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HARRY

Harry secured the bolts at top and bottom of the conservatory door, and recalled that the distance to it from the break in the hedge was about ten paces. He’d done that calculation before but couldn’t remember why.

                The French windows, giving access to the conservatory, had dead locks which he closed.  The route back through scattered furniture and debris was torturous but he eventually got to the front door and locked it.  He thought about windows, but the intruders were big men and would have to come through a door. 

                There had always been a threat since Pearl left him alone.  The pair of them made the house seem safe and impregnable. Any danger from intruders was ridiculous.  With Pearl at his side, neither had really grown old and, at least in her eyes, he was still the big strong and courageous man she had married.  Because she believed that, he had believed it too.  Nobody would have dared intrude on them in the old days.  Now there was this new threat.

                It had started with the repeated appearance of the chap called  Sydney.  Harry was pleased to let him in at first. Then, as his insistent  nosiness got stronger and more irksome, Harry had kept him out by every possible means, including shouting and slamming the door in his face.  He kept coming back and ringing the front door bell urgently.  Harry knew it was all about Pearl’s jewelery, and he had said no, she couldn’t have any of it since he had bought it all and, what’s more, if she wanted anything other than the clothes she had left in it was divorce, so sod off.    Harry had hidden the bits and pieces and the engagement and wedding rings.  There were also the trinkets and bracelets; bought with his money, from Fetes and the Sunday Markets.  He wondered why she had left them behind, was it in temper?  He couldn’t remember.

                Had Pearl really left?  Perhaps she had just gone out.  Harry had got used to these small confusions.  They seemed to resolve themselves quite quickly but they were a nuisance when they

came and broke into his routine.   It was his practice, when this happened, to stop what he was doing and go to sit in the front room on the old squashy couch, where he and Pearl had so often shared a gentle passion, and let things right themselves again. He did so now, and tried to put his ducks in order as she would say.

                Of course, he remembered now. It had been the ‘Social’ calling so urgently; banging on the door.  It had been  Malcolm, the social worker, not Sydney.  He would have to try and remember that.  Malcolm was the Social who had started to call soon after Pearl left.  It was Sydney whom he thought of each time he was reminded of Pearl but - and there it was again - he couldn’t remember why.  He knew that Sydney was the big man because Malcolm had called him that.  It was Sydney whom Harry had seen peering through the windows again and again. He had shouted at Sydney too.

                ‘Bugger off, you,’ he’d said.

                Of course Pearl hadn’t left.  She died. There had been ham sandwiches on that table, there, and sherry from posh glasses he’d never seen before. That’s settled then.  Now to get on.

                Now, what had he been doing?  He rose from the couch and went to the kitchen. He would make a cup of tea and remember.  The kettle boiled and he scalded a finger.   He’d have to be more careful, and that reminded him. He’d been worried about the intruders.  He had seen the men looking through the conservatory glass and dashing round to the front.  Then the front door bell had rung and he’d heard Malcolm whispering, saying he was worried that Harry might have been out on his own, or not well.  Harry shouted angrily about the big bloke looking in through the window, but Malcolm said it was only Sydney. 

                They’d had a daft conversation that day, through the letter box at first, then they’d stood on the small hall carpet together.  Malcolm was only interested in asking what day it was and who was the Prime Minister, and getting him to sign a piece of paper.  The one called Sydney had just stood there looking sad, and they’d gone off together.

                Well, if the Social weren’t  going to help. he would have to look after himself.  Pearl would have said. “Keep ourselves to ourselves.”

                Had he set the locks?

                Harry made his way around the things that were immovable and thrust aside the lighter

debris to the French windows and into the conservatory and remembered  he had already done that.  Was the kitchen door locked?  Had he checked that?.

                The dog bowl clanged as he stepped on it as he crossed the kitchen.  He’d have to make sure Spot was in. No, Spot had gone too.  Pearl had taken him, but left her jewelery. Strange, that.  He should get rid of the dog bowl and the lead. He hadn’t really wanted the jewelery but she would only give it to some bloody social worker.  He wasn’t sure about that, so he stumbled back to the thinking couch.  Pearl was dead. That’s settled, then.  Must get on. Lock that kitchen door?  It was still unlocked and Harry opened it a few inches. A blast of cool fresh air filled his lungs and he remembered gardening and, again, how he had made that break in the hedge at the bottom, about ten paces away, to get out with Spot into the fields beyond.  He also remembered all the weeding and planting he and Pearl had shared and how they had paced out the distance for the flower beds.  He sat in the sun on the kitchen doorstep and Marshalled his thoughts again.  This was better than the old couch.  He could think more clearly in the sun.  He would sell the jewelery.  She had no use for it now, dead, as she was, and of course, the big bloke at the conservatory window had been Sydney.   Sydney and Malcolm seemed to think they had a right to come into the house and tell Harry what to do.  Well, he wouldn’t have it.  He locked the kitchen door and returned to the old couch.

                The summer afternoon had warmed the house and he fell asleep. He woke in darkness, a little cold and quite hungry.  He’d always had a good old fry-up for breakfast but that was some days ago,.  He was always hungry.  Pearl will put the lights on; but he remembered he‘d have to do it himself.  The living room light didn’t come on and he thought it must have been because he made that cup of tea.  Was that today?   It had always been the electric kettle that used up the last of the electric.  Pearl had kept the coin meter well charged with money.  That’s another thing Malcolm, the Social, had said.  He shouldn’t be using a coin meter - nobody did these days.  He instinctively put his hands deep into empty pockets, then looked in the tins on the mantle shelf where Pearl keeps the gas and electric money.  No money.  No matter, he’d have a bite to eat and snuggle down on the couch.  To his surprise, the kitchen cupboard was brimming with all manner of food  that had not been there before.  The Social, or that Sydney, interfering again.  He shouldn’t have let them in the other day, or was that earlier today?  Anyhow, it didn’t belong to Harry so he wouldn’t eat it.  He spread a large dollop from his own tin of golden syrup on to a piece of bread - his bread. He ate in the dark and slept again.           

                The beam from a big torch angled itself through the front window and settled on the huddled figure.  A second beam penetrated the gloom of the conservatory and ranged over piles of books, and boxes, and furniture. The two lights illuminate Harry who woke with a start and blinked in the glare. The sound of a window breaking near his head made him jump off the couch and he fell on uselessly numb legs to the floor.  A figure climbed through the opened window and let another in through the front door. Then all the downstairs lights were on, except the one in the front room.

                ‘Bulb must have blown,’ said Malcolm. ‘He’s alive, but frightened.  Bring the wheelchair,’                 Harry knew that was Sydney;  big bloke.  Be careful. Don’t try to tackle him.

                ‘Harry, its OK.  We had to come through the window ,’ said Malcolm the Social.

                Then Sydney again, to Malcolm. ‘We had to do it, he’ll be so much better off, in there.’

                In a blinding flash of clarity, Harry knew what was up.  He struggled in the arms of the big bloke, Sydney.  He didn’t want to go anywhere.  All that food in the cupboard.  Pearl’s jewelery. Change for the meter.  The garden.  Spot.  Pearl.

                ‘Come on Dad,’  said Sydney. His voice was heavy with grief, and choking with tears.

End

1564 wds

George Highmore: hghwem@supanet.com