Mr Doubler Begins Again Read online

  Doubler paused, dredging up the exact words from two decades of suppressed memories. ‘“How long?” she said. “How much more time do you need?” “Ten years,” I told her. “Fifteen max.”’

  Midge let out a low chuckle. ‘Another decade of doing something you hate? Gosh, Doubler, you weren’t exactly throwing her a lifeline.’

  Doubler was crestfallen, devastated by the ease with which Midge had been able to see Marie’s point of view. ‘I was being honest. I couldn’t hurry this work up. I had made a lifetime commitment to it, to carry on for as long as it took. I was beginning to realize my experimentation had the potential to make a difference to potato growers around the world. It was work of tremendous importance, but it was never going to happen overnight.’

  Midge turned to face him now. ‘You did the right thing. Being honest was good, Doubler. Don’t doubt yourself now – making false promises would have been worse in so many ways.’

  Doubler hung his head in shame.

  ‘But I wasn’t being honest, was I? When I gave her a deadline of ten to fifteen years, I only did so to buy myself a bit of time. I never had any intention of leaving here. Not before my work was done and not afterwards. I know that now and I probably knew that then.’

  They both climbed out of the car. Midge closed the door behind her, speaking loudly to Doubler across the width of the car, her voice echoing pleasingly in the garage. ‘Come on. Don’t be glum. Your work here is important work, and sometimes work just does come first. It’s very rare that progress is made without personal sacrifice. But not many people have the courage of their conviction to see it through. You’re a brave man, Doubler.’

  Doubler started to lock the car door, but Midge stopped him.

  ‘Could I?’ she asked, motioning to the bonnet. ‘Would you mind?’

  Doubler shrugged. ‘Be my guest,’ and he opened the bonnet up, propping it on its metal support.

  Midge flicked her phone’s torch back on, passing the beam back and forth over the engine and making admiring noises.

  Doubler watched her curiously. ‘So your dad knew a thing or two about engines, did he? Would you say, Midge, you’re genetically disposed to like cars?’

  ‘If you’re asking if it’s in my blood, possibly. But it’s probably much more nurture than nature. My dad absolutely loved cars. Cars were his livelihood, but more than that, they were his passion.’

  ‘Like potatoes for me!’ Doubler exclaimed.

  ‘Indeed. And isn’t it nice when those two things coincide? Dad spent most of his free time tinkering around with old cars, I liked spending time with my dad, so it meant that’s what I ended up spending some of my free time doing, too. Dad was happiest at work, you know, which isn’t that rare. We are often at our very best when we’re doing what we are good at. But we don’t always get to see our parents at work, so we don’t always get to see them at their best.’

  Doubler pondered this. ‘I wonder if my kids think I’m at my best when I’m at work. I’m not even sure they think there is a “best” version of me. I’d love them to take a bit of interest in what I do, but I suppose that’s unlikely. Not as long as they hold me accountable for what happened with Marie.’

  ‘Your kids have every reason to be extremely proud of you. But you might have to work a little harder on your PR.’

  She waited while Doubler carefully locked up the car and then the garage behind him. They walked to Mrs Millwood’s car. She had linked her arm through Doubler’s, holding him close to her as they walked.

  ‘Well, the good news is, your car is an absolute beauty.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you think so. It’s sometimes hard to recognize the underlying qualities in a bit of old farm machinery, but I certainly like to think I appreciate it.’

  ‘Well, actually, her beauty goes beyond that. I’ll do a little research when I get home, but I think what you have there is worth an absolute fortune.’

  ‘Really?’ Doubler allowed a small chuckle of astonishment to escape. ‘Somebody would pay good money for her, even after all these years?’

  ‘Particularly after all these years. Your wife might have resented it, but you made an incredibly prudent investment. If the car’s what I think it is, then it’s very, very valuable indeed. It’s worth a great deal of money. And particularly now, as they’ve stopped making them. They’ve become highly collectable anyway, but yours is very, very special.’

  ‘Well, I never. That’s a bit of a surprise, I must say.’ He shook his head, incredulous. They’d reached the little red car by then. ‘Is it worth more than one of these newfangled things?’ he asked, waving a hand towards the old red car.

  Midge laughed. ‘Mum’s old jalopy? Gosh, yes, a lot more! You could buy a fair few brand-new cars in place of yours.’

  ‘Well, I’d better tell Julian. He will be surprised. And he ought to be very thankful to you. You’ve saved him a bit of embarrassment no doubt. Imagine his upset if he’d swapped it for some little bit of modern rubbish and then he’d found out what he’d done. He’d have been mortified.’

  ‘Oh, Doubler!’ said Midge sadly.

  Doubler assumed it was the biting wind that caused her eyes to fill with tears. But then she took him in her arms and hugged him tightly to her.

  ‘Mum’s right. You’re a lovely, lovely man,’ she said. She pulled herself away abruptly and jumped into Mrs Millwood’s car, starting it and closing the door in one swift movement.

  Doubler watched her pull out of the yard and then walked thoughtfully back to the house, wondering if perhaps it wasn’t the wind making her eyes well up like that; perhaps it was something else entirely.

  Chapter 17

  Doubler had walked twice as far as he usually would on an average morning. He’d been restless all night and had awoken long before dawn. Unable to fall asleep again, he had become tired of waiting for sunrise so had dressed hurriedly, grasped his stoutest walking stick and stumbled out into the dark, making his way down to the bottom of the hill. While he walked, he dwelt on the revelation that Derek was a frequent visitor to Mrs Millwood. With each step he examined his turmoil, teasing out the conflicting elements and trying to make sense of the waves of jealousy that occasionally swept over him, catching him off guard.

  In some ways, it made perfect sense for Mrs Millwood to have a special friend at Grove Farm. Why else would she have had the animal shelter on her conscience when her mind should have been solely focused on recovering in hospital? Feeling the complex flashes of jealousy more often associated with a teenager, Doubler began to simultaneously condemn and condone the special relationship that flourished between Mrs Millwood and Derek. Doubler wondered if each time Mrs Millwood had hung up the phone at the end of their calls, it was because Derek was arriving and he became enraged by his own foolish vanity that had allowed him to contemplate his own special relationship.

  Doubler walked furiously down the hill, careless in the dark, unbothered when his boots landed clumsily on the sharp flint stones. He used his walking stick to catch himself on a number of occasions as he strode on with a confidence the darkness shouldn’t have afforded him.

  Yes, thought Doubler, certain now that his agitated mumblings, some out loud, some just a hiss in his wildly whirring head, were helping him to come closer to the truth. A special relationship with Derek, to be protected and cherished, would explain Mrs Millwood’s uncharacteristic hostility towards both Paula and Mabel. Clearly neither was to be trusted while she languished in her hospital bed. Doubler felt vicariously disgusted by any potential betrayal.

  He stopped and looked all around him to get his bearings. He’d reached the end of the drive and turned left, following the footpath at the far boundary of his land, a path that tracked the country lane for a while before cutting in and marking the edge of his own land. Now, to his left he could look back up to the top of the hill where his home sat, almost out of sight. The driveway snaked down the steep gradient, the chalk and flint making it easy to pick out in the d
ark against the inky fields, their rich dark brown hues turned to black by the pale moonlit night. To his right now was a wide corridor of set-aside land, a margin of abandoned ground that he’d allowed to grow wild with thickets of brambles and thorn, which caused an almost impenetrable barrier before a good area of woodland that separated his fields from those of Peele.

  As he stood at these edge-lands, he allowed his brain to settle into nothingness. It was still dark. He stopped and listened. A bird sang from a hazel branch not far from him. The pure sound cut through the dark and distracted Doubler from his quandary.

  ‘Hello, robin!’ Doubler said, under his breath for fear of disturbing the gutsy singer. ‘It’s a bit early for that racket, isn’t it?’

  The lone, tentative voice was almost immediately joined by another flute-like refrain from just behind him. The birds had sensed the dawn before any trace of the new day had become obvious to Doubler. These birds, the robin and perhaps a blackbird, were soon joined by several others and now, after just a few moments of listening, the chorus was beginning in earnest and it was impossible to separate one song from another. Together, this competing cacophony should have jarred, but instead it united to form a harmonious ensemble that appeared to be led by one unseen conductor.

  ‘Is that you, you brave chap?’ Doubler asked of the robin. ‘Are you responsible for this orchestra? What a talented little thing you are!’ The robin continued wistfully with his complex mix of long and short notes.

  Doubler had followed the driveway down the western-facing slope so that the sun, when it did rise, would be on the far side of the hill. He realized now that rather than getting up early to greet the dawn, he had unintentionally delayed the day by walking in this direction, and this suited him grandly, because he really wasn’t ready for the day to begin: he didn’t quite know what to do with it. For a man who only dealt in certainties, he found himself in a quagmire of doubt. Why did he even care this deeply about Mrs Millwood’s admiration for Derek? he reasoned with himself impatiently. After all, she was only his housekeeper, who, at best, had poor taste in both cheese and apples.

  But despite Doubler’s proclivity for irascibility, the birds’ optimism and their ability to take the day for granted, celebrating it before they could definitively count on it, sparked a glimmer of optimism in his own heart. They weren’t waiting for the day to prove itself before rejoicing in it; they were going to start their song regardless and sing the day awake if necessary. Doubler wandered on a little, and though the complete darkness had faintly softened to a paler version of itself, he was still picking his way carefully along the footpath, barely able to see and stumbling occasionally. Joined now by the rousing encouragement of, it seemed, every possible bird species in the region, he realized he was beginning to enjoy the danger of exploration as he found himself reaching for some emotional courage through his physical bravery.

  He stopped at the sound of a sudden splash and turned to peer into the darkness to make out a small dew pond nestled among the hazel trees, only just visible in the moonlight. A mallard drake had landed clumsily next to a female and they now circled their tiny patch of water in a happy and noisy duet of flapping wings, hoisting themselves almost upright in the shallow water.

  This pleased Doubler. The dew pond, full enough to host a pair of courting mallards, was a visual reminder that the intensive work he had put in during the months since the harvest had paid off. He had heavily ridged the land across the slopes, preventing run-off, and to work these steepest slopes, he had methodically ploughed these ridges again and again to ensure that his hard-earned fertile soil wasn’t washed downhill in the winter rain. As well as three substantial ponds, big enough for a heron to call home, there were a number of these small ponds dotted around the circumference of his land, which filled naturally from rainwater and several small underground feeds. If they were full of water as spring approached, rather than bunged full of soil and silt, it proved that the extra-deep furrows he ploughed were working effectively. An occasional inspection of these ponds was a great discipline, and seeing the ducks playfully welcoming spring reminded him to take this walk more often. It had needed the ducks’ noisy clamour to signal the health of his farm, and with his spirits a little lifted, he turned to head back up the hill, where he would be able to witness dawn in all its glory.

  His mind wandered in a different direction as he retraced his steps, more determined, less defeatist. He thought, instead, of how to explain to Mrs Millwood that he depended on her in so many ways that she (or Derek) couldn’t possibly understand. And he knew now, in the calmness of the early morning air, that it wasn’t her fault if she had not responded to him or invited him to visit her in hospital. He was not a noisy mallard crashing into her pond. He’d been a timid coot, watching from the sidelines and allowing other more brash and gaudy species to splash and encircle Mrs Millwood. He wondered whether a more direct approach might at least allow her to welcome him into her circle of friends.

  He wandered through the house, making himself useful in a number of small ways. He picked up a couple of books and idly wondered whether he might read them. As quickly as he’d considered the idea, he rejected it, leaving them on a pile by the fireplace. Now that the phone could sit quite casually on the occasional table beside his armchair, Doubler could allow himself to be close to it without having to commit so fully to waiting for it to ring. He found that he could busy himself with any number of jobs that would have been almost impossible to replicate in the hallway. He could sit on the window seat and look at his birds; he could train the binoculars onto the gate and watch for unwanted visitors; he could even sit by the fire and have a go at the crossword. While he had some nagging doubts that were plaguing him as he went about his chores, he only had to look at the trailing cord of the telephone to admit that there were some areas of his life that had improved immeasurably.

  He began to dust the bookshelves. The housework was therapeutic and he came to the certain conclusion that while he wasn’t very knowledgeable in matters of the heart, he knew Mrs Millwood. He would let her tell him about her feelings for Derek when she was good and ready. This conclusion made him feel less anxious as the impending confrontation receded from his immediate horizon.

  When the phone call came, he let it ring four times as he allowed his breathing to steady before picking up the receiver and saying, quickly but in a measured tone, ‘So, what about Olive? What do you know about her?’

  Mrs Millwood didn’t hesitate. It was as if she too had prepared herself to pick up the conversation as they’d left it before, with no acknowledgement of the intervening twenty-four hours. ‘Ah, Olive. Now, she is terribly interesting. She is one of those straightforwardly good people. She’s been quite extraordinarily generous to the shelter. She’s given us use of her land and her outbuildings, and she has undoubtedly relinquished her privacy and solitude. She allowed the Colonel to erect the Portakabin we use as an office right outside her home, which let’s face it is a bit of an eyesore. I’m not sure I would have gone that far. And, from what I can see, she gets nothing in return. She doesn’t interact socially, so she’s not in it for the company. She’s not on any charity committees, so she’s not in it for the kudos. She just leaves us to it. That’s the mark of a truly good person, isn’t it?’

  ‘Selfless giving, you mean?’ Doubler was immediately drawn into the conversation, with any trace of his earlier resolve diminishing in the reality of this more pressing conversation.

  ‘Yes, don’t you think? Doing something without expecting anything in return is an irrefutable mark of goodness, surely? Olive doesn’t appear to want any acknowledgement, or any recognition. Even our simplest acts of kindness usually have a streak of selfishness to them, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on the scale of the gift. Giving over access to your farm, that is a pretty substantial contribution. But what about putting money in a collection pot – you know, outside a supermarket? That’s an anonymous gift, and y
ou’re not looking for any acknowledgement, are you? That might be a smaller scale, but that’s selfless, surely?’ Doubler was giving this conversation all of his attention, determined to honour the gravity that Mrs Millwood had decided to afford it.

  ‘Well, you’d be pretty disappointed if the collector with the bucket outside the supermarket ignored your gift entirely, so I expect you’re probably looking for thanks at the very least. But beyond that, you do it for the impact you make on the people around you when you stop to put your money in, don’t you? To send out a little signal of superiority? I mean, you see the people who are rushing past with their heads down and their hands in their pockets, or looking at their watches to signal their supreme busyness, and you think, I’m going to stop and put a coin in that bucket because I’m better than them . . .’

  Doubler was genuinely quite taken aback. He thought of his daughter’s own response to the charity collectors, and how she found the process so intimidating. He thought of the days he would regularly visit the supermarket and wondered what sort of person he’d been then. It had been so long that he couldn’t quite recall, and he wouldn’t have trusted his memory to be truthful anyway.

  He answered thoughtfully. ‘That’s quite cynical, Mrs Millwood. Gosh, I hope that’s not how people think. It’s been a while since I ventured out to a supermarket, but I think I used to put a bit of loose change in the pot to make the person collecting feel better, less futile.’

  ‘So what you’re doing there is making a small gift while exerting a little bit of power or influence to make yourself feel superior? That’s not entirely selfless.’

  Doubler reeled a little. Mrs Millwood always understood people so well. Had he ever met another person who could commit so fully to the most trivial of conversations? ‘Maybe. But I wouldn’t want to stop giving to a charity just because I am unable to entirely extract my selflessness out of the action. Nobody wins then.’