The Little House Read online

  Frederick came in and made her a pot of tea in silence. ‘Will you speak to Patrick?’

  She nodded. ‘They will have to come back here.’

  He hesitated. ‘It’s no way for a young couple to live,’ he said. ‘They need a bit of privacy.’

  ‘So that she can neglect our grandson and we not know?’

  ‘I think we should listen to her version. She certainly loves him. I don’t think she’d neglect him wilfully.’

  Elizabeth wrung out the little shirt and trousers and changed the water in the sink. She watched the suds swirl down the drain and then turned and faced her husband. ‘Are you saying we should do nothing?’ she demanded. ‘Not warn Patrick, cover up for her, keep it a secret?’

  Frederick thought for a moment and then he shook his head. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘The baby comes first. But I am sorry she hasn’t made a better go of it.’

  ‘We all are,’ Elizabeth said smartly.

  Patrick, seated in the editing studio with a producer, trying to find cuts in a programme that was ten minutes too long, was irritated by the note his secretary brought in, which read: ‘Your mother rang and said to tell you that you should urgently phone home. At once.’

  ‘Sorry. Just a minute,’ Patrick said. He understood that home did not mean the little house, but the farmhouse. He picked up the studio phone and dialled the number. ‘It’s me,’ he said shortly.

  The producer watched his face change. He looked shocked, and then incredulous. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll come at once.’

  ‘Trouble?’ the producer asked.

  Patrick switched on his charming smile. ‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying this and it’s a good piece. There’s a family crisis at home: my son is sick. I have to go. Can you finish it without me and bike a copy over to my house for me to see tonight? I’ll phone you first thing in the morning.’

  ‘All right,’ the producer said. ‘I hope your son is OK.’

  Patrick’s smile wavered slightly. ‘Oh, sure,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  He drove home badly, overtaking and cutting in. Partly he was anxious to get home, but also he felt a mixture of rage and distress and, oddly, embarrassment. He felt that Ruth’s inability to cope with Thomas reflected badly on him. He felt that his parents deserved a better daughter-in-law, that he should have chosen a better partner. The closeness and sympathy of the days since Christmas dissolved under the acid of his realization that Ruth would never be able to cope.

  His mother opened the door to the sound of his step on the threshold. ‘Patrick,’ she said, and drew him into an embrace, which was consoling and powerful and reassuring.

  She led him into the kitchen. Thomas was sitting in his old high chair in his accustomed place by the table. Frederick was opposite, out of reach of the flying spoon that Thomas waved as he waited to be fed. Elizabeth sat down before her grandson and spooned food into his open mouth.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Patrick asked, leaning against the door. ‘He looks well enough.’

  Elizabeth glanced at Frederick and said nothing. Frederick spoke for them both.

  ‘Ruth took him shopping this afternoon and apparently left her handbag in the shop, or something. She phoned Mother and asked her to go down and hold the fort while she drove back to the shop. When Mother got there she found Thomas in his outdoor clothes in his cot. He’d been sick and he was dirty. Mother brought him up here at the double, and here we are. And now she’s AWOL. She should have been home by now but she’s not reported in. It’s a bad business, Patrick.’

  Patrick straightened up and turned a little away. He looked out of the kitchen window so they could not see his face. Elizabeth and Frederick exchanged a look.

  ‘He had cried himself to sleep,’ she said. ‘He was in a dreadful state. And his clothes must have been on him for a while; they were drying out. There’s his weatherproof suit. I kept it for you to see.’

  Patrick glanced down at the garment, which was drying with large blotches of white stains of vomit. He turned back to the two of them. ‘What shall I do?’ he asked like a man who has run out of answers. ‘What shall I do?’

  Ruth was delayed at the store because the security officer who had spoken to her on the telephone could not at first be found. Then, when he came, she had to produce satisfactory proof of identity and fill in a claim form before she could receive her handbag. Then she had to count the money in her purse and confirm that nothing was missing on an itemized receipt. Nothing could be hurried, everything had to be done in order. Ruth bit back her temper and checked her watch. It was five o’clock before she left the shop, and then she was caught in the rush-hour traffic. It was a quarter to six by the time she got home, and she felt flustered and apologetic. She expected to see Patrick’s car in the drive alongside Elizabeth’s but neither was there, and the house was in darkness.

  Inside, the little fire in the sitting room had died away to pale embers, hardly lighting the darkened room. The house was silent except for the soft occasional click of the pipes.

  Ruth snapped on the lights in the hall and on the stairs and experienced blinding rage. Elizabeth had not come and baby-sat, as had been agreed. Elizabeth had taken Thomas. Even now, Ruth knew, Thomas would be sitting in his high chair in the farmhouse kitchen, eating one of Elizabeth’s home-cooked dinners. From the absence of Patrick’s car Ruth guessed, rightly, that Patrick would be there too. At half past six exactly Frederick would pour a gin and tonic for each of them, and Elizabeth would take Thomas upstairs for his bath, and Patrick would be invited to sit in the bathroom and watch his son.

  The farmhouse, the family, the order, and the serenity seemed infinitely more solid and more attractive than Ruth’s house. Elizabeth’s mothering of Thomas was more assured, her cooking was better. Ruth opened the sitting-room curtains and looked up the drive towards the farmhouse. There were no headlights coming down the drive as Patrick and Thomas came home to her. Ruth knew that if she did not go and fetch them, or telephone them at once, then Elizabeth would bath Thomas and put him to bed in Patrick’s old nursery, and then come downstairs to cook Patrick’s supper.

  Ruth picked up the telephone and dialled the farmhouse.

  Patrick answered. ‘Where are you?’

  Ruth recoiled from the hostility in his voice. ‘Home, of course. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ll come straight down,’ he said, and hung up without explanation.

  Ruth replaced the receiver on the hook and wandered through to the kitchen. Automatically, she filled the kettle with water and switched it on. She wondered if Elizabeth had complained at being left with Thomas for twice the length of time that Ruth had promised. But it was so unlike Elizabeth to complain that Ruth was certain it could not be that.

  She heard Patrick’s car in the drive, and his key in the lock. She went out into the hall to meet him. ‘Where’s Thomas?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring him?’

  He stepped into the light and she saw his face. She had never seen him look like that before: he looked exhausted, drained, and grey. ‘He’s staying there for tonight,’ he said baldly. ‘I needed to talk to you alone.’

  Ruth thought at once that he had been sacked, or wanted to confess an affair, or some scandalous difficulty at work. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Patrick went into the kitchen and sat at the table. Ruth sat opposite him. In the silence the kettle boiled, and switched itself off.

  ‘Tell me about Thomas today,’ Patrick said quietly. ‘How was he?’

  ‘He was fine! He was fine! Patrick – please tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I need to know this first,’ he said. ‘What did you do this afternoon?’

  ‘We went shopping,’ Ruth said. ‘Then when we came home the shop rang and said I had left my handbag there, so I phoned your mother, and drove down and picked it up, and she took him up to the farmhouse – without telling me,’ Ruth added.