The Little House

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘They’re both of them sound asleep,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what we’re making such a fuss about.’

  ‘You go off to work,’ his mother said. ‘Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘I had a cup of coffee, I didn’t want anything else.’

  She shook her head. ‘D’you have time for a boiled egg?’ she said. ‘I can have it on the table with some toast in five minutes?’

  He hesitated. ‘All right.’

  Elizabeth moved quickly around the kitchen while Patrick sat at the table, waiting for his breakfast. Within the promised time it was before him: lightly boiled egg, lightly browned toast, and a fresh pot of tea.

  ‘Does she seem better?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘The pills certainly seem to be doing her some good,’ he said. ‘She was quite cheerful last night, and she was only up once in the night.’

  ‘They’ll soon settle down,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I was very tense with Miriam. First babies are always difficult.’

  ‘Well, bless you for coming in.’ Patrick wiped his mouth on a piece of paper towel. Elizabeth made a mental note to buy some linen napkins. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done without you. The doctor practically prescribed you.’

  ‘You know how much I love Thomas,’ Elizabeth said lightly. ‘I’d have him all day every day if it was any help.’

  Patrick gave her a kiss on her cheek, and went to the door. ‘When the Sleeping Princess awakes, you might tell her that I’ll be home late tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ve a late meeting at work and a working dinner after. Tell her not to wait up.’

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘Then I’ll have Thomas for another spell this afternoon, if you’re not coming home,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Ruth can manage all day without a break.’

  ‘Bless you,’ Patrick said absently, and left.

  Elizabeth waited a few minutes as the noise of his car died away, and then tidied up the kitchen. She unpacked the dishwasher and loaded it with Patrick’s breakfast things. She threw the egg shells in the flip-top bin and caught sight of the rubbish from last night’s dinner. The packet from a frozen pie, the empty bag of frozen chips, and an empty bag of frozen peas. Elizabeth frowned and then rearranged her face into an expression of determined neutrality. She reminded herself that there was no innate virtue in homemade food. Patrick had never tasted a frozen ingredient until he had left home, but it was not fair to expect Ruth to show the same dedication to high domestic standards as Elizabeth. ‘A different generation,’ she said quietly to herself.

  She opened the fridge door to see what was for dinner. The fridge was virtually empty except for a pint of milk, a box of eggs (which should be kept in the larder and not in the fridge), and cheese. The cheese was out of date.

  A little cry from upstairs prevented her from exploring the larder cupboard. She hurried up the stairs and picked Thomas up just as Ruth’s bedroom door opened.

  ‘Oh! Is it morning already?’

  Elizabeth took in the untidy nursery, the discarded sleep suit, the row of empty bottles, and the stained duvet drying on the banister.

  ‘Yes, dear, but it’s still quite early. I’ll take care of Thomas, you go back to bed.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you were here.’ Ruth’s speech was slow, slightly slurred.

  ‘I’ll take over now,’ Elizabeth said reassuringly. ‘You can leave it all to me.’

  ‘I didn’t hear Patrick get up.’

  ‘He’d have crept out. We were trying to get you some more sleep.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Ruth said. ‘When I got back to bed and it was light, I couldn’t sleep for ages.’

  ‘I’ll get this young man a bottle and you go back to bed,’ Elizabeth said. ‘When shall I bring him home? Lunchtime?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Ruth said slowly.

  ‘Patrick said to tell you that he would be home late tonight; he’s out to dinner. He said not to wait up.’

  Ruth’s shoulders, her whole body, slumped. ‘He’s out all evening?’

  ‘Shall I come round? Or would you like to come up to the farm for dinner?’

  Ruth shook her head slowly. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right here.’

  Elizabeth scanned her with a keen glance. ‘I’ll bring Thomas back at midday, and I’ll pop down again in the middle of the afternoon, to see if you want a hand,’ she said. ‘It’s no fun trying to cope on your own.’

  ‘No,’ Ruth said dully. She did not even look at Thomas in his grandmother’s arms. She turned and went back into her bedroom, as if she did not want to see him, to see them together. The little bottle of pills was beside her bed. She knew she had to take one in the morning. She took one and let it rest on her tongue. It tasted strange: it spread a numb tingling through her mouth, it had an acrid bitter taste, a powerful taste. She swallowed it and felt the ease and relief seep through her. Thomas, Elizabeth, even Patrick seemed a long way away and no longer her responsibility. She closed her eyes and slid into sleep.

  Elizabeth gave Thomas a little of his bottle and then took him downstairs to the kitchen. She made up a couple of spoonfuls of baby rice with the warmed milk and spooned them competently into Thomas’s milky smile. She took him back upstairs to the bathroom and stripped off his damp nightwear. His bottom was sore, the skin was puckered and nearly blistered. Elizabeth folded her mouth in a hard line. She laid him on his back on his changing mat while she ran a bath for him, and after his bath let him kick free of his clothes and nappy, so that the air could get to his sore skin. The marks were fading quickly, but Elizabeth still looked grim. Leaving him safe on his mat, on the floor, she went into the nursery. The mattress was still damp and was starting to smell. The bedding had obviously been wet all night. Elizabeth stripped the bed, wiped the mattress cover with disinfectant, took the mattress to the airing cupboard to dry, and piled the damp clothes and duvet in the laundry basket.

  She went back to Thomas and dressed him in his day clothes, tickling and stroking him, playing peekaboo over the towel. Then she put him into his carry cot, bundled all the washing into a large bag, and drove baby and laundry up the drive to the big house.

  Frederick was waiting for them. ‘How’s the young Master Thomas?’ he asked, coming down the shallow flight of steps and opening the rear door of the car.

  Elizabeth made a small grimace, but did not say a word until they were in the house with the door shut. Not even the blackbird on the lawn should hear her criticizing her daughter-in-law. ‘His cot was soaked, his bedding flung all round the house. He has a nappy rash. It looks to me as if she just shut the door on him and didn’t go to him all night.’

  Frederick had Thomas on his knee, gently bouncing him up and down, holding his little clenched hands. ‘I thought she was up all hours with him?’

  ‘There’s no evidence of it, except for half a dozen dirty bottles. She clearly isn’t changing his nappy or changing his bedding,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Patrick said that she was up only once in the night, but she looked like death this morning. They had frozen food for dinner last night – I saw the packets, and Patrick was dashing out of the house this morning with nothing but a cup of coffee inside him.’

  ‘It won’t do,’ Frederick said firmly. He turned his attention to Thomas. ‘It won’t do, will it?’ he demanded. ‘Won’t do at all. Someone will have to take your mummy in hand. And we know the woman to do it!’

  ‘No no,’ Elizabeth said, smiling. ‘I can’t go barging in there and take over, much as I long to. The sitting room! And the state of the kitchen already! But it’s Ruth’s home and she must have it as she likes.’

  ‘But what does Thomas like?’ Frederick asked the baby’s bright face. ‘Thomas doesn’t want a damp cot, does he? Perhaps he’d better come here for a few days.’

  ‘I can hardly suggest …’ Elizabeth said.

  Frederick looked up. ‘If she can’t cope with the baby, if she’s not getting up to him in the night, and if he’s being neglected, then it’s your duty,’ he said b
luntly. ‘No suggest, no ifs and buts. If the child needs care and he’s not getting it, then you tell Patrick that Thomas is to come here until Ruth pulls herself together.’

  ‘She looks awfully ill.’

  ‘What does the doctor say?’

  ‘Overtired, that she needs more support.’

  ‘Well, give her more support,’ Frederick ordered. ‘We don’t mind having Master Cleary to stay, do we? And Master Cleary won’t be going into a damp bed with Granny to look after him, will he?’

  ‘Oh, don’t call me Granny,’ Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘You sound just like that dreadful health visitor.’

  Frederick chuckled. ‘Granny Cleary did a spell and they all lived happily ever after,’ he said to Thomas. ‘Happily ever after.’

  The phone woke Ruth at eleven in the morning.

  ‘Did you think I was dead?’ David asked.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Ruth said delightedly, incredulously. ‘No! I thought I was. Dead and gone to hell.’

  ‘I sent you flowers.’

  ‘I know. I kept it. A little violet in a pot.’

  ‘And I thought about you a lot. But I didn’t know whether I should call or not. They said you had a rough time. I didn’t want to intrude.’

  Ruth gave a little breathless chuckle. ‘Oh, if you knew how lovely it is to hear your voice! Someone who isn’t completely obsessed with babies! I expect you even read a book or a newspaper sometimes!’

  ‘Man of the world,’ David said promptly. ‘Urbane, elegant, unemployed.’

  ‘Still no work?’

  ‘Freelance, I call it. You got out while the going was good.’

  ‘I didn’t exactly get out,’ Ruth reminded him.

  ‘Well, after your departure and mine there were three other people laid off, and a whole load of journalists sacked off the evening paper too. Bristol is knee-deep in unemployed hacks, all falling over each other trying to get to a story first.’

  ‘Are you doing shifts at Westerly?’

  ‘I am the midnight man,’ David said impressively. ‘Nine till midnight most nights. None of the staff want to work those hours, but it keeps a bit of money coming in, and I can steal pens and paper, and watch telly in the warmth for free. These things matter when you’re a bum.’

  ‘What about features?’

  ‘I am a creative powerhouse,’ he said with mock dignity. ‘I generate a feature a minute. And I sell quite a few. But it’s a brutish and short existence. You are well out of it. What’s it like being a professional wife and mother?’

  Ruth tried to say something lighthearted in reply. She found her throat too tight to speak. ‘I …’

  ‘Too blissful for words?’

  Soundlessly she shook her head.

  ‘Are you OK?’ David asked, suddenly serious. ‘I didn’t mean to be cheap. Are you OK, Ruth?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said very quietly. ‘It’s just that … Oh, David, I didn’t know …’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I didn’t know what it was like,’ she said eventually. ‘I am so tired all the time, and it’s so lonely. Thomas is lovely, of course, but there’s so much washing to do. And I spend my days wiping down work surfaces so they’re clean enough. And at night …’ she broke off.

  ‘What about night?’

  ‘He just never sleeps,’ she said in a little strained voice. ‘It doesn’t sound like much when it’s someone else’s baby, everyone says that babies don’t sleep … but when it’s your own … David I just doze and wake, and doze, and get up again, all night long.’

  ‘It sounds like hell.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Ruth said quickly. ‘Because the house is so nice, and Thomas is so lovely, and Patrick helps all that he can … it’s just …’

  ‘Can I come round and see you?’ David asked. ‘One afternoon, this afternoon?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Ruth said, thinking of the long afternoon and evening ahead of her. ‘Oh, that would be lovely. But – you mustn’t mind …’

  ‘Mind what?’

  ‘I don’t look the same at all,’ Ruth confessed. ‘I’m miles overweight. I look dreadful.’

  ‘I won’t mind,’ David said reassuringly. ‘The more of you the better as far as I’m concerned.’

  Seven

  WHEN SHE opened the door to him he nearly recoiled in shock. She was overweight, as she had warned him, but it was her face that shocked him. She was white, an almost candlewax white. Her eyes were ringed with shadows, black as mascara, and her face was hard and sharp, with lines of fatigue and sadness that he had never seen before.

  He stepped forward and put his arms around her and held her close. She didn’t feel the same: she was carrying more weight and her breasts were bigger. He sensed the extra weight – she was softer, whereas before she had been light to the touch. He thought she might be breast-feeding the baby and felt himself shrink back, for fear of hurting her or even touching her in some way that was now no longer allowed. Her hair, which used to be so smooth and glossy, was tired and lank, and she smelled different: of indoors, of baby talcum powder, of small rooms.

  ‘So this is the palace,’ he said with forced brightness. ‘And where is His Highness the baby?’

  ‘In the sitting room,’ she said. She led the way in. There was a small log fire burning in the grate. On a towel before the fire Thomas was kicking his legs and looking at the ceiling.

  David regarded him from a cautious distance. ‘He looks nice,’ he said. ‘Here,’ he dived in his pocket. ‘I brought this for him. I didn’t quite know what he would like.’

  It was a small yellow plastic duck.

  Ruth felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Oh, David! Thank you!’

  ‘Here!’ he reached out for her but then remembered the embarrassment of the doorstep embrace. ‘Don’t cry. What’s the matter?’

  She sank onto the sofa and pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of her baggy maternity jeans. She still could not get into her ordinary clothes, and her maternity clothes were worn and shabby. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably. ‘It’s nothing. It’s everything. Sorry.’

  He waited for a moment, looking at Thomas, who stared with unfocused blue eyes at the space before him.

  ‘Is it Patrick?’ David asked.

  Ruth shook her head and crushed her handkerchief back into her pocket again. ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’m so tired, and everything seems such an effort, and the least thing makes me cry.’

  David felt completely lost with this new, weepy Ruth.

  ‘Is this – er – what-d’you-call-it? – postnatal depression?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said abruptly. ‘No. I told you. I’m just tired.’

  ‘Well, can’t someone else have him at night?’ David glanced down again at Thomas, who looked completely innocent of any desire to disturb anyone.

  ‘Well, Patrick can’t, he’s working too hard. And his grandmother could, but I don’t like to ask her.’

  ‘But you need help,’ David said reasonably.

  ‘Oh, stop!’ she said with a sudden flare of temper. ‘Don’t come in here with a load of questions and solutions, David. I’m perfectly all right except for the fact that I’m running all the time on a couple of hours’ sleep. If you were as tired as me you’d hang yourself.’

  ‘OK,’ he said quickly. ‘OK. I won’t say another word.’

  She gave him a brief watery grin. ‘And they do help out,’ she said, ‘Patrick’s family. She started coming in in the mornings so that I can sleep. And I’ve seen the doctor. So I’m OK. Really.’

  David nodded, still unconvinced.

  ‘Tell me the gossip,’ Ruth commanded, trying to distract them both. She went down on the floor and waved a rattle in front of Thomas. He put his hands up to reach for it, and she waved it again.

  David dredged up some small scandals from work and then, warming to the theme, told Ruth how the station had been restructured and how the few competent jo
urnalists left were running around and working twice as hard, and all applying for other jobs.

  ‘It sounds like chaos,’ she said.

  ‘It is. And the place is always packed with people freelancing or coming in to sell ideas or tapes. James couldn’t bring himself to sack anyone outright, so everyone who should have been sent home is now working there for free. The telephone bill must have doubled, and of course we’re all selling pieces all around the country so the studios are always booked. I doubt they’ve saved any money at all.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Patrick’s place is cutting back too,’ she said. ‘He’s really worried. They’ve only had the new documentary unit up and running for a few months and they’re already reconsidering.’

  David nodded, suppressing his prejudiced belief that Patrick’s egotistical direction of the unit was the greatest problem it faced.

  ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’ Ruth asked.

  David nodded.

  At once she looked strained.

  ‘What’s the matter? Shall I make it for you?’

  ‘I know it sounds silly,’ she said. ‘But since he’s happy here I don’t really want to disturb him. If I pick him up and he starts crying it’s really difficult to make him stop. I know it sounds stupid …’

  ‘Not stupid to me,’ David said stoutly. ‘I don’t want him to start crying. Shall I make the tea while you watch him?’

  She hesitated. ‘I know it’s crazy,’ she said in a sudden rush. ‘And everyone else just picks him up and lugs him about. My mother-in-law takes him to the shops with her, and out in the car, and everywhere she goes. But I just can’t face it … I just can’t face him crying and crying, and I don’t know how to make him stop.’

  David patted her hand feebly. ‘I bet everyone feels like that.’

  She looked at him, scanning his face to see if he was sincere. ‘D’you think so?’

  ‘Lots of them,’ David said. ‘But people don’t talk about it.’

  She turned her head away from him and looked at the fire. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure if I love him at all,’ she said very quietly. ‘I don’t enjoy being with him much, and I’m so tired …’