David pushed the wheelchair along the gravel drive, and then over the lumpy lawn, past the row of pines, to the back of the garages, near the place where Poppy had first been tied. He told Cathy that this was where he had fed Poppy last night. He whistled a few times, and called Poppy’s name. To their pleasure, Poppy found them. Leaping out of the hedge, she raised her muzzle over her teeth, in what Labrador owners call a smile, and jigged from one forepaw to another, before resting them on Cathy’s lap. Cathy gurgled, and thrust about in her chair. When David patted Poppy he found she was cold and damp.

  David thought that Keith had been wrong about Poppy being influenced by her own creature comforts. Eccleston Street might be warm and dry, but it didn’t seem to matter to Poppy that Cathy couldn’t speak, or feed her, or give her more than the occasional pat. Poppy was like the roughsleeper’s dog, happy alongside her master under a thin blanket, on a cold street in the rain. And David’s own feeling for Cathy was something like that; a simple thread of attraction which defied explanation. It simply was. Cathy radiated a force, which was not domination or control – these were beyond her – even when she was silent in her wheelchair. People noticed her, were attracted to her, and often deferred to her.

  David saw that Keith had come outside, and was talking to the driver of a truck which had stopped in front of the garages. He was giving the driver instructions about moving boxes of supplies into storage in one of the garages. He had seen David, Cathy – and Poppy, and when he had finished talking to the driver, he walked toward them, looking composed.

  “Going to take the dog for a walk?” Keith said cheerfully, as though there had been no trouble with Poppy, and she was Cathy’s pet.

  “Yes,” David said. “I found her …”

  “You know she’ll follow you to the Hall when you come back. Helmut will see her, and he’ll say she has to go.”

  Fortunately, Keith didn’t say anything about a new owner.

  “Helmut won’t see her, if I tie her up here,” David said.

  “You shouldn’t do that, David. We’ll only get into trouble.”

  David wasn’t too bothered about ‘getting into trouble’ himself, whatever that meant. He was probably already in trouble for freeing and feeding Poppy. But he appreciated that Keith was suggesting that Denby Hall would suffer. He didn’t want that. And he didn’t want to displease Helmut.

  David wheeled Cathy off for their walk, with Poppy padding alongside. The cliff path was deserted, and the sea had calmed into rippled oil, which made their eyes water. The wild flowers were standing up in the tussock; buttercups and ragged robin as well as daisies. Cathy made occasional gestures toward Poppy, flopping her arm on to Poppy’s shoulders. When David decided they had to turn back, he stopped, and gave Cathy a cigarette, holding it for her to puff. He got supplies of cigarettes, and a lighter, from Kay whenever he took Cathy out. Poppy sat on her hind quarters watching patiently.

  David made no attempt to get rid of Poppy, or tie her up as they approached the Hall on their return. As Keith had said, Helmut would see them, and he soon came out on to the porch. He looked regretful. Keith was behind him.

  “Please,” Helmut said. “Vee cannot keep the dog here. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s tough, Cathy, I know,” Keith said, making an unsuccessful grab at Polly who quickly backed away.

  Cathy couldn’t say anything. She watched round-eyed as Keith failed to trap the dog in another move. David reluctantly accepted the situation, and pushed the wheelchair up the ramp on to the porch.

  Helmut raised his palms in a hopeless gesture, looking less jaunty than usual, with his flat-footed loafers, and chaircreased trousers. “Vee’ll get in trouble!”

  Once, David overheard his father in the next room, telling family friends with characteristic candour: ‘David’s a testament to the brilliance of modern surgery. The medics scraped him up from the asphalt, and the surgeons screwed him together. Sadly, I sometimes think …’

  David never heard the end of that sentence. He liked to think that his father drew back from uttering the words, ‘It would have been kinder to let David die.’ He knew his father was a man with a generous heart, and hoped he was really only saying, or perhaps implying, that from his own point of view – the view of a person with his mental and physical faculties intact – his father would rather be dead.

  His father, a property surveyor in private practice, would, David thought, have been tolerant with a son who was a low achiever. But David’s musical skills, before the accident, had convinced his father that he had a brilliant son. And it was difficult for David, and his father, to appreciate how far the trauma had moved David beyond the likelihood of any kind of achievement in his father’s sphere – the university educated world of business, and professional careers. It was a bitter uncertainty for David. Equally, to his father, David seemed to inhabit a space that he could hardly penetrate. Hence his father’s frown of confusion and the fishy, unfocussed look in his eye, when he visited Denby Hall. They were reaching out to each other, and falling short.

  In the years of recuperation at Denby Hall, David had gained a measure of detached acceptance of his plight. Cathy had helped him. She had once called them, ‘A man without a past, and a woman without a future, together on an island of misunderstanding.’

  David thought his present existence was quite pleasant and interesting. He never speculated whether it would be better to be dead. His ‘being’ confirmed that it was good to be alive. Yes, there was pain from his back and legs, but he had pills for that. The fact that he couldn’t always work out very quickly, or accurately, what was happening around him wasn’t such a handicap now that he had become used to it.

  Caroline had tried to get him to resume studies, or at least the reading of books, and to take a part in social groups. He wanted to respond, but he could not find the will or the interest. His father accused David of having lost his sense of curiosity about distant people, and places. If he had had that curiosity in the past, it was true that it had now fallen below the horizon of his mind. Caroline hung her head when she failed to ignite a flash of interest about seeing Mt. Fuji, or the Galapagos. David knew they were wonderful places – he saw them on television – but he could not face what he feared would be the disorientation of foreign travel. He preferred quiet, immediate pursuits, like listening to music, or just sitting in a coffee shop, and watching the passers by.

  What his father and Caroline couldn’t understand, was that it was not painful or unpleasant to be deprived of the urge to travel, or the ability to read and study, or play the part in society that they thought he should play. He wasn’t standing on a patch he regarded as deprived, and looking over the fence, aching for the things he didn’t have. It was the other way round. He felt lucky to be alive. He now understood that even the most broken person at Denby Hall had a valuable spark of life. Even Cathy, who had the smallest spark imaginable. Playing tunes on the piano from the Hall’s songbook, talking or communicating with somebody like Cathy, cooking the occasional meal in the residents’ kitchen, joking with Mark Demeter and John Murdoch, and walking in the town, made a full life, and these things were just about the limit of what he could do. He had found that there was no hurt or anxiety in not doing what he couldn’t do.

  His father’s objective before the accident – and his own – was that David would become a concert pianist, or at least that he would become a member of one of the prestigious nationally known symphony orchestras. Now it was like a distant star. And, sadly, as unattainable.

  Eventually Poppy disappeared. David searched the grounds, and walked for half a mile each way along the cliff path several times. He whistled until his lips were chapped. He reasoned that Helmut’s will had prevailed, and that Poppy had been delivered to her new owner. David made no explanation to Cathy. He had noted the exact address on Poppy’s collar – 73 Eccleston Street – and he had an idea, although it was hard to screw up his determination to carry it out.

  One morning he walked to Eccleston Street. It was wide and quiet, and lined with beech trees, a century old white-painted terrace of large houses, with columned porticos several steps up from street level. The ground and first floor windows – there were four floors – had tall panes of glass, which suggested reception rooms with elegantly plastered ceilings. Some houses had manicured plants, and flowers, in pots on their porches. This was an enclave of middle class homes, immaculately maintained.

  David felt apprehensive, but he mounted the steps at number 73 resolutely, and pressed the bell. Poppy barked, and he heard the muffled thump of her paws on the carpet. A Filipino maid opened the door a crack, and Poppy poked her nose out, but a taller woman was at the maid’s shoulder.

  “Take Justina away, Maria,” the woman said, occupying the space in the open doorway. “Now?” she added, as Poppy was led away, barking.

  “I’m … David … from Denby Hall.”

  “Denby Hall? I was expecting the plumber.”

  “I’ve come about … Poppy.”

  Poppy was still barking in the depths of the house.

  “Poppy? Poppy? There’s nobody of that name here. You’ve got the wrong house.”

  She was a tall, slender woman, around forty, with a bony hand on one hip, and shoulder-length, lank, fair hair. She had a phlegmy voice, blue stains under her eyes, and a kind of beaten-up prettiness.

  “The … the dog.”

  “Justina? Her name is Justina.”

  “I would like … to take her for a walk.”

  The woman had a wide, thin-lipped mouth which twitched at this information.

  “How much do you charge?” she asked slyly.

  David shook his head. “Nothing.”

  The woman’s heavy eyelids drooped knowingly. “No thanks. I already have a dog-walker when I need one.”

  She backed into the hall, a hand on the door to close it. Poppy was still barking. David knew then that he had started in the wrong way, and given a wrong impression. He had sounded like a beggar or a thief.

  “I would like to take her to see Cathy at Denby Hall,” he blurted.

  “Oh, you would, would you? Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

  “I would walk Poppy … Justina.”

  “But you really want to take her to Denby Hall. You want to take her away. That’s where Justina was found.”

  “We didn’t take her away … sh-she ran away … she came to the Hall.”

  “Now listen to me, Mr … Justina is a very valuable thoroughbred dog, and she’s not going near Denby Hall!”

  The woman shut the door, and David had begun to ease himself down the steps, when he realised he had only explained a part of his idea. He heaved himself up to the door again, and pressed the bell. This time, the woman alone opened the door.

  Her face lined more deeply when she saw it was David.

  “Didn’t I make myself clear?”

  “S-Sorry … Could I say, Justina used to be Cathy’s dog.”

  “She’s our family dog, and don’t you interfere with her in any way!”

  “But j-just for Cathy to see her occasionally,” he pressed.

  “She’s our dog! Do you understand?”

  “It would help Cathy.”

  “No. Don’t take me for a fool. You’d never bring her back. And even if you did, Justina can’t have two masters.”

  “Y-Yes,” David said weakly. “She could. She wouldn’t run away then.”

  “No! We’re not into dog-sharing. Justina is ours!” the woman shouted, retreating impatiently, and slamming the door in his face.

  David walked slowly back to Denby Hall, considering how perfect his solution had seemed to be, and yet apparently unworkable in practice, and, judging by Mrs Temple’s attitude, almost offensive.

  7

  David told Cathy that he was still trying to make arrangements for her to see Poppy. He said nothing about Mrs Temple, or the Eccleston Street visit; it wasn’t worth complicating Cathy’s life. David was still feeling embarrassed at his misjudgment. Despite Mrs Temple’s rejection of his proposal, he cast about for a different way to solve the problem. Perhaps if he met the dog-walker from Eccleston Street, and invited him to take a short detour via Denby Hall? It might work. His inconclusive thoughts ended in a headache.

  That David’s friendship with Cathy was unlikely, was hardly noticeable in a place where everything was unlikely. At first, there had been the fun of playing the piano together and singing; and then they had talked a lot, first about the Hall, and the characters around them, enjoying the moment together. Later, as Cathy’s ability to speak began to deteriorate, she reminisced more and more about her past. She seemed to want to create a picture which satisfied her as accurate, pleasant or unpleasant, before her voice failed entirely; a kind of autobiography, which she was leaving with David. He watched her fatal disease progress relentlessly, month by month; the fading voice, the difficulty swallowing, the impossibility of controlling her limbs. But her mind was in there, like a clam inside its shell, and with his methods, David could reach it.

  David received Cathy’s confidences uncritically, because he had no past experience to test them against. He was, in Caroline’s words, ‘a blank sheet of paper’. If Caroline had known that somebody else was scribbling on what she regarded as ‘her’ blank sheet, she might have insisted to his father that David be moved. Caroline frequently enquired about his relationships at Denby Hall, and particularly his relationship with Cathy, because she knew that they were close. David merely sheltered behind his inarticulateness, and gave little away.

  In the early days, David would sometimes go out with Cathy, Desmond, and a care assistant to lunch. Their favourite place was a few miles away from the Hall, the White Swan, a pub on the cliffs, high above the sea. On a fine day, it was an ideal place for Cathy, with easily accessible outdoor benches, and a vast view of the Channel, dotted with yachts and fishing boats. Whenever David asked Cathy whether she was enjoying the scene she usually said it was ‘nice’. But even when the sun was shining, the wind could be unfriendly, tearing away paper napkins, and menu cards. Lighting one of Cathy’s cigarettes could become a lengthy, and trying operation. Inside, the Swan was spacious and comfortable, with many alcoves for privacy.

  Cathy’s party usually opted for the inside of the White Swan, and this preference had been particularly prompted by an unfortunate event in the garden. The picnic area sloped slightly, and on one occasion Cathy’s wheelchair, which was jammed against a bench, had freed itself while Desmond was away at the bar placing the order for lunch.

  The wheelchair, of its own volition, had performed an unobtrusive backward circle, drawing Cathy quietly away from the table. David was talking to Beverly, the carer on duty, when they noticed the wheelchair. Cathy was facing the sea, with about twenty-five yards of bristly brown grass between her and the cliff edge. The chair started to run forward. Cathy had no sense of alarm, and even seemed to enjoy the prospect of rolling down the slope. She shouted encouragingly, and raised her clenched fist.

  David could not extricate his legs from the bench very quickly without provoking pain, but he tried. Beverly, fortunately an athletic girl, sprang after Cathy. The wheelchair gained momentum, and the only way Beverly could stop it, was to sit down on the grass, and let the chair drag her body on the ground until it halted. She scrambled to her feet, and turned the wheelchair, with Cathy in good spirits.

  Beverly had an audience. The guests at the other benches had looked up from their burgers and chips. As Beverly brushed herself down, they acknowledged her presence of mind with whistles, and noises of relief.

  Desmond, coming down the slope with a tray of drinks, said, “Whatever happened to the bloody brakes?”

  “They don’t work,” David said.

  Desmond said something under his breath about the Hall costing a fortune, but not being able to provide a serviceable wheelchair. And that was more or less the end of al fresco lunches at the Swan.

  The White Swan saw the end of lunches altogether, as a form of entertaining Cathy, several months later. Their party, including Desmond, Maggie and David had gathered at an inside table in a bay reserved for smokers. Cathy’s chair, which she could still leave at this stage if there was somebody to support her, had been left outside. She was placed in a seat at the table. She had been given a cigarette, and was feeling in good humour. Still able to speak a few words, she began to chant words which David could identify as ‘Scampi! Scampi!’

  Patrons stared. The waitress, a local girl who was used to serving Denby Hall residents, grinned, and took their orders. Desmond repeated his usual grouch about not being able to find anything on the menu which wasn’t fried, or drenched in oil. But their orders were decided, and given. An awkward silence fell on their disparate party. Desmond was the dominating figure, and to engage Maggie, he observed how cold Glasgow was. “But it has a Gothic skyline,” he said, as a saver. Maggie joked in reply, in her thick accent, and began to ask Cathy trivial questions, giving the replies herself, in the way that many people speak to those who are mute. The food was brought to them at last. Cathy, previously silent, hummed with pleasure when her plate of scampi and chips was placed in front of her. Maggie pushed her own sandwich aside, and began to cut Cathy’s food into small fragments.

  “Would you like tartare sauce?” Desmond asked Cathy.

  The waitress brought the bowl of sauce, but before she could place it on the table, or Desmond could take it, Cathy threw out her arm involuntarily, knocking the bowl against the waitress’s chest. The dish dropped to the floor, and broke. A glob of the white glutinous mixture, as big as a lemon, was deposited on the tanned cleft between the girl’s breasts. The sauce began to run down the inside, and the outside, of her low cut black dress. And the backhand blow from Cathy obviously surprised, and hurt her. She squealed.

 

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