Jane Gardam - Last Friends

* * *

‘I’ll have to abandon you,’ said Henry at The Judges’ Lodging Hotel. ‘I’ll be back to take you home after breakfast. I’ll have to step on it now. Here’s someone.’

An amiable-looking man in porter’s uniform was hanging about. He disappeared with Dulcie’s case and in a moment came a strong-looking woman down the hotel steps. She had the look of someone who had seen too many hotel guests from the south lately.

When she spoke, however, all was well. ‘Hot water, hot-water bottles and your dinner’s ready in half an hour and you can have the same room as the others had. We seem to get more judges than we ever did when they were on Circuit. Poor old Feathers crying into his coffee after his wife died. Fiscal-Smith up the hill, he nearly died in the room you’re having not six weeks ago. Pneumonia. Well, second memorial service in a few months. He can’t resist a train-ride to London. . ’

Henry said, ‘He’s in Hong Kong now.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me. Now, you get off to your poetry and we’ll get this one installed.’

Lying in the lights from the bed-side lamp Dulcie was put early to bed. She watched the gold-fish as they flicked and turned.

* * *

And at breakfast next morning she sat in the dining room looking up into the frowning hills and she was smiling. Susan — not any one of them knew where she was. There was no-one who would be screeching at her on a telephone to say that this journey had been foolish.

‘Sheer bravado!’ ‘Showing off.’ ‘At your age,’ and so on. Such an interesting visit up to the moors last night. Such a good hotel! Black-pudding for breakfast. Delicious. Here came the manageress. ‘Oh, yes, perfectly thank you. I slept perfectly. I wish I could stay here for a proper holiday.’

‘Well, it’s possible,’ said the lady — more coffee was being hustled to the table, unasked. ‘In fact I am afraid it is inevitable. There has been a message. . ’

‘Yes?’ (Oh God! Oh God, it’s Susan!)

‘From the University, I’m afraid your friend — that poet — he’s in the Great North Eastern hospital with a broken ankle.’

‘He is what ?’

‘He slipped as he came off the stage last night after his lecture. Shoe fell to pieces. Got caught up in the audio wires. Foot left hanging like a leaf. They’re hoping to operate this morning.’

‘I must go there at once. At once !’

‘Have some more coffee. They’ve informed his wife and she’s on the train. We’ll go to Darlington to meet her. She’ll drive you back home tomorrow but — something about arrangements for the school-run. I said that we’d see to you.’

‘Oh, but I must go to poor Henry!’

‘He won’t be round from his anaesthetic yet. They may not even operate today. He has high blood-pressure.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me. Could you get me a car? I haven’t got my actual driver’s licence with me. I haven’t driven for quite some time, except around the village. But someone might lend me a map. I do thoroughly enjoy driving. I could drive Anna home — or just go by myself.’

‘Michael will drive you to the hospital whenever you need to go.’

‘Is he the ghillie? I’m not sure. . ’

‘No. He’s over there. The front-of-house receptionist standing by the portrait of Lord Justice MacPherson, drinking milk.’

Michael gave a little wave.

‘The milk,’ she said, ‘is one of his harmless peculiarities but I suppose it’s a good fault in a driver. Yes, it’s hard to get insurance when you’re over eighty. I hope I don’t speak out of turn?’

‘Oh, I can easily take a taxi just to the hospital.’

‘I don’t think they’re going to want you at the hospital my lady. You’re not next of kin. But where would you like Michael to take you? Is there someone you can visit?’

‘Oh no. I don’t know a living soul. Oh — oh yes, I must ring my daughter Susan. In America. But perhaps, well — no. She is rather easily annoyed. Though a wonderful person. Quite wonderful. Do you think — would it be possible to visit Lone Hall again?’

‘There is a call for you.’

‘Yes — oh Anna! Anna, yes , I’m very well.’

‘Dulcie. I’m on the train. The silly great fool.’

‘Who?’

‘Henry.’

‘Now don’t worry about me, Anna. I’m perfectly all right. I was often stuck in Ethiopia, you know (that road across the Blue Mountains), I do just wonder if I left the iron on. But we must think of Henry first.’

‘I’m coming. See you later. I’ll have to get Henry home. I’ll bring you back with him. I’m afraid he may be in rather a dreadful mood.’

‘All will be perfectly well Anna, and could you possibly ring Susan in Massachusetts in case she worries? You have the number. I’m going to drive about today with a splendid young man and we’ll leave some flowers for Henry though it’s still very wintry up here — bring a big coat — and there’s nothing but black heather. Oh, yes. Fiscal-Smith? I’d forgotten him. He’s not here. He’s gone to Hong Kong. I was mistaken ever to have worried about him.’

* * *

‘And now,’ she said, ‘young man, come along. They say you’ll get me to the hospital.’

‘I’ll get you there,’ he said, ‘but I can’t say what we’ll do next. It’s like a city. They made it out of the old chemical works. They were the steel works before that and the iron works before that and before that they were the Big Wilderness. Kept thousands working for a hundred years. Always work. Dirt and clatter. All gone now. Most folks have no jobs. They just stay in bed most days unless they have a profession like me.’

‘But this hospital’s enormous! There must be plenty of jobs here?’

‘Oh, aye. Mind, how many does any work in it?’ D’you want a bit of Cadbury’s fruit and nut?’

‘So very different from Dorset. And from Hong Kong. We’ll never find poor Henry here,’ she said.

But a car-park appeared and someone to take them to the right ward where the family man-poet lay with eyes closed and mind elsewhere. She felt affection for him and stroked his face.

‘He didn’t speak,’ she said when she came back. ‘I left him a packet of smarties.’

‘Hey ho,’ said Michael. ‘So where now?’

‘Well. I suppose back to the hotel.’

‘No — come on. I’ll show you Herringfleet. First we’ll go to Whitby for its fish and chips and I can get blue-top. Then there’s the museum with the preserved mermaid, mind she’s not that well preserved, being dead. We’ll take the old trunk road through the skeletal chimneys. They’re not that old,’ he said. ‘Younger than me! Mind not much. Can’t think of the place without them now.’

‘You were born here then, Michael?’

‘Oh, aye. Michael Watkins. Me great auntie was Nurse Watkins. Lived to be a hundred. Gypsy stock. Black eyes. Delivered us all here and laid us all out. She delivered your great man, Judge Vanetski or whatever. . ’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know. .?’

‘Changed his name and went south. Something you could spell more easier. Me Auntie Watkins knew ’em all. His mother worked the coal-cart round the streets. His dad were a Russian spy. Common knowledge.’

‘You can’t ,’ she said, ‘mean Judge Veneering?’

‘It could be,’ said Michael, ‘they’re all dead now. Here then — Whitby. Home of Dracula and a load a’ saints. And, see them choppers ont’ cliff-top? Visiting whale. Made Jaws look like a minner. And here’s a human hand of some lass hanged somewhere. Stick a candle in it and you’ll never be frightened of ghosts.’

‘There’s nothing like this in Hong Kong,’ she said. ‘Though I wouldn’t answer for Java. In Java they keep the bodies of the dead for years. They take them food.’