Parallel Life (10 page)

His main concern continued to be the boy. There had been a degree of disappointment when Harriet had refused to attend university, but Benjamin was brilliant and could follow quite easily in the footsteps of Gus's much-respected father. If Benjamin wasted his life, that would be a sin, indeed. But the lad had managed school, just about, and was now in possession of a full driving licence, so surely there was hope? Perhaps the camper van would be a new beginning for him.

Things were coming to a head this morning. Wheels for Wheels had arrived. Part of a larger organization that owned limousines and wedding cars, Wheels for Wheels provided a private service for disabled people who wanted transferring from A to B. Today, ‘A' was Weaver's Warp and ‘B' was God alone knew where, but Hermione Compton-Milne's wheelchair was currently being bolted into the rear of a large, black van. Lisa fussed, just as she always did, while Harriet, in jeans and a ragged T-shirt that left her midriff bare, had clearly dressed with no intention of accompanying her mother and grandmother.

Gus stepped to one side of the open window and listened. ‘Don't lose your temper, Gran,' Harriet was pleading.

‘We'll be fine,' Lisa answered. ‘Annie won't let us down. Perhaps I have known her for no more than five minutes, but I trust her. She's honourable – more than can be said for her husband.'

Doors slid into the closed position, and the engine started up. Gus looked at his watch. Wasn't he supposed to be somewhere? Doing something? He knew it wasn't bleach because he had done all of those tests – hadn't he? Yes, he had. Five of them this time. The public probably thought that the television advertisements were faked, but Gus earned a good living by analysing swabs from kitchens before and after the application of a certain product. It wasn't a swabs day, then.

Who was Annie? Why was Annie's husband not to be trusted? Mother was in pain. It had to be something big to drag her out of her penthouse. Where was he supposed to be? Diary. Not on the desk, not on the bookshelves. Ah – it sat next to the clock on the mantelpiece. And Harriet had become a drug-dealer for her grandmother. She brought home skunk, a commodity that supposedly helped people with neurological disorders. It also made them paranoid . . . He opened the diary and smiled. Ah, yes. This was to be a special day.

It was trains. Excitement cut through him as he remembered a find in
Locomotion
, a magazine published and distributed for those who loved real trains. An aged replica of the Scotsman waited for him in Fallowfield. Only Sheila truly understood his anticipation. Her husband had loved trains. Gus smiled again. She was a good, plain woman with a big heart. He already owned two Scotsman models, but the one advertised was a beauty and the man was saving it for him. Being an internationally respected boffin certainly had its plus sides. For Professor Compton-Milne, the vendor had promised to keep the engine.

He wandered outside and stood by his Mini. Harriet was outside the gate, as if she followed Mother and Lisa in spirit if not in body. Whatever was occurring was enormous. Did he have the Fallowfield address? Yes. He opened the car door and placed his diary on the passenger seat. Should he talk to his daughter? Apart from daily pleasantries and meaningless quips, little of note ever passed between Gus and Harriet. He should try. But not yet, not now. Treasure awaited him in Manchester. With a quickening pulse, the man of the house folded himself into the tiny car, drove towards the gate, nodded at his daughter, turned right and headed for the A666. Motorways were for speed freaks, and he was not one of that ever-increasing number.

‘He has no idea,' Harrie muttered under her breath. Why was he like this? Other men had careers and projects, yet they found time for their children. Still, this was nothing new. Harrie had coped without a father for much of her life. There was no point in fretting now.

Sheila Barton described herself as adaptable, because she held down several jobs. She was lollipop lady, dinner supervisor and part-time classroom assistant at St Ethelbert's, the local primary school. Most importantly, she was a close friend to Gustav Compton-Milne, pioneer in the field of microbiology, leading authority on the subject of superbugs, man of standing and lover of model trains.

But he was not Sheila's lover.

After burying a husband thirty years her senior, Mrs Sheila Barton had heaved a sigh of relief and washed her metaphorical hands of the whole sordid business. No more sex. No more fumblings in the night, no danger of pregnancy, no worries.

This was a well-to-do widow, as she had inherited from the deceased man two mortgage-free properties – her own home and the house next door. She had opened up both lofts, and Gustav's trains occupied the whole attic area. The rest of the second house was rented out to a family, so Sheila had no real need to work. But work kept her sane. While supervising the local young, she congratulated herself repeatedly on her child-free state. Children were nasty, cruel, dirty little things, and she was better off without them. Yet, as she admitted begrudgingly on occasion, they did make her laugh. She had worked out that kids were OK as long as they were herded together well away from parents. School had rules, and children needed them. Kept in communes, they even managed to be mildly amusing.

In truth, Sheila did have a child. Some three years earlier, when clearing out her husband's belongings, she had found in a magazine an advertisement placed by a man who liked model trains. As her husband, too, had been a fan of miniature railways, she had replied, and Gus had been delighted. He took over the dead man's stock but never took advantage of the widow, didn't even try to kiss her, and he valued her company. His rent was seldom late, he contributed towards household bills, and she enjoyed taking care of him. Gustav Compton-Milne was a man in a million.

With her part-time lodger, Sheila Barton played the role of a public school matron-cum-cook. All he had wanted was space for his hobby, but he received much more than that. He was cared for, fed good, comforting foods including custards, sticky puddings and blancmange. Like a competent mother, Sheila heeded current laws on nutrition, so Gus also received his fair share of salads, fresh fruits and vegetables. Gus was her project, her hobby. He was going to save the world; therefore, she must save him from an ignorant wife who clearly didn't give two pence for his welfare.

Sheila cared.

She hung on his words, admired his cleverness, worshipped at the feet of the only truly intelligent man to have entered her life. With her, he was completely at home, speaking openly and with candour about his family and his work. Sheila was mother, sister, wife and friend to him, a safety valve that he could employ at will, allowing him relief and comfort in an atmosphere of tenderness and empathy. The fact that she understood little pertaining to microbiology was of no importance; she paid attention and warmed his slippers – that was enough for him. Home was here, on Wigan Road, because here he could be absent-minded stationmaster, railway-building professor – whatever. He could be himself, and that was what mattered.

In her square, modern kitchen, Sheila peeled vegetables. She knew better than to expect him, so she kept ingredients prepared in order that a meal could be produced within half an hour at any time of day or night. If he failed to appear for a couple of days, she could consume the food herself. She was happy. For the first time in her adult life, Mrs Sheila Barton was completely contented.

She heard his key in the lock and, without thinking, dashed into the living room to check her appearance at the mirror. Whilst he neither expected nor wanted glamour, he probably noticed if she was untidy. ‘Hello?' she called. ‘Did you get it?'

‘Yes,' replied the disembodied voice. ‘And it's a beauty. I'll go straight up. You can look at it later.'

Sheila smiled to herself. ‘Have you eaten?

‘I think not.'

‘Half an hour?'

‘Yes. Thank you.'

She heard him running up to the landing, listened as the metal ladder dropped at his feet. Time would hold no meaning for him now; she would need to coax him down with promises of onion gravy followed by spotted dick. But none of that mattered. Gustav was in his own little bit of heaven, and all was well with the world.

All was by no means well with Jimmy Nuttall's slice of the world. He waited in his mother's bungalow for two events, neither of which he anticipated with any degree of joy. His mother, due to return from holidays, would arrive to find her only begotten son in situ. She would not be pleased. Freda Nuttall did not like men in a house – they got in the way. Men were built for fields, factories and public hostelries, and they had no place in a single-bedroomed retirement bungalow with panic alarms and only one lavatory.

Jimmy also expected his wife. Annie, who could be dangerous when roused, had a tiny body that gave not the slightest hint of the strength in its limbs or the fury in its head. She was, and always had been, a force never to be ignored, especially at those times of her month when hormones bubbled in her blood. Although he had no idea of the current state of her menstrual cycle, he knew she could be hell on legs even when on a supposedly level keel. She needed to talk about the children – that was the official line, anyway. In truth, the woman probably wanted to kill him, and he was fed up. Should he move the rest of Mam's pottery treasures in case they provided ammunition for Annie? Lisa had already caused a noticeable gap in the collection. Oh, to hell with it all.

There would be a divorce, he supposed. He hoped to persuade her otherwise, since the easiest option for him would be a return to the bosom of his family, but he held very little hope in that direction. Sighing deeply, he fussed about, tidying his mother's bedroom and kitchen before starting on himself. Unshaven and unwashed, he looked like a refugee from some terribly deprived quarter of a city under siege. God. He had as much chance of going home as George W. Bush had of being elected pope.

Reasonably tidy after his small efforts, he returned to the living room and sat down. Life with Lisa had been good. She was feisty and full of mischief. Older than he was, she had proved hard to keep up with, as her hunger for life had never been satisfied by that dry stick of a scientist she called husband. Well, she was out of the picture now, as was Annie, as were his three children. Fatherhood had never been his favourite game, but they were his kids and, at the end of the day, he had rights. Didn't he?

Annie's ageing car coughed to a halt outside the bungalow. Jimmy stiffened automatically. She would not be in the best of moods, would she? The door was on the latch, so she needed no key to reach her husband.

When she entered the room, he gulped nervously. ‘Hi,' he managed when his throat settled.

‘I need a new car,' came the quick reply. ‘That one couldn't pass water, let alone an MOT.' She looked him up and down before asking the air why a person never had a baseball bat when it was needed most.

‘Sweetie,' he began. ‘I'm a twit. We both know I'm a twit, but can't we make some sort of effort here?'

She looked over her shoulder. ‘Ooh, I thought somebody else had come in then. Were you talking to me? Listen, mate. If I'm a sweetie, I'll have to be one of them Smarties, because I'm too clever for you. Just wait. Just you wait, Jimmy Nuttall.'

‘Wait for what?'

‘Arma-bloody-geddon is what,' she shouted. ‘Life is about to catch up with you, lad. I've stood by you through thick and thin, you thieving, good-for-nowt layabout. Well, I've had enough. I don't want my lads turning out to be criminals, do I? Following in Father's Footsteps? Isn't that a song? Aye, well, my sons will not be singing from the same hymn sheet as you, Nuttall. They'll be gradely folk, not gutter-muck.'

Jimmy looked up at the ceiling. Annie was off on one of her rants, and nothing short of an act of God would divert her. The chances of earthquake or hurricane were not strong, so he simply had to sit it out. Would she settle in a minute? Would she calm down and allow him back into her life?

No, she was carrying on. He folded his arms and suffered the barrage of words that poured from her.

She threw herself into a chair near the window. ‘So this is where you brought your bit of stuff while your mam was away, eh? I'm sure old Freda will be delighted to know you found a use for her bed. She never did like waste, your mam.'

‘It's over,' he shouted. ‘The affair, such as it was, is over.'

‘I agree. It's definitely bloody over. I'm having the house – you can sign it over to me. It'll likely have to be sold, but me and the kids need money.'

Jimmy's jaw dropped. ‘I was brought up in that house, Annie. Mam sold it to us cheap – it's my home.'

‘We'll see.' Annie tapped an angry toe against floral carpet. ‘Cops are after you for all the stuff that's gone missing from places where you put alarms in. The private detective told me that. He's a retired sergeant, and he still has mates in the force. You'd better make yourself scarce. In fact, you'd be safest going for total invisibility – try Alaska and wear white.'

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Bugger,' he cursed.

‘You can add an “off” to that,' said Annie, her tone quieter. ‘And then, you can take your own advice and bugger off for good.'

The front door swung inward, and a new voice reached their ears. ‘Pull me in backwards,' ordered an off-stage woman. ‘You'll have me spread out on this dreadful carpet like a sheepskin rug. We should have brought Eileen. She's adequate when it comes to the handling of a wheelchair.'

‘Sorry, Mother,' came the reply.

Jimmy's skin blanched. Lisa was here, as was some female sergeant major in a bad mood. Wasn't Annie enough?

A wheelchair entered the arena. Jimmy saw a striking woman – grey hair, good clothes, severe expression. Lisa, in charge of steering, followed Hermione into the room. ‘This is Annie Nuttall,' she announced. ‘And that is Jimmy . . . or Alec – depending on the day of the week, I suppose.' She parked the wheelchair next to Annie. ‘Mrs Hermione Compton-Milne,' she added. ‘My mother-in-law.'