Precious Time (14 page)

She’d do anything to avoid being laid low with gastro-enteritis - even cook for this vinegary old man. ‘We’ve got plenty of eggs and bacon.’

He looked at her shrewdly. ‘Are you implying that my house isn’t good enough for you? That it’s not clean?’

‘I’m not implying anything of the kind,’ she said, rising from the chair to escape the gas heater and its noxious fumes. ‘I’m telling you straight. The house, what I’ve seen of it, is a health hazard.’

He flared his nostrils. ‘For one so young, you have quite a nerve, Miss Costello. Are you always so direct with people you hardly know?’

She gave him a conciliatory smile. ‘Like you said earlier, sometimes there are occasions when one is forced into a position of making an exception. Which means I’m being unusually restrained with you.

You should think yourself lucky.’

He gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘Ned, m’boy, you have an

extraordinary mother, did you know that? And just to prove that I don’t harbour any ill feelings, I’m going to take up her offer of a cooked breakfast. That should teach her a lesson for shooting her impertinent mouth off, shouldn’t it?’

Inside the campervan, Gabriel tucked hungrily into his plate of bacon and eggs, relishing every mouthful. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten a cooked breakfast.

‘Would you like some ketchup, Mr Liberty?’ asked Ned, from across the narrow table, a piece of streaky bacon dangling from his fork.

‘Ketchup’s for caffs,’ Gabriel replied tersely. ‘It’s the opium of the common folk.’

‘What’s opium?’

‘He doesn’t need to know,’ his mother chipped in, ‘and don’t speak with your mouth full.’

‘Are you referring to me or your son?’

‘To both of you.’

‘Why don’t I need to know?’

‘Yes, Miss Costello, come along now, don’t be shy. Surely you have an answer for your naturally inquisitive son. You seem to have an answer for just about everything else.’ To his delight, a slightly raised eyebrow indicated that he had scored a point.

‘It’s a drug made from poppies, Ned,’ she said, ‘and it’s highly addictive. It melts your brain. And before you ask what addictive means, it means that you want it all the time.’

‘Like chocolate?’

‘Yes. But you want it even more than chocolate.’

‘But how does it melt your brain? And if I ate too much chocolate, would my brain melt? Would it pour out through my ears, going gloopy-gloopy-gloop if I shook my head?’ He gave them a demonstration, his eyes swivelling.

Gabriel was reminded of Caspar and Damson as small children.

They had always been on at him, question after tiresome question.

There had never seemed enough answers in the world for them.

Jonah had been the opposite, hardly opening his mouth. If he wanted to know something he found it out for himself. ‘Jonah’s an intelligent boy, Gabriel,’ Val often said. ‘You should do more to encourage him.

Try to show how proud you are of him.’ But Jonah had thrown away his potential.

Sighing inwardly and feeling his good humour drain out of him, Gabriel stabbed a piece of toast into the yolk of his second egg. He could remember the stinging blow Jonah had dealt him when he had announced his intention to become a teacher. They had been in the library, the setting sun turning the room amber, shafts of light catching the motes of dust in the warm air, music coming from some other part of the house. ‘Please, Dad,’ he had said, his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets, ‘don’t make this any harder for me than it already is. Just hear me out and respect my decision. That’s all I ask.’

‘And all I’ve ever asked of you is your respect, loyalty and duty, as my father expected them of me.’

‘And maybe your father was wrong to expect so much of you.

Perhaps if he had treated you differently, you might have treated us differently.’

Incensed at the doubled-edged criticism levelled at both himself and his father - a man he had both feared and idolised - Gabriel had done the unthinkable: he had lashed out and struck Jonah, knocking him clean off his feet. In shock he had watched his younger son pick himself up from the floor, then touch the bloodied corner of his mouth. But something more than anger was raging inside Gabriel, something far worse that made his fists itch to strike Jonah again. He never knew whether Jonah had done it deliberately, but his gaze, as he dusted himself down, moved from Gabriel’s face to the portrait of Anastasia above the fireplace. It was as if he was saying, ‘And what would she say of your behaviour?’ But in a quiet, and wholly restrained voice, he had said, ‘Why can’t you trust me to cock up my own life, Dad? Why try to do it for me?’

Not another word passed between them. Not for the rest of that evening, that week or the months that followed. When Jonah walked out on him that night, Gabriel didn’t set eyes on him again for a year.

He had never thought of his younger son as stubborn - that was more Caspar and Damson’s style - but his absence from Mermaid House during those twelve months proved beyond measure that he was as stubborn as Gabriel himself. He could almost respect his son for that.

The sound of an engine jolted Gabriel out of his thoughts. ‘Shall I go and see who it is?’ asked Ned, already slipping down from his seat and opening the top half of the campervan door so that he could peer out. ‘It’s a car,’ he announced, standing on tiptoe. ‘There’s someone to see you, Mr Liberty.’

‘Top marks, young man,’ said Gabriel, using his hand to wipe a peephole through the steamed-up window and recognising, with annoyance, the mobile Japanese torture chamber that had pulled into the courtyard. Didn’t the wretched man have the sick and the dying to attend to?

‘Shall I invite him in, Mummy?’

‘No, Ned, I’m sure Mr Liberty would rather entertain his guest in the comfort of his own home.’

Gabriel put a last piece of sausage into his mouth and rose stiffly to his feet. He had a nasty feeling that he knew why Dr Singh had called today, and if he was ever going to get the irritating quack off his case, he was going to have to engage his brain in some nimble thinking.

Dr Singh was already knocking on the back door by the time Gabriel made it across the courtyard in the rain. ‘You know what your trouble is,’ he said to the doctor, ‘you’ve got too much time on your hands. I suppose you want to come in?’

‘Good morning to you, Mr Liberty. Yes, entry to your fine house so that we can both get out of this terrible rain would be in both our interests, I suspect.’

‘And I suspect you of foul play,’ Gabriel said when they were standing in the kitchen, and Dr Singh had removed his wet coat and was requesting a look at his arm. ‘You’re keeping a close watch on me and I don’t like it.’

‘Mm … that’s good. It’s improving nicely. Eye next. Foul play? In what way?’

‘You’re biding your time before you start insisting that I do something about getting help around my house. You’ll pull another of your blackmail stunts on me if I don’t do as you say.’

‘Tsk - tsk, Mr Liberty. I can’t think what you’re referring to. Mm … yes, your eye looks much better. But you do need help and I’m determined to make you see that. It’s a big house you have here. And you’re not—’

‘And I’m not getting any younger,’ Gabriel finished for him. ‘Blahdi-blah-di-blah.

You’re just dying to get Social Services on to me,

aren’t you? You’d like nothing better than to have me rehoused in a tiny box with a warden banging on the door every ten minutes to check I haven’t gassed myself through boredom. Why don’t you just have done with it and measure me up for a coffin?’

‘A tempting suggestion, and certainly something to consider. As risky as it is, may I wash my hands?’ He pulled out a small hand towel from his medical bag, along with a tiny bar of wrapped soap.

‘Oh, please, be my guest.’

‘Talking of which, would I be correct in thinking you have one?’

The doctor looked through the window, out across the courtyard. ‘A member of your family, perhaps? Or are you about to take to the road and broaden your horizons?’

‘My horizons are plenty broad enough, thank you. If you must know …’ But his words petered out. ‘Family,’ he repeated, ‘why did you say that?’

‘A shot in the dark.’

Family, echoed Gabriel privately. Now there was an idea. But would it work? Surely it had to be worth a try? ‘Actually, your stab in the dark is spot on. My daughter’s come to stay with me.’

Dr Singh turned off the tap with the tip of a forefinger, picked the small white towel from his shoulder, and dried his hands. ‘You’ve had a change of heart, then?’

Gabriel looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The last time we spoke you gave the impression that your family meant little to you. Has a reconciliation taken place?’

‘Ah … something like that, yes.’

Dr Singh smiled. ‘That is wonderful news. So, will you be allowing your daughter to play a more active role in your life from now on?’

‘Oh, do me the honour of getting to the point. What you’re really asking is, am I going to let her help me clean up my act?’

‘You put it so well, Mr Liberty.’

‘And if that were to happen, would you leave me alone? Would you stop turning up here with spurious excuses to check on my welfare with blackmail on your mind?’

‘It might.’

‘Well, you stay right there while I go and fetch my daughter for you to meet. You’ll soon see that I’m now in thoroughly good hands.’

Crossing the courtyard, Gabriel had no idea if Miss Costello would play ball with him, but as he had just reasoned with himself, it had to be worth a try. All he had to do was inveigle her into telling a white lie or two and everyone would be happy.

Or, more precisely, he would be happy.

As she stacked the dirty plates to be washed, with Ned at her side on his little step ready to help, Clara listened to Mr Liberty’s extraordinary proposal. Amused, she let him grind on until at last he came to a halt and his words were left hanging awkwardly in the confined space between them. Waiting for her response, he shuffled his big feet from side to side like a naughty schoolboy up before the headmaster. ‘Now let me get this straight,’ she said, ‘you want me to pretend to be your daughter?’

He shuffled again. ‘I thought I’d just made that abundantly clear.’

‘Would it be too much of an imposition to ask why?’

‘I might have known you’d make matters difficult. Why can’t you just accept what I’ve asked you to do?’

‘Because it’s not in my nature. I like to be presented with all the salient facts before I make up my mind about anything. If I’m going to play along with your curious game of subterfuge, I think I ought to be allowed to know the whys, the hows, and the whats. So divvy up the information or leave Ned and me to get on. We have a busy day ahead of us.’

‘God damn it! You’re the most infuriating woman I have ever had the misfortune to meet, Miss Costello.’

‘With all due respect, Mr Liberty, it strikes me that you need my help more than I need your impertinence, so if you’re through with the name-calling, perhaps—’

‘All right, all right. I need you to pretend to be my daughter so that annoying quack will leave me alone. I need to prove to him that I have a loving member of my family clasped to my bosom who is eager to keep a watchful eye over me.’

‘And if you can’t prove that is the case?’

‘I’ll probably have Social Services snooping round here faster than you can say meals on bloody wheels. And they won’t leave it there.

You’ve seen the state of the house - their next move will be to have me rehoused, claiming I’m incapable of taking care of myself.’

‘You don’t think you’re overreacting just a touch? They couldn’t do that unless you allowed them to.’

‘If it was your freedom in the balance, would you want to risk it?’

She considered what he had said. Okay, maybe he was being

paranoid, and perhaps he might be better off in a more wholesome environment with a regular supply of meals, but who was to say, other than the man himself, whether he would feel better off living that way? If he wanted to spend the rest of his life, until he died from bubonic plague, surrounded by his own mess, wasn’t that his right?

She didn’t know anything about taking care of the elderly and what powers Social Services had, but she knew enough to understand that a matter of principle was at stake. Clearly Mr Liberty felt that this Dr Singh, who was currently waiting to meet his patient’s loving, caring daughter inside Mermaid House, wasn’t going to leave him alone until he had been convinced that his patient was to be looked after. If a couple of fibs was all it would take to make everyone happy, why not tell them?

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I’ll do it. And given that your doctor has been kept waiting long enough, we ought to get this over and done with immediately. We don’t have time to concoct anything elaborate so we’ll have to keep our story simple. Agreed?’

He nodded. ‘If he asks, I thought you could tell him you were coming to stay indefinitely.’

‘And Ned? What do we say about him?’

Mr Liberty hesitated. ‘I hadn’t thought of him. I suppose he’ll have to be my grandson.’

At this last remark, and with his hands cupping an enormous bubble, Ned turned from the sink. He beamed and gave the bubble a long, steady blow. It moved slowly from his hands, drifted up towards Mr Liberty and came to rest on his shoulder. Where it burst.

‘Let’s hope that’s not what’s going to happen to our story when we meet your Dr Singh,’ Clara remarked.

Dr Singh was absorbed in a three-month-old Daily Telegraph that was lying on top of a box of old shoes and jam-jars when Gabriel and his newly acquired family entered the kitchen. He raised his head when he heard their footsteps.

In a loud, jovial voice, Gabriel said, ‘Dr Singh, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Damson, and my grandson, Ned.’

‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ the doctor said, coming forward to shake hands. ‘But, Mr Liberty, you didn’t tell me you were fortunate enough to be a grandfather. And such a fine-looking boy. So like his mother. The resemblance is uncanny.’