Dovetail

by Bernard Pearson

  Leaving the boy and the dog playing, they went inside and sat round the big kitchen table. Bill sat in his usual place. Lucy sat at the far end of the table and watched as Gloria make a fresh pot of tea.

  Bill was nonplussed. He had assumed that by some strange osmosis Gloria would know all about Lucy. He had never made a secret of her, had he? But of course he had. Insofar as it was possible, Lucy had been hidden from everyone and it now dawned on him that this included his family. He looked down into his mug of tea and then across the table at the two women silently sitting opposite one another and knew he had mishandled the situation.

  Lucy sat forward, her arms on the table, hands playing with an old silver spoon, turning it round and round as it caught the light. She looked slightly anxious while Gloria, her usual elegant self, gazed at her and Bill in turn.

  Finally, Lucy followed her instincts and told Gloria pretty much what she had told Dylan: she wasn’t exactly on the run from her ex-husband, but she needed some peace and quiet in her life and the only way for her to get it was to be where he couldn’t find her. When Gloria asked how they knew each other, Bill said they had ‘mutual acquaintances in the antiques trade’. This seemed to satisfy Gloria, who looked at Lucy with much less suspicion now. She and Phillip had been worried about him not taking proper care of himself, especially lately. The cleanliness and comfort she now saw all around her spoke volumes for Lucy’s ability to ‘do’ for Bill, and if he could repay her by providing a safe haven, it looked like being an excellent bargain on both sides.

  After a little more small talk, Gloria said it was time for her and Jack to head home. Leading the way into the yard, Bill veered off to where dog and boy were still engaged in a game with the old tennis ball and joined in so the two women could have a chance to talk without him around.

  They did, for quite a long time, and Bill was pleased to see that any reservations Gloria might have had must have been allayed. In fact, at one point he heard them both roar with laughter at something one of them said. (He asked Lucy later what had been so funny, but she pretended not to remember.) As Gloria and Jack drove away, Lucy stood beside him, smiling and waving.

  Over dinner, Bill told Lucy more about his family and, in doing so, made her feel slightly more a part of it. She knew she still had to be hidden away from most eyes, but now that his family knew of her, she felt a lot less isolated. Bill understood this now and was grateful that Gloria had called by. One little problem solved, he thought, as he sipped a small whisky before bed.

  But as he undressed that night, a bigger one loomed: the bloody hospital. Tomorrow was the day of his appointment with the oncologist. He knew his health was deteriorating, and he was sure Lucy had noticed it, too. Sometimes he caught her looking at him when the coughing got bad or when he couldn’t finish the meal she had placed in front of him. His chest hurt almost all the time now, and he was weaker than he ever remembered being. He felt this illness as a personal affront; his own body was letting him down just when he needed all his faculties more than at any other time in his sixty-seven years.

  Chapter 24

  THURSDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER

  On a rainy Thursday afternoon, Bill drove himself to the hospital. As he wandered through labyrinthine corridors, medicos hurried by, their white coats flapping like wings. Nurses wearing crisp uniforms, sensible shoes, and utilitarian smiles passed silently by. Porters moved blanket-swathed lumps from place to place on beds and trolleys, the wheels of which squeaked and rattled as if warning the unwary of their passage. Visitors who knew where they were going moved purposefully with expressions of faith, hope, and charity. Others, like himself, looked anxious and awkward as they negotiated their journeys to consulting rooms or treatment centres.

  In the Oncology Department, the wait for out patients was endless, or so it seemed to Bill as he sat in his hard plastic chair. There were rows of them, their pale blues, greens, and reds scuffed and tired but still the most colourful things in this drab, sad area. Waiting along with him were other patients, some with friends or relatives. Hardly anyone made eye contact; conversations were hushed. The hot, stuffy room had no windows through which one might see a world going about its normal, ordinary, pain-free business.

  Eventually Bill’s name was called, and a nurse showed him into a tiny, cramped consulting room, the walls of which were covered with posters, charts, and signs warning against smoking and other terminal recreational pursuits. A white-coated young man (Bill thought he looked about fourteen) got up from a small desk that was set against one wall and shook Bill’s hand. The desk held a large computer screen, piles of medical notes, and a pencil pot bearing a withered note asking that its pens not be taken. It was empty. Bill thought of putting in one of the big, square carpenter’s pencils he always kept in his jacket, but didn’t. Instead, he sat down in the chair next to the desk, his back against the shabby wall, and looked up at the doctor.

  The doctor looked back at Bill and saw a face that was grey and lined, but with eyes that were still fiercely alive. He also saw a pipe sticking out of the top pocket of Bill’s worn tweed jacket like a small, wooden periscope. This appeared to have a negative effect on his composure. He sat down at his cluttered desk, turned towards his computer screen, and fiddled with the mouse. Bill sat upright and silent, looking at the notices on the walls and occasionally at the youth in the white coat.

  Finally, the doctor attempted to adopt a grave expression, one he probably copied from a senior colleague and practiced in front of a mirror. Bill thought he needed more practice as it just made him look vaguely petulant. It was clear the poor little sod was embarrassed for both of them, like a new vicar discussing unnatural desires or sex before marriage. The idea made Bill smile, which threw the medic entirely, causing him to finally blurt out that the tests Bill had taken, the X-rays, the biopsies, and all those other indignities he had endured a few weeks ago, all showed he was in the last stages of lung cancer. He was in the median something, blah blah four, and various other things besides. His jargon meant little to Bill.

  ‘So in other words I’m riddled with rot like an old beam and wouldn’t even make good firewood. How long have I got?’

  The doctor consulted his notes, fiddled with the computer again and, with many more ‘err’s and ‘hmm’s hedged round with ‘might’s and ‘hopefully’s, told Bill that, though there was no cure for the cancer that was destroying his lungs, there was treatment that could prolong his life. It would mean giving up work, smoking, drinking, and eating anything worth having, but it would prolong his life. For a while, anyway. Probably.

  Bollocks to that, thought Bill, and it showed in his face. ‘How long without?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say for sure,’ replied the doctor, squirming as he looked down at Bill’s paperwork yet again. ‘Weeks. Maybe months. Certainly not years. And it will get more painful and debilitating. Of course, we can help with that, and there are other symptoms you might develop that we can mitigate to some extent.’

  He stopped talking at that point, knowing that, for all practical purposes, neither he nor medical science could do fuck all. It wasn’t that he was unsympathetic, he just found this old man intimidating, impenetrable, wooden. Glancing down again at his notes, he read what Bill did for a living. That was it; the man was an antique himself, all hard surfaces and dovetailed joints.

  He asked Bill if he had someone who could look after him. ‘I’m sorted, thanks.’

  ‘There is help available if you apply for it,’ said the young man a little desperately. ‘Hospices and the like. We’ll be in touch with your GP.’

  He gave Bill a leaflet and a limp, apologetic goodbye. Bill folded up the leaflet and put it in his pocket, then threaded his way back through the long corridors to where his van was parked. He got in and looked through the dirty windscreen at the rows of cars and the few people who were scurrying about in the rain. His mind was strangely clear.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ he said.

  He drove home
slowly and carefully, his mind on the road and not on what he had just been told. Driving into the yard, he closed the big metal gate behind him and went into the kitchen. Lucy was cooking. She turned to him, but before she could say anything Bill raised his hand and shook his head a little. Lucy took the hint.

  He sat down heavily in the his armchair by the stove. ‘I’ll get this thing lit again. It’ll take the chill off.’

  Silently, Lucy put a mug of tea by him and went back to her cooking.

  After drinking his tea, Bill got up and said he would take Clive for a walk before dinner. He changed his coat, took a walking stick from the rack, fixed Clive’s lead on his collar, and went out. It had stopped raining, but everything was still wet and dripping. There was a mist over the fields, and the hedges around them were just showing the beginning of autumn. Dusk was not a long way off. Letting Clive off his lead to run himself out, Bill walked along paths he knew well and used often. Along hedges that had bounded these fields for centuries, with trees still in leaf that dripped second-hand rain on him as he passed underneath. He walked in silence through a soundless landscape that was grey-green in the soft light. Even the rooks in the trees above had ceased their quarrelling.

  After a while Bill felt tired and walked to a fallen tree that had left a natural seat amidst the hedgerow: a wooden throne under a tall oak that spread its branches above. This was a place he often used to rest and look over the countryside around him. He would light his pipe and ponder things while Bess wandered off on her own for a while. A short while only, then she would silently return and Bill would feel her warmth leaning against his leg. With that memory, Bill’s hand automatically reached down to pat her as he had used to do.

  But she wasn’t there. He was alone, and the memory of her death came like a whiplash out of the past and opened a wound in his heart that had barely begun to heal. He cracked and broke like a beam on which too much weight has been placed.

  The soft machine that is the human mind can at times withstand a tempest, and at others be shattered by a single thought. Bill felt crushed and powerless. He sat, head in hands, and sobbed his heart out. He cried like a child, not caring who might hear or see him, oblivious to anything other than his regret and despair.

  He thought of his son and his family. Of the grandson he loved so much and whose teenage years he would never see, nor the man he might grow into. Of the new grandchild he would never meet, never hold, never love. It broke his heart.

  He also thought of those cursed chairs. He feared he would never be able to finish them now and – one way or another – remove the threat of Skates and Warren from Lucy and his family.

  Finally, spent and exhausted by the emotions that had crashed through him, he became calm again. The world around him was quiet and slowly growing darker. Suddenly he felt movement and, looking down through eyes still stinging with tears, saw Clive’s head in his lap. Soft brown eyes looked up at him with unmistakeable concern.

  ‘You been talking to my old Bess? You’ve been learning from her, haven’t you, you soft bloody fool.’

  Clive blinked and swallowed in bliss as Bill’s old hands caressed his ears.

  It was enough. As if taking strength from the landscape around him, from the bones of the land beneath his feet, Bill rose above his cloud of despair and stood up. He had lamented his fate and grieved for his old dog and his own future. Now he had to pull himself together, to plan and scheme.

  Anger gripped him like a clenched fist and gave him strength. He would survive long enough. Not clinging to the wreckage and bewailing his loss, but fighting back and giving the bastards the kicking they deserved.

  ‘First things first,’ he said, as he made his way back home. ‘First things first.’

  He stopped at the tree under which Bess rested. He said nothing; he didn’t need to. Even Clive took a moment and just sat at his side while he stood there.

  After a while, Bill said to Clive, ‘Let’s go see that lovely Lucy of yours.’

  And after that, he would call Philip and Gloria. He knew he could no longer walk alone. If he was to succeed, he would need all the help he could get. But his heart told him it would be there, until the end.

  Chapter 25

  THURSDAY–SUNDAY, 27–30 SEPTEMBER

  Bill walked through the door of the kitchen into warmth and light and the savoury smell of supper. Lucy was curled up in his armchair by the stove. She had been crying; the leaflet he had brought back from the hospital that afternoon was in her hand. He walked over and gently pulled her to her feet. He enfolded her in his arms and she laid her head on his shoulder.

  ‘I hung your jacket up to dry near the stove,’ she sobbed. ‘The paper fell out.’

  ‘There, girl,’ he said calmly, enjoying the fragrance of her hair. ‘There, girl, don’t fret. What is, just is. We’ll weather it, you and I.’ He held her as the tears ran down her cheeks. Finally she gave him one long, strong hug as though revelling in the warmth and reality of him, then stepped back, smiled, and wiped her eyes.

  Without any more discussion, they agreed not to talk about Bill’s illness or anything else that would cast a shadow on the evening. After they ate, they sat in front of the stove together, just chatting about nothing. Tomorrow was tomorrow was tomorrow. The now was comfort and companionship, with added dog. Clive lay between them basking in the heat of the stove, its warmth filling the room and the fruitwood burning within it scenting the air.

  ~~~

  Over tea and toast the following morning, they planned. Actually, they schemed, which is far more detailed. Taking down the calendar from its nail on the kitchen wall, Bill tried to work out how long it would take him to finish the chairs. He said they would have to treat his illness as just another part of the problem. He would have no sentiment brought into the equation. It was there, and no amount of crying would make it go away.

  ‘We factor it in as best we can, that’s all,’ he said. ‘There’s no other way, and we can’t afford to get soppy about it.’

  Leaning back in his chair, he rubbed his chin and reached for his pipe, which earned him a look from Lucy, but no comment.

  ‘It’s all down to time,’ he said, ‘and there just doesn’t seem to be enough of it.’

  It was Lucy who finally provided at least a hope of a solution. She told Bill to break down all the work that needed to be done into two sorts: what a novice (i.e., Lucy) could do, and what only he himself could do. As he did this, it became clear that, providing he stood by and talked her through it, there really were quite a lot of things she could do, and she was more than willing to have a go at them. This would make a difference, he said; they might gain some days, even a week this way. And the more Bill thought about it, the more he liked the idea of teaching Lucy his craft and passing on at least some of his skills to her.

  The next subject of discussion was Bill’s need to tell his family about his diagnosis. As difficult as that would be, they both knew it couldn’t and shouldn’t be put off much longer. Lucy couldn’t help feeling that the best thing she could do was to leave him to get on with it in his own way, so she suggested she go visit Dylan for a day or two. Bill reluctantly yet gratefully accepted this plan, knowing it was right, but also that it cost both of them something to be apart.

  The next day dawned bright, sunny, and gently warm. Bill waved Lucy and Clive through the gate, then closed it behind them and went back into the kitchen. He did very little that day; only enough to put off calling his son for as long as possible, with naps in between. But eventually he did call and suggested they get together for Sunday lunch the next day. Philip was mildly surprised, especially by Bill’s instant acceptance of his offer to stop by and pick him up, but didn’t ask too many questions.

  The venue was definitely not the sort of place liable to be patronized by Skates, but even so Bill kept scanning the room during the meal next day. He still didn’t have any idea how to tell his family what he had to tell them, and it wasn’t until they got back to t
he farm and Jack went off with a catapult his granddad had given him (some recompense for not having that bloody dog to frolic with) that he was able to say anything about his condition. He finally decided to just tell it like it was, with no fancy wrapping and no false hope. They were intelligent people and grown up enough to take it.

  Or so he thought. In the end it was him comforting Gloria while Phillip walked out into the yard. Eventually Philip came back in, red-eyed and very quiet, by which time Gloria had calmed down somewhat, though she wouldn’t let go of Bill’s hand.

  He reassured them as much as he could. It helped that Lucy was staying with him now, and they were pleased that he had bought a mobile phone. Of course he then had to find the bloody thing to get his own and Gloria’s numbers, as well as charge the battery. Still, you can’t have everything, he said, as he plugged it into its charging dock, hoping it might lighten the atmosphere. It didn’t. He promised he would see his doctor just as soon as he could and would keep them informed of whatever he learned. Yes, yes, he promised.

  They left in the late afternoon, and Bill felt relieved to see them go. Not because he didn’t love being with them, but he found it tiring to put on a brave face for so long. He was more tired now than he liked to admit, plus when a coughing fit took him he felt embarrassed by it. Stupid, he knew, but in the back of his mind lurked memories from his childhood about the way TB sufferers had been ostracised.

  And he was hurting. Hurting because of the pain he was causing them, but also because he didn’t like to take the painkillers he had been given. They made him feel as though his brain had been put in a sock, or belonged to someone else. Distant from the world around him. When he read on the package that you weren’t supposed to operate machinery or drive if you took these pills, he nearly threw the bottle away. He didn’t, though. He kept them beside his bed like a book not yet opened but there just in case.