38
How Beth’s Easter Got Worse
Easter hadn’t started out all that propitiously for Beth, what with the row with Gerhard, or semi-row, given that he was too good to have rows. Beth was aware that Gerhard would have disclaimed—deprecatingly, with his nice smile, in all probability—being too good, but nevertheless in her mind she went on using the phrase.
On the Saturday she got up very early and started fiercely cleaning the flat, even though it was quite clean already. After a while a groggy-looking Clara appeared, not in the glamorous lacy nightgown which Beth had expected from someone that looked that much like Polly, not to mention that had lived in the glamorous Offshore all her life, but in a pair of pink wincey pyjamas of the sort available from Mr Woolworth at a price that was very reasonable indeed so long as you didn’t compare it with the price of anything intended for ruddy men. Grimly Beth rejected her limp offer to help. And her limp offer of breakfast. Clara went quietly into the kitchenette and made some for herself and ate it quietly by herself, not speaking and not turning the radio on, but Beth told herself fiercely she didn’t care. After a while she came and vacuumed fiercely round her feet and the feet of her bed, ignoring Clara’s protest that she mustn’t, hadn’t they agreed they were going to be responsible for their own rooms?
“I’m going to clean the bathroom next,” she said grimly. “Do you want to have a shower first?”
“But it’s my turn to clean the bathroom,” said Clara weakly.
“I want to do it,” replied Beth grimly.
“Wuh-well, shall I do the kitchen instead?” she faltered.
“No, thanks. I’m going to sand down those cupboard doors and repaint them.”
The kitchen, or more properly speaking kitchenette, was only separated from the former dining area that Clara was using as a bedroom by a breakfast bar: Clara would thus be breathing paint fumes all night. She gaped at her in consternation.
“Hurry up,” said Beth, avoiding eye contact.
Meekly Clara hurried into the bathroom.
“Beth—” she ventured, coming out of it to find Beth wiping down the kitchen cupboards.
“Why don’t you go round to Sol and Michaela’s?” replied Beth, not looking at her.
“I—I spent all yesterday afternoon and evening with them,” she said faintly.
“You can vacuum the stairs, if you like,” said Beth generously, not looking at her.
Meekly Clara went off to vacuum the stairs. Eventually she reappeared and said: “I think I might go for a walk.”
“Good idea,” grunted Beth, sanding furiously, and not turning her head.
Clara disappeared. Beth concentrated grimly on the cupboards.
The cupboards almost managed to take the rest of Saturday.
“Don’t go in there,” she said in an iron voice as Clara came back round about teatime and looked dubiously at the kitchen.
“No. Um, what about dinner?” said Clara in a tiny voice.
“There’s bread. And there might be some cheese. Use that fancy sandwich-maker you bought yourself, you can plug it in in here.”
“I—I bought it for the flat,” said Clara in a tiny voice. “Um, would you like fish and chips instead? I could pop into Carter’s Bay.”
“In the first place, no-one can pop that distance, not even you; in the second place Mr Te Hana seems to have given up on the fish and chips, and in the third place, please yourself,” replied Beth, walking through Clara’s room and into her own room and closing the door firmly.
After quite some time a trembling voice said just outside the bedroom door: “Beth, the kitchen looks ruh-really nice, but I don’t think I can sleep in here with the smuh-smell. I mean, it makes me sick.”
Beth did not reply.
“Could I move my bed into the sitting-room, do you think?”
“YES!” shouted Beth furiously. “Do what you LIKE, I don’t care!”
She ignored the subsequent sounds of her cousin shifting furniture and went determinedly to bed, even though it was barely teatime, into the bargain turning off her light. Of course she was still awake by the time there was a tap on the door and Clara’s voice said apologetically: “I’m frightfully sorry, Beth, but I have to use the bathroom.”
Beth pulled the bedclothes up over her ears and ignored her.
After tapping again and repeating that she had to use the bathroom, Clara came in. Beth could hear she was tiptoeing. She ignored her. Clara didn’t say anything at all, she just tiptoed through to the bathroom. Then she tiptoed out again and very, very quietly closed Beth’s door. Beth didn’t sit up and hurl a pillow or anything of that sort, she just hunched down bitterly under the covers, mouthing silently: “Tiptoe, tiptoe. Ruddy Pom.”
Beth didn’t sleep all that well that night but she got up determinedly early on the Sunday. As she’d eaten very little the previous day she was very hungry, but there was almost nothing to eat in the flat: bread and cheese, as she’d told Clara. Actually there was bread and one cheese slice. What could you do with one cheese slice? Typical Pom, she might just as well have eaten the lot, there was no point in leaving one slice! Ignoring Clara’s sandwich-maker, which had been carefully wiped and was standing on the breakfast bar, Beth made toast and ate the remaining cheese slice with toast and Vegemite. Then she put on her parka and went out, not taking particular care to be quiet in the sitting-room, where Clara was fast asleep.
Sol was already open, leaning on his counter drinking coffee.
“It’s probably illegal to be open on Easter Sunday,” said Beth before he could speak.
“Uh-huh. Or even breathe, without a licence in triplicate, yup. You want more paint?” returned Mr Winkelmann mildly.
“She told you, I suppose!” retorted Beth grimly.
“Not if you mean Clara, no. She did tell Annick: Kidstuff was open yesterday for the granny trade and them lost-lookin’ tourists from up to the Royal K what hadn’t never encountered a New Zealand public-holiday weekend before.”
“Stale,” replied Beth flatly.
“’Case you were interested, which don’t bother to tell me you ain’t, that’s what Clara did most of yesterday: helped out Annick. But if so be you was expectin’ a Parisienne to have offered a Saturday volunteer cash remun—”
“I want to buy a runabout,” interrupted Beth ruthlessly.
He shrugged. “Sure. But what’s wrong with Gerhard’s? It’s moored right out there and it ain’t padlocked.”
“It’s not mine,” replied Beth tightly. “Do you want my custom, or not?”
“Sure. You can have Number 2 at a discount.”
“I don’t want a used one with a great big dent in it!” replied Beth loudly and angrily.
“Uh-huh. I guess not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Wal, Gerhard’s a used one, no question. Some would claim that makes it better,” said Sol mildly to his wife’s cousin’s empurpled cheeks. “Most of us what’s got to know him a bit over these last few months wouldn’t describe it as a great big dent, though. Small character flaw? I guess he ain’t perfect, but then, who is?”
“He IS perfect, that’s the POINT, and can I have a BOAT?” shouted Beth.
“He is a lot older than you,” he murmured.
“It’s got nothing to do with age, he’s the sort of person that was adult in his cradle!” retorted Beth angrily. “He’s so smooth and well-behaved I can’t stand it! Are you just going to stand there not selling me a boat? Because if so I’ll go right off and order one through Wrightson’s!”
“Don’t do that,” he said, wincing. “It’d give ’em the idea there’s a market niche there they’ve missed. Okay, nice new one.”
“Yes. And don’t make any remarks, thanks.”
Resignedly Sol sold her a nice new shiny aluminium runabout.
“I’m sorry I was rude,” said Beth grimly as, noting they wasn’t beating a path to his door this morning, Sol ambled outside to load it onto his boat trailer. “You and Michaela have been really decent to me. I knew I should never have got mixed up with Gerhard in the first place, it’s all my own stupid fault.”
“Uh-huh,” he said mildly. “I’da said he was a real nice guy.”
“Yes,” said Beth, frowning. “And it isn’t his fault he makes me feel inferior. And I have learned a lot from him, and I’m grateful. And—and I still like him. But I can’t go on being his girlfriend.”
“Mm-hm. This-all wouldn’t just be a reaction to that row you had, would it, Beth?” he said cautiously.
“No. Well, it wasn’t a row on his part, because he doesn’t have rows. Or maybe he does have rows with people he really cares about. But in any case, I know he doesn’t really care about me. I amuse him, I think. And we have got some tastes in common, but I don’t want his sort of lifestyle.”
“No-o… Maybe he come out here to get away from all that European sophisticated shit?” he ventured cautiously.
“Well, maybe he did, or maybe he thought that was what he was doing, but what with all the socialising with the sort of people that own three cars and a huge swimming-pool, and the season tickets to the symphony orchestra and the bookings he’s just made to fly to Sydney for the opera,” said Beth with a sigh, “it’s pretty clear he can’t live any other way. I mean, he likes the beaches here and he does swim a bit, but he doesn’t like—well, um, he doesn’t really like the Inlet, for a start.”
“Nope. Too muddy, too shallow, no surf, no stretches of silver sand: right.”
“No. He doesn’t like paddling, either,” she said with a sigh. “Polly says men never do, but… Well, everyone I did my degree with really liked just pottering along the beach, looking in the rock pools and so on: you know.”
“Yeah, sure; Michaela does that sorta automatic-like, minute she gets onto a beach.”
“Mm. Whereas Gerhard’s the type that runs very athletically,” said Beth in hollow tones, “straight into the breaking waves.”
“Yup. Sure is hard to do when they ain’t breakin’, they’re barely lappin’.”
“Yes. I actually tried quite hard at one stage to persuade myself I was really in love with him, because he is awfully nice,” she said, going very red. “Only I’m not, and I can’t be.”
“Yeah. Maybe you better tell him that?”
“Yes. I’ve been working myself up to it,” she growled.
“Uh-huh.”
“Can I use your phone?” she demanded abruptly.
“Uh—sure,” he said limply.
Beth marched back into the store. Sol followed limply. Not realising until he was a-standin’ there with his ears a-flapping that he shouldn’t be.
Beth was telling the phone it was her and he guessed the phone was a-tellin’ her it knew that, because she then said in a flattened voice: “Yes, of course. Um, look, it isn’t because of the other day, but I think we’d better stop, don’t you?”
Possibly the phone then lodged a protest but Beth sure didn’t seem to be listening to it. She just kinda waited, y’know? Then she said: “I like you, too, but we’re too different: you’re driving me mad and I don’t want to be mean to you. So let’s just end it now. Good-bye. And um, thank you, it was nice.” Then she hung up on the guy. Yo, boy! Even if he wasn’t in love with her—and Sol didn’t imagine he was— Sheesh. That was Gerhard written off and forgotten, all rightee. She sure ’nuff had more in common with Michaela than just that hair and skin. He watched numbly as she opened her purse and put the exact change for the call on the counter. Then she said: “Thanks very much. Um, if you sure it’s not inconvenient, could we launch it now?”
Sol jumped ten feet when he stood—him and his flappin’ ears, yup. He agreed feebly, as they still wasn’t beating that there path to his door, and the two of them went out, got into the elderly Land Rover, and towed the aluminium runabout down to the launching ramp. The runabout which was so light they could have heaved it over the seawall right opposite the store between the two of them, no sweat, only for that last Tuesday as ever was this smooth city-suited guy with a notebook in his hand, accompanied by an awkward-looking very young Police Sergeant what Sol hadn’t never laid eyes on before, had come a-calling to say, very politely, that the Kingfisher Development Company had noted X, which was an infringement of Sol’s Boating & Marine Supplies Pty Ltd’s lease, and— Yo, boy. Sol hadn’t even been capable of croaking “What become of nice Sergeant Baxter, him what wasn’t above giving a guy hand to heave a runabout over a very low seawall and into the water right below it?” Jee-sus! Modern Progress was what it was: uh-huh, yup.
Sol explained all this very clearly to Beth as they went.
“I see,” she said meekly.
“Mind you, once it’s down there in the water it’s legal, seems like in spite of certain claims to the contrary they don’t own the actual liquid environment. Only onct you tries roping it to that there dad-blamed seawall you’ve had it. So that’s why I’m including them two nice little anchors for you, Beth, and advising you that if you want to leave her by the wall, that there’s the legal position.”
Beth goggled at him.
“Yup,” said Sol sourly.
“Could we try—um—applying for permission to put in some steps or a little ramp?”
“What, just over the road what’d be so handy to our waterfront site? No. Tried that,” he said sourly. “Not even some steps what we paid cash money for. No way. All sorts of undesirables would infest them there steps and the tone of Kingfisher Bay would be lowered real incredible.”
“Typical,” concluded Beth sourly.
“Uh-huh. Wal, you can moor her down in the store’s slot at the marina any old time, Beth, just don’t go a-painting of her bright yellow and writing on her: ‘This here boat is the property of Beth Martin and not of the registered lessee of this here dad-blamed official Kingfisher Bay marina slot.’”
“I won’t,” said Beth weakly.
“See, my idea was they could reduce the store’s rent by a not insignificant sum in real cash money per annum, if I didn’t have to lease that there slot but could just rent out my little boats from outside my little old front stoop.”
“Yeah, right,” she agreed sourly.
Sol sighed. “I guess we still got the good old surfless inlet and the mangroves and the mud, huh? Better be content with that.”
Suddenly Beth smiled. “Yes. Thanks, Sol.”
“Da nada. Uh—Michaela was claiming to be capable of warming up my chilli, if you fancy some lunch, later.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just potter round the Inlet,” said Beth, peering eagerly ahead to where a weekend sailor was struggling to launch his dad-blamed trailer-sailor.
Sol hung back prudently. “Let’s jest watch, huh?”
“Yeah!” she said with a laugh. They watched in awe.
Then they hopped out and competently launched the little dinghy in two seconds flat.
“You did want these here oars as well as a trusty outboard, did ya?” he said dubiously.
“Don’t be a clot!” said Beth with a laugh.
Sol watched, smiling, as she competently rowed herself out and headed westwards, towards the head of the Inlet and the excitement of the bird sanctuary. Not to mention the excitement of them sandbanks and all them pottering seagulls and pied stilts. Well, she’d be handy to Sol’s Cove if she changed her mind about that chilli.
Back at the store there still wasn’t scores of them beating a path! Gee! He leaned on the counter, shaking his head slightly. Well, it hadda come, he guessed. Pity, though: Gerhard was a real nice guy in spite of the sophisticated European aforesaid.
Beth headed out into the sufficiently shallow channel and rowed herself, at a good steady pace, right up to the head of the Inlet, where according to Jake it almost ceased to be tidal and a little freshwater creek ran into it. The little creek was hidden behind a lot of overhanging long grass and a vicious toetoe which more than lived up to the local kids’ name for it: “cutty-grass”. Its neck wasn’t fresh water or anything like it. Mud and tiny mud-crabs. Maybe it was fresh if you went right up it but the mud didn’t encourage you to do that. It was interesting, though: different from the littoral ecology round Christchurch.
Just along from the toetoe was a small but very gnarled pohutukawa, drooping low over the water, which Beth had discovered they did on the coasts up here. Although it was small the thickness of its twisted trunk indicated it had probably been growing in this spot for a very long time. If you edged your boat in carefully you would find, if the tide was right, the tiniest of beaches right in under this tree. Beth edged her boat in. The tide was right and a stretch of greyish sand, about four feet wide and one deep, was visible. She pulled the boat up firmly and for good measure dug an anchor into the sand. Then she got out, spread her parka on the damp sand, and sat down with a sigh.
After quite some time she said to the little runabout: “I name thee Beth’s Tub.” There was the remains of an oatmeal yoghurt bar in her parka pocket. Beth disinterred this bar and ate it very slowly. Then she just got on with staring at the flat, unexciting grey-green view under and through the scraggy dark foliage of the little old gnarled tree.
In almost any other young woman this behaviour might have been defined as sulking: but Beth wasn’t sulking at all. On the contrary, she was genuinely happy to be by herself with only the Inlet for company and genuinely relieved to have finished the thing with Gerhard. True, she did feel a little guilty about having been mean to Clara—though at least she hadn’t actually said anything nasty to her, she recalled with some relief. Um, maybe she should think about making them a nice tea? Then she remembered that tonight was the night Clara was going to tea with the Parkinsons. Good: her efforts at cooking a really nice meal usually turned out disastrous. And maybe it would cheer Clara up. Well, take her out of herself? Beth thought dubiously of the large Mrs Parkinson and her massive fluffy jumpers and bright floral draped creations and wondered dubiously if Clara had been telling a lie when she had assured her that she really, truly liked her. The trouble with English people was, you couldn’t always tell. Well, not with Clara, anyway: she had those lovely manners… Maybe Clara should have had Gerhard after all? But she had seemed perfectly genuine about not wanting him. Oh, dear, another thing that might or might not have been a polite lie…
After a while Beth’s brain drifted off the subject of Clara and on to that of the birds just visible on the end of a low sandbank, and she relaxed again. Maybe Jane could lend her a good bird book that wasn’t full of fancy pictures of native birds that lived so far up the bush no-one ever saw them, but showed the birds you actually saw every day…
Beth couldn’t have said how long she stayed up there under the tree, as she’d forgotten to wear her watch. She knew it was a while, though. She didn’t really feel hungry but she thought it might not be a bad idea to go down to Swadlings’ and buy some provisions. Well, milk and more sliced cheese, at least. According to Teddi Bates it was possible to make an “ace” dish from a packet of frozen peas, with the aid of some cottage cheese, onion and a few spices. Or it was “really keen” with tofu instead of the cheese, y’know? She had forced her mum’s recipe for the same on Beth but to Beth it had looked suspiciously like the sort of dish that she, Beth Martin, couldn’t make to save her life. Though it did bear a very vague, sort of generic resemblance to the pumpkin curry that she often did. Well, maybe she could look for an onion, though it was highly unlikely that Swadlings’ would have any. There was no way they would have tofu, even though quite a lot of people ate it these days, not just the Takagakis. Beth knew that Posy Baranski had asked several times if they stocked it but May had explained it wouldn’t be cost-effective. Anyway, the run down to the Bay would stretch Beth’s Tub’s sea legs nicely! Grinning, Beth got into Beth’s Tub and competently started the outboard.
There had been no sign of life at Jake’s bach as she came up, though she knew the Carranos had intended to spend the weekend up here. Beth steered well out into the shallow channel and gave the bach a fleeting glance as she passed it. Very nice music was pouring forth from its open French doors—after several months in Gerhard’s company she was able to identify this provisionally as “probably Mozart”—and on the scruffy front lawn Jake was working energetically over an upturned wooden dinghy. Beth experienced a certain twinge of envy, although she knew that they were much heavier to row than her own aluminium runabout. She also experienced a certain twinge of envy because he was accompanied by two skinny little figures in denim shorts and those hooded things that were sort of too heavy to be tee-shirts but not nearly heavy enough to be parkas. The hoods down, of course; in fact Beth had never seen any little boy wear them up, so it was a mystery why the manufacturers made them like that. Beth already knew that she envied Polly and Jake their dear little boys. And Katie Maureen, when she wasn’t behaving like a little madam. In fact, apart from the fact that the burly, breezy, macho Jake was not at all her type and she wasn’t interested in being a rich man’s wife, she envied Polly her marriage.
Well, it was silly to be jealous, and no-one’s relationship was perfect, and some of the things Polly said behind his back had to be heard to be believed—not to mention some of the things she said to his face, it was just as well he was so good-natured! But all the same…
Beth steered on down the Inlet, sighing a bit.
After Jake’s bach there was nothing on the right-hand side for ages. On her left, Thomas’s big new house appeared after a little while. And its very new jetty. Wouldn’t he have had to get planning permission to build that? Since the Inlet was very shallow, Thomas’s jetty was quite long. His lovely wooden dinghy was moored to it. The launch was sitting further out where it was deeper: even Thomas hadn’t had the cheek to build a jetty long enough to reach the navigable water. Beth was almost sure that if he had got planning permission she’d have heard all about it at work, because of course he would have had to deal with the people at the County offices, who would inevitably have turned out to be “Cretans” or worse, even if they weren’t Greek! Beth swallowed a smile.
Although Thomas owned all of the land between his house and the Sir G.G. site, there was a very long gap before the university buildings. The part of the university site that was actually under development was, in fact, only a small slice out of the tract that it actually owned. Beth wondered guiltily, and not for the first time, if the Carter’s Bay Environmental Watch Committee was aware of this and whether she ought to mention it to them. Well, to Penny.
A long stretch of scrub-covered waterfront went by on the left and on the right Left-Hand Cove and its lone macrocarpa came into sight, long before the university buildings were reached, in fact they were round a couple of slight bends and apart from the tops of the two tallest buildings, not even visible yet. Beth didn’t want to see Jack Perkins at all so she didn’t look that way. She could see someone sitting down by the water, where Jack had built a sort of landing stage, even though his section’s frontage was low enough for anyone but a cripple to get in and out of a boat quite easily. She stared straight ahead. Then she got an uneasy feeling and turned her head. The figure sitting on the landing stage was Murray, and he looked sort of droopy and… Even though there was probably nothing wrong at all, except maybe that his grandfather had told him off for being naughty, Beth steered in towards him.
“Hullo,” she said cautiously, cutting the engine. “What’s wrong?”
Murray’s little round face was blotched and swollen with tears. “Grandpa—won’t—move!” he sobbed.
Beth felt her face go sort of goosey-flesh. Part of her mind registered that this must be what the expression “going white” actually meant. “Is he— Do you mean he’s in bed?” she faltered.
“No!” he sobbed. “He—fell—doon!”
The landing stage featured a handy post so Beth roped Beth’s Tub firmly to it and got out. “Come on,” she said, bending down and taking his sticky little hand. “Show me.”
Murray took her hand, and got up.
“Is—is Wallis here?” croaked Beth as they approached the house.
“No,” he said, sniffing loudly. “She doesna come in the weekends.”
“No.” Beth wondered if she ought to ask him how long ago it was when Grandpa fell down but she had an idea that he wouldn’t be able to tell her, so she didn’t. Besides, what did it matter, he was either dead or alive.
Jack was lying at the foot of his rimu staircase. Dressed: he was in jeans and a jumper, so presumably it must have happened after breakfast. Beth went over to him cautiously. He was breathing, in fact breathing loudly: it didn’t sound normal. One leg was really bent up under him, maybe it was broken? She couldn’t see any blood.
“Can you fetch me that big rug from the sofa, Murray? We’ll put it over him. And I’ll ring for an ambulance.”
“The phone disna wor-ruk,” said Murray, sniffling, but going for the rug.
There was a mobile phone on a table just near the foot of the stairs. Beth looked at it dubiously. “This one?”
“Aye. And the one in the kitchen. They dinna wor-ruk. I rung up Aunty Dorothy, I know what to dae in a ’mergency, ’cos Grandpa, he told me, and we practised!” he said aggressively.
“Did you? Good boy.” Beth helped him to put the rug over Jack and then hurried out to the kitchen, there was no use pretending she knew how to work one of those portable thingies. The phone in the kitchen was definitely live so she rang the emergency number. The ambulance people were very kind and helpful but warned it would take some time to get all the way up there. And Beth had done quite right to put a rug over him, and she was not to move him, just keep him warm.
“It works now,” she said kindly to the little boy.
“Aye, mebbe it was broken, before.”
Obviously he must have misdialled, but Beth didn’t say so, just agreed kindly. She didn’t have to look up Dorothy’s number: there was a huge notice by the phone that said “Aunty Dorothy” and her number. She rang it. “It’s dead,” she discovered dazedly.
“Aye, it is that!” he agreed with satisfaction. “Is Grandpa going to die?”
“I don’t think so. But he’s hurt his head, I think, Murray. He might have to go to hospital for a while.” Beth had now had time to wonder whether it was just that Jack had slipped, which would be bad enough, or if he’d had a stroke. Well, he was very highly strung, wasn’t he, and always getting worked up about something-or-other, and it wasn’t unheard of for a person in their forties to have a stroke. “Did he fall down the stairs?” she asked cautiously.
“He fell doon.”
“Yes. That isn’t an answer, Murray,” said Beth, firmly but kindly. “Now, it’s going to be all right, I’m here now.”
“Aye,” he said, nodding and sniffing.
“Did you see Grandpa fall down?” she asked, taking both his skinny little arms and looking him in the eye.
“No. He fell doon.” Beth just went on looking at him firmly. “I was in here. I can read ma buik at breakfast time, it’s the weekend!” he said aggressively.
“Yes, of course.”
“Aye. It’s a wee kiddies’ buik, really,” he said confidentially. “It’s aboot a duck called Ping.”
“Mm.” Didn’t Sol have a book about a duck called Ping? Beth gave him a puzzled look but didn’t ask for details.
“My aunties, they sent it to me, I’ve got lots of aunties!” he piped.
“Yes,” agreed Beth, not bothering to tell him not to tell fibs. “So, you were in here reading it when Grandpa fell down, were you?”
“Aye, there was a hyidge big crash.”
Then he must have fallen down the stairs. “Did he yell?”
“Och, no, Beth, he’s a big mon!”
“Mm. So this was after breakfast, was it?”
“I was gaein tae finish ma milk!” replied Murray fiercely.
Beth straightened. “Yes. I think Grandpa must have slipped on the stairs.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “Can you look after me, Beth?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Beth, smiling at him. “Um, I’ll just try Dorothy’s number again, but I think there’s something wrong with her phone.”
She dialled again; the same nothingness resulted. “Mm, it’s not ringing or anything,” she murmured. “I tell you what, I’ll ring Sol while we’re waiting for the ambulance, shall I?”
Murray agreed, and she rang the store. Experiencing an overwhelming relief when the usual laconic drawl of “Hi, this is Sol’s,” answered.
“He’s coming up straight away,” she reported to Murray with a sigh. “Come on, we’ll just check on Grandpa. Um, are you hungry, Murray? It’s well past lunchtime.”
Murray conceded he could manage some lunch and they went and inspected Jack.
“No’ in the kitchen,” the little boy then said.
“What? Oh, no, of course not. We’ll eat it out here, right next to Grandpa.”
Jack’s giant fridge was incredibly well stocked. Beth just stood and goggled for some time. They’d better have sandwiches, she wouldn’t dare to touch any of this! Limply she retrieved a pot of strawberry jam. Why was the jam in the fridge, for Heaven’s sake? Most of the other foodstuffs it was crammed with didn’t look suitable for sandwiches so she retrieved the marg and shut the door. It took her a while to find the bread: it was in a fancy natural-wood thingy on the bench, with a sort of roll-up cover. “Incredibly gift-ee shop,” said Beth limply. It was the sort of thing that her mother and her older sister foisted on unfortunates as wedding presents. She hadn’t heretofore thought that anyone would actually go out and buy one for themselves. She was about to put the jam on the bread when she had second thoughts and went to ask Murray if jam sandwiches were okay.
“Peanut butter and jelly,” he ordered firmly.
“Um—jelly? I didn’t see any jelly,” said Beth feebly.
“Och, dinna be daft! It’s in your hand!”
Beth looked at the jar of strawberry jam, and blinked. Did Americans call jam “jelly”? That was so totally daft, talking of daft, as to be, in that context, quite believable. She tottered back to the kitchen and made a pile of “peanut butter and jelly” sandwiches.
They were sitting by Jack eating them with glasses of milk—Beth hadn’t had the guts to try to make coffee with Jack’s real coffee and his fearsome coffee machine—when Sol hurried in.
“Hi! How is he?” he gasped.
“The same. He is breathing,” said Beth cautiously.
“Uh-huh.” Sol squatted over him, not touching him.
“Murray was in the kitchen when it happened, so we don’t know if he slipped on the stairs or if it was a stroke,” said Beth, gulping as she expressed this fear aloud.
“Mm-hm…” Sol peered very cautiously at Jack’s head. “Might just be concussed.”
“Grandpa fell doon the stairs,” said Murray helpfully.
“He sure did, poor guy. Wal, I seen worse!” said Sol bracingly. “No blood, huh, Murray?”
“No, there’s no bluid at all!” he agreed happily. “Is Grandpa going to wake up soon, Sol?”
“I cain’t say, son, I ain’t no doctor. Guess we’ll just wait for the ambulance, huh? Now, you think about it, Murray. Was there anything on them stairs that Grandpa might have slipped on?”
“No! I put ma roller blades AWAY!” he shouted angrily.
“Yeah, sure,” agreed Sol smoothly. “Look around, huh, honey?” he said to Beth.
“I never thought of that.” Beth looked obediently. Sol also looked. The search broadened to within quite a wide radius of the foot of the stairs, but no loose objects that Jack might have trodden on were discovered.
“No. Wal, could be under him. –Coffee?” he said to Beth with the lift of an eyebrow.
“Um, he only seems to have a fancy machine,” she explained, reddening.
“Guessed I’ll get on in there and wrastle with it, then,” he replied cheerfully. “Uh, the emergency service say where the ambulance would come from, Beth?”
“No,” said Beth blankly.
“No… Jake up the bach, today?”
“Um, yes, he was there when I came past,” she faltered.
Sol had seized the mobile phone and was ringing Jake before the words were out of her mouth. Briskly he arranged for the Carrano Group’s helicopter to get on up here. Briskly he contacted the ambulance service and asked them if they could let their guys know that a helicopter would be available for the return journey. “Jake’ll do the rest. He owns half that private hospital in Puriri, anyroad. Wal, not officially, maybe, but it was his dough built that paediatric wing, for sure. You didn’t know that? Yeah, Polly told me, years back. Anyroad, guess the ambulance guys will know the best place to take him, but best be prepared, huh? Now, coffee!”
“I never even thought of a helicopter,” said Beth dazedly.
“It ain’t the first thing what would spring to mind, no, up here amongst our mudflats and sandbanks,” he said, patting her shoulder. “Now, don’t cry, Beth, honey, you done real good. Look, whyn’t you take Murray on out, show him your new boat?”
“All right,” agreed Beth, sniffing a bit but smiling. “Come on, Murray, you want to?”
Murray took her hand, and they went out.
Sol didn’t immediately go out to make coffee: he squatted by Jack and looked very hard at his head again. Then, mobile mouth very grim, he slid a hand cautiously underneath him. This exploration apparently yielded no result; he went out to the kitchen shaking his head very slowly.
… “Thank God!” he said, sagging visibly, as the helicopter landed on Jack’s expanse of bought-in turf and a lanky figure in jeans and bright sweatshirt but with a doctor’s bag in its hand leapt out.
“Well, thank Jake Carrano, actually, but it’s the same thing in these parts, isn’t it?” replied Bruce Smith, grinning. “Never been in a helicopter before. –I was at the hospital, one of my mums has just delivered a bouncing baby boy: three hours’ labour, the first two of which she thought was only wind, wish to God they were all as easy as that. The pilot landed on the roof, just as well we built it flat, eh? –In the house?”
“Yeah, foot of the stairs,” agreed Sol.
Bruce hurried inside, not neglecting, however, to greet Murray kindly.
“We wondered, stroke?” said Sol cautiously.
“Mm. Possibility.” He examined Jack gingerly.
“Has he hurt his head?” asked Beth fearfully.
“Think he’s bashed it, yeah. The skull seems intact. We’ll X-ray him, of course. Just let me breathe, Sol, okay?”
“Sorry.” Sol stood back, noting with a tiny smile that Beth and Murray immediately followed suit.
“Where’s Jake?” said Bruce, taking Jack’s pulse in what seemed to be a completely casual fashion.
“Polly’s told the poor guy he can get on down here as and when Beth wants a macho peer group on the premises and not before,” explained Sol.
Puriri’s most popular G.P. just grinned.
They watched anxiously while he finished his examination.
“Mm. X-rays as soon as possible. Think we won’t wait for the ambulance,” he decided. “Get something flat to carry him on, Sol.”
Perhaps fortunately for Jack’s beautiful wood-grain interior doors, the ambulance arrived just as Sol was starting in on one with a screwdriver. Jack was duly loaded onto an official ambulance stretcher and loaded into the helicopter. It was quite a big machine, but with the stretcher taking up a considerable amount of space where the pilot had removed several seats, there was only room for Bruce and one ambulance attendant to cram into it. Murray burst into tears as it whirled his grandfather away but Sol said stolidly: “Not to worry, Murray. We’ll get right on down to the hospital, okay? –Guess I’ll let Jake take us, if you can stand it, Beth, he’s got the Merc up here,” he added with a grin.
“Oh! Yes, righto!”
“Did anyone call Rab?” he asked idly, having rung Jake.
“Grandpa said I had to call Aunty Dorothy in a ’mergency,” Murray stressed anxiously.
Sol and Beth exchanged glances.
“Um, no, I never thought of it,” she said feebly.
“Understandable. Added to which, no news is good news. But he better know.” Sol dialled Goode as Olde. No answer.
“Um, maybe they’re outside, Sol; is there a car-boot market today?”
“You’re right. Um…” Sol decided he would tell Rab in person while Jake drove Beth down to the Puriri Private Hospital, and also try to get hold of Dorothy. Beth would much rather have had Sol’s company at the hospital; she didn’t say anything.
Jake arrived about a minute later, explaining that the mob had wanted to come, too, but he’d put his foot down. He raised no objections to Beth’s getting in the back with Murray, even though Sol, who had come up in his runabout, was not coming back with them; and drove off rapidly.
“Stroke, or just a fall?” he said loudly over his shoulder as they shot past Jane’s place.
“Um, Dr Smith didn’t seem sure. Um, I sort of thought that he thinks it’s a stroke but didn’t like to say.”
“Yeah. Wait and see, eh?”
“Yes. What if—” Beth fell silent, biting her lip.
“Don’t anticipate trouble. –You manage to get hold of Dorothy?”
“No, her phone seems to be dead.”
“It’s not just hers: all the lines to The Quays are out, the fuckwits must have cut a cable. –Don’t look at me, my blokes don’t cut ruddy phone lines, it was the fucking Post Office or whatever unlikely tarted-up corporate nonsense they’re calling themselves these days!” he said loudly and angrily.
At about this point it dawned on Beth that the burly entrepreneur was just about as worried as she was. “Yes,” she said faintly, gulping.
Needless to say Jake took the motorway and broke the speed limit all the way down it, but nevertheless the journey seemed endless to Beth. She had expected him to talk but he was silent until they were actually in Puriri. Then he said: “Probably be Hell to pay over landing the copter on the bloody hospital roof.”
“Will you get in for trouble?” faltered Beth.
“Put it like this, the Puriri County Council’ll go for a big fat fine that’ll be enough to let ’em put off that rate increase that was gonna lose them all their seats at the next local elections.”
Beth swallowed. It seemed all too likely.
“Here we are,” he said, swinging into the hospital carpark. “Now, listen, sweetheart,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning round: “don’t expect Bruce to wave his magic wand, okay? If it is a stroke, it might be—uh—some time,” he said with an uneasy glance at Murray, “until he comes round.”
“Or worse. I know that,” said Beth grimly. “Especially if he’s got concussion as well.”
“Yeah. Come on, then.” He got out and held their door for them, and then took Beth’s free hand firmly in his. Even though he was breezy and macho and not her type and she didn’t like him nearly as much as she did Sol, Beth held his hand very, very tightly as they went into Bruce’s neat little modern private hospital.
“How is he?” asked Polly fearfully as her husband rang up to report.
“Bruce has had him under the knife. Not a stroke. Busted his leg really badly and cracked his head.”
“And?”
“Bit of subdural bruising. Seems to have been a bit of pressure—Bruce has relieved it.”
“Jake, that doesn’t sound too good!”
“Bruce reckons it’s too soon to tell. Hasn’t come round yet.”
“Jake, he’s so bright, it’ll be tragic for him if his brain’s affected!”
“Yeah, that had occurred, thanks! Um, sorry, sweetheart,” he said glumly.
“That’s okay. How’s Beth?”
“Bearing up all right. Murray seems bewildered by it all, poor little sprat. S’pose that’s only to be expected at his age. Maybe I should have left him with you and the kids, after all.”
“No, he hardly knows us. I think he’s better off with Beth.”
“Yeah. Wish we could get hold of Dorothy.”
“Sol rang a while back to say she was out. Has Rab got there?”
“Yes, arrived quite a bit back. Um, Bruce is trying to persuade Beth to go home but she won’t budge. Might have to stay on for a bit, sweetheart.”
“Ye-es… Look, he could be in a coma for ages, Jake. You’d better make her bring Murray home, he’ll be better in his own wee bed. Do you want me to speak to her?”
He sighed. “Yeah. You might try to persuade her that she ought to eat something, too.”
“I tell you what, I’ll make something solid for you all.”
“Okay. I’ll get Beth. Hang on.”
Jake unashamedly watched and listened as Polly spoke to her cousin, but he didn’t gather what she said. It seemed to do the trick, though, because Beth hung up and said: “Polly thinks we ought to take Murray home: it’ll be less traumatic for him.”
“Yes. The hospital will phone you if there’s any change.”
“Yes. But I can’t drive!” said Beth anxiously.
Rab had come up to them, carrying Murray. “That’s okay, Beth, I’ll stay at Dad’s with you.”
“What about Goode as Olde, though?”
Rab explained that Avon would look after it and even though they did expect it would be a busy day she would cope. Sim would probably come along and lend a hand, he didn’t do so much waiting for Adrian at lunchtimes. Beth gave up objecting and allowed herself to be led out to Jake’s Merc.
When they got back to Lone Pine Tree Cove she didn’t seem to be surprised at all to find Polly in Jack’s kitchen with a strong smell of venison stew pervading the house, but Jake sure as Hell was. “Didn’t we lock the fucking doors?” he said numbly in his wife’s ear.
“Not the sliding ones, no,” she replied cheerfully.
He gulped. “Beth was supposed to. Oh, well, no harm done. That’ll be the last of that nice hunk of venison Vic sent up from the farm, will it?”
“Shut up, Scrooge,” she replied cheerfully. “Go and supervise the kids, and for God’s sake’s stop your bloody daughter from playing Nurse in front of poor little Murray.”
“I’m only human, ya know,” he whined. He gave her bottom a firm pat and went.
… “Are you quite sure you’ll be all right?” said Polly to an exhausted-looking Beth, some time later. Murray had been put to bed, where he’d gone out like a light, though first, talking of lights, demanding that the door between Grandpa’s room and his be left open and the light be left on in there, and that Beth sleep in Grandpa’s bed. Beth hadn’t objected so Polly hadn’t said anything officiously super-hygienic about changing sheets. Though quite aware that the majority of their mutual female relatives would have done so.
“Mm,” said Beth. “Thanks for everything, Polly. I wouldn’t even have known that funny cupboard door was a dishwashing machine.”
Polly just kissed her cheek, reminded her that there was an extra cheesecake in the fridge, and removed herself and her family from the premises.
“You go to bed, Beth,” said Rab, yawning.
“What if the phone rings, though?”
“There’s an extension right by Dad’s bed, you’ll hear it.” Beth began to worry so he rang the hospital, reported there was no change, and packed her firmly upstairs. When he was quite sure she’d gone he turned on all the lights in the big downstairs room and went carefully over the stairs, inch by inch. “If you ask me, the damned stupid Manning woman’s been polishing them!” he said loudly and bitterly to himself. “Och, puir old Dad!”
With that he took himself off to bed, remembering at the last minute to ring Avon and give her a report.
Next morning at around six he staggered groggily into the kitchen to find Beth at the bench. “Hi, Beth,” he said feebly.
“Hullo, Rab. I’ve rung the hospital, there’s no change.”
“Well, that’s good, in a way. I mean, at least he hasn’t deteriorated.”
“Yes.” Beth felt uneasily she ought to say something to the poor boy about his having had an awful run of bad luck, but couldn’t manage it. Instead she said feebly: “There’s lots to eat, what would you fancy?”
Rab strolled easily over to the giant fridge and opened it. “Let’s see… Franks, don’t like them for breakfast. Gee, these tomatoes are huge, he must’ve paid a fortune for them, this time of year. They’ll be tasteless, too, you can bet your bottom dollar. No English sausages: that’s a pity, I really like them. Avon reckons they’re full of fat: she hardly ever lets me have them. …Ah! Bacon! Let’s have bacon and eggs. Can you do eggs over easy?”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Beth limply.
“Um… scrambled? Avon sometimes does those, Fiorella likes them for her tea.”
“Yes, I can do scrambled,” said Beth in relief.
Rab was investigating the huge vegetable bins that were a feature of Jack’s enormous modern fridge. “Good, a pineapple.” He straightened with it. “Pineapple fried with bacon’s real tasty,” he hinted.
“Don’t tell me Avon lets you have that!”
“No, pineapple’s real expensive. Dad sometimes used to do it, or with ham, but I like bacon better.” He put the pineapple on the bench.
Beth looked at it limply. “I’ve never had a pineapple. I mean, not a whole one. I mean, I’ve only had it tinned, before, they’re even dearer in Christchurch than they are up here.”
“Och, dinna fash yourself: I’ll prepare it!” Eagerly he began to do so. Beth watched feebly. He seemed to be cutting enormous chunks off it. “See, these prickles, they make your mouth sting like fury,” he explained kindly.
“I see.” Beth stared at the result. How could it possibly be sensible to spend all that money on something that only yielded those few slices of fruit?
“It’s a real nice ripe one!” he urged.
Jumping, Beth agreed. Jack had a four-slice, very smart, modern white toaster, so she put four slices of bread in that. After Rab had corrected her technique she managed to get it started.
“I’ll get Murray up,” Rab volunteered, hurrying out.
Beth put the bacon in the giant Teflon pan. How did you actually fry fruit? Did you cook it right through or… Oh, dear. And would Murray eat the result, even supposing she got it right?
Murray seemed to see nothing unusual in eating hugely expensive fried pineapple with bacon (not cheap either, actually, Beth never bought it) and scrambled egg, so Beth didn’t say anything, just buttered his toast and sat down limply beside him while Rab put the coffee on.
“Real good,” approved Rab over, or rather, through the egg. “You used butter, huh?”
“Yes. Oh, dear, was that too much cholesterol?” said Beth in dismay.
“Och, aye,” he acknowledged with a wink, spreading more of it on his toast.
Beth smiled at him limply.
After Rab had demonstrated that the Teflon pan just needed to be rinsed, it didn’t go in the dishwasher, and admitted that he should have told her not to use a stainless-steel spoon with it, it had its own set of spoons and slices, and shown her them: they were actually in full view, hanging on their own little set of hooks near the stove; and after Beth had loaded the rest of the dishes into the dishwasher and Rab had shown her how to put the detergent in and set it and start it, he rang the hospital. No change, but they could come down any time they liked. He tried Dorothy’s number but it was still dead.
Just as he was wondering if he should ring Avon, early though it still was, and get her to go round to Dorothy’s, Avon rang him. Dorothy had been out most of yesterday and then she’d gone down to the pictures in Taka’—yes, the bug-house had been having a Sunday screening, it was a horror film and if Avon had known he was interested she would have mentioned it and shut up about your stupid horror films, Rab—and she, Dorothy, had gone straight down to the hospital this morning and in case Rab hadn’t thought of it, she, Avon, had rung his Aunty Kathleen. And did Rab know Randi’s number because she, Avon, thought that somebody ought to ring the mother of Jack’s other kids and let her know their father was in a coma; and she would do it, Rab, only what was the NUMBER?
Beth could hear all of this quite clearly. She looked nervously at the amiable Rab but he just grinned, looked up Randi’s number, made sure Avon—who was shouting at him again—really did know how to ring the States, and rang off. “Probably the middle of the night over there, but who cares?” he said cheerfully. “Come on, they said we could visit any time. Got your coat?”
After Beth had been to the toilet and got her parka, and after a bit of shouting on the subject of Murray’s not being a baby, and after he had been, and got his parka, they finally piled into Rab’s Golf.
On second thoughts Rab got out again and went to see if Beth had locked the sliding doors properly. She hadn’t. He came back and reported, looking amiable, that she still hadn’t got the trick of those. Not that he minded coming back to find Lady Carrano cooking venison for them, but it probably wouldn’t do to give her the idea that they wanted her to make a habit of it, he noted cheerfully, driving off.
It was quite some time before Beth managed to reply to this speech. Let alone work out which bit to reply to first. Finally she said in a small voice: “I thought it was just a stew.”
“Och, aye!” said Rab with a laugh.
Beth subsided, smiling weakly.
Dorothy was discovered, looking very green, sitting at an even greener Jack’s bedside. “No change,” she greeted them dully.
“Grandpa’s got chibs,” reported Murray dubiously.
“‘Tubes,’” corrected Dorothy dully. “Yes, he has. They’ll help to make him better. You want to come on Aunty Dorothy’s knee, Murray?”
Murray didn’t protest that he wasn’t a baby; he replied: “I like Beth’s knee best.”
“Sit here,” said Rab, pushing Beth firmly onto the other visitor’s chair. “Beth’s knee’s better than Aunty Dorothy’s, is it?” he said as his nephew got onto it. “Is it better than Wallis’s, too?”
“Wallis doesna have kids on her knee!” he retorted with scorn.
“If that was an investigation into the comparative squashiness of the local female knees, it could stop, now,” noted Dorothy drily.
“Righto,” he said easily. “I’ll just go and steal a chair, won’t be a mo’.” He vanished.
“He—he seems quite cheerful,“ said Beth dazedly.
“It’s his temperament, Beth. As far as I can see he seems to be capable of letting things slide over him. Water off a duck’s back, sort of thing. –Sorry I wasn’t on deck yesterday. Not that I was home most of the day, even if the bloody phone had been working. You seem to have coped okay.”
Beth shivered a little and hugged Murray tight. “I almost didn’t stop. I was going down the Inlet in my boat, you see—”
“Beth’s go’ a new boat, it’s ace!” piped Murray.
“Yes. And I noticed someone sitting on Jack’s landing stage and I—I almost didn’t look,” said Beth in a shaking voice, “and then I saw it was Murray, and he looked… droopy. I thought it was probably only because Jack had been telling him off—”
“I put ma roller blades AWAY!” he shouted. “And I AM allowed to read ma buik in the weekends, so there!”
“Yes, and he hadn’t been telling you off at all, had he?” said Beth, hugging him and leaning her cheek on his shiny black hair.
“Och, no, ’cos I put ma roller blades away wi’oot bein’ told! Grandpa said I was a guid boy!” he beamed.
“Yes. I almost didn’t stop,” said Beth with tears in her eyes. “I still don’t know why I did, really.”
“I wasna cryin’.”
“Not very much,” said Beth, squeezing him. “Anybody would have cried when the horrible phone didn’t work. He knows how to ring you in an emergency, Dorothy—”
“My God,” said Dorothy in a hollow voice.
“The phone didna wor-ruk, Aunty Dorothy!”
“No,” said Rab, coming back with a chair. “The bluidy line’s doon.”
“Well, that certainly wasn’t your fault, Murray,” said Dorothy kindly. “You did everything right.”
“Aye, I did that. Beth came. She rung up the ambulance,” he explained. Dorothy nodded numbly. “And Sol rung up a helicopter, and the men, they put Grandpa into the helicopter!”
Dorothy looked limply at Beth. Feebly she explained.
“Just as well.”
After a while Murray reported that Grandpa wasna moving, and Dorothy dispatched him and Rab to buy junk food.
“It apparently didn’t occur to him that when your number didn’t answer, the right thing to do was to ring Rab,” gulped Beth. “He—he did say they’d practised their emergency routine.”
“Mm.” Dorothy gave her comatose relative a resigned look. “If Jack was on form, he’ll have drilled him like a poor little soldier. Ask no questions, do it exactly the way I say, no deviations permitted.”
Beth gulped. “Yes.”
Dorothy scratched her head. “You might say, it shows a lack of initiative, but then, would you expect initiative in an offspring of Shiva’s? Added to which I’d say the events of his life so far have got him so bloody bewildered that he’s not capable of thinking for himself.”
“No,” whispered Beth shakily, her eyes filling. “Simone and I did think he’s been better this year. Brighter, you know?”
“Mm,” agreed Dorothy, patting her knee. “Kids have got a lot of resilience, or so the story runs. And he seems to be genuinely fond of Jack—God knows why.”
Beth’s rounded chin firmed. “That isn’t quite fair. He has been doing his best for him.”
“Yeah. And God knows I don’t subscribe to the theory that one’s best did ought to be better than what it is,” she said heavily.
Beth thought about it. “No; I see. That’s a very unusual attitude, Dorothy. I think it’s very wise,” she said slowly.
“My Presbyterian ancestors would undoubtedly say I’m just making excuses for my own weakness,” said Dorothy with a shrug.
“I think religion—well, Christianity, at any rate—has got a lot to answer for,” returned Beth severely.
Dorothy had been of that opinion for about the last forty years. “Mm,” she agreed mildly.
They watched Jack in silence for a while. “Has Dr Smith been in yet?” ventured Beth.
“Not while I’ve been here, but Sandy Hawkins—you don’t know her, but her mum lives in my old street—she reported that he’d popped in earlier. As I got here at six-ten,” said Dorothy drily, “I’d say Bruce was well on the ball. Not that he isn’t, ever.”
“Is he a good doctor?
“Yes. Not a neurosurgeon, but there’s no doubt at all that if he thinks that’s what Jack needs, he’ll tell us.”
“Mm.”
Dorothy sighed. “Sandy says he fell downstairs, is that right?”
“As far as we can tell. Murray didn’t see it, he was in the kitchen. Dorothy, isn’t that Ping book an American book?” demanded Beth abruptly.
The ex-Puriri County Librarian replied with no evidence of surprise whatsoever: “Yes, it’s an American children’s classic. As a picture book, much too young for him, but Randi thought it’d be about right for his reading age, so she suggested her girls might like to send him a copy. It’s a very nice hardback edition,” she noted drily. “Solid, with excellent colour reproduction.”
“He wasn’t telling a lie, then,” said Beth dazedly. “I suppose they are his aunties.”
“Yes. And Sol has got it, yes: not a first edition but a bloody early one.”
Beth sagged. “Thank you, Dorothy!” she said fervently.
Dorothy smiled, just a little, and said nothing.
Beth had expected the vigil at Jack’s bedside to be very traumatic, but it continued like that: very mundane, with large stretches of boredom. The greatest excitement of the morning was forcing Murray to go with Rab to “the big toilet.” Evidently he was scared of public toilets: well, Beth could sympathise with that, actually. Dr Smith came in at nine o’clock, but that wasn’t exciting, he just looked at Jack’s chart and told them that they couldn’t necessarily expect a change yet but if there was any change at all, Annette was right outside. Though if they preferred it she could sit right with them. Dorothy said she still didn’t think they’d need her, thanks, Bruce, and Dr Smith, agreeing amiably, wandered out looking vague.
“I thought they—they monitored them all the time?” said Beth faintly.
Dorothy sighed. “No. Sandy was with him all night, mind you. But he’s past the most dangerous stage, now: the post-operative stage; um, what they call ‘Recovery’ on the crap you’ll have been watching on the box.”
Rob began defensively: “E.R.’s real—”
“Real crap,” said his aunt ruthlessly. “There’s nothing to do but wait and see if he comes round. They pop in and out, you know: they’re not neglecting him. And if he does come round he won’t thank you for putting him to the expense of paying for a private nurse to sit by him for nothing.”
“No,” he muttered, subsiding.
Although they had all shared a couple of packets of potato crisps and some toffees, and Rab and Murray had also eaten a packet of those yellow curly things that both looked and tasted like polystyrene, Dorothy decided firmly, looking at her watch and finding it was half-past ten, that they ought to have some proper morning tea. And yes, there was a small visitors’ cafeteria. It sold the same food as the staff got, in fact the two cafeterias were separated by the serving area, and why didn’t they come and verify this empirically?
“Um, you go,” said Beth faintly, as Rab was already on his feet. “I’ll go when you come back.”
Dorothy gripped her nephew’s arm fiercely before he could open his fat mouth and raise an objection, and led him and Murray out. After a short episode of shouting in the corridor, Murray ran in again.
“Murray’ll stay with you,” said Rab on a sheepish note, popping his head in again.
“That’s nice,” said Beth faintly as Murray came up beside her and leaned on her.
Rab disappeared. Silence fell. Beth registered consciously that Jack wasn’t breathing horribly like he had been yesterday, he seemed to be quite normal, given that he was full of tubes.
“When’s Grandpa going to wake up?” ventured Murray.
“I don’t know. They say it helps to talk to them. Do you want to talk to him, Murray?”
Murray couldn’t think of anything to say. Nor could Beth. Not that Jack looked intimidating, at all, in fact he looked very defenceless… Oh, dear.
Suddenly Murray gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Dinna greet, wee Beth,” he said solemnly.
“No. Thank you, Murray. Is—is that what your grandma used to say?” asked Beth dazedly.
“Och, no,” he said, looking vague. “It was Old Grandma.”
“Old Grandma?” said Beth dazedly. That was a new one on her.
“Aye. She only looked like a witch,” he explained. “She used to give you mints. She had a wee cottage, and a wee Scottie dog. Me and Andy, we used to play wi’ him. His name was Fergus, but he wisna a pairson.”
“No. I see, Fergus is a person’s name too, isn’t it?”
“Doug’s nephew. She was his grandma,” said Jack faintly.
Beth gasped.
“Hullo,” he said, opening his eyes.
“You—you could hear us,” she gulped, scrambling up.
“Yes. Heard you for ages. Heard Dot rabbiting on. Hi, Murray.”
“Hullo, Grandpa! You’ve got chibs!”
“Uh—yeah. Guess I’m in hospital. What the Hell happened?” he said faintly.
“Can’t you remember?” said Beth in a small voice.
“No-o… Murray got up real early, I remember that, and when I came down he had the family-room looking real neat. Put away all his toys, and all.”
“Yes,” said Beth faintly.
“Then we had breakfast… Yeah, that’s right. He likes Vegemite, God knows why, thought you hadda be fed it from age two months. Muesli with yoghurt. Only one of the bananas was ripe, so I gave it him. Toast and Vegemite, I remember that real clear—funny, I never had a hankering for it all the time I was in the States, but I’ve gone back to it. And peanut butter, that’s right. Thought it was gonna rain, but it looked clear, so I went out to get on with creosoting the decking. Shoulda listened to Barry Goode in the first place, that wood ain’t standing up to… I don’t actually remember going outside,” he said dubiously.
“You fell doon, Grandpa!”
“Uh—my head hurts,” he muttered. “Jesus, and my leg— Have I broken it?”
“Yes. Badly, Dr Smith says. Um, I forgot, I have to call the nurse!” gasped Beth, scurrying to the door.
“Beth came,” said Murray solemnly. “Aunty Dorothy’s phone doesna wor-ruk.”
“Jesus,” said Jack limply. “Uh—can’t remember falling… Did you see me fall, Murray?”
“Och, no, I was in the kitchen. You made a hyidge crash, Grandpa.”
“Yeah?” Jack felt his bandaged head very gingerly.
“You’ve got bandages, Grandpa.”
“Uh-huh, they sure know how to do things proper, at this hospital. Real hospital bandages, huh?”
“Aye, and real hospital chibs! You went in a helicopter, Grandpa. You were asleep.”
Jack gaped at him.
“I saw it, it was a real helicopter! It landed on our lawn. It didna mak’ a mess, though.”
“Uh—no,” he said feebly.
“The man gave me and Beth a ride in his car.”
“Uh—yeah? What man, Murray?”
Murray looked vague. “Beth can look after me.”
“Uh—yeah. Shit, has she been—” He subsided, as Beth came back with a nurse.
After quite some time and the fetching of Dr Smith, Jack was pronounced a lot better and ordered to take it easy. And Bruce was sorry but there’d be no painkillers until they were quite sure about that concussed head. Jack thereupon poured forth a stream of information about the transferral of his medical insurance from the States, so they concluded he was himself again.
… “Only twenty past eleven,” discovered Dorothy feebly, sinking onto a chair.
“Uh—you been here all night, Dot?”
“No, only since six-ish this morning; yesterday was a different crisis entirely. It feels like several lifetimes ago. –God, I’m supposed to have lunch with it,” she muttered.
“Uh—with the crisis?”
“No. Never mind. Look, maybe I will go home and have a bath—dunno why, but hospital vigils always inspire me with a fervent desire to wash. I’ll see you this evening, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Dot.”
“And if that brain’s quite recovered, maybe it could work out a more flexible arrangement for your domestic emergency routines. Incorporating contingency plans for my ruddy phone being dead as a doornail.”
“Don’t be mean!” gasped Beth.
“I’m not being mean, just practical. See ya.” Dorothy went out.
“In her terms, that is practical,” murmured Jack. “Mean to the rest of humanity, of course.”
“Yes. Does it hurt?” said Beth faintly, licking her lips.
“Yeah. All over. The leg most of all. Guess I’ll never play football again. Uh—that was a joke, Murray. Sorry,” he said, closing his eyes.
Rab and Beth looked at each other uncertainly.
“He’ll probably sleep for a while,” said Annette helpfully.
“Yeah. We’ll wait for a bit, okay?” replied Rab.
Nodding and smiling, she went out.
Rab and Beth sat on in silence.
About an hour later Rab decided, since Annette had come in twice and pronounced he was sleeping nicely and a strange young doctor had come in once and confirmed this, that he and Murray would go and get some lunch. What about Sid Ching’s? He missed Sid, he added, apparently cheerfully. Once Murray had been assured that Jack would be quite okay and that they were coming right back, he consented to go. “Coming, Beth?” added Rab, shrugging his parka on.
“No,” said Beth firmly.
“Okay, then.”
They went out. Beth sat on in silence, watching Jack sleep. After what seemed a very, very long time she worked up the courage to touch his hand. It had a horrible hospital “chib” fixed to it. She just touched the thin brown fingers below the tube, very timidly. Jack slept on. Beth sat there touching his fingers, tears slowly slipping down her cheeks.
Next chapter:
https://conquestofcartersbay.blogspot.com/2023/05/melon-soup.html
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