Our Picnics in the Sun (15 page)

After a long rest, Theo lifted the basket and walking frame over the stile. Then he stood on the first step, and between us, pulling and pushing, we got Howard up and standing on the stile, hanging on for dear life to the top bar of the fence. Theo stepped over, and I stepped up behind Howard and held on to him. Theo coaxed his good leg over the stile and took his weight while I bundled the bad leg across. Howard’s eyes were closed and his jaws were working fearfully, and he was almost a dead weight, but he didn’t panic or resist. I don’t know how it happened, but then Theo, holding Howard under the arms, toppled backward off the stile, taking Howard down with him. Howard landed heavily and was winded. His legs were scraped and bloodied, but we were over. Once he was hauled back on his feet he locked the fingers of his good hand on to his frame and clung on, bent and trembling. The ground was soft, I pointed out, so no bones were broken, he was fine; there was nothing to worry about.

Anyway, Howard had to be fine, because we could not go back now. I was too elated. The wind was pulling up from the ground where he’d fallen the raw smell of broken grass, and letting loose all kinds of sounds that went tumbling over the hillside: the bleating of sheep and lapwing cries, and from deep in the combe at the far edge of the field, the hissing of leaves in the alders. We cut a diagonal path, making for the remains of a gap between a stone dyke and some bigger beech trees. There was a channel of water to cross in the middle of the field, no more than three inches deep, but Howard looked alarmed. Theo took him on his shoulders again, and under his weight his feet sank deep into the streambed and turned the glassy surface of the water into chaotic swirls of mud and grit. I took off my shoes and waded across. The water was so cold and the shale so stinging underfoot that for a moment I felt sick, and then I wanted to pee so badly I was afraid I would wet myself. This feeling almost, but not quite, wrecked my elation, until I decided it was almost funny, really, for such an accident would only happen because I was
overweight and getting older, but in fact the sudden panic and shame at even the possibility of it was making me feel very young, reminding me of the way children keep hidden from the grown-ups all those secret, trivial little scandals that feature themselves and nobody else. When I’d got my shoes back on I stopped for a rest, and to watch. Theo’s grace was quite unreal; in the distance he moved as if born of the wind or the sky. With his hand pressed into Howard’s back, he was making him take minute steps forward. But Howard was about to give up. The ground was uneven and the walking frame listed and began to sink, and Howard uttered a cry that turned into a fit of coughing. Theo moved fast, and hoisted him once more over his shoulder. I followed, picking up the walking frame on the way.

After an hour and a half we had crossed three fields. Neither Howard nor Theo could go another step, so we settled ourselves a few yards from a line of alders sprouting from a broken hedgebank, some way under the crest of the rise. Along the ground a blue plastic hose snaked down from the moor around the tree roots and fed into an old metal bath that overflowed at one end; all around it the mud was choppy with hoof tracks where the sheep came to drink. At first Howard was unhappy about sitting on the rug but we helped him down and after a moment he looked comfortable enough, lying flat on his back. I sat with Theo on the edge of the rug to look at the view; behind us, Howard went quiet. He might have been thinking about Adam’s birthday, but most likely he wasn’t.

We were within sight of the ridge of the moor. A way over it, on the far side, was where I’d found the dying sheep that day. I hadn’t been up here since. I considered, and dismissed the idea of telling Theo about it, and about the floating figure I’d seen through the rain clouds, treading the air yet staying distant. It wasn’t just that I didn’t know how to describe that day, or perhaps was afraid to, it was that today was so different. The horizon was clear and the only clouds were high-up, wavy veils across the blue; sunlight glinted on the other side of the moor that sloped away from the ridge. The harvest was almost in, and for miles around, the acres of arable land claimed from the wild furze and made fertile were buzz-cut into thick, fawn-colored stripes. A combine was flailing across one faraway, vanishing
yellow square of field and raising a cloud of wheat dust, and a tractor pulling a load of grain trundled through the lower pastures that rolled down to the barns. A languid pair of buzzards floated in stiff-winged circles over the stubble.

I could tell that Theo had turned to look at me, but I went on gazing out across the moor and pulling at the little tufts of grass under my hands, which tore with a soft creaking sound. A banal remark about the wild ponies and deer and how we were almost certain to see them today was on my lips when I heard Theo ask me abruptly if I liked coming up here. I glanced behind me. Howard had managed to turn on his side and I couldn’t see his face.

“Of course I do! It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The moor’s so beautiful!” I said.

“You don’t have to like a place just because it’s beautiful,” Theo said.

I thought about that for a while. “But it is beautiful. And it’s important to me,” I said. “Don’t you have any place that’s important to you?”

There was no answer. “Where have you come from, Theo?” I said. “The place you’re from—is it important to you?”

He waved the questions away. “Some places I like, some I don’t. Why do you have to come up here? Just because it’s your son’s birthday?”

I got up and attended to Howard, who was asleep with his mouth open. His head looked so small now his hair was shorn, and the gusting wind was teasing the remaining strands, exposing his bumpy yellow scalp. He looked cold, a little blue around the mouth and nose, and his hands were blotchy. Poor Howard, he could have been asleep in snow. I took off my cardigan and placed it over him.

When I sat down again I told Theo that in the early days we loved coming up here, Howard and me. On afternoons like this I would bring a rug and flask of tea in a sling strapped to my back and Howard would carry his shepherd’s crook. I’d pour Howard’s tea into a cup and sip mine from the lid of the flask. He’d sit whittling sticks with a penknife and talking about everything to do with Stoneyridge, the reasons we were here, how it would all come right. He had it all
worked out. Such wonderful summer skies, at the beginning. I had thought of painting the sky, or putting the color of it into my weaving. I never managed to do either, not after I had Adam.

“But you still came every year, on Adam’s birthday?”

I remember Howard took up woodcarving the year I was pregnant, I said. He was always whittling away at something, he always had something green and half-done. He never made money at it, of course. Even a simple little figure took so long it wasn’t worth it. When I first knew I was pregnant I asked him if he might make toys and he even began something, a rattle I think it was, though come to think of it, it never got finished. But he was never idle.

“You mean he always had a knife in his hand,” Theo said, looking at Howard’s sleeping face. I laughed to show I wasn’t taking his remark the wrong way. “He was always busy. We both were. There was the pottery and weaving, and the animals, and the garden, and the spiritual retreat,” I said. “And then, of course, Adam.” And I laughed some more. “As a matter of fact, I came up here on the day he was born. I didn’t want to, I was so heavy by then. But Howard brought me up here.” Theo didn’t reply. “Then, do you know, he actually suggested I should stay and give birth up here!”

I knew I’d said too much; I knew Theo was silent from shock, not indifference. “Do you know, I’ve never told anyone that before? So, anyway! It was all a long time ago,” I added.

I went to the basket for the package of sandwiches and we began to eat. Theo fed bits of bread and meat into his mouth and gazed around calmly, but his silence somehow demanded something of me. It was interrogatory, pushing unspoken, impertinent questions in my direction. Why did Howard bring me up here that day—two steep, uphill miles? I didn’t want to think about it, so I started talking again.

“You may have a point there. What you said about not necessarily loving beautiful places. I don’t always love the moor. It can be bleak. Dangerous, too—the weather can change just like that. That’s well known around here.”

Theo didn’t respond, which I took as an invitation to continue. So actually, I then wondered aloud, did we really love it up here, the
two of us, as much as all that? In truth, how often did we, committed as we were to our drudgery, allow ourselves to while away time that could be spent working? And did it really never rain? I wanted to think that in those early years there had been many, many afternoons on the moor, but I had to accept that maybe there had been no more than two or three. Maybe I’d torn up my memories of those few like photographs and was feeding them back to myself in scraps, pretending that each fragment came from a different picture in an entire album of pictures that, if it existed, would be evidence of a whole season of happiness, when in fact all we’d ever had was a handful of fine days caught in a handful of snapshots. The very idea that we made our way on to the moor and wasted whole afternoons up here, like people given to even mild pleasure-seeking, was absurd. There was always work to do, something that couldn’t wait, and the impulse for simple fun was never very strong in us, anyway. What was certain—although I did not say this aloud—was that I really did come without fail every twenty-eighth of August, on Adam’s birthday. I couldn’t keep away.

I woke Howard by tapping on his cheek, and I hauled him gently to a sitting position. He ate his way through a sandwich, pulling strings of meat through his teeth and even getting his left hand as far as his mouth so he could lick his fingers. Then, with a look of disgust on his face, he brought out of his mouth a long flap of pork rind that he couldn’t swallow, and dangled it in front of me like a dead flat-worm. Theo reached over his shoulder, took it from him, and flung it hard into the grass. With his index finger Howard hooked a lump of bread out from his bulging cheek and tried to copy him, but he hadn’t got the strength in his arm to throw it anywhere and the ball of sodden dough dropped on to the rug. Theo flicked it away before Howard could grab it back, and pushed another sandwich in his hand. Howard whined and rolled over, Theo eased himself away and helped Howard until he was lying on his side, in the recovery position. It occurred to me to take the sandwich out of Howard’s hand because there was a risk he might choke if he tried to eat lying down, but he was showing no interest in it anyway, and so I left him alone. Theo handed me another sandwich and I crammed it into my mouth,
conveying appreciation. There was nothing wrong with the food on this picnic.

“So when was the last time?” Theo asked. “The last time he was here with you for his birthday. When you were all up here together.”

“Oh, the last time?” I said, my mouth still full. I waved loosely around and about in the air with the sandwich in my hand. “The last birthday picnic all together?”

I glanced at Howard still sprawled on the rug and was pleased to see he wasn’t following the conversation, and his eyes were beginning to close. I got up and knelt beside him, and lifted his small, cold head on to my lap. I stroked the side of his face and made a show to Theo of dredging up the recollection, as if our lives were so crammed with incident, so hectic with visits and parties and picnics that I had to sift through a hundred memories of past amusements to pinpoint a particular one.

“Must be a couple of years,” I said. I hesitated; I had to prevent my memory of it from altering the expression on my face. I wasn’t going to tell Theo it was seven years ago. Why spoil the day? Today we were up on the moor, the wind was rattling through the bracken, the grass was silvery under the sun, and we could see for miles. I glanced down at Howard’s face. He remained quite still amid the waving grass, as if fallen on a battlefield. I knew better than to wonder if he remembered it as I did. Our shared history had become mine alone, since long before the stroke.

“Adam’s firm keeps him terribly busy. They send him all over the place, so he can’t always get here,” I said. “But oh, how he would love this! Isn’t it all just lovely!” I leaned across and pushed the open packet of sandwiches toward Theo. “Have another!” I cried. I took one myself and bit into it.

But why did even a simple pleasure have to be forced in this way? When did enjoyment grow so elusive that I had to chase after it and pin it down so desperately? Even more desperate was the sudden knowledge that I wouldn’t be enjoying any of it at all if it weren’t for the presence of Theo.

“How old is he today, then? Older than me?”

I had to chew for a long time before answering. Though it might
have been a little tough for some tastes, the pork meat was delicious, dense and fibrous and salty, and the skin was soft and thick.

“Twenty-eight,” I said. “How old are you, Theo? When’s your birthday?”

“I’m twenty-seven,” he said. “My birthday’s next month. The twenty-eighth.”

“Oh, my goodness! September the twenty-eighth? That’s the day Adam was due! He was born nearly five weeks early, you see,” I said. “He wasn’t meant to come till September the twenty-eighth. But I went into labor.”

“Wow, we were nearly twins, then, me and Adam,” Theo said. “Can I have some birthday cake?”