Blue Bedroom and Other Stories (25 page)

He grinned, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a letter. He tossed it across to her. “Read that.”

Mystified, Jill picked it up and unfolded it. It was a long letter and typewritten. If was from Edwin.

My dear Ian

This is to thank you for a pleasant evening with you both, and the excellent dinner, and to say how much I appreciated your motoring me to and fro. I must say that it goes against the grain, being forced to pay exorbitant taxi fares. I much enjoyed meeting your child and seeing your house. You have, however, an obvious problem with your garden, and I have given the matter some thought.

Your first priority is obviously to get rid of the tree. On no account must you tackle it yourself. There are a number of professional firms in London who are qualified to deal with such work and I have taken the liberty of instructing three of them to call on you, at your convenience, and give you estimates. Once the tree has gone, you will have more idea of the possibilities of your plot, but in the meantime I would suggest the following:

The letter continued, by now reading like a builder's specification. Existing walls made good, re-pointed, and painted white. A trellis fence, for privacy, erected along the top of these walls. The ground cleared and levelled, and laid with flags—a drain to be discreetly incorporated in one corner for easy cleaning. Outside the kitchen window a wooden deck—preferably teak—to be erected, supported by steel joists, and with an open wooden staircase giving access to the garden below.

I think [Edwin continued] this more or less covers the structural necessities. You may want to construct a raised flower bed along one of the walls, or make a small rockery around the stump of the removed tree, but this is obviously up to yourselves.

Which leave us with the problem of the cats. Again, I have made some enquiries and discovered that there is an excellent repellant which is safe to use where there are children about. A squirt or two of this should do the trick, and once the soil and grass have been covered by flags, I see no reason why the cats should return for any function, natural or otherwise.

This is obviously going to cost quite a lot of money. I realise that, with inflation and the rising cost of living, it is not always easy for a young couple, however hard they work, to make ends meet. And I should like to help. I have, in fact, made provision for you in my Will, but it occurs to me that it would be much more in keeping to hand the money over to you now. Then you will be able to deal with your garden, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing it completed, hopefully before I, too, follow my good friend Edgar, and pass on.

Finally, your mother indicated to me that you had given up a pleasurable weekend in order to cheer me up on the evening of Edgar's funeral. Your kindness equals her own, and I am fortunate to be in a financial position when I am able, at last, to repay my debts.

With best wishes,

Yours

Edwin

Edwin. She could hardly see his spiky signature because her eyes were full of tears. She imagined him, sitting in his dark little house in Woking, absorbed in their problems, working them all out; taking time to look up suitable firms, probably making endless telephone calls, doing little sums, forgetting no tiny detail, taking trouble …

“Well?” said Ian, gently.

The tears had started to slide down her cheeks. She put up a hand and tried to wipe them away.

“I never thought. I never thought he'd do anything like
this.
Oh, Ian, and we've been so horrible about him.”

“You were never horrible. You wouldn't know how to be horrible about anybody.”

“I … I never imagined he had any money at all.”

“I don't think any of us did. Not that sort of money.”

“How can we ever thank him?”

“By doing what he says. By doing just exactly what he's told us to do, and then asking him around to the garden-warming. We'll throw a little party.” He grinned. “It'll make a nice change.”

She looked out of the window, through the grimy glass. A paper bag had found its way into the garden from some neighbouring dustbin, and the nastiest of the torn cats, the one with the torn ear, was sitting on top of the wall, eyeing her.

She met his cold green stare with equanimity. She said, “I'll be able to hang out my washing. I shall get some tubs, and plant bulbs for the spring, and pink ivy-leafed geranium in the summer. And Robbie can play there and we'll have a sandpit. And if the deck is big enough, I can even put the baby out there, in the pram. Oh, Ian, isn't it going to be
wonderful?
I won't ever have to go to the park again. Just think.”

“You know what I think?” said Ian. “I think it would be a good idea to go and give old Edwin a ring.”

So they went together to the telephone and dialled Edwin's number, and stood very close, with their arms around each other, waiting for the old gentleman to answer their call.

The House on the Hill

The village was miniature. Oliver had never, in all the ten years of his life, seen such a tiny place. Six grey granite houses, a pub, an ancient church, a vicarage, and a little shop. Outside this was parked a rackety-looking truck, and somewhere a dog was barking, but apart from that, there did not seem to be anybody about.

Carrying the basket and Sarah's shopping list, he opened the door of the shop, over which was written
JAMES THOMAS, PURVEYOR, TOBACCONIST
, and went in, down two steps, and the two men who stood on either side of the counter turned their heads to look at him.

He shut the door behind him. “Won't keep you a moment,” said the shopkeeper, presumably James Thomas, a small, bald gentleman in a brown cardigan. Quite an ordinary sort of person. The other man, who had purchased and was now paying for an enormous amount of groceries, was, however, not ordinary in the very least, but so tall that, standing, he had to stoop slightly in order not to brain himself on the overhead beams. He wore a leather jacket and patched jeans and huge workman's boots, and his hair was red and so was his beard. Oliver, knowing that it was rude to stare, stared, and the man stared back from a pair of bright, pale blue eyes, unblinking and flinty. It was unnerving. Oliver tried a feeble smile, but this roused no response, and the bearded man said nothing. After a moment, he turned to the counter, feeling in his back pocket for a wad of notes. Mr. Thomas rang up his account and handed it over.

“Seven pounds fifty, Ben.”

His customer paid the money, then piled one laden grocery carton onto the other, lifted the pair of them with ease, and turned towards the door. Oliver went to open it for him. As he went through the door, the bearded man glanced down. “Thanks.” His voice was deep as a gong.
Ben.
You could imagine him growling orders from the poop deck of some pirate ship, or rallying a murderous band of wreckers. Oliver watched as he loaded his cartons over the tail-gate of the truck, then climbed into the driving seat and started up the engine. With a roar of exhaust and a spatter of chippings, the scarred vehicle took off. Oliver closed the door and turned back into the shop.

“What can I do for you, young man?”

Oliver handed him the list. “It's for Mrs. Rudd.”

Mr. Thomas looked at him, smiling. “You must be Sarah's young brother. She told me you were coming to stay. When did you arrive?”

“Last night, I came on the train. I had my appendix out, so I've come to stay with Sarah for two weeks till I go back to school.”

“Live in London, don't you?”

“Yes. Putney.”

“You'll soon get strong down here. First time you've been, isn't it? How'd you like the valley?”

“It's beautiful. I walked down from the farmhouse.”

“See any badgers?”

“Badgers?” He did not know if Mr. Thomas was teasing him or not. “No.”

“Walk down the valley at half-light and you'll see badgers. And you go down the cliffs and you can watch the seals. How's Sarah keeping?”

“She's all right.” At least, he supposed that she was all right. She was due to have her first baby in a couple of weeks, and it had been something of a shock to find his slender, pretty sister swollen to whalelike proportions. Not that she didn't still look pretty, just enormous.

“You'll be helping Will on the farm.”

“I was up early to watch him milking.”

“We'll make a farmer of you yet. Now, let's see … pound of flour, jar of instant coffee, three pounds of granulated sugar…” He packed the basket. “Not too heavy for you?”

“No, I'll manage.” He paid, from Sarah's purse, and was given a bar of milk chocolate as a present. “Thank you very much.”

“Keep you going that walk up the hill to the farm. Take care, now.”

*   *   *

Carrying the basket, Oliver left the village, crossed the main road, and started up the narrow lane that wound up the valley back to Will Rudd's farm. It was a pleasant walk, because a small stream kept the road company, sometimes changing sides, so that every now and then there was a little stone bridge, good for leaning over and looking for fish and frogs. It was open, moorland country, patched with tawny bracken and gorse. The stout gorse stems were the fuel for Sarah's fire—those, and scraps of driftwood which she collected on her walks by the sea. The driftwood spat and smelt of tar, but the furze burned cleanly, to a white-hot ash.

Halfway up the valley, he reached the single lonely tree. An ancient oak, which had somehow dug its roots into the bank of the stream, defied the winds of centuries and grown, malformed and twisted, to venerable maturity. Bare-branched, its fallen leaves lay thick on the ground, and, coming down the hill, Oliver had kicked at these with the toes of his rubber boots. But now, coming upon them, he stopped dead in horrified revulsion, for in the middle of the leaves lay the carcass of a rabbit, newly killed, with fur torn and horrible red guts spilling from the wound in its belly.

A fox, perhaps, disturbed in the middle of his snack. Perhaps, at this very minute, he was waiting, watching from the depths of the bracken with cold and hungry eyes. Oliver glanced about, warily, but nothing moved, only the wind, stirring the leaves. He felt fearful. Something impelled him to look up, and there, high in the pale November sky, he saw a hawk hovering, waiting to pounce. Beautiful and deadly. The country was cruel. Death, birth, survival were all about him. He watched the hawk for a little, and then, giving the dead rabbit a wide berth, hurried on up the hill.

It was comforting to get back to the farmhouse, to shuck off his boots and go through the door into the warm kitchen. The table was laid for lunch, and Will sat there reading the paper, but he laid this aside when Oliver appeared.

“We thought you'd got lost.”

“I saw a dead rabbit.”

“Plenty of those around.”

“And a hawk hovering.”

“Little kestrel. I saw it too.”

Sarah, at the stove, ladled soup into bowls. As well, there was a dish of fluffy mashed potatoes and a loaf of wheaty brown bread. Oliver took a slice and buttered it, and Sarah sat opposite him, a bit away from the table because of her size.

“You found the shop all right?”

“Yes, and there was a man there, hugely tall, with red hair and a red beard. He was called Ben.”

“That's Ben Fox. He rents a little house from Will up on the hill. You can see his chimney from the bedroom window.”

It sounded spooky. “What does he do?”

“He's a wood carver. He's got a workshop up there, does quite well. Lives on his own, save for a dog and a few chickens. There's no track to his cottage, so he keeps his truck down on the road, carries everything he needs up on his back. Sometimes, if it's heavy stuff, like a new cultivator, Will lends him the tractor, and in return he gives us a hand at lambing time, or hay making.”

Oliver, eating his soup, thought about this. It all sounded quite friendly and harmless, but did nothing to explain the coldness of those blue eyes, the unfriendliness of the man.

“If you like,” Will said, “I'll take you up to meet him. One of my cows has got a passion for that bit of the hill, gets out and takes her calf up there at the drop of a hat. She's up there now. Took off this morning. This afternoon I'll have to fetch her back.”

“You'll need to build up that wall,” Sarah pointed out.

“We'll take a couple of posts and some fencing wire and see if we can make a good job of it.” He grinned at Oliver. “Like to do that, would you?”

Oliver did not answer at once. In truth, he was apprehensive of meeting Ben Fox again, and yet fascinated by the man. Besides, he could come to no harm if Will was there. He made up his mind. “Yes, I'd like it.” And Sarah smiled, and poured another ladleful of soup into his bowl.

*   *   *

Half an hour later they set off, with Will's sheepdog at their heels. Oliver carried a roll of fencing wire, and Will a couple of sturdy fenceposts across his shoulder. A heavy hammer weighed down the pocket of his dungarees.

They made their way across the first pastures, climbing up towards the moor. At the top of the last field they came upon the gap in the wall, where the errant cow had knocked aside several stones in her determined efforts to get through. Here Will set down the posts and the hammer and the wire, then climbed the wall and led the way into the tangle of bracken and bramble that lay beyond. A tiny path, a warren, led through the undergrowth, scarcely visible through the thorny gorse bushes, but they came at last to the foot of the great cairns, steep as cliffs, which crowned the hill. Between two of these massive boulders, a narrow gully led them up to the summit, where the mossy turf was studded with outcrops of lichened granite and the cool, salty air, blown straight off the sea, filled Oliver's grateful lungs. He saw the ocean to the north, the moor to the south; and the little house. They had come upon it almost by surprise. Single-storeyed, crouched against the elements, it snuggled into the natural hollow of the terrain. Smoke rose from a single chimney and there was a small garden, sheltered by a dry stone wall. By the wall, placidly munching, stood Will's cow and her calf.