‘But what I’m saying is that Olive is a thoroughly good person. If giving a home to the animal shelter made her happy, then that would be a reason, wouldn’t it? But it seems to me she’s pretty miserable regardless.’
‘Is she lonely?’
‘Almost certainly. Up on her own in the farm all the time? No family as far as I know. Who wouldn’t be lonely? We come and go, tending the animals and running the shelter, but she doesn’t interact with us. The loneliness must be crippling.’
Doubler was quiet. Today the telephone couldn’t offer the release he needed. If this were a conversation he was having at the kitchen table, over lunch, he could break it now. He could stall the progress by standing up and putting the kettle on. Putting the kettle on was the best possible way to freeze time. But that wasn’t an option: he had to press on or the conversation must end. It couldn’t exactly continue without him.
‘So, it’s interesting, Mrs Millwood.’
‘What is?’
‘Are we all simply the product of our relationships? The Colonel volunteers because he has been demoted to second in command on home turf and his ego cannot stand it. Paula behaves the way she does because she wants a husband and nobody can see her in any other light; she’s just a woman in want of a partner. I’m here, let’s face it, alone in a farmhouse, not unlike Olive, because of my own wife’s actions. You, Mrs Millwood? Your character, too, must have been formed in part by your husband?’
‘Or by his absence, yes.’
‘Yes, or both. A combination of the two things, a lifetime spent happily together followed by the ache of his absence. You must be the product of those two chapters.’
‘You mean he made me what I am, but I am now reduced to one half of a couple?’ She trailed off, sounding distant, but Doubler pursued the thought nonetheless.
‘Yes. Quite. Are any of us . . . Is anybody at all capable of just being themselves? Not ruined or completed, not bolstered or outshone? Just a being?’
Mrs Millwood paused before answering, carefully, ‘I think the content person, all alone, is probably a very rare thing.’ She thought a little more. ‘Perhaps a holy person? Somebody seeking solitude in search of God, that kind of thing?’
Doubler was quick to dispute this, as though he had already thought through this argument and dismissed it. ‘Well, no, then God becomes the partner, the other person in the relationship. That holy person isn’t lonely; they’re communing, aren’t they? And an admission of loneliness would be an admission of the absence of God.’
‘Yes. Yes, you’re quite right, of course.’
‘But suppose Olive gave the outward appearance of being happy. Could we believe she is happy, really happy, in her farmhouse all alone?’
Mrs Millwood snorted briefly, an indication that she and Doubler would shortly be in disagreement. ‘Well, why look at her? Why not look closer to home? What about you, Mr Doubler? You’re all alone in your farmhouse. Can you be happy all alone up there?’
‘Happy? Me? Heavens, yes! Some of the happiest moments of my life have been in solitude. And they’re not rare; they occur often. I’ve had my moments when I’ve despaired, you know that. But I have had my moments, probably several each day, when I am extraordinarily happy. That is to say, I’m entirely content.’ Doubler thought a little more. ‘There are triggers, I expect, things I see or notice that remind me how very lucky I am.’
‘Like what?’
‘When the kindling baskets are piled high and the log store is full to groaning and I lay a good fire. I mean a really good fire. A fire that takes just three twists of newspaper and one match. When I hear those first crackles that tell me it’s the wood that is burning not just the paper, and I know I will have heat in a matter of moments, I’m truly happy.’
Doubler smiled at a realization. ‘When my potatoes don’t just behave themselves but they over-deliver, when they do exactly what I expect of them but that behaviour has never been achieved before, by any other potato grower, then I’m truly very happy.
‘But my happiness doesn’t just come through personal success. My potatoes constantly deliver me happiness. When one day the soil is bare and the winter feels relentless and unforgiving and the next day there are a thousand green shoots and they are so small and so faint you can barely see an individual sprout and yet they combine to form visible lines of green, then I am the happiest man on the planet.’
‘You’re not then a product of your wife’s absence,’ Mrs Millwood said solemnly.
‘No, then I am a pioneer full of purpose and promise.’
‘A pioneer full of purpose and promise!’ repeated Mrs Millwood, delighted with the sounds of these words. ‘Who could wish for more, Mr Doubler? So, you’ve answered your own question: of course we can be happy on our own, and of course we can be more than an absence, more than an addendum.’
‘But there are other types of happiness, and when you get a glimpse of these types of happiness, then the others can lose their shine.’
‘Like what, Mr Doubler?’
‘You know when you’ve cleaned the sitting room from top to tail, and you’ve polished the windows to a gleam? Suddenly, the sunlight finds a way in, and its beam picks up all the dust, showing the particles dancing in the air and you can see that you’ve not cleaned well after all. The sitting room is nothing more than a swirl of dirty particles, but without the sunshine, you’d never have noticed them . . . It took the light to highlight the dark.’
‘You’re talking in riddles, Mr Doubler. It does unsettle me when you do that.’
Doubler took a deep breath, aware that his metaphor had not quite opened the door to the conversation he wanted to have. ‘Well. Take this phone call. I don’t believe I’ve ever felt happier than right now. When the phone rang and I knew it would be you and I knew you’d hang on while I dragged the phone to the sitting room And I was dragging the phone while it was ringing in my hand, marvelling at the joy of my new extension cable, and I was grinning from ear to ear because I knew that we were about to sit down for a really long chat. Well, that’s a very pure form of happiness.’
Mrs Millwood burst out laughing. ‘You daft brush!’
Doubler was undaunted. ‘But. But there’s a flip side. If the phone stopped ringing, if I knew it couldn’t be you or that you’d never ring again . . .’ He trailed off, feeling that familiar shatter of his heart when he contemplated a pain he didn’t want to name.
‘Why?’ yelped Mrs Millwood, alarmed. ‘Where have I gone? Where am I in this scenario? Why am I not calling you?’
Doubler shook his head dramatically, exhaling slowly. ‘I suppose you are either dead, Mrs Millwood, or you’ve eloped with Derek.’ Doubler winced, furious with himself for having mentioned Derek when only a few moments ago he had resolved not to.
But Mrs Millwood was already responding. ‘Derek?’ she shrieked. ‘What on earth have I done that for? That’s a truly terrible idea!’
‘Well,’ said Doubler sadly, ‘you haven’t eloped with the Colonel, so it has to be Derek, I’m afraid.’
‘Derek or dead? It’s not really my day, is it?’ There was warmth in Mrs Millwood’s voice, but Doubler had borne his soul and it hurt.
‘No. It’s a bad day all round,’ he agreed. ‘But worst of all, not only will our telephone calls cease for ever, but I will never, ever be able to take pleasure in any of those other things again.’
‘The fire, the well-behaved potatoes, the first new shoots of spring?’ said Mrs Millwood, echoing his sadness.
‘No, I’m afraid not. Nor clean, crisp bed linen on Mondays. I will be back in the chasm of despair.’
‘Well, honestly, I feel terrible, just terrible. I’m sauntering around with Derek and you’re languishing in a chasm of despair. Poor old you!’ Mrs Millwood laughed heartily.
Doubler sat up in his chair, mildly affronted. ‘Well, you don’t sound quite as sad as perhaps I meant you to be.’
‘Oh, I am so sad for you! Really. I’m mortified. T
hat my absence could send you into that horrible chasm. And the worst thing is, my poor Derek, who I actually love to pieces, is miserable too.’
A shock of pain seared through Doubler, whose imagined loss was indeed sending him at least very close to the edge of the chasm of despair, even if he hadn’t quite hurtled into it yet.
‘What does he have to be miserable about? He seems like the winner in this scenario.’ Doubler felt a visceral hatred for Derek and briefly contemplated the image of a large fireball hurtling towards him from space, obliterating him entirely. This brusque vision gave him almost no relief.
‘Derek is miserable because he doesn’t want me! I’d be the last person on earth he’d want to elope with!’ Mrs Millwood was still laughing openly.
Doubler resented the laughter while wanting to increase the pain he could inflict upon Derek. It was impossible: he had already taken the punishment to the furthermost reaches of his imagination. ‘Well, I doubt that. You’re beautiful. You’re accomplished. You’re wise. And you love him, apparently, “to pieces”, which sounds quite destructive if you ask me. He’d elope with you in a heartbeat. Just try and stop him.’
Mrs Millwood, through her laughter, spluttered her response. ‘Derek is gay, Mr Doubler. He’s a homosexual. I’m not exactly his type.’
Horrified, Doubler banished his previous, violent imagery from his mind, immediately ashamed of his draconian response to jealousy. He softened but remained on alert, suspicious of the love Mrs Millwood had expressed. ‘Oh. Well. Yes. I can see that might be an obstacle. Still, he’d be very lucky to have you.’
‘No, no, no,’ said Mrs Millwood vehemently. ‘He’d be the saddest man on the planet to find himself with a female wife when all he probably wants is a male husband.’
Doubler was overjoyed at the news of Derek’s sadness. He exhaled again, though he hadn’t consciously inhaled once in the intervening conversation. ‘So, you’re dead, Mrs Millwood, which was always a very viable alternative,’ he said, with resolve in his voice.
‘Well, my death is much more sound under the circumstances. Let’s bury me instead of dumping me on Derek, shall we?’
‘Let’s!’ clamoured Doubler exuberantly. He thought for a while, recalling his earlier train of thought and remembering now that despite his victory in winning Mrs Millwood from the clutches of Derek, he was all alone again. ‘But I’m back in that chasm now you’re dead. Do you see? So I have simultaneously the ability to be a pioneer full of promise and purpose and the perpetual potential to enter the chasm of despair.’
‘But you’ve been in the chasm before, Doubler. You’ve shown that it’s not the end of the world.’
‘No, not like this. This is a totally new threat.’
Mrs Millwood was insistent, excited by the recognition. ‘No, you have. I’ve seen it. When Marie went, you leapt into that chasm and you buried your head in the dark silt of its coldest, deepest point. And yet you still climbed out.’
Doubler recalled the ascent. ‘But not without your help, Mrs Millwood. You extended your hand, Mrs Millwood. You reached in and you helped me climb out. Day by day, lunch by lunch. If it weren’t for you, I would never have ascended. I’d have died down there.’
‘I’m not sure you’re accurately remembering this, Mr Doubler. You’re certainly not giving yourself enough credit. I was there to witness your elevation, and perhaps I stopped you from falling back in again, but you definitely climbed out of there yourself. You had your purpose, you see. It was your purpose that got you out. Thank goodness. There were times when I wondered if you almost enjoyed it down there, anyway, wallowing in self-pity. My job was to stop you enjoying yourself down there so much that you wouldn’t even try to climb out.’
Doubler thought back to the darkest days, the days when he didn’t want to breathe anymore because it hurt too much. ‘I hated it. I was desperate. I didn’t enjoy it down there in the least.’
‘I think you did. I think by keeping yourself in the chasm you found a weapon to punish Marie and the kids. That’s how you fought back. Other people might have gone out and played bingo or learnt ballroom dancing, but you chose to banish even a glimmer of happiness from your life. You were angry, Mr Doubler. You were so very angry.’
‘But what if I fell back into the chasm? Where could I possibly find purpose again?’ Doubler was still contemplating a life in which Mrs Millwood didn’t exist, but he didn’t want to give name to her death anymore, not with her languishing in her hospital bed while they spoke. Not now her other exit route had been closed off. Death seemed too inevitable now.
‘Oh, while you’ve still got your potatoes, you’ve still got your purpose.’ Mrs Millwood was chiding him, much in the way she would have done all those years ago when Doubler had wanted nothing to do with the conversation she had offered him over lunch. His sadness had been so compelling then.
‘And there’s some more good news, Mr Doubler.’
Gloomy, despondent and depleted, Doubler could barely raise interest in his voice. ‘What’s that?’
‘I’m not dead!’
He shook himself, horrified that he’d taken this self-obsessed journey with her on the phone, nearly leaving her behind. He wanted to be the mallard. He needed to crash noisily into her pond.
Doubler grinned. ‘No, you’re not, though I killed you off there for a moment.’
‘And,’ said Mrs Millwood, hearing the note of lightness in his voice, ‘while I seem to be rather unsuccessful at negotiating my way out of this place, I have absolutely no intention of kicking the bucket yet. I’ve got a blanket to knit and it is fiendishly complicated.’
‘That’s your purpose!’
‘Yes, it is. It’s tricky beyond belief, this blanket. Sometimes it’s hard to see where I’m going with it. There are these different threads, you see, that must somehow magically come together to complete the pattern, but after wondering whether I have the capability or the patience, the will, if you like, then suddenly I’ll have a bit of a breakthrough and . . . whoosh! Just a few rows further and I get a glimpse of it in all its glory. I get a flash of the future and I like what I see. That kind of vision, the knowledge that it will be done, makes me feel better than all this poison they’re pumping into me.’
‘Perhaps you never want to finish it, Mrs Millwood. If it’s the blanket that is keeping you going.’
‘Oh, it’s not like that. I’m not going to cast off literally and then immediately cast off metaphorically. I do want to see this one through, though. I want to know the ending, that’s all.’
Doubler thought he might like to know the ending, too.
‘I’d better be off now. I’m a little tired. All that talk of death, Mr Doubler. I blame you.’
‘No hurry. It’s been a great conversation, Mrs Millwood. The best. In fact, I can’t remember a better one in all my time. Shall we speak again tomorrow, Mrs Millwood?’
‘Oh yes, we have unfinished business, Mr Doubler.’
She chuckled the low, throaty laugh that made Doubler’s heart ache and she hung up.
‘Cheerio, then,’ he said happily to himself as he replaced the receiver.
Chapter 18
Doubler had not had much notice to prepare for the shelter volunteers’ visit, which was probably a good thing, as he would undoubtedly have found an excuse to cancel if he had dwelt on the prospect of the impending visit for more than a couple of days. Instead, he had set to work preparing the house, the kitchen and the contents of his pantry to the very best of his ability.
Now, the moment was just about upon him. Doubler looked around the kitchen and noted the time. He had a half-hour to wait. He had wrestled with how best to proceed, having no real precedent for receiving visitors other than the imposed visits by his family and the sorely missed daily visits by Mrs Millwood. After much deliberation, he had decided that being a good host and making a positive impression was more important to him than a temporary suspension of security at the farm, so he’d driven down the hill
and latched the gate open, allowing his visitors easy access. He didn’t know whether they’d car-share and arrive all at once or if they would make their own way to Mirth Farm individually and he didn’t like the idea of his guests being inconvenienced by the gate.
He checked the oven and took a tray of scones out, sliding them easily onto a cooling rack. He set out cups and saucers on the kitchen table, warmed both teapots, put the fruitcake on a plate, placing it initially in the centre of the table and then, after frowning a little, moving it to the far end of the table, where it didn’t appear to try quite so hard. He took a walnut cake out of the fridge and confirmed that the butter icing had set satisfactorily. He put this next to the fruitcake, adjusting both slightly to avoid any suggestion of contrived symmetry. Finally, he popped a couple of loaves into the coolest oven of the Aga to let them warm gently. The table looked beautiful; the house looked welcoming; the kitchen smelt delicious.
Doubler felt proud of his achievements but was still anxious that he hadn’t gone to enough effort. He had no idea how formal these meetings were or how much trouble the other hosts would go to when it was their turn and he felt predisposed to inadequacy. He had, however, prepared two further cakes: a lemon drizzle and a Victoria sponge, layered with homemade jam and dusted with icing sugar. These were stored out of sight in the pantry and Doubler resolved to bring them to the table only if his guests looked underwhelmed or disappointed. He wondered whether he should have ordered some clotted cream for the scones, whether butter and jam would be enough, but there was no time for regret or last-minute decisions now as his guests would arrive any minute.
They were punctual and very quick to make themselves at home. Their arrival passed in a haze, with Doubler feeling very much like an actor playing the role of host. One by one they filed into his kitchen, appreciative, Doubler thought, but by no means overwhelmed by his effort. Maxwell, clearly in charge, introduced him to Derek, Paula, Mabel and – much to Doubler’s surprise – to Olive from Grove Farm, who said very little but appeared fascinated by Mirth Farm and everything within it.
Mr Doubler Begins Again Page 15
