Come to Grief Read Free Page A

nation’s happiness level, to whom everyone, from tiara to baseball cap worn backwards, responded.
    Manufacturers fell over themselves to tempt him to endorse their products, and half the kids in England strode about with machismo in glamorized jockey-type riding boots over their jeans. And it was this man, this paragon, that I sought to eradicate.
    No one seemed to blame the tabloid columnist who’d written, “The once-revered Sid Halley, green with envy, tries to tear down a talent he hasn’t a prayer of matching....” There had been inches about “a spiteful little man trying to compensate for his own inadequacies.” I hadn’t shown any of it to Charles, but others had.
    The telephone at my waist buzzed suddenly, and I answered its summons.
    “Sid ... Sid...”
    The woman on the other end was crying. I’d heard her crying often.
    “Are you at home?” I asked.
    “No ... In the hospital.”
    “Tell me the number and I’ll phone straight back.”
    I heard murmuring in the background; then another voice came on, efficient, controlled, reading out a number, repeating it slowly. I tapped the digits onto my mobile so that they appeared on the small display screen.
    “Right,” I said, reading the number back. “Put down your receiver.” To Charles I said, “May I use your phone?”
    He waved a hand permissively towards his desk, and I pressed the buttons on his phone to get back to where I’d been.
    The efficient voice answered immediately.
    “Is Mrs. Ferns still there?” I said. “It’s Sid Halley.”
    “Hang on.”
    Linda Ferns was trying not to cry. “Sid ... Rachel’s worse. She’s asking for you. Can you come? Please.”
    “How bad is she?”
    “Her temperature keeps going up.” A sob stopped her. “Talk to Sister Grant.”
    I talked to the efficient voice, Sister Grant. “How bad is Rachel?”
    “She’s asking for you all the time,” she said. “How soon can you come?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “Can you come this evening?”
    I said, “Is it that bad?”
    I listened to a moment of silence, in which she couldn’t say what she meant because Linda was beside her.
    “Come this evening,” she repeated.
    This evening. Dear God. Nine-year-old Rachel Ferns lay in a hospital in Kent a hundred and fifty miles away. III to death, this time, it sounded like.
    “Promise her,” I said, “that I’ll come tomorrow.” I explained where I was. “I have to be in court tomorrow morning, in Reading, but I’ll come to see Rachel as soon as I get out. Promise her. Tell her I’m going to be there. Tell her I’ll bring six wigs and an angel fish.”
    The efficient voice said, “I’ll tell her,” and then added, “Is it true that Ellis Quint’s mother has killed herself? Mrs. Ferns says someone heard it on the radio news and repeated it to her. She wants to know if it’s true.”
    “It’s true.”
    “Come as soon as you can,” the nurse said, and disconnected.
    I put down the receiver. Charles said, “The child?”
    “It sounds as if she’s dying.”
    “You knew it was inevitable.”
    “It doesn’t make it any easier for the parents.” I sat down again slowly in the gold armchair. “I would go tonight if it would save her life, but I ...” I stopped, not knowing what to say, how to explain that I wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go. Not except to save her life, which no one could do however much they ached to.
    Charles said briefly, “You’ve only just got here.”
    “Yeah.”
    “And what else is there, that you haven’t told me?”
    I looked at him.
    “I know you too well, Sid,” he said. “You didn’t come all this way just because of Ginnie. You could have told me about her on the telephone.” He paused. “From the look of you, you came for the oldest of reasons.” He paused again, but I didn’t say anything. “For sanctuary,” he said.
    I shifted in the chair. “Am I so transparent?”
    “Sanctuary from what?” he asked. “What is so sudden ... and urgent?”
    I sighed.