Chapter 2
2
Beth
Beth couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t tired. Not just a little weary, but the bone-numbing, mind-cauterising kind of tired that stalked your every move. It was just one of the things which had changed about her life since the accident.
It was noon, so by now Jack would have eaten his breakfast and probably attempted the washing-up too, but the other thing he would have done is to switch on the coffee machine for her. She raised her head a little from the pillow and, sure enough, the smell was like a siren song, dragging her body towards it as if she was caught in a tractor beam. She threw back her covers and slid her feet into her waiting slippers. It was time to get moving.
Jack was reading the newspaper as she entered the kitchen, no doubt still wrestling with the crossword. He did this most mornings while he was waiting for her to rise. His wheelchair prevented her from giving him the hug she would have liked, but she approached him from behind, and did what she always did – slid her arms around his neck to lay her head on his shoulder. Her lips touched the warm spot of skin above the collar of his tee shirt, one of her very favourite places.
‘Morning,’ she murmured, leaving her head where it was for a moment. She could feel Jack smile and he pressed his head against hers in reply.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘You’re just in time, three down is a killer.’
Beth peered at the paper over his shoulder. Aurally challenged aviator, anag , she read. Nine letters . She stared at the page. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I need coffee first.’
She backed away so that Jack could reverse his chair and manoeuvre across the kitchen. ‘Coming right up,’ he said. ‘Although there was only just enough left in the packet, so it might not be as strong as you like it.’
‘Sorry, my fault,’ said Beth, following him to take down a fresh pack of coffee from a cupboard he could no longer reach. She placed it beside the coffee machine so it was ready for later. Jack didn’t say anything else, even though Beth suspected he wanted to. One day, they might be able to afford to have the rest of the kitchen modified, but that was a way off in the future yet. Converting the downstairs to provide usable spaces for Jack had taken all the money they had, and some they hadn’t, so, for now, it was up to Beth to second-guess a lot of what Jack might need – or want – while she was either asleep or at work. She took a seat at the table so her husband could still bring her a coffee as he’d intended. It was a small ritual, just one of many they fitted in to each day but, like a lot of things in their life now, vastly more important than its simplicity might have suggested.
Inhaling the fragrant steam from her mug, Beth sighed in anticipation. ‘So, what’s on the agenda for today?’ she asked. ‘Did you still want to go to the library?’
A cloud crossed her husband’s face. ‘Maybe. Not sure it’s worth it, really.’
Beth nodded. ‘I reckon we should. They’ve had a rubbish selection the last three times we’ve been. Which means that today all the gems will be back on the shelves just ripe for the picking.’
‘What’s the weather like in cloud cuckoo land?’ asked Jack with a wry smile. ‘No, don’t tell me…the sun is shining.’
‘You’ll be eating your words later, Mr Millner, you’ll see. Besides, I want to see if they have any books on slow cooking.’ She didn’t, but that wasn’t the point. ‘Let me just finish this and sling on some clothes, then we can get going. If we’ve got time we could go for a walk across the common as well.’
Jack smiled and gave her one of those looks, the ones which had melted her heart when she had first met him all those years ago. Nowadays, he didn’t always say how he was feeling, although she knew how grateful he was to her, just as she knew how much he loved her. Saying those things felt too poignant somehow, but he could still give her the look, and that was enough.
She took a deep breath and swallowed a mouthful of coffee. Then she tapped the newspaper. ‘Fieldfare,’ she said. ‘ Aurally challenged aviator…deaf flier…anagram… fieldfare.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ muttered Jack.
Back in their bedroom, Beth sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. All too often she found them straying to what would await her during that night’s shift, when what she should have been doing was focusing on the present. It was a promise she had made to herself a long time ago – that even though she had to sleep during the day, whatever time she had with Jack would be time spent with him, fully in the moment, not distracted or only half paying attention. They had so few hours together it was important to make them count. It was hard though. There was so much to think about. So much to plan for.
She had already taken care of all the morning stuff, she did it as soon as she got home, before she went to sleep – helped Jack out of bed, helped him to get washed, dressed, to take his medication and make breakfast – but there was also the rest of the day to think about too. And the night. All those long hours when she wouldn’t be there.
What she mustn’t do, under any circumstances, was think about the life they had before. The one where Jack was a farmer and spent his days outside whatever the weather. The one where they had dreams for the future, dreams of a family – a trio of rosy-cheeked little Millners running around with bare feet and tangled hair. That life died on the day Jack nearly ended his.
He was a gardener when Beth first met him, happy, but largely unfulfilled. But it was a job which paid the bills, and so although he had always longed to own a smallholding, that didn’t come until much later, his father’s premature death leaving him with just enough to kick-start their dream. They bought a ramshackle farmhouse with several acres, plenty to allow Jack to put his plans into practice, and for a few years he was the proverbial pig in clover. Until a moment’s inattention robbed him of everything they once thought would be theirs. Beth could still remember that day vividly, as if the nine years which had gone by were nothing more than a heartbeat, but she reckoned it would take a lot longer before her memory of it began to fade. She had saved his life that day, and on more than one occasion had found herself thinking it might have been better if she hadn’t. Trouble was, she knew that Jack thought the same thing and so she never, ever let it show. Even on the very worst days.
When she had reached him, pinned beneath the bulk of the huge machine, it had been one of those beautiful spring days which made you feel glad to be alive. Yet his eyes had told her that being grateful for it was not enough. He knew he had changed their lives forever. He knew he might die, in all likelihood probably would die, but what he couldn’t know was what Beth, with all her years of nursing, could foresee, and for that she would always be grateful. If he had known what living might mean, he’d have begged her not to fight for him, to loosen his hold on the gossamer-thin thread that still bound him to the earth and set him free. And what scared Beth most was that she might have. Instead, she had been calm and rational. She had phoned for an ambulance, knowing that however much she wanted, she mustn’t try to free him from beneath the crushing weight of the tractor. So, she had held his hand, pleading with the universe for clemency, and talked to him, refusing to let him die, knowing that in many ways this was the easy bit. If Jack survived, the pain would come later, for both of them.
They had a different life now, that’s all. So, Beth gathered up her thoughts, placed them firmly into the different compartments she kept for them and then reached for her clothes. One thing at a time, Beth. One thing at a time.
The library was quiet and the desk deserted when they arrived. Beth unloaded the pile of books Jack had borrowed the last time and left them on the returns side of the counter. Then she followed him to the fiction section, offering up a little prayer to the reading gods that there might be some crackers there today. Scanning the shelves Jack couldn’t reach, she spotted one immediately and took it down, showing it to him with a told-you-so smile before cradling it in her arm as she continued to look. It was a practised routine – she checked the top two shelves and Jack did the bottom three. It never took long. She realised a long time ago that if anyone else was browsing the same section they would melt away, lured by the pull of some fictitious book elsewhere. But that was okay; they hadn’t got much time as it was.
Less than ten minutes later they returned to the counter where the librarian already had Jack’s account to view on her computer.
‘Hit the jackpot today,’ she said. ‘The Kate Atkinson came in as well as the Anthony Doerr. That should keep you going for a while.’ She reached beneath the counter to pull out the books which had been put aside for him.
‘You’re a star, Libby, thanks. I’ve got another list of requests though, sorry.’
The librarian nodded as Jack struggled to reach inside his pocket with his only good hand. She affected a patient smile although Beth knew she was desperate to help. It wasn’t impatience, just human nature. It’s hard watching someone wrestle with such a simple task.
Eventually, the hard-won piece of paper was handed over and Libby glanced at it briefly. ‘Brilliant. Leave those with us, Jack, and we’ll see what we can do. There might be quite a long wait for a couple of them, but the others shouldn’t take too long.’
Libby said this, or some variant of it, every time Jack handed her one of his lists. Beth knew she couldn’t read half of what Jack had managed to write, but a quick phone call to Beth later would clear that up and no one would be any the wiser. Except Beth, of course, and Jack, because he wasn’t stupid.
They waited while the rest of Jack’s books were checked out and were about to leave when Jack stopped suddenly. ‘We didn’t look at the cookery books,’ he said.
Beth was torn. She knew she should go and look but by the time she’d got Jack back in the car, driven to the common and got him back out of the car again, they’d have precious little time to walk as it was. She smiled. ‘Won’t be a tick,’ she said.
‘What is it you’re looking for?’ asked Libby.
‘Just a book on slow cooking, if you’ve got any.’
Libby pulled a face. ‘Only one or two, I’m afraid. Shall I see if they’re in, save you rooting for them?’
‘Thanks.’ Beth smiled, complicit.
‘Just the one, sadly,’ said Libby, returning moments later. ‘Do you want to have a look?’
‘I’ll take it anyway,’ replied Beth. ‘There’s bound to be something useful in it.’
It took Libby less than a minute to discharge the book to Beth’s account and then they were on their way again. She flicked a glance at her watch. It was going to be a rush today, but maybe if she cooked something which took less time for their tea, it would give her more time for all the things she still had to do. She gave a friendly wave to the staff as they left. ‘Bye. Thank you.’
The trouble with the library was that the staff had worked there for so long, they’d forgotten how quiet it was, how much their voices carried. And if Beth could hear the things Libby said to her colleague, then so could Jack. It angered her. Not because she said such things – she was only expressing sympathy – what angered Beth was that people always commented about her . That poor woman , they said. It must be so hard for her . Maybe it was, but had they never stopped to think how hard it was for Jack? After all, Beth still had the use of her arms and legs.
It was quiet up by the common today. In the summer it was heaving, the numbers of habitual dog walkers swelled by children playing, groups picnicking and sunbathers making the most of the warmth. Early February wasn’t a time to loiter though, and as she and Jack crested the slight rise from the path by the road, a gust of wind sliced through her. That would certainly explain the lack of people. Beth always forgot how exposed it was up here.
She stood, as she always did, on the side which shielded Jack from the worst of the buffets, grateful that she had to walk at a fair lick to keep up with his electric chair. But Jack didn’t have the benefit of exertion to keep him warm and, after a few minutes, she stopped.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it would be so cold.’
Jack eyed the path ahead of him. ‘I’m okay for a bit if you are. Or would you rather go home? You could grab a couple of hours’ more sleep.’
Would that she could. ‘No, I’m fine, let’s carry on.’
Jack nodded and they silently continued. It was at times like these that Beth wondered what life would be like if they were both absolutely honest with each other. Would they ever do half the things that filled each of their days? She knew it sounded awful, but she wasn’t sure their relationship would survive without the myriad number of small white lies they told, or accommodations, as Beth liked to call them. Walking was good for Jack, or rather fresh air was. It was good for her too, and so they came to the common several times a week. Sometimes, it was the last thing she wanted to do, but she did it because she knew that if she didn’t, Jack would hardly ever get out of the house. By the same token, she was pretty sure that Jack stoically agreed to come because he knew how much she cared about him – about, and for him. Refusing that help would be like a kick in the teeth, given all that she did for him. And so, they carried on, accommodating …
As if reading her mind, Jack halted beside her. ‘What would I do without you?’ he said.
Beth held his look. ‘Don’t,’ she said softly, seeing the emotion written there. ‘We both know you’d be okay. And at least you’d be free from being nagged all the time.’
‘I mean it though, Beth. I couldn’t do this without you. But you work too hard, and…’ He didn’t need to say the rest.
It was exactly what Beth was afraid of. Every day, Jack told her to sleep, told her he was worried about her. But to do the things she did there just weren’t enough hours in the day to sleep as well. And she was so, so tired. It scared her that one day she wouldn’t be okay, that her body wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demands she made of it, and everything would go bang. She had no idea what would happen if it did.
Turning, she dropped to her knees, ignoring the cold of the hard ground beneath her. ‘I love you, Jack Millner,’ she said. Some days she couldn’t tell him hard enough.
Leaning forward as far as he could, Jack slid his good hand around her neck, pulling her closer so his lips touched hers. Some days she knew he worried he didn’t tell her often enough. ‘I love you too,’ he replied. And then he sat back and smiled that smile. ‘But can we please go home? It’s flippin’ freezing…’