Slowly he returned my smile. ‘Wait till I call it in.’
We were both laughing as I shut the door.
Nothing had altered whilst I’d been incarcerated; the almost palpable peace and tranquillity that I so appreciated about this cottage folded itself about me. I breathed out a long breath of contentment simply for the blessing of being back, albeit without Annabel.
Awkwardly, I manoeuvred myself across to the Rayburn on the far wall. Mike, ever practical, had ensured it was working which meant in the immediate a hot cup of tea and, later, water for a swill down. Not a bath; my left leg was encased in plaster almost to mid-thigh and was not to be wetted.
A light clatter behind me had me turning round sharply; just in time I caught hold of the hand rail along the front of the Rayburn and steadied myself. A full-throated miaow, a floor to shoulder jump and Leo was in one of his favourite positions, rubbing his head against my cheek.
‘Didn’t take you long to suss I’m back.’ I stroked his broad head. ‘You pleased to see me, Leo?’ He settled into a deep purr that I could feel reverberating through his whole body.
Mike hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said the cat was a walking fluffy bolster. He weighed a great deal more than before my accident. ‘My downfall was your gain, old son,’ I told him, dropping a teabag into my favourite mug and pouring on the boiling water. He was down on floor level and at the fridge door before I was. He knew the next stage was pouring out the milk.
I filled a dish and put it on the quarry floor. ‘Cheers.’ I hunkered down on a kitchen chair and sipped the scalding tea appreciatively. It certainly beat the half-cold hospital version.
Later, very slowly, Leo and I made the rounds of the cottage, seeing everything from the piano to the paintings with new eyes. The joy of being home was in itself healing. Mike had done a good job of keeping a watchful gaze on the old place. The lawns had been cut very recently and the interior was dust free. It had even lost the slightly musty smell with which it had sometimes greeted me in the past when I’d been away for a few days racing. The sash window in my bedroom window was partly pushed up and I leaned across the narrow windowsill and breathed in the sweetness of the garden.
I tried to ignore the little voice inside my head which asked the question: ‘How on earth are you going to find the money to keep on running this place?’ Whatever work I did now would have to be a compromise. Until the plaster came off and the soft tissue had healed, the nature of my work was an unknown. For now, all I had and all I could do was write my newspaper column. But that wasn’t going to float the boat. Undoubtedly I’d have to cast around for something else as well. What that would be, I hadn’t the slightest idea.
But tonight I wasn’t going to waste my long awaited return in a hair-pulling session. No, tonight I was going to be decadent and thoroughly enjoy my homecoming.
Leo had me suddenly oohing and aahing as, claws extended, he grappled up to my shoulder level so he could share in looking out over the garden. He was still purring. I felt like purring, too. And then his body stiffened, the purrs stopped abruptly and stiff whiskers twitched and tickled against my cheek. He gave a tiny, almost inaudible growl. I heard it, though, because he was jammed up tight against my left ear.
I scanned the garden. Immediately below was the back of the conservatory that ran along the whole of the rear aspect of the cottage. A saucy magpie had alighted on the grass and begun strutting along the edge of the lawn. Not a lover of this obnoxious cannibal killer, I gently lowered the cat down over the windowsill as far as I could reach and he leapt the remaining four feet on to the conservatory roof. ‘Go get him, Tiger,’ I said softly.
Right then the telephone beside my bed rang. I dropped heavily on to the end of the bed, slid along and picked up the phone.
‘Welcome home,’ Annabel said. ‘How are you both?’
‘Both?’
‘Leo as well, of course.’
‘Of course. We’re both mightily pleased I’m back.’
‘Best place in the world, home.’
‘You’re so right. Thanks for giving us a ring. Leo can’t chat right now – he’s taking his guard cat duties very seriously and stalking a predatory magpie.’ Her laughter tinkled in my ear. I ventured a question. ‘Where are you?’
‘Just closing the consulting room in Melton. Then I’m heading home, too.’
‘Right.’ I tried not to think about where Annabel lived now. A Grade II listed building down a quarter-mile drive between the stately Poplars. Plus all the trimmings – plus Jeffrey.
‘How did you know I was going to be let out today?’
‘Mike kindly volunteered the news.’
Mike is an optimist. He’s always held the opinion that, given time, Annabel’s pre-occupation with Sir Jeffrey would be bound to come to an end. Like I said, he’s an optimist.
But tonight I felt a bit optimistic myself. ‘Any chance of a healing? Please say if you’re tired or have something else lined up.’ I waited and with my free hand crossed two fingers.
‘No, nothing on, just a solitary supper; Jeffrey’s away in London.’ I felt a rise of excitement. ‘But do you think it wise? Hospital visits are one thing, but an evening visit …’
I knew I’d pushed her comfort barrier too far. ‘You’re absolutely right. Not the done thing, eh?’
‘Not that Jeffrey would object, of course.’
Of course he wouldn’t. I’d never come across a more milk and water character. Which is why Annabel was with him and not me. Life with Sir Jeffrey was safe, secure and, I imagined, also unutterably boring, the exact opposite to our life together.
‘You could send me some absent healing.’ I was getting to know the jargon.
‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly, ‘but I’d prefer to see you because there is something else.’ I waited, letting the stretching silence act in my favour. ‘Look,’ she made up her mind, ‘Mike sent me an email earlier this afternoon. He asked if I’d call on him as soon as. Apparently, he has some news he wants me to give you.’
‘Really?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘What is it about?’
‘I’d prefer to speak to him face to face before I mention anything.’
I let it go. ‘So when would you like to come over? Tomorrow?’
‘Oh, yes, he stressed it was quite urgent.’
‘Nothing to do with Silvie, I take it?’
‘No, not at all,’ Annabel said firmly. ‘If there had been any telephone messages from the nursing home, he would have let you know immediately.’
‘Good. As soon as I can get mobile, I’ll be going to see her.’
‘If you need transport, Harry, I’d be only too happy.’
‘Yes, I know you would, my love. I appreciate the offer. But you’ve got your work …’
‘I can make time, rejig appointments, you’ve only to say.’
‘Thanks, it’s very sweet of you. Perhaps we could, at the end of the week, to suit you, obviously.’
‘Surely. Look, I’ll call on Mike at the end of morning stables tomorrow, see what little gem he’s got for you and then drive over to the cottage. Do a healing, maybe have a spot of lunch. I’ll bring the food with me. What do you think?’
‘I think that’s an offer I can’t refuse.’
She laughed. Back on the firm ground of a safe daytime visit she had relaxed and was apparently looking forward to it. ‘I’ll bring the furry feline something nice, too – probably fishy and very smelly.’
‘Charming.’ I laughed. ‘See you.’
I awoke early the next morning. I’d purposely not drawn the curtains and with the window partly open, the cool breeze fanned its way across the garden and into my room bringing with it the delicate perfume of the flowers. What a pleasure to breathe fresh air after the normally sealed Colditz-like windows at the hospital. As an outdoors person I’d found it almost intolerable. I’d slept more soundly last night than any night in the previous five weeks.
I l
ay in the blissful luxury of my own double bed, drowsily content. The coming day stretched invitingly in front. The high spot being, of course, Annabel’s lunchtime visit. I wondered idly what urgent news Mike had for me. Anything short of a job to boost the falling bank balance wasn’t worth getting out of bed for. I was to look back on this particular thought in the coming weeks and wish I had had the gift of second sight. It would have urged me to stay right there, safe, secure and certainly not bored. But I didn’t possess second sight.
There was a scuffling and a thump and a dear, familiar ginger cat appeared on the narrow windowsill. He let out a bellow that would have awoken my neighbours, had I had any close ones, before padding across the room.
‘And good morning to you, Leo.’ He gave me a baleful stare and let out another strident cry. ‘Oh, I see, I’ve got it. You want me to get out of this comfortable bed and get your breakfast, right?’ He didn’t bother to comment but marched to the door, threw an impatient glance over his shoulder to check I really was getting up and then exited, tail straight up in the air like a flag-bearer in the army.
Down in the kitchen I noticed as I placed two dishes on the quarries – milk and food – that on one side his white whiskers bore a suspicious red-brown stain. Had the magpie met his end? Only Leo knew that. I left him to it and with great difficulty took a scalding mug of tea upstairs to the bathroom. I washed all the parts of me I could reach and prayed for the day I could get rid of my plaster and luxuriate in a bath and shower. But my mood was still buoyantly high from getting home.
Last night we’d spent an idle evening, first watching a particularly good film on DVD followed later by listening to a CD of Mozart. Me lying back in an armchair with a couple of glasses of beer and a selection of nuts, and Leo stretched out on the softest cushion he could find on the settee. A beautiful, peaceful evening that I’d really appreciated – one of the many to come, I’d hoped.
I was glad afterwards that I’d taken the time to appreciate it.
At twelve thirty Annabel’s Audi scrunched in over the gravel and I opened the door to greet her. She dived into the boot and emerged with a picnic basket. ‘Goodies,’ she called. Not the only ones, I thought. Dressed in cream linen slacks, a deep honey-coloured silk shirt with a flimsy tan scarf knotted loosely around her throat, she looked good enough to eat herself. Her long butter-blonde hair was caught up in a casual twirl on top of her head precariously kept in place by a tortoiseshell clip. I felt a most inappropriate stirring accompanied by the urge to release the clip and let the blonde hair fall free. Perhaps Annabel’s misgivings about visiting last night had been justified.
‘What an excuse for a man,’ I said. ‘I can’t even offer to carry your basket, ma’am.’ We stood and smiled at each other. Well, Annabel smiled – mine was more a wide grin. I was ridiculously pleased to see her.
‘I thought we’d do a healing before we eat, is that OK?’
‘Fine.’
She walked across the kitchen, deposited the food basket on the pantry floor and closed the door. ‘It’ll be cold in there till we’re ready.’
‘I’ve laid the table for lunch in the conservatory. Can we do the healing there? I’ve shifted a couple of chairs out of the way.’
‘Lovely.’
I followed her through to the double glass doors that led out into the conservatory.
‘Sit down, Harry,’ she patted the back of the dining chair I’d placed in the centre of the room, ‘get comfortable. I need to prepare.’
‘Right.’ Dutifully I sat down and Annabel stood behind me. She had explained to me all about healing whilst I’d been in hospital, and what procedure she followed. I understood that she had an essential sequence to follow before she could begin: grounding, attuning, asking permission and also for protection for us both. It had been an eye-opener to me when I realized what was involved. Basically it was energy healing, she’d explained. Everything, including human beings, is made up of energy and illness was a block in the flow of energy in the physical body. But it also involved the more subtle ones, the emotional, mental and spiritual.
‘Take yourself to a beautiful place, a beach, by a river … somewhere you feel at peace and happy,’ Annabel murmured and placed her hands lightly on my shoulders.
I waited for the now familiar warmth and tingling. Within seconds, the tingling began. At first I felt it around the top of my nose, spreading down through my lower lip, and the palms of my hands before running down my legs. The tingling increased in power and brought a slight discomfort around my knee joint. I could feel the energy running out through the soles of my feet back to the ground. A very deep calm flowed simultaneously through my mind and body and I relaxed into the feeling of peace. As Annabel worked down at all the various joints, I opened my eyes fractionally when she reached my knee. She didn’t touch me at all but held her palm a little way in front of my kneecap. The tingling increased tremendously all around the joint. Annabel herself remained motionless with a deep stillness about her, but I noticed that her hand seemed to be rocking back and forth gently in front of the joint.
When she came to see me in the hospital for the second time, I’d tried to put her off, explaining that although I’d fallen asleep the previous day, I’d changed my mind about having healing. Very gently she teased it out of me why that was. Then she’d given me a full explanation of what healing actually was and what it could potentially do. She’d been to see the ward manager to ask permission before she went ahead – and also to ask a crucial question.
‘I needed to make sure you had had the bones set, Harry. No way would I have given you a healing if they weren’t set.’ When I’d asked why, she’d replied, ‘Spiritual healing is very powerful energy. It is quite capable of beginning to fuse bones. I needed to make sure yours were already aligned and set in the correct position. If they hadn’t been, the healing could have resulted in an inappropriate fusing.’
I’d looked at her in astonishment. ‘That powerful, yes?’ She’d nodded.
Thereafter I’d readily accepted a healing from her on each of the three further occasions she’d been to visit me. I’d always felt very much better after each session, much calmer, more positive and – a welcome plus factor I’d not expected to feel – a definite increase in my energy levels.
On a mental level, it had me back on track – my depression had totally gone.
I became aware of Annabel putting slight pressure on the top of both my feet. Thanks to her explanation, I knew she was now almost finished and was grounding me – I could have otherwise been left feeling spaced-out. A nice feeling but not conducive to everyday practical living.
She moved around behind me and placed her hands upon my shoulders. I took a deep breath and reluctantly opened my eyes.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked softly.
‘Marvellous,’ I told her and it was true. I did.
‘Ready to eat?’
‘I certainly am.’
‘Stay here. I’ll carry the food through.’
I moved across to a plump, soft-cushioned cane chair and relaxed back. Until the plaster came off and I could start my exercise routine, there was nothing I could do physically. But by having spiritual healing, I felt I was most definitely already contributing towards my recovery.
It was a very empowering feeling.
FIVE
The goodies carried through on a tray by Annabel were all she’d promised and more. She cracked open a thermos food flask and poured us each a generous bowl of clear vegetable soup, then topped them with tangy croutons. On side plates she’d placed open sandwiches of smoked salmon, and standing to attention in a separate container were a battalion of celery and carrot crudités, together with a creamy dip.
Looking at the expression on my face, she laughed. ‘I thought you could stand a bit of spoiling.’
‘Am I arguing?’
‘Don’t you dare.’
‘Does Jeffrey get this treatment all the time?’
She dip
ped a spoon into her soup. ‘No. Occasionally, perhaps.’
I paused with my own spoon ready for a second dip. ‘This isn’t shop-bought. It’s delicious. Thank you.’
She smiled at me. ‘Glad you like it.’
I put my spoon down and stared at her across the table. ‘Why?’
‘I like cooking.’
‘You know I don’t mean that.’
She blushed.
‘You wouldn’t be feeling sorry for me by any chance … would you?’
Always truthful, her blush deepened. ‘A little, perhaps. I can’t bear seeing you suffer and you’ve been through an awful lot of pain.’
‘I can take pain – have to. The possibility of it goes with the job.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ she said in a low voice, and I was perturbed to hear the edge of bitterness in her voice.
‘Sorry, of course you are.’
It was the very reason she’d upped and left me.
‘OK.’ She stopped sipping the soup. ‘Yes, I am feeling a bit sad for you, well, if I’m levelling, and I am …’ She lifted her gaze and met my eyes. ‘I’m feeling sorry for us both.’
The long seconds stretched as we stared at each other. There was no doubt what she meant. Two years too late.
I deliberately broke the tension. ‘Annabel, I shall do my damnedest to get back in the saddle again.’
She nodded slowly. ‘I expected you to.’
‘But,’ I ploughed on, ‘should it not be possible, I can only accept the final verdict.’ She nodded once more and we both continued our meal.
‘I went to see Mike before I came today.’
‘Oh, yes, I’d forgotten you were going after morning stables. What’s he got to say?’
‘Well, it’s relevant to your last remark.’
‘Oh?’
‘Have you read yesterday’s Racing Post?’
I made a face. ‘Have to ring the newsagents and renew my order now I’m back. It represents writing work, not my favourite occupation.’
‘Hmm.’ She stacked the empty soup bowls and nudged a plate of smoked salmon towards me. We started in on the next course with enjoyment – it was delicious. ‘Mike gave me a copy to bring over in case you hadn’t got one.’
Dead Certainty Page 3