“Thank you so m—” she said, and then her face distorted with pain as another contraction hit her.
“How often are these coming?” the nurse asked Catherine as they wheeled her in.
“Every three minutes.”
“Three! That’s pretty quick. When did she start?”
“Just now,” said Lucinda, “on Holborn Viaduct. But it seems to be happening quite quickly.” She smiled her radiant smile. “So aren’t I lucky? But I’d like to get the epidural going. Is Mr. Clark here?”
“Not yet. But he’s on his way.”
Nigel looked at them both hopefully. “Should I—should I go and park the car?”
“Yes,” said Catherine, “but then mind you come back. We need you.”
“Is he the husband?” said the nurse, looking after Nigel’s tall gangly figure.
“Yes. But he’s not—Oh God, here comes another. This is quite—Oh dear, oh Catherine—quite painful. Hold my hand, will you.”
“I’ll just go and check Lucinda’s all right,” said Blue. He had just had a third champagne cocktail; they were sitting in the bar of the Hotel George V in Paris, having had an extremely long and drunken lunch at the Crillon. They were all flushed, unsteady, slurred of speech, shaky of hand.
“Remember where the phone is?” asked Charlie.
“Course.”
They watched him weaving off.
“Silly old fool,” said Charlie affectionately. “I think one more of these all round and then—”
Blue reappeared wild-eyed. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “Now.”
Nigel and Catherine sat in the corridor outside Lucinda’s room at the hospital. A rather loud groan came from the room; followed by another.
“Oh God,” said Nigel. He grabbed Catherine’s hand. “This is awful.”
“Nigel, it’s quite normal. Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. It does make you make noises. Lots of people swear. I did.”
“I’m sure Lucinda won’t.”
Another groan.
“Oh, poor Lucinda. Why don’t they help her?”
“I’m sure they are. They’ll have the epidural rigged up in no time. Lucky her—they hadn’t been invented when I had mine.”
A large, rather handsome man came hurrying along the corridor, wearing a three-piece suit and a bow tie, and disappeared into the room.
“That must be Mr. Clark,” hissed Catherine to Nigel.
“How do you know?”
“That’s what expensive gynaecologists look like. All of them.”
Sister Johns put her head out of the door. “Mr. Cowper, you can come in now. Quickly, or you’re going to miss the big moment. She’s doing wonderfully well.”
“But—but—I’m not—that is—”
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry. Besides, she needs you. Nurse!” she called into the room. “Have you got a gown for Mr. Cowper?”
“Yes, I have. Tell him to get a move on, she wants to push.”
There was a loud wail of pain from the room.
“No, I can’t,” said Nigel. He sat down, put his head in his hands. “I really can’t. I feel sick.”
“The thing is,” said Catherine quickly, “he’s not—not the father.”
“Oh. Well, where is the father?”
“On a plane somewhere,” said Catherine.
Another wail: long and low, followed by Lucinda’s voice telling someone very loudly to fuck off. Nigel looked shocked.
“Told you,” said Catherine. “That’s a very good sign. She’s nearly there.”
“She does need some support though,” said Sister. “She keeps asking if Blue’s arrived. I assumed it was Mr. Cowper.”
“Could—could I come in?” said Catherine.
“What’s your name? I could ask her.” She reappeared. “She says she’d love you to come in. You’d better stay here and keep quiet,” she said severely to Nigel, as if it was he making all the noise, not Lucinda.
Catherine went into the room; Lucinda held out her arms to her. “Catherine, Catherine, I’m so pleased to s—Oh shit. Shit! This is fucking agony. Tell them to give me an epidural, for God’s sake.”
“We can’t,” said Mr. Clark. “Wouldn’t work in time now. Here comes another one. Push, Lucinda, push hard…head down on your chest…that’s right. Good girl. Few more of those and you’ll be there.”
“I wish I was there,” said Lucinda. “I wish I was anywhere. How did you do this twice, Catherine, how—Oh God. God. Shit. He-elp!”
It seemed to Nigel to be going on forever: the groans, the yells, heavy panting, like a terrified dog. How could he have even considered putting Lucinda through this? And where was Horton? Where was he when she needed him?
Blue was in a plane somewhere over the Channel, silent with terror. Occasionally he said, quite quietly, that if the fucking pilot didn’t get the fucking plane to City Airport in the next ten minutes, he’d fucking sue him; but apart from that he said nothing, just sat berating himself, wondering how, why he could possibly have done this awful thing, abandoned Lucinda, leaving her alone in her hour of greatest need. God, he was a shit, a bastard. What had she done, for God’s sake, to deserve him? If she was all right, if the baby waited for him to arrive, he’d join a fucking monastery. No, that wouldn’t do any good, he had to support them both.
“If you don’t get this fucking thing to fucking City Airport, I’ll fucking sue you,” he said for the fourth time in half an hour.
“Blue, calm down, mate,” said Charlie. “She’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that,” said Blue. “Anything might be happening, anything.”
“Come on Lucinda, once more. PUSH.” Mr. Clark was looking very stern. “And again…go on, harder, harder, come on, this is why it’s called labour, you know…Now—good, good—right, big deep breath and nearly there…There we are. Yes! You’ve done it! Let’s just—well done. There she is. A beautiful little girl.”
“A girl! Oh, how lovely. Oh, Blue will be so cross. Serve him right, just serve him right. Look, Catherine, look, isn’t she lovely, aren’t I clever, aren’t we all clever; thank you so, so much, Mr. Clark, sorry I swore at you. Oh, look at her, look at her great big blue eyes…Come here, let me hold you, you beautiful, beautiful little thing…”
Catherine went out of the room to tell Nigel the news and to reassure him that all was well; he was still sitting holding his head in his hands.
“Nigel, it’s OK. She’s fine, absolutely fine. And so’s the baby—a little girl, absolutely beautiful.”
“I thought—I thought she was going to die,” he said. “I couldn’t bear it.”
And as she stood there, tearful herself, Catherine realised that Nigel was weeping, great tears rolling down his cheeks which in his turmoil he kept wiping away with his tie.
He’s still in love with her, she thought, with a sense of desperate sadness. Still in love with her, and he always, always will be.
Chapter 55
DECEMBER 1990
Maurice Crane had finally returned to work at Jenkins and Jenkins. His leg had taken longer to heal than expected, and as everyone kept reminding him, he wasn’t as young as he had been.
On the third day, Roger Spence, the managing director of Jenkins and Jenkins, called him into his office. Rather nervous, wondering if his absence had been too long, whether he was going to be eased out, Maurice straightened his tie, brushed down his jacket and went along the corridor.
“Ah, Maurice. Good to have you back. Feeling completely yourself again, are you?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Spence. I never thought to say this, but I was really missing the old place. Only thing is, instead of looking forward to my retirement, I’m now rather dreading it.”
“Well, you’ve got a few years yet, haven’t you?”
“Four,” said Maurice; clearly Mr. Spence was leading up to an early-retirement package.
“Now, one of your clients was a Mr. Simon Beaumont, wasn’t he? A
s I expect you know, he was drowned, just about the time you had your accident.”
“Yes. Most regrettable. Such a charming man.”
“He was. But apparently there is to be an inquest. Although it was probably an accident, there were circumstances which could be interpreted as being sufficient to drive him to suicide.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Yes, he’d lost an awful lot of money from Lloyd’s, had to sell everything, even lost his job, poor chap. Now the coroner’s office is investigating the actual state of his finances, whether he had further debts and so on and so forth. Now, because you were the executive in charge of his policies, I have to ask you if you received any instructions from him, over the course of the past—what?—six months. Any changes made, any extra policies taken out, that sort of thing.”
“Ah. Yes.” Maurice Crane looked at his well-shone shoes. “Yes, I see.”
Roger Spence looked at him sharply. “Do I take it that means yes, you did hear from him?”
Maurice Crane sighed. “Like George Washington,” he said, “I cannot tell a lie. I was hoping not to be asked such a question, that I might remain silent. I think Mr. Washington would have found that acceptable.”
“I think, Maurice,” said Roger Spence wearily, “that you’d better tell me what you’re talking about.”
Maurice Crane did so; and went home feeling depressed and rather guilty.
Jamie wrote Annabel a long letter, declining her invitation to spend Christmas with the Beaumonts.
I would have loved it, of course, but Mother is very protective about our family Christmas. The matriarch in her comes out.
Comes out! thought Annabel. It doesn’t seem very well hidden to me.
I’m hoping that next year you’ll be here, spending it with us. But we can talk then and I do send you and your brother and sister and your mother, of course, our very best wishes for a happy holiday. Or as happy as it could be, under the circumstances. Do you have any plans? I’d love to hear them. And then, darling Annabel, it will be January and you’ll be here for our engagement party. You haven’t told me yet how many of you will be able to join us. But actually as long as you’re there, that’s all that matters to me…
Love, love, love you, Jamie
Annabel sat for a long time, holding the letter, staring out of the window. She was thinking not of Jamie but of Christmas. It was going to be totally hideous. They were moving in another week; the house had been stripped of all the large furniture, and walls that had worn pictures for years and rooms that had sheltered tables and chairs and wardrobes and tallboys all looked not only empty but oddly shabby. It was horrible.
The house they were renting in Fulham, painted, furnished, and carpeted throughout in shades of beige, completely bland and modern, was not an ideal setting for Christmas.
Their mother was feeling well now, and almost restored to her normal energetic self, but she was very thin—apart from a very neat little bump—and her face was pale and drawn. Tilly spent a great deal of time weeping over Boy and his imminent departure from her life, the news broken to her by a distressed Flora, who now had the house on the market. Toby was breaking up in a few days; he was still edgy and down, and clearly found his mother’s pregnancy deeply embarrassing.
“Got a minute, Joel?” Hugh’s large figure loomed in his doorway.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Like a word. Maybe after conference?”
“Fine.” Now what?
“She’s so beautiful, so bl—absolutely perfect,” said Blue. He was gazing intently into his daughter’s face. “I still can’t get over it. It’s a blooming miracle. Nine months earlier there’s a bit of how’s yer father and then—boom. A new person.”
“I know. Haven’t we done well? Here, take her a minute, I want to get more comfy.”
Blue took the baby rather gingerly. “You look like your mum,” he said to her, “you know that?”
“She does, doesn’t she? Everyone says so. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Course not. Think if she looked like me.”
“Well, it would be fine if she’d been a boy. There, that’s better. I’ll have her back. Come on, precious, back to the milking parlour.”
“The what?”
“It’s what you call the place where they milk cows every day.”
“They haven’t half changed,” said Blue, looking at the mountainous objects that had replaced Lucinda’s rather neat round breasts.
“Just as well. Blue, give me those tissues, would you. Thank you. How are things at work?”
She had ordered him back to work on the second day, finding his restless, nervous presence the opposite of what she wanted; and his undoubtedly genuine remorse had become extremely irritating.
“Look, Blue,” she had said as he embarked on yet another round of “How could I have done that to you,” and “How are you ever going to forgive me?”—“It’s all right. It happened. I said you could go, it was just as much down to me as to you. Just stop going on about it. We’ve got more important things to think about. Our new responsibilities.”
“You’re an angel, Lucinda,” said Blue, kissing her tenderly. “An absolute angel.”
“I know,” she said, smiling sweetly. Her plans for herself and the baby were actually the opposite of angelic, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Now,” she said, “I’ve been thinking. We’re coming home tomorrow, Little Miss and me—we must settle on a name for her, Blue.”
“Yes, I know.”
So far they had been unable to agree on anything. They had ranged from the popular Jade (“Over my dead body,” said Lucinda), to the esoteric Annunciata (“You must be bleedin’ joking”), and taken in the plain Jane and Anna and Caroline (“She’s much too pretty”) and the fashionably floral Daisy and Lily and Rose (“Because she’s my little flower,” said Blue tenderly).
“But anyway, yes, you can come and get me at two o’clock and then we’ll be home together, a proper little family. Isn’t it totally lovely?”
“It is.”
“But you know something? I just don’t know how we’re going to manage in that house.”
“Lucy, I’ve been telling you that for months.”
“Yes, I know and I’m sorry, but at least you know why. Now I had one idea,” said Lucinda, and her eyes sparkled at him.
“Yeah? Look, I’m sure she’s smiling.”
“No, I think it’s only wind. Golly, there’s a lot coming out the other end, did you hear that?” She giggled. “She farts as loudly as you do. Now you might not like my idea…”
“Not your mother? Please, please, not your mother’s—”
“Well, she did offer. And there is lots of room.”
“Lucy, no.”
“Now you did promise, Blue. To make it up to me. For not being here, you know.”
There was an endless silence while a series of violent and rather obvious emotions chased one another across Blue’s face; then he said, dragging the words out of himself, clearly with an enormous effort, “Yes. All right.”
“Or,” said Lucinda, “we could go to Nigel’s house. Well, my house actually.”
“What? Lucinda, I can’t live there!”
“It wouldn’t be for long. Just till we put it into this trust thingy. I asked Steve if he thought it was a good idea, and he said brilliant, gave the whole thing a bit of credence.”
“When did you ask him?” said Blue suspiciously.
“Yesterday—I rang him. And there’s something else. I think I’m going to have to get a maternity nurse.”
“I’ve told you, Lucinda, I’m not having any nannies.”
“A maternity nurse is not a nanny,” said Lucinda firmly. “She comes for about six weeks, until the baby starts sleeping through the night. So you can recover properly. I just think we need the help. And we can’t fit her into Limehouse. And the other house is empty—it’s not as if Nigel would be there. He’s found a flat in
Sloane Street to rent; he says the house is just impossibly big, and he feels lonelier and lonelier in it. Poor darling Nigel. I do wish he and Catherine could…Well, anyway, the house is empty, it’s mine in any case, and I think we should go and live there for a bit. It would be so easy.”
“I can’t do it, Lucy, I really can’t—sorry.”
“Well, it’ll have to be Mummy then. Oh Blue, and I thought…I thought…” She started to cry.
Blue hastily went over to her, handed her some tissues. “Don’t cry, Lucinda, it’s—it’s all right, we’ll manage somehow. Can’t you get these maternity people to come in just for the day?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Lucinda. “The whole point is having her there at night. No, we’ll have to go down to my parents’. Maybe you could stay in Limehouse if the journey’s too bad.”
There was a silence, then: “Lucinda, I’m not having us separated. I’m not leaving you and the baby, when I’ve just got you both. I just—Oh, all right. Yes. We’ll move into that mausoleum. But I’m having a new bed.”
“Oh Blue, thank you. Thank you so much. Of course you—we can have a new bed. And the minute I’m feeling better, we can have a new house. Oh, you’re an angel. I love you, I love you so much. And you know, lots of those houses we looked at are still on the market. I checked up on that as well.”
“How?”
“I phoned the agents, how do you think?”
“What, even the one in Chislehurst—with the indoor pool?”
“Even that one,” said Lucinda. “Now…” She reached for a pen and a piece of paper.
“Lucinda, be careful, you nearly dropped the baby then.”
“Of course I didn’t. You mustn’t mollycoddle her, Blue, it’s—” She stopped. “Goodness! Maybe we could call her Molly? Molly! How do you like that? I think it’s divine.”
“I—well, it’s quite nice, I suppose. Look, I don’t care what you say, Lucinda, that baby is smiling.”
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