Torn (49 page)

At last they'd arrived, though she could make no sense of it. Hospitals were often sprawling and illogical in design, but you could usually recognise one when you saw it. There was nothing here which looked like a hospital building. A small, low, white block was all she could see, set in the centre of the car park. The only indication that they'd reached their destination was a sign on the structure which claimed it to be Outpatients and Physiotherapy. On one side of the car park the landscape dropped away allowing a panoramic, if sodden, view of the town, the slender spire of a church, and the muddy stripe beyond, which was the river. On the other side of the car park, across the road, was what looked like a row of unremarkable brown stone terraced houses, clad in scaffolding. Then she saw the signs pointing in both directions up and down the pavement – Casualty, Wards, Orthopaedics, X-ray.

At first, conscious this was a family crisis, Jessica had intended to wait for Danny in the car. Although she couldn't see Piers' Porsche in the car park he must be here, with other members of the family. Surely one or other of them would give Danny a lift after the visit. But if this place was confusing for her, someone who
could
read, how on earth would Danny find his way to his father's side? The cold of the day was sharply reinforced by the blustery wind. She held his hand and they crossed the road to find someone to ask.

The refurbishments to the building had temporarily closed off many of the outside doors but at last they found one which allowed access to the interior. Inside, the hospital was surprisingly extensive and bewildering. A maze of corridors, lifts, stairs, and swing doors. The characteristic smell of antiseptic. At every turn, owing to the renovations, access was denied. Jessica became disorientated and had to ask several times before they found themselves heading in the right direction. All the while she wondered at what point she could step back, leave Danny to go on alone to confront whatever it was he would have to confront.

‘Mr Bowman?' she asked at the ward office. ‘Edward Bowman … suspected stroke?'

‘Family?' the ward sister asked.

‘Yes.' Danny said, finding his voice.

‘I'm sorry. Mr Bowman's been transferred.'

The day had already turned into a nightmare Jess thought bleakly as they returned to the car park. So what could she say about it now? An absolute fucking disaster was all that came to mind. It was a reflection best kept to herself.

This time, when they eventually arrived at their destination, it was more obviously a hospital. There was a choice of car parks stretching across the extensive site, and several turn-of-the-century redbrick buildings which some of these car parks apparently served. After asking, they were directed to the furthest car park which surrounded a bleak slab of a structure, its multi-storeys constructed from pre-formed concrete. As a modern, purpose-built hospital it was consequently more spacious and lofty than the previous hospital, but it was still a maze, and for someone like Danny, it was just as bewildering. At last they approached the side ward to which they'd been directed. Now they were so close it was almost a welcome delay to pause by the wall-mounted anti-bacterial gel by the door. She found she was still gripping her car keys and slipped them into her pocket before pumping a squirt of gel into her palm and working it into her hands. Danny copied her actions.

Two faces turned towards them. On one side of the bed was Piers. On the other, a woman, her pale face clean of make-up, long brown hair tied in a bunch at her nape. The clothes she wore were drab and crumpled. The first things she'd laid hands on this morning, Jess assumed. There was suspicion and hostility in her expression. Dressed and made up for her aborted trip to London, Jessica was keenly aware of how inappropriate she must look. In the bed between them lay a man. According to Danny he was not yet retirement age, yet he looked very old. Against the snowy white linen his face was a mauvish-grey, sunken and crumpled around the mouth. Piers jumped to his feet and came towards her. Jessica unlatched her fingers from Danny's hold.

‘Jessica! You made it!' His relief was evident.

‘Hello, Piers.' She gripped his hands and squeezed. ‘I'm so sorry about your dad. Look, I'm not butting in. I gave Danny a lift.'

‘Excellent. Appreciated. Real star!'

‘But we came via Lydney!'

‘No! So sorry! Didn't get message? Change of hospitals? Tried Planks' mobile, bloody switched off as per! Phoned Jay. Already en-route capital. Said he'd phone through revised destination.'

There'd been no call. ‘It doesn't matter, Piers. The important thing is that Danny's here. And I don't want to intrude.' All she wanted, now that she'd delivered Danny to his father's side, was to get home.

‘Um … Hel's too jittery to drive. And the tart-mobile's a two-seater.' Piers looked apologetic. ‘Perhaps …?'

Oh no, Danny would need a lift. ‘Of course I'll stay if I'm needed.' Before she turned away to look for somewhere to wait she saw the brothers embrace.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Words were never adequate to this kind of situation. Only when you are part of the inner circle touched by a tragedy can the simple gesture of a hug express everything which needs to be expressed, Jess thought. Alone now, she stood with her elbows on the windowsill of the day room, looking out over the prematurely dark and soaking city centre – its roofs, railway station, office blocks, multi-storey car parks, and towards the west, in the distance, the cathedral tower. If only it would stop raining!

She'd rejected the piled back-copies of the local newspaper,
Reader's Digest
, and
Woman's Weekly
. Even if she was remotely interested in anything they might have to say, she didn't have the concentration to bother. Why wasn't Constance Bowman here? She wasn't dead, Jess knew, but neither was she ever spoken of; perhaps there was some scandal? Had she run off with another man? Another woman? The Raggle Taggle Gypsies-O? She picked up a puzzle book and began to flick through. The door opened.

‘Given marching orders by little squibs!' Piers said. ‘Ablutions detail.'

‘The nurses will call us back in when they've given Dad a wash,' Danny translated. Then, ‘Jess, this is my sister, Helen.'

The three siblings sat, sometimes in silence, sometimes talking desultorily. Jessica remained standing at the window.

After a while Danny said, ‘I can't believe how old he looks.'

‘He's only sixty-four! They've taken his dentures out, is all' said Helen impatiently, as if Danny should have known this. ‘Hasn't had his own teeth for years!'

‘Still comes as shock,' Piers said. ‘Collapse of face!'

‘If either of you'd been around more –'

‘Live in London! Thirty-five years old, for God's sake! S'not like you've been hanging round old homestead!'

‘All right! All right! I am married, remember! I have got kids to look after.'

‘So, stop getting at us. Not mine, not Planks' fault.'

‘It's no coincidence this happened after Daniel left Dad to cope on his own.'

‘He stayed home just as long as you or I!'

‘And he was so strong, so fit,' Danny said. ‘I wouldn't have gone if I'd thought he couldn't cope. And I needed to live my own life … stand on my own feet.'

‘That's what you call it? Pete using emotional blackmail on his old pal James Warwick. Don't tell me you're not spoon fed.'

‘Shut up, Hel!' was all Danny said in reply, but he exchanged a pained look with Jessica. A fierce, clamping sensation in her chest shortened her breath, forced her heart to pump faster and sprayed through her body an almost irrepressible urge to leap to his defence. What was it? Adrenaline? As an only child of a single parent her experience of larger families was limited, but she knew they could be mysterious entities, whose complex interactions you interfered with at your peril. However much she wanted to stand up for Danny, it was infinitely wiser to hold her tongue.

Piers intervened. ‘Hel! You're living up to your name! Lighten up! We've enough to deal with, without you scapegoating! What's the official view? Has anyone spoken to a medic?'

‘It's just one of those things, apparently. Associated with diabetes, or hypertension, but he wasn't diabetic and certainly didn't have high blood pressure, not as far as I knew, anyway,' Helen said.

‘Know all that. Meant prognosis?'

Helen shrugged. ‘What'll happen to the farm and everything if he …?'

‘Meaning?' Piers looked perplexed. ‘Doesn't farm now! Apart from handful of chickens.'

‘But we – 
he
still owns it, even if most of it is rented off.' Helen glanced towards Jessica from time to time, as if wondering why she was still there, listening in on their private conversation.

Jessica stared at a Sudoku puzzle. Usually she found them easy. Now the numbers jumped about in a meaningless jumble. There must be one here she could do. She flicked through, page by page, puzzle by puzzle. The situation was surreal. She should be enjoying a day out in London, yet here she was – in the unnaturally hot climate of the hospital – an unwilling audience to the sniping children of a desperately ill man. The room felt sterile and impersonal; sit up and beg armchairs lined the walls, a bulky old television with a Digi box, its volume down, flickered unnaturally coloured images in the corner. Called a day room it was for the use of those patients who had some mobility and their visitors; it felt more like a waiting room. Waiting for what?

‘Ah! You mean disposal of assets. Last will and testament? What of cloistered wife and mother?'

‘We're going to need to find out,' Helen said.

‘First things first, old love.'

At last Jess saw the solution to the pattern of numbers she stared at. All she needed was a pen. With a sinking feeling she realised she'd left her bag, in plain view, on the car's back seat. A nurse came into the room, her expression serious. She opened her hands in an apologetic gesture.

‘I'm sorry. He wouldn't have suffered at all … but he slipped away while we were washing him. He just gave a little sigh. I am so sorry.'

In the subdued light of the wet afternoon the house looked drab and austere. Built in the mottled brown stone of the area it was a solid, square house; on a sunny day, and in different circumstances, it might have its charms. From the style it was possibly a hundred years old. On the ground floor deep bays with long sash windows balanced one another on either side of the central front door, on the first floor there were four narrower windows. The dark slate roof was steeply pitched.

The scarlet Porsche turned down the uneven driveway, scattering chickens. It pulled up in the muddy yard. Jess stopped behind it, alongside the outbuildings. One of these was the typical ad-hoc rural structure, built of breeze block and corrugated iron. The other barns were constructed in the same brown stone as the house but, from the weathering and the vertical arrow slits in the walls, were a great deal more ancient. A couple of cars were already parked here. The elderly Land Rover was presumably Edward Bowman's vehicle; the Fiat was Helen's.

As they stood uncomfortably in the large, old-fashioned kitchen, no one had anything to say. Eventually Piers got out his cigarettes and offered the pack to Jessica.

‘Sorry! You abjure such cancerous vessels! Tea then? Sustenance?' He looked towards his brother and sister. ‘Then necessary trip to town to register the death.'

‘I can stay for a cuppa but then I'll have to get back for the kids, Pete.' Helen moved to the sink and picked up the kettle.

‘Understood. I'll sort formalities … Perhaps Planks? You'll come with me?'

Danny nodded but looked towards Jessica. His drawn face was still chalky, eyes dark with shock.

‘And I'll have to get home too.' Jessica directed the remark to him, but Piers answered.

‘Sandwich first, Jessica!'

‘You're not going?' Danny blurted. ‘Please don't go.'

‘I must. I can't leave Rory with Gilda any longer than I have to. It's not fair.'

‘But he often stays the night!'

‘That's when I go out with James. This isn't the same thing.'

‘No,' he echoed hollowly and swallowed. ‘Not the same.'

‘Oh! So you're a friend of the Warwicks!' Helen said, enlightened. ‘I wondered what the connection was.' The implication was unmistakable – that Helen thought her younger brother unworthy of gaining the friendship of anyone outside his own oddball and marginalised section of society.

‘Danny and I have known each other longer than I've known the Warwicks,' Jess corrected. ‘Giving him a lift today was an act of friendship to him, not a favour to them.'

Helen shrugged and turned away. While his sister made a pot of tea, Piers had discovered half a cut loaf in the bread bin and some rather old, unwrapped cheddar in the fridge. The greasy, fissured block was easier to slice than he apparently anticipated.

‘Always keeps … kept knives razor sharp. Perfectionist in him.'

‘Only about some things! Eurgh!' Helen looked disgusted. ‘These tea-clothes are rancid. Not only are they dark brown and stiff. They smell like they've not been washed since Mum …'

The conversation was stilted, the atmosphere chilly and forlorn. Though it might emanate from the tea-clothes the whole kitchen had taken on a slightly sour odour – the smell of a man living on his own, not quite coping with the domestic side of life. Jessica felt her presence had created awkwardness, and was an inhibition to any natural open exchange between the bereaved siblings. She touched Danny's hand and gestured he come outside. He followed her into the yard where it still drizzled. When she went to speak her voice was unsteady.

‘Even if Gilda is happy to look after Rory, I really can't stay. I'm a stranger to Helen and Piers … Pete I mean. I feel like a sore thumb here. None of you can let your hair down while I'm around. You all need to cry or shout or express your emotions in whatever way comes naturally, without an audience.'