Precious Time (33 page)

An April Fool for sure.

; Realising that Clara was waiting for him to speak, he shook himself out of his despondency. ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’

‘I was just saying that if any of these things are too awful to contemplate, you must … Are you okay, Archie? You look a bit bothered.’

He forced himself to smile. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. Now, then, let’s see about this little lot, shall we? Looks to me like you’ve got the whole bag of tricks here.’ And with a supreme act of will, he focused his attention on the boxes on the floor. Without needing to sift too deeply through them he could see that the assorted junk was mostly saleable - pots, pans, ladles, a china toast rack in the shape of a loaf of bread, a rusting hand whisk, various discoloured and outdated kitchen gadgets, a bedside lamp and an old money-box. It was the usual household stuff he saw every day. What he couldn’t get rid of he’d pass on to a fellow dealer up in New Mills whose customers weren’t so choosy as his. He reached into his trouser pocket for his roll of money. ‘No problem,’ he said, ‘I’ll take the lot, save you the trouble of messing about with any of it. Is that it?’

She pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid not. I’ve got a load more upstairs.

[ Oh, and I should have said, the electrical items all work. I’ve tested them myself.’

He put his money away for now. ‘I’ll say this for you, you’re doing a thorough job here.’

‘A little too thorough at times.’ Mr Liberty was lumbering in with two mugs in his hands. ‘Having her around is akin to taking laxatives,’ he said to Archie, handing him a mug of tea. ‘She sweeps you clean, whether you like it or not.’

‘Thank you for sharing that delightful analogy with us, Mr Liberty.’ Clara smiled. She took her mug. ‘Was there anything else?’

Judging from the twist to his mouth, the old boy had taken his dismissal with pleasure. Strange man, thought Archie. He sipped his tea. ‘What on earth possessed you to take on this colossal task?’ he asked Clara.

She laughed. ‘A question I’ve been asking myself several times a day since I started.’

‘And the answer?’ he pressed.

‘I’d like to say that it’s down to pure altruism, but my friends would claim it’s due to my perverse desire to take charge and organise everything around me.’

‘Now that’s just what I could do with.’

‘Oh?’

Something in her tone made him want to unburden himself. The thought shocked him: until that moment he had never seen himself as a man who was burdened. He felt crushed. He looked at her

enquiring expression and wondered if she would mind being used as a sounding board. Because that was what he needed. Someone objective in whom he could confide. He hadn’t turned to his friends for advice. Male pride, he supposed. That, and he didn’t want the whole of Deaconsbridge knowing his business. A small town was the devil for gossip. He also hated the idea of people feeling sorry for him, viewing him differently. He’d always been good old Archie, cheerful, dependable. He knew it was irrational, but he felt as if he would let everyone down by being anything else.

Go on, he urged himself, confide in her. She’s an outsider. Who would she tell? Say something. Anything. Because if you stand there any longer looking like a prize idiot, she’ll think the lights have gone out and you’re a meter short of a shilling.

Staring at him over the top of her mug of tea, she said, ‘It’s none of my business, but is it something to do with your mother?’

Her gentle probing did away with the remnants of his resolve, and he acknowledged the dragging pain that had been with him since Stella had left. ‘Yes and no,’ he volunteered. ‘Bessie is certainly one of my concerns, but … the thing is, my wife left me recently and I haven’t a clue how to deal with it. I thought I was handling it, but now I’m not so sure.’

‘How recently?’

‘Just—’ He swallowed and hung on grimly to his self-control. ‘Just over a week ago.’

‘Oh; Archie, I’m so sorry.’ She reached out and touched his arm lightly. ‘Come and sit down.’ She led him across the room, avoiding the odzing pouffe and elephant’s foot, to two high-backed armchairs in the bay of a window. ‘It must be awful for you. Did you have any idea that this was going to happen?’

‘I’d be lying if I said it came as a surprise. Things have been difficult for a while, and what with Bessie’s stroke and her moving in with us, well … let’s just say I haven’t helped matters.’

‘But it must have been a terrible blow.’

He ran a finger over the fraying fabric on the arm of his chair. ‘I think it’s only now that it’s finally hitting home. I’m ashamed to say I feel angry at what she’s done.’

‘And what’s wrong with that? Why shouldn’t you?’

‘Because …’ He gave the chair a light thump: a cloud of dust rose into the air. ‘Because I’m not like that. I never get angry.’

‘Never? What an exceptional man you must be if that’s true.’

‘Not exceptional. Not by a long chalk.’ In his mind’s eye he saw his father losing his temper and lashing out at Bessie. Until Archie had been big enough to step in and end the nightmare for her.

‘What does your solicitor advise?’

‘I haven’t got that far.’ He told her about the letter that had arrived that morning. ‘You’re probably thinking I’ve been stupidly slow and cowardly, aren’t you?’

‘Not at all. But you have to accept that the problem isn’t going to go away on its own. Have you spoken to your wife since she left?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘She’s in Macclesfield with the man who—’ He broke off. An agonising moment passed before he managed to pull himself

together. ‘Sorry, it’s just hearing the words out loud makes it seem all the more real. I suppose that’s what I’ve been doing this last week or so, keeping it to myself so that I don’t have to face up to what I’m going to have to do.’

‘And do you know what you want to do? What choices you need to make?’

He smiled ruefully. ‘Oh, aye, I’m double-parked on what’s to be done. I’ll agree to the divorce, sell the house and move into something smaller and cheaper. I’ll keep Second Best going and somehow look after Mum.’

‘That takes care of today. What about tomorrow?’

In spite of his flagging spirits, he laughed, and felt better for it.

‘That’s just the kind of talk I need.’ He drained his mug. ‘Now, then, let’s get back to work or your man Liberty will be after me.’ They both rose to their feet. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘thanks a million.’

‘What for? I haven’t helped you resolve anything. More’s the pity.’

‘No, sweetheart, but you’ve listened, and maybe that was all I needed.’

Before he had even opened his eyes Gabriel knew the day would not be a good one. It was Friday morning, and it was Ned and Miss Costello’s final day at Mermaid House. He didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow during the last week he had got so used to having them around he was going to miss them when they were gone.

A skew-eyed glance at the alarm clock on the bedside table told him it was a quarter past seven. He pushed back the bedclothes and, with a creak of springs, thumped his feet down on to the floor. He wriggled his buckled old toes, then launched himself stiffly upright.

He went over to the window and gave a cautious tug at the curtains.

They glided smoothly and soundlessly along the track and he imagined Miss Costello scolding him for not putting more faith in her ability to operate a drill and knowing which Rawlplugs to use.

She had even filled in the gaping holes left by the chunks of plaster that had fallen out. He stood at the window, breathing in the fresh outdoor smell of the curtains, which had been washed yesterday and left to dry in the blustery wind and sunshine. She had ironed them while they were still slightly damp and a comforting steamy warmth had filled the kitchen. While she had been doing that he had helped Ned with the latest page of his scrapbook - a drawing of a box on wheels (supposedly a campervan) and three sloping lines of wonky writing. ‘How do you spell diesel?’ the boy had asked,

‘D E I S E L,’ Gabriel had answered.

‘D IE,’ Miss Costello had corrected him, from behind a cloud of steam.

‘Should have been a schoolteacher your mother.’ He winked at Ned.

‘Jonah’s a teacher, isn’t he? Can you write “diesel” for me, please?’

A scrap of paper was pushed across the table. ‘He must be very clever to be a teacher. You have to know everything.’

‘That’s a matter for dispute.’ He passed the piece of paper back.

‘Any old fool can stand up in front of a class and tell them what to do. Even I could do it.’

There was a snigger from the direction of the ironing-board.

‘Spelling lessons would be interesting.’

‘I’ll have you know that was a mere slip of the tongue.’

‘How do you spell “engine”?’

‘Here, let me write it down for you before your mother gets out her stick of chalk. Or, worse, her cane to beat me.’

‘Six of the best and a detention would do you the world of good, Mr Liberty.’

‘You’d have to catch me first.’

‘A ten-minute head start suit you?’

‘She’s a cruel, heartless woman, your mother.’

The boy looked up from his wobbly writing. ‘My mummy isn’t cruel. She’s nice. And she makes you laugh.’

‘Pah! Who told you that? It’s a shameless lie and one that I shall defend till the cows are blue in the face.’

‘Ahem, don’t you mean till the cows come home? Fine English teacher you’d be with your metaphors running away with themselves.’

‘Yes,

but which is more likely to happen? The cows wandering

home, or their faces turning blue? I think I have you there, Miss Costello, the point is mine.’

Still standing at his bedroom window, Gabriel sighed heavily. Life was going to be dull without them around.

He washed, shaved and dressed in his pristine bathroom, put his dirty clothes tidily in the laundry basket, as instructed, and went downstairs. The kitchen was beautifully warm - another of Miss Costello’s miracles. She had had the Aga serviced by a man who knew what he was talking about: turned out all that had been wrong with it was a faulty thermostat. The treacherous gas heater that had burnt his arm had been banished to the gun room. And talking of treachery, that interfering Dr Singh had been conspicuous by his absence. So much for turning up here on Monday as had been threatened. Not that Gabriel was complaining: as far as he was concerned, the less he saw of the annoying quack the better.

He put the kettle on and went to sit in one of the Windsor chairs placed in front of the Aga. This had been another of Miss Costello’s reforms. By moving the table, she had created a space beside the Aga where he could comfortably warm his feet of a morning. The chairs had been brought down from one of the rooms upstairs and she had awarded him and Ned the job of polishing them while she tackled the unenviable task of cleaning the main bathroom.

On day one of her assignment to sort out Mermaid House, Miss Costello had taken him at his word and put together a shopping list of things she considered would make his life easier. Then, the day before yesterday, she had dragged him off to the shops with the intention of making him buy these so-called labour saving products.

‘You have remembered to bring your wallet, haven’t you?’ she said, as they drove to the other side of Deaconsbridge in her campervan, to the retail development he had never before visited. The vast range of electrical appliances on sale in the store was bewildering. ‘How long will this take?’ he asked warily, looking at the shelves of brightly coloured kettles, irons and toasters, which all seemed to resemble toys.

He needn’t have worried. She knew exactly what she was looking for and, much to his admiration, badgered the spotty young assistant into giving them a ten per cent discount, plus free delivery for that same evening.

He had watched in further admiration late that night after she had put Ned to bed and had got down on her hands and knees and plumbed in the dishwasher. ‘Are you deliberately trying to make me feel completely useless?’ he had said, passing her a spanner and wishing he was forty years younger.

‘Not at all. You do too good a job of it yourself. Now, let’s see if this baby’s going to perform. I’ll put it on a quick rinse cycle.’ She wriggled out from under the work surface, stood up, and rocked the slim-line dishwasher into place. She shut the door, turned the dial with a clickety-click and pressed the start button. Water rushed through the pipes and the machine whooshed and whirred. He lobked at her doubtfully. ‘Should it make that noise?’

‘Absolutely. And trust me, it’ll transform your life. You’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. Shall we sort out the microwave ,next?’

‘What do you do for an encore? Walk on water?’

‘Give it time, Mr Liberty. Give it time.’

Eating his breakfast of toast and marmalade and resting the plate on his stomach as he sat by the Aga, Gabriel listened to the news on the radio - or, rather, listened to the news on his new all-in-one, allsinging-and-dancing radio-CD-cassette player. It was another of

Miss Costello’s fine-tunings. ‘Treat yourself, Mr Liberty,’ she had said. ‘Or do I have to twist your arm up round your shoulder blades?’ The reception and sound quality were certainly better than he was used to from his old radio, but the news was still as tedious.

And as from tomorrow, the highlight of his day would be answering back some jumped-up nobody who fancied himself a political smart arse.

Clara and Ned were having their own breakfast, and as her son dipped his spoon in and out of his bowl of Coco-Pops while he looked at his scrapbook spread across the narrow table, Clara had the feeling that he wasn’t looking forward to moving on. He hadn’t said anything, but the way he was lingering over each page she knew that leaving Mermaid House was going to be a wrench for him.

But the same was true for her. What was the old song about having become accustomed to somebody or other’s face? It was from a musical. Yes, My Fair Lady, one of her mother’s favourite shows.

And while she hadn’t fallen in love with the cranky owner of Mermaid House, she had enjoyed seeing him mellow. She’d also enjoyed keeping up the game of formality between them. Despite the shift in their relationship that had taken place, she always made a point of calling him Mr Liberty to his face - and he still referred to her as Miss Costello - but in her mind he had become Gabriel; not exactly archangel material, but a man with a softer side to him than he was used to exposing.