‘In a second. The doctor’s busy with Ruth now.’
Thwarted, Nelson turns on Max who is looking awkward and embarrassed.
‘What happened?’
‘I found her at the site.’ If Nelson sounds like a policeman, Max sounds like a suspect. ‘I went to check on the dig after the rain and she was there, in a trench, unconscious.’
‘Was anyone else there?’
‘Not at first but while I was… looking at her… Cathbad appeared.’
‘Just appeared?’ growls Nelson, looking at Cathbad. ‘Got magic powers now, have you?’
Cathbad looks modest. ‘I just happened to be at the site. I wanted to have a look round. As you know, I’m interested in archaeology.’
‘And you just happened to be there when Ruth collapsed?’
‘I must have arrived a few minutes after Max. I saw his car at the foot of the hill.’
‘And what happened to Ruth? How come she collapsed?’
In reply, Cathbad holds something out. Nelson recoils.
‘What the hell’s that?’
It is Max who answers. ‘It’s a model of a newborn baby. When I saw it, I thought…’
‘So did I,’ says Cathbad, sounding rather shamefaced. ‘That’s why I sent you the message.’
Nelson looks at the model. It is an anatomically perfect plastic replica of a full-term foetus. Its face is blank, its eyes sightless. Turning it over, he sees a name stamped at the base of the spine. ‘It’s from the museum,’ he says. ‘I went to some ridiculous party there and I remember it. They’ve got these models of foetuses at all stages of development.’
Max looks as if he is about to speak but at that moment the doctor (a disconcertingly youthful Chinese woman) appears in front of them.
‘Are you with Miss Galloway?’
‘Yes,’ answers Nelson immediately.
‘How is she?’ asks Cathbad.
‘Still unconscious but her vital signs are good. She should come round soon. I understand she’s pregnant?’
‘About sixteen weeks,’ says Cathbad, ‘I told the ambulance crew.’
The doctor nods soothingly. ‘There’s no sign of a miscarriage but we’ll do a scan later. Go in and talk to her. It might help her come round.’
The invitation seems to be addressed to Cathbad alone but all three men follow the doctor into a side ward, where Ruth is lying in a curtained cubicle. Her name is already at the end of her bed. This efficiency strikes Nelson as ominous. Aren’t people meant to wait for ages in Casualty, lying on a stretcher in the corridor?
Ruth is lying on her side with one arm flung over her head. She seems to be muttering under her breath. Cathbad sits beside her and takes her hand in his. Nelson stands awkwardly behind him. Max hovers by the curtain, seemingly uncertain about whether he should stay or go.
‘What’s she saying?’ asks Nelson.
‘Sounds like Tony,’ says Cathbad.
‘Toby?’ suggests Max from the background.
Suddenly Nelson steps forward. ‘Wake up, Ruth!’ Ruth’s eyes flicker under her lashes.
‘Don’t shout at her,’ says Max. ‘That’s not going to help.’
Nelson turns on him furiously. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’
But Cathbad is looking at Ruth.
‘She has come back to us,’ he says.
‘What’s happened?’ Ruth’s voice is faint, but accusatory, as if somehow this is all their fault.
‘You fainted,’ says Cathbad. His voice is soothing. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Ruth looks, rather desperately, from one face to another. ‘The baby?’ she whispers.
‘Fine,’ says Cathbad bracingly. ‘They’ll do a scan but there’s no sign that anything’s wrong.’
‘The baby in the trench?’
‘It was a model,’ says Nelson, ‘some nutter must have put it there for a joke.’
He holds out the plastic baby. Ruth turns her head away and tears slide down her cheeks.
‘Your baby’s OK,’ says Nelson in a softer voice. Ruth looks up at him and somehow it seems as if they can’t look away. The seconds turn into minutes. Max fiddles with a hand sanitiser on the wall. Cathbad, of course, is incapable of embarrassment.
‘I think,’ he says brightly, ‘that we should all give thanks to the goddess Brigid for Ruth’s safe recovery.’
Luckily, at that minute a nurse pushes aside the curtains and says that they are transferring Ruth to another ward. They will keep her in for the night, she says, just for observation. ‘And in the morning,’ she says cheerfully, ‘one of your friends can drive you home.’ She looks at the three men, from Cathbad’s purple cloak to Max’s mud- stained jeans and Nelson’s police jacket, and her smile fades slightly.
In the morning, Ruth is only too keen to leave hospital. At first it had been wonderful to lie between the cool, starched sheets and have kind nurses bring her tea and toast. They had wheeled her down for the scan and there was Toby, floating happily in his clouds. To Ruth’s embarrassment she had cried slightly, sniffling into the pink tissues handed to her by a nurse. Jesus, they’re so
But as the night drew on she had started to worry about Flint (Cathbad had offered to feed him but who knows whether he’d remember), about her baby (how on earth is she going to cope on her own?) and, finally, about herself. It seems that someone is trying to scare her to death. Her name written in blood (Max has confirmed this) and now the final gruesome discovery of the plastic baby. Did whoever put it there know she is pregnant or was it just another grisly classical allusion? And who could it be? It must be someone close enough to put the objects in place the split second these sites are deserted. And why? This is the question that chased itself around in her head all through the long night, full of nurses padding to and fro and white figures hobbling to the loo and back. The woman next to her snored continually, but unevenly, so Ruth was unable even to fit the noise into a soothing background rhythm. She had nothing to read and eventually this need became so pressing that she asked the nurse for something, anything, with words on. The nurse came back with
Morning starts early with a tepid cup of tea at seven and Ruth is already asking when she can go. She must let the doctor see her first, say the nurses soothingly. By eight she is sitting, fully dressed, on the bed. She had not thought to ask any of her visitors yesterday to bring her a change of clothes and, in any case, she would have been too embarrassed. But there is something sordid about putting the same clothes back on. She hasn’t even got a toothbrush but a nurse brings her toothpaste and she rubs it vigorously round her mouth. The woman next door (very pleasant when she isn’t snoring) offers her deodorant and some rather violent-smelling body spray. Ruth sits on the bed, smelling of roses, rereading an account of how some actress she has never heard of overcame tragedy to marry some sportsman she has never heard of. It’s all very inspiring.
Eventually a teenage boy masquerading as a doctor appears, examines her head and tells her she can go home. ‘Come back at once if you have any dizziness or blackouts,’ he says sternly. He’s wearing baseball boots. Baseball boots! How can Ruth possibly take anything he says seriously?
She has nothing to pack so she asks the nurse if she can call a taxi. ‘No need,’ says the nurse, smiling sweetly (though, to Ruth’s knowledge, she has been on duty for the last twelve hours). ‘A friend of yours rang and said he’d come to collect you. Wasn’t that nice of him?’
The nurse doesn’t say which friend but as she emerges from the main doors Ruth is not really surprised to see Nelson’s Mercedes parked in the space reserved for minicabs. She gets into the front seat and for a few minutes they sit in silence.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asks Nelson at last.
‘I was going to.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then.’
‘It was difficult,’ retorts Ruth, ‘you’re married. I didn’t want to rock the boat.’
