Catherine Jinks TheRoad (60 page)

eight years since he had retired, he had not been able to shake the habit of a lifetime. He was always awake by six fifteen. Even after a night out at the club, his body clock refused to cut him any slack. Sometimes he found himself napping in the afternoon, but nothing on earth would change the pattern of his early-morning rest. Nothing on earth except the end of daylight saving, which pushed everything forward an hour when summer rolled around, and gave him the illusion of waking up later, though it put him to sleep later, too.

As a constructor of dams, tanks and reservoirs, he had often been required to drive long distances before starting work. It was for this reason that he had become accustomed to rising early. For years and years he had forced himself out of bed at sparrow’s fart

– sometimes getting himself breakfast when Helen refused to budge – and the legacy of this punishing schedule was a set of unnaturally rigid biorhythms. Well, he could think of worse examples of work-related impairment. Asbestosis. Repetitive strain injury. Clinical depression.

You had to count your blessings.

Col frequently counted his blessings, because it was a way of reminding himself that he hadn’t had too bad a run. His health, for example,was pretty good.Though he had lost most of his hair and put on a few extra pounds around his waist (forget this metric business, he was too old to think in kilos), he was still chugging along. His blood pressure was perhaps a fraction too high, and he occasionally had problems with his right shoulder, but there had been no bypass surgeries or hip replacements or cataract removals for Col. His hearing was still serviceable, and he had retained most of his teeth. He had to wear bifocals, but that didn’t interfere with his driving. There was nothing wrong with his prostate. And his mind, thank God – his mind was unaffected by any signs of creeping senility. Even his memory was unimpaired, perhaps because he made a point of doing crosswords at least twice a week. It kept his wits nice and limber.

Then there was the house. Col was proud of his house. It was only fifteen years old, brick veneer, with two bedrooms, an attached garage, pure wool carpet, built-in wardrobes, a slow combustion stove and a separate laundry. The old house – the one that had been sold, after the divorce – had been a poky old thing full of Helen’s shag pile and needlepoint and ruffled valances. It had been impossible to heat, or protect from white ants. It had been in a handy spot, very central, but that in turn had made it noisy. And the garden had been full of high-maintenance flowerbeds, fruit trees, vines and bulbs.

Col’s new garden was easy to keep neat. There were lawns to mow, and a few shrubs to clip, but nothing much else. At his age, intensive gardening wasn’t an option. He no longer had the energy to weed and mulch and prune. Housework was easy too, when you didn’t have lots of ornaments and doilies and side-tables cluttering things up. Col had kept his furniture to a bare minimum. A couple of easy chairs, a dining suite, an entertainment unit, a bed – what else could an old bachelor need? Moira would often tease him about all the blank white walls and empty corners in his house, but he didn’t mind. It was a good joke, really; something to talk about when all else failed. Not that Moira had ever needed much encouragement, when it came to talking.

Moira herself was another thing to be thankful for. Her husband Phil had been dead for all of six years now, and Moira was beginning to stretch her wings again. She was good company

– always had been. Col enjoyed getting together with her. Maybe some day they might progress to a more intimate arrangement, but maybe not. Col was quite satisfied with things the way they were. She only lived five minutes away, after all. And she had her friends, the way he had his. It wasn’t as if they were lonely.

No, things were pretty good in that department. There was nothing much wrong with Col’s social life. He kept himself busy. He exercised in the garden, and on the bowling green. He did his crosswords, and watched the odd game show, answering at least eighty per cent of the questions correctly. He didn’t allow himself to brood. He was fortunate, really, because he had never been one to fret or mope – he had a fairly placid nature. And brooding did you no good at all. If you didn’t concentrate on the good things, what was the point of life? You might as well be dead.

After hauling himself out of bed, Col shuffled into his slippers and padded to the bathroom. It was a terrific bathroom, glossy and sleek, with a separate shower stall. In the old house, he’d had to take his showers in the bath. He had always dreamed of possessing a separate shower stall, and now he had one. Now he had one thanks to his brother Ted’s bequest. Poor old Ted. Poor old Elspeth. But he didn’t want to think about Elspeth. Not until he’d had a cup of tea, at least.

After his shower, Col put on a short-sleeved shirt and his grey trousers. No tie. He made himself toast and a bowl of All-Bran, listening to the radio as he ate. Primmy chirped prettily in her cage, rattling her bell occasionally to attract his attention. He had bred budgies, once, but there was only Primmy now; she didn’t have much of a shape to her, but he liked her personality. He fed her some apple, replenished her water supply. Then the phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Col?’ It was Moira. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m just out of bed,’ he joked, ‘what time do you call this?’

‘I call it time to get up,’ replied Moira, who knew all about Col’s sleeping habits. ‘You’ve got a busy day ahead of you. Jill reminded me last night that it’s her birthday today, so I thought we might shout her lunch at the club, what do you think?’