A Cure for All Diseases

Your news makes my stuff about the Parkers seem v dull – but you say youre interested so here goes with the next instalment.

As house-guests go – they havent! Winstons – as forecast – got let down by their suppliers – again! So 1 nights turned into 3. But its been OK. I like Mary Parker a lot. Doesnt say much around her husband – except in agreement with him – or defence of him! But – get her to herself & shes great.

Tom Parkers v different – thinks silence is for the grave & the living have a duty to resist!

His favourite topic – unless checked his only topic – is Sandytown – as advertised on the side of his car!

Remember Sandytown? I think that was the last Heywood family outing. Me 9 or 10 – you 13 – sea cold & grey – sand gritty – wind so strong it blew our windbreaks away – & Sandytown itself seemed to be shut! To cap it all – on the way back – George was sick – & that set me off – & soon we were all at it! Dad sang all the way home! After 3 years doing psychology I reckon I know why. He clearly saw the whole trip as a successful experiment in aversion therapy!

So when Tom Parker started rattling on about Sandytown at supper that first night – I didnt dare catch Georges eye.

Ill give it you verbatim again – really – this is how he talks!

– Sandytown! – he said – Beautiful Sandytown – the most lustrous pearl in the long necklace of the Yorkshire coast! You see Charlotte – (fixing his eye on me – I think hes decided Im the intellectual epicentre of the Heywood family – or maybe he just likes my boobs!) – a new age of the English holiday is dawning. Compared with it – the old age – which died with the onset of cheap Mediterranean packages – will seem but a trial run. Two practical reasons for the change – global warming & global terrorism! We travel in fear & we travel in discomfort. We have our personal belongings – & indeed our persons – searched by hard-faced – & hard-fingered – strangers. We are prodded into line by armed police. We are forced to eat with implements which – lacking the rigidity necessary to be a threat to soft human flesh – cannot begin to cope with airline food. Nor can we feel safe on arrival. Tourists are everywhere regarded as a soft terrorist target – while global warming – exacerbated by the soaring emission levels of flight – has led to a dramatic increase in the incidence of natural disasters – floods – drought – hurricanes – earthquakes – tsunamis – etc –

By now dad was regarding him with gobsmacked amazement – mum with polite interest – his wife with fond admiration – & the twins were choking back their giggles.

To me it was clear that Parker was reciting some kind of sales pitch – one made so often the record would run to its end unless interrupted.

So when he paused for breath I got in quick with – Why were you looking for a healer Tom? –

– a very perceptive question Charlotte – he replied smiling at me – to which my answer is – health! Let me explain. We live in a sick world – a world suffering from some deep-rooted wasting disease – of which terrorism & warming are but symptoms. To cure the whole we must start with the smallest part – the individual! The English seaside holiday originated in a search for recreation in the strictest sense. Pure ozone-enriched air to cleanse the lungs – surging salty water to refresh the skin & stimulate the circulation – peace & quiet to restore the troubled spirit –

Seeing he was getting back into his groove – I cut in again – Sounds to me like a healers the last thing you need! –

– A good point! – he cried with delight. (Its a great technique this – being delighted with everything anyone says!) – To understand the healer it is of course necessary to understand the history. Some 2 years ago – when Mid-Yorkshire Council began discussion of their Eastern Region Development Plan – naturally Lady Denham & myself took a keen interest in their proposals for the Sandytown area …

– whos Lady Denham? – I asked – reducing him to amazed silence – & dad – always glad to know something I dont – chipped in – This the Denhams of Denham Park?

– you know the family? – said Tom – delighted.

– know of them – grunted dad – & little good – bad landowners – worse landlords – thought theyd gone to the wall long since –

– in a sense they have – agreed Parker – but Lady Denham – now alas a widow for a second time – only bears the name through marriage. Her 2nd incidentally. Before that she was Mrs Hollis – & before that Miss Daphne Brereton – only daughter of the Breretons of Brereton Manor – Sandytowns premier family – well to do – highly respected. Money calls to money – place to place – that is my experience – though I do not suggest that love was absent when she caught the eye of Howard Hollis –

– Hollis? – Dad interrupted – Hog Hollis? – him as got et by his own pigs? –

I saw the twins perk up. Anything grisly really turns them on!

– indeed – there was a tragic accident – said Tom – You knew Mr Hollis? –

– met him a couple of times – said dad unenthusiastically – folk reckoned he kept his pigs in the sea his meat were so salty & watery! Made a fortune but he were a right miserable sod – only time he ever smiled was for yon photo on them Hollis’s Ham freezer packs you see all over the supermarkets – & that were probably wind! –

I caught mums eye & we shared a moment of speculation about when dad had last been inside a supermarket!

Tom said – he was certainly a man who – despite his great success – remained true to his roots. Perhaps it was the contrast offered by the more refined manners of Sir Henry Denham that made the widow look favourably upon his advances. Alas – fate is not sentimental – & within all too short a time Sir Henry was also brought low –

– et by the pigs too? – chimed in David hopefully. Dad gave him a glower. He can say what he wants but he expects his kids to observe the conventions.

– a riding accident – said Tom – & while Daphne Breretons first marriage certainly left her with even more wealth than she brought to it – from her second – it is general knowledge – she derived little more than the respect due to an ancient name –

Pause for applause. Instead – Mary P gave a little gasp – maybe a repressed sneeze – echoed by dads openly incredulous snort.

Parker – unperturbed – went on – She & I – as principal landowners in the area – had already been planning to put Sandytown on the map long before the MYCC proposals. She had led the way by being instrumental in bringing the Avalon Foundation to Sandytown. You have heard of Avalon – of course? –

This time me & dad both nodded. Hardly need to tell you what dad said!

– oh aye – we know all about the Avalon. When I read in the papers – a few years back – the Yanks were building a fancy clinic out on the coast – I said to our Cass – that ud be a grand place for you to work – them Yanks know how to pay nurses & you could get home in an hour – but it were like –

– banging my head against a brick wall! – chorused the twins – then collapsed in giggles.

Dad gave them a glower – & Tom Parker went rattling on.

– Lady Denham & I – in our private discussions – had pre-empted the Councils conclusion that Sandytown was perfectly placed to take advantage of the changes in recreational climate – both meteorologically & intellectually speaking – & formed a loose alliance – & put 1 or 2 projects in train. But now we approached the Councils Development Officer – who was rapidly persuaded by our projections of the increase in local employment – & of tourism – plus our plans for a measure of affordable housing – to join with us in the formation of the Sandytown Development Consortium – a true partnership between the public & private sectors – underpinned – through the good offices of my brother Sidney – by significant investment institutions in the City –

He paused – momentarily lost in the forests of his own verbosity – & his wife came in with a prompt – The Avalon dear – & the healer –

Indeed! – he resumed – the Avalon. The siting of such a famous centre of medical care & recuperation on our doorstep seemed to me a hint almost divine. At the centre of our Development Plan is the conversion of Brereton Manor – Lady Ds childhood home – into a 5 star luxury hotel & recreational health centre. All the conventional attractions – golf – tennis – horseriding – swimming – beauty treatments – saunas – gymnasia – & so on – will be on offer here – & available to all visitors to our town – not just those who can afford the Manors necessarily high prices. However – to place us firmly in the new niche market where Sandytown – I forecast – will rapidly dominate – we are offering a range of complementary therapies for those who find that conventional medicine does not answer their needs –

He paused – for breath not applause – then pressed on – alternative medicine is – you will agree – another great 21st century growth area. We already have several practitioners in residence – an acupuncturist – a reflexologist – a homeopath – a Third Thought counsellor – but spiritual healers are harder to come by. I was hoping to talk to Mr Godley – the gentleman at Willingdene – with a view to persuading him to be – as it were – a visiting consultant –

By now dad had heard enough – indeed too much!

– healers! – he snorted – Load of mumbo-jumbo. Me – Id rather be treated by my vet – even though the bugger charges a fortune –

– then perhaps you should read this article – suggested Parker who seems quite unoffendable – it claims that Mr Godley has had some astonishing results with animals –

A sharp glance from mum made dad choke back his suggestion what Tom could do with the article – but David burst out – Charley thinks its all a load of bollocks too! –

– David! – said mum sternly – Language! –

– but its true – the little gobshite defended himself – You do think its all rubbish – dont you Charley? You were telling us you were going to write a composition about it –

Parker looked at me quizzically – & I said – Ignore him. His ears are bigger than his brain. What he misheard is that Im proposing to do a thesis on the psychology of alternative therapy. The medical establishment says its mostly nonsense – the practitioners point to what they claim are well documented successes. Im not interested in joining in the debate – but in looking at a variety of these therapies – & seeing if I can find any common psychological elements in their practise & their results –

Good – eh? Should be. Parkers not the only one who has a selling line off pat!

Across the table I could see the Headbangers eyes starting to roll & Id hardly finished before he broke out – There you have it Mr Parker. My clever daughters already spent three years with her nose in a pile of musty books – learning a lot of nowt about a lot of nowt just to get some letters after her name – & now she wants to spend another God knows how long doing much the same just to get some more. She can go on till shes got the whole damn alphabet – but wheres it going to lead? thats what Id like to know. Ive tried talking sense into her but its like –

Here he glared at the twins – daring them to finish his sentence again. I think David would have – but Freddie kicked him under the table. Bet she wants to wheedle some more spending money out of him for her school trip this autumn! Since G & me went skiing – she thinks shes owed a month in a 5 star in Miami!

Tom Parker endeared himself to me by saying – But that is marvellous Charlotte – understanding the mind is the first step to restoring the body – we need more young people like you to put this sick world of ours to rights! –

See – you dont have to go shogging off to Africa to be a saint!

Later – as Mary helped Tom limp from the room – he said to mum – A delicious meal Amy – best Ive had – outside of Sandytown – & Mary added – Yes – thank you both for your kindness. Youve got a lovely family Amy –

Well you know how much dad loves to hear mum being praised – so he hardly moaned at all about our guests when theyd gone upstairs – though I thought hed explode when we heard next morning the car wouldnt be ready for at least 3 days!

I did my bit – keeping them from getting under his feet. No problem – like I say – I really got to like them – & they seemed to like me too. Tom showed real interest in my thesis proposal – & today he said – Charlotte – (they both call me Charlotte – which is nice) – you know we intend calling on Mr Godley the healer on our way home – why dont you come with us? You could talk to him about his patients – for your thesis –

I said – but youd be well on your way home by the time you got to Willingdene & you wouldnt want to turn round & come all the way back here –

& Mary said – actually we did wonder if youd like to come all the way to Sandytown & spend a few days with us at Kyoto House –

I said – Kyoto? – thinking Id misheard.

Tom said – yes – perhaps I was hasty – the Kyoto Protocol has proved pretty toothless hasnt it? If Id waited I think Al Gore House might have been more appropriate –

Mary didnt look as if she agreed – but she nodded vigorously as Tom went on – please come – you could meet our other therapists – give us the benefit of your take on our great experiment – & most importantly – wed get more of your company! –

Well its always nice to be wanted – even so Id probably have said thanks but no thanks – only dad had come into the room at some point – & suddenly he spoke in that Wiz of Oz voice he uses when hes really laying down the law.

– nay – he declared – shes not been back home 2 minutes – shell not want to be gallivanting off afore shes needed her sheets changed –

Maybe I should have been touched at his desire to keep me close. All I actually felt was the usual irritation that – even at 22 – he still wanted to treat me like a kid.

I said – no reflection on your own personal hygiene dad – but Ive changed my sheets at least twice since I came home. Now getting back to the matter in hand – thank you very much Tom & Mary for your kind invitation. Id be really delighted to accept –

So there you have it. Heres me – a rational being – with a degree certifying Ive spent 3 years studying what makes people tick – & what do I end up doing?

Going to visit a place Ive no reason to like – in the company of people I hardly know – just to prove Im not a kid anymore!

Now thats really mature – eh?

Watch this space for my next exciting adventure in darkest Mid-Yorkshire.

& I look forward to some truly madly steamy revelations from darkest Africa!

Lots of love

Charley xx

3

Ho’d on. How the fuck do I know this bloody thing’s working?

HELLO! HELLO! DALZIEL SPEAKING! LOOK ON MY WORKS, YOU MUGWUMPS, AND DESPAIR!

Now, let the dog see the rabbit … I’ll try pressing this, like the bishop said to

Christ, do I really sound like that? No wonder the buggers jump!

So it works. So what? Hears everything I say and plays it back word for fucking word. What’s so clever about that? Old Auntie Mildred could do exactly the same – plus good advice! So that’s you christened, right? Mildred!

But listen, Mildred, you start telling me to wear my woolly vest and it’s straight out of the window for you!

Yon Festerwhanger were right, but. Nice bit of kit this.

Jesus, Andy, listen to yourself! Nice bit of kit! You be careful, lad, else you’ll end up like all these kids with their p-pods, walking around with idiot grins on their faces and their heads nodding like them daffs in the poem.

Keep a record of little thoughts you might lose, Fester said, and mebbe some big questions you normally don’t have time to ask yourself.

Right, Dalziel, sod the little thoughts, let’s start with the biggest question of them all.

How the fuck did I end up here in Sandytown talking to meself like the village loony?

Let’s try and build it up bit by bit like Ed Wield ’ud build up a case file.

Back to the big bang in Mill Street that set it all rolling.

That were the Bank Holiday, end of May.

Don’t recall much of June, mebbe ’cos I spent most of it in a coma.

Good thing about a coma, they told me, was it gave my cracked bones time to start mending. Bad thing was it didn’t do much for my muscle tone.

Never knew I had muscle tone before.

Found out the hard way.

First time I tried getting out of bed by myself, I fell over.

Let a week go by, then tried again. But this time I made sure there was a nice fat nurse to fall on to.

Third time I took three steps towards the door and fell into Pete Pascoe’s arms.

‘Where are you going?’ he asks.

‘Home,’ sez I. ‘Soon as I bloody well can.’

‘How do you propose doing that?’ sez he in that prissy voice he puts on.

‘I’ll bloody well walk if I have to,’ sez I.

He let go of me and stepped back.

I fell over.

I lay there and looked up at him with pride.

When I first met him he were a detective constable, soft as shit and so wet behind the ears you could have used him to clean windows.

Now he were my DCI, and he were hard enough to let me fall and leave me lying.

He’d come a long way and ought to go a lot further.

‘OK, clever clogs,’ I sez. ‘You’ve made your point. Now get me back into bed.’

Soon it were getting on for August, and I were still the only one talking about going home. Cap made encouraging remarks, but changed the subject when we got on to dates. I thought, sod this for a lark, they can’t keep me here when I want to be off!

I said as much to Pete and the bugger sent in the heavy squad.

His missus, Ellie.

From the first time I met her, I saw she were already hard enough to let me fall and leave me lying. In fact back in them early days I reckon she’d have been happy to give me a helping push.

She said, ‘I hear you’re talking of discharging yourself, Andy. So who’s going to look after you when you get home?’

‘I’ll look after myself. Always have done,’ I said.

She sighed. Women have two kinds of sighs. Long-suffering and ooh-I’m-really-enjoying-that. Lot of men never learn the difference.

She said, Andy, you got blown up in a terrorist explosion, you suffered multiple injuries, you lay in a coma for weeks …’

‘Aye, and most of the time since I came out of it I’ve spent on this bloody bed,’ I said. ‘So where’s the difference?’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ she said. ‘You’re on a carefully planned course of supervised physiotherapy. They say you’re doing well, but it will be ages before you can look after yourself.’

‘So I’ll get help from Social Services. That’s why I pay my bloody taxes, isn’t it?’

‘How long do you think that’ll last?’ she asked.

‘Till I get fed up wi’ them? Couple of weeks mebbe. By then I should be fine.’

‘I meant, till they get fed up of you! Who’ll look after you then?’

I said, ‘I’ve got friends.’

‘Arse-licking friends maybe,’ she said. ‘But arse-wiping ones are a bit thinner on the ground.’

Sometimes she takes my breath away! Mebbe I were taking too much credit for putting the steel into Pascoe’s backbone. Should have known that all them years the bugger were getting home tuition!

‘For you mebbe,’ I said. ‘Treat folk right and they’ll treat you right, that’s my motto. There’ll be folk queuing up to give me a hand.’

‘Takes two to make a queue,’ she said. ‘You’re talking about Cap, aren’t you?’

Of course I were talking about Cap. Cap Marvell. My girlfriend … partner … bint … tottie … none of them fits. Or all of them. Cap bloody marvellous in my book, ’cos that’s what she’s been.

‘So I mean Cap. She won’t let me down. She’ll be there when I need her.’

I let it out a bit pathetic. Could see I were getting nowhere slogging it out punch for punch, but even the really hard ones are often suckers for a bit of pathos. Vulnerability they call it. Make ’em feel you need help. Stood me in good stead many a time back in my Jack-the-ladding days.

Didn’t take long to realize it weren’t going to get me anywhere now.

‘Boo hoo,’ said Ellie. ‘You’ve been together a good few years now, you and Cap. But you never set up shop together, you’ve both kept your own places. Why’s that?’

She knew bloody well why it was. We’ve got our own lives, our own interests, our own timetables. There’s stuff in my pack I don’t want her getting touched by. And there’s definitely stuff in hers I don’t want to know about. Every time there’s an animal rights raid, I find myself checking her alibi! But the real big thing is lots of little things, like the way we feel about muddy boots, setting tables, using cutlery, eating pickles straight out of the jar, watching rugby on the telly, playing music dead loud, what kind of music we want to play dead loud, and so bloody on.

I said, ‘A n emergency’s different.’

‘So this is an emergency now? Right. Whose place will you set up the emergency centre at? Your house or Cap’s flat? And how long will you indenture Cap as your body servant before you set her free?’

‘Don’t go metaphysical on me, luv,’ I said. ‘What’s that mean?’

‘You’re not thick, Andy, so don’t pretend to be,’ she said. ‘Cap’s life has been on hold since you got blown up. You know she’s got a very full independent existence – that’s one of the reasons you’ve never shacked up together, right? She’s not one of those ground-you-walk-on worshippers that only live for their man.’

‘I know what she is a bloody sight better than thee, Ellie Pascoe!’ I declared, getting angry. ‘And I know she’d be ready and willing to put in a bit of time taking care of me if that’s what I need!’

‘Of course she would,’ said Ellie with that smug look they get when they’ve made you lose your rag. ‘Question is, Andy. Do you really want her to?’

No answer to that, at least not one I wanted to give her the satisfaction of hearing. And I didn’t say much either when she started talking about the Cedars out at Filey, the convalescent home provided by our Welfare Association for old, mad, blind and generally knackered cops. Alcatraz, we call it, ’cos the only way out is in a box.

What I did say, all grumpy, was, ‘Were it Cap that put you up to this then?’

She grabbed hold of a bedpan and said, ‘That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Andy Dalziel. And if you let out so much as a hint to Cap what I’ve been talking to you about, I’ll stick this thing so far up your behind, they’ll need a tow truck to haul it out! You just lie here and think about what I’ve said.’

‘Yes, miss,’ I said meekly. ‘Tha knows, lass, Pete Pascoe’s a very lucky man.’

‘You think so?’ she said, looking a bit embarrassed.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘It’s not every husband’s got a big strapping wife he can send up on the roof if ever a tile comes off in a high wind.’

She laughed out loud. That’s one of the things I like about Ellie Pascoe. No girlish giggles there. She enjoys a real good laugh.

‘You old sod,’ she said. ‘I’m off now. I’ve got my own life too. Peter sends his love. Says to tell you that he’s got things running so smooth down at the Factory that he can’t understand how they ever managed with you. Take care now.’

She bent over me and kissed me. Bright, brave, and bonny. Pete Pascoe really was a lucky man.

And she’s got lovely knockers.

Any road, I did think about what she’d said and a couple of days later when I were talking to Cap, I said I were thinking of going to the Cedars.

She said, ‘But you hate that place. You once went to visit someone there and you said it was like a temperance hotel without the wild parties.’

That’s the trouble with words, they come back to haunt you.

‘Mebbe that’s what I need now,’ I lied. ‘Couple of weeks’ peace and quiet and a breath of sea air. Me mind’s made up.’

I should have known, men make up their minds like they make up their beds – if there’s a woman around she’ll pull all the bedding off and start again.