Authors: Stella Whitelaw
‘Would you allow me to do the weekly shopping order from Avocado? That’s not the proper name, is it? Mrs Harris couldn’t remember what it was.’ Jessica hoped this was not too pushy but Lucas nodded in agreement.
‘Please order what you think fit. It’s a Brighton firm. You’ll see the link on the computer under Favourites. My card is
registered
with them. It will pay for anything. Order crates of apples, grapes and oranges. Whatever you like.’
The good wine was making her feel warm and mellow. She tried not to look at Lucas in case her thought processes stopped working. She was looking forward to sleeping in that pretty
primrose bedroom, her body now aching with tiredness. But first she would have to see Lady Grace to bed, and that would be another battle.
Jessica wanted to know where the children’s mother was in all this, but it was obvious that Lucas had no wish to give her that information. He said nothing about their mother. They talked about the garden and cars and other mundane matters, never touching on anything personal.
‘My mother has made a complaint,’ Lucas said eventually, helping himself from the cheeseboard while stabbing at an olive. ‘Complaint number one.’
‘So what’s new?’ Jessica sighed. ‘I’m sure she complains about everything.’
‘You went into her handbag without permission.’
‘Oh, my God. She was crunched up with pain and then complains when I try to find her prescription painkillers. I don’t believe it.’ Jessica was astounded.
‘Apparently she considers that an invasion of her privacy.’
‘Like she might have a packet of condoms in there or a stash of ecstasy?’
‘Hold on, easy, easy there. I know she is difficult, but I would be grateful if you could try to remember that she is an old fashioned lady in many ways. Her handbag is a fortress of privacy. No one is allowed to look in it.’
Jessica took a deep breath, worried she might tremble with indignation. ‘I will try to remember in future. Her tablets will be where I put them.’
‘Thank you.’
Lucas made fresh coffee for them and brought it through from the kitchen. He was not the usual helpless male. He could make good coffee. Perhaps he had been on his own for a long time, somewhere else.
‘I’ve brought in the walking frame and given it an
antiseptic
wipe down. No hospital germs. I know how important it is that my mother doesn’t pick up any infection. The early days are tricky ones,’ he said.
‘I wish your mother would understand that. You could speak to her. She doesn’t seem to want to know that exercise is vital. The stronger she gets, the less pain she will be in. It can’t be that she enjoys being in pain.’
‘I think in a strange way she enjoys the attention,’ said Lucas, stirring a black coffee. ‘She hasn’t got much else left in life to enjoy, poor soul.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ said Jessica briskly. ‘She has lots to enjoy. The Sussex coast, theatres, having friends in, walking,
swimming
. You said she liked playing cards. Swimming is excellent for hip replacements because the water is a support.’
Lucas looked appalled. ‘You’d never get my mother to go swimming. It would be equal to a total eclipse of the moon.’
‘You’d be surprised what I can get people to do. And it would be good for Daniel and Lily too. Daniel would find a kind of freedom in the water, freedom to be himself, not having to talk to the water. And the exercise would help our tubby little girl immensely, especially if I buy her a very pretty swimsuit.’
Lucas sat back, laughing, those silvery eyes twinkling for once. ‘Well, I wish you luck. How about a wager? I’ll take you out to dinner at the Grand Hotel in Brighton if you get my mother into a pool. Champagne if you get her to swim more than three strokes. A length would be an impossibility.’
‘Done,’ said Jessica. ‘Tell them to put the champagne on ice.’
A small sharp ringing sound broke into the moment of equality. Lucas took his mobile out of his pocket and answered the call.
‘Yes? OK, I’ll come right away. You could take all the necessary pre-op scans and X-rays for me to look at. Sedate him lightly in preparation. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.’
Lucas switched off and got up abruptly, leaving his half drunk coffee. He lifted his hand in a half gesture of farewell.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Work calls. Motorbike RTA. Nasty one. I’ll leave everyone here in your good hands. Enjoy your evening.’
Jessica sat back in total shock. The professional jargon was not put on. Lucas had already forgotten she was even there. She
heard the front door close and then the low throb of his
powerful
Porsche Boxster pulling away out of the drive.
She did not understand what was going on. He’d said nothing about himself or any commitment anywhere. Was she supposed to make guesses?
She got up and took the coffee cups out into the kitchen. Mrs Harris was ready to leave with her coat and hat on, prepared to cycle home. She took the tray from Jessica.
‘Don’t worry, miss. I’ll clear up in the morning.’
‘I can put these in the dishwasher and food in the refrigerator. Mr Coleman has had to hurry off somewhere.’
‘He’s not just Mr Coleman,’ said Mrs Harris, shaking her head. ‘It’s Dr Coleman. Didn’t you know that? He works at that famous hospital in East Grinstead, the Queen Victoria, where the burnt pilots were taken in the war. He’s a plastic surgeon: then he’s called Mr Coleman. He puts faces back together again.’
Jessica listened in silence, hating herself.
‘A plastic surgeon? I didn’t know that,’ said Jessica weakly. She remembered how she had thought he was a playboy, being kept by his mother, running errands for her. No wonder he had little time for his children.
Suddenly another name came into her head. She had heard it somewhere before. Sir Bernard Coleman was a famous surgeon. He must have been the husband of Grace and father of Lucas. It made her cringe, the way she had been making waves and saying she wanted this and wanted that, proper time off. Lucas had not said a word, quietly keeping his peace, letting her rant on.
About twenty minutes, he’d said. She hoped there weren’t any speed cameras on the roads. It would surely take longer than that.
‘Don’t you worry, miss. He may not come back tonight so I’ll leave you to lock up. I’ll give you the code for the alarm. He has a room at the hospital where he can doss down for a sleep. See you in the morning.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Harris. It was a lovely supper.’
Jessica was all alone in the big house except for a grumpy patient upstairs and two sleeping children. Jessica cleared the dining room and stacked the dishwasher. Then she made some hot milk to take up to Lady Grace. She braced herself for the battle ahead. Whatever happened she was going to make sure she won.
It was late before Jessica had Lady Grace safely in bed, clean and comfortable. Lady Grace had objected to the pillow between her knees but Jessica explained that it was to prevent her crossing over a leg in bed and rotating the new hip.
‘Didn’t they strap a foam pillow to your knees when you were in hospital? They call them knee immobilizers, to stop you bending the hip. A pillow is for the same purpose. It’s not forever. Only till your new hip is stable.’
‘I don’t need a pillow. I won’t cross my legs,’ said Lady Grace, exasperated.
‘You don’t know what you might do in your sleep,’ said Jessica.
‘I shan’t sleep a wink,’ she decided.
‘I’ll leave the bedside light on, in case you want to read. And here are your spectacles.’ Jessica put them where Lady Grace could reach them.
‘I don’t know where my book is. I can’t find it.’
‘I expect it’s the one on the floor beside your chair. This one.’
‘I don’t like that one. It’s very stupid and badly written.’
‘When the mobile library calls at West Eastly, I’ll get some new books for you. Tell me what you like to read and your favourite authors. Tomorrow you are going to start walking for real. And exercising. Straight leg raising is a good one.’
Lady Grace didn’t answer. She closed her eyes with a pained expression. Jessica decided she was being dismissed and left the stuffy bedroom with relief. Tomorrow she would open some windows. Another battle ahead.
Jessica locked the house, discovering so many unexpected doors, it took ages. The alarm was simple to set. If Lucas
returned, he could get to his room over the stables without coming into the main house. Then she checked on the children again. All was well.
Her primrose bedroom was a refuge of peace and privacy. She was exhausted physically and emotionally. She slumped onto the sofa and stretched out her aching legs. She flexed her muscles to ease the cramp. She could fall asleep right now, but she knew she would wake in the early hours, stiff and uncomfortable.
Instead she wallowed in a bath of really warm water, letting the heat take out the ache. Geranium bath oil filled the air with its fragrance. Again she fought off waves of sleep. She didn’t want to wake up in a cold bath, all wrinkled like a dried prune. Time to pull the plug and hope the noise didn’t disturb Lady Grace.
Jessica dried off and wafting talc around, wrapped herself in a big towel. She had only brought her usual pretty silk night garments, not warm enough for the wilds of the country. But the bed was comfortable and in no time, her own body heat had warmed it. She fell asleep almost immediately, lulled by the
quietness
. Where was the traffic, the buses, the sirens, the nightly concert of London street noise?
Had she been washed onto some desert island and was the only person living there in a bamboo hut, the wavelets of sea a watery lullaby? Her dreams had no answer. Her dream was a sunburst of happiness. She smiled in her sleep.
She was awoken by a sudden heavy lump landing on her stomach. She was awake instantly, visualizing some disaster, ceiling falling down, plane crash, satellite plunging from the sky.
‘Willdo! Willdo! Wake up, it’s morning. You said you would still be here.’
It was Lily, jumping up and down on the bed with wild abandon, her pyjamas half undone. Her face was bright with excitement.
‘So I am still here,’ said Jessica sleepily. ‘I said I would be.’
‘But you are not up. You are in bed. We want you up.’
‘I might be able to get up if I didn’t have an elephant sitting on my stomach.’
Lily fell about giggling on the bed and Jessica struggled to sit up. Her peach silk nightie was half off her shoulders. She ran a hand through her flattened hair.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lily. ‘I can’t tell the time.’
Jessica felt about on the bedside table in the dim light for her watch. She could not believe her eyes. At first she thought that the hands had got stuck on their circuit. The hands were luminous and bright.
‘It’s only six o’clock in the morning, you imp,’ she said. ‘I’m not getting up this early. Dawn is for the birds.’
‘But, Willdo, we want you to get up.’
‘Well, Willdo won’t.’ This was a little too complicated for Lily to understand and she continued to pound the bed with her feet and her hands, singing to herself. Jessica lifted the side of the duvet so the little girl could climb in. ‘You can stay for a while if you promise to go back to sleep for one hour.’
‘I promise.’
Lily climbed in and snuggled up. ‘Tell me another story about that poor lost baby mole.’
‘No,’ said Jessica, closing her eyes. ‘I said, go back to sleep.’
The door to the yellow bedroom was still open. Jessica was aware that someone had come in. She could barely force her eyes open even if it was an intruder. She sort of recognized the tall dark figure in wet clothes.
‘I do apologize,’ said Lucas, hesitantly. ‘I was checking on the children and heard this rumpus. It sounded like a herd of elephants.’
‘It was one elephant.’
His eyes roved over her bare shoulder and the peachy silk barely covering her softly rising breasts. Jessica crossed her free arm over the bare skin, wishing he had not seen her so exposed. She couldn’t handle the yearning emotion.
‘Lily can’t tell the time,’ she explained.
‘I wish I had the same excuse,’ he said, his eyes sweeping over the empty space the other side of her. He looked very tired. He had not been to bed at all.
‘How is the motorbike rider?’
‘He doesn’t look like a young Brad Pitt any more. But he will live.’
‘You must be tired.’
‘I am. I’ve been up all night, working on the boy. You must know what it’s like. I’ll say goodnight or is it good morning? I’ve no idea.’
Jessica wanted to be near to him, touch him, tuck him up into bed. But of course, she couldn’t. There was a limit to her nursing duties. Nothing in her contract said that she had to put him to bed. ‘Do you know the way?’
‘North, I think.’
Lucas closed the door behind him. He stood for a moment outside on the landing, uncertain of what he should do. He knew what he longed to do, but it was too early, too soon. He would have to wait.
Jessica listened to his footsteps fading away. They sounded like a man so tired he had almost forgotten how to walk. There was nothing she could do. But she could make life at Upton Hall easier for him. That would not be too hard. As long as she kept her thoughts to herself.
Lily slept soundly beside her, breathing shallow. Where was the child’s mother? Why was she never mentioned? It was like a shadow in the room, a shadow with no shape.
Mrs Harris was cooking a full English breakfast, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and lashings of fried bread. Jessica cringed at the pans of food sizzling on the stove top. Lily and Daniel were already demolishing bowls of crunchy cereal.
‘Come and sit with me, Willdo,’ cried Lily, waving happily. She was proudly wearing her new navy and cream school uniform.
‘I’ll take your grandmother’s breakfast up first,’ said Jessica. ‘What does she usually like?’
‘A lightly boiled egg, bread and butter, coffee,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘The tray is all ready.’
The egg will be more than lightly boiled by the time I get upstairs, thought Jessica. It’ll be half cold and starting to congeal.
Jessica was wearing slim indigo jeans this morning with a crisp white open-necked shirt. If she was going to be walking her ladyship, running around with Lily and hunting for Daniel, she needed to be in activity clothes. She took the tray quickly upstairs. She had already helped Lady Grace to wash and dress and now she was sitting regally in her armchair by the window.
‘You haven’t changed,’ she said. ‘I told you I don’t like jeans on my staff.’
‘I’m not on your staff,’ said Jessica. ‘I’m employed by your son, Dr Coleman. He has no objection to what I wear. I shall be running about all day.’
Lady Grace sniffed. ‘Bring the table over here and put the tray down. I don’t like my breakfast cold. Mrs Harris knows how I like my egg.’
‘You could have your breakfast downstairs in the dining room.’
‘Nonsense, I can’t do the stairs.’
‘Today you are going to walk along the landing and down the stairs to halfway where the stairs divide. There will be a chair for you to sit on and rest. Then you will come up the other stairs, along the landing again and back to your room. How does that sound? It’s not very far.’
‘It sounds ridiculous. This egg is cold.’
‘I’m not surprised. It was lightly boiled. You should know that a lightly boiled egg cools very quickly. Would you like something different? There’s a full English breakfast cooking on the stove. Would you like some scrambled egg?’
‘Leave me alone, you idiot girl. I can manage my breakfast by myself.’
Jessica returned to the kitchen in time to catch Mrs Harris piling up plates of fried food for Lily and Daniel. She took the plates aside.
‘That’s far too much food for a five year old and a seven year old,’ she said.
‘Lily always eats hers and Daniel leaves what he doesn’t want.’
‘Let’s see what they would really like,’ Jessica suggested. She went back to the children who were wondering what was happening. She sat down beside them.
‘There must be things you like and things that you don’t like,’ she began. ‘You don’t have to eat everything that is put in front of you. Tell me what you don’t like, Lily. Think about it carefully. I’d really like to know.’
Lily wrinkled up her nose. ‘I don’t like yucky mushrooms and hard meat.’
‘You mean the bacon?’
Lily nodded. ‘Ba-con.’
‘Well, I never,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘I never knew.’
‘And what about you, Daniel?’ said Jessica, turning to the boy. He was thrown. Jessica hadn’t given him anything he could repeat as an answer. She helped him out. ‘Do you like bacon? Mushrooms?’
He shook his head.
‘But you like eggs and fried bread?’
‘Fried bread,’ he breathed. The morning was new and young. He was not into speaking at all yet. He wanted peace and quiet. He wanted to be left alone.
‘There you are, Mrs Harris. They’ve told you what they like.’
‘Well, I never,’ said Mrs Harris again. ‘What about you, miss?’
‘I’ll have the same.’
‘And I’ll have everything that’s left over,’ said Lucas, striding into the kitchen, his eyes raking over her gently. ‘I’m famished. There’s nothing wrong with my appetite. Shall I join you?’
A few hours’ sleep and Lucas had recovered. This was the normal doctor/surgeon self-imposed sleep deprivation routine. He looked casual in ancient brown cords and a sweater that needed mending at the elbows. He still hadn’t put a comb through his hair. And it needed cutting.
Jessica had a wild, unreasoning elation that he had joined them in the kitchen for a family breakfast. He chatted away to the children, to Mrs Harris, to herself as if everything was normal. Jessica nearly forgot the time, mesmerized by his voice.
‘The school bus,’ she cried. ‘You’ve only got five minutes to get ready.’
‘But I haven’t had my toast and honey,’ Lily protested. She hustled them into their coats, checked their school bags, and then ran with them out onto the drive. Daniel was away like the wind but Lily was panting and wheezing. Jessica slowed down.
‘Have you got your inhaler?’
Lily looked vague as if she had never heard the word before. ‘I dunno.’
Jessica searched the schoolbag and found the inhaler at the
bottom. It felt light and empty. She checked the expiry date. She took Lily’s hand and started walking. ‘Now breathe with me slowly,’ she said. ‘In … and out. Again, in time with me, Lily, in … and out. Big slow breathes. That’s the way.’
By the time they reached the waiting bus, Lily’s breathing had settled. Jessica smiled at the driver. ‘Thank you for waiting,’ she said. ‘We had a little problem.’
‘Anything for you, miss,’ he grinned back.
‘Will you be here when we come home?’ Lily asked as she climbed the bus steps, looking back anxiously. ‘Willdo, please, will you be here?’
‘I’ll be here,’ said Jessica. ‘We’re going to play some games in the garden, remember? I’ve some new ones to show you.’
Lily smiled happily. ‘Games in the garden, Willdo? And you promise?’
Jessica waved the bus out of sight, unaware that Lucas was standing behind her, hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels.
‘Ah, the Jessica magic,’ he said lightly. ‘New games in the garden.’
Jessica started. She had not expected an audience. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘It’s keeping a promise.’
‘And do you always keep your promises?’
‘It depends on what they are,’ she said, as they began walking back to the house. He adjusted his step to match hers. ‘If it’s a promise that’s been forced out of me, then I should not hesitate to break it.’
‘And have you made a promise to Lady Grace?’
He was sharp. He knew that there was no way Lady Grace would do anything without a very large carrot. And Jessica had discovered a carrot.
‘I’ve promised to play cards with her this afternoon if she will walk a short distance with me this morning.’
‘Ah, cards. She’s an addict. Whist, bridge, poker. She’ll beat you.’
‘Winning isn’t important; it’s the playing that matters.’
Lucas’s arm went round her slim waist. It was casual,
unexpected
. ‘And what are you going to promise me, Willdo, if I am very good and walk with you and do everything that you say?’
Jessica was lost for words, reluctant to break the spell. She wished he had not begun this teasing. She could hear the
electricity
humming in the wires overhead, the wind rustling the trees, the faint engine of the school bus. But her heart was pounding even louder. She twisted herself out of his grasp.
‘Now that would be telling,’ she said, deliberately evasive.
He drew away, putting space between them. He began to pull at a loose thread in his sweater, seemingly unaware that it needed mending.
‘So what do you plan to do this morning?’
She was glad that the conversation had reverted to mundane things. ‘I have to unpack my things. Everything will be horribly creased. Then I want to check the children’s clothes and see if they have swimsuits. I could do this anytime. I’m really putting off the moment when I have to confront Lady Grace and get her walking.’
‘Do you need any help?’ He sounded genuinely concerned. ‘How about a whip or a gun? I think we’ve got an old airgun in an attic somewhere.’
She was immediately drawn to his easy banter. She could cope with this. It gave her time to look at the structure of his face and the imprint of Daniel echoed in the fine bones. She thought of the motorbike boy and shuddered. Accidents were always dreadful, but facial injuries could be devastating. She wondered what it would be like to look in the mirror and see a different face staring back.
‘Any medieval torture implements in the cellars?’ she asked.
‘I daresay I can find a few screws. My mother probably put them there.’
Jessica laughed and Lucas was fascinated by the change in her features when she laughed. Her smile was dimpled and delightful, her rosy lips enchanting, her teeth perfect. But it was the deep-blue eyes that drew him more than anything. They
sparkled like sapphires, like gems; priceless. How appalling if anything happened to these beautiful eyes. He could not replace them.
‘You will be careful when you drive, won’t you?’ he said without expression.
‘Of course, I’m always careful. It’s the other drivers who are careless and impatient. Especially those without any tax or insurance.’
‘Will you have time this morning for quick trial drive in the Austin, just to get used to it? I could come with you. Twenty minutes at the most. But I do have to go back to the hospital to check on my patient.’
Jessica did quick mental calculations, some part of her alarmed at being so close to him in the front of the small car. ‘Thanks. I think it’s mobile library day at the village. I could get Lady Grace some new books. And some for the children. Did you know that Daniel can’t read properly yet?’
‘He’s having special help at school. His writing is poor as well. It’s all over the place.’
‘I could do a little work with him, every evening, five minutes say. Nothing too arduous. Little and often, one to one, often works the best.’
‘Thank you. That might help. It’s an epidemic, you know. There never used to be so many autistic children. Daniel seemed to develop normally for the first eighteen to twenty-four months then he somehow lost his skill. It’s a regression in ability. Some autistic children never speak, but Daniel can if he wants to. He has a limited vocabulary.’
‘He repeats back what you’ve just said,’ said Jessica.
‘It’s called echolalia or parrot back. He either repeats back immediately or maybe hours or days later, completely out of context, in an unrelated situation. Sometimes he picks up a phrase from the television or an advert and says it over and over again. It’s very strange.’
Lucas’s strong features were fractured with anguish. This was his son, his first born, and he shuddered at the thought of
the boy’s future.
‘We know autism is on the rise. There’s no explanation. He hates noise, bright light, crowds. It makes him worse.’
‘Autistic children often have some talent in a totally different and unexpected direction. We’ve simply got to find what it is that Daniel can do,’ said Jessica, aware that Lucas’s pain was as raw as her own. ‘He will have some talent. We’ve got to find it. Perhaps his guardian angel will guide us.’
Only her pain was the emotion of being discarded ruthlessly, and in public, by the man she thought she had loved. The humiliation of it was still vivid in her mind. It would take years for the memory to heal. How innocent she had been that evening. Led to the slaughter. In an expensive red silk dress. A dress that she had later bundled up and thrown away.
Lucas’s strong fingers suddenly laced hers in a firm grip. ‘Thank you, Jessica. I think I’ve found Daniel’s angel.’
Jessica laughed again but this time most of her sparkle had gone.
‘Lily won’t think so when she finds that I have cut out cakes and jam at teatime. It’s apples and pears from now on. She’s consuming well over eighteen hundred calories a day at the moment. She’s becoming a plump little girl.’
‘She’ll grow out of it. I like Mrs Harris’s home-made cake.’
‘You can eat as much as you like. There’s not a superfluous ounce on you.’
Lucas grinned. ‘And how would you know, Miss Willdo? When have you seen any of my superfluous ounces?’
Jessica coloured. The words had come out without thinking. She turned away and hurried indoors. ‘Walkies time,’ she said, trying to cover her embarrassment.
‘Shall I bring a lead?’ Lucas asked from the foot of the stairs.
‘I need determination more than a lead.’
‘Call for help if my mother stabs you with a hatpin.’
It took over an hour to talk Lady Grace into taking the few steps out of her room and onto the landing. She complained all the
time of the pain, her stiffness, her back, her leg. Jessica gathered her patience and persuasive skill. It was exhausting.
Eventually with the aid of the walker, Lady Grace did manage to walk the length of the landing, peering into Lily’s bedroom. It was a bit untidy.
‘That child’s bedroom is a disgrace,’ she said. ‘Chaos.’
‘That’s why you need to be up and about,’ said Jessica. ‘To take charge of things again. The more exercise you take, the less pain there is.’
Lady Grace snorted. ‘You’re merely saying that. You’ve no proof.’
‘I’ll get you some proof.’
There would be a self-help book in the mobile library, Jessica felt sure. She would get one today.
The journey back was marginally faster as Lady Grace had seen her mid-morning coffee arrive. She sank back into her armchair by the window, pushing the walker away. Jessica sorted out the blood-thinning medication.
‘Don’t forget we’re playing cards this afternoon,’ said Lady Grace. ‘The cards are in the sitting room. I’ll tell you where they are kept.’
‘After you have done your straight leg exercises,’ Jessica said. ‘They are very boring but necessary. You could listen to music or watch television at the same time if you like. We could find some decent music on the radio.’
‘I don’t allow television in bedrooms. Not character building.’
It was going to be a busy day.
Jessica hurried down to the kitchen, hoping to catch Lucas before he went back to the Queen Victoria Hospital. But he had gone. His patient came first as was to be expected. She poured herself some coffee from the percolator and sipped the reviving caffeine gratefully.
‘I needed that,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’