Chapter 4
BECKETT
Beckett didn’t think of himself as a nosy person. One of the reasons he’d probably have not been the best doctor was his lack of curiosity. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, more the courtesy of not wanting to impose on other people the same discomfort he felt when pressed to share personal details.
And yes, he understood that this reluctance to open up and partake in the healthy exchange of information that friendships thrive on only increased his isolation. His resulting shame at having no social life or much life at all to speak of perpetuated the problem indefinitely.
Yet. In the hours since he’d first stood on Mary’s doorstep, he couldn’t stop wondering about her.
Once she’d fallen asleep on the sofa, he’d finished the chapter of the book he was reading and then made to leave.
However, something had compelled him back into her kitchen first. When fetching her duvet from upstairs, he’d not been able to help noticing that the bedroom was stark.
There was a small pile of clothes on a wooden chair in one corner, a clutch of toiletries on a chest of drawers, but no photographs, artwork or ornaments.
He’d never been in a woman’s house that didn’t have a candle or a throw.
There was nothing to suggest this place was a home. He suspected Mary had not been here very long, but also that she’d no intention to stay. In which case, why was she holed up in a remote cottage that was, to be blunt, a dump?
The kitchen cupboards had made his stomach clench. He’d found pasta, a box of crackers, teabags and a few tins. The fridge wasn’t much better – some soggy salad leaves, half a packet of cheese and enough milk for maybe one cup of tea. The freezer held a couple of ready meals and some peas.
After quickly washing up, wiping down the surfaces and sweeping the floor, he’d headed home, relieved to see that the snow was already melting, but the thought of Mary sitting alone, eating one of those grim excuses for a pasta bake, wouldn’t stop bothering him.
Everything about her situation pointed to her having run for her life.
The only thing that made him hesitate in concluding that Mary had fled domestic violence was that while she seemed sad, even depressed, she didn’t appear watchful or scared.
She might be hiding, but he didn’t think it was from anything dangerous.
He’d snatched three hours’ sleep before his alarm went off. Gramps was still sleeping, which confirmed that he’d been unsettled by the change in routine the night before, and Beckett was downing some much-needed caffeine when Tanya shuffled into the kitchen with a face like concrete.
‘Coffee?’ he asked. A pathetic peace offering, but she looked as though she might need it before he said any more.
She banged a travel mug onto the worktop. ‘To go.’
‘Thank you for being here.’ Beckett ran a hand through his hair, about two years overdue a cut. He forced himself to find the words to explain. ‘A woman was literally giving birth on the back seat, and, with the road being closed, I had to stop at the nearest building I could see…’
‘I stayed for him, not you.’ Tanya leant against the table, arms folded. It was a decent-sized kitchen, but Beckett felt as though there wasn’t enough room as he filled her mug from the jug of freshly ground filter coffee.
‘Yeah. I know. We’re very grateful to have you…’
‘You don’t have me, Beckett. I meant what I said last night. I’m done with being treated like this. We have boundaries for a reason, and I won’t keep letting you disrespect them, and me.’
‘I understand. It’s not okay, and I’m sorry. I’ll pay you overtime for being here all night, and can finish early today to make up for it. It won’t happen again.’
He handed Tanya the travel mug, and she shoved it into her giant shoulder bag, clearly not appeased.
‘No. It won’t happen again because I’m resigning. I told you, I’m done.’
Beckett’s heart dropped to the kitchen floor.
‘Say bye to Marvin for me. I don’t want to disturb him.’ Tanya’s voice cracked on the last few words, and Beckett knew she was serious.
‘Please.’ He had to try, anyway. ‘Can we talk about it properly, when we aren’t both exhausted? Give me one more chance. Please.’
‘I gave you one more chance the last time.’
‘Last time I had that seventeen-year-old, passed out drunk on the back seat. If I’d not stepped in, the guy would have?—’
‘I know, Beckett! You had to help. You always have to help. That’s the problem. You aren’t going to change, so this isn’t going to work.’
‘What will we do without you?’
She let out a noisy huff. However livid she was with Beckett, Tanya loved his grandpa. ‘You’re going to go online and find another care agency, and this time you’ll stick to the contract and not treat them like their own family or plans aren’t as important as yours.’
Swiping angrily at a tear, she pushed her trainers on. ‘It was my wedding anniversary last night, Beckett. Ian was waiting up for me. Instead I was here, on another man’s sofa.’
Tanya stalked over to the kitchen door. ‘Good luck. I wish you both the best.’
* * *
So now, here he was, facing the nightmare of trying to find another care assistant prepared to spend ten hours a day looking after an eighty-two-year-old man with multiple health issues and a foul temper.
He’d taken the day off to take care of Gramps himself, and although Gramps struggled to keep track of which day it was, on some level the disruption to his schedule had caused anxiety, which displayed itself in rudeness, exhausting demands and generally being a grouch.
The main reason Beckett drove a taxi was the flexible hours, because all too often a care assistant would call in sick at the last minute, quit with no notice or simply fail to show up, and, quite frankly, he couldn’t blame them.
However, from her first day, Tanya had been a godsend.
She’d taken Gramps’ difficulties in her stride and seemed instinctively to know how best to handle them.
Beckett tried not to dwell on the irony that, this time, it was his unreliability that ended up being the problem.
He did call Sonali, who sometimes stood in when Tanya was on holiday or otherwise unavailable, but Sonali was in high demand and uninterested in working regular long shifts.
‘I’m available this afternoon, if you’re desperate.
The fellow I was meant to be with died, so I’ve got a few spare shifts this week if you want to pencil something in.
No ten-hour marathons, though. As much as I respect your grandfather’s unbreakable will and Houdini-like ability to place himself in life-threatening situations, it’s a lot easier to admire in small doses. ’
They agreed that she’d come in at four, in time for a game of cards and a meal before Beckett came back at eight to start the evening routine.
Beckett didn’t mention that he wouldn’t be spending those four hours earning much-needed income.
After making a sandwich, then coaxing Gramps into eating three bites of it while surreptitiously trying to look up home-care agencies on his phone, he settled him in his armchair, turned on one of the quiz shows Gramps enjoyed shouting at and, for reasons he couldn’t admit to himself yet, quickly showered and pulled on a clean sweatshirt and jeans.
He even tried putting his hair in a ponytail, but that made him feel like an oversized member of a nineties’ boyband, so he ditched that idea.
He opened the door for Sonali, and she did her usual playing with fire, scurrying in and planting a kiss on the top of his grandfather’s bald head.
‘It’s the witch!’ Marvin shrieked, and Sonali gave Beckett a triumphant thumbs up at being immediately recognised. He ignored how his guts twisted in response to the person his dignified grandfather had become.
‘Feeling well today, are we, Marvin? As full of your indomitable spirit as ever?’
‘I was until you turned up and assaulted me. Where’s the other one?’
‘Tanya is unable to come today. She’s very disappointed to miss out on whatever fabulously creative insults you come up with, but I’ve promised to record them for her, so don’t hold back just because I’m your favourite.’
‘Shut up and die.’
‘How about I put the kettle on, instead?’
* * *
Beckett left Gramps in Sonali’s capable hands, feeling guilty that he got to benefit from someone else passing away, but he couldn’t in all good conscience leave Mary and Bob to fend for themselves out there in the forest, with next to nothing.
He did have a last-minute wobble as he pulled into the driveway almost an hour later, loaded up with food, more baby stuff and a supermarket bouquet, because surely every woman giving birth should get flowers.
What if he’d misread things last night, and right now Mary was being taken care of by a best friend, or even a partner?
He’d not seen her notify anyone about Bob’s arrival, but she could have done it while he was talking with Pastor Moses.
Maybe she had a whole gang of help who had simply happened to be too far away last night, or working.
Looking after an elderly, sick relative.
But she’d told him she had no one to call, and the type of friends who might turn up to help the day after a baby was born would have made sure she had a cot, or at the very least a pack of nappies, before reaching this point.
Resolve strengthened, Beckett grabbed the bags of food and went to find out.
He almost left the shopping in the porch, concluding that Mary was either out or sleeping after she failed to answer his knocks, but then he heard a faint wail and decided she probably hadn’t heard him.
He walked around the side of the house and peered through glass doors leading into the back of the living room, where the cries were a lot louder.
Seeing the shadow of Mary cut across the dim glow of a lamp, doing the unmistakable carrying-a-baby-bounce-up-and-down, he rapped on the glass without thinking about it.