Spring Manoeuvres Read online

“Do you live here now?”

  “We’ve been here some twenty-five years, my husband and I. My goodness it’s hot.” She made as if to retrieve her groceries.

  “Here, let me help.”

  The old lady pulled her dress up to give herself freedom to bend. Careless of how she looked, then, she placed her feet wide apart and, like one doing exercises, stooped left and right, picking up her groceries and tossing them one by one into the bags. Douglas got down on one knee, reaching for oranges and apples and potatoes and avocados, thinking that probably each day something ridiculous and unfortunate like this happened to the old lady.

  “My goodness it’s hot,” she said again, as if it explained more than the younger generation would ever understand. “My goodness.”

  Carrying two bags in one hand, three in the other, Douglas walked with her up to the house.

  “I saw an old gentleman asleep in a back room,” he said.

  “My husband, Charles. I keep him asleep as long as I can because when he wakes he just complains.”

  “What about?”

  “The Americans, the jeeps, the heat, the cost of living, the fact that the children hardly write any more, the sight of my varicose veins.”

  “Does he complain about noise, the noise of the aircraft?”

  “Actually no. For all there’s a base here, it’s not that noisy. It’s quite silent, in fact. Maybe that’s one of the problems.”

  “A silent base.” Douglas stood with the old lady by the front door, hoping she would invite him in. “I hope you don’t think I was snooping …”

  “Not at all. I’d ask you in only it would be sure to wake Charles and I do want to avoid that.”

  “I quite understand,” Douglas replied, turning with a wave to walk down to where, on the foreshore, about a mile away, under a tree, he had parked his car.

  II

  They moved into the cottage in late September. It was lovely autumn weather. Even more deeply than they had anticipated, however, the move exhausted them. For weeks they rose in mid-morning and were back in bed by eight or nine. Their days were formless, the cottage appearing able to resist all their attempts to order it, make it their own. They went for drives, but in spite of the beautiful weather came back discouraged, to half unpacked crates and boxes, to piles of books and clothes, crockery and carpets, pictures.

  Partly because of the disorder, Edith had difficulty getting about. But only partly. Some of the corners were tighter than she had known, and one of the corridors – Douglas hadn’t noticed it before – was on a little slope, so that, depending on whether it was going up or down, the wheelchair went too slowly or too fast. Quite often Edith called out for help, her voice high and exasperated. Douglas had to steel himself to respond, so dejected was he, so troubled by a sense that in moving here they’d made a bad mistake. Once he went so far as to ignore her, something he’d never done before.

  Going to her at last, however, he had found her in tears, fallen so far forwards in the wheelchair it was as if she was trying to get out. The wheelchair was trapped between two crates. Consoling her, rearranging her wasted legs under the tartan rug, he had found energy. Enough, at least, to have an idea. They wouldn’t think of the cottage as their last home.

  They wouldn’t think of anywhere like that. They would give it a year, and then, if they were still miserable, they would move back to the city. Weren’t all but a few decisions provisional, reversible?

  It helped; they ceased to feel so trapped. Settling Edith in the car before one of their drives, he thought she looked lighter, expectant. He felt lighter himself. She was looking after her hair again, twisting it into a bun and fixing it on top of her head. During their first days in the cottage she had borne herself as if the endurance of pain might be all there was. She had let her hair go, all over her shoulders, a mass of greyness which gave the wheelchair the appearance of having wings, Douglas thought, a giant beetle which would never fly.

  In time, he was confident, she would resume her meditation. Her transcendental outlet, as she called it. And in time he would find a place for his telescope, searching the night sky passionately again, as for reasons why they were here, in this cottage above the Holy Loch. Because of the pain of her condition, Edith slept badly. If she hadn’t woken by eleven, Douglas would wake her. It was unspoken now between them that he should do this. Only on special occasions was he allowed to wake her earlier.

  One such occasion seemed to be a day in late October. Douglas had slept well, and of course it might have been just this: he had the energy for the day, so the day appeared significant. Independently of this, the day had splendour, he thought, a golden stillness over loch and hills, as if, overnight, the Almighty had purged the earth of all clamour and grossness.

  Sitting on her bed, he placed the cup of tea on the bedside table. He took her hand in his and said it was time to get up. Waking her could take time, what with her broken nights and all the sleeping pills and painkillers she took. Mainly he did it by talking to her, by taking her hand and squeezing it, on bad mornings by shaking her gently, raising his voice a little.

  This was a bad morning. She had to be shaken several times and even then didn’t quite waken. Often he was tempted to let her sleep, for waking meant waking to pain. That tightening of the lips (loose in sleep, as though slackened by the drugs), tensing of the jaw. Such a troubled stirring. He would try to fill the waking moments with kind and pleasant remarks, whispered and murmured promises, assurances. It was not just pain she was waking to. Certainly not. The birds were in strange chorus, the light remarkable, he had never seen such light, it reminded him of Turner, would he put on some music, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Bach? He had to be inventive, this morning unusually so. He might have had a definite surprise for her, so determinedly did he lead her over the threshold into pain and consciousness.

  Once she was awake, he would lift her, a little at a time, from a lying to a sitting position, until she was propped against three pillows. If it was cold, he would offer her a cardigan. Today it wasn’t. If it had been a bad awakening, he would help her lift her mug of tea – as today, slowly and falteringly – to her lips. Whatever he did, she was grateful, unspoken between them too the knowledge that without him she wouldn’t be able to start her days at all.

  “This is most welcome,” she said, holding the mug, easing her shoulders into the pillows. “Most welcome.”

  Douglas smiled, wondering at these simple expressions of gratitude, their power to relax him, make him happy.

  Not so when she theorised. The importance of meditation. The higher view of illness. Illness within the cycle of being. Stages, levels. Reincarnation. He dreaded such talk, thinking it a symptom of anxiety and distress. At her best she had no need of it, no need at all.

  There was none this morning. Soon it was time for her pills. He would allow twenty minutes to pass before reaching for them (the blue pills, the white pills, the red). They were unpleasant on the tongue and he didn’t want her tea ruined. Then – whether she could have done it herself or not – he would lift a glass of water to her lips. It was an attention she particularly appreciated, he wasn’t quite sure why, for it made her seem weaker than she was, or perverse, a difficult patient. Perhaps it was simply the pills – alarm at having to take so many.

  “And how are you?” she asked, her voice, as always in the mornings, a little rough, hoarse. “No tightness?”

  “No. I seem to be alright now.”

  Just after the move, he had sometimes felt unwell, a slight tightness in the chest, breathlessness, but the doctor had reassured him: it was only fatigue, tension.

  There had been Edith’s reassurances, too. She had the view that if you had honestly fathomed your world and seen how to live in it you would know ease, good health. Most illnesses were invited, she thought. He didn’t think he really understood such views, but he never said so. And he had never asked her how they applied to herself. Why press her, aspiring as she did to a peace and purity untou
ched by the wretchedness of her body?

  “You look as if you’ve something up your sleeve,” Edith said.

  “I have.”

  “You feel we’ve lost time to make up for here?”

  “Exactly that. Those bad weeks back there.”

  “Tell me then.”

  “I thought of hiring a boat.”

  “A boat? What kind of a boat?”

  “A rowing boat or small motor boat.”

  “I don’t think you’re quite ready for a rowing boat.”

  “A boat with an outboard motor then.”

  “Yes.”

  “We can take a look at the loch, pay our respects.”

  “There’ll be restrictions, I suppose,” Edith said, looking out of the window.

  “I’m sure of it, but for some reason I think we should proceed as if there aren’t.”

  “Yes.” Edith nodded firmly. “I agree.”

  He lifted her from the bed into the wheelchair, pushing her to the bathroom, right up to the toilet seat with its support rails. There, as always, he asked her if she could manage now by herself, moving away as he did so. Always she said that she could manage. It seemed wrong not to ask though, wrong not to ask again ten minutes later. But he could surprise himself at these times: a little impersonal, accents of strained civilised enquiry, as if he’d address any disabled person so.

  Once she had been able to propel the wheelchair quite vigorously. But the disease had spread. Now she did it awkwardly, arms trembling with the effort. Douglas hated to see it, but hated also the way she looked when he was being too solicitous. Between too much and too little he had to balance himself. He wouldn’t allow her to go to and from the lavatory by herself, for example. But he would allow her to move from the toilet seat to the wheelchair to the door and then through it. And whenever he was out, of course, she would move about a bit, here and there, gasping, he imagined, bent forwards, eyes fixed on whatever spot she was determined to reach.

  Back in the bedroom, there were two preparations: Douglas preparing to dress Edith, Edith preparing to be dressed. He had been doing it for about a year, but was still uneasy. His attempts to ritualise it so that it passed quite pleasantly had failed. They never seemed far from degradation, the two of them: on both sides the utmost patience and good humour was required. And, even then, there was embarrassment.

  He had once rejoiced in her body, but did so no longer. Pity now or terror, quiet terror. She had once rejoiced in his hands, but did so no longer. On bad days she could hate them: the insult of their deftness.

  This day it was different. Douglas was astonished. From a pile beside her, she selected the clothes one by one and handed them to him almost playfully. And in the same order, as if the game today was total obedience, he dressed her, now moving her onto one buttock, now onto the other, to put her pants on, now lifting one arm, now the other, to put her singlet on, then her blouse, now easing on her tights, now her slacks.

  Nothing was said, but it was a silence without strain. The bright sun brought out the silver in her hair, the slack flesh at her neck and jaw, but did so kindly, as if in time it might bring aid.

  He thought if only it could be like this every morning. If only he could always feel that he was dressing her for a pilgrimage. What had they done to deserve it?

  He didn’t doubt that there would be many more mornings when she cursed him, cursed God, longed for death, and when, to stop himself abandoning her half dressed, he bit his lip, whistled, stared out of the window.

  The water on the other side of the loch was motionless, the wooded hills beyond – autumnal browns and reds, intense evergreens – clear as though magnified. There were hardly any sounds.

  “The Americans must have moved out,” Edith joked.

  “It’s like a Sabbath, only it’s Thursday.”

  The wheelchair rumbled on the ramp Douglas had made for it outside the garden gate. The rumbling echoed slightly over to their left. He parked the wheelchair by the car and opened the passenger door. Getting her into and out of the car was one of the hardest tasks. If she was alive in four or five years’ time it would probably be beyond him. She mightn’t be, of course. Nor might he. Both dead and gone but the ramp still standing.

  “Have you met any Americans yet?” Edith asked.

  “No, but I’ve seen lots about – mainly getting into taxis actually.”

  “I can’t imagine the base ever going.”

  “That’s right. You can’t put the clock back.”

  “It’ll always be there, in some form or other.”

  “Like death and the sun,” Douglas said, “and like death and the sun not really seen.”

  Edith laid a hand on his arm.

  “Some may achieve the direct gaze, you know. We can’t rule it out.”

  She took her hand away and smiled, as if just to make the point had encouraged her.

  Douglas nodded. She to her version of faith, he to his. Leave it at that.

  Edith fell silent. Douglas glanced at her, wondering if she was going to turn inwards, caught up by some incommunicable part of her inner life, say nothing for an hour or so, mouth twitching occasionally, eyes filling with pain. She wasn’t. She laughed instead and said how autumn was her favourite time, how simplifying and clarifying she found it.

  It was narrow and twisting, the way down to the coast road. They went through dappled sunlight and between high walls and hedges. After it, the coast road was strikingly open, almost shockingly so. Edith craned her neck to look at the base.

  “It’s so big,” she said, “and so dark. So obscene! Too easy to say that though.”

  “What do we have but words where such things are concerned?” Douglas asked.

  “Are words enough?”

  “Well, there are marches, I suppose.”

  “Marches? I can’t go on marches.”

  “I’ll take you. We’ll go together.”

  Once again he glanced at her, fearing withdrawal, once again was surprised. The prospect of the boat trip was obviously exciting her, keeping her from brooding. Wouldn’t it be good if he could think up two or three excursions a week? Adventures. They could build up a store of them, selecting from it according to their moods and desires, the weather and the season. It would help him too, for wasn’t it true that since thinking of the boat trip first thing this morning he’d paid little attention to what was going on in the region of his heart?

  The boat hire place was a disused pier with a hut on it, on the door of the hut a notice: “Enquiries Within’. Douglas knocked lightly and stood back. Eventually a young man in dungarees and wellington boots appeared, half dancing to pop music.

  “Just yourself?”

  “My wife too. She’s disabled.”

  “You can have Lucy-Ann. That one there.” Without moving from the doorway, the young man pointed. “No trespassing, of course.”

  “Which means?”

  “Keep clear of the base at all times. Stay outside the blue and red buoys.”

  “Alright.”

  Beside the pier was a concrete landing stage to which, while Douglas steered the wheelchair down from the car, the young man brought the boat. With difficulty, gasping a little, Douglas got Edith out of the wheelchair and into his arms (always in his arms she felt light, too light). The young man was in the boat now, standing, smiling, arms raised to receive Edith. Theatrically ready for his good deed. Between them the loch sucked and lapped, smelling of oil and seaweed. He gave Edith over. Easily, then, almost playfully, as if he might have chucked her in the air and caught her again, the young man had Edith settled in the stern. She was smiling.

  The young man told Douglas how to operate the boat, assured him that if he got into difficulties he would be rescued, and then, yanking the motor into life, jumped ashore. A cloud of blue smoke drifted behind them as, nervous now, Douglas steered the boat past the end of the pier and out into the loch. To stay out for an hour or so, alert at all times to other craft, then bring the boat
back safely to the pier and landing stage no longer seemed that simple. He wondered at the young man’s readiness to trust him. Edith was unconcerned, however, smiling, looking about her. He smiled back, but what he was thinking was that in this attempt to give shape and purpose to their retirement he had overreached himself.

  Then he began to relax. The boat was easy to steer and he found he could control its speed as well as he could that of his car. Aiming at the horizon, the open sea, an area of glare and whiteness, he accelerated until the bow lifted. Through the roar of the engine he heard Edith laughing – a rare sound these days. Then she was pointing, pointing and laughing, first at their boiling wake, then at a cabin cruiser which was approaching, flags flying. He gave it a wide berth, looking to see who was in charge, seeing no-one, the flags the only signs of life, flags of many sizes and colours.

  The power of the boat rose through the tiller. As though to share in it, Edith kept a hand on Douglas’ arm. One moment her delight appeared almost savage, he thought; the next, wondering, reflective, grateful.

  Why shouldn’t he put her in charge for a while? Go and sit by himself in the bow? Through the roar of the engine he gestured his intention. She looked uncertain but allowed her hand to be drawn to the tiller. Both their hands were there then, sharing the juddering, the agitation. Then Douglas moved away. Immediately the boat went violently to the left, a kind of fierce dipping arc. Douglas was thrown sideways, Edith against him.

  It took him a minute or two to regain control. He resumed their original course, towards the open sea. Both shores seemed very far away. The hills and woods, as though flattened by the weight of sky, were barely recognisable. Mere strips. They moved as through an overarching glare of whiteness, Douglas imagining a deep ocean brininess to the air and spray. Seagulls swooped, huge birds, their cries piercing the roar of the engine.

  Soon Edith indicated that she wanted to try again. This time the boat moved only slightly to the left, Edith quickly correcting it. Douglas sat away from her, simulating a confidence he didn’t quite feel, wondering at the contrast between the harsh roar of the boat and the delicacy of its handling.