“We’ll go at your speed, Gran,” said Rose. The bruise on her grandmother’s face from the fall she had suffered had faded to a dull browny-yellow over the last couple of days, but Rose was acutely aware of how unsteady her grandmother was on her feet, particularly now they were out in public and the pavements seemed to be full of small children careering around on scooters. They started to make their way through the park.
The path followed the edge of the boating lake where paddle boats in the shape of dragons and swans glided past at a leisurely pace. They passed an oriental-style footbridge that led to a steep man-made island with a red and gold Chinese pagoda on the top. Rose was just thinking what a pleasant place Peasholm Park was when a small dog on a long lead scampered past so quickly that her grandmother almost stumbled.
“Am I going too fast?” asked Rose.
“No, no, you’re all right,” said her grandmother. But Rose thought her grandmother’s breathing sounded a little ragged and she slowed her pace anyway. There was no hurry. The naval display didn’t start for another half an hour. Andrea was always in such a flap about getting to places early.
But even so, by the time they reached the part of the lake where the show took place, all the seats in the front rows were already taken.
“What about up there,” said Rose, pointing to a space halfway up. “Can you manage the steps?”
Her grandmother nodded but didn’t speak. Rose helped her up the steps and they sat down in the first available row.
“Ooh, that’s better,” said her grandmother, flopping down on the bench.
“I’ll just send Mum a text to tell her where we are,” said Rose, fishing her mobile from her back pocket.
“All right, dear.” Her grandmother pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed her forehead with it.
“We’ve got a good view from up here,” said Rose when she had sent the text. In the middle of the lake was a square bandstand with a roof that turned up at the corners, like a Chinese pagoda. In the centre of the bandstand, a man was playing a medley of film music on an electronic organ. Rose recognised Star Wars, a couple of Bond tunes and Frozen, but most of the music was from films before she was born. Her grandmother identified the theme tune to Doctor Zhivago and the Dam Busters March.
Ten minutes later Andrea arrived, hot and puffing from having run all the way and complaining that the car park up the hill had been chock-a-block. She’d had to drive around for ages until someone eventually left.
Rose listened with half an ear to her mother ranting on about drivers who hogged two spaces and how the council really ought to provide more parking. She wished her mother would just drop it. They were here now weren’t they? They were supposed to be enjoying themselves. She turned to her grandmother to ask if she recognised any more of the melodies when her grandmother suddenly swayed in her seat as if she was about to topple over. Rose grabbed her grandmother’s arm. “Gran, are you all right?”
“And it’s not as if parking is cheap. The council is making a killing…”
“Mum, shut up! I think there’s something wrong with Gran.”
“What?” asked Andrea, jumping to her feet. “My God, Mum, are you all right?”
Rose put her arm around her grandmother. “What’s the matter Gran? Do you feel ill?”
Her grandmother mumbled something incomprehensible, clutched her chest and crumpled over onto Rose’s lap.
“For Christ’s sake, where’s my mobile?” shouted Andrea. “Someone call an ambulance! Help!”
~~~
Henry Blackwood felt very pleased with himself as the horse and carriage jolted up the hill.
“Not much further now,” he said to the woman sitting opposite him. Alice turned her head away and refused to look him in the eye.
Never mind, thought Henry. She’s mine now and that’s all that matters. He shuddered at how close he had come to losing her and her money. He should never have entrusted this assignment to that oaf Jackson. If he ever got his hands on him he’d make sure he spent the rest of his life crawling in the gutter. Thanks to the incompetence of that idiot, Alice had almost got away from him. Of course, he should never have let her come to Scarborough in the first place. But Henry was not a man who dwelt on past mistakes, particularly his own. He had decided to come to Scarborough himself and see with his own eyes what was going on. He had been there that morning, on the promenade, when Alice and her maid had gone bathing. He had watched the bathing machine making its way down to the water’s edge, had watched its return and had seen his fiancée and her maid emerge from the bathing machine wearing each other’s clothes. God, how he hated the cunning of women.
Jackson, of course, had been fooled by the deception, but not Henry. He had followed Alice to St Mary’s church suspecting that she was preparing to meet her lover. And she had proved his suspicions right as soon as she had uttered those words, “George, is that you?”
George! Henry would see to him soon enough. But first he had to teach Alice a lesson. Show her that he was not to be meddled with.
She sat opposite him in the carriage, clutching her right arm where the blade had cut her. Hurting her had been a necessary evil: it was the only way he could bring her under control. She had been hysterical when she’d seen it was him in the church. But as soon as the blade had sliced through the fabric of her dress and drawn blood, she had fallen to her knees begging him to spare her life. How pathetic she was! Of course he was going to spare her life. She was no use to him dead.
The carriage turned off the main road, bumped over a rough path and came to a halt outside a large house. Henry looked at the building with its heavy oak door and iron bars on the ground floor windows and knew he had found the perfect place in which to keep her secured whilst he made arrangements for their departure. Highcliff Asylum. A private establishment.
The oak door opened and Dr Collins, the man with whom Henry had communicated earlier, appeared and walked briskly towards them. He was followed by a pair of male orderlies in matching blue overalls.
Henry opened the door to the carriage.
“Where are we?” asked Alice. It was the first time she had spoken to him since begging him to save her life in the church, and there was an edge of fear in her voice that Henry savoured.
“Oh, just somewhere that will teach you the error of your ways,” said Henry. He took hold of her arm and pushed her towards the carriage door.
“I don’t understand,” said Alice, the panic audible in her voice.
“As you can see,” said Henry, addressing Dr Collins, “she’s somewhat confused.”
The male orderlies pulled her down from the carriage and led her towards the house, Alice writhing in their grasp like a captured animal.
“Please do not concern yourself,” said Dr Collins to Henry. “They’re all a little confused when they first come to us. If you’d like to step inside and sign the paperwork, I’d be most obliged.”
“It will be my pleasure,” said Henry, following the doctor into the building.
~~~
Rose wrinkled her nose at the hospital disinfectant smell, a pervasive, clinging odour that hit you as soon as you walked in and became stronger the further you penetrated into the labyrinthine maze of corridors. The rubber-soled shoes of busy nurses squeaked on the linoleum floor as they hurried from room to room, attending to the sick and dying. Somewhere in the distance an alarm started to beep. The nurse who had been walking down the corridor at that moment turned on her heel and ran towards the source of the sound.
Rose and her mother were sitting in the waiting area outside the Intensive Care department, too stunned to say anything to each other. Rose couldn’t believe how suddenly everything had changed. One minute they had been enjoying the sunshine in the park, listening to the theme tune from Star Trek, and the next minute her grandmother was being lifted into an ambulance on a stretcher. Life was precarious. It was as if someone had flipped a coin and suddenly her grandmother’s life was hanging in
the balance. Rose found herself sending up a silent prayer to a God she wasn’t sure she believed in. Please let her be all right.
The events between her grandmother collapsing and Rose and her mother arriving at the hospital were already crystallising into distinct memories: her mother shouting for help, people nearby jumping to their feet, park attendants running onto the scene. One of them carried a large green first-aid kit with a white cross printed on the side. All this time Rose had cradled her grandmother in her arms, aware of the bones poking through the thin flesh and trying to see if the old lady was still breathing. The first-aider did his best to make her grandmother comfortable and minutes later the ambulance arrived and the paramedics, two men and a woman, were lifting her onto a stretcher. They gave her an oxygen mask to help her breathe and whisked her away in the emergency vehicle, lights flashing. Rose and her mother had run up the hill to the car park and then driven as fast as possible to the hospital where the receptionist informed them that Mrs Shawcross had been admitted to the Accident and Emergency unit and was now undergoing tests. They spent an anxious hour in the A&E department surrounded by an assortment of the walking wounded. Eventually the nurse in charge of triage had informed them that they were transferring Mrs Shawcross to Intensive Care. Rose and her mother then spent fifteen minutes following the overhead signs and navigating the maze of corridors until they reached the heavy double doors that admitted them to the Intensive Care department. The nurse on the desk asked them to wait, indicating a row of plastic chairs, and promised that a doctor would be with them shortly. That had been almost an hour ago. Time seemed to be standing still.
A door down the corridor swung open and a white-coated doctor emerged and started walking towards them. “At last,” muttered Andrea under her breath.
“Mrs Jenkins?” His accent was a pleasant blend of clipped Yorkshire vowels and an Indian lilt.
“Yes?” said Andrea, jumping to her feet.
“I’m Dr Patel.” He held out a hand. “I’m in charge of your mother’s care.”
“How is she?”
“I’m afraid your mother has suffered quite a severe heart attack. We’ve stabilised her and moved her to the Intensive Care ward.”
“Can we see her?”
Dr Patel smiled, obviously practised in offering reassurance to worried relatives. “I’m afraid she’s heavily sedated right now. The best thing would be for you to go home and get some rest. We’ll call you if there’s any change.”
“But is she going to be all right?” asked Rose. She had to stop herself from clutching hold of the doctor’s arm and begging him to make her grandmother better.
The smile on Dr Patel’s lips slipped a little. “We’ll do our best for her.” He held her gaze for a moment before looking away. There’s something he’s not telling us, thought Rose.
At that moment a little electronic tag on his belt beeped. “Sorry, I have to go. Like I said, we’ll contact you if there’s any change.” With that he disappeared down the corridor, his white coat flapping behind him.
“I suppose we should go home,” said Andrea, although she didn’t sound like she wanted to. They drove back to Tollergate in silence, both too stunned to speak.
Rose went straight up to her room and sank onto the bed. She wanted someone to talk to. She took her mobile phone out of her pocket and dialled Dan’s number. It went to voice-mail. She tried a couple more times but got the same response. In the end she just texted him. Can’t meet you today. Something bad has happened. Please call me. Rose.
~~~
Jackson picked up the copy of the Scarborough Evening News that another customer had left lying on a table in The Three Mariners and scanned the article on the front page. Lady Goes Missing, Feared Dead, read the headline. Inspector Booth of Scotland Yard had been assigned to the case. They were searching for a man called Jackson who was the prime suspect. Fortunately there was no picture of him. Still, he folded the paper carefully and tucked it inside his coat. No point leaving it lying around for every Tom, Dick and Harry to see. He finished his pint, pulled his hat down low over his brow, picked up his bag and headed for the door. He had already left sufficient money at his lodgings to pay his landlady, not wishing to compound his difficulties by being accused of unpaid debts.
Something had happened to Alice and it was no surprise he was a wanted man. The irony was, he was completely innocent and it baffled him how his fortunes could have changed so suddenly. If everything had gone according to plan he would have delivered Alice safely back into the hands of his master, Henry Blackwood, and he would have received his reward. As it turned out, he found himself a hunted man; a fugitive on the run.
He walked down to the harbour, keeping a lookout for that brute of a fisherman who had caused him so much pain. His nose was still swollen, although the disfigurement made him less recognisable so there was that to be thankful for. To his relief, the coast was clear.
Last night in The Three Mariners, Jackson had got talking to the captain of a cargo boat that was due to set sail for the Continent. The captain, an old sea-dog, had agreed to take Jackson on board in return for a gold ring that had belonged to Jackson’s mother and the promise of help below decks because the captain was one man down, having lost a crew member to dysentery on the last voyage.
The boat, a clipper, was docked in the harbour, its sails at half mast. Standing on the jetty with a fine view across the water, Jackson took one last look at the seaside town that had been the backdrop to his downfall. There was the Grand Hotel, proud and majestic, the scene of so much personal humiliation. Up on the headland was St Mary’s Church and the ruined castle where he had first spied Alice with the painter. Confound the pair of them! He turned his gaze southward towards the Spa and sighed. He had spent many a happy hour there, in the theatre, listening to Kitty sing. Kitty, with her cherry lips, rosy cheeks and infectious laugh was his one regret.
He turned and walked up the gangplank.
~~~
The next morning Rose and her mother were both up early. Rose hadn’t slept well and, judging from the dark rings under Andrea’s eyes, neither had her mother.
“There’s been no news from the hospital,” said Andrea over breakfast. There was no bacon today, just a bowl of cornflakes and a cup of coffee. “As they say, no news is good news.”
Rose could tell her mother was trying hard to put a brave face on things, but there was no doubt this was a serious situation. Rose kept hearing Dr Patel’s words in her head - a severe heart attack - and had to choke back the desire to cry.
They’d cleared away the breakfast things and got ready to go back to the hospital. On the way to the car Rose suddenly remembered the text she’d sent Dan yesterday. She checked her mobile but there was no reply. Story of my life, thought Rose as she climbed into the car. Why can’t guys reply to text messages? What’s wrong with them? She pushed the thought from her mind. She had more important things to think about now. All she wanted was for her grandmother to recover and come home. The cottage wasn’t the same without her.
The receptionist on the hospital’s main desk checked her computer screen and informed them that Mrs Shawcross had been moved from Intensive Care to the High Dependency Unit. Rose had no idea if that meant her grandmother was getting worse or better. Neither Intensive Care nor High Dependency sounded like great places to be. They followed the signs through the corridors to the HDU where they encountered yet another reception desk. The nurse on duty, a cheerful red-faced girl with Roxanne printed on her name badge, checked her notes and said that yes, they could go through and visit. “Although Mrs Shawcross might be a bit sleepy,” she chirped. “She’s quite heavily sedated.”
Rose wondered how Roxanne could be so cheerful working in a place like this with sick and dying people all around. But then, she supposed, you couldn’t let it get to you otherwise you’d never be able to do your job. Hospitals needed more people like Roxanne, she decided.
They found her grandmother, as predicted,
asleep. She was in a small ward with three other beds, each occupied by elderly, dozing patients hooked up to drips and monitors.
Rose stood by her grandmother’s bedside and looked down at the small, frail figure tucked into the large hospital bed. She was wearing a hospital gown that looked to be two sizes too big for her and her wispy hair had been brushed back off her face, emphasising the high forehead and hollow cheekbones. Surrounding the bed was a bewildering array of machines and monitors connected to her grandmother’s thin arms by a tangle of wires and tubes. A screen behind the bed showed a series of fluorescent lines and numbers. Rose guessed from the little peaks and troughs in the lines and the rhythmic beeping of the machine that it was monitoring her grandmother’s heart rate. Her life reduced to a series of beeps and dashes. She found herself listening to each beep, dreading the continuous alarm that would sound if her grandmother’s heart stopped for good.
Andrea had brought along a pile of magazines for her mother to read but with all the machinery there was nowhere to put them and Gran was obviously in no fit state to read anything at the moment.
“It’s very warm in here,” said Andrea, flopping down onto one of the plastic chairs beside the bed and fanning herself with a copy of Hello! “We should have brought some water.”
“I’ll go and buy a bottle,” said Rose. There was a vending machine in the main reception area.
“Oh, would you love?” Andrea rummaged in her purse and found some loose change. “That should be enough.”
Rose retraced her steps through the maze of corridors. The High Dependency ward had given her the goosebumps, seeing her grandmother and the other old people wired up to all those machines. What would happen if there was a power cut? Would everyone just die? Or did hospitals have generators that were supposed to kick in? Rose didn’t want to think about it. What upset her most was seeing her grandmother lying there so helpless and vulnerable. Gran would hate it, thought Rose, if she was aware of what was happening.
Scarborough Fair (Scarborough Fair series Book 1) Page 13