by Rachel Malik
* * *
Rene and Ernest arrived at Wheal Rock just after six. Elsie, who had been standing at the kitchen window on and off since half past five, saw a faint flush of lights in the woods. She rushed upstairs and opened the window: a few moments later, she saw the taxi. Elsie couldn’t help feeling excited – Rene was finally home – and relieved: there were too many strings in Manchester, pulling her, holding her. She came downstairs and hurried outside.
At first it was only Rene; she waved from the cab window, then she was getting out of the taxi, opening the boot, helping the driver with the luggage – she always did that. Elsie thought she looked thinner, after just a week, but she was home now. Suddenly it seemed they were standing on either side of the five-bar gate.
‘You could have opened it for once,’ Rene said.
‘There’s a cow loose, one of Ronan’s.’
They stood smiling at each other; everything was quiet in the twilight and all the distance between them gone. And then Jugger came charging out of the cottage, barking, hurtled past Elsie and squeezed under the gate. He threw himself at Rene and she reached down to pick him up. He licked her cheek and squealed with delight before wriggling out of her arms and bounding back into the garden. Elsie fumbled with the bolt on the gate and the driver piled the luggage up on Rene’s side.
‘Do you need any help with the old fella?’ he asked.
They had quite forgotten Ernest.
Rene and the driver helped him from the car, and Elsie got her first sight of him. He was smartly dressed, coated, hatted, gloved (Rene had layered him up to save on packing). Once out of the taxi, he leant rather heavily against Rene (Elsie didn’t like that at all). But for all his tidy, neatly buttoned clothes, he looked confused, floppy; his eyes drifted though they kept coming back to his shiny black shoes. They all stood where they were for some moments and then Rene urged him forward. It was quite a shock when he started walking: it was as if he came to life, unhooking himself from Rene’s arm and walking towards the gate, jaunty and brisk. She knew at that moment he was trouble.
‘We’re here, Uncle,’ Rene said. ‘Home.’
The gate was open now. Elsie knew what was coming next: Rene would introduce her, that’s how it would be, and they would shake hands. Until now he had been a stranger, somehow kept at bay; she had never even spoken his name.
‘Uncle, this is my friend Elsie, the person I’ve been telling you about.’
They both mumbled and then he reached out his hand, took hers and looked at her, so very carefully. She didn’t like the squeeze of his hand or his look. It was so different from the drifting eyes of a few minutes ago. He smiled and nodded, friendly really, she had to admit. But there was something else, something she couldn’t put her finger on, something she didn’t like.
‘Elsie,’ he said. ‘That’s a lovely name.’
The first couple of months were all right. He would wake at about eight, and after breakfast he usually took a walk down the lane; sometimes he ventured into the little copse. The weather was fine and dry that autumn and he seemed to draw some strength from the morning blue. Back at the cottage, he divided his time between his chair, which had been squeezed into the sitting room, and the kitchen table. Elsie had found some old puzzle magazines and she put them out on the table each morning. He genuinely enjoyed these, and much later, when he’d given up the puzzles, he still went about with a pencil stub tied around his neck. The pencil and string were for Elsie’s convenience – the pencil was always rolling off the table and he would never find it for himself – but Ernest came to like his string, putting it on each morning like a watch. Sitting on his chair in the sitting room, he listened or semi-listened to all and everything on the wireless, smiling, nodding, shaking his head. He didn’t like the dog though, didn’t like it prancing around him.
There was no doubt that his new surroundings confused him. From cradle to now, he had been buoyed up by the kind hands of women – yes, even Bertha with her unaccountable weak spot. Here, in this strange place, he dimly sensed that these hands, though soft enough, did not seek to buoy him up. Overall though he didn’t seem unhappy or dissatisfied. He helped out occasionally with the wood, and though he was fussy in his eating, he enjoyed his tea, which he liked very sweet, and his pint pot.
And somewhere inside his head, a steady half-tune was beating and repeating: I am very lucky, very lucky indeed, these two strange birds will see to me.
He even took a couple of trips with Rene on her new scooter, which he seemed to enjoy. Margaret Cuff saw Rene and Mr Massey driving past her shop window on the scooter and worried he might fall off, his shirt had ballooned right out and he didn’t seem to be holding on. The fine weather held and Rene drove him down to the beach at Gunwalloe on her day off. The sand was grey-gold and the breeze rushed with iodine. There were a couple of old men taking the air up near the sea wall and a boy chased the waves on a feather-footed piebald pony, no one else. She tempted him down to the sea – ‘Not far, Uncle, just a little bit further now’ – and found a clutch of glossy mermaids’ purses to take home for Elsie, while Ernest filled his pockets with stones. They had chips and tea to warm them for the journey back. ‘This is grand,’ he said, and giggled. Rene wasn’t really sure he knew what he was about but, that evening, when he was settled in the sitting room with his pint pot, he said:
‘Grand times today, Rene. I never went to the seaside before.’
Elsie was jealous, despite the mermaids’ purses. Jealous because Rene had promised to take her to Gunwalloe and because Ernest got Rene all to himself. It would have been foolish to say so, and she didn’t. Besides, it was still early days and she thought they would bring him round. If he was used to cooked food at breakfast, he would soon lose the habit; if he put his feet up on the fender or the table, he would learn, with a good number of brisk, sharp ‘Uncles’ to keep them down. They would soon teach him their ways. She was sure he was easier than Bertha would have been. It couldn’t be much harder than training Jugger or the other dogs, except he was an old dog and a man.
She didn’t mind him rising late: it gave her and Rene a bit of time together, and there was precious little of that. But it was hard trying to change his habits. Used to being eased out of his coat and shoes by Bertha, he would come in from his walk and settle down to doze in a soaking-wet jacket. Elsie didn’t care too much if he caught cold, but she hated the muddy tracks on the floor and the rug.
He didn’t come round to their cooking either. ‘Then he can go hungry,’ she said to Rene, but it wasn’t that simple, for he took to slipping into the kitchen at odd times, looking for things to eat. It was sweet stuff he liked, and Elsie noticed that they were getting through a rate of jam and treacle and sugar. He seemed to survive on sugar and smokes, for he was always smoking. Sometimes he lit a second cigarette when he already had one going, left forgotten in a saucer or on the edge of a table: there were little burnt-out worms of ash everywhere. ‘We need to keep an eye on him,’ Rene said, but he wouldn’t keep their hours, coming downstairs in the middle of the night – they worried he would do himself a harm while they slept. You needed owl eyes, thought Elsie, and it wasn’t just at night. One early December morning, she came into the kitchen to find him clinging to the stove, watching his sleeve flame brightly. His legs were splayed out uselessly beneath him (he had been trying to light a cigarette). Quick and cool, Elsie grabbed the flowers from the jug and poured the flower water over his arm. Fire out, she took the cigarette from his mouth carefully, trying to avoid contact with his beard, and switched off the gas. ‘Now, Uncle,’ she said. Thankfully he was willing to be helped up, and she managed to bundle him out of the kitchen and back to his chair – though he leant against her heavily, which she disliked. His shirt was singed and he sniffed at it with some distaste. But there was no other damage; it could have been so much worse. BE VIGILANT. Elsie found herself thinking, Remember, always be vigilant. She went back to her work, but by the time Rene came home that evening,
she was quivery and upset and nothing Rene said could really reassure her.
And it wasn’t just watching he needed, it was coddling. Rene found it quite easy to indulge him, some of the time: she would unlace his boots and get him dry socks, give him another biscuit, another spoon of sugar – it didn’t cost her much. But Elsie had never had a cosseting way and she hated to pamper him. ‘It’s him who should be thanking us, Bert, we do everything for him.’ Rene admired Elsie for her conviction and was happy to do more than her share, but it was Elsie who spent the days with him and her manners didn’t make things any easier. She could just about muster, ‘Will you have an egg for your tea, Uncle?’ or ‘Shall I bring the other lamp?’ But Ernest wasn’t used to questions. At the factory, he had always known what he was supposed to do; at home, Bertha had always known what he needed. Here it was different. Sometimes he looked at Rene and the tears bubbled in his eyes, then he would pat, pat, tap, tap her hand. Elsie was another matter, and though he used her name greedily, her big shadow seemed to perplex him.
Their first Christmas with Ernest was a qualified success. On Christmas Day itself, Ernest woke gratifyingly late, though Rene and Elsie were forced downstairs very early by his snoring. After breakfast, they all went for a walk and took a big flask of tea. It was a pleasant day: not sunny, but fresh. Ernest was in his jaunty mood, humming to himself, sure-footed and spritely; he only complained once about the tea (not enough sugar), but he ate more than his share of treacle bread. They went further than they planned – perhaps both women had hopes of tiring him out, and sure enough, when they got back to the cottage, he settled into his chair and dozed off, listening to the carols. They had a rabbit stew for lunch – Elsie had made it the day before, she didn’t want to waste precious time with Rene cooking – but she did roast potatoes and sprouts in honour of Christmas, to go with the pudding and pies. It all went off quite well and Ernest wasn’t too much of a bother. He hadn’t said much, but then he never did.
But on Boxing Day morning they found him slumped asleep at the kitchen table, with a half-empty tin of treacle beside him. It was a new tin and the treacle was everywhere: on the table, on the floor, on his nightshirt. But the worst of it was in his beard and hair. It took them more than an hour to clean him up. They had to soap his beard and hair and he complained the whole time he was at the sink, clutching the green-and-gold tin of treacle to his chest. Eventually, he was finished and Elsie guided him into the sitting room and settled him into his chair. He was in a better temper by then: ‘Oh Elsie, Elsie, Elsie, oh, a cup of tea, oh Elsie, oh.’ Back in the kitchen, she could still hear him, going on in his sing-song way; her name lingered in the narrow corridor like a shadow he wouldn’t give up. Wordlessly she joined Rene in the clearing-up, but when it was all over and the treacle put away, well away, she sat down at the table and burst into tears. The whole day was ruined now, she thought, and Rene would be back at the dairy tomorrow, the holiday over.
January came in windy and wet; the only exercise Ernest would take was an amble about the uneven patch of garden. He rarely stayed out for more than half an hour and he usually timed his little expeditions outside to coincide with Elsie. No sooner had she gone outside than he would come tripping after her. He followed her about, always at a distance, but always paying close attention, she thought, to whatever she was doing. That was how he got interested in the old shed, or perhaps it was she who led him to it. She’d made a resolution to clear it out that winter, and as she went in and out of the flimsy structure, filleting the shelves, sanding the workbench, he became curious. Soon he forgot to keep his distance, he would follow her right into the doorway and cast his eyes around – for once he seemed uninterested in her. Elsie fixed the roof and did all she could to make the shed clean and comfortable; she even put a faded cushion on the chair at the workbench. She said nothing to encourage him – it would be tempting fate – but the shed worked like a charm. Soon he was pottering in and out at all hours, moving things around, muttering and smoking.
The shed should have been a victory for Elsie, and it was a relief to get him out of the cottage, but she never knew when he was going to come back in or call her out to him. He often lingered at the kitchen window on his way back inside. He would look in on her in the kitchen. Sometimes he would raise a hand and she would unwillingly respond in kind. Other times, he just stood there, staring, staring at her, or that’s how it seemed. And there was no order to his days. He had worked forty years to a factory siren and been managed by Bertha well into his pension; there was something perverse about his resistance to routine. Quite soon Elsie became convinced he liked making a mess of all her plans.
He always came back from the garden or the shed with twigs and leaves, nails and tubs of glue, a padlock, an old tap. Some of these he displayed to her as trophies, but he was also secretive, hiding little piles of stuff under his chair or bed. Sometimes he brought her things, gifts of a sort, but of what sort she didn’t like to think. He would lay these out in tidy desolation on the kitchen table: bulbs, tiny half-grown beets and once a sad white onion.
As the months went by, Ernest, never talkative, started to turn sullen. He used their words, but they got turned in the coming-back. Would I? he said, over and over, when he was asked if he would like tea, his pint pot, his paper, would I? Quick and nimble, Rene at least gave the appearance of being willing, but Elsie’s awkward en-quiries seemed to make him chary.
‘Will you have the jelly now or later, Uncle?’
‘Will I?’
Sometimes it was like he was just trying the words out, practising; but he could also sound coldly wondering, teasy, sour. And there was something else: a spry, occasional malice. You could never quite be sure. At the beginning, Elsie dismissed it as he seemed biddable enough, but as time passed she sometimes caught a twist in his mouth, a sudden chill steadiness in his eyes. She wanted to ask Rene but couldn’t. Rene was so busy working, so busy making sure everything was all right – some evenings she could barely keep awake through supper. Be vigilant, Elsie thought to herself, be vigilant.
They never called him Ernest to his face, it brought him too close; Uncle, with its measure of formality, kept him at a distance, and Uncle was literally untrue, which helped. Ernest had no such qualms: he used both their names familiarly, shortening them to achieve ever closer proximity. Ren, he would say, and sometimes Ri. Ri, where are my slippers? And he loved saying Elsie, any excuse. That’s a lovely name, he had said to Elsie when he first took her hand, and now Elsie became one of his favourite warbles or mumbles as he wandered about the garden or pottered about the cottage, always leaving a trail of sugar in his wake. Elsie would have said he was trying to wear out her name – if that hadn’t sounded like a joke. She was always looking for the right word for him. Sometimes she spoke of him as the visitor or our visitor (never lodger or guest); sometimes she thought of him as an intruder, but trespasser was the word she finally settled on, her private name, her thought. He was a trespasser at Wheal Rock, trespassing in their lives, and they had invited him in.
Over the years the two women had evolved a rather clear division of labour. Rene laid the table, Elsie fed the animals. Elsie was in charge of housekeeping, Rene shopped, though both women cooked. Elsie did woodwork and Rene fixed machines, Elsie had charge of the garden and growing – but Rene was often around to help. They took it in turns to do the weekly laundry, which they both disliked. And Ernest had to be fitted in now. Early hopes that he would do his bit were long gone; Ernest was work, and a lot of work at that. Most of this was interchangeable, with Elsie doing the days and Rene doing the evenings and weekends, but some tasks were strictly allocated. It was Rene who gave Ernest his medicines and his pint pot; both women bathed him, without fail, twice a week. Rene handled his money, and £3 from his pension became part of the Wheal Rock weekly budget. But he cost a lot more than that. Twelve bottles from the Co-operative Store in Penryn were delivered to Wheal Rock every Thursday, at a cost of £1. 3s. 6d, along wit
h his pouches of tobacco. This also came out of Ernest’s pension, but was allocated separately for his ‘personal’ needs. These were his official rations, but a good deal more money (including some from Rene’s purse) went on his drinking habit, most of it whisky and rum. Not that he was particular. He drank nearly a bottle’s worth of brandy in the sitting room one Sunday afternoon early on – before they learnt not to leave it out. And over the months he found and finished cooking sherry, drinking sherry, port and a bottle of nettle wine. They got better at hiding it and he got better at finding it. When they ran out of hiding places, they stopped drinking, but he didn’t. And when he didn’t have enough, he kept asking for more. These were the only times he became visibly angry, though he was never a shouter. On these occasions he could also be itchy, snappish, wheedling. Rene bore the brunt of it because it was she he asked (much to Elsie’s relief). They soon learnt to comply: he was better drunk (though he was never quite drunk) and it was easier to get it in than force him to do without. Rene wondered if he would have survived without the drink. Even with his generous allocation, he also consumed meths, turpentine and surgical spirit on occasion, when he was in the shed. These were all routinely replaced, though there were sometimes dark jokes about who should be paying. Every house needed a supply of spirit, Elsie said, like rat poison.
‘Do you make your own jam?’ Ernest asked one sticky August morning, looking with purpose at a batch of preserve jars Elsie was getting ready to boil. And Elsie, trying to be friendly because he had settled himself at the kitchen table for the long haul, tried to talk to him about jam and preserving. He seemed interested enough, and he certainly appreciated the smell of the strawberries stewing. So normal did he seem that morning that she decided to take Jugger for a proper walk up to the wood; she could clear up later. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Returning in the middle of the afternoon, she found him in a stupor on the kitchen floor. There was a thick coating of jam round his mouth and beard; he had also downed half a bottle of the sterilizer.
