Charlie, white-faced, turned away, and Jack followed him outside.
‘You mustn’t take too much notice of her, she don’t rightly know what she’s saying, just now. It’ll all be quite different once the baby’s come.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Charlie said. ‘What sort of chance will the poor mite have if its own mother turns against it?’
That afternoon, as usual, he came to the door in Clew’s van to drive Linn into Overbridge. She got in beside him without a word and he gave her only the briefest glance. On the journey they had a puncture and he had to stop and change the wheel. It took him only ten minutes or so but when he got into the van again, Linn was sitting hunched in her seat, with her arms folded across her stomach. She turned to him with wide-staring eyes and her voice, when she spoke, was no more than a whisper.
‘Charlie, we’ll have to go back!’ she said. ‘My pains have started. I feel ‒ rather ill.’
Linn was in labour for only six hours but the birth itself was a difficult one. The doctor had to use instruments and the baby, a girl, was stillborn. Charlie, when he saw the tiny bundle carried out of the house by the nurse, broke down and wept. He felt he would never get over it. But Linn herself felt no grief whatever. All she felt was a sense of guilt because she had wished the baby dead and the wish had been granted by a cruel God.
‘Charlie, do you hate me?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t your fault the baby died.’
‘Wasn’t it? I’m not so sure, Maybe if I’d taken more care ‒’
‘You mustn’t think like that,’ he said. ‘You must just think about getting well.’
Later she spoke about the cot. She wanted him to take it away.
‘It’ll have to be sold … And the bedding too … You must put a notice in Bennett’s shop … We shall need every penny we can get to pay Robert’s hospital bills …’
The next day Charlie went to see Robert and broke the news to him.
‘Your mother’s all right. Or she will be quite soon. But your baby sister was born dead.’
Robert lay perfectly still, looking at Charlie with hurt, hopeless eyes. He knew what the baby had meant to him. ‘Was it all because of me?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Mother worrying. Getting upset. Is that what made the baby die?’
‘No,’ Charlie said. He was very firm. ‘That’s got nothing to do with it. It was what they call a breech-birth. It means the baby was the wrong way round. Dr Graham did all he could but …’ Charlie gave a tired shrug. ‘These things happen. You know that. It was certainly nothing to do with you.’
‘How is mother taking it?’
‘Well,’ Charlie said. He looked away. ‘She doesn’t say much. She keeps her feelings to herself.’
He drew a sheaf of comics from his pocket and laid them on the bed.
‘I brought you something to read,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ Robert said. He glanced at them. ‘When will mother be able to come?’
‘Not for a week or two, I’m afraid.’
‘She is all right, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, she’s all right, I give you my word. She’s got to take it easy, that’s all, until she gets her strength back again, but she’ll be in as soon as she can.’
Charlie sat in silence a while. Then, abruptly, he slapped his knee.
‘Damn it all! I nearly forgot! Your mother’s going to make you a cake, as soon as she’s on her feet again, and she wants to know what sort you’d like.’
‘Any sort,’ Robert said.
‘You’ll have to say. You know what she is.’
‘One with cherries in it, then.’
‘Ah, cherries. I knew you’d say that.’
Charlie, as he sat with the boy, did his best to talk cheerfully, but he had no heart for it, not today, and he knew that Robert understood. The boy lay and looked at him helplessly. In some ways he was old for his age.
‘I’m sorry about the baby,’ he said.
‘Yes, well,’ Charlie said, and his voice caught huskily in his throat. For once he was at a loss for words. He looked at his watch and rose from his chair. ‘I shall have to leave you now. I’m all behind at the garage these days. But I’ll be in to see you every day and as soon as your mother’s well enough I shall bring her along in Clew’s van.’
He waved to Robert from the door.
Linn, as she slowly recovered her strength, never talked about the lost baby. To her it was as though it had never been. She had banished all thought of it from her mind and even the first feeling of guilt had soon been buried in forgetfulness. The dead baby girl was nothing to her. All her thoughts were of her son.
One day, however, lured out by the mild weather and feeling almost herself again, she walked as far as Herrick St John to get a few messages from the shop. There was a notice in the window: Cot for sale, never used; and at sight of it her eyes filled with tears. She turned away and went home again. It was dinner-time and Charlie was there.
‘What’s the matter? You’re crying!’ he said.
‘I’m crying for our dead baby,’ she said. ‘You wanted her so, and I let you down.’
Charlie took her into his arms.
Robert spent Christmas in hospital. The new year came in and was still very mild and whenever they went to visit him they would find him lying on his back, staring up at the patch of sky framed by the window above his bed. He had another month to go before the plaster would be removed and the days were dragging with terrible slowness.
Confinement was beginning to tell on him, draining the strength from his muscles and bones. He seemed to shrink and become very small; his shoulders and arms were painfully thin, and his face, which had been a clear healthy brown, was now pinched and sallow and too finely drawn; the skin stretched tight over the cheekbones, stressing the hollows underneath.
But although the time dragged so dreadfully, and although he suffered from bed-sores and the constant itching of his skin as it shrank inside the plaster-cast, the boy remained patient to the end.
‘What do you think about,’ Charlie asked, ‘lying there so still all day?’
‘I pretend I’m out in the fields with Granddad, walking behind the plough,’ he said. ‘I plough right up to the headland, maybe, and in my mind I’m calling out, “Come by! Come by! Come by!” to the team. Then I plough down the next stretch and I’m looking out for partridges … The rooks are down on the stubble behind and I can hear them squabbling …’ Robert broke off and gave a shy smile. ‘I’ve ploughed up acres and acres,’ he said, ‘while I’ve been lying here in bed.’
‘What about those legs of yours? Any feeling in them yet?’
‘No,’ Robert said. He made a face. ‘The nurse comes and tickles my feet sometimes but they’re both as dead as brushes still.’
‘Oh, well,’ Charlie said, ‘only another week or so ‒’
‘Eleven days,’ Robert said, and his jaw had a resolute tilt to it. ‘Just let me get this plaster off and I’ll soon get my legs to move!’
‘Ah, the nurses had better watch out for themselves if they come and tickle you after that!’
But secretly Charlie and Linn were afraid, and the day before the plaster was to be removed they spoke to the specialist, Mr Tate.
‘What are the chances at this stage?’
‘That’s difficult to answer. There ought to be every chance for him but there’s still no sensation in his legs and I have to admit that worries me.’
‘Yes, it’s been worrying us as well.’
‘Tomorrow, when the plaster has been removed, we shall X-ray his spine to see if the fracture has healed.’
‘What if it hasn’t?’ Charlie asked.
‘He’ll have to go back into plaster again. But if the fracture has properly healed, I’m hoping the boy will be able to move and will gradually make a recovery.’
‘When shall we know?’
‘Come in at three o’clock tomorrow afte
rnoon. Ask to see me. We should know by then.’
Although they were there promptly at three, they were kept waiting until half-past-four. Linn by that time was beside herself and when at last Mr Tate appeared, and they were ushered into his room, his expression confirmed the worst of her fears. He sat down behind his desk, his hands folded on its edge, and they sat opposite, erect in their chairs.
‘The news is a mixture of good and bad. The X-rays show that the fracture has healed and on that score we are very well pleased. But both legs are still paralysed and I am forced to conclude that the nerves from the spine may have suffered some damage.’
Linn’s face became very white.
‘What sort of damage?’ she asked numbly.
‘That we can’t say. We have no means of assessing it. But there are two possibilities.’ The surgeon paused, looking at her. He spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘If the nerves from the spine have been severed,’ he said, ‘then I have to tell you that your son will never walk again.’ Another pause and then he went on: ‘If, on the other hand, the nerves have only suffered bruising, there is a chance that he will recover. But I cannot say how long it will take or whether the recovery will be complete.’
Although he spoke so slowly and clearly, his words at first had no meaning for her. She had to go over them in her mind.
‘And out of those two possibilities … you can’t say which is most likely?’
‘No, Mrs Truscott, I’m afraid I can’t. Only time will tell us that.’
‘What about Robert?’ Charlie asked. ‘Does he know he might not walk again?’
‘Certainly not,’ the surgeon said. ‘It would be most unwise to tell him of that possibility.’
‘So,’ Charlie said, carefully, ‘assuming that the nerves are only bruised, how would you rate his chances then?’
‘Robert’s a strong and healthy lad. I would say he had every possible chance. As soon as he’s back in his own home and begins to pick up the strength he’s lost ‒’
‘Can he come home today?’ Linn asked.
‘No, he should stay here another three days. It will take him at least that long to get used to sitting up again. It will also give you time to make arrangements for having him home.’ The surgeon turned to Charlie again. ‘Ideally, the boy should have a wheelchair. Is such a thing within your means?’
‘Yes,’ Charlie said, ‘I’ll see to it.’
‘Tomorrow we shall start the boy on certain exercises, to keep the leg-muscles flexible. It is essential that these should be continued at home and I will arrange for you to come in and be shown how to do it yourselves.’
‘Can we see him?’
‘Yes, of course.’ There was a slight hesitation. ‘I’m afraid you’ll find him rather downcast. He expected to walk immediately and he’s going to need all your support in facing up to another long wait.’
‘This long wait,’ Charlie said, ‘before he gets properly better, have you any idea how long it will be?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Weeks? Months?’ Charlie persisted.
‘It could be as much as six months. Perhaps even longer. I just can’t say.’
The surgeon rose and came round to them. He motioned them to stay where they were.
‘Before you see your boy, Mrs Truscott, I’ll get the nurse to bring you some tea. It will give you time to collect yourself.’
As soon as the door had closed on him, Linn crumpled and began to cry, silently, bowing her head. Charlie leant forward and took her hands.
‘Poor old Rob,’ he said quietly. ‘It seems he’s not out of the wood yet.’
‘Will he ever be?’ she said.
‘I know it’s asking a lot of you, but you’ve got to be brave for his sake.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ she said. A nurse came in with two cups of tea.
When they went to see Robert, he lay in the same bed as usual, propped this time on a mound of pillows.
‘Well, and how does it feel,’ Charlie asked, ‘now you’re out of your chrysalis?’
Robert gave a tired shrug. The day’s events had exhausted him. There were deep lines about his mouth.
‘I still can’t move my stupid legs.’
‘No, we know,’ Linn said. ‘We’ve just come from seeing Mr Tate.’
‘We expected too much too soon,’ Charlie said. ‘But the fracture has healed, one hundred per cent, and that’s good news, isn’t it, eh?’
The boy lay looking up at them. His face was bleak with disappointment and his voice, when he answered, was tremulous as he fought against weakness and hopelessness.
‘I thought I was going to walk!’ he said, and angrily turned his face to the pillow, to hide the brightness in his eyes.
‘So you are!’ Charlie said. He reached out and took the boy’s hand and held it in a warm hard grip. ‘So you are going to walk!’ he said. ‘But it’s going to be a longer job than any of us bargained for.’
Robert turned on the pillow again.
‘How long a job? Did Mr Tate say?’
‘He says it might be as much as six months, so we’ve got a long haul in front of us. But you’ll be coming home soon and now you’re out of that plaster-cast you’ll be picking up strength in no time at all. Then we shall see to those legs of yours. They’ve got to be taught how to move again and we shall see to it, your mother and me, once we’ve got you home with us.’
Pausing, Charlie looked at him, giving his hand another squeeze.
‘You’re going to have to be patient again, and bite on the bullet, as they say. Do you think you can manage that?’
Robert’s face was expressionless. His glance flickered towards Linn and she leant forward, across the bed, reaching out to him silently.
‘I’ve got no choice, have I?’ he said.
Chapter Five
While the weather remained mild, he sat in his wheelchair out in the garden, watching the waterfowl on the ponds. Sometimes the ducks would come on to the bank, to sit preening themselves in the sun or to eat the food he put down for them. He sat so still that they trusted him and one mallard duck in particular would even perch on the step of his chair and take the bread from between his feet.
On wet days he sat by the kitchen window. Charlie had fixed a large mirror up on the wall of the window-recess and, by moving it on its hinge, the boy could still see the garden and ponds. He sat there as long as the daylight lasted. He could forget himself, watching the ducks.
‘Are you all right?’ Linn would ask.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Robert would say; but his schoolwork lay beside him, untouched.
‘Anything you’d like me to bring from the shop?’
‘No, nothing, thanks,’ he said.
Once he asked, unexpectedly, if she would ever have another baby, and she said no.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘I’m getting too old.’
‘That’s not the real reason,’ he said. ‘It’s because you’ve got to look after me.’
‘Why, you’re no trouble, sitting there! And it’s only until you can walk again.’
Robert looked away from her. His spirits, just now, were at a low ebb.
In February there was ice on the ponds and children came there to skate again. Charlie wheeled Robert out to the garden and he sat wrapped in a warm woollen rug. He asked Charlie to fetch his skates and when they were brought out to him he gave them to Mrs Ransome’s grandson and watched him go skating over the ice.
‘Jimmy can keep them if he likes, I shan’t be needing them,’ he said.
But Charlie, at the end of the afternoon, saw that the skates were returned to him.
‘You may not skate this winter, it’s true, but next winter, well, we shall see!’
‘Why pretend?’ Robert said. ‘I know I’m not going to walk again.’
‘Oh yes you are!’ Charlie said. ‘I’m going to see that you do, my lad!’
Every morning before going to work and every evenin
g when he got home Charlie would go to Robert’s room and put him through his exercises. He had taken it on himself; ‘I’m stronger than you,’ he said to Linn; and she, because the sight of her son’s twisted legs always caused her such distress, was only too willing to leave it to him.
He would wrap hot towels round Robert’s legs and try to rub some warmth into them. Then he would lift each leg in the air, until the hip-joint was forced to work, and would bend the leg over at the knee, slowly but firmly, doubling it back, until the boy’s heel was touching his haunch. He did this over and over again; so many times for each leg; and then he would work on the ankles and toes. And always at the end of it he would go to the bottom of the bed and, placing his palms against Robert’s feet, would push against them with all his strength, trying to get the boy to push back.
‘Are you pushing? See if you can. Put your hands on your knees and help them a bit. Can you feel me pushing your feet? I’m waiting to feel you pushing back.’
But there was no life in the boy’s legs; he had no power over them; nor could he feel Charlie’s hands on his feet.
‘I can’t! I can’t! It’s no use!’ he cried.
‘I’ll tell you what!’ Charlie said once. ‘It seems to me you’re not trying enough. You’re leaving me to do all the work and I don’t know that I care for that.’
‘You needn’t bother!’ Robert said. ‘It’s a waste of time, anyway.’
‘You in one of your moods today? Feeling sorry for yourself?’
‘Wouldn’t you,’ Robert flashed, ‘if you was lying here like this?’
‘Yes, well, maybe I would. But it’s no good giving in to it. You ought to try and make up your mind to enjoy those things you can still do.’
‘What things?’
‘Well,’ Charlie said, and there was a pause.
‘When you’ve thought of them, let me know!’ Robert said with great bitterness.
‘There’s your schoolwork for a start. Mr Maitland takes the trouble to send it out and you never even give it a thought.’
‘Have you seen it?’ Robert demanded. He reached out to the bedside table and snatched up the papers lying there. He riffled through them impatiently. ‘Fractions and percentages! Exports from the Argentine! Arkwright and his spinning-machines!’ He threw the papers down again. ‘What do I care about such things?’
Seedtime and Harvest (The Apple Tree Saga Book 5) Page 7
