The Frances Garrood Collection

by Frances Garrood

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Ruth’s my oldest friend,’ Mikey says (am I? I’d no idea. The thought of being Mikey’s oldest friend is ridiculously cheering).

  ‘Any oldest friend of Mikey’s has to be a pretty good friend of mine,’ says Gavin, with another radiant smile.

  ‘Tea? Coffee? Er — mulberry wine?’ I ask them, examining the label on the currently open bottle.

  ‘Tea, I think. We’re sharing the driving,’ says Gavin.

  Sharing the driving. It sounds so cosily domestic I want to weep.

  For few minutes we make small talk; the household, the animals, my violin-playing, Gavin’s job as an estate agent. This seems a terrible waste, but I resist the temptation to ask him whether he’s ever thought of a career on the stage or perhaps as a model, as I’m sure he’s been asked this many times before. But I bet he sells a lot of houses.

  The back door opens and Kaz comes in. She stops short, and takes a long, astonished but practised look at Gavin.

  ‘Fucking hell!’

  ‘Kaz!’ I feel instantly ashamed, although strictly speaking, Kaz is nothing to do with me.

  ‘Sorry. But you have to admit he’s a bit of a stunner.’ Kaz appears unabashed by the fact that the stunner is almost certainly within earshot. She crosses the kitchen and holds out a hand. ‘Hi. I’m Kaz.’

  Gavin introduces himself, and they chat for a moment or two. Gavin tries to bring Mikey into the conversation, but Kaz ignores him, for she is doing what she obviously does best. Kaz is flirting.

  Now of course, I’ve seen people flirt, many times. I have flirted myself, and enjoyed it as much as anyone. But I have never seen a professional at work.

  Kaz is a professional.

  I watch in admiration the lowered eyes followed by the coy Princess-Diana peep through the lashes; the tilt of the body which reveals just enough décolletage; the pout of the lips and the little-girl voice. This is a new Kaz; one I haven’t seen before. Hitherto the only men around here have been Eric and Silas, who are obviously too old for this kind of treatment. The pilgrims, Kaz has told me more than once, have their minds on other things, and aren’t worth the bother. Unfortunately, she appears to be unaware that Gavin is also not worth the bother, if for an entirely different reason, but I’m unable to catch her eye.

  Mikey, unintroduced and ignored, is enjoying all this hugely, and he returns my despairing glance with a wink.

  Eventually, Gavin manages to affect an introduction. ‘Kaz, have you met Mikey?’

  Mikey and Kaz nod to each other.

  ‘I’m Gavin’s partner,’ Mikey says, dropping his tiny bombshell with impressive insouciance.

  Kaz pauses for a moment, then shrugs and laughs. ‘Well, that was a waste of time, then, wasn’t it?’ she says, returning to her normal spiky self. ‘Worth a try, though,’ she adds with just a hint of wistfulness.

  ‘Certainly worth a try,’ says Gavin graciously. ‘And I’m honoured.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Can I have some of that wine?’ Kaz reaches for the bottle. ‘I reckon I’ve earned it. I’ve finally got the hang of that bloody goat. Milking a goat,’ she says, to no-one in particular, ‘is a bit like sex. Once you get going, it’s difficult to stop. It’s sort of — compulsive.’

  I have never felt that milking a goat is remotely like sex, and since over the past few months I’ve had a great deal of the one and none at all of the other, it is difficult not to feel just a little sour.

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ I mutter to her, ‘next time I —’

  ‘Milk a goat?’ Kaz grins at me.

  ‘Something like that.’

  But generally, it’s been a very pleasant visit, and culminates with a tour of the hen house. It appears that Gavin is a lapsed Catholic, and is especially intrigued by the Virgin. I have met lapsed Catholics before, and have always been puzzled at their extraordinary loyalty to a church which, by definition, has let them down in some way. At least one friend of this persuasion (or perhaps it should be dissuasion) has told me that while she doesn’t attend Mass any more, she will certainly require the services of a priest on her death-bed, and most Catholics won’t hear a word against the Church they have (if only temporarily) deserted.

  ‘It’s the gay thing,’ Gavin tells us, as we toil up the muddy path. ‘I know God doesn’t mind about it. He’s much too broad-minded. But the Catholic Church is terribly hung up on sex. Always has been.’

  ‘Then join another church; one which is as broad-minded as God.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ Gavin tells me.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because it’s the One True Church,’ Kaz pipes up with a wink. I imagine Kaz has long since passed the lapsed Catholic stage on her journey to her present state of cheery godlessness.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Gavin says. ‘It’s just that a Catholic is what I am.’ He negotiates a puddle, splashing his immaculate trousers. ‘You know when you have to fill in those hospital forms, and they ask you your religion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I always put RC. I simply can’t imagine putting anything else.’

  ‘And if you’re dying, you’ll want a priest to come with one of those little bottles of oil?’

  ‘Oh, definitely. Little bottles of oil are de rigeur.’

  ‘And last confession?’

  ‘Definitely last confession.’

  ‘Will you have to confess to being gay?’

  ‘God knows I’m gay. He’s fine about it.’ He pats me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it. I certainly don’t.’

  But lapsed or not, Gavin is impressed by the Virgin of the hen house.

  ‘This is amazing,’ he tells Mikey. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it before?’

  ‘It’s just a few scratches.’ Mikey is not only an atheist; he also has no imagination. ‘I didn’t think it was really worth mentioning.’

  ‘Mikey, this is more than a few scratches.’ Gavin squats down to examine it more closely. ‘It really does look, well, it looks...’

  ‘Virgin-like?’ I suggest.

  ‘Yes.’ Gavin agrees. ‘I’m not usually one for signs and miracles, but this is something else.’

  ‘Well, the punters certainly think so. They come in their droves.’

  ‘Any miraculous cures yet?’ he asks with a grin.

  ‘None that we know about.’ I straighten Blossom’s vase of flowers (hideous plastic violets from the pound shop, as Blossom has given up trying to stop the animals from eating real ones. This has not, however, deterred the goats, who have paid an illegal visit and eaten several).

  ‘And what does the local priest say?’

  ‘Not a lot. He has as little to do with it as possible. I think he’s the drinking, delegating sort.’

  I think of Father Vincent, who hasn’t been near us in weeks, and once again, I wonder what he really thinks about all this. His secretary continues to churn out tickets, and the pilgrims keep on coming, but Father Vincent keeps a very low profile. Father Vincent may be lazy, but he’s certainly not stupid.

  Later on, as Gavin and Mikey get into their car, bickering affectionately about whose turn it is to drive, and whether they should take the bypass, the baby performs a fluttering tap dance inside me.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell it, as I walk back towards the house. ‘Sooner or later your daddy will come and find us.’

  And then perhaps I too will have someone to bicker with and argue over the map-reading. I give a sigh. Seeing Mikey and Gavin has been lovely, but I envy the cosiness of their coupled state.

  I hope my turn will come soon.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Silas is ready to come out of hospital. They have “stabilised” his condition, but apparently not cured it. Silas tells us that the only permanent cure lies in an operation, and seems disappointed that his condition’s not considered serious enough to merit one for the time being. But never mind. He has a wonderful range of new tablets — heart tablets, water
tablets (‘not water tablets. Diuretics,’ says Silas, who hates to be patronised) and blood-thinning tablets with a name which even Silas has trouble remembering.

  Eric fetches him home.

  It is only now, seeing the newly stabilised Silas, that I realise how ill he must have been. It’s a long time since I confused him with his brother — in fact, now, I wonder that anyone could confuse them at all — so I have become accustomed to seeing him as an individual. And if he’s been a bit paler and thinner than Eric, then I assumed that was the way it’s always been. But since he’s been in hospital, Silas has put on weight and his colour’s improved, and he looks, literally, a new man.

  We all tell him how well he looks, but his feelings about this are obviously ambivalent. While he appears to feel fitter and stronger, I know that he hankers after the attention and the drama which accompanied his admission to hospital, and we are not allowed to forget that he has been ‘very ill, you know, Ruth. Very ill indeed.’ Yes, Silas. We know.

  Although he’s anxious to get back into the swing of things, we try to prevent him from overdoing it. Light duties only, we tell him, and point him in the direction of his half-finished weasel. In this, he’s more than happy to comply, and while the weasel has suffered from being abandoned at a crucial stage, Silas doesn’t appear to mind. As he tells us, very few people know what a weasel looks like anyway, so if this one deviates a little from what nature intended, it’s unlikely that anyone will notice. Meanwhile, Lazzo stays on to help, but we can no longer count on Kaz. She’s being taken on by a new club, she tells me, and she has acquired a small car, so she no longer has to rely on buses and trains. She’s happy to lend a hand when she can, but we mustn’t rely on her.

  ‘A mobile dancer is a busy dancer,’ she tells me cheerfully, as she drives round to show us her new wheels. ‘The manager won’t pay for taxis, and I can’t afford them.’

  Kaz has painted her car buttercup yellow and decorated it with neat turquoise daisies.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asks me.

  ‘Well, it’ll certainly stand out,’ I tell her.

  ‘That’s what I thought. You can borrow it if you like,’ she adds.

  ‘That’s kind of you, but I think the Land Rover is more — me.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Kaz climbs back into her car and winds down the window. ‘Well, I’m off to see a man about a pole.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Who needs luck?’ Kaz shouts, as she bounces off down the track.

  Sometimes I wish I had Kaz’s confidence.

  It would appear that during the winter, my uncles’ activities die down, and they enjoy a period of relative quiet. They close their market stall, selling what little produce there is to private customers, who come and collect it themselves. I have no idea what they live on, since even in the summer, their income from what they sell wouldn’t even heat the house, but then this has always been a bit of a mystery. I know they have various investments from their inheritance, and Eric at least enjoys dabbling on the stock market, so I assume most of their income comes from that.

  Outside home, their needs are few. They rarely travel anywhere, and as far as I can see, never take holidays. Most of their clothes are falling apart, but then as Silas says, what does it matter? Hardly anyone sees them and they certainly don’t mind what they look like. They do occasionally buy new shoes and wellingtons, and they make a monthly trip to the barber’s; a filthy establishment, cluttered with old newspapers and magazines, with unsightly heaps of greying hair in every corner and a ceiling stained yellow by bygone years of cigarette smoke. Here Lennie, a wizened man of indeterminate age, dispenses haircuts and gossip for a fiver a time. Eric and Silas consider this excellent value, and wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.

  Mum and I both pay our way, but my savings are dwindling rapidly, so I return to my busking, but on different days now that Eric and Silas no longer have their market stall, driving myself and sometimes travelling further afield to give myself (and the punters) a change. Mr. Darcy, who has his own fan club, now loves these outings, so I still take him with me, and while I’m finding it all increasingly tiring, in my present situation, needs must. My burgeoning pregnancy attracts plenty of interest, not to mention increased revenue, and people come up to chat and give advice. I’ve even made one or two friends.

  Mum, however, hasn’t changed her views since I was a busking student, and while she sometimes lets me borrow her car, she doesn’t hesitate to tell me what she thinks.

  ‘I don’t know how you can stand there in the street like that, with everyone looking at you, Ruth,’ she tells me.

  ‘But that’s the whole point, Mum. I’m a performer. That’s what performers do.’

  ‘An orchestra is one thing,’ she persists (that’s not what she said at the time), ‘but hanging round street corners collecting money.’ She gives a delicate little shudder. ‘It doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘I don’t hang around anywhere, and I don’t collect money. People pay me. I’m not pretending to be homeless or even particularly poor. And if my playing gives people pleasure, and they’re prepared to pay, what’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t know what your father would say.’ This, as always, means she knows exactly what Dad would say, as do I. What Dad would say in almost any circumstance is usually entirely predictable.

  But the phone call we receive from him two days after this conversation isn’t predictable at all. The call brings tidings of unexpected disaster, for apparently Dad has had an accident with the chip pan, and the resulting inferno has succeeded in destroying two thirds of the house.

  Mum, needless to say, is beside herself.

  ‘The house burnt down. Our home. Burnt down.’ She is inconsolable. ‘And chips! Your father’s never made chips in his life. He doesn’t even like chips!’

  ‘Is he all right? Is he hurt?’ I want to know.

  ‘Oh, yes yes. He’s fine. But the house. And chips. What was he doing making chips?’

  I recognise the preoccupation with chips as some kind of displacement anxiety, and it’s probably fulfilling its purpose, for isn’t it better that Mum should worry about my father making chips than the fact that she’s probably lost almost everything she possesses?

  ‘Of course, he must come here,’ says Eric at once.

  ‘Oh, could he?’ Mum says. ‘He’s nowhere else to stay. He’s had offers from the church, of course, but I don’t think he’ll want to take them up. He hates to be beholden.’

  ‘Of course. He’s more than welcome.’ This is nice of Eric, since my father has never been especially polite to my uncles, and wouldn’t have relished having either of them to stay.

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it to him yet. I hope he’ll agree to come,’ Mum says. ‘He can be so — well, he may not want to...’

  ‘I think he’ll come,’ I tell her, because of course this is the perfect excuse for Dad to bring about a reconciliation without the necessity for a climb-down. In a way, for my parents’ relationship (if for nothing else) it’s a win-win situation.

  Sure enough, Dad accepts the invitation, but typically refuses all offers of transport (both Eric and I offer to fetch him), insisting on driving himself. When he arrives a few hours later, subdued and bedraggled, I am shocked at the change in him. Gone is the confidence and the self-control; the air of pious sobriety. He looks somehow shrunken and vulnerable, like the little old man he will no doubt one day become. He is unshaven, and wearing a dirty cardigan with the buttons done up unevenly, and funnily enough it is this which I find most touching.

  ‘Dad!’ I give him a hug, and for once he barely resists. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘A little shaken, of course. But no real harm done.’

  ‘That’s good.’ I take his small suitcase, wondering what can be in it. Does he still have any clothes, or did they all go up in flames?

  Mum comes into the hall to meet him. She looks shy and awkward, her hands twisting together in
front of her as though involved in some private battle of their own.

  ‘Brian.’ She starts to walk towards him, and then seems to think better of it.

  ‘Rosemary,’ Dad says, but makes no move towards her.

  ‘Tea?’ I ask quickly, hoping to oil the wheels of this very awkward reunion. ‘I’m sure you could do with a cup of tea, Dad.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Tea would be very nice.’ My father follows me into the kitchen. ‘Where are Eric and Silas?’ He sounds apprehensive.

  ‘They’re outside with the vet. They may be a while,’ I tell him.

  He looks relieved. ‘Oh. Right,’ he says. ‘Nobody — nothing too ill, I hope?’

  ‘Just a couple of castrations.’

  Mum blushes, and I feel a wave of exasperation. She has lived here for some weeks now, in the course of which there have been a number of births and a variety of couplings, none of them particularly discreet and one or two in full view of the house. Will she never get used to the idea of sex?

  ‘Well,’ says Dad, some time later, as he sits at the table stirring his second cup of tea. ‘We are very blessed.’

  ‘How do you make that out?’ I ask him.

  He turns a reproachful gaze on me.

  ‘The Lord has been good to us, Ruth. Our home is almost destroyed, and yet no-one has been hurt. Yes. The Lord has been very good.’

  Mum nods her agreement, although she is still red-eyed from crying.

  This is one of the things I shall never understand about my parents’ faith. Their home of nearly forty years almost razed to the ground, many if not most of their possessions destroyed, and here they are, praising the Lord; the same Lord, presumably, who could have stopped the fire if he’d had a mind to. It seems to me that my parents’ God cannot lose; he gets all the credit when things go well, and none of the blame when they don’t. This is not the right time to raise the matter, but I would dearly like to hear how they can explain this (to me) extraordinary dichotomy.

  ‘How much — how much is — gone?’ Mum asks now.