possibly settle for good, in order to be close to Ruth’s bedridden brother Graham and their nephew and his family. There was a picture of retired engineer and widower Graham (74). He was propped up in bed wearing short- sleeved pyjamas. His face was swollen, and he was wincing gamely at a small burning forest of candles on a cake on a trolley, watched by a cluster of people, including some nurses, holding Styrofoam cups. The caption said:
HAPPIER TIMES.
And there she was: Ruth Mitchell in spectacles and a pale trouser suit, a practical, drip-dry Down Under outfit. Her hair was cut sensibly and a scarf, loosely held in a scarf ring, hung around her neck. Next to her, Arthur stooped towards the camera with his cup in one hand and a bottle in the other, proposing a toast. He was square-shouldered, gaunt, and spoon-jawed. His grin revealed a row of sheeplike teeth that met his upper gum in a row of high arches. His present devastation was analysed under the subheading DREAMS SHATTERED
The garden of his house was not as tidy as the others. A dustbin sat out on the middle of the drive near the end, under a tree. The grass was uncut. There were dark stains in the drifts of fallen petals on the front path and the smell that exuded from them was the familiar sweet stench of dying flowers. In the borders, unidentifiable stalks stood skinny and naked as pencils among sparse flower heads, spent and weather-battered.
I made my way up the drive close to the boundary wall. I was intending to wheel the dustbin further up, nearer the garage doors, where it would be more convenient. Just as I reached it, something made me turn my head. It was something that eyes weren’t much use for, not a figure nor quite a shape nor barely a movement, but something under a tree on the other side of the garden, more like a shimmer near the ground. It was the aftershock of a tiny disturbance, the merest righting of the surface after a departure just accomplished, the air closing again around an absence. And while I couldn’t tell that it wasn’t caused by something quite ordinary and solid and swift such as a cat, I couldn’t be sure it was, either. Perhaps it was just the passing moon shadow of a branch lifted by the wind. I waited, shivering, for what might come next.
Then, from deeper in the garden over at the side of the house came sounds actual and unambiguous enough, the
At the corner of the house, I crouched against the wall and that’s when I saw him, limping across the lawn, stepping in and out of white light and shadows cast over the grass by the moon. He was tall and rather tottery; in the moonlight his hair and clothes gleamed palely. He was clutching what looked at first like sticks and leaves for the compost heap but was actually a handful of broken flowers picked from the front garden.
Though he was unsteady on his feet and his progress was unhurried, he moved rather fast into the shadow cast by the house, shrugging the light from his back as he would discard a coat. He mounted some shallow steps up to a patio and from there he passed into a long, leanto conservatory built against the back wall. The interior was unlit and I watched him make his way along it, neither furtive nor afraid, merely discreet, solitary.
I could not bear to see him go. There was a shed set deep in a curve of shrubs against the garden’s back wall and I moved towards it across the grass, becoming, like him, only a swift, darker presence in darkness. It was a small wooden pavilion with a window on each side and a shallow porch; I settled myself on the steps and leaned against the low balustrade. A white lilac tree swayed above and all was quiet but for the rasping of its branches on the asphalt roof. The drowsy, creosotey damp mingled with the sharp sweetness of lilac blossom. I sat shivering with cold, and the house before me was still.
Suddenly lights came on in an uncurtained upstairs room. In the glare of four overhead bulbs that beamed into all the corners, I could see him, carrying armfuls of papers to and fro. His mouth was working, talking to his dead wife, Ruth, I supposed, and when he paused near the window I caught glimpses of his face wretchedly pained and channelled with deep lines. Once or twice he stopped and covered his eyes, and his body shook with weeping. But he kept doggedly at his work, his moving shadow split by the angled lights across the yellow wall. Although it was bright, the room seemed colder and bleaker and lonelier than out here where I sat on the damp step.
I realized that all my pointless roaming was at an end. Who better than I to ease the burden of the poor man’s distress? My being the cause of it bound me intimately to his suffering; surely an obligation to witness and relieve it must be the reason I was still alive. He needed comfort. He needed me, or he would, eventually, and perhaps with urgency and at a time not of my choosing. And it would be a fitting, if only a small beginning, to keep vigil until I could be of use to him. I would have to be here every night. If I failed to watch, his loneliness would increase; if I ceased watching, I would surely find myself responsible for some new disaster. I would stay here, all night if need be, watching his shadow pass forward and back across the room. I would no longer notice the cold. That would be as much, for the moment, as I could do.
THE COLD AND THE BEAUTY AND THE DARK
Chapter 5: Off to Morecambe
Evelyn got the scissors from Mam, without anyone noticing, after the ceremony, and on the short walk from the registry office to the Co-op Rooms she turned to Stan and told him what she intended to do. He said she was daft but agreed to stand still while she, laughing and with trembling hands, snipped off a few strands of his hair and secured them in the locket. She had already got Daphne to write their initials and the date in minute writing on a tiny piece of paper, and she had set that in the locket, too. She was too excited about getting married to see clearly to do it herself.
It was a grand day, for late February. There was a gleam in the air although the sun didn’t quite come out, as Stan’s mother grumbled. But as Daphne said, it was shining away up there really, behind the clouds, it just couldn’t be bothered with poking through. As one of the witnesses, she had got herself up as fine as you like in an ochre wool dress with matching gloves and her mother’s fox fur. She hated wearing hats and had fixed a spray of artificial carnations in her wiry hair. The other witness was Stan’s uncle, his mother’s brother. He was no end of a swell in his double-breasted suit and spats, with his greying hair slicked down and sliced in a razor-sharp, off- centre parting. He owned three shops and had a car and a house in St. Helens. When Evelyn told Daphne this, she giggled and whispered he looked the part, all right. He certainly did, Evelyn thought. He was wearing a generous amount of a heavy cologne that smelled to her like burnt cake and he had pink, immaculate hands. He had come alone. It was known that his wife didn’t keep well.
The tea was a wonder. There were sandwiches galore: ham, egg, and tomato, and dainty bridge rolls filled with fish paste. And thanks to Mam and her squad of helpers drawn from family and neighbours, there was an array of cakes and pastries that brought oohs and aahs from everyone. Urns were filled and emptied, the windows steamed up, and by half past three Evelyn was feeling she’d had quite enough excitement for one day.
But there were still the speeches to hear. Stan’s uncle went first, addressing the “blushing bride” and saying, with a sly wink that really did make Evelyn blush to the roots of her hair, that he hoped their union would be blessed with a houseful of little Ashworths.
Then Stan made a halting speech, thanking Mrs. Leigh for the grand spread and then, goaded by the assembled company, led by his beaming uncle, he finished hesitantly with, “And we are right pleased you could all
