24
Harold Edlin was obliged TO renew his driving licence every three years. This involved his answering questions on his health and the state of his eyesight. The decision as to whether his application was successful rested solely on his responses and, to Miriam’s surprise, required no input from his doctor. Although her father was deemed capable, she sensed that retaining his licence was more a point of honour than a desire to get behind the wheel.
These days her parents used their car infrequently and, when they did, they travelled short distances and chose familiar routes. This was reassuring in one respect, yet troubling in another. Their world was shrinking, their perspective on it skewed by media scare stories. Once in a while, she and Bing took them out for a ‘spin’. A glimpse of life beyond their self-imposed boundaries bucked them up and freed them, if briefly, from the drip, drip, drip of doom and gloom. They didn’t venture too far afield, limiting travel time to an hour at most, choosing a National Trust property or beauty spot with benches and a view. There were plenty of places nearby that fitted the bill. Bing was so good, so patient with them, turning a deaf ear to her father’s incendiary opinions, winking at her when her mother got the wrong end of the stick. He pretended he enjoyed these jaunts but she knew he was doing it for her.
‘That was lovely,’ her mother said, when they returned from visiting a Georgian house, noted for its formal gardens. ‘I didn’t think we’d ever go there again, did you Harry?’ She gave a trill laugh. ‘Life’s still full of surprises, isn’t it?’
Miriam went to organise a cup of tea and by the time she got back her mother had fallen asleep in her armchair. Her father was in the garden, talking to Bing about his plan to grass over two flower beds. Her mother had given in some time ago and allowed her to organise a cleaner to come in for a few hours a week. Persuading her father to hire a gardener, proved more of a sticking point. She knew the problem wasn’t cost, rather the implication that he was no longer up to the task. Bing pointed out to him that the critical ingredient when creating a successful garden was the vision behind it. ‘Any fool can push a mower,’ he said. Her father had raised his eyebrows. ‘I may be old, young man, but I’m not gullible.’ But then, because he was ready to take advice from Bing where he refused it from anyone else, he added, ‘Perhaps I will if we can find the right man for the job.’
She took the tea tray outside and the three of them sat on the patio in the shade of the sun umbrella, nattering about this and that. Richie, the next door neighbour, appeared on the far side of the hedge separating the two gardens. ‘Got a moment, Paul?’
Her parents didn’t have a great deal to do with Richie and Valerie but they were friendly enough and knowing they were on the spot in case of an emergency was reassuring. The men talked for a while, their conversation involving much nodding and pointing. Finally Bing went next door to help manhandle fencing panels which needed stacking behind Richie’s garden shed.
Her father seemed unusually relaxed as if, in that moment, everything was how he wanted it to be.
‘Should I check Mum’s okay?’ Miriam said.
‘Let’s leave her. A snooze would do her good. She doesn’t have the stamina she used to have.’
What must it be like, Miriam thought, to reach an age when each day lived was a bonus yet there was little you could do with it apart from see it through? It took a kind of courage to get up every morning and face the increasing probability that this day would be your last. Longevity – blessing or a curse? Live long enough and she’d find out.
‘We never get a chance to talk,’ he said.
‘That’s not true, Dad. You see a lot more of me these days.’
‘I do. But you and I never get to talk. There’s always someone around – Paul or your mother. Or you’re dashing off somewhere.’
She reached for his hand. ‘Well I’m here now.’
After a few moments he said ‘Are you happy, Miriam? You seem to be, but I need to know for sure.’ His question was disconcerting. As a rule, he steered clear of what he’d probably label ‘airy-fairy topics’. ‘Well, are you? And don’t give me all that “it depends what you mean by happy” nonsense. A simple yes or no will do.’
‘In that case, yes, I am happy.’
‘I’m glad. You deserve to be.’
His eyes were fixed on the end of the garden as if he were searching for the rest of what he wanted to say. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He gave an odd little laugh. ‘That’s about all I’m good for now. There were things we did – they seemed right, at the time but,’ he shook his head, ‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Everything’s fine, Dad. There’s no need to say anything. It was a long time ago.’
‘It was. And you were so young. Nineteen?’
‘Mum was nineteen when you were married.’ She spoke quietly, more to remind herself than to challenge him.
‘Your mother left school when she was fifteen. You had to grow up fast in those days. Take on responsibilities. The family counted on your money. Back then, teenagers hadn’t been invented. You were either a child or an adult. There was nothing in between. Your mother’d held down a job for two years when we started courting. Then we had the war. When you were nineteen, you were still a child. It wasn’t your fault. That’s how it was.’
‘You never talk about the war,’ she said.
‘Some things are too terrible to speak about. The only way to cope is to lock ’em away. It’s not foolproof. When you least expect it, someone shows you an old snap or you read an article in the paper and it all comes flooding back.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, Dad. There’s no point in raking over things that happened decades ago. The important thing is to make the most of the here and now.’
‘That’s as maybe. But it doesn’t stop me wanting to set things straight between us.’
Bing and Richie were laughing on the other side of the hedge, wrestling with fence panels, firmly planted in the present.
‘It wasn’t only my age that bothered you, was it?’ she said.
‘No it wasn’t. I won’t pretend we were happy at the prospect of your breaking with tradition.’
‘You mean marrying out?’
‘I’ve never liked that phrase. It gives the wrong impression. Times have changed. Religion or culture as we’re supposed to call it, doesn’t mean what it did back then. It used to be about respect for your forebears and the sacrifices they made.’
‘Doesn’t faith come into it at all?’
‘That’s a tricky one.’
She laughed. ‘Now there’s a conversation we must have some time.’
It was pleasantly warm sitting there, watching the shadows lengthen. Her father’s eyelids drooped occasionally and his head nodded forward but, stubborn man that he was, he refused to surrender to sleep.
‘If you thought me so immature, why did you push Sam at me?’
‘Sam Siskin was a man, not a boy. He was steady. We trusted him to take care of you.’
‘You thought I needed taking care of?’
‘Didn’t you feel that way about Naomi?’
‘Of course, but we accepted she had to work things out for herself. We didn’t agree with everything she did but our job was to offer advice when she asked for it and support when she made a mess of things. I wish you’d talked to me, Dad, instead of going all tight-lipped. It felt as if you were punishing me without giving me a chance to explain my side of the story.’
‘You never said anything.’
‘I should have done. And I might if Aunt Bea hadn’t told me about Mum. The miscarriages. The depression. How badly Danny had treated you. She made me realise how close Mum was to the edge. I dared not pile hurt on hurt.’
‘Bea told you?’
‘Yes. When I was home that time, with glandular fever. I assumed you’d put her up to it.’
He shook his head. ‘Bea, may she rest in peace, always was a meddler.’
‘I’m sure she thought it for the best. We all do the wrong things for the right reasons at times.’
He lifted her hand and kissed it. ‘You’re quite something, d’you know that? We’d never have welcomed Sam into our family if we’d known what he was like.’
‘There was nothing to know back then. And he did take care of me until that disgusting addiction took hold.’
Her father took a deep breath. ‘I’d like to know your mother will be well looked after if I go first. But you mustn’t – must not – take that on. There are plenty of nice places for old folk in these parts. In fact we’ve been to look at a few. We’ve put money away against that eventuality. When that’s all gone, you’ll have to sell this house.’
‘Dad—’
‘Shhh. Let me finish. If your mother goes first, I intend staying here. I can have meals-on-wheels or whatever they call it now and you can show me how to work the microwave. If I can’t manage the stairs, the dining room would make a nice little bedroom. There’s no need to harp on about this but I wanted to tell you while we had a bit of time to ourselves.
‘We’ve made our wills. Whatever’s left after we’ve gone, will come to you. You’ll find copies, along with details of everything I just told you, in the black document box in the bottom of our wardrobe.’
She could only assume that they had, as they’d sworn they would, left Danny out of their wills. They must have agonised over it. He was less often in her thoughts these days but he was their son and they must think about him every day. Looking across the table at the frail, proud old man who had reached some kind of acceptance of his situation, she wished they could always have been this honest with each other. But after all this time it would be too cruel to tell him that, somewhere in the world, he had a second granddaughter called Pearl.
He turned to her, the ghost of a smile on his lips. ‘You’re a good daughter. And Paul’s a good man. You deserve to be happy. I hope you can forgive us.’
Miriam pulled her chair close to her father’s and twined her arm through his and they stayed like that, without saying any more, until Bing returned.