Thursdays in the Park (18 page)

‘Um . . . about Ray . . .’

Her daughter’s eyes narrowed. ‘What about Ray?’

Alex took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders, as if he were about to face a firing squad.

‘Alex?’

Still he hesitated. ‘Well, you know the thing that Ellie said . . . about Ray? It wasn’t true. She never said it.’

He hung his head as if to ward off imaginary blows. And Jeanie thought for a horrible moment that Chanty
was
going to hit him. She was holding herself rigid in the hospital chair, her head lowered too (but not in fear), her hands clutching, white-knuckled, to her thighs, as if she were preparing to charge.

Alex, however, despite being at the bottom of the pit, went on digging. ‘Ellie kept going on about him, how he could balance on the wobbly log without holding on and everyone clapped, and how he was brilliant at playing ball, with all sorts of funny games, and how he sang songs, bought her apple juice. And I was pissed off. I didn’t want some man doing things with my daughter that I was crap at.’

Jeanie was shocked. Although she knew that he’d been lying, to hear his pathetic tale made her feel almost sorry for him. Imagine the hell of such an ego, she thought.

Disbelief had outrun Chanty’s rage. She just sat there, stony-faced and silent, which was clearly more frightening than any blow to her husband.

‘Chanty, I’m sorry. I know it was dumb.’

‘Dumb?’ Chanty sprang to life. ‘Dumb? You call it “dumb” to accuse a man of molesting Ellie because you’re
jealous
?’ She was having trouble not shouting, but her face, normally fair, was suffused scarlet.

‘I didn’t exactly say child-molesting,’ Alex countered petulantly. ‘I just said . . .’

Chanty cut him off again. ‘We know what you said, Alex. And we know what you intended to imply.’

‘I didn’t mean to say it, in fact I didn’t really say what you think, not at first. I just wanted you to know about him, that he was playing with Ellie . . . and you over-reacted when I told you, and then it escalated and I sort of made more of it than there was. It got out of hand before I had a chance to explain.’

‘So this is my fault?’ Chanty spat. Then the strength seemed to go out of her. ‘Just go away.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Just leave. I can’t stand the sight of you.’

Alex hesitated, but not for long. Jeanie watched him slope embarrassedly out of the ward.

‘I can’t talk about this now, Mum,’ Chanty muttered.

For a while neither woman spoke. They both fixed their eyes on the sleeping child, who, despite being at the centre of all this upset, was mercifully unaware of the storm raging around her.

‘Where’s Dad?’ Chanty sounded so sad, so disappointed.

‘He was here earlier, when we were still in A & E. I told him to go home.’

‘Oh?’

‘He hates hospitals. And by then Ellie was OK . . . well, OK-ish. I’ll call him in a minute.’ She couldn’t help her words sounding defensive, guilty almost. She told herself she hadn’t got rid of George because of Ray.

For a second her daughter’s glance rested on her face, and Jeanie, to her horror, saw the dawning light of comprehension in Chanty’s eyes.

‘How are we getting on here?’ Sister Deehan must have witnessed the row, because her manner was politely disapproving. ‘She needs rest and quiet.’ She raised her eyebrows in Chanty’s direction. ‘You can stay tonight if you like.’

‘Do you want me to come back later this evening? Take over?’ Jeanie asked Chanty quietly, as they moved to allow a young nurse access to Ellie for the routine observations. Chanty hesitated.

‘No, Mum, you go. I’ll sleep here. I’ll be fine. How long do you think they’ll keep her in?’

‘She seems a bit dazed still. They’ll want her to stay quiet until the brain swelling has gone down. The A & E doctor mentioned twenty-four hours. See how she is in the morning, darling.’

Chanty sighed, obviously close to tears again. ‘Oh, Mum, if you hadn’t been there . . .’ Jeanie put her arms round her. ‘I know you think I don’t value you, but I do, I really do. I’m so sorry for doubting you.’

‘I can see why you did.’

She wanted to say more, but Chanty didn’t need reminding
about her husband’s failings, nor would it help her granddaughter to have them at each other’s throats. But she did wonder how Chanty put up with Alex’s self-absorption. Someone that selfish could never be relied upon, unless his own interests were in parallel. She reflected on how solid George had always been. So much so that Jeanie realized she took his probity for granted.

George had cooked supper. He had only one dish in his repertoire – spaghetti Bolognese – but he did it well, and, as was to be expected, was meticulous in his organization and presentation: everything measured out and lined up, the table set, the wine uncorked, the salad waiting for its dressing. But tonight Jeanie was grateful.

‘Bit of a nightmare, eh?’ he said, stirring the sauce fussily. ‘Lucky you were there.’

Jeanie wondered if Ray’s name would be mentioned by either Chanty or Alex in connection with today’s incident. She had never told George about meeting Ray in the park with Ellie, not even in the early days.

‘Pour the wine . . .’ he pointed at the bottle, ‘and sit down. You must be exhausted.’

‘I was frightened out of my wits, George. I . . . I just kept on asking over and over again for her to be all right.’ Once she was seated, she felt she would never have the strength to stand again. She reached for the wine and half-filled both glasses. (George was always very insistent that red wine should have room to breathe.) The full, fruity tannin hit her throat
with an instant magic. She felt her body almost sigh with relief.

George looked at her sideways. ‘Asking the God you don’t believe in, you mean?’

Jeanie smiled. ‘OK. But you would have done the same. It’s a natural instinct.’

‘Yes, but He’d have listened to me, I go to church.’ He smirked smugly and they both laughed.

‘Not much, you don’t.’

And the laugh turned into more laughter, and in the end tears poured down her face as she gasped for air, clutching to her mouth the napkin George had so carefully placed by the cutlery, all the tension of the day washed away in the shared hilarity.

As she lay in bed that night, all she could see was her granddaughter’s solemn brown eyes, huge and bewildered in her little face, as she lay on the hospital sheet. Nothing in the world could be more important than Ellie’s safety and happiness.

Ray called her the following morning as she walked down the hill to the hospital.

‘How is she?’

‘I spoke to Chanty an hour ago and she’s fine, by the sound of it. I’m just going down there now to give her a break. Not much appetite, and very sleepy, Chanty says, but that’s to be expected with head trauma. Chanty sounded much happier.’

‘Thank God . . . By the way, I love the thought of you as a nurse.’ She could hear a roguish chuckle.

‘Is it the black stockings? And they
were
stockings in those days,’ she laughed.

‘Ooooh, don’t get me going. You must’ve driven your patients wild.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, but the majority were under ten. Remember I said I was at Great Ormond Street?’

‘Still . . .’

‘Ray.’ Jeanie cut through the joke. ‘I think Chanty knows . . . or at least suspects . . . about us.’

‘Why, what did she say?’

‘She didn’t say anything, but Alex ‘fessed up about you not being a child-molester after all. He’d been “misunderstood” apparently. This was after he’d mentioned that you’d warned him about Ellie and he’d refused to listen. It was serious Show Time . . .’

She heard Ray whistle. ‘God. How did your daughter take that?’

‘You can imagine.’

‘At least he’s told the truth at last.’

‘Anyway, your name was very much on everyone’s tongue, and there was this moment when she just looked at me . . .’

‘You might be being paranoid. It wasn’t exactly an easy day.’ She heard him sigh. ‘Jeanie, don’t say more than you have to if she challenges you. You know, “never apologize, never explain”; it’s a tried and tested motto, believe me. No one has any proof. And we haven’t exactly, well, done the dirty deed . . . yet.’

‘I can’t lie to my daughter, Ray,’ Jeanie said, ignoring the last part of his sentence.

‘You have lied already . . . as good as.’

The baldness of his statement, despite being essentially true, was shocking to Jeanie.

‘But if she asks?’

‘With all that’s gone on, she’s hardly going to be in the mood to find out that . . . that we’ve been seeing each other.’

His sentence tailed off, and she understood why. There was no neat way of describing what was between them without resorting to labels that put their moments together under uncomfortable, slightly hysterical headings such as ‘affair’, ‘unfaithful’, ‘cheating’, ‘in love’ . . . And, of course, ‘love’. None of which, and all of which, could apply.

‘So how did it end with Alex?’ Ray hurried on.

‘He was sent packing. Stupid of him to tell her about you then, because Chanty had almost forgiven him for leaving Ellie. But boy, does he know how to manage her.’ She paused, a passing bus drowning out her words. ‘I suppose he felt hideously guilty. No matter, I’m sure she’ll forgive him; she always does, no matter how heinous his crime.’

‘And you too?’

There was silence.

‘I don’t think I’ve quite Alex’s knack.’

She shared his unspoken fear that a revelation would spell the end.

‘It isn’t her business. But unfortunately she won’t see it that way.’

‘OK . . . well, let me know how it goes.’

‘I will.’

They both lingered in silence at either end of the line.

‘Jeanie?’ He said no more, he didn’t have to.

‘Bye, Ray.’

Her daughter looked worn and tired, much worse than Ellie, who seemed almost back to normal, despite the hectic flush
on her cheeks, which Jeanie thought was as much to do with the baking, airless atmosphere of the ward as with anything more sinister.

‘Did you get any sleep?’

She shook her head wanly. ‘No chance. But I wouldn’t have, even if it’d been the Ritz.’

‘I brought you a cappuccino.’

Chanty fell on the coffee like water in a desert.

‘Oh, thanks, Mum. You’ll never know how good that tastes.’

‘Why don’t you go home and have a shower and a sleep? I’ll stay with her.’ Jeanie bent to kiss her granddaughter. ‘Morning, poppet. Have the doctors pronounced yet?’

‘They’ll be here about eleven, according to Nurse Julie. Maybe I should stay till they’ve been.’ She gazed at her daughter, a look both adoring and fearful. Jeanie knew she had looked down the barrel of the worst gun any parent could face.

‘You gave us a proper old fright, you did,’ Chanty told her gently, her finger brushing the hair from her daughter’s forehead. Ellie twitched away from her mother’s hand, ignoring them as she went on frantically building a tower out of junior Lego. ‘Do you think she’ll mind me going for a bit?’

Jeanie shrugged. ‘See. You can always come back.’

The day passed slowly. Jeanie gave in to Ellie’s request for a fourth repetition of the story she was reading, trying to make it just a tiny bit different every time to stop herself
from going mad: ‘Swish, swash, went the alligator’s tail as it slid through the door, snip, snap went his teeth. Were the children scared? You bet they were . . .’

‘Again,’ Ellie demanded, pushing the book in Jeanie’s face.

‘You tell me the story this time,’ Jeanie suggested, hopefully.

Ellie thought about this. ‘Ummm . . . is bit too diffcu for me. You do it, Gin, is lovee for you.’

‘Is it lovely for me? OK, well, one more time.’

‘Sanks, Gin.’ Ellie grinned in triumph, knowing she was winning where she normally did not, and not caring why this was so.

On the ward round that morning the doctors had declared her fit to go home by the end of the day, as long as she was kept very quiet at home, but it was nearly five and they were still waiting for the doctor to sign her out.

‘All ready?’ George appeared at the bedside, dangling the car keys as he gave a jolly wave to his granddaughter. ‘Car’s outside. It’s in a dodgy parking bay – for deliveries or something – so we’d better get a move on.’

‘We have to wait, she hasn’t been officially discharged.’ Chanty frowned, looking up at the ward clock for the millionth time. ‘Where is he?’

‘I’d better move the car, then.’ George edged towards the door. ‘Ring me. I’ll go and sit in a side street. He won’t be long, will he?’

‘I think the paediatrician is a she,’ Jeanie said, absently. Neither Chanty nor George seemed to hear her, and she
wondered for a moment if she had really spoken, her mind consumed as it was with the possibility that the lid was about to be blown off her secret. Would her daughter mention Ray in front of George, to test her?

The mirror that night told her that the strain had pinched her features, accentuated the lines; her eyes drooped with tiredness. It felt as if her life were unravelling. On the way back from dropping Chanty and Ellie home, George had been disturbed by his daughter’s treatment of Alex.

‘I know she’s been under a huge strain, but there was no need to be so nasty to poor Alex. He’s under strain too.’

Chanty had snapped quite viciously at her husband when he opened the door and tried to take Ellie from her.

‘She was angry with him for going into town after Ell had her fall.’

George had shot her a quick glance as he looked for a place to park. ‘I thought you were with her when she fell.’

‘No, I arrived just after it had happened. But Alex was told by someone else in the playground that Ellie might need checking out, because she’d really cracked her head, and Alex had pooh-poohed his advice and taken off to his meeting.’

George had nodded sagely. ‘I can see why she’d be cross about that. When will that lad learn?’

Jeanie had been suddenly infuriated with George’s endless tolerance of Alex. ‘He’s not a lad, he’s a forty-two-year-old man.’

‘OK, OK, keep your wig on. No harm done in the end, eh?’