Chapter Fifty-Nine
Keith had arrived at The Maples just over an hour ago. The purpose of his visit was to make himself useful to Hilary, and in a very practical way. To that end he’d arranged for a log delivery, something he’d always done before winter set in, and he had duly arrived at the same time.
As plans went, it had been a huge gamble.
Hilary could have accused him of being high-handed and sent him away, which she’d had a perfect right to do.
He had not behaved well towards her. He hadn’t behaved well towards Diane either, but Diane wasn’t his problem right now. His focus had to be on his wife.
When Hilary had opened the door to him – he hadn’t used his key to let himself in, he didn’t feel he had any business doing that – she had stared back at him with the severest of expressions on her face.
She’d then tilted her head to look over his shoulder and had seen the delivery man dropping off the logs on the drive.
‘I didn’t order any logs,’ she’d said. She’d sounded confused rather than affronted.
‘No,’ he’d replied, ‘but I thought it might be a good idea with the weather now turning so cold. If you’ll let me, I’ll barrow them round to the back garden and put them in the log store for you.’
‘Why?’ she’d asked, still looking at him severely.
‘Because that’s where they always go.’
‘I’m not stupid, Keith,’ she’d said stiffly, and folding her arms across her chest. ‘I know where they go, I’m just asking why you would want to go to the trouble of doing that. Or,’ she’d gone on, her voice taking on a more suspicious tone, ‘did Nina put you up to coming here?’
‘I came because I wanted to talk to you. But first, I’ll deal with the logs, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Hmm … ’ she’d said.
Which he’d taken as near to an affirmative answer as he was likely to receive from her.
Now, and with one last pile of logs to stack neatly in place, he removed his jacket.
He’d worked up quite a sweat while applying himself to the task and he’d found that he’d enjoyed the physical labour of it.
The satisfaction too of making sure everything was placed in neat tidy rows had given him a sense of a job well done.
This was something he hadn’t experienced in a while, he thought, the single-minded focus of committing both mind and body to the simplicity of a strenuous and mundane chore. He pondered if there wasn’t an element of putting his house in order as he’d gone about the job.
All the while he’d been working in the garden, catching snatches of birdsong and reliving happier times of family life here, he’d been conscious that from inside the house Hilary might have been watching him.
Possibly she was wondering what he wanted to say to her.
He wondered much the same thing. How to begin?
How to explain even a fraction of the emotions he’d gone through?
The raging anger.
The gut-wrenching pain.
The absolute bewilderment.
The very profound sense of regret.
All of it had combined into a roiling explosive mess and erupted because of going to that awful spiritualist church.
It had left him badly shaken, hollowed out and he doubted Diane would ever forgive him for some of the things he’d said.
Having completely lost control of himself that evening, he now possessed a better understanding of what Hilary had experienced when she’d lost control at Tigs and Fabian’s wedding.
‘I thought you might like a mug of tea.’
Surprised at the sound of Hilary’s voice, he stopped what he was doing. ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking the mug from her and hoping it was a peace offering, a sign that she might be prepared to talk to him. Until this moment she’d given no indication that she would.
‘I see you’ve stacked the logs in your customary orderly fashion,’ she observed.
‘Some things never change,’ he said.
‘Perhaps not,’ she murmured, turning to gaze down the length of the garden.
There was an unreadable faraway look in her eyes and after sipping his tea, he said, ‘It’s freezing out here, don’t get cold, will you?’
Ignoring him, she said, ‘Did Nina tell you I’m getting a dog?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sounds like a great idea to me.’
She wheeled round. ‘I don’t need your approval.’
He felt the sting of her rebuke. ‘No, of course you don’t, and I didn’t mean to sound like I was giving it. I just meant that—’
She waved his words away with a sigh. ‘I know what you meant. I was being …
‘Being what?’ he prompted when she didn’t go on.
‘My usual combative self,’ she replied. ‘As you just said, some things never change.’
Seeing an opening, Keith said, ‘When I’ve finished here, can we have that chat, please? I’d really like to.’
With a small nod, she left him to it. He drank some more of his tea, placed the mug on the ground out of harm’s way, bent down to gather up more of the logs and then gasped as a sharp pain ripped through his lower back.
Holding his breath, he very tentatively tried to straighten up.
But at the slightest movement, the pain ripped through him again and keeping as still as he could, he considered his options.
Call for help in the hope Hilary would hear him or get down on his hands and knees and crawl into the house because there was no way he could stand upright.
It was ages since his back had given him any problems; the odd occasional twinge, but he knew this pain was on a whole other level.
Slowly does it, he told himself as he lowered himself to the frigid ground.
Then once he was in position, on all fours, he began the excruciatingly slow trek towards the back door.
At one point, and now shivering with cold without his jacket, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the situation.
He was just a few yards from the door when it cracked open and there was Hilary. Never had he been more pleased to see her!
‘My back,’ he groaned, ‘it’s gone. Like that time I was clearing the drive of the snow and slipped a disc.’
‘How can I help?’ she asked, bending down to him.
‘I’m not sure, perhaps I’ll just keep crawling until I’m inside and then we’ll figure something out.’
Later, by the fire in the sitting room, he was dosed up on painkillers and a large medicinal glass of whisky and was resting in his favourite old leather reclining chair – the chair Hilary had frequently tried to get rid of because it was so shabby.
So long as he didn’t move, he felt pleasantly detached, his mind and body drifting on a wave of fuzzy warmth.
He was so comfortably drifting he didn’t realise he’d fallen asleep, not until he was woken by the sound of ringing. Opening his eyes, he looked around him in the half-light, momentarily disorientated by the familiarity of his surroundings yet not understanding how he was there.
Eventually, and after trying to move and experiencing a sharp stab of pain in his back, he joined up the dots and remembered the hows and the whys. He checked his watch. It was gone four and by his reckoning he must have slept for over three hours.
The ringing had stopped now, and he could hear Hilary talking indistinctly to someone. As the one-sided conversation went on, he was suddenly conscious that he was going to have to move, and soon.
Pushing aside the blanket that covered him, he cautiously leant forwards in the chair, gritting his teeth against the pain. Mind over matter, he said under his breath as he leant forwards and prepared to haul himself to his feet.
Once upright and doing his best to ignore what felt like a knife being jabbed into the base of his spine, he put one foot in front of the other and slowly moved towards the door.
He’d made it as far as the hall when, and with the pain causing sweat to break out all over him and nausea to churn in the pit of his stomach, he had to stop and lean against the wall to rest. He had the awful thought that he wasn’t going to make it to the loo in time and was about to push through the pain and cover the final distance to the downstairs cloakroom when, once more, Hilary appeared.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you’re awake. How are you feeling? No, no need to answer that, you look dreadful.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, with a half-hearted attempt at a smile. Then: ‘I need the loo and with some urgency.’
‘Here,’ she said, offering her arm, ‘lean on me.’
‘If you could just help me to the door,’ he said, gratefully leaning on her arm, ‘you don’t have to do more than that.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ she said, matter-of-factly.
Yes, he thought when he was safely installed in the cloakroom, but that was when they were a happily married couple, when they shared everything and did whatever they could to help the other.
She was waiting for him in the hall when he emerged from the cloakroom. She held out her arm again and once more he leant on it. ‘I’m sorry for putting you to all this trouble, it wasn’t what I’d planned when I came here today.’
‘I should hope not. By the way, have you phoned your … your girlfriend to tell her what’s happened?’
‘No,’ he said, wondering how much it had cost her to use the word girlfriend.
‘Shouldn’t you?’
‘No,’ he said again. ‘We had a falling-out.’
‘Oh,’ she said flatly.
‘That’s not why I’m here,’ he felt compelled to say. Although that wasn’t altogether true. But he didn’t want Hilary to jump to the wrong conclusion.
‘In that case,’ she said, ‘I’d suggest you go and sit in your ghastly old chair while I make us something to eat. I have a chicken and mushroom pie which will stretch to two without too much difficulty. Are you ready for some more painkillers?’
He was so weakened by the agony he was in, he felt pathetically weepy at her kindness, which he certainly didn’t deserve.