Third Solstice Page 7

  “I can’t lose her!” Ezekiel grabbed the tissue Lee was cautiously holding out, buried his face in it and blew his nose explosively. “I can’t, and—nor can you, Gideon. You were estranged from her for so many years, but now you have her back, and she thinks it’s the best thing in the world to have a gay son...” He paused for breath, then added, fervently, “Damn you. You’re gay, ten years younger than I am, and you still gave her grandchild before... before...”

  Gideon swallowed down his own rising tide of grief. He tightened his arm around Zeke’s waist. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll give her dozens once you and Eleanor get married, I bet.”

  Something in the words brought Zeke’s tears to a stop. He sat up a little, shivering. Lee took a seat on his other side, his mouth quirking up in an expression Gideon knew well: surmise and amusement, a forbidden smile.”Would you like a hold of Tamsie, Zeke?”

  “I would. I should just stop asking myself how you know things, shouldn’t I?”

  “Maybe. Here you go.”

  Lee unfastened the harness and handed the sleeping child over wholesale, still tucked into her sling. Zeke took awkward, tender hold of her. “I said some bad things about you, little girl. You won’t remember or hold them against me, and I hope... I hope your parents won’t, either.”

  “They won’t,” Lee said firmly. “Will we, Gid?”

  Gideon cleared his throat. “If you can forget Matthew Hopkins, I guess we can overlook the whole devil’s work thing. Maybe even the demon child, though—”

  “Gideon!” Lee fetched him a cuff behind Zeke’s back. But the reprimand lacked conviction, and a moment later he asked, with careful sobriety, “Where’s your Eleanor tonight, Zeke? I’d have thought wild horses wouldn’t keep her away.”

  Zeke nodded, settling Tamsyn in his arms. For some reason Lee’s question had raised painful colour in his cheeks. “Eleanor loves Ma. I haven’t told her this has happened. I didn’t want to give her a shock, not in...”

  A brief silence fell. Gideon broke it, irrepressible laughter shaking his voice. “In her condition? Are you kidding me?”

  “It was why I came to see you this morning. For some unknowable reason, I thought you might be sympathetic.”

  Gideon bounced to his feet. This was too bloody much, this was, after years of moral high ground and holier-than-thou. He strode to the end of the little waiting room and back. Its confines felt too small to contain his reaction: he wanted to run and shout. “Eleanor’s pregnant?”

  “Yes. She only just told me. She hasn’t even had a scan. Enjoy yourself, Gideon, but remember what this means to me. I’ve proved myself a hypocrite to my congregation. I may have to give up my ministry.”

  His words fell harmlessly as spent arrows, deprived of momentum and meaning. Gideon could scarcely hear him. The entire situation was too beautiful—the ultimate levelling of the mountainous playing field between them, and best of all a perfect excuse not to think about what was happening in the ICU ward beyond the glass doors. He took another turn of the waiting room, stopped and folded his arms. “Wow, Ezekiel. Devil’s work indeed.”

  But a white-coated figure had appeared through the glass. Lee, who could read the tiniest shift in his expression as well as his mind, got up and came to stand beside him. Gideon held out a hand to Zeke: steadied him as he lurched upright with the baby. The three were shoulder-to-shoulder when the glass doors swished apart.

  The doctor’s name was Pearce. Hers had been the third face Gideon had registered upon emerging from his coma on this very same ICU ward, and she’d become painfully familiar to him during the days and weeks that had followed. He’d wiped out the memory of her afterwards, just as he’d set aside all other recall of his brush with death. Was it better or worse that she was here now? She was tough as nails, but very good at what she did. If anyone could restore his mother to life... “How is she?” he asked, because although Zeke was the eldest and a minister, the nominal head of the family now that their father was gone, he was speechless with terror and grief. “Is there any change?”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Her EEG shows a serious reduction in brain activity.”

  “Is she on life support?”

  “Minimal. You’ll be aware that she has strict instructions in place.”

  Gideon was aware. She’d asked him to help her draw up her living will, afraid that her other son would try and put God’s will before it. “And her cutoff point’s been reached?”

  “Yes. If you and your family want to go to the bedside, that’s fine. I’ll have a cot brought in for the little girl.”

  Ezekiel twitched. “I don’t understand,” he rasped. “What are you saying?”

  “We’re losing her, I’m afraid.”

  ***

  Despite everything, Gideon slept. He’d worn himself out with his race through the Montol streets, and once a passing nurse had stopped off to bandage his hand, the cessation of pain had knocked away his last prop. He jolted awake in the small hours, horrified at his dereliction of duty. Lee was crouching in front of the armchair in the warm little ICU room. “Hush, love. It’s all right.”

  “Tamsyn?”

  “Asleep in the next room. Zeke’s having a nap through there too.”

  “Ma?”

  “No change.”

  That covered Gideon’s list of concerns. No, not quite. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Shit. I forgot the dog.”

  “I phoned Sarah Kemp. She said she’d go and take her back to hers.”

  Silently blessing good mindful husbands and neighbours with spare door keys, Gideon planted a kiss on Lee’s brow. “Thank you. Are you all right?”

  “Fine. I’ve just been sitting by Ma’s bed.”

  “Well, come and sit here for a minute with me.” Gideon scrunched over as far as he could in the armchair, held his arms out and grunted in relief as Lee scrambled into place beside him. “That’s better. God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Can you talk to me about ordinary stuff for a bit? I’m trying to work something out, and it’ll be easier if—”

  “If you can hear me droning on in the background?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Cheeky sod.” Gideon racked his brains. “She’s got a boyfriend, you know. No, not Ma,” he clarified at Lee’s astonished glance. “Sarah Kemp. I bumped into her in the procession with Lorna, and she introduced me to her new bloke. Wilfred, I think he’s called. Seems like a nice enough chap, and he’s got a couple of kids of his own to add to the menagerie. I invited him round to Tamsyn’s party tomorrow. If she has one, poor little bugger.”

  “Oh, she will.” Lee settled his head on Gideon’s shoulder. “And it is tomorrow. Carry on.”

  “Not bored yet? I also ran into Granny Ragwen, or rather I ran after her. I found her in a warehouse, perched on a rafter. No way she could’ve got up there on her own. I’d be worried about her if she hadn’t zoomed over my head on a broomstick five minutes later.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “You believe me, right?”

  “Course I do. Just a normal night on the beat for Sergeant Frayne. More, please.”

  “I met Darren Prowse. He’s got a legitimate job.”

  “What? Now you are pulling my leg.”

  “Seriously. Wants a reference and everything.”

  “Wow.” Lee took this in quietly, running a hand over Gideon’s chest, tracing a thoughtful pattern. “People move on, don’t they? They become what they should be, just as you said.”

  “Actually, Darren said that too.”

  “They change and they move on, whether we’re ready or not. The thing is, Gid—I’m really not sure it’s your ma’s time to go, and I’m struggling to figure out if I feel that way because it’s true, or because I’m not ready to part with her.”

  Gideon swallowed a hot lump in his throat. “I’m not bloody ready either.”

  “That’s why I hesitated to say it. I didn’t want to make you hope.”

>   “Not your responsibility. Let’s have a look at her.”

  They went to take a seat on either side of the bed. Gideon had avoided this place, reserved as it was for mourners and those who watched hopelessly through long nights. If he could have helped the old lady by going out and getting stabbed again, breaking every bone in his body, he’d have gone to do it bravely, but settling here was hard. He suspected a little makeup had crept into Ma Frayne’s life since the pastor had died last year, and he was certain she got her hair done once a month because she’d learned to text him a wobbly selfie of the end result, guiltily thrilled with herself. All that was gone now. The nurses had washed her hair after stitching the cut on her brow, and her face was a grey-white mask. “They did it wrong,” he said hoarsely, dabbing at her fringe. “Her parting. It’s on the wrong side.”

  “Fix it, then.” Lee passed him the comb which the good son Zeke—the dutiful one, who picked up his phone when needed—had remembered to pack and bring in. “You’re her good son too. Don’t be afraid.”

  With infinite caution, Gideon plied the comb through the white hair. The tracks he was making reminded him of ploughed fields in the snow, and being with Lee in a lane on the outskirts of Dark two years ago. Zeke had cast a demon from Lee that day. That had been Zeke’s view of the situation, anyway. Lee had said, not wholly jokingly, that any demon trapped between two big Frayne lads would vacate the premises out of sheer terror. Gideon hadn’t known what to believe. He supposed the point was that the three of them together had made a stand. “Lee. Did you tell me it was tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I did.” Lee glanced at him from the far side of the bed, his expression kind and penetrating. “After half four in the morning. You slept a long time.”

  “Just about long enough?”

  “Maybe. Here’s Zeke.”

  Ezekiel stumbled through from the side room, rubbing his eyes blearily. “Did somebody call me?”

  “Neither of us.” Lee sat up, smiling. “How’s the demon child?”

  “I suppose there’s just the outside chance that you and my rotten brother might let me forget that some day. She’s still asleep. What I don’t understand is how I could have slept so long. I didn’t think I’d close my eyes.”

  “It’s okay. Come and sit down with us.”

  “Lee, you’ll think me a coward. I rode with her in the ambulance, and I stayed with her while she was being admitted. I don’t want to look at her as she is now.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  Lee was holding out his hand. The gesture was affectionate but somehow peremptory, a summons. Gideon was aware of Zeke obeying it, moving to stand at Lee’s side. He was losing track a little, starting to drift. His husband’s negotiations with his brother were important, but he had no part in them. Still, there they were, the pair of them, arrayed opposite to him on the far side of his mother’s bed. Gideon had heard that a triangle was the most stable structure of all. “What time is it now?”

  “Twenty to five. It’s time.”

  Zeke shifted nervously. “Time for what?”

  “A journey I’d have taken for your brother if I could. He knows that—don’t you, Gid?” Gideon looked up in response. He gave a brief, smiling nod, and Lee went on: “He has to find the point in the past where things changed, so they can be different tonight. I can’t do that. I don’t know Ma Frayne’s trackways.”

  “Her trackways? Is it dangerous?”

  “For someone who hasn’t seen both sides of the veil. But Gideon has. He’s walked there often now, with the Beast and the witch and Old Penglas. And...” He paused, voice roughening to a chuckle. “Darren Prowse, the Lord of Misrule? That’s kind of perfect.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but this sounds crazy, Lee. Why can’t I do it? I know our mother’s trackways, better than Gideon ever could. I’m the oldest. Why—”

  “It’s not a competition. You have to forgive him for being born. He’s forgiven you.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Just stay close.”

  “I can’t. I can’t watch this.”

  “You can, Ezekiel. Because he needs you to.”

  Gideon let their voices fade. He had no need of them anymore, though he remained conscious of their presences, like great trees on the edge of a river. He was five years old, walking home through the village with his mother after school, and he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Nor had Ma. Gideon knew her thoughts as completely as his own, and she was elated—day in, day out, dawn till dusk—at having another child. A cheerful little boy, so different to his taciturn teenage brother that Ma was sure the pastor’s shadow would never consume him. She loved her elder son—of course—but these days he was so hard to reach. And Gideon, sturdy and affectionate, was there, surprising late fruit of a womb beginning the syncopated dance of menopause. Running down the lane now, never so far ahead that she felt he didn’t need her. Just bold and independent, testing the boundaries of his world.

  Some things could still scare him. The lane ran along the back of Pellar Street, a rough council block much haunted by lads coming home from afternoon sessions at Bodmin college. Normally Ma brought Gideon through earlier, but today Mrs Waite had detained her with gossip in the shop. A cluster of the young thugs were blocking the path ahead, laughing and throwing stones at some unseen target. Gideon had stopped in his tracks and was looking back at her, eyes wide. “Ma! Ma!”

  As if she could fix everything. Well, that was her job, as long as he believed she could. She scooped him up, grunting a little at his solid weight. She cleared her throat, settled herself more firmly on her heels. “You boys! What are you doing?”

  They swung round to face her. Through a gap in their ranks she glimpsed a huddled figure by the wall. “Is that... Mrs Ragwen, is that you?”

  One of the boys gave a shrill laugh. “That’s not no missus! Show me where her mister is, her babby’s father. How can she be missus, when she been Miss Ragwen all her life?”

  Ma sighed. These were valid questions, according to the very church she’d married into. The pastor would ask the same. But everyone who’d grown up in the Bodmin villages knew that, once a woman had passed a certain age or produced a child without the aid of a husband, you stuck a courtesy Mrs in front of her maiden name. It saved her face with the postman, and put off predators scanning the electoral roll for single women. No point in trying to explain that to this mob. There were eight of them, the delinquent Bill Prowse among them, and she was here alone with her son. She should just find another way home.

  They were losing interest in her anyway, turning around, picking up loose stones and chippings from the gutters again. Mrs Ragwen—Jana, they called her, didn’t they?—gave a moan of fear. She wasn’t very nice. She never turned up at any of Ma’s parish-house coffee mornings, or came to knit hats for African babies with the WI. Still, Ma Frayne’s church had taught her some useful things as well as the harsh, bewildering stuff about women and wedlock, and her blood boiled. “Hoi!” she cried, in the voice of her moorland childhood, carrying and fierce. “Let he who is without sin cast the first bloody stone. I bet that doesn’t cover any of you little buggers, does it?”

  They whipped round in astonishment. She pressed her advantage, clutching Gideon tight and marching straight past them. When she set him down so that she could crouch by Mrs Ragwen’s side, to her amusement and fright he folded his arms and faced the lads down, scowling fearfully. “Gideon! Stay behind me.”

  “No, Ma.”

  She couldn’t let her baby outdo her in courage. “You get out of here,” she told the gathered crowd. “I know some of your names—yours, Bill Prowse—and most of the rest of your faces. Go on. Get!”

  Bill, always more coward than aggressor, came to her rescue. “She’n the pastor’s missus, boys. Be a bad lookout for us if that old crow comes after us, with his long face and his great black bible!”

  They scattered, laughing and shoving. When the lane was empt
y, Ma turned her attention to the woman huddled by the wall, arms still raised to shield her head. “Mrs Ragwen? Are you all right?”

  She was little more than a bundle of cloth, patched-together velvets under a long black cloak. “Let me alone.”

  “Don’t be scared. They’ve gone. I’m Mrs Frayne, the pastor’s wife. This is my son, Gideon.”

  At the mention of the child, Mrs Ragwen threw back the edge of her cloak and risked a look. “Ah. I know both of you. The good wife, and...” She pinched Gideon’s cheek, not with affection but as if she was checking his texture and composition. “The little policeman. That’s right.” She got up stiffly, brushing at her long skirt. “I’m all right. I let the little sods catch me with my robes on, that’s all.”

  “It seems a very dangerous street. Would you like the pastor to find out if there’s somewhere nicer you could rent in the village?”

  She swept her hair back from her face. “The Ragwens don’t move out of places, my dear. They name places after us—Pellar Street, Cros-an-Wra, hundreds more. We’ll be here when the likes of Billy Prowse have passed from the face of the earth.” Her voice wobbled. “Still, it ain’t very nice to be stoned, is it?”

  “Not nice at all,” Ma Frayne agreed. She put an arm around the woman’s thin shoulders, passed her a dainty handkerchief which she demolished at once with a honking blow of her nose. “Do you want to call the police?”

  “No, no. No use in that, not here.” She tweaked Gideon’s cheek again. “Not yet, anyway. Here, this don’t mean I have to start trotting along to your husband’s chapel, do it—because his missus came and saved my life?”

  “I don’t think I quite did that.” Ma Frayne smiled. “And as for the chapel—no, I don’t think that would do anybody any good, though don’t tell the pastor I said so. Here, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you dress a bit differently when you go out? Not to... to hide who you are or anything, but just to make your life a little bit easier? And it would be a grand joke on them all, wouldn’t it, if the village witch wore Marks and Sparks?”