Our Picnics in the Sun (27 page)

W
hen I go to collect Howard he’s one of the last ones there but not yet ready to leave. He’s sitting at a table in front of a plate of biscuits with his cheeks bulging, and he barely looks up when I come in. Jenny’s also there, all smiles and asking if I have a minute for a word with her and Dr. Armistead.

In Dr. Armistead’s clinic they sit me down and tell me Howard has lost over five kilos. I’m looking at the walls where drawings done by Dr. Armistead’s children are stuck in between a watercolor of Fountains Abbey, a poster about washing your hands, and a scroll in fancy writing of that thing that starts Go Placidly.

“That must be because he’s more active,” I say. “He’s getting around much more. Doing more for himself. That’s good, isn’t it?”

They fall over themselves to assure me it’s good. “It’s very good. And he’s got a bit more motivated with his speech, too, hasn’t he? We noticed that,” Jenny says. “He’s talking much more, really
trying
to communicate.”

Dr. Armistead nods. “And his appetite’s good today, in fact he’s been quite hungry this morning.” She looks at Nurse Jenny, nods, and goes on, “So we’ve had a little word together and as he’s due for a review anyway we thought what we’d like to do is get him in for forty-eight hours or so—you’ve not had him in for respite care before, have you, that means you’ve earned a break! We’re just a little bit concerned about the weight loss and I’m sure you could do with a few days’ rest.”

“Especially as you’ve been managing everything on your own,”
Jenny says. “We do understand the burden on lone caregivers. So we see this as being very much for both of you.”

This statement doesn’t require any reply, least of all the reply I could easily give about lone caregivers. They wouldn’t find it acceptable.

“Respite care? You mean take him away?”

“What we’d do is arrange to get him into Jocelyn Lodge, you see, not Taunton General,” says Dr. Armistead. “So he’d be very comfortable, not in a big hospital ward at all. There’s a bit of a wait for a bed, usually about three weeks, and you needn’t worry he won’t like it, they
love
Jocelyn Lodge. It’s very relaxed, very homely, they’ve got some single rooms and the garden’s beautiful. And they’ve got a hydrotherapy pool.”

Jenny takes over. “It’ll give us time for a full care review and you get two maybe even three days for a proper break—you might even want to get away somewhere. People say what a difference it makes, it recharges the batteries so you can carry on, that’s what most people find.” She beams at me. “It’s win-win. He’ll have a great time at Jocelyn Lodge and you get a bit of time for yourself. And when he’s in, you see, we can get a snapshot of where we are with everything, so we’ll review all the medication and it gives the physio and the speech therapist a chance to give a bit of help with his movement and speech, plus we’ll work with the nutritionist on a plan to get his weight back up.”

“Would you be happy with that?”

All this said, and with a pleased glance at each other, they both stop to rest and look at me with smiles on their faces, and we all wait until I realize they want nothing except my agreement, which I give. I don’t know what I think about it yet, but it’s a less pressing matter than the state the house was in, crumbling before my eyes, when I left this morning. I haven’t yet seen Theo today. I fancy he was sleeping when the render fell off—there was no sign of him—so I need to reassure him on the matter of the repairs to what is, after all, his bedroom wall. And of course I must ask his advice about how to proceed.

By the time we get back to the house I am feeling unsettled and so
is Howard, but fortunately he’s also tired and takes himself off for a nap before lunch. I won’t wake him. He’s stuffed with biscuits so he probably won’t need lunch, and besides, he’s increasingly picky about eating my bread and the chutney stuff I made with the big marrow and some curry spices that needed using up. More often than not there’s cheese to go with it (but not today—I was too distracted by events to think of shopping) so he can hardly complain.

Theo never complains about food. Not even when it’s unconventional and last-minute, which it often is now that life is much fuller. Theo has a way of holding my attention, which means I’m slower over some of my chores and sometimes I will idle away whole hours in conversation and then just fling together any old thing to eat. Given the choice, I might well have given up on cooking altogether by now and gone on to convenience foods and takeaways (the very thought makes me giggle). That’s if I had the money, or a microwave, which I don’t. Actually there’s less money than before. There’s been no Bed and Breakfast cash for ages now so I’m getting meals out of anything I can salvage from the garden and cupboards. It’s fun, experimenting a little. I’m using all the flour I bought, of course, but keeping the special nuts and fruits for Christmas. I’m well aware that some of the results may be strange to some tastes but everybody likes dumplings, don’t they? It’s amazing how filling they are and how easy to make. Also, a big marrow goes a long way.

I find Theo in the yard and ask him what to do. He comes straight to the point and tells me to ring Digger straightaway and says there’s no need to be afraid of him because Theo will be right behind me (in the background, of course—neither of us needs to spell out the necessity for that). The yard is a shambles, he says sternly, and the extra mess from the fallen masonry makes it look as if the whole place is falling down around us. If Digger’s coming, I have to spruce up the yard a little. He is right. Digger hasn’t been here since the shearing and already I can hear what he’ll say in that loud voice of his. Come to think of it, what if he demands an inspection of the whole place, pretending to check for other repairs? I wander around, doing my best to pull the weeds out from around the doorways but most of them are nettles so I’ll have to come back later with gloves.

It’s good to have Theo’s perspective on things. I’ve grown used to what an eyesore the yard is, I suppose, but now I see it through his eyes. Howard’s shaky scaffolding is still in place against the house and now looks more like homemade buttressing, shoved up to keep the walls standing. I won’t go up those ladders again so the painting is still not even half-done, and I can’t get the scaffolding down on my own. But maybe the point of leaving it up has been that I liked to think of Adam coming back and getting the job finished. I see now how silly that is. Adam never comes, and even if he did he wouldn’t think of offering and I wouldn’t dream of asking. Theo murmurs, reading my mind, that in due course we’ll get something done about it. I don’t know if by
it
he means the scaffolding, the painting, or Adam’s visits, but I am reassured.

I poke around some more, going into all the old places I’ve ignored. The pig shed roof is worse; the pinholes between the slates have multiplied and in one corner the beams curve toward the ground like the bow of a ship and will soon collapse. Some lengths of rotting timber from the dismantled and broken pigpens still lean against the back wall. Patches of black and green fungus are sprouting everywhere, and as I walk around scraping my fingers along the cold stone, my feet kick up a musky smell from the earth floor. It’s a dump. I’m truly glad I don’t have to hear Howard describing it to our Bed and Breakfast guests as “the potential yoga studio” anymore. It always was perfectly absurd to think he would ever do it up and run classes in here. But, I remark to Theo (who has followed me in), when I realized it would never happen, I kept quiet in case Howard took my point and went back to using it for pigs, which I really couldn’t stand. Right up until Howard had his stroke I went on pretending it was going to be a proper yoga studio one day.

From across the pig shed Theo gives me an old-fashioned look and says, “Have you ever considered that maybe Howard was pretending, too?” His impertinence takes me by surprise and I refuse to answer. He adds, “Maybe he knew as well as you did it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe he was trying not to disappoint you.”

“You make me angry sometimes,” I tell Theo, “throwing questions at me that are none of your business.” He offers a mild apology,
saying he didn’t really mean it. Then he imposes one of his small silences, which are painful, and always up to me to break, which I won’t do before I’m good and ready.

I’ve seen all I want to see in here and I make for the doorway, but then I turn for a last look. Yes, you do make me angry, I confess aloud to Theo, but not as angry as Howard makes me. It’s true; in my mind’s eye I can still see Howard standing here, and his lips, encircled by moustache and beard, pursing up with an infinitesimal,
almost
concealed smirk of self-satisfaction and—as I perceive it now—self-delusion, and forming the words “the potential yoga studio.” And then, I whisper to Theo, I could hit him, I really could. And for something that’s all over and done with and in the past. Isn’t that terrible? Theo bestows another silence.

“Not really,” he says, following me out and across to the pottery studio. “Some things never really are in the past. You can’t help it if some things go on mattering.” I walk on ahead of him so I don’t have to think of a reply to this.

My onslaught on the pottery shed has stalled, because I don’t know how I’ll ever shift enough of the dust to get it usable for drying laundry. The trouble is that anything damp dropped on the floor (or anywhere else) will instantly need rewashing, because every surface and implement lies under a matt, pinkish coat of clay powder. The thought of the mess I’d make trying to hose the whole place clean is appalling: I imagine the blasts of water drumming into the corners and knocking things off shelves, the drenched and dripping walls, the tools and objects tumbling and rolling in a running river of mud. Then, even if I got the place clean, would it ever dry out? I explain this to Theo and he tuts in recognition of what a tremendous task it would be. “We’ll address it in due course,” he says, and tells me not to worry.

Next, I peer in through the broken panes of the loom shed window. I’m not surprised to see that the floor is dark and grainy. House martins have been flying in and out all Spring and Summer; they’ve migrated now, leaving their nests on the crossbeam and the floor spackled with droppings. My last piece of weaving is still on the loom from nearly three years ago. There’s bird shit on that, too, and
something’s been eating it, but the truth is it was a pebbly, dun sort of cloth anyway so it isn’t as shocking to see it spoiled than as if I’d been weaving, say, tinselly swathes of pink or turquoise or lilac. It makes me smile to think of such colors anywhere near this place. I don’t want to go in. “Come away, you’ve seen enough,” Theo says.

Back in the house I telephone Digger and leave a message for him to come as soon as he can, then I make scrambled eggs for lunch, which Theo and I both like. A modest enough little pleasure in a demanding day, scrambled eggs for lunch, I venture to say, and Theo agrees and compliments me on my cooking.

“Not everybody can make good scrambled eggs.”

Simply said, simply meant. I bask in it.

Howard doesn’t stir, and I don’t wake him up. I do the dishes, and then Theo suggests we check over the rest of the house so that if Digger does get nosy we won’t be caught on the back foot.

But we don’t make it any farther than the room that Theo occupies, the single Bed and Breakfast bedroom from whose wall the render fell. As soon as I walk in I’m ashamed. It’s freezing. I’ve never given a thought to the ice-cold radiator in here (even if the heating worked properly it’s too expensive to run) or checked the number of blankets Theo has. Have I ever offered him a hot water bottle? I’ve never even wondered if he has anything warm to wear in bed. I have neglected him.

Even worse, I discover why the pebbledash fell off. It must have been cracked and letting the rain in for months, which has soaked the brickwork right through. While the outside mortar perished and the pebbledash fell off in lumps, the plaster on the inside is soaked and the wallpaper under the window lies in long, peeling-off tongues. The room is uninhabitable, like the third Bed and Breakfast room, which I closed up last winter when a bit of ceiling plaster came down and some black stuff started growing out of the skirting board. (I did mean to get someone to see to it but three Bed and Breakfast rooms were too many to manage, anyway.) Theo has never complained, but I resolve that he will not spend another night in here.

“But where will I go instead?” he whispers. “Do you want me to sleep in the other B & B room?”

The other Bed and Breakfast room hasn’t been occupied since Theo’s companion left it almost two months ago. There might not be any more guests until next Spring—I get very few after September—but I’m not putting Theo in there. I tell him I need to keep it ready on the off-chance of passing trade over the winter weekends. He doesn’t challenge that, but asks again in a small, rather frightened voice where, in that case, he is to be put. Or am I telling him to go?

Go? I hurry to correct any misunderstanding. That is the last thing I want. Theo must be assured that he is welcome, that his remaining here is necessary. So the only and natural course is to move him into Adam’s room at the front.

The rest of the afternoon is spent clearing out Adam’s belongings. I take down the dartboard and the old black-and-white posters of Paris and Madrid. There’s a third poster, another cityscape but I can’t recall which city; certainly it’s not anywhere I’ve been although Adam probably has by now. It could be bloody Barcelona for all I know. “You sound angry,” Theo observes, and I realize I am, even though it was months ago and I thought I’d forgotten it.

It’s not important, I say, meaning it, but nevertheless I’m pleased when I hear Theo demur and tell me that he understands how I feel.

I empty the wardrobe of the clothes I’ve given Adam over the years, making myself notice that he has never worn any of them for more than a day. The stoneware dish of Howard’s goes, too, along with a driftwood carving of a bird that looks both clumsy and malevolent. I dump everything in the room Theo is vacating, where it won’t be in the way. Then I bring all the bedding and add it to the covers already on Adam’s bed, so Theo will surely be warm now. But in case not, I point out the corridor off the landing that leads to the door of my room and tell him he must let me know if he needs any more blankets. To my annoyance the telephone rings downstairs before I finish speaking, interrupting my flow of thought, and when I’ve dealt with the call and am finally able to think straight again, I move Adam’s clothes back again, from the little damp room into the wardrobe in Theo’s new room. Because of course Adam won’t be needing them, but Theo does. Also, Theo’s much more appreciative. Warm practical jumpers, thick shirts, outdoor trousers, country
socks. And a pair of sturdy boots, and would you believe it, they’re the right size! I leave him to settle in and tiptoe downstairs to put the kettle on. Howard’s prowling around the kitchen, foraging in the bread bin. Not so fussy now. I make him a nice cup of tea, too, and he’s grateful.