Second Thyme Around (17 page)

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Authors: Katie Fforde

Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women

BOOK: Second Thyme Around
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‘You must see that it’s only fair that I pay for the damn cooker!’
‘Yes, I see it’s fair, but you don’t have the monopoly on being
unfair
, you know, Lucas. And either I pay for the
cooker, and all the work needed to make the kitchen habitable, or there isn’t going to be a television programme, and you will have paid for a kitchen you’ll never get to use. OK?’
 
 
Perdita’s delight in getting her own way with Lucas was a little spoilt by the fact that Lucas had paid for the cooker already and he wouldn’t tell her how much it cost. But having found out from the supplier, she was eventually able to give him an envelope full of used tenners – far harder to give back or destroy than a cheque. The joiner, who had come the next day, had been easier to deal with; she told him he couldn’t leave the house until he’d been paid.
But Perdita was angry on her own account. Lucas had reduced what had happened after the night in the restaurant to the sordid scufflings of two people enraged with each other. And while Perdita wouldn’t have admitted, even to herself, that it was anything more, she knew she wouldn’t have scuffled like that with anyone else, however angry she had been.
With a new cooker and kitchen confronting her every day, she could no longer keep the TV programme at the back of her mind and she was hoping Lucas would mention it when she next delivered. It has caused her so much trouble, they might as well get on with the bloody thing. But he just glanced up at her when she came in with the first boxes and said, ‘Janey, give Perdita a hand.’
“That’s a turn-up for the books!’ said Perdita, while she and Janey unloaded the van. ‘Fancy Lucas letting you escape, even for a few seconds.’
Janey scowled. ‘Yes, and it’s not very convenient, I’ve got some crème brûlées due out of the oven in a tick.’
‘Well, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. But what’s got into Lucas?’
‘He’s been making a real effort to be nice lately. You must have said something to him when you worked here that evening. Either that or he’s practising being nice for the television cameras.’
Perdita laughed. ‘I wish Lucas would tell me when it’s all happening.’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’ said Janey.
Perdita shook her head. ‘“Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you,” as my house mistress used to say. Now just hold the door open, there’s a dear.’
She was reorganising the cold store, so it was no longer necessary to climb over several pints of cream and a brie the size of a cartwheel to reach the lettuce, when a persistent ringing penetrated her consciousness. Unfortunately it took her a few moments to realise it was her phone, and by the time she had worked out how to answer it, it had stopped ringing. She took it through to the kitchen and sidled up to Greg.
‘My phone’s just gone and I didn’t answer it in time. What do I do?’ she murmured to him, hoping Lucas, who had his head in the oven, wouldn’t notice.
Greg took hold of the phone and frowned at it. ‘I haven’t got a mobile,’ he said.
Lucas strode over and snatched it out of Greg’s hands. ‘You should be able to see who rung you. Don’t you know how to work this thing yet?’
‘No one ever rings me on it. It’s probably a wrong number.’
He pressed buttons, producing little beeps and squeaks. ‘There you are. Missed call – it shows the number.’ He handed back the phone to Perdita.
The number on it meant nothing to her. ‘It’s probably a client. I’ll go home and ring them back.’
Lucas tutted in exasperation. ‘Why don’t you ring them
from here? That’s the point of a mobile, you know. You don’t have to be at your desk to make calls.’
‘I need to have my order books with me, though,’ she said sharply.
He ignored this. ‘Are you going to be at home this afternoon? I need to have a word.’
‘Can’t you have a word now? That’s the point of having people you want to speak to right in front of you, it saves you having to make appointments.’
‘Are you going to be in, or aren’t you?’
‘I’m going to see Kitty for lunch, but I’ll be back early afternoon.’
‘I’ll call round then.’
Perdita stalked out, forgetting that she had left the cold-store floor covered with boxes of salad and tubs of cream.
After she had dealt with her missed call, she went round to see Kitty, and wasn’t at all surprised to find the house empty. It was a chilly day, but the sky was bright and shot through with sunshine. Kitty, she knew, would be inspecting the progress of the bulbs she had put in the previous autumn.
Kitty was lying on her back in a lake of crocuses. Perdita hardly had time to react before she spoke.
‘Hello, darling. You’re late.’ The words were understandable, but slow, and only one side of Kitty’s mouth moved.
Perdita swallowed hard, trying not to show how upset she was. ‘Kitty, what are you doing here?’
‘Fell.’ Kitty tried to smile.
‘I think I’d better phone an ambulance. Good thing I’ve got my mobile with me, isn’t it? Why didn’t you press your alarm? Then you wouldn’t have had to stay lying out here, squashing your beloved tommasinianas?’
‘Don’t want ambulance. Ring doctor.’
Perdita looked at Kitty, so still among the flowers. She knew she should call 999 immediately. Kitty had
obviously had a stroke, and should be got into hospital straight away.
‘Please,’ said Kitty.
Her sudden vulnerability caught at Perdita. She couldn’t ignore Kitty’s wishes; her being ill automatically robbed Perdita of choice. ‘I’ll have to go into the house and find the number.’ It was in her phone memory, she knew, but it would take her too long to retrieve it. ‘Will you be all right out here?’
Kitty did her best to nod. ‘Pleasant. Listen to birds.’
Perdita ran into the house, found the number, and pressed it into her mobile phone. Then, while she waited to be connected, she ran upstairs to the airing cupboard, gathered up a pile of blankets, and went back to Kitty. She had just dropped them on top of her friend when the phone was answered.
‘Hello, it’s Perdita Dylan. Kitty Anson has had a stroke. She doesn’t want me to call an ambulance, but I must, mustn’t I?’ This was a compromise between doing what Kitty wanted and what Perdita knew was right.
The receptionist was wonderful. Having checked the address, she said, ‘Hang on. I know Dr Edwards has been visiting near there. I’ll beep him.’
Perdita tried to appear cheerful as she arranged the blankets over Kitty, and folded one to put under her head. ‘They’re going to ring Dr Edwards, probably on his mobile. I hope he’s better with it than I am with mine. It rang today for the first time and I couldn’t remember how to answer it.’
Half of Kitty’s mouth moved. ‘Gadget.’
‘I know. But it would have been useful if you’d pressed your alarm. I could have been here ages ago. How long have you been here?’
Kitty shook her head.
Now the initial shock was over, Perdita tried hard not to feel angry with Kitty for not summoning the ambulance.
Before, if she’d been asked, she would have said that she wouldn’t want Kitty to live if she wasn’t in control of her life. Now, she would have kept Kitty alive in any circumstances.
‘Are you cold?’ she asked her friend. Kitty was in her winter gardening uniform of several layers of coats, ending with an ex-army body warmer. Now she was covered with blankets, too. ‘No? Well, at least you’re well wrapped up, or you’d have died of hypothermia.’
‘Good thing if I had.’
‘Rubbish. If you are going to die, you want a good deathbed scene, with all the family round you, and some golden-haired children weeping.’ Kitty acknowledged the joke with a small nod. ‘Though I suppose we’d have to hire them specially,’ Perdita went on. ‘Do you think the doctor will know to come out here to find us?’
Perdita kept up the chatter, managing to sound light-hearted until the doctor arrived. Then she had to turn away while he examined Kitty. He was so gentle and kind. He didn’t ask her what she was doing outside on such a chilly day, or why she hadn’t used her alarm, he just moved his hands over her body calmly and efficiently.
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to have a spell in hospital,’ he said.
‘Damn,’ said Kitty.
Dr Edwards took out his mobile phone and moved a little way away to make his call.
Perdita went back to her friend. ‘Don’t worry about hospital, Kitty. I’ll bring you in food parcels, and things to read. You might quite enjoy it, plenty of medical students to flirt with.’
It seemed to Perdita that Kitty was finding it harder to speak now than she had done earlier. And her eyes, which had been tranquil, had taken on a look of anxiety.
Dr Edwards came back. ‘Listen, I think we are going to have to move Mrs Anson. I was hoping that if the
ambulance came straight away, they could do it, but it’s going to be a good thirty minutes. Is there anyone you could ask to give us a hand? A neighbour, or something?’
Perdita thought. Kitty’s immediate neighbours were elderly themselves, although there was a young mother across the road and it was just possible her husband came home for lunch. ‘I’ll go and see who I can round up,’ she said.
No one was in. She banged on every door, willing someone to come, even if they could only support the blankets while she and the doctor carried Kitty. But that wouldn’t do. Kitty was – had been – a strong woman. She was no frail old bundle of bones which anyone could carry.
When she got back to the house, breathless and beginning to panic, she saw Lucas’s car in the drive. Lucas himself was standing outside the back door as if about to enter.
‘Oh, hi,’ he said to Perdita. ‘I came to see you, but when you weren’t there, I assumed I’d find you here. Do you suppose Kitty’s in the garden?’
‘Oh, Lucas! Thank God! Yes, she is. She’s had a stroke and we need to move her, but I can’t find anyone to help.’
‘Have you called the doctor?’ he said, following her as she ran round the house into the orchard.
‘Of course!’
‘Oh, well done,’ said the doctor, seeing Lucas.
Kitty opened her eyes. ‘Lucas. How nice.’
‘Well, now we’ve got a half-decent stretcher party, let’s get you into the house, Mrs Anson.’
Kitty turned out to be surprisingly heavy. Lucas got hold of her head end, and the doctor took the other. Perdita tried to take some of the weight in the middle, but it was awkward.
‘There’s an old table under the apple tree. Perhaps we could rest her on there for a moment,’ she suggested, panting slightly. ‘You wouldn’t mind lying there for a
second,’ she said to Kitty, ‘if I took the apples off it?’
Perdita sprinted ahead and tipped up the table of rotting apples, left there for the birds.
‘Should have just let me stay there,’ said Kitty, when she was lowered onto the table. ‘Just died quietly. Much better.’
‘Oh no,’ said Perdita. ‘I want to see you in a bed jacket, with a purple and pink crocheted blanket over your knees.’
Kitty’s twinkle reassured Perdita, but she was finding her glib, cheerful exterior hard to keep up. She’d been preparing for this moment, finding Kitty inert in the garden, for years, but none of it was of the least use now it had actually happened.
When they had finally got Kitty into the house and onto the sofa, Perdita went to Kitty’s bedroom to pack a few things.
She knew it was possible that Kitty would not see her bedroom again. For however well she recovered from this stroke, and Perdita was determined she would recover, the stairs might remain beyond her.
Now she was alone, she let herself weep as she moved about the room, hunting in drawers for a clean nightdress, underwear, pills and reading matter. She hurried, but while her hands were busy, emotionally she could hardly face rejoining the party downstairs. She didn’t want to see Kitty, lying awkwardly on the sofa, with the doctor being kind and manly, and Lucas equally, unnaturally, so. While she was alone up here she could pretend the stroke had never happened, that Kitty was downstairs making tea, her pipe in her teeth, a pile of gardening catalogues on the kitchen table.
She found an ancient holdall and piled things into it. Would Kitty’s thick, thermal nighties, essential for her chilly house, not be far too hot for hospital? Also, Kitty’s knickers were long-legged and woolly; she would die of
heat if nothing else. Where did Kitty keep her summer things? Probably in a black plastic sack, in the attic. In which case Perdita would never find it, among all the other black plastic sacks. She started to make a list of things to buy on the notepad by Kitty’s bed – nightdresses, pants, proper tissues.
Eventually, she rejoined the others, and the reality of Kitty’s illness confronted her again.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said. ‘While we wait for the ambulance.’
The kitchen was still the same as ever – the gardening catalogues covered one end of the table, and the remains of Kitty’s breakfast egg stood on the drainer. A pipe lay in a chunky glass ashtray, purloined from some French station café many years ago. Tears came again as Perdita cleared up what could be the last meal Kitty would ever make for herself.
She bit her lip sharply as she found a tray for the selection of mugs. ‘You don’t know that’s the last meal,’ she muttered, trying to hold herself together. ‘She might make a full recovery. She might be cooking Christmas dinner for you again next year.’ But she knew it was more likely that she and Kitty had had their last cosy, restful Christmas together, the year before.

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