‘Oh — Sandy! Good to see you, my boy. Yes, yes, she’s
going to be all right apparently - ah. Here’s the doctor
now. Doctor, this is my son-in-law.’
‘The husband?’ said the doctor. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Sandy.
‘She’s fine. That is to say, I’m afraid—’ He paused.
Sandy had often heard the phrase ‘his heart stopped’, and
thought how absurd it was, but in that moment his own
did: he actually felt it lurch and then seize entirely.
‘Well, she has lost the baby. I’m sorry.’
‘The — baby?’
‘Yes. To be honest with you, I think it might be better.
In the long run. A lot of drugs at this stage in the pregnancy
could well have harmed the foetus. It’s no comfort perhaps
at the moment, but — well, there it is. You can go and see
her if you like. We’re about to send her up to the gynae
ward.’
Sandy sat down; he felt as if he was isolated in some kind
of sealed capsule, everything outside seemed rather hazy and muffled. So she had been pregnant; he hadn’t been entirely mad. But—
Tom Fleming suddenly appeared through the swing
doors; he saw Sandy, and hesitated. Only for a moment, but
it was enough. Few people would have recognised that
hesitation; Sandy, trained in observing the enemy, did. He
looked at Tom for a long moment in silence. Then, ‘What
the hell are you doing here?’ he said.
That was that, then: the end of it. The end of the baby, the
end of the affair. Louise lay in her bed and stared at the
nurse who was telling her she really couldn’t have anything
more for the pain, that her system simply could not tolerate
any more drugs at the moment, and said politely no, she
quite understood, and then, ‘What was it?’
‘What was what?’
‘The baby. Was it a girl or a boy?’
The nurse was very young; she stared at Louise. ‘Oh, you
don’t want to be worrying about that,’ she said.
‘What do you mean, I don’t want to be worrying about
it?’ She could hear her own voice, loud and rather angry.
‘Of course I’m worried about it. I have to know, I have a
right to know.’
‘Mrs Trelawny—’
Louise put out her hand, gripped the nurse’s arm. ‘You
just go and find out what my baby was. A girl or a boy.
Don’t come back until you know. And don’t tell me what I
want or don’t want either.’
The nurse shook her arm free, hurried out of the cubicle;
Louise heard her talking in a low voice to someone at the
end of the ward.
Another, clearly more senior nurse appeared; she looked
at Louise rather sternly.
‘Mrs Trelawny—’
Louise interrupted her. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘all I want to
know is whether my baby was a boy or a girl. You must
know. It was quite old enough.’
‘We — that is, it’s impossible to—’
‘Where is it?’ she said. ‘Where is the baby?’
‘Mrs Trelawny—’
‘You’ve thrown it away, haven’t you?’ she said, rage
making her suddenly strong. ‘Put it down the sluice. I
know you have, don’t lie to me. You had absolutely no
right to do that, no right at all, it wasn’t just a mess, you
know, it was my baby. It’s wicked what you’ve done, and
what’s more, illegal…’
And then she heard a strange, horrible, high-pitched
sound, that she realised after a moment or two was her own
screaming, and then a doctor appeared, and gave her an
injection and she sank into a blank darkness that she hoped
more fervently than ever might be death.
Sandy sat holding Dickon on his knee, smoothing his dark
hair, trying to hush his sobs; he felt like crying himself. And
so utterly weary, he could not imagine ever moving again.
Just as well, probably; given the strength to match the
violence of his rage, he would have gone out to find Tom
Fleming and killed him. Or at least beaten him to pulp.
He had known at once, of course, hadn’t actually needed
his brutally frank confession at all, he’d known the minute
he had seen him there. It had all made sense suddenly.
Tom, brilliant, charming, good-looking Tom who made
Louise laugh, who led the sort of life she would have loved,
who spent his life in her old haunts, the smart restaurants
and nightclubs of London, Tom who had money and style,
Tom who could still have children …
‘Daddy,’ said Dickon, turning his small face up to him,
‘Daddy, please don’t cry. Mummy’s better, you just said so.’
‘Louise has had a complete breakdown,’ said Tom. ‘There’s
talk of a psychiatric nursing home. Some place in Bath.’
They were sitting in the drawing room in Phillimore
Gardens; both more than slightly surprised to find themselves
there, set back within the boundaries of normal life,
so totally had the world appeared, during the past twenty
four hours, to have spun on its axis. They had even had supper together, pizzas brought in from the Pizza Express; Octavia, able suddenly to observe them all detachedly,
arguing over whether a Neptune was more or less
interesting than an American Hot, and passing round bits
from plate to plate as they always did, wondered at the
extraordinary resilience of the human spirit, and its capacity
to dissemble.
‘We’ll come and tuck you up,’ said Tom, patting the
twins’ bottoms gently as they started up the stairs. ‘Half an
hour, okay?’
‘Okay. And don’t disappear again, all right?’
‘They didn’t both disappear,’ said Gideon, ‘only Mummy.’
‘They
did really.’
‘Twins, please. Go on, see you later.’
‘You must have been relieved,’ said Octavia now, icily
polite, ‘about the baby.’
‘Yes, I was. Of course.’
Charles had told her when she had finally spoken to him,
asked after Louise, forced herself to, for his sake: ‘You’d
want to know, my dear. So that when you see her …’ and
‘Yes, of course,’ she had said, thinking of that last lie, that
last act of treachery, ‘I’m not pregnant,’ adding politely
careful, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and wondering how much more she
was going to be asked to endure.
‘That was clever of her,’ she said now to Tom, ‘very
clever. I suppose she thought you’d have to stay with her,
leave me if she was pregnant.’
‘I think it was more complex than that,’ he said, ‘given
that she knew about your baby.’
‘Our baby,’ she said, looking at him very steadily. ‘Tom,
it was. It was yours.’
‘Was it? Was it really?’
‘Yes. Yes! I so much want you to understand. The baby
was — would have been — handicapped, it had spina bifida.
You were away, terribly busy, I — well, I decided to — I’m
so sorry.’ It was strange suddenly to find herself in the
wrong, the one who had done damage, the one apologising.
He
stared at her for a long time in silence, his face very
drawn, quite colourless. Then ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘But
whatever you felt, whatever the situation, you had no right
to do what you did. It was dreadful. Not the abortion itself,
I might have agreed to that, I probably would; but taking it
upon yourself to make that decision. With no recourse to
me whatsoever. It was very wrong.’
There was a long silence; then she said: ‘I know. I can see
that now. I’m sorry. Very, very sorry. I thought it would be
for the best.’
‘But you didn’t consider what I might think?’ He
stopped again, looking at her as if from a long distance.
‘The fact that it was my baby too?’
‘No,’ she said, very quietly, ‘no, I didn’t. I just thought
you wouldn’t - wouldn’t want it.’
‘You are very like your father,’ he said, ‘in some ways.
I’m sorry to have to say it, but it’s true.’
She was silent: hating him for saying it, knowing she
deserved it.
‘Did he know about it?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said, shocked that he should
think such a thing, while recognising that he easily could.
‘Only Anna knew, she - well, she gave me the advice. She
was wonderful. It helped.’
‘A pity you couldn’t have turned to me.’
‘Tom, I couldn’t. Well, I thought I couldn’t. You were
away, terribly distracted, it would have been so difficult on
the phone.’
‘Do you really think I wouldn’t have come home? For
such a reason? Dear God, how did we come to this?’ he
said.
‘If it’s any comfort,’ she said, with difficulty, ‘I thought I
would go mad with the misery and the guilt.’
‘Now there is an interesting remark. Do you think it is?
A comfort to me? Don’t you think I feel the same misery,
the same guilt? About what I have done to you? Ask
yourself that question, Octavia, see if it helps.’
She looked at him, struggling to accept it. ‘I don’t know
how you feel. I don’t know what I feel either. About any of
it, any of it at all.’
‘I think,’ he said carefully, ‘you have to try and accept
that Louise is — well, almost mad.’
‘Almost mad? Or completely? Or then again not at all?
Just bad. Wicked.’
‘No. Not wicked. I really don’t think so.’
‘She’s been very clever. For someone mad.’
‘Mad people are clever.’
‘And she’s done some terrible things. Sending those
letters, wrecking your business, that was almost a crime.’
‘Yes, it was,’ he said slowly, ‘you’re right. It was. Almost
a crime.’
Another silence, then, ‘Louise told me something else,’
he said. ‘I would like to know if it’s true.’
She knew what that was: Gabriel. And of course Louise
would have told Tom. Looking back now, she recognised
the last in a long line of probing, of innocent questions, of
outraged loyalty. Against all logic, she felt guilt.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sure you can imagine what it was.’
‘I - yes, I suppose I can.’
‘Is it true? That you’re involved? With this man?’
‘If you mean have I slept with him,’ she said, anger and a
desire to hurt him suddenly striking her, ‘yes, I have.’
‘I see.’
He looked at her; she saw shock, hurt, anger, and — most
pleasing of all - jealousy. All of them illogical, outrageous
even: but most recognisably there, a source of sweet, sure
revenge.
‘Well, I can hardly complain, I suppose,’ was all he
said.
And ‘No,’ she had said, ‘no, you can’t.’
Shock and jealousy apart, he was, quite clearly, less
concerned about her relationship with Gabriel Bingham
than about the termination. Grudgingly, unwillingly, she liked him for that.
‘Do you still want a divorce?’ he said, and she said yes,
most certainly she did, but she really couldn’t think about it
at the moment, there were enough complexities in both
their lives, both professional and personal, not least the
children, they must take their time, work out the best
route.
‘So - is it - serious? With this man?’ he said, and she said
she didn’t want to discuss it; later lying in bed, she found
herself wondering if it was, indeed, serious with Gabriel.
‘Right. That’s all absolutely wonderful.’ Serena Fox smiled
at Marianne and Romilly, drew back the contract, replaced
the cap of her Mont Blanc pen. ‘Let’s drink, shall we, to a
very happy association. Josie, bring in the champagne!’
‘Goodness!’ said Romilly. ‘Champagne, how exciting.’
‘I won’t,’ said Marianne. ‘I’m afraid I never drink in the
middle of the day.’
She didn’t look very happy, Romilly thought. That was
mean of her, casting a sort of shadow over things.
‘Mummy!’ she said. ‘Come on. Don’t be a spoilsport.’
‘Oh, well, all right.’ Marianne accepted the glass, smiled,
clearly with an effort, sipped it over-cautiously. Romilly felt irritated with her.
‘Now,’ said Serena. ‘Donna Hanson is coming over again
in ten days. With the photographer. He’s going to do some
preliminary shots of Romilly over here, for publicity and so
on. They’re arriving on Monday the eleventh, so how
would the Tuesday be? Or the Wednesday. For the
session?’
‘Wonderful!’ said Romilly. ‘I’ll wash my hair.’ They all
laughed. She looked round Serena’s office at them all,
smiling at her, her, Romilly, the centre of attention,
laughing at her jokes, eager to fit in with her holiday dates.
It was all so nice, she thought: so nice to be important, the
one who mattered. Every day now she felt less shy, less unsure of herself.
It wasn’t until Romilly got home to her diary that she
realised that her period would be due again by the twelfth
of August. Or possibly overdue. But she would know what
to do this time …
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Tom. ‘Sorry to have deserted the
sinking ship.’
He smiled carefully at Aubrey; Aubrey, the least demonstrative
of men, felt an urge to go over to him and put his
arms round him, so white faced, so drawn, so patently and
literally shaken was he. Well, it had been an appalling
thirty-six hours for him; poor old Tom. He must have truly
glimpsed hell.
As it was (being the least demonstrative of men), he did
get up and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder, refilled his