The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  ‘Goodness!’ says Silas, when Blossom has slammed out of the back door to have another look at our handiwork. ‘I didn’t know Blossom even knew half those words. She’s a dark horse, and no mistake.’

  ‘Why do you let her talk to you like that?’ I ask them, more surprised at my uncles’ reaction than by Blossom’s behaviour, which was more or less what I had expected (Blossom’s vocabulary is all there when she chooses to use it, as I’ve discovered to my cost).

  ‘We don’t “let” Blossom do anything. She’s a law unto herself.’ The plans for Eric’s Ark are spread all over the table, and he’s engrossed in designing an enclosure for some of his reptiles. He doodles with his pencil and rubs his chin. ‘Do crocodiles eat snakes?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Ring the zoo and ask, Ruth. There’s a pet.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Within a week, the drama of the hen house and its apparition has died down. One or two visitors still knock on the door to enquire about the whereabouts of the Virgin, but most people appear to have accepted her disappearance, and life returns to normal. Blossom’s attitude remains unforgiving, but as Eric remarks, we can live with that. She never was a little ray of sunshine, so the fact that she’s sulking is barely noticeable, and if her efforts with the duster and the vacuum cleaner are even less effective than before, her devotion to the animals remains intact. Even Blossom can’t blame the animals.

  Meanwhile, my own attention returns to my burgeoning pregnancy. With all the recent goings-on, not to mention my preoccupation with finding Amos, I have given scant thought to the development of the baby, but it would seem that my attention is not required for it to flourish quite satisfactorily. It continues to grow steadily, and of course I continue to grow with it.

  My feelings towards it are ambivalent. While I am happy to acknowledge the miraculous nature of pregnancy and childbirth, I am not quite so happy about the way I am being taken over. Accustomed to having my body to myself, I find that there are times when I resent having to share it with someone else; someone who will grow and stretch, making me grow and stretch too; someone who plans to requisition my breasts for feeding purposes, and to that end is already causing them to balloon out of all proportion to the rest of me (I have always been rather proud of my small, neat boobs). And it’s not just my body that I have to share. Presumably I have to share my nutrition as well, and common sense tells me that the baby will get first pick of everything — food that I have eaten, for me — leaving me with such organic leftovers as are not required for its further development. Add to all this the tiredness and the mood swings, and the fact that neither the baby nor I are allowed to mitigate them with a soothing glass or two of wine, and there are times when I feel more than a little hard done by.

  None of this is helped by the involvement of my uncles. Ever since the scan, they have taken a proprietorial interest in my condition, volunteering to take me into town for my check-ups and on occasion entertaining perfect strangers with accounts of my progress. The grainy photographs still play a part in all this, one of them currently occupying the mantelpiece (together with a handful of baler twine, the latest electricity bill and several empty rifle cartridges), but I find that my own enthusiasm for my condition diminishes in inverse relation to that of my uncles. It is as though the baby has become their property rather than mine, and while I know that it needs all the friends it can get, I find myself resenting this. I am tired of being asked how I am feeling (tired), whether I have felt the baby moving (no) and whether I’m feeling excited about it (no, no, no!).

  And then there is Silas’s particular interest in all things medical.

  In my experience, there are two kinds of hypochondriac. There is the anxious, neurotic am-I-going-to-die-of-this kind, and the interested, isn’t-this-fascinating kind. Silas’s hypochondria is of the second variety. Hence, while he anticipates — seems almost to want — investigations and operations, he appears unafraid either of them or of the possible outcomes. Not for Silas the gloomy contemplation of death and disease; more the dispassionate absorption of the scientist. Silas is deeply interested in the workings of his body, and sees illness, real or imagined, as a challenge; a problem to be solved rather than an unpleasant experience to be endured. I personally feel that it is no coincidence that Silas has taken to taxidermy. When he has no preoccupations with his own body, he can concentrate on trying to restore those of his hapless subjects. In many way, Silas would have made a very good doctor.

  The Book of Family Medicine, his favoured bedside reading, is a well-thumbed volume to which he has frequent recourse. Its fragile pages are worn, many of its paragraphs underscored, with comments in the margins in Silas’s spidery handwriting, and he is happy to dispense its advice to anyone who might require it. He also possesses an ancient stethoscope, courtesy of a medical friend (although I think it unlikely that he has any idea what he’s listening for) and a DIY blood pressure machine. Since I joined the household Silas has self-diagnosed, variously, a brain tumour, appendicitis and a duodenal ulcer. These have all subsided within a few hours — before medical help could be sought — but have been as real to Silas as the genuine article. In many ways it’s a good thing he doesn’t have access to the internet, which can be a rich source of medical misinformation (and misleading suggestions) to people like Silas.

  Silas’s hypochondria extends to the rest of the household — a kind of hypochondria by proxy — and this can be tiresome. His book has a large section on Pregnancy and its Complications, and I find him reading it covertly when he thinks I’m not looking.

  ‘How’s the blood pressure, Ruth?’ he asks me this morning. We are in the kitchen together, where Silas is putting the finishing touches to his fox.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, it was last time.’

  ‘Should I — would you like me to check it for you?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Just to set your mind at rest?’

  ‘My mind is at rest. Or it would be, if people would just leave me alone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruth.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ I feel suddenly ashamed. ‘I know I’m being ungracious and horrible. But Silas, I just want to forget about the baby. I’ve got ages yet before I have to think about it properly, and I want to enjoy the time I’ve got.’

  ‘Don’t you want the baby?’ Silas says, after a moment.

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. At first, I didn’t. Then I did. And now I’m not sure.’

  ‘What’s not to be sure about? You’re young, you’re healthy, even if you won’t let me take your blood pressure. You seem to have made your decision. But Ruth — you seem to be ignoring the baby. You won’t talk about it, plan anything. You’re just — drifting.’

  All this is true. After my vision — hallucination, dream, whatever it was — at the abortion clinic, I knew I wanted the baby. Or at least, I didn’t want to do away with it. I would have the baby; decision made. But I never really thought beyond that point, especially since my failed attempts to find Amos. It’s as though there is a wall in front of me, and I can’t think about what lies beyond it. For the time being, life is comfortable; I’m with people I love and who care about me; I have plenty to keep me busy. I daren’t even try to look beyond that wall for fear of what I might see.

  ‘You could have it adopted,’ Silas says. ‘Plenty of people do.’

  ‘Do they?’ In my experience, people no longer have their babies adopted. It seems that everyone, from penniless teenagers who are seeking to give meaning to their lives to wealthy celebrities (who are probably doing the same) is having babies out of wedlock. It’s the cool thing to do. Having your baby adopted is uncool. It is also, strangely, something I have barely considered.

  I try to imagine myself handing over the seahorse/rabbit to a pair of delighted and grateful stranger
s. I think of the freedom I would regain and the glow of a good deed (selflessly?) done. My parents would be freed from their impending disgrace, I would be able to go on my gap year, and if Mikey would be minus a godchild, I’m sure he could live with that. After all, this isn’t about Mikey, it’s about me, not to mention that delighted and grateful couple, who even now could be out there somewhere grieving over their childless state.

  Then I examine the other side of the adoption coin; the guilt, the emptiness, the now pointless stretch marks and other scars of childbirth, and the milky breasts waiting for someone to feed. And then the years of wondering and imagining, and eventually the waiting for that knock on the door, when a grown-up and reproachful teenager may well accost me to ask why I didn’t want him; why I gave him away.

  And Amos. Okay, so he doesn’t know about the baby — may well never find out about it — but supposing he does (‘You gave away a baby? Our baby? Oh, Ruth! How could you!’)? What on earth would I tell him? Having stolen half a baby from him (albeit unwittingly), do I have the right simply to give it away?

  ‘Well?’ Silas is still looking at me. ‘It’s a possibility, isn’t it? But you need to make up your mind, Ruth.’

  ‘No.’ I sigh. ‘No adoption.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Well then what?’

  ‘Ruth, you know we’re happy to have you here for as long as you like. We love having you around, and the baby will be welcome, too. But it’s not much of a life for a young woman, stuck out here in the sticks with two old men. Or for a child, come to that. You need to make — plans.’

  ‘I’ve rather liked not making plans. Apart from my job, I’ve never really been a planning sort of person. I’ve tended to — well, to let things happen.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘But I suppose you’re right. I ought to plan something.’ I gaze out of the window. In the lemony light of a late-summer sunset, Eric is leaning on the three remaining bars of what used to be a five-barred gate admiring the livestock; Mr. Darcy is rolling in a patch of what could just be mud, but is probably something worse; one of the cats is carefully peeling a pigeon on the lawn. None of them appears to have — or need — plans. ‘What would you do, Silas?’

  ‘What would I do?’ Silas stands back to admire his fox (really quite fox-looking). ‘I think I might start by making my peace with my parents.’

  ‘But I never wanted to fall out with them in the first place!’

  ‘I know that.’ Silas tweaks a foxy ear. ‘But I also know your mother is pretty miserable about this situation. It wouldn’t take much to talk her round.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We talk. From time to time. You forget; she’s our sister.’

  ‘I did try phoning Mum. I rang her last week.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She sounded a bit strained. Not herself. But I think Dad was probably there too, and she never says anything that would upset him. I didn’t dare mention the baby. One step at a time, I guess.’

  ‘Well, maybe the next step is to go and see her. It’s always better, face to face.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ll do that. I’ll go next week.’

  ‘Good girl. You can borrow the Land Rover.’ Silas regards his fox thoughtfully. ‘You know, this fox reminds me of someone.’

  ‘I know — Blossom!’ When I come to think about it, the fox does bear a startling resemblance to Blossom.

  ‘You’re right.’ Silas grins. ‘Better not tell her.’

  ‘Mum’s the word.’

  ‘And talking of mums —’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll go and see her. I’ve already said I will.’

  But in the event, it turns out that my visit is not necessary after all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The knock at the front door is timid; almost apologetic.

  ‘Was that the door?’ Eric asks.

  ‘I’ll go and see,’ I tell him.

  ‘It’s probably the man about the llamas,’ Eric calls after me (this is a very long story, and I won’t go into it now). ‘Tell him next week. Definitely next week.’

  But it’s not the man about the llamas.

  ‘Mum!’ My mother is standing on the doorstep holding a small suitcase and a collection of bags. ‘What are you —’

  ‘Can I come in?’ Mum pecks me on the cheek. She looks tired and drained.

  ‘Of course. Of course you can come in. Here, let me take your bags.’ I usher her into the hallway. ‘Eric! Silas! It’s Mum!’

  ‘Rosie! How lovely to see you! This is a nice surprise.’ Silas gives her a hug. ‘What brings you here?’

  I’d forgotten that my uncles call Mum Rosie (my father always uses her full name), but looking at her now, small and vulnerable beside her big — in every sense — brothers, I can see that she could be a Rosie.

  ‘I need — I need to speak to Ruth. Is that all right? For a few minutes.’ She turns and then starts as she catches sight of Silas’s fox. ‘Gracious! What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, don’t mind him.’ Silas drapes a tea towel over the fox’s head. ‘There. Now he can’t see you.’

  ‘Is he — is he —?’

  ‘Dead?’ Silas laughs. ‘Oh yes. Very.’ He turns to Eric. ‘We’ll make ourselves scarce, shall we?’

  When they’ve left the room, I make coffee, and Mum and I sit together at the kitchen table. She seems ill at ease, twisting a flowery handkerchief in her fingers, her eyes darting round the room as though expecting more foxes to creep out of the woodwork.

  ‘How — how are you, Ruth?’

  ‘Fine. I’m fine.’

  ‘And — the baby?’

  ‘Fine too, as far as I know.’

  ‘You look well.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  There is a pause in which Mum stirs sugar into her coffee (she doesn’t normally take sugar).

  ‘This is difficult,’ she begins. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. Not good news, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Dad? Is it Dad?’ I feel a frisson of fear.

  ‘No. Well, yes. In a way. Oh, Ruth —’ she turns to me, and there’s a kind of desperation in her eyes — ‘ I’ve left him. I’ve left your father.’

  ‘You’ve left him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘This morning. Well, things have been difficult for a while. They came to a head last night, and we had a row. We’ve never had a row before. Not a real one.’ Mum looks as though she still finds is hard to believe. ‘I couldn’t get through to him how I felt. He just wouldn’t listen. So after I’d washed up the breakfast things, I — I left.’

  ‘But why? How did all this start? You two have always seemed such a — couple.’

  ‘It’s — complicated.’

  ‘Tell me. You have to tell me, Mum. If I’m to understand.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on.’ I reach across and take her hand. ‘Just tell me. It can’t be that difficult.’

  ‘Oh, Ruth! I can’t — I couldn’t —’ And she bursts into tears.

  I let her cry for a few minutes, awkwardly patting her shoulder, wondering how best I can help her.

  ‘It was — it was about you.’ She blows her nose. ‘Oh, Ruth — I couldn’t bear it. Not knowing how you were, not having anything to do with the — with the baby. I just couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘But you know I’d have come home any time. You only had to say.’

  Mum shakes her head.

  ‘Your father.’

  ‘Dad.’ Of course. My father has never been one to go back on a decision, particularly one involving matters of morals (or, as in my case, the lack of them). I was brought up to believe that the man was the head of the family, and therefore Always Right (my father is a fervent follower of the teachings of St. Paul), and it took the outside world and a good do
se of common sense to teach me that this was by no means always the case. It could be that my mother is at last beginning to see the light.

  ‘He didn’t want you to come home. He didn’t even want me to see you. Well not yet, anyway. He loves you, Ruth, in his own way. He really does. But —’

  ‘On his terms?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes. And he really didn’t know how to deal with this — with this situation.’

  ‘No. I can see that.’ I drink my coffee, which is cooling rapidly. ‘What’s he doing now?’

  ‘Painting the fence.’

  ‘Painting the fence?’

  ‘He thinks I’ll be home to cook his dinner. But I won’t, Ruth. I won’t. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Do you — do you love him?’ I ask, after a moment.

  ‘I did. I certainly did once. But I don’t know any more. Being married to him was a habit. Our life together is a habit. I care about him. Of course I do. And I’d never wish him harm. But I want more than that. Before it’s too late. I know what I’ve done is wrong — leaving him like this — but you’re my daughter. My only child. This — baby could be my only grandchild. I may not get another chance.’

  ‘And God? What about God?’ I know this is cruel, but I genuinely want to know. I feel that all my life I’ve come second to God, as far as my parents are concerned. Is my mother really willing to compromise her beliefs for me?

  ‘God. Yes.’ Mum fiddles with her teaspoon. ‘I think there’s room for Him, too. Somewhere. But maybe my God isn’t the same as your father’s any more. Can you understand that?’

  I have always thought of my father’s God as the God of the Old Testament; a God who often seemed to me more concerned with battles and sacrifice and punishment than forgiveness and love.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I can.’ I stand up and look out of the window, where I can see Eric and Silas hovering at a tactful distance, pretending to be busy. ‘So what are you going to do?’