Spencer's List Part 29

He grinned. 'It's all right, I won't say that.'

She was sitting on the edge of the raised flower bed in the back garden when Spencer brought her out a gla.s.s of wine.

'You've rumbled me,' she said.

'Ten minutes is far too long to spend wrapping up a lawnmower.'

'Especially when it's already wrapped and in the shed. It was just an excuse.' She took a sip and choked. 'Good G.o.d.'

'It's made from potatoes, apparently. Can I join you?'

She s.h.i.+fted up the damp wall a few inches. The light was beginning to fade, and she had been sitting watching the yellow square of the kitchen window as if it were a mute television screen. Ayesha had found an ap.r.o.n and was putting the vol-au-vents in the oven, Auntie Kath was was.h.i.+ng up and Robin was doing a wholly inadequate job of the drying. In the corner, his back to the window, Tom was talking non-stop while fiddling with something s.h.i.+ny on the work surface.

'What's Tom doing, do you know?'

'Flirting with Ayesha, mainly.'

'No sign of my father, I suppose.'

'Not yet. I wouldn't worry, they're having a riot in the front room no one's even touched the squash.' He s.h.i.+fted round so he could look at her. 'Are you all right, Iris?'

She nearly said 'Fine' and then stopped herself. 'Not really.' The admission, slight as it was, was liberating. 'I've been jealous,' she said, and was still surprised at the thought. It had emerged, fully formed, as she sat on the wall in the twilight.

'Jealous of whom?'

'Dad.'

'Really?' He looked at her carefully. 'This isn't anything to do with his new lawnmower?'

'No.' She managed a smile. 'No. I mean... anyone else would be pleased, wouldn't they, if their father had managed to start enjoying himself after years of ' she searched for the right word ' grimness. But all I could think was how unfair it was.'

Spencer said nothing, and in the silence Iris could hear a soft sawing noise from a nearby garden.

'You see, I had all these little changes planned for this year. I had a whole campaign in miniature and I was... easing myself into it. And then Dad just did it; he dived in, he altered his whole life in one go and I've been ' Dumped, she thought; it was a teenage word but it seemed horribly appropriate. He'd broken her routine as well as his own, and she'd found nothing with which to replace it.

'And because I was... jealous' she still couldn't quite believe the word 'I didn't let him talk about it, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of telling me. I avoided the whole topic, and because he's not very good at real conversation he never found a way to bring it up.' He had tried a couple of times, she winced to remember had edged round the subject on tiptoe, and then given up when she'd failed to respond. 'I should have been happy,' she said. 'For me as well as for him.'

'You can't be happy to order,' said Spencer. 'It doesn't work that way.'

'I know. So anyway, here I am, still in exactly the same place. And there he is...'

'He had a bit of help, you know,' said Spencer.

'What do you mean?'

'You were trying to do it from scratch. There's a huge difference between starting something from scratch when you're trying to do a million other things at the same time, and being swept along by someone else. Your father didn't instigate this change. He didn't make the first move, did he?'

'I don't know,' said Iris.

'Can't you ask him?'

She paused. 'No,' she said, honestly, and he laughed. 'We've only ever been able to talk about certain subjects work, or study. Or the garden. Or the twins... There's lots of things we've never talked about at all.'

'What you need,' said Spencer, 'is someone who talks the entire time, to act as a go-between. Someone Scottish, maybe.' He raised an eyebrow.

'Maybe,' she said, smiling a little.

Spencer leaned forward suddenly. 'What's going on in there?'

On the yellow screen the picture had jumped. Tom was reeling round the kitchen, frantically waving his hand.

'Oh,' said Iris, with a flash of insight, 'he was using the biscuit cutter.'

'Should I go and see if he's all right?'

'Gosh, he'd love that an in-house doctor rus.h.i.+ng to his aid. No, I'd leave it.' Tom had doubled over, and was cradling his hand to his chest, face contorted with pain. The next stage, she knew, would be a wobbly legged stagger to the nearest chair and a whispered request for a gla.s.s of water.

'Are you sure?' She could feel Spencer tensed for action beside her.

'Honestly. If it were anything remotely serious he'd be on the floor. Anyway, look Ayesha's coping.' Ayesha had found the first-aid box on the windowsill and was searching through it.

'It's a bit like being at the cinema, this,' said Spencer, relaxing back. 'Drama, suspense, pretty girl, two quite staggeringly good-looking boys '

'Do you think so?'

'Oh please. As I was saying... two heroes both an absolute credit to you, may I say one mortally injured, the other his doppelgnger brutally unconcerned, a heroine trying to administer succour but being held back by the unbelievable length of her fingernails, the heroes' mother off boozing somewhere, the ' Leslie walked into the kitchen holding an empty plate ' the arrival of the comic relief.'

Iris's snort of laughter was interrupted by a liquid cough, just feet away.

'h.e.l.lo,' said Callum, leaning over the wall that separated the garden from the street. The logo on his hat 'h.e.l.lo Lamazol, Goodbye Insomnia' was a luminous hot-pink squiggle in the twilight.

'Oh no,' muttered Spencer.

'Jus' pa.s.sing.' He rested his can of cider on the wall as if it were a bar, and looked at them interestedly. 'I've got a hat,' he said to Iris.

'I can see.' It was actually a huge improvement, turning him from a freak into an averagely dishevelled wino. 'It's very nice.'

'It's f.u.c.king fantastic,' corrected Callum. 'Are you two married, then?'

'Not yet,' said Spencer.

'Engaged?'

Iris stood and smoothed her skirt. 'We were just about to go in, Callum.'

'Hey, Dr Carroll. Is that blokey your dad?'

'Which blokey?' said Iris, startled.

'Hiding behind the bush.' Callum gestured towards the bottom of the garden, and an arc of cider shot across the gra.s.s. 'With the spade.'

'What's he talking about?' asked Spencer, sotto voce.

'It's probably just Mr Hickey,' whispered Iris. 'Let's go.'

'That's Mr Hickey's house?'

'Yes.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. So your father's the legendary hedge mover?'

'It's not my father who's responsible,' hissed Iris, instantly partisan. 'It's Mr Hickey who keeps moving the hedge.'

'Hey!' shouted Callum, wavering along the wall towards the end of the garden. 'Are you Dr Carroll's dad?'

There was a rustling in the Leylandii and Mr Hickey stood up, spade in hand, his face a pale coin that rotated slowly towards Spencer.

'Oh G.o.d,' said Iris, with foreboding. Spencer raised a hand.

'h.e.l.lo there.'

Mr Hickey stared at him, wordlessly.

'I think we should go in,' said Iris.

'No, I'd better have a word with him, he'll think I've swapped sides. It'd ruin our relations.h.i.+p.' He set off down the garden with Iris reluctantly following. Mr Hickey had been busy; the quiet sawing, the rhythmic thump of the spade that she had heard earlier was translated into the absence of a small cherry tree that had definitely been there that morning, and the new, nearer positioning of the much-travelled Leylandii. Along their bases, humped with fresh earth, a thin wire gleamed. As they approached him Mr Hickey stepped over it, into his own garden.

'h.e.l.lo,' said Spencer, with the puppyish air of a Blue Peter presenter.

Mr Hickey looked at him, his lips trembling slightly as if on the verge of invective.

'Dr Carroll's just here for a party,' said Iris, quickly, 'he doesn't know my father at all, and he didn't even know you lived here.'

'No,' said Spencer. 'I had no idea. Truly. Your own garden looks lovely may I have a look?'

Mr Hickey moved his head very slightly, in a plane that was marginally more vertical than horizontal.

Spencer stepped over the wire and there was sudden clunk and he fell down.

There was a spade lying on the ground in front of him, and it was ballooning and receding in perfect synchrony with the pain in his head.

There was a lot of shouting and someone stood on his foot and then said, 'Sorry, Dr Carroll.'

There was a bubble of nausea rising up his oesophagus and he half sat up and suddenly Ayesha was running across the garden towards him holding a white box with a red cross on it. Then he vomited and Ayesha suddenly seemed to be running away from him again.

Someone said, 'Lie down, Spencer,' and put something cold on his head.

Someone said, 'If he's f.u.c.king killed him I'll f.u.c.king kill him the f.u.c.ker.'

Someone said, 'h.e.l.lo, sir, you've had a bit of a knock.'

Someone said, 'Look, Callum, if I give you another hat will you go away?'

He opened his eyes and there was a pot of pink antiseptic on a tray just by his head; the smell seemed to seep right into his nostrils, up through the nasal turbines and straight across the olfactory plate so that it soaked directly into his brain. He sneezed and the pain bounced off the inside of his skull like a squash ball. He lifted his hand to his head and encountered another hand.

'You'll knock off the dressing,' said Iris.

'Oh h.e.l.lo.' She was standing beside him, holding a paper cup the size of a thimble.

'h.e.l.lo, again.'

'Have I said h.e.l.lo before?'

She smiled rather tensely. 'A couple of times.'

'Can I have some water?'

She gave him the thimble and he downed it in one. There was a moment's hiatus and then he threw it back up again.

'Oh dear,' said Iris, and wiped his chin.

He opened his eyes and the darkened room was filled with Mrs Spelko. 'Keep them open,' she ordered, looming over him with an opthalmoscope. There was a dazzle of white light as her breath roared on his face and her bosom pressed him into the couch, the name badge indenting his chest like a library stamp.

'Fine,' she said, straightening up. His ribs creaked back into place and a pink puddle drifted across the ceiling, dancing when he blinked as if attached to his eyelids. 'Now watch my finger. Watch it. Watch it. Up, down...' She traced the sign of the cross over him. 'Can you remember what happened to you?'

He thought for a while. 'Did I fall over?'

Mrs Spelko seemed already to have left the room; Marsha, the night sister, was there instead.

'Someone hit you with a spade.'

'Oh.' Now that she said it, it rang a distant bell. 'Am I all right?'

'We're just waiting for your films,' she said.

'Films.' He could only think of pools of oily water, the colours revolving slowly. His right foot started hurting.

For a while he was sure it was the sound of the sea, the soft slus.h.i.+ng of waves on Brighton beach, and he thought he might be drowsing on a sun lounger next to Mark, but then he heard the words 'Mrs Spelko' and realized he was listening to a whispered conversation.

'Of course, just to add to the general picture she has the bedside manner of a water buffalo. I can only imagine she was trained in communication skills by the SAS, with General Patton as a special advisor. Would you like one of these biscuits?'

'No thank you.'

'You're probably wise, they've been in this tin for at least six months. You know, lately I've been wondering whether my obsession with Mrs Spelko might be a touch s.e.xist.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, would I be as critical of a man who behaved with the same ostentation? Do I subconsciously prefer women to work quietly to add to the growing good with unhistoric acts, so to speak.'