by Rachel Malik
It was difficult to know which he craved more, the booze or the sugar. He piled jam so thickly on to his bread it made them queasy – then he would lick it off. They found him time and time again with a pink stain of jam around his mouth, and sometimes with lumps of it in his beard. He was always on the lookout for something sweet, and sugar most of all. They gave up noticing what he tried to put it on: toast, potatoes, cabbage, sausages. Sometimes when he stood up, sugar fell from him like a bonbon – you could almost hear it fall – it crisped under the feet and you could never brush it away. He cost them a fortune in sugar. They hid the bowl but he always found it. They stopped using a bowl and used a mug instead, but he found that too and so it went on. And always, always, the little snail trails of sugar.
At the weekends Rene took full charge of Ernest, minding, coddling and above all trying to tempt him out for walks. And then Elsie would go and sit in the empty sitting room, in his chair, uncomfortable, pulling recklessly at the threads of the cushion. It seemed to be the only place in the cottage where she didn’t see him. But she couldn’t ignore the sticky windows, or the jackdaw caches of paper and pins, or the precarious cup on top of the wireless. Her eyes would wander, looking for the little burnt-out worms of ash. And everywhere the sugar trails, making handles sticky and uninviting and the very floors uncertain.
* * *
The first time Rene found him in their room, she wondered if it was a mistake. He was staring at the tallboy. ‘This isn’t your room, Uncle.’
He turned to look at her, slow, heavy-eyed; he had pulled his dressing gown on over his clothes.
Quietly, firmly, she clasped his wrist and steered him from the room.
‘I thought you were having a sleep,’ Rene said. ‘Lots of rest, Uncle. Remember what the doctor said?’
Ernest said nothing. Rene closed the door of their bedroom. They stood on the landing, uncomfortably close.
‘I’ll go out to the shed,’ he said.
And she followed him downstairs. He hovered beside the coats and jackets that hung on the door, yet when he eventually declared he was ready he was still wearing his slippers. She chose to ignore it – the ground was hard outside.
He paused in the doorway, turned to face her slowly, then looked at her, intent and clear-eyed.
‘You’re very close,’ he said, and then he turned and trotted off, his thick socks pulled up over his trousers.
Rene chose to think that his presence in their room was, if not quite a mistake, then not exactly deliberate. It couldn’t be calculated, surely? She was glad that Elsie was out, and Rene thought not to mention it, there was no need to say anything, unless it happened again.
But it did happen again. One Sunday morning, Elsie went upstairs to dig Nib out of the bed and found Ernest.
It was a shock: he had pulled the door to behind him, and when she pushed it open, she saw him staring into the open top drawer of the tallboy, Rene’s drawer. Elsie had never looked inside it (though she had some idea of the contents). He was holding a creased cigarette card in his hand. She stood, frozen, in the doorway. He had the advantage.
‘Leave me be,’ he said. ‘I’m doing no harm.’
Elsie didn’t speak.
He turned round to look at her then, standing his ground on unsteady tiptoe.
‘What you got to hide?’
Another flash of spite, and it was as if the whole room soured. Elsie wanted to snap the drawer against his bony fingers – that would stop his nosing soon enough. Instead, she steered him out of the room and half pushed him downstairs. The cottage wasn’t made for forced manoeuvres of this kind. Together, they could only just occupy the landing, and she had to press him down the stairs in front of her, hoping he wouldn’t topple them both. They each disliked the proximity and he protested loudly in semi-fluent gibberish. The commotion brought Rene rushing in from the garden.
Sometime later, Elsie steeled herself to look in on him, slumped in his chair. He looked up at her dimly, half asleep.
‘Elsie?’
She did not reply.
‘Is it teatime yet?’
‘Not long now,’ she said mechanically.
He seemed to have quite forgotten earlier.
‘Is it stew? I like the stew – you make it, don’t you? Elsie’s stew.’
‘Not long now,’ she said.
But he hadn’t finished with her yet, and he hadn’t forgotten earlier.
‘I know her. I know her,’ he said, sing-song clear. ‘Do you know her? I don’t think you do, Elsie, I don’t think you do.’
He was looking at her again, very intently.
‘Who?’ she couldn’t help asking. ‘Who is it you mean?’ Her voice sounded quivery to her ears, nervous.
He had something clenched in his fist, a card of some kind.
‘You don’t know her, do you, the girl on the card, the actress?’ He smirked, opening his hand. But it was only the back of the card – a pretty pink-and-green pattern.
‘That’s Rene’s,’ Elsie said.
‘Rene’s,’ Ernest said, as if he were copying her.
Elsie was sure she could see greasy fingermarks and reached out to take the card, but he moved it away quickly, turning it over, studying it.
‘You don’t know.’
Elsie said nothing this time.
‘Mona Verity. She was a big name in the pictures, you know. But you don’t know, do you?’ He taunted her with a smile, handing her the card. ‘You don’t know. You better ask your Rene. See.’
Elsie grabbed the card and fled the room.
Back in the bedroom, she looked down at the pretty pink-and-green pattern. Without turning it over, she put it back in the top drawer of the tallboy.
She spent the rest of the afternoon designing a scheme of deterrence. If she had to let him into the cottage, she could at least keep him from their room. She opted for small, sturdy hooks for the door – allowing her to maliciously rehearse his vulnerabilities. His poor eyes and twisted hands would not be able to manage. One set was placed too high for feeble arms, the other set too low. It was not very practical – it slowed her up no end. But it was worth it.
He seemed to give up on the door after that. Elsie didn’t pause for victory; he would find another way of riling her, she was sure of it. This time silence was his weapon. When she called him, he refused to answer. Would you like your sandwich now, Uncle? No reply. Are you upstairs, Uncle? Do you want your pint pot? Nothing. Where did you put your boots? Everything was met with a silence. Before, she had been irritated by his mumblings and shuffling, but the quietness was worse – unnatural. When she didn’t know where he was, he could be anywhere, everywhere, and she always had to go looking: she needed to know where he was, to be sure. So she would put on her boots and go out to the shed, or up to the gate to see if he had gone further afield. When she found him – Oh, there you are, Uncle. Didn’t you hear me? – he looked up at her with that spry meanness and she knew, or nearly knew, that he had heard her perfectly and just wanted to make her life that bit more difficult. Elsie talked about it to Rene, but Rene was sure that his hearing wasn’t good. Ernest never kept his quiet in the same way when Rene was about.
He started to go out walking on his own again, sometimes for an hour or more – it was difficult to know to what purpose. Elsie felt relief at first – to have the cottage to herself – but she quickly started to fret that he would get lost or meet with an accident. To leave him on his own was also a worry: she couldn’t be sure what she would find on her return. Once she’d found him sitting in the dark on top of the kitchen table, stringy hands clamped round his knees, legs crunched impossibly in front of him – she had nearly screamed. It had taken her an age to get him into the sitting room and then she had scrubbed her hands raw, trying to rub the table clean. Elsie knew such things were not meant, but other things were, she was sure. One step forward, two steps back. He eventually learnt to take off his own boots, but he often left them lying across the kitchen doorwa
y like a tripwire – she’d nearly gone flying a half-dozen times. It was a war of attrition: she gave him gristle to struggle with in his lunchtime soups (he was proud of his teeth); on one occasion she nicked his fingernails when clipping them (she wouldn’t touch his feet). But it was mean and Elsie wasn’t proud of herself. Besides, he was far more ingenious than she.
Returning from an appointment in Camborne one day, she found that he wasn’t in the cottage, and no sign of the bottle and sandwich she’d left for his lunch. She followed a snail trail of sugar from the kitchen to the sitting room and back, then she went out to the shed – no sign of him. Then upstairs to his room – empty, he rarely went upstairs in the daytime now. She opened his window to get rid of the stale, smoky smell and looked out into the late-afternoon brightness. It was nearly five o’clock. He could have been out for ages, she had no way of knowing, and he could have got a long way: he was sprightly enough, for all his complaints about the ‘arthritics’. She went downstairs, started on the tea and went out to feed the animals. She checked the shed again and looked down the lane – still no sign. She hoped he’d be back before Rene, she didn’t want her worrying.
Elsie hadn’t told Ernest she was going out; now she wondered if he wasn’t paying her back. In the kitchen, she checked the hooks for missing items. The only outdoor clothes he ever seemed to want were scarves and gloves – usually theirs – and he wrapped himself up in these whenever he got the chance. Rene laughed to see him in green gloves and navy scarf, but Elsie didn’t and once she found him nursing one of her hats like a kitten on his lap, with greasy, sticky fingers.
When Jugger started barking, she thought Rene must be back and hurried out, but when she got to the gate she saw it was him. For a moment she was relieved – at least he was back, and in one piece by the looks of it. He was a good way up the lane, standing on the corner by the old chimney. He started to wave in her direction, but his hand slipped down quickly as if he thought better of it.
They were about a hundred yards apart and neither seemed to have any appetite for getting closer. Nor did Jugger, who had stopped barking now and stayed close to her side.
‘Where’s Rene?’ he called. His voice was surprisingly hale. ‘I was looking for Rene.’
Elsie said nothing.
They stood for some moments, not quite looking at each other.
When he started towards her in that jerky, mechanical way, she felt momentarily like running back into the house, but she took a deep breath and stood her ground. He had no coat, just a shirt and that skimpy cardigan; his hands were in his trouser pockets and it gave him a jarring, jaunty look. Even from a distance she could see that his boots were clogged with mud. As he got closer she could see that he was wearing one of her scarves. Did he think she’d mistake him for a friend? Jugger whined.
Closer still and she watched him take his hands out of his pockets and lick his fingers. Soon his fingers would be all over the scarf, probably had been already.
‘Is it teatime yet?’ he asked as he came close. ‘I was going to take me tea with me … but I only took the sugar …’
Elsie kept her mouth tightly shut – a spoon of his medicine.
Back at the cottage, he sat down heavily at the kitchen table and she struggled to unknot the scarf; she could see a stippling of fingerprints, smears of sugar. His boots were filthy.
‘Wash day,’ he said and giggled again. ‘Wash day. And Elsie doesn’t like doing the washing, does she? Poor old Elsie.’
She continued to ignore him and knelt down to unlace his boots. The laces were sodden and she fiddled with the knots. He tapped his other leg cheerily on the floor, spreading mud, enjoying her discomfort, still half singing her name. She kept picking at the knots on the boot, hating him. He was completely uncooperative, kept his foot rigid; finally she managed to pull the first boot off. But as she reached across him to place the boot out of the way, he sent out a sharp, hard kick with his tapping leg. The kick narrowly avoided her face. A howl came from behind and she saw Ernest smile. It wasn’t Elsie he was after, not like that anyway. It was poor Jugger, who squealed and sprang back into his basket and then lay down quivering, nursing his muzzle.
Elsie told Rene what had happened when she came home that evening. Usually ready to give Ernest the benefit of the doubt, for once Rene didn’t wonder or wait. As soon as Elsie had finished speaking, she marched into the sitting room and told Ernest that he was never to touch Jugger again. Elsie heard a few limp denials but they didn’t last long, Rene wasn’t going to be fobbed off.
Neither of them trusted him to keep his word and there was some relief for Elsie in that for it brought them together. They kept Jugger close – Jugger was delighted – and carried his basket up to their room at night. Sometimes he slunk up on the bed when they were asleep and Elsie pretended not to notice.
They were still able to glean a little time for themselves at the weekends. Ernest still woke late and Elsie no longer cared about his lazy habits. Rene would tiptoe downstairs when she woke and made the tea. Then she would bring a cup upstairs for them to share along with the Helston Bugle, which she brought home on Friday nights. Elsie loved the paper, the funny snippets about people she would never meet, the rituals of show and fair, the team photographs of sports in which she had no interest. They both avoided big, nasty stories. It was a pleasure they both shared, quietly – very quietly – taking it in turns to read aloud. There were occasions when they got through most of the paper before they heard Ernest stirring and grumbling. Other times, they would go downstairs before he woke and share breakfast, just the two of them, and the spoilt, skittish Jugger – it was such a treat. But neither of them could avoid a sense of dread when they heard him on the stairs, and Jugger cowered.
* * *
That year, the cold weather settled early in November and Ernest stopped his walks. As the frosts set in, even the shed seemed to hold little appeal. It was more than a year since he had arrived in that taxi. Day after day, he sat in the sitting room – only Rene seemed able to tempt him out into the garden. When she was working away, Elsie made a point of taking a brisk walk with Jugger every morning after she had done her chores (and settled Ernest with his morning bottle). She didn’t like leaving him alone, Lord knows what nonsense he might try, but she needed to get shot of him, even if it was just for half an hour.
One Friday morning early in December, leaving Ernest with his beer bottle and syrupy tea, Elsie closed the cottage door quietly behind her and set off with Jugger for a walk in the wood. Everything was rimy. In the lane the air was like a soft, damp handkerchief; even Jugger’s barking sounded muted. The mist lingered in the bare trees and the chimney was half hidden in the grey. When she reached the corner of the lane, Elsie stopped and leant back against the chimney, caught her breath and sucked in deep breaths of ordinary air – air that Ernest hadn’t smoked or breathed first. She was glad that it was Friday: Rene would be home that evening, drawing her back just a little towards the ordinary.
She had scraps for the family of firecrests living in the chimney and she urged Jugger off ahead into the wood before emptying the crumbs carefully on to a narrow ledge. It had taken her a while to identify the little birds, with their orange crests so carefully painted – strangers who had been blown off course, they had decided to stay and she was glad. In the wood, she busied herself throwing sticks – much to Jugger’s surprise and delight – and he rushed back and forth through the springy ferns. In the thickets, the holly was thriving and there were so many berries. Somehow, Ernest or no Ernest, she and Rene must come here together on Christmas Eve and gather some. She tentatively started to make plans for Christmas while Jugger splashed in the stream, and only turned for home reluctantly.
By the time she reached the chimney, she knew something was wrong. A terrible squawking was coming from the coops; Jugger barked nervously in reply and rushed past her towards the cottage, before she could stop him. Elsie quickened her pace – for all her size she covered the
ground quickly – the squawking getting louder and more urgent. At the gate, she heard Jugger howl and then the dog came rushing back towards her to cringe and quiver against her legs.
Ernest.
Elsie marched on into the yard.
He was standing beside the open door of the coop, trying to twist the neck of one of the chickens; it was limp with fear and its eyes blinked uselessly. Feathers everywhere, fluttering. He started spitting and coughing. ‘Hungry,’ he mumbled. ‘Making so much noise.’ There were more feathers in his mouth, and blood, and she shuddered. She grabbed the hen and quickly, sharply, wrung its neck, while he stood teetering in front of her, blank-faced. The coop was in chaos: three hens dead on the floor, the wings of two were horribly torn and one had been partially plucked. The rest were huddled miserably, fearfully, at the back of the cage – they would do themselves a damage. She picked the dead hens up gently and took them out. Trying not to look at Ernest, she turned her attention back to the coop. Clicking and whispering, she patted out the straw the way she always did, and rescued a bit of the morning mash from the floor. Back outside, Elsie spied Samson, the cock, who was always ready to make a bid for freedom, and two of the hens, Tessy and Moira, huddled by the kitchen door. She went to get them, propping them under her arms. Back in the henhouse with you.
Ernest had started mumbling: ‘Hungry,’ he kept saying, ‘here chick, chick, chick, chicky, here chicky, chicky, chicky, chicky.’ She stood staring at him, catching up with her anger now the worst of the crisis seemed over. He finally met her eyes and a fleeting smile passed across his face, and then he went limp, with no warning, reaching for the wall as if he was going to fall. She steeled herself to steer him inside.
