to tackle the solution. And here it was in black and white, a word that conjured up body-wracking drugs, tubes, needles, poison and pain. It didn’t sound like a treatment; it sounded like a penance.
Gracie’s daughter noticed Doubler wince and wondered, for the first time since she had arrived, whether Doubler was taking the news of her mother quite badly. She had assumed until now that his silence was born out of a taciturn nature, so she reached for his hand once more.
‘We’re all going to help each other through this. I need to make sure Mum has all the peace and quiet she needs to get better, so I’m going to shoulder her responsibilities. That means I’m here for you. You will do your bit, I’m sure, and it’s just that none of us can know what that might mean yet. I don’t, you don’t, and Mum certainly doesn’t. But I suspect you’ll be there to support her if you’re needed. Is that right?’
Doubler felt hope through the possibility of purpose. ‘Of course. Anything. I don’t really leave the house much. Certainly not since . . . not since Marie went. But, yes, I’ll do what is asked of me. Tell her that, will you?’ He closed his eyes briefly and allowed himself to imagine climbing into the car to leave the farm for the first time in years. ‘Tell her I’ll visit. She might be bored. She might like a bit of company.’
‘Well, that’s a very sweet offer, but I can’t imagine she’ll feel up to much – as it is, I’ll be fighting to keep her friends away. Golly, my mum’s amassed a few of those along the way! There’s the church lot, her knitting circle, the animal-shelter lot. Not to mention that gaggle of buddies she’s known all her life. They’re a good bunch, her school chums. They’re always there for each other, but they’re getting to an age where they have to offer this sort of support to one another all the time. They’re a marvel, though, really, quite an inspiration actually. But still, that’s a very nice thought and I will make sure she knows you offered. She’ll be most touched.’
Doubler recoiled. He knew about the knitting circle. He knew she went to church. He knew she volunteered at an animal rescue centre. But he had assumed when she talked about these different pockets of interest that they were mere pastimes, mere distractions to avoid having to stare intense loneliness in the face the way he had to every single time he looked in the mirror. A gaggle of buddies? He scrolled back through countless lunchtime conversations. Jean? Her name had come up often. Dot? Was she part of a gaggle? Mabel?
‘Jean? Dot? Mabel?’ he ventured.
‘Oh, Mum’s told you about them, has she? Mum does like to talk.’
‘She listens, too. She’s an extremely good listener.’
‘Hmm,’ said Gracie’s daughter, trying to imagine her mother listening, not talking.
‘I mean really. She really is an exceptionally good listener. She’s the type of listener who actually stops thinking while she listens to you. That’s rare in my experience. Most people in conversation are too busy thinking about what they’re going to say next to truly listen well.’
‘That’s a very nice thing to hear about my mother. I’m you sure you must be right, and perhaps that explains why she’s got such a wide circle of friends.’
A ‘wide circle’. Doubler contemplated the phrase. A circle was a complete thing, with no breaks, no gaps. No room for another. How ludicrous that he had considered himself a friend of hers. On the other hand, she was clearly his friend. Perhaps his only friend. Doubler imagined himself a small bubble on the outside of her wide circle. Was it possible for those two certainties to exist in his mind and for both of them to be truthful? That she was a friend to him but that he was not a friend to her?
Gracie’s daughter stood and began clearing away the teacups, taking them to the sink. As she rinsed them, she continued talking to Doubler, her back to him. ‘She’s got a week of intensive chemo, so we think she’ll be in hospital for the duration and then, if all goes according to plan, she’ll be treated as an outpatient thereafter. I’ll keep you up to date with what is going on, how she’s responding. And in the meantime, let’s keep focused on some of the practical issues. I’ll see if I can find somebody to give you a hand around here and I’ll let you know how I get on. Anything particular you’re after? Cooking as well as cleaning? Running errands? Shopping?’
‘Not cooking. I cook,’ said Doubler with a sharp bite of vehemence that surprised them both. ‘Just the other things.’ He went quiet for a moment, wondering how he could articulate his need for somebody who would sit with him and ask him just the right number of questions about his experiments. Somebody who cared almost as much as he did. Somebody who knew better than he did how to run his life but who never interfered, just trusted him to deal with it. Somebody who knew both his pre-Marie and post-Marie personas. Somebody who knew how far he’d fallen and how slow the climb up again had been.
‘Just cleaning,’ Doubler said, and he stood to dry the cups.
A heavy bank of cloud planted itself above the farm and rained relentlessly on Doubler’s misery. The newly furrowed soil, dense and sticky, collected on his boots as he trudged round the fields, making each step heavier than the last. There was no glimmer of reprieve to suggest that this new pattern would ever be broken. Alone with the mud and his memories, Doubler had found the last few days intolerable, and by the end of the fourth, he was thinking of Mrs Millwood with rising resentment. His days had lost form and he found himself quite unable to fall into his usual routine without the additional punctuation Mrs Millwood’s visits usually provided, and he blamed her for this interruption to his routine and his ensuing aimlessness. He started many jobs but finished few, and even those tasks that were essential felt lacklustre and without purpose. He pulled himself begrudgingly around the farm, but even this, one of his most joyous of routines, lacked urgency with no lunch companion to hurry home to.
The threat from Peele had paled into insignificance. Doubler wondered now why he’d even concerned himself with the written letters. Peele wanted to buy the farm; Doubler didn’t want to sell it. That, as far as Doubler was concerned, was the end of the matter. He put the envelopes back in the drawer and buried them beneath a pile of paperwork. Peele would grow tired of waiting and turn his attention to some other prey. Doubler’s research either would or would not be contaminated by Peele’s farming methods. It didn’t feel important anymore.
That morning, he had wondered whether he might stay in bed. If he didn’t go downstairs, nothing would need tidying up and he then wouldn’t be constantly reminded of her absence. He wasn’t sad, he was irritable, and he wasn’t concerned for her, he was overwhelmingly concerned for himself. Self-pity washed over him in waves, and as his mood darkened, he felt less and less inclined to give the day any of his attention.
When he finally dragged himself slowly downstairs, he’d found the tea caddy was empty. Briefly confused, he realized he didn’t know what day of the week it was. He hastily made a new blend, carelessly tipping tea from each bag into the canister without weighing it and sweeping a mix of spilt leaves back into the first package he reached for. He took a sip and chided himself for his haste. It didn’t taste right and he knew it never would unless he started afresh.
He left his tea unfinished and reluctantly forced himself out into the cold and damp morning, not stopping for a coat or hat. The wind burnt his ears and squeezed tears from his eyes as he made a cursory inspection of the bare land. He glanced at the barns, looking for signs of breach, and as he returned to the farmhouse, he stopped to glower briefly at the security camera. A bilious anger rumbling deep inside him, he flung open the kitchen door and pulled off his boots, pushing them forcefully with his toe under the boot
