by Harper Fox
He wanted urgently not to. He was grateful for the text he’d seen before placing the call, summoning him up to Pendethy after all. Treece was understanding, and he hung up with the sense of a job well done.
He turned to leave, and found Pendower blocking the doorway. “Okay,” Gideon said cautiously, hoping to God this mission of mercy wasn’t about to devolve into a ruck. “Treece is coming out to see you later today. You’ll let her in, won’t you? You definitely need help.”
Pendower didn’t respond. He was surveying his clean kitchen: the well-scrubbed surfaces, the tea towels folded over their rail. At last his gaze fastened on the cash attached to the fridge door. A miserable, humiliated flush suffused his features. “I hate you for this,” he said softly. “I know I shouldn’t, but I really fucking do.”
“Godsakes. The place was stinking.”
“My stink. Mine to make, mine to clean up.”
“Agreed, but you weren’t cleaning. You don’t want to add enteritis to your heap of problems.”
“My fucking heap.”
“Pendower, pack it in. And stand aside out of that doorway, unless you really want to piss me off.”
“It’ll come back on you threefold.”
The words were familiar. Gideon racked his brains for the reference. “Wait. Our local witches in Dark say that—not old Granny Ragwen and the likes of her. The young ones in the coven on Watchover Hill.” He had to repress a chuckle. “The Threefold Law, eh? What’s gonna come back on me—all the detergent I used to scrub out your kitchen? I’ll be sure to keep some aside for you in case this happens again.”
“No. Your little girl did something after that day in Kerdrolla. She did something to make everything all right. I don’t know what—I can’t remember that part properly at all. But it was huge. And nobody can do that, don’t you see? Not without making the universe lash back.”
Two choices now faced Gideon. The first and most tempting was to drop Rufus cold with a roundhouse punch for daring to drag his child’s name into this. The second—because he’d done enough damage here today, despite his best intentions—was to make one final attempt to talk to this struggling, lonely man. Rufus’s own frame of reference might be the best way in. Gritting his teeth, Gideon aimed for the high road. “Best we don’t talk about Tamsyn, all right? But Lee says something along those lines too. At least, he’d say that you can’t do an action without causing a reaction, that you can’t move something around without something else moving in to take its place. I get that, kind of. I can even see how it works with the laws of physics, in a way. Why threefold, though? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Why don’t you ask your coven witches? Or better still, ask Tamsyn.”
“Pendower, I warned you.”
“Yes. Sorry. Ask Granny Ragwen, I should’ve said.” Now it was Rufus’s turn to laugh, a sick, frightened sound. “You think she was killed in Penzance, don’t you? In the warehouse, when she got up into the rafters.”
“Nobody knows what happened to her. She’s... missing, that’s all.”
“How can you not remember? Locryn does. I do, and it haunts us, Gideon. It’s going to haunt us till the day we die.”
Chapter Eight
All Too Short a Stay
Meredith Parker was a nice woman, her sarcasm only superficial. She had been in charge of Trelowarren’s radiography unit for many years, and she and Lee knew each other well. “Good of you to grace us with your presence,” she said, scrolling her way down his records on her computer screen. “You wouldn’t have thought that half an hour twice a year was such a brutal schedule.”
He made a wry little play of wincing. “Sorry, Doc Meredith. How many have I missed?”
“Just the last two. Oh, and one the year before, and we didn’t see you at all in 2015.” She laid off, pushing away from her desk to face him. “That was the year after your baby was born, wasn’t it? How is she?”
Lee got out his latest photos, and he and Meredith exchanged notes on Tamsyn’s and her grandchildren’s various misdeeds and accomplishments. “Well,” said Meredith at length, with an air of resuming business. “I suppose I should be grateful you’ve made time to see us now. How did your scan go?”
“Fine. Usually freaks me out a bit having to lie still for so long, but I didn’t mind it today. Think I might’ve gone to sleep for a few minutes.”
“Nice that you feel so relaxed around us. Don’t you usually have your other half to help keep you awake? Where is he today?”
“He couldn’t get the time off.” He saw Meredith’s eyebrows on the rise. In another world, he’d have been faint with astonishment himself. Gingerly he let the two planes of being touch and overlap. If he let himself think about it, Gid might forget an appointment completely, but never in a thousand years let Lee attend on his own, no matter how... No matter how spellbound, an old woman’s voice breathed past his inner ear, and he snapped the connections decisively. Just as well that in this world, Lee’s beautiful summer, everything always turned out all right, and appointments like this were routine. “It’s just routine,” he reassured Meredith and himself. “No point dragging him along. He’s got loads of stuff on at the moment.”
“Off saving the nation single-handed, is he? I heard about that business at the Pride parade in Falmouth, and his Queen’s medal. Cornwall owes him a lot.”
She still couldn’t bloody well believe he wasn’t here, Lee could tell. “My heroic husband,” he said brightly, trying to believe it himself, dismissing hungry shadows of desolation from the air around him. “Still quite human, though. Likes his nights in front of the telly and his pasties and chips, just like always.”
“Is he exercising? I heard he was quite badly hurt in Falmouth that day, on top of his other injury. Men of his build need to watch themselves, after their mid-thirties.”
“Oh, you should see him. He’s more than back on form. Cutting a swathe through the hearts of the southwest.”
Meredith began to laugh. “Jammy sod. But never mind him—how have you been, Mr Tyack-Frayne? Still hearing voices? Seeing things?”
Lee nodded. “Outrageously.”
“I should think everything’s fine, then. We always ask what’s normal for you, you know? Has anything been different?”
“One thing, I suppose.” Lee felt mildly guilty for complaining about what had overall been so pleasant. “I seem to be sleepy a lot of the time. Gid’s making me take the summer off work, so it’s probably just the relief of that. I’m kind of... stupidly chilled out, though, like I’m not worrying about a whole bunch of things I should be.”
Meredith considered this. “Are you taking any new meds? Growing some nice Cornish weed in that orchard of yours?”
“You’re kidding. Poor Gid would have to arrest me.”
“Well, whatever ails you doesn’t sound too awful.” She eyed the heaps of files on her desk. “Feel free to infect me if you like. If there’s nothing else you’d like to talk about, I’ll let you get on with your day, and we’ll mail your results to you as usual.”
“Great. Thanks, Doc.”
He was putting on his jacket when one of Meredith’s technical assistants cracked open the office door. Lee recognised the young man from his many previous visits, and was startled by his pallor. Well, times were tough for everyone, apart from his own spoiled and sheltered self. He tried for a smile and a wave, but the assistant only cast him a scared glance. “Don’t you knock, Joe?” Meredith enquired pleasantly. “I’ve still got a patient in here.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Doctor. Could I see you for a minute, though? It’s, er... It’s a bit urgent.”
Meredith shrugged an apology. “Well, you know your way out, Lee. Take care of yourself, all right? Give my regards to Gideon.”
He followed her into the corridor. Joe drew her off to one side and began to speak to her in a fraught whisper. Lee pushed his hands into his pockets and continued towards the exit, noting the scuffed lino tiles beneath his
feet. How many would he be allowed to cover, he wondered, before Meredith’s voice rang out again? She was a kindly soul, but fiercely professional. She wouldn’t mess around. He counted ten tiles, then five more, and then because he was calm as a water-lily floating on a pond, but still quite sure of what was about to unfold, he came to a halt and waited.
“Lee? Could I just call you back to my office for a minute or two? I need to speak to Joe, but then I’ll be right with you.”
Lee turned and smiled. No need to make this any harder for her. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t worry, all right? Take your time.”
In the office, he settled on the window sill and leafed through a copy of National Geographic. He’d have thought this would be one of the situations where he’d stare unseeing at the pages, but his brain worked differently these days, and in fact he became absorbed in an article on deep-sea life forms in the Marianas Trench. When Meredith came back into the room, he looked up with gigantic single-celled amoebae and bioluminescent jellyfish fading from his field of vision. “Sit down, Doc,” he said gently, putting the magazine down and stepping over to pull out her chair. “Just breathe for a minute. Everything will be all right.”
She thudded into the chair as if her knees had given way. She was a consummate professional, but she’d had a great shock. He turned his back on her to let her recuperate; busied himself with the office kettle and tea-making things. By the time he turned round with two steaming mugs in his hands, she was back in her skin. “It will be all right,” she said, with just the faintest tremor remaining in her voice. “But I need to know something, Lee.”
“I’ll tell you if I can.”
“In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never encountered the... the things you can do. I was always rather scared by the idea of them, and I imagine you probably knew that and kept them out of my way. I just treated you as any other patient with auditory and visual hallucinations. But they’re not, are they? Not hallucinations at all.”
“That’s subjective, I suppose. They’re real to me.”
“Yes. So if you tell me things will be all right, is that... Are you using your powers? Do you know?”
He set the mugs down on her desk, being careful to avoid the keyboard and mouse. Then he sat back down in the chair he’d occupied before this little earthquake had struck. “I seldom know anything for absolutely sure. My signals get scrambled. Did you ever tell your children or your grandchildren everything would be all right, even when you really had no idea?”
“I... Well, yes. I suppose I have done that. Is it wrong?”
“No. I think sometimes you have to. Maybe I mean it in that way. It’s basically a benevolent universe, so things will eventually unfold for the good, for somebody somewhere.”
“Is it? Benevolent, I mean?”
“I have a biased view. I have Gideon, so the world looks good to me, is good to me. Whether or not that’s going to continue is something you’ll have to tell me, and I’m so sorry to put it on you, Meredith.”
“Why? Why are you consoling me because I have to grow a backbone and do my job? I’ve broken far worse news in this room.”
“I’ve been coming to see you for almost twenty-five years. For the first half-dozen or so of those years, I came and went clutching my dad’s hand. You were a good friend to both of us.” He hesitated, sorry to have called tears into her eyes, but prey to unforeseen hope. He swallowed a mouthful of tea so that his next words would come out clearly. “It’s not the... very worst news, then?”
She jerked her head up, suddenly her brisk, sharp self once more. “Christ, no. There’s every chance that we can save you.” She grabbed the blue cardboard folder she’d brought in with her and withdrew a sheaf of CT transparencies. “I’m going to put these up on my lightbox so you can see. You have to be very brave, Lee. Do you want to call Gideon here before we go on? Because I should talk to him too, and you mustn’t drive yourself home.”
A lie rose in Lee’s throat, so complete that he must have been brewing it up along with the tea. “I’ve called him. He’s on his way, but I’m gonna need time to absorb whatever this is before I see him, so I can tell him in my own way. I’d rather meet him outside.”
“All right. Let me show you what we’re up against here. Remember I can get you an emergency counselling session, right away if you’d like it, or...” Her voice scraped dryly. “Or there’s the chaplain, if...”
“Didn’t you just say I wasn’t about to die?”
“Yes, but—”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, then, eh?” Lee thought he’d rather make that kind of crossing hand-in-hand with Ezekiel, and he had to swallow laughter at the comedy and comfort of the idea. What a catch Zeke would think he had made—the conversion of a lifetime! “Show me these head shots, Doc. Please.”
She got up and clipped the first of them to the box. The hum of the backlight filled the room. Lee tried not to recoil from the weirdness of this sudden view down through the top of his skull, a shift of perspective disconcerting enough without the eerie pale mass afloat on the left side of his brain. He locked his hands together in his lap. “Not my best angle. What the fuck is that?”
“You have a Bechstein’s meningioma the size of a tangerine growing over your parietal lobe. If I say it’s low-grade, that just means it’s probably not cancerous, but it’s putting all kinds of pressure on parts of you that can’t safely be squashed. I’ve never seen one this big in someone who was still walking around. And you say you’ve had no pain?”
“No, though my kid’s been bringing me headache cures for weeks.”
“You said you feel sleepy all the time. Perhaps your brain’s been protecting itself in some way, trying to keep you shut down.” Meredith folded her arms and looked at Lee grimly. “I wish you had had some. It might have sent you in here sooner.”
“Wow. How is that monster not gonna kill me?”
“Because we can probably get it out. But you have to listen to me carefully, and I’m going to write all this up for you in a letter you can show Gideon.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll just tell him.”
Meredith switched off the box, dropping the room into silence. To Lee the sun seemed wan without the neon’s edge. He watched without much interest while the doctor resumed her seat opposite him. “You’re in shock,” she said, “even if you don’t feel as if you are. You won’t take everything in. Let me write.”
“Okay. Um... what else will you say?”
“You’re on the very, very far edge of surgical viability. I want you in here, assessed and in theatre by the end of this week at the latest. If we do this, follow this schedule exactly, your chances are good.”
Lee would have preferred something better to take back to Gid. A plain good would do little to take the loving terror out of his husband’s eyes. In the moment of imagining their conversation, Lee knew he would never have it. How could he even begin? Perhaps if he had more time... “Isn’t there a waiting list?”
“This kind of thing bumps you up it.”
“And I don’t suppose—in the letter you’re going to write for me, you couldn’t say my chances were very good, or... or excellent?” He managed a smile. “I know you’ve got a crack team.”
“I do, and I’ll place you with full confidence into their hands. But I owe it to you, to your family and your friends, to make a realistic statement of the odds. Bechstein’s are very operable. Seven out of ten surgeries are a success.”
If Lee had got seven out of ten in a maths test at school, Cadan would have called it very good. Rumpling Lee’s hair, steering him off to do his homework: very good, Locryn. Now go and look at the ones you got wrong and try for an eight next time. I’ll come and help you later if you’re stuck. He said, flatly and without emotion, “I miss my dad.”
Meredith twitched with empathy. “Oh, shit, of course you do. Times like these make us realise all over again how much we needed the people we’ve lost. Please let me
get you that counselling session, Lee.”
A refusal would drag things out. Lee was beginning to long for sunlight not turned sallow, for air not recycled through ventilation ducts. “All right. Yes, please, when I come in for my assessment.”
“Good. I’m going to try and get that sorted out for you now—tomorrow, if we can.” She misread Lee’s silence and held up a hand. “Don’t tell me about your commitments. Nothing’s more vital than this. This is the one thing you have to do. Is that understood?”
“Yes. Of course, yes.”
“I have to make a couple of calls. Just sit quietly and finish your tea.”
“Do you mind if I wait by the window?” I was quite enjoying that article on the Marianas, and I might not suffocate or go nuts there. “I can look out for Gid coming into the car park.”
The strange thing was that Lee could almost see him. He eased down onto the sill, nursing his mug of tea. The worlds overlapped again—this one, and the place where Gideon would have moved heaven and earth, postponed his whole bloody life, to come with him to the hospital today. He closed his eyes, expecting to hallucinate him jumping out of the police truck, threading his way impatiently between cars at a run. Instead he saw him in a little brick box, face to face with Rufus Pendower.
Not a box, no. The yard of Pendower’s arid, somehow ghastly little house. Of course Lee had bad associations with the place. He’d fugued out in Kerdrolla, expecting Rufus to drive him home, and found himself in Liskeard instead, almost too sick with grief to draw his next breath. Rufus could be difficult. Whatever he was doing now to make Gideon angry and sad, Lee was having none of it. He glared at him over Gid’s shoulder. Mind how you tread, sunbeam. I’m sorry for you, and I know I owe you, but just bloody watch it, okay?
Rufus met his eyes and blanched. Satisfied, Lee retreated. Blinking his vision back to normal, he saw that his breath had made a patch of condensation on the glass of Doc Meredith’s window. Signs of life... He drew a tiny St Piran’s cross, and suddenly wondered what had possessed him to choose that of all symbols for his promise to Gideon that morning. I’ll call you if I need you, I swear.
