‘Oh Lady Celia,’ he said, smiling, ‘what a liar you are. You feel a great deal more than that. Don’t you?’
‘No,’ she said, and found herself smiling back just the same.
‘Of course you do. An admiring, affectionate friend would not have reacted as you did to the news of my marriage.’
‘Oh, you’re wrong there, Sebastian. It was an extremely unexpected and not entirely pretty story.’
‘Not more judgement, I hope.’
‘No. But you must admit, you had led us all to believe that you were a bachelor.’
‘I had? What did I say?’
‘Nothing. That’s precisely it. Most married people do refer to their spouses, fairly soon into a relationship.’
‘I wasn’t aware we had a relationship, Lady Celia. Yet.’
‘Sebastian, don’t be ridiculous. Of course we do. A very serious business relationship.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘oh, yes, I see.’
‘And now,’ she had said, ‘I really must be getting back. To work.’
To work. Her citadel. Where she was safe.
All night LM sat by Jay’s bed, watching him, studying him, listening to his shallow breathing, willing her own strength into him, superstitiously afraid that if she ceased her vigil for a moment, he would drift away from her. They had told her he had been lucky, he was strong and should make a good recovery. Just the same, the sight of him, white and still, lying on the high bed, was a glimpse into what might have been, what might yet be, and she could not allow herself to trust them. She looked anxiously up each time a nurse or doctor came in, checked his pulse, his heartbeat, shone a torch in his eyes, and nodded sternly as they told her that he was doing well, was stable, that there was no change. He had come round from the anaesthetic and been violently sick; that, combined with the pain of the blow to his head, made him utterly wretched. He was crying a lot. He was also confused about where he was and what had happened to him, and complained that he couldn’t see properly.
‘That’s the concussion,’ the nurse said, ‘it should pass quite soon. The important thing is that he regained consciousness fairly quickly. The longer it takes, the more serious, you know. Try not to worry too much. It could have been worse. Honestly.’
She smiled at LM; she was young and pretty, hardly out of the schoolroom, LM thought, with a soft, Irish voice. LM tried to smile back at her; it was very difficult. Apart from Jay’s physical condition, there was another dreadful fear, ugly, sordid: that he had been in some way interfered with by the man he had been running away from, that his innocence was broken, his trust shattered. That was almost more frightening than the physical terrors.
She had settled herself by his bed when he was finally released from the doctors, from the operating theatre where the broken leg had been set and his broken ribs strapped up. But as she stood, utterly still, just looking down at him, the ward sister arrived.
‘You can’t stay there I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘parents are not allowed after visiting hours, it’s against the rules.’
LM said firmly that it might be against the rules, but she was staying; Sister was looking at her, clearly nonplussed by this extraordinary piece of resistance, when the doctor who had first received Jay into the emergency unit reappeared.
‘Mrs Lytton appears to feel she can stay here for the night,’ sister said, with the look of one who knows she is finally about to get her way. ‘I have explained that of course she cannot, it is quite impossible.’
‘Sister, when he comes fully round, he’ll be frightened,’ said the doctor, who was young and imaginative and found much to question in medical attitudes towards patients, ‘he’ll need his mother. Let her stay. Besides, she can be useful,’ he added, smiling, as Jay started to vomit again, ‘I should be grateful if I were you, Sister.’
They did let her stay, but did not even provide her with a chair, certainly nothing to eat or drink; LM settled finally on the floor, just as Jay himself settled into a relatively normal sleep, oblivious to hunger and thirst, or even weariness, she simply felt infinitely relieved to be there.
She was woken from a fitful doze at six, when the morning ward round started; the young nurse came in, took his pulse and temperature, shone her torch into his eyes.
‘He’s fine,’ she said, smiling at LM, ‘little bit of a temperature perhaps, but that’s to be expected, otherwise, he’s going to be right as rain, I’d say. Why don’t you go home now, Mrs Lytton, get some proper rest. You’ll need it later, and there’s nothing you can do now. When the doctor comes round, he’ll say when he can go home and how soon, and you can telephone – do you have a telephone at home?’
LM nodded.
‘Well, there now. And come back when you’ve had a nice sleep. Look at him, right as rain.’
LM looked at Jay; he did look much better. He was breathing a little bit fast, perhaps, but his colour was much better, and she was dreadfully tired and stiff.
‘All right,’ she said, moving reluctantly away from the bed, ‘perhaps. Just for an hour or two. Then I’ll be back.’
‘Good idea. Doctor comes round about nine-thirty or ten,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll tell the day staff you’ll be back later on. Besides,’ she said with a conspiratorial smile, ‘I think Sister will have a heart attack if you stay here very much longer.’
LM went back over to Jay, bent down, and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. He felt warm, soft, wonderfully and unarguably alive. He even managed a slight smile before drifting back into sleep. She tiptoed away.
As she left the hospital, walking through Out Patients, the nurse at the desk called out to her.
‘Mrs Lytton?’
‘Yes?’
‘I have a note for you. Here. Left by a gentleman.’
‘Really?’ LM frowned. What gentleman would have written to her here? What about? Or was it – could it be – the dreadful creature who had tried to kidnap Jay? She ripped the envelope open; her fingers were clumsy with fear. Inside was a card with a name and address printed across the top. Hardly the action of a kidnapper . . . She stood in the sunshine on the street, enjoying the smell of the fresh air, reading it, half smiling.
Dear Mrs Lytton,
I am writing in the hope that you would be kind enough, in the fullness of time, to let me know how your little boy is. I am the driver of the car which hit him yesterday. I am quite sure you will never be able to forgive me; I shall certainly never be able to forgive myself. I can only assure you, although it seems rather too much to ask you to believe, that I was driving very slowly and carefully at the time, and that your little boy did suddenly appear, apparently from nowhere, into my line of vision. It is not something I shall ever forget. I understand from the hospital that his condition, although critical, is no longer considered life threatening, for which I thank God. However I would so very much like to speak to you personally, and express my remorse and to hear, with luck, of his continuing improvement.
Yours sincerely,
Gordon Robinson
What a nice note: what a very nice man. LM resolved to write to him and reassure him as soon as she herself had recovered from the incident.
The doctor was late on his round that morning; it was eleven before he reached Jay’s bed.
‘How is he?’
‘Oh, not too bad. Still a bit drowsy. Perhaps a slight temperature.’
‘To be expected, I suppose. But I thought he’d be more lively this morning. Let’s see—’
He pushed up the bedclothes, placed his stethoscope to Jay’s bandaged chest, listened to it for a long time. Then he stood back, looking down at him.
‘I’m not terribly happy with this,’ he said, ‘where’s Sister? I think we should get some further X-rays done.’
When LM arrived at the hospital just before lunch, bearing grapes, books, jigsaw puzzles, she was shown into Sister’s office. The doctor was waiting there for her. He said he was very sorry, that he was sure there was no real cause for alarm, but Jay was not quite
as well as he had hoped.
‘In what way?’ asked LM, her voice sharp, almost peremptory.
The doctor said, his voice very gentle, that he was afraid Jay had developed a chest infection, that he was developing breathing difficulties. ‘It was the blow to the chest, you see. It didn’t just break the ribs, it clearly damaged the pleura, as well.’
‘What is the pleura?’ said LM, still in the same rather threatening voice.
‘It’s a thin membrane, with two layers. One lines the outside of the lungs and the other the inside of the chest cavity. It provides lubrication and thus eases expansion and contraction of the lungs during breathing. That process has been upset. Now I have had a chest X-ray done, and we can only hope it is not too serious. I do assure you we are doing all we can. And he is a strong little chap.’
LM said nothing: she merely walked into the ward, and over to Jay’s bed. He was drowsy, but awake, his breathing horribly fast, his eyes brilliant, his face flushed.
‘Hallo, Mummy. Where were you, I wanted you.’
‘I’m sorry, my dearest. Very sorry.’
‘My chest hurts. Everything hurts.’
‘I know. But it will soon be better. I promise. How’s your leg?’ Jay licked his dry lips. ‘Hurts too. And my head. So much. Hold my hand, Mummy. Don’t go away again.’
‘I won’t, Jay, I won’t. Just rest now, don’t try and talk. I’ll be here.’
‘Bastards,’ said Robert throwing the paper across the room. ‘Bastards. Who’s been feeding them that rubbish?’
‘God knows,’ said John wearily.
He picked the paper up; he had brought it in to show Robert. There was an item in the diary section of the business page: ‘The real estate firm of Brewer Lytton is said to be in difficulty. It has failed to win several crucial contracts, and two of the investment houses which have financed its projects in the past have recently withdrawn funding. A spokesman for Hagman Betts, the real estate company which has won the contract against Brewer Lytton to build the new highly prestigious Warwick Hotel on Park Avenue, said that this was not the first time they had beaten Brewer Lytton in a straight fight. “Our estimate was lower, it was as simple as that. Plus the fact that Warwick and their architects found our interpretation of their ideas imaginative, as well as compatible with their own.” ’
‘In other words,’ said Robert, ‘we’re expensive and dull. Bastards. What are we going to do, John? This is the sort of mud that sticks. Badly.’
‘LM, hallo.’ Brunson had taken the call first thing next morning, had fetched Celia from the dining-room. ‘How are you? How is Jay today?’
‘He is – no better.’
LM had phoned the night before, briefly to say that Jay was not as well as had been hoped, that he had a high temperature, and she was at the hospital again.
‘Oh, God. I’m so so sorry. Is it – ?’
‘He has pneumonia. In both lungs. The X-rays show that quite clearly.’
‘But how – why – ? He was hit by a car, I don’t understand—’
‘It was a result of that. The chest injuries. It’s complicated, I—’
‘It’s all right, LM, you don’t have to explain. And the temperature is still high? Even this morning?’
‘Yes. Still a hundred and four. And he has trouble breathing, and – well, we can only wait, I’m told. He is being given oxygen, but there’s nothing else they can do.’
Her voice shook; Celia felt her heart literally stop in sympathy. She tried to imagine one of her own children, the twins, lying there, fighting death, how she would feel, what she would do. It was beyond her. ‘Would you like me to come and see you. Just sit with you? Would that help? You must be exhausted.’
‘Oh no,’ said LM, and her voice was quite surprised, ‘no, I’m all right. I have to stay, I have to be with him. Just – well, just in case.’
‘Yes of course,’ said Celia. ‘Is he – very distressed?’
‘Very. And has such trouble breathing, it hurts him so, that’s the worst thing.’ She sounded quite calm; stern, as she always was under duress.
‘Would you like me to come?’
‘Well—’
‘I’m on my way,’ said Celia.
She wasn’t sure which of them looked worse when she got there, Jay or LM. He had been moved into a small room to the side of the ward; he was breathing loudly and laboriously. His face was flushed, a hard, dry colour. He was muttering, his voice fast.
‘Home,’ he kept saying, ‘home, want to go home.’ And then, ‘Let me go, let me go.’
‘He’s delirious,’ said LM almost briskly. ‘Shush, Jay, shush. It’s all right. Mummy’s here. It’s bad for him, you see, talking, it makes him cough.’
‘Of course,’ Celia looked at LM; she was grey with exhaustion, her eyes fever-bright. Her hair, usually so neat, hung in wisps around her face, her shirt was creased and slightly grubby-looking. Her hands, always thin, looked claw-like as she gripped the side of the bed, watching Jay.
‘LM, have you had anything to eat or drink?’
She shook her head fiercely. ‘I don’t want anything.’
‘You must at least drink. You’ll be no good to Jay if you start fainting.’
‘I’m no good to him anyway,’ said LM, and her voice shook. ‘I’ve been no good to him at all. That’s why he’s here, because I wasn’t caring for him, I—’
‘LM don’t. You mustn’t. Mustn’t let yourself think like that, even for a moment. It was an accident, a terrible—’
‘No! No, it wasn’t. It was because he was unhappy, lonely, missing the other children, and because I wasn’t with him. I can’t let you say that, say – oh God.’ She began to weep silently, her thin shoulders shaking, her face sunk in her hands. Celia stood there, feeling helpless, just listening, knowing there was nothing she could say.
‘Jago would have been so shocked, so angry. That I had left him, our son, left him alone with someone even as careful as Dorothy. I am glad, for the first time, Celia, glad he’s dead, that he doesn’t know how I have failed him. Failed them both. It should be me lying there, dying—’
‘LM, he is not dying.’
‘He is dying. I’m sure of it. I know it. The doctors know it too. Don’t – please don’t—’ Her voice rose in a wail: then she seemed to realise what she was doing, stifled it, controlled herelf with a vast, visible effort. ‘I mustn’t – it will upset him. If he can hear me . . .’
‘Can he hear you?’
‘I don’t know. I think so. He responds to my voice. They say that’s good. That he can . . . oh dear, I’m so sorry.’
‘LM don’t keep saying that. Look, go and get yourself a cup of tea at least. There’s a cafe opposite. You really must. I’ll sit with Jay, don’t worry, I won’t take my eyes off him. I promise you.’
She didn’t; it was a very long half hour. The small chest, uncovered except for its bandages, rose and fell painfully, the rasping breathing seemed to get faster and faster, the rapid, rambling little voice occasionally started, only to be stopped by a fit of coughing and desperate struggles for breath. A nurse came in, took his pulse and his temperature, half-smiled at her, went away again. Sister appeared, looking stern, followed the same procedures, ignored Celia.
‘They resent me so much,’ said LM when Celia told her this, ‘they can’t bear it that I’m here, not doing as I’m told, not going home. They’ve never come across anything quite like it. Now we’re in this room it’s a bit better, but I really thought Sister was going to spit at me when she came on duty this morning and saw me here again.’
‘It’s so ridiculous,’ said Celia, ‘so counter-productive. Children need their mothers. Sick children especially. I don’t understand why they can’t all see that.’
‘If Jay was a poor child, with an uneducated mother, unable to argue her case, I certainly wouldn’t be here,’ said LM. Then she looked at Celia, her face stricken. ‘On the other hand I would have been at home with him. He would have been saf
e. He wouldn’t be here at all. Oh Celia, what have I done to him? What have I done?’
At Lytton House in Paternoster Row, Oliver sat in a state of mounting misery and anger. He had spent the entire morning poring over costings, royalty statements, publication schedules, past catalogues. It made almost unbearable reading. To see his beloved, prestigious literary house, so hugely admired and respected by the publishing fraternity, and that admiration and respect so hard-earned, so sweetly won, having apparently dedicated itself over the past four and a half years to so much rubbish made him want, quite literally, to weep. How could they have done it? Done it to him? For it did feel like a personal loss, worse than a loss, a robbery, something taken from him in his absence, while his attention and his care were elsewhere. As if his home had been entered by force, plundered of its treasures, replaced with cheap rubbish. Cheap rubbish: that was exactly what much of it was. The pap poetry, endless volumes of it, scarcely warranting the name, the cheap novels, with those dreadful jackets, reminiscent of women’s magazines, the predictable second-rate detective stories, the appalling sentimentality of the Dispatches trilogy, page after page of nauseating, mawkish drivel. And the dictionaries, the literary works, the classics, all allowed to run down. Biographica, Celia’s own beloved list, seemed to have ceased to exist altogether. And the look of everything, including the catalogues: vulgar, tawdry – it was truly distressing. How could Celia, with her pretensions to intellect, her aesthetic standards, how could she have allowed such vulgarity? And LM, who had grown up as he had, with the name of Lytton set as a standard of excellence, both literary and visual, how could she have stood by and allowed it to happen? It was appalling; it was not to be borne.
Celia arrived half-way through the afternoon; she was pale and looked exhausted. Oliver met her in the corridor.
‘How is Jay? He’s not—’
A long silence: then, ‘No. But I fear the true answer is not yet. He has pneumonia. He’s very ill indeed.’
No Angel Page 42
