Fields of Blue Flax (8 page)

There was a rustle of curtains and they looked round.’ Hello there,’ interrupted a short, stout man, his bald pate sun-freckled. ‘I’m Dr McNally. Are you Jack’s mum?’ He was looking at Mags, who nodded over at Christine.

‘How is he?’ asked Christine.

‘He’s going to be fine,’ said Doctor McNally, in his strong Irish accent. ‘We have a few more tests to run, Glasgow coma scale and so on, but he should only be in here a day, then onto a general ward for a couple of days then home. We suspect he suffered a delayed concussion from rugby, exacerbated by the RTA. It’s not been the serious head injuries we first suspected, but Jack has sustained a minor injury to his pelvis. It’s what’s known as an avulsion fracture, where a piece of bone is pulled away from the pelvis. In addition to this, he’s cracked a couple of ribs. We’ll give him crutches but rest and recovery at home is the best course with this.’

Dr McNally took a slim torch out of his pocket. ‘Jack, can you open your eyes for me?’ Jack blearily opened his eyes as the doctor shone the torch into each pupil. ‘He’s going to be fine. Don’t worry, Mrs Wallace. A bit of physio might help too, but you can probably get him home soon.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll be back later.’

As he left, he drew back the curtains and Christine whispered, ‘I think I’m in love with Doctor McNally, Mags!’

Jack opened his eyes wide and looked up at his mother, as if checking she were still there.

‘Don’t worry, darling, go back to sleep now,’ said Christine. ‘You need to rest.’

‘I’ve never really noticed before,’ said Mags, ‘but Jack’s eyes are so brown, they’re almost black. What a contrast to
yours, Chris.’

‘They probably look even darker right now because his face is so pale. Well, apart from the purple bruises.’ Mags grasped her cousin’s hand. ‘Wasn’t that brilliant what the doctor said? He’s going to be fine!’

Christine gazed at her son. ‘If I were religious, I’d have thanked God for answering our prayers.’

An hour or so later, Anna limped into the ward, her face still black and blue.

‘Jack Duncan, what the hell happened to you!’

Jack smiled blearily on hearing his sister’s voice. She rushed forward and gave him a hug.

‘Watch out,’ snapped Christine. ‘He’s all bruised.’

‘And I’m not, Mum?’ Anna jabbed a finger at the bruises on her face.

‘Sorry, darling.’ Christine took her daughter’s swollen face between the palms of her hands and kissed her forehead. ‘You’ve got to take it easy, though. Here, why don’t you sit down in my seat? I’m off to the loo.’

Anna sat down. ‘So how’s he doing, Auntie Mags?’

‘Well the doctor reckons it’s just the delayed concussion from rugby, but he’s still got to run some more tests. He’s got two cracked ribs, and he might have a slight limp for a while as he’s got a small pelvic fracture. Apart from the bruises, he looks pretty good doesn’t he?’

‘Better than he usually does,’ said Anna, grinning. ‘Oh, I was to tell you and Mum the others are coming up soon. Once Lottie’s seen Jack, she and I are going to go and grab a coffee.’

‘Okay, darling. When will you get your bags from the police?’

‘Dad’s got to go to the police station later so maybe then?’

‘Hopefully.’

‘Auntie Mags,’ said Anna, slowly. ‘Do you think… I don’t know, that Mum and Dad are okay? I mean, they just seemed to be sniping at each other all the time when they were in my ward, and Lottie said it was the same last night in the hotel too.’

‘It’s the stress, darling; you have no idea what a fright we all got.’ Mags gave Anna a hesitant hug, nervous about touching her bruises. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine, just wait and see.’

Christine arrived back at the bedside, followed by Lottie, who bent down to give Jack a kiss on the cheek.

Mags pulled a chair forward for Chris. ‘Everything’s going to be okay now,’ she said, taking her cousin’s hand again.

‘Oh, Mum,’ said Lottie. ‘I’m to tell you that Dad and Uncle Gerry are off to the garage to sort out the car, they’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

‘Okay. How was Dad?’ Mags asked.

‘Better. A lot calmer now that Jack’s out of intensive care.’

‘Yeah, Uncle Doug was a wreck, wasn’t he,’ said Anna. ‘Dad managed to hold it together pretty well though.’ Then she whispered loudly towards her brother, ‘But hey, Dad never really liked you anyway, Jack Wallace!’ She grinned and flicked her brother’s hand with her fingers. He smiled weakly, without opening his eyes.

‘Only joking, beanpole,’ she said, giving his hand a squeeze.

Christine withdrew her hand from her cousin’s clasp and took a tissue from her pocket. ‘Some Easter this has been,’ she said, shaking her head.

Chapter Fourteen

2014

A week later, Mags was stirring a pan of soup in her kitchen while the sound of piano music reverberated through the house. She loved to play Lottie’s piano CDs when she was cooking and this was one of her favourite composers, Ravel; perfect to peel, chop and stir to. She had just phoned Christine to suggest a visit to Register House. Mags was worried about her cousin; she was fraught all the time, even though Jack was recovering well. Gerry had told Doug she was mollycoddling him but no one wanted to tell her to back off.

Mags thought she might distract her with the family history project, but Christine had said she definitely had no time to do any more research. Mags wondered if she might go alone, to continue the search for Elizabeth Barrie.

And to think, I was the one not interested in the family history at all, she mused as she ground black pepper into the pan. She tasted the soup then added a little salt.

She took out her mezzaluna and started chopping some parsley, mulling over something Christine had said the day before.

Mags had popped in to visit Jack and catch up with Christine. Anna joined them, and they all sat around Jack’s bed. Anna scolded her brother for being in bed, telling him he needed to get up and move around.

‘I want to be up, it’s Mum who’s not letting me.’

‘The doctor said you need to rest.’

‘Not all day though, Mum,’ said Anna.

‘I’m going to start getting up at lunchtime at least. I feel fine, just a bit tired.’ Jack took a sip of water from the tray on his bedside table and looked pleadingly to Christine.

‘I don’t want you to overdo it, Jack. Remember you said you still had a bit of blurred vision when we walked round the block yesterday.’

‘
Limped
round the block!’ Anna laughed.

‘At least I never had puffy black eyes like yours,’ he said, lying back against the pillow. He looked up at his mother’s anxious expression. ‘Mum, I was fine after the walk, don’t exaggerate.’

‘Mum, stop treating him like an invalid. Beanpole’s fine. Though he’s gonna become Fatboy if he lounges in bed much longer,’ said Anna, smirking.

He grinned and hit out at his sister but she leapt off the bed. ‘Right, I’m out of here. Meeting Lottie for a catch-up at her flat.’

Later, as Christine saw Mags out the front door, she said, ‘I’ve been trying to find out as much as possible about Colin Clarkson.’

‘Who?’

‘You know, the guy who rammed their car, caused the accident.’

Mags was putting on her coat. She turned round, an incredulous look on her face. ‘Why?’

Christine’s blue eyes flashed with anger. ‘Because he almost killed my two children. Isn’t it obvious?’

Mags continued fastening the buttons on her coat then said, ‘Chris, is this a good idea? What’s the point? Surely there’ll be a court case and he’ll plead guilty and…’

‘He might not plead guilty – he might not even appear in court. It’s the magistrates’ court in Gateshead.’ Christine twisted her hands round and round. ‘He lives in West Yorkshire – Pontefract – and I just have the feeling he won’t attend and then…’

‘What’s this got to do with Jack and his recovery?’

‘I want him to suffer. He can’t get away with it.’

‘Chris, don’t talk like that.’ She pulled up the collar of her coat. ‘How do you know where he lives anyway?’

‘We were sent the police report for our insurance company, it had all his details, including his address.’

Mags had given her cousin a hug and stepped outside, promising to phone her the next day. She had brushed off Christine’s outburst as a reaction to the stress she was under, but as she stood chopping parsley she found she couldn’t get Christine’s twisted expression out of her mind.

The following day, Christine was in her kitchen ladling soup from a large pan into a blender. She put a tea towel over the lid and switched it on. There was a whoosh of green from the base as the lid and tea towel flew off and the contents splattered against the white wall and over the coffee machine. The thick gloop trickled slowly down the sides.

‘Dammit!’ She stomped to the sink and grabbed a cloth.

Anna came into the room and burst out laughing. ‘God, Mum, what’s with the Jackson Pollock thing?’

Christine’s eyes were blazing. She said nothing, just started to wipe at the mess, fist clenched tight around the cloth.

Anna went towards her with a roll of kitchen paper. ‘Here, let me help. What happened?’

‘The lid wasn’t on right.’ She lifted the coffee machine to wipe underneath.

‘What was it?’

‘Organic watercress and spinach, took me ages and now it’s all over the counter.’

‘Mum, it’s fine, and the patient couldn’t care less if it’s homemade, organic or a tin of Heinz. You’ve got to stop treating him like an invalid.’

‘But he is an invalid! He was in intensive care, he could have…’

‘But he didn’t,’ said Anna.

‘Well the fact of the matter is he has two broken ribs and a fractured pelvis. I don’t want him getting up unless he absolutely has to. The whole thing just makes me so angry, I could kill the man who crashed into you, I really could.’

‘Mum, sit down,’ said Anna, taking the cloth from her mum and continuing to wipe up the mess. ‘Besides, my bruises still look a lot worse than his. Look how fetching this yellow hue is!’ She pointed at the lines of bruises across her chest.

Christine started to laugh, then tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, I’m just so tired I feel I’ve done nothing but cook and serve tea and coffee for all the visitors.’

‘Well, you’ve got to stop being such a martyr about it all and let Dad and me help.’

‘Dad’s never here, Anna.’

‘Mum, that’s not fair, he does have a job to go to and…’

‘And what about me? Don’t I have a job? Just because I’m on Easter holidays.’

‘Mum, you’ve got to try to de-stress. Let me make you a camomile tea.’

Christine’s shoulders slumped and she wiped at her eyes. ‘Thanks, Anna. What would I do without you.’

Christine stood up and took a tray from the cupboard, setting it with knife, spoon and plate.

‘And Jack wants to get up for meals now, you don’t need to take him up a tray. Sit down!’

‘Well, I’ll just take him a snack just now. Maybe he can come down for dinner, we’ll see how he’s feeling.’

Chapter Fifteen

2014

Mags got off the bus in St Andrew Square and strolled down onto Princes Street. The flags on the castle ramparts were flapping in the strong breeze. As she climbed the wide steps to the entrance to Register House, she wondered how on earth she had found herself so caught up in investigating her family history; a month ago she wouldn’t have cared. But since the accident, Christine had been constantly stressed; she seemed hell-bent on wreaking revenge on Colin Clarkson, even though the kids were fine.

Although Christine wasn’t yet back at school, she insisted she had no time for anything apart from lesson planning, so Mags was going solo today. She sat down and took out her sheets of scribbled notes from her last visit.

Maybe if she found something interesting in Register House she could suggest they drive north to Dundee and Tannadice to see where Elizabeth Barrie had lived. Concentrating on tracking down their ancestor was surely better than trying to hunt down a stranger for dubious reasons.

Mags had just begun to look into the 1871 census when her phone beeped. She looked around, wondering if she’d be told off, but no one seemed bothered. It was a text from Doug asking where she was – he had just popped home for lunch and the house was empty without her.

‘Register House. Back this aft. Quiche in larder if you fancy.x.’

A ping came back. ‘Thought that said quickie.’

She shook her head and grinned. He was so predictable, but God, they were lucky – still besotted with each other, after all these years. So many of her friends were having marital problems: one was in the middle of a steamy affair and another completely indifferent towards her husband of twenty-five years. Which was worse, she wondered.

Mags switched her phone onto silent, threw it into her basket, and continued trawling through the 1871 census for Elizabeth Barrie. Eventually she found an entry that seemed to match, though again her age didn’t fit. This Elizabeth Barrie was registered at a farmhouse in Strathmartine, which after a quick Google, Mags found was just north of Dundee. The farm was the home of the Patullo family – farmer John Patullo, his wife and their seven children along with a nurse, a cook and a table maid called Elizabeth Barrie, born in Tannadice.

It was definitely her, there can’t possibly have been two Elizabeth Barries in a tiny village like Tannadice. But she was now said to be thirteen, which didn’t tie in with either her wedding certificate or the 1881 census. And she was the only Barrie working at the Patullos’, her sister was obviously too young.

Mags tried to track down a birth certificate for Elizabeth, thinking that might shed some light on the mystery of her age, but with no luck. She did, however, find Elizabeth’s sister, Jane, born in April 1860 to mother Margaret and father David Barrie. She was about to print when something caught her eye. On the birth certificate, after David Barrie’s name and profession – ploughman – was a cross. He must have been illiterate.

She continued trawling through births for a few years either side of Jane’s dates but found nothing for Elizabeth
Barrie. So she went back to the 1861 Census and tried other Barries. When she came to Margaret Barrie in Tannadice, she gasped. The man in the next seat turned to look at her. ‘Brilliant when you find something you’re not expecting, isn’t it!’