The Little House Read online

  ‘We’ll stick to our agreement then,’ Frederick said. He turned the pram around and went up the drive towards the farmhouse. Ruth could see the puffs of air from his breath as he walked. The pram wheels made dark lines in the whiteness of the frost. She shut the door.

  Frederick walked for ten minutes away from the house and then back again. Thomas, rosy-cheeked in the cold air, did not sleep.

  ‘He’s still awake,’ Frederick said. ‘Shall I rock him in the kitchen or the hall?’

  ‘He can come out and play,’ Ruth said.

  ‘I can keep him amused while you do your chores,’ Frederick offered.

  She gave him a cold look. ‘Of course. You have forty minutes yet.’ She shut the sitting-room door on them both, and Frederick heard her go up the stairs.

  Thomas was over-tired by lunchtime and would eat only breakfast cereal; the soothing milky taste was what he wanted. Ruth gave him his bottle in his pram and wheeled him out into the garden. The clouds were clearing and the sun was coming out; the garden was a monochrome of black shadows and blinding white frost on the grass. Ruth rocked Thomas until he turned his head from his bottle and fell asleep, and then she quietly took the bottle from the pram.

  Promptly at five to three Elizabeth drove down and parked her car. She walked around to the back garden and saw the pram. She leaned in and put her finger down inside Thomas’s little mitten, and touched his cheek to see that he was warm enough. The back door to the kitchen opened.

  ‘I have asked you to come to the front door,’ Ruth said. ‘I asked you yesterday not to disturb him when he is sleeping.’

  Elizabeth straightened up, but she did not look at all reproved. ‘I was checking whether he was warm enough,’ she said. ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘I know,’ Ruth said. ‘I checked him myself five minutes ago.’

  Elizabeth laughed her easy laugh. ‘Well, we’re both happy then,’ she said.

  Ruth stepped back as her mother-in-law came in the house. ‘Now,’ Elizabeth offered, ‘is there anything I can do for you? You know I hate to sit and do nothing.’

  Ruth shook her head, her face blank. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have the pleasure of reading the newspaper until Thomas wakes,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And then I’ll change him and play with him until five o’clock. Are you going out?’

  A swift expression of deep unhappiness crossed Ruth’s face. ‘If I have to.’

  Elizabeth’s smile never wavered. ‘Why, you must do whatever you would like to do,’ she said. ‘Thomas and I will not be in your way. You could rest, or read, or make some phone calls, or cook supper – whatever you would normally do, Ruth!’

  There was a short silence. There had been no normality since the arrival of Thomas.

  ‘I’ll go for a walk,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Wrap up warm!’ Elizabeth called.

  The front door slammed.

  Elizabeth went out to the kitchen and peeped through the window to see the pram. Thomas was still asleep. Elizabeth opened the larder door and checked the contents. Absentmindedly she opened the freezer door. Someone had disarranged the order of the meat and the vegetables. She reorganized them so that they were in the right places. She glanced around the kitchen. The floor tiles, which she had chosen to reflect light in the rather dark back room, were cloudy. Ruth had not dried them properly, Elizabeth thought. She stacked the kitchen chairs on the table, put the rubbish bin outside, and fetched the mop.

  It took a little longer than she had expected. There had been a hardened lump of red baby food on the floor near the Aga, which Ruth had obviously been too idle to get down and scrub. Elizabeth went on her knees to it and got it clean again. Then she restored the kitchen to order and glanced at the clock. Ruth had been gone only twenty minutes; there was still plenty of time. Elizabeth had telephoned Patrick at work that morning to confirm that the new arrangements were working well. Patrick – who had sounded remarkably relaxed, even happy – had said that things were fine at home. But he had mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of chores to do in the evening, peeling the potatoes, for instance. Elizabeth took the bag of potatoes to the sink and peeled and sliced them, and left them in a saucepan of salted water.

  She inspected the bag of potatoes with distaste. She believed that food should not be stored in polythene, and always emptied her own potatoes into an earthenware crock. In the absence of anything better, she found an old wickerwork basket, which had once held a large flower display, given for Thomas’s birth, and put the potatoes in that.

  Then she cleaned the sink, gave the windowsills a quick wipe, and tied back the curtains properly – they had once again been left hanging loose.

  A little cry from the garden summoned her. She went out and brought him indoors, decanted him from the pram, changed his nappy with quiet efficiency, and brought him downstairs again to play on the floor before the fire.

  The front door slammed. Ruth looked around the door at the picture of her mother-in-law, the flickering fire, the contented baby. ‘I think I’ll have a bath,’ she said, and went upstairs.

  She did not come down until two minutes before Elizabeth was due to leave, at 4:58 exactly. Elizabeth rose to her feet and put on her coat as Ruth came in the room.

  ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’

  ‘No,’ Ruth said succinctly.

  ‘You’ll want me earlier tomorrow,’ Elizabeth reminded her. ‘You see your therapist tomorrow, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll come at one then, shall I? And don’t feel you have to hurry back. I can perfectly well give him his tea.’

  ‘You are not to feed him or to bath him or to take him out of this house,’ Ruth said levelly. ‘The agreement was that Frederick comes down in the morning and you come down in the afternoon. And he is to stay here.’

  Elizabeth looked at the wallpaper above Ruth’s bowed head. ‘I see no reason for any of us to be rude,’ she remarked.

  There was a complete silence. Elizabeth savoured the sense of moral victory. In a moment the girl would lift her head and apologize.

  But Ruth met her eyes. ‘I see every reason to be rude,’ she said. ‘You have come between me and my husband and between me and my child. You are destroying my happiness and my life.’

  ‘Oh, Ruth!’ Elizabeth cried. She reached out her hand but Ruth stood motionless, unresponsive. ‘I am trying very, very hard to do the very best for you, and for Patrick, and for Thomas.’ She looked imploringly into the young determined face. ‘Whatever else you think, you cannot say that I am not trying to make you and Patrick happy together.’ Her gesture took in the comfortable sitting room, furnished in the colours she had chosen, the fire she had lit, the curtains she had hemmed. ‘All I have ever wanted has been your happiness,’ she said gently.

  Ruth’s expression did not change. ‘It’s past five.’

  Elizabeth turned away from the flinty look in Ruth’s face. ‘I’ll come tomorrow at one,’ she said simply, and let herself out.

  As soon as the door shut, Ruth shuddered, and pitched herself down on the floor beside Thomas. He half rolled on his side to see her and reached out a plump little hand to her cheek. Ruth lay, smiling into his little face, enjoying his small caress.

  ‘Ma –’ Thomas said, enjoying the sound.

  Ruth hardly dared breathe.

  ‘Ma –’ Thomas said again.

  ‘Yes,’ Ruth said firmly. ‘I am.’

  The next day Elizabeth was on time, as always, but Thomas was not ready for her. He had eaten well at lunchtime, and Ruth had not been able to hurry him. When Elizabeth walked into the kitchen without knocking, Ruth was on her hands and knees picking up dropped food from the floor beneath the high chair and Thomas was spooning a jar of apple purée into his face and around his smiling mouth.

  ‘How lovely to see him eating so well,’ Elizabeth said. She picked up the jar and checked the ingredients. There was no added sweetener, which was the only thing in its favo