Virtual Strangers (29 page)

‘Charlie,’ he says, waving.

‘Phil!’ I say, boggled.

‘Yes, it
is
me’ he confirms. Then says, ‘Charlie, it’s your Dad.’

For a moment my ears must have seized up or something. ‘What are
you
doing here?’ I asked, quite unable to fathom. Was it a development in the Rose/Phil affair?

Phil took the case from me and trundled in through the front door. He had already deposited the veg in the hall. I followed him, mute and uncomprehending.

‘Your Father, Charlie,’ he said gently.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘
Dad?
What about him?’

‘He’s in hospital. Look, you mustn’t worry -’ He took my arm at this point and squeezed it reassuringly ‘- he’s not in grave danger, or anything. They think he went into a diabetic hypo - or was it hyp
er
? Anyway, whatever it was, he hit his head. Come on. I’ll drive you to the hospital. Karen’s down there with Ben.’

By the time I had digested this sufficiently to obliterate traces of the sudden, violent and terrifying image of my father lying dead in the hospital morgue, Phil had already steered me to his car and fed me into the passenger seat.

‘But Dad doesn’t have diabetes,’ I said.

He shrugged as he switched the ignition on.

‘Apparently, he does. So they said, anyway. But we’ll know more, I’m sure, soon.’ He glanced across at me. ‘Don’t
worry
. He’s okay.’

I tried to work out why all this meant I was sitting in Phil’s car.

‘But when did this happen? And why are
you
here? And Karen, and -’

‘Ben called me. He’s such a sensible lad. He said you were away and that his Grandad had collapsed and hurt his head and that he wasn’t sure what to do. He was very calm, very grown up about it.’

‘But when was this?’

‘About three. Maybe earlier.’ He manoeuvred the car around a mini roundabout. God, what had
I
been doing at about three? Oh, Lord.

‘So I came straight over,’ he said. ‘Lucky we were in as it happened. We were supposed to be going on a coppicing weekend, but they’d cancelled it because of some local flooding. Anyway, Ben told me you’d spent the week at Rose’s - how is she, by the way?’ Not a pause, not a flicker. ‘And she told me about you visiting the embassy and so on, and that she doubted you’d be home much before ten -’

Embassy? So on? Jesus.
What?

‘Um. Yes. She’s fine. Really good. The news was good. She’s fine. Um. Traffic wasn’t too bad. But was Ben okay? Oh,
poor
Ben. What a dreadful thing to happen with me not here. Oh, poor Ben. If only -’

His hand brushed my arm. ‘Don’t fret about it. You were doing your bit down at Rose’s. You had no way of knowing something like this would happen, did you?’

‘Yes, but - oh,
poor
Ben. Poor
Dad
.’

‘But everything’s
fine
, Charlie. So don’t beat yourself up about it.’

Rose said that. Rose did. Her expression, or his?

‘I know, but -’

‘But nothing. What are friends for?’

If only he knew.

We drove on in the darkness for a few minutes. Funny to be sitting here in Phil’s familiar car (the same Volvo?) with Phil’s familiar profile beside me, Phil’s familiar pale hands on the steering wheel. In some ways it all seemed a lifetime ago. Yet, for a moment, I could half see myself back with him. The gentle pace of an undemanding relationship, the lack of expectation; the absence of stress. Yet now I knew what I knew he seemed completely unfathomable. As if there was a whole chunk of him I’d never quite managed to find. If only he
did
know, I pondered. He’d been there, hadn’t he? He’d surely know how to cope. We stopped at the lights by the hospital entrance. He turned.

‘Charlie, are you okay? You look -’

‘Like shit. I know. Tell me about it.’

He looked closer. Nodded.

‘Your eyes -’

I tutted dismissively. ‘You know London. Pollution Central.’

Which explanation he made a good attempt at looking like he believed. Not good enough, but his best shot, I supposed.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Here we are, then. Your Dad’s been taken to Helen Keller ward. I’m not sure what the plan for the head injury is. Still, we’ll sort all that out now. Now you’re home safely.’

We thread our way up and onto the ward. I see Karen first. She’s in smiling conversation with the sister. Belatedly, I remember that she’s a nurse. A good person to have around in a crisis. A good person, full stop. Which makes me feel wretched. Because I too am now a defiler of marriages. I have colluded and deceived. I have lied. Phil beckons.

‘Here we are then,’ he says again brightly. As if we’ve assembled for an interval drink in the theatre. Do I detect now the merest hint of discomfort in his voice? On my behalf, I suspect, given the logistics of our relationships. He knows nothing of the maelstrom that my life has been since him. I thank them both, profusely, persuade them that Ben and I really will be fine getting a cab home, and hurry off to see my father. I turn to wave as I reach the bed, but they are just turning the corner. Hand in hand. Okay. Happy even, I suspect.

Ben stands as I arrive and straight away shoves his hands in to the pockets of his jeans. This means he wants a cuddle but cannot bring himself to instigate it. His expression tells me not to touch him. Not yet. But compassion almost overwhelms me. He is trying so hard not to cry. How many hours of being brave, being together? My poor baby. I bustle and fuss and don’t offer too much gushing sympathy. I know he’ll hold out if we’re matter of fact about things. My father, understanding, does likewise and clucks at me. The short term plan for his head injury, it seems, is to make him look like a comedy toothache poster. He resembles the little fat pig from Bugs Bunny.

‘Charlotte,
there
you are,’ he chides. his voice is warm and reassuring. ‘Trust you to be off gallivanting when I’m busy falling over.’ He laughs. ‘And trust me to do it, eh? Eh, Ben? Trust your silly old Grandad!’ He grins. ‘What a palaver! All this nonsense for the want of a little sugar. Then he stops. And peers at me. ‘Charlotte? What on earth’s happened to your face, dear? You look absolutely dreadful - like you’ve collided with a tree!’

At which point I have no choice to abandon my composure. Because, quite without meaning to, I flop down on the bed with him and try as I might not to, I howl and howl and howl.

But he’s going to be fine. The x-rays confirm it. And Ben and I, relieved, make our way home not long after. What we both need is sleep; him for growth, me for oblivion, but if telephones could get up and tap people insistently on shoulders, the Simpson telephone would be doing just that as we tumble, exhausted and drained, into the house. It’s Rose.

‘God, there you are! What’s been going on? Is your father okay?’

I say, ‘yes, yes, yes,’ and collapse into a heap by the telephone table. Ben steps over me and heads into the kitchen, clutching the burger and chips we picked up for him on the way home.

‘So what happened?’

‘He had a diabetic hypo, apparently. And then fractured his skull just to finish the job.’

‘Poor old sod.’

She’s been drinking, obviously. It’s now eleven thirty. Fourteen hours since she waved me off, full of vicarious excitement. Fourteen hours. How many has she spent of them rewinding her life? Then I remember that Phil phoned her to find out what time to expect me. How untimely. What a shock to have to talk to Phil just as she’s dredged out his memory and dusted it off.

‘Look,’ I say. ‘Can I call you back in a minute? I must get poor Ben sorted.’

But Ben’s voice rattles out from the other side of the kitchen door. He is anxious to reassert his masculine autonomy after his little cry in the car.

‘Mum, I’m
fine,’
he mumbles through his mouthful. ‘Talk to Rose. I’m going to bed now. I really don’t need any sorting.’

So I do, blowing kisses as he thunders up the stairs.

‘You okay?’ I ask Rose.

‘Me? What you asking
me
for, stupid? I’m fine. Fine and dandy. Clear, Charlie.
Okay
. It’s you lot I’m worried about.’

‘Okay? As in -’

‘As in no cancer. You see? Nothing to worry about.’

‘Oh, Rose! Thank
God!
You must be so relieved!’

‘ -ish, Charlie. Relieved-
ish
. It’s like it was all a dream now. Funny.’

There is a silence. A cough.

I wish I could wave a wand and bring her here instantly. I know what she most needs is someone to be with. But not Matt. Not right now.

‘Oh, Rose -’

‘Come on.’ She says sternly. ‘Buck up, Charlie girl. I want to know all about
you
.’

‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘And Ben’s fine. And Dad’s got his head bandaged.

‘Poor old love. And diabetic. What’s with the diabetic? You never said he was diabetic. Christ, the man lives on jam!’

‘Quite. I didn’t
know
he was diabetic. I can’t believe he never got around to telling me about it. But he’s not very accepting of illness at the best of times, so I guess not discussing it is his way of dealing with it. Anyway, it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s controlled by tablets. No insulin injections or anything. Just tablets and a careful observance of diet. Which he obviously failed to observe today.’

‘Careful observance. I like that. Sounds faintly fetishistic.’ She laughs. A bit wildly. I wish
I
was drunk. I make a mental note: must get drunk very soon.

‘And what about you?’ I say. ‘Are you alright
really?’

She knows what I mean. ‘For God’s sake!’ she snaps. ‘Don’t start on that again. If I thought for one instant I’d have this sort of nonsense from you, Charlie, I’d never have told you the first thing about it.’ There’s another silence, into which she’s struggling not to put sobs, then she rallies.

‘It’s all frothing on the surface a bit, actually. But don’t worry; it’ll subside again soon.’

‘Oh, Rose -’

‘Oh, nothing. It’s just sentimentality. It doesn’t mean anything. Just, well, you know -’

‘Phil ringing you like that must have been a bit -’

‘Tosh, Charlie Simpson, and you just stop all this right now! I phoned up to find out what it is
you’ve
been doing all afternoon. At least, the edited highlights. I don’t need the squishy bits. Come on. Let’s have the debrief.’

I have as little stomach for talking about it as she has for talking about Phil. But I have to say
some
thing. But what?

‘Which reminds me,’ I stall her. ‘What was all that embassy stuff? I didn’t have a clue what Phil was on about.’

‘God, yes! I just didn’t know what to say! It was the first thing that came into my head!’

‘An
embassy
?’

‘The Nepalese one. A bit of inspired invention on my part, actually, now I come to think of it. You know, to go and sort out your visa or something.’

‘Do I need one?’

‘God, I don’t know! But it sounded plausible. You might do.’

‘I suppose. Shame I told Dad I was on a shopping spree.’

‘Oh, he won’t have said anything. Would he now,
really
?’

‘I suppose not.’ I wasn’t sure if she meant my Dad or Phil. Either way, I supposed it didn’t really matter. There would be no further need for deceptions such as these.

‘So?’ she says. ‘Well? Go on then, tell all.’

Saturday.
Bluuurrrrghhh.

When I finished telling Rose the sorry story of my encounter with Adam, I felt so tearful and distressed again that I didn’t even dare go in and kiss Ben goodnight for fear of drowning him. Reason enough, I thought ruefully, not to do this stuff again. Ever. But he should be, I hoped fervently, already asleep.

Instead, I stripped off and buried myself under my duvet, where a party of nocturnal bed-living insects had some sort of illegal rave disco on my face.

At least that’s the only reasonable explanation I could come up with for the state of the face that greeted me when I woke up the next morning. To say I looked the pits would be to cast a stain on the entire South Wales coal mining heritage.

‘Wow, Mum, you look dreadful! Ha!’ said Ben, clearly recovered from his traumas. He chomped cheerfully on a toasted chocolate spread sandwich, shaking his head from side to side, like a masticating camel.

‘Why “ha!”?’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘How d’you get like that anyway?’

‘Stress.’

‘Stress? What stress have you got?’

For once I was glad of his lack of adult insight. He’d have more than enough of this sort of stress yet to come.

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Dan called yesterday. He’s coming to stay next weekend if it’s okay with you.’

Which made me feel a bit better, and needed, and focussed, and that order, of a sort, could now be restored.

No cakes baked today, of course, but I manage to unearth four serviceable raisin flapjacks, so take those instead, wrapped in a square of tin foil. I visit Dad first, but I have been usurped, armchair-wise, by the proprietorial Hester, who is making something unidentifiable from some brown wool and a crochet hook. And rather than hover at the foot end and feel irritable, I decide I will detour to see Minnie instead.

‘My lovely girl!’ she greets me. I’m tempted to feel sniffy about the lack of similar gushy felicitations from my own flesh and blood father, but I am trying to nurture sufficient maturity to take it in my stride, like thread veins. Minnie looks well and fit and can now, she says, shuffle to the day room and back. She’s still barking, of course, but no less dear for that.

‘Minnie, look at you!’ I say. ‘Haven’t you come on!’

‘I’ve no truck with bed pans,’ she observes, with some acuity. ‘And you’ll not find me lacking where a bit of grit is concerned.’ She points to my package. ‘Victoria sponge?’

‘Flapjacks.’

‘Don’t eat them.’

‘You do.’

‘Not since the business with the war memorial. I always said they’d be hard pushed to capture Albert. And I was right, wasn’t I? No telling, you see.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And not one of them found, you know. The British Museum will have something to say about it. It’s the Elgin Marbles all over again, you mark my words. So what have you been up to? Did you water my euphorbia?’