Second Thyme Around (26 page)
‘But if you can’t behave decently, I’ll be content with a torrid affair.’
Should she choose this moment to talk about Roger? She decided not to spoil the moment; memories of such times might be all she had of Kitty soon. She laughed instead. ‘You’re a wicked, interfering old woman, as I’ve told you before. Now, do you want supper in bed?’
‘No, no. I’m hungry! If I have to wait until I’ve gone through all that palaver, I’ll starve to death.’
As Perdita went through to the kitchen to see how the frozen fish pie was coming along, it occurred to her what an effort life must be for Kitty. Even the most simple procedure took ten times as long as it would have once, and none of it could be done on her own.
If I was less selfish, or less dependent, she thought, as she and Beverley washed up glasses later, I’d let Kitty die. As it is I can’t contemplate life without her, even in a wheelchair. ‘What was that you said?’
Beverley put down her tea towel and put the last
champagne flute on the tray. ‘I said I was going to do Mrs Anson’s Horlicks now, and would you like a cup?’
champagne flute on the tray. ‘I said I was going to do Mrs Anson’s Horlicks now, and would you like a cup?’
‘No, I don’t think I do, thanks, Beverley. I’ll just say good night to Kitty, and go up. I’m shattered.’
The following morning Kitty couldn’t be got out of bed. Dr Edwards, visiting before morning surgery, told all three of them, Kitty in bed, and Beverley and Perdita hovering anxiously round, ‘It’s another stroke, I’m afraid.’
Kitty groaned, Beverley tutted and Perdita said, ‘How bad?’
‘It’s hard to say at this early stage and, as you know, physiotherapy can do a lot to help. But it might be a while before Kitty’s able to get into her chair again. I’ll arrange for the district nurse to come and see her later this morning, if I can. And we might need a special mattress to help prevent bed sores, things like that.’
‘You don’t sound very optimistic.’ Perdita, who was feeling near despair herself, had been hoping for something a little more bracing.
‘We’ll do everything we can, Perdita, but we’ve got to be realistic. Kitty is a very old lady. She’s had one major stroke, another was almost inevitable. Be grateful that her mind seems to be as good as ever.’
‘My mind is but a shadow of its former self,’ Kitty mumbled from the bed.
It was hard for Perdita not to feel very depressed. The amount of time spent in either nursing Kitty herself, or arranging for others to do it, was inordinate. She decided to tell Roger he wouldn’t be able to stay with them when he came back from his trip. It was only partly an excuse to keep him out of the house.
‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m sure you understand,’ she said into his mobile phone. ‘We might have to have two
carers, and what with one thing and another …’ She hoped he’d be able to finish this sentence for himself.
carers, and what with one thing and another …’ She hoped he’d be able to finish this sentence for himself.
‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,’ he said. ‘It was bound to happen. Have you told Aunt Kitty?’
‘No. I thought I’d better tell you first.’
‘Then tell her I can go back to the hotel where I was before, and that I’ll still be able to come and see her often, probably every day.’
Perdita subdued the suspicion that the message was really for her, not Kitty. ‘I’m sure she’ll be very pleased.’
‘Oh, she will be. She did like having me around, you know.’
Perhaps this was true. ‘I’m sure she did.’
‘I’ll call in to collect my stuff, then.’
‘Oh no, don’t worry about that! Just give me the address of the hotel and I’ll send everything on. Then it’ll be there for you when you arrive.’
She wrote it down as he dictated it. ‘You’re such a tidy person,’ she went on, elated with relief that she could avoid seeing him for a bit longer. ‘It will be no trouble to post your things.’
‘I do like to be organised, yes. Which is why I’m going to be hiring several skips when Aunt Kitty pops her clogs. She must have spent the past seventy years surrounding herself with clutter.’
Perdita decided to take this as a compliment.
Kitty wasn’t greatly put out that Roger was no longer going to be living with them.
‘You must do whatever you think is right, my dear. I’m causing you all quite enough trouble as it is.’
Perdita, who’d been bracing herself to mention Roger’s expectations with regard to Kitty’s estate, decided she couldn’t. She didn’t want to worry her with it. After all, if it was Kitty’s wish that Roger should have everything, she didn’t want Kitty thinking that she, Perdita, felt at all
put out. And if she brought the subject up, that was what Kitty would think.
put out. And if she brought the subject up, that was what Kitty would think.
The summer rushed past in a blur of ever-changing visitors for Kitty. The professionals: health visitors, nurses, doctors, and various carers; and then there were the social visits. Roger visited mostly when Perdita was out of the way. Whether this was tact or serendipity, she didn’t know, but it did mean she could avoid confrontation when it would have been very inconvenient. Then there were the old friends who hadn’t seen Kitty for years and wanted to come and stay. There were neighbours continually popping round with flowers from the garden, home-made jam, magazines. Perdita never knew who was going to greet her when she came home for lunch, or after a day in her tunnels. If she and Roger did coincide, he treated her with unpleasant familiarity. She almost expected him to give her an exaggerated wink and tell her ‘he’d see her right’. She knew if Kitty had been herself, she wouldn’t have been able to stand him either.
Although she rarely saw him herself, Lucas was one of the most frequent visitors. He brought food: morsels of duck breast, truffle mashed potato, buttered spinach, all in tiny portions, beautifully presented. Kitty, whose appetite was poor, ate every mouthful.
Caring for Kitty became more difficult. Bathing her took two people, and she became incontinent. The doctor told Perdita Kitty really needed two nurses now, as all the kindly neighbours in the world couldn’t put her on a bedpan, and Kitty often woke in the night.
A baby alarm was rigged up between Kitty and Perdita, so at night, Perdita would hear if Kitty needed anything. Perdita became accustomed to running down to Kitty before she was even properly awake. Roger called almost every day, sending Perdita fleeing to her tunnels for sanctuary.
One morning Janey came to visit her there.
‘Hi!’ Perdita was thrilled to see someone from life outside the world of bedpans, social chitchat or smarmy Roger. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages and ages! Has Lucas let you out?’
Janey nodded. ‘Since William’s been doing the deliveries I never see you.’
Perdita stuck her fork into the ground. ‘I know. I never see anybody these days except carers, health professionals, and Kitty and her mates. And Roger.’ She shuddered. ‘Sorry!’
‘It’s all right. I know how busy you’ve been. Lucas says you’re never in when he goes. I’ve just come to ask you a favour.’
Perdita sighed. ‘As long as it doesn’t require any of my time, the answer’s probably yes. What is it?’
‘It’s about your house. You’re not living there at the moment, are you?’
‘Well, no. I’m at Kitty’s. I only use it to make coffee and tea in. Talking of which, would you like one?’
‘If you’re not too busy, I’d love it.’
Perdita’s kitchen and sitting room had been shorn of their borrowed finery, all of which had gone back to the various antique shops from which it came, but Perdita’s own, familiar clutter, had not yet replaced it. The kitchen still had its new cooker and worktop, and a bowl of peas soaking in the sink, and there were various bowls of lentils sprouting, but there was nothing more personal there. The sitting room was still unnaturally empty.
The two women came in through the back door. ‘I’ve got some nice biscuits that Lucas left for me,’ said Perdita. ‘I expect you made them.’
Janey peered into the shortbread tin, which had somehow stayed behind. ‘No, they must be Lucas’s. I wonder what they were going to be?’
Perdita put the kettle on. ‘So, what about my house?’
She had a fair idea what Janey was going to say, and wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
She had a fair idea what Janey was going to say, and wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
‘It’s me and William,’ said Janey. ‘We want to live together.’
‘Oh.’ It was hard to believe that they had reached this stage so soon, but then she realised that half the summer had gone without her noticing, and they had got together in the winter. ‘I had no idea my matchmaking had been that successful. I’m really pleased. He’s so nice, it would be an awful shame to let him go to waste.’
Janey laughed. ‘The trouble is, although our parents are fairly happy about our moving in together, there aren’t many places round here to rent. Not that we can afford, anyway.’
‘So you want to rent my house?’
Janey nodded. ‘But you could go on using it during the day. I wouldn’t want to cut off your bolt hole.’ Janey nibbled her biscuit. ‘I was talking to Lucas about it, and he explained about you needing somewhere during the day, somewhere you could get away from everybody, if you needed to.’
She was silent for a moment. Lucas was surprisingly perceptive, for a bully. He probably also remembered how much fuss she had made when he needed the house for a little while. ‘But, Janey, look at all this stuff.’ She waved a hand towards the plastic bowls, filled with water and sprouting pulses. ‘There’s nowhere else I could do it, especially not when it starts to get colder. They need a bit of warmth.’
‘We wouldn’t care about that. We wouldn’t mind if you used the kitchen – or any of the house if you wanted to.’
Perdita poured boiling water onto coffee powder. Should she accept money from Janey and William so she could buy back the land Kitty had given her from Roger? No, it wouldn’t be enough, and it might not be necessary.
She stirred the coffee. ‘No, it wouldn’t be fair to take money from you when I’m still cluttering up the place. I tell you what, you can borrow the house, while you save up for somewhere else.’
She stirred the coffee. ‘No, it wouldn’t be fair to take money from you when I’m still cluttering up the place. I tell you what, you can borrow the house, while you save up for somewhere else.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that!’
Perdita silenced Janey’s protests. ‘I feel guilty leaving my little house unlived in. As long as you remember I start work early, and you don’t mind the kitchen full of peas, I would like to think of you and William having it as a love nest.’ actually, at that moment, she felt overcome with jealousy. She wanted a love nest of her own, complete with someone to nest with, and she knew which someone. She smiled. ‘So, when would you like to move in?’
The next evening, Perdita was tossing up between having an early bath, and joining Kitty and whatever visitor it was for a drink, when Lucas appeared. She hadn’t seen him since the television programme, though he’d visited Kitty almost every afternoon.
‘Oh, hi!’ said Perdita, her foot on the stairs. ‘How are you?’
‘Better than you are, obviously. You look dreadful. Janey told me you did.’
She didn’t feel strong enough to discuss her looks, so she attacked him on another front. ‘Oh. Was that why you let her have time off in the morning, so she could spy on me and report back?’
‘It was her morning off, but I didn’t come here to argue, just to take you out for a meal.’ His raised hand shut her up before she’d opened her mouth. ‘You never go out, you live a punishing routine of work and caring, and you have no fun at all.’
The corner of her mouth twitched. ‘And going out with you is supposed to be fun, is it?’
He saw the twitch and answered it with one of his own
which would have sent most of the film crew into a hot sweat. ‘It is. Go and have a quick shower while I see Kitty. Be ready in half an hour. OK?’
which would have sent most of the film crew into a hot sweat. ‘It is. Go and have a quick shower while I see Kitty. Be ready in half an hour. OK?’
As Perdita stood under Kitty’s shower, which didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quick’, preferring to distribute its water droplets slowly, on only carefully selected parts of the body, she realised it was quite nice to be bullied occasionally. Not in a slap-’em-around James Bond sort of way, but in a way that meant she didn’t have to make a single decision. She could just take what he said as what he meant. She didn’t have to second-guess him to see if he really wanted to take her out, to try to ascertain if he
really
felt well, or whether he was just saying that, or if he did feel put upon by the extra people, but didn’t want to say.
really
felt well, or whether he was just saying that, or if he did feel put upon by the extra people, but didn’t want to say.
When her entire body had been at least cursorily washed, she stepped out of the shower and blotted herself, wondering if she should take the opportunity to unburden to Lucas about Roger. What would Lucas do? If he knew about the way Roger kept trying surreptitiously to fondle her, probably commit a criminal assault, which would be satisfying, but not useful. No, she’d keep Lucas as a backstop if she couldn’t take care of Roger herself. Now, she’d stop worrying about things which might not happen and prepare to go out with Lucas. With him, she could be as rude as she liked, and know she didn’t have to face any unpleasant consequences in the morning. As she smeared her face with a bit of moisturiser, she wondered for a giddy moment what the recriminations would be if she seduced him. Supposing they staggered down to breakfast together. What would Beverley think?
Beverley was a fan of Lucas’s – all the carers were. But would she continue to admire him if he came down having obviously spent the night with Perdita in his arms? She sighed and chuckled and rubbed her legs. It
was a hypothetical question. You don’t seduce decision makers. You just decide if you want to be seduced. Besides, she looked dreadful. He wouldn’t want her on toast, layered with ratatouille and a black olive dressing.
was a hypothetical question. You don’t seduce decision makers. You just decide if you want to be seduced. Besides, she looked dreadful. He wouldn’t want her on toast, layered with ratatouille and a black olive dressing.
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