I’ve rung the doctor. Carla told me not to, but I’ve got a very sore arm. I think it might be a symptom of something more worrying. She says it’s just the way old people are in the morning. She doesn’t use the words “old people,” but I know that’s what she means. When she realizes I have rung the doctor anyway she calls my daughter to come and tell me off.
“For God’s sake, Mum, you’ve been asked to leave the poor man alone,” Helen says, sitting on the window seat, looking out for him.
“But, Helen, I’m ill,” I say. “I think I’m ill.”
“That’s what you said last time, but there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just not young any more; the doctor can’t do anything about that. Oh, here he is now.” She leaps up from the seat and goes to open the front door.
They talk in the hall, but I can’t catch what they say.
“Well, Mrs. Horsham,” he says, coming into the room, winding up the earphones to a Walkman, or whatever they are now. “I’m rather hard-pressed this morning. What did you want to see me about?”
He’s young, my doctor. Very young and very handsome, with dark hair falling over his forehead. I smile at him, but he doesn’t smile back. “I’m all right,” I say. “What’s the fuss?”
He breathes out through his nose, an impatient sound, like a foraging animal.
“You called the surgery, Mrs. Horsham. You said you were in urgent need of a house call.” He looks at Helen, then sits down, holds my wrist in his hand and presses it, looking at his watch. “Can you remember what it was about?” he says. “You’ve been ringing fairly frequently of late. And people don’t usually ask for house calls when they are all right.”
Helen shakes her head at me behind him.
“I haven’t been calling frequently,” I say, still looking at Helen.
“That’s not quite true, is it?” he says, scribbling something on a notepad. “In fact you’ve phoned us twelve times in the last fortnight.”
Twelve times? He must have me confused with somebody else: the wires must have been crossed, or perhaps the telephonist put the wrong person through.
“Now, I’m not suggesting you’re making things up, really I’m not, but I wonder whether there isn’t something else going on here.” He takes out a little flashlight. “Perhaps it’s not something strictly medical.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, turning from the light, which is like a fly buzzing in my face. “But I really don’t think it can have been me who phoned all those times. I usually have very good health.”
“I know you do,” he says, putting a hand on my forehead so I can’t move away and pointing the flashlight at one of my eyes. “Which is why it’s a little frustrating to be called out by you when I have genuinely ill people to see.”
I don’t know what to think, I can’t concentrate with this light flicking, flicking over my skin, but he tells me I must open my eyes. “I don’t understand it,” I say. “I’m not like my friend Elizabeth. She can barely leave the house. Her sight’s poor and she’s unsteady on her feet. Whereas I—”
“Whereas you are in great shape for your age. I know.”
He puts the flashlight away and I frown at him. For a minute I can’t think what he’s here for. “But I meant to tell you, Doctor,” I say. “My friend Elizabeth. She’s missing.”
“Oh, Mum. Don’t start that again,” Helen jumps in. “Sorry, it’s a bit of an obsession of hers at the moment. I’ve told her I’ll find out what’s happened.”
“It’s not an obsession. I don’t know how long she’s been gone—”
“I’m sure your friend will be in touch. You must relax and let her family take care of her. Okay? Relaxing is the key. Right. I must get to my other patients.” He picks up his bag and turns to Helen. “I see she’s had a blood test this week, too.” There is a brief look at me. “You might want to arrange for a faculties assessment. At some point.”
He is already inserting the little plugs, the wire shells, back into his ears, while he talks on to Helen, and I wonder briefly what it is he listens to. I cup my hands over my own ears, straining to hear the sealike music of my circulation, the singing of my blood. But hands don’t work as well as shells; they don’t create the right echo, or whatever it is. Helen comes back after letting the doctor out and sits on the arm of my chair.
“You didn’t have to cover your ears, Mum,” she says. “He wasn’t shouting. But now will you promise not to phone the surgery again? And to stop all this nonsense about Elizabeth?”
I don’t answer.
“Mum?” She grabs my arm and I cry out. “What’s the matter?” she says, pulling back my sleeve. There are bruises, staining my skin, spreading round the elbow, fanning out like wings. “My God. Why didn’t you tell the doctor about this? I’ll call him and ask him to come back.”
“No, don’t,” I say. “I can’t stand that fly in my face. I don’t want him here again.”
“I’m sorry.” Helen slides down into a crouching position in front of me. She holds my hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell the doctor to look at you properly. How did you get these bruises, Mum?”
“It was an umbrella,” I say, but really I can’t remember.
She sits, stroking my hand for a few minutes, and I close my fingers over hers, feeling the skin around her nails where it’s pink and raw from scrubbing soil away. This is the closest we’ve been in a long time.
“I sat and held my mother’s hand when she was dying,” I say, though I had meant to keep the thought to myself.
“You’re not dying.”
“I know. But it reminded me, that’s all. She died never knowing. I don’t want to die like that.”
Helen sits up a little. “Never knowing what, Mum?”
“About Sukey.” I clutch at her fingertips. “So that’s why I want to find Elizabeth.”
Helen sighs and drops my hand. “I’d better go soon. Can I get you anything?’
I tell her there’s nothing I need, and then change my mind. “I’d like a new sweater.”
One of the last times Elizabeth went shopping, before her sight got too bad, before she stopped going out of the house, she bought me a silk glasses case. I notice it whenever I open my handbag. The pale silk catches the light, and the coolness of the material reminds me of its presence whenever I get out my money or feel for my bus pass. I keep my spare pair of glasses in it. I only really need glasses for reading, but they make you wear them all the time once you reach a certain age. It’s part of the uniform. How would they know you were an old duffer otherwise? They want you to have the right props so they can tell you apart from people who have the decency to be under seventy. False teeth, hearing aid, glasses. I’ve been given them all.
Helen always makes sure I have them before we leave the house. She stops short of checking I have my teeth in, but she makes a special point about the glasses. I think she thinks I’ll start bumping into things if I forget them. So I always have one pair on a chain around my neck—ready for any reading eventuality. They’re not helping much at the moment. I’m looking for a sweater. A nice sensible colour and thin wool. Just like we used to wear. If I can keep that picture in my mind, I don’t think I’ll forget what I’m looking for. But I haven’t come across it yet, and I’m ready to drop.
I dig into a square bin full of socks, sagging against the side, my arms lost in the fabric. An image of my mother battering a mass of clothes against the sides of a suitcase blinks into my head and is gone. “I can’t understand why it’s so difficult to find a normal sweater.”
Helen and Katy sigh, and I wonder how long we’ve been walking around, how long we’ve been searching. I’m starting to regret this trip. It’s a pity, because I used to love shopping. But the shops are so different now, everything jumbled together, jumbled about. So many odd colours. Who is it wears these bright orange things? They must look like road diggers. Young people will wear almost anything, it appears.
Just look at Katy. Seems funny I should have a granddaughter with “piercings,” though I suppose she is considered quite unremarkable by other teenagers. Perhaps I would have “piercings,” too, if I were young now. She leans on a rail of floral skirts, mimicking my own pose; only Helen stays completely upright, standing in the middle of the lino path, forcing other shoppers to dodge past her.
“Mother, we’ve shown you a hundred sweaters,” she says. “You’ve rejected them all. There are no more left to show you.”
“Can’t have been a hundred.” I do get annoyed at Helen’s exaggerations. “What about over there? We haven’t looked in that bit yet.” I point to the other side of Women’s Wear.
“Grandma, we’ve just come from there.”
Of course we have. Have we?
Katy pushes herself away from the skirts, hooking a cream sweater off a rail next to her. “Look, this one is nice. It’s the right sort of colour.”
“It’s ribbed. No good.” I shake my head. “I can’t understand it. All I want is a sweater with a round neck. Not a polo, not a V. Warm, but not too thick.”
Katy grins at her mother before turning to me. “Yes, and it can’t be too long, but mustn’t be too short—”
“Exactly. Half the sweaters don’t even cover your belly button. And I know you’re making fun, Katy,” I say, though I only know after I’ve started to answer. “But it’s not much to ask, is it? A normal sweater.”
“And a normal colour. Black or navy or beige or—”
“Thank you, Katy. You may laugh, but you can’t really expect me to wear one of these odd colours. Puce or magenta or teal or whatever they are.” I can’t help smiling; it’s nice, being teased. Elizabeth often teases me, too. It makes me feel human. At least someone assumes I’m intelligent enough to get a joke.
My granddaughter laughs, but Helen puts her hands up to her head, surveying the rails and rails of clothes. “Mum, can’t you see that to find a sweater that is the length, thickness, colour, neck-type, and goodness knows what else that suits you personally is an impossible task?”
“I don’t see why. When I was young I could always find the right sort of sweater. They had more choice in those days.”
“What—during rationing? I doubt that.”
“They did. Or at least you could always find someone to make you what you wanted. And Sukey used to bring me beautiful clothes.”
My sister always dressed very stylishly, especially after she married. She cut things up and made them new, of course, but still Ma used to wonder where she got the money, never mind the coupons, and Dad would shake his head, talking about the black market. I got a lovely velvet bolero from her once. I wore it far too often, for very ordinary occasions, and wished later that I’d saved it for best. I was wearing it the last time I saw her.
She had come through the kitchen door while I was cutting the bread. I’d changed out of school uniform into a dress and my bolero, but couldn’t match my sister in her duck-egg-blue suit and Lana Turner pin-curls. She was seven years older than me, and ten times more sophisticated.
“Hello, Maud,” she said, kissing me on the top of my head. “Where’s Ma?”
“Putting on another cardigan. Dad’s getting the fish and chips.”
Sukey nodded and sat down at the table. I pushed the teapot into a beam of light, thinking that would keep it warm for a little longer. Our kitchen was usually dark until just before sundown, when the rays would make it through gaps in the dense bramble hedge in the back garden. We used to time our evening meal to catch those last few moments of sunshine.
“Is Douglas in?” Sukey leant forward a little to look down the hall, towards the stairs, as she spoke. “Is he sleeping here tonight?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?” I laughed. “He’s our lodger. Sleeping here is what he pays for.” I looked up from my task of laying the cups out. Sukey wasn’t laughing; her face was pale and she couldn’t seem to keep still. She twisted the ring on her finger and spent an age arranging her jacket on the back of a chair.
“I’d thought I might stay,” she said finally, and must have realized I was staring, because she suddenly smiled. “Is that so odd? So wrong?” She seemed to be genuinely asking.
“No,” I said. “You could stay in my room. Your old bed’s still there.”
Ma came down the steps into the kitchen, greeting Sukey and kissing her. “Your dad’ll be back with the fish in a minute,” she said. “Have a cup of tea. Pour it, would you, Maud?”