by Lissa Evans
He gave the fattish guy under the street lamp a valedictory five.
The shouters – city boys, effortlessly loud – had reached the square and Spencer watched idly as they clustered at the entrance to a bar. The wide steel door was designed to look like that of a walk-in fridge and he realized with a jolt of grim amusement that the bar was called The Meat Locker. He also realized, a split second later, that what he was looking at was The Cockney Pub, renamed, refurbished and defunct. There was nothing remaining of the old façade, but he recognized the shops on either side, and the bricked-up window on the second floor, and when he turned his head and craned upwards he could see the window of Mark’s room on Lilac Ward, the curtains still a zingy orange.
Vincent answered the phone with his usual thoroughness, giving his full name and title and beginning on the area code before Spencer could interrupt.
‘Hello, Vincent.’
‘Spencer, you got my message?’
‘Yes thanks.’
‘That was a very calm woman I spoke to at your surgery. I was impressed by how quickly she grasped the situation.’
‘Yes, she’s very good.’
‘Fast writer, pleasant disposition, unfussy – speaks with clarity but without excessive volume. They’re all underrated qualities.’
‘I’ll tell her.’
‘So where are you? Did you take my advice?’
‘I’m in a phone box, outside what used to be The Cockney Pub. It changed hands last year. It doesn’t exist any more.’
‘And your friends aren’t there?’
‘No, maybe they went away when they couldn’t find it. It’s full of city types.’ Spencer paused, breathing heavily. ‘I just thought I’d phone you. As my unofficial psychiatrist.’
‘Is it a bad evening?’
‘Yup.’ He had set up a little stack of ten-pence coins on the coinbox and he started moving them, one at a time, to a different spot. ‘You don’t mind me phoning, do you?’
‘Of course not. Have you enough money for this? Do you want me to ring you back?’
‘No, I’ve got plenty.’
‘So – why’s it a bad evening? Apart from missing your friends.’
‘I… had a sort of flashback and it threw me a bit. I thought it was a year ago, I thought I was visiting Mark and I was scared shitless.’
‘Why were you scared?’
‘Because every time I visited I thought things couldn’t get worse without him actually dying, but they went on getting worse and he was still alive.’ He wiped his face with a sleeve and resumed stacking the coins. ‘I’d forgotten I’d felt like that.’
‘And that was last March?’
‘Yes. I was working in obstetrics during the day and coming here every evening.’ He remembered being aware of the dismal irony of the situation; the nightly tube journey that took him from a ward full of noisy beginnings to a room where the end never seemed to come.
‘Here?’ said Vincent. ‘What do you mean by “here”?’
‘Oh. The pub’s just by the hospital.’ He fed a coin into the slot. ‘A hundred yards and eleven months away. And I’d just, just started to think I was… I don’t know, I was gaining a bit of perspective and managing to look ahead and making plans and all that five-stages-of-grief stuff and then I turn a corner and I’m back at the beginning. I’m before the beginning. And I want to know when it all stops.’ His hand shook and the pile of ten-pences slid sideways, all but two of the coins dropping noisily onto the concrete floor; peering into the gloom he saw nothing but a scattering of Miss Whiplash cards.
‘I have a theory,’ said Vincent. ‘A quasi-medical one.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Have you heard the proverb about grief taking a year and a day?’
‘My grandmother says that.’
‘Does she? Well I think she may be right. I think that perhaps that’s the time it takes for the knowledge of someone’s death to become wired into our neurones. Once it’s there, once the permanent connections are formed it becomes part of us; we lose that constant, repeated shock – that remembering of it.’ There was a sudden smash and a cheer from outside the bar, and Spencer hunched away from the noise and pressed the phone closer to his ear. ‘… course there’s another aspect to it,’ continued Vincent’s clear, careful voice, ‘an obvious one, a semantic one. On the day after the first anniversary, the phrase “this time last year” suddenly loses its dreadful power, because it’s describing a world that lacks the person we’re grieving for. This time last year, we were already on our own.’ Vincent paused. ‘There,’ he said, with careful lightness. ‘Not really a theory, just a review of painfully collected data. It’s not quite ready for publication.’
‘It’s pretty good,’ said Spencer, his throat tight.
‘Well, I think it’s more helpful than being told “life goes on”.’
‘Or “time is a great healer”.’
‘Or “you’ll find someone else”, a favourite of my brother’s.’
‘Sensitive bloke?’
‘Orthopaedic surgeon. Happier with hammers than words.’
Spencer fed in the last couple of coins.
‘So,’ said Vincent. ‘What are you going to do now? Would you like to come round here?’
‘No, I – thanks, but I’ll probably just go home.’
‘I’m sorry about your friends. I think that man Reuben tried very hard to track you down – he said he’d phoned at least five other A and Ε departments before he struck lucky. And he seemed very certain about this place The Cockney.’
‘The Cockney Pub, it’s called,’ said Spencer, automatically.
‘No, it’s a pub, but it’s called The Cockney. That’s definitely what he said.’
‘Oh,’ Spencer felt the ground shift.
‘Does that make a difference?’
‘It might do. I mean, I just assumed it was the place I knew, but I suppose… thinking about it… it was quite an obscure –’
‘Let me get the phone book,’ said Vincent, crisply.
There were nine columns of businesses with the name Cockney in the title, and Spencer had to scrabble amidst the foetid litter on the floor for a final ten-pence piece before Vincent’s finger landed on a likely candidate.
‘It’s on the Tottenham Court Road. It calls itself a cabaret pub,’ he said, with some disdain.
‘Fake pearly kings playing the old Joanna,’ said Spencer. ‘I bet that’s it.’
‘Number 327.’
‘Right.’ Spencer tried to summon up a vestige of his earlier enthusiasm. ‘I suppose I should go, then.’
‘Suppose? I’ve worked incredibly hard for this social evening of yours. You can’t cancel now.’
Spencer smiled. ‘I’m grateful, honestly.’
‘Go.’
17
Spring was edging towards Hagwood Farm; the first tight buds had appeared on the hawthorn hedge, the winter aconites glowed like butterpats amongst the leaf litter, and Claud had stopped wearing the purple hat with earflaps that made him look like the Dalai Lama. Fran, leaning on her spade, watched the pale dome of his forehead bobbing ahead of a group of third-year Environmental Science students. He was leading them towards the sheep pen where Rodney and Delboy were waiting to be fed, their necks extruded desperately over the fence. They had developed a system of alternate bleating which meant they could produce a noise as continuous as a police siren and almost as hard to ignore; it increased in frequency as Claud approached, climaxed as he tilted the bag he was carrying, and then disappeared with magical suddenness as the orange chunks of mangel-wurzel bounced into the trough.
Fran resumed digging. After a cold February the ground was only just soft enough to take a spade, but steaming gently in readiness beside the vegetable patch was a four-foot high mound of horse manure, the greenish clods oozing with pongy goodness. It had been delivered that morning from the local police stables by a constable so cheerful, so flatteringly impressed by the place, so touchingly
thrilled to be making a contribution, that Fran had cringed to remember that the bi-monthly donation was known on the farm as ‘Pigshit’.
‘Hoy, Fran.’
She turned to see Costas, the volunteer, waving a pair of secateurs at her.
‘What?’
‘This OK?’ He held up a bundle of hazel twigs that he had been cutting into plant supports. She knew without checking that they would all be of exactly equal length, the cuts at right angles, the ends as smooth as if planed.
‘That’s great, thanks.’
‘OK. What I should do now?’
‘You could help me dig this over. I’d love to get it done before dark.’
‘OK. It’s work for a man anyhow.’
‘What is?’
‘Digging. For women it makes ugly muscle.’ He mimed a grotesquely huge bicep and then walked off before she could say anything. Not that there was any point; sexism ran through Costas like a seam of coal and he was for ever extracting new lumps for her edification. He returned with the canvas bag in which he kept his own set of garden tools, the metal parts gleaming with oil, the handles silky with use, each implement wrapped in its own soft cloth. Squatting stiffly beside it, he wiped and sheathed the secateurs, and then beckoned Fran towards him.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, continuing to dig.
He put his finger to his lips and looked over his shoulder with exaggerated caution to where Barry stood thigh-deep in the pond, hooking out a mass of blanket weed with a hoe. ‘I have to say something,’ he said. His voice dropped in pitch, the nearest he could manage to a whisper. ‘Something private.’
‘Really?’ said Fran, unenthusiastically.
He nodded and beckoned again; with a sigh, Fran anchored her spade and went over to him.
‘So what’s up?’ she asked. ‘Is Barry being a pain?’
Costas checked over his shoulder again, and then leaned towards her. ‘Barry smell,’ he said in a bass rumble.
‘Smell?’
‘Stink.’
‘Of what?’
‘Pig.’
‘Well that’s his job – cleaning Porky out.’
Costas shook his head dismissively. ‘He smell before he clean Porky out. He smell in the mornings when I walk on the farm.’
‘Well I haven’t noticed.’
‘I notice when I stand next to him.’
‘When do you stand next to him?’
Costas frowned as if she’d asked something distasteful. ‘Men’s business,’ he said.
‘Oh I see.’ In a way that put a new light on it. If Barry could be smelled over and above a urinal then it must be quite significant. ‘So, did you ask him why?’
‘No no no.’ Costas looked quite shocked at the idea; men’s business obviously didn’t include mentioning BO.
‘Maybe his hot water’s not working,’ she suggested, her own boiler problems springing to mind.
He shrugged, and started unwrapping his spade. The secret communication seemed to be at an end and Fran glanced over at the pond, where Barry had stopped grappling with the weed and was instead bent over at right angles, one arm submerged up to the shoulder. He seemed to be groping for something, and even from this distance Fran could see that water was beginning to slop over the top of his waders. Before she could shout anything, however, he straightened up and began to pull a long muddy stick from the depths. It was the hoe. She caught Costas’s eye and he shook his head and said something in Greek.
As they dug, the brisk wind pulled a succession of wispy clouds across the sky, and the sun blinked on and off like an Aldis lamp. Fran peeled off her jumper and was immediately too cold; put it on again and the sweat started trickling down her ribs. As she took it off for the second time, a chorus of wolf whistles erupted behind her, and she spun round to see that Claud’s school group had reached the vegetable patch. She put the jumper back on again.
‘Didn’t mean to interrupt,’ said Claud. He looked strained. ‘We’ve just got five minutes before the… the…’ He gestured vaguely at the rutted strip that served as a car park. ‘Just thought we’d drop by. Everyone’s very keen to see your compost heap.’
‘Oh right.’ Fran dusted her hands and surveyed the group of fourteen-year-olds. She had rarely seen less enthusiasm on a set of human faces. ‘Would you like me to give the guided tour?’
‘No, that’s all right. We’ve only got time for a quick… a quick…’
‘Shag,’ said someone, fairly loudly, and the class erupted.
‘I think we should… er…’
‘Hey, Miss,’ said one of the boys, raising his arm.
‘Yes,’ she said, warily, alerted by the innocence of his tone.
‘Did you do that?’ He pointed to the heap of horseshit. This time the laugh was a cannonade, the girls screaming and covering their mouths, the deliverer of the line basking in the uproar.
Fran folded her arms. ‘Yes I did,’ she said seriously, when the noise had died down. ‘That’s what happens when you eat a lot of roughage. I didn’t even have to strain.’
They were deeply shocked – she even heard a couple of gasps – and a worried-looking Claud took advantage of the sudden silence to usher them away. One or two looked back as they straggled towards the compost heap, apparently checking that she wasn’t following them. Before they’d reached their destination, however, a coach pulled into the car park and the group broke and ran, streaming past Claud as if he were a bump in the road. He watched them go and then walked slowly back to Fran.
‘What a horrible bunch,’ she said, when he was within earshot.
‘Oh, they were just…’ He waved an arm. ‘Adolescents.’
‘Sorry about the cheap joke.’
‘No, don’t apologize. I mean I always think you’re so much better at, er… connecting with them than, than… I mean one of them even asked me what “roughage” meant, though the coach came before I could really, er…’
‘So out of evil came good,’ said Fran, hefting the spade.
‘Yes, you could say…’ He sounded even more distracted than usual, and his eyeline wavered between Fran and his wellingtons. ‘Er, while we’re talking, I wondered if you have a moment…. it’s just there’s something a bit… delicate…’
She put the spade down again. Claud’s face was clenched in the anxious spasm that meant he had something important to say. He looked at his wellingtons again.
‘Er… I don’t know if you’ve noticed over the last few days, but Barry has begun to… to…’
‘Stink,’ said Costas, helpfully, digging his way past them with a spade action so perfect that the turned earth behind him looked like a cable-knit sweater. ‘Stink like a pig.’
Claud nodded, relieved that he hadn’t had to say the word.
‘No, I hadn’t noticed,’ said Fran. ‘I haven’t been anywhere near him – he’s been doing fence posts all week.’
‘Right, right.’ He carried on nodding for a while. ‘It’s just that it’s becoming rather… obvious.’
She guessed what was coming; at home, Sylvie might consider her an insensitive clod, but on the farm she was automatically handed any tasks deemed vaguely delicate, partly because she was the only female, and partly because Claud was too embarrassed to deal with them himself. She feigned innocence. ‘So have you actually asked him what the problem is?’
‘Er…’ He looked trapped. ‘No,’ he said eventually, as if he’d just remembered the answer.
‘Or even mentioned it?’
‘Er… it seemed a bit…’
‘Or even just hinted, tactfully?’
‘I don’t, er, think so…’
‘So would you like me to have a word?’
His face broke into a smile of such relief that she almost felt mean for having strung him along. ‘Could you? It’s just that you put things so… so… and I know that Barry…’
He was drying his waders using the time-honoured method of hanging them upside down on sticks, in this case two six
-foot raspberry canes he’d stuck into the marshy section by the pond edge. Across one of the soles he had draped his jumper, the left sleeve black with water, and was in the process of wringing out his socks when he looked up and saw Fran approaching.
‘Hello, Barry.’
‘Hi, there,’ he said, in a tight, bright voice and backed away from her, a move so untypical that it was startling. She halted a few yards from him.
‘Everything all right?’
‘Fine.’ His shirt was blotched with pond water and his jeans soaked from ankles to thigh. ‘I got a bit wet,’ he added unnecessarily.
‘You could dry your stuff on the radiator in the classroom.’
‘That’s OK. There’s a nice breeze out here.’ He held out a sock to illustrate, and it stirred minimally.
She took another couple of steps towards him and he skittered away again, holding the sock in front of him as if to ward her off.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ He smiled unconvincingly and swayed on the balls of his feet, poised for further flight. Fran wondered how on earth she could edge this non-conversation round to the subject of BO. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something moving and turned to see one of the raspberry canes starting to keel over. Barry noticed simultaneously and they both lunged towards it, hands outstretched. It was too late; jumper and wader landed in the pond for a second time and Fran found herself off-balance, one hand clutching Barry’s arm for support, her face shoved against his shirt buttons.
