Chapter 12 Jacob
Jacob
‘Here you are, lad,’ Pete said, handing a paper cup of coffee to Jacob as he stood huddled beneath the van’s open serving door. ‘That’ll sort you out. And this morning, your bacon roll is on the house.’ He held out a wrapped-up sandwich, the heat immediately warming Jacob’s hands as he took it.
‘I didn’t—’
‘Lad, you always greet me with a smile. This morning … well, your face was smiling but your eyes weren’t. Would that be a fair assumption?’
‘You’re astute, Pete.’
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘I’m not quite sure what there is to say,’ Jacob said. ‘There’s not enough time to do everything, is there, Pete?’
‘Absolutely not, but there’s a lot more time than you’d think, if you’re careful not to waste it, and you use it well. What ten things are you trying to fit into space for just one?’
Jacob sighed. ‘There’s an old woman, and a boy … and there’s a girl … and then there’s a big, dark shadow.’
‘Getting a little literary on me, are you?’
‘I’m not sure how to explain it.’
‘One jigsaw piece at a time, that’s how the puzzle gets made. How about you tell me about the girl first? That’s always the hardest part, isn’t it? But, heavens, eat that before it goes cold.’
‘The girl … I saw a girl, and I felt….’ Jacob shrugged. ‘I felt … I don’t know. Weird. Like I suddenly didn’t know how to speak.’
Pete grinned. ‘Oh, boy. When will you next get a chance to see this girl?’
‘This afternoon. We’re holding a wake for her grandmother at Marjorie’s.’
Pete’s smile turned into a grimace. ‘Well, that’s not ideal … best option would be a friend’s wedding, but you have to make do, don’t you?’
‘Right.’
‘Just be kind and nice and don’t make any jokes about dead people. Ask her if the undertaker tied her grandmother’s shoelaces when he put her in the coffin.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, if there’s a zombie apocalypse, there would be one less to worry about.’
Jacob spat out a piece of bacon sandwich. ‘Jesus, Pete.’
‘I’m sorry, lad. And remember to say that at a funeral. “I apologise” has a totally different meaning.’
Jacob grinned. ‘I’ll try. Thanks for cheering me up, Pete. I’d better get on.’
‘If I’m still here later on, we can work through the rest. Remember, cut a problem into enough pieces, and it stops being a problem.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
Before going to work, Jacob headed across Brentwell to Nora Shapton’s place.
He went inside, the Christmas card, faithfully resealed and flattened out, inside his coat pocket.
As he reached the line of letterboxes and took it out, he paused before pushing it back inside. What if Nora didn’t check inside?
He glanced at the stairs. Would it hurt to deliver it in person?
At the very least, he could slide it under her door.
He had to hurry though because Aunt Marjorie needed his help dealing with the morning’s customers and then dealing with the wake preparations for the afternoon. It would only take a minute—
Nora’s place was on the third floor, down a tatty corridor with a threadbare carpet that disputed the building’s outwardly modern appearance.
A strip light was cracked and some of the wallpaper was peeling.
Jacob walked to the number that corresponded with Nora’s letterbox and lifted a hand to knock.
Just as he did, his phone buzzed in his pocket, a message from Aunt Marjorie.
Can you pick up a couple of litres of milk on the way over? I completely forgot to stock up. I have enough for the morning but I’ll be running low by the time of the wake in the afternoon.
Sure, he messaged back. I’ll be there soon.
He knocked again, calling out Nora’s name, but this time the door gave a little. He nudged it with his foot, finding it unlocked. It opened a few inches, then lodged against something on the other side of the door.
At first Jacob thought the door was caught on a mat or something that had fallen, like a hat stand or shoe rack, but as he gave it a gentle shove, he heard a groan from the other side of the door.
‘Nora?’
The only response was another low groan. Jacob tried to peer around the door, but it wasn’t quite wide enough for him to squeeze inside. Instead, he squatted down.
‘Nora, just hold on. I’ll call an ambulance.’
A frail hand appeared through the crack in the door. ‘Don’t leave me,’ came Nora’s weak voice.
‘I won’t,’ Jacob said. ‘I’ll stay right here.’
Having explained the situation to emergency services, the fire brigade showed up too, and had to cut the door off its hinges to get inside.
‘Are you the next of kin?’ a paramedic asked Jacob as he waited on the landing outside the flat while others attended to Nora, who was lying on the floor.
‘No. I’m just … a friend.’
‘Looks like she fell, maybe broke her hip, knocked herself out. The carpet there is loose.’ He reached up, slapped a hand at the broken light. ‘Look at this place. It should be shut down. Health and safety would have a field day over this, but no doubt there’s a backhander going on somewhere.’
A fireman came over. ‘We’ll leave someone to seal the door with tape, but someone will need to contact the landlord.’ He looked pointedly at Jacob.
‘Ah, right.’
‘Poor old thing,’ the fireman said. ‘Can you imagine living like that? A good job you found her, mate. How did you get in, anyway?’
‘The front door is broken. I was just bringing her a Christmas card.’ He pulled the card out of his pocket and held it out as proof.
‘Right that’s it,’ another paramedic said, lifting an extendable stretcher with Nora strapped onto it. ‘We’ll take her to Brentwell General,’ he said to Jacob. ‘She might have to go into emergency surgery, but if you ask on reception they’ll tell you where to go.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘Roy,’ came a weak voice.
‘Is that you, lad?’
Jacob shook his head. ‘Ah, no. That’s her … um, dog.’
‘I can’t find my Roy,’ Nora moaned.
Jacob pushed through the group and took Nora’s hand. ‘I’ll find him,’ he said.
‘He’ll be worried,’ she moaned. ‘Do look after him!’
‘I will.’
‘She has a dog in there?’ one of the firemen said.
‘I’ll deal with it,’ Jacob told him.
‘Thanks, lad.’
He went down to the lobby to watch them load Nora into an ambulance, then waved as it headed off to the hospital. A few locals and some other residents had appeared to see what the fuss was about, but Jacob ignored them as he headed back inside and climbed the stairs to Nora’s flat.
A couple of firemen were preparing to seal the door with tape and plastic sheeting, but Jacob asked if he could have a few minutes to gather some things for Nora.
‘Sure, lad,’ the fireman said. ‘We’ll just grab a coffee from that café over the street. We can give you half an hour.’
‘Thanks.’
Nora’s flat was small and cluttered. Two rooms led off the narrow hall where she had fallen, one into a bedroom with a framed assistance bed, another into a small spare room filled with boxes.
A little kitchen diner at the end had a window with a decent view over the hills behind the town, but that was the only good thing about it. The carpet was threadbare, the wallpaper peeling, damp in places.
Jacob took it all in with a sense of regret.
While probably bigger than his own tiny flat, it was far shabbier and filled with junk, boxes of old newspapers, heaps of recyclable goods Nora perhaps didn’t know how or when to throw out.
On a tabletop was a plastic container with seven lids, each labelled with a different day of the week.
Inside each was several different coloured pills, Nora’s medication.
Today was Monday, but Monday’s pills remained in the container, and as Jacob rubbed away a layer of dust from the top, he wondered just how long it had been since Nora had taken her medication.
The kitchen was filthy, piles of plates in the sink, some crusted with weeks’ old dirt.
Unable to resist the need to clean up, Jacob turned on the tap, only to be met with a weak trickle.
Shaking his head, instead he pulled out his camera and began taking pictures of everything, even a few short videos.
Nora had attempted to brighten the mood of the place by placing soft toys everywhere. They lined the kitchen window, sat on three of the four dining chairs. All of them seemed to be dogs, most of them in poor condition. Jacob looked around, searching for Roy, but he was nowhere to be found.
Aware the firemen would be back soon and he had done nothing much but gape and lament, he gathered a plastic bag, took her medicine and then went into the bathroom to collect some toiletries.
The bathroom was in as sorry a condition as the kitchen.
Giving everything a forlorn stare, Jacob gathered up what toiletries he could find, adding them to the bag, then went into Nora’s bedroom to find her a change of clothes.
Here he found evidence of Clarice Toad’s intervention, a pile of clean, folded clothes on top of a wicker basket at the end of the bed.
The bed too, showed signs of having been changed, but the rest of the room was filled with clutter, boxes of old documents, dog-eared books covered in so much dust they most likely hadn’t been read in decades.
Like an oasis among the storm, though, stood a dresser against the wall.
Pinned up around it were a number of photographs, some in colour, some black and white.
A grainy, sepia picture of a young woman and a smiling man, a little pug on the woman’s lap.
Another, a woman who was clearly Nora but at least a decade younger, standing beside the same man, now much older, leaning on a stick.
A younger couple and two children sitting in front of them.
One further picture: the same man, alone now, cradling the pug, looking down with affection into the dog’s scrunched face.
A handwritten inscription underneath: Bert and Roy, June, 1971.
Jacob looked around. Roy’s pram was near the door, the dog nowhere to be seen. He squatted down, looking under the bed, then beneath the dresser, finally the bed.
The toy dog had fallen down between the headboard and the mattress.
Jacob took him out, giving Roy a brush down. The dog was in terrible condition, a combination of age and overuse. He looked back at the selection of photographs, saw another of the dog in the arms of a baby in the same pram, a younger Nora standing beside it, wearing a beaming smile.
‘You still in there, lad?’
Jacob nearly dropped the dog. He wiped away a tear, stuffed Roy into the bag, and headed for the door.
‘Just coming,’ he said.
The firemen offered to give Jacob a lift, but he had his bike with him, so headed over to the hospital on his own.
By the time he made it, Nora had been taken into emergency surgery.
At first the doctors were reluctant to talk to him, but one of the paramedics recognised him as the person who had called them, so a doctor came out to the waiting room and took him into a private consultation room.
‘The situation is pretty serious,’ the doctor told him. ‘If you hadn’t found her, there’s a good chance she could have died. As it is, it’s still touch and go.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘We think she had some kind of seizure. Maybe even a stroke. We’ve done some tests, but it was more important to get her stabilised. She’s broken her hip and also fractured a collarbone, both in the fall, which was probably caused by the seizure.’
‘I found some medication in her kitchen,’ Jacob said. ‘I don’t think she’d been taking it.’
‘That would be a great help if you could let me see it,’ the doctor said.
‘Of course.’
‘We really need to get in contact with her next of kin,’ the doctor said. ‘We haven’t got a medical record for her, so we need to know as much about her medical history as possible. Can I leave that up to you?’
‘Uh … yes, of course. I’ll do what I can.’
‘I understand it was an emergency call out,’ the doctor said.
‘I’ll put you in contact with the police to have them authorise you to look around the premises.
’ He looked down. ‘I understand from the paramedics that the situation in that place was diabolical. If I have my way, heads will roll. That’s no way for someone to live, is it? ’
‘With Christmas right around the corner and all,’ Jacob said.
‘There’s a good chance that Mrs. Shapton will celebrate Christmas from her hospital bed,’ the doctor said. ‘That’s if she sees it at all.’
Someone knocked on the door. The doctor answered and the door opened. A nurse leaned in.
‘Mrs. Shapton’s been taken back to the ward,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s awake and asking for someone called Roy.’
‘Is that you?’ the doctor asked.
Jacob shook his head, then opened his bag and took out the toy dog.
‘This is Roy,’ he said.
The doctor just sighed. ‘That poor woman,’ he said.
Nora was sitting up in bed. As the doctor led Jacob in, she looked up and frowned. Jacob, starting to sweat, started to back away, worried that his presence was upsetting her. Then her eyes suddenly widened, and a smile appeared on her face.
‘Roy! Oh, Roy! You’re here!’
Jacob came forward, gently placing the dog into Nora’s arms. She leaned back in the pillows, cradling the dog, fingers running over his back. The doctor exchanged a look with Jacob, then waved him to a chair.
‘Why don’t you sit with her a bit?’ he said.
‘Sure.’
Jacob sat down, pulling the chair a little out from the bed, still nervous about being too close.
After all, he knew next to nothing about this woman, and to her, he was a stranger.
He watched her as she cooed over the dog, the way her prior confusion seemed to pass as she found comfort in something familiar.
In his pocket, his phone buzzed, and he suddenly remembered Aunt Marjorie’s request for milk. He pulled out his phone, only for the battery to die halfway through typing her a message.
A clock on the wall said a quarter to one. The wake was due to start at one o’clock.
‘I just need to pop out for a bit,’ he said to Nora, who gave him a sleepy nod. ‘I’ll be back later, I promise.’
‘Roy will need to go out,’ Nora muttered. Then, to Jacob’s relief, she drifted off to sleep.