by Susan Hill
He wondered about Rachel. Did she and her husband have lunch together? Did she cook? Could he feed himself? Where did they sit? What was the house like? Large. Yes. Almost certainly too large, like John Lowther’s house. They had no children. Or did they? He realised that he had no idea. She had not mentioned any and people usually did. But perhaps not in this case.
He went to his computer and found her address. Their address.
The road had no sign and there were only a dozen or so houses, set well back. He drove slowly down and was about to turn when he saw it.
Knighton.
He parked.
It was quiet. No children. No animals. He edged towards the entrance and looked at the house. Her car was in the drive but there was no sign of life. He willed her to come out, knowing that if she did he couldn’t speak to her or even let her know he was there. Years of hanging about outside houses when he was first in CID meant that he was good at concealment and at making a fast exit. But she knew his car, knew him. If she came out … If.
He waited. Waited longer. Waited forty minutes. She did not come out, no one did. Nothing changed.
But he knew where she lived. He could picture it, picture her there.
It was madness.
It was better than nothing.
Judith’s car was next to Cat’s outside the farmhouse. Simon cursed that he had arrived without warning, and now had to encounter his father and stepmother as well as an annoyed sister, but before he had got out, the front door had opened on Sam, Felix and the Yorkshire terrier Wookie, and Felix was hurling himself at Simon’s legs, Sam standing back with his usual reserve but looking pleased.
‘Didn’t know you were coming. Mum didn’t say.’
‘She didn’t know either. Hello, blasted dog, stop leaping up my leg.’ He swung Felix onto his shoulders.
‘Grandpa and Judith here for lunch?’
‘No, it’s just Judith, but she only came about half an hour ago. She seems to be a bit upset.’
‘Oh Lord.’
Simon bent down so that he could get Felix through the doorway. He glanced in to see Cat and Judith sitting at the kitchen table and made a business of swinging Felix round and round, before putting him down.
‘There isn’t any food left,’ Cat said. ‘And actually, Si …’
He had not looked at Judith properly but now he did and saw that she was tense, her face strained and without its usual pleasant, happy expression.
‘Sorry, I’ve obviously barged in …’
‘No, Simon, it’s fine.’ Judith got up. ‘Coffee? And I’m sure we can rustle up some food.’
‘There isn’t any,’ Cat said. ‘Molly’s Rob finished off the joint and the last veg. There might be some crust of blackberry and apple pie. You didn’t say anything about lunch.’
Judith looked at Simon. ‘I’m having coffee.’
‘Be great. Thanks.’
‘Oh Felix, not again.’
Felix was staring ruefully at the chocolate ice cream all over his T-shirt and shorts.
‘You have to ask me before takings things out of the freezer. Come on.’ Cat turned her son round and propelled him swiftly out, banging the door.
‘All because I forgot to turn up for supper?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Judith said. ‘She’s feeling pretty low. Not your fault.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing in particular. Being a single parent is hard, no matter how much help you’ve got. And she’s had a big wave of missing Chris. You do. I know. I couldn’t function at all sometimes, for years after Don died. She’ll be all right. Let her come round.’
She poured water into the cafetière.
‘What about you?’ Simon asked, getting down two mugs.
‘Me? Oh, I’m all right.’
He waited until she turned round. Caught her eye.
Judith shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘Dad?’ He carried the cafetière to the table. ‘Listen, I know Dad. If he’s been – like he can be, don’t put up with it, don’t let him bully you.’
She said nothing.
Simon had had a tricky start with Judith, but once he had understood her real worth, her patience and gentleness, her ability to deflect his father’s moods, her genuine love for him, her acceptance of his family and her care about them, her generous spirit, he had loved her and he was not prepared to see her hurt.
They sat down. Nothing more was said. The kitchen was quiet.
‘The other thing is the hospice. Financial crisis there. They’re going to have to close beds and put the expansion of the day care unit on hold. Doesn’t help. There’s something I want to say and you mustn’t take it wrongly, Simon …’
‘Go on.’
‘Things aren’t as they were. Well, you know that. When Chris was alive everyone relied on Cat, but she had him behind her. It’s different now. Don’t take her for granted.’
‘Have I done that?’
‘We all have.’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve done nothing of the sort.’
But he had said he would come for supper and forgotten, called in now, as he had always done, expecting a meal, a drink, a bed, a listening ear, someone he could rely on.
‘What shall I do? Do you think she needs a break – a holiday or something?’
Judith stirred her coffee thoughtfully. She still looked strained, unrelaxed – something. ‘Not sure how it could work but a weekend away without the children perhaps.’
‘Would she want to go on her own though?’
‘I was thinking she and I might go somewhere. Molly has weekends, your father could help – do him good. And you could take Sam somewhere for an afternoon, couldn’t you? Hannah always has friends to stay with. It’s just an idea.’
‘Good one. Ask her then.’
‘Ask who what?’
Cat startled them. Felix was still trailing slowly down the stairs.
‘So, do you want something to eat?’
‘Listen, I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t let you know. I’m really sorry.’
Simon opened his arms and, after a second, Cat accepted his hug.
‘Just a bit … you know. At the moment.’
‘And the answer to eating is yes. Any leftovers?’
‘Not really. I can do you bacon and eggs and sausages.’
‘Let me.’
‘I‘d rather cook them myself, thanks, we’ve not long cleared up the kitchen.’
He threw a tea towel at her.
He could easily have spent the evening at the farmhouse but it was probably best not to outstay his welcome, though he and Cat seemed to have reverted to normal. But better if he left now, not hang about expecting supper.
Judith followed him, and at the cars he asked again if something was wrong.
‘Yes and no. Come back to supper with me? There’s a chicken pie that was meant for last night but we didn’t quite get round to a proper supper …’
Judith had always tried to make sure that whatever happened during the day, she and Richard ate together in the evening.
‘Dad?’
‘Masonic. So I’d be glad to share the pie.’
‘I’ll follow you back.’
Simon gave her a glass of wine while he mixed the salad dressing and laid the table. Judith said little, but leaned back watching him. He found fresh candles and lit them.
‘So what’s happened?’
As he had intended, Judith didn’t have time to control her reaction. He saw tears in her eyes.
‘I hate it. I hate arguing with anyone, but most of all with him. I don’t know how it started, that’s the stupid part … something trivial, but before we knew it all sorts of things were being said. Hurtful things, I mean. We’ve never done that. What’s going on, Simon? Suddenly there are resentments and jealousies we didn’t know existed being thrown to and fro. If you’d asked me a week ago if that would ever happen I’d have laughed at you. But it did. And your father
has been like a … I don’t know. Cold and silent. Miles away. What’s that like?’
‘Like he always used to be but hasn’t since he met you.’ He poured her more wine. ‘Leopards. Spots.’
‘No, Simon. Please don’t.’
He had never heard her sound like this.
‘I’m sorry. Judith …?’
‘What we’ve had is a spat … nothing. It’ll sort itself out. I love Richard and the person who is your father is a different man from the one I have come to know. I understand that. But I live with him in the present and our relationship isn’t remotely the same as any he might have had years ago with all of you.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to be. I said I understood and I do. I hope I do.’
When they ate, Simon’s mind was still on what she had just said, trying to adjust himself to what it meant, trying not to feel snubbed by it, aware that he was touchy.
He was about to say something else but Judith spoke instead, and caught him, in his turn, completely off guard.
‘Simon?’
He glanced up.
‘Something’s happened to you. Hasn’t it?’
Twenty-seven
‘IT’S WRONG. IT all seems so wrong.’
‘Why? What’s the difference?’
‘I thought the first thing was a consultation with the doctor, I thought he considered your case and made a judgement and then he let you know if he was … God, I was going to say “agreeable”, but I mean “in agreement”. This is just wrong.’
‘You’d rather I had to make the journey twice? Wait and wait, not knowing? Would you rather that, Penny?’
‘I’d rather not at all. I’m sorry. I know I promised I wouldn’t say that. But this is surreal. I can’t believe in this.’
‘The coffee’s good.’
Penny did not meet her eye. They were sitting outside at a café table. Opposite, trees around the perimeter of a park. There were other cafés, other people sitting at tables. Traffic. The world going by. The sun shone. She knew what Penny was thinking. But just now, when she had tried to pick up her own cup, she had not been able to grip the handle, her finger and thumb had not obeyed her brain. She had almost sent it crashing onto the tabletop. Penny had grabbed it and set it down. ‘You see?’ she had said. ‘Don’t try and hold it for me. Have you ever seen people holding cups while someone sips. Like a toddler. Like a baby.’
A couple of teenagers glided by on roller skates, arms folded, graceful boys with caps of dark hair, their bone structure not yet settled into adulthood.
She watched them.
Penny was right. It was surreal. They were a couple of tourists. They were on holiday. They were having a City Break. The coffee was so good. The cake was rich and moist with almond and butter.
My last cake, she thought. Last coffee. Last.
People say, there’s always a first time but that is not true. There may not be one at all. But a last time. Yes. That is true. There is always a last time.
The appointment with the Swiss doctor was in an hour.
‘I’d like to see a bit of the city,’ she had said.
Penny had said nothing. Had not needed to, it had been written on her face.
‘But why not? You’d like to see it, wouldn’t you?’
Now the cake on the plate in front of Penny was barely touched.
‘This is madness. This is insanity. Mother, what in God’s name are we doing here? Come home. Get the next train. Come back home.’
‘No,’ Jocelyn said.
She was surprised at how calm she felt, how certain that turning back, going home, as Penny wanted, giving the idea up, was not an option. She had almost fallen that morning in the small hotel room, which had had a rug beside the bed. The rug had moved slightly and she had not known what was happening to her legs, they had splayed out and she had grabbed the end of the bed to save herself. Now, it was the cup of coffee she could not hold. The previous week she had not been able to swallow a spoonful of cereal, her throat had constricted, frozen, the muscles had seized up. She had managed to reach the kitchen and spit her mouthful into the sink.
It had not happened again. But it would. There was no time.
All the same though. All the same. She looked across at the trees in the park. The shaven grass. The glittering glass of the shop windows. A bus slowed. Stopped a few yards away. People got off. Others got on.
Life, she thought.
Normal life.
Everyday life.
A normal day in life.
In an hour she would see a Swiss doctor who would listen and take notes and prescribe phials of lethal medicines. They would wait. They would be given an address. A taxi would drive them to the clinic.
But then … she took a deep breath, knowing, picturing it. Understanding fully that this beautiful place would be her last. She knew about Swiss clinics because when she was a girl, a friend’s mother had come to one for tuberculosis treatment – though that had been in the mountains. Her own mother had visited and described the place. A terrace set out with chairs and loungers, so that patients, well wrapped, could be outside in the glittering sun and air, breathing it, breathing it, healing their lungs. The rooms had had plain simple furniture of pale wood. Soft white curtains. Crisp white sheets and pillows and covers on the beds. Sunlight. A wooden crucifix on each small chest. A picture on every wall of snow, mountains, rivers, trees, waterfalls, green grass – some beautiful, tranquil landscape. That had been the word. Tranquil. ‘It was so tranquil,’ her mother had said over and over again. She had brought a postcard back, a watercolour painting of the clinic in the mountains, and Jocelyn had gazed at it for days, when it had been propped up against a lamp on the dresser, taken it down and imagined herself into that impossibly white landscape, touching that sparkling snow, breathing in the ice-cold air.
That was why she was perfectly calm today, she realised that, calm and – no, not happy. Of course not. She would rather be at home, rather never have had to come here, rather be getting on with her life. But that was the point, wasn’t it? There was to be no life, not life as she had known it and hoped it would be for many years into the future. There was to be disability, clumsiness, the closing down of everything – movement, speech, swallowing. Breathing. One by one, it would all go and she would be a flickering, panicking mind trapped inside a dead shell.
That was why she was here.
She looked up. Penny was crying, the tears on her cheeks not wiped away, just left to gather. Her hand was palm upwards on the tabletop.
‘No,’ Jocelyn said, covering it with her own. ‘You promised me you wouldn’t do this.’
‘That was before we got here. Mother, please …’
‘No.’
‘How can you sit there drinking coffee? I don’t know this person you’ve turned into.’
‘Yes, you do. Of course you do. I’m the same person.’
‘You don’t seem to have anything to do with me. You’re a million miles away already, you’re –’
‘Stop it. Oh, do look, that sweet little white dog. What do they call them? I can’t remember.’
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ Penny stood. She had raised her voice. It was not yet a shout, but it might turn into one.
‘I think we should go now,’ Jocelyn said. ‘Will you pay while I flag down a taxi?’
‘No.’
‘All right, I’ll do both.’
‘I can’t do this …’
Jocelyn faced her calmly. Behind them, a couple of young men took their vacant table, pushing the empty cups and plates to one side, talking hard as they did so. The small white dog was sitting beside its owner while she too talked, talked.
Life.
Normal.
This is normal life.
The words ran like ticker tape through her head.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I understand. I do understand. It’s harder for you and maybe I shouldn’t have let you come. But you came
and you’re here. So, you can come with me, or we can … part now. You can go home. I’m fine. But decide now and stick to that, Penny. I’m fine but I don’t think I can cope with … you changing your mind, changing it again. Not knowing if you are going to be with me or not. That’s harder than anything.’
‘And what you are asking me to do is the hardest thing possible.’
‘I understand.’
‘I don’t think you do. I have to live with this. Hear what I’m saying. I have to live with this.’
‘Whereas I don’t.’
They stood looking at one another and each saw the horror of realisation on the face of the other.
Then Jocelyn stepped forward and raised her arm and the taxi that had been spinning towards them stopped.
They could have walked. It was five minutes away from where they had had their coffee, one of the older apartment blocks, like private consulting rooms anywhere. There was an entrance hall. Reception. Telephone. Computer. Vase of flowers. Bland pictures. Waiting room. Plants. Low table. Magazines of a neutral kind, in German, French and English. General Interest. Cream paint. Double glazing, muffling the traffic sound.
The receptionist had hair piled up high, tied round with a black band. Formal smile. Perfect, accented English. Neutral, like the magazines, Jocelyn thought. Trained expression. Sympathetic but not involved. No. Never involved.
How many of us come here? Of ‘us’? Plenty of people must come for other reasons but how many of ‘us’? One a day? One a week? A month? More? Dozens more? Hundreds?
Her appointment was at eleven thirty and at eleven thirty she was ushered into the doctor’s room. High ceiling. Tall windows. Wide desk. Photograph of a wife, two children. Plants. The room of consultants anywhere.
It took perhaps fifteen minutes, and of those, he spent several reading her notes, turning pages to and fro with a soft sound. He asked her about her symptoms. Movement. Speech. Throat. Hands. Grip. Touch. About changes. Then about thoughts. Mental attitude, she thought.
She expected him to try and persuade her against, to talk about hope and symptom control, about home and disability and care.
