Go Not Gently (14 page)

Some time later she came back. Her face was taut and ashen. She clutched a large white hanky but her eyes were dry. She lowered herself into the chair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘That’s why you’ve not been to see Lily?’

She nodded in assent.

‘Is Nora still there?’ I asked.

‘No.’ She drew a couple of breaths, releasing the air slowly with a shuddering sound. ‘No,’ she repeated, ‘Nora’s dead. It was a long time ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. The words or perhaps the wobbly note in my own voice served to trigger her tears. Agnes stayed where she was, weeping quietly, almost sedately. She leant forward, buried her face in the hanky. Tears sprang to my own eyes, stinging. I sniffed them back. I went and knelt at her side. Put my arm around her shoulders. She didn’t shrug me off. I didn’t speak. Agnes wept. At last, taking a couple of deep breaths, she straightened up. I slid my arm away. She turned her head to face me.

‘It’s more than sixty years ago,’ she said, ‘sixty years, never mentioned.’

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ I offered.

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, ‘I can’t, I just can’t.’

I waited a while before I spoke again. I felt clumsy but whatever her emotional state I needed to make my position plain to her. ‘Agnes, apart from checking those tablets there’s nothing else I can do to help Lily. You and Charles will have to arrange the best care for her. There’s no point in my visiting again. She needs friends, people she knows, not me. It’s up to you whether you can face it or not. After all, they may move her out into a nursing home.’

‘I’ve been so foolish,’ she said, ‘so cowardly. Will you come with me tomorrow, please? You’re right. It’s my place to go. If you could help me, this first time. .

I couldn’t say no.

Rachel caught me at home that afternoon.

‘Sal, I got back late last night. Weekend in Derbyshire.’

‘Not camping?’ I was aghast.

‘No,’ she laughed, ‘residential training. Exhausting. You wouldn’t believe what goes on and Social Services fork out for it all–’

‘Rachel,’ I cut in before she launched into a blow-by-blow account, ‘when you rang me about the room, what day was it?’

She hummed and hawed a bit. ‘Wednesday? No, Thursday.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Wednesday I was in court all day and Friday I went straight off to Derbyshire, it must have been Thursday. Why?’

‘Oh, I’d other messages, I needed to work out when they were left.’

‘So is it free?’

‘What?’

‘The room! Honestly, Sal.’

‘Sorry, miles away. No, it’s gone, we’ve got someone already.’

‘Well, if you hear of anywhere else. This poor woman’s getting desperate. Turns out that the cousin is into the Internet in a big way, Worldwide Web, keeps her up till two in the morning enthusing and cruising, or whatever they do.’

I rang the police and got through to Sergeant Bell. I told her it had been Thursday when Jimmy Achebe rang me and left his message. It was an alibi, wasn’t it? It was exactly the same time as the attack on Tina. There was no way he could have made it to work all the way over in Swinton in time to ring me if he’d done it. She wouldn’t commit herself. Was he still being held? He was. Was there any other evidence to contradict the alibi? She couldn’t divulge any information. I felt like throttling her. Why couldn’t she bring herself to admit that the tape was pretty watertight proof that Jimmy was innocent? Did the truth not suit the case they’d been building? If she wouldn’t tell me anything now I’d make a point of ringing her regularly until she did. If only to remind her that I knew about the alibi and that I expected them to release Jimmy as a result.

I had a cheese salad butty and then cycled to the office supplies place in Didsbury to get a new tape for my answerphone. While I was in the area I called at the cheese shop and stocked up. I was always overwhelmed by the choice but invariably ended up with the same tasty Lancashire, mature Cheddar and a soft Irish blue called Cashell. At the health food shop I bought tinned chickpeas, vegeburger mix, live yogurt and olives. Everywhere adverts exhorted me to celebrate Mother’s Day –with chocolates, flowers, food, teddy bears. There was even a sign attached to the lamppost pushing helicopter rides for Mother’s Day, book now! Did they get a rush on like Interflora did?

In the couple of hours left before collecting the children I decided to put some work into the garden. The first weeds were just emerging. I spent time clearing those, digging out myriad small dandelions. Then I shovelled out the compost ready for forking in round the shrubs and in the borders. Over the winter the brick box had got covered with dead wood and brambles. I raked those into a pile for a bonfire. I scraped the bottom of the box clear all ready for new waste.

We had a large garden which I’d made my own over the years that we’d rented the house. The basics had been there before, lawn, flowerbeds, rockery. To them I’d added a bower cum-patio next to the house, a suntrap for the long summer afternoons. We’d put a sandpit in for the kids and a climbing frame. And I’d divided off the bottom of the garden with lattices up which I grew clematis, honeysuckle and annual sweet peas. That area got the morning sun.

My plans included a water feature. I’d been keen on the notion of a fountain and pool but one look at the price of pumps to circulate the water had shifted the scheme from intention to pipe dream. Maybe when my boat came in.. . I could still go for a pond anyway.

I dug in some of the compost. In the crisp March air it was hard to imagine the scents and colours that summer would bring. By the time I’d done one border my shoulders and back were aching and my time was up. I washed my hands and face, watched the great tits on the bird nuts for a couple of minutes. I’d worked away some of the tension left from dealing with Agnes that morning. And I was thankful that the job, with its erratic nature, at least allowed me time, precious time. For weeding and watching birds feeding and for playing in the soil.

Lily had gone. Agnes and I stood in the room next to the bed she’d occupied. It had been stripped down and made fresh. I looked in the locker. It was empty.

‘I’ll go and find out what’s happening,’ I said, sounding more relaxed than I felt. Agnes nodded. She looked bewildered, a tremor shook her lower lip. She’d been tense and silent on the journey to the hospital.

If Lily was dead, how would Agnes bear it? But Lily hadn’t been frail, not in that sense, when I’d called on Saturday.

I saw the Irish nurse, whom I’d met before, along the corridor and asked her if we could have a word. She came into the room.

‘Do you know what’s happened?’ I asked

‘Mrs Palmer, is it?’ She checked.

‘Yes.’

‘I think she had a fall. They’ve taken her into the Infirmary. You’d be better talking to Mrs Li. I wasn’t on duty.’

Agnes followed me back to the reception area. Mrs Li told us that Lily had fallen early the previous evening. Dr Montgomery had been at the Unit and was able to assess her immediately. He recommended her transfer to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He suspected that the fall had caused a small bleed to the brain. A scan and X-rays would show whether that was the case and whether there was any need to operate.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Agnes, ‘how is she? How did she fall?’

‘I really don’t know, I wasn’t here. We do get a lot of falls,’ she tried to reassure us, ‘problems with mobility. It was fortunate she was seen so promptly and I’m sure she’ll get the very best treatment there. She’s gone to the Regional Neurosurgery Unit, Mr Simcock’s the consultant. He’s very good,’ she persisted, ‘one of the best neurosurgeons there is anywhere.’

The phone rang and we waited while she answered it.

A woman with ill-matched clothes and lank grey hair had been hovering nearby, muttering repeatedly to herself. She moved closer, her hands clasped in front of her.

‘Did she fall or was she pushed? Answer me that. Humpty Dumpty fell, Baby Bunting fell, atishoo, atishoo, all fall down. They fell. She didn’t.’

‘Lily,’ I said, ‘Lily Palmer, did you see what happened? Did she fall?’

The woman shook her head on and on. Did she mean Lily hadn’t fallen or that she hadn’t seen anything?

‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.  They took her, just like that.’ She kissed the air, turned and wandered away. It was impossible to know whether she really had something to tell us or whether she was living in a world of her own.

Mrs Li finished her call. ‘I’m sorry, is there anything else?’

I asked her which ward Lily was on.

‘I’m not sure. If you find the Neurosurgical Unit and ask there, they’ll tell you.’

It was a fairly direct route up Princess Parkway towards Manchester and the Infirmary. The dual carriageway was always busy; it was one of the main links to the airport and motorways.

‘That woman,’ I said, ‘the other patient, she seemed to think Lily hadn’t fallen.’

‘Or that she’d been pushed?’ Agnes sighed. ‘It’s one thing after another. First her getting ill, then she’s so bad they send her to Kingsfield, now this…I do hope she’s all right.’

‘She has fallen before,’ I pointed out. ‘She can’t have been that steady on her feet. It could well be just one of those accidents.’

‘I wish there’d been someone…’

I braked sharply to avoid the lorry ahead, whose brake lights were conveniently covered by a lowered tailgate. ‘Sorry, go on.’

‘It would have helped to talk to someone who’d been there

at the time,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get any idea of how serious it

might be.’

‘I don’t think they’d take her in so quickly unless it was urgent. But Mrs Li said they’d do X-rays and scans before they decided if surgery was needed. I suppose they’ll know from those how bad she is. It sounded as if she might be all right without any operation.’

‘Oh, I hope so. You know, if they are doing a scan,’ she said, ‘they should also be able to see whether there are changes in the brain, lesions or plaques they call them. There were pictures in one of those books I read. They show up quite clearly on scans, apparently. It could confirm once and for all whether Lily has got Alzheimer’s.’

‘You’re still not convinced about that?’

‘No. Not until they prove it to me.’

‘But Dr Montgomery, he thinks it’s Alzheimer’s, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes. They all do. Charles said they were intending to book Lily in for a scan eventually to look at the extent of the disease but she’d have to go on the waiting list. It’s an expensive piece of equipment.’

We reached the Moss Side junction and I turned right past the old Harp Lager place and into Moss Lane East.

‘And eighty-five-year-olds aren’t exactly a high priority,’ she added dryly.

Manchester Royal Infirmary, another redbrick Victorian edifice, sits on the fringe of the university sector just up the road from the Rusholme curry shops. Day and night flocks of students can be seen parading to and from lectures and social events. We parked in the car park at the back and made our way to the main corridor. Murals and mosaics relieved the monotony of the long walk to the ward. The wide corridor bustled with a mixture of staff in various uniforms, visitors in everyday clothes and patients in varying degrees of undress – often swathed in cellular blankets.

At the Neurosurgery Unit we stopped off at the nurses’ station. Four nurses were there. They appeared to be discussing papers and one of them was standing and entering notes on a white-board. She looked across as we hovered at the door.

‘Can I help you?’

‘We’ve come to see Mrs Palmer,’ said Agnes. ‘She was transferred yesterday evening from Kingsfield.’

‘Oh yes, she was admitted last night,’ said one of the seated nurses.

‘She’s gone up, I think,’ said another.

‘Yes,’ said the nurse at the wall, ‘she’s in pre-op at the moment. It could be quite a while before she’s through. There’s a waiting room round the corner or you could ring in later.’

‘Is there someone we can talk to?’ I asked. ‘We’ve only just heard about the fall. We don’t know any of the details.’

‘I’ll see if we can get one of the doctors down to have a word. Would you like to take a seat in the waiting room?’

We went into the lounge, which was empty apart from one woman in a tartan tracksuit watching a quiz show. There was a drinks machine in the corner. I got us each a dubious-looking tea, then went off in search of the toilet.

When I came back Agnes was sitting ramrod straight, looking anxious. ‘I’ve just seen Dr Goulden,’ she said.

The tracksuit woman flicked her eyes our way, obviously interested by the tone in Agnes’ voice.

‘With another man, very tall,’ said Agnes.

‘Moustache?’ checked the woman.

Agnes agreed.

‘That was Mr Simcock – he’s the brain surgeon. They reckon he’s up for a knighthood. Ahead of his time and all that.’