The Paradise Trees (22 page)

She jogged down to the summerhouse and yelled again, with the same result. Nothing in this life was ever simple, she thought, turning back to the house. Jenny could be anywhere up there, and she
wasn’t expecting Alicia to call yet. It was only half past ten. Margaret was waiting by the door, and Alicia made a snap decision.

‘Jen’s not answering. I’ll leave a note on the table, and I’ll come back for her as soon as we’ve seen how Bob is,’ she said, lifting the pad they used for
shopping lists. ‘She can phone my mobile if she comes home before that, but she probably won’t. Try not to worry, Margaret, Doug said it was nothing dangerous.’

As far as we know
, he had said. That didn’t mean anything. Had they called Frank in? And why was she feeling so shaky about this? Her father didn’t love her and she
didn’t love him. She pressed her lips together as she reversed into the lane.

Maybe her shakiness was because everything was suddenly different, because sitting at the back of her mind was now the thought that her father might die soon after all? And if his death was
connected to his misadventure last weekend, then it would still be her fault. Of course she could be reading way too much into this, it might be something quite minor, a bit of a cold or such
like.

Margaret was hunched in the passenger seat clutching her handbag with thin, trembling fingers, suddenly looking much older than her years. Her father looked much older too, but that was down to
his illness. Alicia reached across and squeezed her aunt’s hand.

Doug was standing in the doorway when they arrived at the ward, and Alicia hurried towards him, Margaret hanging onto her arm. Hell, this was awkward, she hadn’t spoken to him since their
date on Thursday. But he was a professional, he wouldn’t mix his private life with his work.

‘It’s alright, he’s stable,’ he said immediately, and Alicia heard Margaret’s deep sigh of relief.

‘Come in and sit with him,’ said Doug, moving two chairs to the bedside. Alicia bent over her father. He was breathing loudly but regularly, and he looked as if he was merely
sleeping.

‘What happened?’ she asked, letting Margaret sit on the chair nearest the head of the bed.

Doug shook his head. ‘For some reason he became very drowsy after breakfast. The nurses thought he just hadn’t slept well, but they found him unresponsive in his chair a little while
ago. I think it might be a reaction to his sleeping meds. Try not to worry, Alicia. His vital signs are okay, but Frank Carter’s on his way in to see him anyway. Your father’s a strong
person, he’ll get through this, I’m sure.’

His voice jarred inside Alicia’s head and her gut twisted. She had been right on Thursday evening. Doug’s words were superficial, impersonal nothing-phrases, things he could say to
anyone at all. He would use them in his work, those phrases, they would comfort a lot of people, but now, with her, it was like a slap in the face... And she had
kissed
this man... How
stupid she had been to think there had been any chance of building a relationship with him.

Alicia watched as Margaret stroked the old man’s face, and realised that in less than a week his face had become fuller, healthier looking. They couldn’t have been feeding him enough
at home. It didn’t look as if there was much wrong. But if not today, he was going to die one day soon. Margaret would be so sad, and Jenny would be too, the carefully-nurtured picture of
Grandpa in an ideal world would be gone. And shit, she should get back to Lower Banford right now and organise something for Jen. Maybe Eva Campbell could take her for a few hours.

Doug’s phone rang, and he left the room to answer it, passing Derek and Frank in the doorway. Alicia closed her eyes in relief. Frank would know what to do, and he would tell her exactly
what was going on.

Frank smiled briefly as he strode into the room. ‘Alicia, Margaret,’ he said, taking out his stethoscope. ‘We’ll have a look at Bob now. Do you want to take Margaret to
the relatives’ room, Alicia? I’ll come and get you in a few minutes.’

Alicia led Margaret along the corridor to the relatives’ room, which was furnished with uncomfortable wooden chairs and a vending machine. Glumly, she searched through her purse for change
and supplied them both with thin plastic cups of coffee. Margaret sipped hers and made a face at Alicia.

‘Institutional dishwater,’ she said, and Alicia smiled faintly. Her aunt had got over the shock, thank goodness.

‘Not the best cup I’ve ever had, that’s for sure,’ she said, checking that her mobile was on. It was, but it might be another half hour before Jenny went back home,
longer if the little monkey decided to stay in the woods until Alicia shouted for her, which was what usually happened. As soon as Frank told them what was going on she would get back and ask a
neighbour to look after Jen for a bit.

She sat there, sipping her coffee and staring vacantly out of the window. This room faced the same way as Doug’s office downstairs. Two swans were swimming across the pond, accompanied by
the little troupe of ducks. Weren’t swans supposed to bring bad luck? Or was that magpies? She couldn’t remember.

It was horrible, being away from her daughter like this. Again. Alicia took a deep breath and consciously tried to relax. Jen’ll be fine, she won’t even have noticed that she’d
been deserted, she told herself. What the hell was Frank doing all this time?

This was the room where they broke the news that someone has died. Maybe she would sit here with Margaret one day quite soon, and Frank or another doctor would come in and say, ‘I’m
very sorry, but...’

Or maybe she would sit by her father’s bed with Margaret and watch him die, listen to him breathing, waiting and wondering which breath would be the last. Life was hard, sometimes. Dear
God. Surely Frank wouldn’t be much longer?

It was several minutes before he came in though, and the quick smile he gave her told her almost all she needed to know. He looked a bit hot under the collar and his shirt had a distinctly
slept-in appearance about it. Had he been up half the night?

‘I still can’t tell you exactly what’s going on,’ he said, sitting down beside Margaret. ‘But it’s nothing neurological, it’s not his heart, and his
breathing is perfectly adequate at the moment. I’ve sent blood to get tested but we won’t have the results for a bit. If I didn’t know better I’d say he’s been
hoarding his sleeping pills and then took about three after breakfast, but that’s not possible. The nurses always watch until the patients swallow their medication, and Derek gave him the
pill himself last night. We’ll know more when the blood tests come back. You can go and sit with him again, they’re just moving him into a single room because his roommate always has
masses of visitors at the weekend.’

‘I’ll go back in, then. Thank you, Frank,’ said Margaret, going to the door. Alicia hesitated, waiting until her aunt was well out of the room.

‘Do you think he’ll recover from this?’ she said bluntly, and he made a helpless gesture with his hands.

‘I’ll be honest with you, Alicia, I don’t know. I wish we knew the reason for this change in his conscious level. And no matter what the reason is, it’s not good for old
people to lie around semi-conscious. But at the moment we can still hope it’s temporary. Where’s Jenny this morning?’

‘In the woods,’ said Alicia, anxiety twisting her gut into a tight ball again. ‘She went off before Doug phoned, and I couldn’t get her back. I left a note on the table,
but she hasn’t phoned yet.’ She fished in her bag for her mobile. Still nothing. It was after eleven, Jen should have been back by this time. They were supposed to have been visiting
Kenneth and his kittens, that was important, Jen wouldn’t have forgotten that. Where
was
she?

Frank looked at her, and she could feel his concern. There was nothing superficial about Frank.

He took her arm and led her back to her father’s new room. ‘Say goodbye to Margaret, then go home and get Jenny organised,’ he said. ‘She’ll be busy playing with
Conker, don’t worry. Kids have no sense of time. When you’ve sorted her out you’ll feel better able to cope with things here. Call me if there’s any problem.’

Alicia nodded. She gave Margaret a quick hug, barely registering the guttural breathing from the bed, and left, waving to Frank and Laura, the staff nurse, as she passed. Where was Jenny? Still
in the woods, like Frank said, having lost all sense of time? It was quite possible. Or maybe she had tried to phone and hadn’t managed for some reason. What would she do then? Jen was a
sensible little soul, she would go to a neighbour and get help. No, the most likely thing was that her daughter
had
forgotten the time, in spite of her new watch, and was still playing in
the woods.

The Stranger

It had worked like a dream. He simply couldn’t have planned it better. The timing had been perfect, and right this minute little Helen was out for the count on his sofa,
waiting for him to return home to play with her. It was almost too good to be true. He’d been so clever.

He’d arrived at the clearing after dealing with the old man and there she was, sitting on the fallen tree trunk, throwing sticks for that wretched dog. He’d decided what to do about
that, though, so it wasn’t a problem.

‘Good morning to you, Queen Titania!’ he said, putting on his friendliest face and bowing as low as he could.

She smiled up at him, a great big beaming happy-to-see-him smile, and he’d known then that his plan would succeed. This was more like the kind of behaviour he expected from his fairy
Queen.

‘King Oberon! You’re here!’

‘At your service, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And am I right that your Majesty would like to see my new little kittens?’

‘Oh yes!’ she said with that wonderful, innocent smile again. ‘Where are they? What colours are they?’

A picture of Snugglepuss sprang into his mind.

‘All pure white, ma’am. They’re at my house. Would you like to come and see them now? We’d be back in less than half an hour.’

She looked at the watch on her wrist, where Minnie Mouse was pointing out that it was twenty past nine.

‘Oh yes,’ she said readily. ‘I can stay out for another hour, I should think. Mummy’ll call me when I have to go home.’

He led her round to the other side of the wood where he’d left his car and ushered her and the dog into the back seat. Now came another tricky part, he had to drive across the main road
without being seen. Good job his car windows were tinted, it gave him just that bit more protection. Fortunately too Lower Banford wasn’t big on CCTV, with all the driving back and forth he
was doing today it was indeed lucky that there wasn’t a camera attached to every second building like they had in Merton. The village street was deserted, and he drove over the dangerous
crossing unseen. In his driveway he relaxed. He had made it.

‘I think we’ll leave our trusty servant Puck in the car,’ he said, turning and smiling his most regal smile at her. ‘My poor baby kittens might not like him very
much.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Aunt Margaret always says he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But we won’t be here very long so he’ll be fine on the back seat. I’ll see you in
five minutes, Conker. I mean Puck.’

He smiled when she said that. Little minx. She was well aware that she was doing something forbidden, even though she thought she knew enough about him to trust him. And what a good thing it was
that she did trust him. They were going to have such a beautiful time together, just the two of them. Him and little Helen, it was beginning. Sweat trickled down his back.

He locked the dog in the car, using the tow rope from the boot to secure it to the back headrest, in case it ‘tried to climb into the front and hurt himself’. Little Helen was quite
happy with this arrangement and he led her inside, a positive wave of relief crashing through him when he closed the door behind them. Success. She was here, and nothing would stop him now.

He’d pulled the heavy velvet curtains across most of the window so the living room was in semi-darkness, and little Helen looked round, straining to see the kittens.

‘Where are they? I can’t see them,’ she said.

‘They’re in the other room,’ he told her. ‘You sit down on the sofa and I’ll bring their box in to you. And I’m sure you’d like something to drink too,
while you’re here.’

In the kitchen, he poured a small slosh of orange juice into the powerful sedative he’d prepared earlier and stirred the mixture. When he went back to the living room she jumped to her
feet.

‘Shhh, nice and quiet,’ he said. ‘The kitties are still asleep, so you have your juice first and then I’ll bring them in. Here you are.’

He could see that she was uneasy now about being here. Did she sense that something wasn’t quite right, or was she merely starting to feel guilty about going away without telling her
mother? It didn’t matter, of course. She was here, and she was going nowhere. Yet.

As soon as she raised the glass to her lips, he acted. It was child’s play to hold her head in his left arm and force the bitter liquid into her mouth with his right. She struggled, but he
held on, waiting until she swallowed the dose. And oh, how sweet she was and how afraid.

‘It’s quite alright, darling. Just some extra vitamins,’ he said softly. ‘You sit down and have a piece of chocolate while I fetch the kitties.’

She stumbled backwards, trying to get away from him, and fell over the coffee table, a high-pitched whimper coming from her throat. Smiling gently he lifted her to her feet and pushed her down
on the sofa where she cowered into the corner, sheer horror in her eyes now. He stood in front of her, taking his time unwrapping a bar of white chocolate. He would just pop a tiny piece in her
mouth, he didn’t want her to choke. Her eyes, oh, this was so delicious, the sedative was working already and she was terrified, her eyes were wild and her whole body was shaking, but there
was nothing she could do to resist him. Which was exactly as it should be, of course. He pulled the elastic bands from her pigtails and loosened her hair around her face and she made no move to
stop him. There, that was much better. He stood and watched as she slumped into the sofa cushions, a glazed expression replacing the terror. He knelt in front of her and cupped her face with his
hands.