Authors: Elizabeth Buchan
Samuel Smith’s death was already retreating into a background of problems, statistics, meetings and political agendas. The day looked set to be a long one and she returned to her office to draft her strategy.
Late afternoon found Annie, with Sarah striding beside her, walking the hospital corridors. They were making for Day Surgery, which, with its high turnover, offered as good a starting point as any.
Nursing staff always affected not to pay attention to Admin whenever the latter came into sight. All the same, Annie knew perfectly well that their antennae switched on to full alert.
We are the medics. We have the knowledge. You do your best to make it difficult for us. You take away our powers of decision
. It wasn’t always, or necessarily, hostility but it did not take much for their suspicions to tip over into it.
She said to Sarah, ‘Go check the cleaning and cleaners.’
The sun struggled through the resolutely sealed window in Reception, lighting a pile of tatty magazines. Clipboard on knee, Annie sat down and noted her observations.
(1) One patient used the handwash at ward entrance. Rest ignored it.
(2) Nurse dealing with discharged patient went to keyboard without washing hands.
The nurses at the station chatted to each other. One wore shoes that needed repairing. The other was too thin. She noted the facts and filed them. Tom always said that observation was an art, and it required to be worked on. At the thought of Tom, her stomach tightened.
Before she left Day Surgery, Annie interviewed one of the theatre sisters, a beautiful dark-haired woman.
‘You want the real story?’ She was hesitant, but the urge to speak out was too strong. ‘It’s the budgets that are responsible for the superbugs. Aiming for too high a patient turnover, economizing on air changes in theatres, and no time or money for barrier nursing. What more do you need? You can spend weeks, years, doing all the research in the world, but the solution to the problems is, in one word, money.’
More battle lines.
The day seemed interminable, and she returned home feeling like a limp rag. Emily was upstairs and, the clocks having gone forward three or so weeks back and the evenings being lighter, Tom had eventually set about putting his plan into action for sorting out the shed.
She was contemplating making herself some tea – only contemplating, mind, because it required effort – when the doorbell rang.
To say that she was astonished to see Jake on the doorstep with Maisie, plus several suitcases, was an understatement.
‘Hallo, Mum,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m in trouble and I’ve got to come home.’
She experienced a blinding sense of
déjà vu
– a throwback to the time when she could not spread her arms wide enough to accommodate everyone, when the twins needed X, Emily Y, and her husband Z. ‘Of course,’ she said,
holding them out now to take Maisie, who settled into them with a contented sigh. ‘You’d better tell me.’
The handle of the garden fork had split with age and Tom heaved it out to take to the dump. The not unpleasing smell in the shed was of dry, aged soil, chalky garden feeder and a whiff of urban fox. Cobwebs spread over the roof, adorned with mummified spiders’ corpses, which hung down like macabre earrings. Sweeping out the worst webs, Tom was confronted by the clutter of decades. Rusting sieves, discarded seed packets, jars containing murky sediments. A shelf tilted precariously, and the heaped garden implements reflected their neglect. Tom picked up the rust-eaten, useless sieve and chucked it outside. Then he culled about two dozen plastic flowerpots in varying sizes, seed packets so old they were rigid, plus a couple of empty fertilizer packets.
As he worked, he recollected the times when, as a small boy, he had taken refuge in his father’s shed, a resolutely masculine retreat where his father had smoked his pipes. ‘Dad, what’s electricity?’
‘Shush, Tom.’ His father had pointed to the sign above the door: NO TALKING. His old tweed jacket, the odour, sweet and penetrating, of the tobacco he preferred. Peace that, as a boy, Tom hadn’t appreciated.
It was years since Tom had tackled this task, and it could not be said that he particularly enjoyed it. It smacked of the last resort, the sort of activity occupational therapists dreamed up to give the day a point. A couple of months ago he had occupied an office from which he looked out as ruler on his subjects – although he would never have admitted to
that. A couple of months ago he was busily preoccupied with programming, international politics, budgets and lobbying. Sorting flowerpots didn’t really cut it.
So went his thoughts – particles flitting randomly here and there. If he didn’t get a job soon, he would have to discuss with Annie selling the house and various other stratagems. Yesterday his credit-card statement had arrived with a couple of expensive items racked up on it from his previous life, including a club membership he would have to cancel. Like many in his position, worrying about money made him miserable but it had to be done.
He parcelled up what he could in black plastic bags, and stacked up the rest. His gaze fell on the fork, which, now he thought about it, he had inherited from his mother when she had cleared out her cottage. He picked it up.
Smooth with age. Pleasing. Trustworthy
. He held it for a little longer and it occurred to him that his father might have used it. He reached for a piece of sacking and scrubbed at the tines until the steel began to shine through. Was he echoing the habits of his father? It was then Tom knew he couldn’t possibly bin the fork. With a bit of ingenuity, he could tape around the split handle and it would be perfectly serviceable. Or he might ask Jake to do it. He stowed it back inside the partly eviscerated shed.
He came back into the house to find a whirlwind had spun through the kitchen.
‘Hi, Dad.’ Wearing one of Annie’s frivolous frilly aprons, Jake was stirring the contents of a saucepan on a previously gleaming stove.
Annie was seated in front of Maisie’s high chair, spooning green pulp into her mouth. ‘There you are, Tom.’
A small
tsunami
of plastic bags, laundry and soft toys had washed through the hitherto orderly kitchen.
‘What on earth …?’
‘Open your mouth, Maisie,’ Annie coaxed. She pressed the spoon to Maisie’s pursed mouth. ‘Open.’
‘Jake, why are you here?’
Annie made an aircraft sound and swooped the spoon up and down. Maisie giggled and opened her mouth wide enough for Annie to insert it. Much of the green pulp landed on the baby’s face. Tom noted this with a touch of bewilderment.
‘Lovely broccoli, Maisie,’ said Jake, whisking about with the saucepan. ‘And now delicious rice pudding.’
‘Ugh. Poor Maisie.’ Wearing the clogs that all the family hated, Emily clattered into the kitchen and slapped sluttishly over the tiles. ‘In a hurry, Jake. Need to get at the stove.’ She seized a second saucepan and broke a fistful of spaghetti into it. ‘Oh, hi, Mum. Didn’t clock you. Good day?’ She peered into the fridge. ‘Got to eat before I go. Do we have any pesto from the deli? We usually do.’
‘That deli is expensive,’ said Annie.
‘Jake, don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here?’ Tom asked again. ‘Are we babysitting?’
Emily hauled a tin of tomatoes out of the cupboard. ‘Good pesto isn’t that expensive, Mum, and goes a long way. Buying a cheap and nasty variant is false economy.’
Annie deftly steered rice pudding into Maisie, and white gloop now mixed with the green. ‘False or not, we can’t afford the deli.’
‘I’ll buy my own,’ said Emily, crossly.
‘Hey,’ said Jake. ‘Did you hear that? Emily offered to buy something.’ He pranced about in the apron.
Emily wrestled with the tin. ‘Do you know? I don’t think we’ve sat down and eaten a meal together for ages.’ She pointed to Leonardo’s angel, which Annie had pinned up on the noticeboard. ‘Mum saved you from the recycling, now do your bit for peace and harmony in this family.’
No one paid any attention.
Tom regarded his dirt-streaked hands. One of his fingers sported a minor graze and a muscle in his back twitched from unaccustomed use – reminders of the long, lonely, unproductive day. ‘Do you have to?’ he asked Jake.
‘Do I have to what?’
‘Wear that wretched apron.’
Jake gave a little laugh but his easiness vanished, leaving in its stead a pale and haunted figure. Tom was irritated by his son’s overreaction. ‘For God’s sake, Jake, I haven’t issued a world-war warning.’
Annie wiped Maisie’s mouth and hands and dropped the cloth into the sink. ‘Tom,’ she said. ‘Let Jake explain.’
Tom looked from one to another. ‘What am I missing?’
Jake outlined the situation and Tom was brought up short. Jake did not deserve this. He remembered the boy: ‘Dad, I’m off to find the Wild Wood,’ and the resolute little chap clutching a teddy bear setting off down the garden.
Emily ate her pasta.
‘The business is failing … for the moment,’ Jake continued. ‘I’m letting the house and I have to come home for a few months, just until I’m straight again, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Annie. She bent over and kissed Maisie. ‘You are a disgusting little bird.’
‘Dad?’
‘Just a moment while I wash my hands,’ said Tom.
In the downstairs lavatory, he allowed the water to run for a long time before soaping up. He peered at his reflection in the small mirror. The truth was, he had no idea how to handle his son now that he was in trouble, and the knowledge threw him – even more than he was already thrown.
On his return to the fray, the apron had been cast over a chair. Jake was talking intently with Annie and he caught him saying, ‘He doesn’t want me here.’
Emily raised her head from the bowl of pasta. ‘Jake …’
Tom sat down. ‘If you mean I don’t want you here, that’s rubbish, Jake.’
Jake placed both hands on the table and leaned towards him. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘I barely know myself what I’m thinking.’
Annie tensed at his tone, and Emily groaned. ‘You’re at it again, you two.’
Jake lost it. ‘Why fudge the issue, Dad? I’m the son who doesn’t match up. Despite all the talk, the left-wing values, what Dad really wants is a son who brings home readies by the barrowload. Sorry, Dad, you didn’t get him. And now I’m home again.’
Jake was wrong – but he was also sufficiently right – and Tom knew perfectly well that Jake wouldn’t have said any of it unless he was devastated. But it didn’t stop him losing his temper, and the chair screeched as he levered himself to his feet. ‘If that’s what you think …’
‘I
know
that’s what you think. You don’t like what I do – you never have.’
‘It’s not a question of whether I like what you do or not. It’s a question of whether you’re earning a living.’
‘And you have a job at the moment?’ The words slipped out of Jake, so quick and so cunning that they took time to sink in.
There was an appalled silence.
Tom heard another child saying much the same thing: ‘You don’t like what I am, Dad. Tough. Human beings are different. Families are different. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand anything …’
Annie hissed, ‘Tom, Jake has just been left by Jocasta. This is not the time to get into the job argument.’
Jake glanced at his mother. Tom was aware Jake frequently took a bearing from his mother – and that annoyed him too. He wanted to say:
Consult me sometimes, Jake
.
Even though I don’t deserve it
.
‘Sorry, Dad,’ Jake said stiffly.
He had provoked his sweet, kindly son into lashing out at him – precisely because Tom wasn’t sweet and kindly.
Jake added, ‘But, Dad, you must let people be.’
Tom knew, he just knew, that he was in danger of repeating the biggest mistake of his life. But Maisie saved him. The angry adult voices were frightening her: she threw her arms up and wailed.
Looking down, Tom encountered a bewildered little face and his anger evaporated in the urge to put things right. ‘It’s all right, Maisie. Here …’ He bent down and picked her up. Her baby hair was like so many butterfly legs against his cheek, and her baby smell held the scent of innocence and promise, the qualities that, long ago, he had vowed to keep intact for his own children. He held her close. ‘Grandpa’s
here.’ He looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Jake. That was unfair of me.’ He paused. ‘Will you forgive me?’
‘Of course we have the room.’
She and Tom had retreated to her bedroom. Tom prowled around it, picking things up, throwing them down, mostly in the wrong place.
‘We don’t,’ he said.
Annie’s hairbrush was chucked on to the bed. Long ago, Annie had trained herself not to be exasperated by Tom’s refusal to observe where her things lived. It was called marital strategy – and still required years of work.
‘We all used to live here once.’ She ticked off on her fingers. ‘Jake and Maisie can use the rooms up top with Emily. We know that Emily sleeps like the dead and probably won’t be disturbed by the baby.’
‘And?’
‘And what? Your mother? As agreed, in your room.’
In the silence that ensued, they digested the implications.
‘Tom …’
‘Annie …’
Their words collided.
Annie sank down on the bed and smoothed her skirt.
Boiled wool. Grey. Boring?
Tom’s dark head was bent over the photo of Jake and the cross-looking Jocasta. Funny … Annie scrutinized the bent head. The hair on the back of his neck grew in the same way as it always had. Once she had delighted to look at it. Still did, really.
Annie found herself fixated by the displaced hairbrush. It was a black Mason Pearson, ancient but still operational
and a favourite. She reached over and touched the bristles. Somehow she had to find her way through the thicket of the present and make sense of the situation.
‘Listen, Annie.’ He sat down beside her. ‘Jake should be able to cope on his own.’
‘Like you are?’
‘I am coping.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘You always defend him.’