Conrad & Eleanor (6 page)

C
onrad passes little
hotels by the station but feels the need to identify the centre of the town, to locate himself geograph­ically in this dot on the map where the train has deposited him. It is a real city. He swings into a rhythm of walking, enjoying the exercise and the fresh air in his lungs – feeling himself physically present in the place. The drizzle stinging his face is real. In the diminishing light it is so real it transports him, effortlessly, back to the night when, like this, the drizzle was a blessed relief. To the farmyard, in the rain. The night his father died.

Con's father hanged himself from a beam in the barn, at the age of sixty-seven. Con's mother found him, and rang Con at work with the news.

There is no one else (well, there is Con's sister Ailsa, who will of course have to be told, but she is unlikely to be much use). Con rings El to tell her, then drives straight to the farm, arriving as darkness falls. His mother is in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. Con kisses her. She is grey but seems composed. ‘I can't get him down so he's still there.'

‘You haven't rung —'

‘Who? Bit late for the doctor, isn't it.'

‘I think we need a doctor for a death certificate. Maybe the police as well.' Con makes the necessary phone calls while his mother stolidly peels carrots and parsnips. Going out to the barn is unavoidable. The dog, which has been lying under the table with its ears flat, gets up and follows him to the door.

‘You'll need the torch,' she tells Con. ‘The light's gone out there.' He picks up the big flashlight from the shelf above the coats and makes his way across the uneven yard. It has started to drizzle, the fine rain stings his cheeks. He looks down to the dog for solidarity, but it has disappeared. He unlatches the barn door then shoves it open with his foot and waits on the threshold until he can bring himself to raise the torch and direct its beam into the dark interior. For a moment he can't see anything but the barn, the shape-shifting arena of his and Ailsa's childhood dramas, and can't smell anything but its familiar straw, damp earth and creosote. Then his nose catches an ugly whiff of human excrement. The light hits the body; unnaturally large, swinging slightly, the face made hideous either by the exaggerated light and shadow or by its own interior workings. Before Conrad can stop himself, he is outside again, leaning against the barn wall for balance. He bends to rest his hands on his knees, trying to breathe evenly, feeling the welcome drizzle on his burning neck and head. How can he go in there?

But why should he expect strangers to deal with it? Then he realises that he can and must leave it to strangers, so the police can verify that it is suicide. He straightens, staring into the darkness of the yard and the yellow light of the kitchen window. Puddles glint treacherously. His open pores are drinking the rain, and he upturns his face and opens his mouth too, receiving the clean water gratefully. He waits in the yard until the dog gives a cursory bark and the first vehicle arrives. The doctor. Made capable by the shocked presence of a stranger who clearly knows his parents, Con enters the barn with him and positions the upended flashlight on a bale to give them some light. The doctor takes Ethan's wrist and feels for a pulse. ‘He's cold,' he says. ‘He's been dead a while. I'm sorry.'

Con thinks he should touch his father's hand but he can't make himself do it. The smell is awful. ‘We can't cut him down, can we?'

‘The police will do it.' The doctor is heading for the barn door and Conrad follows him out into the blessed rain again.

‘Can you write a death certificate?'

‘It's one for the coroner, suicide. He'll probably call a post-mortem.'

Con's ignorance embarrasses him. ‘I'm sorry. I've called you out for nothing.' The kitchen door opens, spilling light across the muddy yard, and his mother appears in the doorway. ‘Go back in, Mum. There's nothing for you to do here. Stay in the warm.'

She hesitates, then slams the door. From somewhere the dog begins to howl.

‘Want me to take a look at your mother? Give her something for the shock?'

Con nods. ‘I just need to —' He goes back into the barn. But there is nothing he can do out here. He picks up the flashlight, closes the door, follows the doctor into the house.

His mother is sitting at the table and the doctor is taking her pulse. ‘I don't want anything,' she says. ‘I'm all right.'

When the doctor has finished he offers, ‘What about something to help you sleep?' and she shakes her head.

‘Well,' says the doctor. ‘Well, Nancy, I wish I'd known he was feeling so low. It shouldn't have come to this. I'm very sorry.' He stands for a moment with his bag clasped in his hands, then turns for the door. Conrad follows him out again.

‘Thanks. Thanks very much.'

‘Let me know if your mother needs anything.'

‘Yes. Thank you.' Con stands quietly in the drizzle while the car reverses, raking the sodden yard with its lights, then turns and disappears down the track. When he goes back into the kitchen his mother is standing at the sink staring out into the darkness. ‘Mum? You all right?'

She does not reply.

‘Do you know…' He hesitates, the question is crass. ‘Is there – have you found a note?'

She shakes her head then lifts the pan full of vegetables onto the cooker and fills the pan with hot water from the kettle. ‘I've got some chops,' she says. Con is about to say he isn't hungry when he realises that he is, in fact, ravenous. Let her cook; some ancient piece of received wisdom advises him that it's better for her to be busy.

‘Have you told Ailsa?'

A quick shake of the head. He dials before giving himself time to think.

‘Conrad. And to what do I owe the extraordinary honour of my brother phoning me?'

He tells her. She begins to sob immediately. ‘Ailsa, listen. I'm with Mum. She's pretty calm. We're waiting for the police.'

‘I'll come.'

‘Better to leave it till the morning.'

‘You're there. Both his children should be there, what do you think I am?'

‘All I meant was, there's nothing to be done tonight, and it's a bit grim, and a long drive in the dark for you —'

‘I'll get a taxi, how d'you expect me to drive after this?'

‘Ailsa, there's nothing either of us can do until the morning.'

‘How could he do that? Why?' Renewed sobbing. ‘I can't bear it.'

‘I don't know, I really don't know. We'll try and sort some stuff out in the morning.'

She is crying noisily now and he doesn't know if she hears him. His mother cocks an ear at the wailing coming down the phone.

‘Ailsa, I'm going now, OK? We'll talk in the morning. Bye. Goodbye.' He puts the phone down gingerly; she will accuse him of hanging up on her but he can't listen to that any more. Leaving his mother in the kitchen, he goes into the sitting room and calls El on the extension in there.

‘He's still hanging in the barn, El, it's horrible. Mum seems completely disconnected.'

‘Oh Con, I'm so sorry. Why not ring one of the neighbours – the Fieldings are OK, aren't they? Couldn't you ask Joe's wife to sit with your mum a bit?'

She does not understand how much this would offend his mother. Con can hear Cara bossing Dan in the background. ‘Now pick up the crayons. You have to tidy up your toys like a good girl.' She likes to pretend Dan is a girl; she had been desperate for a little sister. A few times she has dressed his hair with her own bows and slides, which Dan has accepted blankly, and Con and El have debated the evils of gender stereotyping and whether to intervene or not. The blast of home warms Con and steadies him. ‘I'm not sure she'd appreciate Mrs Joe,' he says. ‘I suppose I should try and talk to her. I just rang Ailsa. She does my head in.'

‘D'you want me to come over? I could ask Lily to stay with the kids. I can't get out of my morning lecture, but after that —'

He wants her desperately but her effect upon the ugly dynamic between his mother and his sister would not be good. ‘Thanks, El. It's OK. Just be there at the end of the phone to talk me down.'

Her laugh, close in his ear.

‘I don't understand Mum. I don't know if she's even asking herself why —'

‘She'll be in shock. How long have they been married?'

‘Something like forty years.'

‘It'll be like losing a limb, won't it? She won't believe it, she'll have a phantom.'

‘Jesus, El. I don't know what to do.'

‘Oh love, just make sure she eats and drinks. Maybe ring the police again? Then pour both of you a good slug of whatever alcohol you can find in the place, and get some sleep.'

‘I love you,' he whispers.

‘You too.' There is an indulgent smile in her voice. He listens to her put the phone down, holding the empty receiver to his ear for the last reverberation of her voice.

The kitchen is full of the steam of overboiling vegetables and the spitting fat of the chops. His mother wrestles with pans, and he makes them both a cup of tea. Still no police. At table his father's seat is conspicuously empty. Con breaks the silence. ‘Is there anything I need to do for the sheep? Have you started lambing?'

‘Not yet. They'll need looking at in the morning.' She has piled his plate with food but taken very little herself.

‘Mum, can I get you anything else? Are you OK?'

‘Why shouldn't I be OK.' It is not a question.

Con eats quickly, greedily; he was empty. And maybe with food inside him he'll be more able… he needs to speak to her before Ailsa comes and ends all possibility of communication. When he puts down his knife and fork his mother makes to rise and take the plates, but he puts his hand on her arm. ‘Mum, it's all right, just sit still a minute. D'you have any idea why he did this?'

‘To spite me.'

‘Mum —'

‘He's been doing it all his life. Putting me in the wrong. Getting one over on me.'

A stupid giggle bursts out of him. ‘Dad's killed himself to spite you. Did you have a fight?'

She shrugs.

‘Mum?'

‘No more than usual.'

The back swill of numberless wretched family meals sloshes around Con: his mother slamming down plates, his father chomping through his food with a show of insouciance, hectoring Con and his sister with his excuse for humour. ‘Where d'you get that nose, sonny? No one on my side got a schnoz like that.' And ‘Eat up that cabbage, Ailsa – put hairs on your chest that will. You can come out and do your strongman act after tea, Connie boy, got a pile of feedbags need shifting, ha ha.' It amused him to find Con weak and effeminate. This became a furious charge when Con made it known that he did not want to be a farmer. Ethan did not address his wife except for the occasional ‘Cat got your tongue, Mother?'

Con clears their plates from the table. ‘Mum, have you got any whisky?'

She indicates the bottom cupboard of the dresser, and he locates a half bottle of Bell's and pours them both a dose. ‘Well, if it was no more than usual, why's he chosen to do it now?'

She sips at her whisky and coughs. ‘There's plenty of reasons.'

‘Tell me.'

‘His children for one. He's not stupid. He knows neither of you want to give him the time of day.'

Con suppresses his first impulse, which is to correct her use of the present tense. ‘I think it was more the other way round, Mum. He wasn't very interested in my life, he never once asked about my work.'

‘Oh your work!' she says contemptuously. ‘How often did you ask him about his work?'

‘But I know his work —'

‘Do you? Do you? Did you know he's been losing money? Do you know the price of feed for the lambs he raised last year?'

Con does not.

‘£120 a ton, and it was a wet spring, he had to bring them all under cover.'

‘Was he worried about money, then?'

‘Of course he was. Worried sick.'

It is long enough since Con has talked more than trivia with his mother that he has forgotten her inveterate habit of reviling and criticising her husband both to his face and to anyone who will listen, and then leaping with outrage to his defence if anyone else breathes a word against him. ‘I'm sorry. If only he'd asked me, maybe I —'

‘When's he supposed to ask you anything? When does he ever see you?'

‘Mum, I visit you a damn sight more than you ever visit me. In fact I can tell you how many times you've been to our house – once. The party we had the summer after Cara was born.'

‘You can't leave a farm, you know that.'

‘He could have taken a day off once in a while. It's not as if you went on holidays, at least you could have a day out.'

‘He wouldn't have known what to do with himself on a day out.'

‘He could even have picked up the phone.'

Con's mother snorts. ‘The phone!'

El has suggested that Dan's possible autism is handed down from Con's father. Con found the way he ‘teased' her, when she visited, cringeworthy. ‘How's the women's libber?' he'd say to her, and ‘D'you see those children often enough to tell 'em apart?' El thought his ‘bluff humour', as she called it, was a defence against a distressing sense of social inadequacy, and that Ethan was to be indulged rather than despised. She would tease him back and quiz him about sheep fertility and the mechanics of AI, and tell him she was doing similar things with women. One of Ailsa's bitterest complaints to her parents was, ‘You think more of Eleanor than you do of me, even though I am your own flesh and blood.'

‘He didn't like getting old,' Con's mother says suddenly.

‘What?'

‘He didn't like the aches and pains. He didn't like not being able to lift a bale on his own any more, he didn't like to ask for help.'