On Beulah Height

THREE

Peter Pascoe had watched the sun rise from the roof of the hospital.

‘OK,’ he said, applauding slowly. ‘You’re so fucking clever, let’s see what you can do for my daughter.’

He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Jill Purlingstone sitting on the parapet, leaning back against the anti-suicide mesh, smoking a cigarette. He guessed she’d deliberately shuffled her feet or something to let him know he was overheard. Not that he gave a toss.

He said, ‘Looks like being a nice day.’

She said, ‘In our house, the wet days are the nice ones.’

She looked totally wrecked.

He said, ‘Didn’t know you smoked.’

‘I gave up when I found I was pregnant.’

Superstitiously he thought, then this is a bad time to start again.

She said, defensively as if he’d spoken, ‘I need something, and getting smashed didn’t seem a good idea.’

‘It has its attractions, though,’ said Pascoe.

He liked Jill. She was so determinedly down-to-earth in face of all temptations to soar. She and her husband came from the same lower middle class background, but their new-found wealth (no myth this; the salaries and share options of all the Mid-Yorkshire Water directors had been frequently listed in the local press in various articles critical of their performance) had changed her very little. Derek Purlingstone, on the other hand, had recreated himself, either deliberately or instinctively, and was now a perfect son-of-privilege clone.

Pascoe, Ellie and Jill had spent the night at the hospital. There was a limited supply of ‘guest’ beds, and the pressure had been for the men to go home, the women to stay. Purlingstone had let himself be persuaded. Pascoe hadn’t even listened. ‘No,’ he’d said, and walked away.

‘Sunday was such a nice day,’ said Jill. ‘You know, one of those perfect days.’

Why the hell was she talking about Sunday? wondered Pascoe. Then he got it and wished he hadn’t. She was looking for fragments to shore against her ruin, and Sunday, the last day before the illness struck, was being retouched into a picture of perfection.

‘Everything went so right, you know how it sometimes does,’ she continued, after she’d lit a new cigarette from her old one. ‘We got up early, packed the car; I was setting the table for breakfast when Derek said, no, don’t bother with that, we’ll eat on the way, so we just chucked everything in, milk, cornflakes, orange juice, rolls, the lot, and we stopped after a while and had a picnic breakfast, sitting on the grass, and we saw an eagle through Derek’s glasses, well, it wasn’t an eagle really, Derek said it was a peregrine but the girls were so excited at seeing an eagle it seemed a shame to disillusion them, and you could see for miles, miles, I’d have been happy just to spend the whole day there, but the others were so keen to get on, and they were right, we hardly saw any traffic along the back roads and we got this lovely spot in the dunes …’

‘I think I’d better head back,’ said Pascoe. ‘Let Ellie take a rest.’

He saw from her face he’d been more abrupt than he intended, but he couldn’t stand here letting a watch over the living turn into a wake for the dead.

Or was it just that this day she was reshaping was a day he had no part in? How far back would he need to go in search of such a perfect day, a day he had spent entirely with his family without any interruption of work? Or why blame work? Interruption from himself, his own preoccupations, his own hang-ups? In fact, even when he was with Rosie, was most enjoying her company, wasn’t there something of selfishness even in that, a use of her energy and joy as therapy for his own beleaguered mind …?

He raced down the stairs as if running from something. The anger inside which had been his companion for so long now had an object, or rather a twin object — the world in which his daughter could fall so desperately ill, and himself for letting it happen. But there was still no way he could let it out. He reached his right hand in the air as if it had somehow escaped and he was trying to claw it back inside of him.

A figure was standing on the landing below looking up at him. Embarrassed, he tried to pretend he was doing a one-armed yawn. Then he saw who it was and stopped bothering.

‘Wieldy!’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

This was probably the stupidest question he’d ever asked, but it didn’t matter because now he had reached the landing and he did not resist as his impetus took him into the other’s waiting embrace.

They held on to each other for a long moment, then Wield broke away and said, ‘I saw Ellie. She said she thought you’d be up on the roof. Pete, I’m sorry I didn’t get last night …’

‘Christ, you must have left last night to get here so early this morning.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m an early riser. Ellie says there’s no change.’

‘No, but there was definitely something last night. Ellie was out of the room and I was talking to Rosie and just for a moment I thought she was going to come out of it … I wasn’t imagining it, really I wasn’t … she definitely reacted …’

‘That’s great,’ said Wield. ‘Listen, everyone’s … well, you know. Andy’s really cut up.’

‘Yes. We spoke on the phone. He sounded … angry. Which was how I felt. Still do. I’ve been feeling angry for a long time now, you know, a sort of generalized anger at … things. What I had at home was my refuge from that. Now I’ve got something specific to be angry about, but it’s taken my refuge too …’ He rubbed his hand over his thin, pale face, and had a sudden certainty that that other Peter Pascoe had made the same gesture as he waited for the light to break for the last time on that grey morning in 1917.

‘Pete, listen, I almost didn’t come, don’t ask me why, it was stupid, I felt scared …’

‘That’s OK. I hate these places, too,’ Pascoe assured him.

‘No. Look, only reason I’m mentioning it is, now I’m glad. Because I think it will be all right. Since I got here, that’s how I’ve felt. I’d not say it else.’

They stood and looked at each other for a moment, then, embarrassed, looked away.

Pascoe said, ‘Thanks, Wieldy. How’re things going, anyway — with the case, I mean? Andy said something about you bringing in a possible.’

‘Aye. Fellow called Geordie Turnbull. Has a contracting business. If you read the Dendale file, you might recall he was a possible back then too. So, big coincidence, but I doubt if it’s going to come to anything this time either.’

‘No. Pity,’ said Pascoe, unable to drum up a great deal of interest. Then, ashamed, he said, ‘Do you know if Andy did anything about my appointment with Jeannie Plowright this morning?’

‘Aye. He’s put Novello on it.’

Pascoe smiled wanly.

‘Oh, well. It wasn’t such a good idea anyway.’

‘Sounds a bit sexist, that,’ said Wield.

‘No, she’s a good cop. I just think Andy would have gone himself if he’d felt there was the faintest hope of turning anything up.’

‘Andy’s going to be too busy turning the thumbscrews at Danby, which is where I’m on my way to.’

‘You’ve taken the long way round. Thanks a lot, Wieldy.’

‘Aye, well. I’ll keep in touch. Keep your chin up. Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

He touched the younger man’s arm then turned and walked away.

Pascoe watched him go. There had been comfort in the contact, no denying it. But now he was alone again, looking for something to blame. What had he narrowed it down to as he ran down the stairs? Oh yes. The world and himself.

He went back into the ward.

‘You saw Wieldy?’ asked Ellie.

‘Yes.’

‘It was good to see him,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

He looked from her face to Rosie’s, from the blossom to the bud, and felt that if anything happened here, there was no way to duck responsibility, and no way to bear it either. The world was safe. His rage would have to strike where its shadow began.

‘Why don’t you take a walk?’ he said gently. ‘Jill’s up on the roof, having a smoke. Or get yourself a coffee. Go on. I’ll stay.’

‘OK,’ she said, unable to resist the gentle force of his will. ‘I won’t be long.’

She went out of the room like a woman sleepwalking.

Shit, he thought. She blames herself, too. Which is crazy when it’s all my fault. Everything’s my fault.

‘Even England not winning the Test is my fault,’ he said out loud. ‘You hear that, kid? Your father may not have a million in share options, but probably even the water shortage is down to him as well.’

This old technique of exaggerating fears till they reached absurdity seemed to work. He sat down by the bed and took his daughter’s hand.

‘That’s right, it’s me, dear,’ he said. ‘But you’d know that anyway. My smooth soft concert pianist’s fingers are completely different from those rough, calloused stumps of your mum’s. But she will spend all day up to the elbows in soapy water when she’s not outside picking sisal.’

He paused. They’d asked if talking to Rosie would help and got a non-committal, ‘Can’t do any harm.’ Great. But could she hear? That was what he needed to know. No. Not needed. While there was the faintest chance of the sound of his voice having any effect, he would talk till his larynx was raw. But what to say? He doubted if his introspective ramblings could be all that therapeutic. How could it help for Rosie to know that her dad was a self-absorbed neurotic?

He looked around for the pile of stuff they’d brought in for Rosie, favourite dolls, clothes, books — a great pile to reassure themselves she would soon be convalescent.

At the top was Nina and the Nix. He picked it up, opened it and began to read aloud.

‘Once there were a nix lived by a pool in a cave under a hill …’