Last Kiss Goodnight

by Teresa Driscoll

  It is a good day, bright and dry, but the park is for the most part deserted, just a few dog walkers throwing sticks and balls. At the first free bench they sit to watch one of the games of fetch at a distance – between them a misshapen heart etched into the wood declaring that at some point in the past Sandra had loved Edward.

  ‘I always wanted a dog when I was a child.’

  Ross’s tone sounds genuine enough, but Matthew is now very much on his guard. A tactic? To soften him up? To get his name?

  ‘So what makes you think you’re linked to Millrose Mount, then?’

  ‘This is still off the record?’

  ‘Off the record.’

  ‘I’m adopted. My parents were told there was a link with Millrose Mount. I’m trying to find out one way or the other if that is true.’ It feels dangerous admitting this but he needs help and suspects he is more likely to get it if he is straight now.

  ‘And do you have the name of your real parents yet?’

  ‘No. Not yet. It’s taking much longer than I expected.’

  Ross swivels his body towards Matthew, reaching into his pocket and holding out his card.

  ‘Look. I realise this is tough for you. But if you get your mother’s name, I’ll let you know, off the record, whether it matches the case we had on file. Yes or no. I can’t give you any more than that.’

  Matthew takes the card and looks at it for a while before putting it in his own pocket and turning away again to watch a black Labrador disappear between a range of bushes – its owner calling fruitlessly for it to return.

  ‘Will you at least consider talking to me again? An interview. If you find that there is a link?’

  ‘Look – I’m sorry. I don’t want to waste your time.’ Matthew stands. ‘But I don’t want to be in a story. I mean – I realise that’s what you do. But I just need to know the truth about myself.’

  Ross shrugs. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Was it really such a bad place, Millrose Mount?’ Matthew is looking at him very directly.

  And now Ross stretches out his legs as if examining his shoes.

  ‘Six months of my life I gave that story. Half of it unpaid – until I got one of the networks interested. It was like an addiction, Alan. If I’m still calling you Alan? Anyway. I couldn’t get the place out of my head. Awful stories. Understaffing. Patients refused access to the bathrooms at night. Nurses playing cards instead of working. Worse. The overuse of drugs to give the staff a quieter life.’

  He sits up, tucking his legs back under the bench and looking Matthew in the eye.

  ‘I didn’t sensationalise anything in that documentary. Millrose Mount was a bad place. Believe me. It was a bad place.’

  40

  ‘You come out first.’

  ‘No, you.’

  ‘I feel ridiculous.’

  Kate and Martha’s voices from behind their neighbouring bedroom doors have a high and slightly hysterical tone.

  At the local theatre four days earlier they adopted this same girlish, self-conscious tone as they bartered over who should go first to select their Elizabethan outfits.

  It was Maria who insisted – needing her key campaign troops ‘in disguise’ to infiltrate the Elizabethan procession and help with the surprise detour to the quay.

  Aylesborough’s only fancy dress hire agency had been tried and ultimately dismissed, displaying only cheap period costumes in thin, shiny fabric. Unconvincing and decidedly unflattering. It was one of Wendy’s contacts from the crafty set who knew of the theatre option – that a private booking could be made to hire costumes not needed for current productions.

  ‘You’ll have to be courtiers,’ the theatre woman ventured as she led them down a narrow corridor to an L-shaped room without windows or any kind of adequate ventilation, packed with row upon row of clothing rails, some of the outfits covered in plastic, others in proper cotton covers – the whole reminiscent of the backroom of a dry-cleaning shop. Ominously, there seemed to be no labelling system. But the woman, who introduced herself as Karen and had been with the theatre ten years, explained that she never forgot a costume and knew where everything was. ‘All the medieval peasants have been adapted for the panto.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Kate was fingering her hair self-consciously, realising her longer style would have matched the outfits much better.

  Karen stopped then and smiled. ‘We needed the autumn colours – browns, yellows and oranges. Lower-class colours by the Elizabethan code.’

  ‘You’re saying they had different colours for different classes?’ Kate was curious now.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Karen perked up. ‘It was actually illegal for women to wear the wrong colour. Sumptuary Laws called the Statute of Apparel. Queen Elizabeth’s own idea. A sort of colour coding to put everyone very neatly in their place. From 1574, I think it was.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’ Martha looked suddenly more interested.

  ‘I think red for you.’ Karen tipped her head to the side. ‘Yes. Scarlet. Influential. Wife of a knight or a gentlewoman of the privy chamber. Here… ’ She was swishing through a number of dresses on a rail crushed against the back wall. ‘Try this one. There’s a cubicle in the corner.’

  And turning then to Kate, who was still fingering her new hair.

  ‘And for you? Gold. Yes – wife of a viscount. Or baroness. Will go lovely with the dark hair.’

  And now – at Kate’s home. No going back.

  ‘You promise you won’t laugh.’

  ‘I’ve seen it already.’ Martha finally opens the door to Kate’s room to find her standing in front of the full-length mirror.

  ‘I shouldn’t have cut my hair.’

  ‘Nonsense. It looks fantastic.’

  ‘And you.’

  A pause. And now their eyes meet through the mirror.

  ‘Bloody hell, Martha.’

  It struck Kate immediately at the theatre and now even more so. Stripped of her disguise, with the playing field properly levelled – Martha, shoulder to shoulder, in her Elizabethan outfit, has no option today but to be what she is.

  ‘You look really beautiful.’

  Martha smiles. ‘Dear God. I actually don’t look too bad, do I? And you – Kate. It is just so lovely to see you smiling again. Been a while. You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine. Well, not fine, but a bit better. I’ll manage. I want to do this for Maria, so come on. If we’re late, she’ll kill us both… ’

  At the café they are greeted by the farce of a medieval mob, most standing up in deference to the restriction of their undergarments, tucking into bacon sandwiches and sticky pastries, leaning forward awkwardly to avoid spilling grease and sugar down their finery.

  There is a proliferation of velvet and taffeta, much of it fur-trimmed and with stitching of gold and silver, which, according to Karen’s explanation of the rules, makes this a very distinguished mob indeed. No one below a baron, knight or wife thereof in sight.

  ‘Martha! That’s never you? You look stunning.’ Maria, resplendent in deep green velvet with a huge frilly white collar, breaks away immediately from the throng to envelope her friend in a bear hug. ‘We must have a picture. Carlo. Carlo? Where’s the camera?’

  Pictures fretted over, argued over and taken finally in triplicate, Maria claps her hands to gather the troops around a map on one of the tables to explain the manoeuvres ahead.

  The quay is more or less parallel to the approved site for the fair in Market Square. As a cover, a few traders whose stalls can be packed up most easily and moved later have agreed to set up in the square as normal, so as not to arouse suspicion. A poor turnout will be the excuse if the council or police ask questions.

  Meantime other traders are already setting up instead on the quay outside. This is the riskiest part, Martha explains, as several look up through the window to check progress. There are rarely any officials about to notice, but if they are unlucky – a traffic warden, for instance – then, yes, it could all go pear-shape
d.

  That aside, this was the plan. The band and the official procession are already outside the town hall on the high street. With no history of trouble – traffic or otherwise – the ensemble is normally shepherded by just three or four police officers. The main concern is the junction with Nelson Road, at which point police normally stop the traffic temporarily to let the procession pass.

  ‘We have our first group of “extras” ready just past the junction so that we can lead the procession right instead of left.’ Martha is tracing the proposed detour with her finger now. ‘See – along towards Prospect Road. The important thing is to take the lead. This will put the police in the middle of the new procession instead of at the front. By the time they catch up with what’s happening, our second group of “extras” step in here.’ She has marked an X on the map at the junction with Prospect Road. ‘Now we have yet another new lead group to hurry the procession the last little bit to the quay. This will in effect push the police further and further back. It should be too late and hopefully too confusing by then to do anything about it. We’ll have Elizabeth the First already in position to do the honours at the tree on the quay, and the council and police will just have to live with it. That way, we get all the pictures and the publicity where we want it. Right here.’

  There is a round of applause as Martha folds the map before dividing her troops into two groups. It is decided Carlo will manage the first detour along with Kate and Martha, while Maria will wait at the final stage, Prospect Road, with the rest. Various shopkeepers have already offered cover for those who need to lie low until they are needed. Someone mumbles about the need for runners but Maria reminds them of the brass band, signal enough for all but the profoundly deaf, surely?

  Forty minutes later the plan is in action. Just as predicted, only four officers have been assigned to the task and the procession begins uneventfully with shopkeepers and customers lining the street applauding politely.

  There is just one officer standing in the road, as expected, at the junction with Nelson Road, and he is left both stunned and helpless when the procession does not continue on the agreed route but turns right instead.

  ‘No. No – not that way. Left. It’s left.’ Innocent of the mutiny and assuming a mix-up, his voice is lost as the band turns right, ignoring him completely. Confused and evidently at a loss, the officer then cups his hand over his radio in a bid to make himself understood above the din.

  It’s going the wrong way. The Elizabethan procession. It’s going the wrong way.

  It is the proximity of two patrol cars that Maria did not anticipate. Two backup cars sit on standby in the taxi rank just one street away, their occupants enjoying the remnants of chip butties when the panicked message comes through that the procession is off course.

  The first car is dispatched immediately to the very point at which Maria and her second gang are waiting.

  ‘Hello? So what are you lot doing here? You’re supposed to be in Market Square.’ The enquiry, with the window down, is at first polite, the police still assuming a misunderstanding until Maria and her followers spin away from the police car, hitch up their long skirts to leg it across the road, ready to join the head of the procession just turning into the street.

  Smelling a rat now, the driver of the patrol car pulls across the street to block the road, intending to head off the procession and send it back around to its original destination.

  ‘Go round the side!’ Maria is now yelling. ‘Round the side of the police car, everyone.’

  Obediently the procession splits into two, streaming around the first patrol car, at which point the second vehicle appears further along the street – this time with four officers.

  No longer polite, but still hoping for an end to this fiasco, one of the officers points out Maria as the obvious ringleader and begins shouting at her to stop this at once. You’ll cause an accident, madam…

  Another officer, swifter on his feet than the rest, runs across the road to grab Maria by the arm, demanding she accompany him to the patrol car. Panic on her face now, Maria immediately shakes herself free and without thinking pushes the officer backwards, applying the flats of both palms to his chest.

  Knocked almost off his feet, the officer’s expression and tone changes. And with it the whole mood.

  ‘Right. That’s it!’ He moves fast to take hold of Maria again.

  Across the road the procession struggles past the patrol car, some of the costumed quite happy to ignore the police, others more hesitant now – slowing down. Maria, desperate the momentum should not be lost, is bright red in the face, shouting her encouragement ever louder while struggling again to free herself.

  ‘Don’t stop. Go round them. Go round!’

  By this time the bulk of the procession has caught up, and in the distance Carlo, pushing desperately through the throng, can just see his wife, now in the grips of two officers, her face puce and her shoulders heaving with the hyperventilation he has seen all too often.

  She is not being held especially tightly. The problem for Maria is that she is struggling too hard. And the more she struggles, the more determinedly the officers hold onto her – with traffic tooting its horn in the street opposite. People shouting. The band playing.

  Both Martha and Kate, having pushed their way to the front also, are now running past the musicians to catch up with Carlo.

  And then everything seems to stop and Martha and Kate freeze. So that they both hear it.

  Above the band. Above the traffic. Above all the other shouting. And tooting.

  It is a cry no one who was there can ever forget.

  The cry from Carlo to his wife. Out of reach…

  ‘Maria! No... Maria. No!’

  … as she collapses suddenly and completely to the ground.

  41

  At the hospital later, it is his manners which kill everyone.

  Martha watches Carlo especially closely and can hardly bear it – greeting each person as he greets them in the café, as if Maria has just popped out the back, leaving him unexpectedly to mind the shop alone.

  So – can I get anyone anything? Coffee? Tea? Newspaper?

  There are four cubicles in intensive care but the partitions paper-thin so that other families who sit sombre and silent alongside their own loved ones’ beds turn occasionally, perplexed as Carlo nips in and out, wittering on and on – unable to bear the quiet. So used to Maria filling it for him.

  He takes turns with other family members to sit with her, in between shifts pacing the corridor to join the stream of well-wishers; the air stifling and their throats burning as Carlo fights the silence as if it is the enemy – Maria all the while large and lame in her bed with her drips and drains, her husband’s babbling punctuated only by the bleep of her monitors just visible through the glass.

  We’ll laugh about this one day. Maria on that stretcher in her costume. The doctors say it was a stroke but she could come round any time. We’ll know more then. Sorry – did I ask if you want a drink? Coffee? Tea? Her sister’s sitting with her at the moment.

  Only family are allowed to sit alongside at first but eventually the rules are relaxed and Wendy is taken through with a little posy of woollen flowers, an intricate affair knitted expertly by her team – white and pink with leaves to match those on Maria’s tree. Kate and Martha next.

  Just five minutes. No more.

  Martha thinks she can steel herself. For Maria. But it is even harder than she expected.

  And in the end… too much.

  In the corridor she feels giddy, staring into the corner where Maria’s youngest daughter is cradling the grandchild for whom she, in another life, knitted the christening shawl.

  ‘Come on, Martha. You look as if you need some air.’ Kate tilts her head.

  Still Martha cannot move. Mesmerised as the mother rocks to and fro. To and fro. The infant sucking on her little finger. Kate is staring at her. Worried eyes. Frowning.

  All Martha can feel is th
at the air seems to be getting hotter and hotter. More and more stifling.

  ‘I’m not ready to go, Kate.’

  ‘I insist. You look unwell yourself. Come on. Let’s just walk a little bit and come back later. I mean it – you don’t look well at all. It will be the worry. The air will do you good.’

  And so, unspeaking, they finally wind their way through the stale tobacco smell of the hospital waiting rooms, outside to the car park, across a large patch of lawn and then up the steep hill to the Ridge, where Martha feels a little better, taking in the clearer air, taking the lead now, striding more purposefully.

  It is one of those perfect winter days – too beautiful for the circumstance; the sky completely clear. Not quite cold enough for snow but with the crisp clarity of light that December can sometimes bring, and as they climb higher and higher, the wind rises with them.

  They pass many beautiful properties – large, imposing houses turned mostly into offices for accountants; front gardens turned over to sad little car parks with signs warning trespassers of dogs and fines.

  Even as Martha guides Kate to the correct street, she is not sure yet that she will say it. Tell her.

  ‘Do you mind if we stop? Rest a minute?’

  And then suddenly it is out of her hands. They are on a bench that is not a random choice at all but within sight of the very house. And Martha knows that it is decided.

  She stares at the white, double-fronted properly. Always this same surprise inside her that it has changed so little. Same windows. Same columns at the door.

  For a time, just watching the waves, Kate is looking the wrong way. But when finally she turns, she realises.

  ‘What on earth is the matter, Martha? I’m really worried about you. You look— ’

  ‘That’s where I had my child, Kate. Well – not the birth. I had to go to the hospital for that. A complication. It hasn’t changed much, Aylesborough Hospital. Surprising. After all these years.’ She looks momentarily away but then back at the building. ‘I was there with him – that window up on the right. Second floor. There were four of us in there.’