Parallel Life

by Ruth Hamilton

  Lisa shook her head. She had to talk to Annie first. If Annie accused him that would be all well and good, but Lisa didn’t want to make things any more difficult than they already were. Anyway, it could have been a burglary. She looked round the kitchen, saw little worth taking. ‘Why would anybody do this?’ she asked, almost of herself. Then she spoke to the PC. ‘She’s just a mum trying to bring up a family as best she can. This is a good woman, officer.’

  He patted her shoulder. ‘That’s usually the case, Mrs Compton-Milne. Now, can you look after these kids until tomorrow? Then we’ll decide what’s to be done with them.’

  She glared at him. ‘What’s to be done is that they will live with me, Constable. I have a grown-up daughter, an excellent housekeeper, plus cleaning staff. Milne’s Jewellery has adequate cover. If Annie wants me to care for her children, then I shall.’

  A police car followed Lisa home. Officers placed the twins and Daisy in their newly-allocated beds, and the female stayed with them while Lisa woke Harrie. Everything had to be explained all over again, and, by the time Harrie was in possession of all the facts, Lisa was flagging.

  The police left. Harrie and her mother sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘Cocoa?’ Harrie asked.

  ‘No, thanks. Anyway, your gran pinched the last of it – I don’t know whether Eileen replaced it.’

  ‘She did.’ It was difficult to find words, but Harrie tried. ‘Mum, she’ll be all right.’

  Lisa ran a hand through hair that had seen better condition. ‘Phone the hospital, please. Tell them who you are and that we have the twins and Daisy. They should be able to tell you something.’

  Harrie was gone for what felt like hours. She could have carried the handset into the kitchen, but she didn’t. Beginning to fear the worst, Lisa lowered her head and wept.

  ‘Mother?’

  It was the full title; it wasn’t Mum – it was Mother. ‘Yes?’

  ‘In intensive care, but stable. They had to let some blood out of her head. She woke up once and cursed them, or so the ward sister said.’

  Lisa smiled weakly. ‘That’s our Annie,’ she wept. ‘She’ll have told them to eff off and leave her alone.’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ promised Harrie.

  Lisa dried her tears. ‘We will. Get me a vodka, love. Double. Just a splash of orange.’

  ‘OK.’ Harrie stood up. ‘Dutch courage?’

  Lisa almost laughed. ‘Daughter of mine, you have not had the pleasure of Craig and Billy, have you? Neither have I. But according to their mother, who does own a tendency towards exaggeration, those twins are little devils. She was thinking of shaving their heads to look for the three sixes.’

  ‘Eighteen?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘No. Much worse – thirty-six. Even poor old Gregory Peck never had to deal with so high a score.’

  Harrie fetched the vodka. It looked as if life might be about to become interesting, so she poured a dose for herself.

  Hermione woke to find a large, long-haired Alsatian staring at her. ‘What big eyes you have, Mr Wolf,’ she declared.

  Milly was not impressed. She had already been chased half a dozen times round the copse by a couple of smaller humans. They carried less weight than adults, but they could certainly move. Sorely offended by this intrusion into her highly organized life, the young bitch was more than slightly put out by the recent turn of events. ‘Woof,’ she said.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ replied Hermione. ‘I feel a bit woof myself – mornings are not easy, you know. MS creeps up on a person during the night and—’

  ‘Glory be to God, the Martians have landed.’

  Hermione closed her eyes. She now had both carers in attendance, and the human variety was the louder of the pair. ‘What now?’

  ‘Creatures with green heads,’ Eileen continued. ‘Running all over the place, they are. I didn’t know whether to go for the hills or for the Dublin ferry – it’s a nightmare out there.’

  ‘Help me sit up,’ ordered the boss. ‘They’ll be from the estate.’ Hermione had a habit of blaming everything in the vicinity on the short-sightedness of planners, and this clearly included intruders from other planets. ‘Visitors from outer space are the last thing we need round here, Eileen. We’ve enough with this German shepherdess.’

  ‘Hello?’

  Two green faces attached to boys in pyjamas appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Well, we now have a quorum,’ said the woman in the bed. ‘Who the dickens are you?’

  They replied in unison. It appeared that they were a Billy and a Craig and they wanted to know how the stairlifts worked.

  Eileen grabbed the boys by the scruffs of their necks. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked. ‘And what on God’s good earth are you doing here half naked with green faces? Where’s your mother?’

  ‘In hospital,’ replied the one to Eileen’s left. ‘And if you rip these pyjamas, she’ll kill you. She’ll be in a bad mood, anyway, because of the Black & Decker. We got brought here by the police.’

  Hermione eyed them up and down. ‘Eileen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did I miss something in the night? Has Weaver’s Warp been taken over by the government as an annexe? I know the prisons are full, but this is ridiculous. They should have taken them to Strangeways or Walton – they must have a spare broom cupboard. Or there’s that supposedly secret place in America where they store aliens.’

  Eileen dragged the miscreants to the bed. Milly, no longer keen on small boys, went to sit under the window.

  ‘Is that your dog?’ one asked. He removed his mask, then pulled off his brother’s facial armour. ‘We’re from Bury Road, not space,’ he said with the intention of clearing up one small matter. ‘Is it yours?’ he asked again.

  ‘No,’ replied Hermione with exaggerated patience. ‘She is not my dog. I am her victim.’

  The boys glanced at each other. ‘Why have you got a wheelchair?’

  ‘Because I am a cripple.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I have MS.’

  ‘What’s MS?’ The last question was delivered in stereo.

  ‘Murder schoolboys,’ she replied quickly.

  The twins were immediately riveted. They wanted to know how many she’d killed, the manner in which she had dispatched them, and where the bodies were buried. She answered their questions. ‘Too many to count, a variety of methods, and they were cremated by my Irish friend here.’

  The boys looked at each other in wonderment. What a find the old lady was. She was lying, of course, but she was a sight more amusing than school teachers and playmates. They asked did she watch Doctor Who, what she thought of Star Trek, and had she had any operations, because some doctor had drilled a hole in their mother’s head with a Black & Decker to let the bad out and make her well.

  The old lady glanced quizzically at Eileen, then said she liked Dr Who’s scarf and she was in charge of training Daleks for the BBC. Star Trek she judged to be rubbish and how did they know it was a Black & Decker.

  ‘Lisa said,’ they chorused. Craig continued. ‘Mam bled in her head and the blood had nowhere to go, so they made a hole with a drill and got rid of the blood. They could have left it. She’s already got holes.’

  It was Billy’s turn to pick up the baton. ‘There’re two eyes, two ears, one mouth and two holes in your nose. The blood could have come out and no need for Black & Decker.’

  ‘Lisa told you about the drill?’

  ‘And Harrie,’ Billy said. He was the taller of this pair of promising delinquents. ‘Harrie said they use ordinary tools because these things happen all the time.’

  ‘Said it to make us feel better,’ Billy added. ‘But she got beat up.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  They nodded as one man.

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Me dad,’ replied Craig. ‘We heard him. Then we came down and found me mam and we rang for the ambulance. Police came and looked after us and Daisy, then
they gave us to Lisa.’

  Lisa and Harrie entered the equation, both gasping for breath after chasing Craig and Billy for what had felt like a half marathon.

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Hermione, smiling. ‘The backbenchers have decided to attend. Is there a three-line whip on?’

  A whip? The boys’ eyes widened further.

  The old woman carried on: ‘We only need Tony Blair, then we can have Gardeners’ Question Time.’

  Lisa blinked. ‘Don’t you mean . . .?’

  ‘I know what I’m talking about. There are more cauliflowers in the lower chamber than they sell in Morrisons. Organic produce? They should ditch the Brussels sprouts for a start, because we never needed Belgians. Who ever found a use for Belgians?’

  ‘Agatha Christie?’ offered Harrie. ‘Hercules Poirot?’

  But Hermione was on her high horse. ‘European Community? What did the Bundesbank say on Black Monday? Or was it a Monday or a Wednesday? Anyway, what I am saying—’

  ‘She’s away,’ shouted Eileen. ‘And so am I. If she’s gone political and vegetarian, I am putting the kettle on.’ She stamped out to the kitchen.

  Lisa sank into a chair. ‘Harriet,’ she said wearily. ‘Take them away and feed them.’

  ‘Can we borrow your whip?’ Billy begged.

  Harrie dragged the twins out of the room and closed the door.

  Lisa cocked an ear. ‘She’s letting them use your stairlift. Oh, Mother.’

  Hermione clucked her tongue. ‘Annie’s children?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lisa, they said their dad hit their mother. What on earth is going on?’

  ‘The police have questioned them. They asked me, too, but I said nothing, though I am fairly sure he did it. I want to wait until Annie wakes.’

  ‘How is she?’

  Lisa sniffed back some moisture. ‘She’s been brutally attacked. Doing better. She’s still wired up like a power station, I believe, but they have to be careful with brain bleeds. They seem confident that she will make a full recovery, because she’s given them a few tellings off.’

  ‘It’s the gun, isn’t it?’

  Lisa sighed, stood up and walked to the rear dormer window. She looked out at her daughter’s cabin and smiled sadly. ‘She’s playing house in there with Billy, Craig and Daisy. Daisy is going to sleep in Harrie’s room, and the boys are to have the spare. She’s a good girl – Harriet, I mean.’

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Yes, Mother?’

  ‘Is he still out there?’

  Lisa nodded. ‘They’ve road blocks, packs of dogs and all kinds of search parties, but he’s gone to ground. Could be at Land’s End for all we know.’

  Eileen came in and began the business of getting Hermione out of bed. It was clearly a tiring process for both of them. They were going to need even more help, Lisa mused as she watched the two women. But, no matter what happened, Hermione would not go into a pending tray – that was the old woman’s term for so-called care homes. Sometimes, she called them parking lots, dead ends or wheelie bins.

  At last, Hermione was installed in her chair, breakfast in front of her, a towelling bib tied at the throat. Lisa swallowed. It was the loss of dignity that was most upsetting. This had been a great woman, an excellent jeweller, a public speaker, a person of some standing. Standing was a problem now. God, life was so sad.

  The door opened. ‘Hey, missus?’

  Hermione put down her cup. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can we have a lend of one of your wheelchairs?’

  Lisa started to laugh. She laughed until she almost wept.

  ‘Which one are you?’ Hermione asked the boy.

  ‘Billy,’ came the reply.

  ‘Billy, the answer is no.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Why did you want it?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘Have you seen a film called Back to the Future?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never mind, then.’ Billy withdrew.

  ‘They wanted to time travel,’ explained Lisa, drying her eyes on a tissue.

  The older woman thought about that. ‘Oh, right. They’ll need the motorized one, then. I’ll plug it in, shall I?’

  Nine

  Gus’s visits to the house on Wigan Road were becoming less frequent, and, as he was to travel to New Zealand in a few days, Sheila Barton had to make a decision about Katherina Louisa Barford. Why had he been in that graveyard? What had made him weep? He was a man who kept his emotions under lock and key; he probably had a Chubb fixed to his soul, because he seldom gave anything away. Should she ask about the cemetery? Could she?

  There were many graves in Tonge Cemetery. Some had almost made Sheila sob when she had read endless lists on cheap sandstone memorials, whole families wiped out in the nineteenth century by influenza or some such bug. Nobody cried for them any more, since no one remembered them.

  Should she ask? After all, they were close in a way, because she cooked for him, listened to him when he became excited about maggots, honey, broad-spectrum antibiotics, antiseptic hand-cleansers. Yet he never made much of the houses in which he tested domestic bleach: homes of the rich and famous, folk who were seen on TV. He was an extraordinary man, she reminded herself. He was even stranger than she had thought at the beginning, when he had first arrived to inspect the roof space for his trains. Katherina. Who had she been? What had she meant to him?

  He was eating roast beef, was delivering a lecture on why a person should not consume too much red meat. ‘Inside the bowel of most dead American males,’ he was saying now, ‘there is often up to two pounds of undigested red meat.’

  He was still eating. How could a person eat while producing a monologue on the subject of bowels?

  ‘We’re not made to digest the flesh of milk-fed animals. When we were apes, we ate all the time – except when sleeping, of course. It was a berry here, a root there . . .’ He droned on.

  Who was Katherina?

  ‘Civilization gave us tables, chairs and language, so, in our less than infinite wisdom, we turned eating into a social occasion.’

  His sister, perhaps? A married sister?

  ‘We have made ourselves ridiculous.’ He wiped a drop of gravy from his lower lip.

  Cousin, neighbour, lover? He was staring straight at her. Sometimes, she felt as if he could see through her, could hear what she was thinking. No. He was asking for the salt.

  ‘Too much salt is another problem,’ he continued after using the cruet. ‘It can kill a small child.’

  Sheila swallowed a mouthful of cranberry juice. On the few occasions when she had allowed herself to ask a simple question, he had not always given a straight answer. From time to time, he allowed some small detail to escape from his fortress, but it was usually eat, drink, go upstairs and play. It was as if he wore a ‘KEEP OFF THE GRASS’ sign, or one that read ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED’. Was he lonely? Did he miss having a proper family, one with whom he could share the unhealthy niceties he had just described? He was talking about sugar. She had heard it all before.

  Gus stood up, patted his pockets in that mad professor way he seemed to have acquired. ‘I’ll just . . . er . . .’

  He left the room, presumably to ‘just . . . er’. A ‘just . . . er’ could be a visit to the bathroom, three hours in the loft, or even a goodbye. Yes, he often left the house after a ‘just . . . er’.

  Sheila carried the debris from the meal into her kitchen. He had gone upstairs. Often, he stayed until she had gone to bed, and she wondered how a man of such obvious intelligence could spend so much time watching little engines pulling little carriages over little lines. There were miniature bridges, trees, a few cows and houses, but it was still just a train set. Perhaps the monotony allowed him space and time to think about the cultures he was growing in the lab. Or did he indulge in thoughts and memories about Katherina?

  ‘I’ll probably never find out,’ she told the Fairy Liquid container.

  After washing up, she returned
to the living room and found him standing with his back to the empty grate. It was too warm for a fire, but he positioned himself just as her father once had, in the place from which heads of households delivered life’s agenda.

  ‘I thought you were upstairs,’ she said, hoping that he hadn’t heard her talking to herself.

  ‘I was,’ he replied. ‘But I came down again.’

  Of course he had come down again, she told herself inwardly with an unusual degree of impatience. Sometimes, he treated her like a child.

  ‘About New Zealand,’ he began.

  Excitement stirred. Did he want a travelling companion?

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said, his words measured, ‘but all the members of my family believe that I am going.’

  Sheila sat down and kept quiet for the moment.

  ‘It is easiest if they think I am flying out of the country,’ he continued. ‘I am, in reality, going into hospital.’

  A hand flew of its own accord to her throat. ‘Why?’ she managed.

  ‘Oh, just for an exploratory procedure.’

  Sheila swallowed nervously. Why was he telling her? Why not his family?

  ‘I may need things while I am in there,’ he said. ‘Toiletries and so forth. I prefer to use my own towels, and I shall require a change of nightwear. Also some washing – if you don’t mind.’

  Her brain was racing. ‘No, I don’t mind. Not at all.’ Exploratory? What were they exploring for? Not buried treasure, that was certain. ‘The private hospital?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Though some of those can be filthy, you know. Still, I have to take the chance. Otherwise . . .’

  ‘Otherwise?’

  ‘I want to know what’s wrong with me and whether it can be remedied.’

  ‘Ah. Yes, of course.’ She couldn’t even ask him about the symptoms, let alone enquire about a woman in a grave. But what if anything happened to him? She would be the one with the bad news, wouldn’t she? Although, knowing him as she did, he was likely to have told the hospital what to do in the event of . . . She didn’t want to think about it. He was her only regular visitor, the only person in her life. To be completely alone again would be unbearable. But she mustn’t think of herself. ‘How long have you known?’