Playing for Keeps

by Rosa Temple

  ‘Magenta! What hospital is Hugo at?’

  ‘It’s Brentfield. Private hospital. Brompton Road.’

  ‘Thanks,’ the driver said and took off.

  I was unaware of my surroundings. All I could feel was Anthony’s hand squeezing mine, his eyes at the side of my face. I sat bolt upright, staring out at the London traffic passing us in a blur of noise, traffic lights and No Entry signs. I blinked and felt warm tears roll down my cheeks.

  I couldn’t believe it. It was happening. Hugo was really going to die.

  Chapter 28

  Anthony held my hand as we walked through the automatic doors at Brentfield Private Hospital on the Brompton Road. It was a bitter irony that the last time I’d come to this hospital it had been to celebrate the joyous occasion of a life coming into the world, while this time I was here for the exact opposite reason.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ I said to Anthony as we hurried along the corridors.

  ‘I know, but the way you looked earlier I couldn’t just leave you to it.’

  ‘Anthony, our lunch. We were supposed to…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. When did you and I ever get the timing right on anything?’

  ‘I’m sure we have done before,’ I said with a weak smile.

  ‘Magenta, I just want you to know I’m here for you. Okay? But if you want me to go I will. If you want me to come and pick you up later, just call.’

  I stopped because I knew we had come to the Oncology inpatients ward, the place Hugo would be spending the last of his days.

  ‘I don’t want to be hooked to a machine,’ Hugo had told me weeks ago. ‘But the hospital won’t let me stay at home if I’m going to be under their care. They want to manage it all.’

  I turned to Anthony, held both his hands.

  ‘I can take it from here,’ I said.

  ‘You sure? I can wait somewhere for you.’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine. Hugo’s friend Stella will be around here somewhere. She and I will be able to support each other. You go and paint, create something wonderful. We need that right now.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’ He gently kissed my lips. ‘Call me, you know, for anything.’

  I nodded and watched Anthony, his broad back, the slightly bandy gait in the stride of his strong legs as he walked down the corridor. I sighed and looked towards the door I was dreading walking through.

  I blinked hard as I pushed the buzzer on the side wall. I didn’t want to cry in front of Hugo and I didn’t want to start Stella off either. She would be at his side now, trying to be strong for Hugo.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the voice from the intercom asked. Through the square window in the door I could see the nurse with the intercom phone to her ear, peering over through the door’s window at me. Her light and bubbly voice didn’t match her pale face, sagging jaw and thin frame.

  ‘Magenta Bright. I’m an approved visitor for Hugo Lowell.’

  The loud buzz of the door opening made me jump. I walked through and saw Stella coming out of a room at the end of a compact and clinically white hall in which the nurses’ station sat in the middle. She waved and I waved back, acknowledging the nurse at the desk with a nod as I slowly made my way to where Stella waited for me.

  ‘He looks really pale,’ whispered Stella. ‘Just thought I’d warn you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘There’s a kitchen for tea, coffee, biscuits.’ She pointed over her shoulder. ‘Would you like me to get you anything?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’ll go in,’ I said, but all of a sudden my feet felt glued to the floor.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ said Stella, her small hand on my back. She rubbed it gently and then left me while she headed for the kitchen.

  I pushed the door to Hugo’s room open. It felt heavy so I heaved with my shoulder, grunting a little as I made my entrance. Hugo turned his face to the door. He smiled.

  ‘Get over here,’ he said. ‘Where you been hiding yourself?’

  I sat on the chair next to him. There was a coat over the back of it and a bag on the floor beside it. Stella’s. I slipped my coat off and dumped it on the floor. Leaning over the bed I kissed Hugo on the cheek.

  ‘You don’t give a girl much notice. I’m sans grapes and magazines. It’s just little old me.’ I gave a wonky laugh.

  ‘That’s all I need,’ Hugo said with a smile, his eyes briefly looking towards the window in his door. I looked over my shoulder. Maybe Stella would give us a few moments alone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hugo. I haven’t been very supportive.’

  ‘It’s okay. I can’t expect you to drop everything. You’re a businesswoman with a growing and demanding business to run.’ He swallowed. ‘Look, nothing that happened before matters now, okay? I don’t want to hear sorry.’

  ‘What should I do? Tell a few jokes? Dance a little?’

  ‘If you want. I could do with a laugh after sitting with Stella for the past hour, her looking like a wet weekend.’

  ‘Don’t, Hugo. You know she loves you. She’s been a good friend to you.’

  ‘I know.’ He lowered his eyes.

  A lot of silent space passed between us during which time I reached to take Hugo’s hand. We sat like that for ever, looking at our hands, squeezing them every now and again as if that was a new language between us. I just didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I loved the look of your shop,’ Hugo said after a while.

  ‘Hugo. How long have you got?’ I suddenly burst out. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I just want to know what’s going to happen. Is this the last time I’m going to see you?’

  Hugo snorted a laugh.

  ‘Always impatient,’ he said. ‘You want me to pop my clogs right now? Got somewhere to be?’ I cringed inwardly. I hadn’t meant to sound impatient, I was seriously concerned. ‘The doctors say it’s a matter of days now. I was holding on at home for as long as I could but my body is letting me down. Bits and pieces shutting off and I might have to get wired up. So far it’s just this.’ He raised his free hand to signify the drip he was attached to. I hadn’t even noticed it when I first walked in.

  ‘Drugs?’ I said.

  ‘Just saline through one drip and painkillers in the other.’

  ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’

  ‘Not a lot. I’m a big man, I can handle it.’

  ‘You don’t have to be brave, Hugo. You can be anything you like with me.’ I looked back at the door. He might have to keep a stiff upper lip for Stella to stop her falling to pieces but I wanted him to be as relaxed with me as he wanted.

  ‘Stella called Dad,’ said Hugo. ‘Right now he’s getting organised to come down to London. Never been here before. Never left Cumbria, except once, when his brother remarried a woman from Glasgow. Never been south though.’

  ‘Not even when you lived here?’

  ‘As if,’ said Hugo.

  I remembered – theirs was a troubled past. They’d only reconciled and worked out their differences when Hugo’s mother died a few years ago. I wondered if he’d stayed in touch with his father since being back in Brazil. I hoped he had.

  ‘It’ll be nice to meet your dad. Is he as good-looking as you?’ I asked.

  ‘Better. I think he’s got a fancy lady though. The woman from the village grocery has had her sights set on him since Mum…’

  Hugo winced. He was in more pain than he’d let on and now it was becoming unbearable. I noticed for the first time how pale he was. He’d lost even more weight since our binge night of beer and curry. I hoped I hadn’t brought this on, sped up the process leading to this moment by making him drink and pig out on extra spicy food.

  ‘What can I do?’ I asked, hurriedly. ‘Do I call a nurse?’

  ‘No… chill… it’s okay. I can administer the pain meds. Just takes a while to take effect. I can’t overdo it though, otherwise I’ll be high as kite and they’ll prevent any access I have to it.’

  ‘What creeps. Problem with hospital
staff is they’re a bunch of killjoys.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, easing himself back to face me. ‘I bet they’re all shooting up in the drugs cupboard as we speak. Pretty sure the last nurse who came in here had dilated pupils.’

  ‘I’ll look out for that if she comes back in.’

  I tried adjusting Hugo’s pillows. They’d been perfectly fine before I started fluffing them out of shape and making Hugo’s head tilt too far forward.

  ‘Is that any better?’ I asked. That’s when I noticed that Hugo wasn’t responding to anything I was doing or saying. He was breathing, I checked, but for one moment I thought I’d lost him. He was no longer aware of anything else. He was asleep, such a deep sleep, which came on so quickly, it sent me into panic mode. Was this right?

  I shook his arm.

  ‘Hugo? Can you hear me? Are you asleep?’ Stupid question really, but more stupid was me just sitting there. Surely losing consciousness so quickly was a really bad sign. I rushed into the hallway and towards the nurses’ station. It was empty. I looked all around at the closed doors that surrounded the station of tables forming three sides of a square. Telephones, a computer, piles of paper files and sheets of paper covering all the surfaces and three empty office chairs, one with a cardigan over the back.

  ‘What is it?’ A voice from nowhere startled me. Stella had come back and was pushing open the door to Hugo’s room. ‘Hugo?’

  I followed her back in only to see Hugo with his eyes half open now. Stella adjusted his pillows and make him comfortable again.

  ‘He… he was out of it for a second,’ I said to Stella. ‘I went to look for someone.’

  ‘I think maybe he’s tired. Maybe we should let him rest and come back later.’ Stella pulled the covers up closer around Hugo and leaned over him. ‘We’ll let you rest now unless you want company until your dad gets here?’

  Hugo shook his head.

  ‘Please…’ he said in a soft voice. He’d lost the jokey manner he’d had not five minutes ago. Maybe that was all for show for my benefit because he didn’t want to shock me straight off and frighten me away.

  ‘What is it, Hugo?’ I asked.

  The door swung open. A nurse with hennaed hair walked in and sniffed.

  ‘We’re going to run a few tests now, ladies. Blood work among other things and the doctor is doing his rounds. I’m going to have to ask you both to leave the room.’ She looked at me and Stella, each of us touching a part of Hugo, me his hand and Stella with her hand on his shoulder. ‘The company is good,’ continued the nurse, ‘but Hugo will tire easily and it’s best if he can have long breaks from his visitors.’

  Stella and I looked at each other and reluctantly withdrew, gathering our coats and bags and stepping aside for the other to kiss Hugo, rather clinically, on his cheek.

  ‘How soon can we come back?’ I asked from the door. If she’d said half an hour I’d know she wasn’t expecting Hugo to last the night.

  ‘In the morning would be fine. Hugo’s father will be here later and one visitor is more than enough for now. Sorry.’

  I looked at Hugo, his eyes were closed. We’d lost him to semi or complete unconsciousness again.

  ‘We’ll see you tomorrow, Hugo,’ I said on behalf of both of us. Stella couldn’t have spoken. I could see she was choked up with tears and her eyes were already turning red. I put my arm around her and led her out of the room. She shook her head once we were in the corridor. She didn’t speak, just rested her head on my shoulder and cried, little sniffs and gasps for air as I led her away to a row of chairs on the other side of the doors to the ward.

  ‘What will you do now?’ Stella asked after blowing her nose into the tissue I’d offered her.

  ‘Well, I can’t face work. I could go home. Can I buy you lunch? I know it’s late and you’ve probably eaten.’

  ‘I haven’t. I could eat though.’ She stood up. ‘I think this calls for all the worst and most indulgent food we can come up with, don’t you? Let’s start off with a greasy burger or something.’

  ‘Sounds gross,’ I said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Chapter 29

  ‘What’s that? What are you doing?’

  I used the voice my mother used on me when I was younger and I’d quite obviously been up to something like smuggling in contraband or my friend Tricia Walker from around the corner. Tricia’s mother and mine didn’t like each other but I needed the down-to-earthness that only Tricia could provide in my school holidays, a welcome change from the stuck-up girls from my private boarding school.

  Mother could usually startle me into submission with that voice and it seemed to have done the trick on Anthony who stood looking as guilty as sin in the bedroom on the evening of the Shearman Bright Christmas party.

  ‘I fished the ring out from under the floorboards.’ He had it and the box it came in behind his back and produced them both like a naughty boy offering up his catapult and missiles, palms open.

  ‘Oh, Anthony,’ I sighed, going over to him and looking at the dusty ring in his hand. ‘I’d forgotten. What a crap girlfriend I’ve been.’

  ‘Don’t say that. You’ve only been a little bit crap. I can forgive most of it. I mean, you have had a lot on your plate.’

  I’d seen off my biggest competitor, Becca Mirafiore, whose attempts to thwart my business by introducing a half-price sale in late November meant she was making such a loss she had to either shut down or downsize. Her shop stood empty now and, even though I was glad to see her go, I’d miss her barbed comments whenever she just had to drop by and say hello, and her inappropriate footwear for winter clip-clopping past the shop.

  But Mirafiore Wars were the least of my problems.

  Stella and I had worked out a rota between us, and had spent a fair amount of time at the hospital with Hugo. It seemed strange that, after seeing Hugo lying in a hospital bed, during subsequent visits that week he seemed to perk up dramatically. He regained colour and never lost consciousness, not once. The doctors were so pleased, they let him go home for the time being. I convinced myself that not only had I defeated the evil Becca Mirafiore, but that Hugo had beaten the cancer, was going to recover and everything would be well again.

  Hugo looked and felt so good, he dispatched his father back to Cumbria, especially since he felt fit enough to take walks to the end of his street and back. I let Hugo convince me it was all right to take myself off to the office Christmas party and stop worrying about him for at least one night.

  Anthony was coming to the party. He’d been a pillar of strength and, slowly but surely, many of the things that had seemed to be going wrong for us were going right. It was like getting to open a Christmas present early and I couldn’t have been happier.

  We laughed together. We talked about our work: his and Sophie’s plans for the gallery and my plans to begin working on women’s fashion designs. These were big things and the support we could offer each other was off the charts. Yet we hadn’t talked about marriage, having children or anything that was remotely domestic. Not even what colour we’d decorate the bathroom.

  ‘But still,’ I said, watching Anthony fling the ring into its box and stuff the box in a drawer. ‘I should have been the one to fish it out.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Anthony slipping his feet into his shoes as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Ready for the party?’

  ‘Ready,’ I said. Anthony put a hand at the small of my back as we left the room, my eyes trailing back to the drawer, wondering how I could ever get us to start the conversation about marriage.

  Walking into the offices of Shearman Bright with my arm linked in Anthony’s I was suddenly taken back to the very first Christmas I worked there as the new PA. I’d been in a dilemma, having fallen for Anthony, my boss, who was engaged to an absolute goddess of a woman while at the same time having had Hugo come back into my life after ten years and feeling unsure about my feelings for him. It had been quite a year. I hadn’t expected to still have feelings of uncer
tainty about my life three years later, no matter which of the two men, if either of them, I ended up with.

  Because I’d spent a lot of time out of the office being at Hugo’s side, Riley had taken total charge of the party and she’d done a wonderful job. Everyone was there already when Anthony and I arrived. All the office people and their partners, a large number from the factory and production side, sales and marketing people as well as two of our designers.

  Jack Sun Carter, the architect, blew me a kiss as he emerged from the kitchen with champagne, accompanied by a beautiful black woman with hip-length extensions.

  The grand hallway of the building, with its marble floor and generous space, was decorated with lights and a large tree by the staircase. People were dancing, chatting and nibbling on the party food, and the band was already in full swing in one corner.

  ‘Hi,’ I said to a pink-cheeked Jaime who seemed to have dropped her reserve for the night and had just come out of a clinch with her new man by the looks of it. She descended the marble staircase with messy hair, her boyfriend, Joseph, trotting down behind her and tucking his shirt in.

  ‘Magenta,’ she said with a swoon as she kissed each of my cheeks. ‘What kept you?’

  ‘Didn’t know what to wear.’

  That was in no way the truth. I had felt guilty about being at a party. I’d spoken to Hugo earlier and when I’d asked how he was he had complained of feeling tired. He’d refused to let me come and see him, telling me he’d never speak to me again if I didn’t go to my own Christmas party. Even Stella was doing as she was told and spending a night having drinks with a friend.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and there stood Zac.

  ‘Hey, pretty ladies,’ he said to me and Jaime.

  ‘Hey yourself, Zac Choudhary. You on your own?’ Jaime asked him in a wine-fuelled voice. ‘Thought you said you were bringing your partner.’

  ‘I did,’ he exclaimed and half-turned to allow someone into the circle Jaime, Joseph, Anthony and I had formed at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘This is my wife, Amina,’ he said, putting his arm around a beautiful girl with large eyes and dark skin. Her make-up was immaculate and her jet-black hair was piled up in a funky beehive that sparkled with tiny gems pinned in it. She wore a startling pink scarf around her neck, setting off her matching lipstick.