He pushed cushions under her head and tried to avert his gaze from the bare legs.
'Thanks-and-I-think-I'm-going-to-be-sick.'
God – he flew back to the doorway. Drew, still on the phone, was writing things on the back of an envelope and muttering words like dilations and timed contractions and bearing down and pushing and not pushing and panting.
Shit. It was far too complicated. He ran back into the kitchen and knelt beside Maddy who'd stopped shouting and had her eyes closed. Oh, my God! Had she passed out?
Her eyes shot open and her teeth bared and she yelled. Just once. Vincent heard Drew drop the phone. Christ! The baby's head was there! Somewhere above Maddy's groans and laboured breathing he could hear 'Silent Night' playing as Drew belted in from the hall. At least it was the authorised version.
'Keep pushing.' Vincent closed his eyes and went in blind. He'd die if he hurt her. 'Maddy – don't cry – I think – I think I've got it – oh!'
He sat back with amazement, tears streaming down his face. The slithering, bloodied, tiny body was squirming in his hands. Drew, laughing and crying and still holding his notes, picked it up and laid it on Maddy's chest.
The room seemed strangely quiet. Then the baby yelled.
'It's a boy,' Drew was weeping unashamedly. 'A boy ...'
Vincent swallowed as they cried together, and tried to stand up. His legs were far too wobbly so he sat on the hearth-rug again. It was the most amazing moment of his entire life.
'Do we have to cut the cord?'
'The midwife's about two minutes away.' Drew was stroking Maddy's hair and kissing her and telling her how much he loved her. 'She'll take over – and thank you. Thank you so much...'
Clutching at the table for support, Vincent hauled himself to his feet. Maddy smiled sleepily up at him. 'You were brilliant. Thanks a million.'
'You did all the hard work. No, no I'll leave you alone together. It's all right –'
Drew, still gazing at the baby and Maddy in complete disbelief, touched Vincent's arm. 'We'll never be able to thank you enough for this.'
Vincent sniffed. 'Don't be daft. You'd have managed fine without me. I'll go and see if the midwife has arrived – or the ambulance. Point them in the right direction...
Vincent absent-mindedly patted the animals on his way through the outhouse, and watched as the midwife's hatchback screeched to a halt and she bustled under the clock arch. The ambulance wouldn't be too far behind. They'd all be all right now. Maddy and Drew and the baby. They'd be fine.
He wiped his hand across his eyes, feeling the tears trickle through his fingers.
'It was wonderful,' he said for the thousandth time, curled against Maureen's back, his arm resting comfortably across her ample waist. 'One of the most incredible moments of my life.'
'I'm glad you said one of them.' Maureen turned beneath the candyfloss-pink duvet and smiled at him in the semi-darkness. It's been quite a Christmas Eve, duck, what with one thing and another, hasn't it?'
It had. It truly had.
He traced the plaited ribbons in Maureen's peach nightie. 'I'll never forget today as long as I live.'
Nor will I.' She snuggled against him, sweet-smelling, warm, comforting. 'I reckons this is what Christmas is all about, duck, don't you?'
Sleeping with someone else's wife? Hardly. Vincent blinked a bit in the low glow of the pink tiffany lamp. Maureen nudged him playfully. 'Not that! Just all the friendships, and the closeness, and being together. And the baby. That about put the icing on it.'
Vincent sighed happily. Daragh Vincent Fitzgerald was spending his first night under Peapods' roof. They'd taken Maddy and the baby into hospital for a check-up, and Drew had brought them home just after eight. He'd managed to poke his head round the door of the Cat and Fiddle, give everyone an update, say that the drinks were on him, and was kissed by every woman in the place before going home to his family.
Vincent cuddled a bit more into Maureen's billowy warmth. It was sheer bliss. She moved her face closer to his on the frilly turquoise pillow, the blonde hair splayed out like a manic halo. 'Jemima seemed really pleased to be coming to us tomorrow, didn't she, duck?'
Vincent nodded. She had. He'd thought that she might turn him down after the hoo-ha at Matt's, but she'd seemed rather pleased to have been asked. It would be lovely to be all together – Christmas Day was no time to be alone. He was going to collect her from the Vicarage really early and they'd all go to morning service – at Maureen's insistence – and then back to the Munchy Bar's flat for the rest of the day.
Maureen had a fibre-optic Christmas tree which glowed in a constantly changing rainbow, and the presents had been stacked under it. Cards were festooned round the walls like a washing-line, and the larder and fridge doors were straining at their hinges. He'd have Jemima and Maureen, food, drink, warmth, and happiness. Vincent couldn't have wished for anything more.
'Just one thing,' Jemima had said. 'Tomorrow I don't want to talk about Matt. I don't want to spoil Christmas. But there are things we need to discuss, Dad, aren't there?'
Vincent had fudged a bit and muttered about things not being all they seemed, and Jemima had stopped him with one of her looks.
'I don't know why you were at Matt's and I don't know where he's gone. I'm sure you'll have a really good explanation, won't you?'
He'd tried saying something about just popping into Matt's for a Christmas drink and Matt going home to Devon – which was true, as far as he knew – and she shouldn't be so suspicious. Jemima had smiled sadly and walked away from him.
He groaned softly in the darkness. He was going to tell her. Oh, not tomorrow. Not on Christmas Day. And not all of it – he couldn't do that. But before Matt came back to Milton St John, he'd let her know everything he safely could. Whether she'd ever speak to him again remained to be seen.
'What's up, duck?' Maureen asked drowsily. 'Not cold, are you?'
He shook his head and took a deep breath. 'If I told you that I'd lied ever since I came here, would you hate me?'
'Still married, are you?' Maureen gurgled. 'Well, that wouldn't bother me too much under the circumstances.'
'I'm not married. But everything I've told everyone since I arrived has been a fabrication. I've never been a gardener – I'm a bankrupt. A compulsive gambler. I lived in a bedsit on the Social because of my gambling. That's why Jemima didn't like horse-racing. That's why Rosemary left me.'
Maureen was silent for a while. Vincent touched the brittle hair and heard her sigh.
'Maureen?'
'I guessed you wasn't a gardener, duck. But you've done all right. No one suspects – 'cept Maddy at first, of course, when you pulled up all them flowers – but since then you've worked hard for them at Peapods to put things right, and they're not ones to ask questions. They think the world of you, and everyone else thinks you're the real McCoy, duck. And as for the gambling – well, it's no big surprise. I knew there was something. There's a lot of unpleasantness behind the chintz, especially in a place like this. We've all got secrets we'd rather stayed out of sight.'
He hugged her. 'I've done some really bad things.'
'Show me someone who hasn't.'
He had to do it. He couldn't keep it a secret anymore. If Maureen blew his cover, then so what? It had been really good. He'd have the memories. 'All my money doesn't come from gardening ...'
Daft Maureen pulled herself up in bed and looked down on him lovingly. 'Do you think I didn't know that? If you and Ned Filkins are having a little bit of a razzle, who am I to blow the whistle? Ned's already told me that my Brian will be the first to know of our – um – friendship if I so much as opens me mouth about anything.'
Oh, Christ. He should have known.
'Should I go to the police, do you think? Should I tell Kath and Drew and everyone what's going on?'
'Is anyone going to get hurt – other than in the pocket?'
Vincent shook his head. They weren't. Well – of course, there was the Grand National and Charlie, of course – but that was too far-fetched for words. 'No one. In fact everyone seems to come out of it okay, actually.'
'Then let sleeping dogs lie, that's my advice. It's been done before in this village – and it'll be done again. There's fortunes made and lost in racing in ways that would make old A1 Capone curl up and die.' Maureen slithered down beside him again and enfolded him with her marshmallow arms. 'Just listen to that wind. Fair howling across the Downs. And the sleet rattling against the window. And we're in here snug as bugs. Blooming lovely, isn't it? Happy Christmas, duck.'
'Happy Christmas.' Matt walked up behind Tina and, putting his fingers beneath her ribs, encircled her naked slenderness.
'That was yesterday.'
'It feels like the rest of my life.' He bit her shoulder none too gently, his teeth grazing the skin stretched over the clavicle. 'Happy Boxing Day, then. So what
exactly
are we going to do today?'
'I have no idea.' Still in his arms, she turned to face him. They leaned against the white railings of the balcony. 'But then, you're the one with the imagination, aren't you?'
Imagination? Him? Stolid, solid, Mr Average? Except he wasn't. Not any more. Tina Maloret had changed everything. He'd hated her and it had made everything perfect.
'You choose.' He stared at her body, still trying to believe that this wasn't a fantasy. Still trying to get his head round the fact that they were together; that Fate and mutual predilections had given them this – what? Happiness? Satisfaction? Love? 'As long as it doesn't involve getting dressed ...'
God! Had he said that? Had he said half the things that had tumbled from his lips since he and Tina had been together? He was turning into Charlie Somerset. He laughed. No, he wasn't. Charlie hadn't been able to do this. For once he'd beaten Charlie hands down.
You mean,' he'd asked incredulously after that first time, 'that I'm
better
than Charlie Somerset?'
Better,' Tina had said, smiling at him, 'is subjective. It depends °n what you want in the first place, doesn't it? You give me exactly what I want – and I have a feeling that it's a reciprocal arrangement.'
He'd eased his body away from her and, at that moment, had been sure that this was all that he'd ever wanted. Stuff the National; stuff being champion jockey, stuff Charlie; stuff his brother's superiority; stuff everyone and everything.
'And Jemima?' Tina had queried, pulling him back again. 'I take it she's Miss Missionary?'
He'd felt a twinge of guilt then. It hadn't seemed right to discuss Jemima – especially as they had never slept together. But he wanted to hear that he was better than Charlie. He wanted to hear it over and over again.
'I've no idea. I would imagine so.'
'So would I.' Tina had wrapped her legs around him. Her bones were sharp. 'Maybe we should get her and Charlie together. They don't seem to like each other much, which means they're probably dying to rip each other's clothes off. Anyway,' she'd bitten his ear, 'Charlie is such a gentleman. He'd tell her she was wonderful – even if she wasn't.'
'Is that what he told you?' Matt felt jealous. 'Is that what he tells you?'
'He tells me very little these days. I try to wind him up, get him irritated, push him to the extremes of anger, but it merely seems to make him less interested, not more. No, sadly, Charlie, dynamic though he is beneath the duvet, is simply not my cup of tea. Nor am I his. Whereas you, Matt sweetie, definitely are.'
'Why do you stay with him, then?'
'God knows. He's got a pretty face and a dream body. He makes me laugh. And he's awfully good for my image. Every woman in the world would give her Amex Gold to be in my stilettos. It's a bit of an ego thing, I suppose. I don't really want him – but I'm buggered if anyone else is going to have him.'
For a moment Matt had thought about Lucinda, but had said nothing.
There had been another biting, scratching, hurting interlude then. Matt, rolling away, wondered if he'd died and gone to Heaven. He'd asked her about Charlie again. It was bliss.
'Charlie is fantastic stud value, sweetie. On performance ratings he's out of this world. Sadly, he has romantic and old-fashioned notions. And he's very straight – unlike you.' She'd looked at him with her smoky eyes. 'I'd never have put you down as an S and M devotee, Mr Garside. Never in a million years. Just think what I've been missing all this time. You've been riding Dragon Slayer for ages – and never gave so much as a hint...'
He'd laughed into the skeletal ribs. 'We hardly parade around in rubber balaclavas and studded leather wristlets, do we? Anyway, I didn't like you.'
'And I thought you were the pits.' She'd slithered happily down his body. 'Which makes everything absolutely perfect, doesn't it?'
Matt looked down on to the pool and beach below. The morning sky was shimmering, the sun white-hot on his skin. The Caribbean Sea, like turquoise silk, wound itself around acres of silver sand. The marble floor of their balcony was already almost too warm for bare feet; and several holiday-makers were sitting at parasol'd tables just beneath them.
Tina stared at them over the railings. 'They look pretty bored, don't you think? Shall we entertain them? Liven up their breakfast?'
He closed his eyes in sheer pleasure as her nails raked his skin.
Afterwards, still naked, she sat cross-legged on the balcony and surveyed his injuries. It seemed to amuse her. 'When are you supposed to be riding again?'
'Two weeks.'
Tina shook her head. 'You'll never get past the MO. "Dear me, Mr Garside,"' – she adopted a gruff authoritarian voice, '"and where exactly did you acquire these bruises? How did you manage to accumulate this large abrasion? And these weals – where precisely did they come from?'"
They don't ask those sort of questions.' He pulled her on t0 his lap. 'And I think they'd have apoplexy if I told them, don't you?'
Tina kissed the tip of his nose. Gently. Her eyes were soft. Kind. She only hurt him now when they made love. Pleasure and pain. Such a fine line between the two for most people. A fine line smudged by deviation for him alone – or so he'd always thought.