Patrick nodded. ‘Did you get anything?’
‘Couple of rabbits. We’ll have pie tonight, shall we, my dear?’
‘If you skin them,’ Elizabeth said.
Frederick chuckled. ‘I will.’
‘Do you want any breakfast?’
‘I’ll take a cup of tea,’ he said. ‘I went out with a roll of bread and cheese. I did very well, thank you, my dear.’
Elizabeth poured the tea. ‘Patrick wants to talk with us,’ she said.
Thomas let out a little squeak and Elizabeth drew up her chair beside him and gave him a wooden honey scoop to hold, her eyes on her son.
‘Trouble?’ Frederick asked.
Patrick nodded. ‘It’s Ruth,’ he said. He paused, hardly knowing what to say. ‘She woke in the night and went to look for Thomas. I didn’t wake her when I got in; I thought I should leave her to sleep.’ He looked at his mother. ‘She was sound asleep; I thought I should leave her.’
‘Quite right,’ Elizabeth said briskly. ‘She was desperately tired yesterday.’
‘So when she woke she didn’t know where Thomas was.’
‘She must have known,’ Frederick interrupted. ‘She knew he was with us. If he wasn’t at your home, then clearly he was still with us.’
‘She panicked,’ Patrick said. ‘I woke up to hear her screaming like an express train in the nursery. She thought he was kidnapped. She was screaming and crying. She couldn’t even hear me when I told her that everything was all right.’
Frederick exchanged a glance with Elizabeth.
‘I had to shout her down,’ Patrick said. ‘She wouldn’t hear me, she went on screaming and screaming. When she was finally quiet I gave her two of her pills and she went all soft and sleepy. But she kept saying there was something worse, there was something worse.’
Thomas reached for the honey scoop where Elizabeth had placed it on the wooden table of the high chair. Elizabeth guided his little hand to it.
‘She was half asleep but I think she meant it,’ Patrick said. ‘She said that she wished that he had been kidnapped so that she wouldn’t have to look after him any more. So that she could get some sleep.’
Elizabeth drew in her breath sharply. Frederick rose to his feet and stood, looking out of the kitchen window, his back to the room.
‘I see,’ he said quietly.
‘I didn’t know how seriously I should take it …’ Patrick began. ‘I thought I should talk it over with you.’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘Quite right,’ she said. She glanced at Frederick’s back. ‘Do you think she meant it, Patrick?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I can’t tell,’ he said. ‘We should perhaps talk to the doctor, but I didn’t want to take this any further without talking it over.’
Elizabeth hesitated, glanced towards Frederick again. ‘Did she ever want him?’ she asked. ‘Did she ever want to be a mother?’
Patrick shook his head in silence.
Frederick turned back from the window. ‘I think we have a serious problem,’ he said. ‘And we’ve both seen it coming, Patrick. Your mother has been worried sick about Ruth’s care for the baby. When she collects him in the morning he’s been neglected all night. When she returns him in the afternoon, Ruth never seems to want him back. Frankly I think she’s rejected him. This comes as no surprise to me at all.’
Patrick looked at his mother. ‘You never said …’
She shook her head. ‘How could I? It’s not my place to criticize my daughter-in-law. And besides I kept hoping that she would get better. She started on the pills and I thought she would be less depressed. I made sure she could sleep during the day. I thought that things would improve. Short of taking Thomas away from her all day and all night I didn’t see how I could do more.’
There was a brief silence.
‘She needs help,’ Patrick said. ‘Do I start with the GP?’
Elizabeth said nothing.
‘He’s not been up to much so far,’ Frederick said. ‘Anti-depressants indeed!’
Both men turned to Elizabeth. Still she said nothing.
‘I think we need something a bit more decisive,’ Frederick went on. ‘Get this sorted out once and for all. We’ve been worried sick, Patrick, I can tell you. We knew she wasn’t pulling her weight, but we didn’t know what more we could do.’
Patrick shrugged. ‘But I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I suppose she should see a counsellor. Get some help. I could ask the doctor, and the health visitor was good, wasn’t she?’
Elizabeth slowly shook her head. ‘I’m not sure that we want the health centre to know all about this.’
‘Why not?’ Patrick asked.
‘If we call them in – the doctor and the health visitor and the social workers, all of them – we can’t control what happens. What if they say that Ruth has to go to hospital for a couple of months? What if they say she has to have treatment?’
‘We could manage,’ Frederick said easily.
‘Yes, but what if they won’t let us manage? What if they say she has to take him with her? Or what if they say that he has to be put into care, that we’re too old to have him? Once you call these people in, they can do what they want. What if they say Ruth has been neglecting him or abusing him and they take him away from us?’
The two men looked blankly horrified. ‘They couldn’t say that!’ Frederick exclaimed.
‘The authorities these days have tremendous powers,’ Elizabeth reminded him. ‘If they think that Ruth has endangered Thomas, they can take him right away from us all and we might never see him again. Once you ask them in, you give them the power to do what they want.’
‘But they couldn’t think that Ruth …’ Patrick broke off.
Elizabeth looked steadily at him. ‘She has neglected him since the day he was born,’ she said calmly. ‘From the first days in the hospital when she wouldn’t feed him, till now when she says she wishes he was kidnapped. She never wanted him, did she? He was conceived by accident.’
Patrick nodded. ‘It was my fault,’ he confessed. ‘I wanted a baby.’
‘Nothing wrong in that,’ Frederick said stoutly.
‘Nothing at all,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It’s not you in the wrong, Patrick, it’s her. She should have learned to love him. If the health visitor knew the half of it, I think she’d call in social services, and once they start, anything can happen.’
Frederick looked absolutely stunned. ‘I’ve had no experience of this sort of thing …’
‘How should we have any experience?’ Elizabeth demanded, an edge of disdain in her voice. ‘No one in our family has ever been mentally ill. No one has ever needed health visitors and doctors and drugs and psychiatric treatment.’
Patrick looked at her as if he were a naughty little boy but she might give him a note to excuse him from detention. ‘This is awful,’ he said.
Her face softened. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said gently. ‘It’s not your fault, darling, I know how hard you’ve tried. And it’s not little Thomas’s fault either – a sweeter, easier baby never lived.’ She glanced out of the kitchen window across the fields to where the roof of the little house was just visible. ‘It’s Ruth,’ she said simply. ‘She’s just not up to it.’
Patrick breathed slowly out and put his head in his hands. Frederick looked at his wife’s stern, beautiful face. ‘You’re right,’ he said unwillingly. ‘What d’you suggest, my dear?’
‘I think Thomas and Patrick should move in here, so that we can look after them. Patrick can have some regular meals and regular hours for a change, and Thomas can be properly cared for. This running up and down from one house to another is no good for him at all.’
Frederick nodded.
‘And Ruth can come and live here or go to stay with her aunt. She needs a complete break.’
‘She hardly ever speaks to her,’ Patrick protested. ‘And she lives miles away.’
‘Are there no American relatives at all? Where she could go for
a long visit?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘No, she’s almost completely alone in the world.’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘Then it’s up to us,’ she said. ‘We’re her only family; no one is even going to inquire. We could send her to a convalescent home to have a good rest, get away from it all. Or she can stay on her own in the cottage. And when she feels strong enough she can come back, and take up her life with Patrick and Thomas again.’
Thomas knocked the honey scoop to the floor. Elizabeth bent down and picked it up, rinsed it under the tap, and handed it back to him.
‘It’s a nightmare,’ Patrick said unbelievingly. ‘I would never have dreamed this could happen to us.’
Elizabeth put her hand gently on the nape of his neck. The skin was as soft under her fingers as it had been when he had been just a little boy, bent over his homework. She felt a great rush of tenderness for him, and for his little son.
‘You come home, darling,’ she said gently. ‘You and Thomas come home and leave it to Mother. I’ll sort it all out for you.’
Eight
IN THE LITTLE HOUSE Ruth stirred and woke. The brilliant autumn sun was streaming in the window, the white light blindingly bright in the white bedroom. On her pillow was Patrick’s note written in large printed capitals. Ruth read it carefully, smiled at the instruction to take it easy – touched by his consideration. Her bottle of pills was at her bedside. She knew she had to take one in the morning but she thought she had forgotten to take one at bedtime. She took two, letting the warm sleepy drunkenness spread through her. She had forgotten the empty cot and her panic of the night before. She had a vague, distant memory of some awful fright – like the shadow of a nightmare.
She lay back on the pillows. The little digital clock said 10:32. Ruth closed her eyes and slept again.
She woke at one o’clock with an anxious start. She had been dreaming that Thomas was crying, but then she saw Patrick’s note again and realized that the house was empty. She read it, as if for the first time, and took her morning pill. She felt as if she were floating. Slowly, luxuriously, she got out of bed and went, a little unsteadily, to the bathroom. The walls undulated comfortably around her. She ran a bath and poured a long stream of bath oil into the hot water. She slipped off her nightgown and sank into the hot, scented water. She lay back and closed her eyes. Far away she heard the telephone ring but she could not be bothered to answer it. She thought for a brief moment that it might be Elizabeth, that something might be wrong with Thomas.
‘No point asking me,’ she said into the steam-filled room. ‘I’m the last person to ask. I haven’t a clue.’
When the water grew cold, she heaved herself out of the bath, wrapped herself in a large towel, and lay on the bed. She felt too deliciously idle to move. When the telephone rang on the bedside table beside her, she could hardly be bothered to pick it up.
‘Ruth?’ It was David.
‘Oh, hello.’
‘You sound funny.’
‘I’ve just woken up.’
‘But it’s half past two!’
‘I know. Bliss, isn’t it?’
‘Where’s Thomas?’
For a moment Ruth could not remember. ‘Oh, he’s with Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘She knows how to look after him.’
‘I’m just down the road from you,’ David said. ‘I had to cover a council meeting in Bath. I’ve done my report and I’m on my way home. I wondered if you’d like to come out for a drink.’
‘All right,’ Ruth said.
‘I’m at the Green Man, on the Radstock Road, very close,’
‘I know it,’ she said. ‘I’ll come at once.’
‘See you in a minute then.’
The phone clicked and he was gone. Slowly and thoughtfully Ruth began to dress. Choosing her clothes seemed a tremendously difficult task. She tried and discarded three or four skirts before pulling on a pair of black leggings and a black embroidered smock top. Most of her clothes were still too tight at the waistband, but she had a superstitious fear of buying anything the next size up. She thought that if she went into a bigger size she would never be thin again. In the meantime she had a wardrobe full of smart clothes, all the wrong size, and an increasingly shabby selection of maternity clothes, which she was tired of seeing. She brushed her hair and peered at her pale face in the mirror. ‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘It’s only David.’
The loss of her looks, of her slim figure seemed unimportant. Ruth was cocooned in a warm, drugged haze, far away from everything. As she turned to leave she remembered that she usually took her morning Amitriptyline as she dressed. She took one, and then, guiltily, took another. She slipped the bottle into her pocket, to take one later. The feeling of drunken sensual relaxation was too enjoyable. She did not want it to wear off.
She drove unsteadily to the pub. The road seemed distant and far away, the car sluggish. She felt as if she were driving some immensely slow ocean liner on a great sea. When she came to the pub, she missed the wide turning into the parking lot and had to reverse back up the road. A van, rounding the corner, pulled out around the wildly zigzagging car and hooted loudly. Ruth waved pleasantly at the driver.
When she walked into the pub she could not at first see David. It was as if he materialized out of darkness. She blinked and smiled at him.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What d’you want?’
‘I’ll have a gin and tonic,’ she said.
He glanced at her, and then gave the order to the barman. Ruth went to a seat in the corner and sat down, with her back to the window.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, as he brought the drinks over and sat opposite her.
‘Perfectly,’ she said. Her lips felt thick and unwilling; she took her time over the word, and said it with care.
He looked at her narrowly. ‘Have you been boozing?’ he asked. ‘On the cooking sherry, Ruth? Housewife’s temptation, you know.’
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Just sleeping. I’m addicted to sleep. I could sleep forever, I think.’
‘Are you taking drugs?’ he asked blankly.
She widened her eyes to emphasize her innocence. He saw that the pupils were dilated. Her dark eyes were all black. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘We don’t get an awful lot of dealers up at Manor Farm, you know.’
‘I meant anti-depressants.’
She sipped her drink and turned her face away from him. ‘Why on earth should you think I’m taking anti-depressants?’
He thought of admitting that Elizabeth had told him, but shrank from the appearance of a conspiracy against her. ‘I thought you were a bit down. If you’ve been to the doctor, it’s the obvious conclusion.’
‘Not me,’ she said firmly.
He sighed. He did not think she had ever lied to him before. At college together, at long boring events when they had waited together for an interview, she had never avoided a question or glossed an answer. It was not that they had sworn mutual honesty, it was the comfortable consequence of having nothing to hide. There was nothing in his life that he was ashamed of, there was nothing that Ruth could not tell him. He had thought that her baby would make a difference to their relationship. But he could never have predicted this.
‘Jesus, Ruth …’ he said unhappily.
Ruth turned to look at him. He seemed very distant; his distress was very unimportant.
‘Oh, what does it matter?’ she said idly. She took another gulp. ‘What does it matter either way?’
‘It matters to me,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind what you take or what you do. You know that. I’ve never tried to muscle in on your life, or tell you what I think. But you’ve always told me what you were feeling about things, and I’ve always been frank with you. It’s strange – you being so distant. It feels awful. It feels like hell.’
She nodded. ‘I do feel distant,’ she said, her speech slightly slurred. ‘I like feeling distant,’ she said. ‘D’you know I think this is how Patrick feels all the time. I think Amitriptyline just m
akes women feel like men. It fits you for a man’s world. I love Patrick, and I love Thomas, and I’d lay down my life for them. But if you asked me whether I’d rather go home and care for them, or go to work right now, I’d far rather go and do the job I’m good at with people who like me for what I am and not because I’m married to them, or gave birth to them … or married their son,’ she added.
‘But that’s because you miss your work,’ David suggested.
She shook her head. ‘It’s the pills,’ she said. ‘It’s how men are all the time. Most men would rather go to work than spend time at home, you know that. Men are detached and distant. Even Patrick is. Amitriptyline just makes us equal. I feel detached and distant too.’
‘I’m not detached,’ he said passionately. ‘It’s not true of all men.’
‘You’re not now,’ she said, as if it hardly mattered to her. ‘But once you’re married and the novelty has worn off, you will be.’
He downed his pint. ‘It’s a dismal, dismal prospect,’ he said fiercely.
‘Isn’t it?’ she said calmly. ‘Get us another drink; do.’ She handed him a five-pound note. David took it and went up to the bar. As the barman fetched their drinks, he watched her in the smoked mirror behind the bottles. She took something from her pocket and put it in her mouth.
‘You’ve just taken one,’ he said flatly as he came back and put her drink before her. ‘I saw you.’
She gave him her familiar mischievous smile. ‘Oh, sod off, David,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen you pissed often enough. I am taking Amitriptyline and it makes me feel equal to Patrick. It makes me feel relaxed with Thomas, and then I can look after him better, and I don’t mind when Patrick works all hours. It makes me unwind. You should be pleased for me.’
‘It doesn’t seem right,’ he said stubbornly. ‘Your life should be better for you. You shouldn’t need it.’
‘Well, it isn’t, and I do,’ she said easily. ‘It’s just while Thomas is so small. When he’s a bit older, and sleeping through the night, when Patrick’s job is more secure … oh, lots of things will change. This is just a rough patch I have to get through somehow.’
The Little House Page 12
