The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (37 page)

‘Removing that pole needs an expert,’ said Matt. ‘We can’t do it; to do so would risk opening a major artery. And there’s only one expert I know of who can do it. My friend, Professor Cohen. But he’s in Chicago. I’ll call him first thing tomorrow.’

A chill went through Dorothea. She could not say a word. Rajan would die. Tomorrow. How could she ever face Rika again?

Rika. Where was she? The Annex was still dark and silent; was she asleep? Hopefully. Dorothea tentatively tried the handle on the door. It moved, but the door would not open. Rika had locked herself in. In a way, Dorothea was glad. She could not face Rika. She could not tell Rika that Rajan would die. Not tonight, at any rate.

Rika would have fallen asleep from exhaustion. Just as she, Dorothea, was about to do. She went up to her room and got into bed. Humphrey’s arms were waiting for her. She cried herself to sleep, and vowed to turn over a new leaf.

She slept until midmorning. Matt had been up much earlier; he had tried and failed to get hold of his friend Professor Cohen, who, it turned out, was vacationing in Florida. A few more calls, and Matt had managed to speak to Professor Cohen – whom he called Josh – at his hotel, and describe the case to him in detail. At breakfast he was smiling.

‘The Prof’s the best!’ he said. ‘He’s sending a medical plane for Rajan! He’s going to operate on him himself!’ He looked at his watch. ‘The plane’ll be on its way right now.’

As if on cue, the telephone rang. Humphrey answered it, called Matt, who listened for a while, spoke a few words, and returned beaming to the table.

‘I told you: he’s the best! Pulled a few strings, and hey, presto! The plane should be landing at Ogle just after midday. There’s some red tape to cut through regarding landing permits, visas and the like, but he’s done this before and knows the ropes.’

Dorothea let out a whoop of delight. ‘What do you think, Matt? Can Dr Cohen do it?’

‘If anyone can, it’s him!’

‘But,’ said Humphrey slowly. ‘I can’t afford this, Matt! A plane, all the way from America! That’ll cost a fortune!’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Matt. ‘I’ll pay for it.’

‘But …’

‘Not another word,’ said Matt. ‘What are friends for? I’ve got the money. We’ll do it.’

‘I can’t thank you …’

‘Where’s Rika?’ asked Ma Quint suddenly.

‘Still asleep, probably,’ said Dorothea. ‘She’d locked her door last night. She must have been in shock.’

‘Did nobody attend to her?’

‘Well – no. We were all too busy with Rajan,’ said Dorothea. ‘And I had to get the children away. But you know Rika – she likes to be alone.’

‘But I’m sure she would have appreciated a little comfort,’ said Ma Quint. ‘Oh dear. I suppose that was my job. She wouldn’t have accepted it from you, Dorothea.’

‘Exactly!’ said Dorothea. ‘She must hate me more than ever now.’

Ma Quint scraped back her chair. ‘That’s true. This is my job. I’ll go to her now. Let’s hope sleep has calmed her down. And at least we have some good news for her.’

She hurried from the room. A few minutes later she was back.

‘I’ve been calling and knocking but she won’t answer the door!’ she said. ‘I need the spare key.’

She ran upstairs, returned with a key, and ran over to the Annex. Again she was back.

‘Rika’s gone!’ she cried.

S
he had taken
Mummy’s hand in her own and held it, crying and speaking at the same time.

‘Mummy!’ she cried. ‘Oh Mummy! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’

And then she was still, quite still, crying silently, Mummy’s hand in hers. Mummy lay as ghostly still as ever. A living corpse, her mouth caved in, hollow-cheeked as she was not wearing her dentures. And then …

A slight flutter, as of a baby bird awakening to life.

Rika sat up straight.

‘Inky!’

Inky looked up. ‘Mmmm?’

‘She moved! Her fingers, they moved!’

Rika loosened the fingers of her hand clasped around Mummy’s, whose own hand now lay still on her palm, as if the baby bird had died.

‘No!’ Inky stared at her grandmother, corpselike as before. Rika held her breath. Had she imagined it? Was it wishful thinking? But then it happened again. The fingers twitched in Rika’s hand. They both leaned in, called out together:

‘Mummy!’

‘Gran!’

‘We’re here!’

‘Can you hear us?’

‘It’s me, it’s Rika! Come back! Come on back! I love you!’

Nothing. Rika and Inky fell into silence, watching. And then … Mummy’s eyes twitched, just a little. And her fingers, again. Inky took her other hand, and that twitched too. Rika beamed at Inky.

‘She’s waking up!’ she whispered. The tiny bird trembled ever so slightly in her hand, fleshless and silky. She shuddered at the joy of it.

Mummy’s eyes opened a slit. Inky pressed the bell for a nurse. People came, people in white, doctors and nurses. They hustled and bustled around Mummy, all white efficiency and care, and partitions went up, the lights went on. They shooed Inky and Rika from the bedside, out of the ward. Out in the corridor they clasped each other in joy and comfort and hope.

L
ater
, much later, all was quiet again. Mummy lay there, still as a stone except for the gentle rise and fall of the bed-sheet over her breast. Her eyes were open just a slit. Sometimes she blinked. Rika and Inky gazed at her face, holding their breath, waiting for a miracle. Life had returned to this fragile body; but what quality of life?

Then, Mummy turned her head towards Rika. She seemed to be straining to lift it. Inky reached over and held it up, plumped up cushions beneath it, and then Mummy opened her eyes fully. Her lips parted. She croaked, trying to speak. Her tongue slid gently over her bottom lip. She made a little chewing motion with her toothless mouth. Hands twitched, little birds fluttering again. And then the moment came where she seemed to pull all her faculties together in one great grasp at life. Her eyes flew wide open, her gaze found Rika, and it was as full of fire as ever.

‘Now we is quit!’ she said, lisped. Her eyelids fell shut, she shuddered, and her head fell back against the pillow.

Rika gasped in horror. ‘Is she …?’

But then the whole little body shuddered from toe to tip as it took one deep breath, and relaxed again into sleep.

When Mummy woke up completely Rika was right there, waiting.

‘Mummy,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry!’ She could hardly see for the tears welling in her eyes. She sniffled and blew her nose and leaned in to hug her mother. Mummy raised an arm, thinner than ever before and almost weightless, and placed it around Rika’s shoulder. She patted Rika on the back.

‘Is what you got fuh be sorry?’ she muttered.

‘For being the biggest asshole on earth,’ Rika blubbered.

‘So,’ said Dorothea. ‘You an’ me gon’ be friends at last?’

G
ran’s
complete awakening was slow but steady. Mum took a few days leave and I took a few days off from work, and we took turns at her side. She seemed not to appreciate our company at all. It was the same bossy Gran of old who returned to us, much worse for wear; her voice with half the volume and lacking the increased authority of a rollator to barge her way through life. She was crotchety about being tied to a hospital bed, and having a man across the way from her – the same man – who really did nothing more than lie there all alone.

Mum, meanwhile, was in a delirium of joy, almost euphoric. Gran’s awakening plus the news of this fellow Rajan being alive – well, it was like thirty years of Christmas all rolled into one for Mum. In the following days, bit by bit, she told me the rest of the story, no longer reluctantly and hesitantly, but in her own true voice: about Rajan and her friendship with him and the first date with him. And then, just as she was about to fall in love, he fell, and died.

Or so she had thought.

‘Oh, Mum!’ I sighed. ‘What a waste of time! Of everything! If only you had read that letter when it first came! Why didn’t you?’

‘I couldn’t,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I was a coward.’

‘What a lot of will power, though, to keep it for so long! Eighteen years!’

‘Oh,
that
was nothing,’ said Mum. ‘No will power at all. I didn’t
want
to open it! I feared it! There was a huge thick scab over a deep aching wound and I knew very well that reading Mummy’s letter would crack open that scab and I’d be right back there in the wound and bleeding to death, like Rajan.’

‘But – how could you keep that pain so well out of sight, all those years? That must have been will power?’

But Mum only shook her head.

‘Because I had a different memory of Rajan, and I kept that one alive. I could conjure up his face, smiling and strong. I clung to that image. I could talk to him, and he would talk back. He became so real to me, Inky! So real, that he pushed the painful memories away.’

‘Then why didn’t you just throw it away?’

‘I couldn’t do that either. Because I knew, I just
knew,
that one day I had to find closure. That I couldn’t run away for ever. That the letter would be the key to facing the pain, forgiving Mum, finally confronting the Beast in me. I knew it, Inky, but I kept saying, one day. Not now. You know I’m a first class procrastinator!’

I nodded. Mum had that tendency – to delay unpleasant matters until they could no longer be avoided. She did it with her bills, and she’d done it with this letter. Typical! Me, I like to get things over with as soon as possible. Mum was still speaking.

‘Somewhere inside me, was a little voice. I thought it was Rajan’s voice; I used to talk to him, you know! A voice telling me that in the end, I had to return to love. Reconcile with Mummy, accept her plea for forgiveness. It had to come, one day, and the letter represented that day. I used to have whole conversations with Rajan: a sort of angel Rajan, advising me what to do.
Open it,
Rajan would say.
Later,
I’d reply.
Later. I promise.

‘But I kept pushing that day into the future delaying it. Because I was so afraid. Afraid of the pain. Of dragging up the memory of Rajan’s death. Terrified. Mummy said she locked
her
pain away, turned hard and cold; well, I locked my pain away too, but in a different way. I banished it, refused to let it dominate my mind, my life. And yet it was always there, in the background. Even if I refused to look, it was there.’

She shuddered. ‘His face – with that – that rod sticking out of his head …’

She wiped away a tear.

‘And yet. The letter. It told me the story was not over. That one day there had to be closure, and reconciliation. But now, that’s easy too. Because Rajan is alive.’

She was still for a moment, her face one huge smile.

‘Inky! He’s alive!
Alive!
I can’t believe it! It’s like, like, a resurrection!’

And she fell into my arms, crying for joy. I wanted to caution her, tell her not to be too euphoric; after all, Rajan wasn’t the same Rajan she had known. Brain-damaged! That could very well be worse than death. In my eyes, at least, it was. I’d rather be dead than brain-damaged. But I couldn’t tell that to Mum. Not now. Of course not.

‘I wonder how he could possibly have survived,’ I said.

‘Well, I guess Gran will tell us the details, once she’s home.’

‘Mum,’ I said, ‘This is an amazing story. You should turn it into a novel!’

She burst out laughing. ‘Maybe I will, Inky, Maybe I will, one day!’

And she opened her arms and squeezed me so tightly I yelled for release.

‘Inky,’ she said then. ‘It’s time to go home. And you’re coming too.’

And she didn’t mean Streatham Hill.

O
f course
, it wasn’t all song and dance. As soon as he heard that Gran had spoken, Neville was down in a flash and doing his best to take charge. We wouldn’t let him. But Gran was nice to him, and I suppose that‘s what gave him the courage to ask.

‘Mummy, should I bring the Quint for you?’

Mum was in the loo. I don’t think he’d have dared to ask in her presence. Mum had turned quite cranky over the last few days, and belligerent; quite unlike herself. Lack of sleep, probably.

‘The Quint?’

‘Yes. You know, the stamp. The postage stamp.’

Gran’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Yeh … yeh … I remember now. The Quint, they call it. I been on TV with it. I hide it good an’ proper.’

‘You always liked looking at it. Shall I bring it for you?’

‘Yeh, bring it over. Go on. Is nice to look at. Bring back memories.’

‘Er … good. I’ll bring it. But, um, could you tell me where to find it?’

‘Find it? Yeh, of course, mus’ be in my handbag. Probably. Where me handbag?’

‘It’s at home, Gran. We took it home. You think it’s in there?’ I frowned. I knew it wasn’t. But I couldn’t tell her that without admitting I’d searched for it. But then Gran frowned too.

‘No, I remember now, is not in de handbag. I decide is too dangerous. I put it somewhere. Somewhere real, real safe, where nobody can get it.’

Neville’s eyes literally gleamed with excitement.

‘Good, good, you’re remembering. Now just tell me where, and I’ll get it.’

Gran’s frown deepened as she thought about it. She scratched her temple, just below the bandage, as if trying to release a secret buried in her brain.

“‘I can’t remember right now,”’ she said at last. “‘But it gon’ come to me soon. Don’t worry, I know is a safe place. A safe, safe place.”’

But Gran’s super safe place remained out of reach of her memory. Neville had to return home unfulfilled.

They sent Gran home after a week, and still she could not remember.

‘Once I is in me room, I gon’ remember,’ she said. But she didn’t. She sat on her bed giving me orders as to where to search, but each potential hiding place turned up a blank. After two weeks of ever more frantic searches Gran had to admit it: she had lost the Quint.

‘I always said you should put it in a bank safe,’ was all Mum had to say on the matter. She seemed almost relieved that the stamp was gone. She was just too happy to care.

I was pretty distressed, but tried not to show it. All that drama, all those hopes, and all for nothing. Life couldn’t get much bleaker. There had to be an upturn. Somewhere. I tried to think positive: at least Gran had survived, more or less intact.