Our Picnics in the Sun (14 page)

“Not very nice of him to turn you out of the flat when he’d invited you in the first place.”

He looked sheepish. “It got a bit nasty. He said I was sponging off him. It was because I didn’t really fancy him. That’s what it was all about, to be honest. He took it very personally.”

“Well, it is personal.”

“It is and it isn’t. The thing is I’m not really gay. Not that gay. So he was pissed off with me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that except, “You’re well out of it, then. Except he’s left you in the lurch.”

“Yeah. And you didn’t get paid.”

“Well, the dinner was terrible.”

Theo smiled, and shivered. “I hardly ate anything.” He glanced at Howard’s empty bowl. “So now I’m starving.”

I realized then that he’d helped Howard with his cereal thinking I might offer him some, too; there had been no real kindness in it. Still, he had done it. I filled a bowl for him and brought a spoon and hoped he’d take no more than five minutes over it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him being there, but since he must go, I wanted him gone. I had not yet had time to think properly about Adam, and I did not know if it was his absence or just my anger with him that lay like a weight inside me. So I was surprised at the way my heart lifted to see Theo eat so ravenously. I poured him more tea, and then more; he drained the pot. I gave him another bowl of cereal. When he’d finished, he looked up and saw I’d been watching him. His face was friendly but still somehow neutral, a mask of almost android mildness and adaptability, upturned and waiting for experience to come and draw lines and press shadows upon it. And until that happened, I thought, those well-composed features, handsome as they were, were probably forgettable. There was a shred of cereal stuck on his top lip. I didn’t tell him about it. I let it stay there, a detail I’d be able to bring to mind later, when I had trouble remembering his face. For the sun was rising up the sky and over the roof, and soon would be too high to reach into the room anymore; soon the angles of light would sharpen and retreat across the floor and Theo would be gone, leaving me in the shadow of the hill and alone with Howard asleep in his chair, his bald head crooked on his shoulder.

A long time passed in silence. I didn’t want to say anything that would begin the inevitable leave-taking.

Then Theo said, “Listen, I mean it. I feel really bad about the money. Maybe I could stay and do a few jobs for you—you know,
work off the debt? I mean, there’s a few things need doing around the place, isn’t there? I’m pretty handy.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can manage,” I said, intending to put a stop to it all and be rid of him; he was taking a friendly conversation too far. “I’ve been managing for many years. And my son helps, when he’s here.”

“Are you sure? Well, I’ll leave you the eleven quid, anyway.” He stood up. “If you do want me to just go.”

That was when, without pausing to think about it any more, I told him I didn’t want him to just go. I was still in the clothes I had slept in. I wanted him to help Howard give his face a quick wipe (since he’d done so well helping him with breakfast) and keep an eye on him while I got myself bathed and dressed and ready for the day, and then I wanted him to take us up on the moor for our son’s birthday picnic. We went every year, I told him, even the years Adam couldn’t be here. Lately, since Howard’s stroke, I would even go alone, just to sit. But Adam had been so looking forward to it this year, I said. He’d been desperate to get back for his birthday. He’d be thrilled to know we made it on to the moor and had the picnic, even though he couldn’t be here himself.

H
oward awoke to the feel of hands cupping his cheeks from behind, large hands that were cool, and rough. It registered with him that they were Deborah’s hands—who else’s?—although maybe today they smelled a little different: newly washed, giving off a whiff of something from a bottle, grassy with a hint of tar. A voice, which also could only be Deborah’s—although there was something different about it, too—said something he didn’t catch, and then his head was tipped back and a wet cloth came down over his eyes. He tried to claw it away but the hands were heavy and quick as well; in one movement they seized and covered his own, and lowered them to his lap. The cloth was replaced over his face. Howard tried to shriek but no sound came, and for a while nothing else happened. The voice spoke again; again he could make no sense of the words, and he couldn’t see anything through the cloth. But from the echoey drop of the voice into silence and the watery smell he knew he was still in the linoleum-floored kitchen, where he half-remembered he’d been having breakfast not very long ago. Usually he was moved right after breakfast. He tried to lunge out of his chair but was forced back. The cloth slid off his eyes and around his cheeks and was gone. Howard blinked and strained his eyes for a glimpse of Deborah coming to him with a towel to dry his damp face, but at the corner of his eye he caught only a movement, a stirring of air following someone’s departure from his line of vision. He was alone, in silence.

Silence—that was it. He wasn’t in the sitting room watching television, as he ought to be. He shivered. No wonder he’d fallen asleep—he’d been left in the kitchen, where there was nothing to
watch. He rummaged at the sides of his chair as if he’d find the remote control there, but of course he wouldn’t, he knew that was stupid, it was all wrong. Things were going wrong. He tried to call out and this time from his mouth there came a shriek, and with an explosion of spittle he almost managed the word
Deborah!

The voice, out of nowhere, spoke close to his ear.

“It’s all right, Howard. Quiet, now. Guess what, we’re going for the picnic. All of us. That’ll be fun, won’t it, Howard?”

I
was always quick in taking my bath because the bathroom was drafty and the tap ran so slow the water would be tepid before there were more than a few inches of it. There was never any possibility of soaking in deep warmth, not for someone my size, so I sat up straight like a fleshy, rounded inversion of an iceberg, nine-tenths above the surface. Anyway, I knew if I tried to lean back, the cast iron slope of the bath would feel uneven and I would begin to hurt, as if there were an extra, tender little spur of bone sprouting under my left shoulder blade, which, for all I knew, there was. So I sat with my knees drawn up as I always did, and washed my body up and down, clasping myself in long, slippery hugs and pushing into my folds of flesh with a nugget of soap in each hand, while the water ran in trickles down my back and cooled around my haunches. Even so, I liked the novelty of a morning bath—I usually bathed at night, after Howard was in bed—and even though it wasn’t very comfortable I thought of it as a treat, as if the day were
my
birthday. Then I put on my dress of dark blue and white checks that I used to love but hadn’t worn since Adam was last here and told me it looked like a tablecloth. It was years since I’d used perfume but I put some on anyway even though it had gone syrupy in the bottom of the bottle and smelled like sherry.

When I came down Howard was still in the kitchen and had retreated into a doze. There was no sign of Theo and his absence hit me hard, until I realized that he must be in the scullery, emptying the washing machine. I left him to it. It was strangely enjoyable and relaxing, the thought of someone out of sight but somewhere in the
house, helping to get ordinary things done. I had decided in the bath that the less chance I gave Howard to make a fuss about Theo being here the better, so I told him about the picnic but didn’t mention Theo directly. If I assumed that Theo’s presence was going to be fine with him, then surely it would be. In fact it must be already, or he wouldn’t have been sitting so extra quiet and docile.

I took the carving knife to the cold pork and made big sandwiches with thick slices of meat and bread swabbed with warm butter. I wrapped the birthday cake in some old newspaper, filled two thermoses with tea, and slung everything in the basket that hooked on the back of the wheelchair. I brought the wheelchair from the hall, unfolded it, and parked it in the yard, just over the threshold. Howard came obediently enough. He was tremulous and unsure, but at least he didn’t try to ask silly questions. The main thing was that there was no struggle in him. I didn’t know if he understood entirely what was happening, and I didn’t altogether mind if he didn’t; the outing never had been for his sake, and now it no longer felt as if it was for Adam’s. It was for mine. Just by remaining here to carry out my wishes, Theo made it so. Beyond that, he was making a gift of the event to me, bestowing upon it a worth it would never possess had I simply claimed it for myself. I tucked Howard’s legs in safely under a blanket, and we set off. The weather looked uncertain.

Howard’s bulk, the weight of the picnic, and the uneven ground made the going very heavy. But before we’d cleared the yard Theo was pushing alongside me, saying nothing but taking most of the load; the new ease I felt in my arms and shoulders made me smile over Howard’s head. I was carrying the walking frame lightly hooked on one arm because the wheelchair would be useless once we’d gone through the gate into the first field. If we made it across the field, following the hedgebank on the far side, Howard might be able to get over the stile into the next field. With Theo to help, I was confident we would. Farther than that, we’d have to see.

It was rough going on the track. Howard shrank himself up small and yowled going over the bumps, but then Howard always did complain about doing anything at anyone else’s speed. I signaled over his head to Theo to ignore him and keep going. It was important
to keep going. Everybody at Stroke Club said Howard must be encouraged to move and do things for himself and get out as much as possible. Immobility therefore depression, depression therefore immobility, they warned, without explaining how we were supposed to stave off or withstand either one. Well! Here we were managing to do both, and all thanks to Theo. With him beside me, we set a rattling pace along the track, quite drowning out Howard’s whimpers and yelps. Now and then I got tired of pushing and we paused for a short rest, and then I would wander away out of earshot of Howard’s complaints on to the verges and pick flowering weeds that wilted at once in my hands. Soon I got to thinking how pointless it was to pick them because back at the house they never lasted in water anyway, so I stripped off the leaves and flower heads and dropped them, and carried on up the track clutching the bare stems and then chucking them away, too. I didn’t know why I’d picked them in the first place or why I was so profligate with them. It might have been simply that in the company of this new person, Theo, I could try out the idea of myself as fickle and faintly irresponsible; maybe I could be one of those careless women who idly pick flowers and lose interest in them and throw them away.

At the end of the track Theo set down the brake of the wheelchair, pulled off Howard’s blanket, and helped him to stand up and grip the walking frame. I opened the gate into the field. Howard shuffled forward, staring at the ground. Behind his back, Theo and I smiled, and then I remembered suddenly that I hadn’t brought my camera so I wouldn’t be able to take pictures from the moor to show Adam. I thought about running back for it but instead I waited, and once Howard and Theo were through the gate, I followed and closed it behind us. This was not really Adam’s picnic, after all.

Less then half-way up the field, Howard planted the walking frame in the ground, slumped over it, and wouldn’t budge. It had taken us nearly half an hour to go fifty yards and now he was sweating and moaning, and if he hadn’t already wet himself, he probably needed to pee. I should have thought of that. Also, although the wind was always blowing up here the sun was hot, and I should have thought to bring his hat and sun cream. One way and another I was
being unforgivably careless. The field we were stuck in was thistly and dirty with cowpats and there wasn’t a view—in fact, we were no distance from the house. The thought that this was as far as we would get filled me with despair and rage. I wanted to scream at Howard for just standing there as if rooted, his nose turning pink in the sun, his bare head glistening. I looked around for Theo, feeling suddenly deserted; this promise of release from the house held out, only to be snatched back—I did not know how I would bear it. He’d vanished. But just as I was about to call to him and cry out that we would have to go back, he loomed into view from the direction of the hedgebank beyond; he must have gone on ahead, perhaps scouting out the least boggy route for us up on to the moor.

I watched him glide toward Howard, and I swear that, even through the trembling haze of wind and heat across the field, what I then saw happen was incredible. Theo turned the frame away from Howard and dipped forward, shoved his head under Howard’s arm and hoisted him over his shoulder. Howard’s body bent in the middle like an understuffed toy, arms dangling, legs flopping disjointedly. I held my breath and watched, aghast and unbelieving. Theo staggered under the weight and bulk; his knees locked and then wobbled, and locked again, he struggled for balance, stamping one foot and then the other down hard on the uneven clumps of grass. Howard shrieked in terror and I cried out to Theo to put him down. They were both going to crash to the ground, and only Howard’s bones would break. But Theo steadied himself like a weightlifter, took a wide sideways step. His eyes were bulging, spit sprayed out from between his bared teeth. His feet snatched at one spot, then another, then he managed to plant one foot in front, and he started to tread uphill, pausing every few steps. I followed.

Eventually, with a great bellowing sigh, he set Howard down on the step of the next stile and bent over double, panting and blowing out his cheeks. By the time I reached them, there was Howard standing at his frame (I suppose Theo had carried that, too, somehow) as if he’d never really budged, laughing breathlessly. Theo was delighted because Howard seemed to be enjoying himself. I didn’t like to tell him about Howard’s crying and laughing fits which were like involuntary
spasms, just muscular upheavals caused by his misfiring brain that might not have anything to do with his feelings at all. So I made a show of delight and laughed, too, and told Howard he was doing fine.