At twelve thirty, Nathan arrived, bringing with him the cold air of outside, and a raised eyebrow. ‘All okay?’ he said.
I had rarely been so happy to see someone in my life. ‘Fine.’
‘Great. You can take a half-hour now. Me and Mr T have a few things we attend to at this point in the day.’
I almost ran for my coat. I hadn’t planned on going out for lunch, but I was almost faint with relief at getting out of that house. I pulled up my collar, stuck my handbag on my shoulder, and set off at a brisk walk down the drive, as if I had somewhere I actually wanted to go. In fact, I just walked around the surrounding streets for half an hour, breathing hot clouds of breath into my tightly wrapped scarf.
There were no cafes at this end of town, now that The Buttered Bun was closed. The castle was deserted. The nearest eating place was a gastropub, the kind of place where I doubted I could afford a drink, let alone a quick lunch. All the cars in the car park were huge and expensive with recent number plates.
I stood in the castle car park, making sure I was out of view of Granta House, and dialled my sister’s number. ‘Hey.’
‘You know I can’t talk at work. You haven’t walked out, have you?’
‘No. I just needed to hear a friendly voice.’
‘Is he that bad?’
‘Treen, he hates me. He looks at me like I’m something the cat dragged in. And he doesn’t even drink tea. I’m hiding from him.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’
‘What?’
‘Just talk to him, for crying out loud. Of course he’s miserable. He’s stuck in a bloody wheelchair. And you’re probably being useless. Just talk to him. Get to know him. What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t know if I can stick it.’
‘I’m not telling Mum you’re giving up your job after half a day. They won’t give you any benefits, Lou. You can’t do this. We can’t afford for you to do this.’
She was right. I realized I hated my sister.
There was a brief silence. Treen’s voice turned uncharacteristically conciliatory. This was really worrying. It meant she knew I did actually have the worst job in the world. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s just six months. Just do the six months, have something useful on your CV and you can get a job you actually like. And hey – look at it this way, at least it’s not working nights at the chicken factory, right?’
‘Nights at the chicken factory would feel like a holiday compared with –’
‘I’m going now, Lou. I’ll see you later.’
‘So would you like to go somewhere this afternoon? We could drive somewhere if you like.’
Nathan had been gone for almost half an hour. I had spun out the washing of the tea mugs as long as humanly possible, and I thought that if I spent one more hour in this silent house my head might explode.
He turned his head towards me. ‘Where did you have in mind?’
‘I don’t know. Just a drive in the country?’ I was doing this thing I sometimes do of pretending I’m Treena. She is one of those people who are completely calm and competent, and as a result no one ever messes with her. I sounded, to my own ears, professional and upbeat.
‘The country,’ he said, as if considering it. ‘And what would we see. Some trees? Some sky?’
‘I don’t know. What do you normally do?’
‘I don’t do anything, Miss Clark. I can’t do anything any more. I sit. I just about exist.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I was told that you have a car that’s adapted for wheelchair use?’
‘And you’re worried that it will stop working if it doesn’t get used every day?’
‘No, but I –’
‘Are you telling me I should go out?’
‘I just thought –’
‘You thought a little drive would be good for me? A breath of fresh air?’
‘I’m just trying to –’
‘Miss Clark, my life is not going to be significantly improved by a drive around Stortfold’s country lanes.’ He turned away.
His head had sunk into his shoulders and I wondered whether he was comfortable. It didn’t seem to be the time to ask him. We sat in silence.
‘Do you want me to bring you your computer?’
‘Why, have you thought of a good quadriplegic support group I could join? Quads R Us? The Tin Wheel Club?’
I took a deep breath, trying to make my voice sound confident. ‘Okay … well … seeing as we’re going to spend all this time in each other’s company perhaps we could get to know something about each other –’
There was something about his face then that made me falter. He was staring straight ahead at the wall, a tic moving in his jaw.
‘It’s just … it’s quite a long time to spend with someone. All day,’ I continued. ‘Perhaps if you could tell me a little of what you want to do, what you like, then I can … make sure things are as you like them?’
This time the silence was painful. I heard my voice slowly swallowed by it, and couldn’t work out what to do with my hands. Treena and her competent manner had evaporated.
Finally, the wheelchair hummed and he turned slowly to face me.
‘Here’s what I know about you, Miss Clark. My mother says you’re chatty.’ He said it like it was an affliction. ‘Can we strike a deal? Whereby you are very un-chatty around me?’
I swallowed, feeling my face flame.
‘Fine,’ I said, when I could speak again. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen. If you want anything just call me.’
‘You can’t give up already.’
I was lying sideways on my bed with my legs stretched up the wall, like I did when I was a teenager. I had been up here since supper, which was unusual for me. Since Thomas was born, he and Treena had moved into the bigger room, and I was in the box room, which was small enough to make you feel claustrophobic should you sit in it for more than half an hour at a time.
But I didn’t want to sit downstairs with Mum and Granddad because Mum kept looking at me anxiously and saying things like ‘It will get better, love’ and ‘No job is great on the first day’ – as if she’d had a ruddy job in the last twenty years. It was making me feel guilty. And I hadn’t even done anything.
‘I didn’t say I was giving up.’
Treena had barged in without knocking, as she did every day, even though I always had to knock quietly on her room, in case Thomas was sleeping.
‘And I could have been naked. You could at least shout first.’
‘I’ve seen worse. Mum thinks you’re going to hand in your notice.’
I slid my legs sideways down the wall and pushed myself up to a seated position.
‘Oh God, Treen. It’s worse than I thought. He is so miserable.’
‘He can’t move. Of course he’s miserable.’
‘No, but he’s sarcastic and mean with it. Every time I say something or suggest something he looks at me like I’m stupid, or says something that makes me feel about two years old.’
‘You probably did say something stupid. You just need to get used to each other.’
‘I really didn’t. I was so careful. I hardly said anything except “Would you like to go out for a drive?” or “Would you like a cup of tea?”.’
‘Well, maybe he’s like that with everyone at the start, until he knows whether you’re going to stick around. I bet they get through loads of helpers.’
‘He didn’t even want me in the same room as him. I don’t think I can stick it, Katrina. I really don’t. Honest – if you’d been there you would understand.’
Treena said nothing then, just looked at me for a while. She got up and glanced out of the door, as if checking whether there was anybody on the landing.
‘I’m thinking of going back to college,’ she said, finally.
It took my brain a few seconds to register this change of tack.
‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘But –’
‘I’m going to take a loan to pay for the fees. But I can get some special grant too, because of having Thomas, and the university is offering me reduced rates because they … ’ She shrugged, a little embarrassed. ‘They say they think I could excel. Someone’s dropped out of the business studies course, so they can take me for the beginning of the next term.’
‘What about Thomas?’
‘There’s a nursery on campus. We can stay there in a subsidized flat in halls in the week, and come back here most weekends.’
‘Oh.’
I could feel her watching me. I didn’t know what to do with my face.
‘I’m really desperate to use my brain again. Doing the flowers is doing my head in. I want to learn. I want to improve myself. And I’m sick of my hands always being freezing cold from the water.’
We both stared at her hands, which were pink tinged, even in the tropical warmth of our house.
‘But –’
‘Yup. I won’t be working, Lou. I won’t be able to give Mum anything. I might … I might even need a bit of help from them.’ This time she looked quite uncomfortable. Her expression, when she glanced up at me, was almost apologetic.
Downstairs Mum was laughing at something on the television. We could hear her exclaiming to Granddad. She often explained the plot of the show to him, even though we told her all the time she didn’t need to. I couldn’t speak. The significance of my sister’s words sank in slowly but inexorably. I felt like a Mafia victim must do, watching the concrete setting slowly around their ankles.
‘I really need to do this, Lou. I want more for Thomas, more for both of us. The only way I’ll get anywhere is by going back to college. I haven’t got a Patrick. I’m not sure I’ll ever have a Patrick, given that nobody’s been remotely interested since I had Thomas. I need to do the best I can by myself.’
When I didn’t say anything, she added, ‘For me and Thomas.’
I nodded.
‘Lou? Please?’
I had never seen my sister look like that before. It made me feel really uncomfortable. I lifted my head, and raised a smile. My voice, when it emerged, didn’t even sound like my own.
‘Well, like you say. It’s just a matter of getting used to him. It’s bound to be difficult in the first few days, isn’t it?’
4
Two weeks passed and with them emerged a routine of sorts. Every morning I would arrive at Granta House at eight, call out that I was there and then, after Nathan had finished helping Will dress, listen carefully while he told me what I needed to know about Will’s meds – or, more importantly, his mood.
After Nathan had left I would programme the radio or television for Will, dispense his pills, sometimes crushing them with the little marble pestle and mortar. Usually, after ten minutes or so he would make it clear that he was weary of my presence. At this point I would eke out the little annexe’s domestic tasks, washing tea towels that weren’t dirty, or using random vacuum attachments to clean tiny bits of skirting or window sill, religiously popping my head round the door every fifteen minutes as Mrs Traynor had instructed. When I did, he would be sitting in his chair looking out into the bleak garden.
Later I might take him a drink of water, or one of the calorie-filled drinks that were supposed to keep his weight up and looked like pastel-coloured wallpaper paste, or give him his food. He could move his hands a little, but not his arm, so he had to be fed forkful by forkful. This was the worst part of the day; it seemed wrong, somehow, spoon-feeding a grown man, and my embarrassment made me clumsy and awkward. Will hated it so much he wouldn’t even meet my eye while I was doing it.