by Cooper Jilly
‘He’s fine.’
I said: ‘Where’s Rory? Tell me the truth, Finn.’
The yellow eyes flickered for a moment. ‘He hasn’t come back. He must be on the mainland somewhere.’
‘With Marina?’
He nodded. ‘I presume so. She disappeared the night you fell down the stairs. Neither of them has been seen since.’
Chapter Twenty-three
I lay in my hospital bed for I don’t know how many days, dully watching the beauty of the Highland spring. Among this building of nests and mating of birds and animals, I felt alien and outcast. I ached for the baby I had lost. A brisk, bossy nurse looked after me, Nurse McKellen. She had come-to-bedpan eyes, and tried to fill me up with pills and pretty revolting food.
‘Couldn’t I have a nurse with a sense of humour?’ I asked Finn.
‘Not on the Health Service,’ he said.
I longed inordinately for his visits. He used to pop in during the mornings or late in the evenings after visiting hours and just sit holding my hand and telling me about his day, or letting me rave on about Rory and the baby, if I felt like it.
Once, when Jackie Barrett came in, he didn’t even let go of my hand.
‘She’s getting better,’ he told her.
‘Good,’ she said crisply. ‘You gave us all a fright,’ she added to me.
I thought I detected a few chips of ice in her blue eyes.
‘I thought you were having an affaire with her,’ I said after she’d gone.
Finn looked surprised.
‘She answered the telephone the night I rang, and sounded awfully proprietorial.’
‘She had no need to,’ said Finn. ‘We were only watching some medical programme on television.’
After that I felt much happier. I slept a lot. Finn still wouldn’t allow me any visitors and I didn’t want any. But at the back of my mind was a great deal of dread and expectation. I didn’t have to wait long.
Two days later I was lying in bed half asleep.
Suddenly there was a commotion outside and a familiar voice saying impatiently, ‘Where is she?’
Immediately I was awake and drenched with sweat, my pulses pounding.
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ continued the voice. ‘I’m her husband!’
Then Nurse McKellen’s voice, anxious and flustered. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Maclean’s orders are that she has no visitors.’
‘Then I’ll go through the wards waking every patient till I find her.’
‘You dinna understand, sir, Mrs Balniel’s been verra ill. She had severe concussion and internal haemorrhage as well, and she’s been very depressed since she regained consciousness, learning about losing the baby, poor wee lassie.’
‘The what?’ Rory’s voice was like the crack of a whip. ‘What did you say?’
‘Since she lost the bairn. You must have been disappointed too, sir?’
Then Rory’s voice hissing through his teeth. ‘Where is she, damn you?’
And Nurse McKellen’s high-pitched shriek. ‘Don’t you lay your hands on me, young man! All right, Mrs Balniel’s in there, but I’ll no answer for Dr Maclean when he comes back.’
I heard a quick step outside. A moment later the door was flung open and in strode Rory. ‘So there you are.’
‘Hello, Rory,’ I croaked.
He was beside the bed, black eyes blazing, his face deathly pale against the black fur of his coat.
‘What’s this about a baby?’ he demanded. ‘Is it true?’
I nodded.
‘How long had you known?’
‘About two months.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘I tried to,’ I said miserably. ‘I wanted to so badly. I just didn’t feel up to it.’
‘And you threw me out without even letting me know of its existence!’
‘I didn’t think you’d be interested.’
‘Not interested in my own child?’
‘Mr Balniel.’ It was Nurse McKellen again, her starched bosom heaving. ‘We mustn’t disturb Mrs Balniel.’
Rory didn’t turn his head.
‘Get out, you fat bitch,’ he said.
Then, when she didn’t he turned on her. One look at the murderous expression on his face and she scarpered.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked.
‘I was wearing your dark glasses. I must have missed the top step of the stairs and conked out when I hit the bottom.’
‘I suppose you don’t remember anything about it?’ he said.
‘Not much,’ I said slowly, ‘but I remember very vividly what happened before.’
Rory side-stepped the issue. ‘Why the hell couldn’t you have told me about the baby before?’ he said. ‘It was criminally irresponsible of you, I hope you realize that?’
‘I knew you were in love with Marina,’ I said feebly. ‘If I’d told you about the baby you’d have thought I was trying to trap you.’
‘That’s the most fatuous remark I’ve ever heard,’ snapped Rory. ‘I suppose it was my child?’
I burst into tears. At that moment Finn walked in. He was livid. You could feel the hatred sizzling between the two men like summer lightning.
‘What’s going on?’ Finn said to Nurse McKellen.
‘Make him go away,’ I sobbed.
‘Leave her alone,’ thundered Finn. ‘Get out of here. Do you want her to have a complete relapse?’
‘She’s my wife,’ said Rory, ‘I’m entitled to stay with her.’
‘Not if you’re going to make her ill. Look at her.’
Finn sat down on the bed and put his arms round me. ‘There lovie, it’s all right.’
‘I can’t take any more,’ I sobbed into Finn’s shoulder. ‘Please make him go away.’
Finn looked up. Rory was ashen, his fists clenched.
‘Now are you going to get out?’ said Finn.
Rory walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty-four
Next day Finn flew round the island to visit his patients, and Rory rolled up at visiting time. He looked tired, sulky, unshaven, but still illogically handsome.
Oh, please, don’t let me fall under his spell again.
He brought with him a huge bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, two tins of pâté de foie gras, a pornographic novel and a bottle of Lucozade.
‘The meat paste is from my mother,’ he said. ‘Buster sent the piece of porn. He said he enjoyed it, which is no great recommendation. They all send love.’
Then he handed me the Lucozade bottle.
‘This should get you through the long evenings. It’s whisky and water actually, but if you keep the top on I defy even Dr Maclean to tell the difference.’
I giggled. ‘How did you get in here?’ I said. ‘I should have thought Finn would have put bloodhounds on the gates.’
‘I batted my eyelashes at a rather formidable blonde called Dr Barrett. She said I could see you for a quarter of an hour.’
‘That figures,’ I said.
‘How are you?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine,’ said Rory.
‘Who’s looking after you?’ I said, then blushed furiously. ‘I mean… I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘No-one’s looking after me,’ he said.
I was dying to ask where Marina was, but suddenly I felt exhausted, like a hostess at the end of a party when no-one’s enjoyed themselves.
‘You don’t have to stay,’ I said. ‘It’s awfully boring visiting people in hospital.’
‘Sick of me already, are you?’
I looked up and he was staring at me, as if for the first time. He went on staring until I dropped my eyes in embarrassment.
He got up to go. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about the baby.’
Then he did the strangest thing. He leant forward and did up the four undone buttons of my nightie.
‘I don’t want Finn looking at your tits,’ he said.
He
turned up every day after that. Neither of us mentioned Marina. I was surprised how nice he could be — not mocking, not bored, but I found his visits a terrible strain. If Finn knew about them, he didn’t say anything.
One day, a week later, a heavily pregnant girl was rushed into the room next door to have her baby. She was very young and frightened, and her husband looked even younger and more scared. But their tenderness for one another made me once again realize what I had lost.
When Finn came in later in his overcoat, just off on his rounds, he found me in tears.
He understood at once. ‘Is it the girl next door?’ he asked.
I nodded miserably. ‘It’s just triggered off memories,’ I said.
‘Don’t be unhappy,’ he said, putting his arms around me. ‘There’s years ahead for you to have babies.’
The door opened. I jumped and looked around. Rory stood in the doorway looking distinctly menacing. Going absolutely scarlet, I leapt away from Finn; then thought, why the hell should I after the way Rory’s treated me?
‘I thought you weren’t coming until later,’ I stammered.
‘So I notice,’ he snapped. ‘Shall I leave you to it?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘Finn’s just off on his rounds.’
‘I’m quite happy to stay here if you think you’ll need protection,’ Finn said.
Rory set his teeth and strolled in the middle of the room. A muscle was pounding in his cheek.
Before he could speak, I quickly said, ‘I’m able to take care of myself, thanks.’
Rory glared furiously at Finn until he was out of the room. ‘If you don’t want me to smash the hell out of him, you’d better not start necking with him any more. OK?’
‘Quite OK,’ I said. ‘But quite honestly, you’re being fatuous. Only jealousy could merit such rage, and as you self-confessedly don’t love me, why the hell should you be jealous?’
‘I believe in protecting my own property,’ said Rory.
‘Anyway, he wasn’t necking with me,’ I said. ‘He was comforting me. I was miserable about losing the baby.’
Rory came towards me, holding out his arms. ‘It’s me who ought to comfort you,’ he said gently.
I shrank away from him, terrified. I started to cry.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ he snapped.
‘I’m not up to rows,’ I bleated.
He prowled up and down the room. ‘What a horrible place this is,’ he said. ‘It’s time you came home.’
‘I can’t!’ I yelped. ‘I’ve been very ill. Finn says I’m not strong enough to go home yet!’
Chapter Twenty-five
Later that evening I tried to read Buster’s pornographic novel while the little girl had her baby next door. I held my ears to blot out her screams, and the voice of her husband trying to reassure her. Finally, I heard the lusty yelling of the new-born baby.
Later, going out to the loo, I saw the husband outside the room, tears pouring down his face.
‘Is she all right?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘She’s wonderful, and the baby’s fine. A wee boy. We’re going to call him Finn after Dr Maclean.’
‘How would you like some whisky?’ I said.
‘I wouldna say no to a drop.’
I took him back to my room and got out the Lucozade bottle. An hour later we were sitting on my bed as tight as two ticks, laughing immoderately over passages in Buster’s novel. It was Nurse McKellen who discovered us. She was absolutely appalled.
I escaped to the loo, giggling feebly. I felt very peculiar. ‘At least I’ve got some colour in my cheeks,’ I said, looking at my flushed, wild-eyed face in the mirror.
Outside, I found Finn. I looked down the passage. There was no-one there.
‘Hello, darling,’ I whispered.
‘What have you been up to?’ he said. ‘Nurse McKellen’s spreading terrifying tales of drunken orgies.’
I giggled and collapsed against him.
‘You have been drinking,’ he said.
‘On the emptiest stomach in the Western Isles,’ I said, ‘and it’s gone right down to my toes. I’ve been celebrating the birth of little Finn the second, and reading porn. So I feel fantastically sexy.’
Finn tried to look disapproving, and then laughed. I wound my arms round his neck and kissed him. After a minute’s hesitation, he kissed me back, long and hard, until the blood was drumming in my head and I thought I was going to faint.
‘Wow, do I feel sexy,’ I murmured.
‘How the hell do you think I feel?’ he said.
A telephone shrilled in the next room.
‘I’d better answer that,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with you later.’
‘I’ve got you under my sk-in, I’ve got you de-heep in the heart of me,’ I sang as I swayed down the passage, slap into Rory standing in the shadows. He must have seen everything.
‘Oh, God,’ I said, going briskly into reverse. He caught my arm and held on tightly.
‘You bloody phoney,’ he hissed. ‘You bloody little phoney. All that Dame aux Camelias act. Not feeling well enough to get out of bed, you said. Depends on whose bed, doesn’t it? Doctor Maclean won’t let you leave. I bet he won’t. You’re having a ball together, aren’t you — aren’t you!’ he yelled.
I looked around for a convenient second-floor window to jump out of.
‘You don’t understand,’ I muttered.
‘Oh, I do, baby, I understand only too well.’
The whole thing was getting too much for me. With a sigh I forced myself to look at him. I’d never seen him so cold with rage.
‘You’re coming home tonight, before you get up to any more tricks,’ he said.
That moment Finn came out of the side door. I thought they’d have a right old set-to, but I was wrong. Finn had other things on his mind now.
‘A petrol ship’s blown up outside the harbour,’ he said. ‘They’re bringing the survivors back in the life-boats. Most of them are likely to have second-or third-degree burns.’
‘So you’ll be needing all the beds you can get,’ said Rory.
‘Yes, we will,’ said Dr Barrett, coming down the hall.
‘I’ll take Emily home then,’ said Rory.
‘That’s an excellent idea,’ said Dr Barrett warmly — the scheming cow.
Finn looked as though he was about to protest, then thought better of it. ‘If you can take her to the castle,’ he said, ‘where there’s someone to look after her. See that she rests as much as possible.’
‘Of course,’ said Rory. ‘Do you need any help?’
‘I’ll ring you if we do, but most of the poor bastards will have had it.’
‘The ambulance is leaving, Finn,’ said Jackie Barrett, going towards the stairs.
‘Just coming,’ said Finn. He looked at me as though he wanted to say something, but I could feel him sliding away, both mentally and physically.
‘I’ll ring tomorrow and see how you’re getting on,’ he said. Then he was gone.
I felt overwhelmed with desolation and fear.
‘And now, Emily dear,’ said Rory softly, ‘I think it’s time you came home.’
We didn’t speak on the way back from the hospital, but as the castle loomed into view, Rory shot straight past it.
‘Finn said you were to take me to the castle,’ I bleated.
‘You’re coming home,’ snapped Rory, ‘where I can keep an eye on you.’
‘You can’t force me to stay with you.’
‘I can — even if I have to strap you to the bed.’
‘Go directly to jail,’ I chanted. ‘Do not pass go, do not collect £200.’
I steeled myself for chaos when we got home. But the house looked marvellous. Someone had obviously been having a massive blitz. Rory steered me into the studio. The canvases had all been stacked neatly into one corner, a huge log fire blazed, and the smell of wood smoke mingled exotically with the scent of a big bowl of blue hyacinths on the window-sill.
‘Anyone would think you were expecting company,’ I said.
‘I was,’ said Rory grimly. ‘You. I came to the hospital to collect you.’
‘Oh, very masterful,’ I said, collapsing on to the divan in the corner.
Rory poured himself a good mahogany-coloured whisky.
‘I’d like one, too,’ I said.
‘You’ve had enough,’ he said.
He leaned against the mantelpiece, a long stick he had been about to throw into the fire in his hands. The expression on his face scared me — he was quite capable of beating me up.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘just how long have you been having an affair with Maclean?’
‘I haven’t,’ I said.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he thundered.
‘Affairs begin below the waist,’ I protested. ‘All Finn has done is kiss me — three times, to be exact.’
‘You counted them?’
‘Yes I did! Because they mattered.’
‘And where did all this restraint take place?’
‘Finn looked after me the night I found out you and Marina were brother and sister. But the next day, as soon as I discovered I was pregnant, we stopped seeing each other. Tonight I’d been at the whisky and Buster’s porny novel, so when I met Finn in the passage, I suddenly fancied him rotten.’
There was a crack — Rory had snapped the lath in his hands. He was silent for a minute, his face strangely dead, then he threw the broken sticks on the fire. ‘You’re nothing better than a tart,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to be better than a tart,’ I said. ‘Men seem to rather like them.’
‘Well it’s got to stop,’ said Rory.
‘You have the teremity…’ I said.
‘Temerity,’ interrupted Rory.
‘I’ll say teremity if I like. You have the terem… or whatever it’s called… to carry on with Marina behind my back, and then kick up a dog-in-the-manger rumpus, just because I seek a little consolation from Finn. You’re only livid because you hate Finn, not because you care a scrap for me.’
‘Shut up,’ said Rory. ‘You’re drunk — you’d better go up to bed.’
‘No!’ I shrieked. ‘I can’t do it.’
