Almost a Crime (59 page)

‘Oh — Sandy! Good to see you, my boy. Yes, yes, she’s

going to be all right apparently - ah. Here’s the doctor

now. Doctor, this is my son-in-law.’

‘The husband?’ said the doctor. ‘Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ said Sandy.

‘She’s fine. That is to say, I’m afraid—’ He paused.

Sandy had often heard the phrase ‘his heart stopped’, and

thought how absurd it was, but in that moment his own

did: he actually felt it lurch and then seize entirely.

‘Well, she has lost the baby. I’m sorry.’

‘The — baby?’

‘Yes. To be honest with you, I think it might be better.

In the long run. A lot of drugs at this stage in the pregnancy

could well have harmed the foetus. It’s no comfort perhaps

at the moment, but — well, there it is. You can go and see

her if you like. We’re about to send her up to the gynae

ward.’

Sandy sat down; he felt as if he was isolated in some kind

of sealed capsule, everything outside seemed rather hazy and muffled. So she had been pregnant; he hadn’t been entirely mad. But—

Tom Fleming suddenly appeared through the swing

doors; he saw Sandy, and hesitated. Only for a moment, but

it was enough. Few people would have recognised that

hesitation; Sandy, trained in observing the enemy, did. He

looked at Tom for a long moment in silence. Then, ‘What

the hell are you doing here?’ he said.

That was that, then: the end of it. The end of the baby, the

end of the affair. Louise lay in her bed and stared at the

nurse who was telling her she really couldn’t have anything

more for the pain, that her system simply could not tolerate

any more drugs at the moment, and said politely no, she

quite understood, and then, ‘What was it?’

‘What was what?’

‘The baby. Was it a girl or a boy?’

The nurse was very young; she stared at Louise. ‘Oh, you

don’t want to be worrying about that,’ she said.

‘What do you mean, I don’t want to be worrying about

it?’ She could hear her own voice, loud and rather angry.

‘Of course I’m worried about it. I have to know, I have a

right to know.’

‘Mrs Trelawny—’

Louise put out her hand, gripped the nurse’s arm. ‘You

just go and find out what my baby was. A girl or a boy.

Don’t come back until you know. And don’t tell me what I

want or don’t want either.’

The nurse shook her arm free, hurried out of the cubicle;

Louise heard her talking in a low voice to someone at the

end of the ward.

Another, clearly more senior nurse appeared; she looked

at Louise rather sternly.

‘Mrs Trelawny—’

Louise interrupted her. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘all I want to

know is whether my baby was a boy or a girl. You must

know. It was quite old enough.’

‘We — that is, it’s impossible to—’

‘Where is it?’ she said. ‘Where is the baby?’

‘Mrs Trelawny—’

‘You’ve thrown it away, haven’t you?’ she said, rage

making her suddenly strong. ‘Put it down the sluice. I

know you have, don’t lie to me. You had absolutely no

right to do that, no right at all, it wasn’t just a mess, you

know, it was my baby. It’s wicked what you’ve done, and

what’s more, illegal…’

And then she heard a strange, horrible, high-pitched

sound, that she realised after a moment or two was her own

screaming, and then a doctor appeared, and gave her an

injection and she sank into a blank darkness that she hoped

more fervently than ever might be death.

Sandy sat holding Dickon on his knee, smoothing his dark

hair, trying to hush his sobs; he felt like crying himself. And

so utterly weary, he could not imagine ever moving again.

Just as well, probably; given the strength to match the

violence of his rage, he would have gone out to find Tom

Fleming and killed him. Or at least beaten him to pulp.

He had known at once, of course, hadn’t actually needed

his brutally frank confession at all, he’d known the minute

he had seen him there. It had all made sense suddenly.

Tom, brilliant, charming, good-looking Tom who made

Louise laugh, who led the sort of life she would have loved,

who spent his life in her old haunts, the smart restaurants

and nightclubs of London, Tom who had money and style,

Tom who could still have children …

‘Daddy,’ said Dickon, turning his small face up to him,

‘Daddy, please don’t cry. Mummy’s better, you just said so.’

‘Louise has had a complete breakdown,’ said Tom. ‘There’s

talk of a psychiatric nursing home. Some place in Bath.’

They were sitting in the drawing room in Phillimore

Gardens; both more than slightly surprised to find themselves

there, set back within the boundaries of normal life,

so totally had the world appeared, during the past twenty

four hours, to have spun on its axis. They had even had supper together, pizzas brought in from the Pizza Express; Octavia, able suddenly to observe them all detachedly,

arguing over whether a Neptune was more or less

interesting than an American Hot, and passing round bits

from plate to plate as they always did, wondered at the

extraordinary resilience of the human spirit, and its capacity

to dissemble.

‘We’ll come and tuck you up,’ said Tom, patting the

twins’ bottoms gently as they started up the stairs. ‘Half an

hour, okay?’

‘Okay. And don’t disappear again, all right?’

‘They didn’t both disappear,’ said Gideon, ‘only Mummy.’

‘They

did really.’

‘Twins, please. Go on, see you later.’

‘You must have been relieved,’ said Octavia now, icily

polite, ‘about the baby.’

‘Yes, I was. Of course.’

Charles had told her when she had finally spoken to him,

asked after Louise, forced herself to, for his sake: ‘You’d

want to know, my dear. So that when you see her …’ and

‘Yes, of course,’ she had said, thinking of that last lie, that

last act of treachery, ‘I’m not pregnant,’ adding politely

careful, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and wondering how much more she

was going to be asked to endure.

‘That was clever of her,’ she said now to Tom, ‘very

clever. I suppose she thought you’d have to stay with her,

leave me if she was pregnant.’

‘I think it was more complex than that,’ he said, ‘given

that she knew about your baby.’

‘Our baby,’ she said, looking at him very steadily. ‘Tom,

it was. It was yours.’

‘Was it? Was it really?’

‘Yes. Yes! I so much want you to understand. The baby

was — would have been — handicapped, it had spina bifida.

You were away, terribly busy, I — well, I decided to — I’m

so sorry.’ It was strange suddenly to find herself in the

wrong, the one who had done damage, the one apologising.

He

stared at her for a long time in silence, his face very

drawn, quite colourless. Then ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘But

whatever you felt, whatever the situation, you had no right

to do what you did. It was dreadful. Not the abortion itself,

I might have agreed to that, I probably would; but taking it

upon yourself to make that decision. With no recourse to

me whatsoever. It was very wrong.’

There was a long silence; then she said: ‘I know. I can see

that now. I’m sorry. Very, very sorry. I thought it would be

for the best.’

‘But you didn’t consider what I might think?’ He

stopped again, looking at her as if from a long distance.

‘The fact that it was my baby too?’

‘No,’ she said, very quietly, ‘no, I didn’t. I just thought

you wouldn’t - wouldn’t want it.’

‘You are very like your father,’ he said, ‘in some ways.

I’m sorry to have to say it, but it’s true.’

She was silent: hating him for saying it, knowing she

deserved it.

‘Did he know about it?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said, shocked that he should

think such a thing, while recognising that he easily could.

‘Only Anna knew, she - well, she gave me the advice. She

was wonderful. It helped.’

‘A pity you couldn’t have turned to me.’

‘Tom, I couldn’t. Well, I thought I couldn’t. You were

away, terribly distracted, it would have been so difficult on

the phone.’

‘Do you really think I wouldn’t have come home? For

such a reason? Dear God, how did we come to this?’ he

said.

‘If it’s any comfort,’ she said, with difficulty, ‘I thought I

would go mad with the misery and the guilt.’

‘Now there is an interesting remark. Do you think it is?

A comfort to me? Don’t you think I feel the same misery,

the same guilt? About what I have done to you? Ask

yourself that question, Octavia, see if it helps.’

She looked at him, struggling to accept it. ‘I don’t know

how you feel. I don’t know what I feel either. About any of

it, any of it at all.’

‘I think,’ he said carefully, ‘you have to try and accept

that Louise is — well, almost mad.’

‘Almost mad? Or completely? Or then again not at all?

Just bad. Wicked.’

‘No. Not wicked. I really don’t think so.’

‘She’s been very clever. For someone mad.’

‘Mad people are clever.’

‘And she’s done some terrible things. Sending those

letters, wrecking your business, that was almost a crime.’

‘Yes, it was,’ he said slowly, ‘you’re right. It was. Almost

a crime.’

Another silence, then, ‘Louise told me something else,’

he said. ‘I would like to know if it’s true.’

She knew what that was: Gabriel. And of course Louise

would have told Tom. Looking back now, she recognised

the last in a long line of probing, of innocent questions, of

outraged loyalty. Against all logic, she felt guilt.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sure you can imagine what it was.’

‘I - yes, I suppose I can.’

‘Is it true? That you’re involved? With this man?’

‘If you mean have I slept with him,’ she said, anger and a

desire to hurt him suddenly striking her, ‘yes, I have.’

‘I see.’

He looked at her; she saw shock, hurt, anger, and — most

pleasing of all - jealousy. All of them illogical, outrageous

even: but most recognisably there, a source of sweet, sure

revenge.

‘Well, I can hardly complain, I suppose,’ was all he

said.

And ‘No,’ she had said, ‘no, you can’t.’

Shock and jealousy apart, he was, quite clearly, less

concerned about her relationship with Gabriel Bingham

than about the termination. Grudgingly, unwillingly, she liked him for that.

‘Do you still want a divorce?’ he said, and she said yes,

most certainly she did, but she really couldn’t think about it

at the moment, there were enough complexities in both

their lives, both professional and personal, not least the

children, they must take their time, work out the best

route.

‘So - is it - serious? With this man?’ he said, and she said

she didn’t want to discuss it; later lying in bed, she found

herself wondering if it was, indeed, serious with Gabriel.

‘Right. That’s all absolutely wonderful.’ Serena Fox smiled

at Marianne and Romilly, drew back the contract, replaced

the cap of her Mont Blanc pen. ‘Let’s drink, shall we, to a

very happy association. Josie, bring in the champagne!’

‘Goodness!’ said Romilly. ‘Champagne, how exciting.’

‘I won’t,’ said Marianne. ‘I’m afraid I never drink in the

middle of the day.’

She didn’t look very happy, Romilly thought. That was

mean of her, casting a sort of shadow over things.

‘Mummy!’ she said. ‘Come on. Don’t be a spoilsport.’

‘Oh, well, all right.’ Marianne accepted the glass, smiled,

clearly with an effort, sipped it over-cautiously. Romilly felt irritated with her.

‘Now,’ said Serena. ‘Donna Hanson is coming over again

in ten days. With the photographer. He’s going to do some

preliminary shots of Romilly over here, for publicity and so

on. They’re arriving on Monday the eleventh, so how

would the Tuesday be? Or the Wednesday. For the

session?’

‘Wonderful!’ said Romilly. ‘I’ll wash my hair.’ They all

laughed. She looked round Serena’s office at them all,

smiling at her, her, Romilly, the centre of attention,

laughing at her jokes, eager to fit in with her holiday dates.

It was all so nice, she thought: so nice to be important, the

one who mattered. Every day now she felt less shy, less unsure of herself.

It wasn’t until Romilly got home to her diary that she

realised that her period would be due again by the twelfth

of August. Or possibly overdue. But she would know what

to do this time …

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Tom. ‘Sorry to have deserted the

sinking ship.’

He smiled carefully at Aubrey; Aubrey, the least demonstrative

of men, felt an urge to go over to him and put his

arms round him, so white faced, so drawn, so patently and

literally shaken was he. Well, it had been an appalling

thirty-six hours for him; poor old Tom. He must have truly

glimpsed hell.

As it was (being the least demonstrative of men), he did

get up and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder, refilled his