‘Supposing you had another TIA?’
‘Don’t talk to me in initials. It’s a sloppy habit, and I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Transient ischaemic attack. If you’d been alone when you had that one—’
‘My dear Perdita, do let’s have a drink. I don’t think I can stand all this concern without one.’
Perdita didn’t say a word about alcohol being bad for her, and nor did she protest when Kitty lit her pipe. ‘Mrs Ledham-Gold distinctly told me that the doctor – your doctor, Dr Edwards – said you weren’t to go home unless there was someone there.’ He had also said he wanted to discuss Kitty’s aftercare with her, but Perdita didn’t mention this.
‘Very well, if you insist on bullying me, you can stay here tonight, but tomorrow I’ll ask Dr Edwards if he can come down and talk some sense into you. I am really not ready to be treated as a semi-competent invalid yet.’
‘OK.’ Perdita took a sip of whisky, which she only drank in emergencies. ‘If he says I can go home, I’ll go home. But if he doesn’t, you’re stuck with me, like it or not. Now I’ll go and get us some supper.’
‘That would be lovely,’ said Kitty, as if she hadn’t been showing Perdita the door only moments earlier.
Kitty arranged for Dr Edwards to visit the following afternoon. Perdita rushed through her jobs so she could be there, not daring to be a second late in case Kitty bullied the doctor into saying what she wanted him to.
Dr Edwards, a tall, well-set-up man in his forties, was courteous and pleasant, and Kitty was very fond of him. He didn’t lie to her and he had the right accent: Kitty, for all her endearing ways, was a snob. She liked a doctor to speak the Queen’s English.
He always asked after Kitty’s garden, knowing she was more willing to talk about that than her health. Today, when he arrived, Kitty offered him sherry, although it was tea-time. It was, Perdita knew, to give Kitty a little Dutch courage; the thought of losing her independence reminded her of her old age. And her old age was something she’d managed to ignore up until now.
The doctor accepted the sherry gracefully and seated himself on the sofa.
‘Have a cheese straw,’ said Kitty. ‘Not home-made, I’m afraid, but just about edible. Perdita, dear, help yourself to sherry and pour me one.’ Kitty secretly despised sherry, Perdita knew well, but probably didn’t want to scare the doctor by drinking neat whisky at half-past four in the afternoon.
When they all clutched cut-glass glasses, and the cheese straws had done the rounds, the doctor got down to the point. ‘Mrs Anson, your …’ he glanced at Perdita, unsure how to describe her.
‘Perdita is nothing whatever to do with me, she just inflicted herself on me when she was a child. She’s not related to me in anyway.’ Kitty smiled lovingly at her.
‘May I call you Perdita?’ the doctor asked.
‘Of course. She’s just a child and knows nothing about
anything except growing mutant lettuces,’ said Kitty.
Perdita laughed. ‘Yes, do.’
The doctor looked at the two women, one of whom he had got to know over the years, and the other, much younger, whom he knew only by repute. ‘Mrs Anson asked me to come here this afternoon to tell you, Perdita, that she can live perfectly well by herself.’
Perdita nodded, hoping fervently that he could see through Kitty’s ability to put on a brave face, and appear much heartier than she really was.
‘Well, at the moment, she can.’
‘There you are!’ Kitty was triumphant. ‘I told you that you were fussing quite unnecessarily.’
He addressed Perdita. ‘For her age,’ he glanced at Kitty, apologetic for discussing her health in front of her, ‘she’s really in very good form. But she has had this TIA, and she could have another one.’ Perdita wondered if Kitty was about to tick the doctor off for talking in initials. ‘However,’ Dr Edwards went on, ‘I don’t think there is any need for Perdita to move in with you at the moment.’ Sunshine radiated from Kitty’s wrinkled face. ‘But you will have to make some compromises.’ He turned sternly to her.
‘Well, of course, anything within reason …’
‘I’m not going to ask you to give up your pipe.’
Perdita bit her lip but said nothing.
The doctor answered her unspoken question. ‘There’s no point in doing things to prolong your life at your age, you’re already prolonged.’ He smiled and Kitty glowed under his charm. ‘But you must have a personal alarm, a button you wear round your neck and can press if anything happens. The signal is picked up by the ambulance station who’ll get in touch with Perdita, or whoever is nearest. If they can’t they send an ambulance.’
‘Really,’ muttered Kitty, ‘it sounds quite unnecessary to me. I can’t bear new-fangled gadgetry.’
‘It’s that or contact a private nursing agency and have
carers in day and night,’ said the doctor smoothly. ‘Which would be very expensive and not really necessary at this stage.’
Kitty and the doctor locked eyes, both strong-minded and determined. Kitty backed down first. ‘Oh, very well, I’ll have your gadget then.’
‘And I’ll get a mobile phone. That way I can guarantee to be there if it goes off,’ said Perdita. If Kitty was willing to take on ‘gadgetry’ it was only fair that Perdita should too.
The doctor raised his eyebrows, as if to wonder why she hadn’t got one already. Perdita changed the subject. ‘What happens if Kitty has another – transient ischaemic attack?’
‘Then we have to consider the likelihood of her – you – ’ he smiled again at Kitty, ‘having a full-blown stroke. If that happens—’
‘I shall get Perdita to give me a lethal injection. I’m not going into a home.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ said Perdita firmly. ‘There’s no question of it.’
‘Besides, you haven’t had the stroke yet,’ said the doctor. ‘You might get run over by a bus.’
Kitty snorted. ‘Precious little chance of that around here! Do you know how infrequent the buses are in the village? You could die of exposure waiting for one.’
‘But if you do have a stroke, and it’s a possibility we must consider, you could stay here if Perdita lived with you, and you had proper nursing care.’
‘It’s a lot of nonsense about nothing,’ said Kitty. ‘Can I offer you another drink?’
Perdita showed the doctor out after Kitty had shown him the garden, proving to him just how fit and healthy she was. He was carrying several flowerpots with rooted cuttings in them from Kitty’s greenhouse, and had a sprig of wintersweet in a bag to take home to his wife.
‘She is remarkably fit for her age,’ he said, even before Perdita could express her concern. ‘And there’s really no point in making her give up the things in life which give her pleasure. But there is a very real danger of stroke, which could make life very different for her. With the best will in the world, you could never look after her on your own, even if you didn’t have a business to run. You’d have to have help, which would be very expensive. Could Mrs Anson afford private nursing care, do you know?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know. She’s always trying to give me money, but that doesn’t mean she’s got a lot of it. She’s just generous.’
‘I suggest you try and find out. Then you can both be prepared if the worst happens. I’d very much like to think of Mrs Anson dying peacefully and painlessly in the night, and I’m sure you do too,’ he added firmly, ‘but if that doesn’t happen, it’s a good idea to have a contingency plan. There are agencies who supply carers.’
Perdita sighed, more loudly than she realised.
‘I don’t suppose you go to the doctor very often, do you?’
‘No. But there’s no need, I’m never ill.’
‘Even if you’re not, you can always come and see me if you’re worried about Mrs Anson, or anything.’
Perdita, who was already emotionally strung out, felt tears come into her eyes. ‘That’s very kind,’ she said huskily.
When she went back, Kitty was in the sitting room, still wearing her gardening clogs, looking far more tired than she’d allowed the doctor to guess. Perdita cooked her an omelette and told her that she was staying the night, in spite of what the doctor had said.
Kitty accepted this without argument, an indication that the doctor hadn’t been unnecessarily pessimistic. Kitty seemed to feel this too.
‘To misquote dear Winston,’ she said, ‘it’s not the
beginning of the end, but I have a feeling it’s the end of the beginning.’
Perdita hugged Kitty very hard. ‘I expect you’re right. But although I can’t promise to administer a lethal injection, I do promise you won’t go into a home while I have breath in my body.’
Not usually much given to physical contact, Kitty returned the hug. ‘Thank you for that. It would be important to me to stay here. Though, of course, the moment I thought I was becoming a burden, I’d …’
‘Don’t!’
‘Well, if you’re squeamish … But I have a little something for you.’ Kitty went over to the mantelpiece in the kitchen and produced an envelope from behind the clock. ‘To save you the trouble of opening it, it’s the money for a new van. Don’t argue. If all my money goes on private nurses, and I assure you I do have plenty of money, I want you to have something. Save on death duties.’
‘Only if you live seven years.’ Perdita refused to take the envelope.
‘Darling, I can’t guarantee to do that, but it would give me an incentive to look after myself, the thought of cheating the tax man.’
‘That’s very tax-man-ist. They’re probably perfectly nice people.’
‘I thought you were a perfectly nice person until you got so stubborn. Take the cheque and buy a van with it! Besides,’ Kitty knew when she was winning, ‘if I have one of these blasted bleepers, you’ll have to keep running to my side, you’ll need a reliable vehicle.’
‘It doesn’t have to be new-from-the-shop new,’ said Perdita, when she had opened the envelope, and seen the vastness of the amount written.
‘Yes it does. Buy the best and it will last you longer, that’s what Lionel used to say. And he was right. Now do go to bed. You have to be up early, and Veronica lent me a
book I’ve been wanting to read for ages.’
‘Oh?’ Kitty was a voracious and critical reader, devouring all the latest biographies and histories. ‘Is that the book about Byron you were telling me about?’
‘No, dear. It’s the new Patricia Cornwell. Why didn’t you tell me about her?’
Once New Year was over and the shops had reopened properly, Perdita used some of her father’s cheque to buy a mobile phone. Completely at the mercy of the man in the shop, she did exactly what he told her, signed on for the arrangement he thought best, and generally put up no resistance. Nor did she make much effort to learn how to use it; she was much more excited about her new van.
She had to wait three weeks, and when it finally arrived, she found driving it such a different experience she hardly knew herself. She hadn’t realised how heavy and difficult the old one had been until she didn’t have to manage it any more.
Lucas must have been waiting for her the first time she took it to Grantly House, because he appeared as she opened the back doors.
‘You’ve got a new van, then,’ he said.
‘Ten out of ten for observation,’ she said glibly. ‘Kitty paid for it,’ she added more seriously.
‘So how is Kitty, now she’s home?’ Lucas took a tray of salads from Perdita’s hands.
‘She seems fine. She wouldn’t let me go and live with her, though. But at least she’s got an alarm now.’ She took another box out, and Lucas indicated she should put it on top of the one he was holding. ‘I’ve got a mobile phone.’
‘Welcome to the twentieth century. And is the alarm system working OK?’ he asked.
‘Well, yes. I was contacted a couple of times, and rushed over only to find Kitty in the garden, fit as a flea. She kept banging it on things and setting it off by mistake. She
wears it tucked into her clothes now.’ Perdita heaved out another box and made to follow Lucas.
‘She does wear it, then?’ he asked when they were through the kitchen.
‘She did protest when I kept jumping up out of nowhere, as she put it. But I threatened her with twenty-four-hour care if she didn’t persevere with it, so she agreed.’ She watched Lucas reverse into the cold store, holding the door open for her to follow. ‘It’ll probably come to that, though.’
‘Not necessarily. She might die in the night. People do.’ Lucas peered into the first box, frowning. ‘What is this muck you’ve brought me? We have our own compost heap, you know. We don’t need contributions from yours.’
‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it!’ she snapped, after a few moments’ tense inspection. ‘You’re so bloody fussy.’
‘I have standards I like to maintain, that’s all.’
‘Well, do you want the other boxes, or not?’
‘I might find something salvageable in them, I suppose.’
As Perdita stormed back to her van she realised that Lucas had probably made her angry on purpose, to stop her feeling depressed about Kitty. If so, his plan had worked.