Seni Glaister - Mr Doubler Begins Again

‘Very well, then, Mrs Millwood. Thanks for calling.’

‘I’ll call the same time tomorrow, see how you’re doing, shall I?’

‘Super!’ said Doubler, any sadness at the approach of the end of the call vanishing at the thought of a guaranteed call the very next day. ‘Cheerio.’

Doubler replaced the receiver and went to the kitchen, where he sat very quietly while replaying the conversation in his head, smiling as he did so. He concentrated furiously, recalling it as accurately as he could because it suddenly felt extremely important to him that he held on to each and every word.

Chapter 9

Later that afternoon, Doubler sat and watched the bottom of the drive with his binoculars. Sometimes his seat at the top of the hill made him feel invincible, but on other days he felt exposed up at Mirth Farm. The binoculars had become a vital part of his armoury and he liked the advantage they gave him.

Midge was unlikely to visit again until Thursday at the very earliest. If he was lucky. She had said she couldn’t pick up his groceries indefinitely, but that implied she would pick them up again, at least this once. Which meant he had a visit to look forward to this week and next, he reasoned.

Even though he had chosen to shut himself off from the outside world, he had never really tested the theory of being an actual recluse. He had regular visitors; he only had to pick up the phone and any number of local suppliers and tradesmen would drop what they were doing to tend to his needs at Mirth Farm. Oil arrived; sewage left; wood was delivered to the wood pile; even the doctor, who had only ever been called out in Marie’s time, ensured he paid Doubler a routine visit twice a year. These visits were, on the whole, brief and businesslike – the well-practised exchange of services that had played out comfortably for a long time – and though they offered little in the way of intellectual stimulation, Doubler felt no lack. Mrs Millwood had seen to that.

For five days a week the two of them had sat down and talked. And each day after she left, it wasn’t long before he found himself having imaginary conversations with her in his head. This discourse was not in the same league as the advice he sought from Mr Clarke, the substance of which was rooted in the technical conundrums that their shared passion presented. From Mr Clarke, he sought inspiration of a very specific nature. The little observations he would store away for sharing with Mrs Millwood encompassed everything else that Doubler was capable of feeling, and even if this represented a narrow slice of an adult’s emotional capacity, Mrs Millwood herself had a very developed range of responses from which to draw.

But what did he actually know about her? He now knew a bit more, that she had a wide circle of friends, but before that time, what had he known? That she knitted, yes. That she found great comfort in family and friends. There – friends again! That her husband had died, but not suddenly. He had lugged an oxygen tank around with him for several years. He had got thinner and thinner, more and more uncomfortable, before eventually dying of a massive asthma attack. It had been a blessing . Well, that had been a big difference between Mrs Millwood and Doubler. She had grown used to her husband gradually disappearing in front of her eyes. Whereas for Doubler, Marie had been there one day and not the next. No warning, no preparation. And there had been a choice there for Marie – that’s what he couldn’t forgive her for. Everything she had done, and how she had done it, was a choice she had made. And nowhere in that process had she thought once of him or the impact it would have on him.

Doubler looked around the room and imagined Marie there now. Would she be interested in his potatoes? Would she be proud of him? Would she even care? Perhaps Julian would be whispering in her ear suggesting early retirement and an easy life in a central-heated condo. That is almost certainly what she would have wanted. It was impossible to know now, but when he looked around the room, with his eyes narrowed, he couldn’t imagine her sitting comfortably in any of the chairs. She’d be just getting back from somewhere, or just on her way out with a shopping bag slung over her shoulder and the hood of her anorak already pulled up to protect her from the elements. But she wouldn’t be there, sitting still and talking. Or listening.

Doubler closed his eyes and remembered, as best as he could, Mrs Millwood telling him about the death of her husband, Bert. After a few moments of fierce concentration, her words came back to him and it was as if she were sitting in the room.

‘It was a terrible thing to watch, the man you love dying in front of your eyes. There was so much pain and so much inconvenience . That was the unexpected thing. He was cross with himself and me. I was cross with him, too. It was impossible to live together: it was me and him and that blessed tank. But we talked about it; we talked to death . I was able to talk about why I was angry, and he was able to tell me how very furious he was that he had this terrible debilitation. But, my God, the sound of his breathing was heartbreaking. When he went, it was a relief .’

‘Do you think you were better off knowing? I mean, if he had gone suddenly without any warning, that would have been worse?’ Doubler had asked.

‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But I’d have liked to have spared him the pain. That was bad. Watching him suffer was very tough. But we got to plan a bit for the future and we had no regrets. We’d said everything enough times. And even if he had suddenly dropped dead when I’d just told him I was sick to death of not being able to sleep at night because of the awful noise he made, then I’d still have no regrets because we’d have recently talked about our love for one another. We’d probably have talked about how we first met, or the arrival of our daughter. About how madly I wanted him and how madly he wanted me and how badly behaved we were when we first fell in love. We loved that, you know, recounting the really good bits. I’d never really tire of talking about that. Because, I suppose, all the bad bits towards the end could never really unstitch all the good bits from the beginning.

‘I like to imagine our marriage was a little like a hand-knitted blanket. It was a glorious thing to behold, full of intricate pattern and a multitude of colours and so very beautiful to examine in detail. Towards the top, there were a few dropped stitches and a few holes, and maybe the colours weren’t quite so bright, and maybe the needlecraft was a bit patchy, but it never unravelled . It still worked as a blanket. It was a lovely thing to look at, and it kept us warm, held us together. And it’s so much better to look at the beginning bits and stroke the colours and talk about the love and the joy that went into creating it rather than to focus on the last few rows.’

‘My blanket unravelled,’ Doubler had said, tears pricking at his eyelids.

‘I know. Our stories are not the same, Mr Doubler. Sometimes when you drop a stitch, you can’t really patch it up – it just undoes. It’s awful. It feels like a waste of time, doesn’t it, to end up with a pile of loose wool where before you had something useful.’ Mrs Millwood had looked thoughtful.

‘But afterwards, when the pain stops, you can tidy things up a bit. You can’t ever make that blanket again, not out of that wool, but what you can do is wind the wool up into a really neat ball – and that in itself takes time and patience and a degree of love and generosity – and then you can store the ball of wool away somewhere safe. And maybe just look at it from time to time.’

‘I am so far from that time, Mrs Millwood. It is still just a knotted mess at my feet. It trips me up; it catches me out. I couldn’t even find an end if I tried.’