Without A Song

Chapter Seventeen: A spent force

Paul was gaunt. His mane of once dark brown hair that always hung clean to his shoulders was now snow-white. His eyes took me but then they widened to include Leanne, Charlie and George. He might've been expecting to see only me on his doorstep, what he got was a mobile army that soon fanned out to take over his home. Charlie and George found Kirsty and Tamsin up in their bedrooms and took them outside to play in the large back garden while Leanne moved into the kitchen. Paul and I went into the back conservatory that overlooked the lawns, the raised flowerbeds and vegetable plots. He just stood there as if unsure what to say or do. He'd called me over but I don't think he had a plan about whatever he was going to say or do next. Beyond the walls I heard Leanne busy filling the dishwasher first, then I heard chairs and the study table being moved as she cleared the surfaces and the floor ready for cleaning. Paul was powerless to stop her. In fact, in that mood, I am not sure that anymore could stop Leanne once she put her mind do something. Coffee soon arrived for three but Leanne did not stay long.

"Take care of him Stephen. I've never seen him like this."

She placed a comforting hand on my arm and left the room with her own cup leaving me to deal with the silent storm waiting to explode from within Paul Wilcox.

Despite the warm weather, the happy sounds of George and Charlie playing with Tamsin and Kirsty on Hazyleigh's extensive rear lawns, inside the house all was quiet. Neither Paul nor I spoke. I knew that Leanne was busy somewhere ravaging and repainting the home with fresh smells of new linen and floral displays amid hoovered carpets, open windows and sterilised worktops. The two floors of the grand old chalet bungalow cleansed from top to bottom.

Paul was very ill and it was very plain to see. He still stood there looking out over his garden, tired and worn out. He'd lost nearly two stone in weight since I'd last seen him. His clothes were dropping from his shoulders and his waist. His frame sagged at all angles. I took my cup of coffee and sat in one of two intricately woven cane armchairs that overlooked a mature vegetable plot through the wide flat window pane. Placing my butt upon two chintzy floral cushions and holding my cup in both hands I looked to where Paul was coming to terms with his situation. The drop of his head to his cup as if seeing it for the first time, another to his left to see me sat there and another beyond the window glass and into the garden where Kirsty raced a bright strawberry pink doll's buggy across the grass while George playfully struggled to keep up. After a few minutes I saw Leanne go out to each of her daughters and one by one draw them aside, first George, and then Charlie. Each one threw a glance towards the conservatory and looked away again. Back to where the younger girls were now happily unaware of what their father was going through.

"I was wrong," Paul suddenly said. "I was wrong to blame you for Maddy's disappearance. I wanted to lash out and the easiest person was the one who was not here." He paused for a long five minutes.

"I should have been blaming myself but I was having too much of a good time with my music and the church instead of sharing my time between my family and my work. When Maddy was with that woman," he spat out her name, "She at least she took the girls home sometimes, now I've lost her altogether. It's taken me a long time to realise how good Maddy was for me, how much she really meant to me and the girls. I wonder, does she know how much I really love her and how lost I am without her?"

He put his cold, undrunk, coffee cup on a small table between us and sat down in another armchair similar to my own, putting one of the two cushions behind his head.

"Different for you I suppose, you and Sue are always apart. I suppose thatʼs why Sue's with the rector now. She needs the company that you didn't want to give her."

Ouch! So the tirade and the disguised blame game went on. I could have got up and left, walked away and not have listened to the bear-baiting that Paul was using to justify his thoughts. The fact that he was talking was a start, whether he meant the words he spoke or believed in them I cared not. My friend was having a bad day, it was only right that I stayed there. He had to get this off of his chest, he was entitled to have his say. I may not have liked what I was hearing, I may not have been the right person for him to say it to but I was all he'd got, so I stayed. I didn't take it all in or take it to heart, I just let it wash over me. The longer he talked, the louder his voice became. For a while he got stronger, his verbal abuse getting stranger and then he suddenly came alive like never before. Rising to stand over me, telling me to fight him.

"Go on coward, do something, save any reputation you have. I know you and she (Maddy) are good friends, so why are you not with her? Maybe you know where she is and you're hiding her from her daughters? Come on tell me I am wrong!"

If he was going to hit me it would have been then but suddenly it was all over. Paul just stood there, his arms limp by his sides, his head falling over his chest. I caught him as his body sagged and fell. Something was all wrong, the world we knew was still chasing itself on its giddy orbit but somehow I felt as if my friends and I were on opposite sides of the same planet. Loss, desolation, despair and heartbreak dulled all of our minds to some degree.

In the hallway to the front door I heard Leanne come back inside and moving down the hall. I called her name to catch her attention and she was quickly by my side.

"He's a spent force. We should let him sleep."

Paul was a lightweight in his present condition and upstairs in his room we put him to bed and made him comfortable.

"What about his girls?"

"Tamsin is barely a teenager, Kirsty is a lot younger but they're both strong. Tamsin said that she and Kirsty had been looking after their dad but were running out of ideas. I think we should get the Mother's Union involved, get Paul some help around this house, find Maddy and support them in any way we can."

"I agree and well said but can they start tonight? I mean it's a tall order, Paul needs the help now. And unless these girls have a nanny tonight they'll never get enough sleep for school tomorrow."

Whichever way we looked at the situation, it didn't look brilliant.

"Paul's not in any fit state to return to work. None of it is good, they all need plenty of rest and emotional comfort for at least a week. School mightn't be an option." I nodded in Paul's direction. "How he's managed so far is beyond me."

Suddenly I had a plan. "Leanne, can we bring Rupert in on this? I know he'll take over but he's what we need right now. And what about Steve and Catie Mellors, will they take on Paul and his daughters?"

Leanne was all for it. "Let's do both. You ring the Mellors, I'll get hold of my husband."

We succeeded on both accounts, both parties said they'd be there within the hour and they were. Leanne and I made cups of tea all round and all the girls came in from the garden. George and Charlie organised food and Tamsin and Kirsty insisted upon pizzas for everybody with spares on the side for Paul, the Mellors and Rupert. Steve, Catie and Rupert arrived about the same time as the pizzas, Tamsin busily cutting slices aside for her dad for when he awoke, so we wrapped slices of each in silver foil and put them on a plate in the fridge. Rupert did what I expected him to do and took charge. Soon all nine of us sat around the big dining room table, going over what we knew, deciding the best way forward. Naturally Tamsin and Kirsty did not want to be apart from their father. Steve and Catie said they'd stay the night but I had another idea.

"Can you take them home with you instead, back to Minsmere? I think that they will feel better if they all get away from the memories in this house for a few days."

Leanne looked at Paul's girls with love and warmth. "How about it Tamsin and Kirsty? Would it be okay to take you and your Dad out to Steve and Catie's for a few days and give him a holiday?"

Tamsin looked at Leanne, she knew a powerhouse when she met one.

"Don't worry, I will sort out your schools for you," at which point Tamsin and Kirsty both ran around and hugged her. I saw Maddy's influence here, she was the family educator and both girls loved their time at school.

Decisions made Leanne and her daughters helped the young people sort sufficient clean clothes for them and their father for a few days away, then Rupert and I helped Paul into Steve's car wrapped inside a blanket, with his daughters keeping to his side. No one said much about me thankfully but in a quiet moment I managed to grab Steve and Catie and tell them why I was going back. There were hugs all round and the offer to stay was repeated. Theirs was a great friendship I didn't want to lose and I hoped that I'd done enough to make it stay that way.

Leanne came up to me after Steve and Catie had departed. She hadn't told Rupert of my decision yet, it was up to me to tell him. She collected George and Charlie and made themselves scarce. Rupert and I went back through Hazyleigh closing windows and locking doors and conservatory, garages and meter cupboards. Satisfied all was secure we returned to Old Dereham in his big Mercedes with the leather dashboard and the suede headliner. Along the way I told him of my decision to return to Akhbar.