He preened under her admiration. ‘Luck of the draw,’ he said, modestly.
‘You were always fit,’ she said. ‘Strong and healthy I always used to say.’
Her praise was enhancing his ego most rewardingly but there were other matters to get settled. ‘I tell you what I think we ought to do, my poppet,’ he said. ‘We ought to set the wheels in motion.’
She put their two cups on the table beside the milk jug and the sugar bowl and her little rose-covered biscuit barrel. ‘What do you mean, set the wheels in motion?’
‘Go and see a solicitor,’ he said. And when she looked doubtful: ‘If she hasn’t made up her mind – and I’m not saying she should, not while she’s feeling poorly, and I dare say you’re right, she is resting – but if she hasn’t, then we ought to do it for her. There could be a time limit on compensation claims and we wouldn’t want her to miss out, now would we?’
She hadn’t thought of time limits. ‘Is there?’
‘Of course. There’s bound to be. I think we ought to go and see a solicitor and get things started on her behalf. I haven’t been much of a father to her. I know that. But I’m going to make up for it now, to think of her welfare. This is one way to do it. It’s not fair to her for me to sit around doing nothing. There are some dreadful sharks out there when it comes to money, and for all I know they could be after her already, getting her to sign things and putting pressure on her. I should be protecting her. That’s what parents are for.’
She could see that. Look at all those nature programmes on the television.
‘You’re such a good man,’ she said. ‘The only thing is, won’t it cost a lot of money?’
‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head about money,’ he said, wearing his masterful expression. ‘She’s my girl. Leave it to me. It’s no problem.’
‘Well …’ she dithered.
‘I’ll make an appointment, shall I? We’ll both go along and see. There’d be no harm in that. Let’s say Monday morning when you haven’t got much trade. You could wear this blouse and we’ll go out for lunch afterwards.’
She wasn’t entirely convinced but she was persuaded. So the appointment was made.
It was a nasty cold morning but she dressed herself up in her new blouse and her best suit, regardless of the weather. It was a silly thing to do really because the suit was a thin wool and didn’t give her any warmth at all. But you have to make sacrifices when it’s your children, and she did look nice in it.
But she wasn’t a bit impressed with the solicitors. Their offices had a fine brass plate, Gresham, Gresham, Philpott and Mainwaring, Family Solicitors but they were up four flights of stairs and jolly steep at that. She was out of breath by the time she got to the top. And the office they were ushered into was small and hot and crammed with enormous furniture – a desk like a dining-room table and two great leather armchairs you could have put together and turned into a double bed. They would have been lovely in her living room but in a titchy little room like that they were just a waste of space.
The solicitor was a disappointment too. She’d expected an upstanding sort of man with white hair and a theatrical voice but this one was small and seedy with a long narrow face that looked as if someone had squashed it between two bookends.
But he assured them both that he was at their service, that damages of half a million pounds were well within the bounds of possibility and that he would be happy to do anything within his power to help their ‘poor dear daughter.’
The words triggered a recollection in Billie’s mind of Gemma at her fiercest, which she found rather disquieting. But Tim liked them and repeated them with approval.
‘Our poor dear daughter,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly it, Mr Gresham. Spot on. We’ve got to help her, poor girl. It’s the least we can do, as I told you on the phone. This is too big a burden for her, after all she’s been through.’
‘She will have to come in and sign the papers,’ Mr Gresham pointed out. ‘Eventually. You understand that, don’t you? Good, good. In the meantime we will do the donkey work, as the saying goes. It might be helpful if I were to take you through the legal process at this point. Yes?’
It was a droning explanation and Billie lost interest in it after the first thirty seconds. What a bore solicitors are, she thought. Still, I suppose it’s all for the best. Those roses are pretty. I wonder how much they cost. I bet it’s a lot, being out of season. Different in the summer of course, And she remembered the great bunch that Gemma had given her on her last birthday, roses and great white daisies, larkspur, antirrhinums. They were gorgeous.
Mr Gresham had come to a halt in his peroration. He took out a large stained handkerchief and wiped various parts of his face, lingeringly, as if polishing buffed up his thought processes: forehead, nose, chin, the back of his neck. He avoided the top of his head because he didn’t want to disturb his hair. He hadn’t got very much of it, and it took him a lot of time and care to arrange what little there was so as to cover his balding scalp. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you will permit me to take down a few details. She was very badly injured, I believe you said?’
Both men looked at Billie for information. ‘Oh dreadful!’ she told them, pulling herself back to the moment. ‘She lost her leg, poor girl, and she was terribly scarred. Terribly. All across her poor little face. They had to cut off all her hair too – imagine that – and she was going to be a model. I’ve got a photograph of her here if you’d like to see it. As she was, I mean,’
‘A lovely girl,’ Mr Gresham said, when he’d glanced at it. ‘Which, sad though it is, will make our job all the easier.’
‘Of course her life’s ruined,’ Billie said, brown eyes filling with tears. ‘She’ll never be a model now. Not in this state. Not now she’s a cripple. She can’t do anything, really. Not a thing. She’ll need looking after for the rest of her life.’
‘Then we must see to it that she has the wherewithal to make that life as meaningful as possible,’ Mr Gresham oiled. ‘Now as to my fee. An unpleasant business, talking about money, but it’s sensible to get these things in order from the outset.’
What if she doesn’t agree to all this? Billie quailed as an astronomical fee was mentioned. Oh, if only she’d write and tell me where she is, we could go and see her and ask her what she thinks. We shouldn’t go ahead without telling her, just in case.
The two men shook hands, well pleased with their morning’s work, while Billie looked at the roses. That was a lovely birthday, she thought. All those flowers and a party and that lovely birthday cake. She was ever so good to me, my little Gemma. She did that flat up in my honour – balloons in the corners of the room and everything – and it couldn’t have been easy with all the others in and out all the time and that funny boy lying on the sofa. And suddenly she knew how she could find out where her daughter was. She’d go to her old flat and ask her friends. They’d be bound to know. Now why hadn’t she thought of it before? For a moment, staring at the scarlet blooms, she wondered whether to tell Tim. Then she decided against it. I’ll go there first, she thought, and see how I get on. It might not work and I wouldn’t like to tell him about it and get him excited and then have to tell him I’d failed. It’ll have to wait a week because I can’t take any more time off this week or I shan’t break even. Next Monday maybe. In the afternoon.
The old flat was ever so easy to find on that Monday afternoon and just the same as she remembered it. Bit more paint flaked off the windowsills and half a motorbike in the garden but other than that it had hardly changed at all. The funny boy put his head out of the window when she knocked and called out ‘Who is it?’ but he came down to let her in. Quite friendly, really.
Once upstairs she was a bit embarrassed because there wasn’t anyone else there and he was lounging about in his underpants and not much else apart from a pair of terrible holey socks and a jersey that had seen better days. But he didn’t seem to mind so she decided she wouldn’t either. When in Rome, sort of thing.
He looked for Gemma’s address as soon as she asked. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do know where she is, as it happens. She sent me a letter. Hang on a tick and I’ll see if I can find it.’
It took him quite a while because he had to grub about in a very untidy drawer, but when he finally pulled it from the debris there was a map to go with it.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Good job I never throw anything away, right?’
It was a nice clear map with all the roads neatly named and the house marked with a big red cross. Amersham Road, Putney, Billie read. Well now I know. ‘Do you see her much?’ she asked, tucking the two precious bits of paper into the inner pocket of her handbag. He was a kind boy, even if he was half-dressed.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I delivered her things, that’s all. She’s got her own life now. Gone up in the world.’
Billie liked the sound of that. And quite right too. She ought to go up in the world, especially if she’s going to sue the railway for half a million.
‘Well thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m obliged.’
‘I’d offer you tea,’ he said, flinging himself backwards on to the sofa, ‘only all the cups are dirty and I’m knackered.’
She assured him it was all right and that she’d better be getting along, and at that he closed his eyes and asked if she could see herself out. Which she did, thinking that he must have been working really hard, poor boy, to be as tired as that.
All the way back on the bus she kept patting her handbag with satisfaction. I know where she is, she thought. The fact that she could have found out right at the start, if she’d used her wits, didn’t trouble her. It was done now. That’s what counted. It was done now. Won’t Tim be pleased.
He was delighted, especially as he’d had a letter from Mr Gresham that morning, mentioning the half-million in splendidly official black and white. ‘That’s my gel!’ he said, taking her into his arms. ‘Now we’re on our way!’
‘We shall have to go out and celebrate,’ she suggested happily. ‘Somewhere special this Saturday, what d’you say?’
But to her disappointment, he said not. ‘I’ve got to go up north for a day or two. See a man about a dog.’
Ah, she understood, business. That was why he was wearing his important face. ‘When you get back, then,’ she agreed.
I’ll go and see Gemma while he’s away, she decided. Prepare the ground sort of thing. Then we can have a grand celebration when he comes back, all three of us together. It’ll be a little treat for her. She must get bored sitting around all day with nothing to do. I can just see her, poor darling, sitting sadly in that awful ugly chair drooping with boredom. Poor Gemma! If I knew where she was I could take her out for a little ride. Give her a breath of fresh air. It would be like the old days when she was a little girl. And a vision of the old days bloomed in her mind like one of those nostalgia ads on television – herself when young taking the infant Gemma, all dimples and chuckles and babbled nursery rhymes, sitting in her pram and wearing a spotless white dress, over Streatham Common, or some other expanse of bright green grass, under a canopy of summertime foliage with the sun so bright it shimmered haloes round their heads. Lovely!
In his sleep-frowsy room in St Thomas’s, Nick was planning an outing for Gemma too.
Ever since his return from York, he’d been trying to think of a way to ask her out again without being too obvious about it or too pushy. Their day in York had been so extraordinary that it ought to have been easy to follow up. But not to him. Any successful excursion, with any girl since Deirdre – and quite a few before her, if he was honest – led to the possibility of failure on a subsequent occasion. York could have been a one-off. Probably was. It would have been easier if they hadn’t parted so abruptly. It still hurt him to remember how she’d driven off with his parents without even stopping to say goodbye. It was a very bad sign, particularly after that boat trip. But, even so, he knew he wanted to spend more time with her and now one of his elderly patients had given him the opportunity.
That morning, when he’d gone down to the ward to sign him off, the old feller had pressed an envelope into his hand, mumbling that it was ‘to say thank you for all you’ve done for me.’ Inside were two tickets for Cats.
‘You’re not on duty that night,’ the old man beamed. ‘I asked Nurse to find out for me. You go an’ have a good night out, Doctor. You’ve earned it.’
It was heaven-sent. He’d arranged to go to Amersham Road on Friday afternoon, to collect the cake for the ageds’ party and smuggle it into the surgery while they were occupied elsewhere. He’d take the tickets with him and offer them to her in the car on the way there, sort of casually.
It didn’t work out that way. When he arrived, there was such an atmosphere in the kitchen that he couldn’t have missed it even if Polly hadn’t been pulling a face and signalling.
‘What’s up?’ he asked them.
‘You can see what’s up,’ Gemma told him, her face dark with fury. ‘Bloody thing! Look at it.’
The fruit cake was on a silver plinth in the centre of the table, not round and cake-shaped but lop-sided and sunk in the middle, like the aftermath of an underground explosion.
‘It was all right yesterday when I took it out of the oven,’ she stormed. ‘And now look at it! Wouldn’t you know it would sink.’
He’d laughed before he realised it was the wrong thing to do. Oops!
She glared at him and then at the cake. ‘What am I going to do with it?’
‘Bung something over the top,’ he suggested. ‘That’s what you do with this sort of cake anyway, isn’t it?’
That earned him another glare.
‘Nothing turns out the way you expect,’ Polly commiserated. ‘You could try butter icing. That covers a multitude a’ sins, butter icing. I swear by it.’
Gemma had been working in the kitchen all afternoon and now she was hot and tired and felt more like swearing at it. She’d got the marzipan all rolled out and the royal icing made and what was the good of it now? ‘I was going to write “Happy Retirement” on it,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the icing pen and everything, I can’t do that on butter icing.’
‘Then there’s only one thing,’ Nick told her. ‘You’ll have to opt for radical surgery. Cut out the middle and turn it into a polo cake and write round the edges. I’ll do it if you like.’ And he picked up the bread knife.
‘You will not!’
‘Trust me,’ he joked. ‘I’m a surgeon.’
Sparks were leaping between them again. ‘I’m the cook,’ she said angrily. ‘If anyone’s going to do it, it’ll be me.’
‘Well hurry up then,’ he said. ‘We’ve got twenty minutes.’
It took two minutes to reshape the thing, but it was thirty before it was iced to her satisfaction.
‘It looks very presentable,’ Polly said encouragingly.
‘Until they cut it,’ Gemma grimaced, ‘and see the state of the inside.’
‘No one’ll notice the inside,’ Nick told her, ‘Not in the sort of crush there’ll be. They’ll all be too busy eating it. Now come on, for heaven’s sake or it’ll be over before we get there.’
It was such a scramble to get into the car and he had to drive to the surgery at such speed that he forgot all about the tickets until they were inside the building. And then, of course, it was too late because the party had begun and they were instantly engulfed in the excitement of it.
Crush was the right description. For although the reception was held in the waiting room, which was the largest space in the surgery, so many people had turned up to say goodbye to the Quennells that there was barely room to turn round. The four present doctors were there with their husbands and wives, together with Andrew’s original two partners and all the nurses and midwives, physiotherapists and receptionists who’d ever worked in the practice. They milled around, champagne glasses in hand, greeting old friends, swapping gossip, enjoying the nibbles, applauding as the cake was cut – and it did look
good once it was placed in the centre of the table – and waiting for the speeches, which came when Grace was sure that everyone who’d promised to be there had arrived and had been ‘fed and watered’ and just at the moment when Nick had decided to push through the mob and talk to Gemma about the tickets. Damn, damn, damn, he thought. Now I’ll have to wait till this is over.
‘We drew lots for this job,’ Grace said, blushing slightly, ‘And I got the short straw. But seriously, what I want to say to you, Dr Quennell, Catherine, is this. We’re going to miss you dreadfully, both of you. This practice would never have existed if it hadn’t been for you. You’ve been an inspiration to us all. I know I speak for everyone when I say that. Anyway, we hope you’ll have a long and happy retirement together and we’ve got two little gifts to wish you well. This is for you, Catherine. A little token of our appreciation.’
It was a silver locket ‘with four spaces for your four grandchildren’, which was instantly hung round Catherine’s neck, to happy applause.
Then Grace turned to her boss.
‘Now to you, Dr Quennell,’ she went on. ‘I hope you realise you’ve put us in an impossible position. We were going to buy you a set of garden tools to mark this retirement of yours. But now you’re running about all over the country being a television personality, we’ve had to rethink.’ She pulled a second parcel from under the table and handed it across to him. ‘We hope this will do instead.’
The accompanying card was signed by every member of the partnership, past and present, all with their own personal messages. The package contained a rather splendid silver hip flask, inscribed with Andrew’s name and that day’s date.
‘I’m touched,’ he told them in his response. ‘It’s going to be very useful in my new career.’
‘Dashing about the country?’ his senior partner called.
‘Spilling the beans on TV?’ their junior hoped.
‘Well actually,’ Andrew grinned, savouring the moment that was to come, ‘when I’m burning the midnight oil, trying to write a newspaper column. It seems I’m going to be a journalist. Been offered a weekly column in the Indie. Life in the NHS. Health provision in the 1990s. That sort of thing. Spilling the beans on paper. I’m going there on Monday afternoon to discuss terms.’
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