Two elderly women lived together in a thatched cottage on the edge of a mistfilled English moorMabel, who was eightyseven, and Ethel, who was eightyfour. They were not kin; once they each owned separate farms, but for the past fifteen years they confessed they had been sharing the same hearth, keeping the fire low, stretching the coal and the rationed tea, and having each other for a word when loneliness tried to ring its bell in their heads. Their houses had been joined because Ethels cottage was sturdier, while Mabels old house with all its leanto extensions had been felled for firewood. For five winters they warmed themselves on that modest fire and never felt the pang of want. Their former livelihoodsheep, hens, a few dairy goatshad become harder to tend as each year passed, until the garden lay fallow for a second summer in a row and even stoking the stove grew difficult.
Once a week their grandson Sam, a thirtyfiveyearold motorcyclist from the nearby town of Ashford, would roar in on his bike, bearing a sack full of fresh bread rolls, a bag of biscuits, a pot of tea and a lump of sugar. Those provisions were the bulk of their diet; sometimes they boiled potatoes over a kerosene burner. When Sam arrived, the two women would weep.
If you keep shedding tears, Ill stop coming, Mabel would warn.
Alright, well hold it in, Sam would assure, unloading the supplies, drawing water from the well, stacking logs so the women need only strike a match. What else shall I bring? Ill be back in a weekjust tell me, hed call, then dash out, a blur of leather and revving engine, his foot thumping against the earth as he vanished.
Even the brief summer nights found them lying awake in their cramped bedroom.
Cant sleep, Ethel? one would whisper.
No, Im awake. I dozed a little this evening, now sleep has fled.
Im awake too What are you mulling over?
Everything.
And I think of the light beyond What is it like? No one knows.
Itll never be known, Ethel would murmur.
Their bodies grew frail, yet their minds worked with a clarity that sometimes seemed sharper than in youth, though memory gaps and tangled phrases crept in. One night Mabel rose and began to dress.
Where are you off to? Ethel called.
Home.
But your home is right here!
No, Im going home, home Mabel stubbornly shook her head, reached the door, grasped the latch, then paused, turned back, stripped off her coat and slipped onto the bed. Ethel said nothing, sensing a fleeting shift in Mabels consciousness that soon steadied.
They refused to sink into prolonged gloom. Ethel, dolllike in her composure, would often say, Listen to my foolish mindthere are still good folk. Sam brings us food, we have firewood. We live in our own house, warm and bright. Our pension comes in. What more could we ask for?
You can sing, you have a grandson. I have no one, Mabel would reply. When the limbs give out, the workhouse beckons.
I wont abandon you. As long as Im moving, youll be with me. Even the workhouse has its people, Ethel promised. Mabels spirit brightened, her eyes twinkled, and Ethel glowed with a gentle, buoyant joy.
They spoke of lives lived side by side. Their children had gone off to war; Mabel had four sons, Ethel two. Mabels husband died after a sudden stomach illness during a haymaking season; a farmer would not pause his work for a sick man, and after a night of fever he was left to the cold. Mabel hauled him to the infirmary on a shaky cart, where doctors found a burst appendix.
One by one, Mabels four sons fell in the wars. Each loss crushed her, yet she never fell into madness; she simply lay unconscious, was revived with cold water, and rose again, as though forged from an indestructible alloy. She reached eightyfive, never bitter, though a deep sorrow lingered in her soul.
Ethel lost her husband and one son; another returned, crippled but alive, settled in a city cooperative, married, and died at thirtyseven. Her daughterinlaw remarried, and Sam stayed longer with his grandmother. Comparing fortunes, Ethel thanked the Almighty for mercy: her line was not cut at the root, she still had a grandson whose labours kept them afloat, and his own children were already sprouting.
Darling, Ethel would say, do we really need much? A slice of bread and a cup of tea keep us full for the day. Do you want something else?
Nothing, Mabel would shake her head. Just a little more time, if the Lord will grant it.
Soon well both be gone, Ethel promised.
When the weather warmed, the twostill wrapped in winter coats and shawlswould step onto the garden path, sit on a cracked stone bench, bask in the sun, and inhale the scent of damp earth. Spring arrived, endless in their years. Even under bright sunlight they shivered, yet the season unsettled them. Once springs perfume meant rebirth and childlike delight; later it spoke of longing, then faded to a whisper of decay.
They would sit for hours in the same posehands on a walking stick, faces lifted toward the light, eyes flickering only occasionally. When a conversation sparked, their faces lit, lips parting as if to chew their thoughts.
The best time to die is now! one would sigh. The warmth, the flowers, the grass turning green, the birds singing.
Yes, the other would agree. The soil is as soft as down, easy to turn.
One morning Mabel felt a sudden unease. She perched briefly on the bench, then shuffled into the cottage, each step up the porch landing a struggle, her hands trembling like a birds claws. She clutched the wall, slipped onto the low bed, and a faint, barely audible moan escaped her.
Ethel noticed immediately, followed her inside. Mabels face grew pallid, eyes dimming. Ethel sensed that Mabels time was short and kept watch.
Mabel tried to sit up, only to flop back onto her left side, then turned onto her back, groaning softly as her head bobbed against the pillow. Ethel hovered, offering help she could not give, then settled on a stool to observe.
By evening Mabels breath grew shallow. She opened her eyes, a ghostly pallor washing her face, and gazed around bewildered, heart fluttering faintly. Ethel slipped away to avoid disturbing her peace. Mabel never awoke again.
Ethel, staying by the bedside, heard only one shallow breath left in the cottage. She felt a sudden surge of strength, as if someone had lifted her from the mattress and set her upright. Her heart hammered three or four times, then fell silent forever.
Damn it! she shouted through the empty room. Whos left for me?
She wailed, We were like sisters! When will Sam return? Who will I punish with whom?
She racked her brain through the night until dawn slipped in, accompanied by the nightingales song.
At sunrise the motorcycles engine cracked, and Ethels legs, suddenly spry, carried her to the porch.
Angels must have sent Sam today, she said, eyes wet. Mabels gone.
Sams face went ashen. What now? How do I live alone? Ethel sank onto a step and wept.
Dont think of it, Gran. I wont leave you. Ill take you in for the winter, Sam promised.
May the Lord send me death this summer, she muttered.
Again with that! Sam snapped. What else is there to say? Im your kin, yet Im a stranger to your wife, and Ill be a stumbling block in your family.
Nothing more to discuss, he replied.
For two days they busied themselves, and Ethel seemed to find a spring in her step she hadnt felt in a decadeperhaps Mabels spirit had slipped into her, lending fresh vigor. When Sam finally left, a profound melancholy flooded Ethel; it was a grief not for herself but for the companion she had lost. Fifteen years of shared life had made them closer than blood, each seeing the other as a second self. They never fought without reproaching one another, both knowing they existed only because the other was there, each terrified of solitude.
Fine, youre all tidy! Ethel teased Mabel. What about me?
Sam visited almost daily, sometimes staying the night, bringing fresh rolls and dried scones that Ethel dunked in tea. Yet even those beloved treats could not soothe the old womans hollow.
One midsummer afternoon, as Ethel was quietly sorting the cottage, a clear voice called, Hey, old hen! Youve been hiding here too long!
She flung open the doorway to the hallwaynothing. She walked around the house, brushed away the nettles that grew where the garden once thrivedstill nothing. Yet the voice lingered, as if Mabels echo had materialised in her ears. She must have come to visit me. She must be missing me, Ethel thought, and her limbs grew limp. She shuffled to the chest, pulled out a bundle of sewn clothing, placed it on the table, and lay on the bed.
Time lost meaningday or night, hours or daysshe could not tell. She felt life ebbing, not in pain but in a gentle release. Flickers of her past danced behind her eyelids: a threeyearold self in a flowerstrewn meadow with her own grandmother; a young husband in a crisp white shirt; her children; the rhythmic thud of scythes in the field, the scent of fresh cut hay and linseed oil. Her life stretched, sometimes endless, sometimes a single breath.
When Sam returned on his bike, he found his grandmother lifeless, his head slumping onto the table beside the bundle, and he wept loudly, the cottage echoing with his sorrow.
