Another Cup of Coffee (16 page)

Twenty-six

October 23
^rd
2006

Kit looked down at the notebook. It was not the black book with interesting white swirls spattered across one corner that she usually used. That notebook was at home on top of her study bookshelf, out of the sight of children and inquisitive husbands. This was a new notebook. It was bright orange with silver stars splashed across it. Even the cover seemed optimistic. It was for her novel, and it was filling up fast.

Between her numerous coffees and rapid swaying of opinions over the last few days, Kit had concluded that, if she planned her time more efficiently, took less breaks to see Jack (no longer a problem anyway), and ignored the housework even more than usual, she could continue to honour her contract with
Pearls,
and satisfy her need to crack on with her new project. The problem with the novel, now Kit had hit upon a plot that was going somewhere, was that it seemed to consume her. She was already resenting the hours she sacrificed to cooking and cleaning.

She'd have to make more of an effort to talk to Phil; he'd always been so supportive of her writing. Kit had attempted to chat to him about it several times, but something always seemed to get in the way. Maybe she'd have better luck tonight?

Sitting at his desk at the end of another hectic Monday, Phil surveyed the small square office before him. It was an airy, open-plan, and friendly place in which to work. The computers at each of the four other work stations had been off for almost an hour now. He was the only one left.

It was a good team, he thought. From just him, a laptop, and a desk in a rented room above a hairdresser's twelve years ago, Phil had expanded his continually-growing business. The end result was these nice premises in a shared office block near Clapham Junction, a handful of employees, and numerous satisfied landlords and tenants. Naturally there had been problems, a fair few in the early days, and the occasional crisis to sort out – but these days they were few and far between. Home Hunters had built up a reputation, and it was a very good one.

As well as the residential private lets, oil companies across Scotland and America used them regularly to provide short-term lets for business clients. They in turn usually recommended them to other businesses that needed accommodation for their own visiting employees in London. Yes, Phil was a success, and he had never been so well-off financially.

‘So why am I so fed up?' he demanded of the empty space in front of him.

He had intended to talk to Kit about his dissatisfaction with work last night, but Tom had been stuck on his maths homework, and Kit had been grumpily ironing. By the time he'd read to Helena and helped Kit threaten both twins to stay in bed and not keep popping downstairs for extra juice and biscuits, he'd been too tired for an in-depth discussion about
anything
, let alone their future. The problem was that this sort of thing happened every evening.

Perhaps it would be OK tonight. He'd try anyway.

Kit was singing. Phil could hear her as he walked up the short block-paved driveway to their Victorian red-brick semi. She'd have her MP3 player plugged into her ears. Kit had many talents, but singing was definitely not one of them. Phil winced as he opened the front door in time to hear her failing to hit the high notes with Robbie Williams.

As she spotted her husband, Kit turned off her device of musical torture and gave him a squeeze. ‘Hi love, good day?' Kit bustled about around the kitchen, making them both a hot drink and checking that the casserole she'd put in the oven two hours ago was cooking nicely.

‘Yeah, fine. You?'

‘Not bad at all. I'd like to talk to you later. The thing is …'

‘Mum!' Helena's shrill voice severed the air as she marched into the room.

‘What is it this time?' Kit snapped. She suspected she was being unfair, but every time Helena opened her mouth these days, it seemed to be to whine.

‘I've spilt my juice.'

‘Oh, great!' Kit grabbed a cloth and towel and ran into the living room, in time to see a lake of blackcurrant squash soaking into her beige sofa cushions.

‘Can't you be more careful?' she snapped.

‘I didn't mean to drop it, Mum.'

Kit didn't trust herself to reply, as she shooed the children away, and took the sticky cushions off the sofa into the kitchen.

Phil grimaced, ‘Looks like I arrived in time for a healthy dose of real life.'

‘Ha bloody ha.' Kit struggled to free the cushions from their loose covers and stuff them into the washing machine.

‘What did you want to talk about?' Phil asked as he watched Kit set the machine's washing cycle.

‘What? Oh, that'll have to wait now; as you say, this is real life.'

Phil bit back a flippant remark when he saw Kit's face, and decided he'd better stop standing there with his cup of tea and do something useful. As he put knives and forks on the dinner table, he suppressed a sigh. Unless things improved pretty quickly, it didn't look as if he'd be talking to Kit about their future tonight either.

Twenty-seven

October 24
^th
2006

‘Peggy? Peg? What's up?'

Something wasn't quite right. Peggy wasn't humming to the radio that should be leaking out of the kitchen. But then the radio wasn't on. She wasn't swearing at the cappuccino machine as she tried to clean its various parts. She wasn't dusting, or cleaning tables, or doling out sachets of sugar to the bowls on each table. It was ten-past nine in the morning, but Peggy was just sitting there, staring into space.

‘Peg?' Kit felt fear ooze up her spine, ‘Peggy?'

Peggy turned to Kit, silent tears cascading down her blotchy face, ‘Oh, Kit.' She spoke with such despair that Kit felt her heart constrict.

‘Tell me.' Kit grasped Peggy's clenched fist, which wrung her apron between shaking fingers. ‘Tell me, please.'

‘Scott. It's my Scott.'

‘Oh, my God.' Kit's concern turned to panic. ‘What about Scott?'

‘There … there's been an accident.' Peggy couldn't say anymore, the words stuck in her throat as, exhausted, she dissolved into a sobbing heap on Kit's shoulder.

Eventually Kit freed herself from Peggy's shaking body, got up, made sure the closed sign was up, bolted the door from the inside, and rushed back to her friend.

Crisis after crisis ricocheted around Kit's head, what sort of accident? Car, tube, train? Anyone else hurt? She hadn't heard the news that morning; had there been another bomb? Phil? The kids? She shook herself. No. An accident, Peggy had said. She clutched at her friend's hunched-over form. ‘Peggy, please talk to me. Was it a car accident? Where is Scott now?'

‘Royal Free Hospital, I …'

Peggy collapsed again as Kit, holding her close, fished her mobile from her pocket and tapped in Phil's number, silently chanting ‘
please answer, please answer
' as the phone rang and rang. ‘Come on!'

Just as the answer service was about to come on Phil mercifully picked up, ‘Hey Kit, you got writer's block?'

‘What?' Kit felt confused. What was he on about?

‘Well, you never call me in the day unless you can't write.'

‘Please, Phil! Thank goodness you're there.'

Picking up on his wife's distressed tone, Phil was all attention. ‘Is it the kids? What's going on?'

‘No, not the kids, thank God, but I'm at the café. Peggy's incoherent, there's been an accident. Something's happened to Scott. Can you get here? Please, love. Can you come?'

Thanking a God he had no belief in that the trains seemed to be waiting for him one by one, Phil sprinted from the station towards Richmond's main street, before heading down the lane to Pickwicks. Kit was sitting in the middle of the room, her arms around Peggy. He banged on the window, startling both of them.

‘I am so glad to see you.' Kit enveloped herself in Phil's welcome embrace, whispering, ‘I can't get a word out of her. She should be with Scott, or with a doctor. I think she's in shock.'

Phil knelt down next to Peggy. He gently held her cold hands, ‘Hey, Peg. Can you tell me where Scott is, I need to see him?'

Peggy's eyes tried to focus, ‘Phil?'

Phil spoke as if coaxing a frightened child. ‘That's right, Peg. Where's Scott? I really need him, love.'

‘Not here.'

‘OK, so he's where?'

‘Hospital. They said I should come home. Said I should sleep. How can I sleep? Stupid.' Peggy's grief turned to sudden fury and confusion, and then died away again to mumbled terror. ‘So I came here. I'm not sure why now. Except I always come here, so I came here.'

‘Of course, quite right.' Phil smiled at Peggy, smoothed her un-brushed hair with his palm and pulled back to talk to Kit. ‘I think you're right, she's in shock. What the hell were they thinking of letting her come home alone? Which hospital do you think he'd be in?'

‘She muttered something about the Royal Free earlier.'

‘I'm going to call them.'

‘But they won't tell you anything.'

‘They will if I say I'm his brother or something. Where's the phone?'

‘But that only works on the telly, not in real life!' Kit took off her fleece-lined coat and wrapped it around Peggy's shivering shoulders. She could faintly hear Phil talking on the phone in the kitchen. He seemed to have been on the phone for ages. Every now and then he raised his voice, but she was grateful that he'd not started shouting; they'd only have hung up on him.

A fresh knock sounded on the door as Phil came back through to the café. It was the new waitress. Kit had forgotten all about her. Customers had just come, shrugged when they saw the closed sign, and wandered off to pastures new. The new girl would require an explanation.

‘Hey, that's Amy! The girl from the house share.' Phil, his face grave from the information he'd convinced the hospital Sister to give him, waved at the waitress as he opened the door, ‘Hello again, what are you doing here?'

‘I work here.' Amy looked around her, ‘What's going on, Mr Lambert?'

Kit stood up and stared. ‘You're Amy?'

‘Yes. You're the writing lady.' Amy turned to Peggy, ‘What's going on? Peggy?'

Kit opened her mouth to explain, but no words came out. All her determination to be in control of her conversational standoff with Jack began to crumble as she stood, staring. There was something badly wrong with Scott. Peg was crying, Phil appeared desperately serious, and now, in the middle of all that, she'd just discovered that Peggy's new waitress was called Amy. Jack's Amy. She had to be.

She probably hadn't been gaping into space for long, but Kit realised she must have gone white because Phil had started fussing around her, and Amy rushed to the kitchen, returning with a glass of water for both her and Peggy. Kit shook herself in disgust
. So what if that's Amy? So what if she was pretty, and helpful, and was now kindly cradling Peggy, easing some water gently between her dry lips? Concentrate. None of that mattered now. None of it. Scott. What about Scott?

‘Phil?' Kit felt as if her voice was coming from far away, ‘Phil, what did the hospital say?'

Twenty-eight

October 24
^th
2006

By ten o'clock a taxi had been ordered. Peggy had been eased into her coat, and Amy had pinned a notice up on the door saying that, due to unforeseen circumstances, Pickwicks would only be serving drinks and pastries for the time being. None of them had been sure if that was the right thing to do, but as Phil had said, Peggy couldn't afford to lose too much custom, especially now. Amy had agreed, convinced Kit that she could manage, and had ushered them out of the café, just as the cab parked up outside.

Kit and Peggy sat together in the back, holding onto each other, for strength as well as for warmth. Phil scrambled into the passenger seat and explained to the obliging driver where they were going, and that a gentle ride would be appreciated.

No one spoke as they wove through the mid-morning traffic, each individual privately wrestling with the fear of what might need to be faced.

It had been a car crash. Scott had been admitted to hospital early yesterday evening. Phil had found the hospital sister surprisingly helpful. They'd sent Mrs McIntyre home, she'd explained, as she was clearly exhausted. Peggy had assured them she had someone to go home to. They would never have let her go otherwise if they'd realised that wasn't the case. Naturally she was welcome any time.

Mr Scott McIntyre's car, Phil learned, had been involved in a head-on collision with a van, which had left Scott in a serious condition and the van driver with a multitude of broken bones. Mercifully, neither vehicle had been going fast, or there might have been fatalities.

Scott was in a coma, although the Sister was pleased to say that his hands were already responding slightly to pain applied to the nail beds. This, she assured him, was a hopeful sign, although they were unsure of the ultimate prognosis. The Sister had refused to be drawn about the chances of brain damage, but admitted that they were openly worried about Scott's spine.

Paralysed. That had to be one of the most frightening words in the human language. Kit swallowed waves of nausea as they swam from her belly up into her throat. Phil had told her to be prepared for the worst, and to be thankful that Scott's brain hadn't been starved of oxygen. Otherwise things would have been even worse.

‘How could it be worse?' Kit asked disbelieving.

‘If he'd been oxygen starved, then right now the doctors would be asking Peggy if she wanted them to turn life-support off.'

‘Oh my God.' Kit unconsciously flung her hand to her mouth in horror.

‘Exactly.'

Amy sat down on the nearest chair and tried not to let panic engulf her. This fear was ludicrous. Peggy was the one with the crisis not her. Running a café alone was nothing by comparison.