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The landline was ringing when he stepped into the flat. For a second, as he shut the door behind him, Jimmy wanted to ignore it and curl up on the couch where he could pretend everything was as it had been just a few months ago. The guilt hit a moment later and he snatched the handset up knowing it could be either the hospital or Cassie trying to reach him despite them normally using his mobile.
‘Perez.’ He ground out.
‘Jimmy?’ A familiar voice asked. ‘You sound like hell.’
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall feeling a mix of relief, that it wasn’t the hospital or Cassie, and guilt that he was relieved. Cassie needed him, needed him to reassure her and explain what was happening with Fran.
‘Duncan… now’s not a good time. Cassie’s at her grandparents if you’re looking for her.’ Whether George or Alice would let him speak to her if he rang them was another matter but Jimmy didn’t have the energy to get involved in that situation just now.
‘I was looking for Fran actually.’ Duncan was still at the office if the sound of shuffling papers and low voices in the background was any indication. ‘I emailed her a few days ago and hadn’t heard back from her.'
‘Oh.’ Was all Jimmy could manage to force out.
Something must have been audible in his tone as the rustling at the other end of the phone stopped.
‘Jimmy is she alright?’
‘Uh no, not really. I found her collapsed on the bathroom floor late Tuesday night.’
‘Oh Jesus.’
‘She’s got a chest infection, they’re worried it could turn into pneumonia. I’m just home under orders to get out of the hospital for a while.’
Really he was under orders to get something to eat and get some rest but even if there was anything edible left in the fridge the thought of eating just now turned his stomach and sleep seemed to be something that happened to other people these last few days.
‘I’ll let you go then.’
‘No.’ Jimmy suddenly didn’t want to be left alone in the silent flat with just his thoughts, he wanted some human connection, even if it was Duncan. ‘No, it’s fine. They won’t let me back in before seven. What is it you wanted?’
The line was silent for long enough that Jimmy wondered if Duncan had hung up.
‘You know Fran had me looking at houses for you?’ Duncan asked finally, knowing full well he did as Jimmy had added his input during several of Fran’s early calls to Duncan to get him to be their eyes on the ground when they first started to think about moving back to Shetland.
‘Yeah.’ He confirmed. ‘We’ve narrowed it down to a few options. She was going to give you a ring this week I think.’
‘I sent her details of something new. It’s not on the market yet. I’d made the owner an offer a few years ago when her husband died.’
‘Oh aye?’ Jimmy couldn’t help the slightly suspicious note in his voice.
‘Not like that. Her family has moved south and she’d half a mind to go after them then stayed. Anyway Pat died last month and her daughter came up to get things settled. She was aware of the offer and wanted to give me first refusal.’
‘Go on.’ Jimmy took the phone with him into the living room where Fran’s laptop sat open on her desk by the window and pushed the power button.
‘It’s in Lerwick down at the shore, one of the lodberries. It’ll need some work to move it out of the seventies when it was modernised to a degree, but it could be a good house. It’s one of the ones jutting out into Bressay sound, so it’s not too exposed, and with beaches on either side there’s no-one right on top of you. No garden obviously but there's a yard with a sea door and a couple of outbuildings.
‘Uh huh.’ Clicking the little blue Mozilla icon he found the email and selected it, settling back to let the pictures load. Jimmy found himself looking at a solid stone built house with a noost in front of it and a door leading into the private yard. Fran would love it.
'Got it.'
‘The cottage on the Commercial Road side is part of it too, they used to run a shop out of it. I’d had a few ideas for the place but I know you’ll want to plan it yourself. The outbuildings are a small one in the back of the yard, good for storage and behind the house is a big shed with an almost full length attic which Fran would love. There’s windows looking over the Sound and skylights in the roof so she’d have lots of light, it’s an almost perfect studio. She could even use the cottage on the street as a shop if she fancied it.’
Jimmy’s stomach lurched at Duncan’s words. A studio was what Fran had envisioned when they first started talking about the possibility of moving back to Shetland. She’d fond memories of the little studio she’d had in her cottage in Ravenwick when Jimmy’d first met her and she had dreams of recreating it, but that had been when her most pressing concerns were that Jimmy would burn out with his caseload or get killed and how to keep Cassie away from Glasgow’s ever increasing teenage drug scene.
Before her diagnosis.
‘Duncan what exactly has Fran told you? About...’ Jimmy trailed off, his throat clicking as he swallowed harshly against the misery burning in his gut. At the other end of the line he heard Duncan take a careful breath.
‘I know she’s sick Jimmy.’
‘She’s more than sick.’
‘Cancer. I know, she told me.’
‘She isn’t going to recover.’
‘She said....’ Duncan trailed off, soft noises filtering through the phone until there was the quiet thud of a door closing.
‘Said what?’
‘She said it was bad but that she wanted to get you and Cassie settled in Shetland again, in case the worst should happen.’
Jimmy closed his eyes at the cosy image she seemed to have painted for Duncan.
‘The doctor said she has a year at the very most, if she responds well to treatment, more like five to six months.’
‘Oh Jesus. Jimmy....’
Duncan’s genuinely shocked response, with none of the falsely sweet sympathy he’d become used to receiving, was almost harder to take since he was unable to just brush it off and it seemed to crack something open in his chest leaving Jimmy to try and breathe around the hurt and struggling to get his next words out.
‘She’s not though. Responding I mean, and this infection means no further treatment until it’s gone, if it goes and there’s nothing I can do but sit there and watch her fade away.’
‘Is…’ Duncan swallowed ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘There’s nothing any of us can do but the move has been keeping her occupied. Making plans for afterward...’ He trailed off.
There was shared silence for a minute as Jimmy pulled himself back together.
Duncan cleared his throat eventually. ‘I should go, let you get something to eat before you head back.’
‘Wait.’ Jimmy cut Duncan off not wanting to be left alone in the empty flat with just his bleak thoughts. ‘Tell me what you’d do?’
‘Jimmy?’
‘The house. What would you do to the house?’
‘You don’t need to worry about it just now. I’ll speak to Heather, ask her if she’d give you another week or two to think.’
‘I need something to focus on Duncan. I’ll print the images off to show Fran and talk to her. She’s on oxygen so it will keep her distracted and stop her trying to talk.’
‘You’re optimistic. She’ll be trying to question every peerie thing.’
‘Aye,’ Jimmy acknowledged,‘so if I have a plan, a few options to talk about, then she can just listen to me.’
‘And you can take credit for my homework?’
‘Well you do owe me a few for all the times you copied off me back at Anderson.’
Duncan huffed a laugh. ‘Fine. Give me a minute.’
There was a brief snippet of conversation, muffled enough that Jimmy couldn’t make out the words, as he dug a notebook out of Fran’s desk, along with one of her fancy art pencils she’d normally object to him using.
‘Duncan?’ Jimmy prompted when he heard Duncan poking at a keyboard presumably pulling up his own files.
‘Right, so the side cottage on the street does link into the main house via a connecting door but it’s basically an empty shell with a low ceiling, a pokey half attic and a sky light. It’s not a viable house by itself so I’d knock through to expand it into the main house.’
‘Uh huh.’ Jimmy made a few notes Ducan’s knock-through suggestion as option 1 and keeping the cottage as separate for option 2.
'Right so inside the house there’s a short hall from the door with a door into the kitchen at the back and a set of very narrow stairs going up. How they got the furniture up I dinnae ken. There's two decent sized bedrooms and a box room up there that you could turn into a bathroom cos it's still got the outside loo and I don't think Cassie will be too happy about that. My thoughts would be to gut the lower level entirely…'
Duncan continued havering on though plans, referring back to several of the images, mentioning knocking through walls and what beams would be needed where and describing the current decor in far more detail than could ever be necessary and Jimmy dutifully took a few notes but mostly found himself relaxing for the first time in days as he lost himself in the familiar voice as Duncan spun his yarn about the house with all the elaboration and embellishment he used to throw into his tales of weekend parties back in school.
The intercom buzzer sounding in the hall jerked him out of .
‘Hang on there’s someone at the door.’ Jimmy pushed himself up and made his way towards the door.
‘Aye, that should be your tea from the Chinese down the street that Cassie liked the last time I was over. It’s already paid for. ’
Jimmy blinked and looked at the phone in his hand for a moment, completely baffled, before the buzzer sounded again and he reached out to trigger the door release and opened the flat door.
A teenage boy coming up the stairs glanced at him standing in the doorway and handed him a plastic bag, filled with far too much food for one, before dashing back down the stairs. Stepping back in and kicking the door shut he lifted the phone back to his ear as he headed to the kitchen.
'Duncan? Thank you.' Whether it was for the distraction he’d provided with the house or simply for having the gumption to order him the food Jimmy couldn’t decide.
‘Ahh. It’s nothing Jimmy. I’ll let you go now and get some of that food into you before you go see your wife. You have to look after yourself too.’
‘Aye alright. Take care.’ Jimmy gripped the handset a little tighter as he set the bag on the bench.
‘You too Jimmy.’
Duncan hung up leaving Jimmy listening to the dial tone before he hung up at his end. He had at least half an hour before he needed to leave to get to the hospital before visiting time started. He had time to eat.
End
2019 - 2021
* Noost - a boat shed or dock