by Jenny Kane
‘But with Thea away with Shaun, then…’
‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. I know Mill Grange will be shorthanded for a while, but my bosses have already been more than generous with my sabbatical, I can’t ask for another extension.’
‘Would you stay if you could? If Sam offered you a job here?’
Placing a hand over his, Helen risked looking at Tom as he stared across the water. ‘Would there be more than a job to stay for?’
‘Your friends, your work here; the book you’ve been asked to write. Then there’s—’
‘Tom!’ Helen put down her tepid coffee and took hold of his chin, gently turning him to face her. ‘You know that isn’t what I meant.’
His words came out as a whisper. ‘But I’m a nightmare with women.’
‘So you keep saying.’ She placed a finger on Tom’s lips. ‘Maybe it’s time you stopped judging the people of your future by the mistakes of your past.’
Lowering her hand from his face, Tom kept hold of it as he asked again, ‘If Sam offers you the chance to stay would you take it?’
‘If it’s a permanent post and you and Dylan are here, yes.’ Helen felt herself leaning in. Please kiss me. Please. Now.
‘Right.’ Looking away, Tom sounded determined. ‘Come on.’
Disappointed, hoping her desire for him hadn’t shown, Helen scrambled to her feet. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To stand on the clapper bridge.’
‘Really?’ Helen couldn’t stop the nervous giggle that shot from her lips. ‘Why?’
‘Because our first kiss should happen somewhere amazing.’ Tom took both her hands in his. Longing shone in his eyes as he returned Helen’s suddenly shy smile. ‘And as we’re archaeologists, you can’t get much more amazing than a prehistoric bridge.’
Twelve
Sunday March 22nd
‘I can’t believe we had to wait so long to see Bert. I did explain that we were virtually family, but apparently that isn’t good enough!’ Sam was still fuming as Tina drove him and Mabel to the hospital through the Sunday afternoon traffic.
Tina glanced in her rear-view mirror at Mabel in the back seat. The old woman had barely spoken since they’d picked her up from the cottage and driven from Upwich towards the Musgrove hospital on the outskirts of Taunton. She seemed shrunken somehow, as if without Bert to direct her boundless, forthright energy, she was rudderless.
Although she’d asked the question before, Tina spoke to Mabel, hoping to pull her out of her frightening silence. ‘Which ward are we looking for when we get there?’
‘Coleridge.’ The word was barely a whisper. ‘It’s the one where you go if you can’t breathe properly. Bert’s on…’ she licked her cracked lips ‘… he’s on a ventilator.’
‘Do you know how to find it, Mabel?’ Sam leaned forward to grab some change that Tina kept in the glove compartment for the car park.
‘No, I…’ Mabel kept her eyes fixed on the window to her side, blindly passing the rows of white and cream council houses that lined the road before they turned into the car park. ‘There was a big lift that could fit Bert in on a trolley. The nurse was nice. He kept talking to me, keeping me going. I didn’t notice how we got there.’
Tina slowed the car, ready to face the hunt for a precious parking space during visiting hours. ‘It’s okay, Mabel, there’ll be a map, or we can ask at reception.’
Almost twenty minutes later, having circled the parking lot more times than they cared to remember, Sam waved frantically as a BMW ahead of them pulled out of a gap, and Tina drove into it.
Helping Mabel out, Sam mouthed to Tina as she went to pay for the ticket, ‘I wish I could come in too.’
‘I know, but it is best I check out the amount of space inside first.’ She took the change from Sam’s hand and whispered, ‘I’ll see how Bert is and, assuming I’m allowed, I’ll text you. But I won’t ask Bert about giving me away until we see him together.’
Staring after them as Tina guided Mabel through the glass doors and on into a stark wilderness hung with a dizzying array of blue and white signs, and heaving with people, Sam backed away. His legs felt shaky and his pulse was already racing.
Angry at himself for not being able to see his friend or support Tina and Mabel, Sam grabbed a coffee from an outside kiosk and moved around the side of the building, sitting on the first bank of grass he came to.
Watching cars moving around the car park opposite, he felt blissfully invisible. The flashbacks to his past, and the cause of his claustrophobia, didn’t come as often since he’d settled with Tina at Mill Grange. But they still came. Sam managed to sleep in the downstairs bedroom, comfortingly near the front door to the Victorian manor house, fairly often now. But if that room was needed for a guest, or if he was having a bad spell, Sam would return to the tent in the garden to sleep. Tina usually moved outside with him, but if it was particularly cold or wet, he’d send her to the attic room she used to store her personal belongings, telling her repeatedly not to feel guilty for doing so.
Bert had told Sam the flashbacks would never truly leave, but they’d lessen month by month, year by year, and that the best way to deal with them was to accept they were part of him. He’d told Sam to use them as a yardstick for positive behaviour; that when he found himself reliving the hells he’d seen, it meant he was being frustrated while trying to do something good; probably for someone else. This, Bert had concluded, meant Sam was a decent person, and thus each flashback, although disturbing, was a mark of his kindness and progress as a human being. It was not a mark of a failure to move on.
He could hear Bert now. ‘Some things you don’t move on from, my boy, but you do learn to live with them.’
Sam loved Bert for that. For giving him a way to breathe through the terrors when they came.
It happened. I couldn’t save them, but I tried. Other people are alive because of me.
Sam clutched his flimsy paper cup until the heat was almost unbearable and the contents were in danger of slopping over the sides, as the nightmare he’d sensed coming, arrived.
The building had burnt around him, but he’d stayed with his fellow squaddies, trying to get the locals out of their home. Sam shifted on the grass. He could smell the smoke, the choking charring stench of trapped, terrified, people. He knew what vision was coming next, and tried hard to relax his shoulder as the sound of crashing timbers and screams echoed through his mind, their horror foreign to the urgent, but relatively calm, bustle around him. Four men had gone into the building, but only Sam had come out again on that life-changing day.
Sam thought of Bert lying in a hospital bed, away from Mabel, frightened and yet still fighting.
It happened. I couldn’t save them, but I tried. Other people are alive because of me.
Sipping his cooling drink, Sam wiped his sweat covered palms on the grass. At that moment he wasn’t sure what scared him more, the nightmares of his past or the fact that Bert was inside the building behind him and he couldn’t get to him.
‘Everything he’s done for me over the past year and I can’t help at all.’ Muttering to himself, Sam abruptly stopped talking, realising he was going around in circles and was in danger of feeling sorry for himself, which Bert would not approve of at all.
He checked his phone. There was still no text from Tina.
*
Mabel was shaking so much that Tina wasn’t sure she’d get her to the nearest seat before she collapsed to the floor and ended up being admitted and put in the bed next to Bert.
As soon as Tina had guided them both through the main doors of the hospital, Mabel had stood up straight, her old self much more in evidence. Not wanting to be seen not to be coping Tina had assumed. Together they managed to navigate their way to Coleridge ward, where they’d waited with growing anxiety for the receptionist to finish dealing with some other visitors before attending to them.
When, at last, it had been their turn, Mabel explained who they w
ere, and who they had come to see. When the receptionist looked puzzled, Mabel had added that this was where, when she’d been here the day before, Bert had been allocated a bed, but she wasn’t sure where precisely she’d find him.
The receptionist’s response was not helpful, and had led directly to Mabel’s current shaken state.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hastings, but your husband is no longer with us.’
The second she’d spoken the unwise words, and seen the devastating effect they’d had, the receptionist had blurted out apologies. ‘That came out so wrong, I’m so sorry. I meant he’s on a different ward now.’
Biting her tongue against what she’d like to say, Tina held Mabel close and sat her down, before asking, ‘Where is Mr Hastings and is he alright?’
‘He’s on Eliot Ward. I’m so sorry, I…’
Once the receptionist had waffled another apology, Tina said, ‘Perhaps you could look after Mrs Hastings while I try and find her husband. Visiting time will be over before he’s had a single visitor, but I’m not sure Mabel should go anywhere for a second.’
‘Look, I really am—’
Tina beckoned the receptionist away from Mabel’s side. She looked exhausted. ‘We all make mistakes, and I appreciate your apology. Could you just give me directions to Eliot Ward and perhaps loan me a wheelchair for Mabel? I honestly don’t think she could walk far right now. Oh, and could you tell me what we can expect when we get there. Is it Intensive Care, is it a pneumonia ward?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that.’ The woman smiled, and Tina realised she was much younger than she’d first thought. ‘Mr Hasting’s breathing calmed within hours. He still needs the help of a mask, but nothing like the major equipment we have in here.’
Tina felt light headed as the news sank in. ‘You mean he’s alright?’
‘All I can promise is that when I last saw Mr Hastings, he was telling the young porter pushing his trolley that if he wanted to colour his hair he should, because life was too short for regrets.’
A hysterical giggle escaped Tina’s lips. ‘How on earth did that conversation start?’
‘I have no idea.’ The receptionist waved to a colleague on the desk and asked if Jamie would come with a chair, and if he’d phone through to Eliot Ward to tell them that Mrs Hastings was on her way, and should be allowed an additional ten minutes to standard visiting hours.
‘Thank you.’ Tina nodded her gratitude.
‘I’m sorry it’s only ten minutes extra, but the drug rounds start then, and routine is so important in a place like this.’
‘I quite understand.’ Tina dashed back to explain the situation to Mabel, while they waited for the aforementioned Jamie to appear.
*
Jamie knew far more about Bert than the receptionist had. For a start, he knew that Bert favoured redheads to blondes, and when he was a lad, any female with ginger hair had, as he’d put it, “ticked his box”.
Tina hadn’t been sure how Mabel would respond to that, but as the old lady patted her own hair in self-satisfaction, Tina could only laugh. ‘Those luscious locks were once red then, Mabel?’
‘They were. Bert loved them.’
Jamie laughed. ‘He still does.’
Tina was just wondering how Bert had managed to be so chatty when he was supposed to be having breathing difficulties and be wearing an oxygen mask, when Jamie explained what had happened after Mabel left.
‘I was one of the porters who brought Bert up to Coleridge. I’m training as a nurse part time, so I’m a bit more aware of the medial lingo, and often help out with the small nursing jobs when things are busy.
‘Bert was admitted because he couldn’t catch his breath properly, something not uncommon in pneumonia. It’s frightening for the patient, but often even more frightening for their loved ones to watch.’
‘You can say that again.’ Mabel gripped the arms of the wheelchair as they moved through the stark off-white corridor.
‘Sometimes the episodes of breathing difficulties can be very severe indeed, in other cases, an occasional period of shortness of breath is just a symptom of the whole illness, rather than the thing that takes over and becomes the issue around which the whole problem revolves – if that makes sense.’
Tina exhaled slowly. ‘And Bert falls into the episodes of shortness of breath category?’
‘He does.’ Jamie smiled at Mabel as they pulled up in the reception of Eliot Ward. ‘And while still a serious situation, it means Bert does not need heavy duty equipment to help him. Our aim now, or should I say, the nursing staff have the aim of keeping Bert at that level and improving, rather than these episodes increasing and having to take him back down the corridor again.’
Heading to reception, the porter went to report Mabel’s arrival as Tina bent to her friend. ‘Are you alright, Mabel? I’m sure you could stay in the chair if you’d rather.’
Mabel however, was already rising to her feet with a slow dignity. ‘Bert is not seeing me in one of these things.’ She held a hand out to Tina. ‘You won’t tell him I had to be pushed here, will you? I don’t want him to worry.’
‘Of course I won’t.’ Tina’s heart constricted for the elderly couple as Jamie returned and held out both arms to Mabel and Tina.
‘Shall I escort madam and mademoiselle to Mr Hastings’ bedside?’
Mabel chuckled, her old self beginning to reassert itself in the face of the young man’s good humour. ‘We’d be delighted.’
Thirteen
Sunday March 22nd
Julian rubbed his hands as he watched Thea and Shaun work methodically across a small section of the bath house floor.
Shaun thought the producer looked like a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and Fagin. There was something calculating about him; although Shaun was beginning to think he was the only one who saw it. Aware of the television cameras that were trained on them, Shaun laid down the trowel he’d been using and reached for a small soft brush to wipe away the grains of soil dotting the tiny section of mosaic that had been uncovered so far.
‘Cut.’ Julian nodded to the cameraman. ‘Take a break, mate. We’ll pick this up again once we’ve got a bit more on show.’
As the cameraman headed off for a late lunch, Thea smoothed her fingertips over the ten-centimetre-wide, metre long, rectangle of freshly exposed mosaic that would have once been the envy of many a merchant.
The bath house at Birdlip Villa, as they now called it, consisted of two sections; a small cold plunge pool, which was currently being dug by two members of Landscape Treasures regular team of archaeologists, and the main bath which, if the geophysics and test trenches could be believed, was going to rival the one at Chedworth Roman Villa in size.
Thea was about to ask Shaun what he thought the pattern might ultimately reveal itself to be, when Julian crouched on his haunches at the side of the dig, next to her shoulder.
‘After lunch, I thought we’d do the scheduled piece about the bath house and its potential with you, Thea, talking straight to camera. We don’t need it to be a discussion with you, Shaun, as it’s clear you know the answers to each other’s questions already.’ Julian turned to his lead presenter. ‘Best not to patronise the audience, don’t you think?’
Giving Thea an, “I told you so look”, Shaun climbed from the trench. ‘Whatever you say, Julian.’
‘But I haven’t rehearsed it on my own.’ Thea panicked. ‘I’m not sure what to say?’
Julian brushed the matter aside as a mere formality. ‘You can look at the script notes over lunch. You’ll be brilliant, won’t she, Shaun?’
‘She will.’ Shaun reached out a hand to Thea, pointedly keeping hold of her palm after he’d helped pull her from the trench.
‘How long have we got until you need me?’ The buzz of nerves Thea associated with the camera being trained on her fizzed in her stomach. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat until her next piece of commentary was done.
‘Only half an hour, so make the most of it
.’
The moment Julian was out of earshot, Thea turned to Shaun. ‘I know what you’re going to say, but I still think you’re wrong. He’s right; it is obvious we know what the other is thinking. We really don’t want to talk down to the audience.’
‘Funny how that’s never occurred to any of the other producers we’ve had on the show when I’ve interviewed guests in the past.’
Thea groaned. ‘Shaun, please, this can’t go on. We have to work with this guy, and I could do with your help if I have to perform solo without preparation time.’
Shaun hugged her close. ‘Sorry, love. Green eyed monster.’
‘Well get rid of the damn thing! There is no need to be jealous, but there’s every need for strong coffee and script practice.’
‘And a bacon roll.’ Shaun kissed the top of her head. ‘I don’t know about you, but I really miss Mabel’s bacon rolls.’
*
Sam pulled the car into the car park of The Exeter Arms between Tiverton and Upwich, and leapt out to open the door for Mabel.
‘Come on, it’s a lovely sunny afternoon. Let’s have a drink and a late lunch, or early dinner. I’m not sure which, hospital time always throws me.’
Mabel took Sam’s hand as he helped her from the backseat. ‘That would be lovely. I couldn’t eat a thing before we saw Bert. I’m rather peckish now.’
Tina pointed to a large picnic bench in the sunshine. ‘You two get settled, I’ll fetch some tea, coffee and menus, unless you want a stronger drink, Mabel?’
‘I’m tempted to have gin! But actually, a cup of tea sounds heavenly. And don’t worry about a menu Tina, love. Just grab me anything straightforward. Scampi and chips, lasagne, something simple.’
‘Sam?’
‘Yep, coffee and whatever Mabel’s having food wise.’
Mabel watched as Tina headed into the pub. ‘You’ve got a good lass there.’
‘Don’t I know it!’ Sam shifted awkwardly. ‘You think I’d be used to her having to go into pubs and stuff and do the ordering, but it still feels wrong.’
