The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  ‘She always spends Guy Fawkes in there,’ says Eric.

  ‘Is it — hygienic? I mean, a pig in a larder...’

  ‘Probably not.’ Eric grins at her. ‘But it hasn’t done us any harm yet.’

  Mum moves her chair nearer the door. ‘If you say so. Though I don’t know what Brian would say.’ (Brian is my father.)

  ‘Then don’t tell him,’ Silas says.

  Mum looks uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure that she still tells Dad most of the things that go on in this household, for old habits die hard, and I wonder how long she can hold out before the inevitable climb-down and return home. I know she’s not happy, suspended as she is between two very different lives; torn between her loyalty to my father and her feelings for me, not to mention her hurt at the minimal effort Dad has made to retrieve her. But what can she do? Poor Mum. With the best will in the world, she’ll never really fit in here. It’s too far removed from everything she’s used to. But having made what is — for her — a very courageous move, will she fit back into her old life again? Only time will tell.

  A few days later, all of our minds are taken off our individual worries by a more serious matter.

  For some time now, Silas has been researching the long-term effects of rheumatic fever, and we haven’t taken a lot of notice. After all, health issues have always been a major source of fascination for Silas, and most of the time there is little for the rest of us to concern ourselves with. And if he’s been a bit tired of late, perhaps a little breathless, then these things happen at seventy-four, don’t they?

  ‘Mitral stenosis,’ says Silas, reading from his medical book. ‘I think that must be it. I seem to have all the symptoms.’ He applies his stethoscope to his chest and listens attentively. ‘But I can’t hear anything. Damn.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re supposed to hear?’ I ask him.

  ‘Not really.’ Silas sighs. ‘I’ve read about heart murmurs, but I’ve never heard one, so I don’t really know what I’m looking for.’

  ‘Perhaps you should let the doctor check you out.’

  ‘Oh no. Well, not yet, anyway. People don’t usually drop dead from mitral stenosis.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ It certainly sounds impressive enough to be fatal.

  ‘Quite sure,’ Silas assures me. ‘This kind of thing can rumble on for years. And my blood pressure’s fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And I’m not a bad colour.’ He examines his reflection in the hall mirror. ‘Or maybe just a little cyanosed. What do you think, Ruth?’

  ‘What’s cyanosed?’

  ‘Blue. Pale. It’s caused by lack of oxygen.’

  I examine Silas’s face. ‘You look okay to me.’

  ‘Mm. I’m not sure.’ He examines his hands. ‘It can affect the extremities, too.’

  Silas’s hands are so dirty I don’t think it would much matter what colour they were, but if Silas reckons his fingertips are a little blue, he may be right. After all, he’s lived with them for long enough.

  ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t go to the doctor?’ I ask him. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘Maybe eventually, but there’s plenty of time yet. This was bound to happen sooner or later.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Oh yes. Rheumatic fever does this. It goes away for years, and then the effects come back to haunt you in later life.’

  And he goes on to give me a detailed explanation. He uses words like haemolytic streptococcus and carditis, sub-cutaneous nodules and erythema marginatum, mitral regurgitation and aortic stenosis. This kind of vocabulary is meat and drink to Silas; to me, it’s double Dutch.

  ‘Gosh. All that,’ I say weakly, when he’s finished.

  ‘Yes. It’s a nuisance, but so interesting, don’t you think, Ruth?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘We are fearfully and wonderfully made,’ Silas tells me cheerfully.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m going to do the pigs now.’

  ‘Take care.’

  A week later, Silas collapses. One minute, he is standing at the kitchen table putting the finishing touches to his latest victim (a weasel; Silas has always wanted a weasel, and has been wildly excited ever since he found it); the next, he’s lying on the floor, looking very pale and rather surprised.

  ‘Silas? Silas! Are you all right?’ I’m completely panic-stricken. I’ve never seen anyone pass out before, and have always been queasy when it comes to medical emergencies. I also have no idea what to do.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’ Silas tries to sit up.

  ‘No. No. Stay where you are. You mustn’t move.’ Somewhere in that tiny section of my brain which stores my minuscule knowledge of things medical there is the strict injunction not to move the patient. Or is that just in the case of accidents? And what about the recovery position? What is it, and should I put Silas in it now? I have always wondered about the expression ‘in a flap’, but now I understand, because my hands seem to be making involuntary fluttering movements as I panic and dither, and Silas lies obediently on the floor, waiting for me to do something helpful.

  ‘Fetch Eric,’ Silas tells me.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Eric.’

  ‘He’s fixing the bedroom window.’

  ‘Bedroom window. Yes.’ I look down at Silas. ‘Can I — should I —’

  ‘Fetch Eric. Please, Ruth.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  I fly upstairs and fetch Eric. Together we arrive back in the kitchen, where Silas is still lying on the floor.

  ‘Well, now.’ Eric creaks down into his knees and places a hand on Silas’s forehead. ‘Mm. You are a bit sweaty. What exactly happened? And how are you feeling?’

  ‘I had some kind of syncope attack —’ syncope attack? — ‘and I’m feeling a bit — woozy.’ Silas takes his own pulse. ‘Atrial fibrillation,’ he tells us, after a moment.

  ‘Translate,’ Eric orders. ‘This is no time to show off your medical knowledge, Silas. Ruth and I are worried.’

  ‘I’ve fainted, and I’m having palpitations,’ Silas explains. He looks calm and untroubled, and the unworthy thought occurs to me that Silas is enjoying this. He now has a real illness with real symptoms. He will be able to spend hours poring over his grisly book analysing his condition.

  ‘Can you sit up?’ Eric asks (no recovery position, then).

  ‘I think so.’ Carefully, Silas sits up. The colour immediately drains from his face. ‘Better not.’ He subsides onto the floor again.

  Eric places a folded jacket under his head. ‘Dial 999, Ruth. I think we need help,’ he tells me.

  Burly ambulance men arrive, cheery and reassuring. They ask Silas lots of questions before levering him onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. Eric and I follow in the Land Rover, leaving a note for Mum, who is at the hairdresser’s. Eric is pale and quiet, and we don’t speak, although I long to offer some kind of comfort and also to ask whether he’s suffering any of Silas’s symptoms. I’ve read about twins suffering identical pains even when they’re miles apart; is Eric’s pallor due to some psychic twin response, or is it simply anxiety?

  At the hospital, there is a lot of waiting around. Silas is offered an injection for the pain.

  ‘I haven’t got any pain,’ he objects.

  ‘For your distress, dear,’ the nurse tells him.

  ‘I’m not distressed.’

  ‘It’ll calm you down.’

  ‘I’m perfectly calm.’ But in the end, Silas agrees to the injection because, as he says, he’s always wanted to know what diamorphine (‘you’ll know it as heroin, Ruth. Highly addictive’) feels like. And it can’t do any harm, can it? Personally, I think it’s Eric who could do with the injection, but no-one’s asking me.

  Much later, when Silas has had a variety of tests and seen at least three doctors, they tell him he has ‘a little problem with a heart valve’.

  ‘Mitral stenosis. I told you,’ says Silas.

  ‘Well, yes. It could
be.’ The doctor looks disappointed. Even I know that doctors don’t like patients to use medical-speak. There is a strict boundary between the medical practitioner and the layman, and Silas has crossed it.

  ‘Rheumatic fever,’ Silas explains, his words still slurry from diamorphine. ‘When I was, when I was...’

  ‘Seventeen,’ Eric says.

  ‘That’s right.’ Silas smiles. ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘We’ll have to keep you in,’ the doctor tells him. ‘For observation and more tests.’

  ‘Valve replacement?’ Silas asks, his face bright with anticipation.

  ‘It’s much too early to say.’

  ‘But I might have to have one?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Pig or titanium?’ Silas asks (what is he talking about?).

  ‘That would be for the surgeons to decide. If it becomes necessary. But that’s a long way off at the moment.’

  ‘Goodness,’ I say to Eric, when much later we have said our farewells and are on our way home, leaving Silas cosily tucked up in bed. ‘You’d think he was enjoying it.’

  ‘He is enjoying it.’

  ‘How can he?’

  ‘Silas loves to be ill. He’s always been like that.’

  ‘Yes, but this is his heart.’

  ‘So much the better,’ says Eric grimly.

  ‘He must be mad!’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Poor Eric. You must be awfully worried.’

  Eric attempts a smile. ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘And you can’t share that with Silas.’ Eric and Silas usually share everything.

  ‘Quite.’

  I put my hand on Eric’s knee. ‘You’ve got us. Mum and me. I know it’s not the same, but at least you’re not on your own.’

  ‘No. I know. Thanks, Ruth.’

  We get home to chaos. Mum, who’s been keeping in touch by phone, has been trying to cope with Blossom, who’s been called in for emergency animal duties. The argument they have been having has evidently turned nasty, and Sarah has taken advantage of the situation by coming in through the open back door and helping herself to an unattended bag of groceries, while Mr. Darcy is chasing a chicken round the living room.

  ‘She can’t tell me what to do,’ Blossom tells us mutinously.

  ‘I haven’t been telling her to do anything,’ says Mum, who is very close to tears.

  ‘Have.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I just asked you — asked you — if you would mind seeing if there were any cabbages left.’

  ‘Not my job.’

  ‘But surely in an emergency that doesn’t matter?’

  ‘Don’t need cabbages in emergency.’

  ‘It’s not for the emergency! It’s for dinner!’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better finish the animals and go home,’ Eric suggests to Blossom.

  ‘Done ’em,’ says Blossom.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like it. Sarah’s in the kitchen, for a start.’

  ‘Not my fault. She left the door open.’

  ‘I did not!’ Mum cries.

  ‘Did.’

  ‘Enough!’ Eric’s patience has finally run out. ‘Blossom, would you please put Sarah to bed, and catch that dratted chicken before Mr. Darcy does. Then for pity’s sake, go home. We’ve got enough troubles without all this.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Silas spends several days in hospital, and is in his element. He has a whole range of tests, and talks of, among other things, unpronounceable blood tests, an echo something-or-other, and an ECG. I have just about heard of the ECG, but everything else is shrouded in mystery. We have travelled to and fro fulfilling Silas’s requests for, among other things, clean pyjamas, chocolate, nettle wine and the medical bible. Eric refuses to bring in the stuffed whippet (Silas apparently promised to show it to the nurses) and has to take the wine home (no alcohol allowed), but manages to smuggle in a tiny stuffed mouse “to compensate the nurses for their disappointment”.

  Poor Eric is exhausted. He and Silas have rarely been apart, and he seems somehow depleted without his brother. I know he’s not sleeping well, and the journeys to and from the hospital are both time- and energy-consuming, involving as they do a thirty-mile round trip plus the obligatory search for a parking place and the trek along miles of dismal hospital corridors. Mum and I take it in turns to accompany him, but he won’t hear of us going without him, and I know that he is fulfilling his own needs as much as Silas’s. As for his Ark, that’s had to be put on hold, and I know he misses it. The Ark has become Eric’s treasured hobby, fuel for his brain (not to mention his imagination), and perhaps the only thing which might have taken his mind off his worries. I too miss the Ark; I miss the curious questions and conversations to which it gives rise, and my even more curious dialogues with the people at the zoo as I assist Eric with his enquiries. I have developed quite a cosy relationship with one of the curators, who rashly invited me out on a date, although we have never met. I reluctantly declined out of loyalty to Amos and the seahorse/rabbit.

  Meanwhile, the rest of us are desperately short-handed, and Lazzo and Kaz are brought in to help. Kaz is currently short of work, and Lazzo has nothing better to do, so it suits everyone (except, of course, Blossom).

  The weather continues to be bleakly unpleasant, and the increase in my size is slowing me down. The only person/thing which appears to be thriving is the Virgin, whose followers are growing by the day and who I swear is getting more and more life-like. Eric I know has had more than enough of her and thinks it’s time we called it a day (the hardware store has promised him a preservative which is guaranteed to cover up pretty well anything, supernatural or otherwise), but when he mentioned this to Blossom, she threatened to withdraw not only her own services, but those of her family as well, and as she very well knows, we can’t do without them.

  In addition to all this, Mum is beginning to pine.

  ‘I miss him, Ruth, I really miss him,’ she admits to me, as she slices vegetables for the evening meal. ‘I know he’s awkward, and I don’t expect you to understand, but I — I’m used to him.’

  ‘Then go home, Mum. Go back to him,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll understand.’

  ‘I can’t.’ She pushes her hair out of her eyes, weeping onion-tears. ‘He told me I had to choose, and I’ve chosen you. You and the baby. I can’t go back on that now. In any case, he mightn’t even have me.’

  ‘Oh, he’d certainly have you.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I know so.’ I crunch a piece of raw carrot. ‘What does the minister say?’ Mum has joined a kind of house church in the nearby town, and seems to derive some comfort from the support it offers.

  ‘He prays with me, of course. He’s been very kind, but I know he thinks I ought to go back to your father.’

  ‘Then go back. You can still see me. It’s not as though I’ve emigrated. And when Dad sees the baby, he may change his mind.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s so obstinate. He always has to be right. He’ll never climb down, even if he secretly wants to. Besides,’ she says, chopping celery, ‘I’m needed here. Eric and Silas are my brothers, and I’m all the family they’ve got. It’s the least I can do, to help out in this crisis. They’ve always been so good to me.’

  I gaze out of the window. Through the drizzle, I can make out Eric’s stooping figure bent over some ancient piece of machinery, and I fight back sudden tears. Eric is miserable, Mum is unhappy and guilt-ridden, the animals, those most reliable barometers of emotional climate, are restless and jumpy, and I am suffering from backache and indigestion. And there is still no sign of Amos.

  ‘Ruth? Are you okay?’ Mum looks up from her vegetables.

  ‘Yes. No. I don’t know. Everything’s suddenly — horrible.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘I just wish something nice would happen.’

  Two days later, something nice does happen in the form of another surprise visit from Mikey.

/>   ‘Oh, Mikey! Am I glad to see you!’ I practically leap into his arms.

  ‘Hey! Hang on! You nearly knocked me over! What’s all this about, then?’ Mikey laughs as he disentangles himself and kisses me warmly on the cheek.

  I sit him down and tell him about Silas and how worried we all are and how miserable life has become since his admission to hospital. I tell him about Mum, about Blossom (who is now ruling not just the roost, but the house, and just about everything else, and loving every minute of it) and about the abundance of unwanted pilgrims. I tell him that I shall be thirty-seven next year and life is passing me by, that my violin-playing has deteriorated so badly that no-one will ever want me to play for them again, and that I still haven’t managed to find Amos. And I finish by bursting into tears.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Mikey pats and soothes and makes sympathetic noises.

  ‘I know I’m wallowing,’ I say, when I can get the words out, ‘but just for once — for once —’

  ‘It’s good to have a wallow?’

  ‘I suppose so. Yes.’ I take the not-very-clean hanky Mikey has offered and blow my nose.

  ‘I’ve brought Gavin to meet you,’ Mikey says, when I’ve calmed down a bit. ‘But maybe now’s not the best time.’

  ‘Why? Where is he?’

  ‘In the car. I thought I’d make sure it was a good time before bringing him in. Just as well, as it happens.’

  ‘Oh, do bring him in. Please. I’d love to meet him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. Just give me a minute to mop up.’

  Five minutes later, Mikey introduces me to Gavin.

  In my time, I have come across many attractive men, but I have never met one I would describe as beautiful. Gavin is beautiful. He is tall and slim and blond, with completely even perfectly-formed features, the bluest eyes I have ever seen, and the kind of smile that bathes you in warm sunshine. For a moment, I’m completely lost for words.

  ‘Ruth? Ruth!’ Mikey wrenches me out of my trance. ‘This is Gavin.’ His pride is so transparent that I almost laugh.

  Gavin smiles, and holds out a hand.

  ‘Yes. Sorry. Hi.’ I shake the hand, which (of course) is warm and firm and smooth. ‘I’m so sorry you had to wait all that time in the car.’