How to Measure a Cow

by Margaret Forster

  Tara, Claire reckoned, had always needed her mother. She just didn’t realise it.

  Nancy, when she left Tara, went to the club. It was not her regular day, but too bad. She was in a state, but she had nowhere else to go and needed some kind of distraction. It would settle her. She knew she was still red-faced – she could feel the heat in her cheeks – but walking would cool her down. She tried, as she walked, to sort out the scene she’d just been involved in. That was the right word. ‘Don’t make a scene,’ her mother had always been warning her, and as a child the word puzzled her. Scenes were in plays, they were labelled as Scene 1, Act 1 in books of plays at school. But she wasn’t in a play. She was in real life, so what did ‘scene’ mean? Later, when she absorbed the meaning in her mother’s phrase, she liked it. ‘Making a scene’ was creating a disturbance, drawing attention to yourself in some way, doubly reprehensible if this was in public.

  Tara, who had been Sarah, had made a scene. One hell of a scene. Nancy quickened her step as she went over it, checking what part she herself had played. Had she been too harsh, too unsympathetic? Well, she’d been shocked with all the carry-on, the tears, the barring of the door. Good heavens, what a scene. Thank God no one had heard or seen it. She wouldn’t tell anyone about it, of course. There was no one she could tell, in any case. Keeping yourself to yourself meant there was never anyone to whom confidences could be given. Nancy understood that very well. The relief, even the thrill, of describing scenes of the sort she’d just been part of could not be hers. She knew she would go over and over it in her own head until the memory faded.

  Arriving at the club, Nancy made straight for the tea. She was so thirsty that she stood and drank a cup at the counter where it was served and then refilled it before moving to her usual seat by the window. Settled there, it helped to have something to watch. The street below was not a hive of activity but there were enough people coming and going to distract her slightly from replaying the scene at Tara’s house. Tara. She thought about the name. Fanciful. She’d never known anyone called Tara. Where did it come from? Sarah was a much better name. Down in the street she suddenly spotted a Sarah she knew, Sarah Vickers. She’d known her because she bought tomatoes from her stall when she first came to Workington. The stall had long since gone, but when they met in the street they always said hello. She was an acquaintance, Nancy decided. Not a friend but an acquaintance, through habit. Her life, she reflected, was rich in such people. She might have no one she could truly describe as a friend since Amy died, but she had tons of acquaintances. This realisation comforted her, so she was in a happier state of mind when Mrs Curwen sat down beside her.

  Mrs Curwen was always addressed as Mrs Curwen. Nobody was familiar enough to call her by her Christian name. Indeed, no one at the club seemed too sure what it was. Asked her name, Mrs Curwen said, ‘Mrs Curwen,’ and that was that. Quite what she was doing at the club nobody was certain. Had she worked at the factory or in the office? She didn’t look as if she had done either, with her posh air, but if she hadn’t then what was she doing at the club? She didn’t come often, only about once every six weeks, but when she did her entry caused a slight hiatus in conversations going on. She got stared at, and seemed to enjoy these stares, smiling and nodding like the old Queen Mother used to do. Slowly, she would circulate the room, teacup in hand, and then invariably sit by one of the windows, or, if no seat was available there, simply stand near the fireplace, leaning on the shelf above it. It was an ancient fireplace, never used, with elaborate Victorian tiles round the grate, and a set of splendid tongs and pokers resting in front of it. Mrs Curwen looked striking, leaning there, as though she might be the hostess of the gathering before her.

  Nancy had never spoken to her, or been spoken to by her, but today Mrs Curwen came and sat in the spare chair next to her. ‘May I?’ she asked, but sat down before Nancy could say a word. It was a daft question anyway – ‘May I?’ What did the woman mean? She didn’t need to ask permission to sit on an empty chair which had nobody’s handbag on it and no teacup on the little table in front of it. Nancy sniffed. Mrs Curwen raised her eyebrows and said:

  ‘You were keeping this chair for a friend, perhaps?’

  Nancy shook her head.

  ‘Good. I just wanted to be sure. I’m so glad to be able to sit down. My legs are exhausted, it’s been such a tiring day. Do you know what I mean? One of those tiring, tiring days.’

  Nancy stared, and sniffed again. Clearly, Mrs Curwen wanted to be asked why her day had been so tiring. She didn’t look as if she knew what a tiring day was. Some of these women in the club could have told her. When they were young, with several children, working shifts in the factory before coming home to clean and do the washing and cook – those were tiring days. Nancy knew that although she’d worked hard herself she’d had it easy compared to the common lot in her youth (‘youth’ went up to forty-five in Nancy’s opinion). She looked at Mrs Curwen’s hands. Smooth, unused to rough work. Mrs Curwen saw her looking, but said nothing. They both drank their tea, and then just as Nancy thought she would leave Mrs Curwen said:

  ‘You’re Mrs Armstrong, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am,’ Nancy said. She wanted to add, ‘So?’ but rudeness was rudeness.

  ‘You were Mrs Taylor’s neighbour, weren’t you?’

  ‘Friend,’ Nancy said sternly. ‘I wasn’t just a neighbour.’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ said Mrs Curwen. ‘Neighbour and friend. I’m thinking of buying her house for a granddaughter of mine. It’s for sale, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nancy said, ‘I do know.’

  ‘There’s apparently been a rather odd person renting it, or so Mrs Taylor’s nephew, the owner, tells me. Something hush-hush about her, about her past, though I’ve no idea what.’

  Nancy was momentarily speechless. Did Mrs Curwen know about Sarah being in prison? Automatically, she wanted to protest at the spreading of such gossip but she didn’t want to give Mrs Curwen the satisfaction. So, instead, she simply got up and walked away, taking her cup and saucer to the hatch. But now all the good that sitting quietly by the window had done her had disappeared.

  She was as agitated when she left as she had been when she arrived. But she had come to a decision.

  There wasn’t much to pack. The sum total of what she’d accumulated during her months in Workington didn’t even fill the boot of her car. And she hardly needed to clean anything, so sparing had she been in the use of the oven, the kitchen surfaces and so on. She hoovered all the rooms and the stairs, though there was little need to, and she hung the curtains back up in the bedroom though she didn’t take down the blind. It all looked pretty much as it had done when she arrived: colourless, tidy, worn, depressing. Exactly what she had thought she needed.

  There was a knock at the front door just as Tara was zipping up the last of the bags with her clothes in. Nancy stood on the threshold when the door was opened.

  ‘Can I come in?’ she said, immediately stepping inside and almost brushing against Tara in her hurry to lead the way into the living room. ‘I’ve something to say,’ she said, ‘something I should’ve said long ago.’ She was huffing and puffing with embarrassment.

  ‘Sit down, please,’ said Tara, and sat down herself.

  ‘You wanted to tell me things and I wouldn’t listen,’ Nancy said. ‘I wanted to, but … but, well, I’m not used to it.’

  Tara, not at all sure what it was that Nancy was not used to, kept quiet, merely smiling and nodding in encouragement.

  ‘Prison,’ Nancy gasped. ‘You said you’d been in prison, and I didn’t let you tell me why. I wanted to know but … I’m not used to it, it doesn’t come easy, asking questions, so I clam up.’

  Tara thought she should offer tea, a calming gesture which Nancy would recognise as such and accept, but she was sick of tea. Somehow, it would belittle Nancy’s outburst, make it seem merely something to brush aside. Instead she stayed still, and said:

  ‘Thank you, Nancy, you�
��re a good friend, whatever you think.’

  Nancy registered the present tense: no mention of ‘you were’ or ‘you have been’ a good friend. It was stated as a fact, this friendship, and it pleased her.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said, and that was all, but Tara hadn’t finished.

  ‘I did want to talk to you about prison, and why I was there, and why I came here, but it doesn’t matter now. Least said, soonest mended, eh?’

  Nancy sighed, the tension she’d felt all day seeping away.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll come and see me in my new place, won’t you?’ Tara said. ‘Come on the bus and I’ll bring you back. Or I could pick you up too, if you like.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll come on the bus,’ Nancy said eagerly. She liked bus rides of that length, Workington to Cockermouth, only half an hour or so.

  It was arranged before Tara departed. Nancy watched while Tara wrote down the day and time. It made the proposed visit seem official. She went home, put a red circle round the date on her kitchen calendar and wrote within it ‘Visit to Sarah’, then crossed out ‘Sarah’ and put ‘Tara’. It looked good, next to the black ticks marking club days and doctor’s appointments, and other mundane things.

  Maybe it would become a regular date.

  IX

  LEAVING WORKINGTON EARLY on a wet afternoon, with the road shining blackly ahead and great arcs of spray rising as cars passed each other, Tara felt a strange kind of excitement. She was on the move again, sprung from the deadly routine she’d once thought would be the making of her. This hopeful feeling lay somewhere in the pit of her stomach, pulsing almost rhythmically, like a steady heartbeat. She had to quieten it down or it would take over and make her panic. Panic, obviously, was not good. Panic made her do silly things, dangerous things.

  She was gripping the steering wheel too tightly. The windscreen wipers were working overtime and seeing clearly was difficult. This was the coast road, but she could hardly glimpse the sea. Once, she peered into the little mirror, stuck into the flap which hung down over the driving seat. How she’d changed! Quickly, she pushed the flap back into position. She didn’t want to look at herself. How, when had she begun to look so different? It was this look that struck her as weird. She wondered how her features could possibly have changed so much without recourse to plastic surgery. Her face had surely once been almost fox-like, narrow, cheekbones sharp. And then, later, early in her marriage to Tom, the happy years, her face had filled out, her eyes becoming not so dominant. Her body had not put on weight, she’d remained slim, but something happened to her face, her look. Then, she wasn’t quite sure when, the tight-face returned. Was it at the time she first began to suspect what Tom was doing, where his money came from? Or maybe it was when she was given that research project at work, and had her own team, and though she loved what she was doing the stress was considerable.

  ‘Give it up,’ Tom said. ‘You don’t need to do it.’

  But she did need to. Once, he’d understood that.

  What do you do if you don’t like your own face? Well, make-up could change a lot, but not enough. She was, she reckoned, still quite attractive. The last vestiges of prettiness were still there, just. She’d done such damage to her look through being Sarah Scott. There must be no more head down, shoulders hunched. She must throw it off, hold her head up, square her shoulders, smile, let all that vitality within her come through. It would be like lighting a fire from a bed of ash with a couple of twigs. It would splutter and smoke and then a flame, a little one, would leap up. Her old challenging look would return, her don’t-mess-with-me defiance which Tom once said was what had attracted him in the first place.

  The crash happened while she was still thinking of what she must do in yet another ‘new’ life, the car coming towards her swerving, herself swerving, and then the impact, the roar, her own screaming.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice said. ‘Hello, can you hear me?’

  Tara could hear the voice, but didn’t recognise it. She tried to say something, but only a grunt came out. Her hand was patted.

  ‘You’ve had an accident. We need to find out where you’re injured so that we can treat you.’

  Tara closed her eyes. She was on some sort of trolley which was now being wheeled along. She heard doors opening and slamming shut. An accident. She struggled to think about this. An accident. Where? How? Her face, she remembered looking at her face, in the car … So it was a car accident. Her head began to throb.

  Nancy’s telephone so rarely rang late in the evening that the shrill sound shocked her. She was on her way to bed, clutching a hot-water bottle, and paused on the stairs. A wrong number, almost certainly, or what they said was ‘a cold call’. It happened. Who would be ringing her at nearly ten o’clock? And if she answered it, she wouldn’t be nicely settled in bed ready for the news on her radio. But nevertheless, she put the hot-water bottle down, turned, and carefully went back downstairs, holding the banister firmly. A telephone ringing was not going to make her hurry and slip on the stairs and break a hip and be done for.

  ‘Yes!’ she shouted into the receiver as she picked it up. She knew she sounded angry, but then she was.

  ‘Good evening, madam,’ a calm, male voice said. ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Nancy Armstrong?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ Nancy said. She was on the alert now, ready for this to be some sort of trickster.

  ‘The police,’ the voice said. ‘I’m PC Mike Pattinson, and I’m calling with regard to a friend of yours who has had an accident and is in the hospital.’

  For a moment, Nancy was silent, taking these words in.

  ‘A friend?’ What did this mean? Why would she be rung up because someone who said they were her friend – said – was in hospital? She wasn’t next of kin to anyone. Expressing neither curiosity nor concern about the state of this ‘friend’s’ health, she said:

  ‘How do I know you’re a policeman?’

  ‘Because I’ve told you I am,’ the voice of this Pattinson man said.

  This did not seem at all satisfactory to Nancy, but the man’s tone had been stern.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘what are you bothering me for at nearly ten o’clock at night?’

  ‘I am bothering you,’ said the man, ‘because your name and address and telephone number were found in the pocket of a woman who is currently in a serious condition in Cumberland Infirmary after a car crash on the A66 road between Workington and Cockermouth.’

  Nancy hadn’t missed the edge of irritation in how the policeman had pronounced ‘bothering you’. He thought she was heartless, unfeeling.

  ‘Hello?’ he was saying. ‘Are you still there, Mrs Armstrong?’

  Nancy managed to gasp that she was.

  ‘I’ll have to sit down,’ she said.

  ‘Good idea,’ the policeman, whose name she’d already forgotten, said.

  But there was no seat where she kept the telephone. The nearest seat would be on the stairs and the cord of the phone wouldn’t reach that far.

  ‘Oh,’ she repeated, ‘I’ll have to sit down. You’ll have to wait while I sit down.’

  She let the phone dangle on its cord and went and sat on the bottom step. Accident. Car crash. Hospital. Slowly, her mind made sense of the words. It must be Sarah Scott who was in hospital (why Carlisle, why not Hensingham?) and had had a car crash. That, at least, was clear. But what about this note in her pocket? Why was that there? Hesitantly, she got up again and took hold of the phone. There was a lot of noise in the background but she could distinguish the policeman’s voice.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Hello, hello, hello, I’m here again, hello …’

  And at last she was answered. She meant to apologise, for being ‘short’, but somehow she didn’t. She just said, ‘What happened? How is my … my friend?’

  Early next morning, a policewoman came to take Nancy to Cumberland Infirmary. It was a matter of identification, they said. The only clue they had, as yet,
was this piece of paper with Mrs Armstrong’s name on it, and a date a week ahead. The car was a write-off, though the registration number was being traced and some items salvaged. But the woman hadn’t spoken, and since she was seriously ill her relatives should be informed as soon as possible. Nancy’s help was vital. Eventually, documents from the car, however badly damaged, would reveal a name, but Nancy could give that information quicker, if she were willing. Nancy had agreed to go and look at this injured woman though, as she’d explained to the policeman, she didn’t need to. It could only be Sarah Scott. The minute she said the name, she corrected herself.

  ‘I mean Tara, Tara somebody, I forget the surname.’

  The policewoman was interested in this.

  ‘Two names?’ she said.

  ‘She changed it,’ Nancy said. ‘I don’t know why.’

  A lie, but she wasn’t going to tell the police that Tara had been in prison. They could find that out for themselves. All the thirty or so miles to Carlisle, Nancy was fretting about what she’d already said. Tara might not be pleased to have Sarah mentioned. She should have kept her mouth shut. The policewoman driving her tried to chat to her, perfectly pleasantly, but Nancy ignored her except for a grunt or two. She was feeling uncomfortable wearing, as she was, her best skirt which for some time now she’d known perfectly well was too tight for her expanding waistline. And her jumper was too warm, and itched, and her jacket made things worse but she didn’t want to take it off. The policewoman had offered her the seat next to her but Nancy had elected to sit in the back. It was a foolish decision. She could see now that the two front seats were better upholstered, and also of course she would have been able to see more without having to turn her head. She ended up spending a lot of the journey with her eyes shut, trying to prepare herself. She’d seen lots of medical programmes on the television so she knew what an intensive-care ward would look like, and what the doctors and nurses would likely be wearing, so none of that would surprise or overawe her. But what she didn’t know was how Tara would look, and that scared her.