Arms and the Women

The Great God Dalziel was speaking.

‘Right, lass. One more time. You were really taken in at first?’

‘Damn right I was. All I could think was, not again, oh God, it’s not all happening again. You know, Rosie in hospital, me camping out there, all the fears…’

The memory of that time was still so powerful, it had the therapeutic effect of reducing her present aftershock to manageable size, and she went on more strongly, ‘She’d only gone back to school for this final week before the summer hols… she insisted, and you know Rosie, when she makes up her mind…’

‘Can’t think who she takes after,’ said Dalziel. ‘Wanted to see all her mates, did she? And not miss this end-of-term outing.’

‘Both of those. Also to get out from under me, I suspect.’

‘Eh?’

Ellie said, ‘Andy, I’m ready for that drink now. Please.’

She took the proffered tumbler and said scornfully, ‘That wouldn’t drown a tall gnat. Cheers.’

It went down in one. Dalziel, who’d poured himself a good three inches, poured her another millimetre.

‘God Almighty, man! And it’s not even your whisky,’ she said.

‘Not my stomach either,’ said Dalziel. ‘You said something about Rosie getting out from under you. Never had you down as the clinging-mother type.’

‘No? Perhaps not.’

She brooded on this for a moment, glanced at Novello, then, with an effort at matter-of-factness, went on, ‘Since we got her back, after the meningitis, I’ve hardly been able to bear letting her out of my sight. She goes in the garden to play and two minutes later I have a panic attack. I think in the end I just began to get on her nerves, so school seemed a desirable alternative.’

‘Nay, you know what kids are like about missing things…’

‘The trip to Tegley Hall, you mean? Well, there’s another thing. They invite any parents who feel like giving a hand to go along. It’s a big responsibility, ferrying that number of kids around somewhere like that. I was going to go, but last night Rosie suddenly said, “Why can’t Daddy go? Miss Martindale says it doesn’t just have to be mummies.” Peter, bless his heart, said, why not? He’d like nothing better than a day in the company of his daughter and a hundred other kids. And he rang you and you kindly said that considering how hard you’d been working him for the past hundred years or so, he was long overdue a bit of time off…’

‘Don’t recollect them as my exact words,’ said Dalziel.

‘Peter is one of nature’s paraphrasers. So, nothing for me to do but say, “Great. It’ll give me the chance to get on with some work,” and smile through my tears.’

‘So you worried?’

‘Of course I worried. I worried about what kind of mother I was. And I worried about them out there in the big wide world without me to look after them. And I worried about myself for worrying about them!’

Plus the other worries she wasn’t about to air in front of Novello. Or Dalziel either, for that matter. Or indeed herself if she could help it. Worries like damp patches on a kitchen wall, that you could stand a chair in front of, or hang a wallchart over, or even just ignore, but you knew that sometime you were going to have to deal with them.

‘So I went upstairs, switched my laptop on and started working,’ she concluded.

‘That help with worries, does it?’ He sipped his Scotch and looked at her doubtfully.

Something else she wasn’t going to lay out in present company.

‘The poet Cowper managed to keep religious mania at bay for several decades by dint of writing,’ she said spiritedly.

‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,’ said Dalziel, whose capacity to surprise should have ceased to surprise her. ‘Then the doorbell rang?’

‘No. I heard their car and spoke to them out of the window. Then I went downstairs and opened the door.’

‘Oh aye, you said. No print on the bellpush then. Pity.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have thought on.’

He smiled at her sarcasm, then said seriously, ‘When they mentioned Rosie, it must have been right bad.’

‘Bad? It felt like the bottom had fallen out of the universe. It was like getting the worst news you could imagine, and knowing it was all your own fault.’

She spoke with a vehemence which came close to being excessive.

‘All your fault? Nay, luv, can’t see how you could ever think that,’ he said, viewing her closely.

If Dalziel had been by himself, she might have stumbled into an explanation.

Maybe something like, I felt so relieved that morning not to be going with Rosie, to know she was in Peter’s care, to have a day at last when I could stop worrying about her. But not just for her sake, and not even because I could probably do with the rest myself, but because when we nearly lost her, I knew then what I must have known before but never had occasion to look straight in the eye, that my single-handed sailing days were over forever, that I’d been pressed as part of a three-man crew on a lifelong voyage over what were hopefully oceans of absolute love. Except if it’s so absolute, how come there’s a little part of me somewhere which, like Achilles’s heel, didn’t get submerged? Forgive me muddling my metaphors, it’s probably this story I’m writing. But that’s another story. No, what I’m trying to say is, no matter how I try to hide it from myself, there’s something in me that sometimes yearns to be free, that gets nostalgic for the long-lost days of free choice, that comes close to seeing this love I feel not as a gift but as a burden, not as a privilege but a responsibility. Perhaps I’m simply a selfish person who knows now she can never be selfish again. Does anyone else feel like this? Am I a monster? That’s why I was so ready to believe them, that’s why I felt so guilty. It was like God had decided I hadn’t got the message loud and clear last time and I needed another dose of the same to get me straight.

Something like that, maybe. But probably not, even if Novello and her little notebook hadn’t been there.

‘Just a figure of speech, Andy,’ she said.

‘So you’d have gone with this pair?’ asked the Fat Man.

‘Anywhere they wanted. If they’d kept it vague I’d have got in that car and…and what, Andy? What did they want with me?’

‘That’s for them to know and us to find out,’ said Dalziel. ‘So what put you onto them?’

‘I’ve told you!’

‘Aye, but telling’s like peeing to a man with a swollen prostate, you think you’ve got it all out but there’s often a bit more to come.’

‘Who speaks so well should never speak in vain,’ said Ellie. ‘OK. At first I couldn’t think of anything except Rosie being ill again. Then when they said about trying to contact Peter and being told he wasn’t available, I nearly said, of course he wasn’t available because he’s on the coach!’

‘But you didn’t? Why not?’

‘I don’t know. I reckon to start with it was just a case of being too shocked to speak, and that gave me time to think, I suppose. And suddenly it was like fireworks going off in my brain. I found myself thinking, it’s not just Jehovah’s Witnesses that don’t drive thirty thousand pound BMWs. I mean, I know the council tax has gone up, but surely the Education Department doesn’t kit its employees out like this? Sorry. It makes sense to me, I assure you. At the same time I registered that two or three times they said he when they were talking about the head at Edengrove. Now, one thing anyone in our local Ed Department will know is that the head of Edengrove is Miss Martindale. Not to know her argues yourself braindead. So I thought I’d just give them a little test. I made up a Mr Johnson as head teacher. And when they didn’t respond to that, I knew something very funny was going on.’

‘So you decided to assault them?’

‘No. I thought of challenging them, but there were two of them and only one of me and if their purpose was as nefarious as I was beginning to imagine, I didn’t like the odds. Time to retreat and lock the door, I thought.’

‘So what brought out the beast in you?’ asked Dalziel.

‘It was the man. The woman was trying to play it cool, very reassuring, nothing to worry about. She could probably see that I was already sick to guts with worry. But he decided that the more worried I got, the less trouble I’d be, and he said something about getting a move on just in case it turned out to be more serious than they thought. God, that really got to me. I thought, you callous bastard! The woman tried to calm things down, but it was too late. I was so angry that I must have been the best advert for gun control you ever saw. Because if I’d had one, I would have shot him, no problem.’

‘Not then,’ said Dalziel. ‘Might have had one now, but. On the other hand, we’d have had a body to work on. Nowt like a body when you’re short of a lead.’