Whatever it takes, p.11
Whatever It Takes, page 11
‘Mine is just the same. Although mine’s a bit older.’
‘Mark is forty-one,’ said Ray.
Margaret looked confused. Really? Forty-one? It seemed like yesterday when she had first held him in her arms. ‘Well, yes, older,’ she admitted. ‘When I go to kiss him, he pulls this face, as if he’s saying, “OK, I’ll endure it.”’
‘Endure!’ screeched the younger woman. ‘They have no idea what endure is, do they? I’ll tell you about endure, I was ripped from—’
Ray coughed, loudly and unconvincingly. He was not comfortable with stories about births. His generation had never gone in for all that sharing. He thought it must have come over from America, about the time they’d started throwing up a McDonald’s on every high street.
The woman picked up on Ray’s hint and said, ‘What am I thinking of? You don’t want to know that.’
Margaret assumed she’d lost the thread of what she was talking about; having little ones did tend to have that effect. They’d given it a name now, ‘nappy brain’. Margaret had seen it written about in magazines. In her day they’d just called it exhaustion. Same as she was suffering from now. It made you forgetful.
‘I’m glad I have sons. Less to worry about. Less money spent on clothes,’ the girl offered conversationally.
‘Less blood spilt,’ Margaret added. Ray and the young mum stared at her, neither could hide their surprise. Margaret wondered what she’d just said that had made them look so startled. Had she burped? ‘I don’t mean menstruation and all that, necessarily, I just mean that girls are vulnerable to more heartache,’ added Margaret.
Ray turned ghostly, he’d never heard his wife say menstruation out loud and he’d have liked to have gone to his grave that way. Margaret didn’t care. She was thinking about Mark. Mark had never been a worry. He was a good lad. Well behaved, always did the right thing. But, on the other hand, there were limits with boys. Margaret thought of one and shared it. ‘There’s no one to give you a bed bath, though, dear. That’s a daughter’s job. That, and bringing biscuits to dip in the tea.’
‘What are we doing here?’ asked the toddler who was bored of the conversation and the room.
‘That’s very philosophical,’ said Margaret. Again, Ray gave her an odd look; a mix of warning and worry.
‘He means, what is he doing here in the waiting room,’ said Ray. ‘Waiting,’ he added, turning to the boy.
‘To see the doctor,’ clarified the mother. Margaret remembered that stage. The endless answering of questions in full and clear sentences to make yourself heard and understood. Waste of time, she thought. They give up listening to you all too soon although you never can give up the battle to make yourself heard and understood.
‘Why are you here?’ The little boy threw his question to Ray and then returned his attention to running his yellow truck around the back of an empty chair. Despite the snot, Ray melted. He’d always been good with children.
‘The old trouble,’ Ray joked. He couldn’t imagine the child was going to get the gag but couldn’t resist it anyway.
‘What’s that? Being ill?’ asked the boy.
Ray chuckled. ‘Very funny. I was going to say my wife.’ The boy looked put out but Ray didn’t care, he was chortling so much that his eyes had begun to water. Margaret thought it was Ray who needed to see a doctor. He might have cataracts.
‘Are you here about their colds or your nerves?’ Margaret asked the mum.
‘Margaret!’ Ray stopped chortling and stared at his wife again. He’d upgraded his glare from one of warning to one of out-and-out alarm.
‘I’m only making conversation.’
‘You shouldn’t ask such things.’
‘Why not? She might want to talk about it. It’s good to talk. Like that old advert used to say.’ The smiley woman hadn’t taken offence but was laughing now too, as she thought Margaret was joking. ‘Lots of young mothers can’t cope and they just need someone to talk to,’ insisted Margaret.
Despite his better judgement Ray found himself drawn in. ‘How would you know? You weren’t a young mum and, besides, you coped admirably.’
‘Thank you, dear. But I wasn’t anything special, everyone coped in those days or, at least, no one ever let on if it wasn’t the case, but nowadays there are more stresses and demands. People are so much busier. Rush rush. So strangers can talk about such things. I’m sure it’s OK. I read it in a magazine.’ Ray shook his head in defeat and didn’t add any more. ‘Do you have a hankie?’ Margaret asked the young mum, who looked nonplussed, but Ray understood instantly and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘What? I’m just asking her. She might want one. The children’s noses need a wipe. I always carry a handkerchief. Cotton. Pressed. My mother taught me that. That and lots more. To chew with my mouth closed. To sit with my legs crossed at the ankles. Never to let a boy touch my—’
‘Margaret!’
‘Mrs Hamilton, the doctor is ready to see you now,’ said the receptionist.
‘Perfect timing,’ muttered Ray as he directed his wife towards the doctor’s room.
Margaret was baffled. The doctor was not the doctor. ‘You’re not Doctor Fielding,’ she said to the handsome young boy who was sitting in the doctor’s chair. She glanced at the door to check. It definitely said ‘Dr Fielding’ but this definitely wasn’t him. She was certain. Dr Fielding had treated Margaret since they’d first moved to Dartmouth when Mark was a year old, he had a bushy white beard that dominated his face and while he was once handsome, his skin had now all folded in on itself and it looked like the wax that clung to those make-do wine bottle candlesticks, the ones that you came across in Spanish restaurants. This boy had smooth skin that was only interrupted by a slight shadow of whiskers; there were no lines, or broken capillaries, no brown age spots.
‘I’m Doctor Fielding’s son. Doctor Fielding Junior, if you like,’ said the boy with a brief and professional smile. ‘Dad wanted me to come and take over the practice now he’s retired. That was always the plan. I’ve been based at Torbay for six years. Didn’t you know he’d retired? I thought he’d made quite a song and dance about it.’ The young doctor laughed in a way that betrayed he secretly thought his father’s retirement festivities had been a little vulgar or unnecessary.
Ray was relieved that he’d decided against throwing a retirement party. He couldn’t imagine his own son being so arrogant and ungrateful, but those things were tricky to manage. How did one celebrate a lifetime of work and achievement without sounding just a little smug? Besides, a party was out of the question, given the circumstances. Margaret simply wouldn’t have managed.
‘Yes, we did know,’ said Ray. ‘We sent a card and contributed to his leaving gift. I understand he wanted a leather-topped desk for his home.’
‘That’s right,’ said the young doctor, and he flashed another smile.
‘I would’ve thought he’d have a desk, already,’ added Ray. His disapproval hung on the air. Ray was not one for over-indulgence.
‘He did. He wanted a new one.’
Ray raised one eyebrow but didn’t comment. Margaret stayed silent too because she couldn’t remember a thing about the desk or the retirement. Dr Fielding glanced at the screen, where her entire health records were displayed, and then asked, ‘So, what can I do for you?’
‘I’m a bit under the weather,’ Margaret replied.
‘In what way?’
‘Tired. Forgetful.’ She paused and then reluctantly added, ‘A bit tetchy.’
‘Depressed?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say depressed.’
‘Any dizziness?’
‘No.’
‘Coughs, colds, sore throats?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sleeping well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Eating?’
‘Yes.’
‘When she remembers,’ chipped in Ray.
‘Our family have just moved here from London. It’s been a busy time. Sometimes I’m run off my feet, looking after my son and his wife and their two girls.’
‘Three girls,’ said Ray.
‘Two and a baby,’ Margaret corrected herself. ‘I sometimes forget the baby.’
‘Poppy’s seven,’ said Ray firmly.
‘Not a baby,’ Margaret conceded.
Throughout this exchange Ray and Margaret kept their eyes trained on the doctor, who glanced from husband to wife and back again, taking in every word. He stood up, washed his hands elaborately, then picked up a torch and shone it in Margaret’s eyes. He nodded. He pulled out a wooden spatula that looked a bit like a nail file and asked Margaret to open her mouth. ‘Uh huh.’ He checked her blood pressure and listened to her chest. He then returned to his seat and typed rapidly but the letters on the screen were too small for Margaret or Ray to decipher. ‘So just a bit run down?’ he prompted.
‘Exactly. I was going to buy a tonic from the butcher’s, I mean the chemist. I don’t really need to waste your time.’ Margaret started to stand up but Ray reached out his hand and rested it on hers, anchoring her to her seat.
‘There are other things, Doctor. It’s not just tiredness. Or maybe it is, but she gets confused.’
‘Confused?’
‘I have to tell her things over and over again.’
‘That’s married life, my love. You should know that after all this time,’ Margaret said and she risked a sprightly giggle in the hope of lifting the atmosphere.
‘We got a new oven four months ago, she still can’t work it. Forgets.’
The doctor didn’t tell Ray to stop being so bloody naggy and leave his surgery; he nodded and typed something, as though what Ray was saying was important, which annoyed Margaret because it wasn’t important, it wasn’t. ‘She was visiting our son last week, popping round, and she forgot where he lived.’
‘He’s just moved in,’ she said defensively.
‘Some months ago now and you go every day. How come last Thursday you forgot where they lived?’
Margaret scowled at Ray but wouldn’t dignify his question with an answer. She thought it was wrong of him to wash their dirty linen in public. She should never have told him about getting lost. She wouldn’t have, except that he’d come looking for her and had found her at the bandstand in the park.
There was a moment’s silence and Margaret was reminded of the Cenotaph. When she was a girl, her mum used to take her to the Cenotaph in London on Remembrance Sunday, to honour her father, who had died in France just at the end of the war. She’d dress Margaret up in her best outfit and scrape her hair into ponytails that were so tight that Margaret’s eyes went slitty. Margaret’s mother always cried at the Cenotaph but Margaret never could. She hadn’t known her dad; she’d been so young when he’d died. She’d missed him not being there because she wanted a dad, but she didn’t miss the man her mum missed. So she’d never cried and her mum had always been furious that she didn’t feel it more. She’d never liked silences since then so she rushed to fill this one.
‘Could it be stress, Doctor?’ Margaret offered.
‘Do you feel stressed?’
‘Sometimes.’ Like now or when she said something that caused Ray to scowl. She didn’t understand why Ray was always scowling at her because he never used to scowl. She’d been blessed with a husband who scattered smiles.
‘Or her thyroid?’ asked Ray. ‘I’ve been reading up on her symptoms and I wondered whether it might be a thyroid problem.’
‘I advise against trying to gather reliable information from the Internet,’ said the young doctor with a hint of irritation. ‘A lot of it is inaccurate and nearly all of it is alarmist. There is a reason we go to medical school, you know.’ He made a sound that was supposed to approximate a laugh but was the sort of laugh that was calculated to show that no humour abounded. ‘We can do some blood tests, if you like. I think that might be wise. Rule some things out. Anaemia, diabetes.’
‘Thyroid malfunctions.’
‘Yes, that too.’
‘You see, sometimes she’s as right as rain and other days . . . well, I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s like she’s not there.’
Margaret swung her head around to glare at Ray but he refused to meet her eye.
Margaret didn’t mind needles, Ray hated them. For all their tough bravado, men were often more squeamish than women. He looked away as the cold steel punctured his wife’s arm. She thought this whole thing was a storm in a teacup. She wasn’t ill, she just needed a tonic. She’d pick one up on the way home. She needed to go into the chemist anyway because Eloise had said she wanted to pick something up for the girls and Margaret could save her a job. What was it Eloise wanted? Aspirin? Cough mixture? Vitamins? Dear me, Margaret couldn’t quite remember. She decided she’d buy the lot, just in case. Eloise was so busy with the bathrooms being refitted.
Margaret questioned Eloise’s judgement with regard to mixing business with pleasure. Was it ever sensible to employ a friend? What if their work or timing was shoddy? How was that to be managed? If only Eloise had exercised just the smallest amount of patience Margaret was sure that she could have got Bernie Fields to do the bathrooms and probably for a lot less than Charlie Woddell was charging. Eloise had said she’d called Bernie and that he’d been busy but Margaret doubted Eloise had mentioned that she was Margaret’s daughter-in-law. If she had, Bernie would have dropped everything to squeeze her in, she was sure of it. He’d been sweet on Margaret for years, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Not that he’d ever actually made a move or anything silly like that. He knew Ray and Margaret were solid but every Christmas, after he’d had one or two too many in the Ship Inn, he’d always look at Margaret with those big watery eyes of his and say to Ray, ‘You look after her, Ray, you’ve got a good one there.’ Ray would then inevitably joke that Bernie could keep Margaret for the price of a pint but he was careful to put his arm around her as he said it so that they were all clear he was joking and they all knew what was what. Margaret was kicking herself. She should have rung Bernie directly. She would have, only Ray was continually saying that she had to let Eloise and Mark find their own way.
Eloise kept talking about the ‘mate’s rate’ she’d agreed with this Charlie but even a mate’s rate on a London fee card was going to cost an arm and a leg. Margaret worried about how they managed their money. They’d had no savings when they’d moved to Dartmouth, they lived from month to month, it seemed. Mark earned enough but they spent as though it was going out of fashion. Besides, any savings they might have made by employing Charlie were being eaten away (quite literally) because he was living with them. My goodness, could that man chow! Last night Margaret had noticed that he’d helped himself to a healthy-sized second portion of the boeuf bourguignon that she’d taken round. It was the Gordon Ramsay recipe, succulent, slow cooked, you needed goose fat and shallots; she liked to serve it with celeriac mash, although last night’s hadn’t been her best. She’d forgotten to put in the garlic – still, no one seemed to mind, least of all Charlie. After the beef he’d had a huge helping of bread-and-butter pudding and custard and he still asked for a chocolate biscuit to go with his coffee! Besides the blurring of the line between employer and employee and the fact that the man had an enormous appetite, Margaret didn’t think it was a good idea that Charlie was living with them because she thought they needed to have a bit of time to themselves, as a family. To settle in and acclimatise.
‘What’s the matter, love? You look worried. Are you in pain? Uncomfortable?’
‘I’m fine, Ray. Just thinking about Mark and Eloise and that plumber friend of theirs.’
Ray made a humph sound which clearly communicated that he thought Margaret had more to worry about than her son’s bathrooms. But Margaret thought Ray was wrong. She’d be as right as rain once she’d picked up a tonic from the chemist. That and the baby milk Eloise had asked for.
NOVEMBER
12
‘What do you think I should cook?’ Eloise asked Charlie. She doubted he was particularly interested in the dinner party she was hosting this coming Friday, especially as it was only Tuesday, but she’d canvassed the opinions of Mark, Emily, Erin and Poppy – irrespective of their probable indifference – and saw no reason to let Charlie off the hook.
‘Whatever you serve will be a hit, it always is,’ replied Charlie with his broad, reassuring smile. Mark had said something similar.
‘But you know I always cheat. Rationally, I realise that cooking isn’t so tricky, not if it’s approached in a quiet, methodical, sensible way – irrationally, it still terrifies me.’
‘Have you ever cooked from scratch?’ Charlie asked, leaning back on the kitchen counter. He had a great way of asking questions as though he really cared.
‘Oh yes, years ago. Before we could afford foie gras doused in truffle dust from the local deli and monkfish Wellington and chocolate soufflés baked by the local caterer.’ Charlie whistled, showing he was impressed. ‘When I say afford, of course, I mean before I realised that it was more important to slam it on the credit card then risk giving my guests food poisoning.’ Charlie chuckled and Eloise felt a bit less panicked, a bit calmer. It was a nice feeling, making someone laugh. She stood up and put the kettle on. Charlie saw this as his invitation to sit down at the kitchen table, even though he’d just got back from the builders’ yard and hadn’t actually done any work in the bathrooms yet this morning. ‘But over the years I’ve lost the knack,’ she added.
‘Sounds like you’ve just lost your confidence. I bet you could take on Jamie Oliver if you put your mind to it.’ Eloise smiled at the compliment but knew it was far from the truth. ‘Can’t Mark help?’
‘He offered but it would be a debacle. He’s very proficient at fish fingers, chips and beans, or anything that goes in a microwave, and he does have a notable flair for presentation.’
‘Yeah, I’ve noticed how he always stacks the fat chips like a Jenga tower.’
