Chapter 26
As the police officer explains the situation when Phoebe eventually arrives at the police station, a bag bundled under her arm, she has to try very hard to maintain a straight face. Not because the situation isn’t without its serious, worrying parts, but because sometimes laughter is the only response.
‘Someone called to alert us to a woman walking down the middle of the dual carriageway. Said her arms were outstretched as though she were on the front of a ship or something. Didn’t have a stitch on her. Not a stitch. We sent a patrol car out to pick her up. She was chatting a lot – sounded like some religious stuff. She was luckily pretty co-operative. Got in the back no problem. I think she was talking about bees at one point? She mentioned your name and we found we had your number saved from last time.’
‘Thanks for calling me,’ Phoebe replies, making sure she keeps her voice steady and professional. ‘Her social worker is on her way too. Can I go and see her?’
‘Yeah, of course. She’s not in any trouble. We just thought it best to keep her here till you got here. Didn’t want her getting cold.’
Phoebe smiles at the police officer behind the desk. She recognises him from a previous visit to the station. Thankfully, they seem pretty understanding here. It isn’t always the case, of course, which is why she always likes to get there as quickly as possible when she gets a call like this. Some aren’t as compassionate as Sergeant Halifax.
He shows her through the station until they reach what looks like a staff meeting room. The door is open and sitting at a table inside, drinking coffee from matching paper cups, are a young female police officer and Maude, who is dressed in an oversized police uniform.
She looks up as Phoebe enters. ‘Oh, give thanks to the Lord!’
The police officer looks over with a smile. ‘Hello, there. Maude and I have just been having a chat. I’ve learnt a lot about beekeeping.’
So, it seems that the interest in beekeeping that Maude expressed at their last appointment was more than a passing comment, making Phoebe feel even worse about not having found a way to reconnect her with her former passion yet.
‘Hi, Maude. It’s good to see you. Shall we go and get you changed so we can give this uniform back and then I’ll drive you home?’
Maude pauses, tilting her head to look over her shoulder as if to confer with someone, as she often does. Phoebe waits, used to this habit of hers. ‘Praise be!’ she says, taking the last sip of her coffee and placing down her cup.
‘Thanks for keeping me company, Maude,’ the young police officer says with a kind smile. She can’t be long after joining the force, but Phoebe can tell immediately that she’s going to make a great police officer.
‘Don’t forget what I told you about the bees,’ says Maude. ‘It’s a common misconception, but they’re very docile really. They only get angry when they feel as though they’re under attack.’
Hearing her words, Phoebe recalls another phone call she received like this a few years ago. That time, the police had been called by the staff in a shopping centre when customers had started to grow wary of the woman in her sixties who was shouting Bible quotes at an increasingly loud volume. The officers then had been firm, thinking a direct approach the best course of action. But something about the tone must have frightened Maude because she’d grown frantic. By the time Phoebe had arrived, she’d been so worked up that it had taken a long time to calm her down.
But now, thankfully, she seems at ease.
‘I won’t forget,’ says the young police officer. ‘You take care of yourself, all right?’
‘Thank you,’ Phoebe says with meaning as Maude heads for the door, Phoebe holding it open for her. ‘I’m glad it was you and Sergeant Halifax who picked her up.’
‘What were you doing out on the road like that, Maude?’ Phoebe asks gently as they make their way to a nearby bathroom. ‘You could have got yourself killed.’
Maude rolls her eyes. ‘Isn’t that what resurrections are for?’
Phoebe covers her smile behind her hand.
‘What about the other people on the road who aren’t immortal, then?’ she says more seriously. ‘You could have caused one of them to have an accident. Where were you going anyway?’
‘I was trying to get back to the convent. The bees needed me. No one’s been looking after them since I left.’
Maybe if Phoebe had found a way for Maude to get back in touch with her old love of beekeeping, then this might not have happened.
‘And your clothes?’
‘They were just holding me back.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to put some on now because we need to give that uniform back, as much as it suits you. I grabbed some of my things from home; I hope that’s OK just until we get you home.’ She had wanted to get to the station as quickly as possible so grabbed the first things that came to hand in her wardrobe. They are, thankfully, around the same size, even if Maude is thirty years older than her.
‘How do I look?’ Maude asks as she emerges from the toilet stall a few moments later. Phoebe works very hard to suppress her laughter. In her hurry, she didn’t notice that what she thought was a plain white T-shirt is actually a slogan tee she wears when cleaning the flat.
Maude spreads out her arms to better display the words ‘Yes, sir, I can boogie,’ written across her chest in bold green letters. Paired with high-waisted red jeans and a pair of bright red Converse, it’s quite a look for someone who usually dresses in long, loosely fitting dresses in shades of grey and black, reminiscent of the convent.
‘You look fantastic, Maude.’
She gives a little twirl and this time Phoebe lets herself laugh because Maude is laughing too.
‘Come on, let’s get you home. Amanda, your social worker, is meeting us outside to drive you back.’
‘That’s a shame. I hoped I’d get a ride on the back of your motorbike.’
‘Maybe next time,’ Phoebe says with a smile.
They head out of the police station, saying goodbye to the officers they pass on the way. A visit to the police station hadn’t been on her to-do list for the day. But at least that’s one thing she can say for her job: no two days are ever the same.
By the time she arrives back in Farleigh-on-Avon at the end of the day, Phoebe is exhausted. Thanks to the morning’s excursion to the police station, the rest of the day has gone by in a frantic rush of constantly feeling she’s falling behind. As she met with a few new patients, she tried extremely hard not to look flustered or to glance at her watch. She wanted to show them that she had all the time in the world for them, even if her packed diary said otherwise. As well as the new patients, she’d popped in to see Ben. He seemed less perky than her last visit, but she tried not to worry too much – mental health came with its ups and downs and at least he was on a better track than a lot of her patients, with his beloved football club to go to twice a week and job interviews lined up.
Lunch had consisted of a chocolate bar, a packet of crisps and a soggy sausage roll grabbed from a service station on the way between appointments. While she was there, she grabbed a frozen pizza too, knowing she wouldn’t have the energy to cook when she got home.
Her last appointment of the day was with Tara and Phoebe was gutted to see that her mood hadn’t improved since her last visit. She was still taking the medication, for now, but the loneliness of the silence that surrounded her now that the voices had gone was becoming hard to bear. Phoebe turned on the radio, hoping that the background chatter might help but knowing it was no substitute for human contact.
‘Do you think you’d like to try some of the community groups we talked about before?’
But Tara had shaken her head. ‘I couldn’t. I can’t … I can’t go outside. You know that.’
And Phoebe did. Tara hadn’t once left the house in all the time that Phoebe had been visiting her, no matter how hard Phoebe and the other people who cared for her tried to persuade her. At first, the voices had been what kept her a prisoner in her own home, telling her that awful things would happen if she went outside. But even though the voices have gone, it seems the fear hasn’t.
Before leaving, Phoebe did a quick check of Tara’s kitchen – a common tactic of hers to work out how her patients are really doing. On discovering that the fridge was practically empty, she sat with Tara while she placed an online food order, not leaving until she was certain that there would be supplies arriving in the morning.
‘And I’ve put a pizza in the oven for you. I accidentally bought one too many at the shop earlier. It would only go to waste otherwise.’
Now she’s finally finished for the day, her motorbike parked up outside the flat, but with nothing for her own dinner and not enough energy to go back out to the shops. She’s just thinking about the bottle of gin waiting for her upstairs when she spots someone she thinks she recognises walking towards her along the pavement.
Although the mousy-haired woman is dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a hoody, Phoebe can immediately recall her in a bright yellow swimsuit when they swam together at the river this morning. Jesus, was it really only this morning? Her day has felt about three weeks long.
To her surprise, the woman isn’t alone. She is pushing a navy pram, a soft rattle shaped like a star hanging from its canopy.
‘Kate?’ she asks as the woman draws closer.
The messy bun on the top of Kate’s head bounces as she looks up from where she’d been peering inside the pram, her eyebrows rising in surprise.
‘Oh, hi Phoebe.’ She appears decidedly flustered, her cheeks colouring.
Phoebe catches a glimpse inside the pram of a tiny baby wearing a pink-and-white striped onesie. She is fast asleep, her arms flung out above her head.
‘I didn’t realise you had a baby.’ The morning might already seem a long time ago, but she tries to recall their conversation at the river. She’s certain Kate mentioned something about work … But then, how much did any of them really reveal about their lives beyond the river, however happily they had chatted together?
‘Oh, yeah,’ Kate says, shifting somewhat uncomfortably on the spot. ‘This is my … daughter, Rosie. Short for Rosemary.’
Is it Phoebe’s imagination or does Kate hesitate before the word ‘daughter’?
‘Nice name.’
A faint smile appears on Kate’s face.
‘Thanks. She’s named after an old friend. Actually, the person who first got me into swimming.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Three months.’
‘She’s cute.’
‘Thanks.’ There’s something about Kate’s expression that looks conflicted. Phoebe notices the dark bags under her eyes that she hadn’t spotted when they were down at the river, where nature seems to put a filter over everything, making it brighter and softer.
She thinks of the gin and tonic waiting for her upstairs. Then she looks at Kate again.
‘You don’t fancy a coffee, do you?’
Kate looks startled but pleased.
‘That would be lovely.’
Phoebe starts leading them towards the Cosy Corner, but Kate gently grabs her arm.
‘Um, do you mind if we go somewhere else? This place right here looks promising?’ She gestures behind them. ‘I’ve been wanting to go since it opened, but this little one means I basically never get out anymore. Ooh, it looks like they do wine too …’
Phoebe looks through the window, catching sight of Luca standing on a ladder, reaching for a bottle of olive oil from one of the top shelves. His T-shirt has lifted slightly, revealing a slice of tanned back. She immediately looks away.
‘Here, let me help you,’ she says, holding the door open as Kate wrestles with the pram.
For the second time that day, Phoebe steps through the door of Giuglia’s. Except, unlike this morning when she felt excited about the day ahead, now disappointment and exhaustion weigh down her steps. Thank God they serve wine.