The first visitors began to trickle onto the ward. Ciaran and Rosie came in, their faces flushed from the cold outside. Ciaran was by the bed in an instant. He cupped Beth’s face in his hands. “How’s my princess?”
“I’ve felt better,” Beth smiled, touching his cheek. She turned to Rosie. “Sorry about yesterday, Ros. Hope I didn’t scare you.”
Rosie grinned. “Nah, I’m alright. It’s Mama Bellini you should worry about. She’s sacked all the staff and boarded the shop up.”
The conversation was gentle and undemanding. Beth was glad to see them both. It was easier to feel a bit more cheerful now that the strong medication had taken the edge off her pain. Ciaran kept stroking her hair as though he hadn’t seen her in days.
“John and Cheryl rang to ask how you were.” He rubbed the back of her hand gently, then turned to Rosie with a wry smile. “That’s cello and oboe to you, Ros.”
Rosie pulled a face at him. He always did this to her, ever since the day she’d admitted she found it easier to identify the members of the orchestra by their instruments rather than their names. It was true. She could picture them quite readily dressed in their blacks and seated in their orchestral sections.
“Oh and Nika …” Ciaran remembered. “She wants to visit as soon as you feel up to it.”
Rosie had no difficulty recalling Nika. At the previous year’s orchestra Christmas party, the flame-haired Russian soprano had spent half the evening trying to initiate a group of them into the delights of her native language. And not quietly either. Nika’s natural effervescence, coupled with several glasses of dubious plonk, had made her an exceptionally raucous teacher. ‘Zdravstvuite!’ was about the only word Rosie had come away with, and she’d never dared use it since. Nika had been far too inebriated to be reliable. The word could have meant anything.
As the clock came round to four, Rosie got up to leave. “I’ll be getting off now. Let you have some time with lover boy.” She turned and gave Ciaran a wink.
Beth took her hand and squeezed it. “Thanks for coming, Ros. Look after him for me, won’t you?”
“Don’t worry, I will. By the way, enjoy your stay in sunny Whitstable.”
Beth grinned weakly. “Guess I timed it right. Reckon if I’d got here a couple of days earlier, I’d have been down the corridor – Peckham Ward.”
Rosie grabbed a takeaway on the way home. She couldn’t be bothered cooking; all she wanted to do tonight was chill. When she arrived back, Mel was straightening her hair ready to go out.
“How’s Beth?”
Rosie shrugged. “Well, she looks better. I mean, she couldn’t really look worse than she did yesterday. But they don’t know anything yet; they have to do a lot of tests. At the moment they’re just making her comfortable, I guess. Anyway, where are you off to – anywhere nice?”
Mel’s face lit up. “Dan’s taking me to see Miss Saigon. Birthday treat!”
“It’s not your birthday,” Rosie frowned.
“Not mine … it’s Dan’s. But he insists on paying, and he’s booked us in for a meal afterwards. What a babe, eh? I think he’s crazy about me.”
Rosie shook her head with a smile. Maybe Gavin could learn a thing or two from him.
A little while later, she was halfway through a chapter of the novel she’d been reading when the phone rang. She glanced at her watch. It was just gone nine.
“Hi Ros, it’s me.”
“Hi you. Just got back?”
Ciaran launched into a convoluted explanation of how his train had been delayed, how he’d mislaid his keys, how he’d accidentally tripped the burglar alarm …
“Honestly, Rosie, this is so not me. I don’t know what’s happening today.”
Rosie couldn’t help smiling. “Face it, Kitch, you’re hopeless without her. Like a phone without a SIM card. Absolutely useless.”
“Thanks, Ros. You sure know how to build a guy up. How did you think she looked this afternoon?”
Beth had looked a lot better, Rosie tried to reassure him. A whole lot better.
She wasn’t just saying that, was she?
No, Rosie insisted; Beth had looked a hundred per cent better than she had the day before. Honestly.
Ciaran drank in her comments gratefully, repeating them back several times during the course of their conversation. He seemed like a man dying of thirst trying to eke out a teaspoon of water. By the time she came off the phone, Rosie’s head was buzzing. This was unfamiliar territory. Ciaran had always been so strong, self-assured. Now she’d found the chink in his armour. Beth.
____________
It was Wednesday morning and Beth was feeling woozy. Remembering the experience of her first endoscopy, she’d opted for a sedative. Now here she was lying on her side, a tube wedged down her throat, with the room swimming and swaying like a cork on the high seas. She was aware of a vague choking sensation, but it felt strangely like it was happening to someone else. Every time the pipe moved, she burped, but the medication had taken care of her dignity. She closed her eyes and tried to think about something else. There were low voices all around but she couldn’t pick up what they were saying. Their words were a jumble of hushed syllables, occasionally punctuated by a direct address to her. “You okay, Beth?” “Not be too long now, Beth.” “Not hurting you, is it, Beth?” Trying to respond, she gurgled and spluttered. It was more trouble than it was worth. At one point, she became aware of Dr Stafford’s presence in the room. He hadn’t been there at the beginning, had he? It was too much effort to think about it. All she wanted to do was get this lousy tube out and go to sleep.
The following day, Rosie finished work at half past two and went straight through to the hospital. She hadn’t visited the day before. According to Ciaran, Beth had been a bit ropey after her endoscopy, so she’d decided to give it a miss. She arrived bang on three o’clock and Beth’s face lit up as she walked in.
“How’s it going then?” Rosie gave her a quick hug. Touchy-feely wasn’t her thing as a rule, but Beth’s being ill in bed made it somehow easier.
Beth screwed up her face. “I’m cheesed off of being stuck in here. I’m beginning to show signs of cabin fever, I reckon.”
Rosie grinned. “Hang on a minute.” She turned round and spotted one of the nurses just finishing her observations round. “Could I possibly abduct this patient for half an hour? I won’t take her any further than the restaurant, I promise.”
The nurse agreed, and after getting Beth fixed up with a wheelchair, the two set off.
“Sweet freedom …” Beth exhaled with relief as they wended their way down the corridor. “Why didn’t we think of this before?”
“You weren’t in any fit state, Mrs M.”
They went up a couple of floors in the lift and found the restaurant. Rosie rummaged for her purse. “You having anything?”
“No, I’m not bothered, Ros. You just get what you want.”
They sat over by the window and Beth looked out longingly. The restaurant was on the fifth floor of the hospital and commanded an expansive view of the surrounding area.
“I’ve only been in here six days and it feels like six weeks.” She sighed heavily. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to get off the ward.”
Rosie eyed her satirically. “You must be a desperate woman. You’ve come out in your purple bunny PJ’s. Let’s hope you’re not being stalked by anybody from the music press. Get that headline – The Angelic Beth Maconochie, Jammin’ in her Jimjams … .” They both laughed. “So how was it yesterday? Did they find anything out?”
Beth shrugged. “When I had the barium meal on Monday, they said there was something they needed to look further into. Didn’t say what. I’m thinking it’s an ulcer or something like that. Anyway, they took a biopsy yesterday when they put the camera down, and now we have to wait for the results. I’m stuck here until they find out what’s what.”
“Poor you.” Rosie smiled. She couldn’t help noticing how frail Beth suddenly looked. Sti
ll, at least her colour was much better. And she was sitting up talking instead of lying down groaning. There must have been some improvement. “You’d better hurry up and get yourself home. That brother o’ mine’s acting like he’s one sandwich short of a picnic.”
Outside, an ambulance was heading up the main road towards the hospital, its sirens blaring. It sped into the entrance to the grounds and disappeared from view. Beth became thoughtful. “D’you ever wonder who’s in there, Ros?”
Rosie wasn’t sure she understood the question. “Huh? In where?”
“In an ambulance – y’know, when they go speeding past with their sirens going. Don’t you ever ask yourself who could be in there … why they’re in there?”
Rosie frowned. “No. I can’t say it’s a thing that occupies my mind if I’m honest.”
Beth was quiet for a few moments. Her eyes had a strange, troubled expression. “For all we know, Ros, someone could have been gasping their last breath in there. Fighting for their last few seconds. And here we are, just sitting in a restaurant having a coffee, watching life go by – while some poor beggar’s being sucked out of this old world forever. It seems almost indecent.” Her voice trailed away.
Rosie sat back in her chair, a faintly amused expression on her face. “Have they put you on something, Beth?”
Beth caught the irony in her tone and coloured slightly. “Sorry, Ros. I sound a right misery, don’t I? I’ve been thinking about a lot of bizarre things while I’ve been stuck in here.”
Rosie felt a flash of guilt. After all, Beth was the one who was ill. She was entitled to a little morbid reflection if she wanted. “Perhaps it wasn’t anything quite so drastic,” she said, her voice softening. “Maybe they’d just eaten a dodgy pizza at Mama Bellini’s.”
Beth smiled gently. “Yeah, I guess so. By the way, while we’re on the subject of drastic dramas, I wanted to ask you a favour.”
Rosie grimaced. “So long as it doesn’t involve me feeding you grapes or changing your bedpan.”
Beth gave a slight laugh and shook her head. “No, nothing like that, Ros.” She hesitated. “You know the diary I told you about, the one I found in that old case?”
Rosie thought for a moment. “Yeah, go on.”
“Well, the other day I asked Ciaran to bring it up to the hospital for me. I wanted to carry on reading it. There’s been a bit of a problem though.” Beth’s face creased into a frown. “Tuesday, I got the diary out to have a look at it, and Velna – one of the women across from me on the ward – started asking me what it was. I made the mistake of telling her it was an old diary I’d picked up from a second-hand bookshop. ‘Oh,’ says she. ‘What period?’ ‘First World War,’ says I, like an idiot. Her eyes lit up, Ros. I’m telling you, her eyes lit up like I’d just told her I’d got the Venus de Milo stuffed under my bed. Turns out her son’s a military historian. Really keen apparently. Got a house full of stuff – books, paintings, weapons, the lot. She asked me if I’d be interested in selling it. ‘Let him have a look at it,’ she says. ‘He’ll give you a good price if he thinks it’s worth it.’”
“That’s great!” Rosie broke in. “Maybe you’ll be able to afford to get away for a few days convalescence when you get out of here. Get that brother o’ mine out of my hair.”
“No, Ros, it’s not great at all,” Beth burst out in exasperation. “I don’t want to sell it. I haven’t even read it yet. Besides, you don’t sell something like that. It’s not as if you can go down to Tesco and get another. Things like that are one-offs; they don’t come along very often.” She leaned back in her wheelchair. “Anyway, this morning Velna informed me that her son would be coming to see her at eleven. Apparently he’d managed to get permission for a morning visit because he’s working afternoons all this week, and he’s about the only visitor she gets. At five to eleven I just got under my covers and pretended to be asleep. I was stuck like that for nearly an hour. It wasn’t funny.”
Rosie smiled wryly. “You little sneak!”
Beth’s expression was a mixture of guilt and frustration. “I know, I feel bad about it, Ros. But I’m just rubbish at saying no to people. Besides, the diary’s old and fragile. I don’t like the thought of everybody’s sweaty hands all over it. It needs handling with care.”
“Right. So where do I come in?” Rosie eyed her friend with amused curiosity.
Beth breathed out slowly before announcing her plan. “Well. For starters you can take the diary home. That way, if Velna brings the subject up, I can quite truthfully say that I haven’t got it with me any more.”
Rosie nodded. “I think I can just about manage that. But why don’t you just give it to Ciaran when he comes later?”
Beth countered with a reluctant half-smile. “Well, Ros, that’s where the favour comes in …”
Rosie raised her eyebrows enquiringly.
“Rosie, you know how brilliant you are at typing?”
Rosie nodded dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, fastest fingers in the West. Flattery will get you nowhere, Mrs M. Where’s all this leading?”
“Well, Velna’s interest got me thinking,” Beth continued. “It would be really good to get the thing typed up. Bang it into the computer, store it on a memory stick – y’know, so that we’ve got a permanent version. I mean, who knows? One day I might feel like handing it over to a museum or something. Somewhere it’ll be looked after properly. Frankly, I’m amazed it’s lasted as well as it has.”
“So you want me to do the honours then? Type it up?” Rosie frowned, unsure as to whether she should greet the prospect with excitement or dread.
“Would you, Ros?” Beth’s face was suddenly a picture of childlike supplication. “I was thinking you could print the entries off as you went along. That way we’d have a hard copy. Perhaps we could set it all out in a little folder. Then other people could read it without me having to hand over the diary itself. I mean, it’s the kind of thing you want to show folk – my brothers for a start, they’d be well impressed. But I’m a bit scared of lending it out. It could get damaged being passed around to all and sundry … .” Her voice tailed off then as though she was starting to lose confidence in the persuasiveness of her request. Looking down, she began to trace invisible patterns on the table in front of her. After a moment or two, she lifted her head and gave a hopeful grin. “At least you could run a copy off for me so I can keep reading it while I’m in here. What d’you say, Rosie?”
Rosie shrugged resignedly. “How can I refuse? I couldn’t live with myself if Velna ransacked your locker in the middle of the night.” Besides, it’s not like I’ve loads of other stuff to do. My phone hasn’t exactly been going mad these last few days. She suddenly found herself thinking of Gavin, and as she did, her stomach turned over. She hadn’t heard a thing from him since Friday when she’d called from the hospital. What was the deal with him? Had she unwittingly committed the ultimate crime in his eyes – cancelling a date with Mr ‘How Dare You? I’m The Most Fanciable Guy This Side Of Pluto’? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to ring him. If his ego couldn’t make allowances for people being rushed to hospital and spoiling his neat, little designer plans, he’d just have to take his beautiful self elsewhere.
She suddenly realised Beth was looking at her, grinning. “Thanks, Ros, you’re a star! I’ll give it to you when we go back down to the ward. I’ll slip it in with some washing, then Velna won’t suspect a thing.”
“That should do it the power of good,” Rosie remarked dourly. “Surviving the trenches, only to be suffocated by a mound of dirty knickers. Shouldn’t think there’ll be many folk queuing up to get their mitts on it once this news gets out.”
Beth punched her playfully. “Don’t be daft. I’ll wrap it in something first. But we need to use a bit of subtlety, don’t we?”
Rosie smiled. You missed your way, Beth. You could have been a dab hand at organising prison breaks.
____________
It was just after five when Rosie got home. She
made herself a coffee and flicked through the mail. Nothing for her. Obviously Gavin hadn’t mastered the art of letter writing either. She looked down at the carrier Beth had given her. It wasn’t really a bag of dirty washing at all; just a couple of token nightshirts, not a pair of smalls in sight. A couple of neatly folded nightshirts, wrapped around something concealed in a Waterstone’s bag. Beth was an expert at subterfuge. Rosie sank back into a chair and positioned the bag on her knee. Well, here goes. My mission, should I choose to accept it …
She reached inside and pulled the diary out. The first sight of it made her shudder. Something about its appearance unsettled her. Its battered leather cover was blotched in various places with dark, suspicious stains that made her think of ancient blood, and it seemed to give off a stale, musty smell which she found slightly disturbing. For a few moments she stared at it. Why on earth had she let herself be roped into this? She took a long, slow mouthful of coffee and sat back in her chair.
She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she’d never been able to stomach stuff like this. She remembered the grotesque, old gas mask Lydia Martin had once brought into class. That thing had given her nightmares for weeks. Another incident, even further back in her memory, started to surface in her mind. The time she and Ciaran had been parcelled off to their great-aunt’s, shortly after their parents had separated. That house had been like a museum. No – a mausoleum. Aunt Mariah had suffered from a strange, pathological sentimentality which had led her to cram her home with bizarre and ancient keepsakes, plundered from the houses of deceased relatives and kept as memorials to them. Rosie had hated that place. Its ghastly memory stood like a tombstone amongst all her childhood recollections. The two weeks they’d spent there had been hideous. She wondered if the experience still haunted Ciaran; it wasn’t a thing that could be easily erased from the mind. She looked down at the old diary again. This wasn’t going to be easy. Beth’s wonderful treasure left her cold. Still, she’d given her word.
A Song in the Night Page 10