of Tesco’s window. “Oh my God,” I said, “Michael will kill me. I must have forgot to collect him when I came out of Tesco’s,” and then Denis blew the horn, and you saw us, and came over.’
*
Every morning since he retired, except when he was down with that winter flu, Michael walked with Agnes to Tesco’s, and it brought him the feeling of long ago when he walked round the lake with his mother, potholes and stones of the lane, the boat shapes at intervals in the long lake wall to allow the carts to pass one another when they met, the oilcloth shopping bag he carried for her in a glow of chattering as he walked in the shelter of her shadow. Now it was Agnes who chattered as they walked to Tesco’s, and he’d no longer to listen, any response to her bead of talk had long become nothing but an irritation to her; and so he walked safely in the shelter of those dead days, drawing closer to the farm between the lakes that they had lost.
When they reached Tesco’s he did not go in. The brands and bright lights troubled him, and as she made all the purchases he had no function within anyhow. So on dry days he stayed outside with the empty shopping bag if it wasn’t too cold. When the weather was miserable he waited for her just inside the door beside the off-licence counter. When he first began to come with her after retiring, the off-licence assistants used to bother him by asking if they could help. As he said, ‘No thanks,’ he wanted to tell them that he never drank in the house. Only at Christmas did they have drink in the house and that was for other people, if they came. The last bottles were now three Christmases old, for people no longer visited them at Christmas, which was far more convenient. They went round to the Royal as usual Christmas Day. Denis still kept Sunday hours on Christmas Day. Though it was only the new assistants in the off-licence who ever noticed him on bad days now, he still preferred to wait for her outside with the shopping bag against the Special Offers pasted in the glass. By that time he would have already reached the farm between the lakes while walking with her, and was ready for work.
The farm that they lost when they came to London he’d won back almost completely since he retired. He’d been dismayed when he retired as caretaker of the Sir John Cass School to find how much the farm had run down in the years he’d been a school caretaker. Drains were choked. The fields were full of rushes. The garden had gone wild, and the hedges were invading the fields. But he was too old a hand to rush at things. Each day he set himself a single task. The stone wall was his pride, perhaps because it was the beginning. There were no limits before the wall was built. Everything looked impossible. A hundred hands seemed needed. But after the wall was built he cleared the weeds and bushes that had overgrown the front garden, cut away the egg bushes from the choked whitethorns, pruned the whitethorns so that they thickened. Now between wall and whitethorn hedge the front garden ran, and he’d gone out from there, task by single task.
This morning as he walked with Agnes he decided to clear the drinking pool which was dry after the long spell of good weather. First he shovelled the dark earth of rotted leaves and cowshit out on the bank. Then he paved the sides with heavy stones so that the cattle would not plough in as they drank and he cleared the weeds from the small stream that fed it. When he followed the stream to the boundary hedge he found water blocked there. He released it and then leaned on his shovel in the simple pleasure of watching water flow. For all that time he was unaware of the shopping bag, but when all the water flowed down towards the pool he felt it again by his side. He wondered what was keeping Agnes. He’d never finished such a long job before outside Tesco’s. Usually he’d counted himself lucky if he was through with such a job by the time he’d finished his bottle of Bass in the Royal by ten to one.
The drain was now empty and clean. All the water had flowed down to the pool. He’d go to the field garden. The withered bean and pea stalks needed pulling up and the earth turned. A wren or robin sang in the thorns, faithful still in the bare days. He opened the wooden gate into the garden, enclosed on three sides by its natural thorn hedges, and two strands of barbed wire ran on posts to keep the cattle out on the fourth. Each year he pushed the barbed wire farther out, and soon, one of these years, the whole field would be a garden, completely enclosed by its own whitethorns. He pulled up the withered bean and pea stalks with the thorn branches that had served as stakes and threw them in a heap for burning. Then he began to turn the soil. The black and white bean flower had been his favourite, its fragrance carried on the wind through the thorns into the meadow, drawing the bees from the clover. Agnes could keep all her roses in the front garden … and then he felt himself leaning over the fork with tiredness though he hadn’t half the ridge turned. He was too weak to work. It must be late and why had she not called him to his meal? He stuck the fork in the ground and in exasperation went over to the barbed wire. The strands were loose. A small alder shoot sprouted from one of the posts. He walked up the potato furrows, the dried stalks dead and grey in the ridges. This year he must move the pit to higher ground. Last winter the rats had come up from the lake — but why had she not called him? Had she no care? Was she so utterly selfish?
He turned and stared in the window, but the avenues of shelves were too long and the lights blinding. It was in this impotent rage that he heard the horn blow. Denis was there and Agnes was in the car. He went towards them with the empty shopping bag. They both got out of the car.
‘Why did you leave me?’ he asked angrily.
‘Oh don’t be mad at me, Michael. I must have forgot when I came out.’
‘What time is it now?’
‘Five after three, Michael.’ Denis was smiling. ‘You’ve missed your bottle of Bass, but hop in and I’ll run you home.’
It wouldn’t have happened if we’d kept the farm. At least on the farm we’d be away from people, he thought obstinately as he put the food aside that he should have eaten hours before. He flushed like a child with shame as he heard again, ‘Five after three, Michael. You’ve missed your bottle of Bass, but hop in and I’ll run you home,’ and thought that’s how it goes, you go on as usual every day, and then something happens, and you make a mistake, and you’re caught. It was Agnes who at last broke this impossible silence.
‘I can see that you’re tired out. Why don’t you lie down for a turn?’ she said, and began to clear the plates.
‘Maybe I will lie down, then,’ he yielded.
He slept lightly and restlessly. Only a fraction of what was happening surfaced in his dream. A herd of panting cattle was driven past him on a dirt road by a man wheeling a bicycle, their mouths slavering in the heat. Agnes passed by holding breadcrumbs in her apron. A white car came round the lake. As it turned at the gate a child got out and came towards him with a telegram. He was fumbling in his pocket for coins to give to the child when he was woken by Agnes.
‘We’ll be late getting to the Royal if you don’t get up now,’ she was saying.
‘What time is it?’
When she told him the time, he knew they should be leaving in twenty minutes.
‘I don’t know if I want to go out tonight.’
‘Of course you’ll go out tonight. There’s nothing wrong with you, is there?’
When she said that he knew he had to go. He rose and washed, changed into his suit, combed his coarse white hair, and at exactly twenty to nine, as on every evening of their lives, they were closing the 37B door in Ainsworth Road behind them.
All the saloon regulars looked unusually happy and bright as they greeted the old couple in the Royal, and when Michael proffered the coins for the Guinness and pint of Bass, Denis pushed them away. ‘They’re on the house tonight, Michael. You have to make up for that missed bottle of Bass tonight.’