The Art of Standing Still (22 page)

She had once tried to cheer her mother up by painting her fingernails bright pink. When she visited the next day, the nail polish had been removed. Hygiene regulations, her mother had been informed. They couldn't even enjoy a number seventeen, a thirty-four, two forty-ones and spring roll from the Happy Wok.

Ruth had just completed arrangements for her mother to be admitted to the local hospice when she died. It would have been a place where Ruth could visit whenever she wanted, where she could have painted her mother's nails whatever colour took her fancy. The staff encouraged families to watch their favourite soaps together, and best of all, a copy of the menu from the Happy Wok was pinned to the patients' notice board.

After she died, Ruth sat alone, with the curtains closed, watching their favourite television shows. Occasionally she turned to her mother's empty chair, with a comment on the tip of her tongue, a joke they could have shared; then she would realize, and the grief would overwhelm her again.

A nurse tapped her on the arm.

‘Would you come outside, please? The doctor would like to talk to you.'

Ruth was prepared for bad news; she stood straight, bracing herself.

‘Reverend Wells, Mrs Feldman is very poorly.'

‘I know that. How long? Hours, days?' She wondered if she should contact Eliza's rabbi.

‘It's hard to say, a few weeks, possibly six months, but I doubt she'll see Christmas.'

A half-witted comment, considering Eliza's background, but Ruth was shocked. ‘You mean she's not going to die
tonight?'

‘I shouldn't expect so.'

‘But her breathing.'

‘She has advanced cancer . . .'

Ruth wondered if the doctor had taken a degree in the ‘blindingly obvious'.

‘Fluid has collected around her lungs, compressing them and making her breathing difficult. We need to drain away the fluid. I'll do that now. Then I'd like her to spend the night in hospital. She's also dehydrated, but I can't find any sign of infection. We'll check her blood – she's almost certainly anaemic – and transfuse her if necessary. I also want to look at her pain control medication and prescribe her some nutritional drinks for when she finds it difficult to eat. If she's feeling better, she can go home, probably in a few days, perhaps a week or so.'

The doctor smiled and turned away.

‘Then she's really not going to die?' she called to his back.

He looked over his shoulder. ‘Reverend Wells, we're all going to die. It's just a matter of when.'

Ruth sank into the chair with relief. Eliza was sleeping. Ruth didn't want to wake her, nor did she want to leave without saying goodbye. It was half past five. She was hungry and thirsty after missing lunch and the Bovril flavoured coffee hadn't helped. She shuddered. Disgusting!

She spotted a nurse through her six-feet-wide window on the world and informed her she was going to the restaurant.

‘If Mrs Feldman wakes up, please tell her I won't be long.'

The nurse shrugged. And Ruth followed the warren of corridors to the restaurant where staff, visitors, and outpatients could buy food. Ruth ordered a plate of fish and chips, poured herself a glass of cola and looked around for a table. The restaurant was surprisingly busy but she spotted a free table at the far end, next to the window.

She quickened her step, so that no one beat her to it. She staked her claim by setting down her glass on the table and her sweatshirt on the chair. She wished she had brought a book to read. Perhaps she could buy a newspaper at the shop. Setting off in search of the cutlery and vinegar, she stopped in her tracks when she saw Jemma Durham, sitting at a table with a cup of tea and a sandwich.

‘Jemma! What are you doing here?'

‘Oh!' Jemma looked startled. ‘Hello, Ruth.'

‘Would you mind if I join you?'

Jemma hesitated, then shook her head and shifted her handbag off the chair onto the floor.

Ruth collected her belongings and decamped to Jemma's table. Although she saw Jemma almost every week at rehearsals, she rarely conversed with her. Jemma usually arrived late and was often the first to leave, with or without Josh. Even at tea break, Jemma always seemed to be either fluttering her eyelashes at one of the disciples or sitting in a corner scribbling in her notebook. It was almost as if she was avoiding her. Gripped by paranoia, Ruth had once glanced at the notebook when Jemma had left it lying open on a chair. To her chagrin, the notes were in shorthand, so she, like everyone else, had to wait until the weekly free newspaper dropped through her letterbox to read Jemma's column. So far, the column had all been truthful, witty, and sometimes complimentary. Correspondence had started appearing in the letters column, and a full-page ad promoting the play cycle had prompted a rush of inquiries.

‘Jemma, I didn't expect to see you here. Is everything all right?'

‘Not really.'

‘What's the problem?' Judging by Jemma's expression, Ruth had the feeling that she should have asked this question weeks ago.

‘It's Richard. My boyfriend – ex-boyfriend.'

‘But I thought you and Josh were . . .' Ruth didn't know how to finish the sentence.

‘We were, sort of. Then this happened. I felt I should be there for Richard.'

‘What happened?'

‘Didn't you hear about it?'

Ruth shook her head. Jemma hadn't mentioned it before.

‘Last November someone attacked Richard, hit him on the head, and threw him in the river.'

Ruth sat back, gaping. ‘That's awful. I didn't know.' She tried to make it her business to know what was going on in her parish.

‘We kept it pretty quiet. One of the advantages in working for the press, I suppose. Josh helped pull him out. He was unconscious. They didn't think he'd live.'

‘How is he now?'

To her surprise, tears came into Jemma's eyes. ‘Not great, still unconscious. PVS they call it, and they don't know if he'll ever wake up properly. The longer he's unconscious . . .' She blinked a tear away and took a deep breath as if willing herself to be optimistic. ‘He's having therapy, and he's starting to make a little progress. He can open his eyes occasionally and respond to bright lights. He pulls faces and makes sounds, but it's as if he's in a deep sleep and no one knows how to wake him up. I try to get in every day. Talking, playing loud music, massage – it's all supposed to help. I even bring in garlic and kippers, some people react to smell.' She smiled and blew her nose.

‘And is it working?'

‘I think so. I wish it happened like it does in films – the patient suddenly wakes up and everything's okay.'

‘I'm sorry, Jemma. I had no idea.'

‘There's no reason why you should.'

‘But I see you and Josh nearly every week. I could have – '

‘Helped? I doubt it. No offence, but there was nothing you could do. And I asked Josh to keep it quiet, so don't blame him.'

‘I won't.' Ruth smiled.

‘Actually, he's been great. A real friend. He comes by the hospital to see Richard and pray for him.'

‘I'm sure that makes a difference.'

‘He is getting better.' Jemma sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince Ruth. ‘It's very slow . . . And they say it's unlikely he'll make a full recovery.' Jemma took a swig of her coffee and grimaced.

‘Coffee or unidentified brown gunge?'

‘It's better than the stuff out of the machines.' Jemma stood up to leave. ‘I'll see you around.'

Ruth gave a little wave and returned to her fish and chips. There had been one question she wanted to ask Jemma but hadn't plucked up the courage. Who could have done such a dreadful thing to Richard?

Scene Two

JEMMA GENTLY PLACED THE HEADPHONES ON RICHARD AND TURNED UP THE
volume. Motorhead wasn't everyone's cup of tea; she wasn't even convinced Richard actually liked heavy metal, but he had seen the band once in concert, and he wore their T-shirt. Her personal brand of physical therapy would either kill or cure.

As usual, his eyes flickered as the opening chords of ‘Ace of Spades' ripped through his eardrums. Jemma took his hand and started the rough massage therapy, as she had been shown, to try to stimulate him out of the coma. He really was getting better, squeezing her hand when she spoke, smiling while Josh prayed for him. She longed for the day when he would recover fully. If that day ever came.

Mohan was devastated when he found out Richard had been injured and was anxious to splash it all over the front page of the
Monksford Gazette
.

‘Let's catch the low-life scum that did this despicable thing!'

It was Jemma, prompted by Josh, who had persuaded him not to. She had promised Josh he wouldn't get the hero treatment again, and it would be impossible to run the story without details of Josh's rescue. It had ended up as a one-paragraph insert on page two.

‘Passers-by rescued a man from the river at Monksford on Thursday evening. The man, Richard Sutton, 32, remains unconscious in Monksford General Hospital. Police are appealing for witnesses to what appears to be an attempted mugging.'

The police had asked lots of questions at the time, interviewing both Josh and Jemma, who could tell them very little, and eventually reached the conclusion that it really was a mugging gone wrong. Jemma was not convinced.

‘So, Miss Durham. Tell me again exactly what you saw.'

‘I didn't
see
anything. It's what I
heard
.'

‘And what was that?'

‘Splashes.'

‘Splashes.'

‘Yes. On a number of occasions, usually in the middle of the night.'

‘And do you have any idea of the reason for these splashes?'

‘No. But they were strange.'

‘In what way strange?'

‘Mysterious, peculiar. And I'm sure there's been someone fishing around in the river.'

The constable looked down his nose at her.

Jemma felt confused. It all sounded so stupid when she tried to explain it.

‘Oh, I don't know!'

‘Now Miss Durham. If we could get back to a description of the car you saw driving away from the scene.'

‘It had headlights.'

‘Headlights. Well that narrows it down, considerably.' The young constable's tone was heavy with sarcasm.

In the days after they discovered him, Jemma returned to the place where they had pulled Richard from the river to search for clues. The police hadn't found anything, so she didn't expect to either. The river's residents saw to it that rubbish left on the bank side or thrown in the river itself was quickly cleared. It was cleaner than most of Monksford itself. A cola can barely touched the ground before Skye Wortham whisked it away and recycled it.

Jemma tried looking for footprints, but there were so many that she didn't know where to start. She examined the flattened-down reeds, but nothing indicated what had happened. She started to believe the mugger theory. Just one thing still bothered her. Why had Richard been there? Had he come to see her? Highly unlikely – they had no unfinished business. She had finally returned all of his possessions when she heard that he had moved to Maidstone, so he had no reason to be near the river in Monksford. And it didn't seem that he could enlighten her in the near future.

She looked up as Josh entered the room. His hair was longer now and starting to curl on his shoulders and his beard had thickened.

‘Hi,' said Jemma.

‘Hi.' He stooped to kiss her softly on the cheek. Her heart gave a little flip.

‘What's the CD?'

‘Motorhead.'

Josh grimaced and turned it off. He removed Richard's headphones. ‘How is he today?'

‘Much the same.'

‘He's probably deaf as well, now. As if he didn't have enough problems.'

‘The doctor said that loud music . . .'

‘Joke!'

‘Sorry . . .' Jemma rubbed her temples.

‘What's the matter?'

‘I saw Ruth Wells today.'

‘You see her every week.'

‘I know. But she spoke to me today. I couldn't look her in the eye. I didn't know what to say.'

‘Does she know?'

‘Know what?' Jemma frowned.

‘You know – does she know that you know?'

‘Josh, this is starting to sound like a rather bad comedy sketch!'

‘Does she know that you saw her and Alistair Fry kissing?'

‘Shhhh! Keep your voice down.'

‘Well, does she?'

‘I . . . I don't know.'

Jemma resumed her massage, kneading Richard's upper arms and shoulders. His skin reddened as she pummelled him. Richard grimaced and pulled away from her grasp.

‘It seems to be working,' Josh said. ‘He's definitely responding more, moving around.'

Jemma pounded his thighs.

‘Hey, I'm glad it's him you're taking it out on, not me.'

‘I'm not taking it out on anyone. It's therapy.' The tears stung her eyes. Josh took her hands.

‘Why didn't you expose them?'

‘I nearly did. It was my first instinct. After all, “Local Councillor in Steamy Clinch with Lady Vicar” is a local journalist's dream story. It would probably have been picked up by the national tabloids – they love that sort of thing.'

‘It could have been your ticket out of Monksford.'

Jemma nodded.

‘What stopped you?'

‘I suppose . . . because it's not just a story, is it? It's people's lives. I tried to think through the consequences, like ripples. Alistair would have to leave the council. And he's done so much for Monksford. It could destroy his marriage, that's another life affected. And as for Ruth – well, she would lose her job for sure and that would affect hundreds of people. They don't deserve it. Do they?'