The Honey Queen (46 page)

Peggy didn’t know how her parents had been before they got married, but she saw how they were now. Saw the way her mother was shrivelling up under her father’s bullying. She couldn’t inflict that blueprint upon her child, no matter how wrong it was to deny David a chance to know his baby. Lots of women had babies and the father was not involved. She’d just have to be another one.

‘There we are, the turquoise door on the right, just up there, see.’ Peggy pulled in where Opal was pointing: a pretty house with a garden full of pink flowers. There was a man walking out of the front door. He’d obviously been waiting for a car to arrive. Then more people were streaming outside. Shari was there, Bobbi’s daughter, whom Peggy recognized from the beautician’s. An older man, two more men, a woman in her thirties, Bobbi, and a young slim dark-haired girl who must be Freya. But Peggy could hardly concentrate on any of them because the first man, opening the gate and standing by the road, waiting for his mother, was David. Peggy parked the car and stared straight ahead.

‘Bye, Opal,’ she said in a strained voice.

‘Thank you so much, love,’ said Opal, getting out. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, I hope there’s nothing wrong.’

‘No idea,’ squeaked Peggy. Opal shut the door and Peggy drove off at high speed.

Opal could barely speak.

She just stared around the house, beautifully decorated by Freya, Meredith, Ned, Steve, Brian, David, Liz, Lillie and Molly. Bobbi, Shari and Lizette were there too.

‘Happy Birthday,’ said Shari delightedly. The whole place gleamed from top to bottom.

There were gold and silver balloons hung over the curtains and picture frames, and a garland saying ‘Happy Birthday Opal’ over the fireplace.

Hundreds of tiny white fairy lights were festooned around the room and entwined around the banisters in the hall. On the stairs were tiny tealights at the edge of each step, waiting to be lit. Walking through the house, admiring vases of Ned’s roses and Molly’s fat blossomed hydrangeas, she had to bite her lip so as not to cry.

They all followed her, beaming.

‘Do you think she likes it?’ Freya asked, worriedly.

‘I think she loves it, pet,’ said Molly, patting Freya’s shoulder. ‘Who wouldn’t?’

From a pal at the allotment who had a greenhouse, Ned had procured gorgeous giant yellow dahlias, forced specially for the occasion and decorating the dining room, which was all laid out for a buffet. Meredith’s artistic flair had been put to good work and all sorts of containers had been turned into vases with greenery tumbled in and the dahlias’ smiling faces shining out at them. More twinkling fairy lights adorned the back door, where an old carpet runner had been cleaned and laid down carefully on the step from the back door down to the garden, which had been transformed.

Ned and the boys had gathered a selection of garden chairs, along with two long tables laid with colourful floral tablecloths and decorated with vases of flowers and more plates than Opal knew she possessed. More twinkly fairy lights were draped in the trees and all manner of jam jars and tiny coloured glasses were dotted around the place for lighting. Three of the big patio heaters she’d always wanted but had never thought they could afford were standing ready to be lit when it became cooler.

‘They’re rented, Mam,’ whispered Brian, seeing a flicker of anxiety mar her face.

‘How did you do it all so quickly?’ she said, finally finding her voice.

‘Everyone joined in to make it beautiful for you, my love,’ said Ned, moving through the crowd to give his wife a hug. ‘Happy Birthday!’

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, entirely choked. ‘How did you keep it a secret?’ she asked suddenly.

Freya grinned. ‘Bobbi and Lillie organized that,’ she said. ‘We think they were secret agents in a different life.’

A thought occurred to Opal: ‘But look at the state of me! When are people coming? I’m covered in wool and my hair …’

It was Meredith’s turn to hug her mother. ‘Shari and Lizette will have you beautiful in no time.’ A quelling glance from Freya made her correct herself: ‘Even more beautiful.’

‘Well, everything’s just—’ said Opal, and then her hand went to her chest. They could all see her face going grey, the colour leaching out of it, before she crashed to the ground.

Only Ned was allowed into the coronary care unit with Opal. Everyone else had to sit outside. Freya was shaking as she sat beside David, who was holding her tightly, saying, ‘It will be all right.’

‘But will it?’ said Freya in desperation. ‘Will it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, hugging her. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

He could barely concentrate. All he could think of was that his beloved mother had had a heart attack, and his own heart felt rocked from seeing Peggy again.

It hurt so much. He’d thought he was over her, he’d done his best, even going out with a couple of different women on double dates with guys from work. But it was no good. Peggy was the one for him.

He’d kept away from the side of the street her shop was on so he wouldn’t have to see her. But tonight, it had hurt as much as it had when she’d left him. He knew it was a ridiculous thing to think outside the Intensive Care Unit, but he felt as if his own heart was broken too. Still, he couldn’t think about himself: his job was to protect his family now and make sure his mother got the best care possible. Everything else, even his broken heart, had to be put on hold.

Opal was stable, the doctor told them that night at ten: he’d allow them in one by one, but they must promise to be totally silent and just hold Opal’s hand.

‘She was lucky – it wasn’t a massive attack,’ he told a white-faced Ned. ‘We’ll have to scan and do tests to see how badly her heart was damaged. She’ll have a raft of tests while she’s in here but right now, the best thing for her is rest.’

Ned went in first. To give herself something to do, Freya said she’d get coffee from the machine if anyone wanted it.

To her dismay, only Meredith wanted anything and elected to come with her.

They walked silently to the nearest vending machine.

Freya went first and Meredith watched with irritation as she kept putting the euro coin in and it kept sinking straight to the bottom, clattering into the change tray.

‘Bloody machine,’ she said, trying again, though it appeared to be a futile gesture.

‘Here,’ said Meredith, producing another coin. ‘Let me try. Sometimes, I think, you get a coin that’s a milligram out weight-wise and the machine can’t process it.’

‘No, go away,’ hissed Freya with wild ferocity.

‘Why do you still hate me so much?’ asked Meredith wearily.

She looked at Freya’s tear-stained face, the eyeliner and mascara from her party make-up now panda-ed around her eyes.

Freya’s lips quivered.

‘I don’t hate you,’ she blurted out. ‘I actually like you now you’re not Miss Perfect. But since you came home, you’re all Opal goes on about. Opal’s all I’ve got now and you’re taking her away from me. And now she’s sick …’

Once she’d actually spoken the thoughts that had been burning inside her for months, the flood gates finally opened. Great heaving sobs emerged and she leaned against the hot drinks machine as if she’d fall to the ground without it.

Meredith looked at this kid who’d given her such a hard time. Finally she understood.

‘Oh, come here, Freya,’ said Meredith, and she pulled her cousin close, stroking the sobbing teenager’s hair as though she were a small child. How stupid she’d been, Meredith thought. Freya was so adult in so many ways because she’d
had
to be an adult, left with a mother who’d fallen apart after the death of her husband. And yet Freya was still so young and she deserved to be taken care of, something that she, Meredith, hadn’t had the faintest notion of.

No, she’d treated Freya the same way she was treating the rest of the world: as if they were ready to pounce on her at any moment, circus lions to be kept back with a chair.

Plus, she’d been angry with Freya because Freya was the only person – apart from Bobbi – who’d taken her to task over the way she’d treated her parents. In her misguided mission to become something she wasn’t, she’d left them carelessly behind. Freya had been right on all counts: Meredith
had
behaved selfishly.

All Meredith’s past deeds piled up in her mind and she began to cry too.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Meredith managed to say.

‘No, I was being horrible,’ sobbed Freya.

‘But you were right. I wasn’t kind to Mum and Dad. I was selfish. It’s so stupid and I’ll tell you about it some time, but right now I can’t believe I ever cared about any of that rubbish – the apartment, the clothes, the
being somebody
. It’s all fake and I can see that now—’

‘And I knew Opal would get upset with me if I got angry with you, but I couldn’t stop myself,’ Freya said. ‘I was so scared that you’d be back for good and Ned and Opal wouldn’t care about me any more because they’d got their daughter back.’

‘That’s rubbish!’ said Meredith fiercely. ‘They love you. And not because you’re some sort of fill-in daughter. Everyone loves you. And look how good you’ve been to Mum. That makes me feel so damn guilty.’

A pale young man with dreadlocks and giving off a distinct whiff of marijuana appeared beside them.

‘I’m sorry for your trouble, girls,’ he said in a slow, lazy voice, ‘but could I get at the Coke machine?’

Meredith and Freya looked at each other and suddenly the desire to laugh came over them.

‘Coke?’ laughed Freya.

‘Yeah, Coke!’ Meredith laughed with her.

It wasn’t until nearly eleven that night that the doctors said Opal was strong enough to see her family for longer than a few minutes at a time.

‘It’s supposed to be only two at a time,’ said the nurse, looking at Freya along with Opal’s four exhausted adult children and daughter-in-law, Liz.

Opal was lying in the bed with lots of wires attached to her. Meredith and Freya held hands and Opal started to cry when she saw this.

‘Oh, my darlings,’ she said, ‘I’m going to be fine.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Ned.

Opal gazed at Meredith and Freya, standing close to each other, and smiled at them, as if she could already work out what had happened.

Liz stepped forward and hugged her mother-in-law. ‘We weren’t going to tell anyone, Opal, because it’s not even three months yet, but you’re going to be a granny.’

Opal beamed, Brian held his wife close, and suddenly everyone in the family was hugging everyone else.

‘Now, you all have to go home,’ said Opal firmly. ‘I’m going to be fine. I kept thinking about that lovely young Peggy and her baby,’ said Opal dreamily. ‘I don’t know why. It’s so sad. I have all of you and she doesn’t.’

‘What baby?’ whispered David.

David finally dropped his father home at six the next morning. Everyone else had gone but David and Ned, keeping a silent vigil outside the Intensive Care Unit because hospital policy restricted people staying all night in ICU.

‘She’s going to be fine, you mustn’t worry,’ Ned said to his son.

Sitting side by side on two hard chairs in the corridor, David put an arm around his father. Ned seemed to have become thinner overnight and yet, even though his second eldest was a thirty-something man, Dad was still comforting him. ‘I know,’ David said. ‘She’s a strong woman with a strong heart. And she has you and all of us to look after her.’

Ned rubbed his tired eyes. ‘That’s the problem with your mother, isn’t it? Always minding other people, taking care of them and not bothering about herself, not allowing people to look after her.’

‘We’ll change that,’ David said. ‘No more running round after Steve doing his washing, no more picking up the pieces when Gemma blows her money on salsa lessons.’

Ned laughed, the way David knew he would.

‘Lord help her, as Opal would say, but she can’t cope. And look what it gave us: Freya.’

‘Who likes to think she looks after everyone,’ David said, feeling his father’s mood lighten. If only he could get Dad home to bed. He’d drive back to the hospital and sit vigil, but Ned needed to be in bed. He looked so tired and old, frail almost, as he sat in the chair, all bones and none of the big strong man he had been left.

‘There’ll be more to look after now that Brian and Liz are giving us grandchildren,’ Ned said, brightening. ‘Opal is going to love that.’

‘Yes,’ said David thoughtfully, his mind on a woman in a small Volkswagen Beetle who was pregnant and alone.

She hadn’t looked pregnant from all he could see of her in the car, but he needed to know for sure. His mother had said so but then, she was on heavy medication, so who knew what things she’d say.

The need to rush from the hospital to find Peggy was overwhelming him because he needed to find out the truth. If she was pregnant, was the baby his? But family came first. He could be totally wrong about Peggy.

When he’d brought his father home, made his toast and tea, and carried them on a tray upstairs to Ned and Opal’s bedroom, David had said he’d drive back and wait in the hospital so one of them would be there when Opal woke up.

‘You sleep,’ he told his father. ‘You’re going to be no good to Mum when she’s back home if you’re laid up with exhaustion. Or if you’re sick,’ David added shrewdly. ‘When you’re run down and stressed, you pick up bugs. Imagine if she comes home and you’re ill …’

The ploy worked.

‘I never thought of that,’ said Ned anxiously.

‘I’ll phone around one o’clock,’ said David.

Opal was awake when David returned to the hospital and there was some colour in her delicate face.

Her eyes brightened with tears when she saw him. David caught a warning glance from a nurse who came out to see him.

‘Don’t wear her out,’ she said. ‘The consultant will be doing his rounds at eight, so you can talk to him then.’

‘Of course not,’ said David. ‘May I sit here beside her? I’d like to talk to the consultant.’

‘Love, I’m sorry for causing so much bother,’ Opal began tearfully and both David and the nurse hushed her.

‘You’re no bother at all,’ said the nurse, small and fortyish with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. ‘You’re already top of the patient of the week chart and you’re only in since last night,’ she added cheerfully. ‘Every time you opened your eyes and we were doing something, you said
thank you
. Some of them –’ the nurse looked around as if the whole ward was on tenterhooks, listening ‘– some of them blame us for them being in here, and by day two, they want to be moved to a private room with their own TV and running hot and cold staff.’