Gritting his teeth and looking straight ahead, he limped out of the kitchen. Ungainly and awkward, he realised that using the crutches was going to take some practice. They hurt his arms, and even the short journey from the kitchen to the foot of the stairs left him with aching wrists and hands.
Panting with the effort, Walter gazed upwards in dismay. The thirteen steps might as well be a thousand. The thought of trying to heave his old carcass up them made him want to weep.
‘I can’t do it,’ he muttered, leaning against the wall to try to take some of the weight off his good leg.
‘No problem, Dad; if you can’t get to the bed, we’ll bring the bed to you.’
‘I don’t want to be a nuisance.’
‘You’re not a nuisance.’ Otto put an arm around his shoulders.
‘I’m sorry, son.’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for.’
‘I’m causing you nothing but trouble. It’s not the first time you’ve had to bail me out.’
‘Stop that right now. I’m not going to put up with you feeling sorry for yourself. Accidents happen.’
‘I should never have gone up that ladder.’
‘Too right you shouldn’t, but what’s done is done. Look on the bright side – it could have been a lot worse.’
Walter had been trying not to think about that.
Otto continued, ‘Anyway, it’ll only be for a few weeks. You’ll be back on your feet in no time – excuse the pun. Let’s get you into the living room, then I’ll bring the bed down.’
Walter allowed himself to be guided into the lounge, where he sank gratefully onto the sofa with a grunt. Otto handed him the TV’s remote control and gave his shoulder a squeeze before returning to the kitchen. Walter couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could guess. Otto and Dulcie would be kind, he had no doubt. But he couldn’t say the same for Beth. And even if she didn’t say it aloud, she would be thinking it.
For the umpteenth time, Walter lamented that Beth was witnessing his frailty. He was a proud man (stubbornly so, Otto reckoned) and he hated her seeing him so helpless. It made him feel rather vulnerable, and the last person he wanted to show any weakness to was Beth Fairfax. Knowing her, she would take advantage and go for the jugular.
As he sat there, listening to the sound of Otto manoeuvring a bed across the landing, Walter wondered why he and Dulcie’s mother didn’t get on.
Ah, that was easy – she was annoying. But he didn’t look too closely at why he found her annoying because it didn’t matter. What mattered was that, aside from the next couple of weeks, he was going to see an awful lot more of her now that she would be living in Picklewick. He wouldn’t simply be able to stroll up the lane and pop in to have a cuppa with Dulcie, becauseshemight be there. And whenever Dulcie and Otto invited him for lunch orsupper, in the interests of fairness they would have to invite her too.
For Walter, with Beth on the scene, life wouldn’t be the same again.
What a palaver, Beth grumbled to herself, as she carefully crept down the steep stairs the following morning. It was incredibly early, but she had woken up to go to the loo and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. Typical.
She could have done with a couple hours more, because she’d been awake half the night. And that was Walter’s fault. Twice she’d heard Otto go downstairs, presumably to check that the old man hadn’t fallen out of bed. Or, worse, fallen over when he went to the bathroom.
The fuss if that had happened, didn’t bear thinking about. Yesterday had been bad enough.
As Beth tiptoed through the dining room and into the kitchen (she didn’t want to risk waking Walter), she pursed her lips as she remembered how Dulcie had fluffed pillows and smoothed the duvet before Otto had sent everyone out of the room so he could help his father change into his pyjamas to have a nap.
What was wrong with falling asleep in the chair like a normal pensioner, Beth wanted to know. She often napped in a chair, but she didn’t feel the need to change into her nightie to do so.
Pouring boiling water into a mug, she mashed the tea bag against the side, then added milk, wincing at the rattle of the glass milk bottles as she closed the fridge door.
When she sat down at the kitchen table, she took a sip and grimaced. Ergh! Goat’s milk! She had forgotten that was what Dulcie and Otto drank now, although they must have bought normal milk because she’d had a couple of proper cups of tea yesterday. No doubt the cow’s milk would have been bought especially for Walter.
Beth, slightly ashamed of her uncharitable thoughts, tried not to feel bitter. If Dulcie had known she was coming, she was sure that Dulcie would also have stocked up on normal milk for her.
Recognising that some of her negative feelings regarding Walter stemmed from him living so close to the farm whilst she lived so far away, Beth resolved to try harder to be nicer to him. With her now living in the village (or she would be as soon as the repairs were done on her house) she had no reason to feel as resentful.
The remainder of her negative feelings were due to him simply being annoying. She had never met such an irritating man. If she said the sun would come up tomorrow, he’d argue that it wouldn’t.
She wondered how he was feeling this morning. Like a right idiot probably. What seventy-something bloke in his right mind would venture up a ladder whilst wearing slippers? He had been an accident waiting to happen.
