Golden Hour (30 page)

Except of course it isn't. There's no tea on the table because she's not been to the shop. Will the shop be open? She looks at the clock, and remembers with a start that she agreed to pick Alice up from school. She must be terribly late. She becomes flustered. My goodness! She'd better ring the school and tell them she's on her way. She reaches for the phone, only to realize she can no longer remember the school's number, even though she must have rung it countless times. She turns to the telephone book to look the number up, then lets her hand fall again. She's forgotten the name of the school.

Oh, I am hopeless, she sighs. I'll have to ring Elizabeth and
tell her I've forgotten to collect Alice. So she picks up the phone and dials Elizabeth's number. That at least she knows by heart. But she gets a strange high-pitched tone.

Of course, how silly of me. That's not where Elizabeth is. She's in the garden, playing at Visiting.

She wants to see her. All of a sudden she wants to see Elizabeth very much indeed. She wants to call her in from the garden and see her come running to her. She wants to hold her in her arms and make her promise never to leave her.

She shuffles her bottom to the edge of the chair and pulls herself up, holding on to the side of the dresser. She reaches for her walking stick. Slowly, carefully, she crosses the kitchen to the back door. As she emerges into the warm overcast afternoon she remembers that her daughter is grown up now, and married, with children of her own.

She stands in the back doorway looking out at the weed-clogged garden, overwhelmed by desolation.

Why has this been done to me? Why is it so hard to walk? Why don't my fingers do what I tell them? Why am I all alone? It must be my own fault, but truly I do not know what I did wrong.

She turns back to the kitchen, meaning to call Elizabeth again, but then she thinks of the guinea pigs. Has Bridget fed them properly? Bridget will just give them their dry food, when what they really like is salad. Lettuce, carrot, cucumber, tomatoes. But Bridget never listens, she goes her own way. How can you call someone like that a carer? She's a don't-carer. But try telling Elizabeth. She won't hear a word against the woman. And you know why? Because so long as she can tell herself Bridget's looking after me she can forget all about me. How often does she come to visit me? Once a fortnight if I'm lucky. My own daughter. My only child.

She stands staring into the kitchen. It strikes her that it's in a terrible mess. That's Bridget's job, clearing up. I can't do it. If I bend down to pick something up I fall over, and then I can't get up again. So it's your wonderful Bridget you've got to blame if there's unopened letters on the floor, and unwashed dishes in the sink.

But Bridget didn't come today. Did she come yesterday? Did she make sure the guinea pigs were safely tucked up in their hutch for the night?

Then she remembers. There was a disagreement. A row. She told Bridget to go and never come back.

Bridget is gone! There's a victory. If she'd stayed much longer she'd have seen me off into a home and got the house for herself. That was always her plan. But she wasn't reckoning on me. I've looked after myself all my life. I'm no pushover.

She feels an ominous stirring in her bowels. Hurriedly, almost recklessly, she makes for the downstairs lavatory. She has just managed to hitch up her nightdress and lower herself toward the toilet seat when a great eruption takes place. Most of it, but not all, goes into the toilet. The eruption ends as suddenly as it began, leaving her weak and dizzy. She remains sitting there, drained of all energy. Her phone starts to ring. She knows she has no chance of getting to the phone in time, so she lets it ring until it falls silent.

Then slowly, wearily, she cleans herself up as best as she can; also the sides of the toilet. She dare not stoop or kneel to clean the floor for fear she'll never be able to get up. The smell remains after she's flushed, but there's nothing to be done.

She hobbles to the phone. The caller must have been Elizabeth. She dials Elizabeth's number, and once again gets the high-pitched tone. She puts the phone down with an exclamation of anger. Elizabeth should answer. It's very wrong of her to place
herself out of reach in this way. Just because she employs Bridget as a so-called carer she thinks she can carry on as if I don't exist.

Is that what you want, Elizabeth? Do you want me to die?

It comes to her then that this matter must be sorted out once and for all. It's been allowed to go on for too long. If Elizabeth has walked out on me the way Rex did, then let her say so. Let her say it to my face.

In the garage outside there is an electric buggy that she uses for short trips, to church, to the shop. It doesn't go very fast, but so long as it's fully charged it can go for up to twenty miles. Elizabeth's house is just the other side of town.

The old lady sets off at once for the front door. Now that she has made this decision she feels a little less desolate. Of course she must see Elizabeth. Not because she can't cope on her own. Not because she needs a carer. But because there are issues between them that can only be resolved face to face.

The garage doors are open, as they always are these days. Elizabeth says, “That's an invitation to thieves,” but what can you do? There's no way she can open the garage doors by herself. “Bridget can help you,” Elizabeth says. Of course! Bridget can do everything! Bridget is wonderful! But now the wonderful Bridget is gone.

The old lady unplugs the buggy from the charger and lowers herself into its seat. She sets its speed to the slowest setting, and inches backward out of the garage. Now that she's underway she feels so much more positive. She pictures her daughter's face when she opens her front door and sees her there. So I need a carer, do I?

She reverses in a semi-circle, switches to forward drive, and trundles out onto the street. After a few yards she sees ahead of her a mother with a small boy approaching on the pavement. The small boy stares at her and points. “Mum! Mum! Look!” Only then
does the old lady realize that she's wearing nothing but a nightdress, and that one side of its skirt is stained ginger-brown.

Mortified, aghast, she makes a full turn in the street, causing the car coming up behind her to brake hard and honk loudly. Her eyes resolutely cast down, she trundles back to her entrance, and returns the buggy to its place in the garage. She hobbles with her stick from the garage to the front door, and finds she has failed to bring the front door key with her.

Shivering now, not with cold but with shame and helplessness, she hobbles round the house to the back. Her strength is failing her fast. Seeing the bench outside the back door, she lowers herself down to sit on it. Broken, frightened, bewildered, she closes her eyes and slips into a shallow sleep.

When she wakes she doesn't know at first where she is or why. Before her is the guinea pigs' run, with the hutch in which they sleep at the far side. The hutch door is open, as it should be by day. There are two guinea pigs. One is running up and down as if looking for a way out of the fenced enclosure. The other is lying by the hutch door.

Have the guinea pigs been given their salad? Bridget never gives them their salad. Even Elizabeth doesn't understand. “You spoil those guinea pigs,” she says. “Do you think they eat chopped salad in the Andes?” But they're not in the Andes now, are they? They're here with me. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth, the guinea pigs are the only living creatures that are here with me. They're my company. When I go Visiting, they're the friends I visit. I expect that appears quite funny to you. Well, go ahead, laugh if you like. But they don't criticize me, or tell me what to do and when I'm to do it, and they're always glad to see me. They lead quite a busy little life, you know, always scampering about, always looking for something to eat or somewhere to snuggle up. Sometimes I just sit and watch them for hours.

She's sitting and watching them now. The one lying by the hutch is very still. Almost too still. She gets up from the bench, staggering a little, and goes closer. She reaches out her walking stick and gives the guinea pig a little nudge. No response. Worried now, she shuffles right up to the low fence that encloses the guinea pigs' run.

“Guinea guinea!” she calls, in the special high voice she uses to call them when she's feeding them. “Guinea guinea!”

The other guinea pig runs toward her.

“What's the matter with your sister?” she says. “She must wake up.”

But the motionless guinea pig does not wake up.

Mrs. Dickinson executes a controlled fall to her knees. Once on the ground, she reaches her walking stick into the run, handle first, and pulls the guinea pig toward her. She knows then from the way the soft body offers no resistance that the guinea pig is dead.

She picks up the little furry creature and holds it in her arms. Its brown button eyes are open but unmoving. Its nose, always the busiest part, is still. In every other way the animal is perfect: there are no signs of a wound.

“Oh, guinea,” she says sorrowfully. “What happened?”

But she knows what has happened. The guinea pigs were not put to bed last night. They were left with the hutch open, exposed to predators, vulnerable to night chills. Bridget should have shut them up, but Bridget is gone.

Still holding the dead guinea pig in the crook of one arm, she levers herself upright again by pulling on the hutch. She makes her way, step by trembling step, into the kitchen. Here she sinks down into her chair by the window. She arranges the dead guinea pig in her lap, and strokes the unresisting fur.

Is it my fault you died? Did I kill you? You asked for so little,
only shelter, safety, a little food. Not so hard to give. And did I fail you even in this?

The little animal's needs, which have not been met, become confused in her exhausted mind with her own needs. The guinea pig is innocent as she is innocent. Both of them have suffered neglect. Both have died.

So am I dead now? If so, in whose lap am I resting? And whose hand is it that strokes me?

It's been a long day for Maggie, and not a good day. She's finally written a humiliating letter to Murray to get him to drop his legal action. She's been abused by two home-owners and a developer. The deadline for the Conservation Area appraisal is coming up and she's had to bundle up a mass of papers to take home. And neither Andrew nor Jo has called her. Now on her way home at last, walking down through Grange Gardens to the car park in Cockshut Road, she calls Jo and gets an answer.

“Jo! Where have you been? I've been waiting for you to call.”

Jo is in London. She's been rehearsing an oratorio, she has talked to Andrew, and he's fine.

“But the thing is, Mags, he doesn't really know what's going on.”

“Join the club,” says Maggie.

“I think he's hurt that you seem still not sure what you want?” Jo's voice rises at the end even though it's not really a question, as if to say, Don't rely on me, maybe I'm wrong here. “I think the way he sees it, you've both had enough time to know what you feel about each other?”

“I know, I know,” groans Maggie. “That's what's so awful about all this. It should be obvious by now, and it just isn't.”

“Maybe that's like a warning bell?”

“Maybe it is. I'm so confused. Did you tell him I just need some time?”

“Yes,” says Jo. “The thing is, Mags, he started crying.”

“Crying! Oh, God!”

“I did a mercy dash. I went round to his place.”

“Oh, poor Andrew. This is terrible.”

“I probably shouldn't have told you. He thinks his problem is he's too nice. He asked me if I thought you'd ever get to love him properly?”

“What did you say?”

“What could I say? I said I didn't know.”

“No, Jo! That'll make him give up.”

“For fuck's sake, Maggie!” Suddenly there's a critical edge to Jo's voice. “What's going on here? You want to keep the poor sod on a string while you decide if you want him or not?”

“Well, yes,” says Maggie, abashed. “I know that sounds terrible. But what else can I do?”

“Let him go,” says Jo. “Set him free.”

“Set him free? He's not locked up. He can go any time he wants.” Now she in turn feels annoyed. “What do you mean, set him free?”

“He's a great guy,” says Jo, “and a lot of other women would be only too pleased to have him, and if you really want to know what I think, I think you should either piss or get off the pot.”

“What!”

“Sorry, but someone has to say it.”

“He really got to you, didn't he? That nice-Andrew-crying-in-your-arms act really did it.”

Maggie is hurt that Jo has changed sides. She needs her friend. It makes her angry that Andrew has played the pity card to win Jo over.

“Actually he did cry in my arms,” says Jo.

“And you comforted him, I'll bet.”

“I did what I could. There's enough lonely people in the world already. All he wants is to be loved.”

It's the way Jo says it, more than the words she uses.

“What did you do, Jo?”

“What do you mean?”

She's playing for time. Maggie's suspicions grow.

“Tell me what you did. Tell me how you comforted him.”

Silence on the line.

“I don't believe this,” says Maggie. “I can't believe you did this.” So now she's telling Jo she exactly believes she's done this. “How can you have done that, Jo?”

Jo's voice reappears, now small and faraway.

“We didn't mean it to happen,” she says. “We got a bit pissed.”

“Oh, great. You were pissed. Just great.”

Maggie is in shock. She has no idea how to react.

“Listen, Maggie,” says Jo, pleading. “You said it yourself, to me. You said you wanted to find someone else. Someone you could really love.”