Val McDermid - The Vanishing Point

I was glad to see Leanne back at the hacienda. She had a sense of fun and she lightened the atmosphere. And if I’m honest, I was glad to have someone to share Scarlett’s final journey with. It would have been a heavy burden to carry alone.

Leanne wasn’t the only one picking up a share of the weight. The only doctor Scarlett wanted near her was Simon Graham. She trusted him, she said. And she needed someone medical that she could trust now the end was getting near. She insisted he take a leave of absence from the clinic, and he more or less went along with her demands. He generally went in to the clinic for a couple of hours in the late morning two or three times a week. But other than that, he was at the hacienda. He moved a single bed into her dressing room and spent the nights there, in case she needed help. She didn’t want a stranger nursing her either. So Marina added nurse to her list of household jobs whenever Simon needed a hand.

Simon and Marina became part of the late-night kitchen set. It was an odd group, brought together for the saddest of reasons. We started playing poker to pass the time and often we’d play for hours, trying to take our minds off the dying woman and the sleeping child upstairs. Simon bought a set of proper poker chips and we sat around the table trying to figure each other out. I’d learned to play poker with Pete and his musician buddies, and I’d found it an interesting way to gain an insight into people’s personalities. Simon always took his time, weighing the odds (he claimed), before finally betting conservatively. Of all of us, he made the best decisions about when to fold. A man who would always cut his losses and come out even.

Leanne was more reckless, often playing no-hope hands down to the bitter end because she couldn’t bear to be too far from the action. I could generally tell when she had something worth betting because she would shut up and follow the field. When she went out on a limb, I knew she had nothing worth a damn.

Marina was hardest to read. There was no tell when she looked at her cards. She always hung back on the first round but then there was no pattern to how she bet. As a result, she generally managed to out-bluff the rest of us. If we’d been playing for money instead of ceramic chips, she’d have fleeced us all.

Me, I bet my hand. I always bet my hand and I suspect that makes me pretty easy to read. I don’t think my face gives me away; it’s my inability to bet counter to the cards I’m looking at in my hand and on the table. I’m not good at bluffing – or lying, as I like to think of it.

Most mornings, I spent an hour or two with Scarlett in her bedroom that smelled of Scarlett Smile and antiseptic. Those were the gentlest interviews I’ve ever done. I’d suggest an avenue to explore and she’d talk for as long as she had strength. We covered all sorts of things – motherhood from both sides, coping with losing a parent, the double grief of her marriage ending followed by Joshu’s death, putting her house in order for her own death. She shied away from nothing, openly talking of mistakes, regrets and missed opportunities. She did tire easily but she wasn’t losing weight so rapidly now and she assured me that Simon was keeping her pain-free. ‘It’s bloody lovely, that bit of it,’ she said. ‘Morphine just makes me float. Only drug I ever took to.’

One morning, as I settled myself in the chair and laid out my recorder and notebook, she pointed to the machine. ‘Leave that off a minute,’ she said. ‘I need to talk to you woman to woman. Not for publication.’

Wondering what was coming, I nodded. ‘No problem. What’s on your mind?’

She went straight to the point. Now she knew she was dying, there was no time wasted with small talk. ‘You weren’t keen on being Jimmy’s godmother, I know that.’

I had a cold, sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew what was coming and I didn’t know how to resist. ‘You know I never wanted kids,’ I reminded her. I had a horrible feeling I was wasting my breath.

‘I know. But you’ve done a great job. You’ve got to know him, you’ve played with him and read to him and taken him out for the day. You buy thoughtful presents for him and you don’t overindulge him. I couldn’t have asked for a better godmother.’

‘Thanks.’ I gave a half-shrug. ‘I tried to do what was best for him.’

‘Exactly. When we talked about this before, neither of us really believed push would come to shove. I was convinced deep down I was going to beat this fucking disease. And I think you were too. So it wasn’t real, what we agreed.’

For one wonderful moment I thought I was going to get a reprieve. Scarlett had finally come to her senses and she was going to leave Jimmy in Leanne’s care. Keep it in the family. But no such luck. ‘This time it is real,’ she said. ‘We both know I’m dying. So I’m going to say again what I said the last time. You’re the person I want to take care of Jimmy. It’s in the will.’ She managed the ghost of a smile. ‘You can’t get out of it, Steph. I need to know that he’s in safe hands, and that’s you.’

‘Leanne would be—’

‘A disaster,’ she said, slapping her hand softly on the duvet to make her point. ‘You know that. I’ve not got the strength to argue with you, Steph. I need to know my boy’s sorted. Promise me you’ll look after him.’

What else could I say? ‘I promise. I’ll take as much care of him as I would if he was my own.’

And that was that. My life transformed in the space of quarter of an hour. Of course, I assumed there would be an inheritance for Jimmy. Not that I was in it for the money. Oddly enough, I was thinking of Jimmy. Thinking that he deserved as little disruption as possible, so I’d have to sell or rent my house in Brighton and move into the hacienda. Jimmy might have lost the people he loved most, but at least he’d be in familiar surroundings, which had to help. Hopefully there would be a bit of money to make it possible for us to carry on living here. And maybe enough left over to do something about the woeful décor. It never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t leave her beloved boy a penny.

43

After three weeks of living under siege in the hacienda, I needed to go back to Brighton for a couple of days. I told the kitchen poker school I needed to pick up my mail and pay my bills. The truth was I was desperate for a few hours on my own, in my own space. I was looking at a future that held precious little prospect of that, with a child to raise. I thought I was entitled to a last sliver of me time.

I savoured every moment of those three days. Two nights in my own bed. Comfort food in my own kitchen. Early morning walks along the promenade. A pub quiz night. The sound of my own music on speakers rather than earbuds. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t begrudge Scarlett my time and energy. I just needed to recharge my batteries. Reculer pour mieux sauter , as they say on the other side of the churning grey waves I walked beside.

When I got back, the landscape had changed. Simon was sitting in the kitchen on his own, reading a professional journal. No Marina, no Leanne. He tossed his magazine on the table and jumped up to greet me with air kisses on either cheek. He was wearing a ratty Boston Red Sox replica shirt and black cargoes that showed off slim, shapely calves. He had better legs than me, I noted, a tad bitterly. I let him mix me a gin and tonic to match his. ‘Where is everybody?’ I asked.

He pushed his hair back from his forehead and gave me the pained, boyish smile. ‘Marina’s sitting with Scarlett. They’re watching some romcom. I bowed out on the basis that my genitals are on the outside of my body. And Leanne is, I believe, in Spain.’