Falling (29 page)

The next morning, full of determination to behave as though nothing had happened, as though I had not kissed her feet or written the note, I walked to the cottage, being careful to arrive at
exactly the usual time.

She seemed distant. She thanked me for the blanket and, as an afterthought, for the note, and I sensed that she, too, was determined to behave as though nothing had happened – as though my
note was no more than a formal apology. I left her before lunch-time, but came back in the late afternoon in order to finish the planting. It was devilishly hot – humid and still – and
I was glad when she called me in for some tea.

Then she asked me about the diary. Luckily for me I was washing my face at the time and I could think – fast. Of course I knew where the diary was, but did not she know that I must know
that? Or had she not discovered yet where on the shelf it was? Then she said that it might have been in a large envelope, and then I knew that she was afraid I might have read it – either the
diary or the contents of the envelope or both. I think I was pretty convincingly ignorant, and when I offered to look for the diary, she said don’t bother, she would find it. So then I knew
that she already had. We talked about shopping, but things didn’t feel quite right between us and an apology seemed in order. (I seemed to have to keep doing it, but as it worked I
didn’t mind.) It did work, since her voice sounded quite different and friendlier. She had a headache. I said I’d stay with her if there was a storm and suggested Chekhov as a topic of
conversation, but she said she was going to bed early. I asked if I could borrow a book, and saw that the place where the diary had been was empty. I said good night to her, and went back to the
boat. There was a storm and the hatch leaked on to my bunk and I had a rotten time trying to clear it up and there wasn’t a drop left to drink.

Although the rain had stopped, it didn’t look as though it would be for long, and there was no sun in which to dry my bedding. I put the tarpaulin over the hatch that had leaked and then,
while I was boiling water for shaving, there was a real cloudburst – it came down like knives, as my father used to say. It was a good thing that she had said she wanted to go shopping,
otherwise I would have had no excuse to go to the cottage until the weather cleared.

The rain did stop, as suddenly as it had begun. Bits of blue appeared as the clouds shifted to reveal the sun. I had to bail out the canoe before I could use it, and one way and another I was
running behind my usual time for arriving at the cottage.

I saw her before I even reached the gate because it was open. She was lying on the path, one leg with the knee bent awkwardly under her and the other stretched straight. For one second, I
thought she was dead. I knelt by her and felt for her heart. She was soaked, and under the heavy drenched dress her flesh was damp and very cold, but beneath her left breast I could feel her
heartbeat. She was unconscious, but she was alive. Half of her face was hidden and when I lifted it I saw the stone rust-coloured with her blood. She had cut her head open beneath the hairline.
Drops from her hair, which was black with rain, ran down her neck. Very cautiously, I eased her on to her back and straightened out the bent leg. It was badly grazed. She did not seem to have
broken anything, but I could not be certain of this. I was about to put her in the recovery position, when she opened her eyes and looked at me with such fear – or, rather, terror –
that I threw all caution to the wind, took her in my arms and poured out every comforting endearment that I knew. As I carried her into the cottage, she murmured something and I stopped to
listen.

‘Not hospital,’ was what she had said, and now said again.

‘Promise you.’

She shut her eyes then – I think she passed out.

That was the real beginning of the most exciting, most absorbing, and – to me – extraordinary time of my life. It began, prosaically enough, with my efforts and
success in summoning a doctor, semi-retired, who lived in the village. I knew that he was an occasional locum for the medical practice in the town, but that he also kept on a few of the old
patients who had been in his care for years. He was the old-fashioned visiting sort, and he came at once to see Daisy.

I had laid her upon the sofa and covered her with the same blanket before I called the doctor, who said he would be along at once. ‘Keep her warm, and don’t move her,’ he had
said. When I went back to her her eyes were open, but she did not seem much aware of what was going on. Her dress, which was made of heavy denim, was going to make warmth impossible. Fortunately,
it buttoned all the way down the front and I cut the armholes open (it was sleeveless) and eased it from under her. Under it she wore only a brassière and white cotton knickers. No time now
to look at her pretty body; I wanted the doctor to see that I was a thoroughly practical person who would therefore be able to look after her. I fetched a spare bath towel, laid it over her and
then replaced the blanket. I had boiled water and filled her hot-water bottle, which I wrapped in a tea-towel and placed under her feet when I heard his car and went out of the cottage to meet
him.

I explained that I found her fallen on the path, that she had cut her head but did not seem otherwise to have broken any bones.

He grunted, ‘Is she alone here?’

‘At the moment, yes. But of course I’m here as much as she wants me.’

‘You a relation?’

‘No. I’m her gardener and general handyman. She’s very anxious not to go to hospital.’

‘A sensible anxiety, these days.’

We had reached the door of the cottage. ‘She’s on the sofa. I’ll be in her kitchen, if you want anything.’

‘You might boil some water – put it in a pudding basin or something like that.’

When he came out to the kitchen to fetch the water, he asked whether there was a lavatory downstairs, and when I said that there was, he said she’d be better off on the sofa for the night
anyway: ‘Perhaps you would fetch some bedding for her and night things.’

He spent a long time with her after I had brought down the bedding. I went back into the kitchen and boiled the kettle again. When I had made myself a cup of Nescafe, I took a quick swig of
vodka from her bottle in the cupboard followed by a scalding sip of coffee. I managed this just in time before he reappeared. He brought with him the basin now half full of sodden cotton
wool in water that was pale red with her blood.

‘I take it you’re available to stay with her? Because if not, we must—’

‘Oh, no. I’ll stay with her as long as she needs me.’

He looked at me over his spectacles, and I seemed to reassure him, as he then gave me businesslike instructions. She was still in shock; had been mildly concussed and should be kept very quiet.
Even if
she
thought it was all right, she was to stay put except for going to the lavatory when I should accompany her. He then said that he’d cleaned up her abrasions and main wound
in the head but that the latter required a couple of stitches and he hadn’t brought the apparatus for that, so he’d be back in an hour or so.

I waited until I could no longer hear his car, then I went to her.

He had bandaged her head slantingly so that her hair sprang from each side of the narrow strip, giving her a piratical appearance. She was propped up by the sofa cushion and the two pillows I
had brought from her room, and she was wearing the white ruffled nightdress.

‘Too ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I seem to fall about like a drunkard.’

‘It was just very bad luck,’ I said.

‘The telephone was ringing and I’d been out for a walk because they told me to walk every day, and it rang and rang and I ran and I must have slipped because of the rain. I thought I
had fallen again from the awful pyramid when it was so hot and in all the crowds there wasn’t anyone I knew and it was all because I’m so bad at heights. I can’t look down because
then I would fall from wherever I was, let alone half-way up a pyramid, and then I thought someone—’ She stopped, and said rapidly, ‘Just dreams – or nightmares. Sometimes
you dream something awful and wake up and find it wasn’t true – sometimes you dream something not awful and wake up. And that’s not true either.’ Without any warning, tears
began pouring out of her eyes and she began to shake.

I wanted to take her in my arms, but instinct prevailed, and I did not. I knew she was badly shocked and I did not want her – when it wore off – to have any memory of my taking
advantage of her. Instead, I drew up a chair, sat beside her and gently took one of her hands in both of my own. She did not resist this – indeed, I am not sure that she noticed; she simply
continued the downpour of tears.

I don’t know how long we stayed thus; it might have been five minutes, it might have been twenty. I had observed that when women cry for any length of time, it is not for one thing but,
rather, a painful chain of deprivation and actual loss. It is as though some contemporary shock opens the door upon a store-cupboard where earlier griefs had been preserved. I know this because I
have been present during a number of these explosions of pent-up unhappiness, which seem to be so much of women’s lot. For myself, tears have never been part of my emotional makeup, and
having had as little as possible to do with other men I imagine that they are – in that respect, perhaps, only – like myself. I can recall a boy at school blubbing because some member
of his family had died and feeling for him nothing but a mild aversion and contempt.

No, tears are women’s province, arising as they so often do from mistreatment by men. I knew enough about Daisy to understand that she had had much to weep for, the infamous behaviour of
Jason Redfearn being the most recent. So I waited until the tracks down her face were no longer glistening with movement, and then I lifted the hand I had been holding to my lips and laid it back
upon the blanket with a little pat, as though the kiss had been no more than a small gesture of sympathy. I would get her some tea, or any other drink she might prefer, and she nodded and said that
she would like tea.

By the time the doctor returned she had fallen asleep. I had lit the fire because she complained of feeling cold. Her tears had further exhausted her and it was I who suggested that sleep might
be a good idea. I drew the curtain above the sofa so that the light would not fall on her face. Then I went and sat in the kitchen. I realized that although Daisy’s fall might be the means of
my spending far more time with her, it might also mean that this marvellous opportunity would be scotched if she or the doctor thought she should have some woman looking after her. Even if it was
not either Miss Blackstone or her daughter, it could still present a serious challenge and prevent the development of any real intimacy. Somehow this had to be avoided. Immediately I had to
convince the doctor of my suitability, but in the long run it was Daisy who must feel that she could trust me as housekeeper-nurse.

So when the doctor had finished with Daisy and came into the kitchen with a small bottle of pills and instructions about when they were to be dispensed, I launched into the briefest possible
account of my experiences with Helen – the Helen Burns who had died after I married her. Naturally I did not go into any detail at all, simply said that for this reason I was accustomed to
looking after an invalid of the opposite sex and had decided that it was essential to stay overnight in the cottage in case Miss Langrish suffered any complications. I assumed that he would be
looking in on her tomorrow? That was his intention. He went on to say that he gathered she had been in hospital for some time after an accident. She was going to feel rather ropy for the next few
days – a lot of bruising – and she’d have a pretty bad headache apart from the cuts and grazes.

He’d left her with something to help her sleep tonight, and I could give her two of these every four hours if she was in pain. No more than that. He was handing them over to me because, in
her present state, he wasn’t sure that she’d remember when she’d taken them. He’d stitched the wound in her head. Leave the dressing – he’d come and look at it
tomorrow.

As he picked up his bag to leave, he added, ‘I gather she has a daughter. Perhaps she should be informed.’

‘Of course. I could do that for her as well.’

He looked at me over his spectacles for the second time and seemed to take in my steadfast open frankness.

‘Lucky you were around.’

He was gone, at last. When I went back to her, she was half sitting up, propped by her pillows: the bruise from her head wound was beginning to show down the side of her face – a blackish
purple.

‘What was he talking to you about?’

‘You, of course.’

‘He wasn’t trying to plan with you to get me into hospital?’

‘Well, that came up, but I assured him that I’m quite capable of looking after you. I think I convinced him. I think the best thing would be simply to
assume
that I’m
your carer and not mention hospital to him at all. Do you agree?’

‘Oh, I
do.
It’s the last thing I want.’

‘Would you like something to eat?’

‘I made some soup – a boiled egg! That’s what I would like.’

‘You shall have it.’

But when I brought it she ate only half of it, said her head ached and she wanted to lie down. I gave her two of the painkillers and she slept.

That first twenty-four hours was more or less like that. I heated soup for her, made toast, took her to the lavatory. Getting to her feet was extremely painful – she used her stick, and I
was her crutch. I sensed her embarrassment at this particular dependence, but by explaining that because of her delicate disposition I had often had to nurse Charley, I allayed at least some of her
discomfort.

‘But you were married to Charley.’

‘That’s a minor difference. I loved her, that was the point.’

She was back on the sofa. I was looking down at her when I said this. There was a short silence while she stared up at me: then, very gently, I moved her ruffled collar so that it did not
obscure any of her face. This seemed to be the moment. ‘I love you. I would do anything for you. I love you, but there is no weight attached to it. I don’t expect anything back.’
Then, because I could see her expression change – her poised-for-flight look, as I was later to call it – I said, ‘There is nothing to be afraid of. You need never be afraid of
me. I simply want to look after you, get you well.’ She turned her face away from me and I saw on the unbruised side of it a faint blush. Then, almost as though to herself, she said,
‘You can’t possibly
love
me. You don’t know me – at all.’