The Overlooker
Page 23
‘No. That’s all right. It’s the bed with the curtains round, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Still she hesitated. ‘Better not to touch anything.’
‘I won’t.’
Suzie was already leading Thelma away to the seating area. Tom was following them. His hands were in his pockets, shoulders hunched. For once, his merry command of any situation had deserted him.
Only Millie still stood in the doorway. Her grey-blue eyes were very bright as she raised them to Nick.
‘Can I come too?’
‘Are you sure? You didn’t . . .’
‘No. I bottled out, didn’t I? And I haven’t seen a dead person before. But like everybody keeps saying, it happens to all of us. Yesterday, it might have been me.’ She glanced down at her bandaged hand. ‘I’m sorry now that I ran away. I should have come to see him when I had the chance, shouldn’t I?’
He put an arm round her shoulders. ‘We all have regrets when someone dies. All the things we could have done and said, and didn’t. Me, too.’ He gestured with the clipboard in his other hand. ‘The questions I never asked. I guess we have to accept that we’re not perfect, and just try to do a bit better next time.’
They walked along the ward, past all those other beds, where visitors sat talking to the patients. Eyes followed them.
Nick moved the flowered curtains aside.
Great-uncle Martin’s face looked grey and sunken as it lay back upon the pillows. It had looked a little like a death’s head when Nick had visited before. But then it had flowered into a welcoming smile. There had still been a merriment in his expression then, a ghost of Tom’s. The eyes had been as bright as Millie’s, sharp and full of intelligence as he warmed to his memories of the past. It struck Nick with a pang of both regret and gratitude that Great-uncle Martin had really enjoyed having someone to talk to who genuinely wanted to hear him reminisce about the past.
Just half an hour they had stayed yesterday. There had been so much more he could have told them.
Nick put his hand out and closed it briefly over his great-uncle’s cold and bony one.
Millie stood quietly, looking down. ‘I wish I’d come. He actually talked to Millicent Bootle, didn’t he? I still can’t believe that.’
‘He went to her eightieth birthday party.’
She looked up at him seriously. ‘Do I have any other great-great-uncles?’
‘Not on my side of the family. You’ll need to ask your mother about hers.’
‘I will.’
She gave him a grave smile and put her undamaged hand in his. They closed the curtains behind them and walked away to find Thelma.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The people, places and institutions in this book are fictitious. But I am indebted to many real-life people and organizations who have done so much to help my own family history research in ways which have inspired and informed this book. They include the following:
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com
www.freecen.org.uk
Queen Street Mill Textile Museum, Burnley.
Helmshore Mills Textile Museum, Lancashire.
The Weavers’ Triangle Visitor Centre, Burnley.
My son, Mark Priestley, for the history of the Priestley and Tootle families.
National Institute of Medical Herbalists. www.nimh.org.uk
Slater’s Directory for Burnley, 1865.
My mother-in-law, Annie Priestley, née Tootle, weaver.
Edith Judson, née Tootle.
My husband, Jack Priestley.
Correspondence between the Priestley brothers of Goodshaw and Heald in Rossendale, 19th century.
www.howstuffworks.com and others, for information on dirty bombs.
A Village in Craven. William Riley. It includes a picture of a herbalist.
While I have given free rein to my imagination here, many details owe their inspiration to people and places in my husband Jack Priestley’s family history.
James Bootle, handloom weaver turned herbalist – John Tootle of Padiham, Burnley.
Millicent Bootle – Robert Tootle, who was a cotton factory worker at nine.
Nick’s grandmother – Annie Tootle, cotton weaver of Burnley.
Hugh Street – Moore Street and Perth Street, Burnley.
High Bank – Green Bank, Earby, Yorkshire.
The letters of the Fewings brothers – letters between the Priestley brothers of Goodshaw and Heald, including their refusal to pay church tithes.
The brothers who helped set up cotton mills in Russia – the Priestley brothers of Goodshaw.
Skygill Hill – Pendle Hill, Lancashire.
Briershaw Chapel, where the pews were carried over the fells – Goodshaw Old Chapel, Rossendale.
The musicians who carried their instruments over the fells – the Larks of Dean, who carried theirs to Goodshaw Chapel in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The sheep in the churchyard – Thornton-in-Craven, Yorkshire.
Enoch and Hannah Fewings’ headstone – James and Alice Priestley’s tombstone, Sunnyside Baptist Chapel, Reedsholme, Rossendale.