Chapter 12

Susanna’s Saturday visit to her mother had been reassuring. Valerie had more colour in her cheeks and was sitting up swapping family history and medical experiences with the woman in the next bed. Susanna’s main objective had been to discuss and agree what to do about contacting her younger sister currently on a gap year world tour and last heard of a month ago in Dar es Salaam. The younger generation all seemed immune from day-to-day practical constraints and were mostly self-sufficient these days. The involvement of her mother’s neighbour made it difficult to discuss family matters and she felt she might be intruding so she only stayed long enough to make sure her mother had everything she needed and was content that her daughter had shown sufficient dutiful concern. Prominent at the hospital exit there was a large sign, clearly displayed every Saturday, informing her that ‘On Sundays, relatives and friends are kindly requested to confine their visits to the after-lunch period unless special arrangements have been made in advance with the senior nursing officer in the relevant ward.’ Her mild irritation at being bossed about was quickly replaced by relief when she realised she would be able to have a lie-in, read the Sunday papers, wash her hair, trim her nails and generally pass a self-pampering morning without feeling guilty about not visiting her mother.

Her hair was till wet when she heard the unmistakable ‘plop’ of a thick, Sunday paper landing on the tiles in the porch. Apparently her mother was content with the sort of letterbox that would accommodate nothing bigger than a postcard or an electricity bill. Curiosity about which Sunday paper her mother read and whether it was the one containing her hostage story overcame discretion and, pulling the unsuitable, apple-green robe more closely about her, she opened the front door. The newspaper was no longer on the step but was being proffered by a smiling, smartly dressed young man. Hell, thought Susanna, bloody Jehovah’s Witnesses!

“Miss Parson. Susanna? Hi! I’m from your local radio station. Could you spare a few minutes?”

Susanna glimpsed several other people and cameras between him and the front gate before she was half blinded by a flash. A neighbour’s face peered around the edge of the porch. She stepped back and slammed the door closed. She tore it open again, snatched the paper from the reporter’s hand and shut the door firmly again in his face. Safely on the inside, she leaned against the door, half way between sniggering and sobbing, clutching the paper to her breast. Apparently the size of the letterbox did not prevent all communication.

“Susanna? Susie? Just a few words, please!” Those words, called through the open slot, were addressed directly, and at zero range, to her bottom. As she jumped aside in alarm the sniggers got the upper hand. And it was the wrong paper. It was hard to believe that her mother carefully picked her way through anything more than the colour supplement of this monster. In a flash of insight, it dawned that the tiny letterbox and the massive, broadsheet Sunday paper were connected. The paper would stay in the porch long enough to impress the neighbours, even if it barely received a glance in the afternoon. Crafty old Mum!

This was silly, all this fuss and attention over a minor incident in an obscure, foreign airport. Peeping through the curtains, Susanna could see there five or six cameramen and reporters hanging around just inside the garden gate or on the pavement immediately outside. They must be short of news and as she thought it, it dawned that this was exactly the reason she was getting so much attention. It was August with no Parliament sitting, ministers making mobile calls from sun beds at sedate and security-checked hotels and villas in middle of the road, foreign resorts, only splashing from the pool in flabby obedience to wifely summonses about cocktails with the Wilsons. No news to fill the pages and TV news slots except non-news about the indiscretions of minor sports personalities and inconsequential hostage-taking at holiday airports. That helped. She felt better realising that maybe it was not such a big deal after all. Still, that did not help with the problem of not being able to leave her own… well, her mother’s house through her own front door. Surely this was not allowed! This was harassment! She rang the police station, peering through the curtains at the media people trampling around in the little front garden and overflowing through the gate on to the pavement outside.

“You’re quite right, madam. They have no right to be on your property unless you want them there. We’ll get someone down there to sort it out.” The intervening fifty minutes gave Susanna time to get soberly dressed and to nearly finish drying her hair. She could see from the bedroom window that a young policeman and an even younger female officer were quietly shepherding the small crowd away from the front door and on to the pavement beyond the wrought iron gate. Their body armour and heavy belts hung with the paraphernalia of their work looked hot and bulky for August, even in England. They seemed tired and dispirited when she opened the door to allow them in. A camera flashed from behind the privet hedge, provoking an over the shoulder scowl from the female officer.

Sitting in the front room, both officers accepted the coffee Susanna had offered. Both took white with one sugar.

“Right, Miss Parson. They should stay outside the gate now. If they don’t, call us again. Now, are you the householder here? No? Oh, I see. How is your mother? Good, good. Well, it’s probably none of our business but would you mind telling us exactly why the papers and TV are so interested in you? Yes, there is one TV camera out there. Oh, I see, trafficking, hostage for an hour or so, yes, well, I haven’t had time to look at the papers yet today. Now, it’s not my job, but my advice would be to give them an interview or make a statement or something. And let them take a couple of pictures. They’ll lose interest after that and the story might not even get printed. Something more exciting may come up like a local armed robbery or something, eh Liz? Well, of course that’s up to you, your call entirely. Is there anyone we could contact for you? A friend? Your solicitor perhaps? No? Okay, well we’ll be on our way. Thanks for the coffee.”

Most of Susanna’s relief came from finding that there was someone else who thought that being taken hostage by people smugglers at a Greek airport was the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. The matter-of-fact attitude of the police was an anchor to normality. They probably came across more interesting things most days in the local shopping centre. She would behave, as far as possible, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Dark glasses, that was what she needed. With a pair of dark glasses she could just go out without saying anything to any of them. She could just walk straight through them. The only pair Susanna could find had thick, white frames that would not have looked out of place as face-furniture on Dame Edna Everidge. Her mother might have had them since before Susanna was born. She looked like a 1960’s film star and toyed briefly with the idea of an headscarf, tied under her chin and around the back of her neck but it would not look right without the voluminous, calf-length skirt. Melodramatic or not, she hurried, head down through the small crowd of reporters and cameramen ignoring their calls and requests for ‘a few words’ or ‘just one picture’. She failed to find the car door lock with her key at the first attempt and had to remove the sunglasses to see it clearly. The plan had been to drive briskly away with a little roar, or at least a determined purr, from the exhaust but, flustered by not being able to open the door at the first attempt, she stalled the engine, which then exercised its right to refuse to start until she had tried three times, cursing it under her breath. Her escape was undignified and she was close to tears again. She should have had the sense to call a taxi or to leave by the back door. Why had she not thought of that? And she had made no plans about where to go after driving away. It was too early for the hospital. Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel while she waited at the lights, she tried to decide where to go… pub… supermarket…park? Park! She turned left without signalling, drawing an irritated toot from the car behind.

The only other visitor to that part of the park was a man playing football with a small child. The man was playing with noticeably greater enthusiasm than the child who gave the impression of only taking part to please the adult. A father exercising his rights of access by taking the child to its weekly visit to the park she decided. Poor bloke. Poor kid. The ball, hotly pursued by the breathless father, rolled in front of her and came to rest on the grassy edge of the tarmac path.

“Hi!”

“Hi.”

“I don’t suppose you are any good at football, are you?”

“Well, not really,” realising she had time to kill before she could visit her mother. “But I could help out for a while, if you’d like. You seem a bit outgunned there.”

“Outgunned and outnumbered. Thanks. Actually I could do with a bit of help.”

He is not bad looking, Susanna decided. A bit chubby, perhaps, and a bit more puffed than he should be from playing football with a toddler. “What’s his name?”

“Her name. It’s Cleo, short for Cleopatra. I’m Victor.”

Susanna did not think he look much like a victor. “Well, Cleo. I think it’s ice cream time, don’t you?”

On the bench next to the ice cream van, Victor told Susanna his life story. It took almost ten minutes. He had been born, gone to school, got a job in the council offices, met a girl, got married, had a baby and got divorced. Susanna could sympathise with his wife. Apparently she had run off with someone she had met at good-parenting evening classes. Cleo had been staring at her for some time before Susanna realised she was still wearing the 1960’s sunglasses. The toddler was wide-eyed over the top of her slowly melting ice cream, stunned at the vision before her.

“Do you like them?” Cleo nodded vigorously, dripping ice cream as she did so. “There you go then. You can have them.” She wondered what Cleopatra’s mother would make of the news that they belonged to a lady that Daddy met in the park. The day seemed brighter without the glasses. ‘I can see clearly now,’ she thought. ‘Victor has spots and is running to fat. He should eat more fresh food. Never mind. All the nice ones always seemed to be taken and, anyway, there is George.’ Thank God it was nearly time for the hospital.