His conviction covered the thefts of several expensive cycles, even if he denied most of our charges.
* * *
Meanwhile, the people of Aidensfield were on tenterhooks due to the proximity of their famous berry show, and their berries were swelling with contented growth. But drama came to the village when Joseph Marshall was rushed into Scarborough Hospital once again. He was taken in on Tuesday before his planned departure to Lourdes because he had developed further severe pains in his stomach and Dr McGee had noted some additional weight loss. Joseph appeared to have had a sudden and distressing remission. Mabel asked me to drive her to the hospital to visit him on the Thursday afternoon, acutely concerned about his rapidly deteriorating condition.
“He’s still not decided about going to Lourdes,” she told me during the journey. “I can’t get him to make his mind up, Mr Rhea; he’s been dithering all this time, worrying about what’s the right thing to do. He won’t say yes or no. And now this. He started losing more weight a couple of days after that dinner at Mr Bannister’s and his appetite went, then he had another carry-on with his stomach, although I think it might have been something he ate there.”
“You called Dr McGee to him?”
“Oh, aye,” she confirmed. “He gave him something for his stomach, saying it might be nothing more than a touch of diarrhoea, mebbe due to eating that foreign food, but he reckoned it wasn’t serious, but since then it’s got worse, Mr Rhea.”
“Poor old Joseph.”
“It was very bad pains in his belly, and not eating — and so Dr McGee said it was a hospital job once again. So in he went, and they’re giving him more tests.”
“He’ll be fed up of going into hospital,” I commented. “Have you heard any results?”
“Nothing yet,” she said. “That’s why I’m going in again, they want to talk to me this afternoon. I hope they don’t keep saying there’s nowt wrong with him. It is good of you to take me to see him, Mr Rhea.”
“I’m as anxious as you to find out what’s wrong with him,” I assured her. “So what about this trip to Lourdes?”
“Well, I had a word with Father Simon and they’ve kept his seat open. He’s supposed to go this weekend, you know. Everything’s ready, Mr Rhea, I’ve had his suits pressed and bought him a new shirt and a set of collars, and he needed a new pair of shoes. It’s a lot of expense if he can’t go but the state he’s in now . . .”
“Maybe, if he is very poorly, he should be sent anyway, in spite of his condition. Some very sick people do manage to make the trip, Mabel.”
“That just what I said, Mr Rhea. The worse he is, the more he needs to go to Lourdes, that’s what I say. So I’ve told Father Simon to keep his seat available, because I’m going to make sure our Joseph goes no matter how badly he feels. You’d think those experts would realise he’s very poorly, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m sure they’re doing their best for him,” was all I could say. “But they’ll not want the journey to make him worse.”
“It couldn’t make him any worse than he is,” she retorted. “He’s got no strength left, Mr Rhea. You can tell how bad he is because he’s neglected his show berries. Mebbe he doesn’t like me doing it, but I’ve been making sure the nets are secure, feeding them and checking his little hammocks and brollies, without him knowing I might say. But those berries need some care. The poor things do look a bit sad, you know, but it’s Joseph we should really be tending, not his berries.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “The main thing is to get him better whatever it takes, then he’ll have lots more years to grow his champion berry.”
“Well, it seems to me Lourdes is his only chance, Mr Rhea, because those doctors in the hospitals don’t seem able to do anything for him.”
“Let’s see what they say today, shall we?”
Joseph was lying in bed when we arrived and, as before, I was invited to his bedside. I thought he looked dreadful this time, far worse than the previous occasion, for the flesh had dropped away from his cheeks and face to make him look so gaunt and fragile, with his skin almost transparent, and yet his eyes continued to sparkle. I located a couple of chairs and arranged them beside the bed. Mabel didn’t sit down immediately, however, because a staff nurse called her away.
“Mrs Marshall?”
“Aye, that’s me,” she acknowledged, with a look of concern on her face.
“Can you come with me? Dr Hindmarsh is waiting in his room. He asked if you could see him the moment you arrived.”
The look of apprehension on Mabel’s face was sad to behold, and the fact she’d been summoned so soon after our arrival did not ease the situation, but she crossed quickly to Joseph, gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, and said, “Don’t you go away, Joseph, you talk to Mr Rhea. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”
“Sit yourself down, Mr Rhea,” Joseph invited me as his wife departed, pointing to one of the chairs. “Our Mabel has to have words with the specialist again, so you make yourself comfortable.”
“So how’s things, Joseph?” I asked, sitting at his side.
“I’ve really got ’em flummoxed this time, Mr Rhea.” He managed a small smile. “But they won’t let me have my pipe and have given me all them tests, all over again. Same fellows, same tests.”
“Same results, maybe?” I put to him.
“Nowt wrong, you mean?”
“They couldn’t find anything wrong last time,” I said.
“Aye, that’s what puzzled me. I mean, losing all that weight and not being able to eat and then that belly trouble . . . it’s the same, all over again, Mr Rhea. So here I am for a day or two. I expect they’ll kick me out soon, tomorrow they reckon.”
“Whatever they say, you’re going to Lourdes, though, aren’t you?” I decided to ask him in the absence of Mabel. I hoped I might elicit a decision, if only so that I could convey it to Father Simon, perhaps in the hope the seat might be reallocated if Joseph declined to use it, and at least to ease the uncertainty.
He did not answer for a while and at that stage, I did not put pressure on him to respond. Clearly, he was continuing to think hard about his decision even at this late stage, and I guessed it had been worrying him deeply ever since that dinner at the Bannisters. He seemed to have some kind of mental blockage about Lourdes, a deep desire not to go.
“I’m not sure, Mr Rhea,” he said.
“You’ve got to go, Joseph.” I tried to reason with him. “So many of your friends want you to make the trip, that’s why they raised all that money.”
“I didn’t ask for it, Mr Rhea,” he said, with some power in his weak voice. “If I’d really wanted to go, I would have found the money myself.”
“It’s a lot of money to find at short notice,” I said.
“We’re not exactly broke, me and our Mabel,” he chided me. “We have money put by, Mr Rhea, we could have used that. Besides, I’m not really ill. There’s no disease or owt like that, and we’ve got to think about all them cases who are much more deserving than me, invalids, folks with incurable diseases, blind folks, deaf folks — they’d be better off than me taking a trip to Lourdes.”
“If everyone thought like that, no one would go,” I said. “Now, you’ll have to make up your mind soon . . . it’s better to say no now, than keeping everyone guessing until the last minute.”
“I know, Mr Rhea. I’m right touched by what they’ve done which is why I can’t turn it down, but I’ll be honest, I don’t want to go, Mr Rhea. I mean, I’ve never done owt like that in my life, been to foreign parts, that is.”
“There’s a first time for everything, Joseph! Even for retired people.”
“I’m not arguing about that, but it’s not natural, is it, human beings flying in the sky or going across water? God made me an Englishman, Mr Rhea, which means I’m supposed to live here and work here and raise my family here and get myself better here and then die here . . . not to go raking off to foreign parts for things like that.
If our doctors here can’t fettle me with all their knowledge, then I shall have to take the consequences.”
“God doesn’t think like that, does He?” I smiled.
“He made me an Englishman, Mr Rhea, a Yorkshireman better still.”
“But he has shown his approval for Lourdes, hasn’t He?” I said. “Think of all those miracles that have happened there, all those crutches you mentioned once before when we talked, left behind by folks who have been cured. Where do you think they came from?”
“The crutches? From cured folks!” he snapped.
“No, I mean, where did those cured folks come from?” I put to him.
He paused and frowned, then said, “Well, from near Lourdes, I’d say. Somewhere handy enough for ’em to get there when they’re not feeling very well.”
“No, Joseph, you know perfectly well they come from all over the world. There’s pilgrimages from this country as well you know. Lourdes is not only for local folks, Joseph. The Catholic Church is not only for local folks or just for England — it’s a worldwide church which is what God intended it to be, and Lourdes is a worldwide shrine. You’ll see people from every nation on earth going there to pray.”
“Aye, you’re right, Mr Rhea.”
“I think you’re making excuses, Joseph. You don’t really want to go at all; in fact, I might even say you’re frightened.”
“Frightened? What of? I’m not frightened of dying, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“You’re too good a Catholic to be frightened of dying,” I smiled. “But I get the feeling that this trip is worrying you . . .”
He lowered his eyes and licked those thin lips and then said, “Mr Rhea, there’s summat that mebbe I should say to somebody . . . not even our Mabel knows . . . there are some things you can’t tell a woman, but, well, mebbe I can ask you, as a friend, in confidence and all that, without you telling her, or anybody else, or them doctors. Policemen are like priests, aren’t they, they can keep secrets . . .”
“Yes, we’re expected to keep some secrets,” I assured him. “But maybe this secret is something to discuss with Father Simon?”
“I’ve often thought that, Mr Rhea, but have never got round to it, but, well, seeing what you’ve just said and bearing in mind what we’re talking about, well, yes, there is summat that should be said, Mr Rhea, and now’s mebbe the right time.”
“Go on, Joseph.” I spoke softly and leaned closer so that the man in the adjoining bed would not overhear his comments. I would let Joseph get around to his topic in his own good time.
“I am frightened, Mr Rhea.” He lowered his eyes again, and I saw a tinge of redness come to his cheeks.
“Frightened, Joseph?” I asked. “What makes you frightened?”
“Flying, Mr Rhea. Going up in an aeroplane. It’s not natural, flying about up there with nowt beneath to stop you falling out of the sky. If God had wanted us to fly, He’d have given us wings.”
“Or He might have given us enough brains to build aeroplanes,” I added. “And the means to build them . . . which is what He has done. Is that what’s bothering you? Flying?”
“Aye, I’ve never mentioned it to our Mabel, but she’s allus going on about raking off to foreign parts, flying off to Rome or Spain and such spots. The mere thought of being up there with nowt beneath me gives me the jitters, Mr Rhea.”
“Is that why you cancelled your silver wedding trip?”
“Aye,” and he sighed. “It scared me rigid, the idea of flying. It made me sick. I was as sick as a pig one day when Mabel was out, but I never told her, she just thought I was off colour. We had to cancel the trip . . . I was sorry, really, but I couldn’t have gone, Mr Rhea. There’s no way I’d have got on to that aeroplane.”
“But the trip to Lourdes is not in the air,” I said. “It’s a coach trip, it goes across the English Channel on a ferry. Across the sea.”
“That’s just as bad,” he admitted. “Sailing, flying. Neither’s got solid ground under them, that’s what scares me. I do like to have solid earth under my feet, Mr Rhea, and the thought of sitting on top of a lot of water too deep for me to put my feet down is very scary, I can tell you. I never learned to swim, you know, too scared of deep water, I was.”
“So is that what’s bothering you about the Lourdes trip?” I asked.
“Aye, it is,” he said meekly. “Sailing, flying, it’s all the same to me. Now, if there was a tunnel between here and France . . .”
“So you’ve been holding back, have you? Not admitting your fears to anyone and worrying yourself sick about it, getting yourself into a right tizzy and finishing up here, in hospital?”
“Mebbe that’s it, eh, Mr Rhea? Like the specialist said, it’s mebbe all in my mind.”
“If you go to Lourdes, you might be cured of this,” I said. “And then you could be happy about flying or sailing, and you could take Mabel off to Rome to see the Pope or wherever she wants to go.”
“That’s what I was thinking, Mr Rhea. If only I could persuade myself to get on that bus to Lourdes, I might be cured of all this worry about travelling. That’s why I’m taking so long thinking about it . . . it really scares me, Mr Rhea, but I want to go, you see, deep down.”
“Then you’ll have to make a real effort and go, Joseph. Besides, it is an act of faith, isn’t it? Going to Lourdes, I mean. It’s not a holiday or just any other trip overseas. It’s for God, for the Church, for you, too. A pilgrimage, if the truth was told. Even a penance. I think some Lourdes pilgrims consider it a form of penance . . . so there you are, think of it as a penance for all your past worries about travelling, a way of doing something for Mabel, a means of ending all your fears, once and for all.”
“Mebbe you’ve got summat there, Mr Rhea. Thanks for listening. Ah, here she comes now, with Dr Hindmarsh.”
“I’ll leave you alone.” I got up from the chair. “So shall I tell Father Simon to keep that seat for you?”
“Aye,” he said. “You do that. I’ll take it even if they have to strap me into it and dope me with summat to send me to sleep.”
“So what about the gooseberry show?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, an’ all. I reckon Jacob can see to things while I’m away, and as for my big gooseberry, well, I might not worry too much about it this year. I won’t submit any berries this time. I think it’s best if I get myself better before I do owt else. Besides I didn’t really think this year’s berries were heavy enough. They’ve been neglected too much. But next year, when I’m fit and fat again, well, everybody had better look out!”
“Joseph, you’re a new man!” I said, turning to leave.
“Not a word to a soul, Mr Rhea.” He put his finger to his lips.
“Our secret,” I smiled, as Mabel came to Joseph’s bedside with her news.
On the journey home in the car, Mabel told me that Dr Hindmarsh had reiterated his previous diagnosis, i.e. that Joseph was not suffering from any physical illness or disease. His stomach upset was not associated with his major condition — it was nothing more than a fairly normal stomach upset due to something he’d eaten. Hindmarsh had told Mabel, once again, that it was his belief that Joseph’s problems were entirely psychosomatic.
Having listened to what amounted to a confession from Joseph, I tended to agree and could now understand what might be at the root of all his recent trouble — it might be associated with Mabel’s continuing insistence that once he’d retired from his gooseberry duties, they might travel more and might include some visits overseas — something that literally terrified Joseph into making himself ill. He was too frightened to go, but daren’t admit his phobia to Mabel. I hoped that Lourdes trip would put an end to all that.
“Has Joseph been like this before?” I asked. “Losing weight, I mean, and not eating?”
“Only when we were making plans to go to Rome for our silver wedding,” she said. “He was very poorly, so we had to cancel it. We went up Wensleydale instead, a few days in Mi
ddleham, but it wasn’t the same. And he has got himself right worked up about going to Lourdes, Mr Rhea. It’s almost a torture for him, but as I said, he had to think of it as a penance for all those missed opportunities . . .”
“It’s funny you should use those words,” I smiled, adding, “Did you mention that to Dr Hindmarsh? About him losing weight when you were thinking of going to Rome?”
“No, that was such a long time ago, Mr Rhea. I don’t think it has anything to do with his present state.”
I did not think it wise to refer to Joseph’s phobia, after all, he’d told me in confidence, so I said, “I think Joseph should go to Lourdes. It could be the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“That’s just what I’ve told him, Mr Rhea. Mind you, talking to him just now, it seems he has been thinking about making a decision. He said he wanted another day to think it through. He said you and him had had a long heart to heart about it, and you’d said it was a religious commitment, a pilgrimage, not a holiday. If he can think of it as a church matter, that might just convince him, Mr Rhea. Anyway, he’s due out of here tomorrow and our Alan’s free to bring him home from the hospital.”
“So by tomorrow, we might know his decision?” I smiled, accelerating as we headed across the open expanse of moorland on our way back to Aidensfield.
Joseph returned the following afternoon and the first thing he did was to visit Father Simon with the announcement that he had decided to go to Lourdes. The parishioners and indeed the entire population of the village were delighted, many believing this heralded some kind of miracle by which Joseph would be cured of whatever was killing him. Joseph’s rumoured cancer continued to be a hot topic in Aidensfield and district, and his most recent spell in hospital had served only to strengthen that belief. We learned that in order to catch his coach from Middlesbrough, which left at 6 p.m. and travelled overnight to Dover, Joseph would have to leave Aidensfield just after 4.30 p.m. on the Sunday. He would travel in Father Simon’s parish car, and Mabel would accompany them to the departure point near Middlesbrough Cathedral. Word of this spread around the village and surrounding district with a speed that would have surpassed the most sophisticated of communications methods and it is fair to add that several highly competitive Big Berry Growers welcomed Joseph’s decision.
CONSTABLE UNDER THE GOOSEBERRY BUSH a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 21) Page 19