And then she thought about Debra on the doorstep and the way she’d hurried Sam past. He hadn’t resisted. Hadn’t tried to stop.
He wasn’t here for her anymore. Nobody was. There was just her and this little creature growing inside her that somehow she must look after for ever. Lizzie’s words crowded in. Gaynor turned over and over, trying to get comfortable.
At first, the ringing was part of a dream. Then she woke and saw her mobile flashing. Trying to get her eyes open properly, she picked it up in time to see ‘missed call’ appear. She looked at the display. 7.02 a.m. It still wasn’t light. Ugh. It had been well after two when she’d got into bed. Nearer three by the time she’d dropped off. Her head flopped back on to the pillow.
The phone rang again. Gaynor stretch out an arm for it, answering with her eyes still closed. “Yes,” she said sleepily, “who is it?” It was the robotic woman telling her she had voice mail. Gaynor yawned as she listened to the message, but then, as her befuddled brain began to make sense of what she was hearing, she was suddenly awake.
She lay staring at the ceiling, tears in her eyes, suddenly knowing what she should do but feeling paralysed and quite powerless to do it. She knew she should. It was simply a matter of getting up, going to the station, doing what had to be done. For a moment she hesitated, feeling sick, clutching at her abdomen, as everything Lizzie had said was re-played across her mind. Then she switched on the bedside lamp and got out of bed.
25. Côte Rôtie
Hot and racy with an unusual combination of flavours.
Lizzie was still out cold on the sofa when Sarah returned. Sarah looked at the empty wine bottle and threw open the curtains.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, as Lizzie slowly came to. “Where’s Gaynor?”
Lizzie sat up groaning.
“I don’t know. She went somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I feel dreadful.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Sarah, collecting up glasses. “She’s supposed to be helping out at lunchtime. Did she say when she’d be back?”
“She woke me up and said, um…” Lizzie shook her head. “She had a bag with her.”
“What sort of bag?”
“A holdall thing – an overnight bag. She said she might have to stay.”
“Where?”
Lizzie struggled to remember. “I don’t know. She was talking about her baby. Something about hospital.”
“Hospital?” Sarah cried. “Was she OK? Did she think she was losing it? Was she bleeding?” She looked at Lizzie as if she’d like to shake the answers out of her.
“No, I don’t think so. She said I was right and she had to do it…”
“What?”
Lizzie frowned, then suddenly put her head in her hands. “Oh God, Oh no, I think I might have…”
Charlie and Bel appeared in the doorway. “Mum, there’s no cornflakes.”
Sarah didn’t look round. “You had breakfast at Richard’s.”
“And there’s no milk.”
“Then go and get some from the kitchen downstairs.”
Neither child moved, sensing something interesting going on. “Go now,” said Sarah sharply, turning back to Lizzie as they reluctantly shuffled away. “Tell me what’s happened,” she demanded. “What did you say to her?”
Sarah glared at Lizzie, when Lizzie had finished piecing together as much as she could remember. “We’ve got to stop her. She’s wanted a baby for years. Mind you, she’ll only be able to make an appointment. They won’t do it just like that…”
Lizzie shrugged. “They might. It’s pretty quick these days. Spot of counselling which basically amounts to ‘are you sure?’ a couple of doctor’s signatures and show us the colour of your Barclaycard.”
Sarah scowled. “How do you know so much about it?”
“I just do.”
“How are we going to find her – where would she be?”
“We talked about the clinic in Ashford.” Lizzie rubbed at her temples.
“Oh bloody brilliant, so you got as far as actually telling her where to go! Don’t you realise how vulnerable she is?” Sarah’s voice was raised. “She’s not thinking straight if she’s even considering anything like that. You are fucking unbelievable,” Sarah finished furiously. “I’m going to get Sam.”
Lizzie leapt to her feet, wincing as she did so. “But you promised. You gave Gaynor your word you wouldn’t say anything.”
Sarah picked up her coat from the back of a chair. “Then I’ll write it down for him!”
Sam accelerated as they left Canterbury behind and joined the road to Ashford. “Try her again,” he said to Lizzie, sitting beside him.
Lizzie hit the redial button on her phone, glancing sideways at him. He’d barely said a word since they’d driven out of Broadstairs. His profile was set as his eyes flicked back and forth in the rear view mirror, his jaw rigid.
She listened for a few seconds. “Still going straight to answer,” she said to Sam, saying in completely different tones into the receiver: “It’s Lizzie, sweetie, We’re worried about you, please call me when you get this message.” She pressed the button, to end the call. That’s three we’ve left now,” she reminded Sam. “She’s obviously switched it off.”
It was the first thing Gaynor had seen when she went through the automatic glass doors: The use of mobile phones is not permitted anywhere in…. She wondered if she could sneak in a quick call to Sarah – just to let her know – but as she pulled the phone from her handbag, a nurse walked past and gestured towards the notice. Oh well, Lizzie would have told her when she woke up.
Gaynor wondered how her head would be. She’d been practically incoherent when she’d crashed out last night and hadn’t made much more sense when Gaynor had tried to wake her this morning. She knew Lizzie was right though. Sometimes you had to face up to things.
Still her stomach churned as she walked towards the Reception Desk. A middle-aged woman wearing a blouse and navy cardigan was sat in front of a computer screen, a white-uniformed nurse seated beside her. They both looked up as she approached.
“Yes?” asked the nurse pleasantly. “Can I help you?”
* * *
Lizzie was out of the car before Sam had even parked. She shot through the glass doors, past a young girl who stood crying by one of the potted palms, and up to the desk. “I’m here to see Gaynor Warrington,” she said.
The woman looked at her levelly. “And you are?”
“I’m her sister,” Lizzie said firmly. “And it’s very important I tell her something.”
The woman looked at her again. “Is she a patient here?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
The woman raised her eyebrows.
“She told me she was coming here,” improvised Lizzie, “and I said I’d meet her. I really have to see her straight away.”
The woman pressed a few buttons on her computer. “There’s nobody of that name here.”
Lizzie tried to lean over the counter to see the screen. “Is she booked in for later? Has she got an appointment or had one already? I need to know – it’s very urgent.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said severely, twisting the monitor so it faced away from Lizzie. “We cannot discuss patient appointments. We have a code of confidentiality. It’s one of our regulations.” One, her tone suggested, that she took great pleasure in upholding.
“So what am I to do?” Lizzie cried, “She said she’d be here and I need to see her.”
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said again, firmly. “I can’t help you any further.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lizzie saw an older man arrive and lead the young girl outside.
“Where’ve you been?” she said crossly to Sam as he joined her. “They say she’s not here but I bet she’s booked in under another name. The old bat on the desk isn’t giving anything away. Can’t you get in there and impersonate a police officer?”
“You’ve got to do something.” Lizzie’s voice rose. “I feel terrible. Please go and try.”
“No point,” said Sam shortly. He held up Lizzie’s mobile phone. “Sarah called. She’s heard from Gaynor – she’s at St Saviours. That’s Highgate.”
“Highgate?” Lizzie said again, as Sam joined the M20. “What’s she doing there?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Didn’t Sarah question her?”
Sam looked in his mirror and moved into the outside lane. “It was a text. Gaynor just said she was at St Saviours, waiting, and had to keep her phone turned off. Sorry she wouldn’t be able to work today.”
“Waiting for what?”
Sam turned his head briefly to flick her a hard look. “Who knows.”
“Shall I call them?” Lizzie asked, as the red car in front moved over and Sam put his foot down.
Sam shrugged. “They won’t tell you anything. They’ll ask what ward she’s in and if you don’t know you won’t get anywhere in a place that size. That’s if they even answer the phone. Tell me again what you said to her,” he added coldly.
“I don’t know, it’s all a blur. We were just talking about whether she was really doing the right thing keeping the baby since it didn’t have a father and she didn’t have a home. Which are perfectly valid points,” she added defensively.
Sam was terse. “No wonder she was upset.”
“She was upset,” said Lizzie loudly, “because you gave her a dirty look when you met her trying to get rid of that drunk.”
Sam reached out and pulled his tobacco pouch from the glove compartment. “Is that what she was doing?”
“For Christ’s sake, what did you think she was doing? Going off into the sunset with him? Very likely isn’t it? Her husband turns out to be a quasi-woman. The bloke she thinks she’s in love with lets his daughter send her off with a flea in her ear. You think the first thing she’s going to do is hook up with some soak who’s had twenty-seven vodkas and fallen off his perch?”
“I didn’t know any of that,” said Sam, trying to roll a cigarette with one hand. “First I heard of it was when Sarah banged on the door this morning.”
Lizzie picked up the tobacco pouch. “Well you know now. And you ought to tell your bloody daughter to butt out.”
“I expect she meant well,” said Sam, in a controlled voice.
Lizzie opened a paper, put in a pinch of tobacco and began to expertly roll. “She devastated Gaynor.”
“I’ll put it right.”
“She thinks you don’t want anything more to do with her.”
“I’ll put that right, too.”
Lizzie handed him the finished cigarette. “I told her you were a worthless flake.”
Sam gave a sudden laugh. “And you probably got that right.” He was suddenly serious again. “I wouldn’t do anything to deliberately hurt her. That’s why I wrote her the note apologising, that’s why I wanted to see her. It’s all been a misunderstanding. I thought she didn’t want to see me .”
“I expect Debra made sure of that!” said Lizzie, meaningfully.
Sam accelerated up behind a white van and flashed it to move over. “As I said, I’ll sort it.”
“All of it?” asked Lizzie boldly. “I mean, now you know, do you want to keep the baby?”
Sam kept his eyes on the traffic ahead but she felt him tense.
“I want,” he said tightly, “to talk to Gaynor.”
They’d sat in silence for the best part of an hour. The traffic was horrendous. “I’m glad you’re driving,” said Lizzie eventually, as they came up against yet another diversion and Sam expertly took a back-double somewhere behind Whitechapel High Street. “I wouldn’t have a clue where I was going.”
Sam pulled out and indicated, looking in his rear view mirror as he turned into City Road. “I spent a lot of years tramping the streets round here,” he said, flicking ash out of the open window. “Not a time I look back on with much pleasure, but it means I know the way to St Saviours all right. It’s not far now.”
“I don’t understand what she’s doing there,” said Lizzie again. “You can’t just walk into a hospital and get an abortion can you?”
Sam shook his head. “I hope she’s all right,” he said. As they slowed at the lights he turned his head and looked directly at Lizzie for the first time. She saw the anxiety in his eyes. “That’s where the big A and E department is.”
“If she’s OK to text then she can’t be that bad,” said Lizzie logically, as they crawled along the Holloway Road past the grimy shop fronts with their shutters and grilles and dispirited-looking shoppers. “Nice round here, isn’t it?”
They stopped at a red light and a grinning black guy with dreadlocks sprang forward with a plastic bucket and grey-looking sponge which he aimed at their windscreen. Sam waved him away.
“Perhaps,” said Lizzie imaginatively, “she was on her way to a clinic and she fainted and someone took her there. Perhaps she was waiting to be checked out. Pregnant women often pass out, don’t they? Or perhaps she started to bleed or something and panicked. Anyway,” Lizzie said, with forced cheer, “if she’s there, then we’re probably not too late. Unless she’s lost it naturally, of course…”
“Bloody hell!” Sam suddenly exploded, banging his hand on the wheel as the next set of lights changed to red too.
“Sorry!” Lizzie looked out of the window. “I was just thinking aloud.”
“It’s OK,” said Sam, sighing, as they crawled forward a foot and stopped again. “I just want to get there.”
Gaynor wondered if they’d all forgotten her. She sat on her plastic chair and twisted her wedding ring round and round on her finger. She supposed she should take it off now she’d left Victor but she felt strange without it. Sort of half-dressed. She looked at the door nervously. She knew he wouldn’t – it was totally illogical – but part of her kept half-expecting Victor to burst through the door, to demand to know what was happening. She cringed at the thought of seeing him. She’d have to at some point, of course. Would have to sit down and sort out the details, talk about what they were going to do financially etc. But not yet. Not till this was over.
A nurse put her head around the door. Gaynor jumped as she spoke and the nurse smiled kindly at her. “Mrs Warrington? All ready for you now…”
“How bloody ridiculous!” fumed Lizzie as they drove round for the second time looking for a meter. “What’s one supposed to do in a crisis?”
Sam shrugged. “Always been like this. You can only park in the hospital itself after six and even then you can never find a space. Ah, someone’s going. It’s a huge place,” he warned as they waited for a blue Ford Escort to squeeze its way out of the gap ahead. “I hope we can find her.”
“We just won’t leave till we do,” said Lizzie determinedly. They walked rapidly down Highgate Hill. “She’s got to be in there somewhere.”
The hospital was huge and sprawling – an unhappy mix of old Victorian brick and glass and steel extensions. As they crossed the packed car park an ambulance came in a side entrance, blue light flashing, and disappeared around the back of the building.
Lizzie stopped and looked at the bewildering array of signs. “Where?” she said.
Sam began to walk purposefully on. “This way.”
They went through big main entrance and up to the reception desk where there was already a small queue.
Lizzie walked to the head of it, tossed back her glossy black hair and swung her patchwork bag about with authority. “Excuse me,” she announced to the column of waiting people. “This is an emergency.”
Sam handed Lizzie a strange-smelling coffee in a polystyrene cup. “There’s not a lot else we can do,” he said, sitting down in a plastic chair next to her. “If she’s not anywhere on their computer, then they can’t help us.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” said Lizzie, taking a sip from the cup and grimacing.
“Why tell Sarah she was here if she wasn’t? Why say anything? Or has she lost her marbles completely and is wandering round the corridors somewhere in a white coat with a stolen stethoscope, thinking she’s a brain surgeon?”
Sam didn’t laugh. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Doesn’t make any sense to me either.”
Lizzie stirred the sludgy brown liquid with the plastic stick Sam had brought with it, in the hope it might taste better. “We’ll just have to keep phoning her,” she said. “Presumably when she leaves here, she’ll switch the phone back on – then we can grab her.”
“I suppose,” said Sam slowly. “It was this St Saviours.”
Lizzie stared at him, “Oh, fucking wonderful,” she said loudly. People around them turned their heads. “You said it was Highgate,” she said, lowering her voice.
Sam nodded. “It’s the only St Saviours I know of in London.”
“But suppose she wasn’t in London?”
“Why would she go anywhere else?”
“I don’t know,” hissed Lizzie. “But we’d better find out how many other flaming St Saviours there are in the country. She could be back in Ashford, after all.” Lizzie got up and swept towards the desk, prepared to barge her way to the front of the queue once more.
A voice made her swing round. “Lizzie?”
Appearing from a corridor on her left, Gaynor stood, looking tired and forlorn, her hair unbrushed, clutching her handbag in front of her like a shield. Her face was blotchy as if she’d been crying.
“Sweetie…” Lizzie started to rush towards her but Sam got there first.
“Oh darling,” he said, voice breaking in remorse. “What’s happened?” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her head on to his chest, stroking her hair.
Gaynor raised her eyes to look at him. “Chloe’s had a boy,” she said. And burst into tears.
26. Millennium Claret
A vintage with potential.
Gaynor lay on Sam’s sofa wrapped in Sam’s towelling dressing gown, her feet in his lap.
“I told Lizzie I was going to Chloe,” she said. “And I told her to tell Sarah.” She picked up the cup of tea Sam had made her. “I didn’t realise she was so pissed she wouldn’t remember.”
One Glass Is Never Enough Page 27
