Sins (59 page)

Polly felt curiously light-headed. How extraordinary that it should be Emerald, of all people, who should have come up with such an innovative and exciting idea. What Emerald had suggested had so many possibilities, so many potential challenges, so much about it that was unexpectedly close to her heart.

‘And before you say that you can’t check out St Martins students from St Ives, Cathy, what is there to stop you and Sim spending some of your time in London, and opening a gallery there as well?’

‘I don’t want a London gallery.’

‘Maybe you don’t, but what about Sim?’

Emerald had touched on a nerve. Sim was a wonderfully creative sculptor; he deserved and needed a wider audience for his work, Cathy knew that.

‘You could send both the girls to St Paul’s–I’m sure they’re clever enough–and you could even display some of your work in the Walton Street shop until we find the right place for a gallery, and as a family you could stay in the Chelsea house when you are in London.’

She had been outmartialled and outmanoeuvred by an expert, Cathy recognised. But she wasn’t going to give in just like that; that wasn’t her way.

‘You’re doing a lot of talking about what we should be doing, Emerald, but what exactly are you planning to do personally to help the business, apart from telling us what to do, of course?’

‘I shall be using my address book to drum up new clients for the Walton Street business. As a starting point I shall offer two or three of London’s top charity organisers an auction prize for their next charity ball of a room makeover by Walton Street.’

Cathy gave a protesting gasp. ‘But that will cost thousands.’

‘And as an investment will bring in a hundred times more than it costs,’ Emerald blocked her protest crisply.

‘Emerald’s right,’ Janey felt obliged to agree–and not
because of the money Emerald had promised her. Janey could remember the demand she herself had created for her clothes all those years ago when favoured friends had worn them. She gave a small sad sigh. ‘It all sounds wonderfully exciting. I feel quite envious,’ she admitted.

‘You will have your role to play as well, Janey,’ Emerald assured her. ‘I’m hoping that Rose will agree to take on the role of interior designer, but she’ll need help, and I think the two of you could work really well together.’

‘I can’t leave Pete,’ Rose reiterated.

Emerald looked away from her and down at the floor, and Rose knew what she was thinking: that one day Pete was going to die and leave her.

‘But how do you know that Mummy will want us to do any of this?’ Polly asked. ‘We could be taking something from her that she doesn’t want to give up.’

This time it was Drogo who spoke up. ‘For what it’s worth, my guess is that Jay will pull through this but Amber won’t want to leave him to travel up and down to London, Emerald is right about that. I believe, like Emerald, that Amber will be grateful to you all for taking over for her.’

‘So it’s down to you, Rose,’ Emerald said challengingly. ‘Will you do it?’

Rose wanted to refuse, she wanted to remind them of what Cathy had been saying about her only a short time ago, but most of all she wanted to let the bitterness and all the hurt of rejection and abandonment she had bottled up over the years spill out in front of them as she told them exactly why she was refusing.

Only somehow she couldn’t. Somehow, instead, she
was nodding her head, giving in, as she had always given in, being weak as she had always been weak, and despising herself for it.

Amber felt the now familiar rush of air that meant that someone was approaching Jay’s bed, but she didn’t lift her gaze from her husband’s face to see who it was. Every second was too precious for a single one of them to be wasted.

It took the sister’s determined, ‘Mr Stanhope wishes to speak to you,’ to drag Amber’s attention away from Jay to look at the consultant.

‘I won’t leave Jay,’ she told him immediately.

A square-looking man in his fifties with a bald head and a steady gaze, dressed in a crisp white shirt, a bow tie and a pin-striped suit, he smiled at her.

‘Your family are in the waiting room. I’ve promised to talk to them.’

‘Have you got the results of the tests yet?’ Amber asked him, ignoring his hint that it would be easier if he talked to them all at the same time.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’ Amber pressed, adding determinedly, ‘You’ll have to tell me here because I won’t leave Jay.’

The consultant looked at the sister, who pulled up a spare chair for him so that he could sit down.

‘Drogo, do go and see if you can find out what’s happening,’ Emerald urged her husband. ‘The consultant was supposed to be here ages ago.’

‘Do you think that Daddy knew about his heart?’ Janey couldn’t stop herself from asking after Drogo had gone.

It was a question none of them could answer, but their growing tension was reflected in the way they all reacted when the waiting-room door opened several minutes later, heralding Drogo’s return.

‘The consultant’s with Amber, and he’ll be coming to speak to us in a few minutes.’

‘He’s with Mother?’

‘Is that a good idea?’

‘What if it’s bad news?’

‘She shouldn’t be seeing him on her own.’

Before Drogo could answer them the door opened again and this time it was the consultant.

The introductions had been made and tea had been brought, Emerald once again forced to hold back her nausea the minute she smelled the strong brew, and now
they were all sitting waiting to hear what the consultant had to say.

Janey was sitting on the edge of her chair with her hands underneath her so that she could resist her old childhood habit of nibbling at her nails, whilst Rose was sitting next to her, so white-faced with tension that she looked as though she was wearing rice powder. Polly and Cathy had drawn their chairs closer together, whilst Robbie was sitting between Emerald and Drogo, Emerald holding his hand and Drogo placing a supporting arm around the back of his chair.

‘As you all know, Jay has had a heart attack.’

‘But how serious is it?’

‘Will he have another?’

‘He is going to get better, isn’t he?’

‘How is Mummy?’

The consultant nodded in acknowledgement of all their questions.

‘To answer your last question first, Amber is being incredibly brave and strong, and she is insisting on remaining here at the hospital with Jay. I have told her that I will only allow that if she agrees to take some rest herself. A private room will be put at her disposal for that purpose. It is the least we can do since your parents have been so generous in their fund-raising for the hospital.’

‘And Jay himself?’ Drogo asked.

The consultant frowned. ‘The tests show that the attack was severe. However, we can be reasonably optimistic that as there hasn’t been a second attack, his condition has now stabilised.’

‘Does that mean that he’s going to live?’ Janey asked shakily.

‘Hopefully, but from now on, as I have already told Amber, he will have to be careful not to do anything that might provoke a second attack.’

‘But surely there are operations,’ Cathy began. ‘I’ve read about people having whole heart transplants.’

‘Yes, that’s true, but that kind of operation is not appropriate in your father’s case. There are new treatments for his condition being undertaken in South Africa and America, but it is too soon as yet in my opinion to know how successful these are in the long term. However, with care and if he lives relatively quietly from now on, with modern drugs there is no reason to suppose that he will not live out his normal life span.’

The consultant could see their relief and, indeed, almost feel it in the air of buoyancy and delight that was filling the room.

‘There is still some way to go before we can pronounce him fully out of danger,’ he warned them, ‘but I have every confidence in your mother’s ability to ensure that everything that needs to be done to aid his recovery and his future health will be done.’

The consultant had gone, there had been tears and smiles, shared hugs and emotional laughter between the three who were Jay’s daughters, whilst Rose and Emerald stood slightly to one side.

Janey had offered all those who wanted one a bed at Fitton, but Emerald had said that they should go back to Denham instead because there would be things
to do there to prepare for her mother and Jay’s eventual return.

The others, including Rose, had agreed that they would take on the responsibility for the Walton Street shop, and now Emerald acknowledged she felt very tired and was longing for a hot bath.

There was something, though, that she still had to do. Something important. A debt that had to be repaid and that belonged to the memory of a busy A&E department and the way she had felt when Rose had been there for her.

‘The consultant told Drogo that Mummy asked if Rose was here.’

Rose could feel the colour burning up under her skin.

‘I think that one of us should stay and that it should be you, Rose. You always were her favourite.’

‘No. I wasn’t, I—’

‘Yes you were. She as good as admitted it to me years ago, when she told me that she felt that the two of you shared a special bond.’

There was nothing Rose could say or do now, other than simply give in.

‘Do we know yet whether or not Ella is coming?’ Janey asked.

Drogo shook his head.

Looking at her siblings, Emerald recognised that she no longer felt like an outsider amongst them. Without it being planned or worked for, finally she had what as a child she had longed for so fiercely and rejected even more fiercely–acceptance.

In the intensive care unit Amber smiled shakily through her tears of relief and gratitude.

‘Thank you for not leaving me,’ she whispered to Jay, and she was sure that the small twitch of his lips meant that he had heard her and that he was smiling at her.

Now with the crisis over she was able to think about its effect on their shared family. Sister had told her about their arrival and their anxiety. Was Rose here? Her heart jumped with pain. She had never stopped wondering what it was that had caused Rose to become so distant towards her, and never stopped grieving for the bond that had been lost, either.

She could still see Rose now as the tiny sick baby she had been when she had first seen her and had felt those unmistakable pangs of maternal protective love for her. That love had grown with Rose–the niece who, in her heart, Amber had always thought of as a daughter.

Drogo waited until no one else could overhear them to ask Emerald, on the way to the car, ‘What was all that about the consultant saying that your mother had asked for Rose?’

‘It’s about mending fences, healing rifts and paying debts,’ Emerald told him, grimacing as she added, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me today, Drogo, but I’ve felt dreadfully sick every time I’ve looked at a cup of tea, and now all I want to do is go to sleep, when I should be too worried about what’s going on to even think of sleeping. The last time I remember feeling like this was—’ Abruptly Emerald stopped speaking at exactly the same moment as Drogo stopped walking and turned towards her.

‘When you were first pregnant with Emma,’ he finished for her.

‘I can’t be. I mean, we haven’t even been trying, and…oh, Drogo!’

She was in his arms, trembling, as he held her close.

‘I daren’t even hope that I might be in case I’m not,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, if I was pregnant now, after all this time, it would almost be a miracle. Oh, Drogo…’

Ella was exhausted and frantic with anxiety and misery. Her flight had been diverted to Charles de Gaulle because of some problem with one of the engines, instead of landing at Heathrow, and then she had had to wait for a connecting flight to Manchester.

The plane had landed in the darkness of the early February evening in an icy wind laden with a wet sleet that was somehow far colder and wetter than even the worst of New York’s winter snowfalls, and certainly far worse than the crisp stinging cold of the skiing season in Vermont.

Her antagonism towards weather that she felt was being deliberately inhospitable made her sharply aware of how Americanised she had become and how alien her own country now felt.

Manchester wasn’t home any more; it was simply a cold damp place, the airport staffed by people whose accents, striking an unfamiliar note, jarred on her nerves.

She still had to get to the hospital. What would she find there? What if her father had had another attack? What if he wasn’t…but no, she must not think like that.

She had travelled light, with a small case as hand luggage, so there was nothing to stop her going straight through Customs and heading for the arrivals area. The long line of people several deep, straining against the barrier, waiting for those coming off the newly landed planes took her by surprise, and then had her hopefully scanning their faces, hoping she might see one that was familiar. But when she did see two familiar faces she stopped dead in her tracks in disbelief.

Oliver and Olivia. How was it possible for them to be here?

She must have asked the question, she knew, but if he had heard it Oliver wasn’t answering it. Instead he was taking her case from her, the warm gust of his breath against her face as he did so filled with the familiar smell of his favourite menthol chewing gum.

‘Mummy, we beat you to it.’

That was Olivia, dancing up and down as she beamed at her.

‘My plane was diverted.’

‘Yes, I know.’

That was Oliver, his voice grim and his face shuttered.

Ella grabbed hold of his arm. ‘What are you doing here and why have you brought Olivia?’

‘Why do you think? I’m your husband and Jay is her grandfather. Where else should we be? I might not be able to stop you from shutting me out, Ella–after all, I learned years ago how ashamed of me you are, the working-class photographer husband you never really wanted to marry–but I’m damned if I’m going to let you shut out Olivia. She has a right to be here. She’s just
as much a part of your family as you are. The same blood runs in her veins as runs in yours–your sisters are her aunts, their kids are her cousins. You might not like that, you might prefer to pretend that she and I don’t exist because you’d have rather had someone like Brad father your kids, but he didn’t and I did, and I’m not having my daughter excluded from her family because her mother’s a snob who can’t bear her family knowing the man she married.’ He gave her a bitter look. ‘What exactly is it you think I’m going to do–eat peas off my knife? Or is the fact that I am what I am enough to make you ashamed of me, without me having to do anything to prove my unworthiness?’