by Susan Hill
‘A mile or so yet.’
Serrailler swore.
‘You’re out, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, OK. So, after the scenic part, where?’
Will did not reply, just turned and started the slow walk along the bottom of the dyke.
It was ten o’clock when they stopped again, and now there was some noise of machinery in the fields to the east.
‘We’ve got to drink something. We’ll dehydrate.’
‘Another mile and a half, there’s a petrol station. I’ll go in and get bottles and food.’
‘What with?’
‘The money in my trouser pocket, Johnno – did you think I’d come away empty-handed?’
‘Thought of everything, haven’t you?’
‘Hope so.’
‘How long have you been planning this?’
‘Pretty much from day one.’
‘You didn’t give the place a chance.’
‘Nope. Never meant to.’
Simon was silent.
‘Come on.’
They moved off again. The sun shone. At one point, they disturbed a huge flock of seagulls. Simon stopped dead.
‘Shit. Someone’s going to wonder what set them up, aren’t they?’
‘Who?’
‘Farmer? Dog walker?’
Will leaned on the side of the dyke, wiping the sweat from his forehead on his shirtsleeve.
‘I’m not worried,’ he said, ‘about farmers or walkers or traffic in the lane. Only one thing is going to spot us, and that’s a helicopter. Surprised they haven’t got them up and buzzing all over here by now.’
Thirty-nine
‘Keep your voice down, Shelley.’
‘Sorry … we shouldn’t be talking about this in a bar anyway.’
‘Well, we are, and if we speak in normal voices nobody will hear. There wasn’t any need to screech at me. All I said was –’
‘I heard what you said.’
‘If you let me finish … that he’s apologised, he’s said you’d both had too much to drink.’
Shelley set her glass down and looked across at the man she had discovered she hardly knew, after seventeen years.
‘Who do you believe, Tim? I need to hear you say it.’
Tim sighed. He looked wretched, she saw that, looked as if he wished he were a million miles away.
‘I wish none of it had happened,’ he said.
‘You wish? And stop telling me not to raise my voice because if you do it once more I’ll stand on this table and shout. I was not drunk that night. I’d had one glass of champagne and two of white wine by the time I went down to that ladies’ cloakroom and no way would that quantity make me drunk, just pleasantly relaxed. If Richard Serrailler told you I was drunk –’
‘No, he didn’t, not in so many words.’
‘What, she’d had a few? Had a bit of a skinful? Had enough to say yes? Whatever he said he’s lying. I was not drunk. I did not say yes. I did not indicate yes. I did not say, do, imply anything which would have led anyone to believe I was happy to let them … that I was up for it … however he put it … you put it … I hate it that he had the gall to ring you and try and fix it between you – get the little woman to see sense: Tim, apologise from me but I can assure you … Ach.’ She finished off her glass of wine – the first she had had that evening. ‘How bloody dare he.’
‘Shelley …’
‘And what did you say? Reassure him you believed him and not your wife?’
‘No, on the contrary. The one thing I did say was that I knew you’d think better of pressing charges against him.’
‘You did? And what made you sure of that?’
‘Come on, you must see that now the dust has settled …’
‘It hasn’t.’
‘I honestly want you to think about this hard, which I’m not sure you have. Maybe you don’t understand the full implications of going ahead with a case that could come to court. Do you want your name dragged through the dirt?’
‘No, but I want his.’
‘Now you’re being stupid. You’re not thinking it through. Your name would be everywhere … and everything that happened, every detail … how do you think friends and colleagues and neighbours will find that?’
‘To be honest, I don’t give a toss. How they find it is their problem, not mine.’
‘But it will be yours and you know perfectly well what people will say.’
‘No, tell me.’
Tim shook his head wearily and drank his pint.
‘Do you mean they’ll say there’s no smoke without fire?’
‘Look … let’s leave it. Try and enjoy an evening without going back over this again, can’t we?’
‘So long as you accept that I’m not giving up on it and I am pressing charges. No way is that man going to walk off into the sunset and think a friendly word in the ear of another Freemason –’
‘This has nothing to do with Freemasonry.’
‘The “word in your ear, old boy” thing? I think it has.’
‘I’m not arguing with you any more.’
‘Fine. I’d like another glass please.’
Tim got up. ‘They do hot roast beef sandwiches. Fancy one?’
‘No thanks, but you go for it.’
‘I don’t want to eat on my own.’
They looked at one another. Shelley felt her eyes filling. As well as everything else it had done, the rape had brought them to this hostility and coldness and endless bickering. She loved Tim. He loved her. They were happy – had been happy, until Richard had destroyed that too.
‘All right … two hot roast beef.’
Tim smiled.
She wouldn’t change her mind. The support she had been given, the advice, the understanding, the determination to be with her all the way, the expertise, all of it, had made her quite sure that she was right and would go through with it. And win. If there was any justice, surely to God the truth was all she need stick to. Whatever Tim had agreed to, however Richard Serrailler had made him see it, made no difference at all. The worst was just that she wanted it over and done with, and it wouldn’t be … the law was nothing if not protracted.
Tim came back with their drinks.
‘Feel better?’
He looked so anxious, so desperate for her to say yes, she did, and yes, she had been wrong, and yes, of course she would drop the case.
‘Yes. Thank you, darling.’
Forty
‘Excuse me, but is that Dr Deerbon?’
‘It is, yes.’
She was settling down to read the latest choice for her book group, with a glass of wine.
‘I don’t suppose you’ll remember me – my name’s Jack Dacre, you only saw me a couple of times over the years but my mother was your patient …’
‘Yes – Elaine, is it? I do remember her. How is she?’
‘Not good, Doc, very poorly in fact, and it’s why I’ve rung you and I hope you don’t mind. We’ve been at our wits’ end knowing what to do for the best.’
‘Jack, you’re welcome to talk to me but I’m not your mother’s doctor now, so I can only give you general medical advice.’
‘But I think you are – I know you’ve done some sessions at her practice – Granham Road Surgery? She sees Dr Marriott, but she’s been away having a baby, so Mother hasn’t got attached to any other doctor in particular.’
‘That makes all the difference. I only do locum surgeries for Granham Road but as it happens I have done several in the past couple of months, some for Dr Marriott. So tell me what’s wrong.’
‘My mother has cancer. She’s at home – they sent her out of Bevham General because apparently they can’t do any more there, and in any case, she said all along that she wanted to come home to die. She knows she hasn’t got much time.’
‘I understand. I’m so sorry. How long has she been out of hospital?’
‘Four days. She doesn’t seem too bad in herself – she gets up whe
n she can, even if it’s just to sit in a chair, and she comes down in the evening if she can make the stairs. The real problem is that she’s distressed in her mind. Then tonight, she suddenly said she wanted to talk to you. She said she’d have gone into the hospice only it’s closed …’
‘Not exactly – it has day-care patients.’
‘She’s past just going in and out for a day.’
‘I see. The nurses from the hospice would come out to see her – does she know that? It’s part of what’s done now there are no beds at Imogen House. It’s called hospice at home.’
‘My mother said you were the hospice doctor.’
‘I am – but I’m not working there so much at the moment.’
‘Oh. It’s all a bit complicated, isn’t it? I’m sorry to have bothered you then, Doctor.’
He sounded exhausted and flat, as if a final door had closed in his face.
‘No, no, it’s fine. Remind me where your mother lives – of course I’ll go and see her.’
‘Dr Deerbon, she said you would. I am so grateful to you, I’m so grateful.’ Now he was struggling to hold back tears.
It was mid-afternoon before she turned into St Luke’s Drive, remembering the road only vaguely – the GP practice she and Chris had run had been on the other side of Lafferton so not many patients had lived here.
‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you,’ Jack Dacre said, leading her into the quiet sitting room overlooking a long garden. ‘She hasn’t been sleeping well but when Angie went in to her last night, she said knowing that you would come was such a relief that she went out on a cloud and didn’t wake until after seven.’
‘Are you staying here?’
‘One of us sleeps here every night but we only live a dozen houses down so we come in and out … Angie works part-time so she can be here quite a bit, and our daughter Lou – she’s in the sixth form – she’s pretty capable.’
‘Lots of family support then. That’s so important and many people just don’t have it nowadays, for one reason or another. It’ll make a lot of difference to her.’
‘I hope so. We know they can’t cure her but I was afraid she was going to die in Bevham General – she went right down, didn’t eat, seemed to shrink into herself, if you follow me. It was as though she was giving up.’
‘She would have been very depressed … realising that you’re not going to get better and that you might end your days on a busy hospital ward is a pretty bleak prospect.’
‘That’s where the hospice should have come in … Well, anyway, she’s up and dressed and in the chair. She’s had some soup and toast – not a lot but as long as she eats something, we try not to fuss her.’
The wall between the second and third bedrooms of the house had been removed, making one light, spacious room, with a wardrobe and chests of drawers built in around and above the bed, and one end, also overlooking the garden, made into a sitting area. A bracket had been fitted outside the window with three bird feeders attached, and as they went into the room, there was a flurry of wings as blue tits, chaffinches and a robin scattered away in momentary fright.
The minute Cat looked at Elaine Dacre, she remembered her – a pretty woman with hair that had started to regrow after chemotherapy, and now formed a fluffy grey cap. It made her blue eyes look larger and more vivid. She was very thin now, and her skin had a tinge as if a suntan was wearing off. Her hand, as she held it out to Cat, had long fingers and Cat felt the bones moving beneath the flesh, like those of a bird. She was dressed in a silky blue shirt and loose trousers, wore make-up, including a bright lipstick, and a pair of shoes were beside the small armchair on which she sat with her legs up. The room was warm but a woollen shawl was beside her, two cushions at her back.
Cat sat on a stool which was drawn up close to the armchair, and took the fragile hand again between both of her own. Elaine Dacre gripped it tightly in response and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Shall I make you some tea?’ her son said, relief softening his anxious expression as he stood in the doorway.
‘I would love a cup of tea more than anything, I haven’t had one since breakfast, thank you.’
‘And there’s some lemon drizzle cake left, isn’t there?’ Elaine Dacre looked at her son with tenderness.
When the tea came, and the cake, cut in neat slices, Jack left to do the supermarket shopping. Cat listened to his mother’s lengthy praise of her family and how wonderfully well they were taking care of her, discussed the granddaughter’s future, and then Cat’s children and Lafferton events. The chat went on for twenty minutes or more and she knew better than to do anything other than take her cue from Elaine.
The house was quiet. The birds had returned to the feeders. A boy in the yard next door mended a bicycle wheel.
Elaine set down her cup. She had said twice how grateful she was that Cat had troubled to come. Now, she looked at her again.
‘Do you know what the worst is?’
‘The worst’ was different for every terminally sick patient, Cat had discovered years ago, though there were only so many variations – the pain, losing control of faculties, leaving partners and children or not seeing grandchildren grow up, loneliness, sense of disbelief, fear of the dying process …
‘Tell me.’
‘Nobody will talk about it. Or at least, they will, but only in a roundabout way, not really talk –’
‘About dying?’
‘Dying. Death … all of it. Jack and Angie won’t talk, they swerve away and ask if I couldn’t manage a bit more of this or that to eat. I can see the panic in their eyes. The doctors in oncology know what they’re doing but they would only talk about it in terms of prognosis and statistics.’
‘One of the points of the hospice movement has always been to provide a place where people can talk about everything to do with their situation. It’s what the staff are trained to do.’
Elaine shook her head, smiling.
‘Of course, nobody will start talking about death and dying if a patient clearly doesn’t want to … that would be intrusive and even unkind … though some things do have to be said – gone are the days when it was thought better not to mention the C-word, always to pretend someone was improving.’
‘I want to talk. I have had so many questions, so many thoughts whizzing round and round inside my head, a confusion of fears and feelings … and I want to say things, tell things. But it does seem to embarrass people – I find myself being very careful not to mention death and dying to visitors – and doctors and nurses – in case I embarrass or upset them.’ She laughed.
‘You’re going through and facing the most important time anyone faces, other than their own birth – only you had far less control over that and you don’t remember anything about it, and couldn’t prepare for it. Death is different. Or it can be. I really believe that. People say they’d like to die suddenly and not know anything about it but I’ve always thought that was a lost opportunity.’
‘Yes … oh yes!’ Elaine put her hand over Cat’s again. ‘I knew you were the one person I could be sure wouldn’t dodge and dissemble and change the subject.’
‘I hope not. Listen, I have to collect my son from school soon but I’ll come again with pleasure if you want to go on talking … if I dash off it isn’t that I’m trying to escape the D-word.’
Elaine rested her head back and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they were brighter, more full of life, and the strain and anxiety in her expression had eased.
‘I want to tell you about something that happened – I’ve tried to tell other people but they’ve either looked embarrassed and changed the subject hastily – the usual – or they’ve been a bit scornful and disbelieving. I can’t mention it to Jack or Angie, they just say I was under powerful drugs and I should forget all about it.’
She had moved to look straight at Cat.
‘Tell me.’
‘My grandmother – that was my mother’s mother
– lived with us for her last couple of years – she had heart problems and she couldn’t manage on her own. She was very special – warm, giving, loving, uncomplaining, always grateful for everything – she had lots of friends and they all came to see her even when she’d moved right away from her old home area. But when she was eighty-six, and I was fourteen, she was very ill – no one ever told me what was wrong. I know it was only partly her heart condition, but you know how it used to be – lips sealed or people whispering in corners. They thought I shouldn’t know anything. One evening, my mother had sent for the doctor and he came downstairs and said Nanoo – I always called her Nanoo – was, as he said it, “on her way”. My mother was upset and she said I shouldn’t go up and see her, but I can remember feeling I’d fight everyone rather than not be with Nanoo when she might need me. The district nurse came and she had oxygen. And then I did go to my bedroom, because it was after midnight, and I was falling asleep. I woke up at half past two. I looked at my bedside clock. And I had a very strange feeling … it was as if someone else was in the room and they were talking to me, but I couldn’t make out the words. I felt very calm and I felt something else too – it’s hard to describe it but it was just an extraordinary peacefulness. The house felt different. Everything felt different. The best way I can describe it is … it was as if something that had been difficult and hurtful and upsetting had been dealt with at last, and it was all right now. I also knew I had to go to Nanoo. It was such an urgent thing – the feeling that I couldn’t do anything else but go to her. I got out of bed and put on my dressing gown. I went to her bedroom – the bedside lamp was on very low, and the nurse was sitting beside Nanoo’s bed. When I opened the door she looked round and said, “It’s all right, you come in, Elaine. Your gran’s been talking about you. I think she wants to see you.”
‘She was one of the few nurses I’ve ever known who just accepted that my grandmother was dying and that I could see her, there was no problem about that. She didn’t think I should be kept away. She was a lovely woman, from West Africa, and I think they are often more open about death. The Irish are too, or they used to be. Anyway, she just talked to me about it so easily. I wished I could have her nursing me when I was in the hospital. I even dreamed about her once or twice. Anyway, Nanoo was looking very still and breathing quite slowly. Her face was so full of strain and worry and – I don’t know, as if everything in her life that had ever been a problem or gone wrong was piled on top of her now. I remember being very upset and touching her hand and holding it but she went on breathing slowly and I didn’t think she knew I was there. The nurse said she would call my mother soon. “Your gran’s not going to be with us much longer,” she whispered and she took my hand and held it. “You understand what’s happening, don’t you, Elaine?”