Lynn opted to stand.
“What we're about to do,” the registrar said, “is take a little look inside your father's colon. We do this by means of a fibreoptic tube, an endoscope, which is passed along the bowel.” Lynn felt her stomach clenching at the thought. “As procedures go, it can be a trifle uncomfortable, but it need not necessarily be painful. So much depends upon your father's attitude. And yours.”
“He's terrified,” Lynn said.
“Ah.”
“He's convinced he's dying.”
“Then it's up to you to convince him this is not so. Be strong for him.”
“If you do find something,” Lynn asked, “what happens next?”
Another glance towards the watch. “If we do come across what appears to be a growth, then we may decide to take a biopsy, have a closer look. After that we'll know more.”
“And if it's cancer?”
“Then we'll treat it.”
He was wearing a white overall that tied at the back, sedated but awake.
“Don't fret,” the nurse said, “I'll hold his hand all the way through it.” She laughed. “There's a TV screen in there, he can watch what's happening if he wants.”
Lynn thought it was unlikely: her father wouldn't even sit with her mum and watch
Blockbusters
. She went downstairs and sat in the WRVS canteen, chatting about the weather with a middle-aged volunteer who assured her that the jam tarts were homemade. Lynn bought two, cherry and apricot, and a cup of tea. The walls were decorated with paintings done by the children from the local First School, bright as hope and full of life. The pastry might have been home made, but the fillings were out of a tin. She was wondering, if anything did happen to her father, how they would ever manage. Accumulating all the reasons why, whatever happened, she shouldn't apply for a transfer, return home.
“Your father's fine,” the registrar said, back in his office. “Complaining a little of the discomfort, but otherwise, absolutely fine. A character.”
Lynn gulped down air: it was going to be all right.
“There is a blockage, however. A small growth.”
“But ⦔
“We've taken a biopsy while we had the chance.”
“You said ⦔
“One definite thing in his favor, if it does turn out to be cancerous, it is pretty high up in the bowel. Easier, once we've snipped out the offending part to join the rest together and leave things functioning pretty much as normal.” He looked at Lynn to see if she were following. “No call for a colostomy, you see.”
All the way home, her father stared through the window at the edges of buildings blending with the gathering darkness, memories of fields. Several times Lynn spoke but got no answer, secretly pleased, not wanting to discuss what sat heavy between them, waiting to be discussed. The car radio drifted through talk of the recession and ethnic cleansing and the rise of the German Right. Lynn switched it off and stared along the tracks her lights made in the lightly falling rain.
Her mother had made a meal, cold ham and salad, halves of boiled egg, each with a teaspoon of mayonnaise on top, thick slices of white bread and butter. Tea.
“Stay the night, love.”
“Sorry, Mum, I can't. Early call.”
At the door she held her father close till she was sure of the beat of his heart.
Rain fell more heavily, bouncing back from the black shine of tarmac, swishing across her windscreen in a wave whenever another vehicle sailed past and suddenly she was crying. From nowhere, tears ransacked her face and she began to shake. Clutching the wheel, she leaned forward, peering out. A lorry swung out behind her and as it passed the slipstream dragged her wide. Her mirror blazed with the glare of headlights and a car horn screamed. Blinded, Lynn struggled to regain her lane as the wind gusted into her broadside. Mouth open, sobbing hard, she felt the car begin to skid and when her foot tried to find the brake it slid away. With a jarring thump, the nearside struck something solid and cannoned forward, Lynn's seatbelt saving her from the windscreen but not the steering wheel, blood and tears now stinging her eyes.
Thirty-eight
One of the good things about Blue Stilton, Resnick was thinking, ripe enough it had a flavor that would survive no matter the company. This particular piece, the last of a chunk he had brought back from the market the other side of Christmas, he mashed down into a slice of dark rye bread before layering it with narrow strips of sun-dried tomato, half a dozen circles of pepper salami, a piece of ham, a handful of black olives cut into halves; a second slice of bread he rubbed with garlic before buttering and setting it on top. There were tomatoes in the salad box, a nub of cucumber, several ailing radishes, the last of an iceberg lettuce which he shredded with a knife. Somehow he'd allowed his stock of Czech Budweiser to run out, but near the back of the fridge he knew was a Worthington's White Shield in its new-shaped bottle. In fact, there were two.
Of course, he had still not bought the CD player and the Billie Holiday box set sat on the living-room mantelpiece gathering dust, an expensive rebuke. Resnick placed his sandwich on the table near his chair, watchful that one of the more adventurous cats, Dizzy or Miles, didn't jump up and start nibbling round the edges. He pulled one of his favorites, the Clifford Brown Memorial album, from the crowded shelf and slipped it from its battered sleeve. Music playing, he poured his beer, careful not to let the sediment slip down into the glass. Half of the sandwich he lifted towards his mouth with both hands, catching the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes on his tongue.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz
was proving good reading, fine for dipping into, interesting as much for who was left out as who was included. Branford, Ellis, and Wynton Marsalis, but not Delfeayo. Endless sections devoted to European avant-gardists who recorded hard-to-get cassettes in Scandinavia, but no room for Tim Whitehead, whose quartet Resnick had seen recently in Birmingham, nor the altoist Ed Silver, so much a part of the early British bop scene and Resnick's friend.
Resnick set down the book and reached for his glass. A couple of years back, he had talked Ed Silver out of severing his own foot from his body with an ax, taken him into his home, and kept him company long into a succession of nights. Resnick listening to Silver's reminiscences about gigs he had played, recordings he had made, promoters and agents who had cheated him out of what was rightly his. The day, speechless, he came face to face with Charlie Parker in New York; the night he almost sat in with Coltrane. All the while easing him off the booze, encouraging him to regain a grip on his life.
As suddenly as he had materialized, Ed had disappeared. Eight months later, a card from London:
Charlie back in the Smoke. Somehow they don't want me at the Jazz Café, but I've got this little gig at the Brahms & Liszt in Covent Garden, Friday nights. Come down and give a listen. Ed
. Somehow, Resnick had never been down.
By the time he walked into the kitchen for his second White Shield, Resnick's mind had been reclaimed by other things: Harry and Clarise Phelan, awake in bed in their hotel, waiting to hear if their daughter were still alive; Lynn, driving back from Norfolk after taking her father to the hospital, alone in the night with what news?
Michelle was halfway down the stairs when she heard Gary outside. At least, she presumed it was Gary. All she could make out at first were voices raised in anger, muffled and harsh. She hugged the baby to her and Natalie whimpered; lowering her face into the fine wispy hair, Michelle shushed her and hurried towards her cot. She was sure it was Gary now. Brian, too. What on earth was going on? Gary and Brian, best mates for years.
She was tucking Natalie's blanket around her when Gary lurched through the door.
“Gary, I wondered what was ⦔
At the sight of the blood, she stopped. A line of it, bright, like a Christmas streamer on the side of Gary's face.
“Gary, what's â¦?”
With the back of his arm, he pushed her away.
“Gary, you're bleeding.”
“Think I don't fucking know that?”
At the sound of their raised voices, Karl rolled over in his makeshift bed on the settee, Natalie began to cry. Michelle followed Gary to the bathroom and stood in the doorway, watching.
“Bastard!” Gary said, as he looked in the mirror. “Bastard!” wincing as he touched his cheek.
“Gary, let me ⦔
With a snarl, he slammed the door in her face.
She lay in bed, listening to the sound of the rain, clipping off the loose slates on the roof; the sound of her own breathing. Outside on the landing, where the water was coming through, it dripped in rhythm into a plastic pail. Natalie had gone off again and Karl, thank God, had never really woken. After he'd finished in the bathroom, she'd heard Gary banging around in the kitchen, presumably making a cup of tea. She thought he might switch on the tele, curl up next to Karl, and fall asleep, until she heard his footsteps on the stairs.
“Michelle?”
Soft thump of his jeans on the threadbare square of carpet, lighter fall of his sweater and shirt.
“'Chelle?”
His hand on her shoulder was cold and she jumped.
“I'm sorry. I am, you know.”
Face against her back, his fingers reached round and found her breast.
“Shouldn't 've lost my temper, not with you. Weren't nothing to do with you.”
Michelle rolled away, freeing herself from his hand. “What happened then? Tell me.”
“It wasn't nothing. Really. Just me and Brian, messing around.”
“It didn't sound like you was messing around. And this ⦔ He flinched as she stretched towards him, but allowed her to touch the place just below the hairline where he had been cut.
“We was just foolin' about, that's all. Got a bit silly. You know what Brian's like after a few pints.”
Again Michelle stopped herself from asking, whereabouts is he getting all this money?
“Still,” Gary said, “over now, eh? What'd my mum say? Spilt milk.” He lifted his hand back to Michelle's breast, shocking her with his gentleness, stroking her lightly until, through the thin cotton of the T-shirt, he felt her nipple harden against his thumb.
Thirty-nine
How long someone had been tapping on the window, Lynn didn't know. Opening her eyes, she groaned, gritted her teeth, and looked out. The car had come to rest close against a farm fence, the nearside wing buckled by a concrete post. Gloved, the hand knocked again. Oh, shit! thought Lynn. My head hurts! In the rearview mirror, she could see the sidelights of the car that had pulled in behind her, faint through the blur of rain. A man's face now, bending close to the glass, words she could read without hearing: “Are you all right? Is there anything I can do to help?”
Traffic continued to swish by, unconcerned.
She turned the key in the ignition and the engine sputtered momentarily and died.
He looked to be in his forties, clean-shaven, hair plastered dark to his head by the rain. The shoulders and arms of his jacket were soaked through and Lynn wondered how long he had been standing there, anxious to help. She wound the window down a few inches, enough to be able to talk.
“I saw you come off the road, ahead of me. Wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Thanks. I think I'm fine.”
The right side of her mouth was numb and when she touched the tip of her tongue to her lip she could tell it was swollen. Wiping away steam from the mirror, she could see a swelling over her left eye, already the size of a small egg and growing.
“You were lucky.”
“Yes, thanks.”
Lynn knew she should get out and look at the car, examine the extent of the damage. Even supposing she did get the engine to start, it might not be possible for her to drive away. The man, standing there, kept her where she was.
“You haven't got a phone in your car?”
“Afraid not.”
Neither, in this car, did she.
“Look,” Lynn said, winding down the window a little farther. “It was good of you to stop, but, really, I'll be all right now.”
He smiled and began to back slowly away. Lynn took a deep breath and got out into the rain. The rear of the car seemed to have collided with a pile of gravel as it left the road, then spun forward into the gate. Somewhere, out in the semi-dark, were the shapes of cattle, hedges converging. Lynn pulled up her collar and squatted near the front wheel. The metal of the wing had been forced back sharp against the tire and the tire was flat. The headlight was a tangle of silvered metal and broken glass. Maybe she could pull the metal out and change the wheel, but even then she doubted if she'd get far.
“Why don't you let me give you a lift?” He had come back and was standing back beyond her left shoulder, looking on. The wind had relented a little but not much. “Just as far as the nearest garage.”
Lynn shook her head; she wasn't about to compound one stupidity with another.
“There's one six or seven miles down the road. I think it's open twenty-four hours.”
Lynn looked directly at his face, forcing herself to make judgments. In the circumstances, she thought, what else was she going to do? Walk and risk getting sideswiped by a passing car? Stick out her thumb and hope for the best?
“All right,” she said. “Just as far as the garage. Thanks.” Rain brushing his face, he smiled. “Fine.”
Lynn retrieved her handbag, locked the offside door, and, hurrying to the man's car, got into the back seat.
“Michael,” he said over his shoulder. “Michael Best. My friends call me Pat.”
Lynn smiled, more of a grimace than a smile. “Lynn Kellogg, it was good of you to stop. Really.”
“Brownie points up there, I suspect,” smiling back at her, nodding towards the roof of the car. “Few good ones to set against the bad.”