Tomorrow Sucks Part 14

"There's the new estates," she said. "And that other one they started up Yately way. Came by the other day, there's people in already."

"They're no good," I said. "Up to here in mortgages. Anyway we couldn't afford it, the ingoing's bound to be sky high. It'd mean selling up."She looked scornful. "Course it wouldn't," she said. "Get it off the bank, you've got collateral now. Then put somebody in here. I don't see how you could lose."

And that was the first time I realized Pete's got a far better business head than me.

I didn't think we stood much of a chance. Heard later they had twenty couples after it. But Pete got herself done up to kill and that was the end of it. Perhaps the brewery thought they owed her a favor.

I suppose the Greyhound isn't everybody's idea of a country pub. Big gaunt red-brick place it is, stands back on its own facing the common. Wood-paneled walls, vintage nineteen twenty, and the two big bars. There's more to it than meets the eye though. Had a horse in the Public one night, new pony from the riding school. Old Teddy's fault, that was. Little la.s.s on board couldn't get it past; then he clicked to it and in it came for its ale. Reckoned later he could tell it was a beer drinker by the look in its eye. And there it was plunging about with the little la.s.s looking distraught and Teddy up the corner having the croup. He got it back outside finally with the lure of a pine, after which of course it never would go by the pub.

Used to have to hack along the other road.

Thursdays were the highlights. They were the barter nights; unspoken thing it was, among the locals. They'd all slope in, starting about eight, dump polythene sacks on the long bench just inside the door. Peas and beans, cabbages, onions and spuds, cauliflowers. Looked like a budding harvest festival sometimes. They'd have a pint or two apiece, not hurrying, then it would start. "Nice-looking collies you got there,"

Jesse Philips would say, and somebody else would take it up. "See your beans done all right then, Jesse." After a while the swap would be made, and that would set the tone for the rest. Peas would change place with cabbages, potatoes with onions, till everybody was suited. The incomers from the new estate cottoned after a while and tried to join in. But all they brought were bunches of flowers. Jesse Philips summed it up one night. "Can't eat b.l.o.o.d.y chrysanths," he said, after which they took the hint and tried for vegetables. But the new plots couldn't compete. The builders dumped the rubbish from the footings, they'd lost their topsoil. The ring closed up. They'd sell, at fair Camberley prices, but they would not trade. So Blackwell became two villages. We watched that happen as well.

We made our mistakes of course, like everybody else. But they weren't too serious. We kept the old trade and built on it. The lads from Jacobsons started dropping in when they heard I'd taken over. And there was the new place, the annex to the Agricultural College. Weekends they'd bring their wives and girlfriends, and so the word spread round. Sundays there were the trippers and hikers. We catered for them, forty or fifty at a time, so the word spread that way too. After the first couple of years we could afford bar help two or three nights a week, and we were taking holidays again. Never get rich, not from a pub like the Greyhound; but we were comfortable. And of course there was the shop as well.

I've heard people say bringing up teen-age boys is b.l.o.o.d.y murder. I wouldn't know. Ail I can say is, try bringing up a teen-age girl. I can't remember noticing the change as such, but suddenly it seemed we hadn't got a pretty little kid any more.Instead there was this gawky twelve- or thirteen-year-old, all knees and elbows and Woody bad temper. Tantrums every morning, tears every night. Or so it seemed to me. And never a reason for it, not that I could see. She'd got all the things most kids of her age want, but it was never enough. So-and-so had got this, somebody else had got that. Such-and-such was going on a school exchange to Germany, why couldn't she? So we sent her to Germany, though she didn't seem much better suited when she got back. Then it was a pony, she had to have a pony. Horses morning noon and night, six months or more. So we got her a pony, rented grazing from old Frank the diddy. The fad lasted another three or four months, after which she never went near. So there was trouble over that as well. Her mother got fed up in the end, sold the thing over her head. The row that followed was the best so far. I left them to it, opened up on my own. The public bar was beginning to seem more and more a haven of rest.

Then it was boys of course. First was young Davey Woodford from the farm.

Nice enough kid in his way, but, oh Gawd, teen-age romance! "Wasn't you ever young, Mr. Fredericks," he asked me once. "Wasn't you ever young?" I'm afraid I made things worse, laughing the way I did. Course I was young, but I can't remember any episodes like that. Never had time, to start with. His age I was out in the bundu, counting b.l.o.o.d.y shekels.

Got worse rather than better when the thing with him blew up. She attracted 'em, from as far away as Frimley. Acted like a magnet. She was starting to be a looker, I granted that. But some of 'em weren't very wholesome types at all. I could see our nice clean reputation taking a sudden dive. That finished when her mother turned her out the bar one night. "Get upstairs," I heard her say, "you're not coming in here like that." After which there was a constant grinding of rock from her room till suppertime, at which we had the row to end all rows.

That was also the first time in my life I saw Pete really lose her temper. She didn't stop at one either, she beat the daylights out of her.

I'll admit it, I got out. Made myself a John Collins, went and sat in the snug and had a smoke. There's something about voices raised in anger that I've always found chilling. Not so much the violence, the pointlessness. We act, sometimes, as if we're all immortal. It reminds me, or reminded me, of the shortness of life.

Pete came through about half an hour later, got herself a drink as well. She looked at me a minute, then came and put her hand on my shoulder. "Sorry," she said, "but it had to come. I wasn't being spoken to like that."

I said, "What's happened?" and she smiled. "Nothing," she said. "She'll be all right. She's gone to bed."

I said before, sometimes you seem to cop for the lot. Then you come through it and it all seems to sail along again. Just as suddenly, or so it seemed to me, Kaeti was a young woman. Taller than her mother, couple of inches with her heels on, and just as pretty. Same mannerisms, same turn of the head, same po-faced sense of humor, like turning the clock back somehow. All the rest was behind her. She was smoking but not too much, she liked a drink, she was going to Sixth Form College.Knew just what she wanted and how to get it. Mornings when she had a free period, Pete would nip down to Camberley, have coffee with her there. They'd come back together. Two women, joking and laughing. Close. I suppose we were a family again.

Though this time we didn't have very long to enjoy it.

April it was, when she first got ill. She'd been looking off-color for days; finally she didn't come down to breakfast. Said her throat was bad, she couldn't hardly swallow. Didn't clear up either. So finally I called Doc Jamieson. He came down shaking his head. Said it was thrush, first adult case he'd seen in years. He left her some stuff, but it didn't seem to do much for her. She was off a couple of weeks.

When she finally went back she just seemed listless. Preoccupied. You'd speak to her, and odds she wouldn't answer. Sometimes have to speak two or three times, then she'd come round with a jump. But she wouldn't know what you'd said. The other thing was starting by then of course. But at the time we didn't realize.

It was the most perfect summer I can remember. Day after day cloudless, the nights warm, with the breeze bringing the scents in off the common. Made it even more ironic. Kaeti lying upstairs there, dozing or staring out at the sky. I rigged a television for her, put the control where she could reach it without moving her arm.

But she never bothered with it. "I'm all right, Dad," she kept on saying. "Just a bit tired, that's all. Don't worry, I'll be all right." She wasn't all right though; she was far from all right. She looked bloodless somehow. Like a marble statue.

Doc Jamieson was worried as well. I could see that. Had a drink with me one night just before we opened. Said it was the listlessness that had got him bothered more than the rest. There wasn't much physically wrong at that stage. Touch of anemia certainly, but that did sometimes happen after a bad infection. He finally said he'd like her taken in for tests. Asked him what sort of tests but I might as well have saved my breath. Lawyers and accountants can both be vague enough when it suits their book. But the medical profession leaves 'em at the post.

I don't know how many tests she did have. We both lost count. They were all inconclusive. Or maybe there were too many conclusions. Agranulocytosis without ulceration. She'd got the experts thoroughly baffled as well. So I did a bit of reading for myself. Afterwards I wished I hadn't. There's a lot of words for it but they all add up to one thing. If it goes on long enough, the blood turns yellow-green, like pus. I still don't like to use the phrase they have for it. Even though I know by now they got it wrong.

The mist came back with the autumn. Long white tongues of it, creeping round the pub. Even then though she wouldn't have her windows closed. It was the only thing that roused her. The Doc shrugged finally and said to let it be. The rest was left unspoken but I had a horrible feeling I knew what it was. Nothing would do much harm now; she was past any help he thought he could give her.

The locals were very good. There were always thins being left for her, jam, preserves, whole load of stun. We'd got a cupboard full. Not that she ever touched it. Wasn't eating enough to keep a mouse alive. She'd ask sometimes how they all were, Jesse and old Teddy and the rest. And they'd ask after her of course. Allexcept Frank Smith, which was odd. Funny little bloke he was, a lot of gypsies are.

But he'd always been one of the most concerned. Till I told him, quite early on, there was a touch of anemia but the Doc thought she'd be fine. After that he didn't come in again. I didn't give it much thought for a couple of weeks; then I asked Jesse if he was bad. I thought he gave me a funny sort of look. He said no he was fine, been talking to him that morning in the village. Saw him myself a couple of times after that, out on his rounds, but he wouldn't speak. First time he looked the other way; second time he whipped the horse up. Which was a thing I'd never seen him do. His place was put up for sale a Tew days later; we didn't see him again.

Last thing they tried was x-ray treatment. I didn't like the idea of it, neither did Pete. But Kaeti just laughed. "That's all right," she said, "it won't matter, I shall be back for Christmas, you see." Funny, but she looked really perky. Sitting up with a woolly on, brighter than she'd been for weeks. Made a fuss about having all her bits and pieces, books to read and such. Even got her mother to do her hair. Two days later the hospital phoned. I knew It somehow before I picked the d.a.m.ned thing up.

Our daughter was dead.

They all said afterwards how good we both were. You know, carrying on. It wasn't like that at all though; there was nothing good about it. When a thing like that happens, it turns all your ideas upside down. You carry on because you've got to.

Would you mind telling me what else there is to do?

It was a big turnout. Sis came down of course, and Auntie May's Tot, and some other cousins I hadn't seen for years. Plus the brewery outside manager, and nearly everybody from the pub.

It was raining. People always say it rains on days like that. And somehow it nearly always seems to. I don't remember very much else about it. I know I stared at the wreaths laid out on the gra.s.s and caught myself wondering what I was doing there.

And there was a little chapel set among the graves, and a trolley with rubber-tired wheels that didn't squeak. That didn't get to me either though. It was like acting in a film somehow, it was nothing to do with us. Me and Pete and Kaeti. I was waiting for somebody with a megaphone to jump up and shout cut. Then we could all go home. But the film kept grinding on.

Sis stayed a fortnight, helped out with the bars. Then she had to get back. I didn't blame her. She'd already done more than most.

Hardest thing was convincing myself it had really happened. I knew I'd got to of course, but in a queer way I still couldn't believe it. Kaeti's life just stopping like that, a breath that went in and didn't come back out. And letting the box down on its webbings, and going home for tea. It couldn't be all there was to it; it just wasn't possible. So none of it had really happened; I was in some sort of dream. I kept trying to wake up but I couldn't. Coming to terms, they call it. What a b.l.o.o.d.y phrase. Though you can't blame them for that. Like I said before, words are all we've got.Nights were the worst. I was tired and getting tireder, but I wasn't sleeping worth mentioning. I'd doze off sometimes toward dawn, get an hour or two. Then it was daylight, and I'd wake up and realize the dream was still going on and just want to go to sleep again, and sometimes I'd manage it. Then I'd be late for the dray or the Cash and Carry, and the bottling up wouldn't be done by opening time. I remember thinking sometimes it had to have an end. But there's never an end to anything. Any more than there's a beginning. We went to London for the Christmas, just one night.

Then back again first thing to open up. Another year would be starting soon. That was beginning to get to me as well.

Pete was worrying me too. The day after the funeral she stripped the display units in both bars, washed them down. The morning after she did it all again. And the morning after that. We always used to do them pretty often. You've got to, the smoke gets to them mirrors. But not every day G.o.d sent. Then she shampooed the carpets. Scrounged one of those big industrial units from a little bloke who used to come in now and then. After that it was the kitchen's turn. She scrubbed it down, walls, floor and ceiling. Then the upstairs bathroom. Then a load of paint arrived from the brewery. I thought the van driver looked a bit shifty. Turned out she'd fixed it without telling me. The upstairs had to be done up. All of it, right through. She started on it in the afternoons. Which meant she was working eighteen hour days.

And she wasn't sleeping either.

I thought at least she'd leave Kaeti's room till last. She didn't though. Went up one day, found all her things parceled in heaps. Ready for the jumble. She just shrugged when I said about it. Asked what was the point of keeping them, they weren't any use to us. I said, "But, Pete," and she turned and looked at me. Nothing behind her eyes, not any more. They looked-well, sort of dead. So I didn't say anything else.

But it still hurt plenty.

It had to end of course. n.o.body can just keep on going like that, week after week. I was in the Public when it happened, talking to Jesse and one or two more.

d.i.c.k Stanton had come down with his sister-in-law, the one who used to be an opera singer. I could hear his distinctive voice in the saloon. There was quite a crowd in, mostly youngsters from the college, but Pete had shoved me out. Said she could cope. So I left her to it. She was always better working on her own; we saw too much of each other the rest of the time.

I wasn't really registering the buzz of voices till it stopped. There was a crash then, like a bar stool going over. I half turned, and Pete was standing in the doorway.

I've never seen a face like it. There's a phrase for it they use in lousy novels. Blazing white. Well, it was. She opened her mouth, sort of half pointed behind her, then she just crumpled. I jumped forward, but I was nowhere near quick enough. Bottles went flying, then d.i.c.k ran through. He said, "My G.o.d, Bill, what happened?"

We got her to the bedroom somehow, and his sister-in-law came up. I left them, ran to call the Doc. I thought she was a goner, straight. But by the time he arrived she was sitting up. Still looked pale as death but she swore she was all right, she just pa.s.sed out. He left her some stuff, and I followed him down. "Doc," I said, "what'swrong?"

He shook his head. Nothing, apparently, that he could find. He said, "How's she been? Since..."

I told him what had happened and he nodded. He said what I'd been thinking, that n.o.body could keep on indefinitely. It catches up with them. He said, "Can you get some help in?"

"Sure," I said, "George Swallow will always do an extra night. Glad of the cash."

He opened his car door. "Get him then," he said, "and try and keep her in bed. It would do you both good to get away for a few days. I'll look in again tomorrow."

He drove off and I went back inside. Good bloke, is Doc Jamieson. After all, we were only ever NHS.

I got the bars closed finally and went upstairs. I thought she was asleep but she opened her eyes when she heard me. They were huge and dark. "No, Bill," she said.

"I don't want no pills." She grabbed my wrist. She said, "Bill, I saw her..."

"What?" I said. "Saw who?"

She swallowed and tightened her grip. "Kaeti," she said. "She was in the bar..."

Things seemed to spin round a bit for me as well. I sat on the bed. "Look, Pete,"

I said, "you've got to face it. Kaeti's dead..."

She pushed her hair back. "You don't understand," she said. "I saw her, it was her. Don't you think I know my own daughter?"

I got her a bit more settled after a while and went back down. I got myself a stiff drink and sat and smoked a f.a.g. I didn't know what to do. Or think. But I had to talk to somebody. Finally I rang d.i.c.k Stanton. He's always been a late bird. I didn't think he'd mind. He said at once, "How is she?"

I hesitated. I said, "She's fine, the Doc thinks she'll be OK. Just been overdoing it, you know what it's been like."

"Yes," he said, "I think I've got the picture."

I hesitated again. "Look, d.i.c.k, did anything happen? In the other bar? The way she came through..."

He didn't answer for a minute. I sensed he was puzzled as well. Finally he said, "Not that I saw. She was talking to us, seemed quite OK. Then suddenly... it was as if she'd seen a ghost."

Level-headed man is d.i.c.k. I've always had a lot of time for him. And he knows how to keep his mouth shut. I swallowed and took the plunge. I said, "She did."

The phone said, "What?"

I said, "She thinks she saw our daughter. She saw Kaeti."

A pause. Then he said, "Just a minute." I stood and listened to the atmospherics on the line. They were bad that night. like voices nearly, whispering and hissing.

Finally he said, "h.e.l.lo? You still there?""Look, Bill," he said, "there was one funny thing. There were some youngsters in, looked like students. Over in the far corner, I didn't pay 'em much attention. They'd just got up to leave. Jilly says there was a girl with them. Tall, brown haired."

So that explained it.

"No," he said, "not quite. When Pete ran through like that, Jill went out after them.

She thought they might have done some damage or nicked something. She was only a second or two behind. But there wasn't anybody outside. No cars moving either."

"What?" I said. "There must have been."

I could sense him shrugging. He said, "It's probably not important. Like you said, she just made a mistake. She's been under a lot of strain." Another pause. Then he said, "Look, Susan's at the college. My eldest. I'll get her to ask round on the quiet.

See if anybody was there. If they remember."

"Thanks," I said, "thanks a lot. And, d.i.c.k... keep it under your hat, will you? I wouldn't want it getting about."

He said, "I didn't hear a thing. Take it steady, Bill. I'm sure she'll be OK."

Oddly enough, for once I got a good night's sleep. When I woke up, Pete wasn't in the room, I ran downstairs but she wasn't in the pub either. I was just starting to get really worried when the side door clicked. She came in looking different somehow. Brighter. She said, "I went for a walk on the common. It's a lovely morning. I think spring's coming."

I've never seen anybody perk up the way she did. She went down to Camberley that same day, came back with an armful of flowers. She made up bowls for each of the bars, and one for the sitting room upstairs. When Doc Jamieson arrived she was dashing about like a two-year-old. He raised his eyebrows but he didn't say anything.

I'd have given a lot to know what he was thinking though.

That night I heard her laughing in the saloon. Just like the old times. That hurt as well, deep down. She couldn't have forgotten Kaeti already. Not as quick as that.

She didn't touch her bedroom again. The fad seemed to have ended as quickly as it started. The clothes she'd sorted out had vanished, but I hadn't seen her take them anywhere. I slipped in on the quiet one morning. They were all back in the chest of drawers, and sprigs of lavender to keep them fresh. Apart from some she took down to the kitchen. She washed and ironed them, did some mending; then she put them with the rest.

She didn't stop the redecorating. Instead she worked harder than ever. Seemed to have got fresh strength from somewhere. I argued with her about it once, but she just smiled. "Got to nave it looking nice," she said. "Never know, somebody might come."

"Who?" I said. "There's only us." But she carried on regardless. So I got stuck in as well. It was April by the time we'd finished, nearly May. And the common brightening with the new spring gra.s.s.I thought she'd forgotten our daughter. She hadn't though. Far from it. After we closed one night, I caught her taking a cup of tea upstairs. I asked her where she thought she was going and she grinned at me. "Where do you think?" she said. "It's for Kaeti."

I opened my mouth and shut it. Couldn't think of anything to say. Next day I made an excuse to go out, called on Doc Jamieson. After that the pills changed color. She said she didn't need them. She took them sometimes, when she couldn't get out of it, but most of the while she just flushed them down the loo. Those were the nights she took to wandering. I'd see the light on under Kaeti's door, hear her talking inside and laughing. I never interrupted her, because I couldn't face what was happening.

I won't say that was the worst part of all because it wasn't. But it did come near to being the last straw. She was in a private world of her own, somewhere I could never go. We were drifting apart as well, and there wasn't a single thing I could do.

It's been a funny old year for weather. Trees didn't drop their leaves till near on Christmas. Fields were still green too. Vivid. Sort of sickly.

The mist we sometimes used to get hung round right through the summer. Mostly by the pub. Jesse remarked on it more than once, said it was clear up by his place.

Which was only a couple of hundred yards along the road. Teddy noticed it too.

Only he wasn't coming in so much. He'd had a bad go of asthma; he said it played his chest up.

Used to sit and watch it sometimes. When I didn't fancy sleeping. Long tendrils, white as milk, and always moving. Flowing. Organic almost. I'd moved my desk into the sitting room, so I could hear if Pete got too restless. I'd finish the day's booking, then put the light out, just sit and smoke a cigarette and stare. Get hypnotized almost.

Sometimes I'd doze. I'd always have bad dreams then. Only they weren't bad at the time. Just when I woke up. I'd be talking to Kaeti, remembering little things. All sorts of things. Then I'd sit up and the room would be empty again. Sometimes I'd think I could still hear her voice, that she was still there. Sitting across from me, curled on the settee. But it was only patches of moonlight on the wall.

Pete bought her a skipping rope once. Just after she started college. Kaeti swore she was getting fat, went on and on. I even dreamed about that.

Real jute it was, it said so on the carton. With handles made from old loom spindles. There was a booklet too, all about children's rhymes. It became her prize possession. She'd play with it for hours, up in her room. Clear all the stuff away first so she could get a good swine. The b.u.mping and thumping would echo right through the pub. Like the old clock ticking. And you'd hear her chanting, getting steadily more out of breath. "Salt-mustard-vinegar-pepper, salt-mustard-vinegar-pepper..." Then an extra thump as she tried for the big one, four turns under, and usually a faint "d.a.m.nit..." After which she'd start all over.

Right nut case she was, I told her so more than once. But it never had any effect.When I opened my eyes that time, I could still near the scuff of her feet. Even the faint whistle of the rope. The sounds took ages to die away. When I went out onto the landing, the door of her room stood ajar, and the light was on again. I reached in, turned it off and pulled the door shut. I didn't look back, because if it came back on I would have to go and see. I did turn by our bedroom. The room had stayed dark of course.

Next night I was seeing to Chota. I'd got her her bits as usual, saucer of milk and that. She had a good drink, thought about the meat, then changed her mind and ran to the back door. "Oh, no," I said, "you can't want out this time of night." But she was mewing, scratching at the frame as if her life depended on it.

"All right," I said, "be quick then." I was wasting my breath though; I opened the door a few inches and she was through it like a streak and away.

I swore and went to fetch a torch. I walked outside and called but there was no sign of her. The mist was moving fast, streaming toward the pub. I flicked the torch about but it was useless, the beam just refracted back. I thought I heard her again somewhere ahead. I walked till I could see the common stretching out vague and blue-white. Then I heard the door slam shut behind me.