The noise had stopped, thank goodness. It wasn’t my alarm at all, I realized; it was an ambulance siren. I’m fine, I wanted to say, but couldn’t quite muster up the energy to speak.
A friendly male voice took charge. ‘All right then, folks; can you make some room for us please.’
‘Who have we got here?’ The second voice was female.
‘Lottie Allbright,’ said Jensen. ‘She stood up too quickly and stumbled forward, hit her head on that metal pole, I think, and fell back on to the concrete.’
‘Then she was sick.’ That sounded like one of the boys.
I groaned inwardly. That meant everyone was probably standing right by my vomit. Great.
‘I thought she looked peaky earlier,’ Betsy said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked her to do that last tour. I feel awful now.’
There was a crash as someone stumbled and knocked over the empty wine bottles.
‘Looks as if someone’s been celebrating,’ said the male voice.
‘Has she been drinking?’ asked the female.
There was a humming and hawing.
‘Yes, but not a lot,’ said Jensen eventually.
‘I see.’ The woman gave a weary sigh and picked up my wrist, checking my pulse. ‘Lottie? Can you hear me?’
I opened my eyes and blinked blearily at a huge crowd of faces peering back at me. ‘Urgh.’
‘Step back, give her some space please, folks.’
Nobody moved at first.
‘She might be sick again.’
That worked.
Jensen took my other hand, his face etched with worry. ‘Hi, is there anyone you want me to call?’
I shook my head, too mortified to look at him. Two minutes after him asking me to dinner, I’d thrown up in front of him. Nice one, Lottie … I wondered where Sidney had gone? What a welcome I’d given him. This was too awful for words. What I really wanted to do was crawl off to bed and sleep and have nobody staring at me.
‘We’ll take her in, check her out for concussion or alcohol poisoning.’
‘Not drunk,’ I croaked pathetically. ‘Just want sleep.’
‘I’ll go with her,’ Clare offered as one of the paramedics fetched a stretcher. ‘My son played rugby; A&E was our second home when he was a boy.’
I smiled weakly at her, thinking that a hug from Clare was possibly all the treatment I needed.
Jensen tightened his grip on my hand. ‘Thanks, Clare, but I’ll go; the Butterworths are her employers after all and this was a work-related injury.’
‘Good idea,’ said Betsy. ‘We’ll get Sidney settled in; you look after Lottie and phone me as soon as you have news.’
Someone sucked in air, Godfrey I thought, and a muttered conversation started up about insurance claims and compensation. I wanted to tell Betsy that she needn’t worry on that score but just then the two paramedics transferred me to a stretcher and wheeled me towards the back of the ambulance.
Sidney loomed into view. ‘And I’m so sorry. I feel responsible.’
I tried to shake my head but it wouldn’t move. ‘Not your fault. Thank you for coming.’
Then I was on a ramp being pushed into the ambulance.
Jensen patted Sidney’s back and climbed in beside me.
‘No. Party,’ I murmured, remembering something about Jensen needing to be in London with gorgeous women. ‘Party.’
The female paramedic chuckled. ‘The party’s over for you, I’m afraid, Lottie.’
Chapter 16
The journey to the hospital took around fifteen minutes, but I only remembered two things about it: that the female paramedic, whose name was Julie, put something on my forehead which stung like hell and that she flirted shamelessly with Jensen the whole way there.
As the paramedics wheeled me along a brightly lit corridor, lined with seats full of waiting patients and smelling strongly of disinfectant, Jensen walked alongside, his face alternating between over-bright smiles and concerned frowns when he thought I wasn’t looking. On the other side of me was a nurse whom my male paramedic was bringing up to speed with my ailments.
‘Head injury to the rear and bruising to the left side of forehead, blood pressure low, vomiting, possible concussion, possibly had a few too many sherbets.’ He winked at me. ‘That’s a technical term.’
The nurse asked me for my personal details. I gave her my full name and date of birth easily but I struggled with my address. It was the first time I’d ever had to list it as the vineyard, which was weird enough, and the nurse exchanged glances with Julie the flirt when I couldn’t recall the postcode. Luckily, Jensen knew it, which seemed to act as confirmation that we were a couple. We reached the end of the corridor and arrived in a noisy open area with telephones ringing, staff dashing about and lots of injured and ill-looking people slumped in uncomfortable plastic chairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two policemen trying to control a man who was doing his best to lash out at everyone, despite being handcuffed to both of them. He was covered in mud and had a large bloody gash on the side of his head.
‘This is ridiculous,’ the man drawled drunkenly. ‘Police harassment. You should be out there nicking real criminals.’
‘Being drunk and disorderly is a crime,’ said one of the officers.
The other officer gripped the drunk under his arm and led him away. ‘So is assaulting a police officer. And if you carry on like this … Oh Jeez.’
The man threw up on the floor.
‘I think I’d like to go home,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘I’m not ill enough to be here and you’re obviously busy.’
‘We’ll put you straight into a cubicle,’ said the nurse, patting my arm. ‘Your boyfriend can come too.’
The cubicle was tiny and no quieter than the main waiting room but at least it was a little more private with the curtain drawn round us. The nurse took my blood pressure, which was low, while Jensen sat beside me giving me encouraging smiles. Once she’d gone, I flailed about, trying to push myself upright.
He looked over his shoulder warily and back at me. ‘Is that wise?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but being sick whilst lying down definitely isn’t.’
The effort of not flinching away from me was written all over his face and if my head hadn’t been throbbing so much I’d probably have laughed. Despite his reservations, he hooked his hand under my arm, eased me forward and propped me up with pillows.
‘Better?’ he asked, placing a cardboard sick bowl on my lap.
I nodded, barely moving my head. ‘Much better. I really don’t think I’m concussed. Shall we just go? It’s so busy here, we could sneak off and no one would probably even notice.’
The curtain was whisked back and a smiley-faced doctor in a fraying white shirt with pen marks around the breast pocket appeared. ‘Not thinking of absconding, were we?’ He grinned. ‘Tut tut. I’m Dr Zarzycki, but you can call me Toby, pleased to meet you.’
He closed the curtain again and shook my hand.
‘I don’t want to trouble anyone,’ I said.
Jensen stood up and shook the doctor’s hand. ‘She’s very determined, I’m afraid. Once she sets her mind to something, she keeps going until she gets it.’
Despite my wooziness, I felt quite proud of that.
‘Laudable,’ said the doctor, ‘in most circumstances. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if we didn’t check you over thoroughly.’
He scanned through the notes on a clipboard sitting at the end of my bed and I sighed, resigned to spend several hours here only to be told I was fine and could go home, while Jensen missed out on his boss’s party.
‘I’ll phone my sister Evie to come in,’ I said to Jensen, pressing a hand to my forehead to suppress the pain. My fingers brushed against the dressing; I must have looked awful. ‘Then at least you don’t have to waste your evening.’
He opened his mouth to object just as I retched without warning and spat into the cardboard bowl. Jensen took it from me, put it in t
he bin and handed me a tissue and a cup of water.
‘See,’ he murmured. ‘I’m not wasting my time, it’s like having a second doctor in the room.’
Toby shot him an amused glance. ‘In that case there’s a chap in the cubicle next door with a boil that needs lancing, how are you fixed?’
Jensen held up a hand. ‘Sorry. I’m strictly a one patient at a time sort of doctor.’
Toby snorted. ‘That’s called a private hospital.’
After lifting up my eyelids and testing my vision, the doctor perched on the edge of my bed.
‘Right. Before we start any tests, Lottie, there’s a standard question we ask all women of your sort of age: any chance you might be pregnant?’
‘Um.’ I swallowed, determinedly avoiding Jensen’s eye. ‘Technically there’s a chance, I suppose. I mean, I’m not a … I am, I have been sexually active.’
I tried to think calm thoughts to quell the rising heat to my face. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most excruciating, I’d just passed eleven …
‘So is that a yes?’ Toby pressed me for an answer.
‘No. Unlikely.’
‘No. Okey-dokey.’
Jensen was now examining a leaflet about head injuries very closely. I wondered who was the most uncomfortable with this discussion. Not Toby, that was for sure.
‘According to the notes from the paramedics,’ he said, scanning the sheet on the clipboard, ‘you stood up too quickly and fainted.’
‘It’s all a bit vague,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
‘I was there, Doctor,’ said Jensen. ‘It looked as if she was losing consciousness as she stood up, she hit the parasol first and then fell backwards.’
He nodded. ‘Hot day, low blood pressure, it figures. Had you been feeling ill prior to this?’
I hesitated. The truth was that I’d been feeling off-colour since leaving London: loss of appetite, headaches, tiredness, nausea … but I’d put it down to anxiety, particularly after Harvey’s unexpected appearance at Evie’s house.
‘Not really,’ I said uncertainly.
‘Hmm.’ Toby narrowed his eyes. ‘We’ll do a urine test, take some bloods. Then check that head out. Okay?’
Jensen went to fetch a cup of tea while a nurse took me to the toilet in a wheelchair to produce a urine sample. When we got back to the cubicle I convinced her that I was feeling well enough to continue sitting and she left me in a chair while she vanished with my pot of wee.
It was ages before anyone came back and I’d just felt myself nodding off when Jensen appeared with two cups of tea and a big bar of chocolate.
‘Sorry,’ he said, handing me one of the cups. ‘I needed to make some calls first, let people know I won’t be there tonight. Have I missed anything?’
I took a sip of tea and sighed with pleasure. ‘I think they’ve forgotten about me. This is heaven.’
Despite being from a vending machine, the tea was exactly what I wanted. I hadn’t drunk tea with milk in for weeks, but now I couldn’t get enough of it, swallowing it in three big gulps.
‘So I see.’ He laughed and disposed of the cup for me before leaning against the empty bed. ‘I thought it might sober you up.’
‘Hey, I am not drunk!’ I protested. ‘I didn’t seem drunk to you when you asked me to go to dinner with you, did I?’
His lips twitched. ‘A little vague, maybe.’
‘Oh well,’ I waved a hand, ‘that’s normal for me.’
‘Okay, Lottie.’ Toby whisked his way back into the cubicle again, clipboard in hand. ‘I’ve got the results of your urine test.’
Jensen stood up straight. ‘I should probably go outside for this bit.’
I grabbed the sleeve of his polo shirt. ‘No need, you can stay. You’re my second doctor, remember?’
I was confident that this wasn’t about to turn into an episode of Embarrassing Bodies; there was nothing wrong with me.
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Jensen looked a bit doubtful but resumed his position anyway.
‘I’m sure.’ I looked at Toby. ‘Go on then, Doctor, what did you find? Scarcely any alcohol, I bet.’
‘No, no, the alcohol levels were negligible.’ The doctor maintained a neutral expression. ‘But I can confirm that you’re pregnant.’
‘Pardon?’ I said stupidly, even though I’d heard him perfectly.
‘You are expecting a baby.’ Toby’s mouth formed a wary smile.
I stared at him. I was pregnant. With Harvey’s baby. A sob escaped from my throat. There was a baby growing inside me.
Jensen crouched down by my chair and touched my arm. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Not really,’ I managed to croak.
‘I take it this wasn’t planned?’ he asked.
I shook my head, meeting his eye. ‘Like I said, I’ve just come out of a relationship.’
Jensen exhaled, his eyes full of concern and something else I couldn’t put my finger on, but he looked sad.
‘So you two aren’t a couple?’ The doctor waved a finger between us.
Jensen shook his head. ‘We’re just friends.’
There was a flat tone to his voice that made me think that after today we might not even be that. He cleared his throat. ‘Lottie, I’m not sure I’m the right person to help you deal with this.’
I swallowed. ‘I understand.’
‘Shall I ring your sister?’ he asked.
‘No! Oh God, no!’ I burst into tears. ‘Evie’ll be devastated.’
Jensen took my hand. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘It is! You don’t understand. She’ll hide it and pretend that what’s important is my health and what I want but inside she’ll be heartbroken. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time for her. And it’s all my fault. What am I going to do?’
There was a moment of stillness in the cubicle where both men looked at me and the only sound in my ears was the thumping of my heart. Toby’s face was calm and patient, giving me time to absorb the news. Jensen … well, I couldn’t read his expression but I bet he was wishing he’d accepted Clare’s offer to come with me and had left for his party as planned.
Toby handed me a wodge of tissues and scribbled some notes. ‘I’ll write a letter to your GP and you’ll need to make an appointment with the midwife,’ he said softly. ‘Find out how far along you are. And then you can consider your options.’
I nodded but even in my numb state, with a million thoughts running through my brain, I knew my options were limited. Despite this being Harvey’s baby and unplanned and all the obstacles which I’d no doubt have to overcome, I couldn’t have a termination. It might be practical and right for other people, but for me it would seem too cruel when my sister so longed for a baby. It would seem like flaunting not only my fertility but my ability to choose whether to have a baby or not in her face. Then again, how would she cope with seeing me getting a bigger and bigger bump over the coming weeks?
What a dilemma. I groaned with the shock of it all and dabbed at my tears.
Unless I didn’t tell her, of course … But I couldn’t think about this now, there was too much to take in, my head ached and all I really wanted to do was sleep.
Toby was waving a hand in front of my face. ‘Lottie?’
Jensen squeezed my fingers. ‘The doctor asked who your GP is.’
‘I’m registered with one in London. But I’ll go to the surgery in Fernfield.’
Jensen glanced sideways at me. ‘Is that where the father is, London?’
I shuddered. ‘Yes. Please, I don’t want to think about him now.’
‘You’ll have to tell him; he has a right to know.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ I snapped.
He held his hands up. ‘Sorry, none of my business.’
Harvey. I’d hoped he was out of my life for ever, but if I was to go ahead and have this baby, he and I would be eternally linked. What a depressing thought.
‘I’m so sorry you’ve got dragged into this
.’ I shut my eyes.
‘You’ve got nothing to apologize for.’ Jensen put his arms around me and rocked me from side to side, resting his chin on my head. I’d never been so glad of human contact in my life and leaned into him, soaking up the feeling of comfort.
‘I’d like to go home now please, Doctor,’ I said firmly, peeling myself away from Jensen. ‘Apart from being pregnant and having a very sore head, I’m fine and I feel awful for leaving the clearing up to everyone else at the vineyard.’
‘Fine. But no clearing up for you.’ Toby looked at Jensen. ‘Make sure she does nothing but rest and drink plenty of fluids.’
‘You hear that, Lottie? Doctor’s orders,’ said Jensen sternly.
‘I’ve drunk more fluids in the last month than in my entire life,’ I told the doctor. ‘Unfortunately, a lot of it was sparkling wine. The poor baby is probably pickled.’
I pointed to the logo on my polo shirt.
‘Ah. You’ll need to cut down your alcohol intake immediately,’ said the doctor, ‘and please get yourself booked in for a scan as soon as possible.’
It took a further ten minutes for the paperwork to be completed and for me to be officially discharged. The nurse we’d seen when we came in advised us to go up to the main entrance where we’d find a taxi. I didn’t have any money with me and promised to pay Jensen back, but he waved my protests away. He offered me his hand as we stood up to leave the safety of my cubicle and I took it gratefully.
I wasn’t just weak from my fall; I was in shock from finding out I was going to be a mother. Or perhaps I was already a mother, simply by being pregnant? I’d never thought about it before. And I don’t know if it was psychosomatic, but I felt oddly aware of my tummy suddenly, with an urge to shield it from the other patients as we walked along the corridor.
‘You’ve been so kind.’ I squeezed Jensen’s hand lightly.
‘Not at all.’ He pressed a feather-light kiss to my cheek. ‘I’m sorry this hasn’t been a happier occasion for you.’
His tenderness nearly undid me. If only someone like him had been the father of this baby and not Harvey. But Jensen wasn’t the father; I was on my own. Until today I hadn’t given much thought to how my first pregnancy would pan out, but I was pretty sure that being single with a violent ex, a temporary job (one which involved a lot of alcohol) and a temporary home wouldn’t have figured in my master plan. And what was worse, what tugged at my heart the most, was that poor Evie and Darren, who would have made wonderful parents, weren’t able to do what I’d done accidentally. Why was life so unfair?
A Vintage Summer Page 18
