Gucci Gucci Coo (27 page)

Deciding that people overhearing Aunty Sylvia’s tiff with Nigel was the least of her worries, she knelt down beside Ivan, whose lips were starting to turn blue. “Ivan, can you hear me?” she said urgently, tapping his face. “Please speak to me.”

“I’m a nurse,” a female voice said. “Let me take a look at him.” Ruby got up to make room for the woman. She felt the pulse in his neck. “He’s had a heart attack! Somebody call an ambulance!”

In the background, Aunty Sylvia and Nigel were still going at it. “Why does it matter how old I am?” Aunty Sylvia was yelling at Nigel.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you didn’t tell me. Why can’t you understand,” Nigel said, “that a relationship has to be built on trust?”

“You’re a fine one to talk about trust.”

By now, the nurse had gone into what seemed to Ruby like a controlled panic. “OK, I can’t find a heartbeat!” She began pressing down hard on his chest. Every few seconds she would stop to breathe into his mouth and check if there was a pulse.

“What do you mean I’m a fine one to talk about trust?” It was Nigel.

“You know precisely what I mean.”

Ruby, Phil and Ronnie were standing next to the nurse. “Is there anything we can do?” Ruby said to her. The nurse shook her head. “We need the paramedics. They might be able to restart his heart electronically.”

Suddenly Ronnie’s eyes widened, like an insect. “Omigod. Quick, Phil, the defibrillator! It’s in the trunk of the car!”

Phil tore out of the shop and was back in less than a minute. The nurse practically snatched the machine from Phil and began scanning the instructions.

“What do you mean, you feel cheated?” Aunty Sylvia was barking at Nigel.

“Stand clear!” shouted the nurse. She placed the paddles on Ivan’s chest and pressed the shock button. His upper body rose in the air. “Still nothing. Let’s try again.” She repeated the procedure. When there was no response, she tried for a third time.

“Yes, we have an ouput!”

There was loud cheering, clapping and shouts of “thank God.”

“OK,” Aunty Sylvia was shouting, “how do you think I feel, discovering I’m going out with a man who likes to dress up in women’s clothes?”

For a few brief seconds there was a stunned silence, followed by a few giggles. The silence was broken by Ben, who was standing next to the nativity scene: “Mummy, Mummy,” he piped up, “my have swallowed va baby Jesus.”

Before Fi had a chance to rush toward him, another voice could be heard booming: “Would somebody care to tell me exactly what is going on here?”

Heads turned. Stella was standing in the doorway, an Armani-clad human pressure cooker on the point of parting with its lid.

Chapter 18

Although Stella gave every impression of being about to fly into a rage, she didn’t. Losing control wasn’t her style.

Ronnie and Aunty Sylvia took her to one side, well away from where the paramedics were attending to a now fully conscious Ivan and sprang to Ruby’s defense.

Aunty Sylvia wasn’t remotely scared of cousin Stella and didn’t mince her works. “Stella, none of what happened here is Ruby’s fault. She was doing this for charity. I admit it got out of hand, but that was partly my fault. I will not have you bullying and victimizing her. Is that clear?”

Stella looked Aunty Sylvia up and down. “Sylvia—long time no see. So, you stopped going to Weight Watchers, then.” She turned to Ronnie and did the same. “Ruby mentioned you were pregnant. How very brave at your age.”

“Good to see you’re still so full of charm,” Aunty Sylvia snarled.

At this point Ruby intervened and suggested to Aunty Sylvia that maybe she wasn’t helping and that perhaps she and Ronnie should go home.

Once everybody had left the shop, Stella finally turned to Ruby and glared at her as if she were a side order of vegetables she hadn’t ordered. At no point did she raise her voice or make any attempt to remonstrate with her. When Ruby tried desperately to apologize, Stella merely raised a hand to silence her. “I have very little to say, other than this…” Her voice was like stone. “Never in my life have I felt so let down. What I have seen here today is an outrage. I’m not interested in hearing explanations or excuses. Suffice it to say that my association with Les Sprogs is at an end.”

“What? I make one mistake and you decide to walk out? Stella, don’t do this. Can’t we at least sit down over a cup of coffee and talk?”

“I have made my decision.”

“So, where does that leave me?” Ruby said in what was little more than a whisper.

“That isn’t my problem. You can choose to buy me out of the business or kiss it good-bye.” She turned to go.

“But you own over 90 percent of the business. Where am I supposed to find money like that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Stella, please. You can’t just walk out like this. At least let me explain.”

“Explain what? That you organized some cheap tawdry event behind my back and allowed it to turn into a soap opera?”

“I tried to reach you to ask you about doing a Guatemalan week, but you were on holiday. I thought you would be angry if I disturbed you.”

“Guatemalan week?” Stella sneered. “What do you think you are running here with my money, a business or some kind of third world charity?”

“A business, but one with a heart and a social conscience—particularly at Christmas.”

The words went over Stella’s head. “You will be hearing from my attorney,” she said. With that she turned on her heel and headed toward the door.

“Stella, please…” But she was gone.

Ruby bent down and picked up an empty juice box left by one of the children. She’d lost Sam and now she might be about to lose her business. She crumpled the box hard in her hand and felt tears stinging her eyes.

She trudged into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While she waited for it to boil, she phoned the hospital to find out how Ivan was doing. It took her ages to find anybody who had any information. When she finally found a nurse who did know what was going on, she was reluctant to tell Ruby anything because she wasn’t a relative. The nurse took some persuading, but eventually she told her that Ivan was in surgery having an emergency bypass. She suggested Ruby phone back the next morning when they would know more about his condition.

No sooner had Ruby put down the phone than Chanel reappeared. Once all the customers had gone, Chanel had left as well, to give Ruby and Stella some space to talk. She had returned with Alfie, who was asleep in his stroller. For the moment, Ruby was too taken up with her own affairs to ask where Hannah was or how Chanel came to have Alfie.

“So, what did Stella ’ave to say?” Chanel said.

Ruby told her.

“Whadda bitch,” Chanel muttered.

“I’ll go to my bank to see what they’re prepared to lend me, but I’m pretty sure they won’t let me have the entire amount. But I absolutely refuse to let the business go without a fight. Not after I’ve worked so hard to build it up. I have to raise the money somehow. Thing is that right now I haven’t the foggiest what I’m going to do.”

“That makes two of us,” Chanel said.

“What do you mean?”

She explained that after leaving the shop, she’d bumped into Hannah in the street. Hannah and Alfie had been on their way to the launch party. They went for coffee and Hannah burst into tears, saying she was exhausted and couldn’t cope with looking after Alfie. She begged Chanel to have him for a week or so.

“Look at ’im, lying there—all innocent and perfect,” Chanel said to Ruby. “’Ow could I possibly have said no?”

“But what are you going to do? Shouldn’t you tell somebody? The authorities?”

Chanel shrugged. “Don’t see why. ’Annah has the right to ask a mate to look after ’er baby for a few days. And I’m ’appy to do it.”

“But has it occurred to you that she might want you to have him for longer than just a few days? What if she asks you to keep him?”

Chanel began stroking Alfie’s head. “No point jumping the gun. Let’s just wait and see ’ow she feels after she’s ’ad a break.”

R
UBY
’
S BANK MANAGER
said the bank would be willing to lend her half the amount she needed to buy Stella out. That meant she still had to come up with £200,000. Her parents immediately suggested remortgaging their house, but supremely grateful as Ruby was for their offer, she wouldn’t hear of them risking their home. Fi and Chanel insisted something would turn up, but short of a miracle, Ruby couldn’t see what.

From then on, Chanel brought Alfie to work for a few hours each day. He slept most of the time, but when he was awake Chanel couldn’t have been more loving and attentive. When she wasn’t cuddling him, playing with him or blowing raspberries on his tummy, she was showing him off to the customers. Everybody could see what a perfect mother she would make. “You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?” Ruby said.

“It’s not just me,” Chanel said, gazing at the sleeping child. “Craig ’as, too.”

“Have you spoken to Hannah?”

Chanel nodded. “I ’ad her on the phone for two hours last night. She loves ’im to bits, but you were right—she isn’t sure she can take ’im back.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Give ’er more time to think. At least until after Christmas.”

“What if she still doesn’t want him back?”

“Then we ’ave to inform Social Services.”

“What do you think will happen to him?”

She stroked Alfie’s cheek. “Once the authorities know that Claudia Planchette is his real mother, they’ll try to reunite ’im with ’er. I keep trying to convince myself it would be for the best.”

“Would you and Craig take him if you could?”

“You mean adopt ’im?”

Ruby nodded.

“In a ’eartbeat.”

E
VERY LUNCHTIME
, C
HANEL
and Alfie went home and Fi arrived to take her place. Fi couldn’t have been more grateful for the work. Saul was still jobless and she was desperate to earn a few extra pounds to pay for Christmas. Helping out in the shop also gave Fi a break from her mother. Bridget had already arrived for her annual Christmas visit and was causing her usual mayhem. “Mum and Saul aren’t speaking after she heard him on the phone telling one of his friends he was leaving me because of another woman—my mother. The only light on the horizon is that Saul has got a couple more auditions lined up. We’ve got the bank and the Inland Revenue on our backs. I’m praying he gets something before Christmas.”

While Ruby was busy at work, she didn’t have time to think about Sam. It was only when she got home in the evening and opened a bottle of wine that she allowed her emotions to take over. The problem was that despite everything, she couldn’t stop loving him. It was that along with her overwhelming sense of loss that made her cry herself to sleep every night.

Every morning when she woke up, it took a few seconds before she remembered that Sam was gone from her life. The realization hit her like a wrecker’s ball. From time to time, she thought about calling him, but there seemed no point.

Her spirits lifted a little when she discovered that Guatemalan week had raised £10,000 for the street children. A few of the celebrities, who had been invited to the launch but couldn’t make it, had sent extremely generous checks.

It also turned out that one of Ruby’s customers knew a journalist on the
Evening Standard
and had mentioned to her how much Ruby had raised. The next thing Ruby knew, the features editor was on the phone saying they wanted to run a full-page article on Les Sprogs. Ruby got straight on the phone to Stella. She hoped Stella would be so impressed that she had managed to raise money for charity as well as achieving a PR spinoff for the shop that she would change her mind about pulling out of the business. In fact she barely reacted. Her only memorable comment was: “Have you heard from my attorney yet?”

After she put the phone down from Stella, Ruby turned to Chanel. “She won’t budge.”

“C’mon, don’t let ’er get you down. We’ll sort something out. I’ll talk to Craig. Some of ’is customers are loaded. Maybe you could touch some of them for a few grand. You never know.”

“Yeah, you never know.” She smiled.

C
HANEL AND
F
I
insisted Ruby take off the weekend before Christmas. “We’ve got all our child care sorted,” Chanel said. “You go ’ome and rest.”

Ruby put up a fight, but not much of one. Not that she planned to rest. Christmas was only a few days away and she hadn’t done any shopping.

On Saturday morning she woke up and waited for the now-familiar pain to engulf her. She let the tears come. Then, after a few minutes she forced herself out of bed. She put on her dressing gown, went into the kitchen and made a strong cup of coffee.

As she sipped it, her thoughts turned to Jill McNulty and Hardacre. She wondered where she went from here. With Hannah’s testimony, Jill McNulty’s list and her own evidence that Tom Hardacre had tried to bribe her to keep quiet, she clearly had enough information to take to the newspapers. So what was stopping her? She knew it could only be loyalty to Sam. Even with all the evidence against him, part of her was still struggling to accept that he was involved.

The other thing bothering her was that the moment the story appeared in the newspapers, St. Luke’s reputation would be ruined. Despite her fury about what was happening there, Ruby didn’t want to be responsible for bringing down a world-famous maternity hospital. Once the story made the headlines, it would be almost impossible to convince people that the entire medical staff wasn’t on the take from the surrogacy scam. Then again—as she’d told Jill and Hardacre—it was bound to leak out eventually if Hannah decided to sue Claudia for the money she owed her. Even if she didn’t go to court, Alfie’s true identity would have to be revealed when Chanel handed him over to Social Services. It wouldn’t be long before some opportunistic employee sold the story to the newspapers.

Once the press got wind of the story, Hannah would be hounded by tabloid journalists. They might choose to ignore the fact that she became a surrogate mother to help pay her university fees. Instead they might accuse her of greed and of being an unfit mother to her twins. Fingers would be pointed and her life could be ruined.

At the same time Claudia might end up taking Alfie simply because her fans would hate her and her career would be finished if she didn’t. Ruby dreaded to think what sort of a life he would have with her as a mother.

Much as Ruby wanted Jill McNulty, Hardacre and Claudia exposed, she couldn’t help thinking that this was one story that should never see the light of day.

After she’d finished her coffee, she decided to give Hannah a call to see how she was doing.

“Do you think I’m really wicked for not wanting to take Alfie back?” It was clear from her voice that she was deeply troubled.

“No. I don’t think you’re wicked.” Ruby could hear what sounded like both twins crying in the background. “You’re a single mum and you’ve got two young children of your own to care for. I think you’re making the right decision.”

“I’ve been a complete idiot getting involved with this surrogacy thing, but I really thought Claudia couldn’t have any more children and that I was helping her. I had no idea what was really going on. Having said that, the moment I met her I could see she was crazy.”

“Look, you were trying to earn some money to finance going back to uni. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You were a bit naive, that’s all.”

“A bit? That’s an understatement.”

“C’mon, you made a mistake. A pretty big one, I’ll admit, but you have to stop beating yourself up.”

She asked if Ruby had given any more thought to how they were going to expose Jill and Hardacre. Hannah seemed happy to leave all the decision making to Ruby. It was clear she didn’t have the time or energy to take it on. Ruby told her what had been going through her mind. They agreed it needed more thought and that they would speak again after Christmas.