‘Kath?’ he demanded urgently, conscious that he was speaking aloud even in his hallucination. ‘Where’s Kath?’
‘Kath’s at school.’
It was Dorothea’s voice. That flat, down-to-earth manner could not be mistaken. Yet—
Delirium? Or dream?
He was puzzled that Dorothea should be here in the graveyard with him. Why had she said nothing about the giant maggots which she must have seen?
Reluctantly he opened his eyes, turning over in bed to put the question to her, half-expecting to find nobody there, the way it so often happens in dreams. But he was wrong.
‘Kath’s all right! Didn’t they tell you?’
He felt Dorothea’s wet kiss on his forehead and was aware of her fleshy forearm stretching across him as she tidied his bedclothes. A cold, irrational instinct warned him that he had arrived at the dangerous stage when hallucinations seemed most real. Once he entered this dimension he might never escape.
‘I don’t believe you’re properly awake,’ the hallucination said, and it was her familiar laugh, though sounding oddiy forced.
‘I think I’m awake,’ he heard someone replying. His own words, were they? Hard to tell.
‘Well, your eyes are open,’ she retorted with another laugh. ‘I don’t know if that means anything!’
‘Kath’s at school?’ he asked, still suspicious.
‘Where else whould she be at this time of day? Oh, Guy, I’m sorry, it’s all my fault it happened like this. I got so worked up when she didn’t come home, then the moment you’d gone out to look for her — there she was! Been home with some other kid, of course. A new kid I didn’t know.’
‘A new kid?’
She was going on at such a pace, he was not taking it all in.
Still talking about Kath and her new friend and the school and the ballet lessons, she fetched a chair from the table by the window and sat down close to his bed. Her face still had that pure Italian madonna look which had immediately attracted him to her when they first met, though these days she wore her dark hair cut short and trimmed to lie flat against her head, hardly covering her ears. More practical, she said. But secretly he preferred it long.
He was giad to see her, though. Just to know she was there brought a relaxing calmness to his mind. He tried to say so, but she did not pause long enough to listen. That was typical of Dorothea.
Then the blonde Australian nurse reappeared, bearing a jug of fresh water for his bedside table. Something snapped in his head as he realised he was truly awake this time.
‘Back in the land o’ the livin’, are we?’ she greeted him with a quick friendly smile. ‘You’re lookin’ a bit better. Like to sit up for a while? Not too long to begin with, but five minutes won’t harm. Lift yourself!’
Nothing ethereal about Australian nurses, he thought. Good earthy flesh-and-blood there. She smelled inviting too.
He grinned sheepishly at Dorothea, who had moved back to give the nurse some room. ‘I’m not quite sure what happened,’ he toid her. ‘You did say Kath is all right?’
She would drive past the old school to see for herself, Dorothea decided as she eased her Renault 5 out of the narrow space where she had left it behind the hospital. For one thing, she found it hard to accept that mere beetles could inflict so much injury on a man such as Guy. Or the tramp, for that matter.
On her first visit to the hospital during the night she’d been terribly shocked to see him lying there so pale and drawn, looking like death, both hands in bandages, and other dressings on his neck and part of his face. His legs and chest too, according to the doctor. ‘Unfortunately they aren’t clean cuts,’ she had explained briskly. ‘Mrs Archer, they may take some time to heal and we must expect scars. As for infection, well it’s possible. I’ve sent samples to the lab for tests and we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.’
‘What kind of infection?’ Dorothea had asked. ‘What exactly d’you mean?’
But she had known the answer as soon as the words crossed her lips. Insects carry parasites. Bloody hell! she swore to herself, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Why did this have to happen now?
The moment she drove into St John’s Road she noticed the spreading pall of dark smoke above the rooftops, but not until she had passed the church hall did she realise it was the school which was on fire. At the top of the cul-de-sac she slowed down, then stopped.
People stood around in little groups, quietly looking on as the old school burned. Even the fire brigade appeared to be taking the whole thing quite calmly; they had sent only one tender whose crew — despite their oilskins and helmets — seemed resigned to simply waiting. Probably at this stage nothing more was possible, she thought. She didn’t bother to get out of the car. The roof had already gone; as she watched, the end wall collapsed spectacularly, as if it had given way at the knees. She heard the roar and clatter of tumbling bricks; then a pause, a drawing of breath, and the flames shot up again triumphantly.
‘So much for the beetles,’ she said aloud. ‘Now I’ll never know.’
She considered walking over for a closer look but spotted the plain-clothes man, Detective-Sergeant Evans, who had cross-examined her about Guy at some Godforsaken hour that morning. He was the last person she wanted to meet. Even if he had some answers by now, she knew he would never tell her; not why they were destroying what evidence there was in that burning school. That would be against police training.
As a breed, she thought as she wound up the window and drove off, she preferred beetles.
Miraculously she found a space to park directly in front of her own house. It was two o’clock. She had planned to make do with a quick snack and then carry on painting the spare room but she was restless. She stood in the hall, debating with herself whether to stay in or have a bite in the Plough. It was the sight of Guy’s briefcase still lying where he had left it which decided her.
The whole business with Guy had thrown her mind into a turmoil. Only this time yesterday she had been seriously considering — not for the first time — whether the best solution for their marriage might not be a legal separation, but she could not spring that on him now he was in hospital, could she? It would have to wait, and God alone knew what problems that might cause.
In any case, she was certainly in no mood to be painting wails. She dropped her handbag on the telephone table, took out her keys and some money, and left the house.
In the Plough everything seemed so normal, it was unreal. The usual lunchtime business crowd had been in-she could see that from one glance at the multitude of dirty glasses to be washed and the remnants of food scattered around the tables — though many had already gone back to their offices and others were leaving even as she arrived. She was relieved to see that her favourite stool at the comer of the horseshoe-shaped bar was free and she hoisted herself on to it.
‘Hello, Thea! Be with you in just a sec.’
Brian was serving today. With a slight frown of concentration he picked up four whiskies simultaneously, spreading his long fingers to hold the glasses together as he conveyed them to the waiting customer on the other side of the bar. ‘Sorry to hear about Guy,’ he called out as he took the man’s ten-pound note and crossed to the till.
‘How is he?’
‘He’ll live, I suppose,’ she replied wearily. ‘It’s all such a mess, Brian.’
‘So we were just saying. What a thing to happen!’ He gave the man his change, then returned to move some of the used beer glasses out of her way and give the top of the bar a wipe. ‘The usual, Thea?’
‘Gin and tonic.’
‘A large one? I’m sure you need it.’ He held up the glass under the inverted bottle, waiting for the measure to refill before drawing off the second tot.