Silas is being a terrible patient. He has been home just five days, and is driving us all up the wall.
‘It says in my book...’ are the words we are learning to dread, for Silas’s bible has something to say on every tiny symptom, and Silas would have us know everything it has to say.
I have to admit, I’m disappointed. I was looking forward to looking after Silas; a Silas who would depend on us for his care, a Silas who would be sweetly undemanding, a Silas who would — dare I say it — be grateful. I imagined him lying on the sofa in the sitting-room swathed in blankets, sipping sweet tea or delicious home-made soups, taking little walks at times convenient to the rest of us, getting better every day (of course) but doing it without causing any trouble.
Not so. Silas is very far from grateful. He is restless and bored, tapping his way round the house (he’s been persuaded to use a walking stick until he’s a bit steadier on his feet) interfering and generally making his presence felt. I know I’m not the only one to dread that tap-tapping, and the demands which accompany it, for the rest of the household too are becoming irritable and fractious.
‘What does he want now?’ Eric sounds exasperated at the imperious tinkle of the little bell Silas keeps by his bed. ‘I’ve only just been up to him. He’s had his breakfast, he’s got the newspaper and the telephone. I’ve re-filled his hot water bottle. What else can he possibly want?’
‘I’ll go,’ I tell him. ‘You stay here and finish your coffee.’
When I enter his room, Silas is sitting up in bed with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, consulting his book.
‘I think I’m getting a rash,’ he tells me. ‘It says here —’
‘Oh, Silas! Not that book again! Why don’t you put it aside for a bit and read something else? How about a nice cheery thriller?’
‘It says here,’ Silas continues as though I haven’t spoken, ‘that a penicillin allergy usually begins with a rash. I think I must be allergic to penicillin.’
‘You’ve been on penicillin for ages. Surely it would have shown up before now?’
‘Not necessarily. It says here —’
‘Let me have a look at you.’
Silas pulls up his pyjama top to reveal a pink, healthy chest (healthy, that is, if you ignore the large scar running across it).
‘It looks fine,’ I tell him.
‘It itches.’
‘You’re probably too hot. It’s awfully stuffy in here. Shall I open a window and let some fresh air in?’
‘Gracious, no!’ Silas looks shocked. ‘I might catch a chill.’
Even I know that catching chills from open windows is more old wives’ tale than fact, and I suggest to Silas that he looks up “chill” in his bible.
‘You’re not taking this seriously,’ Silas tells me.
‘Silas, we’ve done nothing but take you seriously recently. We’ve worried ourselves sick, we’ve thought of little else, but —’
‘Really? Have you really?’ Silas looks pleased.
‘Yes. Really. But now you’re on the mend, and of course we’re all delighted, and we’ll do anything for you within reason. But we’ve got other things to think of as well.’
‘Yes. I see what you mean.’ Silas looks chastened, and I fear I may have overdone it.
‘But we don’t mind. Of course we don’t. We all love you, and we still worry about you,’ I assure him, anxious not to give the wrong impression. ‘You’re our priority at the moment —’
‘Oh good. Well then, about this rash —’
‘Silas, that’s not a rash! Trust me. I know about rashes. I used to be allergic to all sorts of things as a child. You could say I’m something of an expert on rashes. And you haven’t got a rash.’
‘It’s still very itchy.’
‘It’s probably dry. All that time in hospital with that central heating. It’s probably dried your skin out. And no —’ as Silas reaches for his book again — ‘you don’t need to look up dry skin. I’ll give you some baby lotion. I use it myself. It’s quite harmless, and very soothing.’
‘Then could you —’
‘Yes. I’ll put it on for you.’
Half-an-hour later, Silas has been anointed and reassured, and is mercifully asleep. I know he should be up and about — we’ve been told he needs to keep moving, and much of the time he’s only too happy to oblige — but it’s such a relief to have him out of the way, that I leave him. He’s got the rest of the day to potter round the house, and for the time being, we can get on with our chores.
‘Now you’ve got an idea what it will be like when you’ve had the baby,’ Mum says, only half-teasing. ‘You have to get on with things while they’re asleep, otherwise nothing gets done.’
Ah. The baby. There’s apparently only about three weeks to go before it’s due to make its entrance (or rather, its exit), and I’ve still hardly done anything about it. I’ve bought the basic necessities with help from Mum and generous contributions from Eric and Silas, but I haven’t made any plans. I’m booked into the local hospital for the actual birth, and my uncles have said I can come back here afterwards, but that’s about the sum of it. Mum keeps trying to encourage me to think about the future, and even Dad has enquired as to “what I intend to do” after the baby’s arrival, but I simply don’t know. Like a rabbit caught in headlights, I can’t see beyond the moment. I still can’t imagine a baby, or myself as a mother. Friends phone to ask how I am, Mikey is beside himself with excitement, Mum is knitting mountains of fluffy little garments, even Kent is excited; but for me, despite indigestion, backache, exhaustion and all the bounding activity that goes on inside my bloated body, the baby still has no reality.
I humour Mum by returning to my ante-natal classes, but I appear to have missed quite a lot, and I still find the sessions boring. Mum, who has put her squeamishness to one side and agreed to be with me for the birth, has started accompanying me, and learns how to rub my back, operate the gas and air and encourage my deep breathing. I find all this bewildering, but Mum is fascinated, and so I let her take over, reasoning that so long as one of us knows what to do, things should be okay.
‘What are you going to call your baby, Ruth?’ she asks me. ‘Have you thought of any names?’
And of course, I haven’t.
‘How about Lucy for a girl? After Grandma?’
‘But it’s a boy. Blossom said so, and they told me at the hospital.’ Is Mum too in denial? I know she would like a granddaughter, but she can’t change the baby’s sex just by calling it Lucy. If only life were that simple!
‘A boy, then. What about a boy’s name?’
‘Malachi.’ The name comes to me suddenly. ‘I shall call it — him — Malachi.’
‘Oh.’ Mum looks both surprised and disappointed. ‘Why? I mean, why Malachi?’
‘He was a prophet.’
‘I know he was a prophet, but you don’t have to name your child after a prophet. There are lots of other good biblical names. John, Matthew — that’s nice — Joseph, Peter —’
‘No. Malachi.’ Malachi, son of Amos, although I don’t say this to Mum. The name pleases me. It’s unusual, and has a nice ring to it.
‘What would people shorten it to?’ Mum asks.
‘I’ve no idea. Does it have to be shortened?’
‘People always shorten names.’
‘They lengthen mine.’ This is true enough, although my parents rarely call me Ruthie.
‘He mightn’t like it.’
‘He mightn’t like any name I choose. The whole thing’s a bit of a gamble, isn’t it?’ It occurs to me what a huge responsibility it is naming a baby; giving it a label which it has to carry for the rest of its life, and which might not suit it when it grows up. I recall a schoolfriend — large and plain and lumpen — who had been given the name of Grace. Her parents couldn’t have known how unsuitable the name would turn out to be, but in the end, they weren’t the ones who had to live with it. At least Malachi doesn’t give rise to any particular expectations (except perhaps a beard, and a penchant for seeing into the future). And it is undeniably dignified.
But Mum has gone on to speculate about second names (presumably in case the first one is rejected), and I let her get on with it. Four weeks still seem a long way away. Anything can happen in four weeks.
In the event, several things happen.
The first is a devastating raid by a fox, in which a great many of the immigrant chickens perish, together with the white duck.
‘Bloody, bloody thing,’ rages Eric, gathering up the tattered corpses. ‘I can understand it taking just one. One is reasonable. Even a fox has to eat. But all these! All this waste. It’s just been killing for the fun of it.’
‘Isn’t that what foxes do?’ I ask him.
‘Yes, but that doesn’t make it any less infuriating.’
‘They weren’t really our chickens, were they?’
‘That’s not the point. And your poor Mum’s terribly upset.’
This is true, for Mum has been taking her duties as chicken custodian very seriously, and now she blames herself.
‘I should have locked them all up,’ she mourns. ‘I had a go, but some of them refused to be caught, and it was so cold last night that in the end I gave up. But it was wrong of me. I was being lazy. I could have caught them if I’d tried harder.’
‘Mum, chickens are stupid things. It’s not your fault if they decide to stay out all night. They know the score. There’s a cosy shed there for them if they want it. You did your best.’
‘And we can’t even eat them.’ Eric says. ‘That blasted fox has mangled them to bits. I’ve a good mind to go out with my gun and see if I can catch him. He’s bound to come back for more.’
‘And if you shoot him carefully, I could stuff him.’ Silas has joined us in the kitchen. ‘See if you can get him through the ear. Yes. That would be a good place. The ear. You’re a good shot, Eric. I’m sure you could do it. That’d preserve the pelt, and would be a nice clean kill.’
‘That’s thoughtful of you, Silas.’ There’s an edge to Eric’s voice. ‘Anything else I can shoot for you while I’m out there? An owl perhaps? A bat?’
‘No. Just the fox.’ Silas seems impervious to Eric’s tone. ‘Though a bat would be wonderful,’ he adds wistfully. ‘I wonder whether anyone has ever stuffed a bat?’
The next thing to happen is the disappearance of Mr. Darcy. One minute he is happily rolling in chicken manure (which of course we have in abundance, and which is his preferred emollient), and the next, he has completely vanished.
‘It’s so unlike him,’ Eric keeps saying, as we hunt through sheds and outbuildings, whistling and calling. ‘He’s never done anything like this before. He’s such a home dog.’
‘And lazy,’ suggests Kaz.
‘That too.’ But I can tell from Eric’s tone that we shouldn’t speak ill of the disappeared.
Mr. Darcy isn’t a hunter, nor does he go out in search of the opposite sex. He’s never been known to fight, and he doesn’t go near the main road. He’s a stay-at-home dog, occasionally a guard dog, if he can be bothered, but not a wanderer. The whole thing is a mystery.
Hitherto, I have taken Mr. Darcy for granted. He and I get on well enough, he’s been a great asset for my busking, and has given me welcome companionship on windy days outside the pound shop, not to mention a talking point for the punters. He is not a creature of beauty, being a strange mixture of collie, terrier and several other rare and not-so-rare breeds, but he is unique. If he resembles anything at all, it is the result of one of those children’s games where you add little bits of different animals to make an entirely new species. I would be happy to bet that there is no other dog on the face of this planet who looks like Mr. Darcy.
‘Do you have a photo?’ I ask Eric.
‘There might be one somewhere.’
‘We could make a poster.’
‘But where would we put it? We’re miles from the town. He can’t have made his way there on his own.’
‘Unless he’s been stolen.’
Eric gives me a pitying look. ‘Much as I love our dog, I think it very unlikely that anyone would want to steal him.’
‘He could be shut in somewhere.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’
Lazzo, who can eat up the miles like a giant in a fairy story, goes off on foot to search farther afield, and Silas, who needs to be kept occupied, is given the task of phoning such neighbours as there are to make enquiries and to ask them to look in their sheds and garages. Blossom crashes around with her vacuum cleaner, berating us all for our inattention (were we supposed to mount a round-the-clock guard against the possibility of anything happening to Mr. Darcy?), and the rest of us try to get on with our lives. But the ancient chipped dog bowl, the smelly blanket by the Aga, the dog hairs all over the furniture, the half-toothbrush — these are poignant reminders, and we all find it difficult to settle to anything.
A day later, we receive a further blow when Dad, attempting yet again to supervise jobs about which he knows nothing, falls off the roof of his house.
‘Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am,’ he says, as he lies in hospital with concussion and three cracked ribs. ‘Falling off a roof is not lucky.’
I know what he means. If you don’t fall off a roof, no-one tells you how lucky you are, but if you do, then you are apparently lucky not to have killed yourself or at the very least, sustained life-threatening injuries, and people don’t hesitate to remind you constantly of your good fortune.
‘I’d like to know how they’d feel,’ Dad grumbles. ‘It’s not funny. Falling off a roof.’
The faith and the optimism which carried him through the fire seem to have deserted him, but I suppose even Dad has his limits. It’s been a horrible six months for him by any standards; he has a disgraced daughter, he’s lost his home, nearly lost his wife, and now this. I think he’s entitled to be fed up. Mum stays with friends so that she can visit him, and after two days’ observation he’s allowed out.
Of course, he comes back to Applegarth — where else can he go? — where he and Silas bond over their medical problems and get on remarkably well. Dad is introduced to Silas’s book, and together they pore over it, looking for complications. Dad thinks the book is wonderful. He would like a copy for his birthday, he tells us, but Mum is not amused, and says that one hypochondriac in the family is quite enough.
Meanwhile, the weather is appalling — cold and sleety, with an icy north wind — and the heating breaks down. As I lumber up the garden carrying buckets of pig feed, with motherhood just a fortnight away, I wonder what else can go wrong. I also wonder — selfishly, no doubt, but perhaps with just a little justification — when it will be my turn to have some attention, because at the moment, I’m a bit short on it. As I lean over Sarah’s door to fill her trough, I shed tears of exhaustion and self-pity, getting nothing for my troubles but a surly grunt and an evil look from one piggy eye.
‘Sarah,’ I tell her, ‘you should count your blessings. You have no idea what a lucky woman you are.’