Golden Hour (43 page)

Granny sits with her shoulders slumped and her eyes closed, but she's not asleep. You can tell that because from time to time she opens and shuts her mouth and mumbles words you can't quite hear, as if she's arguing with someone in a dream. Her hands move up and down on her lap. The skin on her hands is amazingly wrinkled. Now she's making one hand stroke the other hand, it's like she wants to smooth out the wrinkled skin. Cas, watching, wants to reach out and touch her hands too. He wants to see if they feel scratchy or soft.

Mum says Granny has been unhappy all her life but surely that's impossible, you'd just die. You can't be unhappy all the
time. You'd get tired of it, you'd have to have a rest. Maybe that's what Granny's doing now, having a rest from being unhappy. Bridget is in the house making supper for them both, then after supper Bridget will put Granny to bed, then after that she'll take Cas home and he'll go to bed. Cas likes it that Granny will go to bed earlier than him, it makes him feel that he's more grown-up than her.

He doesn't mind that she doesn't talk to him, sitting here in the evening garden. He just watches her, keeping very still, not frightening her, waiting for her to feel safe. And after a bit he sees her eyes open and she looks at him. He looks back at her, but she doesn't speak or smile or do anything. You have to just wait. When they feel safe they start to make little noises. Then you can make little noises back.

She's staring at him and she's frowning, trying to remember.

“Who are you?” She says.

“Caspar.”

“Caspar? What sort of name's that?” She speaks in a small cross voice. “They should have called you John.”

“Why?” he says.

“It doesn't matter. No one listens to me.”

Cas is listening to her. He doesn't say so, he just goes on listening. She's started making her little noises now.

“What are you doing here?” she says.

“You're babysitting me, Granny.”

“Am I?”

“Mum's gone to a dinner party.”

“Has she?”

“Bridget's going to take me home after supper.”

“Bridget? Is she here?”

“Yes, Granny. She's in the kitchen, making supper.”

The old lady closes her eyes, not to sleep but to ponder this
information. When her eyes are closed she has a nice face. Quite suddenly Cas sees something he's not seen before, which is that Granny looks very like Mum. If you don't look at the gray hair or the wrinkles, just at the way the nose and mouth and chin go together, it could almost be Mum. And Mum is the person he loves most in the world.

“She's won,” says Granny. Then she opens her eyes again. “Bridget has.”

“What's she won?” says Cas.

“She does as she pleases. I can't stop her. This is her house now. I'm surprised she lets me go on living here. But I shan't live much longer. Then she can have it all.”

Mum said to Cas when she drove him over, “You know Granny is not always quite right in the head. She gets muddled about things. But Bridget will be there, so you mustn't mind.”

Cas doesn't mind. He's interested.

“Bridget shouldn't have the house,” he says. “It's your house.”

“That's what I say,” exclaims the old lady with sudden force. “This is my house! What's she doing here?”

“She's making supper,” says Cas.

“What do I want supper for? I don't want to go on living.”

“I want supper,” says Cas. “I'm hungry.”

“Oh, well then. She can make supper for you.”

This thought seems to calm her. The fit of anger passes.

“Granny,” says Cas. “Does your guinea pig talk?”

“Oh, yes. She talks a great deal. They talk to each other all the time.”

“Are there two guinea pigs?”

Cas can only see one, still steadily working its way through the bowl of salad.

“Oh, I forgot. One of them died. That was Bridget. She killed it.”

“Then she should go to prison.”

“She should! She should go to prison!” She smiles for the first time, a cruel little smile on her wrinkly face. “Then she'd get a taste of her own medicine.”

“I think rabbits talk to each other,” says Cas. “But they do it without making any sounds. It's a kind of silent talking.”

“I talk to Perry,” says the old lady. “I tell him everything that's happening to me.”

“Who's Perry?”

“Perry's my little dog. You remember Perry.”

Cas doesn't remember Perry. But there's no need to say this. She's got her wrinkly hands on her lap, moving one over the other, pushing at those fine wrinkles, making him want to touch them.

“Does Perry talk to you, Granny?”

“No, darling. Perry's gone now. But I talk to him anyway, because it makes me feel he's not gone so far.”

“Dad's got a dog in his film that talks. It doesn't really talk, it's only film tricks. But if you hold up two fingers, or three, he can count them. He does it with barking.”

He holds up two fingers to demonstrate.

“Woof! Woof!”

The old lady is delighted.

“Woof! Woof!” she repeats.

“You like animals, don't you, Granny,” he says.

“Oh, yes. I do.”

“So do I.”

“Animals are innocent, you see. They don't tell lies. They don't want to hurt you. But they have just as much love to give as people. Really they're much better to have round you than people. I wish I could have a carer who was a dog.”

“Like Nana,” says Cas.

“Who's Nana?”

“The dog in
Peter Pan
. It looks after the children.”

“Oh, yes.” But she looks confused.

“Why didn't you get another dog after Perry died, Granny?”

“I couldn't bear to go through that again,” she says. “When Perry died, I wanted to die. I loved him so much. It was much worse than when Rex left me. No, I'd rather be alone. And I can still talk to Perry, you see. He's not so very far away.”

“And you've got Bridget.”

“I don't like Bridget. I have to do what she says. My father was a solicitor, we lived in Farnborough, we were gentry, the butcher delivered every Friday. It said it on his van, Supplier to the Gentry. Who is this Bridget to tell me what to do?” She lowers her voice to a theatrical whisper. “The working classes have no manners, you know? Bridget has no idea how to lay a table. She calls me Mrs. D!”

Cas ponders the situation.

“So what will you do, Granny?”

“There's nothing I can do. I've lost.”

“But you can't spend all day being unhappy. Not every day.” He says this earnestly, unable to believe that there aren't moments of relief from the misery. “You're not unhappy now, are you?”

“No,” she says. “Not so much right now.”

“So if I come and see you sometimes, you won't always be unhappy.”

“Oh, my dear.”

“And Mum can come and see you.”

“I'm such a burden to your mother. She works so hard, she doesn't have time for me.”

“Yes, that's true,” says Cas.

“She must be just waiting for me to die.”

Cas wants to be truthful. “I don't
think
she wants you to die.”

“I'm just a nuisance,” says the old lady. “That's all I am. A burden and a nuisance. Do they think I don't know it? Do they think I can't see it in their faces? Oh, they're thinking, what does she want now? What's she demanding now? Why can't she just go away? But you see how it is, I can't go away. I'd love to go away, but I can hardly walk any more. So of course it's them who do the going away. It's always been them who go away, and I'm the one left on my own. Why is that? I don't understand that. Can you tell me why everyone always leaves me?”

“No, Granny,” says Cas. He thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe it's because you get so cross.”

“Cross? I don't get cross,” she says crossly. “Who told you I get cross? Was it Bridget? I tell her when she's doing things wrong sometimes, but that's not getting cross. You have to tell servants when they do something wrong, or they get lazy and sloppy. It's just something you have to do. Not that Bridget listens to a word I say any more. No, I'm the one who has to listen to her. Come in now, she says. Go to bed now, she says. And I have to do it. She's got me where she wants me, all right. I've told Elizabeth, but she won't listen. Nobody listens. I might as well be talking to the trees.”

The guinea pig has finally had enough salad. It waddles off to its hutch.

“I listen,” says Cas.

“Well, maybe you do. But you'll go away too. In the end everyone leaves me.”

“So really,” says Cas, “you're unhappy because you're lonely.”

“Well, yes.”

“Isn't it horrible being lonely all the time?”

“Yes,” she replies. “It's horrible.”

Cas reaches out and strokes her hand, so he can feel the wrinkles. They're soft as soft, not dry or crackly at all. She looks
at him as he strokes her hand and it's like Mum looking at him, only her little eyes have gone shiny.

“Soft,” he says.

“Old,” she says.

“When I feel lonely,” he says, “I go and visit the rabbits.”

“What rabbits?”

“There's a warren in the field behind our new house. They don't know I'm visiting them, of course. But you don't feel at all alone watching rabbits. Mostly they just eat grass and stuff. But sometimes they play with each other. It's called binking.”

“Called what?”

“Binking. They jump about in the air just because they feel happy. They go binky.”

“Go binky?”

The word delights the old lady.

“So you could watch rabbits when you get lonely.”

“But I don't have a warren in my garden. We don't want rabbits in here.”

“So if you don't have rabbits, watch your guinea pig.”

“One guinea pig doesn't do much.” She eyes the guinea pig as it noses in the straw of its hutch. “I don't think guinea pigs go binky.”

“Then,” says Cas, in a moment of illumination, “watch Bridget.”

“Watch Bridget!”

“So you don't get lonely.”

“Bridget!”

“You don't have to like her. You just watch her. See all the funny little things she does.”

“I don't think Bridget will go binky.”

“You never know. She might. You just have to keep watching. It's easy to miss the best moments. You have to sit very quietly, so they forget you're there. And then, all of a sudden, they start
binking. Up and down, jumping all over the place, out of just being so happy.”

“Perry used to jump like that,” says the old lady. “Oh, Perry! I hope you're happy now, Perry.”

“Where is he?” says Cas, interested.

“He's in animal heaven. And when I die, that's where I'm going to go. I don't want to go to people heaven. I don't think I really like people very much. I shall go and live forever with the animals.”

Bridget comes out of the house.

“Supper on the table, Mrs. D. You can run on in and start, if you want, Cas. I'll help Mrs. D in. We take our time, don't we, Mrs. D?”

Cas jumps up eagerly.

“Do you mind, Granny?”

“Off you go, my love.”

Caspar runs into the house. Bridget comes to the old lady's side and readies her arm so she can pull herself up. Mrs. Dickinson fixes her with an unblinking stare.

“I'm watching you, Bridget,” she says.

“You do that, Mrs. D. Now come on. Up you get.”

Early evening on Saturday. Sunlight bathes the west-facing terrace, and the air is mild. Laura has made her decision. They will eat outside tonight. They will sit down to the main course at half past eight, in just over two hours time. Now begins the most complex and intense phase of the entire operation.

The rolled saddle of lamb, the expensive centerpiece of the meal, is the source of greatest anxiety. As she works away at its preparation, piercing holes, poking in sprigs of rosemary and wedges of garlic, massaging it with olive oil and salt and pepper, she reruns the sums in her head to determine the cooking times. Six pounds at sixteen minutes a pound, ninety-six minutes roasting time, twenty minutes to rest: just under two hours. So it should go into the oven in ten minutes or so. But what are the chances the guests will be in their places ready to eat at eight-thirty? Better the lamb too pink than overcooked. So put it in the oven at 6:40 p.m. and take it out at 8.15 p.m.

Time before that to top and tail the courgettes and slice and toss them in olive oil and butter. Then there's the baguettes to slice and grill for the taramasalata. And oh God, someone needs to pick some flowers.

She goes out onto the terrace, where Henry is sitting talking with Diana and Roddy.

“I think we can eat outside, don't you?” she says. “Henry, I'm
leaving you to lay the table and deal with drinks. Diana, I don't suppose you'd like to pick some flowers?”

“I've just been telling Henry about Max,” says Diana. “That boy never ceases to amaze me. I've always known he was bright and, of course, exceptional, really, but he's becoming so
wise
. Yesterday he gave me quite a lecture about taking life more seriously. He's becoming almost
formidable
.”

“Maybe he gets that from Roddy,” says Henry.

“From Roddy?” Diana sound surprised. “Roddy isn't formidable in the least.”

“Why don't you give everyone a drink?” says Laura to Henry. “And bring me a glass in the kitchen.”

She returns to her vegetable preparations. In her mind she is slotting the various tasks into the time available. Clearly Diana won't be picking the flowers, so she'll have to find five minutes for that. Then at some point after the lamb's in the oven and before it's time to cook the vegetables she must steal a quarter of an hour to change and make herself presentable. And what is Carrie to eat? She may choose to lurk in her room but she still needs to be fed.