Small kindnesses, p.2
Small Kindnesses, page 2
As he hangs up his coat, the handbag and the ticket slip away from him again. He’s greeted by three of his colleagues as he walks into the chilly mess-room. His boss, Simon, is sitting at the big cluttered table in the centre of the room. He’s officially Leonard’s boss, but they have ‘an understanding’ which means Simon mostly leaves him alone to get on with whatever he wants to do. He only bugs him once a year for those ridiculous ‘annual reviews’ they make them fill in these days, full of words like ‘proactive’ and ‘self-development’. One year he took a half-completed one to the pub in desperation and his friend Charlie made him read some of it out loud. He almost laughed himself off his barstool. He’s referred to them as Leonard’s ‘annual bullshit reviews’ ever since. Simon’s long, angular body towers like a heron over Tommy, their new apprentice, who’s short and compact with shy eyes under a shaggy fringe. He’s talking Tommy through his jobs for the day, and Leonard notices the tone of frustration in his boss’s voice. He wonders what Tommy is finding difficult to grasp this time. One of their long-standing volunteers, Val, is stirring one of those cups of fruit tea that smell fragrant and sweet but taste bitter and disappointing. She offers him a mug of Yorkshire, and he says thanks but no thanks. He’s itching to get outside and let the green bathe his eyes.
He starts to whistle a chirpy, made-up-as-he-goes-along tune as he sets off on his usual patrol around the estate grounds. He turns left out of the garden’s yard and passes through the tea-room and the shop, lifting an imaginary hat to Margie in the kitchen, to her obvious delight. He heads across the broad lawn, towards the patch of woodland, glancing left as he usually does at the big old manor. He’s never been fond of it – it’s dark and severe-looking, and reminds him of his rigid and unsmiling piano teacher from when he was a boy. These days it’s let as a hotel and only opens for National Trust visitors once a week. He often sees taxis spitting out pale, brief-cased business people on a Monday and picking them up on a Friday. He imagines them sitting in various meetings over the week with their flipcharts and clipboards, talking about targets. Is that what they do? He hopes they give themselves some time to wander around the gardens for an hour before dinner, to catch the scent of honeysuckle on the air.
As he enters the woods he comes across a large branch on the ground that must have blown down last night – there were some pretty strong winds. He makes a mental note to come back later on one of the little tractors with a chain saw. They used to have red deer here, a long time ago, but the last owners let them get out of control. They stripped so much bark and caused such damage that they got rid of them all – a massive cull – Leonard doesn’t like to think about it. The woods are still full of life. On these morning walks, an occasional Muntjac skitters away from him, and squirrels speak in semaphore with their pert tails wherever he looks. Blackbirds rustle in the undergrowth, and there are Green Woodpeckers, Goldcrests… Once he even saw a mink washing its ears like a cat, with a delicate paw.
He reaches the walled garden. It’s one of their most popular attractions – people love surprises. This place is at its best in mid-July – full of garish annuals dripping with colour, ‘looking like Disneyland’ as Simon likes to boast. It does pack a punch, he admits - wandering in from the muted colours of the pleasure gardens and opening the plain wooden door onto such brightness… When Leonard first worked here he loved to hang around and hear the ‘ooh’s as the colour smacked visitors in the face, as if fireworks were going off. It all looks a bit forlorn at this time of year. He picks up a stray trowel (left by that dizzy new volunteer no doubt) and carries it with him. There are a couple of large stones on the path, and he bends and hides them near the back of the bed. There’s always something to be tidied, always something that could be improved. On bad days it feels never-ending. On good days it feels the same, but he’s glad of it.
He leaves the walled garden to walk along the furthest perimeter of the estate. It backs onto farmland, and he likes to stop at the gate, where he and the cows can get close to each other. He usually rips them up some long, lush grass as a breakfast treat, and lets them in on the latest goings-on in the mess-room. Today they decline to come over when he calls to them with a mixture of whistles and whoops that usually works a treat. They turn their detached gaze on him for a few seconds before continuing to crop the grass as close to the earth as they can. He wonders if they notice when they get an occasional mouthful of damp, bitter soil. Maybe they’re too practised for that. He shouts cheerfully at them that he’ll see them tomorrow, so they’ll know that he won’t hold their disinterest against them.
Completing the circle, he passes by the lake. Simon calls it the lake, anyway. He’s not sure it’s big enough. What is the official size at which a pond becomes a lake? It’s choked with Cape Pondweed and desperately needs clearing out, but there’s no money in the budget for it this year. Mending some stretches of fencing and replacing the roof in the outbuilding near the vegetable patch were seen as a bigger priority. Maybe next year.
The planting out here is looking pretty good, even if he says so himself. They don’t tend to focus on all-year-round colour, being shut to the public for the colder half of the year, but here there are some glossy, red-stemmed dogwood bushes – Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ and Erica> ‘Furzey’. He put them in a few years ago after seeing some in the Winter Garden at the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge. The new stems burn like fire from December through to April. At the right time of day, the light sparkles on the water behind them and acts as a pale, glittery backdrop. This autumn he planted a carpet of snowdrops underneath the bushes. He can’t wait to see what they look like when they push their heads out into the spring sun in a few months’ time.
He moves slowly through his domain, taking immense pleasure from the land. This bare rose bush, these leaves crumbling into leaf mould, these pale green buds. That line of alders on the horizon. He’s looking at the results of the earth, sun and rain working together, helped along by thousands of pairs of hands through the ages. Thousands of pairs of hands, including his own. All is in order. He heads back to the mess-room for that cup of tea.
It’s a satisfying day, attacking the rampant holly and bringing it into slow submission. He knows it’s meant to be bad luck to cut down a holly – it’s why you see them standing alone out in the countryside without their original hedge companions. He’s never held much truck with superstition, unlike Rose. He used to enjoy walking underneath ladders on purpose when he was with her, just to wind her up. He’d usually fall to the ground dramatically about five paces on, writhing in agony for a few seconds and moaning ‘you were right…’ as she stepped over him and walked on without comment. By five o’clock he thinks a pint at The Five Bells is in order. It isn’t officially his local, being in the next village but one, but he and Rose used to come here all the time when they lived in their last cottage on the estate grounds. It was Rose’s favourite pub – although he suspects this was mainly because they stocked her favourite flavour of crisps, prawn cocktail. It’s a brown, slightly tatty, womb-like place, all higgledy-piggledy and cluttered with random odds and sods. He’s been going there for – what – thirty years now? More? He hates being able to measure time in decades.
The other locals are like a kind of family to him. They don’t ever pry into each other’s business, but are always ready to listen to anyone who wants to talk. Anyone except old Fred at the end of the bar, who’s gnawed everyone’s ears off by now and sits quietly nursing his pint, a hopeful look crossing his face when newcomers stray dangerously close to him. A few of them are drunks, he knows, but that doesn’t matter – everybody has his share of problems, some are just better at hiding them than others. There hasn’t been any trouble in here for a long time, not since the new landlady, Suze, took over. She’s a large woman with frizzy blond hair and black roots - she wears thick make-up: dark lipstick, green eye-shadow, orangey foundation that crusts around her mouth. She greets him now and fetches his usual without asking, a pint of Tetley. He usually only has the one and drinks lemonade afterwards, or pineapple juice if he fancies a treat. They get in fresh pineapple juice especially for him now in those big cardboard cartons; it’s much tastier than the thick, bitty, mucous-producing stuff in small glass bottles. He gets a bit of ribbing for the pineapple juice, but he doesn’t care.
He settles into a bar chair next to his old friend Charlie, who spends more time at the Bells than anywhere else (except maybe his greenhouse).
“Alright, old man?” Leonard says, aware that his accent always changes when he speaks to Charlie – becomes even more ‘local’, as Raine would say.
“Alright, Leonard.”
Leonard brings out his battered tobacco tin and goes about the comforting business of building a roll-up. He points it at Charlie before he starts, who holds out a flat hand and moves his head in a half-shake. He lights up. Charlie continues the conversation.
“On your bike, are you?”
“Yup. Good weather for it.”
They lapse into an instant silence. Neither of them is scrabbling about for words to plug the gap - it’s just that there isn’t anything that needs saying. After a good ten minutes or so, when Leonard has smoked his second rollie and is a third of the way down his pint, having savoured every, warm, malty sip, Charlie speaks again.
“How’re Glor and Pete doing?”
“Oh, fine, fine. Last time Glor came round, she sorted out my curtains for me, sewed them back up at the bottoms. Where do women learn these things?”
Charlie makes a grunting nose in his throat, ‘Hnh,’ which he uses as a substitute for a variety of words and phrases – ‘Well I never,’ or ‘Of course I do,’ or even ‘I hear what you’re saying, Leonard, and I know all about the complicated political situation in Outer Mongolia, but this time we’ll have to agree to disagree.’ This time it’s, ‘I know what you mean.’ He cocks his head onto one side.
“She’s still helping you with your bits and pieces then?”
“Yes, every other Sunday, regular as clockwork. It was hard enough to stop her from coming round every week. We had a right battle over that one.”
“Cushty.”
“Mmm. I’ve thought about – I dunno – like I ought to be able to do everything myself by now. It’s been nearly three years now, you know.” Charlie raises his eyebrows at this. “I cope with most things, but new jobs do crop up occasionally, even after all this time. I pay her a bit of pocket money, but it’s just not been feeling… oh, I don’t know.”
“Hnh.”
Charlie waits, but Leonard is running his fingernails over the bar, looking intently at the years of scratches and dents. Charlie rubs his grey-stubbled chin with a thumb and forefinger, and Leonard recognises the gesture and waits for his opinion.
“You’d be mad to turn her away, mate. The wife is always moaning about what she does for me. I never bring my empty glasses downstairs from the bedroom, I leave tissues in my trouser pockets, nyah nyah nyah’.” He says this last bit in a high-pitched voice, a hand on one hip while he jerks his chest from side to side in a poor parody of womanhood. Leonard frowns.
“How is Marion?”
“Oh, she’s alright I suppose. She was crying over some silly film last night.”
“You should look after her.”
His voice comes out more sternly than he intended it to. Charlie looks over at him for a moment, looks away and nods four times.
“Hnh.”
They settle back into a comfortable silence until Leonard drains the last of his pint and says his goodbyes.
Amongst the bills waiting for him back at the flat is a letter addressed to ‘Rose Smith’ in unfamiliar handwriting. He wonders who Rose Smith is for a second before remembering his wife’s maiden name. She’d been Rose Mutch for so long, he couldn’t imagine her being anything else. Their old address has been crossed out and their new address written to one side in small capital letters. Who would be writing to her now? Maybe it’s one of those clever advertisements where they disguise the printed address as handwriting and then bombard you with offers for loans. He has a passionate dislike for those companies, and he fake-spits at the slimy men-in-suits and their pretty assistants whenever the adverts come on the TV. Making out they’re doing you a favour and getting you deeper and deeper into debt. He runs his fingers over the address - the handwriting is real; it’s scored the paper. He holds it up to the light and sees more of the same large, squat handwriting through the thin paper of the envelope. He slits it open with his bone-handled letter-opener and reads it in the hall with his work bag still over one shoulder.
Dear Rose,
I’m not sure how to start… I’m not sure if I’ll find you here, I found your address through the internet. My niece Meg helped me to, well, find you… she knows about these things. I hope there isn’t more than one Rose Margaret Smith in Oxfordshire! Anyway, it’s Lily. Lily Sorensen, from school in Cowley. I was Lily Sweet for most of my life, but I’ve, well, I’ve taken my own name back now. I hope you remember me, I’ll feel dreadfully silly if you don’t. We were best friends (I thought of you as my best friend anyway) for a while. I had light brown hair in two bunches, and you used to come round to my house, we used to play with dolls in the garden and pretend we were teachers or something... What a silly game! I do hope you remember me.
You probably wonder why I’m writing to you, after all this time. To be honest, Rose, I’m not really sure myself… I lost my husband last year, and it’s not been easy. We didn’t get on that well to be truthful, but even so… it takes a while to get used to a man-sized hole in your life after 40 years. I’ve been looking backwards, thinking about what I’ve done with my life so far, trying to work things out... I keep thinking about you, wondering where you are, what job you’re doing, if you got married, what kind of house you live in… You were always kind to me, I remember that. I remember you gave me your slice of, what was it, lemon cake I think, from your lunchbox one day. Just because I said I liked it… you didn’t even keep any for yourself. And so I thought, what the hell, Lily, let’s see if you can find her. So here I am.
If you’d like to get in touch for a chat about old times, do write back or call me... If you don’t want to drag it all up then that’s fine, I’d understand, really, but just know Rose that I’ve never forgotten you and that I hope with all my heart that life has given you all kinds of wonderful things. You certainly deserve them.
Yours in hope,
Lily Sorenson
Leonard reads the letter twice. He lingers over the phrase at the end, ‘if you don’t want to drag it all up…’ – drag what up? He feels sad for this woman, who doesn’t seem to have considered that Rose wouldn’t be alive to read her letter. He ought to write back to her, to let her know what happened. His mind flicks through all the people he’s had to tell about her death, like going through a pack of cards, in order: Raine, Glor, a man he’d met in the waiting room at the hospital, Rose’s friend Marjory, Charlie… Each time it was harder to find the right words, each time harder to hear them coming from his mouth.
He yawns, over-exaggerating as usual with a great long walrus sound and arms stretched over his head. He’s tired of thinking about it. He puts the letter back in the envelope and slides it underneath his address book, out of sight. He goes into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge for something he can cook. As he peels and chops carrots, ‘drag it all up’ runs through his mind over and over, becoming more rhythmic, until it fits into a snatch of chorus from a Johnny Cash song, ‘Daddy Sang Bass’. Drag it all up… daddy sang bass… the inside of his head sounds like a bloody train hammering over the tracks. He violently waggles his head in an impression of Pickles, trying to shake the words out. He eats as he usually does, with the plate balanced on his lap, watching television, feeling faintly guilty that he isn’t using the dining room table that stands folded and pushed up against the wall. When he’s cleared away the plate and turned off the television, Pickles jumps up and sits beside him, squashing himself into the warm gap between his lap and the chair-arm. Leonard tickles his ears gently and sings him a lullaby he used to sing to Raine –
Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry,
Go to sleep-y, little Pickles.
When you wake you shall have
All the pretty little horses.
Blacks and bays, dapple greys,
Coach and six white horses.
Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry,
Go to sleep-y, little Pickles.
Soon all Leonard can hear is the ticking of his clock and gentle, snuffled snores.
The Amazing Swinging Twins
Leonard slides a bar of fruit and nut into the bottom of his bag, just in case Raine is in the midst of another silly chocolate embargo. He’s packing for a weekend with his daughter – the usual spare change of clothes, toiletries (but no fancy face cream), and (of course) a well-thumbed book of cryptic crosswords. He finds Pickles fast asleep under the spare bed and pokes him gently with a ruler so he can say a proper goodbye. It’s a shame that Ed is so allergic to dogs. Leonard is always careful to explain to Pickles exactly where he’s going, how long he’ll be gone, and what he should do in an emergency. Pickles, as usual, doesn’t seem to be paying proper attention to the different types of fire extinguishers and the number for the local police station. He drops his house keys off to Peggy-next-door, who greets him with a pink towel wrapped round her head like a turban. She loves looking after Pickles when he’s away – she feeds him prime chicken breast and fusses him to death. One of these days he’s convinced he’ll come back to an empty house. He’ll look across at her window and see a curtain twitching shut, and a paw disappearing from view…
