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  But of course, in reality, not pretty at all. Potentially deadly. I believe they used to call it “the old man’s friend” because it often provided merciful release from some lingering painful illness, or perhaps from a life which had outlived both comfort and purpose. But not Silas! Not Silas’s life. Not after all he’s already been through.

  ‘How?’ Eric asks. ‘How did he get pneumonia in here? He should have been safe. We thought he’d be safe!’

  ‘He’s a very sick man. You have to understand that.’ The doctor looks very young, exhausted, ruffled from sleep.

  ‘We know he’s a sick man. But we didn’t expect him to get even sicker.’ Eric is beside himself. ‘How — did — this — happen?’

  ‘Please sit down. The nurse will make you some tea.’

  ‘I don’t want tea. I’ve done nothing but drink tea for days now. Tea isn’t the answer!’

  ‘Sit down, Eric.’ Mum pulls gently at his sleeve. ‘Sit down and listen to what the doctor has to say.’

  Eric crumples into a chair, and the doctor explains. The pneumonia has developed suddenly and rapidly; Silas’s resistance is lowered due to his illness; they are doing all they can. He talks of x-rays and antibiotics, of more drips and further tests. Silas’s chances are not good, but he is “holding his own”. The next couple of days will be crucial.

  Afterwards, when the doctor has gone, Eric sits with his head in his hands.

  ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take,’ he says to no-one in particular.

  ‘You have to, Eric. You just have to,’ Mum tells him. ‘For Silas. We’ll go and see him, shall we? I’ll come with you. You stay here, Ruth, and phone home. Everyone will be wondering what’s happening. It’s not fair to keep them waiting.’

  I go outside to use my mobile, and phone Applegarth, where Kaz, Kent and Dad are waiting for news, then I fetch myself coffee from a machine. I feel exhausted beyond any tiredness I have ever felt before. The baby has reduced (hardly the right word, but I can’t think of another) me to a lumbering elephant of a woman, and as I cart my exhausted body and its small passenger back to the relatives’ room and find myself a chair, I wonder how it is that many women go back and do the whole pregnancy thing over and over again, ending up sometimes with three, four or even more children. For whatever I may feel about my own child, now or when I get to meet it, I know for a fact that I shall never want another. I’ll have done my bit; I shall have replaced myself on the planet, and formed the next link in the family chain. I certainly don’t need to do it again.

  It’s funny how thoughts of my imminent motherhood, occasional at the best of times, have gone out of the window since Silas’s illness. The baby is there, and presumably it will eventually emerge (apparently in about five weeks’ time), but I have put it to the back of my mind. I have received a reproachful phone call from the midwife enquiring as to why I’m no longer attending her classes, but it seems self-indulgent to spend time huffing and puffing on a cosy nest of cushions while the rest of my family are going through all this. No doubt when the time comes, I’ll push the baby out. People do it all the time. Apparently, it’s impossible not to push babies out when the time comes. So why all the fuss?

  For the moment, all that matters is that Silas should get better. It may be that a part of me is only too willing to be relieved, if only temporarily, of thoughts of the future, or simply that I am still maintaining a degree of denial. I shall never know. What I do know is that if Silas recovers, I shall be willing to cope with anything. I will go to ante-natal classes every day if required to do so; I’ll be a model mother and even a model daughter; I’ll even sacrifice any hopes of seeing Amos again, if only Silas will get better. Please, Silas. Please, please, please get better.

  ‘Are you okay?’ A nurse comes into the room, and I realise that I’ve been crying.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m all right.’

  ‘Well, you don’t look it.’ She closes the door behind her. ‘Are you his daughter?’

  ‘No. He’s my uncle.’

  ‘You’re close, are you?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose we are.’ I’d never thought about it before. ‘I live with him — them.’

  ‘That must be hard. Especially with a baby on the way.’ She touches my hand. ‘When’s it due?’

  ‘Due?’

  ‘The baby.’

  ‘Of course. The baby.’ I push my hair out of my eyes and blow my nose. ‘About a month, I think.’

  ‘Not long to go, then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Please.’

  Tea again. Where on earth would we be without tea? I suppose the French and the Italians have coffee on these occasions, but what about, say, the Americans? What do they drink in times of crisis? Iced tea, perhaps, at least in the summer. I’ve read about iced tea, but never actually tried any. Iced tea, lemon tea, herbal tea... My thoughts drift and swirl, and I see people — lots of people — drinking tea; Japanese women cross-legged on the floor, sobbing as they pass round tiny decorated cups; people queueing by the huge shiny urn used by one of Mum’s women’s groups; I see teapots, kettles, tea bags, tea leaves. The seahorse/rabbit appears and tells me it hates tea, and why can’t I give it milk like a normal mother? Normal mothers don’t give tea to babies, it tells me. Why can’t I behave like a normal mother? It fades away, weeping, and now I am in a boat going to look for Amos. The boat is operated by pedals, but my feet won’t reach them and there’s no-one around to help. I panic as the boat begins to quiver and tremble, as though tossed by a succession of tiny waves.

  I wake up whimpering to find Mum gently shaking my shoulder.

  ‘Ruth? It’s all right, dear. Don’t cry.’ She touches my cheek. ‘Come on. It’s time to go home.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened? How’s Silas?’ The anxiety of my dream is still with me. ‘He hasn’t died, has he?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t died. He’s — stable.’

  ‘Hospital-speak,’ I tell her, now fully awake, and I think of all those other hospital clichés: “as well as can be expected,” “fighting for his life” (how can anyone who is seriously ill fight?), “comfortable”. It’s almost as though hospital staff are issued with a list of words and phrases which are supposed to give comfort but which fool nobody. ‘How is he really?’

  ‘Unconscious, of course, but they say his chest is a bit clearer. Eric’s staying on. I’m going home to have a bath and a nap. I’ll come back later.’

  ‘What about me? When can I see him?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could pop in quickly now. Just for a couple of minutes. We’ll ask.’

  I’ve hardly been inside the Intensive Care Unit up until now, leaving the visiting to Mum and Eric. It’s a strange place, with an atmosphere and rhythm of its own, isolated and apart like a womb; a world within a world. Staff move around in theatre scrubs, speaking softly, attending to the recumbent forms around them. They look smoothly efficient, more like technicians than nurses, but then I suppose in these circumstances efficiency is more important than the touchy-feely nurses of my imagination.

  I remember Eric describing his brother as looking ‘so not Silas’, and he’s right. It’s hard to connect the still figure beneath the clinical white sheet with the Silas I know. This figure breathes — in-out, in-out — fluids are dripped in and others drain away, but everything is mechanical; everything is not Silas. Eric is sitting beside him holding his hand, but his eyes are closed, and we don’t disturb him.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Mum whispers, as though we are in church.

  I nod, too choked to speak, and together we tiptoe from the room. As we leave the building and make our way to the car park, the grey wintry sky threatens rain, bleak skeletons of trees reaching out towards it as though in supplication. Like those other memories of the day of Silas’s operation, I know that whatever happens, I’ll always remember these things; this sky, these trees, the echoing of our footsteps along the deserted walkway; eve
n the car park, which is half empty. Only the workers and the wounded and the families of the seriously ill visit hospitals at night.

  We drive home together in silence. Dad and Kent have gone back to bed, but Kaz has stayed up to wait for us, and is dozing in a chair. Wordlessly, she gets up and holds out her arms to me, and I stumble into them.

  ‘Oh, Kaz,’ I sob. ‘He looks so awful.’ Kaz’s arms scarcely reach around me now, but the closeness of her and the familiar smell of her perfume (something expensive; a gift from a boyfriend?) is infinitely comforting.

  ‘I’ve made porridge,’ she tells us.

  ‘Porridge?’ Mum looks puzzled.

  ‘Porridge,’ says Kaz, ‘is what you need. With brown sugar and lots of cream.’

  ‘Porridge? At a time like this?’

  ‘Especially at a time like this.’ Kaz fetches bowls and spoons, and a big jug of cream from the fridge. ‘Comfort food,’ she explains. ‘Plus, you need something to soak up all that tea.’

  ‘How did you know about the tea?’ I ask her.

  Kaz laughs. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Spot on.’

  ‘Well, then. Be good girls and eat up your porridge. It’ll do you good.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  To add to our troubles, we have a chicken crisis.

  Somewhere, somehow, news of our chicken charity collecting box has been translated into an appeal for actual chickens. It is probably a simple case of Chinese whispers; after all, the leap from chicken charity to chicken sanctuary is a relatively small one. But whatever its provenance, in the course of the past couple of weeks, we have found ourselves suddenly inundated with unwanted chickens. There are rescued chickens, hen-pecked chickens, neglected chickens and even a few happy healthy chickens. There are also two vicious cockerels, and, oddly, a small white duck.

  ‘Chickens are us,’ remarks Eric, in a rare moment of humour. ‘And they aren’t even laying. What on earth are we going to do with them all? And those half-naked ones — they must be freezing.’

  ‘We could knit them little jackets,’ says Kaz.

  ‘Not funny, Kaz,’ I tell her.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘But at least we can eat one of those cockerels before they eat each other.’

  The bird in question is duly despatched and casseroled, leaving his fellow to take out his fury on Mr. Darcy and any human being who comes his way. Meanwhile, the cockerel in residence — an unassuming, harmless little bird called Henry, who has been in sole charge at Applegarth for years and has successfully fathered generations of fluffy yellow offspring — becomes withdrawn and depressed, and the resident chickens, who all know each other and have their place in the pecking order (what else?) are confused and disrupted by so many uninvited guests. There isn’t room for them all in the hen house, so at night such newcomers as we can find are rounded up and herded into a small leaky shed. The rest have to fend for themselves and run the gauntlet of the neighbouring foxes. It is not a happy situation.

  Fortunately, food isn’t a problem, for pilgrims come bearing offerings of corn and scraps (perhaps since the Virgin herself is not in a position to accept gifts, it’s felt that the chickens might like to do so on her behalf), but the sheer numbers of chickens are becoming a considerable problem. Chickens escape into the road and are run over; chickens leak out into the fields and outbuildings and even into the house; chickens roost in the greenhouse. There seem to be chickens everywhere.

  ‘How about a sort of chicken exchange?’ suggests Kaz, having discovered another feathery corpse in the driveway. ‘Like a bring and buy, only chickens rather than white elephants.’

  ‘So long as the buy outnumbers the bring,’ says Eric. ‘We certainly don’t want any more chickens.’

  ‘I’ll organise it,’ Mum says suddenly. ‘Why don’t you leave it to me?’

  We all look at her in surprise. Mum has never shown much interest in the livestock, and has tended to avoid the chickens because of her feelings about the Virgin (Mum still has problems with the Virgin, and Dad won’t discuss the matter at all).

  ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ says Eric.

  ‘I’m sure. I need a project. Something to keep my mind off, well, you know.’

  We know. And Eric gratefully accepts Mum’s offer. She spends an afternoon making a large sign to the effect that chickens may be collected and taken away, provided the prospective owners check with her first and guarantee a good home.

  ‘What’s a good home?’ I ask her.

  ‘Oh, you know. A decent run, food and water. That kind of thing.’

  ‘How do you know people won’t just take them home and eat them?’

  ‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take.’

  ‘Pick your own chicken,’ Kaz muses. ‘Well, it’s certainly a novel idea. What are people going to take the chickens home in?’

  ‘That’s up to them,’ Mum says. ‘They’ll have to bring a cage or something.’

  ‘How are they going to catch them?’ I ask her. ‘It’s not like picking strawberries. Strawberries keep still. Chickens don’t.’

  ‘That’s up to them, too. But I suppose we could make a sort of net. Perhaps Lazzo would make one. He’s good at that sort of thing.’

  ‘How are we going to stop people taking our chickens?’

  ‘They’ll have to be shut in the run for the time being.’

  ‘They won’t like that.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s tough,’ says Mum. ‘They’ve had it too good for too long. It’s time they were — contained.’

  So our chickens are padlocked into their run, which has sole access to the entrance to the hen house, while their new friends are left the freedom of the garden. It doesn’t seem a very fair arrangement, but as Mum says, for the time being, there’s nothing else for it. And when all’s said and done, they are only chickens.

  But the chickens are not used to being restrained in this way, and, encouraged by Henry, set up a considerable racket in their attempts to escape from their prison, while the new, free-range chickens tease and provoke them from the other side of the wire mesh.

  ‘Told you,’ says Blossom, who didn’t actually tell us anything but hates anyone other than herself having ideas where the animals are concerned.

  ‘Well, what would you do?’ I ask her. ‘Have you a better idea?’

  ‘Nope.’ Blossom chases an invading chicken out of the back door. ‘Not my business.’

  ‘Well, if it’s not your business, then perhaps you’d best keep your ideas to yourself.’

  This is not like me, for as a rule I go to great lengths to be polite to Blossom, but since Silas’s illness she has been quite impossible. Eric, ever charitable, says it’s probably because she misses him, and I suppose he could be right, but a bit of support wouldn’t come amiss. Blossom knows the score; she must see how we’re all struggling to keep going; and yet she continues to be if anything even more ill-tempered than usual.

  ‘What is the matter with your mother?’ I ask Kaz, having tripped over the flex of the vacuum clear which has been left out in the middle of the kitchen.

  ‘Search me.’ Kaz is doing her make-up, peering into a tiny mirror propped on the window sill (she’s filling in for another dancer tonight, although she’s “scaling down” her professional activities as Kent apparently isn’t happy about them).

  ‘She’s being so nasty.’

  ‘That’s Mum,’ Kaz agrees, applying plum-coloured eye shadow with a tiny brush.

  ‘But why? Why is she so thoroughly unpleasant all the time? What’s her problem?’

  ‘You know —’ Kaz applies the finishing touches to her eyelashes and puts away her mirror — ‘I’ve been asking myself that ever since I could think, and I’ve never come up with an answer.’

  ‘How on earth did you survive? As a kid, I mean.’

  ‘Dunno.’ Kaz shrugs. ‘Just got on with it, I suppose. And I had Lazzo. I’d never have survived without our Laz. And Dad. Dad wasn’t much
use, but at least I could talk to him. And he was in the same boat as Lazzo and me.’

  ‘Three against one?’

  ‘Yep. Although the one always came out on top.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘There. How do I look?’ Kaz stands up and runs her fingers through her hair (which she’s recently dyed pink).

  ‘Fabulous. As usual.’

  ‘Ta.’ Kaz grins. ‘Hope the punters feel the same way.’

  ‘Oh, they will. If they’ve got any sense.’ I hesitate. ‘How’s — how’s it going with Kent?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t approve.’

  ‘I don’t — didn’t. But then I realised I was being selfish, and you were right. I was a bit — well, jealous.’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Okay, no need to gloat.’

  ‘Sorry. That wasn’t very nice of me, was it? Poor Ruth. You need to find your Amos, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes!’ I feel again the familiar ache of loneliness, which sees to increase with my size. ‘But you still haven’t answered my question. How’s it going?’

  ‘Great. It’s going really great. He’s so kind. You know, I don’t think I’ve come across many really kind people. Plus, he’s good looking, and sexy —’

  ‘Too much information, Kaz. I get the picture.’ I hesitate. ‘Kaz, would you — would you marry him?’

  ‘It’s a bit early for that! But d’you know, I think I might. And then, just think — I’d be family, wouldn’t I? I’d love to be part of this family.’

  ‘So he’s told you about — about Eric and Silas.’

  ‘Yep. I think it’s really cool to have two dads, and I think he’s coming round to the idea, too. And I’d have two fathers-in-law!’

  ‘I never had you down as the marrying kind.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘And your mother would have to wear a hat!’

  We both laugh. ‘She wouldn’t come,’ Kaz tells me. ‘Whatever the circumstances, she’d find a reason not to come. Mum hates weddings.’

  ‘But surely, your wedding —’