Precious Time (5 page)

They were an inseparable two-man destruction derby: nothing was safe with them around. Gabriel had wanted to employ a nanny to help Anastasia, but she wouldn’t hear of it, claiming that she loved the challenge of two such lively children.

It was five years before they took the plunge again and tried for another child. Then Jonah was born.

And Anastasia died.

By craning his neck to the left and pressing his head against the window, which was cloudy with dirt, Gabriel could just see the spire of the church in Deaconsbridge; it was where both of his wives were buried.

He tightened the belt of his dressing-gown and continued along the landing, passing closed doors to dusty rooms he hadn’t been inside for months. He took the stairs slowly: his one-eyed view gave him a misleading impression of the floor - it wasn’t as close as he thought it was. The staircase was yet another reminder of Anastasia: she used to refer to herself as Scarlett O’Hara as she swept down it in a graceful rush of laughter, her long hair tumbling around her shoulders.

The kitchen didn’t catch the morning sun, and even in the height of summer it was the coldest room in the house. Val had had an Aga installed and had stoked it with coal morning, noon and night. It had been worse than a demanding baby: as she shovelled in fuel at one end, it deposited ashes at the other. She had soon tired of that and had had it converted to gas. Not long after her death it, too, had given up the ghost - something to do with a faulty thermostat that couldn’t be replaced.

Since then Gabriel had bought himself a bog-standard electric cooker and one of those portable heaters on wheels with a large gas cylinder inside it. He switched it on now - he had to keep clicking the button until eventually a spark ignited the gas and a whoomph of flame shot across the blackened panels. It had been when he was doing this, the other week, that he had burned his arm. He had deliberately lied to Dr Singh about being careless with the kettle because he had thought that otherwise it might seem that he couldn’t be trusted with a gas fire. Scalding oneself sounded less dangerous, somehow.

It was four days since he had been into Deaconsbridge and had his arm seen to. He hadn’t been back to the surgery; he had decided there was no point. He had finished the short course of antibiotics several days earlier than he should have, working on the theory that the pills would take effect faster if he tripled the dosage on days one and two. What was more, he had changed the dressing himself, swapping the bandages and gauze for a clean handkerchief and securing it with a couple of safety-pins. By rights the doctor should be grateful for being let off the extra work. If more people were like Gabriel, the National Health Service wouldn’t be in such a mess.

But now he had this wretched eye to deal with. He would give it a day or so, and if there was no improvement, he would go into Deaconsbridge - make his Friday visit on Thursday perhaps. He pressed the heel of his hand against the eye patch, resisting the urge to give it a damn good rub. It was so itchy and sore. To distract himself he set about making a pot of tea for his breakfast.

For such a large kitchen, there was little space to work in: every surface was crowded with crockery and paperwork that lay in untidy piles awaiting his attention. As did all those things that needed mending, but which he never got round to: an Anglepoise lamp that wouldn’t stay in position; a battery charger he’d ordered from one of those junk catalogues and had dropped and broken; an iron that needed a new plug; a wobbly mug tree; a wooden bread-bin that wouldn’t open properly; and several shirts that were down to just a few buttons. But the mess was getting to him; there was something tidal in the stealthy manner in which it was creeping up on him. He would have to do something about it soon.

But not today.

Domesticity didn’t suit him. He wasn’t cut out for defrosting freezers or knowing how to get a crease-free wash out of the washing-machine. Val had taken care of all that. It had been her domain and he had willingly left her to it. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was old school when it came to defining the boundaries of a husband and wife. The system had worked perfectly until the world had gone mad and everyone had become obsessed with

equality and role reversal.

He switched on the wireless to listen to the Today programme, sweeping aside several days’ worth of plates, cups, knives and forks, dirty pots and pans and a couple of empty pilchard tins, until at last he had cleared a space around the kettle and toaster. His breakfast made, he added a tot of twelve-year-old Glenlivet to his tea, just a drop to kick-start his day. Time was when a new day for him had been like cracking an egg - short, sharp, and he was off. Now he had to ease himself into it. He sat at the cluttered table and answered the wireless back, dishing out his objections and criticism with a fair hand: he disagreed on principle with everything the presenters or politicians said.

He was still sitting at the table when he heard a knock at the door.

He checked his watch, as though it would tell him who was

bothering him at such an unsociably early hour. But it was later than he had thought, almost ten o’clock. Even so, who could it be? Callers at Mermaid House were rarer than hens’ teeth.

There was another knock, louder this time. Whoever it was seemed determined to summon him to the door. He pushed his feet into his slippers and shuffled off reluctantly to deal with whoever had come to bother him. He slid the bolts back, top and bottom, turned the key and opened the door.

‘What the hell do you want?’ Gabriel growled, when he saw Dr Singh standing before him. ‘And don’t tell me you were just passing and thought you’d see if I was in.’

‘No, Mr Liberty, I wouldn’t dream of lying to you. I am here because you didn’t keep your appointment with me. You didn’t return to the surgery for me to check your arm.’

‘Very considerate of you, I’m sure. But (a) I didn’t make an appointment, and (b) you’ve wasted your time in coming here because my arm is better.’

‘Perhaps you would be good enough to let me be the judge of that.’

Gabriel gave him a hard stare. ‘Persistent, aren’t you?’

‘Professional is how I like to view myself. Now, then, are we to conduct surgery business on the doorstep, or am I permitted to come in?’

‘Suit yourself.’

Gabriel showed him through to the kitchen and realised at once that this was a mistake. He could feel Dr Singh’s dark eyes appraising the situation, and the mess seemed a hundred times worse. The bottle of Glenlivet on the table didn’t give quite the right impression either, especially as he was still in his shabby old pyjamas. Damn! He should have taken him into the drawing room. In fact, any room but this.

He pushed up the sleeve on his dressing-gown, deciding that the sooner the infuriating man had examined his arm, the sooner he would be gone. ‘There,’ he said, removing the makeshift bandage, ‘just as I told you. Practically as good as new.’

Dr Singh gave the handkerchief a disapproving look, but nodded at the improvement in Gabriel’s arm. ‘You’re right, it’s healing nicely. But since I’m here I might just as well apply a proper dressing, and while I do that, you can tell me what you’ve done to your eye.’

‘I got something in it last night,’ Gabriel said airily. ‘It’s a bit sore, that’s all. There’s no need for you to have a gawp at that too.’

But Dr Singh insisted that he be allowed to do his job. ‘And how did you come by this?’ he asked, when Gabriel had removed the patch and the eye began to water at the sudden brightness.

‘A curtain track fell on top of me if you must know.’

After pulling a small-beamed torch on him, Doctor Singh said, ‘I don’t like the look of it. You need to see a specialist. It’s inflamed and you might have damaged the retina.’

‘Don’t be absurd. I’ve just got dust in it, that’s all. Can’t you give me some drops or something?’

‘The “something” is a trip to hospital, Mr Liberty. Do you really want to risk going blind in that eye?’

‘God! You foreigners make me sick. You’re all the same, you come over here, you get yourselves an education at our expense, then start telling us what to do. Well, you know what you can do with your trip to hospital, don’t you?’

Dr Singh put away his torch and snapped shut his medical case.

‘Mr Liberty, listen very carefully to what I am about to say. Either you do as I say or I shall inform Social Services that you are living in squalor and that you are incapable of looking after yourself. And, trust me, they will descend upon you faster than you can say Enoch Powell and you will rue the day you ever ignored my advice. So, old chap, what’s it to be?’

Gabriel’s jaw dropped. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Care to put me to the test?’

‘Couldn’t we just try the eye drops first?’

‘No. Now, if you would be so good as to get dressed, I will drive you to the hospital. I was going there anyway.’

‘What? Right now?’

‘No time like the present.’

‘I don’t approve of blackmail,’ Gabriel said, as he folded himself into the doctor’s Honda hatchback. His knees were almost tucked under his chin, the top of his head jammed against the roof. Typical of the bloody Japanese to build cars for midgets then inflict them on the rest of the world.

‘It wasn’t blackmail,’ Dr Singh said, ‘it was a straightforward deal.

We negotiated quite openly. There was nothing underhand about it.

But tell me, why don’t you have any help around your mausoleum of a house?’

‘Who said I didn’t?’

‘Your standards must be low if you let a cleaner off so lightly.’

‘If it’s any of your business, I got rid of the last woman after I caught her stealing from me. I didn’t object to her helping herself to the odd bit of loose change lying about the place, but I drew the line at her sneaking out of the house with my best single malt whisky stuffed up her knickers.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Nearly a year.’

‘And no other help since then?’

‘What is this? Twenty questions and then you file your report to Social Services?’

They juddered over the cattle grid at the end of the track where two stone pillars marked the entrance to Mermaid House, then joined the main road. ‘Tell me about your family. Do they live nearby?’

Gabriel shifted the seat-belt that was cutting into his neck. ‘Are you asking me why they don’t act the part of doting children and pop in every other day to see how the old man’s doing?’

‘I might be.’

A slight pause hung between them before Gabriel said, ‘We have a perfectly balanced relationship: they can’t stand me and I can’t stand them.’

Dr Singh slowed down for a sheep that was nonchalantly crossing the road. ‘Those are harsh words,’ he said. He turned to face Gabriel, looked at him gravely. ‘Do you not feel the heavy weight of them?

Do you not wish it could be otherwise?’

Seconds passed.

‘The sheep’s gone now,’ Gabriel muttered. ‘You can drive on.’

With no class before lunch, Jonah decided to bunk off school. He pulled on his jacket and took the stairs two at a time. At the bottom, pressed against the lockers in a slobbering, face-washing clinch, he found Tim Allerton wrapped around Shazzie Butler. They hadn’t heard him coming, so he stood perfectly still, just long enough to induce in them the right level of embarrassment when they noticed him. He gave a discreet little tap on the locker beside them. ‘A-hem.’

They sprang apart, which wasn’t easy, given the tangle of arms and legs.

Assuming a deadpan expression, he said, ‘On the basis that by now you’ve fully explored each other’s dental work, perhaps you would be so good as to find your way to whatever lesson you should be attending. You know how I value your input as regards helping the school to sprint up the league tables.’

He strode off, leaving them to wipe themselves down.

Outside in the car park, he opened the rusting door of his J-reg Ford Escort, wondering, as he always did, why he bothered to lock it.

Half the kids he taught at Deaconsbridge High - or Dick High, as its inmates affectionately referred to it - would have it open without the aid of a key in seconds flat.

He turned right out of the school gates and took the Lower Moor Road towards the centre of town, passing a dismal housing estate and an even uglier industrial complex. Back in the early 1970s, liberal town-planners had been assiduously fair with their unimaginative architectural handouts and had given Deaconsbridge High the same ugly status as its immediate neighbours. At roughly the same time as decimalisation had made its mark on the country, the evils of cheap flat-roofed urbanisation had hit Deaconsbridge. Since then, and in the last decade when restoration had become the watchword, money had been lavished on the small town centre so that it might compete with rival tourist attractions like Castleton and Buxton, but the outlying areas had received no such philanthropic gestures.

Occasionally there were calls for a bypass, since the hordes of lucrative trippers had been successfully drawn to the town, but the seasonal density of traffic didn’t yet warrant such outlandish expenditure.

And it was just as well that the traffic was so light, as Jonah was in a hurry. In the centre of the town, he joined the one-way system, drove along the war memorial end of the market square, then up towards Hollow Edge Moor. He was going to see his father, and had planned it this way deliberately. With only an hour and a half available to him, he would be able to say what he needed to say then get out. Direct and to the point, that’s what he had to be. Above all else he must not flinch at his father’s response, which would, of course, be of the ballistic variety. Many times he had witnessed, and been on the receiving end of, one of his father’s furious dressing downs, and on this occasion he was preparing himself to be stripped to the bone.

In his mind he had every line of the conversation already figured out, with every vindictive word his father would throw at him.

For starters he would be accused of being devious and too big for his boots, not to say conniving. Next he would be told he was the messenger of his cowardly brother, and that he was weak and too stupid to make a proper life for himself. It wouldn’t be the same if that old line wasn’t given an airing. Jonah was quite used to the torrent of scorn that was regularly poured on his teaching career.