Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

  If Jenny hadn’t come to England, the priest would be contented and unaware, the way she’d seen him that first Sunday in St. Mary’s. Sarah could probably have lived for years on dialysis. And it was a sure bet Biddy would have been made to leave Glen Ellen. Surely a couple, a perfect man and wife team, could have been found to live with Sarah. They’d have all gotten along just fine without Jenny. Why had she ever thought they wouldn’t?

  She was finishing her third cup of coffee when she heard the small voice inside her head. What good would running away do? Wouldn’t it break her sister’s heart? What if her father woke up and called for her? What if he was lucid right to the very end and she wasn’t there? She picked up the check the waitress had left on the table, and now, suddenly so anxious to be gone there was no time to give the waitress the money, Jenny placed a five pound note on the bill and almost ran out the door. Back at the hospital, she parked in her usual place, jumped out of the car, and dashed up the stairs to Sarah’s room. A nurse met her at the door. Mr. Sidney had told Sarah about her father’s condition and ordered her a mild tranquilizer. She wasn’t asleep but the nurse made it clear there was to be no excitement.

  When Jenny pushed open the door, Sarah rose up and stretched out her arms. They clung to each other, each murmuring comforting words, patting each other’s back.

  Sarah was the first to pull away and wipe her eyes. “We’d better not let him see us cry,” she said. “We’ll have to put on big smiley faces. And anyway, ’tensive care doesn’t always mean you die. Dr. Thorne was in there and he didn’t die.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Jenny said, picking up some of Sarah’s caring yet calm tone. “What was wrong with him?”

  “His heart. The doctors took it out and held it in their hands.” Sarah cupped her hands and stared down at them, as if seeing the very heart. “They did something to it then stuck it back in.”

  Jenny shuddered. “Oh, wow. How long ago was that?”

  “Donkey’s years. But look at him now. He’s got one of the kindest, biggest hearts in all of England.”

  Jenny rang Andy on his cell phone. Until that moment she hadn’t known for sure how much she really cared for him, but knew now she wanted him near her more than anybody else in the whole world.

  “Please come, Andy,” she said. “I know Alf’s not there, but I need you.”

  “Hang on, love,” Andy said. “I’ll be there soon as I can. See if you can get me in at Trudy’s.”

  “Yes, OK. But please hurry.”

  The next person she called was the bishop. Even as she listened to the ringing, waiting for him to pick up, it hit her why he hadn’t visited her father, why there’d been just that one call. Bishop Fitzpatrick didn’t approve and this had to be the reason why her father hadn’t said much about the man. He hadn’t wanted to worry her. Any ordinary good bishop would have been there already. Her father had made a great sacrifice for a daughter he hardly knew. Who did this bishop think he was to pass judgment?

  “Bishop Fitzpatrick,” came the stern voice down the line.

  “This is Jenny, Father Woodleigh’s daughter. My father’s been moved into intensive care. There’s an infection of some sort and he’s listed as critical. Perhaps you could come.” She felt herself beginning to babble, and before the bishop could even answer, she hung up, then closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. What he would think of her, she didn’t know and didn’t care. But if he didn’t come soon, she could call her father’s friend, that priest at St. Anne’s here in Manchester, or maybe Father Doyle in Daytonwater.

  She returned to Sarah’s room and found her asleep holding onto her Paddington bear. The tranquilizer had taken effect. Jenny put her hand on her sister’s forehead. It felt cool, but she asked the nurse to check her temperature to be sure. It was normal, the nurse said, no sign of fever or rejection, and yes, she should be discharged any day now.

  Jenny went into intensive care twice while she waited for Andy. Her father looked pale and gaunt, his eyes closed. He had an IV in his arm and an oxygen tube in his nose. She sat in the waiting room alone until Andy walked through the door. He opened his arms wide and she walked into them. “I’d have been here sooner,” he said, “but there was a holdup on the M-6.”

  Late that night, while Sarah was asleep, Mr. Valseaton came into the waiting room and whispered to them it might be wise to call another priest or perhaps a bishop to perform the last rites. As the surgeon got to his feet, Bishop Fitzpatrick walked into the room.

  Charles had been drifting in and out of sleep. Sometimes he’d wake while they were taking his temperature, checking his IV drip. His brain was fuzzy, probably from the medication, but he was alert enough to know he was in intensive care. He was in no pain, just a sense of slipping, of the bed moving around as if it were one of those waterbeds.

  Through a haze, he saw Jenny and Sarah walk toward him. Sarah leaned on Jenny’s arm and he watched Jenny ease her into a chair then pull up the other chair for herself. They held hands and spoke to each other in hushed whispers, turned to look at him from time to time, then back to each other to whisper again. He longed to tell Sarah how proud he was she’d been so brave, but he was just too tired.

  The next time he opened his eyes, his bishop, Vincent Fitzpatrick, was in the room, stole already across his shoulders. When he leaned over him, Charles nodded to let him know he was aware he was dying. His bishop pressed his hand gently and turned to the girls. While they talked, Charles closed his eyes and delved into the ragbag of the years, searching for something new to cling to. All he could dredge up were the same well-worn but priceless memories. He stood now on the wall that spanned the brook, poetry book in front of him, hamming it up as he read “How Do I Love Thee.” Beverly laughed up at him, then he watched her rise into the air and fly away, still laughing. He called for her to come down, but she disappeared into the mist.

  The scene shifted to St. Mary’s. He was at the lectern staring down at the largest congregation he’d ever had. The boys choir was singing “I Wanna Hold your Hand,” while Jenny and Sarah, dressed all in white, carried bouquets of pink tea roses and danced down the aisle toward him. When they reached him, they raised their hands toward him and the congregation clapped.

  He opened his eyes and was once more back in hospital. The bishop was telling his girls something, moving his arms, explaining. Something inside Charles swelled. The bishop liked them, Charles could tell. These girls were his own flesh and blood, his very own family. The tall, beautiful Jenny, so like her mother, and the gentle, vulnerable, yet so brave Sarah. He’d known them hardly more than a few weeks yet there was this great love. He blinked and felt tears slide out of the corners of his eyes across his temples onto the pillow.

  “Come closer,” he whispered, “so I can see you.”

  Together they stood beside his bed. “We both love you so much,” Jenny said. “We’re so glad we found each other.”

  “At the rectory, a suitcase, odds and ends. The poetry book and snapshot.” He wanted to tell her there were two photos, almost identical, and to give one to Sarah, but he couldn’t get the words out.

  “I wish I could give you your kidney back,” Sarah said, banging her fist on her knee. “That dialing machine wasn’t so bad.”

  Even now he felt his lips curl in a semblance of a smile. Sarah had never been able to say dialysis. “For you—all my love,” he murmured, his voice dry and cracked.

  He watched as his bishop made preparations for the Sacrament, whispered something to the girls. They moved to the bottom of the bed, while he adjusted his stole with one hand and held the Ritual in his other. Jenny closed her eyes and bowed her head, while Sarah put the palms of her hands together under her chin, squeezed her eyes shut and raised her head.

  Charles had delivered his share of the Sacrament over the years and now it was his turn. While Vincent Fitzpatrick read from the Ritual, Charles closed his eyes and prayed harder than he’d ever prayed before. Not for himself but for his
girls. He prayed for them to be happy, to find solace in each other. He already knew them so well, enough to know they both had absurd guilt feelings. Sarah because she would blame his death on the transplant, and Jenny who would blame everything on herself for coming to England in the first place.

  After the Sacrament, Charles opened his eyes and blinked his thanks to the bishop. Vincent Fitzpatrick nodded, a gentle, sad smile hovering round his mouth. Sarah and Jenny moved back to the side of Charles’s bed and he stretched a hand toward them. As they both held on, he took a deep breath and let it out in a long slow sigh. The very act surprised him. It was a good breath without the drag he’d needed before. It was as if he could have done it on his own without the oxygen. And it hadn’t hurt. Cautiously, he took another, and it didn’t hurt either.

  He saw his bishop bend forward, look into his eyes, then turn to whisper something to Jenny and Sarah. Charles tried to smile and didn’t know if he’d made it. His eyelids grew heavier as he felt himself being pulled toward sleep.

  Jenny watched her father take those breaths before he fell asleep. Without taking her gaze away from him, she spoke softly to the bishop. “Did he—does he sound to you as if he’s breathing just a tad easier?”

  “I’m not sure,” Vincent Fitzpatrick said, his voice tight. “Perhaps it does seem so. Yes, I do believe you’re right.” He turned again to Jenny and reached for her hand.

  They watched while a nurse came in and took his temperature, then looked at her watch as she checked his pulse.

  “I need to get the doctor,” she said. “Excuse me.”

  Within five minutes, a woman doctor Jenny had never seen before came in and asked them to wait outside the intensive care unit. Andy was there and when Jenny and Sarah went to him, he opened his arms wide and held them close.

  Five minutes later the doctor came out, a cautious smile on her face. “His temperature’s dropped. Down almost a degree. Let’s not be too optimistic, yet it does seem—” She had an Irish brogue, which sounded suddenly to Jenny’s ears, like tinkling bells.

  Hours later, long after Sarah had gone to sleep, and Bishop Fitzpatrick had returned to his hotel, a weary Mr. Valseaton told Jenny and Andy the priest’s temperature had dropped another half a degree.

  “Sometimes these things are false alarms,” he said. “So we have to view them with caution. We have him on a brand new antibiotic and there is a slight improvement. His breathing’s not so labored. He should sleep now and it might be a good time for you to catch a few hours yourselves. You’re close to the hospital and we have your phone number.”

  There was something about his face, something in his eyes. Jenny clung to Andy’s arm to stop herself from reaching for the surgeon and hugging the life out of him, the very same doctor she had been ready to throttle a couple of days ago.

  Back in the B&B they sat in the little sitting room. “He’s going to make it, Andy,” she said as they drank hot chocolate Andy had made with ingredients on the tray in his room. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  Andy took the cup out of her hand and placed it on the table beside his own. “I think you’re right,” he said, as he traced a finger across her lips and then took her in his arms.

  When they pulled away, Jenny saw the look of desire showing plainly in his eyes. “Andy, I can’t. Not now. Not like this.”

  He kissed her on her forehead. “It’s OK. Don’t worry about it.”

  At six o’clock the next morning, Jenny called the hospital. Father Woodleigh had spent a comfortable night, the nurse said. Jenny closed her eyes and sent up a prayer, then put the phone back in its cradle. Even though information from the nurses’ desk was usually non-committal, the word comfortable jumped right out. A comfortable night, mind you, not a restless one.

  When she and Andy arrived at the hospital an hour later, the doctor told them Father Woodleigh had turned the corner. The crisis was over. They called Bishop Fitzpatrick who said God had answered their prayers and he would come to visit Father Woodleigh within a couple of days. That very afternoon, the priest was moved out of intensive care back to the room he’d had before.

  Two days later, while Sarah read by the window and Jenny and their father were back to playing chess, Mr. Sidney walked in and said Sarah was to be discharged tomorrow. He shook hands with Charles, called him Father, and wished all of them the best of luck.

  After the surgeon had gone, Jenny turned to her father. “I couldn’t stand that man at first. Guess a lot of it was me being worried. He’s real nice when you get to know him.”

  Like a physical thing, Jenny felt the load rise from her shoulders Her father and sister were going to be all right and she, all of a sudden, had this urge to be with Andy, to feel his arms around her. She phoned Trudy to say she was returning to Stoney Beck that night and would be back tomorrow to settle her bill.

  Chapter Thirty

  Biddy sat at the kitchen table, a glass of neat gin in her hand, while she listened to the rain pelt against the window. She thought back to the night she’d stopped outside Ferguson’s garage and put the fear of God in that girl. That was ages ago and she hadn’t been out of the house since. Even though Angus Thorne had told her he’d have someone chop the tree down, nothing had been done. The milkman came every day as usual and left bread, milk, eggs, cheese, so Biddy wasn’t hungry. Desperate for cigarettes, she had called to one of the young boys passing the house and offered him a pound if he would bring her a couple of cartons. Now though, she was down to her last pack, as well as her last half-bottle of gin.

  The Social Services had come to the house a couple of times, but Biddy hadn’t answered the door. Instead she had shook her fist and yelled at them to go away. She wasn’t letting them in the house ever again. No telling what they had in mind. That old bugger Thorne had come too, shouted through the letterbox that Sarah was about to be discharged and if Biddy didn’t at least open the door to discuss the matter, the authorities would have no alternative but to break the door down. Biddy hadn’t answered, just hoped he’d stand there long enough for the tree to grab him. It could move around more now and sometimes was so close to the house, Biddy could hear its branches scraping against the windows. It had made her a prisoner in her own home.

  She couldn’t keep up with time any more and sometimes night blended into day. She placed the cigarette ends around the edge of the huge ashtray to form a circle, then ran her finger through the ash, making a face, using the leftover cigarette butts for the mouth and nose.

  She peered at the closed curtains, checking for chinks. Even though Tom and Edna were spirits, it didn’t mean they had the power to see through the house’s brick wall or even the kitchen curtain. Biddy knew all about spirits. Most of them were confined to one place, a house perhaps, or a bend in the road where a car had skidded out of control. Or maybe a moor, where someone had fallen off a horse. Then there were the other kind, the spirits that returned to their home, even though they’d died somewhere else. Edna and Fred Fitzgerald belonged to this group.

  Ever since Biddy had first suspected they were in the tree, she had been baffled as to how they’d had the power to make that incredible leap from a mountain road in the Pyrenees, to Stoney Beck, and yet land twenty-five feet short of their goal, in a tree of all places. Then one day it hit her. They’d done it deliberately, afraid if lightning hit the house, it would have started a fire, perhaps even killed their precious Sarah. Biddy once thought Fred and Edna were doomed to dwell in the tree for eternity. Then came the day when she’d noticed the tree was at least a foot closer to the house than it used to be. She’d almost wet her pants, and shaking all over, she’d dragged Sarah outside to show her. But Sarah had just gaped at Biddy, and even had the nerve to say Biddy was seeing things. Biddy could have explained about cosmic energy in the spirit world but Sarah would never have understood. Biddy understood though and it was only a matter of time before Fred and Edna moved the tree close enough to poke a limb through a window. Then they w
ould come zooming in.

  Biddy now knew it was Fred and Edna who had sent the worms to torment her. Sometimes the slimy things came in droves, even slithering up close and eyeballing her with their little beady pink eyes. She’d clap her hands and the worms would vanish. But they always came back, crawling all over her pillow or squirming around inside the toilet.

  She lit a cigarette and leaned back in her chair as she watched a cockroach crawl across the floor and disappear behind the can of petrol she’d brought into the house. All day, she’d been trying to get up the nerve to go outside and soak the tree with petrol, and then set it alight. Surely even spirits couldn’t survive that. But Biddy hadn’t counted on the rain. It had started about an hour ago, lightly at first then turning into a downpour, ruining any hope of setting the tree on fire. She leaned against the kitchen counter and pounded her fists into the Formica. If only she could drum up the courage to go outside, walk through the rain to the tree, and explain things, surely they’d be grateful. Perhaps they would even show themselves. If they did, Biddy would tell them that Sarah’s real father wasn’t Beverly’s American boyfriend as they had always thought. Instead he was a randy English priest from the next village. Confined as they were up there in that tree, they had no way of knowing that this girl who had come to the house those few times was Sarah’s long-lost twin. But the Fitzgeralds had surely seen Angus Thorne and his toffee-nosed nephew drag Sarah out of the house, shove her in the car then drive off with her. And now, with their x-ray eyes, they watching, waiting for her to come back. Surely if Biddy braved the thunder and lightning and all the soaking rain, they would appreciate her efforts. All she had to do was gain their confidence. Then maybe in a couple of days, when the tree had dried, and they were least expecting it, she’d go outside again but this time she’d take the can of petrol with her.

  She got to her feet and tried to ignore the undulation of the kitchen walls, in and out, in and out, keeping time with her thumping heart. It grew louder, stronger, until it throbbed in her ears. She picked up the portable phone on her way to the fridge, then ran her finger down the list of phone numbers on the scrap of paper Sarah had shoved under the magnet. Here it was, Angus Thorne. She punched in the numbers.