A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 25

Ruth is relieved when morning comes. She doesn’t think that she slept for more than a few minutes all night. But those few minutes were enough for terrible dreams: Nelson drowning, his hand stretched out to her, Erik’s voice calling from the sea, Cathbad turning into a snake, hissing ‘sleep little three eyes,’ and Kate, always Kate: Kate burning with fever, Kate lying dead in her cot, Kate lost in the dark, searching for her. When Kate’s imperious crying wakes her at six, Ruth is only too glad to get up. She showers with Kate in her arms and goes downstairs to get on with the day. She is so tired that her feet seem to be stuck to the floor and every step feels like uprooting them. Coffee briefly gives her enough energy to collect her rucksack and Kate’s nappy bag and get them both in the car, but by the time she reaches Sandra’s, great waves of weariness are breaking over her.

‘You don’t look too good,’ says Sandra. ‘Got the flu?’

The flu. People like Sandra make illness sound so normal, an irritation, something to be coped with and got over. But to Ruth, the slightest sniffle from Kate is the sound of impending death. Why does she feel like this? Is it because of her parents who, after they found God, also lost all faith in contemporary medicine? ‘God will provide,’ became their mantra. Ruth blames her parents bitterly for not having her vaccinated against measles, resulting in a nightmare few weeks at university. Her parents’ imaginations also became markedly more apocalyptic, their conversation littered with references to death, judgement, heaven and hell. The devil became a regular correspondent. Is this why Ruth sometimes feels that some terrible catastrophe is just around the corner, or is this just normal paranoia?

More coffee gets her through her first lecture and tutorial, but by lunchtime she is flagging. She breaks her own rule and keeps her phone on when she’s with her students. Every second she expects to hear Judy’s voice, ‘I’m sorry…’ Or perhaps she won’t ring at all. Perhaps she’ll just send a text massage. N dead. Maybe no one will bother to tell her and Ruth will have to struggle through this day and the next not knowing whether Nelson is alive or dead. She buys a sandwich from the canteen but can’t be bothered to eat it. She sits at her desk staring at her poster of Harrison Ford, the archaeologist’s pin up. She feels as if she’s in an Indiana Jones movie, running desperately through traps and obstacles, each one more cunning and improbable than the last. Should she go to see Nelson? On one level, her fear is completely irrational. Kate could easily catch a virus at Sandra’s, or at the doctor’s, or at one of the soft play areas that Ruth resorts to on rainy Saturdays. But that is different from Ruth herself passing on the infection, giving her child up to the danger, like Abraham taking Isaac to be sacrificed. Oh, bugger her parents and their Bible stories. She puts her head down on the desk.

‘Ruth!’

Ruth jerks her head up. It’s Cathbad.

‘I’ve just heard,’ he says.

Like Michelle – disconcertingly like Michelle – Cathbad looks stunned, as if he’s been involved in a car crash. This, and the fact that he’s dressed in ordinary clothes, has the effect of making him look diminished. Cathbad’s not a large man but he usually dominates any room he’s in; now he sinks into Ruth’s visitor’s chair looking almost like a student.

‘Who told you?’ asks Ruth.

‘Judy.’

That figures. ‘Is there any news?’ Ruth asks.

‘No. He’s still in a coma. The doctors are completely baffled.’

Ruth allows herself to relax very slightly. He’s not dead. Nelson’s still alive, and while he’s alive he’ll be fighting, whatever the doctors say.

‘I don’t think anyone knows what it is,’ she says.

Cathbad looks up, his eyes wide. ‘I do,’ he says.

Ruth almost laughs. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I know what’s wrong with Nelson,’ says Cathbad. ‘And, if you think about it, I think you do too.’

Ruth stares. Perhaps tiredness is making her stupider than usual but she really has no idea what Cathbad is talking about. Since when has he been a medical expert?

‘What’s wrong with him then?’

‘He’s been cursed,’ says Cathbad.

Ruth does laugh now, but inwardly she feels angry with Cathbad. This isn’t the time for his mystical new age nonsense. Nelson is ill. He’s in hospital. Nothing else matters. Then she looks at Cathbad and her anger fades. He really does look very upset. She supposes that, in his way, he’s trying to help.

‘Do you mean cursed by the bishop?’ she asks, thinking of Ted. ‘Vex not my bones and all that?’

‘No,’ says Cathbad, as if this is a ridiculous idea. ‘I think he’s been cursed by Bob.’

‘By Bob?’

‘Yes. Do you remember the evening at your house? Fireworks night? I said that Bob ought to point the bone at Lord Smith. Well, I think he did. That night, Lord Smith died.’

And you were nearby, thinks Ruth, visiting his daughter. Caroline who loves Uluru Rock and the red heart of Australia. ‘But why would Bob curse Nelson?’ she asks.

Cathbad frowns. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he was angry because the police hadn’t been able to get his ancestors back. Maybe Nelson was just near Smith at the time of the curse. Maybe it backfired on him.’

‘Backfired on him?’

‘That can happen,’ says Cathbad, ‘with a very powerful curse, and Bob is a proper shaman, a Wirinun they’re called. He has pretty devastating powers. Maybe he’s cursed everyone to do with the museum.’

‘What about me?’ says Ruth. ‘I was at the museum. I actually handled the bones.’

‘Oh, he’s put a circle of protection round you,’ said Cathbad. ‘He told me so.’

Ruth supposes that she should be grateful but she just feels disorientated, as if she is still in one of her livid dreams. How can she be sitting here with Cathbad, discussing curses and witch doctors as if they are everyday things? She realises that Cathbad is still speaking, ‘… Bob cursed Danforth Smith and he died. I don’t know how but Nelson somehow got involved in that curse, but he’s not dead. He’s lost. He’s wandering. He’s lost in the Dreaming.’

Ruth remembers the dark, the fire, the sound of the singing sticks. Fire is our gateway to the Dreaming. Was it really only two days ago?

‘Well, what can we do about it?’ she asks. ‘If Nelson’s stuck in Dreamtime or whatever?’

‘I’m going to go and get him back,’ says Cathbad.

‘What do you mean “go and get him back”?’ Irritation – and fear – makes Ruth’s voice sharp.

‘Just that. I’m going to enter the Dreaming.’

‘How?’

‘You don’t need to know the details. I’m going to take drugs, hallucogens, I’m going to burn eucalyptus leaves, I’m going to chant, I’m going to chew certain herbs. Then, I believe, I will enter the Dreaming and I’ll find Nelson.’

‘What if you don’t? What if you die of a bloody drugs overdose?’

‘Ruth,’ Cathbad looks at her kindly. ‘I know you’re scared but it’s OK. I know what I’m doing.’

This, Ruth considers, is the single least reassuring statement she has ever heard.

‘Cathbad.’ She, in her turn, tries to sound soothing, tries to channel Judy’s professional voice. ‘You’re upset. We’re all upset. Jesus, I still can’t believe it. Nelson’s the last person in the world I thought would ever get ill like this. But he’s in hospital. He’s in the best place. And he’s tough. He’ll pull through.’ Say it enough times, she tells herself, and you’ll begin to believe it.

‘There’s nothing the hospital can do,’ says Cathbad.

‘This is beyond modern medicine.’

‘Listen to yourself!’ shouts Ruth. ‘Do you know how insane you sound? This isn’t about curses or… or… Dreaming. Nelson is sick. He’s caught something. Can’t you, for once in your life, realise that it’s nothing to do with you.’

There is a silence. Ruth wonders if Phil, in the next-door office, heard her yelling. He’ll be round in a second, if so. But Phil does not materialise.

‘I want to do it at your house,’ says Cathbad.

‘What?’

‘I think the energy would be better on the Saltmarsh. And it’s near Bob, I might absorb some of his power.’

‘Are you saying that you want to come over to my house to have a drugs trip? In front of my daughter? What if you die? It’ll traumatise her for life.’

‘It’d traumatise me too,’ says Cathbad reasonably. Then he smiles. He has a singularly disarming smile.

‘Please Ruth. I know you’d do anything to help Harry.’

Nelson is in the dark. He can hear the sea. Is it Brighton or Blackpool? The present or the past? There are voices in the water, in the surf and the backwash, but he can’t hear what they’re saying yet. There are lights too, objects just out of his reach. He hears singing and thinks it might be his mother, her Irish voice full of sadness. Dolores of the sorrows. The black coach pulled by six black horses. The coachman knocks three times on your door. Does this mean that he’s dying? It doesn’t hurt if so, but something’s wrong. He can’t die yet. He’s got things to do. His children. He struggles to remember their names. There was once a king and he had three daughters. Rebecca, Laura. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. Kate. Kiss me Kate. When you hear the banshee, you know your time is up.

And then, through the darkness, he sees a boat coming towards him. A boat that looks as if it is made of stone. And there’s a man on the boat, a man with long silvery hair. He has a band around his head almost like a crown. His eyes are blue, terrifyingly blue.

‘Nelson,’ he says, in a strange sing-song accent that is like the sea itself. ‘Raise up your hand to me and I will save you.’

But the black tide carries him away again.

As soon as she finishes her last tutorial, Ruth packs up her bag and makes for the door. Cathbad has told her that he’ll be round at nine, ‘with all that’s necessary’. Is she really going to let Cathbad do this ridiculous thing? Is she going to let him dance round a bonfire, then go upstairs and take drugs? Under her roof? What if Cathbad dies and she’ll be known forever as the university lecturer whose colleague died in her house after a drug-fuelled orgy? What if he dies and she never sees him again? What if Cathbad and Nelson both die and Kate is left without a father figure of any kind, apart from Flint and the postman?

But she can’t just sit around and do nothing. She may have refused to help Nelson but she can’t stand in the way of Cathbad’s efforts, however lunatic they may be. Is it because, over the years, she has absorbed enough of Cathbad’s mumbo-jumbo to think that it’s possible for there actually to be a dream world where souls wander between life and death? She hears Erik’s voice. One step the wrong way and you’re dead, straight to hell. Keep on the path and it’ll lead you to heaven.

‘Ruth! You look like you’re in another world.’

It’s Shona, glowing and beautiful in a purple smock over white jeans. Her hair, almost orange in the afternoon sunlight, clashes brilliantly with the Imperial purple. She looks like a stained-glass window come to life.

‘I just came in to get some books for Phil. He’s still suffering with this flu, poor darling.’

So that was why Phil didn’t come charging in earlier. Still struck down with terminal man flu.

‘Are you OK, Ruth? You look awfully pale.’

Perhaps because Shona looks so vibrant and full of life while she feels so low, Ruth has a sudden desire to tell Shona everything.

‘It’s Nelson…’ she begins.

She tells Shona about Nelson’s illness and Michelle’s visit. When she gets to the part about seeing Nelson, Shona says, as Ruth knew she would.

‘But why would Michelle want you to go to see Nelson?’

Ruth says nothing. She knows Shona will work it out sooner or later.

‘Ruth! Nelson’s not…?’

Ruth nods.

‘Bloody hell.’ Shona sits down heavily on Ruth’s visitor’s chair.

‘Nelson’s Kate’s father?’

‘Yes.’

‘And his wife knows?’

‘She found out at the christening.’

‘How?’

Funny, Ruth has never asked this question. ‘I don’t know.’

‘God, Ruth,’ Shona is staring at her now, half-resentfully, half almost admiringly. ‘Nelson. I’d never have guessed. I thought you didn’t like him much.’

‘He has his moments,’ says Ruth drily.

‘Did you have an affair with him?’

‘It was just one night,’ says Ruth. ‘That’s all it takes.’

‘One night? Jesus, Ruth, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t want to tell anyone.’

‘Does Cathbad know?’

‘I think he suspects.’

‘What about Phil?’

‘Please don’t tell Phil!’

It comes out almost as a scream. Ruth realises that she is very near tears.

‘All right,’ says Shona soothingly. ‘I won’t tell Phil. So now Nelson’s wife wants you to visit him. Bloody hell, that’s big of her.’

Ruth lowers her eyes. ‘I know.’

‘She must really love him.’

‘She does.’

Shona looks at her curiously. ‘Why did you say no?’

‘It’s Kate,’ says Ruth. ‘I’m scared of her getting sick.’

‘But she wasn’t asking you to take Kate, was she? Babies aren’t allowed in hospitals. I know that because Phil’s boys won’t be allowed in to see me when I have the baby. It’s a bit harsh, I think.’

‘I know but I might carry some germs back to her, infect her. No one knows what’s wrong with Nelson.’

Ruth looks almost timidly at her friend. She half wants Shona to tell her that she’s doing the right thing. Ruth has slept with another woman’s husband and is now refusing to move a muscle to save that man’s life but she’s still doing the right thing. The other half of her wants Shona to say that she’s being ridiculous and to order her a minicab to the hospital.

But Shona is still looking at her as if she has never seen her before.

‘Michelle must really love him,’ she says again.

Judy is sitting at Nelson’s desk. Dead man’s shoes, she thinks morbidly. But Nelson’s still alive and where there’s life there’s hope and all those other irritating, but none the less oddly reassuring, clichés. It’s darkest before dawn. Where did she hear that one recently? Got to get worse before it gets better, she tells herself savagely, looking at the transcript of her interview with Randolph Smith. Does she really think that there’s anything suspicious about Danforth Smith’s death? She has requested a copy of the death certificate. Cause of death: I Myocardial infarction II diabetes mellitus. Seems straightforward enough, heart attack complicated by an existing medical condition, but what about all that spooky stuff with the snakes? Did something happen that night that literally scared Lord Smith to death?

She thinks about Randolph. She did find him attractive, in a theoretical way, though she would never admit as much to Clough. He’s not really her type though; she’s never been one for posh men. But then Cathbad’s not exactly Judy’s type either, which doesn’t explain why she can’t keep away from him; why, within seconds of meeting, they are ripping each other’s clothes off despite promising each other solemnly that it’s never going to happen again. Judy can’t explain it and she doesn’t try. For the past few months she’s been wandering around in an erotic trance, knowing that she’s headed for disaster. And now this news about Nelson… Cathbad had been devastated when she told him, unlike Ruth, who had seemed strangely cold. She wonders, fearfully, whether Nelson’s illness will be the final catalyst that will send the whole edifice of her life tumbling to the ground. The last straw, the last nail in the coffin, and various other clichés.

She ought to have another team meeting but she can’t face it just yet. Clough and Tanya are trudging round the haulage yards, Rocky is out on a course designed to turn him (not before time) into a ‘twenty-first-century police professional’. Only Tom Henty is in the building and Judy is rather afraid of Tom, having been told once too often how he was out on the beat before she was even born. Maybe she should go back to the yard and confront Len Harris. It would be easier without Clough cringing at the horses and putting his flat foot in the horse muck. She allows herself a slight smile, reliving the episode. Then she stops, smile frozen on her face. She sees the offending pile of manure, hears Clough’s furious cursing and she sees something else too, sees it for the first time.

She knows what’s going on at Slaughter Hill Stables.