The next few days are an agony of waiting, punctuated by the mundane tasks needed to keep ourselves (not to mention the animals) alive and give some semblance of normality. Ordinary everyday jobs like cleaning my teeth or washing up the dishes take on a strange irrelevance; I keep stopping to ask myself what I’m doing them for. What does it matter if dirty plates stack up on the draining board, or my toothbrush goes unused for a couple of days? Who cares? I suppose I have been fortunate. Up until now, I have never had any kind of brush with tragedy. I recall with equanimity the long-ago death of my grandfather; he was old, and I scarcely knew him. When I was about twelve, the family cat was run over, and I did shed tears over him. But this is so much bigger, its potential for grief so much greater. I have grown to love my uncles dearly, and my sadness is compounded many times over by that of Eric, who is quite distraught. Silas is being kept sedated to “give his body a rest”, and the extent of any damage won’t be known until they withdraw the drugs and let him wake up. Eric spends his days sitting by Silas’s bed in the Intensive Care Unit, among the forest of tubes and drips and the beeps and sighs of the machinery upon which Silas now depends, and his nights pacing up and down in his room, which is next to mine, sometimes weeping, sometimes listening to the BBC world service on the radio. I hear him going downstairs at two and three in the morning to make cups of tea, his footsteps slow and apologetic and infinitely weary.
‘Are you all right, Eric?’ I join him in the kitchen, unable to bear the idea that he is down here suffering on his own while everyone else is asleep.
Eric looks up. He seems mildly surprised.
‘Oh, Ruth. What are you doing down here?’
‘I came to see you.’
‘Ah.’ He pauses, kettle in hand. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Please.’ I sit down at the table. ‘Eric what can I do to help?’
He sits beside me, nursing his mug between his hands. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do. That’s the trouble.’ He manages a pale smile. ‘You see, we’ve never been apart before.’
‘What, not ever?’
‘Not ever. Well, maybe a night or two here and there, but never longer than that. As children we did everything together, and we’ve lived together ever since. There’s been no need to be apart.’
‘Oh, Eric. I’m so, so sorry.’ I’m unable to think of anything else to say, because of course there’s nothing anyone can say. All I know is that Eric’s heart is breaking, and however much we may want to help him, he is beyond our reach, in a world of his own.
‘I can’t think of anything else, do anything else. I can’t even be anything else. All I am is Silas’s brother. Waiting.’
Waiting. That word again. Eric is suspended between the chance of hope and the expectation of grief, and for the time being at least, has come down on the side of grief, and in his state of suspense (which when I think about it now, takes on a whole extra meaning) is totally disabled.
I take his hand and rub it gently between my own. It feels terribly cold, but I doubt whether Eric is aware of it. He’s probably been pacing about for ages in his unheated bedroom. He hasn’t even bothered to put on a dressing gown. I get up to fetch a coat from the hall, and put it round his shoulders.
‘You’ll catch your death,’ I tell him, ‘And then what use will you be to Silas if — when he needs you?’
‘I suppose we always assumed we’d die together,’ he says, and I know that he hasn’t heard a word I’ve been saying. ‘Silly, isn’t it? But we were conceived together, born together, went to school together. We even started shaving on the same day. There wasn’t much to shave, but we shaved it off anyway with our dad’s old razor. And we felt so proud. Real men, we told each other. Not boys any more. Men.’
‘I’ve often wondered what it must be like to be a twin.’ I stir sugar into my tea, which is much too strong.
‘And I’ve often wondered what it must be like not to be one. To be an individual, unique, entirely different from everyone else. As children, we were always being compared with each other. Our school reports, exams, team games.’ He sighs. ‘We both hated games. We were the ones to be picked last for team games, but it was still a competition to see which of us would be picked the very last. Usually no-one knew which of us they were picking anyway, as they could never tell us apart.’
I know that not all twins — even identical ones — are as similar as this; some in fact contrive to be quite different. There were identical twins in my class at school who went to considerable lengths to make themselves as individual as possible, even to the extent of wearing their school uniforms in different ways. Few needed (or indeed, dared) to confuse them. But it seems that Eric and Silas have always delighted in their similarity and the confusion it causes, and don’t appear to need to establish their individuality, although it’s certainly there for anyone who takes the trouble to get to know them.
‘He’s still alive, you know,’ I say, after a moment. ‘They say there’s a chance he’ll make a full recovery. You told me so yourself.’
‘Yes. But when I see him lying there, he looks so — so not Silas, somehow. Almost as though he’s already gone.’
‘I don’t think anyone looks their best when they’re unconscious,’ I tell him gently.
‘No. You’re right.’ He pulls the jacket more closely around him. ‘I suppose I was always the pessimist. I left the optimism to Silas. I mean, look at the way he approached this operation. Anyone would think he was going on holiday.’
‘Yes. He’d have been so interested in all this, wouldn’t he? It seems such a waste that he’s not awake to — I don’t know — to enjoy it.’
‘Yes. He would have loved it, wouldn’t he? All the attention; all those drugs and machines and things. I’ve been keeping notes, you know.’
‘What notes?’
‘A kind of diary. What happened when; which doctors came to see him and what they did and said. That kind of thing. In case … well, for when he gets better.’
‘That’s such a nice idea, Eric. He’ll love it.’
Eric smiles, as though for a brief moment he’s actually forgotten the seriousness of Silas’s condition, then I watch his expression change as reality kicks in again.
‘Oh Ruth. What would I do without him? Or if he’s damaged; if he’s unable to speak or understand. How will I bear it?’
I give Eric a hug. ‘I think you have to do the “one day at a time” thing,’ I say. ‘I’ve always hated that expression, but there’s no other choice, is there? We have to — oh, I don’t know — keep the home fires burning for Silas. For when he comes home. Whatever condition he’s in. There’s not a lot we can do for him at the moment, but we can do that.’
‘You’re right, Ruth. Of course you are. And I found this amazing hare on my way back from the hospital this afternoon. He’s never done a hare before. You don’t often see them near the road, do you? But this one’s enormous, and absolutely perfect, although it must have been knocked down.’
‘It sounds wonderful. What — what have you done with it?’
‘I put it in the freezer. Double wrapped. Right at the bottom. Underneath Dorothy.’ (Dorothy was a daughter of Sarah’s, who having proved to be barren has recently been despatched and butchered into neat little packages). ‘She’ll never find it there.’
We exchange complicit smiles. Mum accepts most of the things which go on at Applegarth, but draws a line at Silas putting his specimens in the freezer where we keep the food. I don’t suppose even she would object under the present circumstances, but Eric’s right. It’s better that she shouldn’t find out.
There is the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, and Mum joins us in the kitchen. I notice for the first time that she seems to have aged since Silas’s illness.
‘What are you two doing?’ she asks, surprised.
‘Tea and sympathy,’ Eric tells her. ‘Like some?’
‘What, tea or sympathy?’
‘Either.’
‘A bit of both, I think.’ Mum puts her arms around Eric and for the first time I notice how alike they are. I suppose that because of the twin thing, I’ve never considered that my mother might resemble her brothers, but now I see that she shares their eye colour, and her expression — one of sadness and concern — is very like Eric’s.
We sit round the table together talking softly, trying to reassure each other that “everything will be all right”. While I join in, I still wonder why it is that people always say this to each other in times of crisis, as though defying fate to deal the blow they fear, while as often as not it’s perfectly obvious that things are very far from all right, and moreover, are unlikely to become so.
There’s a knock at the back door, and I unlock it to find Kent, wearing a coat over his pyjamas.
‘I saw the kitchen light on. Is everything okay?’
‘Well, nothing’s new, if that’s what you mean.’ I fetch another mug from the cupboard.
‘I’m not — intruding?’ He takes off his boots and places them side by side on the doormat.
‘Of course you’re not. Come and join the party.’
Poor Kent. One of the family, and yet not one of the family, this must be so hard for him. Mum still doesn’t know his full story, although I think she may have her suspicions, and Dad certainly knows nothing. And while I’m sure he must have told Kaz about it, his real position, whatever that might be, is as yet unknown and unacknowledged. He must be in an emotional no man’s land at the moment, but is too sensitive and thoughtful a person to draw any kind of attention to himself.
‘Can I do anything?’ he asks now.
‘No. No-one can do anything. That’s the trouble,’ Eric says. ‘The not doing anything.’
‘Who’s not doing anything?’ Kaz wanders into the kitchen, ruffled and bleary-eyed, her skimpy nightie ill-concealed beneath a kind of giant cardigan. She and Kent exchange one of their glances, but I no longer mind. Now is not the time for petty jealousy.
‘All of us,’ I tell her. ‘For Silas.’
‘Well, we can cheer up for a start. Silas would hate all this.’ She stifles a yawn, and treats us to one of her infectious smiles. ‘While there’s life, and all that. What you all need is a drop of this in your tea.’ She fetches a bottle of brandy left over from Christmas, and pours a generous measure into everyone’s mug (except mine). ‘Warm you up,’ she explains. ‘It’s freezing in here.’
Only Kaz could get away with such inappropriate jollity, and I could hug her for it. Her good humour (fuelled, I suspect, by the effects of love) infects us all, and soon everyone’s mood improves. Eric even manages a laugh, and Mr. Darcy, who has been sleeping by the Aga, wakes up and thumps his tail on the stone floor.
‘That’s better,’ says Kaz with satisfaction. ‘Tomorrow’s another day.’
‘Tomorrow’s already here,’ I tell her. ‘You ought to get back to bed, Eric. You need to get some sleep, or you’ll be in no fit state to go and see Silas.’
But as the clock in the hall strikes the hour, the telephone rings. For a few seconds we sit staring at one another, frozen into immobility. Time seems to stand still. I hear my heart thumping in my ears, and am aware of everyone holding their breath, as though waiting for something to happen.
Then Eric clears his throat.
‘Answer that, could you, Ruth?’ he says, and I notice that his hands are shaking. ‘I don’t think — I don’t think I can bear to.’