CHAPTER EIGHT
Bruno didn't come home until very late. Norrie had gone to bed a couple of hours earlier but couldn't sleep; she kept tossing and turning, wishing that it was all over and she and Ben were back home in their own little cottage. In the morning she woke feeling more tired than when she'd gone to bed, and found it difficult not to be ratty with Ben. But Bruno she could be as ratty with as she liked. She made breakfast for Ben and herself, but when Bruno came in ostentatiously picked up the morning paper, leaving him to get his own breakfast.
He did so without comment after looking at her set face, and devoted himself to talking to Ben. 'What would you like to do today?' he asked him.
'Go to the zoo,' Ben replied without hesitation; he loved the animals, especially the tigers, giving a shriek and running away whenever one of them roared.
'Okay, the zoo it is. And how about if we take a picnic and eat it in the park first?'
Ben clapped his hands. 'Yes, yes. I like picnics.' Then his face changed. 'Can Norrie come on the picnic, too?'
'Of course Norrie will come, too,' Bruno said firmly.
She deigned to lower her paper. 'Thanks for asking me,' she said sarcastically. 'Has it occurred to you that I might have other plans?'
'Have you?' he asked equably, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
'I might not want to go to the zoo,' she snapped, cornered.
'Why not, it's as good a place as any.'
'Possibly because I've already been there four times in the last two weeks.'
Bruno laughed. 'But Ben liked it so much when you took him that he wants to go again. Don't you, son?'
'Yes.' Ben looked at Norrie worriedly, not understanding what was going on. 'Please, Norrie.'
She looked at his pleading face and sighed. 'Okay, you win. But you've got to help get the picnic ready.'
'Yes.' He gave her a big hug and a wet kiss and went off to find his toy tiger to take with him.
When he'd gone Bruno looked at her disparagingly. 'You knew you'd come so why make all the fuss? It only confuses the child.'
'My,' Norrie pretended to look at him admiringly. 'For someone who's been a father for only a few weeks you've really become an expert,' she told him sarcastically.
'It doesn't take an expert to use common sense.' He stood up. 'Have we got food for a picnic?'
'It was your idea, you look,' she answered rudely.
'That's fine by me. Why don't you take that paper that you find so interesting and go into the other room while we get everything ready?'
So Norrie more or less had to sit by herself listening to Ben's excited laughter as he 'helped' Bruno. And Bruno, too, was laughing. They seemed to be having a great time in there, she thought viciously.
They walked across to the park and went up to where the Grand Union Canal wound its slow way through the green heart of London. Ben fed the swans and watched the gaily-painted narrow boats go through the lock before consenting to find a sheltered spot in the shade of an old, gnarled oak tree in which to have their picnic. Bruno had really gone to town; there was not only a well-filled hamper, but also a bottle of wine in a keep-cool pack, glasses, and even a tablecloth to lay it all out on.
'Nice,' Ben said, which was high praise for him and bit into the small rolls Bruno had cut specially for him. It was a far cry from the plastic airtight box of paste sandwiches and flask of orange squash that usually constituted their picnics back in Welford.
They ate well and finished with coffee. Ben, ever polite, said, 'Please may I leave the tablecloth,' and ran to play with his ball while they drank it, then came back and sat on Norrie's lap. The sun had gone round so that they were no longer in the shade, and she lay back on the grass, enjoying its warmth, with Ben lying in the crook of her arm, his head on her chest, taking his afternoon nap. She must have dozed herself but woke when Ben moved away and began to play with his ball again, kicking it backwards and forwards and then round and round the tree.
'There's more coffee, if you want some,' Bruno said as she sat up.
'No, thanks.' She got to her feet, rubbing her arm where Ben's weight had lain. 'I think I'll walk a little.'
To her surprise, Bruno got up to join her and they strolled a few yards down the path, always in sight and sound of Ben. 'You looked very—maternal with Ben sleeping there in your arms. I should imagine that you're a good mother to him when you're not in the grip of emotions you can't control.'
Norrie turned on him to retaliate. 'I'm always a good mother to him. And I'm always . . .' Her voice died away at the strange look she saw in his face. 'What is it?'
He hesitated and looked away, his hands thrust into the pockets of his tailored jeans. Then he stopped and turned to face her. 'I suppose I'd better tell you.' For a moment she thought that he was going to tell her about the other girl, that he wanted an annulment to marry her or something, and Norrie felt a stupid wave of relief when he said, 'It's about the money you want.'
'You've got it? I'm—I'm glad.' And she began to envisage everything that would mean.
Bruno straightened his shoulders as if about to take a blow. 'No, I haven't got it. I haven't even tried to get it.'
Norrie's eyes widened. 'What do you mean? Why not?'
'Because I've been hoping that you'd come to your senses and see just how stupid and unreasonable you're being.'
'You mean you're not going to pay those people?' Norrie exclaimed, her voice rising angrily.
'No, I'm not. You don't want to help them, you just want to hurt me.'
'You had no intention, then, of getting that money? You've just been—been stringing me along, right from the start.' Norrie was furiously angry now, glaring at him accusingly, unable to think about anything else.
'I've been hoping that you'd realise that what you're doing is just getting your own back on me for going against you all those years ago. You asked me not to sack your father but I went ahead and did it. And you just couldn't take that. You couldn't accept that I'd put anything ahead of my love for you.'
'Shut up!' Norrie shouted at him. 'You're just trying to make excuses in the hope that I'll let you off the hook. Well, I won't. You rotten swine! Why the hell didn't you tell me that you weren't going to pay up right from the start? I'll make you sorry for the weeks I've had to spend with you, you see if I don't.'
Raising her arm she took a swipe at him, but Bruno caught her wrist and glared down at her. 'You silly bitch,' he said harshly. 'Why won't you admit your own feelings? Why can't you just forget about the past and listen to ...'
'Oh, that child!' A woman's high scream cut through his words and they both spun round, knowing instinctively that it was about Ben. They had completely forgotten about him during their quarrel.
For a moment Norrie couldn't see him, but then she followed the woman's pointing hand and saw Ben high up in the branches of the tree! He was clinging to a branch with one hand and reaching out for another, just like Tarzan, one of his favourite television characters. Just like Tarzan! Norrie began to run on legs that suddenly seemed like lead, and felt that she would never reach him. But Bruno was before her, rapidly covering the twenty or so yards between them and the tree. But even so he was too late. Ben missed the other branch and fell, plunging through the foliage like a broken bird and catching himself on the metal railings that surrounded the tree trunk before landing heavily on the ground.
'Ben!' Norrie screamed out his name and threw herself forward. 'Ben!' She reached to take his still body in her arms but Bruno held her off.
'Don't touch him.'
'No! Ben, Ben,' Norrie cried out in terror and tried to fight Bruno to let her hold him.
'He mustn't be moved! Go and get an ambulance.' But Norrie was screaming hysterically and he suddenly caught hold of her shoulder and slapped her face. She stared at him, glassy eyed, her breath hiccuping in her throat. 'Run to the zoo entrance and get an ambulance. Go on.'
She looked wildly down at Ben. 'He's bleeding.'
'
I'll take care of it. Now run!'
With a sob, Norrie turned to obey him, running as she'd never run before, the quarter of a mile to the zoo entrance, there to incoherently cry out her plea to use their 'phone, to get an ambulance, her son was hurt. To hurry, hurry. And those wonderful men knew exactly what to do and made her stay until the ambulance came, only a couple of minutes later, and then climb in to show the driver the way.
She was out of the vehicle before it had stopped moving and pushed her way ruthlessly through the small crowd that had gathered. Ben was still lying on the ground, unconscious and deathly pale, but Bruno had tied a cloth round his torn leg, although this was already stained red. 'Oh God! Oh God!' The words were a terrified prayer as she went down on her knees beside the child, but the ambulance men were immediately behind her and gently moved her aside so that they could attend to him.
Bruno lifted her to her feet and held her, but she didn't even notice. Her eyes were fixed on Ben's face and her mind was filled with just one silent, frantic prayer. 'Don't die. Please don't die. Oh God, don't let him die.' Repeated over and over and over, her mind, her body, her very existence given over to that one distraught and frenzied plea.
'Are you the boy's parents?' The ambulance man stood up.
'Yes.' Bruno answered for them.
'Let's get him to hospital, then.' They gently lifted his small form on to a stretcher and covered it with a red blanket before putting him into the ambulance. Norrie and Bruno sat on the opposite side and watched as the ambulance attendant put an oxygen mask over Ben's face.
'How is he? Can you tell?' The words seemed torn from Bruno, as if he was afraid to ask.
'I don't think he's broken any limbs,' the man said and left them to worry about all the things he hadn't said.
The driver had radioed ahead to the hospital and he was whisked into Casualty so fast that they almost had to run to keep up. Then a woman stepped in front of them to hold them back as Ben was pushed through doors that took him beyond the reach of anything but their thoughts and prayers.
'If you could give me some information it would help a great deal,' the woman said smoothly, used to dealing with frantic relations and knowing exactly what to say and how to say it. 'Let's sit down so that I can write, shall we?'
She led the way to some chairs in the waiting area and Bruno pulled Norrie down into the seat beside him, but she immediately stood up again, her hands tightly clasped together, her eyes staring at the door they'd taken Ben through. 'Please, please, please.'
'I take it you're the boy's father?' And when Bruno nodded, 'Could I have the child's name and address please?'
Dimly she was aware of Bruno answering but didn't really listen until he pulled at her arm. 'They want Ben's blood group; do you know it?'
'No.' She shook her head wildly.
The clerk turned to Bruno again. 'Well, do you know your blood group? If we find out the parents', it helps.'
Bruno began to speak but Norrie said distractedly, 'His blood group won't be any use. He isn't Ben's father.'
There was a startled, shattering silence as the clerk looked at Bruno's stunned face, then she tactfully turned away and said to Norrie, 'Well, yours then?'
'He isn't mine,' she answered on a wild, terrified note. 'That is, he's mine, but I'm not his mother. His mother's dead. I'm only his aunt. He's my brother's child and my brother's in Saudi Arabia and I don't know what his blood group is.' Her voice rose hysterically again and it was obvious she was near to breaking point, but the clerk said soothingly, 'Well, as you're a blood relation just to know your grouping would be a help. Do you know it?'
'Yes, it's AB.'
'Thank you. And do you know if he's allergic to anything?'
Norrie sat down to answer and didn't feel Bruno move away so that they weren't touching. She answered the rest of the questions as best she could and the woman went away but came back later with two cups of tea before leaving them alone. Norrie didn't drink the tea, she just sat there holding it, her hand shaking so much that the tea spilled into the saucer until Bruno took it away from her, putting both cups on a small table in the middle of the room. Instead of coming back to sit down beside her, he crossed to the only window and looked out at the small garden surrounded on all sides by the tall buildings of the hospital wards. It wasn't until then, until Norrie looked at the square set of his shoulders, that she realised with a sickening kind of shock exactly what she'd done.
No need to think that he'd got to find out sometime; to just dismiss him from Ben's life in the way she had must have been the cruellest way of all. He had been as desperately worried as she, and she had dealt him a killing blow. She had had to tell the truth, of course, there was no other way, but somehow she could have softened it, made it less hard. Only she was so worried about Ben that she hadn't thought of Bruno. Her eyes went to the double doors again, willing Ben to be all right, hoping that someone would soon come and tell her.
But it was nearly an hour before anyone came, the longest hour Norrie had ever gone through in her life. Bruno stayed but he didn't speak to her or sit close to her, picking up a magazine but obviously not reading it because he never turned the pages. Norrie wanted to say something to him, but there were other people in the room and this wasn't the time or place. And she wasn't even sure what she wanted to say even if she could have found the words. When the sister finally came into the waiting-room and walked towards them, Norrie stood up and felt Bruno do the same behind her, but again he didn't touch her. She was afraid to ask and couldn't speak, but Bruno said, 'How is he?'
The sister smiled, she actually smiled. 'He's doing very well. We've X-rayed him and he has no broken bones but he has concussion.'
'And his leg?' Norrie asked anxiously.
'He's had to have stitches, but luckily he didn't lose too much blood and a transfusion wasn't necessary. We're going to keep him in tonight, but you'll probably be able to take him home tomorrow.'
Norrie felt such a wave of relief that she rocked on her feet and the nurse put out a quick hand to catch her. 'I want—I want to see him,' she managed to say.
'He's been given a mild sedative and is fast asleep, but you can go and take a look at him. This way. He's in the children's ward.'
Ben was sleeping peacefully, still very pale but nowhere near as white as he had been. He had kicked off his covers as usual and they saw the white bandage covering almost the length of his leg. Slowly Norrie reached out and pulled up the covers, hiding the terrible wound from their sight if not from their minds. Very, very gently she brushed his hair from his forehead and bent to kiss him, blinking back tears of overwhelming relief. She straightened and looked at Bruno who was standing on the other side of the cot-bed. 'Bruno,' she began tentatively, 'I want to ...'
'Don't say anything,' he interrupted her harshly. 'Not after what you've done to this child.'
Norrie stared at him with startled eyes. Was he blaming her for Ben's accident? But he had every right, she blamed herself entirely and would go on doing so for the rest of her life.
A nurse came up and began to draw the curtains around Ben's bed. 'I should leave him to rest now,' she advised, so they had to go, Norrie looking back reluctantly.
'Couldn't I stay here?' she asked. 'I'd like to be with him when he wakes. He'll want me.'
'We don't have the room, I'm afraid. And he will probably sleep through until the morning. 'Phone as early as you like and we'll tell you when to come.'
So there was nothing left to do but leave with Bruno. Outside the hospital he called a taxi and they sat in a taut, electric silence all the way back to the flat. But once there, Bruno erupted.
'You lying little slut! How dare you tell me that Ben was mine?' he yelled savagely.
'I didn't. I never said he was yours.' Norrie hurriedly backed away from his fury into the sitting-room but he came striding menacingly after her.
'But you damn well let me think it.'
'No. I told you at the beginning that he was n
othing to do with you.'
'Do you think that excuses it?' He caught hold of her arm above the elbow so tightly that she gave a cry of pain. 'You deliberately deceived me and you know it. You never attempted to tell me the truth. You never even once said that you weren't his mother. My God, I could kill you. You've used me and you've used that child just because you couldn't bear to think that you didn't have my total love and submission. That's what hurt you and that's why you've been trying to hurt me.'
'That isn't true, I ...'
'Isn't it?' He took hold of her other arm and shook her. 'What do you really care about those people I sacked from the Westland Gazette. Have you ever been to see them or bothered to find out about them? Well, have you?' he shouted savagely.
Norrie stared into his furious face, appalled by his anger. 'No,' she admitted slowly.
'No. That's how much you care. But I have. When you told me just why you'd married me, I decided to find out for myself if I really had injured those people as much as you said. And do you know what I found? That five of them had got new jobs within weeks, one had taken the opportunity to emigrate to Australia to be near his family, and the other two had pooled their redundancy money to start a small business which is flourishing so well that they're more successful now than they ever were. And it's for them that you've uprooted Ben and made him unhappy.'
'I—I didn't know.'
'You mean you didn't damn well care.'
'All right.' She suddenly started shouting back at him. 'So maybe I did it for my father. You can't pretend that giving him the sack was a blessing in disguise. He's dead and . ..'
'Yes, he's dead, but Ben's his grandson and he's very much alive—luckily. Do you really think your father would have wanted you to do this to him?' His grip tightened and he pulled her up against him so that he was glaring grimly down into her face. 'But I don't think that you were even doing this for your father. You did it for yourself and no one else. You wanted to hurt me and I gave you the opportunity because I thought I was Ben's father. How you'd enjoy the kick in the teeth I'd get when you finally told me that he wasn't mine. Tell me,' he bit out savagely, 'when did you plan to do it? Did you have some nice little ploy set up to give me the maximum hurt, in front of a crowd of people presumably. Boy, I bet you were really disappointed back there at the hospital when you had to come out with the truth and the only person to see my humiliation was just one unimportant hospital clerk.'
Fatal Deception Page 15