Heaven's On Hold Read online

  ‘Yeah, I appreciate that. And I’m an untidy cow.’

  He smiled. ‘As long as you appreciate the situation that’s half the battle. She only comes a couple of mornings a week. You might find it easier to be out at those times … or whatever.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make an effort.’

  ‘I know you will. And Karen’s not a bad sort, you know. Her heart’s in the right place.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Lara, in a slightly less penitential tone, ‘the way people say that about people who are grumpy sods.’

  He smiled. ‘Fair comment.’

  It may have been this which decided him to go and visit Marina that afternoon. That, and the fact that he was unable to raise Annet on the phone.

  ‘She’s like a headless chicken in here today,’ Piers confided. ‘We all are.’

  ‘In that case, no message. Don’t even bother to say I rang, it can wait till this evening.’

  ‘Wise move,’ said Piers.

  Whether it was or not he didn’t know, but he reasoned that a first-hand report on Marina’s condition would at least give Annet the basis for a decision.

  He left at half past one. As he drove out of the village and up on to the ridgeway he checked his rear-view mirror once or twice for the red car. The letter from Gina was still in his shirt pocket. She said she had a job, but he suspected that might not be true. If it was, how could she afford to spend all this time following him, observing him …?

  With a guilty pleasure he was too honest to deny, he admitted to being both disturbed and flattered.

  True to form Marina, who could by no standards have been the sickest patient on the ward, had parlayed her way into an amenity bed. He encountered Louise outside the door of her room, carrying a pack of Evian water and some chocolate.

  ‘David!’ They exchanged a kiss. ‘This is so nice of you.’

  ‘Not at all. I wanted to, for Annet’s sake as much as anything.’ Today, the gratifying sense of doing the right thing made a pleasant change.

  ‘Coral’s coming over too, any minute now.’

  ‘Will we be too many people for her?’

  Louise pulled a face. ‘Please, this is my mother we’re talking about.’ She put a hand on the door, but paused before opening it. ‘Did you tell Annet?’

  ‘I couldn’t raise her, it’s hell out there today according to her assistant. I thought if I’d been over I could give her my impressions.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  They went in. Marina was leaning back on her pillows, her head turned towards the window. She wore a diaphanous bed jacket in powder blue, but her hands, resting on the sheet, though impeccably manicured as always, looked gnarled and old, the tendons standing out on the back, the joints sharply pronounced, the skin densely blotched with liver spots. Her beautiful rings, ‘my precious rings’ as she called them, looked too heavy for her fingers. Her hair too, without the usual level of attention lavished on it, appeared whispier. David was shocked to be able to see her scalp between the thin, expensively coloured strands.

  ‘Mummy?’ said Louise. ‘Look who I’ve got.’

  Marina rolled her head on the pillows. Her sweet, weak smile persuaded David that she was probably going to live. Mr Toad at his most outrageous had nothing on Marina.

  ‘David, how lovely.…’

  He kissed her. She had no make-up on but her skin felt soft and she smelled as always of some recherché scent.

  ‘Marina,’ he said, ‘ you know you really must give up all this wild partying.’

  ‘I know, I know, what a foolish old woman I am.’

  Louise put the water bottles on the locker and indicated the chair by the bed. ‘Take a seat, I’ll perch.’

  ‘Annet would have come like a shot,’ he said as he sat down, ‘but I couldn’t reach her on the phone at work. As I’m having a few days off I thought I’d come and run the rule over you first.’

  In answer, Marina held out a frail hand and he took it in both his. Gestures which would normally have been foreign to him, came easily when dictated by Marina.

  ‘Dear David.…’

  ‘So what did you do?’ he asked. What happened?’

  ‘That’s the trouble, I wish I knew … One moment I was taking my coat off as nice as you please, the next I was horizontal.’

  ‘It was incredibly fortunate for Mummy,’ put in Louise from the end of the bed, ‘that she fell in the centre of the hall, on the carpet, and close to the phone. If it had been the kitchen, or the loo, or somewhere with more hazards, it could have been a different story.’

  Marina’s eyes had not left David’s face during this speech. ‘She wants me to have a panic button.’

  ‘It might be sensible,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Annet would say the same thing.’

  ‘Have you seen one of those things?’ She waggled her hand in his to ensure his full attention. ‘They are perfectly hideous.’

  ‘They’re not supposed to be a fashion accessory, Mummy,’ said Louise.

  ‘I know, but really and truly …’ Marina sighed, withdrew her hand from David’s and let it fall lifelessly on to the quilt. ‘Still I expect you’re right.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How are you feeling, anyway?’ asked David.

  ‘Shaken, I must say. Very shaken, and very, very foolish.’

  ‘There’s no need for that. Anyone can have a dizzy spell.’

  ‘How strange then that it is mainly silly old ladies who do,’ replied Marina. It was one of those rare moments when he was vouchsafed a glimpse of something Annet and her mother had in common, though he doubted Annet would have admitted to it.

  ‘But no bones broken,’ he offered.

  ‘This time,’ muttered Louise.

  ‘No,’ said Marina. ‘I feel as if I’ve been run over by a tractor, but the schoolboy masquerading as a doctor assured me that’s only to be expected.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s right. But Lou tells me you’re going to stay in overnight, so they’ll probably slip you a Mickey Finn. You’ll have a really good night’s sleep and wake up feeling a new woman.’

  ‘A new woman …’ she gave a dry little laugh, and a glance in which he thought he detected the the origins of the cowboy look. ‘Now that would be nice.’

  The arrival of Coral provided him with an excuse to leave, and Louise saw him to the lift.

  ‘So what do you think?’ she asked. ‘Be honest.’

  ‘To be honest she seems in rather good form.’

  ‘But so frail – or maybe I’m guilty of not having noticed how thin she’s got.’

  ‘Yes … but then old people tend either to spread or shrink.’

  Louise laughed. ‘And Mummy would never, ever, spread. Thanks for coming, David, you’re a mensch. Give Annet my love, won’t you and tell her I’m on the case – I don’t want her dropping everything to harry the hospital authorities.’

  ‘You think I’ll be able to stop her?’ He got into the lift. ‘She’ll be in touch.’

  On the whole he was heartened by the visit to Marina. It would be pleasing to tell Annet, truthfully, that although frail her mother had been in better spirits than he’d expected.

  He let Lara deal with bathtime, and put some effort into the preparation of supper, the Spanish omelette which was by way of being a speciality of his and a favourite of Annet’s. Mindful of the fate of an earlier letter, he took Gina’s envelope out of his pocket and put it in the drawer of his desk beneath Jackie’s pile of property specifications.

  When he went upstairs it was to find Lara sitting with Freya in her arms, a pretty picture with only the soft glow of the nightlight in the baby’s room.

  ‘Couldn’t keep her awake,’ she said quietly. ‘Not even for her dad.’

  ‘Nor should you. I’ll put her down, shall I?’

  He kissed Freya on the forehead and laid her in the cot. Strangely, as she grew almost before his eyes, so she seemed to him to be becoming more vulnerable: stepping out into
the world. He thought of the child at the school wall with her bright ‘Hello Mr Man!’ and it squeezed his heart.

  ‘She’s a gem, your daughter,’ said Lara, not joking, and so revealing the genuine niceness which silenced criticism.

  Annet returned at eight-thirty. He turned the heat on under the skillet when he heard her key in the lock, and took the bottle of Murphy’s Landing out of the fridge. He was determined that this should be a good evening, one that even the news about Marina would not spoil. He was glad that he would be in a position to set her mind at rest about that, and glad too that he had tucked the letter from Gina where there was no chance it would be found.…

  She put her head round the door. ‘ Hi there. I’m just going to nip up and see our little angel.’

  She had a way of spiking her endearments with irony. ‘Do that.’ He lifted the bottle. ‘ Now?’

  ‘When I come down.’

  He heard her run up the stairs. You never saw Annet plod or trudge, it wasn’t in her nature. She seemed always to have more energy available in her reserve tank than most people had at the start of the day.

  She was gone about five minutes, and returned wearing jeans and the classic, drop-shouldered American football sweatshirt that she’d bought in Detroit. She exactly suited these clothes, and he went to put his arms round her as she reached for her glass.

  ‘Mm—!’ She held the glass out to one side. ‘First things first!’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  ‘Oh go on then …’ She let him kiss her, not returning his embrace because of the glass, but pressing herself against him. ‘Can’t a girl even have a quiet drink at the end of a working day without being jumped …?’

  ‘Not around here she can’t.’

  ‘Look out, your pan’s smoking.’

  ‘Shit—!’

  He rescued the skillet to the accompaniment of her laughter, turned the heat down and poured in the eggs.

  ‘Smells nice,’ she said. ‘I am totally ravenous.’

  ‘Busy day?’ he asked, interested to see if her account accorded with that of Piers.

  ‘Mad but not bad. Hard but not smart. I quite enjoyed it though. Had a fun stroppy meeting with the design people.’

  She enlarged on this while he completed the omelette, and he let her finish her story, her supper and her second glass of wine, before saying cautiously:

  ‘This is absolutely nothing to worry about love, but Louise rang today. Your mother’s had a fall.’

  ‘Christ!’ She actually whitened, and put down her fork with a rattle. ‘What?’

  ‘She’s OK. No, really.’

  ‘That’s what Lou says, she doesn’t want me to go over there, doesn’t want to worry me, she can be so patronising—’ She got up and flung down her napkin, which missed the chair seat and landed on the floor. ‘ Excuse me, I’m going to call her.’

  ‘Don’t – Annet, calm down.’

  ‘Calm down? Get lost, darl, my mother’s probably had a stroke and you’re telling me to calm down?’

  ‘But she hasn’t had a stroke,’ he got up and went to her, standing close but not touching, respectful of her mood. ‘Louise took her into hospital, but it’s only precautionary. They haven’t been able to find anything except a few bruises, but they‘ re keeping her in overnight in any case just to be sure.’

  She looked up at him, her gaze flicking back and forth, scanning for duplicity. ‘And who told you all this good, calming news? Louise?’

  ‘She did, yes.’ He played his trump card. ‘But as a matter of fact I went over this afternoon and saw her for myself, and I can report—’

  ‘You what?’ Her fury was like a smack in the face.

  ‘I went to visit Marina.’

  She took a few steps away from him, held her brow for a second, turned back, hand still to head. ‘You didn’t think to call me?’

  ‘Lou tried first thing, the office and here. I tried later and you weren’t available. Piers said you were all having a hell of a day. I thought if I popped over to see her I could at least give you a progress report.’

  ‘And if I’d been I could have seen for myself!’

  He could scarcely believe he’d got it so wrong. ‘Annet – she’s all right. She’d love to see you naturally, but there’s nothing seriously wrong.’

  ‘So why did she fall?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He realised how lame that would sound to her and tried to stifle her scorn. ‘They don’t know. But Lou says they’ve established it definitely wasn’t a stroke.’

  ‘Jesus!’ She slumped back on to her chair, elbows on the table, head in hands. ‘I suppose it’s too late to see her this evening anyway, they turn the lights out about nine in those places.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you get Piers to tell me to call?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He was sorry, but she’d got to him – he was also rattled. Not quite angry yet, but heading that way, his apologies were taking on a bitter note. ‘I am truly sorry, I acted for what I thought was the best.’

  She said something sotto voce, a furious mutter.

  ‘What?’

  Now she raised her voice almost to a shout. ‘Why the hell did you take it on yourself to decide what was best!’

  ‘If you hadn’t been so late,’ he heard himself say, ‘you might have had time to see her.’

  She shook her head with an expression of angry astonishment. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I mean where have you been since the fun meeting with the design people? Having more fun?’

  ‘Yes, actually. I went to the gym at Chris Harper’s. There was no one else there. I did half an hour aerobic and half an hour on weights and then I drove home. But it was still a bloody sight more fun than taking this crap from my husband!’

  She got up and left the room. David heard the study door slam – she was going to phone Louise. He was riven with the shock of this row. It was the first they’d had, they were wary of confrontation. She was too quick to anger, he too slow, both had their dangers and they’d recognised them.

  Till now. This time they’d blown it.

  He was in the drawing room pretending to read the paper when she went upstairs. He called ‘Annet—?’ but she didn’t answer. He heard Freya crying, and when he did go up Annet was sitting in her nightshirt on the chair where Lara had sat earlier, breastfeeding.

  ‘Good night then,’ he said.

  ‘Good night.’ Her voice was completely normal, but he didn’t take that as a good sign. It meant she’d been thinking.

  He read for about fifteen minutes and then turned his lamp off. She didn’t come. Eventually he slept, and when he woke the green numbers read one-o-six. Annet wasn’t in bed. He went to the door of Freya’s room and saw that she was sleeping on the divan. Such a thing had never happened before. The clichéd brutality of the message cut him to the quick.

  Instinctively when he returned to their room, he pulled the curtain aside. And there she was. His lily of the lamplight, watching over him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He took comfort in small things. The journey in wasn’t bad. The roadworks were gone. Even Doug Border was a breath of fresh air.

  ‘Put it there, Davey boy, we’ve missed you!’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it.’

  They were in Doug’s office, and he thumped the back of a chair. ‘Take the weight off your plates. Family well? No wrecks and nobody drownded?’

  ‘No,’ was all David could say to this.

  ‘So – er – says he cutting to the chase – did you get a chance to take a peep at the Townsend place?’

  David nodded. ‘I did. It seems delightful.’

  ‘It had better be, she wants three hundred thou. Alasdair’s going round this morning to talk business with the poor lady. Or more likely with the poor lady’s daughter who seems to be managing things.’

  ‘Mrs Bentham, I met her yesterday. And there’s no reason why we sho
uldn’t get that sort of price. If the house is half as nice inside as out, it’ll be worth every penny of that to the right person. It’s certainly worth contacting Chris Harper about. I should think the family would be wholly delighted with a cash sale, no chain, and very possibly no conveyancing fees.’

  ‘Yes!’ declared Doug, bunching his fist. ‘ I feel a good day coming on!’

  David did not, which was probably why he was relishing the simple and entirely unforeseen pleasure of talking shop with his partner. He himself had always been the outsider, the man who didn’t quite fit, the ringer (Doug’s word) who was effective without anyone quite understanding why. Now suddenly he felt a kinship with Doug. Apart from his brief exchange with Maurice, and the longer but unhappy one with Tim, he had been surrounded by women for the past week. He liked women, and even preferred their company to that of men most of the time, but it was entirely possible he’d had too much of a good thing. He was still reeling from the row with Annet. Doug’s uncomplicated blokiness, and his robust relish for business was as comforting as a bacon butty.

  ‘So you’ll liaise with Harper, then,’ said Doug as he left. It wasn’t a question. ‘You’re the one he knows, the one who hobnobs with the stars. He drinks at your house for chrissakes.’

  ‘He has been once.’

  ‘That’s all it takes. I was impressed. Smooth operator or what?’

  Back in his office, Jackie said: ‘Mrs Keating called, I said you were in a meeting. But she said not to call her, because she won’t be in the office.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Annet had left the house early, without even her usual coffee. All the sounds leading up to her departure – doors opening and closing, her quick footsteps, the full-blast, two-minute shower, even the brisk crackle of her hairbrush – had seemed to David to speak volumes: she remained furious, and he unforgiven. The phone call reported by Jackie might have presaged a softening, but his unavailability would probably have blown that. She wasn’t going to make it easy on either of them, and he smarted with the injustice of it. The whole wellbeing of their relationship had always depended on his adaptability, on second-guessing her moods and, if necessary, pulling his punches. Now, on the only occasion when he’d lost his temper he was being made to feel as if he’d done something monstrous. Perhaps he had. Perhaps the trouble with good behaviour was that it set you up for an almost inevitable fall. But of one thing he was sure – he didn’t deserve this cold-shouldering