Till We Meet Again

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Reuben said wickedness never goes unpunished. Well, they were having an affair, on top of letting Annabel die from negligence. So I watched and waited for something bad to happen to them. When it didn’t, I decided I had to punish them myself.’

  Steven felt suddenly chilled by that explanation. Everything she’d said prior to that was understandable and reasonable, but the cold, calm way she’d decided to mete out her own punishment had a ring of true madness about it.

  He knew he ought to dive straight in and get some detail about this alleged affair between Wetherall and Parks, as it could be valuable in discrediting the couple. Yet for some strange reason he didn’t feel able to question her further about it. The small, stuffy room seemed to be closing in on him, he needed time to think about what he’d heard, and he wanted to consult Beth.

  ‘I think we’ll end it there for today,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I do hope your eye will be better by the next time I come.’

  Chapter ten

  Susan woke to the sound of her own screaming.

  ‘Shut up, you stupid bitch,’ the woman in the bunk above her growled, bringing Susan back to where she really was. In prison.

  She was afraid to shut her eyes again, she didn’t want to slip back into the nightmare. She had been trying to run, weighed down by the weight of Annabel in her arms. But her legs wouldn’t seem to move, and though she was shouting to people to help her, they just stared at her.

  That wasn’t what happened that day in May four years ago. Her legs did move, faster than she would’ve believed possible. She didn’t shout at anyone. But the terror in the dream was exactly as she felt that day.

  She could picture everything that happened that morning so clearly. It was Annabel’s rasping breathing that woke her.

  The previous day Susan had taken the child to the doctor and been told her temperature was nothing more than a virus, but she was so anxious about her that she took her into her bed that night to keep a close eye on her. In the early hours of the morning Annabel had woken and Susan had given her more Calpol and a drink.

  But as Susan woke again, this time to the sound of harsh breathing, she instinctively put her hand on her daughter’s forehead and found she was burning up. In horror Susan jumped out of bed, pulled back the curtains and examined her.

  She knew right away this was no harmless little virus but something really serious. Annabel’s dark hair was sticking to her head and face with sweat, her plump cheeks were fiery with fever, and her lips dry. Susan lifted her nightdress and found the rash was still there, worse than the previous night, bright red against her white skin. But even more frightening, Annabel didn’t seem to know her.

  Running down the stairs to the phone, Susan noticed it was just after half past eight, which meant the surgery would be open. When she got through, to her dismay the same hard-nosed receptionist who’d been so difficult yesterday, said once again that a home visit wasn’t necessary, but that Susan could bring Annabel into the surgery now and she’d try to fit her in.

  With hindsight, especially after the casual way Dr Wetherall had treated Susan’s concern the previous day, she should have disregarded that and phoned for an ambulance immediately. But frantic with worry and desperate for the doctor to see Annabel, she rushed back upstairs and flung on the first things which came to hand. She didn’t even stop to comb her hair or dress Annabel. She just wrapped her in a blanket and ran to the surgery with her in her arms.

  It wasn’t that far, just down the hill and along Hotwells Road to Dowry Square, a ten-minute walk normally. But the child was heavy to carry, and Susan’s fright at hearing her laboured breathing made it seem much further. The rush-hour traffic into Bristol roared past her, and the exhaust fumes seemed to be filling her lungs and making Annabel’s breathing even worse.

  ‘The doctor will soon make you better, my darling,’ she whispered to Annabel, trying to lift her more comfortably on to her hip.

  The snooty blonde receptionist was no more comforting or sympathetic than she’d been the day before, not even when she saw Susan staggering under the weight of the four-year-old, who was barely conscious in her arms. She still curtly ordered her to go into the waiting room and wait her turn.

  ‘He must see her now,’ Susan pleaded. ‘I think she’s got meningitis.’

  ‘Mums always think the worst,’ the receptionist said crisply and turned away as if Susan’s fears were ridiculous.

  The minutes seemed like hours as she sat there waiting, cradling Annabel in her arms. Other patients tried to speak to her and one woman said, ‘She don’t look at all well,’ but Susan was far too anxiously straining her ears for her name to be called to reply.

  Then at last her name was called and she rushed into Dr Wetherall’s consulting room. He was sitting behind his desk, going through some papers, and barely looked up as she came in.

  Although prior to the events of the day before, she hadn’t had much reason to see Dr Wetherall, Susan had always thought he was a good doctor, purely because he was good-humoured and patient. He was a big man, perhaps six feet, and a little stout, with thick grey hair and an all-year tan. He told her once he got it out on the golf-course. She knew he had four children of his own, their photographs were on his desk, and once when Annabel was a young baby he’d been sympathetic that Susan was bringing her up alone.

  But there was no sign of good humour that day, or patience. He lifted Annabel’s nightdress quite roughly, listened to her chest briefly, tucked a thermometer under her arm and checked her ears. It was Susan who pointed out the rash. She explained how it didn’t disappear if she pressed a glass on it, and her fears that it was meningitis.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Dr Wetherall said, giving her a withering glance. ‘I wish I had a pound for every hysterical mother who diagnosed that! She’s just got a bit of a fever,’ he said, consulting the thermometer. ‘Give her Calpol every four hours and plenty of fluids.’

  ‘But I’ve already been giving her that,’ Susan pleaded with him. ‘Look at her, she doesn’t even know where she is! Please let her go to hospital!’

  ‘She doesn’t need hospital,’ he insisted, looking cross with Susan for even daring to suggest it. ‘She could be coming down with rubella or maybe flu. Home is where she needs to be, tucked into bed. Now, do you want a new prescription for Calpol?’

  Livid with rage and frustration, Susan stalked out carrying Annabel and went back to the reception desk. ‘Could you phone for an ambulance, please?’ she asked the blonde woman. ‘Annabel’s really ill, I must get some help for her.’

  ‘Did Doctor Wetherall say she needed to go to the hospital?’ the receptionist asked, looking down her thin nose.

  ‘No, but he’s wrong to think it’s only something minor. I know it’s serious,’ Susan replied, her voice growing high with agitation.

  ‘In that case I certainly can’t phone for an ambulance,’ the woman said tartly. ‘Now, take her home and put her to bed. That’s where she belongs.’

  Susan couldn’t even ask her to ring a taxi, she had no money on her, and she didn’t have enough at home anyway. All she could do was rush out, angry tears running down her face.

  Fear gave her new strength and speed for she actually ran up Ambra Vale. She knocked at Mr Potter’s, three doors away from her, because since he retired he was usually at home, and he was fond of Annabel.

  Mr Potter took one look at her and got his car keys. ‘You should have come to me first thing,’ he said, running a hand over the child’s hot forehead. ‘I’d have taken you straight away.’

  At the Children’s Hospital on St Michael’s Hill, they did take Susan seriously. The sister in charge in the casualty department took just one look at Annabel before whisking her away into a cubicle. Within minutes a doctor came to her and examined her, and said she was to be admitted immediately.

  Susan knew within an hour that Annabel wasn’t going to pull round. The doctors and nurses were working hard on her, but it was obvious from the an
xiety in their faces that it was to no avail. No one said she should have been brought in earlier, they made no comment that the Dowry Square practice had refused both a home visit and an ambulance. But Susan sensed their anger at such negligence.

  Two hours later Annabel slipped away without ever regaining consciousness. Susan had to hope she’d sensed her holding her hand, and felt her kisses on her chubby little face.

  The nurses were very kind and sympathetic: they held Susan and did their best to comfort her. But there was no way of comforting her, the only light in her life had been snuffed out. Her baby, her whole reason for living, was dead.

  She remembered how as she sat there beside the bed, just looking at Annabel, she tried to convince herself that it was all just a terrible nightmare and any minute she’d wake up at home and find Annabel in bed beside her, strong and healthy. But there was no movement in her chest, no breath when Susan moved closer to kiss her.

  The red flush on her face was gone, her dark eyelashes lay on her cheeks like two little fans. She looked as if she was sleeping peacefully. But those fat little fingers would never curl round her mother’s again. Susan would never hear her laugh or call her Mummy again. Her dark eyes were closed for ever.

  There was a picture of some squirrels on the wall of the little isolation ward. Annabel would have squealed with delight if she’d been conscious when she’d been brought in here. She would have almost certainly given them all names too. But she hadn’t even been aware of it, and Susan was never going to see her feeding her pet ones on Brandon Hill again.

  Everything that happened after that was a blur now. She supposed someone took her home, maybe they even stayed with her for a while, but she couldn’t remember it, or the days that followed. She thought perhaps she got into bed and stayed there.

  Only two things stood out, stark and hideous, in her memory. The first was her last view of the little coffin with a teddy bear of pink carnations on top of it, as it slid away at the end of the service in the crematorium. She was aware that almost everyone from her street had turned out for the funeral. She heard their voices expressing their sympathy. Yet she couldn’t recall any of their faces, however kind their words were.

  The second vivid event was the morning after the funeral when she woke to find herself alone in the house and realized that it was all real and Annabel was gone for good.

  ‘What’re you bawling for now?’ Frankie’s voice broke through her reverie, and Susan realized she was indeed crying.

  She had been to court again a couple of days before. It was prison procedure for the women to pack up all their belongings when they were going back to court, in case they were granted bail or were moved to another prison. If they were remanded in custody again, as Susan was, on their return to the prison they were often put in a different cell. So now she was with Frankie, the fourteen-stone woman who practically ran the wing. She looked like a man with her short, spiky black hair and barbed wire tattoos round her arms. Susan was very afraid of her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, drying her eyes on the sheet. ‘I was thinking about my daughter.’ She hadn’t actually told Frankie about Annabel herself, but as Julie, her old cellmate, was as much of a gossip as anyone else in here, Susan knew everything she’d told her would be common knowledge.

  There was a rustling sound in the dark cell, then a thud as Frankie jumped down from the top bunk. ‘It don’t do to think about the past in here,’ she whispered, her tone unusually gentle. Normally she would thump anyone who disturbed her. It was said she was on remand for taking a Stanley knife to someone’s face, and everyone kept out of her way if they could. But now she laid a hand against Susan’s cheek and smoothed it. ‘I’m yer mate now, and I’ll look after yer, darlin’.’

  The following Monday Beth visited Susan. She had expected to find her looking forlorn, but instead Susan gave her a wide and welcoming smile, very reminiscent of the ones so long ago.

  ‘You look nice,’ she said, looking admiringly at Beth’s navy and white pin-striped trouser suit. ‘But you always did wear your clothes well.’

  ‘Did I?’ Beth said with some surprise as she sat down. ‘I thought I looked like a walking rag-bag. Everything I had was just hand-me-downs from Serena.’

  ‘Few of us see ourselves as we really are.’ Susan shrugged. ‘It usually takes someone else to show us.’

  As Susan sounded and looked so perky, even with her recently blacked eye still a vivid purple, Beth assumed she must have found a new friend in the prison, someone who was being kind to her.

  ‘Did someone do that for you?’ Beth said.

  ‘There was you,’ Susan said, and blushed. ‘You made me believe that it was okay to be timid and gentle. But that seems a silly thing to say now I’m stuck in prison for a violent crime.’

  Beth half smiled. It was rather unbelievable. Had anyone been asked to guess which girl, at fourteen or fifteen, would end up in trouble, she knew they’d have picked her, never Susan. ‘Aside from me?’ she asked. ‘Someone you met as an adult?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s actually much difference between the real me and the way others see me,’ Susan said with a little grin. ‘But there was someone who showed me a glimpse of the woman I’d always wanted to be.’

  Beth leaned her arms on the table. Susan’s overall appearance was improving. Her hair had some shine in it now, and the ruddy colouring in her face she’d had on her arrest was fading. Beth thought that proved it must have been caused by being outside in all winds and weathers, not by drink as they’d all supposed. The ghastly maroon jogging suit didn’t do a lot for her, though. Beth supposed it was just something that had been dished out to her.

  ‘So who was this man who gave you a glimpse of heaven?’ she said lightly.

  ‘Liam Johnstone, Annabel’s father,’ Susan said.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ Beth suggested. ‘Where did you meet him?’

  Susan explained he’d come to do the garden at Luddington, and described what he was like both in looks and character. As she spoke of how close they became, her voice was tender with affection. There was gratitude, too, for he had clearly brightened that period of her life.

  ‘He had finished the job in September, and he had to move on,’ she said. ‘He kissed me on his last day, and he was as sad as me that we had to part. But he promised he would be back later in the year and said if I was ready to leave by then, he would take me with him.’

  ‘Did you intend to go with him?’ Beth asked.

  ‘I thought about nothing else,’ Susan said dreamily. ‘But I couldn’t see how I could just walk out and leave Mother. As it happened, though, I never did find out whether I was brave enough to do it, because first Mother died, then Father six weeks later.’

  Beth thought that was a lucky twist of fate, but she couldn’t say so. She just grimaced in sympathy and let Susan carry on.

  ‘So there I was left all alone in the house,’ she said almost flippantly. ‘It was really weird having nothing to do and no one to look after, but I couldn’t really be happy that I was free at last. I was too angry with Father for leaving me nothing but his bloody gun.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ Beth interrupted her. ‘All he left you was his gun?’

  ‘Well, there was two thousand pounds too,’ Susan admitted. ‘But that was hardly compensation for giving up my life for him and Mother, was it? He left everything else to Martin, who never did a hand’s turn to help any of us.’

  ‘But the house, that must have been worth a fortune,’ Beth gasped, seeing in her mind’s eye the lovely old house of mellow red brick, the beautiful garden and the river flowing by it.

  ‘I hadn’t ever considered that, but Martin was all too quick to see it. He didn’t give a toss about making me homeless.’ Susan sighed. ‘He said I could stay on till he’d sold it, but that Christmas he didn’t even send me a card. He always was a self-centred, cruel bastard. I don’t think he has ever had any feelings for anyone but himself.’

  S
usan’s words brought back a sharp memory for Beth. It was during their second or maybe third holiday together, and they were sitting down by the lock behind Suzie’s house, their feet dangling over the edge as they waited for boats to come into the lock. Suzie had mentioned almost in passing that her older brother had come home the previous evening, and she seemed a bit scared of him.

  Beth knew he was the same age as Serena, therefore she’d always assumed he treated his little sister the way Serena treated her – little presents, making a fuss of her, and asking her about her schoolwork.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. Suzie was biting her lip and she looked a bit pale.

  ‘I hate him coming home,’ she admitted in a small voice, turning her head as if to check he wasn’t in the garden watching her. ‘He’s always nasty to me. He says cruel things.’

  ‘Like what?’ Beth relied on both Robert and Serena for the comfort and affection she never got from her parents, so she found it hard to imagine anyone’s brother or sister could be nasty.

  ‘That I’m fat and stupid,’ Suzie said, and a tear trickled down her plump cheek.

  ‘You aren’t fat or stupid,’ Beth said stoutly. ‘You’re sweet and pretty. He’s the stupid one if he can’t see that.’

  Beth couldn’t remember anything more, perhaps a boat came into the lock and distracted them. She didn’t think Suzie ever said anything about her brother again either. But obviously Martin had always been a nasty piece of work. Yet another thing she’d failed to pick up on about her friend.

  ‘Why didn’t you contest the will?’ Beth asked, her indignation rising. ‘The courts are very understanding when someone has spent their life being a carer, then doesn’t get left enough to support themselves.’

  Susan smiled placidly. ‘Maybe I would have if Liam hadn’t come back,’ she said. ‘I had been working myself up into a frenzy of rage. But then, lo and behold, at the beginning of December Liam came knocking on the door, just as he said he would. By then I’d begun to doubt him too, so I’m sure you can imagine how thrilled I was. Suddenly the house and Martin didn’t matter a bit.’