He argued for a while, and she knew why, it was because he felt it was something he could do: rather than just watch and wait. He even asked the doctor – quite politely – if he was sure, if there might be some mistake, some treatment the baby could be given. And the doctor, charmingly and patiently courteous, said that there was no mistake, that there was no treatment.
They resumed their vigil, watching Baby Charles and his helpless, feeble movements.
He died twelve hours later. It was a haemorrhage into his brain, they said, a very big one, he couldn’t have survived it. And nor would they have wanted him to, they were told, he would have been helpless, a baby for ever.
‘I would though,’ said Eliza, tears streaming down her face, ‘I would have looked after him, I would have loved to, don’t say we wouldn’t have wanted it.’
They let them hold him, once they knew it was hopeless. The nurse wrapped him tenderly, so tenderly, in a shawl and handed him to Eliza; she sat staring down at his tiny face, peaceful now, feeling his warmth, feeling him alive. She lifted him, kissed his head, stroked his cheeks, took the tiny frond-like hand that she had held so often now, and kissed that too.
‘It can’t be true,’ she said to Matt, ‘he can’t be dying, he feels – feels like a baby, an all-right baby.’
He said nothing, staring at the baby in silent shock.
‘Take him, hold him.’
‘No. No, I can’t.’
‘Matt, you must. It’s important.’
‘I’m so afraid of hurting him.’
‘You won’t. You really won’t.’
He took it, the tiny creature in his blue blanket – how sweet, Eliza thought, that they had even found that for him, the right-coloured blanket – and sat cradling it. A tear splashed down on the peaceful little face, and then another: Matt’s tears. ‘Sorry, son,’ he said and wiped them tenderly away. Eliza slid her hand into his and rested her head on his shoulder, gazing at the baby. Time passed, but they had no idea how much of it. They only wanted to be with their baby, sharing what was left of his life.
He left them with a small turn of his head towards Eliza, who was holding him once more, and a soft, long sigh; and then they realised with something that was shock in spite of everything, that all his movements had stopped, and the faint strength they had still felt in him, was over.
The staff were wonderfully kind and gentle, said they could stay and be with him for as long as they liked; for a while it seemed the right thing to do, but then slowly it felt wrong. Matt went to find a nurse and she came back, stood very still for a while, and then said softly, ‘Shall I take him now?’
‘No,’ said Eliza, suddenly fierce, holding the baby closer to her, ‘no, don’t take him, not yet.’
‘I won’t.’
The nurse went again, and the scene was repeated twice before they could bear it; before slowly, falteringly, Eliza felt able to pass the baby over. It was a dreadful moment, when finally he left her arms; when she stood staring at him, his tiny face dully still now, quite different – and she realised how truly alive he had been, a real baby, her baby, their baby, taken from them so cruelly and so wrongly: a piece of true and awful injustice that anything so perfect, so ready for life, could actually be dead.
‘Stop,’ Eliza said, as the nurse turned away with the baby, ‘wait—’ and then, as she turned back, ‘let me say goodbye just once more.’
She did not take him, then, but bent over him, kissed his head for one last time and then he was gone, gone from the room, gone from their lives and from his, taking all that he had promised with him.
They held a funeral for him in Wellesley village church. It seemed important, made him important, a real person who had lived, however briefly.
They laid him in a small white coffin, with a spray of white roses on it, and put inside it a letter Eliza had written to him, telling him how much she loved him and how she would never forget him or his short, important life.
Matt, white-faced but dry-eyed, carried the coffin alone into the church, Eliza walking beside him, and they stood holding hands, through the short, painfully sweet service. There was only the family there, Scarlett, fighting back tears, Sandra and Pete, Sarah, and Charles who said he was so proud that the baby had been given his name. It was felt to be too much for Emmie to cope with; she was left with one of Eliza’s friends.
They sang no hymns, but the organist played very beautifully and at the end, Eliza read the lovely Gaelic blessing, that felt so appropriate:
‘May the road rise gently at your feet.
May the sun shine warmly on your face.
May the wind be always on your back.
May the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.’
How she got through it she never afterwards knew and she broke down once, but for the rest of the time her voice remained strong and steady and as Matt picked up the coffin again at the end of the service, she bent her head over it and kissed it and even smiled as she said, ‘Goodbye, little one.’
And then she could be brave no longer and ran ahead of Matt out of the church through the graveyard, and was found by Charles, leaning on a tree, literally gasping with pain, and looking with huge trepidation at the thought of the rest of her life.
It wasn’t what she wanted. In fact it was pretty well the opposite. But having done ten presentations in ten virtually identical boardrooms to ten groups of stony-faced and/or patronising board members, she felt she had no choice. At least he knew her, knew her track record, and had some respect for her abilities. Just the same it was potentially pretty humiliating.
She called him in his office and invited him to lunch. After a lot of predictable innuendo, about how she must be very busy shopping these days, he said he was free the following Monday, ‘but it’ll have to be fairly quick, very busy at the moment and where did you have in mind?’ The slightly stunned pause – albeit brief – when she said briskly ‘the Savoy Grill’, was worth enduring every one of the innuendoes.
‘You girls really do get everywhere these days, don’t you?’ he said finally.
‘And further every day. Twelve forty-five all right? I’d say one, but I’ve got a three o’clock myself.’
Round one to you, Louise, she said to herself, putting the phone down.
She was waiting for him when he got there. Because she ate there on a regular basis with her journalist friend Johnny Barrett and he gave it lots of good publicity, the maître d’ knew and liked her and had agreed to give her one of the best tables. She had attracted a lot of attention as she walked across the room; she was wearing a black trouser suit, a white ruffled shirt and very high heels; the four men at the next table were patently intrigued by her and who her companion might be. Probably expecting some kind of sugar daddy, she supposed.
She whiled away the ten minutes Roderick made her wait studying the city pages of the
Evening Standard
, and managed to appear so engrossed that the waiter who had brought him over gave a small cough and said, ‘Your guest has arrived, Miss Mullan.’
‘Oh,’ she said, standing up, ‘sorry, Roderick, just keeping up with the markets, you know.’ She offered him her cheek. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine thanks,’ he said. And then, eyeing her up and down, ‘You look very nice.’
‘Thank you. Your usual?’ and then as he nodded, ‘Gin and tonic,’ she said to the hovering waiter, ‘large. And a Virgin Mary for me, please.’
‘What the hell’s a Virgin Mary?’ he asked, sitting down.
‘I’m surprised you don’t know. I discovered it in New York.’ She had never actually been to New York but he couldn’t possibly know that. ‘It’s tomato juice without the vodka. Keeps the head clear. Now let’s order straight away shall we, and then we can concentrate.’
He ordered pâté and then ‘beef from the trolley’, she asked for a tomato salad and a steak au poivre. ‘Rare. And then, Roderick, you can order the wine if you like, but the 1952 Château Cheval Blanc, it’s a St Émilion’ (she’d got this from Johnny Barrett) ‘is amazing.’
‘Right,’ he said, a certain respect in his eyes she hadn’t really seen before, ‘but I’ll take a look for myself if you don’t mind.’ He started thumbing through the leather-bound encyclopaedia the Grill presented as its wine list, and said, ‘So what are you doing with yourself these days? Must be odd to be unemployed. Or are you enjoying it?’
‘I wouldn’t be,’ she said briskly, ‘if I was. But I’m not.’
‘Oh, really? You and Matt kissed and made up, have you? I thought you would, sooner or later.’
‘Matt and I have not made up, as you put it,’ said Louise, ‘and are most unlikely to do so ever again. There are however other ways of working in our business than as an undervalued partner.’
‘Of course. So – are you looking for a job, Louise, is that it?’
There was an expression in his eyes she couldn’t quite analyse; but it wasn’t hostile or dismissive. That had to be something.
‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I’m not. Oh, look, here’s the sommelier back. What are you going to order?’
‘Well – let’s see.’ He flicked over a couple of pages then said, ‘Tell me, would you recommend the Cheval Blanc ’52?’
‘An excellent choice, sir, if I may say so.’
‘Right. Well, in that case, let’s have it. I presume it’s
chambré
, all that sort of thing?’
‘Of course, sir. I do assure you you’ll enjoy it very much. But no doubt you’re familiar with it? It’s a favourite with many of our more, shall we say, discerning clientele.’
God, thought Louise, I’ll throw up in a minute.
‘Right, we’ll go for that then.’
The sommelier gave a small bow, took the list. ‘I’ll have it brought to the table, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ The first course had arrived; Roderick gave Louise a very slightly shamefaced grin. She met his eyes rather coolly.
‘I’m glad we’ve made a good choice of wine,’ was all she said, and then: ‘So have you seen Matt? Since – the – well, since the baby died.’
‘I have, yes,’ he said, and added, surprising her, ‘Poor bugger. Awful thing to happen. He was very cut up about it.’
‘I see Scarlett from time to time, his sister, you know, she’s a friend of mine. She says Eliza has been in a really bad way, not sleeping. Spending a lot of time in the country with her mother. Well, at weekends anyway.’
‘Ah, at Matt’s famous pile.’
‘I don’t think it’s exactly Matt’s,’ said Louise, ‘it’s part of Eliza’s family trust. As I understand it.’
‘Yeah, yeah, but we all know it was Matt’s money saved it, OK? And what Matt pays for, Matt’s bought.’
‘I suppose so. Oh, now look, here’s the trolley so let’s just – oh, and the wine.’
There was a lot of fussing, of choosing meat near the bone, of sniffing and tasting; finally, Louise said, ‘Right. Let’s get down to business. I know you haven’t got long and neither have I.’
‘I thought you didn’t want a job,’ said Roderick slowly.
‘I don’t want a job. I want some backing for a project.’
‘You want backing! From me? I suppose you think I’m some kind of a soft touch. Louise, you should get into the real world, girl. Go and talk to an investment bank, they’re the ones with the money.’
‘I did. They all turned me down.’
‘Yeah? They obviously thought it wasn’t a good enough proposition.’
‘No, they thought I was a woman.’
‘Uh-huh. Well, fair enough. You can’t argue with that.’
‘I know. But I thought they’d have the nous to see beyond it.’
‘Clearly not.’
There was a silence; then Louise said, ‘Don’t you even want to know what my project is?’
‘Well – OK. Don’t want to appear rude. Seeing as the lunch is on you. On you go then … But I’m telling you, Louise, I don’t have any money available for investment. Everything I’ve got goes straight back into the company.’
‘OK. You’ve made that pretty clear. Anyway – it’s hotels.’
‘Hotels!’
‘Yes. The industry is absolutely booming, growing by the day. London’s full of tourists. Has been ever since the Swinging London thing. And there aren’t enough hotels. It’s simple. The American market alone is massive, I was talking to Scarlett about it the other day, they flock here in thousands. Her clientele is the boutique end, but she sees the frustration of people trying to find places to stay. And how far out they have to go to find anywhere. All income levels too, I’ve got some figures if you’re interested …’
She reached for her briefcase and the folder she’d prepared for him, a full set of statistics, the number of hotels in London, the number of tourists visting annually, the consequent potential, expressed in investment terms, and a list of possible sites. She put it on the table; he didn’t pick it up, but he was silent. That was good. She had his interest. She could tell.
‘The thing is we need to act fast. There’s such pressure on sites. It’s going to get more difficult, with these bloody conservationists getting a hold. I mean Covent Garden, what a fantastic place for a hotel that would be. But I heard all those trendies who live and work around there, actors and artists and so on, are preparing a campaign to save it – God knows what for. Something pretty useless, I expect. And of course the thing about hotels is you can build up and up. It’s a big plus; you’re offering people views over the city. Look at the Hilton in Park Lane. Something like four hundred and fifty rooms, twenty-eight storeys. How’s that for plot ratio? So pressure on space is less of a problem.’