Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller (best large ereader txt) 📕

red jewels cupped in her palm. She puts a raspberry between his lips and watches as he rolls it around with his tongue and crushes it against the roof of his mouth.

A higher-pitched grunt, of surprise and pleasure. His language hasn’t returned yet although she can usually interpret what he means.

“More?” She laughs. “Here you are then.” She pops in another and another. “That’s it, all gone.” She shows him her empty hands. “I’m going to make us some lunch. Last night’s leftover mashed potatoes fried with leeks and peas, and a bit of scrambled egg? All right?” Jeanie continues to worry about money and bills—the electric, the council tax, how much seed she will be able to afford for next year, the rent which must become due at some point, the rest of the money owing to Stu. Bridget has said she doesn’t need to pay it back, but Jeanie’s never accepted cash handouts and she isn’t going to start now. At least she’s caught up on the debt owed to Max and is earning money from the vegetables he sells, and from working for Saffron.

“You’ve got a visitor coming this afternoon.” Jeanie pushes herself upright. “Well, better get on.” She speaks as much to herself as to Julius, needing to hear voices in the house, a conversation, even if it is one-sided.

Later, she sits with him while he feeds himself with a spoon and tries not to intervene when he misses his mouth, only wiping with the dampened muslin after he’s finished. She combs his hair which has grown back apart from along the line of the scar where the bit of his skull was removed and replaced. This morning Jeanie gave him a shave but she’s not good at it yet and she sees a patch of stubble under his jaw, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. The three pitted marks across his face have faded to almost the same colour as the rest of his skin, but his bad eye has a temporary eyeball fitted—a watery pink, the colour of the socket. It no longer holds any horror for Jeanie, and an appointment has been made for him to have his artificial eye fitted, but Jeanie wonders whether in the meantime she should make him a patch. It’s another item on the long list of things she needs to do which she keeps in her head.

Shelley Swift knocks on the door at five. She’s wearing a polka-dot summer dress with a flared skirt, like something from the fifties, and her lips and eyes are made up, and Jeanie wonders if she thinks she’s going on some sort of date. A while ago, Shelley Swift sent a note to the cottage addressed to Julius, and Saffron read it out to Jeanie. In it, she said she was sorry to hear about his accident—that was the word she used—and she apologized for not visiting him before but she understood that he would be home soon and she would love to come and see him. Dictating a reply via Saffron, Jeanie tried to warn Shelley Swift about what to expect but who is she to deny Julius a visitor?

“He’s in his chair, sleeping,” Jeanie says. “Come in.”

Maude, inside now, sniffs and licks their visitor’s hand and then goes to check on Julius.

Jeanie watches Shelley Swift looking around the old kitchen, holding on to the gold chain of her handbag, and with her orange lips stuck in a smile. If she takes anything in, she would see the wedding photo of Dot and Frank propped up on the dresser beside the bear with the bead eyes holding the ashtray in its paws, and the Toby jug with its handle glued back on, hanging from a hook.

“Pull up a chair,” Jeanie says. “I’ll make us a cup of tea in a minute. Let me just wake him up.”

“Is he all right?” Shelley Swift says, still standing.

“All right?” Jeanie says, pausing to look behind her while she’s bending towards Julius. “He’s had a good day, if that’s what you mean.” She turns back to her brother and strokes his arm. “Time to wake up.”

Julius makes his moaning deep in his throat, lustful and uninhibited. Jeanie is embarrassed by it and doesn’t look at Shelley Swift. She knows that Julius’s noises sound sexual even if she has never heard another man make a noise like this. She wants to shush him but she knows it’s her problem, this shame, not her brother’s. His good eye flickers open and rolls around, trying to get a look at the body it’s a part of.

“Shelley Swift has come to see you,” Jeanie says loudly. The doctors are unsure how much his hearing has been affected. Jeanie looks back at the woman and sees that the smile has gone and unmasked horror shows on her face—her mouth is open, her eyes are wide. Afraid that Shelley Swift might scream or faint, Jeanie pulls over an upright chair. “Have a seat,” she repeats, and the woman plonks herself down. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Jeanie goes towards the new kitchen but before she has taken a couple of steps, Julius wails and starts to thrash. His head moves from side to side, elbows bent and arms punching. He slides down in his seat until his bottom is hanging off the edge, and Shelley Swift jumps up, her chair screeching back along the stone floor. Maude, who is under the table, gripes, while Jeanie straddles Julius’s waist and puts her arms around his chest, trying to stop him from falling too heavily.

“Help me, will you,” she says to Shelley Swift, who looks from one side of the room to the other as though hoping Jeanie might be asking someone else.

“Do you have a cushion?” Shelley Swift says. “A pillow?”

“Next door.” Jeanie nods towards the parlour. “On his bed.” She lowers her brother to the floor as his seizure starts, cradling his skull until Shelley Swift returns