The Curious Charms Of Arthur Pepper
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A woman wearing a black T-shirt printed with a badger was dragging her screaming toddler across the car park. The little girl clutched a Happy Meal bag. An elderly lady stepped out of a red Ford Focus and began to shout too. She pointed at the bag. Three generations of family arguing over a McDonald’s hamburger.
Arthur had to answer Nathan because it would be rude not to, but he couldn’t be bothered to describe how he felt. ‘Yes. Pretty shit,’ he responded, not even realising he had sworn.
‘Here we are then.’ Thankfully, the front door opened and Bernadette manoeuvred a series of stuffed carrier bags into the footwell of the car. She then tried curving into her seat to fit herself around them. ‘Ready for off?’ she asked, fastening her seat belt.
‘What have you got in there, Mum? There’s only a MaccieD.’s and a WHSmith in that place,’ Nathan said.
‘Just some magazines, drinks, chocolatey things for the journey. You and Arthur might get hungry.’
‘I thought you had food in the boot?’
‘I know, but it’s nice to have fresh stuff.’
‘I thought we’d be getting tea at the B and B,’ Nathan said. ‘We’ll be there in an hour.’
Arthur felt uncomfortable. Bernadette was only trying to please. ‘I’m a little peckish actually,’ he said, trying to support her, even though he wasn’t hungry at all. ‘A drink and snack would be just the ticket.’
He was rewarded with a warm smile, a king-size Twix and a two-litre bottle of Coke.
His bedroom at the B and B was tiny with just enough space for a single bed, a rickety wardrobe and a chair. There was the smallest sink he had ever seen in the corner with a wrapped soap the size of a Babybel cheese. The toilet and bath (the landlady informed him) were on the next floor up. No baths after nine at night and you had to give the toilet a firm flush or else it wouldn’t get rid of all the contents.
Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he had slept in a single bed. It seemed so narrow and confirmed his status as a widower. The bedding was bright and fresh though and he sat on the side of the bed and looked through the sash window. A seagull strutted along the windowsill and there was a pleasant view of the park across the street.
Usually the first thing he and Miriam would do when they got to a room in a B and B was to have a nice cup of tea and see what type of biscuit graced the courtesy tray. They had devised a rating system together. Obviously, receiving no biscuits at all scored a big fat zero. Digestives scored a two. Custard creams were a little better, coming in at a four. Bourbons, he had originally rated as a five, but had grown to appreciate them, so upgraded them to a six. Any biscuit that tasted of chocolate without containing any had to be admired. Further up the scale were the posh biscuits usually provided by the larger hotel chains—the lemon and ginger or chocolate chip cookies, which came in at an eight. For a ten, the biscuits had to be home-made by the proprietors, and this was very rare.
Here, there was a packet of two ginger nuts. They were perfectly acceptable but the sight of them in their packet made his heart sink. He took one out and munched on it then folded over the packet and put it back on the tray. The remaining ginger nut was Miriam’s biscuit. He couldn’t bring himself to eat it.
There were still two hours before he had arranged to meet Bernadette and Nathan for their evening meal in the restaurant downstairs. He and Miriam would usually put their anoraks on and go for a walk to explore and get their bearings, to plan what they would do the next day. But he didn’t want to go out on his own. There didn’t seem much point in discovering things alone. Out of the window he watched as Nathan sloped out toward the park. He had one hand dug in his pocket and smoked a cigarette. Arthur wondered if Bernadette knew about this bad habit.
He took the box from his pocket and opened it up on the windowsill. Even though he was used to seeing it now, used to handling it, he still couldn’t relate the bracelet to his wife. He couldn’t imagine something so chunky and bold dangling from her slender wrist. She had taken pride in having elegant taste and was often mistaken for being French because of her classic way of dressing. In fact, she often said that she admired the way French ladies dressed and that one day she would like to go to Paris. She said it was chic.
When she began to feel ill, felt her chest growing tight and the shortness of breath, she changed the way she dressed. Her navy blue silk blouses, cream skirts and pearls were replaced by the shapeless cardigans. Her only aim was to keep warm. She even shivered when the sun beat down on her skin. She wore her anorak in the garden, her face bravely tilted toward the sun as if she were confronting it. Ha! I can’t feel you.
‘I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about India, Miriam,’ he said aloud. ‘Mr Mehra’s story was unfortunate, but there was nothing for you to be ashamed of.’
A magpie stood on the other side of the window and stared in at him, and then it seemed to look at the bracelet. Arthur tapped the window. ‘Shoo.’ He held the box to his chest and squinted at the charms. The flower was made of five coloured stones surrounding a tiny pearl. The paint palette had a tiny paintbrush and six enamelled blobs to represent paint. The tiger snarled, baring pointed gold teeth. He looked at his watch again. There was still an hour and forty-five minutes to go before dinner.
If he was at home he would have eaten by now. He and Miriam always dined at five-thirty prompt and he carried on the tradition. He set the table while she cooked. After eating, he washed up and she dried the pots. Their only day off from this routine was Friday—chippy tea day when they sat in front of the TV and ate fish, chips and mushy peas straight from the polystyrene tray. He lay back on the bed with his hands behind his head. Food wasn’t the same without his wife.
To fill his time, he started to think about the next day. He doubted that he’d get his cup of tea and breakfast at the usual time. He read through the train times he had scribbled down on a piece of paper, and memorised them. He imagined Lord Graystock striding toward him with his hand outstretched and greeting him like an old friend. Then he tried to picture Miriam kneeling in the dust, playing marbles with young children in India. It was too hard to comprehend.
Time had only ticked on ten minutes so Arthur picked up the remote control for the miniature television which hung wonkily on the bedroom wall. He switched it on, flicked through all the stations, and began to watch the last twenty minutes of an episode of Columbo.
Lucy Pepper stood on the doorstep of her old home and looked up at her old bedroom window. Each time she returned the house seemed to shrink in size. It had once seemed so spacious with her and Dan running up and down the stairs and Mum and Dad sat reading in the sitting room. They were always together, like those porcelain dogs that sat on the opposite ends of the mantelpiece.
Her father, once strong and upright, now seemed so much smaller too. His back curved where once it was straight. The black hair she used to love pulling on and watching spring back into place was now wiry and white. It had all happened so quickly. The innocence of being young and thinking that your parents would last for ever had been broken.
All Lucy had ever wanted was to be a mum. Even since she was little, when she used to pretend that her dolls were her babies, she had pictured herself with two kids. Whether that was a boy and a girl, two boys or two girls, she didn’t care. At the age of thirty-six, she should be a mother with toddlers by now. On Facebook, one of her classmates was even a grandmother. She longed to feel the planting of small, sticky kisses on her cheeks.
These days it felt like a strange thing to admit to. Shouldn’t she be striving for a glittering career, or wanting to travel the world? But she wanted to be like her mum, Miriam, who had been so happy raising her children. She and Dad had the perfect marriage. They never argued. They laughed at each other’s jokes and they held hands. Lucy had found this something of an embarrassment when she was younger: her mum and dad strolling around with their arms wrapped around each other’s waist as if they were teenage lovers. It was only when she started dating herself and couldn’t seem to find someone who would put their hand on the small of her back when she crossed the road, as if she was precious, that she realised what her parents had. She didn’t of course need protection as she had a brown belt in karate, but it would be nice to feel that way.
Her brother, Dan, had never shown any interest in becoming a parent. He was focused on setting up his business, on making a life for himself overseas. It seemed unfair that he and his wife, Kelly, had managed to pop out two gorgeous kids as soon as they tried. Dan always seemed to land lucky whereas Lucy felt she had to struggle to achieve anything, whether that was in her marriage, her relationship with Dad or her job.
When she lay in bed at night and thought about her ideal life, she saw herself at the park with her husband and kids, laughing and pushing the swings. Her mum would be there too with a ready supply of tissues and kisses for scuffed knees.
But Mum wasn’t here and she never would be again. She would never see or hold the grandchildren that hadn’t yet been born to Lucy.
As a schoolteacher at a local primary, Lucy had noticed that the mums dropping their kids off at the school were now younger than she was. She grimaced when she thought about wasting so much of her time on Anthony. He insisted that they should have just one more foreign holiday before she threw away her contraceptive pills. They should treat themselves to a new sofa before they started baby making. They had differing priorities.
She came off the pill anyway, without him knowing. In opposition to her usual cautious self, she knew she had to become a think-now act-later person in this situation. If Anthony had his way then he would be still musing about whether to have kids or not when he was fifty. Anyway, within a few weeks she was pregnant and then, a few months later, she was not.
Anthony was gone now and Mum had gone too. And with them, Lucy’s dreams of family had evaporated like perfume spilled in the sun.
She still beat herself up that she hadn’t gone to her mum’s funeral. What kind of daughter did that make her? A crap one, that’s what. She should have been there to say goodbye. But it was impossible. She hadn’t even managed to tell her dad why she couldn’t be there. The note she wrote and pushed through his door said:
Sorry, Dad, I can’t go through with it. Say goodbye to Mum for me. Love, Lucy xxx.
Then she had gone back to bed and hadn’t got up for a week.
Her father had settled into a routine. His life was regimented and together. When she did call, she felt like an inconvenience. He constantly looked at his watch and carried on with tasks around her as if she wasn’t there, like the two of them existed in parallel universes. The last time she called, she put the kettle on and made two cups of tea. Her father then refused to drink it, saying that he only took his tea at eight-thirty in the morning, eleven, and sometimes a cup at three. It was like visiting Howard Hughes.
She wished her mum was still here to sort him out. Lucy still expected to find her sitting at the kitchen table or pruning the rose bushes in the garden. She found herself reaching out into thin air to place a gentle hand on her mother’s diminishing shoulders.
Lucy wanted her brother to show more of an interest, in her life and Dad’s. Dan and Dad’s relationship always had an edge to it, as if the two men couldn’t quite embrace each other’s ways and personalities. They were like two jigsaw pieces with the same bit of sky on, but which didn’t fit together. It was more evident now that Mum was gone, when Lucy had to remind Dad and Dan how and when to communicate.
When Lucy went home after a frustrating hour spent with her father, she wished she had someone there, waiting to hold her and tell her that things were going to be okay.
It had been six months now since Anthony had walked out on their marriage. It was such a cliché but she had come home from work one day and found his suitcase in the hallway. At first she thought he might be working away and had forgotten to tell her. But when he appeared behind the case, she knew. He stared down at the ground. ‘It isn’t working, Luce. We both know it isn’t.’
She hadn’t wanted to beg. When she looked back it seemed so feeble. But she had begged. She told him that she wanted him to stay, that he was the future father of her children. That whatever crap they’d been through in the past year was all behind them. They could move on. She knew she had neglected him when her mother died. Since they lost the baby.
But he shook his head. ‘There’s been too much sadness. I want to be happy. I want you to be happy. But we can’t be with all the history between us. We need to be apart so we don’t dwell on it. I have to go.’
Just last month, under the stark white light of the Co-op confectionary aisle, she had spied Anthony pushing a shopping trolley with another woman. She looked a bit like Lucy, with her bobbed hair and long neck.
Lucy followed them around the fruit juice aisle and into frozen desserts but then gave up. If Anthony saw her then he’d think she was stalking him. He would introduce her to his new girlfriend and Lucy would have to smile and say that it was lovely to see him again but she had really just popped in for some fresh strawberries and now she had to dash. When she was out of earshot, Anthony would whisper and tell his new girlfriend, ‘That was my estranged wife. She lost our baby when she was fifteen weeks pregnant and she was never the same again. It was like a light went off or something. I had to get out.’ And his girlfriend would nod sympathetically and squeeze Anthony’s hand to reassure him that she was massively fertile and if he wanted a family then her body wouldn’t let things down.
Lucy held it together at the tills, but when she was in the trolley park she started to cry. She rammed her trolley over and over into the one in front to return it, but it wouldn’t fit. She walked away leaving her token, with a white Yorkshire rose on it, still in the trolley slot. A man with a neck the same thickness as his waist offered her a tissue and she blew her nose, went home and drank half a bottle of vodka.
After that she changed her surname back to Pepper. Lucy Pepper sounded so much better than Lucy Brannigan anyway. She silently and swiftly swept the house of memories of Anthony and stuck all the leaflets for baby milk, nappy vouchers and breast pads in the recycling bin. Her old name made her feel stronger, more equipped to face life again.
And now she was standing in front of the house she grew up in, where her mum and dad had changed her own nappy thousands of times. A feeling of warmth flooded over her. She smiled and rang the doorbell. Through the daisy-patterned glass in the front door she could see her father’s coat hung in the hallway. There was a pile of post on the doormat. Strange that he hadn’t picked it up yet.
She rang the bell again and gave the knocker a rap. Nothing.
Looking up, she saw that all the windows were shut. She walked through the passageway at the side of the house to the back garden, but there was no sign of him.
She narrowed her eyes against the glare of the sun. Perhaps, if she found him, she could persuade him to go to the garden centre. It was a lovely day.
She’d finished work an hour early. It was the school sports day and really she should be there, putting plasters on knees or helping to serve orange squash. But as she had watched the kids stumbling along in the egg and spoon race, she felt a deep need to be with her dad. With Dan in Australia and Mum gone, he was her only close family left. She feigned a migraine and had driven away from the laughter and applause as the relay races started.
She stood on her tiptoes, cupped her hand around her eyes and peered in the back window. Frederica the fern looked a bit sorry for herself. Her leaves curled a little at the sides. Her dad had developed an obsession with that plant.
Then a terrible thought hit her. He could be dead. He might have fallen down the stairs or died in bed like Mum had. He might be sprawled on the bathroom floor unable to move. Oh God. Panic began to bubble in her stomach. She moved to the front of the house again.
‘Can I help you?’ a man shouted from the garden opposite. It was Dad’s neighbour who wore a bandana. Lucy had seen him before. As he leaned on his lawnmower, he seemed to be carrying a small brown upturned bowl.
‘I’ve called around to see my dad. I can’t get a reply. I’m worried that he’s fallen or something. It’s Terry, isn’t it?’ Lucy looked both ways and then crossed the road.
‘That’s me. No need to worry. Your dad went out this morning with his suitcase.’
Lucy ran her hand through her hair. ‘A suitcase? Are you sure?’
‘Huh-uh. I think he was going to that lady’s house. The one with the raspberry-coloured hair.’
‘Bernadette?’ On one occasion Lucy called to see her father and found this lady sitting at the kitchen table in Mum’s place. She had made fresh sausage rolls. Lucy didn’t cook. She stuck things in the microwave or under the grill.
‘I don’t know her name. They got into a car. A young man was driving. He had hair over one eye. I wondered if he could see the road properly.’
‘Did my dad say where he was going?’
Terry shook his head. ‘No. Are you his daughter? You have the same eyes.’
‘We do?’
‘Huh-uh. He didn’t say where he was off to. Your dad doesn’t speak much, does he?’
‘Not really.’ Lucy narrowed her eyes. The small brown bowl in Terry’s hands moved. A head slid out and two eyes stared at her. ‘Erm, are you carrying a tortoise?’
Terry nodded. ‘It escapes from next door. It likes my lawn, though I don’t know why. I like to keep it neatly trimmed. Not much food for this little guy. Each time he tries to escape I pick him up and give him back. He belongs to the two kids with red hair and bare feet. Do you know them?’
Lucy said she did not.
‘Shall I tell your dad you were looking for him, if I see him?’
Lucy said that would be helpful and that she would phone him too. She wondered why her dad would have a suitcase and where he could possibly be going. It was difficult enough to persuade him to go to the village to buy milk. ‘Maybe you should just let the tortoise wander around for a while. It might quench his first for adventure. Then he might be happy to stay in his pen, or whatever his home is.’
‘I never thought about that.’ Terry turned the tortoise to face him. ‘What do you think about that idea then, buddy?’
‘Thanks for your help,’ Lucy shouted out absentmindedly over her shoulder as she crossed back over the road.
She made her way around to the back again and sat down on the edge of a large plant pot. She stabbed her dad’s number on her mobile. It rang around twenty times as it usually did as he tried to remember where he had put it, or which button to press. Finally, he answered.
‘Hello. This is Arthur Pepper speaking.’
‘Dad. It’s Lucy,’ she said, relieved to hear his voice.
‘Oh, hello, love.’
‘I’m at your house, but you’re not in.’
‘I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘I … just kind of wanted to see you. Your neighbour, the one who loves his lawn, said he’d seen you with a suitcase.’
‘He’s right. I’ve decided to visit Graystock Manor. It’s the place where the tigers live, in Bath.’
‘I’ve heard of it. But, Dad …’
‘Bernadette and her son Nathan were headed that way and asked me to join them.’
‘And you wanted to go …?’
‘Well. Nathan is looking at universities. I’m, er … well, I thought it would be a change.’
Lucy closed her eyes. Her father wouldn’t even have a cup of tea with her if it wasn’t scheduled and now he had taken off with his flame-haired neighbour. He had been holed up in the house for a year. She sensed there was something not quite right about this sudden trip, that her father was keeping something from her. ‘It’s a long way to go on a whim.’
‘It’s got me out of the house.’
Lucy had worried that her father might be vulnerable living on his own. The newspapers were awash with stories about gullible pensioners. Now she didn’t know what to think. Why had he agreed to go with Bernadette all the way to Bath when she couldn’t get him to go to the garden centre for a potter around the bedding plants? She tried to control anxiety from coming through in her voice. ‘When are you coming home?’
‘I don’t know what time I’ll be back. I’m at a bed and breakfast now, and then off to Graystock tomorrow. Anyway, I have to go now, darling. I’ll give you a call when I get home, shall I?’
‘Dad … Dad.’ The line went dead. Lucy stared at her mobile.
She was about to ring him back, but then she started to think about his other strange habits; his strict routines. Whenever she saw him he wore that dreadful mustard tank top. He hadn’t phoned her for weeks. He talked to his plant.
She’d never thought of her parents as old until Mum died. But she did now. If her dad could no longer cope on his own, she would have to start looking into home help or even old people’s homes. She wondered how quickly his mind would go.
Her mouth went dry as she imagined helping him upstairs, feeding him, taking him to the toilet. Instead of a baby to look after, she would have her father.
She stood up and her knees wobbled as she walked toward the garden gate. On top of everything else that had gone wrong in her life, she now had to deal with her father succumbing to dementia.
The breakfast being served downstairs at the B and B smelled delicious. At home he and Miriam only ate cereal. If he had toast then it had to be with Flora margarine rather than Anchor or Lurpak butter. Miriam said that he had to look after his cholesterol, even though the doctor had tested it and told him that it was low. Arthur was used to waking and smelling only freshly washed cotton sheets rather than a full English fry-up. This was a treat. But he did feel guilty about his wife not being here to enjoy it too.
Despite having dropped off yesterday in the car on the way to the B and B, he had slept right through the night. It was the seagulls that had woken him that morning, cawing overhead and tap dancing on the roof.
After his phone call with Lucy last night, he had felt rather tired. He knocked on Bernadette’s door and asked if she minded if he didn’t join her and Nathan for dinner. An early night beckoned and he would see her the next morning. Bernadette nodded but gave him a look to show she was deeply disappointed in him.
He showered, dressed and shaved and made his way to the breakfast room. It was rather jolly, with yellow wipe-clean tablecloths, silk daffodils and framed seaside postcards on the wall. Bernadette and Nathan were already seated at a table for four by the window.
‘Morning,’ he said brightly, joining them.
‘‘Nin’,’ Nathan managed as he poked at the flowers with his knife.
‘Good morning, Arthur,’ Bernadette said. She reached out and lowered her son’s hand. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Like a log actually. And you?’
‘I didn’t have a good night. I woke around three and then things started to wander around my mind. I couldn’t stop them.’
Arthur was about to ask what she had been thinking about but a young waitress, who wore a smart black skirt and a yellow blouse, offered tea or coffee. He noticed that she had an anchor tattooed on one wrist and a rose on the other. This seemed to be a disturbing new trend for young people. He couldn’t understand why such a pretty girl would want to resemble a sailor. Then, he scolded himself for being such a fuddy-duddy. Miriam had always encouraged him to be more liberal. ‘I like your tattoos.’ He smiled. ‘Very nice.’