Miss Butler took another step and then stopped again. ‘A little bird told me that there may be a third person about to join Mr Deacon and Mrs Carberry at the Manor. Do you know anything about that, Colonel?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘I wondered if it might be the newcomer in Number 2 in the Hall? A Mrs Reed? It was formerly Miss Delaney’s flat, of course, as I’m sure you’ll remember only too well. What a tragedy that was. Quite shocking.’
Literally as well as figuratively, he thought, remembering the hairdryer in the bath.
‘I called on Mrs Reed recently,’ he said, volunteering a crumb of information, though she would probably be well aware of the fact.
‘I’m sure the flat is very changed now.’
‘Yes, it’s quite different.’
‘I happened to notice Mrs Reed at Dr Harvey’s morning surgery yesterday, though she looked perfectly well. She’s often there, apparently. Almost every day. Perhaps Dr Harvey has suggested some gardening therapy for her as well, do you think?’
‘It’s certainly possible.’
‘Did you meet her husband when you called, by any chance?’
‘No, he wasn’t there.’
‘Nobody seems to have seen him, but I understand he plays a great deal of golf.’
‘I believe so.’
‘A lot of gentlemen do, don’t they? I’ve often wondered why. Apparently, he has a handicap of twenty – whatever that means. I hear he’s won a great many silver cups and plates so he must be very good. They’re all kept on display in the sitting room. I expect you noticed them when you called?’
It was rather a relief to discover that the Frog End grapevine, far from wilting, was in excellent health. He had obviously not been Mrs Reed’s only visitor.
‘Yes, they’re lit up in a cabinet.’
‘Really?’
At that moment, Jacob appeared as silently as Freda Butler had done, and hovered at a safe distance.
‘If you’ll excuse us, Miss Butler.’
‘Oh, of course, Colonel.’
She retreated across the green to Lupin Cottage as he and Jacob began the tricky manoeuvre of getting the pig trough to its new home at the edge of the sundowner terrace. It seemed the perfect place.
He thanked Jacob and, as he had done on other occasions when he had helped him in the cottage jungle, pressed some notes into his hand. This time Jacob refused to take them, backing away and shaking his head. It was wiser, the Colonel judged, not to insist.
Instead, he said, ‘I’m very grateful to you for giving me a hand, Jacob. And I know how much Mrs Harvey appreciates all the work you do in the Manor gardens. She has often told me that she couldn’t manage without you.’
‘There’s others now.’
‘But they’re not real gardeners like you. They’re just passing the time, do you see? Mr Deacon has been very ill and Mrs Carberry has lost her husband. Dr Harvey thought it might make them feel better, that’s all. There’s nothing whatever for you to worry about, I promise you.’
The young man went off without saying another word, head down, shoulders hunched. It was impossible for the Colonel to tell if he had made any impression on him or not.
‘I finished my rounds early, Mrs Turner, so I thought I’d call by and see how Johnny’s getting on.’
Dr Harvey was kindness itself. Sheila knew he must be a very busy man, but he somehow found time to visit. She always left him to see Johnny alone because she had realized from the first that it was better like that. Johnny could talk to the doctor about all sorts of things, man-to-man – perhaps even about the dark place. She didn’t know what was said because she had never asked Dr Harvey and he had never told her. Doctors were like priests, after all, bound to secrecy with their patients.
She showed him into the sitting room where Johnny was reading one of his bike magazines. As always, she offered him a cup of tea but, as always, he declined it.
‘I won’t stay long, Mrs Turner. Just a few minutes.’
She went and sat in the kitchen and waited.
It seemed a longer visit than usual, and when Dr Harvey came out of the sitting room he lingered.
‘I’ve just been asking Johnny if he could help us out.’
‘Help you out?’
It was impossible to see how.
‘Yes. You see, things get very busy in the Manor gardens at this time of the year. Ruth can hardly cope and I don’t have much time to spare. I asked Johnny if he could give us a hand sometimes.’
She stared at him. ‘But what could he do?’
‘There’s plenty of odd jobs that need doing, if he wouldn’t mind.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he might. And that’s rather where you come in, Mrs Turner. You would have to take him over to the Manor and then collect him later. You wouldn’t need to stay. Do you think you could manage that?’
She could push the wheelchair from the bungalow as far as the green, all right, though it was a bit of an uphill struggle for the last part. After that she could keep to the edge of the road round the green for the rest of the way to the Manor.
‘I could manage it all right. If Johnny agrees.’
He smiled at her. ‘See if you can persuade him.’
‘He won’t listen to me, I’m afraid. That’s the very last thing he’d ever do.’
‘Then we’ll leave it up to him to decide, shall we?’
She saw the doctor out and went into the sitting room.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Johnny?’
He shook his head.
If I don’t say a word about Dr Harvey’s idea, she thought, he might come round to it in the end. And if he mentions it first, I’ll pretend to be against it. She went and made a cup for herself and took it into the sitting room.
Johnny turned another page of his magazine.
‘Dr Harvey’s asked me to give them a hand at the Manor.’
‘Whatever for? I don’t see how you can.’
‘Because he thinks it would be good for me, that’s why. I’m not stupid, Mum.’
‘Well, I think it’s a very bad idea. Much too tiring. I’m surprised at Dr Harvey for suggesting it. I’ll tell him so next time he calls.’
He rounded on her.
‘You won’t say anything to him, Mum. You’ll mind your own bloody business. Just because I can’t walk it doesn’t mean my mind’s gone. I can make my own decisions for myself.’
‘Anyway, you’d need me to help you.’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’ He held his arms up, flexing them and clenching his fists. ‘My legs don’t work but my arms and hands are getting stronger all the time. I can do lots of things and I can wheel myself around anywhere I want to go. I don’t need you.’
‘I’d have to take you there and back though, wouldn’t I?’
‘That’s all. I can do all the rest on my own, without you. Thanks very much.’
His words wounded while they gave her hope. Hope that he might somehow, some day, leave the dark place.
‘Please yourself,’ she said with a shrug, ‘but you’ll never manage it.’
FOUR
Lawrence Deacon looked at his watch again. Claudia was late. Not that it was unusual these days. She seemed to get later and later. The TV evening news had been too boring to watch and he’d finished the newspaper crossword. There was nothing else to do but sit and wait.
Another half hour passed before he heard her key in the lock and she came into the sitting room.
He looked at his watch once more. ‘I was getting worried about you.’
‘I’m sorry, Lawrence. It’s been very busy today. Not that I’m complaining.’
She was very proud of her shop, he knew, although he resented the fact. It was a cut above the usual tourist-tat gift shops. She had good taste and chose the stuff wisely and well – he had to admit that – and she seemed to thrive on hard work, to be full of energy and what used to be called vim. By contrast, he felt and looked
like a tired and shambling old man, which was exactly what he had become since the stroke.
Claudia was taking off her jacket and heading for the kitchen. Getting away from him.
He said, ‘I spent today sweeping garden paths.’
‘That doesn’t sound very exciting.’
‘It wasn’t. Ruth thought it would be a change of scene for me, but I got fed up and came home early.’
‘I’m sure she’ll think of something else for you to do, if you ask her.’
‘I’m not good for much else.’ He tried, but failed, to keep the self-pity out of his voice. ‘Besides, she’s got two more of her husband’s patients helping there now.’
‘Oh? Who are they?’
‘That woman, Mrs Carberry, from the flat upstairs whose husband dropped dead last year, and some sulky young man in a wheelchair. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but I gather the boy smashed himself up riding his motorbike too fast. Broke his spine. He’ll never walk again.’
‘How very sad.’
‘It’s not sad at all. It was his own fault. Served him right. And he’s lucky to be alive, isn’t he? Unlike others.’
He didn’t actually mention their son who had not been so lucky. Hadn’t uttered his name for years, but the memory of him lay unspoken and unforgotten between them. Their boy had been seventeen and it hadn’t been his fault at all.
Claudia turned away. ‘I’ll go and get on with the supper.’
She was always turning away from him, leaving the room, spending as little time with him as she could.
They’d not only lost a son, he thought, they’d lost a marriage. Neither of them had ever got over the accident, and since his stroke, he’d been difficult to live with, to say the least. Moody and bitter and resentful, if he was honest. He was jealous of the shop. The damned place seemed to take up more and more of her time and attention and there was a new glow about her that he’d noticed recently. The glow of success and fulfilment? Or maybe another man?
She was only fifty-two and still an attractive woman. There was no question of them sleeping together these days – not in his perilous state of health. There hadn’t been for some time, in fact. He couldn’t remember exactly how long. They’d somehow got out of the habit. It wouldn’t be very surprising if some bastard was taking advantage. And if Claudia had a lover she might leave him and he would find himself living alone in this godforsaken place. Christ, it would be unbearable! He’d sooner be dead. Much sooner. He forced himself to calm down; to get a grip. Claudia wasn’t that sort of woman. She’d never do a thing like that. Would she?
The Colonel carried the drinks tray out on to the sundowner terrace and Naomi arrived on the dot of six o’clock. It was a fine evening – the first really warm one of the year. Instead of her customary tracksuit, she was wearing the long and voluminous purple kaftan that he remembered had been unearthed last year from the trunk in her attic. It had once belonged to her mother who had brought it back from Turkey. Like the swallow he had spotted swooping over the garden that morning, the kaftan was a sure harbinger of summer. Where Naomi was concerned, hot weather could lead to a rummage through the attic trunk and the appearance of a variety of lightweight garments of indeterminate age and often exotic origin. Sometimes she brought out her late father’s ancient panama hat and stuck it on her thatch of grey hair. She was bareheaded now, but, incongruously, she was still wearing her white moon boots under the kaftan.
She had brought him a jar of home-made jam. ‘Hope you like the stuff. Can’t stand it myself but it’s always useful for bring-and-buys.’
He read the crooked label. Rhubarb Jam. As it happened, he liked rhubarb very much, even the mouth-puckering stew of his boarding school days. ‘Thank you, Naomi.’
‘So, show me your new herb garden.’
He led her over to make a formal inspection. ‘It’s actually a pig trough.’
‘I can see that, Hugh. And a very nice old one too. What a find!’
‘The hump in the middle stops the greedy pigs hogging all the food.’
‘Yes, I know that too. I’m a simple country girl, don’t forget.’
Not a description he would ever have applied to Naomi.
‘I’ve moved your mint in.’
‘It’s looking very happy in its new home – rather too happy. Don’t let it take over, Hugh. The hump won’t stop it like the pigs. It’ll rampage everywhere. Now, let’s see, what else have you got? Rosemary, thyme, parsley … so far, so good. There’s plenty of room for more. You could get some sage. Maybe chives, too. All jolly useful everyday herbs.’
His daily cooking had, so far, never included any of them but it would be worth a try, to show willing. He gestured towards the terrace.
‘The usual?’
‘I don’t mind if I do.’
He poured the Chivas Regal – three fingers in each glass with a splash of water added to hers, no ice in either – and they sat down in the old wooden steamer chairs he had also found languishing in a corner of the reclamation yard. Cumbersome but superbly comfortable. Naomi settled herself in, parked her moon boots on the extendable leg rest and raised her glass to him.
‘Chin-chin, Hugh. This is the life! We might be on some great liner sailing across the ocean.’
‘Just so long as it’s not the Titanic.’
‘Good point. Personally, I’d go for the Aquitania. Another lovely old ship – nothing like those floating tower blocks today. My Great Aunt Doris sailed in her in the 1920s and she told me it was the best time she ever had in her entire life. Lolling around in chairs like these, playing jolly deck games, drinking champagne, dining and dancing the night away. And they were actually going somewhere, not just round in circles. A proper voyage. First class, of course. Not quite the same in steerage, I suppose.’
‘I doubt it,’ the Colonel said drily.
Thursday had appeared from nowhere in his offhand fashion, walking rather stiffly towards them. He gave Naomi a wide berth, fully aware that she was a ‘dog person’. On the rare occasions when her two Jack Russells, Mutt and Jeff, accompanied her to Pond Cottage, Thursday and his claws had no problem keeping them at bay.
The cat sat down beside the pig trough and began washing his face methodically with his paws.
‘Showing his age a bit more these days,’ Naomi remarked.
In fact, Thursday’s age was unknown. On the only visit to a veterinary surgery that the Colonel had managed to achieve, the vet, who had been on the receiving end of Thursday’s spitting fury, had agreed that it was wiser not attempted again unless absolutely necessary. After a rapid examination, he had judged the cat to be somewhere around sixteen years old, to be in fair shape except for a few missing teeth and a touch of arthritis in his hind legs. The torn ear wasn’t worth trying to repair. Thursday would certainly not be entering any cat beauty contests.
‘He seems to cope all right.’
‘Unlike some of us. You should have been at the May Ladies’ Group meeting last week, Hugh. Not a soul under sixty-five and the speaker forgot to turn up. We were left with just the tea and biscuits.’
The Frog End Ladies’ Group met every month to listen to a talk or watch a demonstration on a wide variety of topics: Unusual Foreign Recipes, Constructing Hanging Baskets, Recycling Old Items, Rescuing Hedgehogs. The Colonel had heard all about them and had thanked God many times that men were banned from attending.
Naomi took a swig from her glass. ‘They’re looking for new speakers. I don’t suppose you’d come and give us a talk, Hugh?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘They’re getting pretty desperate.’
‘They must be. But I really have nothing to talk about.’
‘Yes, you do. All the stuff about your time in the army. You could do that again. You were jolly good. We were all ears.’
The slide-less talk that he had been persuaded to give soon after his arrival in Frog End had been the first and the last, so far as he was concerned.
‘I’m sorry, Naomi. You’ll have to find someone else.’
She acknowledged defeat. ‘Oh, well. By the way, what are you up to in your shed these days?’
Naomi did not understand his shed. He had bought it a year ago and Jacob had erected it for him on the place where the old outside privy had once stood. It was a plain and simple structure with a door, two windows and some very useful shelves inside. He had used them for stowing a neat row of glass jars full of nails and screws, nuts and bolts, as well as tins and boxes and bottles containing other oddments he might need. He had put up hooks for hanging garden tools, and there was space for the lawn mower. Most pleasing of all, there was also room for a decent-sized workbench where he had been able to carry out general household repairs and put together a World War Two Matilda tank from a plastic kit. He had also made a German U-boat, a Lancaster bomber and a Hurricane fighter. Last winter he had had an electric cable run out to the shed to provide power, light and warmth and he had turned his hand to some quite serious woodwork. He had so far made a toddler’s rocking horse for his granddaughter, Edith, which had been given a mixed reception. Unqualified approval from Edith who had clambered on board straight away, and health and safety doubts from his daughter-in-law, Susan, who had been afraid of her falling off. He was now engaged in making a wooden chessboard for his grandson, Eric. It was fiddly work involving cutting and gluing strips of light and dark wood together to be cut across and then glued again to form the squares. The next step would be sanding the board smooth, the final one adding a border and varnishing. Carving intricate chessmen was beyond him so they would have to be bought ready-made. Not real ivory, of course, but perhaps a passable imitation.
He was looking forward to teaching the game to Eric. If the success of their visit together to Bovington Tank Museum and the subsequent battles fought on the Pond Cottage sitting-room carpet with the Colonel’s old tin soldiers were any indication, his grandson would relish the essentially military strategy involved – tactics, manoeuvres, outflanking and encirclement, surprise attack, counter-attack, advance, retreat, capture and surrender. The trick would be to keep his mother, who disapproved of war in any shape or form, in the dark.
The Lifeline Page 6