by Sara Alexi
‘Before my strength fails me completely I must get around to telling you about the corner shop in Lotherton. I sold it. I told you that? Yes. I’ve looked back over my writing. I did tell you that. But I didn’t tell you why. The quick answer is, I needed the cash for something else, but I won’t tell you about that yet as I am waiting for the last papers to come through and I don’t want to put it in writing until I’m sure it has happened.’
There is a break in the writing before it goes on, and when it starts again the handwriting is fainter, the pressure variable, and some of the letters shaky.
‘The confirmation letter I was waiting for came today and now I can feel myself letting go. It’s almost like when you are very tired and you finally allow yourself to lie down and you know you are going to be asleep before your head hits the pillow. I’m grateful for the stronger painkillers. You were right to let the hospice women in. You were also right when you said that they were very kind and caring. I’m still not convinced that young girl was a doctor, though… (that is meant to be a joke, Cyril). But either way, I’m grateful for the stronger medication, even if I do spend most of my time sleeping now. I hope I am not being a burden on you.
‘I saw you sitting by me crying last night, when you thought I was asleep. I’m sorry to be the one to make you cry. I have cried too, for you, because I know it is worse for you. It is you who will be left alone. But, in a strange way we have become brothers, you and I, Cyril, in life and in death. Take strength from that.
‘Where was I? Oh yes, the letter came today. The confirmation of what I spent the corner shop money on. The new purchase has gone through. I now own, or rather YOU now own, the Hogdykes Abattoir – or, to give it its real name Windy Lea Mill. Ha! We got them again!
‘You’ve just started rocking, haven’t you? Well, stop, you don’t need to.’
Cyril checks himself. He is not rocking, he is not humming, he is not fiddling. Jay looks up at him and then continues to pull at the loose wool end she has found by the hole in his tank top. He kisses her shiny brown hair and reads on.
‘Everything is going to be alright now, because I’ve just fixed it. You do not own what they do in the abattoir, you own the building. So you can now say what happens in the building. The farmers who lease it do so on a rolling contract – no need to worry what that actually is – for you it just means that you can end it with a month’s notice. You can stop what they do there, stop the animals being hurt there, stop yourself working there. It’s all sorted for you, Cyril, and I hope this positive event will outweigh my death for you. My lawyers, Haggle and Gripp (who also run the trust company), will help you with this when you are ready so YOU will be the one who ends all the suffering.’
Cyril may not be rocking or humming but his bottom lip is quivering.
‘All you have to do is write a letter to say what you want them to do and they will do the rest.
‘The lawyers, of course, know that you get everything – that was what all those papers were that we signed together, remember? And it was the real reason I opened a bank account with you.
‘Anyway, here is what I thought you could do, unless you have better ideas. It would be wonderful if you set up an animals’ home in the old abattoir building, so you can now look after all those strays that you keep wanting to bring home. I’ve begun all the basic paperwork necessary to make this happen, and again this is all with Haggle and Gripp, so when you give them the word the process should not take long.
‘I’ve also instructed them to write to you when I’m dead in case you don’t read this. So make sure you open all the letters that arrive. Anything with the name Sugden on it is now to do with you! I told you having the same name would come in useful.’
Cyril stops and wipes his forearm across his eyes before he continues. He has read all these details in the letter from the Haggle and Gripp but it all seems so much more real written in Archie’s hand, heard in Archie’s voice.
‘So, goodbye my dear friend. You now have money so you won’t need to work, and you can open an animal home if you want, so you can take care of every animal friend you find. The only thing I would like to encourage you to do is find some friends – good, caring friends, like you have been to me these last four years.’
Cyril wants to turn to look at Saabira and Aaman – his good, caring friends, as Archie put it. How proud Archie would have been of him. But he does not turn to look at them, as he is nearly at the end and feels driven to read on. He turns the page.
‘This, Cyril, will be my last entry in this diary, I can feel it. Over the time we’ve spent together and by the things you have told me I know how brave you’ve been in your life. So, to be worthy of your friendship (and I hope you consider that we have been friends), I wanted my last entry to be the bravest thing I’ve ever done. So here goes.
‘Cyril, I love you.
‘There, I said it. You’ll not often hear a true Yorkshireman say something like that. I reckon I never even said it to me own mother. But I say it to you now and it is the truth.
‘Goodbye my dearest friend,
‘Archie.’
Cyril cannot help himself, and he buries his face in his hands to smother his sobs. He looks over to Saabira and Aaman who are reading the letter from the lawyers. Saabira is mopping her eyes with a tea towel and Aaman is crying quite openly.
Chapter 48
The removals van creaks up the lane the following Saturday.
‘Cyril, the van is here!’ Aaman calls over to him.
His leg feels better every day and getting about is much easier since Aaman made him a crutch from some of the wood that was in the backyard. He even bound the piece that sits under the arm with material so it would be comfortable. He can also see a lot better since he went into Bradford with Saabira and bought a new pair of reading glasses, gold and shiny like Saabira’s bracelets. They are better than his old round glasses but they are not great. No matter, he has an eye appointment next week and then they will make him a proper prescription pair.
‘Coming!’ he calls, and he leaves Jay on the sofa with the book about tropical butterflies they are reading. Saabira borrowed it from the library in Bradford.
Aaman is standing outside Mr Brocklethwaite’s house.
‘Are you sure I cannot help?’ he asks, but Mr Brocklethwaite doesn’t answer.
‘Mr Brocklethwaite,’ Cyril addresses him. ‘Please do not leave on my account. I have no problem with you staying here.’
‘You already said that,’ Mr Brocklethwaite snarls.
‘And I say it again. I do not think Archie would want us to fight, or for you to leave.’
This stops Archie’s old friend in his tracks, and it is his bottom lip that quivers this time.
‘Please stay, Eric,’ Cyril says with feeling. ‘For Archie’s sake.’ Mr Brocklethwaite’s lip quivers again and then he grunts and goes inside, where his belongings are already packed in boxes. His wife Brenda is just inside the door, a lace-edged hanky to her eye. She does not give her husband a kind look as he passes her.
‘Come, Cyril,’ Aaman says. ‘You have done all you can.’
With Cyril’s hand on Aaman’s shoulder for support, they go back to house number thirty. His house, his friend’s house.
‘I have just made tea, boys,’ Saabira says. ‘There is bread and I have also toasted something called crumpets.’
‘I love crumpets,’ Cyril says and licks his lips to make Jay laugh.
‘What are crumpets?’ Aaman asks him.
‘Er, they are round and they have holes running through them,’ Cyril explains, ‘So if you butter them while they are hot, the holes fill with melted butter, and you can also fill the holes with honey. And when you pick them up the butter and honey soak though and dribble down your fingers.’ He can hear himself chattering but he doesn’t care – Jay is laughing with him.
The crumpets are on the table and they eat, Saabira toasting more and more because Aaman seems to like them as much as
Cyril does.
‘Is someone going to let Jay try one?’ she asks, turning another two over on the Aga top.
‘I’ll get her,’ says Cyril, and goes over to the sofa. She is looking at the pictures of the butterflies, their wings spread, showing the colours of rainbows. For a moment he is spellbound by them and he knows that if he wanted to he could stare at them really hard and they would fill his mind and he would leave the world for a while. But, he discovers, he does not want to leave the world any more.
Saabira watches Cyril as he gently closes the book, and Jay reaches her little arms up around his neck so he can carry her to the table. It cannot be easy with a peg leg, but it looks like it is healing, and it will be just a matter of time.
There is a tap at the door. Mr Perfect and Gorilla Head, who have taken to spending most of the time with Aaman, both stand, alert.
‘Sit,’ she says to the dogs and they do, waiting patiently as she opens the door. ‘Oh.’ The sound escapes from her. The last person Saabira expected to see standing there is Dawn Todman. She looks different. The grey cardigan has gone, and in its place is a navy-blue fisherman’s sweater. The skirt and heels have been replaced with jeans and walking boots.
‘Hello,’ she says, ‘I saw next door is still empty, so I wondered if Cyril is with you?’
‘Yes, he is, come in.’ Saabira speaks politely but she remains wary.
‘Morning.’ Dawn addresses Aaman and Cyril. ‘I’ll just get down to it, shall I?’ she says, but her manner indicates that this is not a question. ‘Health and Safety also cover what was Hogdykes Abattoir. Well, them men down there are not backward at coming forward and they told me all about your bit of luck, Cyril, and how you’ve given them notice so you can set up an animal home. The whole bunch of them out of work. That’s true, is it?’
Cyril nods but doesn’t speak.
Saabira gets a mug down from the hooks under the kitchen cupboard and puts it on the table for Dawn. Aaman pours the tea, and Dawn helps herself to milk from the jug by the fresh plate of hot crumpets.
‘Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing. That place was a disgrace and should have been closed years back. I can’t begin to tell you how much I hated it down there. It was the men that were animals, not the other way round. And I’m not sorry they are jobless – they deserve that and more – disgusting brutes, the lot of them.’ She takes a sip of tea. ‘Anyway, the point is all you have to do is say the word and I’ll hand my notice in.’
‘What?’ Cyril puts down his half -eaten crumpet, looking even more puzzled now.
‘Well, I thought you was going to need someone and being as, years ago, I used to work for Nine Lives Cat Rescue, and seeing as you’ll need someone who knows all the health and safety regulations it could work out just fine. What do you say?’ She points at the plate of crumpets. ‘Is one of them going begging?’ Saabira, Aaman and Cyril all nod at the same time.
Dawn butters a crumpet liberally and takes a big bite. ‘With a bit of application I reckon we could have it open for Christmas and then we’ll be ready for all them rotten sods that takes dogs for their kids for Christmas and dump them because they find they are too much work before they even see the new year in.’ She licks the butter that is running past her fingers down to the wrist. Cyril and Aaman look at each other, but still they do not speak.
Chapter 49
The sun is out but the day is crisp. The rug Aaman and Saabira have spread over the bracken and heather a little way up the hill at the back of their house undulates over the uneven ground, and Jay is crawling between them, pressing down the springy heather lumps.
From where they are they can see all the way down the hill, through the back door of their house and into the kitchen where Cyril and Dawn are sitting at the table, making plans for the animal rescue shelter that Cyril will create at Windy Lea Mill.
After they had got over the initial shock the other day, Cyril and Dawn started making plans for the shelter, drawing little plans on bits of paper. It seems they are equally passionate about the idea of helping animals in distress. Dawn stayed until the evening, and came back next morning to start talking again, and Saabira cooked for everyone. She enjoyed that, everybody sitting around eating together.
She looks down the hill at the squat stone house. It feels so much more like her home in Pakistan now that there are more people in it.
‘You know, Saabira, you are quite amazing,’ Aaman says.
‘Of course, why else would you have married me?’ She smiles.
‘Because it was arranged?’ He teases her.
‘Funny. So, tell me why I am amazing?’
‘Look.’ He nods down to the house. ‘You did that.’
‘Did what?’
‘What you did for Cyril.’ He pauses, reflects and continues. ‘When we first moved in, he wouldn’t even talk to us, and now he sits at our kitchen table like he is part of our family, chatting to the very person who was trying to help get him evicted. That is a serious Personal Makeover.’ He chuckles.
‘I don’t think I have done much, really. It was really Archie’s doing.’ Saabira presses down the blanket and lets it spring up, making Jay laugh.
‘No, Saabira. You made him food, you gave him space and respect, you took your time to win him over. That is what has made the difference. And all that energy you put into making his house clean so he would not be evicted. Nothing would have happened if it was not for your care and kindness.’
‘I still think you are too generous. It was you who did most of the work clearing out his house.’
‘Saabira, my jasmine blossom, he would not have let me near his house if you had not prepared the way. And, let me assure you, if you had not done it, I am not sure how long I could have lived next door to him. Maybe we should thank your lack of smell for making it all possible!’ He lies back on the rug.
‘I think, really, it was because I found him fascinating. I still do, you know. But in the beginning, when I didn’t understand him, I felt compelled to find a way to reach him.’ She can feel energy flow through her as she says this, as if she is ready to do it all again.
‘Yes. But I think others would only have made a small effort. There are not many people like you and Juliet in the world.’ He looks up at the sky, at a few puffy white clouds on a blanket of blue.
‘Juliet?’ She can feel her hackles rising.
‘Yes, Juliet,’ he says lazily. ‘Can you not see?’
‘See what?’
He snorts another little laugh and turns his head to look at her, his hair falling over his eyes a little. He is due another haircut.
‘You, my love, have just done for Cyril what Juliet did for me.’ Jay crawls onto his chest and lays prone, pretending to sleep. ‘I was a lost and damaged man in a strange place and as Juliet healed her own emotional wounds she gave me wings,’ he says seriously.
Saabira turns this over in her mind. Cyril was a lost and damaged man, but was he in a strange place? She turns her head side to side as she ponders this. On the one hand, he wasn’t, really – this was where he lived, just a little piece of his home country. But then, it could be argued that everywhere seemed strange for him back then, that the whole world was a confusing place. Maybe Aaman has a point. But – Juliet healing herself through giving Aaman wings? Is she, Saabira, meant to have healed herself through Cyril?
‘So from what am I meant to have healed myself?’ she asks. He will say something silly now, something teasing; that is his way.
‘Jealousy,’ he says.
Her blood runs cold and she swallows hard.
‘What, you thought I didn’t know?’ Now he is teasing. ‘I knew, of course I knew, but how could I, of all people, do anything about it? Sure, I could have made you pretty promises, telling you that everything was as it should have been, I could have told you all the things that happened step by step so you could see there was nothing amiss, but if you had doubted you would always have doubted, no matter what I said.’
/> ‘So you said nothing?’ She is not sure that is better.
‘I knew you would find your own way.’ He looks her straight in the eye.
‘And you think I have?’
‘You tell me,’ he says, but leaves no gap before going on. ‘You have done for Cyril what Juliet did for me. There are differences here and there, of course, but basically Juliet helped me by helping herself, and now, through helping Cyril, you have ultimately helped yourself, because now you can understand Juliet and your jealousy will fade.’
He looks away, up to the sky again. Jay might even really be asleep now; she continues to lie on his chest.
Saabira looks back down to the house to see that Cyril and Dawn are now in Cyril’s backyard and Dawn has the big rabbit in her arms.
‘Go on, then.’ Aaman startles her. ‘Tell me how you feel about Juliet now.’
How she feels about Juliet now? That’s hard. Or is it?
‘What was Juliet’s healing?’ she asks.
‘The only thing there is to heal – hurt. She’d been hurt by her mother, her father, her ex-husband – lots of little side stories along the way. A lifetime of being kicked.’
‘That is what Cyril is healing from – a lifetime of being kicked.’
‘And you?’ he asks.
The concept of hurt or pain immediately makes her think of her firstborn, and then of Cyril’s twin. Suffering from postnatal depression, she and Cyril’s mother both pushed away the people they loved.
She lies back next to Aaman and looks up at the sky. Aaman’s hand finds hers and their fingers intertwine. High above is a tiny black spot that may be a hawk, or some other bird – she has no idea. She holds Aaman’s hand tight.
‘You are right,’ she says, and decides not to finish the sentence unless he asks. They lie a while longer. He doesn’t ask.
‘I understand Juliet better now,’ she says after a pause.
