Reginald Hill: A Cure for All Diseases

I said as much to Pete and the bugger sent in the heavy squad.

His missus, Ellie.

From the first time I met her, I saw she were already hard enough to let me fall and leave me lying. In fact back in them early days I reckon she’d have been happy to give me a helping push.

She said, ‘I hear you’re talking of discharging yourself, Andy. So who’s going to look after you when you get home?’

‘I’ll look after myself. Always have done,’ I said.

She sighed. Women have two kinds of sighs. Long-suffering and ooh-I’m-really-enjoying-that. Lot of men never learn the difference.

She said, Andy, you got blown up in a terrorist explosion, you suffered multiple injuries, you lay in a coma for weeks …’

‘Aye, and most of the time since I came out of it I’ve spent on this bloody bed,’ I said. ‘So where’s the difference?’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ she said. ‘You’re on a carefully planned course of supervised physiotherapy. They say you’re doing well, but it will be ages before you can look after yourself.’

‘So I’ll get help from Social Services. That’s why I pay my bloody taxes, isn’t it?’

‘How long do you think that’ll last?’ she asked.

‘Till I get fed up wi’ them? Couple of weeks mebbe. By then I should be fine.’

‘I meant, till they get fed up of you! Who’ll look after you then?’

I said, ‘I’ve got friends.’

‘Arse-licking friends maybe,’ she said. ‘But arse-wiping ones are a bit thinner on the ground.’

Sometimes she takes my breath away! Mebbe I were taking too much credit for putting the steel into Pascoe’s backbone. Should have known that all them years the bugger were getting home tuition!

‘For you mebbe,’ I said. ‘Treat folk right and they’ll treat you right, that’s my motto. There’ll be folk queuing up to give me a hand.’

‘Takes two to make a queue,’ she said. ‘You’re talking about Cap, aren’t you?’

Of course I were talking about Cap. Cap Marvell. My girlfriend … partner … bint … tottie … none of them fits. Or all of them. Cap bloody marvellous in my book, ’cos that’s what she’s been.

‘So I mean Cap. She won’t let me down. She’ll be there when I need her.’

I let it out a bit pathetic. Could see I were getting nowhere slogging it out punch for punch, but even the really hard ones are often suckers for a bit of pathos. Vulnerability they call it. Make ’em feel you need help. Stood me in good stead many a time back in my Jack-the-ladding days.

Didn’t take long to realize it weren’t going to get me anywhere now.

‘Boo hoo,’ said Ellie. ‘You’ve been together a good few years now, you and Cap. But you never set up shop together, you’ve both kept your own places. Why’s that?’

She knew bloody well why it was. We’ve got our own lives, our own interests, our own timetables. There’s stuff in my pack I don’t want her getting touched by. And there’s definitely stuff in hers I don’t want to know about. Every time there’s an animal rights raid, I find myself checking her alibi! But the real big thing is lots of little things, like the way we feel about muddy boots, setting tables, using cutlery, eating pickles straight out of the jar, watching rugby on the telly, playing music dead loud, what kind of music we want to play dead loud, and so bloody on.

I said, ‘A n emergency’s different.’

‘So this is an emergency now? Right. Whose place will you set up the emergency centre at? Your house or Cap’s flat? And how long will you indenture Cap as your body servant before you set her free?’

‘Don’t go metaphysical on me, luv,’ I said. ‘What’s that mean?’

‘You’re not thick, Andy, so don’t pretend to be,’ she said. ‘Cap’s life has been on hold since you got blown up. You know she’s got a very full independent existence – that’s one of the reasons you’ve never shacked up together, right? She’s not one of those ground-you-walk-on worshippers that only live for their man.’

‘I know what she is a bloody sight better than thee, Ellie Pascoe!’ I declared, getting angry. ‘And I know she’d be ready and willing to put in a bit of time taking care of me if that’s what I need!’

‘Of course she would,’ said Ellie with that smug look they get when they’ve made you lose your rag. ‘Question is, Andy. Do you really want her to?’

No answer to that, at least not one I wanted to give her the satisfaction of hearing. And I didn’t say much either when she started talking about the Cedars out at Filey, the convalescent home provided by our Welfare Association for old, mad, blind and generally knackered cops. Alcatraz, we call it, ’cos the only way out is in a box.

What I did say, all grumpy, was, ‘Were it Cap that put you up to this then?’

She grabbed hold of a bedpan and said, ‘That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Andy Dalziel. And if you let out so much as a hint to Cap what I’ve been talking to you about, I’ll stick this thing so far up your behind, they’ll need a tow truck to haul it out! You just lie here and think about what I’ve said.’

‘Yes, miss,’ I said meekly. ‘Tha knows, lass, Pete Pascoe’s a very lucky man.’

‘You think so?’ she said, looking a bit embarrassed.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘It’s not every husband’s got a big strapping wife he can send up on the roof if ever a tile comes off in a high wind.’

She laughed out loud. That’s one of the things I like about Ellie Pascoe. No girlish giggles there. She enjoys a real good laugh.

‘You old sod,’ she said. ‘I’m off now. I’ve got my own life too. Peter sends his love. Says to tell you that he’s got things running so smooth down at the Factory that he can’t understand how they ever managed with you. Take care now.’

She bent over me and kissed me. Bright, brave, and bonny. Pete Pascoe really was a lucky man.

And she’s got lovely knockers.

Any road, I did think about what she’d said and a couple of days later when I were talking to Cap, I said I were thinking of going to the Cedars.

She said, ‘But you hate that place. You once went to visit someone there and you said it was like a temperance hotel without the wild parties.’

That’s the trouble with words, they come back to haunt you.

‘Mebbe that’s what I need now,’ I lied. ‘Couple of weeks’ peace and quiet and a breath of sea air. Me mind’s made up.’

I should have known, men make up their minds like they make up their beds – if there’s a woman around she’ll pull all the bedding off and start again.

Next time she came she had a bunch of brochures.

She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, Andy, and I reckon you’re right about the sea air. But I don’t think the Cedars is the place for you. You’d be surrounded by other cops there with nothing to do but talk about crooks and cases and getting back on the job. No, this is the place for you. The Avalon.’

‘You mean that Yankee clinic place?’ I said, glancing at the brochures.

‘The Avalon Foundation is originally American, yes, but it’s been so successful it now has clinics worldwide. There’s one in Australia, one in Switzerland …’

‘I’m not going to Switzerland,’ I said. ‘All them cuckoo clocks, I’d never sleep.’

‘Of course you’re not. You are going to the one in Sandytown, where as well as the clinic and its attendant nursing home, there’s an old house that’s been converted into a convalescent home. My old headmistress, Kitty Bagnold, you may recall, is seeing out her days in the nursing home. I visit her from time to time, so it will be very convenient for me to have both my broken eggs in one basket.’