Familiar and Haunting

  Mr. Cook went to the optician to see whether he needed glasses. The optician applied all the usual tests and said that Mr. Cook’s vision seemed excellent. Mr. Cook said it wasn’t—or, at least, sometimes wasn’t. The optician said that eyesight could be affected by a person’s state of general health and suggested that if the trouble continued, Mr. Cook should consult a doctor.

  Mr. Cook was annoyed at the time he had wasted at the optician’s and went home to try to enjoy his favorite Saturday afternoon program. Not only did he suffer from increased fogginess of vision, but—perhaps as a result, perhaps not—he developed a splitting headache. In the end he switched the set off and went outside and savagely dug in the garden, uprooting ground elder, nettle, twitch, and a great number of other weed species. By tea time he had cleared a large patch, in which Judy at once sowed radishes and mustard and cress.

  At the end of an afternoon’s digging, the headache had gone. Mr. Cook was also able to watch the late-night movie on television without discomfort. But his Saturday as a whole had been ruined, and when he went to bed, his sleep was troubled by strange dreams, and on Sunday morning he woke at first light. This had become the pattern of his sleeping recently: haunted dreams and early wakings. On this particular occasion, as often before, he couldn’t get to sleep again, and he spent the rest of Sunday—a breezy, sunny day—moving restlessly about indoors from Sunday paper to television set, saying he felt awful.

  Mrs. Cook said that perhaps he ought to see a doctor, as the optician had advised; Mr. Cook shouted at her that he wouldn’t.

  But as spring turned to summer, it became clear that something would have to be done. Mr. Cook’s condition was worsening. He gave up trying to watch television. Regularly he got up at sunrise because he couldn’t sleep longer and couldn’t even rest in bed. (Sometimes he went out and dug in the garden, and when he did so, the exertion or the fresh air seemed to make him feel better, at least for the time being.) He lost his appetite, and he was always irritable with his children. He grumbled at Mike for being out so much on his bicycle, and he grumbled at Judy for being at home. Her investigations no longer amused him at all. Judy had pointed out that his illness seemed to vary with the weather; fine days made it worse. She wondered why. Her father said he’d give her why, if she weren’t careful.

  At last Mrs. Cook burst out that she could stand this no longer. “Arthur, you must go to the doctor.” As though he had only been waiting for someone to insist, Mr. Cook agreed.

  The doctor listened carefully to Mr. Cook’s account of his symptoms and examined him thoroughly. He asked whether he smoked and whether he ate enough roughage. Reassured on both these points, the doctor said he thought Mr. Cook’s condition might be the result of nervous tension. “Anything worrying you?” asked the doctor.

  “Of course, there is!” exploded Mr. Cook. “I’m ill, aren’t I? I’m worried sick about that!”

  The doctor asked if there was anything else that Mr. Cook worried about. His wife? His children? His job?

  “I lie awake in the morning and worry about them all,” said Mr. Cook. “And about that huge garden in that awful state …”

  “What garden?”

  “Our garden. It’s huge and it’s been let go wild and I ought to get it in order, I suppose, and—oh, I don’t know! I’m no gardener.”

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have a garden that size,” suggested the doctor. “Perhaps you should consider moving into a house with no garden or at least a really manageable one. Somewhere, say, with just a patio, in Walchester.”

  “That’s what we moved from,” said Mr. Cook. “Less than six months ago.”

  “Oh, dear!” said the doctor. He called Mrs. Cook into the surgery and suggested that her husband might be suffering from overwork. Mr. Cook was struck by the idea; Mrs. Cook less so. The doctor suggested a week off, to see what that would do.

  That week marked the climax of Mr. Cook’s illness; it drove Mrs. Cook nearly out of her wits and Judy to urgent inquiries.

  The week came at the very beginning of June, an ideal month in which to try to recover from overwork. Judy and Mike were at school all day, so that everything was quiet at home for their father. The sun shone, and Mr. Cook planned to sit outside in a deck chair and catch up on lost sleep. Then, when the children came home, he would go to bed early with the portable television set. (He assumed that rest would be dealing with fogginess of vision.)

  Things did not work out like that at all. During that week Mr. Cook was seized with a terrible restlessness. It seemed impossible for him to achieve any repose at all. He tried only once to watch television, and Judy noticed that thereafter he seemed almost—yes, he seemed afraid. He was a shadow of his former self when, at the end of the week, he went back to work.

  After he had left the house that morning, Mrs. Cook spoke her fears: “It’ll be the hospital next, I know. And once they begin injecting and cutting up—Oh, why did we ever come to live here!”

  “You think it’s something to do with the house?” asked Judy. Mike had already set off to school; she lingered.

  “Well, your dad was perfectly all right before. I’d say there was something wrong with the drains here, but there’s no smell, and anyway, why should only he fall ill?”

  “There is something wrong with the house,” said Judy. “I couldn’t ask the Johnsons about it, so I asked the Cribbles.”

  “The Cribbles! That we bought the house from?”

  “Yes. They live the other side of Walchester. I went there—”

  “Oh, Judy!” said her mother. “You’ll get yourself into trouble with your questions, one of these days.”

  “No, I shan’t,” said Judy (and she never did). “I went to ask them about this house. I rang at the front door, and Mrs. Cribble answered it. At least, I think it must have been her. She was quite nice. I told her my name, but I don’t think she connected me with buying the house from them. Then I asked her about the house, whether they had noticed anything.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. She slammed the door in my face.”

  “Oh, Judy!” cried Mrs. Cook, and burst into tears.

  Her mother’s tears decided Judy. She would beard Mr. Biley himself, of Ketch, Robb, and Biley. She was not so innocent as to suppose he would grant her, a child, an official interview. But if she could buttonhole him somewhere, she might get from him at least one useful piece of information.

  After school that day, Judy presented herself at the offices of Ketch, Robb, and Biley in Walchester. She had her deception ready. “Has my father been in to see Mr. Biley yet?” she asked. That sounded respectable. The receptionist said that Mr. Biley was talking with a client at present and that she really couldn’t say.

  “I’ll wait,” said Judy, like a good girl.

  Judy waited. She was prepared to wait until the offices shut at half past five, when Mr. Biley would surely leave to go home, but much earlier than that, Mr. Biley came downstairs with someone who was evidently rather an important client. Mr. Biley escorted him to the door, chatting in the jovial way that Judy remembered so well. They said good-bye at the door and parted, and Mr. Biley started back by the way he had come.

  Judy caught up with him, laid a hand on his arm. “Mr. Biley, please!”

  Mr. Biley turned. He did not recognize Judy. He smiled. “Yes, young lady?”

  “We bought Southcroft from the Cribbles,” she began.

  Mr. Biley’s smile vanished instantly. He said, “I should make clear at once that Ketch, Robb, and Biley will not, under any circumstances, handle that property again.”

  “Why?” asked Judy. She couldn’t help asking.

  “The sale of the same property three times in eighteen months may bring income to us, but it does not bring reputation. So I wish you good day.”

  Judy said, “Please, I only need to ask you one thing, really.” She gripped the cloth of his sleeve.

  The receptionist had looked up to see wh
at was going on, and Mr. Biley was aware of that. “Well? Be quick,” he said.

  “Before the Cribbles and the Johnsons, there were the Baxters. When old Mr. Baxter died, where did Mrs. Baxter move to?”

  “Into Senior House, Waddington Road.” He removed Judy’s fingers from his coat sleeve. “Remember to tell your father not to call in Ketch, Robb, and Biley for the resale of the property. Good-bye.”

  It was getting late, but Judy thought she should finish the job. She found a telephone booth and the right money and rang her mother to say she was calling on Mrs. Baxter in the old people’s apartments in Waddington Road. She was glad that her telephone time ran out before her mother could say much in reply.

  Then she set off for Waddington Road.

  By the time she reached the apartments, Judy felt tired, thirsty, hungry. There was no problem about seeing Mrs. Baxter. The porter told her the number of Mrs. Baxter’s apartment and said Mrs. Baxter would probably be starting her tea. The residents had just finished seeing a film on mountaineering in the Alps and—as he put it—would be brewing up late.

  Judy found the door and knocked. A delicious smell of hot-buttered toast seemed to be coming through the keyhole. A thin little voice told her to come in. And there sat Mrs. Baxter behind a teapot with a cozy on it, in the act of spreading honey on a piece of buttered toast.

  “Oh,” said Judy, faintly.

  Mrs. Baxter was delighted to have a visitor. “Sit down, dear, and I’ll get another cup and saucer and plate.”

  She was such a nice little old woman, with gingery gray hair—she wore a gingery dress almost to match—and rather dark popeyes. She seemed active but a bit slow. When she got up in a slow, plump way to get the extra china, Judy was reminded of a hamster she had once had, called Pickles.

  Mrs. Baxter got the china and some biscuits and poured out another cup of tea. All this without asking Judy her name or her business.

  “Sugar?” asked Mrs. Baxter.

  “Yes, please,” said Judy. “I’m Judy Cook, Mrs. Baxter.”

  “Oh, yes? I’ll have to get the tin of sugar. I don’t take sugar myself, you know.”

  She waddled over to some shelves. She had her back to Judy, but Judy could see the little hamster hands reaching up to a tin marked SUGAR.

  “Mrs. Baxter, we live in the house you used to live in, Southcroft.”

  The hamster hands never reached the sugar tin but stayed up in the air for as long as it might have taken Judy to count ten. It was as though the name Southcroft had turned the little hamster woman to stone.

  Then the hands came down slowly, and Mrs. Baxter waddled back to the tea table. She did not look at Judy; her face was expressionless.

  “Have a biscuit?” she said to Judy.

  Judy took one. “Mrs. Baxter, I’ve come to ask you about Southcroft.”

  “Don’t forget your cup of tea, dear.”

  “No, I won’t. Mrs. Baxter, I must ask you several things—”

  “Just a minute, dear.”

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps you take sugar in your tea?”

  “Yes, I do, but it doesn’t matter. I’d rather you’d let me ask you—”

  “But it does matter,” said Mrs. Baxter firmly. “And I shall get the sugar for you. I don’t take it myself, you know.”

  Judy had had dreams when she had tried to do something and could not because things—the same things—happened over and over again to prevent her. Now she watched Mrs. Baxter waddle over to the shelves, watched the little hamster hands reach up to the sugar tin and—this time—bring it down and bring it back to the tea table. Judy sugared her tea, and took another biscuit, and began eating and drinking. She was trying to steady herself and fortify herself for what she now realized was going to be very, very difficult. Mrs. Baxter had begun telling her about mountaineering in the Alps. The little voice went on and on, until Judy thought it must wear out.

  It paused.

  Judy said swiftly, “Tell me about Southcroft, please. What was it like to live in when you were there? Why is it so awful now?”

  “No, dear,” said Mrs. Baxter hurriedly. “I’d rather go on telling you about the Matterhorn.”

  “I want to know about Southcroft,” cried Judy.

  “No,” said Mrs. Baxter. “I never talk about it. Never. I’ll go on about the Matterhorn.”

  “Please. You must tell me about Southcroft.” Judy was insisting, but she knew she was being beaten by the soft little old woman. She found she was beginning to cry. “Please, Mrs. Baxter. My dad’s ill with living there.”

  “Oh, no,” cried the little hamster woman. “Oh, no, he couldn’t be!”

  “He is,” said Judy, “and you won’t help!” Stumblingly she began to get up.

  “Won’t you stay, dear, and hear about the Matterhorn?”

  “No!” Judy tried to put her cup back on the dainty tea table, but couldn’t see properly for her tears. China fell, broke, as she turned from the table. She found the handle of the door and let herself out.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” the little voice behind her was crying, but whether it was about the broken china or something else it was impossible to say.

  Judy ran down the long passages and past the porter, who stared at her tear-wet face. When she got outside, she ran and ran and then walked and walked. She knew she could have caught a bus home, but she didn’t want to. She walked all the way, arriving nearly at dusk, to find her mother waiting anxiously for her. But instead of questioning Judy at once, Mrs. Cook drew her into the kitchen, where they were alone. Mike was in the sitting room, watching a noisy television program.

  Mrs. Cook said, “Your dad telephoned from Walchester soon after you did. He said he wasn’t feeling very well, so he’s spending the night with your aunt Edie.”

  They stared at each other. Mr. Cook detested his sister Edie. “He’d do anything rather than come here,” said Judy. “He’s afraid.”

  Mrs. Cook nodded.

  “Mum, we’ll just have to move from here, for Dad’s sake.”

  “I don’t know that we can, Judy. Selling one house and buying another is very expensive; moving is expensive.”

  “But if we stay here …”

  Mrs. Cook hesitated. Then: “Judy, what you were doing this afternoon—your calling on old Mrs. Baxter—was it any use, any help?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Cook groaned aloud.

  Judy’s visit to Mrs. Baxter had not led to the answering of any questions, but there was an outcome.

  The next day, in the afternoon, Judy and Mike had come home from school and were in the kitchen with their mother. It was a gloomy tea. There was no doubt at all that their father would come home this time—after all here were his wife and his children that he loved—but the homecoming seemed likely to be a grim and hopeless one.

  From the kitchen they heard the click of the front gate. This was far too early to be Mr. Cook himself, and besides, there’d been no sound of a car. Mike, nearest to the window, looked out. “No one we know,” he reported. “An old lady.” He laughed to himself. “She looks like a hamster.”

  Judy was at the front door and opening it before Mrs. Baxter had had time to ring. She brought her in and introduced her to the others, and Mrs. Cook brewed fresh tea while the children made her comfortable in the sitting room. Besides her handbag, Mrs. Baxter was carrying a dumpy zip-up case which seemed heavy; she kept it by her. She was tired. “Buses!” she murmured.

  Mrs. Cook brought her a cup of tea.

  “Mrs. Baxter doesn’t take sugar, Mum,” said Judy.

  They all sat round Mrs. Baxter, trying not to stare at her, waiting for her to speak. She sipped her tea without looking at them.

  “Your husband’s not very well, I hear,” she said at last to Mrs. Cook.

  “No.”

  “Not home from work yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Mrs. Baxter was obviously relieved. She looked at them all now. “And this i
s the rest of the family. …” She smiled timidly at Mike. “You’re the baby of the family?”

  Mike said, “I’m younger than Judy. Mum, if it’s okay, I think I’ll go out on my bike with Charlie Feather.” He took something to eat and went.

  Mrs. Baxter said, “We never had children.”

  “A pity,” said Mrs. Cook.

  “Yes. Everything would be different, if it had been different.” Mrs. Baxter paused. “Do you know, I’ve never been back to this house—not even to the village—since Mr. Baxter died.”

  “It was very sad for you,” said Mrs. Cook, not knowing what else to say.

  “It’s been a terrible worry,” said Mrs. Baxter, as though sadness was not the thing that mattered. Again she paused. Judy could see that she was nerving herself to say something important. She had been brave and resolute to come all this way at all.

  Mrs. Cook could also see what Judy saw. “You must be tired out,” she said.

  But Judy said gently, “Why’ve you come?”

  Mrs. Baxter tried to speak, couldn’t. Instead, she opened the zip-up bag and dragged out of it a large, heavy book: The Vegetable and Fruit Grower’s Encyclopaedia and Vade-Mecum. She pushed it into Mrs. Cook’s lap. “It was Mr. Baxter’s,” she said. “Give it to your husband. Tell him to use it and work hard in the garden, and I think things will right themselves in time. You need to humor him.”

  Mrs. Cook was bewildered. She seized upon the last remark. “I humor him as much as I can, as it is. He’s been so unwell.”

  Mrs. Baxter tittered. “Good gracious, I didn’t mean your husband; I meant mine. Humor Mr. Baxter.”

  “But—but he’s dead and gone!”

  Mrs. Baxter’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s just it; he isn’t. Not both. He’s dead but not gone. He never meant to go. I knew what he intended; I knew the wickedness of it. I told him, I begged him on his deathbed, but he wouldn’t listen. You know that bit of the burial service ‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out’? Well, there was something he’d dearly have liked to have taken out. He couldn’t, so he stayed in this world with it: his garden. We were both good churchgoers, but I believe he set his vegetable garden before his God. I know that he set it before me.” She wept afresh.