The Weight of Angels Read online

  ‘Problems,’ I said. I didn’t ask, but they told me anyway.

  ‘I got sacked from the NHS,’ Belle said, ‘for stepping over professional boundaries.’

  ‘And I’m a veiled Muslim,’ said Surraya. Belle snorted. ‘Yeah, okay,’ Surraya added. ‘Who’s done a bit of time.’

  ‘And Lars? And Marion?’

  ‘You’d need to ask them,’ Belle said.

  ‘Do you think he’s right?’ I asked her. ‘Dr F?’

  ‘Course he is,’ said Surraya. ‘Some wee Pollyanna with a Dolly Dimple life would be no bloody good whatsoever when our nutters go the full woo-woo.’ Belle laughed softly, as Surraya cleared her throat. ‘I mean, when the clients enter episodes of low-function.’

  ‘So I really can just go and tell my brand-new employer that I’m one scream off a breakdown?’ I said. ‘While I’m on probation?’ It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard.

  ‘I bet he already knows,’ Surraya said. ‘Did nothing come up at your interview?’

  ‘He wasn’t there,’ I said. ‘It was Dr Ferris on her own.’

  Neither of them said anything. Belle didn’t even make her mp-mp-mm noise and Surraya’s eyebrows stayed level all the time she was looking at me and only rose to a peak as she shared a glance with Belle, turning to face the front again.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Probably nothing,’ Belle told me. We had got to the staff car park and she stopped.

  ‘Go and talk to him,’ Surraya said again.

  We climbed out and Lars walked over to join us. We stood staring at one another over the roof of the car as if it was a ping-pong table and we were psyching each other out before a match.

  ‘Belle and Surraya think I can just go to Dr F and say I’m having panic attacks,’ I told Lars.

  ‘You could if you were having panic attacks,’ Surraya said. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Well, I got out of a moving car and ran onto a firing range,’ I said. ‘I’m having something.’

  After a moment Lars shivered. ‘Come on, Ali. I’m freezing my buns off standing out here in my tunic.’

  ‘Because you don’t have any meat on your bones,’ said Belle. ‘You need a woman to feed you up and put some flesh on you.’

  Just like that the atmosphere was broken, the strange moment of tension gone. And somehow it seemed to have been decided that I wasn’t calling a taxi and going home. I was going to lay myself bare to Dr F and listen to whatever he had to tell me.

  I even got through the staff meeting. I sat in the back row of folding chairs, sunk inside Angelo’s coat. It was a different world without Dr Ferris watching everyone and trying to trip them up. The night shift reported a quiet twelve hours.

  ‘Except for Julia,’ Marion said. ‘She was on the phone again, saying she was being held against her will.’

  Dr F clucked and tutted but the rest of the staff were ready to laugh.

  ‘Samaritans?’ said Lars. ‘With that bloody centralized number? At least with the local office they knew where the call came from.’

  ‘It wasn’t the Samaritans,’ Marion said. ‘It was a phone-in show on WestSound. They pulled her off at the first F-bomb but the producer kept her talking and called the polis on another line. She was not a very happy bunny when the good old D and G constabulary said Julia had been yanking them. I think the poor lassie thought she’d just broken the story of her life.’

  ‘Ali,’ said Dr F, suddenly, ‘you seem to have established a rapport with her. Can you dream up something to keep her busy today? We’ve got too many groups and off-site visits going on to be at action stations all shift. Thank you, by the way, Marion.’

  He didn’t seem to want an answer from me, just assumed I’d do his bidding.

  ‘Speaking of groups,’ Lars said, ‘I was looking at the rota and wondering if we could collapse the two sets of substance or if there’s a good reason I’m not seeing to keep them both going. I know Ryan can be a bit lively and I thought maybe he’d be better in solo and the others can all meet at the one time.’

  The nursing staff all had something to say about what seemed like ten different permutations of two groups and Ryan, and eventually I drifted off, looking at my own diary and planning what else I could offer Julia that would keep her quiet.

  I stayed behind at the end, as the rest of the staff filed out, the night shift hurrying to their cars and the day shift, much slower, off to do the meds round and start the morning’s clinics.

  ‘Dr . . . F?’ I said. It still seemed cheeky to call him that. ‘Can I ask you something? Is now a good time?’

  He looked up from his phone and beamed at me. ‘One moment. I’m attempting to hold a conversation with my daughter. But I’m falling behind.’

  I smiled. I could see her in my mind’s eye: a younger version of her mother with the same swan neck and sharp cheekbones, the same drawling voice.

  ‘Thank God she only ever texts me when my wife is unavailable,’ Dr F said, still frantically jabbing at his phone. ‘Oh, I give up!’ He lifted it to his ear and motioned me to take the chair opposite the desk.

  ‘It’s quicker,’ he said, into the phone. ‘Well, walk away so they can’t hear. Look, I’m sure that’s not tr— . . . Don’t be so hard on yourse— . . . I’m sure you’re overreac—’ He listened for a moment. ‘Oh. Well, another time you’ll know better. Who suggested— . . . Oh? Well, look, I’m sure it’ll all blow over soon enough. Least said, soonest mended. I’d leave it be, Dido, truly.’

  He didn’t sound like a psychiatrist. Least said, soonest mended?

  He hung up and put the phone down with a groan. ‘I can’t keep up,’ he said. ‘Another day, another drama! But what can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m having second thoughts,’ I told the top of his head. He was scrolling back over his texts. ‘Not sure this job is right for me, after all. And I reckoned it was best to come to you because you’re not . . .’ He cocked his head. ‘Well, because it wasn’t your idea to have me here so you’ll tell me straight.’

  He finally stopped rereading what his daughter had told him and looked up. ‘I hope I haven’t given the impression that you’re not welcome, Ali.’

  ‘I just don’t think I’m doing what’s expected,’ I blurted out. ‘I can’t see why I’m being paid so much to do so little, do you understand? And so I think I’m not actually getting what it is I’m really meant to do.’ I sat back, feeling as if I’d put down a huge bulky burden now that the fears were words and the words were out of me. ‘And,’ I went on, ‘it’s really stressing me out.’ If I could blame the new job for my – what had Lars called them? – funny turns, they’d be a lot less worrying.

  He nodded slowly a few times before speaking. ‘My wife is the businesswoman, Ali,’ he said. ‘It would be more worrying if I had employed a para-therapist without her say-so. Rest assured, if Tammy feels you’re needed, you’re needed. And she would never make a poor financial decision. She’s a strategist as well as a fine doctor.’

  Tammy, was all I could think. It didn’t suit her. That, and ‘strategist’ was a funny way to talk about the love of your life.

  ‘So,’ he went on, ‘there’s no need to be stressed. None at all.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Good. Well, I’ll take your word for it. I had no idea rehab was so— I mean, I thought it would all be on a bit more of a shoestring.’

  ‘Howell Hall isn’t our only enterprise,’ he said. ‘Although it’s where we started. Managing to get this property for a song was what convinced us we could open our own place, when we were both at the infirmary, juggling childcare and shift-work. So I suppose you could say it’s our flagship, but we’ve got Rowan House in Dumfries. That’s mostly contract work from the local authority, more focused on through-put, and the same at Fairview in Stranraer. And my wife’s family business is still very much a going concern.’

  ‘Childcare?’ I said. ‘So Howell Hall hasn’t really been open that long, then? I mean if your daughter’s still a t
eenager.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to be nosy.’

  ‘We do try to keep Dido away from our professional lives, I admit,’ he said. ‘We send her up to Wellington’s so she’s not in a geography class with the child of a patient, and so forth. You have children yourself, Ali. I’m sure you’ll understand.’

  I understood perfectly. They might be making their money off of Fairview and Rowan House, off of junkies and alkies from the housing schemes in the region’s greyest towns, but they spent their days here on polished floors behind graceful windows. And their daughter was the Queen of Sheba. For devilment I asked: ‘What’s Dr Ferris’s family business, then? Does it take up much of your time?’

  ‘I never go near the place from one year’s end to the next,’ said Dr F. ‘Our manager runs everything, and since he’s getting close to retirement, she’s grooming another.’

  But he hadn’t said what it was. I kind of hoped it was an undertaker’s or a waste recycler, something grubby that it bugged her to think about whenever she remembered.

  ‘Can I ask you one more thing?’ I said. He glanced at his watch and grimaced but he nodded. ‘What will I say to Julia if she starts on again about killing her dad?’

  ‘Human kindness goes a long way,’ he said. Then he echoed what Marion had told me that first day. ‘The pain is real even if the words are false. Something is troubling Julia so very deeply that she makes shocking claims to try to express it.’

  ‘So . . . it’s really not that she might actually have killed him, then?’ I said.

  ‘Not a chance,’ Dr F said. ‘Garran Swain is alive and well and currently golfing in Portugal. He sent us a postcard.’ He must have seen my start of surprise. ‘Galloway is a small place,’ he told me, ‘and the Swains are friends of ours from years back. In fact, we bought Howell Hall from them. Well, from Mona, when she got tired of the family ghosts and moved to the splendid new digs across the way. It’s an architectural gem. Been in all the glossy magazines.’

  ‘So why does Julia keep saying she killed him?’ I said. I couldn’t care less about how posh the family were or what their house looked like, although I suppose the connection made sense of why Julia got to stay when she was such a pain in the arse every day.

  ‘Julia has a personality disorder,’ he said. ‘Her wild tales are a symptom.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’ He glanced at his watch again and I knew I was losing him. ‘Why does she say her dad? Why not her mum? If she’s trying to think of the worst thing she could say, wouldn’t she say she killed her mum?’

  Dr F opened his eyes so wide that his straggly brows curved forward over them. ‘Well, Mona Swain is very much alive, you see.’ I thought of her wrenching the cellophane off lipsticks in Tesco and smearing them on her big lips. ‘And Garran has gone away. But you make an interesting point and I don’t take offence. Much as I love my daughter and know she loves me, I agree that the central relationship, the strongest bond, is that between mother and child. Only . . . Are you all right?’ he asked suddenly, in a different voice. ‘Have I said something to upset you?’

  ‘My son is closer to my husband,’ I said. ‘It’s hard not be jealous sometimes.’ I knew that my face had drained and now I felt it flood. I must look like a maniac sitting there. ‘Thanks for helping me. About Julia, I mean. It makes sense.’

  ‘She’s doing her very best to give voice to fear and pain the only way she knows how,’ Dr F said. ‘It doesn’t matter how deeply you bury something, Ali, it comes to the surface eventually. Good grief, like that body at the abbey, eh!’

  ‘A hand,’ I said. ‘That’s what the police are saying now. A hand broke through the ground after all the flooding.’

  Dr F sat forward in his seat and stared at me. ‘I hadn’t heard that.’

  ‘Well, to be honest’ – I hoped I wasn’t blushing – ‘I heard on the grapevine. Not officially. I live across the street from the abbey and the whole row of neighbours is pretty much talking about nothing else.’

  ‘I can imagine!’

  ‘My son has taken it very badly,’ I told him. ‘I’m really worried about him.’

  ‘Is that his coat?’ Dr F asked, smiling. I smiled back. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d snuggled further into it when I’d mentioned him.

  ‘And it’s kicked up some old stuff for me too,’ I said, brave inside Angelo’s jacket. ‘Nightmares and things. And, actually, that’s really why I’m here. Lars and Belle and Surraya reckoned I should tell you I’m having a few . . . they told me not to call them panic attacks so I don’t really know what to call them. Flashbacks?’

  ‘To what?’ His voice was gentle and his face soft, with the faintest smile.

  ‘A bad time. Ten years ago.’

  Now he smiled widely. Beamed at me. ‘Ten years ago?’ he said. ‘And your son’s a teenager? And you’re married to his father? Well, there’s nothing to worry about at all then.’ He laughed a little at my confusion but not unkindly. ‘Ten years ago you were grown-up, Ali. You were formed by your family long before then. Ten years ago you’d formed your adult bonds and you’d made your own family. Anything that happens when our life is made can be remedied.’

  ‘Even if something happens that . . . unmakes it?’ I said. That was as far as I was willing to go.

  He sat forward a little further in his seat. ‘Unmakes it?’ he said. ‘You mean . . . you found out your life was not what you thought it was?’

  I nodded, thinking, no way I was going to speak, then found myself speaking anyway. ‘I was really low,’ I said, the words coming out on one little breath each. ‘And I needed my mum. Like you said. My mum. The central . . . like you said. And she wouldn’t come. She lives in France and she wouldn’t come back.’ I sniffed and swallowed the gulp of air. ‘And so I got better anyway, without her.’

  ‘That seems very unlikely,’ Dr F said. Then he flapped his hands at the expression on my face. ‘I don’t doubt that you’re better. Of course you are, although a scab’s not a scar, Ali. We need to heal to scars if we’re going to carry on.’

  ‘Scars.’

  ‘Being realistic. But that’s not what I meant was unlikely. I mean that you asked her to come and she wouldn’t. Children learn very quickly how much they can lean on their parents. It’s one of the tragedies of poor parenting, actually. How quickly a little one learns not to look for help.’ I flashed on Angel that morning saying, ‘Just be okay, Mum,’ and I found myself nodding. ‘So my best guess is that it was a misunderstanding. A miscommunication?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘Check,’ he told me. ‘And then let’s talk again.’

  I walked out as if I had springs under me. He really was a good doctor. He’d given me more hope than I’d ever had. He’d made it sound so easy. I was on the phone to Marco before I was ten paces down the corridor. ‘Where are you?’ I asked him.

  ‘Where do you think? Cooling our heels at the police station, waiting for Sergeant Fat Arse to show up.’

  ‘Is Angel okay? Put him on.’

  There was a kerfuffle of sound while the phone got passed over and then silence.

  ‘Ange?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just tell them the truth, the whole truth this time, and answer all their questions. You’ve got nothing to hide and they’ll understand why you said what you said last time. Okay? Listen to me and trust me.’

  ‘Tell the whole truth,’ he said. ‘Okay. You first.’

  ‘I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ he told me, his voice cold as roadkill, and then the phone rustled again.

  ‘What did you just say to him?’ Marco’s voice sounded amused, like this was all just teenage stuff.

  ‘We can’t go on like this,’ I said. ‘I can’t go on like this. I need to get things straightened out.’

  ‘What things?’ said Marco. ‘’Uck’s sake, Ali, I’m sitting in a police station. It’s not the time.’


  ‘Things with my mum and dad,’ I said. ‘And we need to tell Angelo.’

  ‘Tell him what?’ Marco had forgotten to be quiet. ‘There’s nothing to tell him except ancient history. And as for your parents? Ali, I can’t go back through that again. I cannot watch you go downhill again. And I sure as hell can’t watch you reach out to them again and get smacked down. How can you even— How can you think this is a good time to start raking things over?’

  ‘This?’ I said. ‘What time is “this”? We’ve both got jobs again at long last and we’ve had a bloody big wake-up call. Our son didn’t turn to us because he thinks we’re not strong enough to help him. He shouldn’t be protecting us and going it alone, Marco, he’s fifteen.’

  ‘Us?’ Marco was nearly shouting now. ‘What do you mean “us”? It’s not “us”, Ali. It’s Angel and me trying not to let anything knock you.’

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t be,’ I said. ‘It should be you and me looking after him. And it’s going to be. I’m going to phone my parents and have it out with them.’

  ‘What the bloody hell does that have to do with Angelo?’ Marco whispered down the phone.

  ‘Everything,’ I said. ‘Because I’m thinking there must be some kind of mistake. I can’t believe there’s no misunderstanding or miscommunication.’ I knew I was parroting Dr F, but Marco didn’t, and it lent me some swagger. ‘At the very least, I need to tell them how I feel and see if maybe they’ll just say sorry and we can put it behind us. Then Angel’ll stop thinking I’m some kind of orchid that can’t be breathed on and he’ll be okay too. Because there’s no way he should be in this mess.’

  ‘Ali,’ said Marco. I could hear his footsteps and the sound of a door squeaking. ‘Right. I’m outside,’ he said. ‘Standing outside the police station for the world to see. Are you happy now? Ali, please. Your parents told me that they didn’t see the point of coming all the way back and that you shouldn’t make a drama out of a misfortune.’