The Whole Day Through (15 page)

In Islington her parents had lived in a semi-detached house and, even with high hedges, had been obliged to confine their William and Mrs Blake sessions to a sort of arbour created at its rear with much trellis and a vine so vigorous it was forever bringing sections of the trellis down.

As soon as she was old enough to be coming and going on her own, Dad established a warning code. If he set
the milk bottle counter to
No Milk Today
it meant one or both of them had nothing on. The mere thought of this, and the worry of how she would divert or stall visitors to prevent a scandal, was enough to stop her ever inviting people home.

The guaranteed privacy at the Winchester house, quite apart from its Gothic charm, had been a major factor in her mother’s impulsive move from Islington. The property had a six-foot wall on all four sides, a typical Hampshire one in which a brick framework was filled with knapped flint cut on the square, and the gate was as high as the wall and had a tiny door at face height that opened on a grilled peephole. There was also a bell pull let into the gatepost. At one end of a long street of expansive villas, most of which had temptingly ungated entrances, it stood, a lone Puritan, impregnable without invitation.

She tired of the radio discussion and, ashamed of cultural cowardice, switched back to the Proms where the piece had either changed or calmed down considerably, then she turned the chops and smeared a little crushed garlic on them. She turned down the heat as Mummy came back in with a bunch of velvety red roses.

‘They were being knocked down by the rain,’ she said. ‘So I thought I’d rescue them. Here.
Etoile de Hollande.
For your bedroom.’

She passed them to Laura and wobbled alarmingly because she hadn’t put her walker’s brakes on. She was exhilarated by storm and nudity and made Laura feel much the older of them both.

‘Thanks,’ Laura said. ‘They’re beautiful,’ and she carefully laid the flowers on the draining board so as to pick up the bath towel and wrap it around her mother’s shoulders. ‘You’re freezing,’ she said.

‘Nonsense. Warm as toast,’ said Mummy, teeth chattering slightly. ‘Is that mine?’ She pointed at the gin and tonic.

‘Yes. Sit and I’ll give it to you.’

‘What on earth are you listening to?’

‘Proms. It’s
good
for us.’ She helped her mother into the armchair, wheeled her little invalid’s table across her lap and set gin and cheese straws before her. She was long past the stage of getting Mummy to wash her hands before meals if handwashing had not occurred to Mummy independently.

Over supper they argued. Out of the blue, as she was finishing her chop, Mummy suddenly said, ‘You know, maybe I should go into a home after all. We could sell this place to pay the fees, or just let it.’

Laura knew that the heat of her reaction to this was born of insecurity and the see-sawing of emotions the offer provoked in her. Of course they could find her a place in a home and of course they could pay for it by renting or selling the house but either option would deprive Laura of a place to live. Possibly she could find somewhere in the city to rent. On her income she certainly couldn’t afford to buy even a shoebox flat. The circumstances that had landed the little Parisian bargain in her lap were not about to be repeated. On the one hand, Mummy going into a home represented freedom,
on the other, it handed her a fat parcel of guilt. And it would stop them seeing each other so easily.

‘Is that honestly what you’d rather?’ Laura asked, trying not to sound wounded but suspecting she did. ‘Would you really rather be looked after by professional carers and trained moppers-up who you don’t know than stay here with me? I mean, it’s your house, it’s your money, your life but…If I had to move away again, visits from me would be pretty rare.’

Mummy carefully ate the last of her lamb fat and tucked her knife and fork together. ‘That never bothered me especially before,’ she said.

‘Even coming from you, that’s pretty cold.’

‘It’s not coldness,’ Mummy retorted. ‘It’s realism. Anyway. You might settle down at last.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Laura shouted.

‘You’re still young enough to be a stepmother. Don’t look at me like that. Stranger things have happened. Some nice rugged divorcee…’

‘
Rugged?
Where did that come from?’ Laura laughed, and together they escaped into merriment off perilously thin ice.

‘You know I
am
rather cold,’ Mummy said at last.

‘You’re not,’ Laura assured her, cravenly caving in. ‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘Temperature. Not temperament.’

‘Oh. Well, I said you were.’

‘Not then. Now. I think it’s the draught I was telling you about from the blocked up chimney in here.’

‘Not as much flesh to keep you warm as you used to have. Here. Stand up a sec and I’ll wrap your dressing gown round you while you eat pudding and I’ll start your bath running.’

‘Oh, not just yet. It’s so early.’ She submitted to the dressing gown at least, then confessed, ‘Maybe I’m not quite ready for a home.’

‘Bedtime at eight in a home. Or earlier, so the staff can get away for the night.’

‘Don’t!’

Laura laughed. ‘They’d change your alarm clock and watch to fool you.’

‘
Don’t!
Pax.’

Mummy giggled but she looked old and frail again – wisps of hair and pale shoulders catching in the chilly light from under the wall cabinets – a wan shadow suddenly of the majestic Queen Lear who had tended roses in the storm.

Ben and Bobby slipped through the happy crowd queuing up to enter the back garden of The Bell for Shirley’s deferred wake and Ben drove them home. This time he took the town centre route.

‘You’re a dark horse,’ he told Bobby. ‘You never told me you were reading.’

‘I don’t tell you everything.’

‘Don’t I know it! How’s your little problem, by the way?’

‘What?’

‘You know. Down there. Little friends?’

‘Shut up!’ Bobby slapped him playfully with the back of a hand.

‘No, but really.’

‘It’s fine. Stuff worked.’

‘Good.’

‘You’re
not
to talk about it!’

‘I won’t. Promise. Forgotten already.’

They crossed the railway bridge and swung right, up Clifton Road. Ben felt Bobby watching him as he drove.

‘You’re happy,’ Bobby said after a while.

‘I am.’ Ben found them a space at the edge of the Arbour and they walked home from there. The children and terrier had all gone home. Some students were smoking meditatively on the swings. ‘Chicken or sausages for supper? There’s leftover chicken casserole or –’

‘I told you this morning,’ Bobby insisted. ‘I’m going out. Hot date. Where’s your brain today?’

‘Don’t you want to eat first?’

‘Jeff’s buying me dinner.’

‘He said with maidenly pride.’

‘What? Shut up!’

Ben chuckled and let them in. ‘When’s he getting here?’

‘Not for a bit. He’s driving the one that gets in at 2015.’ Bobby stared at his watch and took a moment to compute the difference between what he saw there and the time Jeff was due. Ben had bought him a watch that showed the twenty-four-hour system around its dial when he took the job at the station to help him with the timetables. ‘Shit,’ Bobby said shortly and started for the stairs. He turned back. ‘If he…If he turns up before I’m ready, be nice.’

‘Will do.’

‘He’s a bit shy, Ben.’

‘So am I! Go!’

Bobby thumped up the stairs for what was probably his third shower of the day. Ben hooked his jacket over the back of a chair, turned on the oven, slid in the leftover casserole and some cold baked potatoes then poured himself a glass of yesterday’s Rioja and flopped on the sofa.

There was a folder of notes he needed to look over for a lunchtime clinic meeting on Monday. He remembered slinging it down with his things when he came home earlier but Bobby had tidied them away – perhaps to express his impatience when Ben insisted on showering and changing before the service. He’d dig the file out later, tomorrow perhaps. He had all weekend after all. Even if Laura could get away at some point, as he hoped, it seemed unlikely her mother would spare her more than a few hours. Or that her own, clearly powerful, sense of filial duty would. Perhaps, he reflected, he could see the two of them together again but on a more open footing? He could clean the car and take them out into the surrounding countryside somewhere. He pictured a riverside pub, with ducks and barbecue smoke and Professor Jellicoe falling asleep on the back seat on the way home so that they had to talk in murmurs.

So, rather than hunt for files, he reached for the television controls and started to watch the news. He had barely watched one story through when the doorbell rang. He flicked the mute button and answered the door. ‘You must be Jeff.’

Jeff seemed huge. He wasn’t fat, just hefty and big-limbed. He still had on his navy blue train company uniform and was carrying that mysterious black bag train drivers always seemed to have about them. Ben made a mental note, because he had always wondered, to ask Bobby to find out what was in it. Jeff had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves with great neatness, to reveal forearms like a pair of hairy hams. Ben remembered the hairy wrists on last night’s visitor and wondered if forearms were Bobby’s weakness, the way some men went for breasts or legs, and what had nourished this appetite in a man with no father or uncles to carry him around the room as a child. Ben’s own forearms were smooth and he felt effete by comparison.

‘You must be Ben,’ Jeff said and enveloped Ben’s hand in a bear paw. His smile was dazzling against a day’s dark growth of stubble. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

‘You’re right on time. It’s Bobby who’s behind. He’s showering in your honour. Have a seat.’

With Jeff safely in an armchair, it felt as though the tiny room had suddenly got its light back.

‘Drink?’

‘Anything soft? It’s still hot out there.’

‘Ginger beer?’ Ben offered.

‘I can live with the pun.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes, please.’ While Ben fetched his drink, Jeff chatted on, nervously or out of uncomplicated friendliness. ‘I told him not to get all gussied up. It’s not fair when I’ve been
stuck in a train all day and not had a chance to…Still. What can you do? We’re only going to a pub. I mean, it’s a nice pub but it’s not a white linen tablecloth job. Oh. Ta.’ He took the drink and drank most of it in a single draught. ‘Nectar,’ he said and gave that twinkly smile again. His charm was wasted in a train cab. It had such presence it made even Ben feel bashful.

‘Have you lived in Winchester long?’ he asked him.

‘I live outside a bit. Edge of Hursley.’

‘I know.’

‘I was from Gosport originally. Joined the navy straight out of school and left it for the railways ten years ago. Bobby gave me a free cappuccino in his first week at work.’

‘Took your time asking him out.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t know he was available.’

They both laughed and Jeff watched the muted news.

‘Jeff, speaking as a doctor and his brother…’

‘It’s okay. I know all about Mosaic Down’s Syndrome. He told me in his second week at work.’

‘No…I mean, about his heart. You know he has a weak one?’

‘I guessed he might, even with the bike riding. I’m a trained first responder. I’ve got all the kit in my car boot.’

‘Oh, well, then I needn’t worry.’ They both laughed again. ‘He’s very independent,’ Ben went on.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘But I worry. Since our mum died I…’

Jeff looked back from the news. ‘He’s in safe hands, Ben.’ They exchanged a smile as Bobby left his room in his usual stomping rush but then descended the stairs with a debutante’s restraint. He had discarded his suit and tie in favour of jeans and an unflatteringly tight sky-blue tee shirt that said
Fragile
across the chest.

Ben experienced a moment of brotherly panic that the gloriously mismatched pair might snog in front of him but Bobby was discretion itself and, as Jeff rose from his chair and once again seemed to block all the light from the room, he merely said, ‘Oh. I didn’t hear you arrive. Spared you the baby photos, then. Shall we be off?’

‘Sure, Babe,’ Jeff muttered and crushed Ben’s hand again. ‘See you soon,’ he said and headed out.

Ben grinned at Bobby.

‘What?’ Bobby said.

‘He’s lovely.’

‘Well, don’t wait up. And don’t
worry
.’

‘I’m not worrying.’

‘Everything’s going to be fine. I was a bit naughty, Ben.’

‘How do you mean?’ Ben remembered Bobby’s impish evasiveness before they left for St Cross. All those
nothings
. Bobby was pulling the same expression now. ‘What have you done, Bob?’

Bobby had done some terrible things in his time, nearly always in the spirit of being loving and helpful. Machine-washing their mother’s one and only piece of
cashmere sprang to mind, along with starting to wallpaper the bathroom as a surprise and unplugging a laden freezer just before they went on a three-week summer holiday.

The recollection of such disastrous kindnesses might have started to show on Ben’s expression because Bobby’s smile dropped a fraction. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s something nice. I posted your letter, was all.’

Ben didn’t understand right away. He tended to neglect domestic admin during the week and was forever getting things like voter registration forms or bank questionnaires into their brown envelopes but neglecting to post them for want of a stamp or sufficient impetus. Chloë had tried, without success, to train him at least to leave all opened mail in one corner of the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry?’ he said. ‘Go on. It doesn’t matter and Jeff’s waiting out there.’

But Bobby didn’t go; he was concerned now in case he’d done something wrong after all. ‘The nice letter,’ he explained. ‘I’d tidied up while you were showering. Because of Jeff coming. It fell out of your case. I guessed you hadn’t sent it because you weren’t sure. But I’m sure. She loves you, Ben. Of course she does.’

‘But you don’t have her address,’ Ben said, feeling dizzy.