by Susan Hill
‘Sure of what? How? Tell me.’
But he only shook his head and made for the stairs and she watched him climb as if he had weights tied to his legs and his body had turned to stone and the tears ran down her face for the sadness of it.
The next morning he left for work as usual though she did not know how he got down the stairs. He drank a mug of tea but ate nothing and it was painful to see him draw his jacket on as if every movement were an effort so great he might never finish making it. But he left.
Eve could not bear to watch him go but turned away from the window and tidied the dresser until she knew that he would be out of sight.
It was not usual for her to feel that she did not dare to be alone, but this morning she washed the pots quickly and went to the Ankerbys, not only because she was worrying about Tommy but because, suddenly, alone in the house meant alone. Jeannie Eliza, who had been there, always just behind or just ahead of her, always just out of sight but laughing somewhere, and calling out, ever since the day she died – Jeannie Eliza had gone. There was no child. No footsteps. No cry. No sudden laughter.
‘Ah, my dear.’ Mary Ankerby put out her hand and touched Eve’s cheek the moment she saw her, and pulled back a chair for her and set the kettle on. Bert looked at her, shaking his head, and touched her shoulder, before going out of the door and into the garden.
‘He went to the doctor,’ Eve said.
Mary waited
‘He got some sort of medicine. For the pain in his stomach and to help him sleep. But they don’t seem to have done much for him.’
Mary Ankerby sighed. ‘And the price of the doctors,’ she said.
‘He’s very kind. That doctor. He came when … he was very kind.’
‘I’ve watched Tommy.’ Mary poured the tea out. ‘He goes so slowly.’
‘He doesn’t complain at all but I hear him sometimes, he makes a little moaning noise and puts his hand on his belly.’
They sat in silence after that, watching the sun move round, until Bert came back in and sat with them and the sun moved further, touched the scarlet petals of the geraniums on the sill and turned them to fire.
A little after that, Tommy passed by the window, half bent over and his walk so slow he seemed hardly to move at all.
12
NOTHING WAS said between them but Eve knew, as Tommy did, that he would not go to work again. She also knew that he felt shame at being sent home. It was a fine, warm day and she put the garden chair out for him. He rested there for an hour or two, dozing, refusing anything to eat but asking her to bring him the medicine a couple of times. She stayed with him, hoeing and weeding, snipping the edges of the grass, collecting the eggs, things she thought would not worry him.
But in the early afternoon, the sound of a car coming down the track woke him from sleep, and he started to struggle up as John Bullard came through the gate.
‘It’s all right.’ Eve laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Tommy hasn’t felt so well,’ she said, hearing the defiance in her own voice.
But John Bullard barely glanced. ‘You need to come,’ he said to Eve. ‘Miriam’s bad. She said to fetch you right away.’
‘What’s wrong?’
He shrugged. ‘Only she can’t manage with all of them.’
‘And I have a sick husband, John. I can’t just leave him.’
He stood staring at the ground.
‘You should go, Eve,’ Tommy said. ‘Go to your sister. I’m fine, I’m just sitting here a bit but I’ll go inside in a while, there’s a few things I’ll do.’
‘You can’t do anything, you have to rest. The doctor said that.’ She swung round to John Bullard. ‘Why can’t you help her? It’s your wife, your children.’
But he seemed like a tree, rooted to the ground, and did not look at her.
Eve sighed.
In the end, she went next door and Mary and Bert said they would be with Tommy, one or the other of them, and he could call for them, Bert would be in their garden and he could keep an ear out. Of course he would, Eve knew that, knew that Mary would fuss over Tommy, trying to coax him to eat or drink or lie down, that he would be as safe and comfortable with them as with her. But they were not her and she did not want to go.
‘Only an hour, a couple of hours maybe, not more, John, I can’t leave Tommy long.’
But her brother-in-law said nothing, merely turned and went towards the gate.
She was angry. She wanted to say angry things to him as they drove into the town and her anger surged inside her like things bubbling in a pot whose lid was clamped down. She stayed silent, thinking only about Tommy and her fears for him and for herself. He was dying, she had so little time left with him, she knew that, though she pushed the thought away, and now her sister was stealing some of that time from them.
As they drew up outside the house, Eve said, ‘I can’t leave Tommy long. You have to understand.’
John Bullard shrugged and went ahead.
The place was a tip. It smelled sour and the hall and the kitchen were a mess of unwashed dishes and pans, toys and a sinkful of nappies, bottles of milk gone curdled and old cat dishes crusted with dried meat.
The boys came streaming out to her and clutched her round the legs and pulled at her hands, six of them now, and looking ragged and grubby as street children. Eve felt ashamed, though not of them – for them she felt only love and a weary sympathy. But she was ashamed to have a sister leave her own boys to such a mess and of John Bullard, who sat down in the chair but pushed the youngest child away from him as he did so.
‘Where is she?’
‘In bed. That’s where she’s stayed since it happened. She ought to be feeling more like rousing herself now.’
‘And you … you put the kettle on and make some tea and cut some bread. They look as if they haven’t had anything to eat.’
Eve went out, picking up the youngest as she did so, and climbed the stairs with him. He pushed his face into her shoulder and she stroked his rough, dirty hair.
Miriam was curled on her side but awake. The little one struggled to go to her, but seeing him, she turned away.
Eve opened the window wide.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘You have to tell me why you’re in bed. I shouldn’t have left Tommy, he’s very ill.’
‘There’s no one else can take care of them. He doesn’t bother.’
‘No, he does not and he’ll find he has to start. I have to get back home, Miriam, I can’t take your place again.’
‘It won’t be long. A day or two, but it leaves you so weak.’
‘What? What leaves you weak?’
She knew how angry she sounded. Miriam had almost never heard her raise her voice.
‘I miscarried,’ Miriam said. ‘He didn’t even bother to tell you that much.’
‘Oh, Miriam.’ Eve set the baby on the floor.
‘It’s happened before. It just leaves you weak.’
Eve sat on the bed. Her sister was pale, her skin dull, her hair lank.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It must be hard. But it will make you ill, Miriam, it will wear you out, all this.’
‘It already has.’ Her voice was as dull as her skin and flat as her hair.
‘Can’t the doctor …?’ But she didn’t bother to finish.
‘I’ll clear up and sort out the boys,’ she said. ‘I’ll make them something to eat for tonight. But he’ll have to see to them after that. I can’t stay. I’m sorry but I can’t.’
‘What’s the matter with Tommy?’
He is dying, Eve wanted to say, to shout out. He has a growth in his stomach and another on his neck, he is in pain, he can’t eat, he weighs nothing, he can hardly stand. He is dying.
She felt the baby’s small hands round her leg, and the weight of him trying to pull himself up. She bent down and lifted him and he tried to launch himself onto the bed and his mother.
‘Oh, don�
�t put him on me, I can’t do with him now,’ Miriam said. ‘I can’t do with any of them.’ And she turned onto her other side, away from the baby, not so much as glancing at him.
Eve cradled his head close to her and took him out of the room.
Mary went into 6 The Cottages every hour and each time it seemed that Tommy had slipped a little further down, a little further away from her and from this world, though he smiled and raised his hand and, once, sipped some milk. Later, Bert helped him up the stairs to bed, half carried him he was so weak, and helped him undress too with gentleness and a respect that Tommy was aware of and grateful for. But it was Eve he wanted. Eve could not make the pain easier but her presence helped him bear it quite well.
‘She should be here,’ Mary said in the late afternoon.
‘She knows,’ Bert answered. ‘She was torn.’
‘That sister.’
‘What could she do?’
Mary shook her head and went back to Tommy. She listened at the foot of the stairs to the silence and for a moment her heart jumped, but then she heard a slight sound and went up. She saw his eyes, wide open and looking at her, and with small pin points of pain in their centres. His forehead was damp and she found a clean handkerchief to wipe it gently.
‘Eve?’
‘She’ll be home any minute now.’
Tommy smiled and closed his eyes, reached for Mary’s hand and held it with what grip he could find in him. She saw that he had very little strength left.
‘Eve.’
‘You have to go for her,’ she said. Bert stood up at once, seeing the expression on her face and what it meant.
‘Quick as I can.’ Though he was an old man and quick was not so very quick now.
‘Get that lummock to bring you both back in his car.’
His fingers seemed twice their usual thickness as he tried to lace his boots quickly. When he had set off, Mary returned next door and sat at Tommy’s bedside, praying for Eve to get back in time. But Tommy seemed a little easier, sleeping quietly.
Mary put her own hand over his and held it there.
* * *
Eve fed the children on what she managed to find and washed them as well as she could, though the water was barely warm because Miriam did the range and John had no notion how until Eve showed him, pinching her lips tight together so that she would say nothing angry, apportion no blame. It was not for her to criticise him out loud. He watched her sullenly and she wondered how much notice he took or whether he had any intention of doing it for himself after she had left. No, he would wait for Miriam, whine until she got up before she was ready and have her riddle out the ashes and heft the coal into the range.
‘I might take a walk out,’ John Bullard said.
‘And you might not. I can’t stay, I told you, John, I’m needed at home.’
‘You’re needed here.’ He sat down in the chair again and picked up the paper.
She did not answer.
Upstairs, Miriam slept.
Bert Ankerby arrived breathless, his face contorted with the effort of walking so fast, for he was a man who had always moved at a slow, steady pace, which got things done fine, he said, and for a few moments he could say nothing but stood, the breaths heaving in his chest, so that Eve was afraid he might drop down dead. But after a moment, the breathing settled and he refused a chair to rest, simply saying, ‘You have to come now, Eve.’
‘What do I do about the boys?’
‘They’re all right, why shouldn’t they be? I’m here, Miriam’s upstairs.’
‘No, John, you’re taking us in your car.’
He started to protest, but seeing how it was, how even mild Bert Ankerby stood over him, and Eve’s anger, he got up reluctantly.
‘I’d better wake Miriam,’ Eve said, ‘tell her you’ll be back as quick as you can. That the boys are on their own.’
‘Leave her be,’ John Bullard said, and she understood, that it happened often, the boys were used to being on their own and having to look out for one another and the baby between them.
John drove, Bert Ankerby sitting awkwardly in the back, his huge frame as if it were folded into a matchbox, Eve in the front and leaning forward to see the end of the town lights and the beginning of the darkness and the track that led to The Cottages and her dying husband.
13
DR MCELVEY stood at the window of his study looking out at the same darkness, and thinking also of Tommy Carr, and as he did so, he heard the voice of the first physician he had worked with after qualifying, the man who had taught him more than anyone about sickness and health and the men, women and children whose lives they tended. He could hear his fine voice speaking into his own quiet room, speaking of the illnesses they all dreaded, the end they prayed not to come to and how they should be helped.
‘Remember one thing – they dinnae want to ken, Ian. Nearly all of them, you can be sure, and it’s your duty to spare them. They dinnae want to ken.’
And so he had discovered for himself. He wondered now if Tommy Carr had wanted to know or if he, like so many, had guessed for himself and yet, with a strange excess of fellow feeling, wanted to spare the doctor from understanding that. There had been a look in his eyes.
The growth had been large and growing, everything pointed to the tumour below the man’s jaw as having seeded from it and there would be others eating away what was left of his body. There was no point in knowing how many or where.
Tommy Carr.
Dr McElvey went out of his study to find his wife.
Ten minutes later, he was driving to 6 The Cottages, obeying the inner voice he had been trained to listen to. It told him when someone needed him and why.
Tommy Carr.
It was some moments after he had knocked before Eve came to the door. He heard her footsteps on the stairs first. When she saw him her face, already pinched and grey with anxiety, flashed up a look of fear.
Dr McElvey took off his hat. ‘I think perhaps you may need me to have a look at Tommy.’
She held the door, uncertain, and he knew well that it was the question of cost running through her mind, as it did through them all.
‘Don’t worry, Eve,’ he said. ‘It’s all in with the same bill, you know, it’s not an extra call.’
Though he knew full well that he had not yet sent any bill, nor would until he was sure of Tommy, one way or the other.
‘He’s very ill, Doctor. He seems to have gone down just in the last hour or so. I don’t know what’s wrong.’
They dinnae want to ken. But did the wives and families?
‘Let me take a look then,’ he said.
She led the way, up the narrow stairs. ‘Can I get you anything, Doctor?’
‘No, no … I just need to make sure Tommy’s comfortable. I’ve had him on my mind.’
As he looked at the man, lying with his knees up, as if it helped with the pain in his belly, he thought there was very little time and knew again that he had been right to obey the voice that prompted him.
‘Tommy,’ he said, putting his hand on the man’s brow. It was cold and clammy. He touched his arm and his chest. Tommy shuddered.
‘Cold.’
‘I know. Shall I just take a look at your stomach?’
Tommy looked at him out of eyes that had sunk deep down but whose irises were a brilliant, vivid blue. McElvey had seen that sometimes too.
He touched the swelling on Tommy’s neck. It was harder but not larger. He pulled the bedclothes down gently. The swelling in his stomach was huge, as if the man were with child. He gave a slight whimper.
‘I can give you something to help now.’
‘There’s only a spoonful left of the medicine he brought back,’ Eve said. ‘It seemed as if it helped him just a little.’
‘He needs something stronger to ease him now.’
‘It won’t harm him?’
He turned to look at her anxious face in the dimly lit room and looking, remembered the death of Jeannie Eliza
. So this was the next blow she had to bear.
‘No, Eve. It will ease him and help him sleep. Nothing more.’ He set his bag on the dressing table and hesitated, wondering whether he should draw up a syringe or simply give a greater strength by tablet.
Tommy made a sound and started trying to sit up but could not. Eve wiped his brow with a clean folded handkerchief.
‘Try and keep him covered. He’ll feel cold.’
He counted a dozen tablets into the box. ‘He should have two of these soon, when he can drink them down. He should sleep then.’
He looked at Eve and saw the unspoken question on her face.
‘You try to rest yourself now.’
She led him down the stairs but at the door she turned. ‘Is there nothing you can do for him? Can nobody?’
‘Ah, Eve. You can do the most, you know that. Being with him, making sure he’s comfortable. That’ll be all he wants, to have you with him.’
‘It’s hard.’
‘It is.’
‘And harder knowing …’
He waited, but she shook her head and lifted the latch to open the door. It was raining a little on the breeze.
‘I’ll come by tomorrow.’ Dr McElvey touched her arm.
He would, but whether to see Tommy Carr alive again was another matter.
14
NIGHT CAME. Tommy lay quietly except that he groaned once or twice and once cried out suddenly when he tried to turn over. Eve got a second blanket and laid it over him, but his hands and face felt cold to the touch and now and again he shivered violently.
He took the tablets, sipping the water from the cup she held close to his mouth. His skin was dry and thin as tissue.
But a little while afterwards he slept and then she lay down beside him, though still dressed, and reached out to touch his hand for comfort. Cold. There was no moon and she had left the window a little open so that the curtain moved occasionally and she could smell the damp earth and the rain on the wind.
What would she do? Would she stay here? She could not think of herself being anywhere else, could not bear it, but it was Tommy’s wage that paid the rent. Well then, she would have to work, though where or at what she had no idea. There were few jobs and she had no skills or none that anyone would pay much for.
