Arthur and Ruth conduct themselves over their meals with the same good manners that would attend all their mutual habits, with a decorum that, whether governed by constraint or by orchestration, is certainly consensual. She unpacks everything and arranges it on the mattress. He looks to her to preside. He waits while she chooses what he is to have and passes it to him. He starts to eat before she has arranged food for herself, this being a picnic after all, but he waits until she has finished before he judges it not inconvenient for her to provide him with what he wants next. He points to this and that- another sandwich, a tomato, a biscuit with cheese-and eats them in that order. At the right moment he leans across and takes charge of the flask and cups. His fingers cannot grip properly. He brushes his hands across his chest several times and shakes them and blows on them to get rid of the pins and needles, and tries again to unscrew the top. He can’t see to pour properly, either, and a considerable amount of tea falls on the mattress and wets his clothes, which he dabs with a napkin. I am watching anxiously but I don’t interfere, any more than Ruth would step forward and relieve a tremulous priest of the Communion cup and bless the wine herself.
We sleep again, and later I wake to a darkness that presses on my eyes. Even though I think Arthur is still asleep I whisper to him to lie still until I come back. I clamber over the floor, lift the trapdoor, and send the ladder down on its squealing metal slope to the landing. I hear the thud as the feet hit the carpet but I can’t see anything clearly. I wait for a moment before launching myself down, each tread heaving a creaky sigh. From the bedroom window I see that lights are on in most of the houses in the road. It’s not nearly as late as it seemed to be in the attic. The sky is a milky violet and the trees along the avenue are restless in a breeze. A few doors down a woman comes out with a watering can for the hanging basket on her porch. A young man walks past under a lamppost, hands pushed hard into the pockets of his short jacket. Mrs. M has not drawn her curtains.
By now I can work well enough in the dark. I start to search out heavy warm things. Ruth of course keeps a methodical eye on the storage of clothing and when I reach deep into the shelves in the spare bedroom wardrobe I find paired thick socks, woollen sweaters put away for the summer, and winter blankets folded in plastic bags. I pack as if we were about to depart for another time and season which, in truth, we are; perhaps something different, something tenuous and icy and autumnal, has entered the wind tonight.
Arthur doesn’t wait for me. I hear him lurching down the ladder and meet him on the landing. Down here, he looks worse. His hair is swirled and matted as if he’s been half drowned. When I approach and press my lips to his cheek, he trembles, and his skin is sweaty and sharp with salt and a trace of vomit. His mouth harbours a sour, flyblown smell and would be dark and sticky inside. One of his eyes wants to close. He wants to speak, I think, but he has trouble controlling his tongue and so lifts a hand into the air instead. He is listing a little to one side and stays on his feet as if standing up were a painfully achieved trick of balance.
But he nods at me and turns away to the spare room and soon I hear him paddling around among books and papers. He comes out with an untidy bundle and holds it out to me, mumbling. A string of saliva wets his bottom lip and descends in a slow cascade to his chest. He wipes at it with the papers in his hands and that’s when I see that he’s holding pages of maps, and when I take them from him I discover there’s also a battered paper folder.
He manages to say, Just to be on the safe side.
The folder is labelled Group Leaders Information Pack: Overdale Outdoor Education Centre. I open it and find a mass of photocopied drawings of birds waiting to be coloured in, some homemade booklets, loose pages, and stapled sheets. Arthur starts sifting through it all. He lifts out a sheet headed Directions to Overdale and waves it at me. I close the folder and hand it back to him.
Arthur moves off down the stairs. He hasn’t finished; I hear his feet sifting through the papers littering the hall and sitting room. When I’ve finished packing I follow, bumping the luggage down the stairs. There is a note for us in the kitchen. I find it on the floor; it must have been swept off the table in a draft from the door.
ARTHER
PHONE ME WHEN YOU GET THIS (07834 793922) OR BETTER COME AND KNOCK ON MY DOOR, I’LL BE IN.
V worried to know you are alright. Couldn’t find you and doctor wasn’t notified so Tony called police. They sent someone but as no sign of forced entry they can’t do anything. Told them you NEVER go out but they say adults entitled to leave own home without notice and to wait another 24 hours. Tried to make doctor talk to them re yr mobility, legs etc. but no go. Well later on nurse turned up for yr legs, she said not to worry as it’s not Alzhimers, you’re a bit confused but still independent, also they’ve been encouraging you to get out so you probably have.
ARTHUR WE WANT TO KNOW YOU’RE ALRIGHT, IT WILL WASTE POLICE TIME IF YOU DON’T LET US KNOW, I’M SUPPOSED TO LET THEM KNOW IF YOUR STILL AWAY BY TOMORROW. WILL KEEP EYE OUT FOR YOU.
HOPING YOUR ALRIGHT Rosemary (Mrs. M)
Arthur has nodded off, waiting for me in the conservatory. While I was packing he has been round the house collecting up more papers, and now he sits with them clutched against his chest; clearly he won’t be parted from them. Even asleep he looks fierce, like a little boy ready to put up a fight if the adults try to say it isn’t sensible to bring his stamp album to the seaside.
I’ve never touched the car keys but I know they’re hanging on the line of hooks just inside the kitchen door. We leave by the conservatory and enter the garage from the back garden. There’s an old-fashioned mechanical smell of oil and linseed and rags and grass. When I’ve loaded the boot Arthur lets me help him into the passenger seat. There isn’t enough room to open the door properly and several parts of his body encumber him. His left leg is uncooperative; once he is seated half in, sideways, he drags it after himself as if it were made of wood. The shin scrapes slow and hard against the door edge and his foot flaps about uselessly, but he doesn’t flinch.
I’m trying to think methodically. The car hasn’t been driven for months. What if it won’t start? I climb in and turn the ignition, and it does. With the engine running, I get out again and open each of the garage doors as quietly as I can. But the bottom of the first one screeches in its worn semicircle in the tar of the drive, loud enough, possibly, for people to hear. Now there is no time to waste. I don’t bother fiddling with the hooks and brackets in the ground that hold the doors open, so I shove them back as far as they’ll go and throw myself back into the driver’s seat. Before I can move forward they are already shuddering and swinging back on us but there’s nothing I can do about that now. Our departure is announced by two loud thwacks as the garage doors glance off the sides of the car. All I can do is keep going. I drag the gear lever into second, then third, and we roar off the drive, straight towards the dustbin that’s standing at the far end, slap bang in the middle under the trees. Those bastards. I forgot today was bin day. It’s too late to stop and move it, and it’s also far too late to miss it. My hands turn numb and over it goes with a bang. The car veers into the wall with a horrible rasping noise but I grip the wheel and swing us past the splintered dustbin and pell-mell into the avenue. My left-hand turn is more of a swerve and isn’t tight enough, so we clip the side of a car parked invisibly on the far side of the road; the other thing I’ve forgotten is to put headlights on. I can’t slow down to find where the switch is, so we have to lurch along for now, avoiding obstacles if possible. The trick is to keep going. Arthur tips back his head and lets out a whoop that scratches his throat and turns into a fit of coughing. He stamps his feet on the floor and turns to me with a mad spark in his eyes. Then he starts to clap one hand down against the other that lies dead in his lap.