of voice
.
‘We both thought it would be a good idea,’ Peter said, lamely knowing he couldn’t tell her the truth, at least not until she was stronger both physically and mentally.
He could tell that even in her present state she didn’t believe him. She wandered round and round, touching things that were his and shaking her head; then picking up things that she remembered from her old home and hugging them to her with a smile of contentment.
She had lost weight while she had been ill and she looked so frail that Peter hadn’t the heart to explain to her about the fire that had devastated her home. He talked to Tim about it, but Tim only shrugged and said he didn’t know whether it would upset her or not.
‘You could try it,’ he murmured. ‘She knows something is different and it might set her mind straight if she knew the truth.’
Peter waited for an opportune moment. Then one day, when Betty had been particularly fractious, he took her out though his front gate and walked with her down the road to where the charred remains of her old house still stood.
Betty gazed at it in stunned silence, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Who did that? Who destroyed my beautiful home?’ she asked in a pitiful whisper.
Peter mumbled something about an accident but Betty shook her head. ‘It was my fault, wasn’t it,’ she said quietly. ‘I caused the fire that damaged my lovely home and that is why I am living with you in your house.’
Peter nodded, placing an arm round her shoulders and hugging her close for a few minutes. There was no need for words. He held her until she stopped trembling, then kissed the top of her head before gently releasing her.
They walked back to his house in silence, holding hands but not speaking. Peter cast sideways glances at her but she seemed stunned and he thought it best to let her absorb the news before he tried to talk to her about the accident.
Afterwards Betty seemed different.
They all noticed it, particularly her friend Sally Bishop. She would spend hours simply sitting and staring vacantly into space. If anyone spoke to her it took a while to bring her back to understanding what they were saying, and even who they were.
When Peter questioned her, and asked if she felt all right, she smiled and said she was thinking about the past, reliving old memories. Betty never shared these memories aloud, not even with Peter, and he wondered if it was her memories of the fire or something else from the past that was worrying her.
When he questioned her on this point she stared at him, as if she didn’t understand what he was saying or shook her head and denied it. When he questioned Tim, her son, he merely frowned and made no comment.
Gradually, as her health returned, she lost her pallor and began to put on a little weight. Eventually, Betty’s moods passed and slowly she began to take an interest in what was going on around her and even join in the chatter.
She did, however, sleep a great deal. She nodded off after her midday meal and again in mid-afternoon. Peter tried his best to keep her occupied at these times but it was no good. Sleep seemed to be what she wanted, what she needed, and her catnaps, as she called them, only lasted for twenty minutes or so and made no difference to her sleeping at night.
As spring turned into summer, Betty spent more and more time sitting in a comfortable cane chair in the garden. She also enjoyed pottering amongst the flowers that Peter was so proud of and which he grew in profusion. Betty picked some of them most days to take indoors. Peter didn’t stop her, even if they were the flowers that he cherished the most and would never dream of cutting himself. After a few days indoors they lost their bloom; he would declare, ‘They like to stay out in the fresh air.’
Although Betty accepted this and agreed with him, she continued to pick them and bring them indoors. Whenever her daughter, Mary, came to see her, or Sally Bishop called, they always left with a bunch of Peter’s precious flowers.
Peter tried another tactic. She seemed so much stronger now that he felt sure she was capable of going to a short walk each day. At first it was merely a stroll along the roads near their home. Then slightly longer ones along a path through the nearby woodlands and lanes where the hedgerows were still bright with flowers. He encouraged Betty to pick these wild flowers, rather than the ones from his garden.
By autumn, Betty’s recovery seemed to be as good as it would ever be. She still became breathless if she walked too far and sometimes complained that her legs were aching and they had to stop for her to have a rest. Her interest in what was going on around her was back to normal, although she did sometimes have lapses of memory when she couldn’t remember where she had put things, or the name of something or someone.
‘At her age that is only to be expected, and after what she has been through in the last twelve months it’s thoroughly understandable. In fact, for her age, she is in very good condition,’ the hospital doctor stated when Betty went for her final check-up.
Peter felt very relieved by the news and told Tim that he thought it was about time something was done about Betty’s old house.
‘It still worries her seeing it in that state, just as it worries me,’ he said to Tim the next time he called in to see how his mother was getting on. ‘You promised months and months ago to sort it out. You know all the details and you have the contacts to get it put right, so why not get on and do it?’
‘I’ve held back because I thought it might make my mother anxious to get back in there again because you said she often walks down the road, leans on the gate and stares at the house.’
Peter shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. She seems quite content with things as they are, as I am. I think she does that because she is unhappy about the state the house is in and knows she was the cause of the fire.’
‘I see. I’ll start putting things in motion then,’ Tim promised.
He was as good as his word, and within less than a week there was a smartly dressed man there taking measurements and making notes. At first, Betty was very concerned but when Tim explained to her that the man was an architect and that they were going to restore the house she looked interested.
‘You mean I will be able to go back there to live?’
‘If you want to do so,’ he said slowly. ‘I thought you were happy living here and sharing a house with Peter? He does a lot for you and if you go back to living on your own you’ll have to care for the garden and do all the cooking and cleaning and so on.’
Betty nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, you’re right. I’ll have to think about that.’
She said nothing to Peter but she confided in Sally Bishop.
‘You’d be mad to go back there. Peter waits on you hand and foot, you don’t know when you’re well off.’
Betty smiled. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. I’m very comfortable here and, as you say, Peter does quite a lot for me.’
‘Quite a lot!’ Sally Bishop’s eyebrows rose. ‘I’ll say he does. You’ve no worries at all and, with winter coming on, having someone to go for the bread and milk and papers when it’s raining cats and dogs, or it’s snowing, or there’s ice on the pavement, is a real blessing I can tell you.’
Betty smiled. ‘Jealous, are you?’ she teased.
‘I’ll say I am!’ Sally agreed. ‘You let them rebuild your old house and get your Tim to rent it out or sell it for you. As an estate agent he will know which is the best thing to do, and then you can enjoy the proceeds.’
From then on, the progress the builders were making became Betty’s prime interest. As soon as she’d had her breakfast she would put on her coat and walk along the road to her old house to make sure that the builders were hard at work. If for some reason they weren’t there then she asked Peter to make a phone call to Tim and ask him to chivvy them up.
‘Why the hurry if you’re not going back there to live?’ Peter asked nervously.
‘Tim has set things in motion and now I want to see it completed,’ she told him. ‘A sort of tidying up of the past.’
By the time their work was complet
e in mid-December the builders knew Betty well and were on friendly terms with her. As they began to move the last of their equipment out of the garage, where they had stored it while working on the place, she asked to look and see if there was a bicycle still in there. One of them went to look and came back pushing a very old upright ladies bicycle.
‘Do you mean this?’ he asked, a big grin on his face.
‘That’s it!’ she exclaimed, a delighted smile on her face.
‘It should be in a museum,’ he chuckled. ‘I don’t think I have ever seen one as old as this before. Didn’t they used to call them “sit up and beg” bicycles?’
‘Don’t you be so cheeky, young man. That is my bicycle and I’m going to start riding it again.’
He stared at her, in disbelief, trying not to laugh. Then solemnly he wheeled it towards her and handed it over to her.
‘Mind you don’t break the speed limit,’ he told her.
‘And remember you can’t use it on the motorways,’ someone warned and their remarks were followed by hoots of laughter.
‘Don’t you need a licence to drive that thing, or a man with a red flag running down the road in front of you,’ someone yelled and again there were loud laughs.
No, Betty thought complacently, she may have lost her licence to drive a car but you didn’t need a licence to ride a bicycle.
Other voices called after her. She knew they were making jibes about the bike at her expense, but she took no notice.
Delighted to have it back in her possession, she wheeled it away down the road, in the opposite direction to Peter’s house. It was so long since she had ridden it that she wasn’t sure that she was going to be able to keep her balance, and so she wanted to try it out in private without anyone seeing her do so.
Eighteen
Peter Brown was so absorbed in what he was doing that he lost all count of time. Dressed in his oldest gardening clothes, he was clearing out his shed. He was piling up all the items which were useless and which had accumulated over the years. He was making a bonfire of anything that would burn and collecting up the rest of the discarded items ready to take to the public rubbish tip.