2
England
The Royal Bournemouth Hospital was on the coastal
resort’s eastern outskirts, and Eddie and Nina’s first stop after
leaving Heathrow airport. Eddie practically skidded the rented Ford
Mondeo into a space in the car park and jumped out. Surprised at
being left behind, Nina hurried after him. Entering the hospital,
she found him at reception, demanding to know where to find his
grandmother. The woman at the desk wasn’t keen on his
uncharacteristically brusque manner, but gave the information.
Again, Nina was left trailing behind as he strode through the
corridors.
She caught up outside
a room on the next floor, where familiar faces waited: Elizabeth
Chase, Nina’s sister-in-law, and her daughter Holly. Both looked
drawn and tired, but relieved to see the new arrivals. ‘Uncle
Eddie!’ said Holly, hugging him. ‘And Nina, hi!’
‘How is she?’ asked
Eddie after the greetings were concluded.
‘Much better than
when I called you yesterday,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It’s lucky I was
with her when she collapsed – the ambulance got her here very
quickly, and she responded well to treatment. They’re probably
going to discharge her this afternoon – they’re just doing a couple
more tests.’
‘Thank God. Is it
okay to see her?’
‘Yes, fine. Come on.’
Nina noted that Elizabeth checked her watch before opening the
door, but thought no more of it as she followed them into the
room.
The smell alone, the
tang of industrial-strength disinfectants, set Eddie’s nerves on
edge. Like most people he had a dislike of hospitals, but in his
case it was enhanced by the memory of friends who had been taken
into one and never come out. His unease increased when he saw the
frail figure in the bed. ‘Hi, Nan,’ he said, more quietly than he
had intended.
‘Edward!’ replied his
grandmother, delight evident even behind the oxygen mask covering
her mouth and nose. ‘Oh, my little lambchop, come here! Give your
poor old nan a kiss.’
He went to the
bedside and kissed her cheek, letting her embrace him as best she
could around the mask’s hose. ‘How are you, Nan?’
She released him, a
small but deep cough escaping her throat. ‘I’ve been better. But
it’s really picked me up, seeing you. And Nina too! It’s lovely to
see you both again.’
‘We got here as fast
as we could,’ he told her. ‘So they’ve got you on oxygen
therapy?’
‘The best treatment
for emphysema with a side effect of pulmonary hypertension, so
we’ve been told,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Which would have been much less
likely to have happened if you’d stopped smoking.’
Nan laughed faintly,
coughing again. ‘At my age, there aren’t many pleasures left in
life. Except seeing my family. Oh, I’m so happy that you came,
Edward. I worry about you over there in America.’
‘How come?’ he
asked.
‘Well, what if you
get ill or have an accident? I’ve heard horrible stories about
American hospitals, the way they throw you out on the street if you
don’t have enough money, being charged hundreds of dollars for an
aspirin . . . ’
‘It’s not
quite that bad,’ said Nina,
amused.
‘So they’re going to
let you go home this afternoon?’ Eddie asked.
Nan nodded.
‘Elizabeth wants me to stay with her, but I’d rather go back to my
own house.’
‘No, you’re staying
with us, Nan,’ Elizabeth insisted. She indicated the oxygen
cylinder beside the bed. ‘You need to keep the mask on until the
doctors say you’re better, and you can’t possibly carry that tank
up the stairs on your own.’
Nan seemed less than
happy at being told what to do by her granddaughter, but
acquiesced. ‘Don’t worry, Nan,’ Eddie said. ‘I’ll help you with all
this stuff.’
‘Oh, thank you. Are
you going to be here long? I know you’re both very
busy.’
‘Don’t know yet.
Nina’s got a work thing, but we’ll probably be around for a few
days.’
‘Good. It would be
lovely if you could take me for a walk while you’re
here.’
‘Ahem,’ said Holly,
pointing at a wheelchair.
Nan frowned. ‘Oh, all
right. If you could take me for a roll!’
‘No problem, Nan,’
said Eddie. He glanced round as the door opened, expecting to see a
doctor entering. ‘Maybe tomorrow . . . ’ He tailed off at the sight
of the man who came into the room.
At first, Nina had no
idea who the new arrival might be – until with a start she realised
that his eyes were just like those of Eddie and Elizabeth. A
relative. Beyond that, his appearance had more in common with her
sister-in-law than her husband; he was taller than Eddie by at
least four inches, face lean and tapered rather than square, lithe
even through the inevitable spread of late middle age – she guessed
him to be around sixty. Despite this, he was still clearly highly
active, carrying himself almost with a swagger in his expensive
smart-casual clothing.
‘Well, well,’ he said
on seeing Eddie. ‘What a surprise!’ The wink he gave to Elizabeth
showed it was nothing of the sort.
‘Yeah,’ Eddie
replied, glaring at his sister.
‘So,’ said the man,
‘long time no see, Edward.’
The scathing reply
Eddie wanted to give was tempered by the presence of his
grandmother and niece. Instead, he said, ‘Yeah, it’s been a while.
Twenty-two years.’
The uncomfortable
pause that followed was ended when Holly skipped across the room to
embrace the newcomer. ‘Hi, Grandad!’
‘Hiya, hiya!’ he
replied. ‘How’s my favourite granddaughter?’
‘Your only granddaughter,’ she pointed out.
‘Well, that makes you
even more special, doesn’t it?’ He kissed her cheek, then released
her and regarded Nina. ‘And Holly’s told me a lot about you. You
must be Nina.’
‘That’s right,’ Nina
said. ‘So you must be . . . ’ She knew, but still nudged Eddie for
a proper introduction.
Eddie’s contempt was
barely concealed. ‘This is my – dad.’ The momentary pause, Nina
realised, was to cover what had become almost a conditioned reflex;
on the rare occasions when he mentioned his father, the younger
Chase almost invariably preceded it with an insulting
adjective.
‘Larry Chase,’ said
the man in question, extending a hand. She shook it. ‘Great to meet
such a big celebrity.’
‘I wouldn’t call
myself that,’ she replied, extricating herself from his firm
grip.
‘But you’re certainly
famous. I don’t think anyone who saw the opening of the Sphinx on
TV last year will forget you!’
Her cheeks prickled
at the reminder of her unplanned global television appearance.
‘It’s an unfortunate by-product of the job.’
Larry smiled. ‘You’re
being too modest.’ He turned to Nan. ‘So, how are you,
Catherine?’
While he and Nan
spoke, Eddie none too gently ushered Elizabeth into a corner.
‘Fucking hell, Lizzie!’ he hissed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was
coming?’
‘Because if I had,
you would have found some excuse to avoid him,’ she replied in an
icy whisper.
‘Yeah, because I
don’t want anything to bloody do with him!’
‘I told you in New
York last year that it was time you tried to mend some bridges. And
when you asked me for his phone number, I thought you were going to
do that – but since it’s now eight months later and nothing’s
happened, I decided to move things along.’
Eddie had asked for the telephone number, after
witnessing another estranged father and son reconciling, but in the
end his deep-rooted resentments had prevented him from making the
call. ‘You should have minded your own fucking
business.’
‘And you should grow
up,’ she snapped. ‘Like you said, it’s been over twenty years since
you last saw each other. Dad’s changed; it’s time you did
too.’
‘Only thing that’s
changed about him is that he’s got less hair and more
gut.’
‘The same could be
said about you. For God’s sake, Eddie, the least you can do is be
civil. For Nan’s sake, if nothing else.’
He couldn’t offer a
counter to that. Fuming, he turned away from his sister, to see
Larry engaged in conversation with Nina once more. He quickly
returned to them, interposing himself to give his father an overt
cold shoulder.
But it was too late.
‘Larry’s invited us for dinner tonight,’ said Nina, narrowing her
eyes in disapproval of his unsubtle blocking
manoeuvre.
‘Yeah? Shame we can’t
make it.’
‘I’ve
accepted.’
His face darkened.
‘Oh, you have, have you?’
‘Yes, I have. For
both of us.’ She leaned round him to address Larry. ‘It’ll be a
pleasure.’
Larry smiled. ‘I’ll
tell my wife to make something special. Look forward to seeing you.
Both.’ He said goodbye to his other family members, apologising for
having to return to work, then with a wave and a jingle of his
expensive gold wristwatch he departed.
‘Ooh, that was an
unexpected pleasure,’ said Nan. ‘Wasn’t it, Edward?’
‘Yeah, it was
unexpected,’ he replied through his teeth.
A doctor entered and
went to Nan’s bedside. She had recovered enough to be discharged,
he said; she would need to continue oxygen therapy for several
days, but the severe breathing difficulty that had caused her
hospitalisation had been eased and her blood pressure lowered.
Eddie offered to help, but Elizabeth insisted that she and Holly
could handle it, and that he and Nina should check into their hotel
before meeting them at Elizabeth’s house. ‘That way,’ Elizabeth
added, ‘you’ll have plenty of time to get ready before going to
Dad’s tonight.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Eddie
growled.
A few minutes later,
he was less restrained. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nina!’ he barked as they
cleared the hospital doors. ‘Why did you say yes to dinner? Lizzie
sticking her bloody nose in I expect, but you? You’re my wife,
you’re supposed to be on my side!’
‘Yes, I’m your wife,’
Nina shot back, ‘and hey, guess what that means? Larry’s my
father-in-law! When he invites me to dinner, I can hardly flip the
bird in his face. You’re the one who’s got problems with him, not
me – I just met the man. I’m not going to be rude to him for no
reason, especially not in front of Nan and Holly.’
‘Told you plenty of
bloody reasons.’
‘You’re hardly an
unbiased source. And it all happened a long time ago—’
‘It still fucking
happened, though.’
‘Then maybe it’s time
you put it behind you!’ she cried. ‘What happened with Girilal and
Shankarpa in India certainly made you think about contacting him,
so why didn’t you?’
‘Changed my
mind.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause my mind
changed.’
‘That’s not an
answer!’
‘I don’t fucking
care! I don’t like it when people think they know what’s best for
me, that’s all. I decided I didn’t want to see him; that should
have been enough. But no, Lizzie had to stick her oar in, and then
you backed her up!’
‘He’s still your
father, Eddie. What would you have done if it had been Larry in
that bed instead of Nan?’
They reached the car.
‘I wouldn’t have come.’
She was shocked by
his coldness. ‘What?’
‘Look, he had an
affair while my mum was dying of cancer!’ Eddie snarled. ‘Some
things you just don’t forgive. I don’t, anyway. To be honest, I
couldn’t give a shit if I never see him again as long as I live.’
He got into the Mondeo and slammed the door.
Nina entered on the
other side. She sat in silence for a moment, then turned to him.
‘There’s something I never told you,’ she said quietly. ‘I once got
into a huge fight with my parents – they were going on their
expedition to Tibet right in the middle of my exams, and they
absolutely refused to let me go with them, said my exams were more
important. And I was so mad at them. I
was a teenage girl being denied something she really wanted, so I
said all kinds of things I wish I hadn’t. But they went without me
anyway, and . . . that’s when they died.’
She lowered her head.
‘It was just a one-off thing, a stupid argument. I loved them. But
. . . ’ She looked up at him, tears glistening in the corners of
her eyes. ‘I can’t change the past, I can’t bring them back. But I
would give anything to have been able to apologise to them before
they left. I’m not saying you’ve got anything to apologise for, but
if you’ve got a chance to settle your differences you should take
it. If this is the last time you ever
see him, do you really want it to be like this?’
After a long pause,
Eddie blew out a frustrated breath. ‘All right. We’ll go for
dinner,’ he said, reluctance clear in every word. ‘But I’m only
doing it for you, okay? Not for Lizzie, and definitely not for
him.’
She wiped her eyes
and smiled. ‘Thanks. But you’re not only doing it for me – you’re
doing it for yourself too.’
He squeezed her hand,
then started the car. ‘Well, whoever I’m doing it for, let’s hope
it’s not a huge fucking mistake.’