A Family Affair (25 page)

One afternoon when she emerged through the turnstile gate, a gang of rather rough-looking boys was waiting to go in. Jenny went to hurry past them towards the bridge where Jimmy was waiting and she was surprised to hear her name called.

‘Hey, Jenny! It's Jenny Simmons!' She glanced round and saw Billy Edgell sitting astride his old black Hercules bicycle. ‘Hey, Jenny – come over here!'

Jenny felt her face going red. She didn't want anything to do with Billy and his friends. She turned away quickly but before she had gone more than a few steps the boys had surrounded her.

‘Come on, darling – someone's talking to you …'

‘Leave her alone.' Billy cycled slowly over, parking his bike right in her path. ‘You been swimming, Jenny?'

‘Yes.' She glanced helplessly towards Jimmy but he and his friends had climbed down over the bank to the river and he hadn't noticed what was happening. ‘I've got to go, Billy.'

‘What's your hurry?'

‘Nothing. I've just got to go.'

‘I'll walk you home if you like.'

‘No, thanks.'

‘Another time, then? How about coming out with me one night?'

‘No. I've already got a boyfriend.'

One of the others laughed. ‘You're getting the brush-off, Billy.'

‘Am I?' Billy challenged her. ‘I could show you a good time, Jenny. I know a thing or two – not like that lot of stupid kids.' He jerked his head in the direction of the river bank.

From somewhere Jenny found a courage she hadn't known she had.

‘I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last person on earth!' she said scathingly. ‘Now, are you going to get out of my way, or am I going to call Mr Catley?'

‘Oh, you're really scaring me now,' Billy sneered, but he moved to one side anyway. As she slipped past he called after her: ‘I wouldn't go out with you either. I was only winding you up. I wouldn't want to go out with a prissy-knickers like you!'

But he looked none too pleased, and Jenny guessed that she'd made him look a bit of a fool in front of his friends. She tossed her head to hide the fact that she was trembling a little and ran to the river bank, calling to Jimmy.

‘Are we going for a walk or not?'

‘Oh, you're there!' Jimmy joined her. ‘I didn't know you were out yet. What's the matter, Jenny? You look all red.'

‘Nothing.' She didn't want to tell him about Billy. He might go back and cause trouble. With a determined effort, Jenny put the incident out of her mind.

She always enjoyed her walks with Jimmy. He seemed to know so much about the countryside that she did not, in spite of having lived in it most of her life. He could identify the different trees, he could tell her about the wildlife that lived on the river, he could even catch tiddlers, though he always let them go again. When the herd of cows were in the field he would go right up to them, rubbing their noses while Jenny stood well back, half afraid. Carrie didn't care for cows and she had passed her fear on to Jenny. With Jimmy's encouragement, however, she had learned to conquer that fear and even rub a hairy nose herself. The day one of the heifers actually licked her outstretched hand in return, Jenny had heard herself laughing with nervous delight.

All in all, it was a wonderful summer, one of those summers she would always remember in the years to come, when the reality of adulthood stole the magic of youth. But even as she enjoyed it, every sun-filled moment, every new experience, every languid lazy hour, an underlying feeling that was not quite a premonition nagged from a corner of her subconscious. She didn't want to acknowledge it and break the spell, but she knew all the same.

It couldn't last. Before long something would happen that would put an end to these halcyon days out of time, and they would be gone for ever.

Helen parked her car on the edge of the triangle of grass that divided Amy's front garden from the steep slope of Porter's Hill. She reached into the back seat for her medical bag, locked the car and headed for the garden gate. She should have begun to look around for a home of her own, she thought. She couldn't expect to stay with Amy for ever – wouldn't want to – but Amy was insistent that she enjoyed having her and hectic as life was at present it was an ideal situation for Helen. It was good not having to worry about laundry or shopping for the basic necessities of life – Amy's housekeeper, Mrs Milsom, took care of all that. And apart from the odd hasty glance in an estate agent's window, Helen simply hadn't had time to do anything about looking for property.

She pushed open the gate and made her way along the path between the burgeoning shrubs.

‘Hello, Helen! I thought I heard the car!'

Amy emerged from behind a rose hedge, a pair of secateurs in her hand. She was wearing a collarless cotton shirt, linen trousers and a floppy straw hat to protect her fair skin from the still-warm sun. Once, Amy would have gone bare-headed whatever the weather – winter and summer alike. Now, at fifty, she knew better.

‘This darned garden!' she said now. ‘It's out of control.'

‘I thought you enjoyed gardening,' Helen said.

‘In moderation, yes. But at this time of year it suddenly goes crazy. Everything happens at once. You turn your back for a second and it's a wilderness. Just look!' She waved the secateurs towards a herbaceous border where clumps of forget-me-nots and the sort of spindly dandelions they had, as children, called wet-the-beds had sprouted almost overnight and the hedge which formed a backdrop, thick with brambles, threatening to smother the whole lot. ‘The trouble is, Roly just can't manage it any more. He's got terribly slow. And I haven't got the time, and neither has Ralph.'

Roly Withers had been their gardener for years now, and in that time had grown as old and wizened as some of the trees which had been there even longer than the house.

‘I wonder …' Helen hesitated, not sure whether or not she should interfere. ‘I think I might know someone who could help you out.'

‘Oh, I couldn't put Roly's nose out of joint.' Amy dragged viciously at a column of ivy which had twined itself amongst the roses. ‘He'd be so hurt if he thought I thought he was past it.'

‘Oh well, never mind.' Helen looked at her watch. ‘I was thinking of going to see Gran this evening. Why don't you come with me?'

‘I've got my work cut out here,' Amy said. ‘Mam wouldn't want me there, anyway, when she's got you. You and she are as thick as thieves.'

‘She always asks about you,' Helen said.

‘Does she?' Amy looked surprised.

‘Well, of course she does! She is your mother, after all!'

‘I know.' Amy sighed. Since she had grown up, she and Charlotte rarely saw eye to eye – because they were too much alike, Ralph said, and what he meant was that they were as spirited and stubborn as one another and could be equally difficult. Amy couldn't see it, though. She only knew that her mother was often sharp with her and almost always seemed disapproving. Amy, as different as could be from her placid older sister Dolly, would retaliate, and the visit would end with sparks flying.

‘I'm going to get changed,' Helen said. ‘I feel really sticky and horrible. Then I'll come and give you a hand until dinner, if you like. I'm no gardener, but at least I could pull a few weeds.'

‘You don't have to, honestly.'

‘It's OK – I'd like to.'

She went into the house, which was cool and dim after the bright sunshine outside and smelled of roasting meat and roses, thinking about the patients she had seen today, and also about Paul Stephens. He'd turned up again this evening on some pretext or other just as she was finishing her surgery, breezing in as the last patient left and perching himself, as he usually did, against the sink.

‘Good day?'

‘OK. Apart from that I got the results back on Linda Parfitt's tests.'

‘Not good news, I take it.'

‘Uh-huh. They confirmed what I was afraid of. Leukaemia.'

Paul swore softly. ‘Does she know yet?'

‘I'm seeing her tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to it, I can tell you. Why, Paul? Why does it have to happen to someone like her? To anyone, come to that?'

‘You know as well as I do, Helen, cancer is no respecter of youth.'

‘It's so bloody unfair.'

‘Life is, Helen. It's just that in our job we see more of it than most people.'

‘I know … I know.' She ran a hand through her hair, which had flopped down over her forehead. However often she came up against something like this, she didn't think she'd ever get used to it. ‘I'm getting her in to see Mr Brownlow as soon as possible, but …'

‘But even he can't work miracles.'

‘Unfortunately.'

‘You won't tell her that.'

‘Of course not! Never underestimate the power of the mind, my old tutor at med school used to say. But in the last resort …'

‘Let's talk about more cheerful things,' Paul said. ‘Are you going to Matthew Vezey's soirée?'

Helen did a double take.

‘Soirée? What's a soirée?'

‘You're asking
me?
'

‘Oh – I know what a soirée is. I just didn't think people had them any more. And certainly not Matthew Vezey. Anyone less likely …'

‘It's not so much Matthew as his sister. She suffers from delusions of grandeur. Haven't you had an invitation yet? Mine came this morning.'

‘I don't know. I haven't had time to open my personal mail yet.' She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a handful of unopened envelopes, leafing through them. ‘That looks like Matthew's practically indecipherable scrawl.' She slit it open with her paper knife. ‘Oh yes. You're right. A soirée – on Saturday evening. It sounds very grand!'

‘Knowing Enid it will be. She'll probably hire in catering staff all dressed in black and white and looking like penguins. Not my scene really, but there'll be enough booze to sink the
Queen Mary
and the sort of nibbles you wouldn't expect to meet face to face this side of the gates of Buckingham Palace.'

‘You mean canapés. You can't have anything as common as a nibble at a soirée.' The effort to cheer up was working; she was feeling much better. ‘I agree with you, it isn't my scene really either, but I suppose we shall have to put in an appearance.'

‘In which case we might as well go together. No sense taking two cars. I'll call for you, shall I?'

‘But it's out of your way to pick me up,' she protested.

‘No problem. Let's see – it starts at eight. I'll be there about say …'

‘Ten o'clock?' she suggested wickedly.

‘Hmm. I take your point. But we'd better be on time. I expect the poor old boy will want us there nice and early so he can find out what's been going on in the practice since he hung up his stethoscope. How about I pick you up at ten to eight?'

‘OK.' But she was feeling a little uneasy. If Paul was going to take her to Matthew Vezey's soirée that meant he would also be taking her home. Just the sort of encounter she was trying to avoid.

She thought about it again now as she changed out of her linen suit and into a cool cotton dress. As long as all he wanted was to be friends – fine. Anything more …

Her stomach clenched with the trapped feelings she knew so well. What was it with her? Why did she always feel this way when she thought someone might be taking more than a passing interest in her? She hadn't felt it with Guy – but then Guy had been married and therefore technically unavailable. Sometimes Helen wondered if that was the reason she had been attracted to him. No ties. No pressure. No possibility of a permanent binding relationship. She'd longed for it, of course, hoped against desperate hope that he would leave that miserable wife of his for her. But if he had, if he actually had, what then? Would she have had the same reaction – wanted to run like a frightened rabbit? Sometimes Helen was terribly afraid she might, and the thought worried her. She wanted to marry and have a family. She didn't want to be alone for the rest of her life. Yet every time the vague, unstructured longing showed the slightest sign of being realised, she panicked. What the hell is the matter with me? she sometimes wondered. But at least her fulfilled life was too busy to spend much time worrying about it.

She went back downstairs and met Amy in the hall, hanging her sun hat on the antler stand.

‘I'm calling it a day,' Amy said. ‘Time for my G and T.' Amy had always liked her tipple but it didn't seem to have done her any harm.

‘But I was coming out to do my bit!'

‘Well, if you really want to. But … I was wondering, Helen, what did you mean when you said you thought you might know someone who could help out with the garden?'

Helen caught hold of the bannister knob, white-painted wood that felt smooth beneath her fingers.

‘It was just a thought. Cliff Button – Herby's brother.'

‘Herby!
My
Herby?'

‘Yes. I've had to stop Cliff from driving and he's pretty fed up about it.'

‘I bet he is. He was one of the first people in Hillsbridge to have a car! What's wrong with him? Why have you had to … ? Oh, sorry! I don't suppose you can say.'

‘Just as long as it doesn't go any further,' Helen said. ‘He's suffering from epilepsy.'

‘Poor Cliff.'

‘He's a wonderful gardener,' Helen said. ‘His garden is like something out of a flower show. I suggested it might be something he could take up to fill in his time – you know, doing a bit for other people – but it never occurred to me until I came home and found you struggling so that perhaps
we
…'

‘Well, it's certainly a thought,' Amy said. ‘Cliff Button. He and Roly must have been at school together. They'd probably have the time of their lives reliving the old days over the onions and dahlias. The only thing is – would they ever get any work done?'