Like One of the Family (56 page)

Jane began to be really alarmed. ‘Has something happened to Terry?' she cried.

‘Please do not upset yourself, Jane,' Antonio said soothingly. ‘I am quite sure there is nothing to worry about. It seems he parted from the others, promising to catch up with them later, only he did not show up at the appointed place.'

‘But surely the police in Gibraltar could help find him,' Jane said bewildered.

‘They were not in Gibraltar when they lost each other but had travelled on to Ronda,' Antonio explained. ‘I am sure there is some perfectly rational explanation. Can I telephone you in one hour? By then I am certain that I will have something definite to tell you.'

Jane made a huge effort to control her fears. ‘Very well, Antonio. No matter how late it is, please ring. I won't be asleep.'

She put down the phone and went to make a soothing cup of cocoa, thinking how many crises in the past she had seen through with cups of the stuff: the searingly lonely nights after Eddie's and Hugh's deaths, the troubled months following Ruthie's attack and the worries she had gone through because of Terry's involvement with Grainne.

Jane sighed and supposed it was better than taking to the whisky bottle like poor Annette Shannon. She cradled the cup in her hands and blew gently on the bubbling surface, afraid to think what news Antonio might have for her when he rang back.

‘He's unconscious,' Fernando said quietly, on one knee beside the slumped body. He had got to Terry a few seconds before Claire and immediately felt for the pulse behind his ear. ‘He has lost a lot of blood. We must get him to a doctor.'

Claire shuddered as she looked down at Terry's scratched and bruised face. His skin was translucent in the light from Fernando's flashlight and the bloody cloth about his neck terrified her.

‘How white he is,' she whispered. She held the flashlight steady while Fernando gently removed the cloth from around Terry's neck and wadded his own handkerchief over the oozing wound, before retying the gory cloth more tightly.

‘Claire! Fernando!' Sheena's anguished voice sounded in the darkness. ‘Where are you?' They had left her dozing in the car and she had woken up terrified out of her mind of being recaptured by Miguel and followed them, tripping and falling on the dark cliff.

‘We've found Terry, Shee,' Claire told her with more confidence than she felt. ‘He's hurt but he'll be all right.'

‘Let me see.' Sheena pushed past them and threw herself down beside her twin. At the sight of the bloody neckcloth she became hysterical and rocked on her knees. ‘Oh God, no,' she cried. ‘Please don't let it be. Please God, please!'

Fernando signalled to Claire to go to her. ‘Take her back to the car,' he whispered. ‘I will manage him on my own.'

He slipped an arm beneath Terry and lifted him to his knees, then hooked one of the wounded man's arms around his neck and hoisted him to his feet. The movement restored Terry to consciousness and he stumbled obediently along on weak legs, with Fernando bearing most of his weight.

Claire guided her weeping friend over the rough ground. Sheena was almost unhinged by her period of captivity and the events of the past hours.

They arrived at Hospital Belen in the early hours and found the emergency team ready and waiting for them, Fernando having rung to alert them. At once Terry was lifted on to a stretcher and hurried away to the operating theatre. Nurse Lewis took immediate charge of Sheena, clucking in consternation over her filthy, neglected appearance and trembling wild-eyed stare.

To Claire, racked by worry for Terry and pity for Sheena, the drive from Ronda had seemed endless though, in fact, Fernando had made very good time, completing the 148 kilometres journey in a little over an hour. He had made Terry comfortable on the back seat, gladly relinquishing him to Sheena when she insisted on sitting with her twin and pillowing his head on her lap. Claire felt greatly relieved to see her friend restored, if only temporarily, to a state of near calm and sanity.

The swing doors opened and a white-coated figure emerged from the operating theatre and hurriedly approached the nursing station to speak to Nurse Lewis. Claire started up in alarm. Apparently, Terry needed a transfusion of blood.

‘Please take mine,' she interrupted them eagerly. She knew that her blood group, O Rh Negative, was compatible with all other groups, but Sarah Lewis still refused to take it.

‘My dear, you cannot dream of such a thing in your condition,' the nurse quietly reproved her. ‘But at any rate, he needs at least three pints; it will have to come from the blood bank.'

‘Oh, but are you sure there's time? Oh, please, let me give you some of mine.' But Sarah Lewis had turned away.

Fernando, who would have given blood himself if his had been compatible with Terry's, watched, puzzled and anxious, as Claire wept in frustration. In an amazingly short time, however, to Claire's relief the blood was delivered to the hospital entrance and swiftly taken to the operating theatre.

Terry was given a transfusion of three pints of blood and an anti-tetanus shot, and his neck was swabbed and sutured. Back in his room, he lay drifting in a blur of pain between sleeping and waking.

His throbbing wound woke him often that night, and when it did, there was another kind of pain: that of seeing Claire and Fernando sitting at his bedside and looking, somehow, so right together. Both, he considered in his fevered state, were privileged to possess that perennially summer look of fair-haired, golden-skinned people who seem to pass through life untouched by the hardships and misfortunes besetting darker mortals, even though, whatever about Fernando, Terry knew in his heart that Claire could never be so described. Once he opened his eyes and saw Fernando gently kissing Claire as she dozed in the crook of his arm, and felt again the shadow of impending loss.

Jane too, was beleaguered by visions of loss as she sat waiting for the telephone to ring, and when it finally did, she hurriedly set down the mug of cocoa she was nursing and ran into her surgery.

‘Yes, this is Jane,' she said breathlessly..

‘Jane, my dear, Terry has been found but I'm afraid he has been injured.' Antonio broke off at her gasp of dismay then continued strongly, ‘However, please do not worry. He is receiving medical attention and his condition is satisfactory.'

‘Are you quite sure he's all right, Antonio?' Oh God, not my other son too, she thought.

‘Yes, I'm quite sure. Fernando has spoken to the doctor and received his assurances.'

‘But what happened?' Jane wished to know.

‘Your son was stabbed in the neck but by great good fortune the knife merely grazed a blood vessel.'

Stabbed! Jane began to tremble.

‘He is at Hospital Belen where you stayed after your accident, Jane,' Antonio went on. ‘Believe me, I will personally ensure that he is given every care and attention needed to restore him to health.'

‘I do and thank you, Antonio,' Jane told him gratefully, aware that the majority of Spanish doctors went off on holidays for the whole month of August, sometimes without leaving locums to stand in for them. ‘I am booked to fly out on Sunday but should I come sooner?' she asked anxiously.

‘At the moment there is no need,' Antonio said. ‘If there is any change, however, I will inform you at once. You need have no fears about that.'

No, she knew that she could rely upon him totally. He was a rock of support.

‘I am only too happy to be of assistance, Jane,' Antonio was saying. ‘Oh... and I will make sure that your little daughter is also content until you arrive.'

‘Ruthie is with you?' Jane said faintly. ‘Oh, I do hope she's not in your way.'

‘Not at all. It gives me much pleasure to have her in my house. Christina is already her willing slave.' Antonio's amused chuckle sounded in Jane's ear. ‘When I last looked in at them Ruthie and Stella, Fernando's Labrador, were sitting in bed drinking hot chocolate.'

Had heard him correctly? Jane wondered, with an overwrought giggle. But when she put down the phone and remembered that Antonio had said nothing at all about Sheena, her amusement quickly faded.

Sheena lay in another room in the hospital, washed and tranquillised, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. All that night Sarah Lewis sat beside her, witnessing her restless tossings and turnings, hearing her pitiful moans with a troubled heart.

There was a tap at the door and Claire quietly entered. Another troubled child, thought Sarah. How well pregnancy suited the girl though. Even in her fatigue Claire had a glow about her that was arresting.

‘How is Sheena?' Claire stared down at her friend.

‘A wee bit restless but she'll be fine.' Sarah pulled over a chair. ‘Sit in,' she urged. ‘Take the weight off your feet.'

Claire obeyed but kept her face averted, clearly struggling with tears.

‘You are very fond of her, aren't you,' Sarah asked gently, ‘and her twin too?'

Claire nodded dumbly, her tears falling unchecked on to the back of her hand.

There is so much love in the girl, Sarah thought. She remembered the hours Claire had spent with Señora Gonzalez when the woman was dying, never sparing herself although she was falling on her feet. Gonzalez would be the lucky young man if he got her. Aye, but she would be lucky too, Sarah told herself, for clearly the young Spaniard was out of his mind about her.

Sarah felt sudden heartache and her face grew sad, for in her youth she had known a similar passionate love herself. God forbid anything should happen to this lass's lover, Sarah thought with a shiver, but at least Claire would have his child to console her. She had been left with nothing but her memories.

Claire came back into the room and crossed to sit at Fernando's side. Terry was sleeping more easily and, after an anxious glance at him, she leaned wearily back and let her own lids droop.

Fernando gently put his arm about her and was pleased when she rested her head against his shoulder. She had come through the ordeal well, he thought approvingly, exhibiting courage as well as common sense in the crisis. Claire had been very upset over her friend's brother, but then, Fernando wasn't really surprised, having already seen so much evidence of her soft-hearted concern for others. He glanced across to where Terry lay with closed eyes, his features once more twisted in pain.

He was a rather brash young man but brave, Fernando conceded, and had acted courageously, without concern for his own safety. On the other hand, danger clearly excited the young airman.

Fernando was no stranger to danger himself. In his late teens it was what had drawn him to the air force, but he had grown undeniably soft since his flying days. His great wealth allowed him access to the most rigorous and expensive of sports, which kept his body exercised and supple, but willingness to confront and overcome adversity had lessened. His decision to involve the police rather than attempt to crack Delgado's resistance when he had the man in his power showed this. Now Fernando sheered away from this unpalatable reminder of his own short-comings and dwelled instead on Claire. She was a loyal and gentle girl, he told himself, and that was the reason he loved her. He would never forget her attitude of utter selflessness towards his mother.

Beside him, Claire woke and sat up with a start. She leaned forward and eyed Terry with such a look of concern that Fernando experienced an unpleasant spasm of jealousy.

‘He's so pale,' she whispered. ‘But then he has lost so much blood. If we had only found him sooner.'

Fernando privately considered that Terry was lucky to be found alive. He squeezed Claire's hand consolingly and at once she turned to him and said earnestly, ‘I would gladly have given my blood but Nurse Lewis refused to take it from me.'

Fernando was puzzled. ‘But why? I do not understand.'

‘She knows I'm expecting a baby.'

‘¡Caramba
!'

The strength of Fernando's reaction was lost on Claire as she recounted her own fears and feelings on Terry's behalf. She had not thought before she spoke, and, even now, she was hardly aware of what she was saying.

Fernando stared at her passionately working mouth and brimming eyes and, his earlier shock subsiding, he was struck by what a divinely beautiful girl she was, so vital and caring. He was filled with a chivalrous longing to take care of her. Her pregnancy startled but did not dismay him, living as he did in a country with a high birth-rate outside of marriage. He imagined it was a youthful mistake, something like the situation he had found himself in while still at university when he had become casually involved with a young student and she had borne his child. He hoped that Claire might turn to him in her need. If he could only inspire in her an emotion that was even half as strong as his love for her, he would be satisfied.

For the next few days Claire was too concerned about Terry and Sheena to be able to concentrate on anything else. She spent all her time at the hospital. Antonio proposed to keep Ruthie with them until Jane arrived at the end of the week.

‘I fear Stella is becoming a trifle heavy with so much chocolate,' Fernando opined dryly, ‘but otherwise the love affair still flourishes.'

Claire smiled, more than glad that Ruthie was in such good care. Fernando offered to pick her up each day and drive her to the hospital, though she feared she was too distracted by her own worries to be much company. Fernando, however, bore Claire's preoccupation stoically and never referred to what she had told him as they sat by Terry's bedside, although she suspected it was very much on his mind.

One afternoon Fernando picked up Claire earlier than usual. When he had parked before the hospital and cut the engine, he drew a sharp breath as though about to say something of importance, then dried up again as his courage failed him.

‘What is it, Fernando?' Claire asked, resigned to having it out.