The Decision (58 page)

‘He’ll be a hard act to follow,’ said Eliza. ‘I love that paper. It’s so clever, broadsheet wearing tabloid clothes. I bet Jack’s over the moon.’

‘He is. I had lunch with him the other day, and he told me. In between criticising
Charisma
, saying how it’s gone downhill, and telling me I should get a proper job.’

‘Is he going to offer you something?’

‘Don’t know. Hope so. I’ve had women’s magazines really. And anyway, where could I go after
Charisma
. Carthorse after the Lord Mayor’s Show, that would be.’

Eliza called Jack to congratulate him.

‘Thanks. Want to join me?’

‘Um – I’d love it but—’

‘Don’t tell me. You’re having another baby.’

‘Actually I am.’

‘Silly cow,’ said Beckham briefly, ‘I could make you a star, Eliza.’

‘Well, that would be lovely,’ said Eliza after a rather long moment’s pause while she envisaged what being a star in Fleet Street meant: your name in lights, your photograph on posters, a huge salary … ‘but I can’t. Maybe one day.’

‘Maybe. If I can catch you in between confinements. You call me if anything changes, OK? How’s that dinosaur of a husband of yours?’

‘Pretty dinosaur-like,’ said Eliza.

Mark Frost was sitting on Demetrios’s and Larissa’s veranda, dutifully sinking a bottle of the hated ouzo while admiring their son Stellios, who was toddling around eating stuffed vine leaves with great aplomb.

‘And this time next year,’ Demetrios said, ‘we hope there will be a sister for him.’

‘Good gracious,’ said Mark, ‘how very impressive. Now tell me, Demetrios, has Miss Scarlett been out here recently?’

Demetrios said she hadn’t, but her club had worked very well for them, ‘all such very, very lovely guests’, and that they were hoping she would be out very soon.

‘Now the other thing,’ Mark said, ‘is that I would like to bring my mother out here shortly, to see my house. I think she’ll like it, but in case she doesn’t it would be nice if she could stay here.’

‘Mr Mark, I hope she will not like your house too much. You know how much we enjoy to have the famous Mrs Frost staying here in our hotel.’

It seemed the happiest, the sweetest, the most hopeful of days. A hot day in early August and she’d been having a picnic in Richmond Park with Heather and Coral; she was only in London and not at Summercourt because she’d had an appointment at the hospital.

Everything was fine, they said, she was twenty-four weeks, the baby was developing absolutely according to the book; her blood pressure was a bit high, perhaps …

‘You’d have high blood pressure,’ Eliza said to the midwife, ‘if you lived with my husband.’

‘Oh, they all say that,’ the midwife said, smiling. ‘Just the same, be careful; take it a little bit easy.’

‘I’ll try.’

She couldn’t ring Heather, because she only had the payphone in the hall, so she just went round on the off-chance. Heather greeted her at the door, looking pale and tired. She said a picnic sounded really nice.

‘Good. I’ve bought the food already, I hoped you’d be able to come.’

‘We got sick of the swings, didn’t we, Coral? All the bigger children there, now it’s school holidays, it’s a bit rough for her. Everything all right at the hospital?’

‘Yes, fine, thanks.’

‘You’re so lucky. I’d give anything for another, but Alan says not till he’s got made up to works manager and we can look for a different place. Maybe with a garden. Trouble is,’ said Heather, settling Coral in the back seat of Eliza’s new car – a bright yellow Renault, and her pride and joy – ‘it’s made us nervous of doing anything, you know, case I do get pregnant. And then of course, that spoils everything, I can’t relax and he realises and—’

‘I think you should have another try with the pill,’ said Eliza, ‘they’re much better now, lower dose of hormones, you might be OK.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Heather.

It was a beautiful day, the sort that England occasionally does so well. The sky was cloudless, the sun hot, and there was a slight heat haze hovering above the bracken.

They found a small stream and helped the children dam it; ate their picnic, played hide and seek, and then lay down in the sun while Emmie taught Coral how to paddle, as she put it.

It was all very idyllic.

And then: ‘Ouch,’ said Eliza.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Tummy ache. Oh, that’s better. Must have got in a funny position.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes, honestly. It’s fine now.’

‘When are you going back to your mum’s place?’

‘Oh – tomorrow. I want to spend the rest of the summer there.’

‘In the country? How lovely,’ said Heather, without a shred of rancour in her voice, ‘wish my mum lived there.’

‘Yes, it’s nice,’ said Eliza. She would have given a great deal to invite Heather down to Summercourt, but she couldn’t. It might spell the end of their friendship, an unbridgeable chasm. So stupid. So unbelievably stupid.

‘Um – Eliza.’

‘Yes?’

‘Can I ask your advice about something? I’m in a bit of bother – money bother.’

‘Oh. Like what?’

‘Well – like a few weeks ago, I just ran out of money. I couldn’t wait till Tuesday, you know, when I get my family allowance and I didn’t dare ask Alan, because he’s just put my housekeeping up, and he gets so cross when I can’t manage—’

Eliza, who couldn’t imagine how anyone could manage on Heather’s housekeeping money, sat up and looked at her.

‘And?’

‘And well, the lady at the corner shop, she lets you get things on tick. If you’ve – you know, run out. So I had to do that, get a few things, just for Coral, some fruit, you know how she loves her fruit, and some cornflakes and—’

‘Heather, it’s all right; you don’t have to justify what you spent to me.’

‘No. Anyway, it was ten shillings before I knew it. Of course I paid it off the minute I got next week’s housekeeping. Only that meant I only had four pounds ten left and it wasn’t enough. So I had to borrow again from Mrs B. And it just – went on. And now I owe her a pound and it’s happening every week, and I don’t know what to do. It’s just getting worse, and I can’t sleep for worrying about it. So – do you think I should tell Alan, ask him if I can have a pound to pay her back?’

‘No,’ said Eliza briskly, ‘I don’t. He’ll be cross with you and he shouldn’t be and it’s not fair. I’ll give you a pound, Heather—’

‘No, Eliza, you mustn’t, that’s not what I meant and I couldn’t let you.’

‘Yes, you could. Look—’ Somehow it had to be said. ‘Look, you must realise, Heather, we’re not – not exactly hard up.’

Heather was silent.

‘I could give you a pound and not notice it.’

‘Could you really?’ The hope in her voice was unmistakable; then she said, ‘No, Eliza, honestly I couldn’t. Don’t, please, even offer it. I’d feel – feel so bad.’

‘All right,’ said Eliza, ‘I’ll just lend it to you. You can pay me back when Alan’s got his new job. Please, Heather, it’s so stupid not to. You lying awake and worrying about a pound that I’d probably waste on a new T-shirt for Emmie, when she’s got—’

‘Dozens,’ said Heather and laughed.

‘Not exactly. But lots. Now look, here you go, take it now.’ Eliza took out her wallet, a present from Matt for Christmas and (carefully covering the Gucci logo with her hand) pulled out a pound note.

‘Go on, Heather, it’s yours until you can pay me back. I – oh God, there it goes again.’

‘What?’

‘My tummy. Feels like cramp.’

‘We’d better get back,’ said Heather, anxiously, ‘just in case.’

For some reason, Eliza didn’t argue with her.

She helped Heather up the steps as always, there were no carrycots these days, but Coral had her dolls’ pushchair and two dolls and Heather had her big leather shopper which she’d filled, gratefully using Eliza’s pound. The children were trailing behind, and as Heather reached the top of the steps of the house, Coral tripped and fell, grazing her knee, and started to scream for her mother.

‘Oh, darling,’ said Eliza, scooping her up and carrying her up the steps, handing her over to Heather, ‘there you are, there’s Mummy. Come on, Heather, let me come up with you. Emmie, you stay there and look after the dolls.’

It all took a long time; as she turned to wave goodbye to them, the pain came again. Harder and a little longer. By the time it had happened the fourth time, just as she reached home, she realised, while not wanting to, that there was a pattern to it.

She called her GP; he told her to rest for an hour and then if it was still going on, to ring the ante-natal clinic. After an hour, and two more contractions, she rang; the clinic told her to time the pains and if they continued, to come in.

‘Is baby moving around much?’

‘Um – yes, think so,’ said Eliza, feeling as she spoke the reassuring dance of the baby in her uterus. Surely nothing could be wrong if he was jumping about like that …

Another pain: she began to feel frightened, and rang Sandra, asked her if she would look after Emmie, and drove over to Clapham, very slowly and carefully, ignoring Emmie’s fractious whining, asked Sandra to ring Matt and warn him and then drove in a growing panic to the hospital.

She walked into the ante-natal clinic, shaking, remembering and marvelling that only a few hours earlier she had run in, carefree and unafraid, offering breathless apologies for being late and simply looking forward to the rest of the now-darkening day.

They did all the usual things, so slowly and carefully she wanted to scream: checked her blood pressure, her pulse, her urine and put her to bed in a cubicle in the ante-natal ward.

The pain was getting worse; she said so, and they said they would bleep the registrar. She lay there, timing the pain, willing it away; it wouldn’t go. The baby was still moving, but slowly and more feebly, as if it was frightened, as she was.

She stroked her stomach, talked to the baby. ‘Stay there,’ she kept saying, ‘stay there, little one, stay safe, let me look after you. Wait a little while longer.’

By the time the registrar came she was crying.

Matt arrived white with fear and sat by her, holding her hand as they checked her, monitored her pain, and palpated her stomach.

‘He’s moving around all right,’ said the registrar, ‘doesn’t seem too bothered by all this.’

But his eyes were just slightly evasive.

‘That’s fine,’ said the midwife, listening intently to the small trumpet pressed to Eliza’s stomach, ‘good strong heart there. No need to worry about him.’

But her smile was just a little bit too bright.

By eight o’clock the contractions were coming every five minutes. The registrar came again, and said she should be moved to the labour ward.

‘I’m sorry, Eliza, but that baby’s coming, and we have to do the best we can.’

‘Could it – could it be alive?’

He smiled, patted her hand.

‘It’s alive right now, that’s all we know. But it’s very, very tiny, the lungs are underdeveloped, it’s a difficult situation. Right, off we go.’

It hurt, as much as delivering Emmie; she was surprised. They offered her gas and air, but she refused; she wanted to be totally aware of what was happening. They urged her to do her breathing as she groaned and sweated and struggled with the pain but she found it impossible, it was something that went with hope and courage and she felt neither. And she half welcomed the pain, feeling punished for whatever she should or should not have done to save the baby.

The small, perfect creature slithered out of her just before midnight; it was Matt, standing holding her hand, who told her what it was, the longed-for boy.

‘He’s beautiful,’ he said, ‘a beautiful baby.’

He was alive, the beautiful boy, wailing if not yelling, but still quite impressively; so far so good, the registrar said, smiling at Eliza. She was allowed to hold him for little more than ten seconds, and then he was gone, gone to lie within his other, substitute womb, an incubator in the premature unit. She didn’t cry, just gripped Matt’s hand, closed her eyes and did what all mothers do when their children are in danger, and whether they acknowledge it or not: she prayed.

She was to do a lot of that in the days to come.

They wheeled her into the maternity ward; a couple of mothers were feeding their babies and smiled at her.

‘What did you have?’ they said.

‘A boy,’ she said, too weary and overwhelmed to say more.

‘Lovely,’ said one of them. ‘I don’t care what people say, boys are just that bit more special.’

And hers was more than more than special; she closed her eyes against the rush of tears.

She lay awake all night. Towards dawn she managed to get up and stagger to the nurses’ desk.

‘Mrs Shaw,’ said one of them, a probationer, ‘you shouldn’t be out of bed.’

‘I want to know what’s happened to my baby.’