Calamity in Camberwell

by Alice Castle

  ‘You had us worried.’

  It was said gently, but Beth again felt herself tearing up. She put a hand up to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Katie, all smiles again. ‘I’m just glad to see you’re all right. Or on the way, at least. Have they told you how long you’ll be in?’

  ‘I haven’t seen anyone, not that I’ve been aware of, anyway.’

  ‘Want me to try and find out?’ said Katie, immediately looking towards the door.

  ‘Just sit here with me for a while. How’s it been?’ Beth asked, gesturing towards Ben.

  The boys were busy at the window, so Katie could say honestly, ‘You know, surprisingly ok. Once I’d got over the shock, that is. The first I heard was when Belinda rang me last night.’ At this point, Katie’s eyebrows rose significantly and Beth could just imagine the conversation, or rather, Belinda’s tone of scandalised relish as she passed on all the gory details. ‘It was too late by then for me to go over to her place, so I thought I’d let sleeping dogs lie for the night. I hope you’re ok with that?’

  Beth nodded. She knew it would have been difficult for Katie. Her best friend was well aware that Beth struggled to get on with Belinda, and managed it mostly by dint of keeping her at arm’s length, despite their current Camberwell joint venture. Beth wouldn’t have wanted Ben staying there. But nor would she want to involve Katie in a massive tug-of-love by proxy on Belinda’s doorstep.

  ‘I completely understand,’ she said, closing her eyes as a finger of pain jabbed her temple.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to all this?’ said Katie, gesturing to the boys whose chatter was making it hard for the women to hear themselves.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Beth with a smile. ‘So you picked them up from school today?’

  ‘Yes, and of course Ben will stay with me for as long as you’re here, no question about that. Unless you’d like him to go to your mum’s?’

  Beth thought for a second. If she was likely to be here for ages, she couldn’t impose on Katie indefinitely, so she’d have to consider her mother. That’s what family was for, and her mother would have to step up and even – yikes – rearrange her bridge schedule if need be, though that would be a feat akin to getting the graven images at Mount Rushmore to step down from their mountainside and start doing the Macarena. But Beth was already feeling much stronger.

  ‘I’m going to be out of here as soon as I can. I’ll try and discharge myself tonight, if not sooner, if they’ll let me.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise, Beth? A head injury, after all?’

  ‘Ben needs me, and that’s the most important thing,’ said Beth simply.

  ‘He needs you in one piece. And you know as well as I do, it’s a big treat for them to have midweek sleepovers. He’ll be loving it,’ said Katie. It was true. Now that Ben had seen with his own eyes that his mum was fine, awake, and looking pretty much as normal except with a cool bandage on, he had relaxed completely. He had total faith in the world to keep on turning very much as he wanted it to. Beth hoped he kept that confidence for ever.

  She smiled over at him fondly, then sighed, and sank back a little against the pillows. They were very comfy. And another amazing sleep, like the one she’d just had, would set her up, she knew it would. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to stay in another night.

  ‘Of course, he’d rather be with you,’ said Katie, but both she and Beth knew this had been tagged on diplomatically. Ben would definitely prefer an unscheduled playdate with Charlie and his state-of-the-art PlayStation.

  ‘What about work? Do they know what’s happened?’ Beth, now that Ben was sorted, was straight on to her next worry.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Katie. ‘I rang whatshername, the one who ran off with Dr Grover, lucky thing…’

  ‘Janice,’ Beth supplied with a smile.

  ‘Yes, her. She was absolutely fine about it, said to come in when you’re better. She did ask what on earth you’d been up to. And I think we’d all like to know that,’ said Katie, lowering her tone a little. The boys seemed oblivious, but you never knew what they were picking up. ‘Where were you? I mean, I was told it was some strange street in Camberwell, but why? I mean, Camberwell?’ Katie’s emphasis summed up all the prejudices a long-term Dulwich resident could be expected to hold against a place that was just a turn of the South Circular away, geographically speaking, but considered a different country in so many respects.

  Beth thought for a second. It wasn’t going to sound great however she said it, so she might just as well come out with it. ‘I’ve been a bit worried about Jen. You know… that business with Jeff and Tinder?’ she said quietly, one eye again on the boys.

  ‘Did you have it out with her? That was brave,’ said Katie.

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t really get the chance. Every time I was round there, either Jeff was hanging around as well, or she was out. It was impossible to talk. So this time, I was determined to do it – well, reasonably determined,’ Beth added, to give a fair airing to all her doubts and circumlocutions. ‘And I also wanted to give her that wedding present I got her ages ago…’

  ‘You still haven’t given it to her?’

  ‘No. Well, again, there’s always been some reason or another… and I’ve forgotten a few times as well. There’s always so much going on. Anyway, yesterday, I just decided to see what was up, once and for all. Have the talk about, you know, Tinder, and also hand the present over at last. When I got there, no-one answered the door. But I sort of had a feeling, you know, that there was somebody there…’

  This was the first time that Beth had acknowledged this. Even while she’d been waiting outside in the cold, or creeping round to the kitchen windows, she hadn’t quite put it into thought – although something had kept her trying.

  ‘You know that feeling you get when you ring someone’s doorbell, and they’re definitely not in? The house has an empty feel. It’s hard to explain, but you kind of know. I was there a few weeks ago, and Jen was out. Totally different that time; I knew there was no point persisting, and I went off to the high street. My fault for not getting my plans sorted out. Well, this time, although again I hadn’t had a reply to my text so I shouldn’t really have turned up, I had this feeling that there was someone around, you know?’

  Katie looked at Beth, nodding along. Beth slowed down. Now they were getting to the bit that Katie probably wasn’t going to agree with at all.

  ‘Now I look back on it, that’s the reason why I, well… why I decided to make sure, by going round to the back.’

  ‘What? You decided to break and enter?’

  ‘No, no, not at all,’ said Beth so vehemently that she shook her head and had to pause for a moment as the pain flickered back to life. ‘The gate was open… She’s got one of those side return passageways, and I thought I’d just nip down that, just in case the doorbell was broken… or something.’ Beth paused for a moment, looking down at her hands, where they were playing with the frayed edge of the NHS blanket. The thing was going to be in shreds by the time she’d finished.

  Eventually, she looked up to find Katie giving her the sort of look she’d dart at Charlie when he’d been bad. Very bad. Both boys had also paused in their background chatter, looking curiously over at the bed. They knew, from long experience, when a telling-off was in progress. And one between adults was definitely a novelty that they wanted to experience.

  ‘Boys,’ said Katie smoothly. ‘There’s a vending machine right opposite this room, just down the corridor a little bit. Why don’t you take my purse and see if you can find yourselves a snack?’

  For a moment, the boys looked as though they might want to pinch each other. Were they dreaming? Had Katie, the goddess of health and fitness, just offered to hand over to them the keys to all the NHS could provide in terms of nutritional super-highways to diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity? Then they rushed for her bag, realising this offer would
be good for one or two nanoseconds at most before normal service was resumed.

  ‘Are you sure they won’t get lost out there? These corridors all look the same,’ said Beth weakly.

  ‘It’s a five-minute walk there, and the same back. They’ll be fine, and I’ll be able to see them out of that little window in the door if necessary,’ said Katie briskly. The boys didn’t need a second urging; they were off, banging out of the door, school shoes squeaking on the highly-polished green lino, and already loudly discussing the merits of violent orange drinks versus artery-clogging snacks.

  ‘For God’s sake, Beth, what on earth were you thinking?’ said Katie, as soon as the door closed. ‘Wandering around in the dark, in Camberwell, of all places?’

  ‘First of all, Camberwell isn’t a war zone, you know. And it wasn’t just anywhere in Camberwell, it was Jen’s house – someone we know – and it wasn’t the middle of the night, it was only about 4.30, 5pm at the latest. It was dark, I grant you,’ said Beth, with a slight shudder at the memory of dank shadows in the silent, watching garden. ‘It wasn’t nearly as crazy as it seems,’ she said hastily, banishing the thoughts. ‘If it had been broad daylight, no-one would have thought twice about it.’

  ‘No-one, except the person who clonked you one on the head,’ said Katie drily. ‘They clearly weren’t at all happy with what you were doing. So, I take it you were wrong, Jen and Jeff were out all the time, and someone else was trying to burgle the house at the same time that you were poking around? Talk about bad timing. Do they have any idea who it was?’

  ‘They’re looking into it,’ mumbled Beth, her colour rising. ‘That is, well, um, Harry York is.’

  Immediately, Katie straightened up. ‘Oh? Oh, I see,’ she said, trying but failing to suppress a very big smile. ‘That nice Detective York again?’

  ‘Detective Inspector,’ said Beth, a touch defensively. She felt as though she’d leapt out of the frying pan straight into the fire. True, she was no longer getting it in the neck about her general recklessness, but she could feel a lot of unhealthy matchmaking interest emanating from Katie right now, which could well be even worse.

  Katie, though, kept her own counsel, taking a moment to duck her head into her handbag, locate her phone and look extremely busy with it, before adding mildly, ‘Message from Michael, sorry. Well, I’m just glad they’ve got someone good on the case. And someone who knows Dulwich.’

  ‘Yes, though it turns out he was only involved because he actually, well, lives in Camberwell.’

  ‘No! Does he?’ said Katie in interested tones. Again, she said a lot less than Beth was braced for. ‘Well, thank goodness he was around, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Yes, it was Jen’s next door neighbour who saw, um, my foot…’ said Beth, and the reality of the situation crashed in on her again. She’d had a very lucky escape. Who knew what her assailant had had in store for her, dragging her down the passageway like that? She felt a twinge in her back and shoulders again at the thought. She’d been unconscious, but the bruising and tenderness she’d been left with seemed to point to a speedy yank across the rough concrete rather than anything more sedate. She was probably lucky she’d been wearing a thick coat.

  ‘Do they know what the person planned to do with you? Surely not just leave you lying there in the doorway for the bin men to find?’

  ‘No idea. Maybe they were going to put me in a car or something? I just don’t know. We’ll never know, probably. It’s not a great thought. Even if he’d just planned to leave me there, I think I would have probably got hypothermia, if not worse. It was a cold night.’

  ‘Thank goodness the neighbour saw you when he did,’ said Katie with a shudder. ‘Meanwhile, what’s going on with Jen? Where on earth is she?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing I’m really worried about. I haven’t heard a thing from her for ages. I’ve texted her again and again, but nothing. I could try her now, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, why don’t you? That’s a good idea. Where’s your phone?’

  Beth pointed to her bag, hanging on the hook at the side of her little beside cabinet. Katie, with some difficulty, extracted the phone, accidentally disinterring a few Twix wrappers en route, which she balled up without comment and shoved in the bin.

  ‘There you go,’ she said, handing it to Beth.

  She checked quickly for a reply to her texts. Nothing. Then she pressed dial. The phone rang ten, twelve times. ‘Nothing at all,’ she said sadly.

  ‘Looks like we’re going to be none the wiser, for the moment at least.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Beth. Then she remembered. ‘But what about Tim? Jen’s ex? He’s bound to be in the picture.’

  ‘You don’t want to speak to him, though, do you?’ said Katie, disapproval written across her face.

  ‘Well, I know he didn’t behave that well during the divorce and so on, but he is Jessica’s dad…’

  ‘Well, yes, but,’ said Katie, wrinkling her nose as though at a bad smell.

  It was typical of the place, thought Beth. Much though she loved Katie, her friend was rushing to judge Tim on the basis of gossip, mostly from Belinda MacKenzie. Katie had probably never spoken to the man herself in her life, and she wasn’t even very close to Jen either for that matter. Yet she had definitely taken sides.

  Beth was no apologist for Tim and his doings and, though she’d got to know him a little recently, she still wasn’t a big fan. But there had to come a time when you gave someone a chance, and maybe this was it. She’d felt sorry for the man. He’d been so astonished and grateful that she’d spoken to him at all. The playground could be a cold and lonely place if the powers-that-be had decided you were a pariah.

  ‘The thing is that Tim will know where Jen is; he’ll have to. He’s been looking after Jess quite a bit but not all the time, I bet. Maybe I should ring…’ But then Beth realised she didn’t have his number. It must be on a school list somewhere; she’d have it at home. ‘Oh, I’ll try when they let me out,’ she said, lying back on the pillow. Suddenly it was all getting a bit much.

  ‘You’re looking grey again,’ said Katie. ‘Look, we’ll find out what’s going on, don’t worry, and if we don’t, then your nice policeman certainly will. I think it’s time I got the boys off to their supper and let you have a bit of a rest. So tomorrow, during the day, I’ll either pop in and visit you or give you a lift back home. Just let me know if you’re up to it, or I’ll ring the ward. Get a good rest now. There’s nothing going on that can’t be sorted out tomorrow.’

  Beth smiled weakly at Katie. It was true, she was feeling like a limp dishrag. But she wasn’t sure if she agreed with everything her friend said. What about Jen? What if she needed help? What if she was in trouble right now, but just didn’t have a great friend like Katie on her side, or a handy policeman like Harry York either, come to mention it?

  She closed her eyes tiredly, and didn’t see Ben waving through the little window at her. He looked disappointed for a second, then Charlie jabbed him in the ribs and he was off, chasing him down the corridor, while Katie followed behind, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  Chapter Ten

  Despite Beth’s initial intention to leave hospital the moment she could, she found herself being lulled by the rhythm of institutional life. First came the absurdly early supper. She was used to eating early with Ben in theory, but because she was always rushing around doing something or other, their evening meal never seemed to hit the table much before 6.30 or even 7pm, which was late for a boy of Ben’s age. In the hospital, Beth started hearing the commotion of trolleys of food in the corridor outside at about 4.30, and by 5pm she was settled with a surprisingly good chicken korma with rice, and a nice plain apple for pudding.

  When the nurse tried to bed her down for the night at about 6pm, it all started to make sense. The whole hospital was run on a nursery timetable, putting itself to bed as early as possible then rising again with the dawn. The night, a full twelve hours long, was punctuated w
ith as many clangs, crashes, and clatters as the day, though the lights were dimmed. Presumably, the schedule made sense to someone, somewhere, and maybe kept the patients tranquil, since so many were half asleep after the endless disturbed hours.

  Though Beth had still not spoken to a doctor, she found the fact curiously reassuring. No-one could be particularly worried about her if she wasn’t getting any treatment beyond four-hourly doses of pain medication. To be honest, she could perfectly well have taken that at home. But maybe there was method to this madness, and a strategy at work that she just didn’t understand. Was this the close observation that they talked about on medical dramas, so essential after a head injury?

  The only time she’d thought she was about to see a real live medic was when she’d woken in the night to see a tall, dark, white-coated figure hovering by her bed, but the man had turned away quickly and rushed off when a nurse walked in to shuffle through her charts again and write gnomic scribbles in the margins.

  ‘Who was that?’ Beth had asked groggily, but the nurse just shushed her, and now she wondered if she’d dreamed it all.

  She’d resolved to ask about it again, but when someone bustled in through her door at 6am wearing the familiar blue uniform, it turned out to be a different woman entirely. The other nurse, she was told, had gone off shift hours ago.

  Beth hated to admit it, but she was rather enjoying the luxury of being waited on. Even if the food wasn’t quite what she’d have ordered if she’d had a free choice, it was plentiful and really not bad at all. She had porridge for breakfast, and slightly rubbery toast with those weeny plastic tubs of jam and golden folds of butter. And every time cups of tea were brought round, she was given handfuls of little twin-packs of biscuits. It was a bit like being in a rather odd hotel, where they insisted you stay in bed and shun all the sights.