‘Here,’ he said, ‘come here, Terri.’
She looked at him, half smiled, and moved into them. She felt, as always, very warm; she smelt heady, rich. Her arms went round him, tightened; only slightly surprised, he felt a response to her. She lifted her face to his, pulled his head down very gently; Gray, still surprised, but wanting to nonetheless, kissed her.
She was very good to kiss; confident, sensuous, her mouth at once soft and very sure. He wanted to kiss her more, he discovered; he wanted to do much more than kiss her. And she wanted to do more to him.
‘Good God,’ she said, pulling away from him briefly, smiling up at him, an amused, self-assured smile. ‘Good God, Graydon, this is very surprising.’
He put his hands down onto her buttocks, felt them, moulded them; they were very full, very luscious. She pressed herself against him, moving skilfully, almost imperceptibly.
‘Terri,’ he said, ‘Terri, I – ’
And, ‘No,’ she said suddenly, pushing him away, ‘no, this is most definitely not a good idea.’
‘It seems great to me,’ he said, half indignant, half amused, ‘it seems wonderful.’
‘Yes, I know, and to me, I’d like to fuck you into next week, but you’re drunk and you’re lonely, and I’m lonely, and we’ll both regret it like hell tomorrow. And – ’
The phone rang shrilly; she reached out, hesitated, then passed it carefully to him. It took just too long.
It was Briony.
‘Gray? It is you, isn’t it?’ She sounded just slightly uncertain. ‘Look, I’ve been thinking, maybe we could talk some more, can I come round? I’m only round the corner, I can be there in five minutes.’
‘Well,’ he said slightly hazily, pushing his hair back, ‘yes, well maybe not now, I – ’
There was a silence. Then: ‘Gray,’ she said, her voice suddenly moving into another gear, wary, quiet, ‘Gray, you’ve got someone there, haven’t you? Haven’t you?’
‘Well – well yes. No. I mean – ’
‘Fuck you,’ she said, her voice thick with anger and tears, ‘that’s all I can say, fuck you.’
And she slammed the phone down.
‘Oh dear,’ said Teresa Booth.
‘I think,’ said Dr Paget gently, ‘I think we should perhaps get this baby to hospital.’
‘To hospital! Why?’
It was such a stupid question Francesca could hardly believe she had asked it: for a nice morning out, perhaps; for the drive; to fill in a few empty hours. But asking it somehow helped; distanced her, just for a moment, from the awfulness of the situation, the full urgency, helped her pretend that Kitty was not really so ill that it was perfectly obvious she should go to hospital, that Dr Paget had just made a suggestion that they should discuss.
Dr Paget hesitated, looked at her, then said, ‘I think she needs increased medication, and greater care than we can give her here. She simply isn’t coping, I think she’s retaining fluid, her liver is a bit swollen, and I would like to see her getting some extra oxygen.’
Francesca stared at him. ‘Well, why the hell didn’t you decide this before?’ she said. ‘I’ve been saying for days she should go, but no, you kept saying she was fine, that she was getting better – ’
‘Mrs Channing, I didn’t – ’
‘You did. You said there was no need, you said that last night, it’s just plain incompetence, I shall make sure someone hears about this, you clearly – ’
Panic flooded, engulfed her; she felt hot, breathless, dizzy, sat down suddenly.
‘Francesca!’ It was Rachel. ‘There is no need for this and it doesn’t help. Dr Paget has been so kind, has been doing his very best – ’
She looked at her mother, hating her. ‘Well, it’s not enough, is it? His best just isn’t good enough. We all hang around wasting time, and meanwhile a baby gets worse and worse. I – oh, what’s the point? If we’re going, let’s go. Yes, Sister, what is it?’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Channing. It’s your husband, on the telephone. He says – ’
‘Well, I can’t speak to him now,’ said Francesca. ‘I really can’t. Please tell him I’m busy. And don’t tell him there’s anything wrong with the baby either, Sister, I don’t want him worried, there’s no point.’
‘Francesca, shall I speak to Bard?’
‘No!’ She spun round, glaring at her mother. ‘I am absolutely sick of your interfering in my marriage. Now just leave us both alone. I don’t want you speaking to him, I don’t want to speak to him, I don’t want any of us speaking to him. All right? Thank you, Sister, just tell him I’m busy.’
‘Yes, Mrs Channing. But he did say – ’
‘Sister Mary Agnes, I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t want to know what he said. I have a sick baby to worry about, I really can’t get involved in complicated conversations about anything else at the moment.’
‘Yes, Mrs Channing. Very well. Of course.’
‘I think,’ said Dr Paget mildly, ‘we should call for an ambulance now. The sooner the better.’
‘An ambulance?’ Something was in Francesca’s throat, something painful, something raw. ‘Can’t we take her in the car?’
‘I think an ambulance would be wiser, Mrs Channing.’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca, calm suddenly, ‘yes, very well. Please do call one. I’ll change Kitty, get her things ready. Mummy, you’d better stay here with Jack.’
‘We’ll take care of Jack.’ It was Reverend Mother; she was in the doorway, holding Jack’s hand. ‘You’ll need your mother with you, Mrs Channing. He’ll be very good, won’t you, Jack?’
‘Course I will,’ said Jack. ‘I always am.’
In the hall of his house in St John’s Wood, Bard Channing stood gripping the phone until it seemed to gouge into his hand, waiting to speak to Francesca, or at the very least for an answer to his suggestion that he come down to Devon to see her that day, because it was so important he talked to her again, and finally received the information that his wife couldn’t come to the phone, certainly not at the moment, that she was too busy, and that Sister Mary Agnes really couldn’t say when it might be a better time to phone again.
Briony was sitting in the kitchen of her small flat, pushing a spoon round and round a strong, sweet cup of tea, thinking viciously that only a total wimp like Graydon Townsend would like tea the way he did – ‘weak and watery, just like him,’ she said aloud – when there was a ring at the door.
She was tempted to ignore it; she was very tired, having slept extremely badly, and her head ached and her eyes felt as if there was gravel behind them, and she had a sneaking feeling it might be Gray and she really didn’t want to see him. Indeed, she did ignore it the first time, but then it went again, and very reluctantly she went to answer it.
There was a woman on the doorstep; no-one Briony knew. She was middle-aged and rather flashy looking, just slightly over-made-up, with very bouffant blonde hair. She was wearing white trousers, and a navy and white striped jumper, and looking at her more carefully, Briony could see she had obviously, in her youth, been very pretty.
She looked at Briony now through brilliant blue eyes and said, ‘You’re Briony, are you?’
‘Yes. Yes I am.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘my name is Teresa Booth. We did speak once, but you won’t remember. And I think we ought to have a chat. Can I come in?’
‘Well, I – well, I don’t know,’ said Briony cautiously. You heard very odd things about people forcing their way into other people’s flats and houses. The name did sound familiar though … Teresa Booth, Teresa Booth, why did that ring a bell? ‘Um – what should we have a chat about?’
‘It’s about Graydon,’ said Teresa, smiling at Briony very sweetly. ‘Graydon Townsend. You know?’
‘Yes,’ said Briony icily, ‘yes, I do know. And I really don’t want to talk about him, I’m afraid. So – ’
‘Well, I can understand that, but I really think you ought to,’ said Teresa Booth
cheerfully, ‘and he is a bit of an idiot, I have to say, but he loves you very much. Very much indeed.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Briony, ‘but I think I’m missing something here. How do you know what Graydon feels about me?’
‘Because, my dear, I’ve spent most of the night listening to him telling me. And quite a lot of time over the past few weeks as well.’
‘Oh, so he’s sent you, has he? To try and talk me round. Very nice.’
‘No, he has no idea I’m here.’
‘Oh really? So how did you get my address? Unless he told you?’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ said Teresa, ‘I went through his address book, while he was asleep. Look, it’s very important you listen to me. Apart from anything else, I feel a certain amount of guilt about you. I gave Graydon what I can see was a piece of bad advice a few months ago. Now will you please let me come in? And a cup of coffee would go down pretty well.’
Jess woke up still worried about Bard. She had slept badly, most unusually for her, and having tried all her usual remedies for anxiety (a good strong cup of tea, a brisk walk round the block, washing the kitchen floor), she gave in and telephoned him. There was no reply, only the answering machine. She left a message that she had called and would like to hear from him, and rang Stylings.
‘Horton, is my son there?’
‘No, Mrs Channing, he isn’t. I’m sorry. Have you tried the house in London?’
‘Yes, I have. And left a message. Could you ask him to ring me if he contacts you?’
‘I will indeed, Mrs Channing. Certainly.’
‘I expect he’s gone down to Devon to see Francesca and the children.’
‘Yes, Mrs Channing. Possibly,’ said Horton. He tried to sound positive, but everything he had heard and seen over the past few days made that seem rather unlikely.
Jess tried Kirsten’s number next. She was a little while answering the phone.
‘It’s your grandmother here,’ she said. ‘Have you heard from your father?’
‘No,’ said Kristen, ‘I haven’t. Well, not for a day or two. But it’s very nice to hear from you, Granny Jess. Very nice indeed.’
She sounded different, Jess thought; somehow softer and extremely happy.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come and see me later?’
‘Well, maybe not today. I’m a bit – tired today. Next weekend, though. I might bring Oliver with me,’ she added.
‘Oliver? Oliver Clarke, do you mean? Our Oliver?’
‘Yes, Granny Jess. Oliver Clarke, that’s exactly who I mean. Our Oliver.’
Jess was very sensitive to the inflections in voices. Kirsten’s, as she said Oliver’s name, each time she said it, was liquid, sweet, echoey with happiness.
‘Well,’ she said to herself aloud, as she put down the phone, ‘how very, very nice.’
But that still hadn’t produced Bard. For some reason Jess was increasingly uneasy. She tried the house again; rang Tory; even left a message on Rachel Duncan-Brown’s answering machine and then, telling herself repeatedly there was really no reason to be worried, set off for church.
Liam Channing enjoyed a breakfast of croissants and orange juice and very good coffee (one of Naomi’s few culinary skills was making coffee), and then said if she didn’t mind he was going to wander down to the town and see if he could get a Sunday paper.
‘Liam, we’re in Spain,’ said Naomi irritably, ‘don’t be ridiculous! You won’t be able to get an English paper here.’
‘Of course I will. This is the mid-’nineties, Naomi, and we’re all Europeans now. I bet you anything they have them.’
He was back in half an hour, looking irritable. ‘No papers. It’s absurd. Not till tomorrow, they said. Well, unless I drove in to Marbella, I could probably get one there … I just might do that.’
‘Liam, have you gone quite mad? It’s an hour and a half ’s drive to Marbella. Now please go and do something with those children, they’re bored already. I really hadn’t thought it would be so hot.’
‘Can’t they play in the pool, for God’s sake?’
‘They’re sick of it already, and it’s so tiny. Absurd for a development the size of this one. And the other people here really are rather appalling. We’ll just have to go to the beach later on, thank God we did get that car. Liam, you’re not listening to me, what on earth is the matter with you?’
‘Oh – nothing,’ said Liam. ‘Sorry.’
Marcia Grainger had also gone out early to get the papers. She bought rather more than usual, a selection of tabloids and broadsheets; when she got back to her flat, she poured herself a large cup of coffee and, visibly straightening her shoulders, settled down at her spotless kitchen table to read them. After an hour’s very careful study, she pushed them away, poured herself a whisky and smiled at the rather stiff plant that stood on the windowsill.
‘I thought he might be bluffing,’ she said to it. ‘How very pathetic.’
Mike Langton, who worked in the harbour at Chichester, kept an eye on all the boats and took care of several of them, saw the Channing Mercedes in the car park, and looked across to where the Lady Jack was moored. Her mainsail was up and he could see Mr Channing just about to cast off. He waved to him, but Channing hadn’t seen him, was manoeuvring the boat out of the harbour with his usual skill. Mike had been wanting to speak to him, see if he was entering the race the following Sunday; he started running round the harbour to try and catch him. But he was too late: by the time he reached the harbour mouth, the Lady Jack was already skimming her way towards the open sea. Lovely things they were, those ULDCs; the boat he’d most like to have himself, he reckoned. And so fast, it was like flying on the water. You could get a long way in a day in a boat like that, given a good following wind. A very long way.
It was an endless drive to Plymouth: over an hour and a half, much of it down winding roads, and often behind long lines of Sunday holiday traffic. Kitty dozed most of the time, breathing slightly unevenly and coughing. Francesca had been allowed to travel in the ambualnce with her; by the time they arrived she felt violently sick.
The hospital was reassuringly large, against all odds; she had been expecting something small, a cottage hospital even. The ambulance pulled up in front of Casualty. Somehow expecting to be made to wait, she was startled by a reception committee of a doctor and two nurses, with a small trolley. On the trolley was a large Perspex box; it looked very forbidding.
‘What’s that?’ she said, her voice somehow faint.
‘It’s an oxygen box,’ said one of the nurses. ‘We understood she might need some straight away. Now if you just pop her onto the trolley, and we put it over here, there, like that you see, and you follow us …’
They started to move ahead with the trolley; Francesca followed, numb with fear, shocked at how swiftly Kitty had been removed from her, had ceased to be her own baby, under her own personal care, had become an object, an object for medical care and attention. She felt very alone. Then she felt a hand in hers; it was Rachel, who had followed in Reverend Mother’s car.
‘Come on, darling,’ she said, ‘chin up.’
The ridiculous instruction did Francesca good, restored normality for her; she smiled at her mother shakily.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been so foul,’ she said.
Kitty was taken up to a side ward; the doctor removed her from her little box, pushed up her dress, listened to her chest and her heart for a long time.
‘Yes,’ he said cheerfully, ‘not too good. Not too bad either, Mrs Channing, don’t worry. We’ll need to do another echo cardiogram, I’m afraid, and some more X-rays, get the latest picture. She’s had that done before, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca, ‘yes she has. Look, Mr Moreton-Smith at St Andrew’s knows her case, and Mr Lauder, but he’s away – ’
‘Mrs Channing, we have to make our own judgments, from how she is at the moment. Frankly, anything they might say would be irrelevant now. Except the medi
cation she’s been on, and we’ve already spoken to your GP in London.’
‘Oh,’ said Fancesca, She was surprised at their efficiency.
He grinned. ‘It’s OK. We haven’t actually got straw behind our ears.’ He was terrifyingly young, but she liked him, trusted him. ‘Now we’ll get her into an oxygen tent, I think, straight away, she simply isn’t getting enough oxygen, look you can see from this measure here, on the box, and we’ll give her some extra diuretics, she’s retaining fluid, and – ’ He looked at her suddenly, smiled again. ‘Don’t look so frightened, Mrs Channing. She’ll be all right; they’re very tough, you know, babies.’
They all said that, thought Francesca, and it just wasn’t true.
Philip Drew had also slept badly. The Channing case was beginning to worry him seriously. Channing’s defence hadn’t been too good in the first place, and with this latest débâcle, of the secretary giving information, it looked very poor. He was pretty sure Bard would get hauled in again, and that they’d then ask him for his passport. He was simply too good a prospect for the SFO not to go the distance with. They’d had few enough successes lately, and they’d see Channing as a good prospect for one.
He got out his notes, started going through them. There were a couple of things that really weren’t clear; he decided to give him a ring. He tried the London number; the answering machine was on. Damn. He’d hoped to be able to see him. He left a message, then phoned Stylings; was told he wasn’t there either.
Horton, whom he’d met several times, told him Bard’s family were in Devon. ‘He might have gone down there.’
‘Do you have a number? It’s quite important.’
Horton said he didn’t. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Drew. If he should phone, I’ll tell him to contact you immediately.’
‘You can’t think of anywhere else he might be?’
‘Well,’ said Horton, ‘the last couple of weekends, Mr Channing has been sailing. Maybe – ’
The Dilemma Page 81