(11/20) Farther Afield (6 page)

'I doubt it. I'm not carping. There aren't exactly queues at the bookshop doors for
any
book, and one about Victorian poets won't set the Thames on fire. If it covers the costs I'll be content, and so will the publishers.'

By this time, Amy had walked across to the pond, and was studying the floating corpse with some distaste.

'Give me a rake,' said Gerard, approaching, 'and I'll fish the poor thing out for you.'

We surveyed the pathetic body, the shiny black snout, the brindled prickles, the scaly black legs.

Amy returned with the rake.

'It's really dead, I suppose?' she asked, bending closer to examine the corpse.

'Well, I can tell you flat,' said Gerard, casting his rake, 'that I'm not volunteering to give it the kiss of life! There are limits to the milk of human kindness.'

He fished the body to the edge and lifted it out.

'I think a distant patch of nettles, or some such rough cover, would be his best shroud. You aren't proposing burial? I'm no great shakes with a spade.'

'Good heavens, no, Gerard dear!' exclaimed Amy. 'Follow me, and we'll put him over the hedge into the ditch in the cornfield, poor little sweet.'

'"Sweet" ', said Gerard, his nose wrinkled, 'is not quite the word for it.'

He followed Amy towards the end of the garden, balancing the dripping victim precariously on the rake. I watched the funeral cortege from my chair with some amusement. The more I saw of Gerard Baker, the more I liked him.

He was clever but unaffected, sympathetic but not mawkish, and had a cheerful practical approach to problems – such as this present one – which I found wholly admirable. No wonder Amy welcomed him.

'What about a restorative?' she said when they returned. 'Gin, sherry?'

'Could it be coffee?' asked Gerard.

'Of course.' She went into the house.

'What a marvel she is!' exclaimed Gerard.

'I'll endorse that,' I said, and told him how wonderfully she had coped with me.

'Typical,' said Gerard. 'I was full of admiration for the way in which she coped with that lovelorn niece of hers, Vanessa.'

'I believe we may see something of her before long,' I told him. 'Evidently she's quite got over that infatuation. You know she's in Scotland? Working in a hotel?'

Gerard, to my surprise, looked somewhat embarrassed.

'Yes, I did know. As a matter of fact, I happened to call at the hotel a week or two ago. She seemed in great spirits.'

'Did you hear that, Amy?' I cried, as she put down the tray. 'Gerard has seen Vanessa, and she's very well,'

Amy shot a lightning glance at Gerard's face, and looked away quickly. He was endeavouring to look nonchalant, and not succeeding very well.

'I was in the district. I'm collecting material for a book about Scottish poets – a companion volume to the Victorian one, I hope, – and I remembered the name of the hotel.'

'How nice! Is she flourishing?'

'In very good spirits. She said something about a holiday soon, and I gather she may come and see you.'

'That's right,' agreed Amy. She poured the coffee.

'Any news of the young Scotsman who was being so attentive?' she asked. Her tone was polite, but I detected a hint of mischief in her face.

Gerard had recovered his composure.

'I didn't hear anything about him. No doubt there are a number of attentive young Scotsmen. Vanessa's looking very attractive these days. Quite a change of aspect from the time when she was mourning the Chilean.'

'Bolivian!' said Amy and I together.

We sipped our coffee, relaxed and happy. A red admiral butterfly flitted decoratively from flower to flower in the herbaceous border, and I remember the pale unhappy Vanessa whose passion for a four-times-married foreigner had blinded her to all summer delights on the first occasion of our meeting. She had spent a week with Amy then, and I don't think I had ever seen my normally resilient friend quite so exhausted.

'And how's Fairacre?' enquired Gerard. 'What of my friend Mr Willet?'

I gave him a brief account of village affairs to date, and conversation grew general. It was half-past eleven before he leapt to his feet, protesting that he must be off.

'I've an aunt living not far from here, and I'm taking her out to lunch. She's eighty-five and a demon for exercise. Think of me at about two-thirty, walking my legs off along some cart track.'

'Come again,' said Amy.

'I will,' he promised. 'But no corpses next time, please.

***

That afternoon I broached the subject of my return home to Amy. I had been with her for well over a week, looked after as never before, and felt that I really could not impose upon her much longer.

'But I love to have you,' she assured me.

'You're too kind. There are lots of things you must be neglecting, and surely there's a holiday cropping up soon?'

I remember that she had discussed a visit to Crete earlier in the year. Nothing had been said about it while I had been staying at Bent, and it occurred to me that perhaps the plans had fallen through.

'That's nearly a fortnight away,' said Amy.

'You'll probably need to go shopping.'

'That doesn't mean that you've got to go back to Fairacre.'

I pointed out that there were a number of matters to attend to at home. There were some school forms to be filled up, and a certain amount of organisation for next term. My domestic arrangements also needed some attention, though no doubt Mrs Pringle's bottoming would be almost finished.

'I'm mobile now,' I said, stretching out my lumpy ankle. 'Why, I can even dress myself if I keep to button-down-the-front things, and remember to thread the bad arm through the sleeve first!'

'You're getting above yourself,' Amy smiled. 'I really think you
are
getting better.'

She surveyed me with her head on one side.

'I can see you're really bent on going. Tell you what. Let's drive over tomorrow afternoon and get the place ready, and see if you can manage the stairs and so on. If so, I'll install you the day after.'

And so it was agreed.

Amy took up her tapestry and I turned the pages of a magazine.

The thought of going home excited me. I should never cease to be grateful to my old friend, but I longed to potter about my own home, to get back to my books and my garden, to see the familiar birds on the bird table, and to smell the pinks in my border again. Tibby, too, would welcome the return.

Beyond Amy's window the rain was falling. Grey veils drifted across the fields, blotting the distant hills from view. It made the drawing-room seem doubly snug.

'I wonder how long it will be before I can do without this confounded sling,' I mused aloud. 'I can wriggle my fingers quite well. How long does a bone take to mend?'

Amy looked at me thoughtfully.

'Weeks at our age, I imagine.'

'I'm not decrepit, and I don't feel old.'

'I do now and again,' said Amy, with a vigour that belied her words. 'I find myself behaving like an old lady sometimes. You know, never walking up escalators, and not minding if young things like Vanessa stand up when I enter a room.'

'I haven't got quite to that stage yet.'

'But when I start pinning brooches on my hats,' said Amy, resuming her stitching, 'I shall know I'm
really
old.'

There was a companionable silence for a while. Outside, the rain grew heavier, and began to patter at the windows.

'Of course, I think about dying now and again,' I said.

'Who doesn't?'

'What do you do about it?'

'Well,' said Amy, snipping a thread, 'I make sure I'm wearing respectable corsets – not my comfortable ones with the elastic stretched and speckled with rubber bits – and I pay up outstanding bills and, frankly, there's not much else one can do, is there, dear?'

'But hope,' I finished for her.

'But hope,' she echoed.

She turned her gaze upon the rain-swept view through the window. There had been a dying fall in those last two words.

It was plain that it was the sadness of living, not of dying, which preoccupied my friend's thoughts.

And my heart grieved for her.

The next afternoon we drove from Bent to Fairacre. The rain had ceased, leaving everything fresh and fragrant. The sun shone, striking rainbows from the droplets on the hedge, and in its summer strength drawing steam from the damp roads. Sprays of wild roses arched towards the ground, weighted with the water which trembled in their shell-pink cups, and everywhere the scent of honeysuckle hung upon the air.

In the lush fields the cattle steamed as they fed, and birds splashed joyously in their wayside baths. Everywhere one looked there was rejoicing in the sunshine after the rain, and my spirits rose accordingly.

As Fairacre drew nearer I grew happier and happier, until I broke into singing.

Amy began to laugh.

'What an incorrigible home-bird you are! You remind me of Timmy Willie.'

'When he was asked what he did when it rained in the country?' I enquired.

'"When it rains",' quoted Amy, dodging a fat thrush in the road,'"I sit in my little sandy burrow and shell corn and seeds".'

'"And when the sun comes out again," ' I finished for her, '"You should see my garden and the flowers – roses and pinks and pansies." '

'I'm sorry for children who aren't brought up on Beatrix Potter,' said Amy. 'Look! There's St Patrick's spire ahead. You'll be back in your burrow in two shakes.'

The lane to the school was empty, and we arrived unseen by the neighbours. It was very quiet, the village sunk in the somnolence of early afternoon.

Inside the school house everything was unusually tidy. A few fallen petals from the geranium on the window sill made it look more like home, however, counteracting the symmetrically draped tea-cloths on the airer, and the 'Vim', washing up liquid and so on, which were arrayed with military precision in order of height on the draining board. Every polished surface winked with cleanliness. Never had the stove flashed so magnificently. Never had the windows been so clear. Even the doormat looked as if it had been brushed and combed.

'Well,' said Amy, gazing round. 'Mrs Pringle's had a field day here.'

Awe-struck, we went into the sitting room. Here, the same unnatural tidiness was apparent.

'I feel as though I ought to take off my shoes,' I said. 'It's positively holy with cleanliness.'

The coffee pot on the dresser, behind which I stuff all the letters needing an answer, now stood at the extreme side of the board. There was nothing – not even a single sheet of paper – behind it.

'Save us!' I cried. 'Where on earth is all my correspondence?'

'Gone to heaven on a bonfire,' Amy replied.

'But I
must
have it,' I began in bewilderment.

'Calm down,' said Amy, 'or you'll break your arm again.'

This idiotic remark had the effect of calming us both. We sat down, somewhat nervously, on the newly washed chair covers.

'She's washed every blessed tiling in sight,' I said wonderingly, 'and I declare she's oiled the beams too. Look at the fire-irons! And the candlesticks! And the lamp shades! It's positively uncanny. I shall never be able to live up to this standard.'

'Don't worry,' said Amy comfortingly. 'By the time you've had twenty-four hours here, it will look as though a tornado has hit it, and it will be just like home again.'

It was one of those remarks which could have been more delicately expressed, or, better still, been left unsaid. In normal circumstances I might have made some sharp retort, but Amy's kindness over the past week or so enabled me to hold my tongue.

We sat for a few minutes, resting and marvelling at Mrs Pringle's handiwork before embarking on a tour of the whole house. It was a relief to find that I could negotiate the stairs if I attacked them like a toddler, bringing both feet to one stair before essaying the next. I could have wished the banister had been placed on the left hand side instead of the right, but by assuming a crab-like motion I could get up and down very well and was suitably smug about it.

'And what about getting in and out of the bath?' asked Amy, deflating me.

'I'm going to get one of those rubber mats, so that I don't slip,' I told her. 'And I shall
kneel
down to bath, so that I can get up again easily.'

Amy laughed.

'You win, my love. If the worst comes to the worst, you can always ring me, and I'll nip over and scrub your back.'

We checked the goods in the larder, and made out a shopping list, and then went to inspect the garden. As well as Timmy Willie's roses and pinks and pansies, the purple clematis had come out, the velvety flowers glorious against the old bricks of the house.

We sat together on the rustic seat warmed by the sun, and tilted up our faces to the blaze as thankfully as the daisies on the grass.

Tomorrow, I thought, I shall be back for good. As if reading my thoughts, Amy spoke.

'No place like home, eh?'

She sounded relaxed and slightly amused at my happiness.

'None,' I said fervently.

6 Amy Needs Help