Parallel Life (23 page)

Satellite TV had been a mistake. Sal would come home from work, throw off her coat and shoes, switch on and watch all evening. She watched anything and everything, and he was fed up with it. ‘When are you going to clean up?' he asked repeatedly.

She would look at him, sniff, and ask him the same question. ‘I'm at work all day and looking for your bloody gun – what the hell do you expect? Can't you do something while I'm out? I'm too tired.'

He always had an excuse, of course. He had installed an alarm, gone to mend a faulty one, had helped a friend with some decorating. ‘Can't we have a decent meal for once?' he asked, looking down at his microwaved Sainsbury's ‘Peppered Beef with Vegetables'.

‘If you want to cook, feel free,' she answered. She found it amazing how she had stopped loving him. All her life, since her mid-teens, she had been head-over-heels with Jimmy Nuttall. He made her laugh, caused her to feel special, stopped the loneliness. But now she wanted him gone.

He knelt on the floor beside her. For a silly moment, she imagined that he was about to propose, but that would be impossible because he was still legally married. ‘What now?' she asked.

‘Didn't you say the prof was going to New Zealand?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then you can search his office. That's the only place you haven't tried.'

Sal closed her eyes. ‘You've no idea, have you? I was told to give it a miss unless he asked for something to be done. There's stuff to the ceiling in places. Some of it's been there that long, the bottom layers have gone all yellow.'

‘Then don't touch anything that's gone yellow, because yellow means it hasn't been disturbed in years.' Didn't she have any sense at all? If an item had been hidden in that office, whatever hid it must have been moved.

Sal was getting annoyed now. ‘Look, Jimmy. I am reaching the end of my rope here. I clean, I cook, I end up in daft places for your sake, and that Irishwoman keeps catching me at it. She's sly, tiptoes around in brothel-creeper shoes. They know I'm up to something. And I think they know that I know they know.'

Jimmy blinked just once. ‘So? They can't prove anything except you're good at your job, eh?'

‘I've had enough,' she said. ‘I've had more than e-bloody-nough, if I'm honest. I want me other jobs back. I was all right till you came.'

His eyes narrowed. ‘All right? All right? You still had your father's teeth in a glass over there, and all his pills lined up. The place was a midden, and you know it. It's getting that way again – is this the thanks I get for buying you new furniture and a big telly?'

Sal scraped the last bit of gravy from the bottom of her plastic dish. ‘If you want staff, you'd best hire them, Jimmy Nuttall, because I am not fettling all day up yon, then coming back here to wait hand and foot on you.'

He returned to his chair and sat. ‘Just leave the office window slightly open,' he said. ‘If it's alarmed, I'll just have to jump out quick.'

‘And if they catch you?'

He scarcely heard her. The fact was that he felt as if he might be losing his grip altogether. If the gun reached the police, if Annie spoke up, he was done for. He would go to jail for something he had not done. It would be a long sentence, far longer than the punishment for housebreaking and burglary. If he got the gun back, he could be relatively safe. If he got caught trying to get the gun, Annie and the rest might well breathe a sigh of relief and leave him to serve the shorter sentence for the burglary of Weaver's Warp. But, with him captured and removed, they would still have the weapon. After he had done his time, he would continue in this mess.

The police were looking for him – or so the coven of witches had said. Already a hunted man, he needed to ensure that any prison time would be kept to a minimum. He was sick of all this turning in his mind all the time, felt as if his brain would burst if something didn't happen soon.

The old woman had ordered him to keep her family out of it. She was the one with all the power. If that gun showed its barrel, he would drag Lisa through the mud, would try to make her an accomplice, at least, in the alarm crimes. But Birmingham? He could not think past Birmingham. And Lisa Compton-Milne was respected: Chamber of Commerce, Association of Bolton Traders, all that kind of stuff. Who would take his word against hers? He'd been in trouble off and on all his life, so . . .

‘Jimmy?'

‘What?'

‘I'll leave that window a bit open if I can. After he's gone to New Zealand, like. Because I've heard the girl talking to her mam about the prof working in the night. He's like Maggie Thatcher – needs no sleep.'

‘Aye, and she brought the country to its knees, didn't she? Businesses closing, folk losing their houses just so she could try and keep the bloody pound clean.' Sal was staring at him. ‘What?' he asked.

‘Are you in a bad mood?'

Was he in a bad mood? Where had Sal been for the last few weeks? He was always in a bad mood.

‘I liked Mrs Thatcher,' Sal said. ‘She was the best man in England at the time. We'll not see the likes of her in a hurry.'

Jimmy made no reply. He had seen her double only too recently. The name was Mrs Hermione Compton-Milne . . .

Sister Mary Magdalene began yet another decade of rosary. Mathilda was breathing on her own. This had happened before on several occasions, but this time she was having no trouble at all. Machines measured, clicked and beeped, all recording that the patient was maintaining a decent level of oxygen and a good heart rhythm.

Although she considered herself fully prepared for further developments, Magda almost fell off her chair when the finger moved. It was happening. The good Lord had answered all the prayers, and the princess in the tower was showing signs of mobility. Magda pressed a bell. After a minute or so, Mother Benedict put in an appearance. ‘Yes?' she asked, breathless after dashing up the stairs.

‘She moved the index finger of the right hand.'

‘Are you sure?'

Magda nodded. ‘Praise God,' she mumbled.

Mother Benedict did not quite share in Magda's joy. This had been a coma of great length and, when Mathilda had been a child, waking had meant sedation because of the fits. Many times, the sedation had been reduced and the patient had breathed unaided, but she always reverted to type: fitting, failing to breathe, coming very close to death.

‘She's going to be all right, isn't she, Mother?' Magda asked.

Mother Benedict had no idea. This young girl had never walked, never spoken, had not responded to any stimulus. Could she hear the music that was played for her each day? Did she listen when someone read aloud to her? ‘I don't know, Magda. Before you joined the order, we hoped on many occasions that she was going to recover. But there has to be something wrong with her wiring, or she would have woken properly a long time ago.'

‘Where there's life, there's hope. Is that not right, Mother?'

The head of the convent agreed with a nod of her head. ‘But we have all questioned our consciences on this matter, have we not?'

‘Yes, I suppose so.'

‘As Catholics, we are bred to believe in life at any price. But I have looked at this injured child of ours and I have wondered. What sort of life is this? Should we be keeping her alive with machinery? Would it not have been kinder to let her go when her breathing deteriorated?'

‘Then you question the very core of our faith, Mother. And yes, I have done the same. There – see? The finger moved again.'

‘Yes, I saw. But I won't contact her visitor. There is no point in raising hopes needlessly. It's far too cruel.' Mother leaned over the bed and kissed the pale forehead on its paler pillow. There was something so unbearably sad about Mathilda. She lingered somewhere between life and death, never truly living, never completely escaping the bonds of human flesh. ‘Let me know if anything further develops, Magda.'

‘Of course, Mother.'

The finger did not move again during Magda's shift. There was no flicker of an eyelid, no motion at all save for the steady movement of the girl's ribcage as she took in and expelled air. If she could do that, if she could move a finger and remember to breathe, surely there must be a chance of recovery?

The nun continued to count her beads until relief arrived and she was free to return to her depleted convent. She went reluctantly because she wanted to be there when Mathilda woke, wanted to share the adventure. Would she understand words, would she recognize Vivaldi, Beethoven, Chopin?

Magda descended the stairs, finding herself wondering what would become of Mathilda when all the sisters were gone. There were no novices, no postulants, no young women willing to dedicate their lives to the service of man in the name of God. The world was changing, depreciating; mankind became more selfish with each passing year.

But there were carrots to peel, paying guests to feed. Worries had to be postponed for now. Yet Mary Magdalene's unease plagued her for the rest of the day. She would not be satisfied until she saw Mathilda again.

Annie was exhausted.

She had just got the twins bedded down, had acted as referee in a row about a computer game, and was ready to settle down with her jewellery books. Working with precious stones and metals was delicious. She loved the feel of gold and silver, the sight of a good, well-cut diamond with its deep, rich heart. Wearing a suit at work was great, too. In her previous job, it had been a sweaty nylon overall; even a bucketful of Chanel Number Five could never have eradicated the stench of cooking fat and vinegar. Now, all dressed up and somewhere to go, she was pleased when a customer asked a question, delighted when she was able to answer sensibly, but did not mind if she had to refer to Lisa or Simon.

She grinned. Simon was a card. During tea breaks, he would regale her with tales of Canal Street in Manchester, the wonderful restaurants, the outrageous karaoke, the gays' molls who came along just for the fun of it all. ‘Come and be my moll,' he would beg repeatedly. ‘I can show a girl a good time, sweet. And my Derek would love you.' Except that Simon didn't say ‘love'. He allowed the word to reach out far beyond its natural life, so that it became ‘lo-o-o-ove. He was a scream.

Annie grabbed her mug of Nescafé and placed it on a side table at the end of the sofa. Tonight, she intended to find out why a red sapphire was not a ruby, since both stones were basically corundum. She flicked through a few pages, went back to the index, sighed when World War Three broke out again upstairs. ‘If you two don't shut up, there'll be no spending money come Friday,' she yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

Someone giggled, but silence ensued.

Annie turned to find herself staring into the familiar eyes of her departed husband. Except, he looked different. There was a wildness about him, a desperation that made her feel almost sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. ‘What do you want?' she asked. ‘You're supposed to stay away, because you upset Lisa something shocking with all your lies and your stealing. She thought you were going to give her the world, and all you gave her was trouble.'

He bared his teeth in a nasty, mirthless grin. ‘Then she should have kept herself to herself, eh? She's a married woman, just as much to blame as I was.'

She led him away from the stairs because she did not want Billy and Craig to find out that their dad was here. They needed precious little excuse to spend more time downstairs, and she had taken her fill of their messing about for one night. ‘Get in there and keep your voice down,' she whispered.

In the living room, he settled into his usual chair. ‘Anything to eat?' he asked.

Annie laughed, though the sound was muted and hollow. ‘It takes me all my time to feed the three kids. No. The chippy's open – go and get something.'

He looked her up and down. ‘So. You've gone from dishing out mushy peas to flogging diamonds and pearls. How did you manage that? After all, you and madam should be sworn enemies.'

‘Don't talk so wet,' she answered. ‘You're not worth fighting over. We got on right from day one, me and Lisa—'

‘Once you'd taken her hair off your hands and scraped her skin from under your fingernails.' He leaned forward. ‘I want to come home when this is all sorted out,' he pleaded.

Annie's eyebrows shot upward. ‘You what? You're going to jail, Jimmy Nuttall. All those houses burgled after you fitted the alarms – you're history, mate. Now go before I call the cops myself.'

He bared his teeth again. ‘You won't do that, Annie. You don't want to be the one who put the kids' dad away, do you? Oh and by the way – go near the phone and I'll break your bloody neck.'

A short silence followed the threat. It was his eyes that betrayed him. They couldn't keep still. He blinked a lot, while his gaze darted about like a wasp in a fury at the end of summer. She suddenly realized that she was frightened. If he didn't hurt her now, he could get her any time he chose. Worse than that, he could get her children. There was little point in reasoning with him. He was clearly past the point of sensible discussion. To her untrained eye, he looked as if he might be on the verge of lunacy. ‘Why are you here?' she asked eventually. ‘I thought you were long gone.'

He made no reply.

‘Jimmy?'

‘What?' He jumped, was startled as if he had been woken from deep sleep.

‘I asked why you came here.'

He shrugged, but his shoulders remained rigid and tense. ‘To get some more clothes and to ask you about that gun.'

Only the ticking of an old clock filled the next few seconds.

‘Well?' he said.

‘I haven't got it.'

‘Then who has?' He stood up, crossed the room and grabbed her hair, lifting her out of her seat. ‘Tell me,' he snarled.

She refused to scream. The lads would be down faster than sugar off a shiny shovel if she yelled. The pain was intense. She could feel strands of hair ripping out at the roots. ‘Let me go,' she sobbed.