Dying Fall

fur than hair. Roger flicks his ears to and fro and looks irritated. He is black with a grey muzzle and his harness is yellow. Other children are lifted onto Roger’s companions and the cavalcade prepares to set off.
    ‘Hold on, love,’ says the Donkey Man and Kate holds on, looking delighted and not at all scared. For the hundredth time, Ruth wishes that she had remembered her camera. She should take a picture with her phone. She fumbles in her bag.
    ‘Ruth,’ says Cathbad.
    ‘What?’ Damn, why can she never find anything in her organiser handbag?
    ‘Isn’t that Nelson coming towards us?’
    Ruth looks up and, sure enough, advancing over the sand is an all-too-familiar figure. Nelson in jeans and a blue shirt, accompanied by Michelle, two other women and a baby in a pushchair.
    Ruth is paralysed. Should she call out to him? Hope that he won’t see her? Oh why didn’t she tell him that she was coming to Blackpool?
    Cathbad, though, has no such qualms.
    ‘Nelson!’ he shouts. ‘Over here!’
    Nelson looks across, says something to Michelle and takes a few steps towards them. But Cathbad has already bounded over and is shaking Nelson’s hand enthusiastically. There is nothing for Ruth to do but follow, keeping an anxious eye on Kate and her donkey.
    ‘Cathbad,’ Nelson is saying. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing in Blackpool?’
    ‘Language, Harry,’ says one of the women, a formidable matron in blue who looks vaguely familiar.
    ‘Harry,’ says Michelle. ‘It’s Ruth.’
    ‘Hi, Nelson,’ says Ruth. ‘Hi, Michelle.’
    Nelson just stares at her, a muscle is working in his cheek and he looks furious.
    ‘Where’s Kate?’ asks Michelle.
    ‘On a donkey.’
    ‘Oh, the kiddies love the donkeys,’ says the woman in blue. Then, as no one else seems about to do it, she introduces herself. ‘I’m Maureen, Harry’s mother, and this is Maeve, my oldest, and her granddaughter Charlie, though why she’s got a boy’s name I’ll never know. She’s such a pretty little thing.’
    Nelson’s sister. Ruth can see the resemblance. Maeve is tall with black wavy hair liberally streaked with grey. She has Nelson’s heavy eyebrows and his fierce expression. And she’s a grandmother! Ruth never imagined that Nelson’s sisters would be so much older than he.
    ‘Charlie can be a girl’s name now,’ she is saying, rather impatiently. ‘Pleased to meet you, Ruth.’
    ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’ says Maureen. ‘At the hospital.’
    That’s why she looks familiar. Ruth briefly met Nelson’s mother on the morning after the night when they thought that Nelson was dying. Ruth glances at Michelle and is sure that she is remembering the same thing.
    ‘Ruth works with me,’ Nelson says shortly. ‘She’s an archaeologist.’
    ‘That must be interesting work,’ says Maureen. ‘I never miss
Time Team
, do I, Maeve?’
    ‘They did a programme near here,’ says Ruth. ‘At Ribchester.’
    ‘I saw it,’ says Maureen, sounding delighted. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
    ‘Sort of,’ says Ruth, feeling uncomfortable. The donkeys have reached the pier and are turning back. In a few minutes, though she won’t know it, Maureen will be face to face with another grandchild.
    ‘Is this because of Dan Golding?’ Nelson asks Ruth. He still looks angry. Ruth sees Michelle touching his arm as if to placate him.
    ‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘Pendle University asked me to look at a discovery he made before he died.’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    Maeve looks curiously from one to the other. Luckily Maureen is chatting to Cathbad. ‘Kilfinane!’ Ruth hears Maureen exclaiming, ‘but that’s next door to me, so it is.’
    The donkeys approach. Despite everything, Ruth’s heart contracts with love when she sees Kate’s radiant face, beaming from ear to ear as she wobbles on Roger’s back. The Donkey Man puts up a hand to steady her. Ruth waves; she knows that Nelson is looking too.
    ‘Mum!’ shouts Kate. ‘Mum! Mum!’
    ‘Oh bless her heart,’ says Maureen. ‘Is that your little girl?’
    ‘Yes,’ whispers Ruth.
    But Kate has seen Nelson. ‘Dada!’ she yells in delight. ‘Dada!’
    *
    ‘Do you think she suspected?’ asks Ruth.
    ‘No,’ says Cathbad reassuringly. ‘Kate calls everyone Dada. She said it to the Donkey Man, didn’t she?’
    They are on their way back to Lytham. Ruth is driving; Kate is in the back, humming a tune from Dora, lost in a