‘Yes, I will. Yes, give me his number. And do you think you could call Geoff, Letitia, get him to ring me here? He’s at the Intercontinental, New York. Thank God he’s not in London. I just feel so –’ her voice trailed shakily away.
‘Yes, of course I will. Now you ring the doctor at Eastbourne, and see what he says. I’ll ring you back in about a quarter of an hour. All right?’
‘All right, Letitia.’
Phaedria put down the phone and frantically, desperately, dialled the number. She got through to Reception, asked for the paediatrician.
‘I’m sorry, that number is busy at the moment. Will you hold?’
‘No,’ she said, almost shouting down the phone. ‘No, I won’t hold, I’m calling from the Bahamas. Will you put me through at once. It’s very very urgent. This is Lady Morell.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice, coldly distasteful. ‘The line is busy. I can’t interrupt. Will you hold, or will you call back?’
‘Oh, God,’ said Phaedria. ‘Oh, God, I’ll hold. No, wait, put me through to intensive care.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ said the voice, colder than ever.
‘Why not?’
‘There is no line through to intensive care.’
‘But my baby is in there. Do you have any news of her, can you at least tell me how she is?’
‘Just a moment.’ The voice sounded just slightly more helpful. Phaedria waited, her head drumming with fear, her stomach a clenched knot. There was a long silence.
‘Hallo?’ It was a man’s voice.
‘Hallo, yes. Is that the paediatrician? I’m sorry, I don’t have your name, this is Phaedria Morell.’
‘Lady Morell, yes. This is Peter Dugdale here. Now about your baby . . .’
‘Yes? Yes, how is she?’
‘Not very well, I’m afraid. Not very well at all. She hasn’t got any worse since early this morning, so we have some grounds for optimism, but I don’t feel I can say more than that, at the moment.’
‘But what is it? How did it happen?’
‘She has pneumonia, Lady Morell. She does have a tendency towards respiratory infections, of course, with her history, and I understand she had a cold over Christmas.’
‘Yes, but only a very slight one. And she seemed quite better. Otherwise I wouldn’t have left her. Obviously.’
Guilt was heaping on to her panic; she felt violently sick.
‘Of course not. But even a slight cold could have triggered it off. Perhaps with her history she should have antibiotic cover with any kind of infection of that kind.’
‘So what shall I do? Is there anything, anything at all, I can do, anyone I can get hold of, our own paediatrician, just tell me what to do.’
‘I do assure you she is in the best hands here, the best care. Her – nanny –’ he lingered over the word, giving it a slightly derogatory connotation – ‘has not left her for a moment. You’re very lucky there. And your friend, or is she a relative, Mrs Garrylaig –’
‘Lady Garrylaig,’ said Phaedria absentmindedly.
‘I do beg your pardon.’ The voice was more disdainful still. ‘Well, she is on her way, I believe.’
‘So – just how serious is it? I mean, could she – might she –’
The words would not come; tears streamed down her face.
‘It’s quite serious, Lady Morell. It would be wrong of me to pretend otherwise. But she is holding her own. I can’t say more than that. Try not to worry,’ he added, in the voice of the dutifully sensitive. Phaedria bit her fist; she knew she mustn’t scream, mustn’t get too angry with him, antagonize him.
‘I’ll get there as soon as I can,’ she said when she had got control of her voice again. ‘My – my mother-in-law is organizing a plane. But I’m rather a long way away from home.’
‘Yes. So I understand. The Bahamas, I believe. Very nice.’
‘No,’ she said, her tears choking her. ‘No, it’s not very nice. It’s horrible. Well – thank you.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘When should I phone again?’
‘Oh, any time, any time at all. Now I have to go. My bleeper has just gone. Goodbye.’
Phaedria put the phone down. She looked out at the sea, the white sand, the palm trees in disbelief. How could anywhere be so beautiful, so calm, when her life was an ugly terrifying turmoil? If only Geoff would phone. Where was he, and how long would it take him to get her out of this awful, awful place? As she sat looking at the phone, willing it to ring, her head suddenly filled with a fresh horror. Roz had been up in Scotland. She would have known about the whole thing. She would have heard she had been in New York, would probably have asked what the number was. There was no way, no way on God’s earth that Roz would not know now that she had been in New York with Michael. And the awful irony was that now she need never, ever have known at all.
Phaedria rested her head on her arms and wept.
Geoff Partridge, who piloted the Morell family’s planes, had spent most of Christmas in bed in New York with a very pretty Pan American air hostess. He had been given an extended holiday, right up to the beginning of January; Phaedria had been privately relieved that he and the jet were in New York because it meant in an emergency he and the plane could be brought easily into service. He was staying at the Intercontinental; she imagined that he could be with her in a few hours that day of Letitia’s phone call. However, Geoff and his hostess had woken to a beautiful day, on that January 2nd, and decided to take a trip out to the Hamptons. He had to be in Nassau by the following evening; until then, barring accidents, he was officially clear. It was the Pan Am hostess’s last day; it seemed silly to sit around waiting for a call that probably wouldn’t come.
‘They have your number,’ she said, when he hesitated, ‘they can call you here. We’ll call in at lunch time, make sure if there’s a problem.’
‘OK.’
Only at lunch time they couldn’t find a public phone that was working; it was four o’clock before the Intercontinental managed to inform Geoff that he was required urgently to pilot the jet down to Nassau, and almost nine before he reached Kennedy and put the plane into service.
How Phaedria survived the ten-hour flight home she never afterwards knew. In the end she managed to get Julian’s small plane piloted out of Eleuthera and into Nassau and then catch a scheduled flight, an hour before a stricken Geoff Partridge arrived. She experienced for most of the time a panic so violent she could neither sit still nor walk up and down for more than a few seconds, but moved restlessly, endlessly from one seat to another, looking out of one window, then another, frantic for some relief from the choking pain. Occasionally she closed her eyes; then a picture of Julia in the incubator in the hospital in Los Angeles rose before her eyes, her tiny body white and still, and she would snap them open again, turning her head from side to side, biting her lips with the effort of not screaming. They offered her alcohol, coffee, food, in a hopeless attempt to find something, anything, that might help, if only for a moment, but she refused them all, even the thought of swallowing made her choke.
Letitia had promised faithfully that they would get a message to her on the plane’s radio if it was humanly possible and if there was any change in Julia’s condition; but as nothing came, Phaedria had no way of knowing whether there was no news, or if it simply had not managed to reach her. She wished now she had waited for Geoff, communication would have been a great deal more possible.
Mixed with her panic, her fear, was a terrible guilt and remorse: she should never, ever have left Julia with Nanny Hudson, never have ignored her cold, never been in one place when she said she was in another, never made herself so elusive. Well, Julia would die and that would be a judgement on her, a punishment, and there was no way, no way at all, that she could blame anyone except herself.
Roz couldn’t sleep the second night; she was haunted by thoughts of Phaedria, a battle raging in her between her hatred and sympathy for her; and by thoug
hts of Miles. She had avoided him all day, half ashamed that they should have experienced such pleasure, such happiness when Julia’s life was suspended so perilously, half consumed with longing to see him, be with him, have him again. They had met at mealtimes, which had in any case been strained, distracted occasions, everyone jumping whenever the phone rang; she had gone to bed early, pleading a headache. Letitia looked at her sharply; Roz never had headaches, never went to bed early, never felt tired. She looked at her watch; it was two o’clock. She decided to go down to Peveril’s library. She didn’t feel like reading, but he had some magnificent first editions, of Thackeray, Trollope, Burns. It would be amusing to look at those. She got up, pulled on her robe, and went quietly down to the great hall and into the library.
She was engrossed in The Eustace Diamonds when the door opened quietly; still half involved with the book, she turned round slowly. It was Miles.
‘Hi. Couldn’t you sleep? I guess we’re all pretty strung up.’
‘Yes. I keep thinking about Julia.’
‘I kept thinking about you.’
‘Miles, I – I don’t think we should carry on with this relationship. Not at all.’
‘OK.’ He shrugged, smiling at her. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Well it’s – it’s not what I want. But I just feel things are complicated enough. And there’s Candy.’
‘Roz, I told you last night, she’s three thousand miles away.’
Roz felt a mild irritation. ‘I know she is now. But she won’t always be. I don’t want to play any more of those games. And somehow this doesn’t seem quite the time for this kind of thing. And anyway, I don’t like our relationship being reduced to a one-night stand.’
‘Do we have a relationship?’
She felt foolish, disadvantaged.
‘No, of course not. You misunderstood me.’
‘Pity.’ He moved over, stood behind her, kissed her neck. ‘I was hoping we did.’
‘Miles, please don’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just told you why not.’
‘Oh Roz,’ he said, ‘you are much too serious. And besides . . .’ He was still behind her, he slipped his hands under her robe, moved them up to her breasts, started gently, tenderly massaging her nipples. Roz felt a lick of fire shoot down, in a white hot line, to her abdomen, her vagina; she squirmed, pressing her buttocks back against him. They were almost the same height; she felt his penis hard, pressing against her; she felt dizzy, odd. She fought to retain some self-control.
‘Besides what?’
‘You are just – well, sensational. I can’t think about anything else.’ His hands moved down, pressing, massaging her stomach, his fingers began to probe her pubic mound, seeking out, reaching into her, finding her clitoris. She put her head back against him and moaned.
‘Miles, please.’
‘Please what?’
‘You know what.’ She turned round, took his head in her hands, kissed him savagely, pulled off her robe. He entered her as she stood there, his hands on her buttocks, holding her to him, pushing, urging her into an almost instant orgasm. Roz cried out; the wild, strange cry oddly at variance with the sober quiet of the room.
Minutes later, she was lying on the floor, white faced, blazing eyed, holding out her arms; Miles knelt down, looking at her tenderly.
‘Tell you what,’ he said almost conversationally, as he sank into her again, ‘at least now it’s been a two-night stand.’
Pete Praeger met Phaedria at Heathrow; he said nothing, merely took her hand, as if he was an old friend, and led her to the car.
‘Do we – do we know any more?’
‘No more. She’s just about the same. Come on, we have to get you there.’
He drove so fast down to Eastbourne that Phaedria would, under normal circumstances, have been frightened; as it was, watching the speedometer needle on the Mercedes climb steadily from 90 to 100 to no, 115, she felt a strange relief. Neither of them spoke, just stared ahead.
As they reached the outskirts of Eastbourne he said, ‘This is bad, look at the traffic.’
‘Oh, Pete, just do what you can.’
‘I will.’ He put his foot down again, weaving in and out of the lanes, hooting; suddenly, inevitably, they heard the wailing of a police siren The police waved to Pete to move over; fuming, swearing, he got out.
‘Morning, sir. Do you know what speed you were doing then, in a built up area?’
‘Yes, officer. I do.’
‘Could I see your licence please, sir.’
Phaedria got out. She looked terrible, her face white, her eyes dark and shadowed, swollen with all the tears she had shed, her clothes crumpled.
‘Officer, please. Please let us go. I can explain.’
He looked at her, initially hostile, then sympathy dawning. ‘What is it?’
Phaedria took a deep breath. ‘My baby is very ill. In intensive care. I just flew in from the States. I have to get there. Mr Praeger was only doing what I asked.’
The policeman looked at her. He frowned, then he opened the door of the police car, his face impassive. ‘Get in, madam. You too, sir, if you’d be so kind.’
‘But I –’
‘Madam, please don’t waste time. You were only doing ninety. We can do a hundred and ten with the siren on.’
They were waiting for her when the police car drew up outside the hospital; they had radioed that they were coming. Eliza and Nanny Hudson, standing there. Phaedria fell out of the car. ‘Eliza, Nanny, what is it, what’s happened?’
Eliza looked at her, silent for a moment only, but to Phaedria it seemed like an hour, a week. Then she smiled. ‘Thank God you’re here. She’s all right. Phaedria, she’s going to be all right now, they think, but she needs you, she needs you so much. This is Mr Dugdale, he’s been so marvellous. Come on.’ And she took Phaedria’s hand, and pulled her, after Mr Dugdale, down the corridors, down the stairs and into a side ward, where Julia lay.
She was half asleep, she was breathing heavily, in her oxygen hood, restless, whimpering from time to time; as her mother came in she looked at her, and opened her large dark eyes very wide, and almost visibly relaxed, and smiled, a quiet, peaceful smile.
‘Oh, Julia,’ said Phaedria. ‘Oh, Julia.’
‘She’ll be all right now,’ said Mr Dugdale.
Letitia, beaming radiantly, went to find Roz, who was lying rather uncharacteristically on her bed.
‘Lovely, lovely news. Julia is going to be all right. She’s much better. She has to stay in hospital for a few days, but she’s all right. Phaedria’s safely back with her. Poor girl, that must have been a terrible twenty-four hours.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Roz, ‘really glad. It’s been a nightmare. I’m sorry I behaved so badly, Granny Letitia, I was distraught.’
‘That’s all right, darling. I understood. Come and have some lunch. Where’s Miles?’
‘Oh, talking to Peveril, I think. They get on really well. It’s so funny. Miles is planning to take him to Malibu.’
‘Well, I don’t think he’ll be able to do that unless he promises to take your mother as well. So are you feeling better, darling?’
‘Oh,’ said Roz, just a little too casually. ‘Much much better, thank you Letitia.’
Peveril was beaming at the table. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘good news at last, eh? I’ve hardly slept myself for two nights.’
‘Nor me,’ said Letitia, ‘I had to take a sleeping pill.’
‘Oh, you should never do that,’ said Peveril, relieved to have the conversation back on a normal plane, turned away from sickness and drama. ‘Dreadful things, those pills. Shouldn’t take them. I never take anything. Sleep like a baby, as long as I have my nightcap.’
‘What’s your nightcap?’ asked Roz interestedly.
‘Two hot toddies. They have to be good and strong, mind, two pegs of whisky in each one.’
‘What’s a peg?’ said Miles.
‘A
large double. Chota peg is a single. Old Indian measure. My father always used the term.’
‘So you have four double whiskies before you go to sleep every night?’ said Roz incredulously.
‘That’s right. In hot milk, of course. Mind you, it doesn’t always work unless I have a couple of brandies after dinner. But I never take a pill. If I really can’t sleep I go out on the battlements and play the bagpipes for half an hour or so. Never fails.’
‘I must try that,’ said Letitia. ‘I often can’t sleep. Mind you, I daresay then the other inhabitants of Chelsea might have trouble sleeping.’
She sparkled at Peveril and he winked back at her. They were very fond of one another.
‘Stop flirting with my grandmother, Peveril,’ said Roz, laughing. ‘We don’t want anything like that in the family.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
London, 1986
‘SO WHAT HAVE you decided to do, Miles?’
Candy looked at him over the heap of bags in their room at Claridge’s. She had come back tired and irritable after what had seemed like a very long week, trying to console her father for the loss of Dolly, trying to persuade him to go home to Chicago, trying to talk him round to the idea of her and Miles getting married straight away.
‘You’re too young, Candy, and that’s my last word. You don’t know your own mind.’
‘I don’t think knowing your mind necessarily comes with age, Daddy. Did Dolly know her own mind? Do you?’
‘Shut up, Candy, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘OK. OK.’ She was not afraid of her father exactly, but she knew she couldn’t budge him, once he had made up his mind.
She tried another tack. ‘Miles is a really good prospect, Daddy. He has a great deal of money now.’
‘Yes, and a great deal of money and no work to do spells one thing, and it ain’t happiness. Unless that young man gets himself some proper gainful employment, you are not going to marry him. Why can’t he work in that company over there? It’s a wonderful opportunity. There has to be something wrong with a man who has so little ambition.’
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