Parallel Life (32 page)

Harrie held the phone away from her ear and examined the item, as if there might be something wrong with it. The man with the graveyard voice had just told her that she was dead. Symptoms to prove that she was adhering to life were manifold, and not the least among them was the fact that she was able to speak. ‘I am Gustav Compton-Milne's only daughter,' she informed the invisible entity, ‘and I remain in the land of the living.'

‘You are Mathilda?'

‘No, I am Harriet.'

‘What about Mathilda?'

A flippant response about Australian folk songs was deleted from the agenda before it saw the light of day because the man was so very serious. ‘There is no Mathilda,' she replied. ‘There's just Harriet and Benjamin.'

‘Died in Nazareth House in Didsbury? Aged twenty-seven? Interment at Tonge Cemetery after a requiem Mass? We have to pick up the deceased, and we have never dealt with a Nazareth House before. It would not be the first time such nastiness has happened, which is why we seek confirmation in this case.'

Harrie sat on a stool. If she hadn't sat, she might have fallen, as she suddenly felt dizzy. ‘Who phoned you?' she asked.

‘Dr Gustav Compton-Milne, professor of microbiology. It could have been one of his students, you see. There are some nasty people about. Sorry to have—'

‘He's in New Zealand. My father is working in Auckland – he's an expert in the field of hospital super-bugs.'

There followed a short pause. ‘I have no number for Nazareth House, and I have never heard of the place, but I shall find it if it exists. It's outside our normal area, you see. We usually bury people from Bolton and the surrounding district. Yes. That would be the sensible thing to do if your father is abroad. I shall look for a number. Thank you for your time.'

The line went dead. Harrie continued to hold the phone, her fingers curling tightly around it until she felt pain in her knuckles. The world had gone mad, and her mother had gone missing. Mathilda was dead, and Father was abroad and . . .

Did people really make hoax calls to undertakers? If it was a hoax, why Mathilda? Who picked such an unusual name?

Lisa rushed in while Harrie was still perched open-mouthed on her stool, phone clutched to her chest. ‘Crisis,' Lisa yelled. ‘Upstairs. Now. We need to get together – you, me, your gran and Eileen. Annie, too.'

Harrie blinked a few times. ‘What?'

‘We have to have a meeting.'

‘Who's Mathilda?' Harrie asked.

Lisa tutted. ‘No time for who's who, sweetie. I've been under a hedge watching – oh, never mind. Then I went and arranged for Simon to supervise your shop and Roger to run mine. It's the gun, you see.' She ran out of the kitchen.

Harrie felt very strange. She dug into a chemist's bag and pulled out the article she had purchased the previous day. ‘Might as well go the whole nine yards,' she said to the package. ‘It's a mad day, so let's try to make a royal flush of it.'

Several minutes later, the flush was performed in the downstairs loo. It was game, set, match and bull's eye. So many mixed metaphors. Harrie was pregnant.

He would be in possession of the missing gun today. Lisa wouldn't dare talk to the police – she would be implicated in the burglar-alarm scam. She hadn't the guts. Now, he needed to go to the twenty-four hour garage for a few more supplies. He knew all the back lanes. The only vehicle he might meet would be a tractor.

List. Had he forgotten anything? He had to stop this rocking. His mind was busy all the time, inventing scenarios and imagining outcomes, fearing prison, thinking, thinking. List. A fridge would have been good, but he couldn't carry one, and there was no electricity at Cotters Farm. His brain was working, yet it wasn't. There was something wrong with his legs. They weren't steady; nor were his hands. Gun, gun, gun. It was all he ever thought about.

Kidnap was a big deal. But the only thing that mattered was the truth. For once, he was not guilty. Birmingham was just a place halfway between here and London. He scarcely remembered being there. But he would carry the can for it if the cops got the weapon used on that guard. God, he wished he could stop shaking. Get the stuff, take it to the farm, phone Lisa, go for the gun.

Or. Get the stuff, take it to the farm, phone Lisa, pick up her daughter. Risky. ‘But it wasn't my gun. I never had a gun, never shot anybody,' he told the windscreen. Birmingham. It was nothing to do with him. That was his truth, his one truth. If only his hands and legs would calm down . . .

Gus wasn't at all well. Sheila did her best, but she wanted to call her doctor. ‘You'll be classed as a temporary resident,' she told him. ‘You can't go on like this, can you?' His hair was thinner. She'd found some of it floating in the lavatory. ‘Gus?'

‘Yes?'

She swallowed hard. ‘Are you on chemotherapy?'

He turned to face the wall. There was a gap in that lovely head of hair.

‘You've the funeral to see to, haven't you?'

He managed to sit up. ‘I go for more tests this afternoon. Yes, it is chemotherapy, and I may need radiotherapy as well. There's also a possibility of further surgery.'

Gus had never been a highly animated person, but the life seemed to be draining out of him before her very eyes. He was giving up. ‘You have to fight this,' she told him.

‘I am fighting. My immune system is depleted, and that is why you're still boiling everything. But a patient can live too long in a bubble. I have to get out. And I have to go home after the funeral.'

He had no home. He had a wife, a daughter and a son at the other side of Bolton, but his life was here and in the laboratories. The family didn't care about him. She knew now that he hated whisky and chocolate mousse, was fully aware that Lisa and Harriet had put on a show for her. They knew who she was, all right. Nasty, nasty women. ‘I can look after you properly,' she said.

‘Like you did for your husband? Why should you go through all that again?'

‘This is different. I didn't love him.' She clapped a hand to her mouth for a split second. ‘You're like a brother to me.'

‘I know, and I'm grateful. But there are things I need to deal with. Most of my personal notes are at Weaver's Warp, as is my blood family. I have a mother there. There's a will to amend, the office to go through, and I must, must talk to my wife and to Harriet and Benjamin.'

‘Right.' She was more than disappointed – she was devastated. What if he died? What if she never saw him again? This was a big house for one woman. Perhaps it was time for her to go the way of all flesh, put one foot in the grave and buy a two-bedroomed bungalow in Harwood. She could certainly afford it if she sold these two properties. Or she could keep one. The rent she charged was enough to live on.

‘Sheila?'

‘What?'

‘You'll be all right. I know you will. You have more strength than you realize. You're still relatively young, and you should develop some interests. Go to evening classes, make friends.' That's what he should have done, he mused. Perhaps not the evening classes, but a few close companions might have helped to make the next six months more palatable. Chemotherapy was no fun. He fell back on to the pillows. ‘Let me rest for an hour,' he begged.

Downstairs, Sheila decided to be practical. Being practical had brought her back from the edge many times when she had nursed her dying husband. She went out to the small shed and pulled out a wheelchair. Gus would get to Mathilda's funeral even if she had to push him all the way from here and up Bury Road to the cemetery. She would not let him down.

She cleaned the chair thoroughly before parking it in the front room. No, she would not forsake him. She wasn't like those two women in their perfectly cut blue-grey and chocolate suits. Sheila Barton was a real woman, and a real woman stood by her brother.

‘Harrie? Where on earth are you?' Lisa's voice floated down two stairways until it reached the hall. ‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm on the phone.' She was using a portable instrument, and she carried it out into the garden. Pregnant. Bloody hell. And who the heck was Mathilda, and what was the matter with Mother?

‘Hello, Nazareth House, Sister Marie Claire speaking. How can I help you?'

Harrie swallowed hard. ‘My name is Susan Watkins and I am calling from Rushton's Funeral Services in Bolton. We have the first name of the deceased, but no surname. Mr Rushton left that part blank – sorry.'

‘Ah. You're meaning Mathilda?'

Harrie's heart skipped a beat. ‘Yes. We need a death certificate.'

‘I think Dr Compton-Milne has that. We already spoke to one of the Mr Rushtons a few minutes ago. Perhaps he didn't tell you yet? Mr Compton-Milne will bring in the certificate later today. We have a copy, so we can release the body when the undertaker arrives.'

He was in New Zealand and—

‘Hi, Harrie.' BillyandCraig flew towards her. The whole household now lumped them together, no space between the names, because where one was, the other was almost always by his side and up to the same mischief.

Harrie put a finger to her lips.

They stood and stared at her.

She didn't know what else to say. The twins started jumping up and down and were pulling funny faces at her. The poor Irish nun at the other end said ‘Hello?' several times.

Harrie pulled herself together. ‘Sorry about that, Sister. Some children have come to say goodbye to their grandfather.'

‘You what?' Billy asked.

‘God bless them,' said the sister.

‘So Mr Compton-Milne has been to Nazareth House and has the death certificate?' Harrie asked.

‘Oh, yes. He'll give it to you later on today. He was with her when she passed, poor man.'

‘Thank you. Goodbye.' Harrie switched off the phone.

A tousled Annie was on her way to the house. It seemed that she, too, had been invited to the conference. ‘You coming?' she asked.

‘Er . . . yes. What are you going to do with those two?' Harrie said.

‘They're off to Mrs Eckersley's house. Her husband is going to watch them and Daisy. Mrs Eckersley took Daisy across earlier.'

God would need to be on Stanley Eckersley's side today, Harrie decided. Now, there was to be a meeting with Gran and Mother and goodness alone knew how many others. Mother had been missing earlier; Father was not where he was supposed to be. There were many mad people in the world, and most of them were related to Harrie.

Annie disappeared up the side of the house, each arm clinging to one twin. She was blonde today. Well, a dirty sort of blonde, but it suited her. The wigs kept her feeling human until her hair grew back, Harrie supposed. Pregnant.

Will was walking towards the bungalow. He was carrying supermarket bags loaded with groceries. ‘I don't know where they put it all.' He was referring to the twins and their capacity for food. ‘Hello, you,' he said. ‘I've finished Annie's shopping.'

Right, he needed to be the first to know. It was hardly the right time and place, but it had to be done and—

‘Harriet!'

Oh, well. Mother meant business. She had descended two flights of stairs in order to capture the attention of her wayward daughter. And she was using Harrie's full name, so there was something deadly serious afoot. As well as all the other stuff . . .

‘Sorry, Will. Talk later. Oh – dump that lot, then get across the road and help Stanley Eckersley. He's got the kids.' She, also, had a kid. It would be about the size of a millet seed, she supposed . . .

‘Harriet?' yelled Lisa again.

‘Coming! See you later,' she said to Will before going off to do her mother's bidding. She wouldn't be much use. There was a dead Mathilda, a missing father and a cluster of cells – it wasn't going to be easy to concentrate. But Mother was flustered, so the meeting was bound to have almost as much significance as a G8. ‘Onward, Christian soldiers,' she muttered before walking resignedly into the house. Mother was rattling on about cows, shoes and guns. The world was insane, and it promised to get worse.

Stanley and Eileen had never been blessed with children, and both had been sad about it. But Stanley was having second – and third – thoughts. Daisy was lovely, yet the other two could start a war in a monastery – no doubt about that. They were in the garden. He had hidden most implements and was hoping that he would still have a garden at the end of the day. Daisy, happily established at the kitchen table with crayons and paper, was a saint.

Craig ran in. ‘Can we water the garden for you?'

There had been enough rain to provide water for half a century. ‘No.'

‘Even a little bit?'

‘No. And no means no, mister.'

Craig left the scene. Stanley watched while Annie made her way back to the big house. She'd hardly been away twenty seconds, and they were already playing up. Would they survive to the age of nine? How old had Bonnie and Clyde been when they'd blown the kick-off whistle?

It was Billy's turn. Billy was the taller one, Stanley reminded himself. And he owned the cheekier grin.

‘Do you want any weeding done?' the boy asked.

‘Not at the moment, thanks,' replied the man of the house. ‘I do my own weeding regular as clockwork.' That was an apt remark, thought Stanley, because these two were winding him up something shocking.

‘We only charge two quid. And we know the difference between weeds and flowers.'

‘So do I.' Stanley comforted himself by gazing at Daisy at the table. She was a lovely little flower, whereas these two weeds . . . He turned to look at Billy, but there was just an empty doorway. As quickly as age allowed, Stanley went to the back window. There was no sign of either boy in the rear garden. He ran to the front window – no joy there, either.

‘Cat,' said Daisy.