by Jo Bannister
‘Hazel,’ said Constable Budgen sharply, ‘you’re doing it again. You’re making a mystery out of something that’s just sad and stupid and pathetic. Some bastard who wasn’t prepared to do it himself persuaded that kid that his god or his ancestors or somebody wanted him to strike out against the British imperialists. He came here on spec, saw a flier advertising the museum and thought that would do. Well, he made the ten o’clock news and that’s probably enough to get him a medal where he comes from. Only it’s going to be twenty years before he can collect it, and if they give him a home-coming present I hope it’s not a digital watch.’
Hazel was surprised and rather touched. She’d never guessed Budgen was a philosopher. ‘I’d still like to know his name. If you’re here when he wakes up …’
‘Go home,’ said Budgen sternly. ‘It’ll all come out in the end. You’ll know when everybody else knows. You don’t need to know any sooner.’
He was probably right. Hazel nodded, rather dispiritedly. ‘I suppose.’ She headed for the exit. On an impulse, though, she paused. ‘But I’m not doing it again.’
He didn’t understand. ‘What?’
‘If I’m making a mystery where none exists, I’m not doing it again. When I did it before, there was an actual mystery. It was just that none of the rest of you had noticed.’ Satisfied with her parting shot, Hazel left him to his vigil.
SIX
Ash was waiting at the main entrance. It made a change, Hazel thought, Ash driving her home from hospital. In recent weeks he’d become quite proficient with his car again. Except that it was his mother’s car, inherited along with her house, and nearly twenty years old. His sons had been agitating for something modern – red, shiny, with spoilers – but Ash had developed a fondness for the old bus and was stalling for time.
It was mid-morning, so Gilbert and Guy were at school. Patience was curled up on the back seat. She was refusing to wear her seatbelt again.
Hazel opened the back door. ‘Up.’ The dog sat up. ‘Paw.’ She lifted her right paw. Two deft moves and Hazel had her safely strapped in. The dog lay down again, with an audible sigh.
Ash had the grace to look ashamed. ‘She won’t do it for me.’
‘She’s a dog,’ Hazel explained heavily. ‘She’ll do what she’s made to do.’
Ash shrugged helplessly. ‘That’s the bit she seems not to understand.’
‘Doing what she’s told?’
‘Being a dog.’
He drove to the little house in Railway Street. Hazel’s lodger was out, so they had the living room to themselves. In deference to her status as the latest casualty, Ash made the coffee. ‘Your father said he’d come round later.’
Hazel was taken aback. ‘From Byrfield?’
‘From my house. Sorry, didn’t I say? He’s been staying with me for a couple of days. He wanted to be handy until he was sure you were all right, and there’s more room at my house. He said he’d pop in this afternoon, and drive back to Byrfield tonight.’
Hazel nodded. She’d appreciated him coming, but she was on the mend now and didn’t need anyone fussing over her. ‘How did you get on with the social workers?’
A little frown gathering over Ash’s deep-set eyes had the effect of closing his face in. ‘I’m not sure. They asked a lot of questions, but I couldn’t tell if they were satisfied with the answers. They were sympathetic, of course. They said how well I’d got my life back together again. But they didn’t give any indication as to whether they thought I was a fit guardian for two young boys.’
‘You’re their father.’ She was about to add: How fit do you need to be? – but stopped herself in time.
‘Yes. And a patient in a mental institution rather more recently than they were comfortable with.’
It was a fact that couldn’t be discounted. The details of his breakdown earned him more sympathy than trust. ‘What happens next?’
‘I don’t know. They said they’d discuss the situation with the Family Support Team. They said I’d be invited to a meeting before anything was decided. They kept saying that all they wanted was what was best for Gilbert and Guy. And I kept saying I wanted that too.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Hazel evenly. ‘We knew that, in all the circumstances, they’d want to keep an eye on things. You were ready for that. The boys have been with you for six weeks now, they’re in school and they’re doing well. Better than might have been expected after all the disruption. You’re feeding them, you’re keeping them clean, and you haven’t sent them to school in their pyjamas. There’ll be plenty of kids in that school whose parents aren’t doing as well by them, but nobody will try to take them away. Why would Social Services want to take yours?’
‘Gee, I don’t know,’ said Ash edgily. ‘Maybe because I was in a padded cell for nine weeks? Maybe because, for three years after that, I was pretty much a recluse, and after I got Patience I became famous as the man who wandered round town mumbling to his dog. The day we met you didn’t know my name, only what they called me at Meadowvale. Rambles With Dogs. Don’t try to deny it – my mind may be suspect but there’s nothing wrong with my memory.’
It was true. It was also accurate and, in spite of his accusatory tone, Hazel didn’t think it pained him much. She grinned. ‘It is rather funny.’
‘It is not funny,’ said Ash severely, ‘when you’re trying to convince two earnest young social workers that you’re perfectly normal and entirely reliable.’
‘I can see that,’ conceded Hazel. ‘So maybe you shouldn’t share with them that little gem of information you entrusted to me. Or were you hoping I’d forgotten? There’s nothing wrong with my memory either, Gabriel.’
He frowned. ‘What information?’
‘You told me you didn’t just talk to Patience. You told me she talked back.’
They regarded one another over the coffee-pot. Hazel said nothing more. She was genuinely interested to hear what he’d say next.
At length Ash blinked, and took his mug, and pushed his dog onto half of the sofa so he could sit down. ‘That was a joke,’ he said quietly.
‘Gabriel – you don’t make jokes!’
‘I’m not very good at making jokes,’ he corrected her. ‘That’s why you didn’t recognise it as one.’
It was about the lamest excuse Hazel had ever heard. ‘If you say so.’ She yawned, unexpectedly tired. ‘I think I’ll go to bed for a couple of hours. Tell Dad to pop in this afternoon.’
Ash said he would. He washed the pots, collected his dog and headed out to his car.
He looked at Patience. He held out the seatbelt he’d bought for her. ‘Up. Paw.’
She looked at him as if he was mad.
He gave up and started the car. ‘How come you’ll do it for Hazel and you won’t do it for me?’
How come you don’t want people to know I can talk? countered Patience.
Whatever else she was, Hazel was a realist. She knew the cost of her thank-you lunch would come not out of Oliver Ford’s pocket but the production company’s publicity budget. She had no reservations, therefore, about nominating the smartest hostelry she knew.
Only afterwards did she wonder what kind of outfit would do the venue justice without clashing with her luminous face.
Ford said he’d pick her up at half-past ten. It was a week since they’d first met, although it felt much longer.
‘It won’t take us two hours to get there,’ protested Hazel. ‘The Royal Oak is in Whimbury – it’s only about four miles out of Norbold.’
‘There’s something I want to do first. Humour me.’
She couldn’t get him to explain what until they were approaching the Museum of the Crusades where they’d first met. The production vehicles, including his trailer, were still parked rather forlornly round the side.
‘Oliver?’
He saw her looking at his trailer, heard the note of doubt and warning in her voice, and realised it was time to come clean. ‘There’s somebody waiting for us. Minnie Merchant is my hai
rdresser. She’s incredible, she’s worked in London and Hollywood, she’s a real artist. And I thought …’
He’d thought that a professional hair-stylist trained by the demands of the film industry to think outside the box would be able to do something about Hazel’s half-shorn head that would put even a good salon hairdresser to shame. And he was right. Ninety minutes later Hazel looked in Minnie Merchant’s mirror and couldn’t believe what she’d achieved.
It still looked outlandish. There was no way, short of a wig that she wouldn’t wear, to disguise the fact that most of the hair on one side of her head was missing. But now it looked as if it was meant to look outlandish. That she’d paid serious money to a genuine artist to make it look outlandish. It was boldly modern, sharply cut and asymmetric, and Hazel found her eyes welling at the transformation. At Oliver Ford’s sensitivity in realising that this, of all the gestures he could have made, was the one that meant most to her.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she mumbled.
‘Say “Thank you, Minnie,” and let’s go eat.’
‘Thank you, Minnie,’ Hazel said obediently. ‘Oliver, I—’
‘Now, don’t come over all girlie on me,’ he said sternly. ‘I treated you to a haircut, you saved my life.’ He made a balancing gesture with both hands. ‘Life, haircut – haircut, life. Do you know, I think I still owe you lunch.’
The Royal Oak was as good as she’d heard, and Oliver Ford was a practised host: attentive and entertaining. Hazel had to keep reminding herself that it was his field of expertise, even more than the Crusades. Being an historian was the easy part: anyone could have done it, given an interest in the subject and time to read enough books. Being a television personality required different, largely indefinable, skills. He had to be attractive, when there was no consensus as to what constitutes attractiveness; old enough to be taken seriously but still young enough to be personable; clearly intelligent yet not too intellectual. He needed a good speaking voice, but not so good as to sound affected; the piquancy of a slight regional accent was no barrier, although the need for subtitles would have been. He had to look good on camera, but any hint of prettiness would undermine his credibility. He needed to be unselfconscious but not brash, authoritative but not didactic. Perhaps most of all, he needed the ability to make whoever he was addressing – Hazel amended her first thought, which was ‘performing to’ – feel they were the only person in the room.
All these skills and abilities Oliver Ford had in spades. The accent was so subtle Hazel struggled to pin it down, finally settling on Yorkshire via private school. He could project like an actor, and occasionally did so, for comic effect, but otherwise his voice dropped to a level of friendly intimacy that even a street-wise policewoman found beguiling. And though he was undeniably handsome, and Hazel had never really trusted handsome, a lot of it was put on for the cameras. With no professional expectations to satisfy, he relaxed into a persona that was slightly more rumpled but also more youthful than she had supposed.
By the time their starters arrived, she was enjoying herself immensely.
She asked how he’d got into television.
Ford shrugged. ‘Luck, mostly. Being available at the right time. One of the people at the production company had been a student of mine: when they couldn’t get their first choice to present a documentary on the Saracens, he remembered my lectures and asked if I’d do it. I thought it would make a change from field work for a summer, and I’d be back at the university come October. In fact I never went back.’
‘The Saracens? The guys we lost to?’
He gave a tolerant chuckle that only just avoided condescension. ‘If by “we” you mean Christian Europe, we lost, and won, and lost, and won, and lost again. It was a score draw decided on penalties. The crucial factor was that the Saracens wanted to stay in Jerusalem, and most of the Crusaders wanted simply to collect souvenirs and head home. For them, Jerusalem wasn’t so much a place as an idea. You can fight for an idea, but even if you win – especially if you win – what do you do next? As far as the Crusaders were concerned the answer was, Go back to their own lands and resume bickering among themselves the way they had for hundreds of years.’
Hazel had no interest in the subject: the fact that Ford was able to engage her attention, and explain succinctly the motives and limiting factors of a conflict almost a millennium old, was a tribute to his skills as a communicator. That was what he was paid, and feted, for. Every museum, school and university in the country has a department full of historians, and bookshelves laden with the work of many more. Mostly, they spoke only to one another. Many of them struggled to make themselves understood even by one another.
Ford’s achievement was that he spoke to millions. He had the ability to condense and simplify history just enough to make it digestible for the mass market without stripping the essence out of it. Serious historians – and historians can be very serious – might sneer at television’s teaching-by-soundbite, but the bottom line was that the nett national knowledge of the past was raised more by one affable, good-looking charmer like Oliver Ford than by a dozen grizzled peer-honoured professors.
‘Why are you smiling?’ he asked.
Hazel hadn’t realised she was. ‘It’s always nice to see a professional at work.’
Ford wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. He wasn’t entirely sure how to take Hazel – when she was on the level, and when she was gently pulling his leg. He shrugged ruefully. ‘Was I lecturing? I’m sorry. It’s just, this is what I do. I’m television’s tame historian. I’m a nursemaid, spoon-feeding dollops of easy-to-eat, one-pot television dinners to people with a minimal interest in history. It doesn’t even have to be my period: I can talk about the Dark Ages or the English Civil War without making any greater demands on my audience’s intellect.’
He sighed. ‘It isn’t what I had in mind when I studied history. I had a real passion for the subject then. But passion isn’t what this job demands. It’s history-lite for the masses; and I tell myself that it’s better for people to know a little bit about something than nothing at all.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Hazel stoutly. ‘We all struggle with attention span these days. The world moves quickly, and television is the only way most of us can keep up with it. What you do isn’t less important because ordinary people like me can understand it.’
Ford dipped his head graciously. ‘Thank you. Anyway, people find their own level and this is mine. I was never going to make my name as a serious historian. I found research too dry, archaeology too uncomfortable, which really only left teaching. I think I was a good lecturer, but television gives me a larger audience. I enjoy what I do, but it isn’t in any real sense important. But then, what is?’
He answered his own question. ‘Your job is. People who work in medicine. Those who grow food, and govern countries. The rest of us are mostly creating a demand for products that we can then supply. I get people interested in history, and then I tell them about history. I’m the go-to guy for family-viewing old stuff.
‘Producers hire me because they hired me before and people like to see a familiar face on TV. I don’t even write the script most of the time. Someone who’s a subject specialist does that, and I work it up into something our audience can relate to. The right balance of hard facts and pretty pictures. Serious enough that people with some prior knowledge won’t feel patronised, light enough to appeal to the general viewer. At least this time we’re working in my own field; but if it hadn’t been for the interest sparked by the new museum, I could be talking equally engagingly about the agricultural revolution or the Bevin Boys.’
He gave a wry little smile then, and changed the subject. He asked about Hazel’s career – what she did when she wasn’t saving people from arsonists. A little uncomfortably, she was forced to admit that she hadn’t done anything for a while, that this had been her first week back at work after four months out of commission.
She’d had his attention all along
. Now she felt the power of his focus. ‘You were injured in the course of duty?’
She could refuse to answer. She could lie, or dissemble. But Hazel had fought hard to establish the fact that, though the episode had been an embarrassment to Norbold police as a whole, she personally had nothing to be embarrassed about. She was damned if she wanted Oliver Ford to get a different impression. So she told him. She kept it short, and down-played the amount of danger involved, but there was no avoiding the conclusion.
‘I had to shoot someone. Kill him. Division took me off line until they were sure I wasn’t going to make a habit of it.’
She’d succeeded in shocking Oliver Ford. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. History is full of people killing one another, but historians don’t often find themselves talking to the killers over lunch. Finally he managed, ‘I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t have been returned to duty if you hadn’t been able to justify your actions.’
‘That’s true. Oh, everyone was very nice about it. They agreed that I’d had no choice, and that in a perfect world someone would have shot the guy years before. They were more concerned that at some point a sense of misplaced guilt would hit me like a ton of bricks and I’d curl up in a ball and start sucking my thumb.’
‘And did it?’
‘No.’ She could have been hiding private pain behind a façade, but so far as Ford could tell it was an honest response. ‘I never had any doubts about what happened. If I’d done anything different, a bad man would have lived and some good people would have died, and I’d have been one of them. I was trained to save lives. That’s what I did.’
‘And after four months they let you come back.’ Hazel nodded. ‘And sent you to liaise with a visiting celeb on the basis that even you couldn’t get into trouble doing that.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ protested Hazel. ‘You know that. You were there.’
‘I certainly was.’ Ford’s right hand advanced across the white linen napery and his long slim fingers stroked the inside of her left wrist. ‘And it’s only thanks to you that I’m still here. Don’t forget that. Because I never will.’
