‘So you have one bad apple. Do you have any others?’
‘I have just the two children. There’s Julian, who’s my bad apple, and there’s Camilla, who is just like her mother.’
‘And what about your wife? Does she dote on your children like my Thomas does?’
Doubler hesitated. ‘She’s . . . she’s not with us anymore. I was devoted to her, you know. But I don’t think I was able to be the husband she needed. She wanted me to be somebody else and I didn’t notice soon enough. I thought she had fallen in love with me, but I think she perhaps fell in love with the person she hoped I would become. Does that make sense? Maybe if I’d noticed sooner, I could have had a go at being the husband she dreamt of and maybe things would have ended differently. But I had my potatoes, you see. I’ve blamed myself for a very long time, and the children blamed me, too.’
Doubler thought about Marie, thought about the changes he would have had to make to satisfy her. ‘I don’t really like to speak ill of her, but perhaps she was a bit selfish as well.’
‘Well, it’s very easy to bestow the ones we’ve lost with great qualities they never had. That’s common. So perhaps coming to terms with some of your wife’s faults makes it easier to let her go?’
Doubler looked at her, as if to speak, but then silenced himself.
Maddie tried to interpret the sadness in his eyes and weighed it up against her own. ‘Or perhaps not. Perhaps the memories whether good or bad are all just distilled pain when you can’t rewrite the ending.’
‘It’s very complicated, Maddie, but you and I aren’t so different. In fact, we’re remarkably similar. We’re both blighted.’ Doubler softened. ‘But your husband, Thomas, he didn’t really betray you. He was bullied by his kids, that’s all. And he probably hates that feeling as much as you do. It’s probably tormenting him a bit.’
Maddie shook her head sadly. ‘I just don’t know. Sometimes he doesn’t even recognize me when I visit. He just asks for them, over and over again. They don’t visit much, of course. He probably thought that if he submitted to their wishes, he’d get more of them, but he gets so much less. They seem to be able to forget about him the minute they leave.’
‘It must be terribly confusing for him.’
‘And hurtful for me. If we’d stayed put, stayed up at the farm, then Thomas might have gone a bit downhill, he might even have lost his mind, but it would have been gentler. Mine’s gone too, so we could have muddled along together, knowing just enough between us.’
‘Perish the thought! You’d have had to put Percy in charge!’ Doubler joked, masking a surge of emotion threatening to engulf him.
‘Well, yes, I should have thought of that myself. It’s about time that donkey did something to pay us back for a lifetime of soft living.’
They sat in comfortable silence before the loud rumbling of Doubler’s stomach interrupted their thoughts. ‘Goodness me, Maddie. Do you happen to have a biscuit? I have one of those constitutions that needs constant refuelling or I turn pretty ugly.’
Maddie looked crestfallen. ‘No, none. I’m so sorry. I don’t get visitors and there’s just not any point keeping a tin for myself. I could pop out to the shops? I could be there in twenty minutes. Back in under an hour?’
Doubler tutted and went to the kitchen, talking loudly to Maddie as he went. ‘Do you have flour, butter and sugar?’ He was opening the fridge and peering into the cupboards, extracting packets and jars as he spoke.
‘Probably?’ said Maddie, uncertain of when she last stocked up.
‘Well, if you’ve got flour, butter and sugar, that’s even better than a biscuit tin. Come and give me a hand – let’s get your kitchen smelling of a kitchen. I can whip up some shortbread much quicker than you can catch a bus. And while the shortbread bakes, we can work out what on earth we’re going to do about you and your donkey.’
‘And Thomas?’ asked Maddie, with hope in her voice.
‘Why not? Let’s sort your husband out too while we’re at it.’
Maddie, less bewildered now, handed Doubler a stripy apron and assessed her kitchen as if for the very first time.
Chapter 21
Doubler recounted his visit to Maddie Mitchell to Mrs Millwood. She listened attentively and didn’t interrupt until Doubler had relayed every last detail, right down to the delight on Maddie’s face when she tasted her first bite of the buttery shortbread, fresh from the oven.
‘You did a good job, Mr Doubler. It sounds like she just needed to be asked why she’s so sad.’
‘That was the right question,’ agreed Doubler.
‘And she’s sad because she and her husband don’t deserve to be alone and confused. They deserve to be together for their last years, muddled but complete, even if that might be a bit inconvenient to the people trying to care for them.’
‘That’s it, Mrs M. Together they could face all of the difficulties of life, even death.’
Doubler listened to Mrs Millwood’s silence as she thought about this for a few moments.
After a while, she asked, ‘Do you fear death, Mr Doubler?’
Doubler thought carefully. ‘Yours or mine, Mrs M?’
‘Your death, Mr Doubler. Do you fear your own death?’
He wasn’t shocked by the question, but nor did he feel equipped to answer it from the enveloping warmth of his most comfortable armchair. He stood up and carried the phone with him to the window seat, where he sat down again before answering cautiously.
‘When I wake to a heavy mist, it often clears up here at the farm before it clears down below in the valley and then it might as well be just me left on the planet. It’s most dramatic in the late spring or summer, and it’s exquisitely beautiful. I’m alone at the farm sitting here with a sea of thick white cloud beneath me. My view is obliterated, just blue sky above, and the only thing I’m sure of is my little hilltop island, nestled in this foamy white sea, and it’s astonishingly quiet. It’s eerily silent. I have no idea what the birds think is going on. When that happens, I can’t help imagining that I’m alone, the last person alive. The rest of the world’s global population could have been wiped out by a fireball or some devastating disease and I wouldn’t know.’
‘How does that make you feel? Lonely or frightened?’
‘Neither lonely nor frightened, strangely. It feels calm and entirely natural. I feel isolated up here anyway and I’m comfortable with that notion, but when I can’t see anything else, it’s a little like death. Just me on my floating island, and I like it. I love it! Which must mean, I suppose, that I am very at peace with the prospect of my physical demise.’
Mrs Millwood made a noise down the phone that Doubler was now very familiar with. The noise was part snort of disgust, part exclamation of disapproval and, combined, it served as a precursor to an expression of outrage. Smiling warmly, Doubler braced himself.
‘Well. I shall certainly remember that, next time it’s foggy down here. I shall be sure in the knowledge that you’re basking in the sunshine above, not imagining at all with sorrow or regret that I and everyone else down here might have fried in a fireball or withered away at the hands of some devastating disease.’
‘Oh no, Mrs Millwood. That’s not what I meant at all. I don’t want you caught in the path of the fireball. I want you up here above the clouds, safe with me on my island.’
Mrs Millwood was not easily cajoled. Her outrage unabated, she continued, ‘But I’ve got friends down here, Doubler. I have family too. I don’t think I want to leave them to their grisly fate while I gloat up there with you. I’m not quite as callous as you are, apparently. I have responsibilities.’
An unlikely image of a fireball racing towards Mrs Millwood while she shielded Midge flashed fleetingly in Doubler’s mind. ‘Perhaps I didn’t think this through,’ he conceded. ‘I wasn’t really thinking of the end of the world in the context of you and your friends and family. Rather, I was thinking of my removal from all of you, and that sitting up here on my own
either in a suspended state of semi-death or an actual state of death doesn’t seem to fill me with fear. And when I’m here above the clouds, I’m not really thinking at all. I’m just able to enjoy the peace and the quiet and the whiteness beneath me. The knowledge that it is just me up here is one of comfort, not fear. That’s all.’
‘Well, it’s nice to know where I stand,’ said Mrs Millwood with only the slightest hint of humour in her voice.
‘But the knowledge that you’re down there, begrudging me, does change things a bit. I mean, I am not as comfortable being the sole survivor of a global wipeout in the certainty that somewhere below you’re writhing around in pain or at least a tiny bit cross with me for enjoying my solitude. I seem to be substantially less at peace all of a sudden.’
‘I should jolly well hope so, Mr Doubler.’
She was quiet for a few moments before exclaiming, with passion, ‘Oh, I do know those mornings, Mr Doubler, when you open the curtains and the sky is the colour of old bed sheets. But I suppose even if the mist has crept right up to the windowpanes, you still need to be aware of the possibility of a far horizon to be able to appreciate the beauty of an impenetrable fog. If all you’re missing is a handful of wheelie bins and a garden fence, then perhaps there’s less beauty in the whiteness?’
‘I beg to differ. How do you know, in a thick, thick fog, what you’re missing? Wheelie bins? I doubt it. Could be anything out there.’
‘I suppose you’re right. I shall see what I think I’m missing next time the weather closes in. I do like it, though, when it’s misty down here in the town and in the surrounding countryside, and I think I might enjoy it even more now I know you’ll be sitting up above us all, somewhat godly.’
‘If I had godly powers, Mrs Millwood, I’d use them to whisk you away from that place. I’d make you well and hearty, and I’d soon have you sitting in the clouds with me.’
Mrs Millwood thought about this before answering seriously, ‘It’s a funny thing, Mr Doubler. There are other mornings, aren’t there, when it’s quite, quite clear down in the town but there’s a little cloud covering at the top of your hill and shrouding Mirth Farm in its own little hat of despondency. We’ll all be down here below and enjoying a fine morning and I’ll look up towards the farm and see you’re in cloud. That’s always made me feel sad for you. What’s that like, Mr Doubler, being alone in your own cloud and knowing the rest of the world is bathed in sunshine?’
‘I’m often in cloud up here and I don’t mind a bit. You must never feel sad for me. When it’s cloudy up here, I have to admit I rather assume it’s cloudy everywhere. It has never occurred to me to think very much beyond my own local climate. But I shall from now onwards. I shall think of you bathed in sunlight and shall hope you’re sending me a cheery little wave in my direction. I should like that a lot.’
‘Well, I’m glad you cleared that up! I shall certainly do my best to wave. But I do find it interesting, Mr Doubler, that when you’ve been alone on top of your cloudy hill and I’ve been overwhelmed with sadness for you, you’ve barely thought about anything beyond your immediate surroundings. I feel a bit of a fool, quite frankly.’
‘But when I’m in the chasm, Mrs Millwood, I can’t see anybody else, let alone empathize with their feelings. I can’t see anything, even on the clearest day. In the chasm, Mrs Millwood, I am a very self-centred man, and I probably only survive by assuming everyone else is in their own version of the chasm, unable to think or feel or empathize. If I imagined a happy world continuing despite me, I might find life unbearable.’
‘But were we talking about the chasm, Mr Doubler? I thought we were talking about a literal cloud, not a metaphorical one.’
Doubler squeezed his eyes tightly shut in order to see well. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s hard to separate the two, the cloud from the chasm. Perhaps I imagined that when I’m in the chasm, it could be seen from the valley below as the little hat of despondency you described earlier. Either way, in cloud or chasm, my own world becomes very much smaller.’
‘But you’ve been more cheerful of late, Mr Doubler, or is that me imagining it? You sound rather thrilled with yourself most of the time.’
‘I’m not thrilled with myself, Mrs Millwood. I’m thrilled with you.’
‘My illness has cheered you up, has it?’
‘Heavens, no. Your illness has the capacity to destroy us both. But by missing you, I’ve felt so alive, more alive than I’ve felt for years. Missing you has made me remember the possibility of loss mattering.’
‘This is all quite complex, Mr Doubler, and hard to fathom from my hospital bed. But I think you’re paying me a compliment. Is that right?’
‘I don’t know if being admired by somebody like me could ever be considered a compliment.’
‘Goodness, you’re exhausting. Can you stop talking in riddles? I feel so overwhelmed when you do this. I have to be in the mood for your games and I’m just not. Was there or was there not a compliment buried beneath your riddles?’
‘Well, if by compliment you mean—’ Doubler began, desperately trying to buy some time, but Mrs Millwood was impatient and exasperated.
‘Mr Doubler!’
‘I admire you, Mrs Millwood.’
‘Excellent,’ said Mrs Millwood with a smile in her voice. ‘That’s what I thought you were trying to say.’
Doubler remained silent, chewing his lip, unwilling to interrupt the silence with an unworldly response.
‘And I admire you too, Mr Doubler. Mostly I admire your courage.’
‘My courage?’ asked Doubler, immediately questioning Mrs Millwood’s sincerity. ‘I don’t have many qualities that are admirable, but I would imagine my dedication to my purpose would probably be ahead of my courage. And my abilities with potatoes. That would probably top the list.’
‘You’re a brave man, Mr Doubler. You’re getting on a bit, you’re set in your ways, but you’re still prepared to do things that make you uncomfortable. Having the folk from the animal shelter up to visit Mirth Farm took courage, Mr Doubler. So did climbing out of the chasm. So did raising your children on your own. So does taking on the potato giants.’
Doubler fell silent. Midge had called him brave, too. But Mrs Millwood thought he was kind and brave. Doubler wondered if it might be possible to become those things just through her belief in him.
Eventually Mrs Millwood spoke. ‘Shall we talk tomorrow, then, Mr Doubler?’
‘Let’s do that. We don’t have to talk about death, though. We can be a bit more cheerful if you’d like.’
‘I found our chat about death very cheering, Mr Doubler. Very cheering indeed.’
Doubler murmured goodbye awkwardly, and when he’d hung up, he put the phone down gently, stood up slowly and did something he’d possibly never done in his entire life. He danced a little jig of happiness, right there in his sitting room, in plain view of the walls and furniture, the books and rugs, and without a care for what it might look like to the many birds who could be flitting by at that very moment.
Chapter 22
The phone rang early, as Doubler was preparing his breakfast. His heart lurched with joy at the thought that he might be the first thing Mrs Millwood thought of when she woke; she was certainly occupying the front of his brain in every waking moment. Instead the voice on the end of the phone was terse, unhesitating and male.
‘So, old man. I’d like to place an order for some you know what.’
‘Who is this?’ said Doubler, recognizing the voice immediately but feeling the need to buy a bit of time. ‘Is that you, Maxwell?’
Doubler dragged the phone cord behind him and made his way to the window seat, watching the wind play with the boughs of an apple tree as he listened to the Colonel.
‘Of course it’s me. Can’t get the damned stuff out of my mind. I’d very much like to place an order for a substantial quantity, if you can see your way to it. Wouldn’t want to face a drought, if you get my drift.’
�
��If you’re talking about the gin, that’s simply not possible. I’m sorry.’ Doubler felt Maxwell’s sharp intake of breath as he said the word ‘gin’ and realized that Maxwell believed he was embarking on something illicit, perhaps for the first time in his life.
The Colonel lowered his voice to a loud whisper. ‘What do you mean, it’s not possible? I know you sell it – you said as much yourself. And I’d watch your tongue. Little pitchers have big ears,’ he said, somewhat obliquely.
‘I don’t think anyone can hear our conversation, and yes, but on the whole I don’t sell it; I trade it. I sell vodka to make my living, but I trade gin to enrich my life.’
‘Fine. I’m happy to trade your gin for some crisp ten-pound notes. And your secret will remain absolutely safe with me. Though,’ the Colonel said, dropping once again into a conspiratorial tone, ‘you might want to heed some advice, man to man: best not to share your deepest and darkest unless you’re committed to keeping on the right side of your colluders. I’m not suggesting my mood is going to turn ugly anytime soon, but you wouldn’t want to test that theory.’
‘Maxwell, there’s no conspiracy here, and threatening me is not going to change my mind.’
‘Good. So how about it? I’m not going to be greedy. A case would tide me over.’
‘A case? You’d be lucky to get a bottle. I haven’t got any spare.’
‘What, none?’
‘No. I’ve got a few bottles for my own purposes, but I don’t have a single bottle left available for new customers. I’d let you have a bottle if I could spare it, but I need to keep a permanent record of previous output.’
The Colonel sounded deflated. ‘Disappointing. Very disappointing. I’d quite set my heart on it.’ Maxwell fell silent for a moment, though Doubler could hear him breathe quite heavily down the phone while he thought. ‘I can pay more. I can pay a premium. Anything is for sale at a price, they say.’
Mr Doubler Begins Again Page 19
