I didn’t argue. I drank and ate. And then I took a second cup and a second scone to the office. I had to tell a load of folk Griff was OK. People who didn’t even know he was ill, some of them. But first of all would be Aidan, his long-term lover who was stuck down in New Zealand after his sister’s death. He’d want to know the good news whatever time of night or day it was, just as I would.
Then I thought I’d better make my peace with Robin. That was the nice thing about old friends. Or at least the nice thing about him. Once the S word came out, he didn’t try to lecture me or tell me not to behave so badly in future. He just said it was fine, and asked how Griff was and what I was going to do.
‘And then I think I’ll nip off to the church and have a word with God,’ I ended.
‘It works just as well where you are,’ he said, sounding as if he was trying not to laugh.
‘Look, if someone gives you a nice present, isn’t it more polite to write a proper letter than to send a text? Well, then. I think God deserves a bit of effort from me after the efforts He made for me, don’t you?’
‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said.
As the nurse had promised, I was allowed to see Griff in the evening. I’d never seen him so small and frail – old, in fact. He was in a vast space-age bed, with all tubes and dials and monitors everywhere, which Griff’s nurse – one-to-one care even in these cash-strapped times was amazing – constantly checked. I spent five wonderful but terrifying minutes, just holding a hand and talking softly. As I tore myself away, she came over, smiling.
‘I promise you he’s doing well.’
I gaped and gestured.
‘So well in fact that he won’t need one-to-one nursing much longer. He’ll be moved out of Intensive Care within forty-eight hours if he continues this way. To the next stage: High Dependency. One nurse to three patients.’ She patted my arm. ‘Honestly. Just go home and leave him to us. You wait – we’ll have the roses back in his cheeks by the end of the week.’ She gave me another look, both searching and sympathetic. ‘Look, why don’t you phone again, ten-ish, just to make sure. It’s not a problem – the patient does better if he knows his family isn’t worried. And you’re all he’s got, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, dismissing Aidan without a second thought. ‘And he’s all I’ve got, too.’
Paul, who’d insisted on driving me over, was waiting in the car park. Hospitals didn’t suit him, he insisted.
‘I could take you straight home,’ he said, ‘as I promised. But please come and have a bite with us. Mary won’t admit it, but she’s prepared a special spread. Actually, she’d love you to stay overnight with us too. She thinks the world of you, you know. Ever since you stood up for her against that lying bitch at your dad’s place.’
‘He doesn’t own Bossingham Hall any more,’ I pointed out. ‘It was the woman the trustees employed that was the problem.’
He nodded patiently, pulling out on to the main road. ‘Anyway, taking her part then, and then offering her a job with you – you saved her sanity if not her life, Lina. And feeding you and offering you the spare bed – she’s trying to say thank you, in no matter how small a way.’
All my mind would register was the number of words ending in -ing he’d used. I fished desperately for something appropriate to say. ‘Every time she takes a job off Griff’s hands she does that. She’s got a wonderful way with customers – as you must have seen, since you ride shotgun every day. Every day except Tuesdays, now I come to think of it, Paul – how come you were with us today?’
‘Just in case – in case you had to get to the hospital quickly,’ he admitted.
I nodded. ‘Thank you. I’d have been a menace if I’d had to drive. And even with this wonderful news I keep getting these tears coming from nowhere. Paul – this sounds awful, I know – I’d love to eat with you, oh, yes, please, but I really can’t stay over. It’s a sort of touching wood, you know.’ It was. ‘But I shall have a taxi home to Bredeham. I insist. Promise you won’t argue? Oh, I know Mary will. But I want us all to raise a glass to Griff’s health without you having to worry about staying sober. OK? Promise you understand and will make poor Mary understand? And I’d better take this call. It’s Pa.’
‘Brace yourself, then!’ He was so obviously trying not to listen that I nearly laughed.
Pa tended to bark when he used his new phone, as if unconvinced that such a small object could do the work of a nice old-fashioned Bakelite one. ‘That old queer of yours OK?’ Hell, he was talking like Titus now, as well as working for him.
‘He will be. They let me see him.’ I burbled away about how soon he’d be moved into High Dependency.
‘Only two days post-operative? They don’t hang about, do they? Well done him.’ Pa spoke, as Titus observed, as one who never missed a medical programme, fact or fiction, on TV. He never missed much else either, come to think of it. ‘So what time shall I expect you? I think I’ve worked out a way to switch off the CCTV in the trustees’ part of the Hall, so you can have a nice four-poster all to yourself…’
He wasn’t really supposed to enter the main house, except to use the library. Needless to say, he always chose the most circuitous route possible to get there, taking in the attics and the bedrooms where he’d begotten me and my thirty siblings. As for the CCTV, I reckon modern systems were out of Pa’s class, and there was no way I’d try to sleep with a sinister silent eye watching me and recording every toss and turn.
‘I’d love to, Pa,’ I lied. ‘But I’ve given the hospital the house number, not my mobile, so that’s where I have to be. I’ll pop in tomorrow to see you – on the way there or the way back, whichever is more convenient for you.’
Until a few weeks back, he’d done his illicit work in some corner of his wing he made damned sure I never entered. However, one of my police contacts had made it clear they were on to Titus, so now every last incriminating item was – wherever. I didn’t know, and I certainly didn’t want to know. This meant that for the first time since I’d known him, I could no longer assume he’d be in whenever I dropped by.
‘Ah. Let me see … What time did you say you could see old Tripp? Afternoon visiting, and then again in the evening, if I know you. So, morning. Ten-ish. We could go to a supermarket. I need some more shampoo.’ The expensive sort he would drink, not use on his hair. Why could he never simply call it champagne? But that was Pa for you. ‘We could even have lunch. Early, of course. So you won’t be late for visiting hours.’
‘Great. It’s a date.’ But the fact he wanted me out of the house for such a long period worried me. ‘Pa, you’re breaking up – see you in the morning.’
Mobile coverage was very poor in parts of Kent, but this was just an excuse to cut the call. If he said any more I’d have to worry more, and I’d got an idea I didn’t have any worry juice left in me.
Paul and Mary lived alternately in each other’s houses, week by week. Tonight we were in Mary’s cottage in a hamlet called Bossingham, which gave its name to Pa’s place, Bossingham Hall. But if I’d declined an invitation to stay with her, there was no way I could accept one from Pa, even if I’d wanted to. And I really did just want to curl up in my own bed, knowing Griff was safe in someone else’s hands.
But I could at least turn round my excuse when I recovered from Mary’s huge enveloping hug. ‘I can’t stay,’ I said, ‘in case I drop it out to Pa and really upset him.’
She seemed to accept what I said at face value, topping up my glass with champagne. Mistake. It went straight to my head, more particularly to my eyelids, and equally to my knees. In no time I found myself on the sofa, parking the glass with exaggerated care on an occasional table and blinking very hard. And very slowly.
When I surfaced, they’d adjourned to the kitchen, their voices occasionally reaching me through this haze of tiredness.
Mostly, I couldn’t be bothered to listen. Then I heard Mary’s voice, sharper than usual.
‘Of course the poor dea
r child wants to go home,’ she said, with a hint of exasperated sadness in her voice, ‘and call a taxi we can. But it’s not because of her pa or even the fear the hospital will call her at the cottage. It’s because she’s hoping against hope that no-good boyfriend of hers will turn up. I’d love for her sake to think he will, but I’m not holding my breath – and I hope she isn’t either, poor lamb.’
Five years ago I’d have been on my feet, smashing the glass into her face for talking like that. Even now I was so busy stuffing my hands in my mouth to stop myself yelling at her that I didn’t catch Paul’s rumble of a response.
I ought to interrupt them. It was rude to eavesdrop. Rude and scary. But my legs were still rubbery, and I couldn’t trust my mouth to be much better.
‘He’s good-looking enough, I grant you, but a man of his age? Forty if he’s a day, and her not yet twenty-four. And what sort of life is it dancing attendance on his little daughter, when she ought to be having fun with people her own age?’
Another rumble.
‘He lets her down time and again and seems to think he can make everything better by sending her yet another Steiff bear. She doesn’t even like them, you know – they’re too expensive and too stiff to cuddle. No, she prefers that teddy Griff gave her. Loves it, as if she were a child.’
It struck me quite hard that she was right about that. What if she was right about the other things too?
Paul said something else I missed.
‘I’ll bet there’s another Steiff on its way as we speak – as if that would make up for him not being there at the hospital when the police had finished with her on Sunday. Skipping off to France, as if some police meeting was more important than comforting your girlfriend. I mean, it wasn’t just Griff who was ill – she’d been assaulted herself! Could have been killed!’
I suppose I could have been. Some rich lowlife had decided to kidnap me and douse me in petrol, and that was just for starters. However, all that had faded into insignificance when I’d found that Griff had been admitted to hospital with acute angina.
fn1
Another rumble – I think that this time Paul was telling her they’d been through all this before.
‘I’m sorry. Of course we have. Now, is that rice ready?’
‘Almost. But I think we could all manage a drop more bubbly first, don’t you?’
And that was the last I heard for a bit. Perhaps it was just the thought of Tim, but I fell asleep again. It was only the delicate striking of a pretty clock Griff had found for them as an engagement present that woke me. Even as I opened my eyes I realized the snooze was useful for two reasons: I felt much better, for one thing, and more to the point it implied I’d not been busy listening in to their private conversation. Thank goodness I hadn’t slept so long I ruined the meal, which became very jolly indeed – so jolly I found I was a minute late phoning the hospital.
‘He’s still very well, Lina. Even better, actually. His vital signs are improving by the minute. Griff, it’s your granddaughter!’ I heard Griff’s nurse call. ‘Can I give her a message? He’s sending you his love, Lina.’
‘Tell him I love him. Now, may I give you a different number – just in case?’ I dictated it. ‘Tell Griff I’ve been kidnapped by Mary and Paul.’
I heard her relay the information. ‘He’s giving a big thumbs up.’
Of course he was: I’d bet a pound he and Mary had planned the whole kidnapping in advance, not for today – there’d been no time – but for any time there might be an emergency. So instead of leaping up and demanding a taxi, I smiled humbly and asked if I could change my mind about the spare bed. The look she and Paul exchanged confirmed my suspicions. So it didn’t surprise me at all to find my nightie on her spare bed. Or Tim the Bear sitting on the pillow, arms outstretched.
THREE
I was in the shower when my phone rang. My God! It was only six forty-five, too early for me to ring the hospital. What if—?
I flew to pick it up, falling over umpteen things I’d forgotten were in Mary’s spare room.
‘Yes?’ I screamed at last.
‘Goodness me, sweet one, such volume at this unconscionable hour.’
Griff. Griff himself. I sat down hard on the bed, only to realize I was squashing Tim the Bear.
His voice might have been a bit weaker than usual, and he scared me to death when he said he couldn’t remember either my being with him last night or my phone call – and then saved the day by saying his new nurse was telling him he’d probably lost all of yesterday.
‘New?’
‘Oh yes. Veronica. I have to share the dear girl with two others now I’m no longer in ITU—’
‘Not in ITU?’ Pa would have made more of it than I did, but I twigged it was important. ‘I thought they said forty-eight hours? You’re that well already? Wow and double wow.’
‘My darling child, that is such a feeble expression. But after all you’ve been through these last few days, I shall forgive you.’ Me going through things, not him! I swallowed a sob. ‘The truth is they needed the bed for someone else, and I was nearest the door … Now, my precious one, could I ask you to bring me a few things I forgot to ask for the other night? Do you have a pencil handy …?’
‘Middlemarch?’ Pa chuntered as we left Waterstones. ‘That’s a damned thick book for an invalid. You should get him one of those electronic jobbies – save the poor old bugger’s wrists. What else does he need? Slippers? Surely you took him slippers!’
Pa was always miffed if I had to spend time and effort on Griff: they were horribly jealous of each other. But we eventually ran to earth the sort Griff wanted – soft, heelless slip-ons he wouldn’t have to bend to put on. Clearly, Pa disapproved, as if they were a sign of total degeneracy.
Then I made things worse by dawdling outside a newly-opened shop. An antiques shop.
‘Heavens, Lina – don’t you see enough of other folk’s rubbish?’ As if I didn’t keep him in food and champagne by selling his or his trustees’ cast-offs. Not that the trustees knew, as it happens.
‘I do. Have them up to here.’ I sawed the air three inches above my head. ‘But there’s something in there that interests me.’ There was. Eight hundred pounds’ worth of white Beswick horse, according to the absolutely transparent code on the label round its neck. Eight hundred? Well, Canterbury is a tourist magnet, with appropriate prices. ‘Look, Pa, you were talking about getting yourself a new cap – why not pop into the gents’ outfitters there and I’ll look at that china horse. Then I’ll come and find you – three minutes max?’ He had a clear choice. Follow me or do something that suited him. He took himself off in a huff a two year old would be proud of.
If I’d hoped the dealer would be an old mate whose brain I could pick I was disappointed. Behind the counter there was a highly decorative female of about thirty who looked alert when the shop bell pinged, took one look at me, and then drooped back to her copy of a celebrity mag.
‘Can you tell me anything about that horse?’ I’d have preferred a more subtle approach, but didn’t want to irritate poor Pa any more than I had to.
She reached it roughly out of the window, putting it and everything else in its path at risk of injury. ‘Cash: eight hundred and fifty pounds,’ she announced with a dazzling smile. So she was ripping off her employer, was she? Or maybe she was just dim and couldn’t recall the code. I’d reserve judgement.
‘Can you tell me anything else about it?’
Not without peering at its base, she couldn’t. ‘Beswick.’
‘Oh. May I look?’ I didn’t wait for an answer, but examined the poor beast as closely as I could in the subdued lighting that was all the shop offered. The glaze was perfect, just as Puck’s had been. Perhaps this was Puck, come to think of it. Perhaps Mrs Thingy had found another buyer – and hadn’t wasted much time doing so. Perhaps I’d made a mistake turning it down. Or had I? I made a regretful excuse and left, to find Pa just leaving the outfitters, sporting a very fetching
cap set at a rakish angle. Rakish? Well, that was my pa to a T.
‘And after all that you didn’t buy the bloody nag?’
‘I don’t think Titus would have let me,’ I said, touching the side of my nose.
He harrumphed and stomped off in silence.
It took a big shop at Sainsbury’s, including three cases of excellent champagne, courtesy of some silver I’d managed to sell for him, to restore him to comparative good humour, and he did actually stand me lunch – a sandwich, all we’d got time for. And then, back at his place, as I unloaded the goodies he’d bought, he shocked me so much I almost dropped a box of eggs.
He patted one of the cases still lurking in the boot. ‘That’s for Griff. He may not be allowed any booze for a bit, but when he is, he needs decent stuff. With my compliments, tell him.’
I was so touched I actually kissed his cheek.
Paul and Mary had told me not to think of trying to drive back to Bredeham between afternoon and evening visiting. They’d mind the shop, and if there were any tricky Internet orders, one of them would phone me for a decision. Meanwhile, I was so elated at the sight of Griff’s newly pink cheeks and his ability to knock off two crosswords before lunch that I decided to head into Ashford itself for a spot of retail therapy, which was altogether easier without a grumpy toddler in his seventies in tow.
Pa had been so tetchy that I’d forgotten to buy anything for my supper – and it was Paul and Mary’s ballroom dance class night tonight, so they’d consented to let me go home. M and S was the obvious answer. Then I just drifted. Despite my dreamless sleep the previous night, I felt as if my legs were made of toffee. And I didn’t really want to buy anything. I wasn’t ready for autumn clothes yet. But it was too soon to go back to the car or the hospital, so I let my feet take me to the older part of the town, where there were still some small individual shops, including Rob Sampson’s Antiques Emporium. I vaguely knew Rob from sales and fairs. We weren’t rivals – he functioned at a slightly lower part of the market than we did, with bits of memorabilia to compensate for his stock’s general lack of age.
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