Parallel Life (38 page)

‘We'll never know.' Lisa wiped her face. ‘And neither will he. God help Gus.' She disposed of her tissue. ‘They have to get hold of Jimmy Nuttall so that your father can get back here when he's had that next operation. I shall talk to him on the phone. It will be easier now because I feel as if I know him. Pity he has so short a time.'

Harrie remained in her father's office for a while. She looked at the tomes he had published, books used by students of biomedical sciences all over the world. Loose papers filed under MRSA, folders marked with words too long to read, essays on antibiotic warfare against killer bugs. He had given his whole life to cleanliness, to safety. His son had developed the same fixation to a degree that had proved unhealthy. ‘But Ben will come good,' she told the empty room.

Outside, a brilliant sun shone on a garden filled with people. Even Hermione and Woebee had come down from their higher realm to watch the twins and Will playing football with two large security men. It was all so wonderfully normal – fresh lemonade in icy jugs, kids screaming, their elders looking on and smiling at the antics.

Harrie sat on the grass. Soon, the sun would move to shed light elsewhere, and he would have the darkness he required. Sal, Lisa, Annie and herself were in the most danger – but what about his children? If he knew they were here . . . How much did he know?

So they had brought in some big boys, had they? From just below the highest canopy of a tall oak, Jimmy Nuttall watched the al fresco party, twisting controls on the binoculars until he could almost count the raisins in a scone. Tea, lemonade and scones. His children playing. ‘Mine,' he growled. Annie was there, as was Sal. Lisa and her daughter sat to one side; they were plainly engaged in conversation of a private nature.

Bouncers. Two of them. Great big men with sleeves rolled up. Annie laughing at one of them. His wife.

Third tree along, covered in branches. Not here, no. Up at Cotters Farm, there was a van and . . . and stuff. Stuff. What was it he had to do? There was something he must find and, if he didn't find it, he had to kidnap Daisy. No, not Daisy. Where was Dilly-Dolly? Had he lost her?

Daylight was dangerous, but there was plenty of cover. It couldn't be a fire, not if his children were here. He would burn the rest of them without a care, but not Daisy, not Craig and Billy. Lisa had broken things . . . He looked at her. She seemed sad, so that was some kind of justice, he supposed. Annie laughing again, laughing at one of the big men. Daisy skipping.

The games ended. A thin, ugly woman pushed a wheelchair into the house. Sal just sat. She was good at sitting. Now, she lived . . . she lived in a cottage that had once been tied to Cotters. Dad. Teeth in a glass, pills lined up. Why was she here? Why were they all here together?

He climbed down and ran further into the woods. Chocolate had melted in his pocket, but he licked it from the wrapper. Calories were needed when a man had to think, had to remember why he was here and who his target was. Better to sleep for a while. If he could wake refreshed, he might remember what the hell he was supposed to be doing.

The Warburton brothers took their job seriously, so Annie got no chance to show her feathers to Matthew that evening. She bathed her children, put them to bed, threatened the twins with all kinds of deprivation if they moved a single toe out of line. Daisy was no trouble. She clung to Dilly-Dolly and fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

Annie stood for a while and gazed at the doll. It looked as if Sal Potter might be right – Jimmy was losing his grip. He wasn't the type to leave evidence all over the place, was too keen on saving his skin to put himself in the limelight. The Jimmy she had known would not even stand under a forty-watt bulb if it endangered him, so he certainly wouldn't be leaving a blazing trail unless he had mislaid the plot. Sal reckoned Jimmy needed doctors, not jailers. It looked as if Sal might be right. Poor Sal. So down in the mouth, she looked.

Hermione had been funny about the police. She couldn't stand them, wouldn't trust them to crack an egg, let alone a case. ‘Let them root around at your house,' she had said. ‘I'll get some real men here.' Well, Annie had enjoyed that bit of fun with Matthew Warburton. It took her mind of the main issue, made her remember that she was still relatively young. But, upstairs in Weaver's Warp, she looked at her children and felt as if her chest had been run through by a sword. Without distraction and the company of other adults, she was frightened to death.

In the kitchen, Lisa, Harrie, Will and Sal were playing cards for money. Annie bucked up and joined them, noisy as ever. She was no good at it, couldn't hide her joy when she got a good hand, her disappointment when the cards were poor.

But Sal was miraculously successful. Each time she won, she beamed at everyone and came to life.

‘You're pretty when you smile,' Lisa told her.

Sal blushed. ‘I learned my poker face from a good master,' she told them. ‘It was me dad. Oh, he was a bugger for cards, darts, dominoes, crown-green bowls, even cricket when he was young. Good enough for Lancashire, we all thought.'

Annie started the argument. ‘Just a cotton-picking minute,' she said. ‘Somebody keeps changing all the rules. Is a flush better than two pairs and a few crumbs off my butty?'

‘Yes,' chorused the assembly.

‘Oh.' Annie was also the one who stopped the argument, since she had forgotten the hand over which she had decided to quarrel. ‘Please your bloody selves, then,' she pretended to snap. ‘You're only taking bread out of my kids' mouths.'

The noisesome group scarcely noticed sounds from outside until Matthew and Luke Warburton appeared at the door, a scruffy-looking individual in their grip. ‘We found this outside,' announced Luke. ‘Fiddling with a van. Didn't you say Nuttall has a van?'

Harrie stared at the miscreant. The miscreant stared at Harrie. ‘That's not Jimmy Nuttall,' she said.

Everyone agreed. Lisa opined that Nuttall was never as dirty as this creature, while Annie said the captive was too good-looking to be mistaken for the bag of manure she had married. The prisoner said not a word until Sal asked the men to take their prey and give it a good wash, because it was scarcely recognizable as human.

At last, the captured man spoke. ‘Back into the arms of my loving family. I was mending my engine.' He shook off his captors and said a few short words that did not bear repeating. ‘Mending my van, causing no trouble, then these two apes pounced. I am Benjamin Compton-Milne, and I am going for a shower.'

Luke scratched his head. ‘Eh?' he murmured.

Harrie leapt up. ‘Four A-stars!' she shrieked before throwing herself into her brother's arms. ‘The world's your oyster, babe. Or your lobster, as Woebee would put it.' She was then forced to explain to the uninitiated that Woebee was Eileen and why Eileen was Woebee.

‘What's going on?' Ben asked. ‘Have we been invaded?'

Harrie linked her arm through his. ‘Come on, ratbag. I'll tell you what you've missed while you clean up your act.'

Lisa smiled tentatively. ‘We're in a bit of a mess, son. But welcome home, and congratulations on your exam results. If anyone deserves it, you do.'

‘Thanks, Ma.' Brother and sister left the room.

Annie busied herself making tea for the Warburtons. She found some Bourbons in a tin. Matthew liked Bourbons – she had heard him saying so earlier in the day.

Upstairs, a cleaner version of Ben sat with his sister. He had just returned from the rim of life, an area in which the unacceptable endured the scathing attitude of those who existed behind hedges and triple-glazing. And he had come home to this. ‘Our half-sister?' Tears threatened.

‘I wish you'd charged your phone. But I understand the difficulties, babe.'

He learned that he was about to enter a state of uncle-hood, that Jimmy Nuttall had lost his marbles, that Gran had brought in security. He lowered his head. ‘And on top of all that, our dad has cancer.'

‘Yes.'

‘Can't imagine Father as a Romeo.'

‘Well, he was. Emotionally, he died the day he buried Katherina. Our dad's been through hell, and we never noticed. Mind, it happened before he married Mother. Even so, he's been so . . . stoical.'

‘Remind me never to be that,' said Ben. ‘Poor Father. Poor, poor man. Stoicism is never a good idea.'

Things were jumping off the edge of his mind, deserting him like rats diving from a sinking ship. Jimmy Nuttall was entering an area of confusion from which he needed to escape as quickly as possible, because he was fighting for his life and his freedom. He remembered that much, at least. Places were all melding into one – where was his van, where was Cotters Farm, where was Sal's cottage?

Something was after him. They were after him. No. They were all in the one house, a big place made out of four cottages knocked together. Old woman in a wheelchair. Gun. Lisa with a safe under the shop floor, Sal and her plasma screen, leather sofa, Dilly-Dolly. Where had he left that toy? Teeth in a glass – bottles – tablets – policemen. Up a tree, looking at cops – no – looking at all the women, all except his mother.

He found himself walking across the front of Bolton Town Hall, and he didn't know how he had got there, couldn't remember where he had travelled from or to. It was brightly lit. Tea and scones on the lawn, people playing, lemonade in a jug. Thirsty. He was so dry. Daisy. Little face looking up at him, hospital blanket, Annie with her hair wet through after the exertion of birthing. There was a gun somewhere . . .

He walked past the open market – it was deserted now, of course. Mam used to bring him here. So colourful. Asian men and women selling bright silks and bangles, sheets of finest Indian cotton. There was a shop somewhere that used to be a mill. All the spices of the orient were in there. Annie used them for curries, said they were authentic.

He should go home. Annie would make a brew and a bit of toast. He was starving, and his throat felt like sandpaper. All this walking. Why was he doing all this bloody walking? St Patrick's. Would a priest help him? Was there a priest? Someone had said there weren't enough priests to go round. He remembered that, all right.

Bradshawgate. There were a lot of gates – Deansgate, Moses Gate, Churchgate. But there were no gates any more – except in the names. He leaned against a column erected to the memory of . . . of some Earl or other who had been beheaded here under the rule of . . . that chap who was Protector rather than monarch. Bolton didn't like the monarchy – he recalled that, too.

His legs didn't work any more. It was the knees. They didn't seem to want to take his weight. As for the backbone – it was aching all the way down. He sank to the base of the column and waited. Whatever he waited for didn't matter any more. As long as there was a glass of water at the end of it, he couldn't have cared less.

When they picked him up, he answered the question – yes – he was James Nuttall. They cautioned him, asked if he had anything to say, warned that whatever he did say would be used, that whatever he didn't say, he'd wish he had said. All he managed was a request for water.

Before they locked him up, they gave him a huge plastic cup and he took the lot in one draught. ‘More,' he begged.

A doctor arrived and asked questions. They were daft questions, and Jimmy was too tired. At the end of the session, he heard himself declared unfit to plead. He wasn't unfit, just tired. And he hoped he'd get a proper breakfast in the morning.

Epilogue

9 May, 2008

Summer came early. It was strange, because winter seemed to have lingered well into April, yet this first week in May had brought sunshine tempered by a slight breeze that kept thick-blooded Northern-Englanders from frying on the spot. The area now known as Greater Manchester was famous for its rainfall and for its complainers. It was always too cold, too windy, too wet, too hot, too cloudy. But today was just right.

It is almost impossible to suit a determined Lancastrian. Hermione, who refused to accept the change of boundaries, would not allow the words ‘Greater Manchester' to be included on her stationery. She was Lancastrian, as was everybody else right across to Liverpool. Her Majesty the Queen was Duke of Lancaster, and that was an end to the argument, as loyalty lay with the crown and with the Duchy. Government and opposition were great puddles of acid rain, she would no longer vote for any of them, and she complained the whole afternoon while Eileen Eckersley prepared her for a vital expedition. ‘Would you ever keep still for only a minute?' asked the Irishwoman.

‘I have the shakes, you dreadful moan. Part and parcel of my condition, don't you know?'

Eileen knew the difference between MS shakes and naughtiness. This was definitely naughtiness. ‘The whole town hall will have its eyes on you – the Mayor and all. Do you want to arrive looking like a badly-cut privet with a birds' nest on top?'

‘Why should I care? No one looks at a wheelchair. Everyone speaks to the person behind me, the one with the power to steer. If anyone asks you am I all right, I shall stand up and punch that person.'

‘Aye, you will and all. Think of Harrie. Think of what she has to do tonight. She's worked herself to the bone with all this – and she has Hope to care for. On top of all of which she's doing the university as well – can you not appreciate what you have in your life, Iona?'

The older woman's lower lip quivered, but she sat her ground and didn't weep. Until Harrie had explained it all, she hadn't known her son, hadn't realized what Gus had gone through, how hard he had worked, how serious his research had been. ‘I know I'm blessed,' she said softly. ‘My granddaughter is a star.'

Lisa dashed in with two outfits on hangers. ‘Green or blue, Mum?' she asked. ‘I need to know because the make-up girl will go with the colours. And Annie needs to know, too, as we don't want to match. She has to choose between green and blue as well. Come on!' They were both staring hard at her.