She stabbed a finger down on the keyboard and watched as the name Franny Roote blossomed on the screen.
Hardly the answer to a maiden’s prayer.
So maybe it was as well a maiden wasn’t praying.
Meanwhile in a quiet side ward of the Central Hospital Rye Pomona was aghast to find herself once more talking to her dead brother.
What was worse, she could see him quite clearly, and as he listened to her he was irritatedly trying to pick bits of fluff and small shards of china out of his skin.
This was one of the things she and Myra Rogers had been able to laugh at as they celebrated Christmas together. Under the fertilizing influence of a bottle of white wine the seeds of friendship sown at their first meeting in the churchyard had burgeoned rapidly, and a bottle of red had brought it into full bloom.
‘You must think I’m really weird,’ Rye had said, laughing. ‘Drunks banging on my door, me glooming round the churchyard like I was spaced out on dope …’
‘Well, I’ve got to admit, that first time I saw you there, I thought, Hello, what kind of company am I getting into here! I never did work out what you were up to …’
‘It was nothing really … just a sort of feeling down, you know …’ said Rye, a small nugget of caution resisting the solvent properties of the alcohol.
‘Hey, listen, none of my business, some troubles are best shared, some are better kept to yourself, don’t I know it! What happened to decent reticence? When my husband died, suddenly everyone was a counsellor, wanting me to sit down and let it all hang out, when all I wanted to do was go somewhere quiet and sort things out for myself.’
‘Yes, I know. How did he die? Oh God, I’m sorry … there I go …’
‘Don’t be silly. Funny, now I’m ready to talk, no one ever asks. It was a car accident. Multiple pile-up on the motorway. Just one fatality. Carl. I felt targeted! Like it would have helped if there’d been dozens dead instead of having to read in the papers what a miracle it was things hadn’t been a lot worse!’
And that had been enough, plus another glass or two of wine, to bring it all out, the crash, Sergius’s death, the broken vase …
‘It had been there too long. I don’t know which was worse, being aware it was there or forgetting all about it. I’d been thinking about it, now that Hat, that’s my boyfriend, and me are … an item, you know, it didn’t seem right somehow …’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I had a boyfriend once who found it a real turn-on to screw in churchyards. I dumped him after I was having a shower at the squash club one morning and a friend asked me why I had RIP stencilled backwards on my left buttock.’
After they recovered from the outbreak of laughter this brought on, it had been easy to tell her everything – or rather that mangled version of everything which she would have given almost anything to be the truth and which she almost believed much repetition might make so. She had even been able to make a joke of the farcical possibilities of her hoovering if, as the Bible promised, our bodies were reconstituted on Judgment Day. It had been a long time since Rye had talked so frankly with another woman and it felt good. Next morning when she tried to recall cloudily what she had said, it didn’t feel quite so good, but when she saw Myra again and found her bright and friendly but with nothing pushy or knowing in her manner, the good feeling returned.
Suddenly with the New Year approaching, the future had begun to seem – not possible – but not impossible either. As if through love and friendship and maybe confession (but, oh, how her heart cracked at the thought of confessing to Hat!), some kind of atonement might be within her grasp …
Now here she was on the first day of that bright new year, lying in a hospital bed, talking again to her dead brother.
‘Listen,’ she said urgently. ‘I know you’re not there. I know you never have been … all that stuff … I don’t know … I don’t know … it wasn’t me … someone else …’
But it had been her. And Sergius was here, standing before her, silently accusing, but of what? Oh God, no, not accusing her of stopping when she was getting close – not urging her to start again and go on to the bitter end till enough blood had been spilt to give him his tongue – no, she couldn’t start down that path again, she would run mad. Perhaps she was running mad …
‘Sergius, Sergius,’ she cried. ‘Don’t ask me. I can’t … you’re not really here …’
And to prove it she reached out her hand, and he reached out his to her and she took it and he squeezed her fingers hard. She closed her eyes and didn’t know whether to sing out with joy or cry out in terror. And when she opened them again it wasn’t Sergius after all but Hat who was sitting there, holding her hand as if he felt that only his strong grip kept her from plummeting into a fathomless pit. Maybe he was right.
‘Oh, Hat,’ she said.
‘Hi.’
‘Hat.’
‘You said that. You’re meant to say, “Where am I?”’
‘Don’t care where I am so long as you’re here.’
To her distress she saw his eyes fill with tears.
‘Don’t cry,’ she urged. ‘There’s nothing to cry about. Please. What time is it? Come to think of it, what day is it?’
‘Still New Year’s Day. Just. They said all the signs were you’d got past whatever it was and gone into a deep sleep, but you’ve been out of it a lot longer than they thought.’
He kept his tone light, but she could tell how deep his concern went.
‘Well, I’m back now. So I’ve just been sleeping, have I?’
‘And talking.’
‘Talking.’ Now it was her turn to keep it light. ‘Did I make sense?’
‘About as much as you ever do,’ he said, grinning.
‘Seriously.’
‘Not a lot,’ he said. ‘You kept on calling me Sergius.’
‘Oh shit. I was … dreaming about … I’m sorry.’
‘What for? In hospital again, the smells, the sounds, it must have taken you back subconsciously to that time after the accident.’
‘You work that out yourself, Dr Freud?’ she said, striving towards lightness, towards the light. ‘Have you been here all the time?’
‘Most. And when I wasn’t, Myra was. She’s been great. I like her a lot.’
‘Not sure if I approve of my boyfriend liking a good-looking widow a lot,’ she said. ‘Do they have doctors in this place or are they all still drunk after last night?’
‘I think the ones who matter probably still are. There’s this kid looks younger than me looking after you. Whenever I ask him what’s wrong, he talks vaguely about tests and talking to Mr Chakravarty, the neuroconsultant. I’d better tell someone you’re awake.’
‘Why? So they can give me a sleeping pill?’
‘So that if there’s anything they can start doing to make sure this never happens again, they can start doing it.’
Gently he disengaged her hand and stood up.
She said, ‘Hat, I’m sorry. Great way to start the year, yeah?’
He looked down at her, smiling.
‘Can only get better. And it will. This is the greatest year of my life, remember. It’s the year I’m going to marry you. I love you, Redwing.’
He went out of the door.
Rye turned her head and stared at the uncurtained window against which night was pressing like a dark beast eager to get in.
She said, ‘Serge, you bastard, what have you done to me?’
And burst into tears.
She woke up the next morning feeling, rather to her surprise, much better. Not physically, though it was fair to say she felt as well as she’d felt at any time in the past month, but mentally. She had made no New Year resolutions either this year or any previous year of her life, but it felt as if a resolution had been made for her.
The hours drifted by. Nurses did their mysterious things and promised that Mr Chakravarty would see her soon; her adolescent doctor examined her and assured her Mr Chakravarty was imminent
; she had visitors – Dalziel with a large jar of loganberries pickled in Drambuie which he ate with a teaspoon; members of the library staff in their lunch break with books and enough gossip to suggest she’d been away for weeks rather than half a day (New Year’s Day being of course a holiday); Myra Rogers with a basket of fruit and, wise woman, a small grip full of clothes and other necessities. And Hat came too, of course, with flowers and chocolates, and love, the only gift which made her want to cry, though she felt a bit weepie as she saw Dalziel finish the last of the loganberries.
She dozed off a little (it was funny how lying in bed all day makes you so sleepy) and woke to see Hat in deep confabulation with a couple of nurses. She felt no jealousy, just a kind of languorous pride in the effect his youthful charm clearly had on the young women.
She dozed again and woke to find she’d almost missed Mr Chakravarty. He was looking down at her from a great height. He was tall, slim, dark, extremely handsome. He might have been one of those Indian princes who, she seemed to recollect, went to the great public schools and played cricket for England back in the thirties. And, like a prince, he stayed only long enough to be adored then went on his way.
She asked the nurses and the adolescent doctor the questions she’d failed to ask him. They talked of tests and scans, all of which it seemed must be delayed till the necessary facilities became free. It sounded as though there were waiting lists to go on waiting lists.
Alone at last about teatime, she lay fully awake and pondered these matters. Several things were quite clear to her.
Whatever needed to be done was going to take time. During that time she was going to be treated like a poor dependant. And Hat was only going to have to smile for everything concerning her diagnosis to be made immediately available to him.
She got out of bed and took the grip Myra had brought her from under the bed.
The ward sister summoned the adolescent doctor, but Rye simply said, ‘I will sign anything you want me to sign as long as I have it before me in the next sixty seconds.’
She then went down to the reception area where there was a large diagram of the hospital, studied it for a while, then strode off with such a certainty of purpose that no one felt it necessary to enquire what that purpose was, not even when she entered areas not accessible to the commonalty of patients.
Finally she arrived at a door with the name she sought printed on it – Victor Chakravarty – and went in. A stout young woman behind a stout old desk viewed her without enthusiasm.
‘I want to make an appointment to see Mr Chakravarty,’ said Rye. ‘My name is Pomona, initial R. He has all my details, or at least they are available to him in Ward 17.’
‘You’re a patient?’ said the woman, as if it were a nasty condition. ‘Sorry, but you really shouldn’t be here …’
‘I was a patient. I wish to become a client. A paying client. I understand that there are various tests I may have to undergo. I should like to make an appointment to see Mr Chakravarty fairly early one morning so that, after our consultation, I might undertake these tests and hear his interpretation of their results later the same day.’
‘He’s really very busy …’
‘So I’ve gathered. So I won’t be too demanding. It’s Wednesday the second now. Let’s say the start of next week. Monday the seventh would suit me very well.’
The stout woman, her alarm at being confronted by an NHS patient alleviated, now came briskly to the most important point.
‘Do you have health insurance?’
‘No. I shall be paying for my own treatment. Would you like a deposit?’
The stout woman’s eyes said she reckoned this wasn’t a bad idea, but her mouth said, ‘No, of course not …’
‘Good,’ said Rye. ‘Shall we say nine thirty, Monday morning, January seventh? Here’s my home number in case of problems. My work number too. I’ll be there between nine and five from tomorrow. Thank you.’
At the door she paused.
‘Of course, as a private patient, I shall expect complete privacy. Any leakage of information to anyone – friends, relations, anyone – I should view very legalistically.’
She left without waiting for an answer.
On the morning of Saturday January 5th Edgar Wield looked at the over-the-top decorations festooning Corpse Cottage and thought with relief that tomorrow would see the end of them. He’d have had them down after New Year but his born-again-traditionalist partner declared it was well known to bring tremendous bad luck if you laid hands on them before Twelfth Night.
Now Digweed said sadly, ‘The place won’t be the same without them.’
‘You’re right there,’ said Wield with undisguised irony.
His partner regarded him seriously.
Perhaps, thought Wield, he’s thinking that in this relationship he makes all the adjustments and when he asks me to go along with one little thing like having bells and baubles all over the place, I make a big fuss. Maybe I should try harder. I will try harder!
‘Edgar,’ said Digweed.
‘Yes?’
‘Tonight we’re going out.’
‘OK,’ said Wield. ‘Where?’
‘Tinks.’
If Wield’s features could have shown aghast, that’s what they would have shown.
He said, ‘You mean Tinks? Krystabel’s? The club? At Estotiland?’
‘As always you are right in every respect. Tinks, the night club.’
Wield still couldn’t believe it. Digweed was even less of a hot-spot night-owl than he was. In his own case, professional discretion played a large part. But for Digweed it was simply a deep-rooted distaste. And of all the clubs available, Wield would have picked Tinks as the one his partner was least likely to be seen dead in. Whether the Estoti brothers had planned it as a gay club, no one knew. But within weeks of its opening in Estotiland, its street name had changed from Krystabel’s to Tinkerbell’s, whence Tinks, and the management seemed set on running it as almost a parody of what straights thought a gay club ought to be. All this Wield knew by report. If he’d anticipated visiting the place, it seemed likely it would be in the line of duty. Never in his wildest fantasies had he thought he and Edwin would go there as customers.
He said carefully, ‘Are you sure this is a good idea? It’s a night club, yes, but perhaps not in the way you remember them.’
‘And what way is that, pray? Discreet lighting, dinner jackets, a string trio to dance to, and perhaps the Western Brothers or Inkspots as cabaret? I assure you, I am completely au fait with modern trends.’
‘In that case, why … ?’
‘My good friend, Wim Leenders, is celebrating his fiftieth birthday there, and he wants me to join his party, and he said I’ve been hiding your light under my bushel for far too long and insisted I bring you. And if he hadn’t insisted, I would have done because you cannot imagine I could contemplate entering such a place without your moral support.’
This, as well as being a nicely turned compliment, explained everything.
Since they got together, Wield had met several of Digweed’s friends. Most of them he liked very much, and generally they seemed to like him, but he avoided getting too close. Over the years, like a lot of his straight colleagues, Wield had learnt to be careful about his choice of friends outside the Force. He’d been upfront with Digweed about his reluctance to be swamped by a whole new circle of acquaintance, vicariously acquired, and usually he’d met his partner’s chums singly or in pairs.
Wim Leenders was a six and a half foot, sixteen and a half stone, chisel-bearded Dutchman who’d moved to England twenty years ago because he liked to climb rocks and walk uphill. He collected early books on mountaineering and fell walking, which was how Digweed had come to know him. He seemed to have rather more money than his outdoor-gear shops might be expected to generate, but a careful check by Wield (memory of which filled him with shame) had turned up no hint of naughtiness. Most of the time, as if self-conscious about his physical presence, he
was a very quiet-mannered, self-effacing, gently courteous kind of chap, but when he let his hair down, he became a runaway juggernaut. Wield had seen something of this side of him at a funeral wake. What he was going to be like at his own fiftieth didn’t bear thinking of. This made his choice of Tinks a damage-limitation tactic which said much for his basic good sense. But Wield still couldn’t quite grasp why Edwin hadn’t simply made an excuse when he got the invitation.
So, because he believed in openness in a relationship, he asked the question direct.
Digweed said, ‘Wim helped me out of a rather tricky situation a few years back, long before I knew you. Of course my first reaction was to say no to his invitation, but he has been most pressing and I’ve brooded on the matter for some days and come to the conclusion it would be – how to put it? – pusillanimous of me to refuse. But I really do need what you would call back-up, Edgar.’
‘Of course I’ll come,’ said Wield. ‘On one condition.’
‘And what is that?’
‘There is going to be jelly and cream, isn’t there?’
Digweed laughed, then said seriously, ‘Thank you, Edgar. I appreciate it.’
Which made Wield feel good, though the feeling had not developed into any lively anticipation of enjoyment as through the taxi window bearing them south about nine thirty that night he saw a serpentine neon sign wriggling the name Krystabel’s across the dark winter sky.
But life is full of surprises.
As they got out of the taxi, the club doors burst open and a burly man in a long mohair overcoat emerged. He had a mobile phone pressed to his ear and his face was deathly pale. Behind him appeared a young man with a fashionably shaven head and wearing a tight black T-shirt which showed off his muscular torso.
‘Come on, LB, it’ll be OK, don’t let him snarl you up like this,’ he called. ‘Hey, would you like me to come with you?’
The burly man showed no sign of having heard and strode off towards the car park.
Wield, who had retreated into the taxi, now got out. He didn’t watch the departing man but concentrated on the other who, becoming aware of this, said ‘You’ll know me again, funny face,’ before twisting round and going back inside.
Death's Jest-Book Page 31