Mirry In Charge

15

Mirry In Charge

    At the bottom of the steep drive in Kowhai Bay Road Mirry took a deep breath; then she walked determinedly up to the house.

    It had taken her nearly two weeks to pluck up her courage and ring Hamish. She tried the Institute, because even in the first week of the May holidays she was pretty sure he’d be there, he was such a workaholic; but Miss Davies said he’d rung a couple of days earlier to say that Elspeth wasn’t very well, and so he wouldn’t be in this week. Mirry thanked her politely, hung up, and stared unseeingly at the phone for some time; then she said firmly: “No,” and instead of ringing him at home, went and got her bike out.

    Panting a little, for the drive, though modern and neatly concreted, was really very steep, and feeling extremely sick, she rang the bell with a sweaty finger.

    Before she could even pause to think, the door opened abruptly, a small dressing-gowned form gaped at her, cried: “Mirry!” and hurled itself against her, bursting into a storm of sobs.

    “Elspeth!” gasped Mirry, instinctively hugging her to her. They were not actually on hugging terms, as they didn’t know each other at all well—Mirry had always refused Polly’s invitations to casual gatherings where the Macdonalds would be present. So Elspeth and Mirry had only encountered each other on the occasional cosy afternoon with Polly at the beach or on the Carranos’ patio, or at the cinema on visits to such iconic epics as The Muppets Movie, when Polly had needed moral support, and Mirry, a Muppets fan, had been only too glad of an excuse to attend.

    “What’s the matter?”

    Hugging her frantically, Elspeth began to choke out a complex and largely incoherent story, in which Aunty Polly and Uncle Jake going to Japan, Jill and Gretchen not answering their phone, Aunty Margaret being away on a trip with her husband, the Twinnies being down at their Granny’s, and not knowing the doctor’s number all got frightfully mixed.

    “And he keeps talking to himself, and I’m frightened!” she ended.

    “Come inside,” said Mirry, drawing her into the front hall and closing the door. “Don’t cry, Elspeth.”

    Elspeth, however, continued to sob. After staring helplessly at her for a moment Mirry, who was still taller than she was, even though Elspeth had grown two inches in the past year, bent down and put her arms round her.

    “Is Daddy sick—is that it?” Her heart beat uncomfortably fast, and she had a sudden, stupid, irrational feat that he was dead.

    “Aye!” gulped Elspeth, who hardly ever said that any more. “He suh-said it was the flu! He caught it off me—only now—now he wuh-won’t talk to me, and—and—he kuh-keeps suh-saying things to himself!” She gave a terrific snort.

    “Here: take my hanky,” said Mirry who, for a miracle, actually had one in her jeans pocket today. “It sounds as if he’s delirious.”

    “I truh-tried to ring the doctor,” explained Elspeth, having blown her nose, “but I couldn’t find his number: there’s muh-millions of Smiths in the phone book!” This ended on a wail.

    “Aw, heck,” said Mirry involuntarily: “is his name Smith?”

    “Aye: Doctor Smith!” wailed Elspeth.

    Mirry pulled herself together. “Look, never mind. I’ll have a look at Daddy; he might not need the doctor, anyway, if it’s just the flu. Where is he? Is he upstairs?”

    Elspeth sniffled. “Aye; he’s in his room.”

    “Well, you show me where it is.” –She had, of course, never crossed the threshold of the Macdonald residence.

    “Aye,” Elspeth agreed, blowing her nose again, and taking her hand. Elspeth’s was very small and sticky and very hot; it clutched Mirry’s tightly and Mirry felt a strange, tender protectiveness creep over her.

    As they went over to the very modern staircase, which appeared to be made out of the sort of shiny white fibreglass that surfboards are covered in, Mirry saw with a shock that there was no furniture in the large room off to the right; nor was there any furniture in the couple of bedrooms they passed on their way to Hamish’s room.

    “Elspeth, where’s all the furniture?” she said faintly.

    “The lady came and took it; Daddy’s going to buy us some more,” said Elspeth calmly. She tugged at her hand. “Up here.”

    They climbed some steps to a landing, went up another couple of steps at right angles to the first, and found themselves on another landing outside a closed door. Elspeth looked nervously up at Mirry.

    “Come on!” she said cheerfully, opening the door. Hamish’s room was very bare and contained nothing but an electric heater, which was on, a couple of suitcases, neatly closed, and a rumpled single bed, on which Hamish lay, very red in the face, apparently asleep, but sighing and muttering to himself.

    Mirry’s mouth firmed. She crossed to the bed and put her hand on Hamish’s forehead. “Crikey!” she muttered involuntarily.

    “Is Daddy going to die?” asked Elspeth in a terrified voice.

    “No, of course not; I’m pretty sure it is just the flu; but he’s awfully hot; turn that heater off, Elspeth, would you?”

    Elspeth did so, but said doubtfully: “Mummy always put the fire on when I was sick.”

    “Mm, but I expect that was in Scotland, wasn’t it?” said Mirry, unwittingly saying the right thing.

    “Aye,” Elspeth agreed gratefully, realizing that it was all right not to have the electric fire on when you were sick in New Zealand.

    Mirry stripped off Hamish’s duvet and said firmly: “I’m going to try and get his temperature down: do you think you could get me a bowl of cold water and a face-cloth, or a little towel?”

    “Aye, I could do that,” said Elspeth, sounding much more cheerful.

    “Good, then you do that,” said Mirry, putting her hand back on Hamish’s forehead.

    When Elspeth returned Mirry had opened the window; the room was distinctly cooler and the smell of sweat and stale vomit was beginning to dissipate,

    “Was Daddy sick, Elspeth?” she said, taking the bowl.

    “Aye: he was very sick in the toilet; so was I!” said Elspeth proudly.

    Mirry began to bathe Hamish’s face. Elspeth watched with interest. Hamish shuddered and moaned.

    She undid his pyjama jacket and sponged his chest. The jacket was very sweaty and had some dried sick on it, so she said cheerfully: “Do you know where Daddy’s clean pyjamas are, Elspeth?”

    “Aye: in the hot-water cupboard.”

    “Good; well, will you go and get a pair?”

    Elspeth shot off like a rocket and reappeared in double-quick time. She helped happily to replace Hamish’s pyjama jacket—which wasn’t easy, as he was a big man and they were both little—but blenched when Mirry said cheerfully: “Now we’ll change his pyjama pants. You take that leg, and I’ll take this.”

    She grabbed Hamish’s left pyjama leg (having undone the waist cord and eased the pants down to his hip bones) and pulled. “Come on!” she said, panting. Elspeth decided it must be all right, if Mirry was doing it, end pulled at the right pyjama leg.

    When the pants were off Mirry sponged Hamish competently; Elspeth, who had never seen a naked man, watched in awe. After a while she came up quite close and said to Mirry: “Daddy’s got a penis.”

    “Yeah, ’course,” said Mirry in some surprize.

    “The Twinnies have, too: they’re boys,” said Elspeth informatively.

    “Yeah, all boys have them,” she agreed vaguely, trying to figure out how on earth they were going to get the clean pyjamas up around Hamish’s bum.

    “Aunty Polly says it’s all right to say ‘penis’.”

    “Eh? Oh!” said Mirry, suddenly realizing with a jolt just how young her helper was. “Yeah; ’course it’s all right; that’s its name.

    “Mummy said she’d wash ma mouth out wi’ soap if she caught me saying it again,” said Elspeth, rather Scotch.

    “Did she?” replied Mirry vaguely, easing a pyjama leg over Hamish’s left foot. “Well, she isn’t here, is she?”

    “No!” agreed Elspeth with what even in her preoccupation with the immediate problem Mirry noticed with a shock sounded like satisfaction.

    When Hamish was more or less in his clean pyjamas, and Mirry had decided to  leave the problem of changing the tangled, sweaty sheets for the moment, she said to Elspeth: “We’ve gotta get his temperature down; is there any ice?”

    “Ice?” she echoed blankly.

    “Yeah; you know; ice-blocks: in the fridge!”

    “The lady took the fridge away.”

    “Oh, shit!” said Mirry weakly, collapsing limply unto the foot of Hamish’s divan bed.

    Elspeth’s mouth trembled; she came up very close.

    With a bit of a jolt Mirry realized that she mustn’t let herself go in front of the kid; she smiled weakly at her scared face and said: “Listen: do you know the people next-door?”

    “Mrs Tallboys; she’s a nasty lady,” said Elspeth, who’d had a run-in with Mrs Tallboys on the subject of a tennis ball on Mrs Tallboys’s roof.

    “Oh. Well, whaddabout the other side?”

    “Denis and May. They said I don’t have to call them Mr and Mrs Burrell.”

    “Would they be home?”

    “No, they go to work.”

    “Oh. Well, do you know anybody in the street—anybody who’s home?”

    “The Nicholsons went to Rotorua.”

    “Oh.”

    “Whetu and Henare went to their granny’s with their mummy.”

    This was getting them nowhere; Mirry got up and, holding out her hand to her, said determinedly: “Show me where the phone is, Elspeth.”

    As it was only ten-fifteen on a week-day morning, Gary was home: the Chez Basil had started doing lunches but the sous-chef usually did those unless they had a special booking. Basil, as he often did in the mornings, had driven in to the City Markets; he was normally back by now but he’d had to go to their special butcher today, over in Sandringham.

    “No problem!” said Gary cheerfully. “I’ll nip down to the Service Station and get the chilly-bin filled with party ice: that’d be the best thing, I think.”

    “Thanks, Gary!”

    “And if he’s that hot,” said Gary, who was very sensible, although slightly given, according to Basil, to moods, “you’d better get the doctor.”

    “Yeah, only his name’s Smith.”

    “That’ll be Bruce Smith, he’s a real sweetie; hang on, I’ll give you his number.”

    When Gary had rung off Mirry said to Elspeth: “Is your doctor’s name Bruce? Bruce Smith?”

    “Doctor Smith,” replied Elspeth firmly.

    She gulped a bit and rang the number anyway. It was the right doctor; a sympathetic nurse listened to Mirry’s tale of woe, agreed that it sounded like the flu and, to Mirry’s astonishment, because doctors never made house-calls these days unless you were dying, said that Doctor would be round this afternoon, and just to keep the patient cool, and if he woke up to give him lots of fluids and some aspirin.

    Mirry investigated the bathroom nearest to Hamish’s room after that, finding to her revulsion but not to her surprize that it was in a ghastly state, and, putting first things first, re-filled the bowl with cold water and wrung out the now very hot towel that she’d left on his forehead. Elspeth found her a chair and she sat beside Hamish bathing his face until Gary arrived. Elspeth perched at the foot of the bed in her dressing-gown which, now that Mirry had had time to take stock of it, she realized was in just about as nasty a state as Hamish’s pyjamas had been.

    Gary supervised the operation of making an icepack for Hamish’s head, and took his temperature with the thermometer he’d very sensibly brought with him. Mirry turned very green when he told her what it was; Gary said hastily that Baz’s had been much worse when he’d had the flu last year, and what about changing these sheets? He seemed to know all about changing a bed with a very large patient in it—which he did, having looked after innumerable friends and friends of friends in similar plights—and before very long the bed was cool and smooth and Hamish had stopped muttering and appeared to be sleeping fairly peacefully.

    “He’s stopped sweating,” said Mirry in a hopeful voice.

    Gary kindly didn’t tell her that that was very likely not a good sign with the flu, but suggested tranquilly that they investigate the kitchen.

     “Heck!” he said weakly to Elspeth when they had. “What’ve you been living on?”

    Elspeth looked vague. “I wasn’t hungry: I had the flu!” –She seemed quite proud of the fact.

    “Darling,” said Gary firmly to Mirry, “I’m going to pop out to the shops right now, if you’ll be okay by yourself.”

    When he’d gone and Mirry and Elspeth were going upstairs again, Elspeth said: “He called you darling.”

    “Eh? Aw, yeah; he does that.”

    “Is he your boyfriend?” She had just started to take an as yet purely academic interest in such matters.

    “No,” said Mirry weakly: “he’s gay.”

    “Oh,” said Elspeth, who didn’t have a clue what this meant.

    Mirry looked at her, hesitated, and then, since she belonged to the Polly Carrano school of thought about children and the facts of life, not the Sylvie Macdonald one, said: “He’s got a boyfriend, not a girlfriend: his boyfriend is Basil, the man he lives with.”

    Elspeth looked at her as if she’d gone loony. “Men don’t have boyfriends!”

    “Some of them do,” said Mirry firmly—having once decided to take a stand on the matter she wasn’t going to back down now. “That’s what being gay means.”

    Elspeth just said: “Oh.” Mirry couldn’t tell if she believed her or not.

    Gary came back fairly soon with a carload of groceries and competently made them all lunch. Since he was, of course, a professional cook, it was a delicious lunch, featuring a cheesy quiche with tiny bits of bacon in it, followed by (in order not to waste the oven) a tamarillo and apple crumble, with fresh cream.

    Elspeth, who had now revealed to Mirry that she’d breakfasted off a Coke, ate a huge amount and said to Gary: “By cripes, that was good!”

     Gary and Mirry gasped, and burst out laughing.

    “Where the Hell did you get that one from?” asked Gary weakly.

    “What?”

    “‘By cripes’: where the Hell did you get that from?”

    “Grandpa Ian says it.”

    “Down at the farm?” asked Mirry, in a squeaky voice.

    “Aye,” said Elspeth, relapsing into Scotch again.

    Gary and Mirry collapsed in giggles again.

    Hamish woke up at about half-past two and looked without interest at the completely strange blond young man sitting by his bedside.

    Gary of course had recognized him as their little tenant’s ginger friend. He just said mildly: “How are you feeling?”

    “Hot,” said Hamish faintly.

    Gary shook down the thermometer and placed it firmly in his mouth.

    When he took it out and squinted at it Hamish said faintly: “I’ve got… pains in my legs... Who are you?”

    Gary put his head on one side and said: “Mm, definitely flu, I’d say. I’m a friend of Mirry’s. –Drink this.” He poured him a glass of old-fashioned lemon barley water from the big jug at the bedside—he’d bought a bottle this morning, sticking firmly to his mum’s old stand-by and ignoring the newfangled Lucozade.

    Hamish gulped it down and held the glass out. Gary refilled it.

    He drank this lot more slowly, sighed, and said: “Is Mirry here?”

    “Yes; you lie down and go to sleep,” returned Gary, refurbishing the icepack.

    Hamish had closed his eyes anyway. Now he said faintly: “Elspeth—”

    “Yes, Mirry’s looking after Elspeth,” said Gary, putting the icepack on his head again. Hamish sighed.

    Mirry had cleaned the bathroom thoroughly; having discovered that Puppy had only had milk that morning, as Elspeth hadn’t been able to work the tin-opener, she’d got Gary to work it—it was terribly stiff—and, after feeding Puppy and writing “tin-opener” on the shopping list she was compiling, had gone off with Elspeth to do the laundry. Elspeth, it appeared, had no clean clothes. Mirry rightly deduced from this not that Hamish was a rotten housekeeper—she knew he was fanatically neat and kept himself and his clothes spotless—but that he’d been feeling seedy for days.

    “I knew you did that,” said Elspeth, watching as Mirry turned on the taps, put in the detergent, and switched the machine on at the wall, “but I can’t do that,”—as she pushed the big control knob in and turned it round.

    “Yes, you can, it’s easy. Hang on, I’ll turn it off. Now—you have a go.” She showed Elspeth how to work the machine. “There!” she ended happily. “Now you’ll be able to do it for yourself, won’t you?”

    There was no reply; Mirry looked at her in surprise.

    Elspeth said in a very small voice: “Are you going to go away again?”

    Ooh, heck, thought Mirry. “No,” she said: “I’ll stay till Daddy’s quite better.”

    “What if he gets sick again?”

    “I’ll come again. –Is that all right?” she added.

    Elspeth didn’t reply

    “Tell ya what!” said Mirry cheerfully. “I’ll write my number by the phone! Then you can ring me whenever you want to!”

    Elspeth tugged her out to the phone in the passage: it was sitting on the bare boards, “the lady” having apparently taken both the carpet and the telephone table. Mirry duly wrote “Mirry” and her number, very large, on the little pad hanging from the wall.

    “Write it by the other phone, too.” Elspeth tugged her upstairs to Hamish’s study, which did still have a desk, since he’d bought it himself, but no bookcases, and made her write it on the little pad there. Being only just eleven, Elspeth didn’t notice that the number was already on this pad; nor did she notice when Mirry caught sight of it and turned scarlet.

    Hamish woke up once more before the doctor came, scrambled out of bed ignoring the fact that his former lover was sitting where the blond young man had been earlier, and flung himself down his little flight of stairs and into the nearest bathroom, where he retched for quite some time. Mirry and Elspeth followed slowly (Mirry restraining Elspeth) and when Hamish, shuddering all over, was sitting limply on the toilet seat, Mirry soaked a flannel in warm water, and gently wiped his face.

    “Feel better now?”—“Aye.”—“Not going to be sick again?”—“No.”—“Come on; back to bed!”

    He allowed her to support his shaking form back to bed.

    “Daddy’s shivering.”

    “Yes; give me the duvet, Elspeth.” said Mirry, tucking him in.

    “He’s still shivering,” she reported.

    “Yes; it’s the flu; are there any hotties in the house, Elspeth?” She and Gary had already discovered that Hamish’s bed didn’t have an electric blanket.

    “I’ve got one,” replied Elspeth doubtfully.

    “Good; run and get it.”

    Elspeth had been looking at her father with horror; she dashed off to her room.

    Mirry went on looking with equal horror at six-foot-odd of red-haired Scot making the bed shake with his shivering.

    When Elspeth had brought the hottie and Mirry had filled it and was putting it in beside him, Hamish said through gritted teeth: “Cold.”

    “Yes; it’s the flu,” said Mirry, putting the hottie on his midriff and pulling his arms firmly over it.

    He gripped the hottie tightly and she tucked the duvet firmly back over him. The dreadful shuddering continued.

    Elspeth came up very close beside Mirry. “I’m frightened.”

    “There’s nothing to be frightened of; it’s just the flu; everybody gets like that when they’ve got a bad dose of flu,” said Mirry, hoping to God she sounded more convinced than she felt.

    “Can’t—get—warm!” said Hamish between his teeth.

    “Elspeth: go and get the duvet off your bed—and—and bring Puppy, too, if he’s still there.”

    Elspeth ran off to her room and returned with her duvet and Puppy, who had been asleep on it.

    “Right; now we’re all gonna warm Daddy up, okay? We’ll put your duvet on top of his; and then we’ll all get onto the bed and help to keep him warm.”

    “Puppy too?”

    “Yes. He’s nice and warm, isn’t he?”

    “Aye, he is that!” agreed Elspeth, looking more cheerful.

    They put the second duvet on top of him, and then got onto the bed, one on each side of him and Puppy down by his shins, and put their arms right across him. After a while Elspeth put a leg across him, too; Mirry thought What the heck, and copied her.

    Gradually Hamish’s shuddering died away. Mirry looked across at Elspeth to tell her Daddy was asleep, and they could get off, now, and saw that she was asleep, too. What the heck, thought Mirry again, and closed her own eyes.

    Fortunately the house that had been the Beckinsales’ had a very loud front door bell, or Mirry, who had dozed off, would never have heard it: Gary had long since gone, after making quite sure that she could cope alone until the doctor came, all agog with this fascinating new chapter in the saga of the ginger lover.

    Dr Smith duly confirmed it was the flu, told Mirry she’d done exactly what she should have, and tactfully did not enquire as to the exact relationship between the three of them, or the whereabouts of Mrs Macdonald. –Bruce Smith was a young man, and himself living in a relationship with a woman who was not his wife but with whom he had a child, her child by her husband also living with them.

    He wrote a prescription for lots of aspirin, told Mirry to make sure Hamish had plenty of fluids, warned her not to worry if his temperature went up in the late afternoons, and said to expect the fever to break today or tomorrow, at which time the patient would break out in a heavy sweat, and that he himself would in any case call in tomorrow afternoon. Elspeth, he said, was as fit as a flea and only needed feeding up; on request he also inspected Puppy (with a wink at Mirry) and said that Puppy was as fit as a flea, too, and dogs absolutely never got the flu, especially not Labradors.

    By the time the doctor had gone it was almost teatime, so Mirry went down to the kitchen, where she found to her relief, not unmixed with embarrassment, that Gary had baked an extra quiche for tomorrow’s lunch and had left a casserole for tonight on the bench, which only needed an extra hour in the oven—the instructions were sitting under it on a piece of paper: “Don’t forget to put the milk bottle out,” the instructions ended.

    Elspeth, now in clean dry clothes, volunteered to put the bottle out, and Mirry remembered with a start that her bike must still be at the bottom of the drive. Elspeth volunteered eagerly to bring it up. It was only a three-quarters bike, since Mirry herself wasn’t big, but she looked doubtfully at Elspeth’s slight form and said: “Can you manage it, do you think?”

    “Huh!” said Elspeth scornfully. “’Course I can; I’m not a sissy!”

    If there had been anything to sit on in the denuded kitchen, Mirry would have sat down weakly as Elspeth departed.

    She came back with the bike, panting, reporting that he was back and he had another man with him, and they were bringing a bed!

    “What?” Mirry dashed out.

    “Darling!” cried Basil, mopping his brow and panting. “Such crises! One only wishes one had been at hand!”

    Gary, supporting one end of the bed, grinned, and said: “Dunno how we managed without you, really, Baz! –Thought you might need something to sleep on tonight,” he added cheerfully to Mirry.

    “Thanks, Gary!” she cried. “I never even thought—”

    “Too many crises, dear,” said Basil, picking up his end of the bed. “Naturally one can’t think of everything. –Come on, lover!” he added crossly to Gary, just as if it was Gary, not he, who’d stopped to pant.

    Gary was used to him; he just grinned, and got moving again.

    To Mirry’s confusion they insisted on taking the bed—in two trips, it was a divan with an inner-spring mattress—all the way upstairs. “One is not quite in one’s dotage, dear!” said Basil, trying not to pant, as she urged them to put it in one of the downstairs rooms. “Besides, the patient might need your services during the night.”

    “And we hope you don’t mind, darling,” he said, after they’d set up the bed, “but we raided your wee nest and got your own pretty duvet and some of your frillies.”

    “Thuh-thanks, Baz!” she gulped, starting to cry.

    “Now, now, now, dear; none of that!” said Basil sternly, putting his arm around her and drawing her down onto the bed. “Go and get that bottle, lover, one feels the time is now,” he added.

    Gary disappeared downstairs. Elspeth followed him, and watched with interest as he produced a wine bottle from the new carton of groceries they’d deposited in the kitchen.

    “Have you got any glasses?” he asked doubtfully.

    Elspeth produced a Marmite jar and a larger tumbler that he rather thought must originally have contained honey.

    “Is that all?”

    “Daddy’s got the other one.”

    “Oh. Well, get me a cup.” He knew they had plenty of those; they also had a complete dinner set which matched the cups. It was hideous: a bilious yellow with greenish daisies on it; Hamish must have just walked into a shop and bought the first set he’d seen.

    Elspeth handed him the cup and, not yet being at the stage of cringing shyness about anything even remotely related to sex and, having been fed by Gary, naturally considering him as a close friend, said: “Is that man your boyfriend?”

    “Yes,” replied Gary simply.

    She seemed quite satisfied with this reply and asked him if she could have “some of that.”

    Gary produced a bottle of Coke for her.

    Then they all sat on Mirry’s bed (actually Basil and Gary’s spare one, of course) and drank wine or Coke, and laughed and told jokes, and Basil unravelled the mystery of “the lady” who had taken away all the furniture.

    “One heard a rumour, darlings, that the Beckinsales had the house on the market; and a little bird told me that Liz Beckinsale was in town only the other day, and precious Fog B.”—obviously he couldn’t stand the man—“has been posted to somewhere very exciting in the States—what fun!”

    After this he sighed, looked at his watch and said: “Well, one hates to break up the party, but duty calls.”

    To Elspeth’s intense interest Mirry hugged them both, and they kissed her good-bye.

    The patient slept throughout this social gathering; probably just as well, as they’d temporarily all forgotten his existence.

    After the dishes Mirry looked doubtfully at Elspeth and said: “What do you do after tea?” There was no television, and nothing to sit on to watch it if there had been. Elspeth informed her that she had her bath, and then she read a book in bed, and sometimes Daddy read to her if he wasn’t too busy with his work. So they did that, and Mirry was interested to see that Elspeth was reading Missy Lee for the second time—she herself, having grown up on a remote hill farm with no television, had been a voracious reader at Elspeth’s age. All Elspeth’s books seemed to be newish paperbacks; on enquiry Elspeth revealed that she didn’t belong to the Puriri Library.

    “Heck!” said Mirry in horror. “I’ll take you tomorrow, if Hamish isn’t too bad; or the day after.”

    Hamish woke up twice in the night. The first time he was feverish again, and threw up again, and since Mirry’s room was next to his bathroom she heard him and shot in and mopped him up and got him back to bed again, very thankful indeed to find that he didn’t have another shivering fit, although he complained weakly of pains in his legs. The second time he merely needed a pee, and was feeling almost rational; he looked up to see a little dark-haired figure in the doorway that wasn’t his daughter, and said weakly: “What are you doing here?”

    “Looking after you,” replied Mirry.

    “Oh,” said Hamish faintly. “I need a pee.”

    “Well, go on, then.”

    He felt too weak to tell her to go away, or not to watch him, and as it never occurred to Mirry that it could embarrass either of them, she stayed.

    “Lean on me; I’ll help you back to bed.”

    He was too weak to object to that, either. Mirry noticed that he was rather smelly, and made a mental note that if he was too weak to have a shower next day, she must give him a good sponge bath.

    Puppy woke once in the night, and since he was quite a big dog now, very sensibly came and jumped on Mirry, as her door was open. So she got up and let him out, and waited to see if he’d come in again, which he did, because he was, as Elspeth had already informed her, “quite a home-body.”

    Hamish remained very sick for another three days, although after the first of these he didn’t throw up again or have any shivering fits. His temperature, as predicted, rose steeply in the late afternoons, and on the second day he raved a bit, and Mirry, in spite of her modern attitude to children and the facts of life, sent Elspeth out of the room—not that she would have understood a word, probably. Throughout this period he was far too weak to interrogate Mirry as to what she was doing in his house; he was also far too weak to take a shower (or even to stand up for long) so she gave him several warm, soapy sponge baths, admitting to herself somewhat shamefacedly that she thoroughly enjoyed the whole procedure. He did say weakly, the first time she undid his pyjama pants and applied the warm, soapy flannel: “I can do that,” but as Mirry returned cheerfully and energetically: “Crap!” he lapsed into silence.

    On the fourth day, when she bustled into his room with the bowl, the towels, the soap and the flannel, having given Elspeth and Puppy their breakfasts and sent them out to play, he said weakly: “Mirry...”

    “What?” said Mirry, undoing his pyjama jacket.

    Hamish automatically sat up and let her peel it off him.

    “Mirry—”

    “Can you lie on your side?”

    He lay on his side with his back to her and said in a faint, cross voice: “What the Hell are you doing here?”

    Mirry spread out a towel at his back and replied: “Looking after you. The doc reckons its the nastiest case of flu he’s seen in a long time.”

    “Aye, but— How did you get here?”

    Mirry reached over him and undid his pyjama cord. “On my bike. Come on, let’s get these—”

    Hamish put his hands over her little hands that were easing his pyjamas down, and said in a choked voice: “Oh, Mirry!” and began to cry, holding her hands pressed tightly against his genitals.

    “It’s the flu,” said Mirry in a shaken voice. “It makes you weepy.”

    He cried for a little while, and then drew a shuddering breath, and put his hands over his face. Mirry grabbed a bunch of pale blue tissues from the big box Gary had bought, and shoved them at him. “Here.”

    He took them and blew his nose, his head turned determinedly away from her. Mirry didn’t know what to do or say, so she didn’t say anything, and got on with easing his pyjamas off him, and washing his back. When she applied the soapy flannel to the crease in his bum, he shuddered and gave a little moan.

    “Is it too hot?” she said in alarm, stopping, and testing the temperature of the tepid water in her bowl.

    “No,” said Hamish in a muffled voice. After a pause he added: “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

    “Somebody has to,” said Mirry sensibly. Rather gingerly she reapplied the flannel; as he neither moved nor spoke she scrubbed him competently. “I’m just going to change the water,” she said, pulling the covers up over him. Hamish didn’t reply.

    When she returned he was lying on his back, holding the covers tightly up under his chin, rather red in the face. Mirry frowned, and put her hand on his forehead. It wasn’t too hot, so she said: “Come on, let’s be having you!” and attempted to pull the covers down. Hamish held on tightly. Mirry stared at him in astonishment.

    “Don’t!” he said hoarsely.

    “I’ve been looking after you like a helpless baby for the past four days; you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen, you know!” she said, going pink and trying not very successfully not to sound cross.

    His nostrils flickered and his grip tightened on the covers.

    Mirry put her head on one side and looked at him consideringly. After a moment she said matter-of-factly: “Are you stiff?”

    Hamish went redder than ever and made an inarticulate noise.

    “Well, that’s a good sign!” she said encouragingly. “In the morning, anyway. It means you’re getting better. ’Course, you were awfully stiff the other afternoon, but you wouldn’t remember that: you were out of your skull.”

    He gaped at her; Mirry elaborated: “Raving—feverish.”

    “Oh,” said Hamish faintly.

    “Yeah. Come on, Hamish—stop doing the blushing violet act; the water’s getting cold.”

    “Please—” said Hamish in a shaking voice.

    He appeared to have relaxed his grip on the bedcovers, so Mirry whipped them off him. Ignoring his erection, she began to sponge his chest. When the flannel got down to his belly he shuddered, but let her sponge him. Mirry sloshed the flannel in the bowl, squeezed it out and applied a little more soap. She bent over him again.

    Hamish caught her wrist. “For God’s sake, girl—don’t!”

    “Well—all right; you do it, then.”

    To her consternation he released her wrist, closed his eyes, and began weakly to cry again.

     Mirry took a deep breath. She dropped the flannel back in the bowl and said: “Look—Elspeth’s out in the garden; she won’t be in again for a while. Do you want me to jerk you off?”

    “God,” said Hamish faintly, his eyes still closed.

    She wasn’t at all sure whether this was a consent or a reproach: he didn’t like the word expression “jerk off” any more than he liked “dick.” She looked at him doubtfully. Oh, what the heck! she thought, and took his penis gently in her right hand. Hamish shuddered but said nothing, so Mirry stimulated him competently; he lay there quite passive, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, until just at the end, when he jerked himself fiercely against her hand, moaned, shuddered violently, and gave a series of hoarse gasps as he came.

    “There!” said Mirry gently. She wiped him carefully with the flannel, rinsed it, and sponged his balls tenderly. His eyes were still shut. Going very pink, Mirry bent and dropped a kiss on the very white patch of skin just above his beautiful auburn pubic hair.

    Hamish opened his eyes and said painfully: “Don’t you despise me, then?”

    “What for? For being human?” she replied in a voice that tried to be cheerful but had a little wobble in it.

    He gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes again. Mirry dried his genitals gently with the towel, and he gave another deep sigh. She pulled up the covers and went to change the water again before doing his legs and feet; when she came back he was fast asleep on his back with his mouth open, snoring a little. She gave a tiny smile and decided that his legs and feet could wait.

    Hamish didn’t refer to the incident that day, so Mirry didn’t either. He did seem rather better, as at lunchtime he ate some blancmange. –Mirry, having been fed on junket in her own childhood illnesses, would have tried to make that, but the obliging Gary had reported that one couldn’t get rennet these days for love or money, and had suggested blancmange as appropriately bland—and not to go near Edmond’s Custard Powder, dear, it was disgusting. Fielder’s Cornflour was what you needed.

    In the evening, after he was over the expected bout of fever—much milder, today—he told her weakly that he could fancy a bit of bread-and-butter. Mirry usually ate coarse wholemeal and kibbled breads herself, but in consideration of his invalid status she had bought a loaf of white bread; so she made him some very dainty, lacy pieces of bread-and-butter, which unfortunately had to go on one of the bilious yellow plates. He ate them up hungrily and drank four cups of tea.

    The next morning when she went into his room with her bowl and towels he was sitting on the edge of his bed with his dressing-gown on.

    “I’m going to have a shower,” he said in a cross voice, not looking at her.

    “Righto,” said Mirry comfortably; “I’ll give you a hand into the bathroom, shall I?”

    Hamish allowed her to assist him into the bathroom, where she turned the shower on for him.

    “I’ll be in my room, just next-door, if you need me,” she said firmly, going out.

    Knowing how proud he was she was considerably surprized when, some time after the water had been turned off, a shaky voice said: “Mirry?”

    She shot into the bathroom. He was sitting weakly on the toilet, huddled in his towel, still very wet.

    “I—haven’t got the bluidy strength to…”

    “Let me.” She towelled him briskly, concerned to see he was shivering a little.

    “Can you get into your pyjamas?” He managed the jacket but looked weakly at the pants and said: “I don’t think...”

    “Never mind, just put your dressing-gown on, eh?” He had sat down on the toilet again, and made no move to rise; Mirry draped the dressing-gown around him and said: “There’s no hurry; we’ll just sit here for a bit, okay?”

    “Aye,” he said in a very faraway voice.

   There was nowhere for Mirry to sit, as the bathroom contained only the shower, the toilet, and a tiny hand-basin, so she squatted on the floor.

    After a while she said: “Do you think you can make it, now?”

    “Aye,” he said grittily.

    He leaned on her very heavily going up the little staircase; Mirry reflected, not for the first time, that if only there was a bed in that big bedroom down the passage from hers, the one with an ensuite, she’d move him into it, it’d make everything so much easier. She had thought of moving her own bed into it for him, but had discovered to her chagrin that it was too heavy for her with the mattress on it, and that she couldn’t get the mattress off, it was both too heavy and too unwieldy.

    When he reached his bed Hamish sat down heavily.

    “Come on; shall we take your dressing gown off?”

    “Too—tired.”

    “You’d better lie down, then.” She pulled back the covers and had to tug at him until he worked up the strength to lie down and lift his legs up. “That’s right!” she said, panting, helping with the legs. He closed his eyes and she pulled the covers over him, dressing-gown and all.

    By lunchtime, however, after a very sound sleep, he seemed much perkier, and Mirry, who had been really very frightened by his exhaustion, decided the shower must have done him good, and she wouldn’t need to ring nice Dr Smith, after all.

    Hamish, who had determined when he woke up that morning that he would interrogate her as to exactly why she was in his house without taking any nonsense about bikes this time, could not work up the energy to do so either that day or the next—in fact the next, he had two very weepy fits. As Mirry got some of Gary’s beef broth into him that day along with more bread and blancmange, he was feeling much better by the following day. He managed to have a shower all by himself and when Mirry suggested an egg for breakfast, agreed.

    She was relieved to see, coming back for his tray, that he’d eaten up every scrap of the egg plus the white bread that had accompanied it, and had drunk his orange juice—having earlier informed her he loathed it at breakfast—and some very weak, milky coffee.

    “Will you be okay by yourself this morning? We’re going into Puriri to the Library.”

    “Yes!” said Elspeth ecstatically. “Mirry says they’ve got lots of books I’d like, and I can have my own card, and be a Borrower!”

    “Aye, I’ll be fine.” He hesitated. “How are you going to get there?”

    “On the bus, of course,” replied Mirry, taking his tray and smiling into his eyes.

    Hamish went pink, and said hoarsely: “Why don’t you take the car? –Elspeth, get my keys, they’re in my jacket pocket—in the wardrobe.”

    Elspeth brought him the keys, and he held them out to Mirry. “It’s quite easy to drive; it’s an automatic; do you think you can manage?”

    “Yeah; ’course!”

    Suddenly he turned scarlet and said in a stifled voice: “Elspeth—get me ma wallet, there’s a good wee girl.”

    He opened the wallet with shaking fingers and extracted some banknotes. “Here.” He laid them on the tray that Mirry was holding. “You’ll need to get some petrol; and to—to do some shopping, nae doot.”

    “No!” said Elspeth cheerfully. “We’ve got lots of groceries: Gary and Basil brought them!”

    “What?” said Hamish in a strangled voice.

    “I’ll explain later,” said Mirry, hurrying out with the tray.

    “Wait—” said Hamish, but his daughter shot out in Mirry’s wake.

    He lay back weakly against his pillows. He didn’t try to interrogate Elspeth when she dashed in again five minutes later with Puppy—to keep him company—wearing an anorak that was too large for her and that he didn’t recognize: pink with green and silver patches on it, and with a bunch of bright lemon pompoms attached high on the left shoulder.

    Elspeth said proudly: “Look what Mirry lent me!”

    “Very pretty,” he replied faintly.

    “Mirry said to tell you we’re going to have lunch in Puriri and we’ll be back about two o’clock,” she added, dancing out.

    Hamish lay back weakly against his pillows. After a while Puppy crept up beside him and pushed his wet nose into his hand.

    Hamish, who did not approve of dogs on the bed and had only allowed Puppy to go on Elspeth’s because she was a poor little girl whose mother had gone off to Scotland (his wistful picture, not hers), allowed him to do this, and began absently to stroke him. Puppy gave a large gulping belch, closed his eyes, sighed heavily and went to sleep. Hamish thought disconnected and embarrassed thoughts for a while, like: What was she doing in his house, anyway? and: How much had those gay friends of hers laid out on groceries? He must repay them as soon as possible. And: She and Elspeth seemed to be getting on very well together; and: She looked so sweet in that floppy yellow jersey of hers (not Elspeth); and: Oh, God, he must get things sorted out... Then he went to sleep, too.

    They had a lovely time in Puriri and didn’t get back until nearly three; not that it mattered, for Hamish was still fast asleep, and only woke up when Puppy heard their voices coming up the drive and sat up and began to bark enthusiastically.

    Elspeth brought Daddy up a tray containing a bowl of beef broth (Gary again), a plate of wholemeal bread-and-butter, a neatly sectioned orange, and a custard tart (bought in Puriri). She kindly kept him company and told him all about their doings in Puriri and about the Library, and about the Man.

    “What man?” said Hamish sharply.

    Elspeth couldn’t remember his name, but he was a friend of Mirry’s and he was a student, too, and they’d all had lunch together.

    Hamish ate the rest of his lunch in a brooding silence.

    When Elspeth appeared with his dinner-tray in the early evening (after having first come in to see if his fever had gone), and then came back later to take it away, it began to dawn on Hamish that Mirry was avoiding him.

    “Where’s Mirry?”

    “In the kitchen.”

    “Oh.”

    “She’s making marmalade,” added Elspeth, taking up the tray. “You make it from lemons and oranges: you cut them up and put them in a big pot.”

    “Aye, I know; your Granny always used to make marmalade.”

    “Mirry says you can have some for your breakfast if you feel up to it,” said Elspeth, hurrying off.

    “Elspeth—”

    But Elspeth had gone.

    After a while a delicious smell began to percolate up to Hamish’s room and he realized that Mirry was undoubtedly making the marmalade with the kitchen door open. At first he felt very annoyed, for the whole house was going to smell of marmalade, and his tidy soul was offended; then he began to get an awful hankering for fresh marmalade; after a while he simply couldn’t bear it, and got out of bed, put his dressing-gown and slippers on, and made his way, shaky but determined, to the kitchen.

    “Hamish! –Elspeth, get up and let Daddy sit down!”

    Hamish sank onto a chair—one from the cheap dining suite he’d bought after Liz Beckinsale had reclaimed all her furniture. After a few moments he managed to say: “How’s the marmalade?”

    “Good!” said Mirry cheerfully, licking her finger. “Blow, this jar’s all sticky—Elspeth, hand me that cloth.”

    She wiped the sticky jar and fastened its jam cover over it.

    “’Nother one?” said Elspeth.

    “Mm.”

    Elspeth dipped a jam cover quickly into a saucer of water and handed it to Mirry. Mirry slapped it onto the next jar and put a rubber band round it.

    “You have to do it while it’s hot,” said Elspeth informatively to Hamish. –’Nother?”

    “Mm.”

    The operation continued. Elspeth said informatively to Hamish: “Basil gave us lots of lemons.”

    “Mm—off his tree—give us another jam cover, Elspeth.”

    When Mirry had covered all the jars she sighed and said: “There!”

    “Let’s hope the bloody stuff sets!” said Elspeth cheerfully.

    This was a quotation. Mirry looked at her weakly. “Yeah.”

    “This has set,” Elspeth reported, investigating a portion of marmalade in a soup bowl.

    “Yeah, it oughta set like a rock: those lemons were green enough.”

    “Can I eat it?”

    Mirry hesitated. “Um—maybe Daddy might like some, too.”

    “Yes, please,” said Hamish meekly.

    “Get the white bread and the butter, Elspeth,” said Mirry. “We’ll all have some; and I’ll make a pot of tea.”

    Although Hamish had eaten a very good meal, he now discovered he was very hungry again; Mirry was hungry again after her exertions with the marmalade, and Elspeth was always hungry; so they all sat round the kitchen table—actually the cheap dining table, which Mirry and Elspeth, panting and cursing, had shifted into the kitchen because the dining-room was cold and because Mirry, who of course was used to the big farm kitchen at home, was going nuts without a kitchen table—and ate fresh white bread and butter with brand-new lemon and orange marmalade on it, and drank cups of milky tea.

    “Mirry knows how to make jam, too,” Elspeth said to Hamish.

    “Do you?” he said weakly.

    “Yeah; we always used to make our jam at home.”

    “Mirry says it’s easy; you can make it out of plums, can’t you, Mirry?”

    “Mm.”

    “But it’s the wrong time of year for plums, isn’t it, Mirry?”—“Yeah.”—“But Mirry says we might get some cheap kiwifruit and make jam out of them; that’ll set like a rock, won’t it, Mirry?”—“Yeah, so long as they’re hard ones.”—“Yeah, and Mirry can make chutney, too; you can make it out of—of—what are those red things that Gary put in the pudding, Mirry?”—“Tamarillos.”—“Yes, tamarillos; Mirry says chutney’s nice, Daddy, you eat it on meat, don’t you, Mirry? Only Mirry doesn’t eat much meat so she eats it on cheese, don’t you—”

    “Elspeth!” said Hamish in faint protest, leaning his head in his hand.

    “I think Daddy’s tired, Elspeth,” said Mirry firmly, getting up. “Why don’t you go and have your bath, and then we’ll read a bit of that library book.”

    “But—”

    “Get going,” said Mirry firmly.

    Elspeth went.

    Mirry cleared the table and began to wash up their crockery and the marmalade paraphernalia. Hamish watched her limply. After a while he said: “I’m sorry if she’s being a bit of a handful for you.”

    She laughed. “No! She’s okay!”

    He fell silent. Mirry went on competently with the washing up. When she was drying a huge pot that he’d never seen before in his life, he said: “Where did you get that from?”

    “The preserving pan? It’s Gary’s.”

    Hamish went very red and said: “How much did they spend on groceries for us?”

    “l dunno,” replied Mirry vaguely.

    “We must pay them back!”

    “Yes; only I haven’t got any money.”

    He went redder than ever. “I’ll write you out a cheque.”

    “Ta.”

   After some time he said jerkily: “Mirry—”

    “Yeah?”

    Another flush crept up his neck; instead of saying what he’d meant to he said huskily: “You haven’t been spending your own money, have you?”

    “Not really; only on the odd bottle of milk, and that sort of thing.”

    “Take it out of the cheque,” he said hoarsely.

    “Balls!”

    Hamish looked fixedly at his hands, which had begun to tremble. He shoved them into the pockets of his dressing-gown.

    Mirry finished drying and putting away. She began to wipe the table.

    “We’ve got to talk,” he said faintly.

    “When you’re feeling stronger,” she replied firmly. She finished wiping the table, rinsed the sponge, dried her hands, and said: “You’d better get back to bed; do you think you can make it up the stairs?”

    Hamish frowned and opened his mouth to say of course he could. Then he closed it again. Then he said weakly: “I don’t know.”

    “I’ll help you; we’ll just take it very slowly.”

    “Aye,” he said, grabbing the edge of the table and hauling himself up.

    Mirry inserted herself under his armpit. “Hang on to me—okay?”

    “Okay,” he replied faintly.

    Their progress up the stairs was very slow and shaky; they had a rest on the landing, but even so Hamish turned all wobbly halfway up the second flight and said: “Have to... siddown...”

    “God, no!” said Mirry, clutching him. “I’ll never get you up again!”

    He gave the ghost of a laugh and leaned on her heavily.

    When he was finally back in bed he gave another faint laugh and said: “Worse ’n Everest!”

    “Yeah, but now you’ve done it once you can do it again; it shows you’re on the mend!”

    Hamish sighed and closed his eyes. Mirry looked at his pale, delicate eyelids with their thick golden lashes and was seized by an awful need to bawl her eyes out. She dashed down the little staircase and into her own room, where she threw herself on her duvet and wept.

    “Mirry?” said a frightened little voice. “Are you crying?”

    Mirry gulped and sat up, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes.

    “Is Daddy sick again?”

    “Ndo!” said Mirry with a sniff. “He’s buch better!”

    “Was Daddy mean to you?” asked Elspeth uncertainly.

    Mirry opened her mouth to deny this, looked into the innocent grey-green eyes that were so like his, only with black lashes, and burst into snorting sobs.

    Elspeth looked at her uncertainly. Then she went into her father’s room. “Mirry’s crying!” she said loudly and accusingly.

    Hamish was lying flat on his back in exhaustion. He opened his eyes and said with great difficulty: “What?”

    “Mirry’s crying!” said Elspeth again.

    “God,” said Hamish faintly. He closed his eyes and lay gathering his strength. Elspeth glared accusingly at him.

    “Elspeth,” he said weakly at last: “Go—go and tell Mirry...”

    “That you’re sorry?” said Elspeth quickly.

    “I—yes… Ask her to come here,” he added; Elspeth shot off so fast that he doubted whether she’d heard this.

    Elspeth dashed into Mirry’s room. “Daddy says he’s sorry!”

    “What?” said Mirry groggily.

    “Daddy says he’s sorry!” repeated Elspeth triumphantly.

    Mirry wiped her hand across her eyes and said: “Are you making that up, Elspeth?”

    “No! Daddy said it!” She went very red but maybe it was the red of indignation rather than the red of being caught out in a lie.

    “He didn’t do anything, Elspeth,” she said feebly.

    Elspeth got rather pouty and said: “Well, he said he was sorry!” Mirry was looking at her dubiously; she remembered the rest of her message and added quickly: “And he wants to see you!”

    “Did he say that?”

    “Yes.”

    “Elspeth,” said Mirry in a trembling voice, “what did you say to him?”

    Elspeth looked surprized. “I said you were crying, of course; and then he said to tell you he was sorry and he wants to see you.”

    Mirry got up slowly and fumbled in the pocket of her jeans. “Damn!” She sniffed.

    “Come on!” said Elspeth, tugging at her hand.

    Mirry allowed herself to be dragged into Hamish’s room.

    “Here she is!” said Elspeth proudly.

    Hamish opened his eyes and looked weakly at Mirry. She went scarlet but looked defiantly back at him.

    “You are sorry, aren’t you, Daddy?” said Elspeth quickly.

    “Yes; very sorry,” he replied huskily. He held out hand to Mirry.

    When she didn’t react Elspeth said, in a voice that had a wobble in it: “Are you cross, Mirry?”

    “No,” replied Mirry huskily, “I’m not cross.”

    Elspeth looked at her father’s hand and then at Mirry, and pointed out: “He wants you to hold his hand.”

    Mirry gave a rather mad little laugh.

    “Go on, Mirry!” said Elspeth, tugging at her sleeve.

    Mirry allowed Elspeth to drag her to Hamish’s bedside.

    “I’m sorry,” he said faintly.

    “You didn’t do anything,” she replied, redder than ever.

    “Yes, I did,” he said, looking into the slanted dark eyes. “I’m… Hellishly… sorry...”

    With dismay Elspeth saw that Daddy was crying now! “Don’t cry, Daddy; Mirry’s not cross; are you, Mirry?”

    “No; don’t cry, Hamish,” she said, putting her hand in his.

    “Bluidy… flu,” he whispered.

    “Yes, I know.”

    “All my… fault… Realize now...”

    “Ssh; we’ll talk about it when you’re feeling better.” She squeezed his hand.

    “Don’t... go,” he said faintly.

    “No, I won’t go.” She sat down on the chair by his bedside, still holding his hand.

    Elspeth came up very close. Mirry put her free arm round her.

    “Is Daddy asleep?” she whispered after a while.

    “I think so,” whispered Mirry uncertainly.

    “No,” said Hamish faintly.

    After a while Elspeth began to fidget.

    “Do you need to go to the toilet?” said Mirry quietly.

    “No,” lied Elspeth. She fidgeted a lot more. Then she crossed one leg over the other and stood like that with a very red face.

    “Go to the toilet now, Elspeth,” said Mirry in a low but steely voice.

    Elspeth went.

    When she came back Hamish had fallen asleep, so Mirry sent her firmly to bed. After a while she fell asleep, too.

    Poor Puppy, failing to wake anybody in the middle of the night, for Elspeth always slept like the dead, Mirry’s room was empty, and Hamish’s door was closed—Elspeth, being a well-trained little Scottish girl who was used to draughty Scottish houses, having closed it after her—went down to the kitchen and did a puddle on the vinyl floor. He was awfully surprised when nobody was cross with him the next morning.

Next chapter:

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