The Path to the Lake

by Susan Sallis

  ‘Then come to tea tomorrow, and get to know the ropes, Viv. Besides, I would like to see you. Everything seems so odd. It would be good to have a nice ordinary chat.’

  I smiled into the receiver; did we really have nice ordinary chats? It was a comforting thought. I said of course, of course, and then that I would make a cake and arrive about three o’clock so that I could help with the sandwiches.

  I made two cakes, because the first one was flat. I had no jam in the house so had to take the car out to the garage shop, and they only had marmalade. A marmalade Victoria sponge. It was different, anyway.

  I had been going to run that evening – facing my own memories as I sat by Juniper on the Tump had been incredibly difficult, and I had promised myself that as soon as I got home I would change into jogging pants and trainers and just go. But then there had been Hildie on the phone and the Victoria sponges, and the drive out to the M5 for marmalade, and then, frankly, I was exhausted. I ate a piece of bread and marmite and went to bed. I woke at seven thirty and felt refreshed. Perhaps I should stop jogging and take up baking.

  It was ideal Tuesday morning weather, breezy, clouds moving along briskly to show some weak sunshine, but by afternoon the clouds were incessant and the breeze was bitterly cold. I brought the washing in and folded it for ironing. Then I drove down to the river and Hildie Hardy’s terraced cottage and found that both sides of the road were nose-to-tail with the cars of people using the nearby pub. I drove on almost a quarter of a mile, and parked in the forecourt of the Rod and Creel, and walked back with my cling-filmed cake clutched in front of me. I hadn’t brought a hat or gloves; my hands were frozen, my face blotchy red, my hair escaping unattractively from its ponytail. I took a bet with myself that Tom would open the door. Thank God I lost. Hildie looked comfortably domesticated in blue jumper and skirt, covered with what she called an afternoon apron. She took the cake plate with exclamations of delight, and led me in to the big living room, which had been taken over almost completely by a twin buggy; both armchairs were full of packets of nappies. Mr Hardy looked nervous, sitting at an awkward angle at one end of the sofa. The two babies, surrounded by cushions, slept peacefully at the other end. Hildie said, ‘We’re going to put the kettle on, Hardy. Don’t move. Keep an eye on the babies in case they try to roll off.’ Mr Hardy moved fractionally, and flashed me a quick smile.

  Hildie put the cake on the table amidst plates of sandwiches, and edged round into the kitchen. I followed.

  ‘He needs a definite job,’ she said, angling her head in the general direction of her husband. ‘Tom’s gone for a quick walk, to get some air. You know.’ I knew. ‘I don’t want Hardy to feel left out. Can you cut and butter the scones, Viv?’

  So I was allied with Mr Hardy. And Tom had been sent for a walk. I asked after Tom.

  Hildie stopped assembling her best china, and stared through the window at the long narrow garden. ‘Tis such a terrible business. And the funeral being delayed cos of the autopsy. Still, Tom’s all I care about. I don’t think he knows what to feel. He’s now saying he can’t go to the funeral – couldn’t leave the babies, he said!’ She rubbed at some teaspoons and clattered them on to saucers. ‘I told him about you. I said the three of us would be going, and that was that.’ She glanced at me, suddenly anxious. ‘You will be able to manage, won’t you, Viv? You’ll have to come here. There’s so much stuff with the two of them, it will be easier for you down here.’

  I swallowed, but nodded quickly. In my imagination I had seen myself wheeling the babies to the top of the Tump to show them the view . . . young editions of Juniper Stevens. And even that cosy pipe-dream had taken place in an unspecified future. Suddenly everything was upon me. I could barely look after myself, and on Thursday I had to look after two other human beings. In two days’ time. I was struck by a very real terror.

  ‘It will be easier when you’ve got the place to yourself. We’re all bursting at the seams now. I haven’t sorted out their stuff yet, and that blessed buggy needs a room for itself. But once we’re out of the way you’ll feel properly in charge.’ She gave me that anxious look again. ‘They really are good babies, Viv.’

  ‘I can see . . .’ I tried to smile reassuringly.

  She poured sugar into a bowl. ‘If you could just start them off . . . Tilly-next-door is home by eleven in the mornings – she does office cleaning – and she’d take over if you had problems. I’ll leave you her number. Tom wanted to phone an agency. He can afford it. I just thought they should start to become part of . . . us. Soon as possible.’

  I rallied somehow. ‘Sorry – did my nerves show?’ I smiled again. ‘Listen, of course I’m going to be nervous, surely we’re all nervous? We’ve got to learn how to do this and the only way is to . . . do it!’ I put the final scone on top of the pyramid on the plate. It occurred to me again how wonderful it was that Hildie Hardy was trusting me with her grandchildren. She knew about my troubles and my running; she had bathed my scratches that terrible night in the autumn. Yet she had chosen me above Tilly-next-door and a professional agency. It occurred to me then that she was doing it for my sake as well as the babies.

  Tom did not join us at the table. He took his father’s place on the sofa, and his mother brought him a plate of sandwiches and scones and cake. He ate some of it.

  He did not look much like the young man who had run through the waiting room four weeks before. His hair was still on end, and he appeared to be wearing the same sweater, but there was an air of exhaustion about him that I recognized in my own bones. His perpetual motion was essential to him, but he was tired out by it.

  He barely looked at me. His mother introduced me. ‘This is Viv Venables, who I told you would help us out with the babies sometimes. Viv, you will have gathered this is Tom, our son.’

  He managed to take my outstretched hand for a second, but his attention was on the twins, who were making tiny waking-up noises, and as soon as he could he reached over and lifted one of them on to the towel spread over his knees. And then came the other one. He put them head to head so that their legs could kick freely either side of him.

  Hildie said, ‘I’d never seen this way of feeding babies before, have you, Viv?’

  ‘No. It’s very practical.’

  Both twins were working up to a full-throated protest. Mr Hardy had moved some of the nappies, and was sitting in his chair; he got up briskly as the sound crescendoed and went into the kitchen. Tom put a hand on each head and gently massaged the fluffy scalps. ‘There, there,’ he said hoarsely.

  Hildie said proudly, ‘Tom has been to baby-care classes and knows how to feed them, change them and bath them.’

  They did not appear to appreciate the massage: their legs catapulted upward as if pulled on the same puppet-string, the noise got worse.

  Mr Hardy reappeared holding two bottles; Hildie shook some from each on to her wrist and smiled congratulations. ‘Just right, my dear,’ she shouted. ‘You’ve mastered it, all right.’

  Tom took a bottle in each hand and presented them to the babies. There was a little kerfuffle as the rosebud mouths found the teats, then instant peace.

  I said wonderingly, ‘It’s so obvious when you see it happening, but I never fully realized that twins were fed together, with their heads actually touching!’

  Tom registered my presence properly. ‘Apparently this is the way you do it if you’re breast-feeding. It makes perfect sense when you think about it.’

  Hildie said quickly, ‘You don’t have to do it this way, Viv. So long as they both get fed it doesn’t really matter.’

  Tom removed one of the bottles to let air fill a temporary vacuum; the response was instant, and almost as noisy as before. He said ruefully, ‘Actually, it does matter, Ma. If you feed them in turn the last one protests constantly.’

  I was fascinated by his efficiency. He caught my eye. ‘I’m a fast learner anyway, but I had to be very fast about this.’ It should have been said with a smile, but Tom Hardy had ver
y little to smile about.

  I insisted on clearing away the dishes on my own. Hildie sat by Tom and winded one baby, while he patted and joggled the other. He was not really interested in names – I rather doubted whether he had seen the babies yet as people. Hildie said she was cuddling Mike and he had Joy. He made no objection to ‘Mike’ but raised his brows slightly at the name ‘Joy’. I covered sandwiches and scones with cling film and arrayed them along the dresser, then carried out the crockery and cutlery. It was all beautiful bone china and silver-plated spoons and cake forks. I washed, rinsed and polished them, and Mr Hardy came and put them away while I wiped down the sink and draining board.

  He said in a low voice, ‘It will get better. It’s all so . . . new.’

  ‘I know . . . I know.’ I murmured back.

  He cleared his throat and said, ‘When I’m up on the Tump next time I’d better take your loppers for a sharpen and clean, Mrs Venables. And after the winter flowering stuff is over, perhaps you’d like me to prune it right down. It’s getting in the way of your view, I expect.’

  ‘That would be really nice.’ I smiled at him.

  I was even more grateful when he walked with me to the Rod and Creel: it was a starless night and there seemed to be a lot of teenage boys about. Some of them were wearing hooded sweatshirts with the hoods pulled right over their heads. I said apologetically, ‘I never used to be nervous at night. I don’t quite know why I am now.’

  He took my arm as we stepped off the kerb. ‘You were like our Tom, weren’t you? Sort of dead inside. And now . . . well, perhaps you’re coming to life again. D’you think that’s it?’

  He got into the passenger side and I drove the car carefully between all the others parked on either side of their narrow road and dropped him outside the cottage. Was I coming to life again? I had no idea.

  When I got home, I’d intended to walk down the hall and into the kitchen, eyes front the whole time. But after I’d switched on the light I turned slowly and looked into the mirror.

  My own reflection looked back at me. There I was, straggly ponytail, student duffle coat which came out just before Christmas every year, jeans and trainers . . . I was forty-one. I would never have children now. My eyes filled and the reflection became blurred. That was why it looked so much like David.

  I started to cry. I’d done rather a lot of crying lately because of Hildie; now it was because of me. It was all such a waste. Such a terrible waste.

  Ten

  THE TWINS DID not ‘go through the night’ as the hospital had promised. After the morning bath and feed they slept for a precious hour. Hardy took the van out on to the road and loaded it ready for work. Tom walked to the health centre to talk to their GP about the new situation at the riverside cottage. They left Hildie hovering over the cots.

  She had had worse nights. Sometimes at Tall Trees she had sat all night long holding a gnarled hand, and still put the washing on as soon as she got home. She had not even got out of bed last night; Tom had absolutely forbidden it.

  ‘They need the same person to deal with them, Ma. If they gradually learn that there are three of us ready to leap out of bed at the first murmur, then they will see that as the norm.’

  So she had stayed in bed and listened to him creeping about changing nappies and administering boiled water. She was exhausted. She had not realized she was weeping until Hardy’s arm came around her.

  When Tom came in he made her leave the babies and have coffee. ‘Dad’s gone to work.’ She wailed something about sandwiches, and he went on, ‘He’s going to finish early. About two-ish. I’ll take the babies out for a walk and let you have an afternoon nap. He can have a sandwich then.’

  ‘Oh Tom. It’s cold and so grey. Surely they shouldn’t go out in this?’

  ‘They live in good old England, Ma. Got to get used to it some time.’ He forced a smile. ‘Listen. Give your Mrs Venables a ring. I’ll go up there and have a look at her place. If she’s offering to babysit now and then we need to check everything is safe.’

  ‘Oh Tom . . .’ She thought of the steep hill and poor Mrs Venables, probably put off for ever by yesterday’s tea party. Viv. She must remember to call her Viv. ‘I ought to tell you about Mrs Venables.’

  ‘Not now, Ma. I can see she is a responsible woman. That is all I need to know.’

  She looked at him. Haggard; that was the word for her son now. He looked haggard. It was his wife’s funeral tomorrow.

  Then he smiled and took her hands in both of his. ‘I’m sorry, Ma. But you know what you’ve always said. “There’s nothing that time can’t scab over.”’

  She smiled back.

  It worked out well. They had a sandwich lunch, Tom fed the twins and packed them into the long, unwieldy buggy and left.

  Vivian’s story

  At three o’clock the next morning it all became unbearable. I hadn’t slept. At first I had given in to the bouts of terrible weeping; then I had stared into the darkness at some kind of void. I could not have borne the radio, I felt I could bear nothing any more, not even running. Yet I got up automatically, threw on jogging stuff, rammed the door knob into one of the pockets, and left the bungalow. I want to remember that; I was not running away this time. I was running towards . . . something.

  It was still foggy so there were no visible stars; the street lamps were aureoled again. I lifted my knees high to avoid tripping. It occurred to me I was running like an ostrich. David would have delighted in lampooning me in a cartoon. His ostrich would have been undeniably me; I couldn’t think of a caption. Something to do with legs, of course. I pushed my upper half backwards and pouted my mouth into a beak and lifted my legs still higher. Still couldn’t come up with a caption. But . . . at least I was remembering David as he really had been, wasn’t I? He had always seen human beings as so . . . fallible. Vulnerable. And he had protected them by – by lampooning them. Was he still trying to show me that life – everything – was one big lampoon? The door knob. That bloody door knob. Was that part of the lampoon? Did it make the unbearable . . . bearable?

  No. The answer to that was no.

  I stopped at the first hairpin and looked towards where the sea must be, and I wailed aloud, ‘Oh God . . . I miss you so much . . . and I want to tell you I love you . . . I want you to be here – now!’ I dropped my head to my anorak, lifted it again and sucked in air. If only he had had ‘a fling’ like Juniper’s Charley. How simple that would have been, how easy to forgive! For the first time I wondered whether I had tried to kill all three of us that day last year. I tried frantically to remember . . . but I had run too fast and too far. Memory was . . . unreliable. After all, that was why I was writing this down.

  Slowly at first, and then very fast, I started to run again. And my feet, thudding rhythmically, became the only reality. If only I could go on for ever.

  I found myself at the lake. At last I stopped and clung to the wall.

  I knew that something was going to happen; something important. I couldn’t see a thing. The digger could have still been there, buried in the black night fog which had settled and solidified in the deep cavity below me.

  I took a deep breath of the freezing fog and grappled the door knob out of my pocket. I rolled it between my palms, and then against my damp face, and then held it to my chest with both hands. The wall, cutting into my waist, stopped cutting. The coldness pressing on to my head and through thinner bits of fleece became fluid. Physically, I opened to whatever was outside, so that the outside became the inside. And the other way round. And I was becoming part of something huge, enormous. Eternal. My physical self was dissolving. But the door knob was there. It was pressing into my chest and hurting. So my physical self was still there. I cannot explain it. I will simply write it down. I was there and then . . . David was there. How could I see him when it was so dark, when the fog swirled everywhere? But I saw him. He was there. The hood of his sweatshirt covered his face, yet I saw his face. The sleeves covered his hands, yet I sa
w his hands. And I heard him. I heard his voice. He spoke to me. What he said barely made sense, then. The words of an old Beatles song. Made trite by the song, yet . . . not trite.

  I am thankful I am writing everything down because I know it will fade. I know I will doubt my own memory. I could have written that I saw a ghost, and it was David’s ghost. But the word ghost did not cross my mind until much later, and all I can say with absolute certainty is . . . it was David. The words he spoke were not the sort of words David would have said in life, unless he had said them ironically, or as an example of human absurdity. But he spoke them. It was David, and he said those words. I might doubt it later, but not then. Then I knew it, and now, as I write, I still know it.

  I turned almost immediately and ran back home without panic. When I had warmed up I went into my usual steady rhythm, consciously breathing in time with the length of stride and the lift of leg. It was still dark; I ran on the spot while I fitted the key into the lock, glanced at the clock in the hall and saw it was four twenty. I had been outside just over an hour. David was not in the mirror. It had all happened in an hour.

  I slept until midday, and then lay still for some time wondering how such a marvellous, dreamless sleep could come after . . . that.

  Two hours later the door bell ping-ponged. I answered it almost eagerly, certain it was Hildie Hardy with plans for Thursday. I would not tell her about David’s words . . . not yet. But one day I would, and she would be solemnly pleased. There would be no bewilderment or dissatisfaction. But then she had not known David as I had. Had he been mocking me in some way? I needed Hildie’s simple acceptance . . . perhaps I would tell her now.

  Tom Hardy stood just outside the porch; inside, taking up all the space, was the twin pram.

  I tried to look welcoming; he did not respond to my faltering smile. It was not yet three o’clock, but already darkness was waiting, and the fog was still around, and that hill was steep enough without having to push two babies and a buggy up its length. I recalled the evening I had helped one of the staff from Tall Trees push Jinx’s wheelchair around the hairpin bends.