Chapter Sixteen

‘Mrs Merryman has had a good night,’ Nurse Williams said as she opened the door for Amelia later that morning. ‘She insisted on waiting for you in the Lounge. We really felt it would be better for her to rest in her room, but she can be quite determined when she wants to, your gran.’

‘I know,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s excellent that she knows what she wants, isn’t it?’

Sister Morris busied past them with an anxious looking middle-aged couple in tow. ‘And this is our Residents’ Lounge.’ There was a pause. ‘Normally, of course, we have a waiting list but what with the cold spell in March and Number Two suddenly becoming available …’ They disappeared upstairs.

Before Amelia had got out of the hall the bell rang and Dagmar stood in the doorway together with a tall man who was holding the lead to a struggling black puppy that looked like a labrador.

‘Darling.’ Dagmar’s lips brushed against Amelia’s cheek, Dagmar’s smile radiated across the hall. ‘And this is Alan.’ Her eyes darted between Amelia and Alan, the words rushed from her lips. Alan took a step inside and almost fell over as the puppy entwined its lead round his legs.

‘Admiral Mallett died yesterday,’ Amelia whispered as they approached the Lounge. ‘I expect Grandma will be pretty upset.’

‘There’ll be wailing and gnashing of dentures,’ Dagmar said and laughed out loud. She stopped suddenly. ‘Oh I’m sorry, darling, he was a dear old boy. It’s just that it’s all so awful.’ Her voice rose shrilly and Amelia stiffened and glanced at Alan. She couldn’t bear her mother making a fool of herself.

‘He looked so fit, I always thought,’ Dagmar said in a normal voice now. ‘How old was he?’

When you’re old and you die, no-one thinks to ask how it happened, Amelia thought. It’s just assumed that you expired by the rules, quietly, without fuss.

‘He was a bit of a devil in the car. He crashed,’ she said, hoping she’d done right by the Admiral.

‘He was a dear friend of yours?’ Alan stood back to let her go through the door first. He had a nice voice; quiet with a soft New England accent.

‘I was fond of him, and I’ve got to know his son quite well,’ Amelia said, raising her arm to wave at Selma who was slumped in a chair by the television. The seat by the fish-tank was empty. A sad son and an empty space by a fish-tank, were those all the traces left from the Admiral’s moment on earth? Amelia wondered, shuddering.

Selma stared blankly at them as they approached. Her tightly bandaged legs rested on a small stool and she was dressed in a shapeless, yellow dress that accentuated the greyness of her skin. When Dagmar bent down and kissed her she smiled suddenly. ‘Hello, darling.’ She snatched at Dagmar’s hand. ‘You know for a moment there I didn’t recognize you. Have you changed your hair?’

Dagmar had worn her hair in the same glossy bob for twenty years. ‘No, Mummy.’ Dagmar winked at Alan as she straightened up. ‘Mummy this is Professor Blake, he insisted on meeting you,’ she announced, smiling proudly.

Amelia thought she might as well have thrown her arms out wide, announcing, ‘And now for my next trick and without a safety-net, I will introduce my mother.’

Alan extended his free hand to Selma, who received it suspiciously. ‘A great pleasure to meet you, ma’am.’ Selma looked stonily at him; she had never been keen on conspicuously good manners.

The puppy had been licking his scrotum absorbedly, but now he lifted his face, alert, ears pricked. He got up and took a little leap at Dagmar before settling down to licking her legs in their shiny tights, with the same rapt attention.

Alan offered a chair to Dagmar who refused, saying she needed to stretch her legs after the journey.

With a ‘May I?’ to Selma, Alan sat down himself. ‘Cute little fellow isn’t he?’ He pointed at the puppy. ‘You know I never would have guessed the country-woman in your daughter. Of course, I’ve always loved animals, nature, feeling the dirt under my fingers, that kind of thing. Now Dagmar here comes and tells me that’s the life for her as well.’ He brought a pipe from his pocket and crossed one long leg over the other. ‘Of course that comes as no surprise to her mother.’

Selma opened her mouth to speak.

‘That’s enough now.’ Dagmar, speaking between clenched teeth, was doing a little dance to avoid the long pink tongue of the puppy.

‘Simon, you little rascal … That’s enough. Simon! Do you hear me? That’s enough I said.’ Dagmar’s eyes darted across to Alan to make sure he wasn’t looking, then she gave the puppy a shove with the point of her shoe. ‘Get him off me, will you, Amelia?’ she hissed. ‘Did you see where he had his tongue just now? All over his you know what.’

Amelia squatted down on the carpet and put her hands out. Simon, stubby tail wagging, threw himself towards her to investigate.

‘Why don’t you sit down, dear?’ Alan asked again.

Dagmar smiled nervously at him and rushed a tissue from her pocket, dropping it across the seat of the chair before sitting down.

Leaning down towards Amelia she hissed, ‘Puppies are worminfested. It doesn’t matter what you do about it.’ Then she forgot to whisper. ‘How am I supposed to enjoy the rest of the day with these filthy tights on?’

Alan turned around and looked at her, one bushy eyebrow raised.

‘There are no worms on your legs,’ Amelia said. She hadn’t meant to sound so sharp.

‘Shuss.’ Dagmar glanced nervously at Alan who was once more in conversation with Selma. ‘Anyway,’ she whispered, ‘it’s the eggs that are dangerous. They get stuck everywhere. You can’t see them, and even the strongest disinfectant can’t get rid of them.’ It almost sounded, Amelia thought, as if she was making a commercial on behalf of the wretched worms.

She whispered back to Dagmar, ‘I don’t know how to break it to Grandma about Admiral Mallett. It doesn’t seem as if she’s been told.’

‘Oh, don’t you think so?’ Dagmar stretched her right leg out in front of her, twisting it to check the back of the glossy tights. ‘Did you know a child could go blind if he ingested those eggs?’

‘I hardly think some little cherub will dive out of the wood-work and begin to lick your legs. Not here. Not at Cherryfield.’ Incensed by Dagmar’s inability to think of anyone but herself even for a minute, Amelia ignored Dagmar’s hurt look and moved her chair closer to Selma’s.

Alan was saying how he too loved Jane Austen, and when there was a pause, a long one waiting for Selma to fill it with a reply, Amelia broke in.

‘Any news? All well around here?’ She made her voice light but she looked intently at her grandmother. She was aware that Miss White, sitting by herself a few yards away, was listening, an expectant smile on her lips, head cocked as if waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the conversation. Now she seized her chance with the ease of a trained hijacker.

‘I hear you’re one of our American cousins.’ She leant so far towards Alan that Amelia feared she might topple from her chair any moment. Alan turned with a polite smile. Selma looked furious and did not introduce them.

‘You will agree with me that it would almost certainly be the KGB?’

‘Pardon me, ma’am.’ Alan looking confused, turned in vain to Dagmar for help, but she was staring out across the room with the faraway look that intrigued strangers but Amelia knew meant she was wondering how to remove her tights without seeming odd.

‘Admiral Mallett.’ Miss White sounded impatient.

Amelia sat up in her chair, ready with a comforting hand for Selma.

‘They’re burying him tomorrow I’m told. Bury ’em quickly if you want to stop tongues wagging, they say.’

Well they failed miserably with you, you old crow. Amelia glared at Miss White. She turned to Selma with soothing words ready to fire and found that her grandmother’s expression of sullen confusion had not changed by a flicker. She still hasn’t taken it in, Amelia thought, taking Selma’s hand. As she prepared her speech she could feel the hand trembling in hers like a frightened heart.

‘I meant to tell you yesterday but you were asleep.’ She spoke softly. ‘The Admiral was involved in a car crash. They say he didn’t …’

‘I know,’ Selma interrupted. ‘Poor old boy. Awful shame. We shall miss him.’ But she directed her next remark at Alan, eager to snatch back the conversation from Miss White. ‘Of course it’s her endings I find a little disappointing.’

Amelia had let go of Selma’s hand and now she stared at her open-mouthed.

‘Shut your mouth, darling,’ Dagmar said unnecessarily, as she moved her shoe away from Simon who lay prostrate on the carpet, his adoring gaze following her every move.

Amelia kept looking at Selma. Was this another display of dignity and a stiff upper lip from a member of the generation that lived through a world war, or had senility blanked out compassion and affection too? Maybe Selma spoke so little of her grief for Willoughby not because she was brave, but because she didn’t really feel any? Had age blunted love and loss like waves blunting bits of glass on the shore, until they were smooth and round, unable to hurt you?

Selma was taking a lot of trouble to ignore Miss White, arranging her lips into a supercilious half smile every time the little woman spoke.

Maybe you can’t love me any more either, Amelia thought, and she sniffed and blinked away a tear. Oh my grandmother, what have you become?

‘My God he stinks!’ Dagmar leapt from the chair and pointed at Simon who placed his plump behind on her shoe, looking up adoringly, the tip of his tail wagging slowly, expectantly, like a snake sizing up its prey. The two old women stopped glaring at each other and stared instead at Dagmar, loose-mouthed. As the room fell silent, Dagmar’s cheeks turned slowly pink.

‘What’s the matter, dear?’ Alan asked, his voice chilly. Amelia couldn’t smell a thing but she chipped in hurriedly, ‘He does stink a bit.’ Dagmar’s addiction was to fear rather than drugs or alcohol but Amelia was, all the same, an addict’s child; her mother might drive her to despair, irritate her more than a sackful of red ants, but it was Amelia’s job to make sure no-one else got to share those feelings. ‘It sort of hits you in wafts,’ she added for good measure.

Alan bent down and, putting his hand out, called Simon over. ‘Hi there fellow. What’s all this about you making smells?’ He sniffed the puppy’s neck. Simon, snout lifted, black gums stretched back, grinned at him. Then Alan slid his hand under Simon’s collar before smelling his fingers. ‘I’d say he’s had a bit of a roll. Must have been when he ran loose from the car,’ he said to Dagmar. ‘You, little fellow, will get into the tub when we get home.’

‘By car?’ Dagmar looked near to tears.

‘Well, you don’t expect the little fellow to walk to Exeter do you?’ Alan laughed up at her.

‘I’m sure there’s a tap outside,’ Selma said. ‘Why don’t you wash him off there?’ Dagmar and Amelia looked at Selma, shocked by the sense of her suggestion.

Alan said, ‘It’s OK, thanks but we’ll …’

‘I’ll do it straight away.’ Dagmar was up from the chair already, a too bright smile on her lips. She grabbed the lead from Alan giving it a little jerk. ‘Come on, Simon darling.’ Her voice was so tense, Amelia thought, you could shoot arrows from it.

Simon remained sitting.

‘He doesn’t want to come,’ Miss White said.

‘Oh do shut up.’ Selma frowned.

‘Mrs Merryman really!’ Miss White looked around her with relish as if to say, ‘There did I not tell you she’s a naughty girl.’

‘Dagmar for God’s sake, can’t we just forget about Simon for a minute. We’re upsetting the good folks here.’ Alan glared under thick eyebrows.

Dagmar ignored him, but regretfully, as if she wished she didn’t have to. ‘Come on Simon, we’re off.’ Dagmar gave the lead such a tug that Simon, still sitting, slid on his bottom across several yards of high-gloss floor, the collar riding up over the folds in his fat little neck and up across his ears. Then suddenly he got up and trotted out of the room behind Dagmar as if that’s what he’d intended all along.

‘Temper, temper,’ chirruped Miss White.

Old age makes you evil, Amelia thought.

They sat in silence as a nurse brought a middle-aged woman to see Mr Ambrose, who had melted chameleon-like into the taupe cover of his armchair, a little away from their group.

‘I’ll go and give my mother a hand with Simon.’ Amelia got up.

‘Stand still! Stand still I tell you.’ Dagmar stood, feet wide apart, clutching a gushing hose in one hand and the puppy’s lead in the other. Simon was making little leaps in all directions to avoid the sharp jet of cold water. The whites of his eyes were showing but his tail was attempting a wag.

‘If you move away once more …’

With a squeal of terror the puppy hid from the jet behind Dagmar’s legs. ‘Go away! You little bastard, go away, do you hear me!’ Dagmar grabbed the end of the lead, lashing the puppy over and over across his chubby back. Simon screamed and, pulling loose, tore past Amelia on her way out.

Dagmar, red-faced and panting, looked up to see Alan staring at her from the terrace. ‘You beat that little dog,’ he said and strode off after Simon.