He’d cried, great, big, gasping gulps that had almost brought him to his literal knees, when the two cars had pulled up, and Moses, Bill and the other guys had sprung out, bearing huge torches, blankets and serious expressions.
Not for the first time in the past few weeks, Beckett appreciated afresh the monumental difference it made when heading into a storm with good people either side of you.
He barely felt the biting wind and icy drizzle, mind as numb as his fingers as he set his face like flint and doggedly followed the route assigned to him by Clive. Bill’s wife, Susanne, was waiting at the house in case by some miracle Gramps found his way home.
Beckett had accepted that Gramps wouldn’t live forever. But for him to go like this, alone and lost on a cold, dark street. Spreadeagled in some alleyway or sprawled in a gutter. Especially when, after the despair of the past few years, Gramps had finally started to find some enjoyment in life again. Beckett’s head might be frozen, but his heart ached with a ferocity that put his earlier anguish about Mary to shame.
He couldn’t even speak when he answered Sam’s call, thirty minutes later.
‘Found him curled up on a bench in that tiny park behind the school.’
Beckett sank to the wet ground. That park was a five-minute walk from their house. Fifteen, maybe, for Gramps. A good ten from where he was now.
‘He’s got a pulse. Breathing shallow, but steady. His extremities are ice, but his dressing gown and hat probably saved him.’
‘Conscious?’ Beckett was already lurching to his feet, gearing up for the sprint.
‘For a few seconds, then drifted out again. Ambulance is on its way.’
Six minutes later, Beckett cradled his grandfather against his chest, as the worst of the fear seeped slowly into the night. Gramps had cried out when Beckett ran a hand down his left leg, the doctor pulling down the thick socks that had previously been in the washing machine with a grim shake of his head to find a purple, swollen ankle.
‘Cancel the ambulance,’ he told Sam. ‘It’ll be quicker if we go in a car. I can take care of him.’
Moses drove the two of them to the hospital. Gramps was drowsy, but lucid enough when he did stir.
‘I told you,’ he growled as Beckett strapped him in, after moving a booster seat and mountain of kid’s clutter. ‘Put me in a damn home.’
Beckett called Mary again once Gramps was finally settled on a ward. Still no answer, despite it being late morning. An X-ray had showed up a nasty fractured ankle, but mercifully minimal signs of hypothermia (the socks had helped, a nurse cheerfully informed them). Beckett related some of the other worrying behaviour and symptoms that had developed recently, and the doctor assured him that they’d refer Mr Bywater on to the help he needed.
Beckett felt like a deflated balloon. He’d sent Moses home at some point in the hours spent waiting for assessments and tests and then finally a free bed, then, much later, got a lift home with Jakob from Sherwood Taxis. It felt almost eerie to be entering an empty house.
He debated sending Mary a message, but he fell asleep on the sofa before he’d come up with something to say. After waking up in the late afternoon, he showered and changed, grabbed a banana and raced back to the hospital, not bothering to charge his dead phone. Gramps stayed awake for maybe ten minutes, during which he had the energy to grumble about half a dozen words, so, after watching him sleep for a couple of hours, Beckett chose the sensible option and left him to rest.
Instead of turning off to Bigley, he instead found himself heading along the smaller road towards Hatherstone. Beckett promised himself he’d no intention of causing trouble; he would pretend the kiss never happened, simply fill Mary in and be clear that, no matter what she’d said about ruining their friendship, he would make it work.
His foot rammed on the brake when he reached the cottage. The Lexus still squatted like a giant flea on the driveway.
All the hopes he’d dared not admit, that maybe Mary would have had an official goodbye conversation, agreed to work out some arrangement for letting this man see his son from time to time, and sent him on his way, collapsed along with his resolve to act like the better man.
Still reeling from the night before, unable to face putting on a polite mask when inside was a devastated wasteland, he turned the car around and headed back to his empty house, wondering what on earth he was going to do now.
32
MARY
Kieran and Shay crawled out of bed just before lunchtime. We made Christmas leftovers sandwiches and I told them I was ready to talk about Leo. Waking up that morning, I knew I needed to open this door, deal with what I found on the other side, then properly close it before I spoke to Beckett.
We went over everything. How Leo and I had fallen for each other. The glorious and the bumpier side to our relationship. How he’d almost, sort of, steamrollered me into a wedding, but that, without Shay and Kieran on my side, I’d felt as if, without Leo, I’d have no one. Besides, I’d been desperate to prove that I could be my own woman, for once. Make my own decisions and control my own life.
They shared their anguish at whether to tell me about Leo’s heart problem. They knew it wasn’t their place, but since when did the three of us have those kinds of boundaries?
Instead, Kieran had repeatedly pushed Leo to tell me himself, praying that, after years of difficulties and family issues, he’d not have to betray his brother’s confidence.
Once I was married, they’d felt even worse. I’d emphatically pulled away, and shut them out, and they felt I’d removed their right to stage an intervention.
‘We were petrified of losing you altogether. We knew you’d find it too hard to be angry at Leo. While our bridges were burning, you needed him, so instead you’d be upset at us for meddling,’ Shay tried to explain.
‘And we could see how important it was that you made a success of this,’ Kieran added. ‘We’d honestly never realised how you’d been feeling all these years, like a tag-along or afterthought. We never saw you like that, Mary. You’re our sister.’
