‘Well, the kitchen, obviously,’ Dad says. ‘And most of the rest of the ground floor. Upstairs, things are a bit better. The fire only managed to get as far as Ruth’s room. The rest is more or less undamaged.’
‘Is my room — completely destroyed?’ I ask carefully.
‘Pretty well,’ says Dad, reaching for another biscuit (his spirits seem remarkably improved). ‘But you didn’t use it much, did you? And there was only a lot of old stuff from when you were a child. Nothing you’ll miss.’
Nothing you’ll miss. How typical of Dad that even now he’s incapable of putting himself in anyone else’s shoes; of trying to understand a situation from any viewpoint other than his own. I feel a sudden ridiculous surge of grief as I think of the room which I slept in all my life until I left home, and which is still officially mine; the room which was my refuge in times of trouble, where I nursed my teenage sulks and (oh, delicious danger!) shared my first bumbling kiss with the minister’s son while, through the floorboards, we could hear the faint sounds of our parents’ voices as they prayed together in the room below.
Of course, all the stuff I really need has long been removed, but there are all those other things; all those bits and pieces of my childhood. The swimming certificates and posters on the wall, and the rosette I won in my brief equestrian career (it was for fourth place, and there only were four competitors, but I carried that rosette round with me for weeks). Then there are the books; among them Heidi, The Wind in the Willows, the Secret Garden, and my favourite of all, Charlotte’s Webb. The baby might have enjoyed those. There was the patchwork quilt stitched by my grandmother, the only person who I felt really understood me. She and I used to call it the “crosspatch quilt” because I could never remember the word “patchwork”. I remember her arthritic fingers stitching away at that quilt while she told me about her early married life and my mother’s childhood. There was a particular patchwork square — pale blue brocade roses — which I remember especially because it was a one-off, and she was sewing it the day her beloved cat was run over.
And then there were the drawers full of mementoes: my first tiny pink ballet shoes, my music certificates, old school books, letters and photos; and the usual dross of foreign coins, broken pencils, buttons, ancient pots of dried-up cosmetics, hair clips and odd earrings. Someone once said that everyone has a broken wristwatch in a drawer. I had two.
‘Of course, I got in touch with the insurance people straight away.’ Dad is still talking. ‘They’re getting back to me tomorrow. I gave them this phone number. I hope that’s all right?’
‘Of course,’ Silas says. ‘And now perhaps you’d like to get yourself settled? Will you be sleeping — I mean, where would you like to sleep?’
‘Oh, with Rosemary of course.’ Dad appears unfazed by the question. My mother’s opinion obviously doesn’t count, but she nods her acquiescence.
As I carry Dad’s suitcase upstairs and find extra pillows and towels, I wonder what kind of reconciliation my parents will have (I assume they will be reconciled. It must be hard to stay separated in the same bed). Will they talk things through? Touch each other? Make love? Like most people, I find the idea of my parents’ sex life hard to envisage, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t still have one.
I shall probably never know.
Part III: Winter
During the third trimester, the baby’s eyes open, the bones develop fully and the lungs mature. The movements become more forceful and the baby gains several more pounds in weight in order to reach an average birth weight of between seven and eight pounds. The soft downy hair (lanugo) which covers its body falls off, and the baby learns to suck. At thirty-eight weeks the baby is considered to be full term, although the normal gestation is forty weeks.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I feel absolutely huge. Everyone tells me I am not, but I have never been pregnant before — never had to share my body with anyone else in this extraordinary way — and as I cart my little passenger around, in and out of cars and through the small openings of sheds and outhouses; as I lever myself out of the depths of my uncles’ saggy sofa and have to abandon yet another favourite garment that refuses to do up, I feel cumbersome and clumsy and also deeply unattractive.
I recall with puzzlement the comments of pregnant friends, who “couldn’t wait for the baby to show” and can no longer remember a time when mine didn’t. What was it like to do up belts, wear a bikini, have a waist? I have bought several smock-like garments at the market, and have let out my jeans on a piece of elastic, and wonder at the proudly pregnant bellies of girls who seem happy to walk around with their bumps completely naked and their belly buttons turned inside out (at least mine hasn’t done that yet).
My father has been with us for a week now, and despite this overwhelming evidence, is still obviously in a state of denial where my pregnancy is concerned. Since he never refers to it, it’s become the elephant in the room (or perhaps I have become the elephant in the room; I certainly feel like one). Occasionally he will refer to a time ‘when you’re better, Ruth’, as though having a baby were some kind of illness, but otherwise he manages to pretend it’s not happening. Dad has always had this knack of ignoring the embarrassing or the distasteful, and at the moment he’s surpassing himself.
‘What does he say to you, Mum?’ I ask my mother, but she just shakes her head.
‘He doesn’t talk about it.’
‘What, not at all?’
‘Not at all.’
‘And what happens if you mention it?’
She gives a helpless little shrug.
‘You mean, you don’t mention it?’ I’m not surprised, but I do feel a bit hurt.
‘Well, no. I can’t, Ruth. He’s so worked up about the insurance people and the fact that he can’t get hold of anyone when he wants to. There’s no point in worrying him further.’
And I suppose this is true enough. Dad spends long hours on the phone, keeping a meticulous note of every minute he spends, and leaving money in a little pot on the window sill, getting increasingly impatient with whoever he’s talking to, and giving a running commentary to anyone who’ll listen.
‘They’re playing that tune again. Greensleeves, isn’t it? You’d know it, Ruth ... oh, here we go. “This call may be recorded for training purposes”. Whatever for? They presumably know what they’re saying, and I haven’t said anything yet. My call is very important to them. Well, I should hope so. “If you know the extension, then dial the number now”. Well, I don’t know the extension; why should I? Are these people stupid? Now I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to press next. I’ll have to go back to the beginning.’ And more change rattles into the pot.
My parents seem to have slipped back into their marriage as though it had never been disrupted, but maybe this can be explained by the fact that neither of them has had to step down or lose face in any way. My father had to have somewhere to live, and this was the obvious place, and Mum hasn’t moved at all. She is still here with me and Eric and Silas. So perhaps this has satisfied both parties. They are kept busy, travelling back and forth between Applegarth and home in an attempt to rescue such belongings as they can from the ruins of the house. I accompany them on one of these forays, but my room is so badly damaged that all I can find among the still-smoking rubble are the remains of a very singed teddy bear, half a dolls’ house and a rusty horse shoe. They are not much to remember my childhood home by but better than nothing, and I put them tenderly in a cardboard box to take back with me. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them, and for once, my parents don’t ask. Perhaps the three of us, briefly united in our loss, are prepared to make allowances for such small shows of sentiment.
Otherwise, Mum keeps busy with her domestic chores and Dad with his negotiations over matters of insurance and house repairs. They attend Mum’s new church together, and seem surprisingly comfortable with one another. I know that Dad is uneasy about Silas’s taxidermy activities, and thinks that it
’s all ‘most unhygienic’, but since this isn’t his house, he can’t really say much. As for Eric and his Ark, Dad avoids this entirely, although I can see that Eric is longing to update him with his progress. There is more than an element of mischief in this, because Eric, armed with his dossiers of what he considers to be irrefutable facts, senses victory (he has a lot to learn about my father) and hankers after a little taste of it now. But Dad isn’t going to fall into that trap, so the Ark has joined the baby and become another no-go area. As for the Virgin of the hen house, no-one mentions that. No doubt Dad will find out about it, but I think we all hope it will be later rather than sooner.
Meanwhile, Mikey calls in with news of Amos. I am enormously excited.
‘Tell me! Tell me, Mikey! Where is he? What’s he doing?’
‘Hold on. Not so fast. The news isn’t all good,’ Mikey warns me.
‘Why? What’s happened? He’s not had an accident, has he?’
‘No. As far as I know, he’s fine. I tracked him down to a cruise in the Caribbean, but apparently he’s had a row with the conductor and disembarked on Barbados. No-one’s heard from him since.’
‘A row? What sort of row?’
‘I’ve no idea. They’re pretty pissed off with him, though, so I didn’t like to ask too many questions.’
‘Oh, Amos! How could he!’ I’m very close to tears.
‘Well, he didn’t know did he? About the baby, I mean. As far as he’s concerned, he’s his own man. He can do what he likes.’
‘But I need him. I need him now. Not in six months or a year or whenever it is he’s planning on coming home.’
‘Of course you do,’ Mikey soothes.
‘And now it could be ages before he appears again.’
‘That’s possible,’ Mikey agrees. ‘But he’s bound to come back to England pretty soon, isn’t he? There can’t be that many jobs on Barbados for itinerant trombone players, and presumably he has a living to make.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You’ve decided that you do love him, then?’ he asks me, after a moment.
‘I don’t know. I can’t really know until I see him, and even then, he mightn’t love me.’
‘Of course he’ll love you,’ Mikey says. ‘If I were straight, I’d certainly love you.’
‘Oh, Mikey. What am I going to do?’ I wail.
‘You’ll just have to be patient. You’ve still got — how many months?’
‘About three.’
‘Three more months to find him. A lot can happen in three months. And I’ll carry on looking. I’ve got a friend who’s got a brother in Barbados.’
‘How big is Barbados?’ I ask him.
‘I’ve no idea. It doesn’t sound big, does it?’
I agree that Barbados doesn’t sound that big. Quite small, really. And Amos is very hard to miss.
‘What a nice young man,’ my father remarks, when Mikey has gone (they met for just three minutes). ‘Now, that’s the kind of young man you want, Ruth. Steady and sensible. Yes. Just what you need. Better than that bearded fellow.’
Oh, Dad. If only you knew. But I decide not to tell him about Mikey’s sexual preferences as I think he’s had enough shocks for the time being. And it’s no good reminding him that Amos is the father of my child. Dad remembers what he wants to remember, and he certainly doesn’t want to remember that. Mikey apparently has assets which Amos doesn’t have, and my father has never trusted beards.
The house, which was so tranquil when I arrived, is beginning to feel rather full. It’s not that my parents take up much room; it’s more that everyone is suddenly having to be awfully careful how they behave. It wasn’t so bad when it was just Mum; she was becoming relatively relaxed and was even learning to fit in. But with the advent of my father, things are more difficult. My uncles have the patience of saints. They put up with Grace before meals, temper their language, and try to conceal the more earthy aspects of life at Applegarth. But I feel the strain on their behalf, and I also feel responsible. Had I not been here in the first place, my parents would no doubt have found somewhere else to stay — after all, don’t insurance companies pay for hotel accommodation in circumstances such as this? — and Eric and Silas would have been able to carry on their untroubled existence without interference.
But if the house feels full, it is about to become more so.
Exactly ten days after my father’s arrival, Kaz falls out with Blossom. No-one manages to get to the bottom of what exactly happened (although a man called Angus and a fifty-pound note come into it somewhere), but there it is. Another crisis, and yet another homeless person.
You would think it was impossible to fall out with Blossom, since no-one is ever, as it were, in with her. But apparently the fragile relationship between mother and daughter, having reached breaking point, has finally snapped, and Blossom has turned Kaz out of the house.
‘It won’t be for long.’ Kaz stands on the front doorstep at midnight in the pouring rain, her car parked in the mud behind her. ‘But at this time of night ... I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.’
‘Have you no friends who could put you up?’ I ask her (being the only one still up, I answer the door).
‘Not really.’ Kaz heaves a rather large suitcase into the hallway. ‘Most of my friends are dancers like me, living in digs or with their parents. They haven’t got room.’ She grins at me from under her dripping fringe through eyes sooty with rain and mascara, and I wonder yet again how, whatever the circumstance, Kaz always manages to look ravishing. ‘Any chance of a drink?’
‘Whatever have you got in that case?’ I ask her some minutes later, as we sit in the kitchen drinking (sloe gin for Kaz. Tea for me).
‘Oh, you know. Clothes, make-up. Stuff for work. Don’t worry, Ruth.’ She pours herself another drink. ‘I’ll make it okay with the boys —’ this is Kaz’s preferred name for Eric and Silas — ‘and I’ll even do extra hen house duty. In this weather you should be glad of me.’
‘My father’s here, too,’ I remind her.
‘You leave him to me,’ Kaz says. ‘Trust me. He’ll be a pushover.’
Sure enough, when Dad meets Kaz at the breakfast table the next morning, after the initial surprise, he appears completely won over. She does what I think of as her class act; not exactly flirting, but demure and deferential, with just a little touch of the Princess Diana thing she does with her eyelashes. She listens with rapt attention to everything he has to say, and is most sympathetic about the insurance people.
‘You’re so right,’ I hear her say. ‘These people have got you just where they want you, haven’t they? I’ve no time for them at all.’ (I am pretty sure that Kaz knows nothing at all about house insurance, and cares even less).
‘What an — interesting girl,’ says Dad, when Kaz goes out to help with the animals. ‘In spite of all those rings and things; a most interesting girl. And so sympathetic, too. I have to hand it to you, Ruth. You’ve made some very nice friends since you’ve been here.’
Eric and Silas don’t appear quite so pleased at the sudden appearance of their new guest, but they take the news stoically.
‘Oh well. She can always sleep in the attic,’ says Eric. ‘So long as she doesn’t intend to entertain any gentleman friends.’
When I relay this information to Kaz, she laughs.
‘He needn’t worry. My boyfriends wouldn’t touch this place with a bargepole,’ she tells me. I’ve met one or two of them, and they tend to be of the posh, moneyed variety; wealthy young men who spice up their dull lives by paying to watch girls like Kaz.
‘You don’t sound very grateful.’
‘Of course I’m grateful. I’ve a lot of time for the boys, bless them. But would you want a romantic liaison in this tip of a place? I think not.’
I can imagine nothing I’d like better, but Kaz wouldn’t understand.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
With the onset of winter, interest in the Virgin of the hen house be
gins to ease off a little, and I think we are all relieved. For while she has been less trouble than we anticipated, hen house duty on dark wet afternoons is something we can all do without, and while we have restricted the number of afternoons to two, it is still a commitment.
‘Couldn’t we pack the whole thing in for the winter?’ I suggest to Blossom. ‘After all, there aren’t that many visitors now, and the weather’s awful.’
‘Nope.’ Blossom gives me one of her looks.
‘Just for a couple of months?’ I can’t believe I’m begging favours from someone who, when it comes down to it, is just a hired hand. But this hired hand is in a very powerful position, and she knows it, for without her, Eric and Silas would find it almost impossible to cope.
‘Nope.’ The look becomes dangerous. Blossom is preparing to make trouble.
‘Blossom, we’ve got a lot on. Whoever’s looking after things, it’s always a disruption. Silas still isn’t a hundred percent. He needs a bit of peace and quiet. And Mum and Dad don’t approve —’
‘Not my problem.’
‘No. Maybe not. But you don’t have to live here.’
‘Wouldn’t if you paid me.’
The idea of paying Blossom to live with us is laughable, but I’m in no mood for humour. I decide to try another tack.
‘Well, just until the new year, then. How would that be?’
Blossom pauses, as though to consider.
‘Think about it,’ she concedes.
‘That would be great.’
‘Let you know Thursday.’
I’m too relieved to enquire as to the significance of Thursday. The prospect of even a few weeks without the tramping of strangers past the garden is too good for me to wish to endanger it by pushing my luck any further.
But I shall never know whether Thursday would have brought the anticipated reprieve, for I am not the only one who has been making plans.
The very next day we receive an unexpected visit from Mikey and Gavin. This is not unusual, as Mikey frequently calls in on his travels, and I’m always pleased to see him. But he doesn’t often bring Gavin with him, and has never before brought Gavin in a wheelchair.
The Frances Garrood Collection Page 76
