(9/20) Tyler's Row (19 page)

Behind the door were more newspapers and two or three letters. She picked them up and put them on the table, still listening intently for any sound.

'Sergeant Burnaby!' she called at the foot of the stairs. There was no reply.

She called again, louder now, her heart beginning to pound. Should she return, and fetch help? No, she told herself, he might simply be sleeping soundly, and it was obviously sensible to find out first.

She mounted the stairs, calling as she went. Both doors at the head of the stairs were shut, but she knew that the old soldier's room was on the right-hand side, his wall adjoining their own house.

She rapped on the door, and stood listening, head on one side. There was no sound.

She rapped again, rather more loudly, and now there was the squeak of bed springs, and grunting noises.

'Can I come in?'

'Who's there?'

'Diana Hale. Are you all right?'

'What d'yer want?'

The voice was surly, but not unfriendly. Emboldened, Diana pushed open the door.

The old man's bristly face peered suspiciously over the bed clothes. The room was stuffy, and the bed looked as though it had been used for two or three days without being made afresh.

'I was rather worried about you,' said Diana. 'We haven't seen you about and I wondered if you were ill.'

'I bin a bit rough,' admitted the old man. He looked thinner and his yellow face sagged. The fierce moustaches were down-bent, giving him an unusually depressed appearance.

'Let me get you a drink,' said Diana. 'What would you like? Hot milk, or tea, or something stronger?'

'I thought I had some tea,' said Sergeant Burnaby, looking about vaguely.

Diana took the empty cup from his bedside table. It was dry and stained, and had obviously been there for a day or two.

'I'll make you a fresh cup. When did you drink this?'

'Last night, I think. What's today?'

Diana told him. He looked disbelieving and slightly affronted.

'I come up here Monday night. Just after "Z Cars". Felt a bit rough with me chest.'

'I think you've been here ever since,' Diana said.

He put a hand to his ribs and winced.

'Got a sharpish pain here. Better sit up.'

She shook up the pillows and helped the old fellow upright. A spasm of coughing tore the man, and Diana was alarmed at the violence of the attack.

She waited until it had passed and he leant back upon the pillows exhausted.

'I'll get your drink,' she said, 'and then I think we must get the doctor to have a look at you.'

'Don't want no dam' doctor messin' me about,' wheezed the old man spasmodically.

Diana left him to make the tea. She could hear the sergeant's heavy breathing as she waited for the kettle to boil. She found a tin of biscuits and put them on the tray. There seemed to be remarkably little food in the pantry, but she did not like to pry too much. She resolved to bring him some home-made soup from home, and perhaps a boiled egg, if he could manage it.

He was grateful for the tea and drank it thirstily. Diana watched his trembling hands anxiously.

'Now, I'm going to pour you out a second cup, and while you drink it I'll ask the doctor to call on his rounds. Who do you have?'

'Young Barton at Springbourne. He's no good—like all of 'em. I tell you, I don't want nobody. I'll be all right if I rest.'

Diana said no more. She did not want to agitate him further, but she certainly intended to get help.

On her return to the cottage, she rang the surgery and was told that Doctor Barton, though
excessively
busy, would call about twelve.

A little before midday, Diana went round again, bearing a light lunch. The old man was dozing, but woke at once and seemed almost pleased to see her.

She sat by the window and watched him eat. It would be best, she thought, to let him finish the meal before breaking the news of the doctor's impending visit.

When he had finished, she brought him a bowl of warm water, soap and sponge, spreading the towel which hung from the bed rail across the old man's lap.

'That's better,' he said, mopping the drops from his chin. 'You bin a good neighbour to me this morning.'

He smiled upon her and Diana took courage.

'You may not think so when I tell you that Doctor Barton's calling.'

'You ain't rung 'im?' protested Sergeant Burnaby, his face clouding.

'I must,' replied Diana. 'You need an examination. It's the right thing to let your doctor have a look at you.'

'That's the worst of women,' said the old soldier viciously. 'Too dam' interfering.'

He tugged crossly at the bedclothes, and was smitten with another racking attack of coughing.

It was whilst this was in progress that the door opened and in walked the doctor.

Later, he came downstairs to where Diana was waiting.

'Are you a relative?'

'No, just a neighbour. The sergeant is our tenant.'

'He's pretty frail. Pleurisy and bronchitis, and his heart's not all it should be. What age is he?'

'Late seventies, I believe.'

The doctor nodded.

'Like most of these old people, he's underfed too. Can't be bothered to cook. All tea and biscuits. I'm sending the ambulance for him.'

Diana felt startled. She had not imagined that Sergeant Burnaby would need hospital treatment. The old man would be furious.

'Can you wait with him until it comes? I've several cases to attend to.'

'Of course.'

'Perhaps you could put a few things together for him? Pyjamas, soap—that sort of thing.'

He went out to his car, and Diana returned upstairs with some trepidation.

'Pleased with yerself?' asked Sergeant Burnaby nastily. 'Gets me out of the way, don't it?'

'Sergeant Burnaby!' protested Diana. Something in her face must have touched the old soldier's heart.

'All right, all right! Don't start piping yer eye. I've got enough to put up with without that. Give us a hand with me clothes, gal. If I've gotter go to the blasted hospital, I'd better go decent.'

16. Amy's Party

MY friend Amy lives in the village of Bent, a few miles on the southern side of Caxley. I can take a roundabout route, through the lanes from Fairacre, and get there comfortably in half-an-hour.

The hedges were festooned with honeysuckle, the fragile trumpets giving out a wonderful scent in the warm evening air. Here and there, a late wild rose starred the greenery, and young fledglings squatted fearlessly among the grit in the road, and had to be warned of danger by a toot from the car's horn.

The corn was now golden, rustling in the light breeze which fanned the expanse, ruffling it like the wind across the sea. Soon the combines would be out, trundling round and round the acres like so many clumsy prehistoric beasts, while the farmers prayed for fine weather and freedom from mechanical breakdowns.

Nettled though I was by Amy's disparaging remarks about my perfectly good black frock, I had to admit that she had seen it a great many times, and perhaps a new one might be a good idea. Consequently, I was attired, not in red, but in an elegant affair of bottle-green, which I had bought at enormous expense in Caxley's leading stores. The hole which this extravagance had made in my monthly budget was truly horrifying. I comforted myself with the thought that it was an investment, and that I could probably live on eggs, which were plentiful and cheap, and the perpetual spinach which was rioting in my vegetable plot. If the worst came to the worst I should have to borrow some money from the needlework Oxo tin, as I had done before in times of financial stress.

Aunt Clara's seed pearls did nothing to enhance my ensemble, I had decided, and had dug out a fat silver brooch from Mexico which looked rather splendid, I thought, after a brisk rubbing with Silvo at the last minute. If I had been richer I should have bought a stunning pair of shoes to match my frock, but in the circumstances I polished my old black patent ones and was quite content.

How nice it is to grow old, I mused, as I trundled along between the hedges. Twenty years earlier, I should have worried about the shoes. Now I didn't care a tinker's cuss that they were old. I really would not care if I were going barefoot, except on Amy's account. There is a limit to eccentricity, even between old friends.

There were several cars in the drive when I arrived. I was glad I was not the first, as I am so often.

'It looks as though you never have a square meal,' Amy scolded once. 'Bursting in on the dot, and sniffing the air like a Bisto Kid.'

'I like to be punctual,' I had replied, with dignity.

Amy's house was built in the 'thirties, and has a prosperous look about it with its wide eaves and pretty stonework. It looks across a valley, now golden with corn, towards distant hills to the south.

There were several people there whom I had met before and, surprisingly, the Mawnes from Fairacre. We greeted each other with unusual enthusiasm, meeting in a foreign part so unexpectedly.

'Let me present Mr Baker,' said Amy. 'Gerard Baker. Mrs Mawne and her husband, Henry Mawne. Miss Read. All from Fairacre, Gerard, and bursting with knowledge about Aloysius.'

I don't quite know what I had expected when Amy first told me about Gerard, but I was pleasantly surprised. Somehow, one does not expect a writer to look normal. If male, one half-expects a beard, or a mop of hair, or both, allied to a certain sallowness of complexion (burning midnight oil?) and either advanced emaciation because of failure to sell his work, or too much flesh because of unusual success.

Gerard Baker, was neither thin nor fat, clean-shaven, with tidy fair hair and an air of cheerful competence. He would have made a reassuring dentist, or a reliable headmaster of a prep school.

All three of us explained hastily that we knew very little about the poet he was interested in, but I told him about Mr Willet's remarks, and he was eager to meet him.

'Aloysius sounds rather a trial,' he said. 'He's the sixth poet I've tackled so far, and to be frank, they are all proving to be hopeless domestically.'

'But surely it's their work you're considering,' said Mrs Mawne.

'Yes, but the men too. I've come to the conclusion that life with a poet—and the more minor the worse—must have been uncommonly depressing for his family.'

At this moment, Vanessa was brought up to meet the great man. She looked tidier than usual, but still pale and unhappy. We drifted away as the movement of guests carried us, and let them converse.

Later, some of us wandered into the garden. Amy is splendidly up-to-the-minute with her garden. There are lots of shrubs and roses, and more foliage than flowers in her herbaceous border. As she is a keen flower-arranger, the place fairly bristles with hostas and dogwood, and lots of things with green flowers or catkins which are difficult to distinguish from the surrounding boskage.

A beautiful old lime tree scented the air, and I made a private bet with myself that not a branch entered Amy's house without being first denuded of its leaves. Did she still, I wondered, pop the young leaves against her mouth with a satisfying report? She had been a notable leaf-popper at college. Probably she had put such childish things behind her.

Whilst I mused, swinging my sherry in the glass, Gerard came to join me, and we went to sit on an elegant white wrought-iron seat which was much more comfortable than it looked.

'It's nice to be in the fresh air,' he confessed. 'Why do even the politest cocktail parties get so hot and noisy?'

I took this to be a rhetorical question and only smiled in reply.

'Do you know Vanessa well?" was his next question.

'Not very.'

'She seems such a charming child, but sad. Crossed in love I suppose. One always is at that age.'

I told him about the four-times-married husband.

'But she looks better than she did,' I assured him. 'Amy tells me she's getting over it.'

'What a blessing it is to grow out of one's first youth,' said Gerard. 'Everything matters so terribly. So much to learn, so many mistakes to make. That line from "Gigi"—"Methuselah is my patron saint"- strikes a chord with me.'

'Me too,' I told him. 'I was thinking on much the same lines as I drove over here this evening.'

'Vanessa's staying here for a few days,' said Gerard. 'I wonder if she'd bring her aunt to lunch with me in Caxley? Do you think she'd find it boring?'

'Of course not. Ask her anyway. I'd say she'd be honoured.'

'Awful to be young,' he repeated, gazing across-the valley.

'So vulnerable at that age—exposed to every blow, helpless, like a—like a—'

'Winkle without a shell?' I suggested, as he sought for words.

He threw back his head and roared with laughter.

'Exactly. I was searching for a much more poetic simile, but that hits the nail on the head.'

'We must go back and mingle,' I said. 'We've had our quota of fresh air.'

'I'll catch Amy now, before I go,' said Gerard, 'and ask about Vanessa.'

'Good luck,' I said, 'and if Amy can't come, I shouldn't let it worry you. After all, Vanessa is now legally an adult.'