The Path to the Lake

by Susan Sallis

  Juniper was annoyed; she tugged her face free of scarves and said loudly above their yells, ‘Enough to make anyone have a fit! Snow’s all gone, but we still got to dress up like Eskimos.’ She leaned forward. ‘Hello, my beauties. Tis only old Juniper again. Forgotten me already? Your gramma brought you to see me two or three weeks ago.’ She sat back, overwhelmed by the volume of distress. Recognizing this as a victory, the twins stopped crying; Joy first, and then Michael.

  Viv said, ‘Took them a minute to recognize you. But they’ve got it. What is it you sing to them?’

  Juniper chuckled, and then chanted, ‘Peas in a pod, peas in a pod, I’ll give one a shake and give one a nod!’ She proceeded to do so, and then stopped in delight as Michael shook his head in return. While she tried it again, Viv ushered Belle to the door.

  ‘How long can she stay?’ she asked.

  ‘Not long. She’ll want to get back to see her boyfriend.’ Belle made a rueful face. ‘She’s spent the last three months making his life a misery, and now he’s ill she has to admit to herself that she thinks a great deal of the old goat.’ Belle stopped by the front door to push her feet into shoes. ‘This is just what she needs to take her out of herself. I’ll be back in time for her lunch. About an hour, probably.’

  ‘Thanks, Belle.’

  Viv went back to the kitchen and made coffee. She could hear Juniper still at it with her peas in a pod. The old girl looked up at her as she took in a tray.

  ‘It’s a special rhyme, just for twins, see. A way to see one from tother.’

  ‘Have a rest now. Here are those custard creams you like. And have more sugar if you need it. I’ll put the children in their cots. They stay in here for their rest, is that all right?’

  ‘Course it is. Glad to hear you’re doing something so sensible. I did keep my baby girl by me at all times. Tis easier with just one, mind you. That’s why I walks lopsided. Had her on my hip for three years.’

  Viv wrapped them into sausage rolls again, and put them down where they could see the water running down the windowpane.

  Juniper said, ‘You got a way with kiddies. Pity you lost yours. Great pity.’

  ‘Not really. It was . . . not viable.’

  ‘Dunno what that means, Viv. But sounds a funny thing to say about a baby. Never mind, we can’t change nothing. Tell me how Hildie Hardy is doing.’

  They talked about the Hardys, and Viv told Juniper about Elisabeth Mason. Juniper lapped up the information like a cat laps milk. Then she drank the dregs of her coffee, brushed crumbs from the front of her cardigan, and sat back, replete.

  ‘It’s good to see you now and then. Them babies is an extra treat. Life got to go on . . . never even pauses, not for man nor beast.’

  Viv moved the tray. ‘Belle told me that poor old Jinx is not so good.’

  ‘Poor old Jinx be blowed! You did ought to hear some of the things he says to me. Latest is, he wants to go down the lake and look for that there door knob! D’you remember me telling you about that? My old mother’s wedding ring that was – she didn’t get nothing else out of George Jackson!’ She sank her head into her shoulders. ‘I know what Jinx is after. He hasn’t changed. I know e did well – keeps telling me as much – but exams idn’t everything. District engineer he might have been, couldn’t get a wife, could he?’

  Viv went to the fire, leaned over the spark guard, and placed another log. She said carefully, ‘He’s a bit of a gossip, I gather?’

  ‘Dun’t know about that. He likes stirring things up. Specially with some of the ladies. The more particular ones.’ She chuckled, then stopped. ‘Well, he did before he got ill. He called it flak. Like in the war. He did say if they couldn’t take a bit of flak they couldn’t take anything. Always giving them flak, he was.’

  Viv forced a small laugh. ‘I know. I got some of it.’

  Juniper nodded. ‘I did, too. I gave him some of it back. With interest. He weren’t so keen on that.’ She began to button her cardigan up. ‘Since he bin ill, he’s . . . different. He’s mentioned you once or twice.’

  Viv walked to the window and checked the babies; they slept.

  ‘Said as he reckoned you couldn’t help what you did.’

  Viv kept her back to the wheelchair.

  ‘Said you was dramatized. Something like that.’

  ‘Dramatized? Does he mean I made it all up?’

  ‘Don’t think that were it. You couldn’t of made up an accident, could you?’

  Viv turned and came back to the fire. The relief was amazing; Jinx hadn’t told Juniper. She felt physically lighter, and sat down.

  Juniper turned her mouth down. ‘He’s gone soft. I don’t like it. It’s as if he’s given up. I’ve tried to ginger him up again, but he just grins at me and says he knows what I’m trying to do. D’you know what he said to me just this morning when I took him in his cup of tea? He said I hadn’t changed. I was still beautiful. I told him he was a silly old fool.’ She sighed. ‘Then he went back to that door knob. He seems to think if he could get a-hold of that door knob all his dreams would come true. Can you believe it?’ She snorted. ‘District engineer, indeed.’ The front doorbell ping-ponged. ‘Here’s that Belle again. She’s a good girl, but she’s no good with wheelchairs. If there’s a pothole in the lane, she’ll find it. My backside can vouch for that.’

  Viv laughed as she went down the hall and opened the door for Belle. It was a genuine laugh. Jinx, it seemed, was determined to take her secret with him. She led Belle back to the wheelchair, and wrapped Juniper carefully in her mackintosh and head scarves, while Belle hovered over the carrycots and wondered in a whisper how anyone could tell the difference between the twins. As they manoeuvred the chair down the hall, Viv tried to explain that Michael was the realist and Joy the optimist. It was ridiculous. The theory of the absurd, David would have said.

  She watched them set off up the road towards the gates of Tall Trees, then closed the door and leaned her head against it. Traumatized. That’s what old Jinx had said. He had told Juniper that Viv Venables was traumatized. Not dramatized. Traumatized.

  She wondered whether he was right. And she wondered, too, why she had been so certain that he hadn’t told Tom. Everything. Just because Tom had been – for once – too discreet to mention it, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . why wouldn’t he have told Tom? After all, Tom was a doctor, and bound not to talk about anything the patient told him in confidence. And if Jinx truly believed she was traumatized, and Tom was a doctor, then he might have seen it as his duty to confide in Tom. Poor Tom was not a psychiatrist, he was a general practitioner, but he had done his best.

  ‘Write it down. You could write it in the third person—’

  She turned her head and looked at the row of coat hooks where her anorak hung from its hood. She could grab it, thrust her feet into trainers and be gone. She could pound her escape back down to the lake. Perhaps David would be there again, and forgive her again. And again. And again.

  She hung her head. It was so good that David had forgiven her. But she could never . . . never ever . . . forgive herself.

  From the living room came Joy’s small cry of delight as she woke from her nap. Almost immediately came Michael’s grumble.

  She went quickly to them, and crouched by the carrycots. They recognized her; she knew they did.

  She said, ‘D’you know what I’m going to do after we’ve had lunch? I’m going to wrap you up and put you in the buggy, and we’ll have a walk. I think the sun is coming out. It will do us all a lot of good.’

  She did not get as far as the lake. Her legs felt wobbly, and she had to save enough strength to push the pram up the hill again. But she was right, the still, icy air seemed to expand in her lungs, and she had a sense of being cleansed.

  As she wheeled the buggy back into the house she looked up to where the trees hid the old Elizabethan manor house. Then went indoors. The door knob was on the kitchen table.

  She said aloud, ‘Hang on in there, Jinx. I�
�ll bring it up to you. I reckon it’s the least I can do.’

  The phone was ringing, and she lifted the receiver on her way to the living room. It was Hildie.

  ‘We’re all on the mend, Viv. Elisabeth is making us a stew right now – there was beef in the freezer and Tilly-next-door got her some vegetables – it smells that good, Viv. I could eat it all by myself!’ She paused for breath, and rushed on, ‘It’s all down to you. If you hadn’t taken the twins like you did, we’d be dragging around the place like I don’t know what!’ She took another breath. ‘How are you doing? We could fetch them this minute. Hardy and me, we went for a walk this afternoon and are quite capable of—’

  ‘We’ve been out for a walk, too!’ It seemed like an enormous coincidence. ‘Leave them with me for a while longer, Hildie. That is, if you are still all right with it. They seem to be settling. We haven’t had a real crying session since you popped in yesterday.’

  ‘We’ll drive up tomorrow, then,’ said Hildie. ‘If you’re sure. Certain sure. If you change your mind, just phone—’

  ‘I won’t,’ Viv promised. Although, even as she spoke, Michael let out a sudden bellow of rage at the delay.

  ‘Have to tell you this, Viv. We ran into Mrs Bartholomew – d’you remember, she used to look after the swimming in the lake?’ She did not wait for an answer. ‘Well, she asked after you. Said how sorry she was about David, but they were always a funny lot. Don’t know what she meant by that. Anyway, she said if ever you wanted to talk about it, you were welcome to get in touch with her.’

  Viv barely paid attention; Michael was getting into full flow.

  Hildie heard him, and said, ‘Is that Michael yelling? Sorry, Viv. I’ll let you get on. Don’t forget – give us a ring if you need us. Please. Otherwise see you tomorrow.’

  The phone clunked off. Viv went on into the living room and gathered the twins on to the sofa.

  Seventeen

  THE ‘BLESSED BUG’ left its legacy of weakness for two or three weeks, and April was half-way through before their rather odd lives fitted back into any kind of routine. The clocks had gone on, Easter was over, Elisabeth was back in Cheltenham, and Tom and she were seriously house-hunting.

  It was unexpectedly difficult for Viv to return to the afternoon walks, and eventually she worked out that it was because of seeing Tom so regularly. They had parted on such good terms that slushy day at the beginning of March, swopping confidences as if they were business deals. But she was aware that he already knew most of what she had told him, and was intelligent enough to fill in the gaps. And as the days went by, and he was necessarily hurried and therefore terse, she convinced herself that he must know the whole story – every detail. And that for her was unbearable. She went over and over her conversation with him, and then similarly the one she’d had with Elisabeth, until her head ached.

  After Easter she started driving down to the riverside cottage and leaving the car there while she pushed the buggy through the village and down to the beach.

  She was planning to do that on a Thursday in late April; it was windy but sunny and the big hood on the buggy would protect the babies. They loved sitting up and watching the sea. She thought how marvellous it would be later on in the summer to carry them on to the shingle . . . perhaps she and Hildie could dabble their feet in a high tide. She dared not try to imagine next year. Tom would have moved them to Cheltenham by then, and life would change again. She wondered whether she would be able to return to running . . . it would be difficult to maintain the isolation she used to have. People spoke to her now, when she was wheeling the twins. What was even more difficult was that they spoke to the twins themselves. They pushed their heads beneath the hood and said things like: ‘Your daddy made me better, and he told me all about you . . . Now, who is Joy and who is Michael?’ Automatically Viv found herself repeating Juniper’s jingle. Michael knew what to do and nodded vigorously. It made everyone ecstatic. She could have been less responsive, but she was so proud of the twins.

  She was clearing away her early lunch things when she heard the car. She was at the door immediately; it could only be Tom, as dear Hardy was working in a nearby village. It was Tom.

  ‘Is everything all right? You are very early.’

  She went to meet him, assuming the babies were waiting to be unloaded.

  He said, ‘It’s all right. Don’t panic. I’ve been on a call at Tall Trees. Let’s go inside.’ There were no babies in the car. Just his bag.

  She led the way quickly down the hall and into the living room.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  He made a semi-humorous face at her. ‘Where on earth do I begin to answer a question like that?’ He held on to the back of the sofa. ‘I’ve been some time with John Jinks. I don’t think he’ll last the day. Will you go up and sit with him for a while?’

  She heard his words and tried to work out something – anything – behind them. ‘He doesn’t like me, Tom. Juniper is the one he needs now.’

  ‘Yes. And she’s doing her best. But now she needs to sleep. And he needs to talk to you – well, say a few words.’

  ‘The twins . . .’

  ‘We’ll manage today. I promise.’

  She was silent, knowing she had to do this.

  He said, ‘Have you eaten today?’

  ‘Of course. Breakfast and lunch.’

  ‘Then . . . there’s nothing to stop you going now.’

  ‘Is it . . . that soon?’

  ‘Could well be.’ He was speaking briskly in his doctor’s voice. ‘I could take you up the drive.’

  She looked at him. ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t have to check me in. I’ll go. Just let me do it in my own time.’ She jerked her head sideways. ‘Go on home now, Tom, you look all in.’

  He hesitated then nodded. ‘OK. I’ll phone about four-ish. Mum’s making scones today, I think.’

  She watched him stride to his car and drive off without a backward glance. She hesitated by the open door, wondering whether he might reverse back on some pretext. But he did not appear, and she straightened her back suddenly, closed the door and went into the kitchen. She picked up the door knob and pushed it into her pocket, gathered up shoes, fleece scarf and gloves, and sat on the edge of her bed while she got herself ready.

  An unfamiliar staff member opened the door to her ring.

  ‘Ah. You must be Mrs Venables. Doctor said you would sit with Mr Jinks for an hour or so. I’ll lead the way, we’ve moved him so that he is next to the staff room.’

  That was a sign poor old Jinx was seriously ill. Also, it was not reassuring that she was instantly recognizable by someone she did not know.

  The old manor house was typically Elizabethan, with a long gallery running across its breadth, a magnificent view in every one of its diamond-paned windows. Two wheelchairs were parked in an embrasure, a small table containing tea things between them. Both occupants were asleep. Viv’s guide smiled over her shoulder. ‘They love to sit here on a windy afternoon, but after the first five minutes, they drop off.’

  Viv smiled, too. She revised one of her ideas, and wondered whether so much napping in ‘homes’ was due to contented relaxation. They turned into a narrow panelled passage which opened out into a glass-domed area rather like a dining room. A round table full of books and papers was beneath the light; there was a desk with three telephones and a computer, and tall filing cabinets around the walls. ‘This is the nursing station.’ The guide stopped by a door and held the handle. ‘Mr Jinks is in here. Most of us are dealing with visitors until five, but there will be someone in the staff rest-room if you need any support.’ She nodded across the table at another door, then turned and led the way into Jinx’s room.

  It was so calm, so sunny, Viv felt as if she were stepping into another world. She realized that in spite of all the secondary glazing to back up the old windows, the front of the house was buffeted constantly by every passing breeze; and the April breezes were more like gales today. This room,
looking out on the sheltered courtyard with the old stables to one side, was completely protected, and the afternoon sun slanted into it and lit up the primrose-coloured walls and the white surfaces.

  Jinx was propped up in bed, apparently asleep. Viv was shocked by his appearance. His face had fallen in, so that even his nostrils looked pinched. His eyes were lost in their sockets, and his mouth was puckered inwards. What saved him from seeming already dead was the bed-jacket. It was pale blue and very beribboned. Viv guessed it belonged to Juniper.

  He made a strangled sound and the nurse went immediately to the window and adjusted vertical blinds. ‘Sorry, Mr Jinks,’ she trilled. Then, to Viv, ‘The strong sunlight hurts his eyes.’

  Viv might have guessed there would be something he did not like.

  She picked up a chair from a small stack in the corner, and brought it forward. The nurse touched her shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you now. The staff rest-room is immediately opposite and you can always ring the bell – it’s on his pillow.’

  Viv smiled thanks; the door closed; she was alone with Jinx – and it was obvious from Tom’s insistence that this was a final visit. She swallowed and drew her chair nearer to the top of the bed. Since her mother, she had never been with anyone so clearly dying. Her father’s heart had given out while he slept; and David . . .

  She leaned forward. ‘Jinx. It’s Viv Venables. David’s wife. I thought I would . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘. . . pop in. The doctor told me you were ill, and I had something for you so—’

  His eyes appeared in the dark sockets; they gleamed as if with a kind of cynical amusement. He picked up on her words. Raspingly, slowly, he said, ‘So you popped in. Good of you to pop in. Better than the telly. See Jinx peg out. Eh? Eh?’