Fast Friends (53 page)

They stood and watched the puppy attack a corner of news
paper, an expression of such ferocious
determination in his
tiny yellow eyes
that he clearly felt his whole existence
depended on the outcome of this battle. Zoë had named him
the
moment she had set eyes on him at Battersea Dogs’ Home,
cannoning against the wire mesh of his kennel. And Camilla
had fallen instantly in love with the tough,
wonderfully
affectionate puppy.

Before Rocky had even noticed them, his future had been
decided. He would live with Matt and Camilla and the children, and vacation at
Zoë’s house whenever they had to travel abroad. It was the perfect solution.

‘
Do you think Matt will
really like him?’ said Camilla, and
Zoë scooped him up into her arms,
watching fondly as he
immediately picked a
fight with her cascading, wayward red
hair.

‘
He’ll really
adore
him.
No question. I’ll bring him over to
you at about ten o’clock tomorrow,
so he can pee all over your carpets and make himself at home.’ She glanced at
her watch. ‘You’d better make a move if you’re going to tart yourself up for
tonight. Now aren’t you glad I made you come with
me to
Battersea? Wasn’t it my best idea ever?’

‘
Very glad,’ said
Camilla solemnly, watching as Rocky hurled
himself down to the ground and hurriedly relieved himself
against the nearest leg of the kitchen table. ‘Absolutely
your
best idea ever. Whatever would we do without them?’

By five thirty she was finally ready, having showered and
changed into the Nicole Farhi amethyst silk dress
which was
belted at the hips by a wide band of shimmering violet and
rose quartz beads. And Matt wouldn’t discover until much later the exquisite,
quite outrageously seductive rose silk lingerie which caressed her skin beneath
the outer trappings.

Since he would be back at any moment now she took a bottle
of pink champagne from the fridge and carried it out on to the terrace where
she had already placed two glasses. The white
wrought-iron
garden table and chairs were warmed by the sun
and the garden itself had
never looked more lovely.

Waving away a lazy bee, Camilla clasped the neck of the
champagne bottle in both hands and inexpertly
pushed out
the cork. Foam spilled over her fingers as she watched the
cork
sail through the air and land at the
edge of the terrace. Licking
the back of her wet hand and taking care
not to spill any on her dress she poured the fizzing, pale pink liquid into one
of the slender, tulip-shaped glasses. Having only drunk apple juice at
lunchtime she felt she could justify half a glass
of champagne
now and raised it into the air with a flourish. Smiling,
suffused with happiness, she toasted herself.

And why
not, she decided, taut with excitement. She was pregnant and in love. She
deserved it.

By six o’clock, when Matt still hadn’t returned, she
wondered if
she should phone the clubhouse
at Sunningdale, then decided
that it
would be a waste of time since Matt would obviously
have left there by
now. The traffic must be heavier this evening than he had anticipated.

By six thirty Camilla was feeling
distinctly uneasy. Matt
was now an hour late and she felt sure he would have called her
if he had been held up. Phoning the
clubhouse, she got the
engaged tone. She tried calling his mobile but it was switched
off so she left a message.

Agitated, she paced the house, pausing at every window
overlooking the drive. If Matt had stayed late at
the bar for a
drink with his golfing companions, she thought helplessly,
she would be really cross with him. If he wasn’t back within five
minutes they were definitely going to miss the
first act of
Phantom.

At exactly seven o’clock, the telephone finally rang,
making her jump.

And at
seven o’clock, the nightmare, the terrible, terrible nightmare began.

The journey to St Thomas’s Hospital,
Westminster, was a
nightmare in itself.
The early evening traffic was appalling and twice she had to stop herself
leaping out of the taxi as it crawled
along
the Thames Embankment, hemmed in by other traffic.
Across Westminster
Bridge she could see the hospital . . . surely it would be quicker to reach on
foot.

‘Cars overheating, stopping and holding everyone else up,’
volunteered the cab driver, having glanced
in his mirror and
seen the agonized
expression on her white face. He pulled out
to pass, and moved into
third gear. ‘Here we go, love. We’ll be there in a jiffy. Which entrance shall
I head for?’

‘
I don’t know,’ said
Camilla, realizing that her whole body
was
shaking. It was impossible to keep her voice steady.
‘Casualty? I’m sorry, I just don’t know. It . . .
it was a car
accident ..

‘Then that’s where he’ll be,’ replied the cabbie
reassuringly, putting his foot down. ‘Don’t you worry, love. I’m sure he’ll be
OK.’

When he brought the taxi to a halt
outside the entrance,
Camilla had
to hand him her purse. After a moment’s hesitation he pushed it back into her
bag and patted her arm. ‘Never mind about that, just go and find him. Best of
luck, love.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, overwhelmed for a second by his
kindness. ‘Thank you so much ...’

Matt had been taken to the intensive
care unit, the recep
tionist informed her,
and gave her directions which Camilla struggled to understand. The wide, grey
corridors hung with
colourful artwork echoed
with the sound of footsteps. Shiny
painted lines in different colours
led to different destinations.
Camilla
eventually reached the intensive care unit and pressed
the buzzer set
into the wall beside the double doors.

A tall nurse wearing a high, intricate
white cap opened one
of the
doors a few inches and slid through it sideways so that it closed again before
Camilla could even glimpse inside.

‘
Yes?’

‘
My husband has just been brought in,’ said
Camilla,
trembling and breathless. ‘Matt Lewis. A doctor phoned me.’

‘
Of course,’
said the nurse kindly. Taking Camilla’s arm she edged her away from the doors. ‘If
you’d take a seat in our
waiting-room for a
minute or two I’ll send someone out to
speak to you. They’ll explain
everything.’

Camilla stared at her in horror. ‘But can’t I see him now?
He’s in
there, isn’t he? I want to
see
him.’

‘
And you
will, Mrs Lewis,’ the nurse told her, her expression
sympathetic, but professional. ‘But I’m afraid the doctor must
see
you first. He really won’t be a minute.’

For a muddled moment Camilla wondered
if they thought
she
was
ill. Why on earth did the doctor want to see her? But
the nurse was leading her towards a small, empty
waiting-room and on to a beige plastic chair.

‘
Would you like a cup of tea?’

This time
Camilla was sure the nurse had gone mad.

‘
No,’ she said slowly, aware that her heart was
pounding like
a hammer against her ribs. ‘I just want to see Matt. Now.’

Five minutes later the young Scottish doctor led her into
the all-white unit, humming and ticking with machinery. Her legs like
jelly, her fingernails digging into her palms,
Camilla followed
him to the third bed along.

Matt was
there.

One of the nurses, who had been
checking a drip-line
running into his arm, brought a chair for her and pushed it to the side
of the bed. Weakly Camilla collapsed on to it as the
doctor began to explain the functions
of the machines
surrounding them. The
tube in his mouth was attached to a ventilator which was doing Matt’s breathing
for him. The shoe
box-sized monitor was
recording his heartbeat, respiration
and blood pressure. The drips were
there to maintain the balance of body fluids.

Camilla, dazed by the network of
tubes and wires and
electrodes,
ignored them and concentrated instead on Matt’s
face.

It was ridiculous, she thought unsteadily, that he could
be so
desperately ill yet still look so
healthy. Ill people didn’t have
deep tans and clearly defined muscles.

Matt looked as if he were fast asleep; his dark lashes
shading
the lines beneath his closed eyes,
his tousled dark hair curling
on to
his forehead as it always did. Yet according to the doctor
his car, when it had swerved to avoid another which
had gone
out of control, had hit a
low wall and overturned, and in the
process Matt had sustained a severe
head injury. It was a closed
injury, which
meant that there were no visible wounds apart
from a small amount of
purplish bruising to the left side of his neck where his seatbelt had prevented
him crashing through the windscreen.

But it was still a very severe injury,
the doctor had ex
plained in a
deliberately neutral voice, and Matt was deeply
unconscious, his condition at the moment critical. The
medical team were doing everything they could to
stabilize
him, but as his wife she had to understand how serious the
implications might be.

Cautiously, taking care to avoid the
lines of tubing attached
by strips
of plaster to his wrist, she cradled Matt’s warm hand in her own icy ones and
watched the mechanical rise and fall of his
chest
as the ventilator pumped air into his lungs. He was so
brown against the
glaring hospital whiteness of the starchedsheets. His dark hair was so glossy .
. . how could they know whether he was in pain? Could he feel anything . . .
did he
know
what had happened to him?

‘I’ll be here on the unit all evening,’ said the young
doctor
eventually, reaching up to adjust a
dial on one of the monitors,
‘if
there’s anything else you’d like to ask me. And Nurse Simpson
is looking
after your husband,’ he added, nodding at the plump, auburn-haired girl who had
brought her a chair. ‘So he’s in very good hands.’

Pulling his stethoscope from the pocket of his white coat
he
disappeared to the far end of the ward
and the nurse gave
Camilla a
reassuring smile. ‘It must all be such an awful shock
for you at the moment. Everything in here looks so
strange as
well, which doesn’t help.’

Camilla nodded slowly, tears sliding down her cheeks. She
watched them splash down on to her hand, entwined
with Matt’s,
and felt a great chasm of grief and pain open up inside
her. How
could this be happening? And how
could it have happened to
Matt of all people?

He had planned tonight’s celebrations
with such care, and
she
had been going to break the news to him that she was
pregnant. It was all so unfair, so
desperately unfair that she
couldn’t
bear it .. .

‘
Can he hear me,’ she
asked in a low, unsteady voice, ‘if I
speak to him?’

‘
We don’t honestly
know,’ said the nurse, coming round to
stand behind her and placing a
comforting hand on Camilla’s trembling shoulder. ‘But he might. Talk to him as
much as you want – it certainly won’t do any harm. Just don’t be disappointed
if there isn’t any outward reaction.’

An hour
later she brought Camilla a cup of hot, strong tea.

‘
Look, does
anyone else know you’re here? Are there friends or relatives you’d like to
contact?’

Unable to think clearly, Camilla
shook her head. ‘No-one
else knows.
Matt’s family live in the States. I’ve got their number
at home. I can’t go and get it,’ she blurted out, her eyes wide
with
panic. ‘I can’t leave him.’