by Wendy Holden
He went back into the house to get Dan a change of clothes. Admittedly, he’d never seen him in one but there might be something clean somewhere.
Spotting a chocolate box on the sitting room’s grubby carpet, he picked it up. Presumably these were the ones Turner had brought for Dan. The box was empty. Was it this that had made Dan sick?
Dylan studied the lid. Eton Mess Sundae sounded pretty sickly. As did Salted Caramel Surprise. But even eating the whole lot in one go wouldn’t make you that ill, surely?
Dylan put the box back down and went into Dan’s bedroom. Black flowery paper was peeling off the wall. The bed was just a mattress on the floor covered by a crumpled, dirty sheet. Dylan’s heart twisted. The room shouted grottiness, but it also shouted loneliness and neglect.
He decided not to rummage in the drawers. There was no telling what might be in them. Fresh and laundered underwear seemed unlikely. Instead he shut up the house and went out to the car.
They set off. Dylan had no idea where the hospital was, but figured that Chestlock was bound to have one somewhere. After driving round a couple of the out-of-town roundabouts he spotted what he had been looking for: the red sign with the white H in the middle.
Chestlock Hospital looked about the size of a small town; a row of distant buildings fronted by vast acres of car park. All of which seemed solidly full. But eventually Dylan reversed into a vacant spot and began the by-no-means-simple task of getting Dan across the miles between Car Park Q and the hospital front entrance.
Dan had given up protesting now. He was evidently fading fast and his massive frame weighed heavily on the slighter Dylan as they staggered past the hospital bus shelters in which vastly overweight people, presumably recent beneficiaries of expert medical attention, sucked violently on cigarettes.
The hospital building itself, a sprawling glass-and-steel erection, reminded Dylan unpleasantly of the place he had spent so many months in following the fire. He took his déjà vu strongly in hand, however. This was no time for self-indulgence.
Settling Dan flat out on a row of burgundy plastic seats in the reception area, Dylan hurried to the welcome desk. ‘It’s an emergency,’ he told the bull-necked woman behind the computer monitor.
She flicked him the briefest glance before frowning back into her screen and tapping keys. There was a chugging, grinding noise. A plump hand thrust a piece of paper at him on which was printed a number. ‘Wait until you see that on the screen,’ she said.
There were screens hanging above the seating areas, on which large numbers appeared. The one showing at the moment was 44. The number on Dylan’s paper was 86.
He cast a look over his shoulder. Dan was lying on his back on the seats, one arm dangling to the floor. He turned back to the receptionist. ‘I’m not sure he’s going to live that long. He’s very ill.’
The woman gave a weary sigh. ‘Name? NHS number?’
‘I don’t know about the number. But his name’s Dan Parker.’
A miraculous transformation now occurred. An expression best described as dreamy now softened the receptionist’s harsh features. She raised herself from her chair slightly and stared at Dan over the counter-top. ‘Bloody ’ell. It’s Shagger!’
She spoke with a certain wistfulness. Dylan blinked.
‘You’re right. He doesn’t look good. Go back to yer seat, love. I’ll see what I can do.’ She picked up the phone and muttered into it.
Dylan returned to what remained of his employer. Dan seemed to be ebbing fast. His breathing was rapid and rasping. Dylan had heard of a death rattle: was this it? He patted the massive, grubby hand, its nails edged with dirt, surprised at the fondness he felt for him. ‘Come on Dan,’ he muttered. ‘Fight it.’
CHAPTER 47
A few miles from where Dylan sat, Julie and Nell were at a Wedding Fayre. It was held in a run-down Victorian hotel whose large ballroom, which must have been the scene of many a proud nineteenth-century civic gathering, was now packed with stalls offering contemporary wedding essentials.
Nell walked around, fascinated. Her first stop, Sassy Seating, displayed chairs wearing skirts of organdie and damask teamed with contrasting bows and sashes. ‘They look better than most of the brides,’ Julie muttered.
No detail had been overlooked. There were white post boxes for party venues into which guests could slip cards for the happy couple. There were chocolates on sticks on which names could be handwritten for table placements. There were any number of complex invitation options; the ‘Save the Date’ industry in particular was growing apace. ‘Thistle with Custard on top is the most popular combination at the moment,’ the stallholder told Nell. Custard and Thistle were both ink colours.
Through the ballroom’s huge windows, beribboned VW camper vans by the score stood in the car park. ‘From Colombia,’ a florist told Nell when she asked where the white hydrangeas arranged in jam jars had originated. It seemed a long way to go for that casual English hedgerow look. Another florist displayed vases of dead roses: ‘The Gothic vibe is really in at the moment.’
Huge men who looked like bouncers were selling discos. They were surrounded by so many laptops and other technical devices they looked as if they were launching a space programme.
The First Dances Company offered to immortalise that special moment of the wedding reception in forms ranging from DVDs to oil paintings to specially created perfumes. ‘It’s one of the key decisions of the whole wedding,’ Nell was told.
A photographer with floppy auburn hair specialised in the ‘engagement’ photo album. This, he explained, was the essential adjunct to the wedding album; the prequel, as it were. The recording of the actual proposal moment.
Nell looked through a sample album featuring a happy couple-to-be posed in a sunlit meadow next to an artfully arranged bicycle whose wicker basket overflowed with daisies. She suppressed a sigh. In her case, the prequel had been the happiest period of the whole ghastly business.
‘Why do people want pictures of the proposal?’ Julie was asking. ‘It’s a private moment.’
‘It’s the hashtag selfie effect,’ the photographer enlightened them. ‘People are used to having every moment of their lives immortalised on Instagram.’
‘But what if the bride said no?’
‘Well, she’s unlikely to do that because the groom will have had a persuasion masterclass with someone from The Apprentice.’ Nell laughed.
‘Doing anything later?’ the photographer asked her.
She recoiled instantly; made an excuse. ‘But why?’ Julie demanded, as they moved off.
Nell was defensive. ‘Isn’t it a bit sleazy, picking people up at wedding fairs?’
‘Don’t see why. Maybe it makes them feel romantic.’
This idea seemed to Nell as fantastic as the sassy seating and as unlikely as custard combined with thistle.
As they passed the hospital on the way back to Edenville, Julie dropped Nell off at the entrance. Making her way through the reception preoccupied with thoughts of George, she did not notice the two men at the back of the vast space, one lying along the seat and the other watching him. Nor did they notice her.
Was George’s move to a general ward a good thing, Nell wondered. She was less certain now. It seemed very noisy. Children were running up and down. Large mothers in straining trousers were rebuking them loudly. ‘Tiffany-Grace! Carlsberg! Will you come and bloody well sit down now?’
George’s eyes were closed but he seemed restless. He had been fretting, Jasjit told Nell. ‘Been lying there with his eyes shut, muttering to himself about beards and lanks and whatnot. What are lanks anyway?’
‘Planes,’ Nell said. ‘The ones he flew during the war.’
Jasjit whistled. ‘Quite the hero.’
‘Definitely.’
‘You been in touch with your hero yet? The
one who rescued George?’ The nurse’s voice was teasing.
‘No,’ Nell said firmly.
Jasjit cackled. ‘You’re blushing!’
The old man’s eyes had been shut, but now they opened and Nell experienced the usual surprise of seeing how very bright they were. He looked directly at her and for a second she could see the usual amazed hope in them, followed by the realisation that she was not, after all, his wife. ‘Garden?’ he managed, after a few attempts to speak.
Nell thought of all the beauty the old man was missing. ‘It’s fine. I’m looking after it.’
Had George any idea that he would probably never work in it again?
She talked to him about his vegetable beds, how Juno had enjoyed watering them. But George did not seem in the mood for a chat. He kept closing his eyes and seemed more tired. He was muttering; she bent over to hear.
‘It were thrilling . . . I never expected in a million years to go up in a plane; no one from my background did. It were like being in a film . . . and Edwina looked like a film star. Blonde. Her hair were parted in the centre and curled into her neck. Her smile . . .’
War and love, love and war. They were wired together in his mind. The two significant moments of his life. What, Nell wondered, had been the defining event of hers?
‘I need to tell you something.’ As Nell left, Jasjit came out from behind the nurses’ station. Her eyes were grave. This was obviously bad news.
‘He’s not getting any stronger. He made a good start but he seems to have slipped back. He needs full-time care. It looks like he’s going to have to go into a home.’
Nell bit her lip.
‘He hasn’t got any family, you see. No kids to look after him.’
Nell thought of Edwina. If the sorrow of her life had been her inability to have children, how much sadder she would be to think that lack of children had condemned George to a care home.
Skidding across Nell’s mind now came the idea that she could somehow step in. Keep an eye on him. On the other hand, she worked all day. And George needed more than an eye, he needed full-time care. What if he fell, or had another heart attack?
She looked bleakly at Jasjit. ‘Is a home the only option?’
‘It’s looking that way. But they’re not all bad places. Some are pretty good.’
‘It’s just that he’ll miss his garden so much.’
Jasjit looked sympathetic. ‘I know. We’re trying to find him somewhere with a nice one.’
Nell went out to the bus stop with a heavy heart.
Dylan, in the reception area, was starting to lose hope. The receptionist who had recognised Dan and who had seemed to promise so much, had not followed through. No doctor had yet appeared.
Dan, stretched out on the seats beside him, appeared to be groaning his last. The numbers on the large screen had been stuck at 53 for ages. Perhaps the system had broken down.
Meanwhile, on another large screen nearby – a half-smashed plasma – Location, Location, Location was getting under way. Dylan tried to forget about his own location and resigned himself to watching it.
‘Mr Parker?’
An intelligent-looking young man in a green overall had appeared. ‘I’m Dr Akim.’ Behind him were two male nurses and a trolley. The former proceeded to heave Dan on to the latter and wheel him off.
‘He’s been very sick for two days,’ Dylan said as he hurried along with the little group. It seemed to be all systems go, suddenly. ‘It’s all a bit mysterious.’
Dr Akim raised his handsome eyebrows. ‘What does he do for a living?’
‘He’s a gardener.’
‘Is he up to date on his tetanus, do you know?’
They had arrived in a small ward. The nurses were busily hooking Dan up to various monitors, chatting about last night’s football results as they did so.
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s because of the soil.’ Dr Akim pushed back Dan’s eyelid with a thumb and examined the colour of his eyeball.
‘The soil?’
Dr Akim was squinting at the monitors now. ‘The earth is full of unpleasant viruses that can make people very ill. Especially if they’re exposed to them a lot.’
Dr Akim sent Dylan back to the reception area to wait. He gave no indication of how long things might take. On the other hand, as Birch Hall was no longer on the agenda, it wasn’t as if Dylan had anything else to do.
He settled himself as well as he could on the hard plastic chair under the telly. Another daytime property programme had started. An apprehensive couple were being shown a blue-painted kitchen by a tanned and excitable blonde. The house seemed to be in Cornwall; cliffs and sea were visible through the windows.
Dylan decided to go outside, get some fresh air.
On the pavement overlooking the A&E arrival area, the air was blue. A cloud of smoke rose from a crowd of puffing patients. Some of the smokers had casts on their legs, others slings round their arms. Others had sticks; either one or two. They were all talking about online poker.
Dylan found himself fighting a sudden, sweeping nausea. The smoke smell had whisked him back to Bosun’s Whistle.
He returned, shaken, to the reception area. ‘Dr Akim came to look for you,’ the receptionist told him.
Dylan slapped his forehead in frustration. He must have missed the doctor by seconds.
‘I told him you must have popped out for a fag.’
‘I certainly did not.’ Dylan was indignant.
‘Doctor told me to give you a message, anyway. They’re keeping him in. For observation.’
‘What does that mean?’
The receptionist shrugged. ‘He didn’t say. But what it usually means is . . .’
‘Yes?’ prompted Dylan urgently.
‘That we should keep our fingers crossed.’
There was a blonde at one of the hospital bus stops, Dylan noticed as he passed en route to the car park. A blonde he felt he recognised. Then, as she turned and looked at him, he realised that not only did he recognise her, he had resolved to keep right away from her.
I’d give him a wide berth if I were you. Rachel’s words rushed back to Nell as she stared into those eyes she had been seeing so often in her mind. But he was far too close to give him any berth, wide or otherwise.
‘How’s it going?’ Dylan asked cautiously.
‘Um. Fine. Fine, thanks.’ She looked around for an escape. Not by bus, it seemed. According to the timetable, at least two should have been and gone by now.
‘How’s your neighbour?’ he asked, and saw her face fall.
‘Not well at all,’ Nell admitted. ‘They don’t think he’ll ever go back home.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘You could say that.’ Nell wished he would go away. George’s predicament made her feel emotionally volatile and she didn’t want to lose control. Least of all and yet again in front of this person.
‘That was a great garden.’
Nell looked at him. He’d been there in that garden, he knew what it was like, how beautiful the old man had made it. He had been there on the last occasion George had been there himself. ‘I can’t bear to think of him never going back there,’ she said, feeling all her pent-up emotion rushing, suddenly, irresistably, to the surface.
Dylan watched her standing there, sobbing into her fingers. He felt he should do something, but what? He reached for her shoulder, gingerly, as if she were made of something that might melt at his touch, or explode. As he did so, a sense of wonder filled him. He had forgotten what it was like to touch a woman. Dylan reached out his other hand and let his shaking fingers make contact with her hair.
It juddered through Nell with the force of a thousand volts. It brought her back to her senses. She sprang back, embarrassed. ‘I�
�m sorry!’
‘It’s fine.’ Dylan said, feeling dazed. His finger-ends burned and his head was spinning.
She was hurrying away from him, down past the bus stops. Her hair was streaming behind her like a white flame. He was wondering whether to run after her, and what he would say if he did, when someone cut into his thoughts.
‘Well!’ came a deep, suggestive female voice. ‘Fancy seeing you here! Our very own home-grown hero!’
It was the second time that afternoon that Dylan had had sudden, surprising contact with a woman heonly vaguely knew. But this encounter was much less strange and magical. He found himself staring now, not into Nell’s wide sapphire gaze, but the mascaraed Venus flytraps of Angela Highwater.
CHAPTER 48
A letter from the oncology department had called Angela to the hospital. They wanted to discuss with her the results of the tests she had recently undergone.
Of course it would be fine, Angela told herself. Nonetheless she had, on the drive there, felt uncharacteristically apprehensive.
Oncology departments brought back bad memories. As did hospitals. Her mother had died in one, years before, from breast cancer. This had marked a low point in Angela’s life, one she never talked about. This did not mean that she never thought about it, however.
She was thinking about it now as she parked in one of the hospital car parks and walked up past the long line of bus stops.
A couple were clinging to each other, Angela noticed. And while there were plenty of couples clinging on to each other outside the hospital entrance, mostly for the purposes of standing upright, these ones caught Angela’s eye. Not only were they doing it for seemingly romantic reasons, there was also something familiar about them.
It was only when, suddenly, the woman sprang back and dashed off, that Angela realised what the something was. The girl who now rushed unseeingly past her, blonde hair flying agitatedly about, was none other than that wretched Nell Simpson, bane of Angela’s life.
While the man staring after her, arms still open in a bereft sort of fashion, was, to Angela’s rage, Adam Greenleaf. Saviour of local pensioners, all-round hunk and the man she intended to be Dan Parker’s successor in the supplying of sexual services.
