‘Please, don’t apologise. I should apologise. We … I wish … what … what will you do now?’
‘Oh, first get back home. Consulate is helping me. We have funeral to arrange. Our parents …’ She broke off to wipe her eyes. ‘I did not tell them about the baby, now I am glad they do not know. Mitsuko wanted to tell them herself. After she had told Kenichi.’
‘You mean, he didn’t know?’
Yuko looked at him sadly. ‘No. I tell her this is wrong, I tell her she should. When she call me those times, I say she should tell him and he would understand. Understand everything.’
‘Understand what?’
She sighed. ‘I can tell you now. There is no secret now, no point. When she marry Kenichi they agree at first no children, Kenichi did not want more children. So my sister is afraid to say, and she is so, so sick with the baby. She cannot stand it.’
‘I don’t understand. What couldn’t she stand? Didn’t she want to be with him? Is that why she left?’
‘No, no, she love him. But Kenichi is much older and old-fashioned. He believe that a Japanese wife takes care of a husband, she serves him food, sit with him always when they eat, this is the old-fashioned way. And Mitsuko, she cannot do this when she is sick. She tell me on phone. She cannot bear to watch him eat. She feels even sicker.’
Andrew’s mind flew back to his first meeting with Professor Takahashi over breakfast and felt in complete sympathy. ‘You don’t mean she left him because she couldn’t bear to watch him eat?’
‘No, no—not so simple. She is so upset he does not understand and still she does not tell him why. She is
screaming and he slapped her on face,
pah!
once like that, to stop her. She wanted time to be by herself and plan what to do. She was worried, also a little jealous.’
‘Jealous? How come?’
Yuko hesitated. ‘My sister very much younger. She hoped her marriage will put all sadness and unhappiness away from Kenichi. But inside he is still unhappy, getting better only very slow. My sister is jealous that she does not make him so happy as his first wife. And he does not want a family, he is still … what word to use … in pain. For what happened. For his first wife.’
‘What do you mean? What did happen?’
Yuko began to cry again. ‘For him it is too much, it is too much for one man in one life. His two children, his wife, they died. In Kobe earthquake.’
N
EXT DAY WHEN
the wailing first started, it came almost as a relief.
* * *
Y
VONNE HAD
never known an atmosphere like it in Dr Golightly’s consulting room and for the first hour of the day she had been trying to conduct herself in a whispering, indirect manner towards him, which she hoped signalled that she understood he would prefer it if she were not present. But she had to be, of course. Just because things were not going well was no reason to skip the daily updates on each patient; if anything it was more important than ever. But she had found it very difficult to express the view that Mrs Valentine seemed worse today without it sounding as if she had lost faith in Dr Golightly, whose reproachful eyes seemed to be saying that he knew that, actually, she had.
‘Highly likely to be viral, I would have said. Wouldn’t you say, Doctor?’
Stephen Golightly’s eyes flickered for a second, but he shook his head slowly, less in disagreement than impatience.
‘Hmm? Oh, yes, possible that her immune system’s compromised by stress, divorce and so on,’ he said tightly. ‘I suppose she might be prone to viral infection. But this … this …’
‘You see, I was wondering, if it’s viral, then perhaps she really should be moved … you know, put in isolation somewhere. And if it’s viral, it’d explain why James—Mightn’t it?’
Dr Golightly replied at once, wishing to rid himself of the need to engage with Yvonne’s slower mind, because of course he had already considered the viral question and dismissed it, attractive though it might have been as an explanation. Although now that James had probably been admitted to hospital he hoped that he was not going to have to go public with any reassurance which, however it were phrased, would immediately sound as if there were something to worry about. He could see the
Bath Chronicle
now: PRIVATE CLINIC DISMISSES SUPERBUG FEARS.
‘No, it’s not viral. We have no airconditioning, which is how these things proliferate. The heating system is off. And anyway, if it were viral, we should have a great many more than two patients unwell. Furthermore, their symptoms were only superficially similar—raised temperature, for example. That’s too general a symptom to aid diagnosis. I should have thought you’d know that.’
‘Yes, of course I do see what you mean,’ Yvonne said, rather hotly. She had never seen Dr Golightly tense and angry; he always made you feel safe. But the greatest surprise was just how unfair he was being. She determined to jolly him out of it and with a sympathetic wrinkle of her nose she said, ‘Do you know, I think we worry too much. I mean, people come here unwell, don’t they? It’s just because
usually everybody gets better that it seems so terrible when a couple don’t, at least not straight away. You’re a victim of your own success really, aren’t you?’
It was almost tempting for a moment to succumb to such a cosy point of view, but Stephen Golightly shook his head again. ‘It’s not viral. I think Mrs Valentine is showing early symptoms of Parkinson’s.’
Yvonne’s mouth dropped open. ‘Oh heavens. She’s only thirty-seven.’
Dr Golightly nodded. ‘Onset’s been very sudden. It can take years, though of course we don’t know for sure that she simply hasn’t noticed a gradual weakening in her hands.’
The room seemed physically to darken with the unrelenting bad news. Dr Golightly broke the silence by saying, ‘Some people really don’t seem to have much luck, do they?’ It almost sounded from the bitterness in his voice that he was not referring to his unfortunate patients. And it was just as Yvonne was composing in her mind a rallying remark about how effective drug treatments for Parkinson’s were nowadays, that the wailing reached their ears.
* * *
S
TEPHEN, CLOSELY
followed by Yvonne, was first to arrive in the hall, where Joyce, newly emerged from the staff staircase, was staggering about, her face contorted and a high-pitched, windy pibroch of noise wheezing from her thin lips. She was cradling in her arms a stinking bundle of brown hide, wrapped in a green sweatshirt. The keening screeches of a deranged, elderly Scotswoman were too much for Yvonne. She brought them to an abrupt stop with a competent crack of her palm across Joyce’s face and
followed up the assault, in her most professionally soothing voice, with the suggestion that she come along and sit down.
‘Pretzel,’ moaned Joyce, holding out the bundle. One blackish ear slapped out over her hand. ‘My wee Pretzel. My wee dog’s gone. He’s dead, eech augh waaugh …’
Stephen’s serenely arranged face collapsed and reddened. Two of the cleaners had now arrived in the hall. ‘For God’s sake! This is a stress-free environment!’ he shouted. He swung round, haranguing the air. ‘Christ, is there not enough going on here already! I will not put up with this nonsense in my clinic, least of all over a fucking dog! Get her out of here,’ he shouted to Yvonne. ‘And that filthy corpse. Out! Get her back upstairs!’
Yvonne had turned from the sobbing Joyce and stared, astonished. Three of the catering assistants arrived at the top of the kitchen stairs, poured into the hall and stood, staring. Stephen was not so lost in anger that he was not able to count to five: that made five members of staff, excluding Yvonne and Joyce, watching him lose control; five people with families, friends, neighbours, who now had a lovely, shocking, gossipy story to go home with about how Dr Golightly and the Sulis Clinic were falling apart.
‘But, Dr Golightly, she’s upset. She needs to be treated for shock. Don’t you think we should—’ At that moment Yvonne caught sight of Ivan. Drawn by the noise he stood in his apron, immobilised by surprise, in the doorway of the stairs to the kitchen. Yvonne still had hold of Joyce’s heaving shoulders. She wondered how long he had been there watching her cope alone, too stunned to offer help.
‘Look, Ivan, I think you’d better try and help your father
calm down. Take him along to the drawing room. Stay with him. I’ll deal with this one.’
Ivan hesitated just long enough to tempt Yvonne to shout to him to stop blinking like an idiot and behave like a man. But just as she was restraining herself from upsetting him too, which would leave her the only person in control and seriously outnumbered by the hysterics, he heaved himself off the doorframe and took Stephen’s arm. He was trying to mimic the expression of benign calm that truly belonged on his father’s face.
‘Come on, Dad. You mustn’t get so upset. Joyce didn’t mean any harm, she’s just upset. And so are you.’ He smiled kindly. ‘You’ve been overdoing things.’
Stephen looked slightly shamefaced and nodded.
‘Come on,’ Ivan went on, confidently, ‘we’ll go and sit down for a moment. No need to get so upset. Joyce hasn’t disturbed any patients, has she, because there aren’t any here.’
T
HE BEST CITIES
are surrounded by hills, Sara thought, bored by the unoriginality of her observation but not by the view of Salzburg and the Salzach River that she was looking down upon from the Hohensalzburg Castle. A large board had informed her that the castle was eleventh century and that she was standing 120 metres above the city.
‘The best cities are surrounded by hills,’ declared the second viola from somewhere behind her. Sara edged away, to avoid having to respond. She was not being grand in avoiding a mere second viola, it was just that this second viola, Bernadette Xavier, happened to be a tedious Liverpudlian who, when she was not displaying grotesque maternal importance by bringing ‘my two’ into every conversation, was fond of announcing yawn-inducing clichés which she clearly thought were insights, about music, travel and life in general. Bernadette had attached herself to the group consisting of Charlie (the leader of the orchestra), Jeff and Geoff (first violin and principal viola), and Mel (Geoff’s girlfriend, second viola and desk partner of Bernadette, to whom she was almost allergic) and Sara.
So far during their lunch and free time between rehearsals
and that evening’s concert they had been enlightened thus by Bernadette: Austrian beer is very good, it’s not the salad that’s fattening it’s the mayonnaise, the Salzburg festival attracts an awful lot of tourists, and her two would have loved the cable-car ride up to the castle on top of the rock. By the time Sara was being told that the best cities were surrounded by hills she was ready to hurl Bernadette off it. She strolled away and joined Charlie, who was sitting on a bench at a viewing platform enjoying a fag. He smiled, seeing Bernadette now some way behind.
‘Sorry about her.’
‘Oh, never mind,’ Sara said, sitting down. ‘We couldn’t have told her not to come with us, could we?’ They listened as Bernadette accosted the others who were catching up. ‘She’s got no idea, has she?’ Sara said quietly.
‘None. She thinks she’s fascinating. Still, doesn’t really spoil it, does it? Great up here. Have you got your luggage yet, by the way?’
Sara nodded. It had gone astray on Sunday somewhere between Heathrow and Salzburg so she had simply
had
to go out on Monday and buy quite a few new clothes and shoes. Such a nuisance. And a coincidence that she had bought things which Andrew would probably not like (have liked, rather, since his opinion of how she looked no longer concerned her). ‘It arrived last night. No problem, except I might not get all the new stuff in to go home.’
Charlie laughed and inhaled on his cigarette. ‘Won’t offer you one. Don’t smoke, do you?’
‘No. But I drink a lot. And gamble recklessly, and lose,’ Sara said, thinking of Dvořák and Andrew, in that order.
Charlie laughed again. ‘That reminds me. What happened to your wino? You know, that old dear you rescued
when she fell over pissed at the Albert Hall. What happened?’
Sara gave a sudden laugh which she had not intended to sound as bitter as it did. ‘Come on, let’s wander on before Bernadette catches us up. Leave her to the others for a bit. You do realise, don’t you, who the wino was? Is, I mean.’
Charlie shook his head. He had gone straight off home at the end of the concert because his partner, Cathy, on maternity leave from her place in the orchestra, was coping with the baby alone and it was his turn to be the one up in the small hours.
‘Joyce Cruikshank. You know—Royal Scottish Academy?’
‘Get away. Get
away
. Wait till I tell Cathy. There was quite a story, wasn’t there?’
‘I don’t really know. I managed to get something out of her about losing someone, someone close to her. She wouldn’t tell me any more.’
They strolled on. Charlie said, ‘Cathy was there at the time, you know. She only did second study cello so she didn’t get Crookie but she knew the bloke. She’d always wondered what happened afterwards. Poor old Crook didn’t have many options.’
‘After what? What bloke? You don’t mean she had a man?’
‘Well, no, not quite. He was one of her students, very good-looking, very, very talented. The story was she was a bit obsessed with him. You mean to say you never heard, then? The thing with the bloke and the biscuit?’
‘I didn’t keep in touch after I left,’ Sara said, shaking her head. ‘I only heard she’d retired a bit early. I do remember her biscuits, though. She made very good biscuits.’
‘Yes, well, she retired as in resignation required.’
‘I don’t think I really liked her much, not even then. I learned a lot but I was always uncomfortable. What happened?’
‘Apparently she had a student, this bloke who she taught at home, one of her stars. He had a nut allergy. You know, the really serious kind where you go into severe shock. And Crookie always had tea and home-made biscuits, all that stuff, after the lesson.’
Sara groaned. ‘I do remember that.’
‘Right. Well the bloke never ate anything without asking first if it had nuts in. He wouldn’t risk it, would he, especially home-made things. But he ate one of her biscuits this particular day and went into shock.’