Out on a Limb (14 page)

‘I think so,’ she pats her stomach. ‘I
hope
so!’

‘Does
he
know you’re pregnant?’

She nods. Smiles again. ‘Oh,
God
, yes.’

‘And?’

‘And he couldn’t be happier.’ She touches my arm gently. ‘Oh, Abs, and neither could I.’

And his name is Tim and he’s a software consultant, and they weren’t planning on Dee getting pregnant, obviously, but now she is and she’s going to be a mother at last and though she’s as hopeful as anyone could be that this is the start of a new and better and happier time in her life, she’s not getting carried away on any romantic flights of fancy. One day at a time is good enough for her.

But God obviously did hear, after all.

By the time I have dropped Dee off and taken back the wheelchair, it’s getting on for three and I’m getting tight for time, having planned to pick up my things from Charlie’s office, and having also promised my mother I’d get home in time to ferry her over for tea at Celeste’s. So I’m half walking, half running as I round the corridor corner, and almost cannon into Charlie himself, whom I haven’t seen for another whole week now, and who’s busy rushing somewhere in his greens. There’s a micro-second when we’re just two people about to dance a polite jig to get around one another, but then we see who we are and our faces fall as one. Then he takes a step back and scrutinises me carefully.

‘Hmm,’ he says finally.’ I take it you’re not here to see me, then?’

‘I was bringing back Mum’s wheelchair. So I thought I’d come up and pick up my stuff.’

‘Oh, right.’ He turns as if to pass me then, which brings me up short. I’m already braced for an entreaty to meet him, and its failure to happen leaves me entirely unprepared.

I touch his arm, automatically. ‘Hey, you okay?’

‘You know I’m not, so why do you bother to keep asking?’

And he says it really irritably, childishly,
hurtfully
, and with a hostile and unforgiving light in his eyes. And I’m shocked. Truly shocked. Because it seems so out of character. But once I think about it, (and I do, as I watch his retreating back), perhaps this brush off is actually a positive sign.

I turn around and head back to the hospital entrance. I can pick up my things some other day. Yes, positive, I decide. Hey, this is what I want, isn’t it? I want him out of my hair, don’t I? I
want
him to move on. Maybe I should heed the advice I gave Dee. I really must not consider myself responsible for his wellbeing any more. I really must try to move on myself.

Chapter 14

A
N EMAIL
;

Hi mum, am typing this from an internet café just off the Via Condotti. Is raining right now so no inclination to go yomping round the collosseum. Reading the Da Vinci Code so have done Vatican etc. Wow. (Tell Nana the Spanish Steps were very underwhelming. Tho’ can see why she likes it here – is all frocks and handbags.) We’re going to head up towards Rimini tomorrow and chill for a couple days – gonna meet up with Owen and Mike, hopefully.

I want a scooter!!! LOL S xxx

I absolutely never read
Depth
magazine. Really, I don’t. Yes, I pick it up in the hairdressers occasionally, just the same as everyone else does, but only if there’s nothing else to look at. I’d never, ever buy it. Of course I wouldn’t. I have far better things to do with my time and much more edifying things to read about.
Depth
is not depth as in intellectual rigour.
Depth
is depth as in scouring the bottoms of ponds.

The following Thursday morning, and I am reading
Depth
.

‘Thought you’d be interested,’ says Candice, who has already read it. ‘He looks good, doesn’t he? Did you clock the boots? Don’t think much of that frock though. Mind you –’ she pauses to emit a loud gale of laughter. ‘– she doesn’t look like she’d know a Versace from a bin bag, state she’s in.’

I’m not really listening. I’m too busy reading. Well, gawping, mainly. There’s not much actual stuff to read. The photo takes up almost all of the page, the headline ‘
Uh-oh!
Is
TV’s Luce back on the juice?’
much of the rest. Such copy as there is confined to the sort of faux-moralistic carping
Depth
excels in, and the usual hackneyed references to the weather.

Mainly I’m looking at Gabriel Ash, who is making a manful stab at pretending everything’s just fine and that his fiancée is perfectly capable of remaining vertical of her own accord despite the fact that one leg is buckling underneath her. Heavy squalls expected indeed.

‘Oh, dear, this is awful,’ I say.

‘Hardly a shock, though, is it? Tsk. What a waste. I mean I know she’s got a boob job and a St Tropez tan and perfect teeth and long legs and wealth and fame and beauty and so on, but I mean, I
ask
you. What can he
see
in her?’

You want to ask Dee that one, I think but don’t say. ‘That’s such a shame,’ is what I do say. Because that’s what it is. Ordinary people don’t have to put up with this stuff. Oh, poor, poor them. How excruciating.

It also takes some of the gloss off the little surp rise I have been looking forward to imparting. And I have been looking forward to it, I realise, very much. Though none of it has anything to do with me, obviously, I can’t help but find myself feeling a little sorry for Gabriel Ash. My first impression, as first impressions so often are, was probably right after all.

I shouldn’t have, of course. But I did. When Jake was out with his mates and Mum was out at whatever soirée I’d dropped her off at (I lose track) I sat down and went through the contents of Hugo’s box. I felt very guilty about it, because it really was – is – none of my business, which is partly, I realise, why I didn’t show it to my mother. Partly, but not wholly. It also struck me that if he didn’t see fit to discuss it with her, then it perhaps wasn’t my place to either. And, well, it was snooping. I really had no right. So best that I kept it to myself.

The contents of the box made for very poignant reading. As little as I knew about Hugo already, it seemed that here was someone who had a whole other side to him, and I wondered again why he’d never told my mother about Gabriel. Was it guilt? Was it shame? Perhaps it was both. It would hardly have shown him in a very good light. Or perhaps, less charitably, it was born out of just the same sort of secretive nature that meant she didn’t know about the house. And I had to remember that this largely innocuous retired gent was at one time the worst kind of bad guy. No moral backbone, as my father was wont to say. A bit of a rotter, all told.

Yet here, laid before me, was evidence of someone who clearly wished he’d been better. Who, though he had (for whatever reason) failed to be reconciled with his son, obviously cared for him. Cared very much. Enough to record his whole life. Well, the last twenty years of his life, at any rate. Almost every one of them had its moment, all much thumbed and doubtless read and re-read. From a piece about him graduating from university right up to the pictures I had seen the other week.

And there were also lots of photos. Mostly of Gabriel himself, over a span of many years, several in uniform, some formal, others less so. But also some of a pretty dark-haired girl, whose name was Maria. From babyhood right up to what I presumed was fairly recently. I knew this because the backs of the photos were all marked.
Maria, aged four. Maria aged 7
. And then I found another, this time of a group; Corinne, Maria, and two other children (hers presumably), all larking about in a summertime garden, while Gabriel, in surfing shorts, soaked them with a hose. It was marked on the back ‘
Job clearly going to his head, eh, Dad?
’ in the same writing as many of the others.

So I presumed it was Corinne who kept Hugo posted.

And that Maria was Gabriel’s daughter.

And now he’s here in the clinic, and the life I have eavesdropped on so comprehensively has another chapter, another documented snippet, to its name. Though one that obviously isn’t going in any box. Which is probably no bad thing.

I get him set up with the TENS machine and a cup of coffee, and go off to write up my last patient’s notes. It’s been raining heavily and steadily and unremittingly all morning, the window panes thrumming out a mournful wall of sound.

When I go back to unplug him, he’s reading the
Guardian
, but the copy of
Depth
is also by his side, on top of a pile of magazines. I glance at it, and he straight away glances at me glancing at it.

‘Oh, rats,’ I say, peeling the contacts off his leg and cursing whatever lack of rigour caused that particular magazine to find its way on to that particular pile and that pile into this particular cubicle. And then it occurs to me that it might not be accidental. Perhaps Candice is busy planning some sort of coup. And using Lord Haw Haw tactics to help expedite things. ‘Dear me,’ I add, picking it up and pushing it to the bottom of the pile. Pointless, but I feel I need to do it even so. ‘You weren’t supposed to see that.’

He looks bemused – no, even
amused
– by what I’ve done. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says equably. ‘I already have.’

There doesn’t seem much to say to that. Well, not unless he says something else, which he doesn’t, so I busy myself with the rest of the contacts while he sits there and watches me do so.

And what’s to be said, after all? This sort of public scrutiny is presumably something he’s used to. Something he has to put up with as part of the job. And it’s certainly not for me to pass comment. I take the heat pad from the trolley to go and put in the microwave. The air is sweet and exotic. Coconut again.

‘And what I don’t see myself I always hear about eventually,’ he goes on, when I return. ‘My sister always keeps me informed.’

There’s something in his tone as he says this that suggests he’s not a hundred percent impressed with that particular state of affairs. I wonder how he’ll feel about the fact that she’s spent two decades doing similarly with his father, about him. Angry? Dismayed? Or will he find it a comfort? I don’t buy into his insouciance, his I-don’t-care manner. His father’s just died, and if I know anything about anything, it’s that, whatever he says, it must hurt. Perhaps hurt all the more because of the unfinished business. Because his father is no longer there for him to forgive. But it’s none of
my
business, so I don’t comment on that either. ‘Speaking of which,’ I say, instead, because I’m keen not to dwell on any
Depth
related topics. ‘Any news on the sale of the house?’

He shakes his head. ‘Not as far as I know,’ he says. ‘I think there’ve been some viewings. I’m not really that involved, to be honest.’

Which would figure. ‘Tell me,’ I ask him, because I’ve been wondering. ‘How did that come about? I mean, how did it turn out that your father lived in the house that was left to you by your mother? From what you’ve told me, I’d have thought that would be the last thing she’d want.’

‘She didn’t know. That all happened much later. After she died.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Though I dare say she turned in her grave.’ His smile turns into a wince as I begin to massage his leg. ‘But, well, he needed somewhere to live, and the house was there. She’d been renting it out for several years, and they were thinking about selling it. And, well, I guess it made sense.’

I note the ‘they’. So he didn’t have anything much to do with it, clearly.

‘And you were happy about that?’

H e shrugs. ‘Made no odds to me where he lived. Anyway, I was in Italy at the time.’

I think about his dark- haired daughter called Maria, and I wonder who her mother is – or was. And it occurs to me that I’ve no business wondering. It really
is
none of my business. Not at all.

‘My son is in Italy at the moment,’ I say instead.

‘Oh?’ he says. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘Rome, when I last heard. But he could be almost anywhere by now. He’s inter-railing round Europe with a friend. He’s on a gap year.’

He looks so genuinely surprised that I’m almost tempted to let myself believe what he says next, which is ‘You have a son old enough to be on a gap year?’ But then I remember he’s a television person, and smooth enough to know that I’m a woman of an age where such comments hit every sort of right spot every time.

Though I don’t hold it against him. It’s sweet of him to say it, even so. ‘I had him very young,’ I say. Which is, in fact, true. Anxious to build a proper home and family of my own, I did everything very young, when I come to think about it. Or so I imagine a psychologist would say. It wasn’t conscious, not at all. But it’s certainly true that I wasted no time in getting married, having children, paying a mortgage, growing frown lines. And now I have a resident mother to add to the list. And to the frown lines, no doubt. I smile widely and purposefully to smooth them all out. ‘And I don’t know where the time’s gone. I certainly don’t
feel
old enough to have a son on a gap year.’

He doesn’t gild the lily by repeating his compliment. Which makes me believe it even more. ‘My daughter’s in Italy,’ he says. ‘Just outside Siena.’ Which makes me start, but then I realise she’s probably no big secret anyway. Just something – someone – that simply hasn’t come up. Why would it? I barely know him, after all.

Just things
about
him. Which is different. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘On holiday?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, she lives there. Her mother’s Italian. I was out there for several years.’

Though not now. Is he divorced too, I wonder? I nod. ‘Oh, yes. My mum mentioned that.’

I hear a ping then, so I go to fetch the heat pad from the micro. ‘How’s she doing?’ he asks when I return. ‘Your mother. Or shouldn’t I risk asking without donning a tin hat?’

I pull the sort of face that his amused expression seems to warrant. ‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘What’s that word? Begins with an ‘H’. Habituation, that’s it. We are becoming ‘habituated’ to one another. Though I suspect she’s becoming more habituated than I am, so I’m trying to keep her on her toes. Touch of ground glass in her porridge, the odd trip wire. Spiders in her bed at night. That sort of thing.’

He laughs. ‘Seriously though, it must have been one hell of an upheaval for you. All this. I’m not sure I’d maintain my sense of humour quite so well if I had to have my mother live with me.’

I reach under the trolley for a towel. ‘Who said I was?’

‘You seem to be to me.’

I smile at this. ‘She’s not the only actress in the family, you know.’

‘Quite a woman, though, isn’t she? I had no idea she was so famous. Not till I saw all the trophies and so on. By the way, turns out that Lucy’s aunt was in a show with her once. I meant to tell you.’

I fold the towel and place it over his knee, then put the heat pad on top. ‘Really?’

‘A musical? In the early seventies or thereabouts.’

I nod. ‘That would be about right. She was in several. Which one?’

‘I forget the name of it. She’s going to dig out a photo for me. I’ll have to bring it in. Small world, eh? Ouch. Is that supposed to be so hot?’

‘Yes it is. Can you bear it? It’ll start cooling down soon. Actually, now you remind me,’ I rattle on, because this seems the perfect time to do it, ‘I have something at home for you too.’

‘You do? What?’

‘Some things I found when we were clearing Mum’s stuff out the other weekend. Some papers of your father’s. I thought you might want them.’

‘Oh?’ he says. ‘What sort of papers?’

‘Erm …I’m not really sure. Mementoes, mainly. Things to do with you, I think.’

‘Really?’

I study his expression. Aha! So I was right. He
is
interested. It’s as plain as the rather fine nose on his face. ‘I think so. You know, photographs and so on…’

‘Really?’ he says again. ‘What of?’

‘Well, you, in the main. I was going to bring them in today,’ I hurry on. ‘But then what with one thing and another it went straight out of my head and I forgot to put them in the car… But I can bring them in next time you come, if you like.’

‘Be easier if I pick them up from you after work one day, wouldn’t it? Save you the trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ I start to say, but then I realise he’s probably suggesting that because he doesn’t want to wait another fortnight. He wants them
now
. Which is nice. And I’m glad for him. ‘But if you want to, then fine. I’m fairly central. Only in Pontcanna. Tell you what, I’ll go and get some paper and write down my address for you.’

Candice stops by the cubicle at that point, as is getting to be her wont. ‘Another coffee, Mr Ash?’

He shakes his head. ‘ No, thanks.’

‘Gawd, will you look at that!’ she adds, looking past us out of the window. ‘Hammering down. You’d never think it was August, would you?’