All things considered, my mother has settled into the household surprisingly well. She appears unfazed by the chaos, seems to enjoy the animals, and is obviously deeply fond of Eric and Silas. It’s as though the three of them have picked from where they were when they were children, and it’s lovely to see Mum laughing once more.
Of course, not everything delights her, and she finds Silas’s taxidermy hard to understand.
‘I wouldn’t mind so much if they looked the way they’re meant to,’ she confesses to me. ‘But they all look so — odd. Not at all the way they must have when they were alive. That badger looks more like a small bear on its way to a fancy dress party than a real badger.’
‘Silas over-stuffs them,’ I tell her. ‘He can’t help himself. He gets an animal just right, and then he can’t resist adding a little bit more stuffing, and ruins the effect. He also puts in the wrong eyes.’
‘The wrong eyes?’
‘Yes. He has to send away for the eyes. He got a batch of dogs’ eyes by mistake, and he can’t bear to waste them.’ Which of course explains the reproachful doggy gaze of several ill-matched animal faces. ‘Mr. Darcy can’t stand it. He doesn’t like the taxidermy thing any more than we do, but it’s the eyes that really get to him. I think he takes it personally.’
And then there’s Eric and his researches. Poor Mum is torn between curiosity and her long-held fundamentalist beliefs. I can see that she is longing to look at Eric’s plans (which have now had to be moved into what is optimistically known as the study because they’ve outgrown the kitchen table), but has misgivings because of her loyalty to Dad and her church.
‘Oh, go on, Mum. What harm can it do?’ I ask her. ‘You can carry on believing what you’ve always believed, and still have a look at Eric’s Ark. It’s really very interesting.’
So Mum spends an hour on her hands and knees with Eric poring over his plans, while he explains at length about carnivores and herbivores, which animals can co-habit and which must be kept apart, and the amount of excrement they will all produce in a day (which, Eric explains cheerily, can all be chucked into the sea, because if there’s one thing Noah has plenty of, it’s sea).
‘I thought you didn’t believe in Noah,’ Mum says, perhaps glimpsing a tiny opportunity for Eric’s salvation.
‘I don’t. This is all theory.’ Eric rolls up his plans and stows them carefully away in an old chest out of Blossom’s way (Blossom has no time for Eric’s researches, and given half a chance is more than capable of hoovering up all his hard work). ‘Don’t worry, Rosie.’ He pinches her cheek. ‘I’ll be okay. You don’t need to believe in a great boat full of animals in order to be saved.’
Every evening, my father phones, and Mum speaks to him for about five minutes. She is reluctant to tell us what he says, but he is apparently coping well.
‘The church are all praying for us,’ she tells me.
‘I bet they are,’ mutters Silas, mixing chemicals in the sink.
‘But he keeps asking when I’m coming home. I don’t know what to do, Ruth. I’ve never been in this situation before. What do — what do people do?’
‘I’ve no idea. But you’re doing okay, Mum. And at least you’re able to think things through without anyone putting pressure on you.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you miss him?’ I ask her.
‘I don’t know.’ Mum rolls out pastry for a pie she’s making (she’s “earning her keep” as she puts it by doing much of the cooking). ‘I ought to miss him, oughtn’t I? After nearly forty years. I certainly ought to feel — well, something more than this.’
‘I don’t think oughts count when it comes to feelings. After all, you can’t help what you feel, can you? It’s what you do that counts.’
‘And what I’m doing is wrong. I made vows, Ruth. Important vows. I believed — believe in them. And now look at me.’
Poor Mum. I don’t think there are any divorced or separated couples among her sheltered acquaintance, so this is unknown territory for her. I often wonder how people like my parents survive the mores of our post-modern world. They behave like lost time-travellers from a bygone age, expecting everything to be as it used to be — as it ought to be — unable to accept or understand change. I’m sure my father is more worldly-wise than my mother, and that he has succeeded in protecting her from the more shocking aspects of the twenty-first century. They rarely watch television, and newspapers are carefully rationed. They have what Dad calls the “wireless” (who still uses that word?), listening to the news and the occasional church service, and such books as they read are all about the Bible or the joyous “witness” of those who have seen the light. There are a few children’s books left over from my childhood (Peter Rabbit, Barbar the Elephant, What Katy Did, Little Women; safe, clean stories with happy endings), but that’s about it. Matters sexual were never discussed, and such information as I had was gleaned from the rather clinical sex education lessons at school, and ill-informed friends (you can’t get pregnant if you have sex standing up; that kind of thing. My friend Molly Wilkins put this theory to the test, and soundly disproved it).
‘But I’m not going back. Not yet,’ Mum says now. ‘I’m not ready.’
I think it’s the first time I’ve heard Mum say what she wants to do. It occurs to me that she’s spent her whole life doing things for other people or because other people have told her to do them. Things are certainly changing.
The next day’s post brings news from Mikey. He has Googled Amos, and come up with some interesting, if ancient, snippets, under the following headings:
‘Young trombonist wins prestigious prize’ (The Times, May 1990). Typical.
‘Student leads demonstration against regime in Zimbabwe’ (Daily Mail, February 1994). Also typical.
‘Gifted jazz-player survives window fall’ (Daily Telegraph, April 1999). Ditto. Amos is accident-prone. He puts it down to his height, but actually he’s incredibly clumsy.
‘“His playing made our holiday,” wrote Enid Horton, who enjoyed one of our musical cruises last year’ (Cruise brochure, Summer 2000).
There are various other bits and bobs; extracts from local newspapers, concert reviews, a mountaineering accident and, strangely, a brief appearance on a TV cookery programme, but nothing which can be of any use in actually tracking Amos down. The last mention is two years ago, and since that, nothing. It would appear that Amos hasn’t just disappeared from the face of the earth; he’s vanished from cyberspace, too.
Mikey is sympathetic in his accompanying note, and says he’s “sure Amos will turn up sooner or later”. It’s the sort of banality lovers delight in; the world they inhabit is so blissful (if in the long run, so removed from reality) that they feel it incumbent upon themselves to spread the bliss around by trying to convince the rest of us that our worlds, too, will reach this pinnacle of perfection, if only we wait long enough.
I am more disappointed by Mikey’s letter than I would have expected. I have faith in Mikey, and I had really hoped that he would come up with something more concrete. Each Amos-related disappointment is harder to deal with than the last, and this time, I find myself close to tears.
I wander outside to find someone to talk to. Mum and I are getting on pretty well, considering our different predicaments, but I don’t think either of us is ready yet for an Amos conversation.
I run Silas to ground in the greenhouse, where an amazing array of plants is managing to flourish among the broken flower pots and the weeds which have managed to negotiate the spaces left by several broken panes.
‘It smells wonderful,’ I tell him, as I am hit by a blanket of warm moist air, redolent of sun and soil and tomatoes.
‘Mm. Doesn’t it.’ Silas straightens up and smiles at me. ‘What’s up, then?’
‘How do you know there’s anything up?’
Silas taps his nose. ‘I can always tell. Baby okay?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Made any decisions yet?’
‘I’ve been trying to find its father.’
‘Good for you! Any luck?’
I shake my head. ‘Not yet. Mikey’s been on the case, but Amos seems to have disappeared.’
‘Amos. You never told us he was called Amos. Well, that’s certainly a good name for anyone’s father.’
‘Yes. Even Dad would — might approve.’
‘So what next?’ Silas ties up a drooping frond of something with a piece of string.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you talked to your mum yet?’
‘Not yet. I guess she’s got enough problems of her own at the moment.’
‘It might take her mind off them. Give her a chance, Ruth. I think she really does want to help, but doesn’t know where to begin.’
‘Has she said so?’
‘She doesn’t have to.’ He puts away his string and wipes his hands on the seat of his trousers. ‘You forget. We’ve known her a lot longer than you have. People don’t change that much.’
‘I will talk to her. Soon.’
‘That’s good.’
I’m grateful for the way my uncles lead but never coerce me. Their advice is often good, but they never either assume I’ll take it or put pressure on me to do so. It’s just there; an offering, nothing more. And because of the generous undemanding spirit of the offer, as often as not, I accept it. I remember all the times my father gave me “advice”, and how I frequently refused to take it on principle, although it wasn’t all bad. It might not have been given in the way Silas’s is, and was often couched in the terms of a command or a criticism, but perhaps I should have given him some credit. He was probably only doing what he thought was right.
I pick a tiny bright red tomato and put it in my mouth.
‘Would you have liked children, Silas?’
‘Yes and no.’ Silas seems unsurprised by my question. ‘Yes, because it’s one of the most wonderful things anyone can do, and no, because it’s such a huge responsibility. And I never met the right person to have them with.’
‘Did you — have you — I mean —’
‘Have I ever had a girlfriend? On yes. When we were younger, Eric and I had quite a few. But the twin thing got in the way, and in any case, none of them worked out. In the end we settled for what we have, which is more than many people manage.’
Later, we make our way back to the house together carrying baskets filled with bright red tomatoes and yellow peppers and glossy aubergines the colour of bruises. They look almost too beautiful to eat, and certainly much too good to part with, but they have to go, for tomorrow is market day.
I must go and practise my violin.