The Lifeline

by Margaret Mayhew

  Naomi’s curiosity had been thoroughly aroused by the shed and she had tried a number of times to get inside – efforts that he had lately managed to thwart by fitting the door with a padlock on the outside as well as a bolt inside, and by hanging makeshift sacking curtains at the windows. He had also hidden the key. Her divorced and late husband, Cecil, had, apparently, also had a shed which she had not understood either. The Colonel was on Cecil’s side. A man’s shed, after all, was his bolthole from the world. A sacred male sanctuary where he could do just as he pleased without disturbance or comment or argument from anyone – especially not women. That was the whole point of it.

  ‘Nothing much,’ he said in answer to her question.

  ‘You must be doing something.’

  ‘Nothing that need worry you, Naomi.’

  ‘You could raise some plants in there.’

  ‘It’s not intended to be a greenhouse.’

  She sighed. ‘I’ll never understand men and their sheds.’

  ‘I know that, Naomi.’ He changed the subject firmly. ‘What news on the Rialto?’

  Shylock’s Venetian enquiry was perfectly understood. Naomi trotted out the latest Frog End titbit.

  ‘Ruth’s taken on another lame duck at the Manor. Tom’s suggestion, again. I hope he knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘I’m sure he does. Who is it?’

  ‘A young man called Johnny Turner. His mother bought one of The Close bungalows recently. He’s stuck in a wheelchair after a motorbike accident. You’ve probably seen her pushing him around. It’s a sad sight.’

  He had passed them once in his car – a frail-looking woman struggling with a heavy wheelchair, a fair-haired young man slumped inside. A sad sight indeed.

  ‘Is he likely to recover?’

  ‘Apparently not. Spinal damage. He’s only nineteen. Imagine how awful it must be for him, Hugh. To know that you’ll never walk again. Never lead a normal life.’

  ‘It must be awful for his mother too.’

  ‘Probably even worse for her, poor woman. The husband pushed off years ago – as husbands do – and she’s had to cope with the situation on her own. I gather from Ruth that the boy’s in very low spirits and very difficult. Tom thought it might help if he spent some time at the Manor, doing any odd jobs they could find for him. The boy wasn’t at all keen at first, nor was the mother. Then Ruth thought of asking him to do some of the watering. Not too difficult to manage from a wheelchair with hosepipes, and a pretty important job in those big greenhouses at this time of the year. She managed to persuade him to take it on.’

  If anyone could, he thought, it would be Ruth. She would know just what to say and how to say it.

  ‘I think it’s an excellent idea.’

  ‘Let’s hope he gets on all right with the other two. They seem to have enough problems of their own without having to cope with a tricky teenager.’

  ‘I’ve never met Mrs Carberry.’

  ‘A very un-merry widow. Her husband’s been dead a year and she’s only just started to come out of her shell. I can’t see her cheering up a wheelchair-bound teenager.’

  ‘I’m sure Lawrence Deacon will do what he can to help.’

  ‘Are you, Hugh? I’m not so sure. He strikes me as a real old misery guts. Very sorry for himself.’

  ‘He knows all about tragedy. So does his wife. They lost a son when he was young.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard that. How did you find out?’

  ‘He told me. I’ve no idea exactly what happened or how old their son was, but I would have thought he would feel some sympathy for a young man in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, Ruth will give the boy something useful to do. She might even get him interested in gardening.’

  ‘Like you did with me?’

  ‘Let’s face it, Hugh. It’s a lifeline, isn’t it?’

  ‘So I keep saying to anyone who’ll listen.’

  ‘Well, Adam and Eve had a garden. That must mean something, though luckily we wear clothes these days. By the way, I hear you called on the newest arrivals at the Hall – the Reeds.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Nobody in particular. The village is clued in, as usual – bar the finer details. But you can tell me more, if you like. I’m all ears.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘You’re being ever so discreet, Hugh. What made you go calling in the first place? It’s not like you.’

  ‘I was asked to.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘It’s confidential.’

  ‘Fair enough. But you can still tell me about the Reeds. I’ve yet to set eyes on her, or her husband.’

  ‘Why don’t you call and see them for yourself?’

  ‘Haven’t got time, Hugh. So, spill the beans.’

  ‘There aren’t any to spill. I only met Mrs Reed. Her husband was out playing golf.’

  ‘So, how old is she?’

  ‘Somewhere in her sixties, I’d say.’

  ‘Our sort of age, then. Tall, short, fat, thin?’

  ‘Medium height, medium build.’

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that. Hair?’

  ‘Grey.’

  ‘Face?’

  ‘Normal.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  Naomi’s colourful and wildly eccentric wardrobe was impossible not to make an impression, but Mrs Reed’s had been virtually unnoticeable.

  ‘I really can’t remember.’

  ‘Come on, Hugh.’

  ‘Something beige, I think.’

  ‘You’d make a hopeless police witness. Does she do anything?’

  ‘She’s a golf widow. Her husband’s retired but he’s never at home.’

  ‘Cecil used to pretend to play golf when he wasn’t in his shed. So far as I could tell he spent most of the time at the nineteenth, drowning his handicap. The game never appealed to me. Is she a happy golf widow? Some women would be only too pleased to have their husband out from under their feet. Men can be a nuisance after they retire.’

  ‘Mrs Reed didn’t give me that impression. She told me she’d always hoped he’d get bored of playing so she’d be able to see more of him.’

  ‘Not much chance of that. It must be depressing to be so dependent on a man. Perhaps she should get a dog?’

  ‘I doubt if it would help.’

  ‘She’s forever turning up at Tom’s surgeries, you know. Is there anything really wrong with her, or is it all in her golf widow’s mind?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You’re not being very forthcoming, Hugh.’

  ‘I’ve nothing much to say. Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘All right. What’s that flat like now? You can tell me that at least. Any traces of our late actress?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Is it beige, like Mrs Reed’s clothes?’

  ‘It’s neutral.’

  ‘Flat 2 used to be our dining room, you know, before that developer got his ugly mitts on the Hall. You could never describe it as neutral. A bit of a cavern, I’ll admit, but it had some wonderful old panelling. I still wonder what the bastard did with it all. Chopped it up and sold it for firewood, I expect.’

  Naomi, as he was aware, had never recovered from having to sell her old family home before it fell down. To distract her, he said, ‘There was a glass cabinet full of Mr Reed’s silver golfing trophies in the flat. All lit up and very impressive.’

  ‘Men do like their trophies, don’t they? Cecil’s school swimming cup was always out on display. Well, let’s hope we get to meet Mr Reed eventually. Perhaps they’ll come to one of the village hall talks.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely. I told Mrs Reed all about the Frog End activities but I don’t think she was very keen.’

  ‘There’s an interesting lecture coming up soon at the Manor on Capability Brown. Did you know he designed the gardens of Sherborne Castle?’

  ‘I can’t say I did.’

  ‘He worked on o
ver one hundred and seventy gardens across Britain. A very busy man.’

  ‘He must have been.’

  ‘And speaking of gardens, Hugh, it occurs to me that it might help Mrs Reed if she were to do a little gardening therapy at the Manor, along with Lawrence Deacon and Tanya Carberry and the wheelchair boy. It could take her mind off some of her ailments and give poor Tom a break into the bargain. Did you happen to suggest that to her, by any chance?’

  ‘I mentioned it.’

  She drained her glass. ‘I thought you might have done. What did she say?’

  ‘She’s thinking about it.’

  He stood up. ‘The other half, Naomi?’

  ‘I won’t say no.’

  She seldom did.

  FIVE

  In the end, it had been easy. Sheila had stuck to her plan of disapproving of Dr Harvey’s idea and the more she did so, the more she could see that Johnny might agree to it, just to upset her. She’d kept saying things like, ‘You’d never manage without me.’ Or, ‘You could fall out of the wheelchair and hurt yourself.’ Or, ‘I won’t let you go there; I forbid it.’ He’d turned on her every time and sworn at her but, somehow, she’d kept her head.

  Then Mrs Harvey had come to the front door one day and she’d been very nice. ‘I do hope you don’t mind, Mrs Turner, but I wondered if I could ask Johnny a big favour.’

  Sheila had shown her into the stuffy sitting room where Johnny had been staring at one of his bike magazines. At first, she had thought he was going to refuse to speak at all. He had sat, head bent, without a word, while Mrs Harvey had told him about the problem she was having keeping all the young seedlings and plants well-watered in the greenhouses at the Manor and how badly she needed some extra help with it. There were long hosepipes that unwound, so it wasn’t heavy work, but it took a lot of time. She would pay him by the hour, she’d said. It would be a godsend if he could come over twice a day, first thing in the morning and again in the early evening, just for the summer months. If that wasn’t too much to ask? Could they perhaps give it a try and see how things went?

  Sheila had held her breath in the long silence that had followed. At last, Johnny had spoken. Or rather, muttered.

  ‘If you like.’

  Of course, she still had to keep on pretending. If Johnny guessed how pleased she really was then he was quite likely to change his mind.

  ‘I don’t know how Mrs Harvey can expect you to help her, Johnny. What are you supposed to do?’

  He’d turned on her, as usual. ‘You heard what she said, Mum. She wants me to water the plants in the greenhouses.’

  ‘From your wheelchair?’

  ‘They’ve got hosepipes.’

  ‘I still don’t see how you could manage it.’

  ‘I can do it all right.’

  ‘We’ll have to see about that.’

  The very next morning she had pushed him over to the Manor. The first part, along The Close pavement, was quite easy. She went past Journey’s End, The Nook, Tree Tops and Shangri-La where Major Cuthbertson peered out of his sitting-room window. She was afraid that he might come out but luckily he didn’t. Whenever he talked to them, he always spoke very loudly, as though she was deaf and Johnny an imbecile.

  There was a steep bit going up to the green and it was always hard work pushing the chair there, but she’d made it all right. After that, she’d kept to the edge of the road and car drivers slowed down and gave them a wide berth.

  The sun had been shining brightly like a good omen as they crunched down the Manor’s gravel driveway. She felt a small ray of hope in her heart.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s going to work, Tom. He’s a very angry young man, isn’t he?’

  ‘Life’s dealt him a pretty devastating blow.’

  ‘He takes it out on his mother. It’s a shame.’

  ‘That’s another reason why this could be a good thing, Ruth. It might help them both.’

  ‘I hope so. I’m paying him by the hour. It’s not like Lawrence and Tanya. I think Johnny needs to feel it’s a proper job. Not something we’ve asked him to do out of pity.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Actually, I’m very glad of the help with the watering and he’s coping rather well. It’s amazing how he handles the wheelchair – whizzing up and down the greenhouses. You’d think he’d get all tangled up with the hosepipe but he doesn’t and he’s very careful with the watering. I was afraid he might flatten the plants.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll be good at other things too.’

  ‘One problem is that he’s not much good with people. When I introduced him to Lawrence and Tanya it was sticky going.’

  ‘How’s he getting on with Jacob?’

  ‘Funnily enough, Jacob doesn’t seem to mind him at all. I even saw him giving Johnny a hand with winding up the hosepipe.’

  ‘They’re both handicapped, that’s why.’

  Tanya Carberry had found that she was enjoying the work she’d been given at the Manor. It was quite simple. All she had to do was transfer young greenhouse plants into larger pots before putting them out on long benches where they could stay now that the danger of frost was over. Ruth had shown her exactly how to handle them without disturbing their roots or doing any damage and after a shaky start, she’d got the hang of it.

  She’d never heard of some of their names before. She and Paul had always gone for the easy-to-grow, ready-to-plant sort you found in big garden centres – geraniums, petunias, begonias, busy lizzies. Ruth grew those too but she also raised much more unusual kinds.

  In fact, everything at the Manor was unusual. There was no shop, as such. The plants for sale were either in the dilapidated old greenhouses or outside on the benches. Customers wandered around as they pleased and when they bought something they paid for it in the old stables where Ruth kept the money in an old Huntley and Palmers biscuit tin. Most of the customers were local but others seemed to have come from quite far afield. The Manor, she realized, was becoming rather well known.

  Then there were the talks. They were given in the Manor hall by different people on all sorts of gardening subjects and they always attracted good audiences. She had gone to one herself. Naomi Grimshaw, who often called by to see Ruth, had talked about Letting Plants Move About and it had been rather intriguing. Apparently, in Mrs Grimshaw’s garden, plants were left to seed themselves all over the place. Poppies popped up in the middle of box hedging, forget-me-knots drifted about unchecked, erigeron daisies spilled over walls and erupted from cracks, foxgloves appeared wherever they pleased, violets edged their way into the lawn, while bluebells and alchemilla had colonized a nice shady corner of their own. Live and let live, was the motto, even extending to weeds. Herb robert, sweet cicely, cranesbill, rosebay willowherb and teazels were all allowed to stay. Let your garden breathe, Mrs Grimshaw had advised. It didn’t do to be too tidy. Judging from the loud applause at the end the audience had thoroughly approved. Paul, who had always hated weeding, would have agreed too.

  The days that had dragged by so slowly in the flat now passed quickly. At first, she had eaten her lunchtime sandwiches on her own, wherever she was working, but lately she’d taken to going to the old stables where there was a wooden table and chairs. Ruth was always popping in and out, dealing with customers but sometimes, if she was busy somewhere else, Tanya took the money and gave change from the Huntley and Palmers biscuit tin, and when Ruth had asked her to keep an eye on the baby, Alan, while he was asleep in his pram, she’d been happy to do it.

  She felt very sorry for Johnny, and for his mother who pushed him twice a day in the wheelchair from their bungalow on the other side of the village green. She knew that he was also a patient of Dr Harvey’s, though it had never been discussed. His job was doing the watering in the greenhouses. He did his work well but he hardly spoke to anyone. She noticed, though, that he sometimes talked to Jacob and, even more surprisingly, that Jacob answered.

  Jacob frightened her. Once, when she had been working alone in one
of the greenhouses, she had turned round to find him standing by the entrance, watching her. He had scuttled off at once, like a frightened rabbit, though rabbit was the wrong word. Scarecrow would be better. Weirdly dressed, clumsy and strange.

  She wasn’t sure what she thought of Lawrence Deacon. They had done some potting up together for a while. She had made polite conversation and learned that his wife had a gift shop in Dorchester called Seek and Find.

  ‘It’s very successful,’ he’d said, but not in a pleased sort of way. Instead, he’d sounded resentful. ‘She spends most of her time there.’ Then he’d said in a different voice, and with a sideways look at her, ‘You’re a widow, aren’t you? I expect you get lonely, all on your own.’

  A warning bell had rung. Some men believed, quite mistakenly, that widows were grateful for their interest, but surely not someone like Lawrence Deacon? Not at his age and with his poor state of health?

  The idea repelled her. She’d turned away from him. ‘I’m used to it now,’ she’d said.

  Ruth said, ‘You’ve been doing a marvellous job, Johnny.’

  He muttered something she couldn’t hear and stuffed the money she’d given him in his pocket.

  ‘I was wondering,’ she went on, ‘whether you might be able to spare us some extra time for a while? There’s a lot of box hedging that needs clipping.’

  ‘I don’t know how to do that.’

  ‘Oh, it’s quite simple. You can use hand clippers and the hedges are only about three feet high and easy to reach.’ She paused. ‘Of course, it would only make sense if you could stay with us for the whole day – but perhaps that would be too much for you?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t.’

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘What about her?’