Tom reappeared with a cold bottle of wine and four fat glasses. Sloshing the wine into two of them, he handed one to his buddy Huw. They clinked them together.
‘This is the life.’ Tom exhaled loudly, sitting back in the sunshine and throwing an olive into his mouth.
Huw placed his fingers between his lips and whistled. Monty came panting up the grass. ‘Hey, Monts, good boy.’ He patted his thigh and his faithful dog lay by his side in the cool shade of the terrace.
Grace stood up and stroked his head. ‘I wondered where you’d got to, mister.’ Monty beat his tail on the deck, happy as ever to be fussed over by her. She wandered over to one of the raised planters on the terrace and plucked a stray blade of grass from among her prospering plants.
‘They’re looking good, Grace. You’re obviously green-fingered,’ Huw observed.
‘I don’t know about that, but I’m learning.’ She pinched the leaves and raised her fingers to her nose. ‘The smell is intoxicating.’
‘That’s why Leanne chose them; she loved the scent of plants as much as the way they looked. I remember her telling me, “Rosemary for courage, thyme for strength.”‘
‘That’s beautiful.’ Gilly smiled. ‘Do you think we should put some rosemary and thyme in my bouquet? Courage and strength – I can’t think of anything better.’ She grabbed Huw’s hand.
‘I think that would be lovely.’ He kissed their entwined fingers.
‘I shall pop it on my list.’ Gilly smiled.
Grace turned to walk back to the table; that fresh sourdough bread was calling to her. ‘I was thinking—’ she started as she took her place.
‘Ooh, dangerous!’ Tom interrupted. Huw laughed.
‘I was thinking about that boy, Darren, the estate agent who sold our house in Nettlecombe.’
‘Why on earth were you thinking about him?’ Tom asked.
‘He’d never heard of sepsis, and he promised me he was going to look it up on the internet, and tell his friends about it too.’
‘I didn’t really know what it was either,’ Gilly admitted as she cut the loaf. ‘Huw had to explain it to me.’
‘And I only knew because Grace told me. I’d heard of it, but I didn’t know what it was, not really,’ Huw confessed.
‘That’s what I’ve been thinking about.’ Grace looked out over the valley. ‘And I know it sounds bonkers, but I want to tell the world about Chloe’s story. I want everyone to know about this horrible bloody disease that stole her away. I want them to know what to look for and what to say to the medics if they suspect it, and I want the medics to know how to treat it.’
Tom reached over and squeezed his wife’s hand. ‘I think that’s a wonderful ambition, Gracie, but how are you going to tell the world?’
‘Okay, well, don’t laugh…’ She placed a napkin over her lap. ‘But it was something Huw said ages ago that got me thinking. He agreed that everyone has a book in them.’
Huw smiled, remembering that day. ‘I did.’
‘And so I was thinking, maybe I could write a book. I could tell people about Chloe, her story and what happened, to try and stop this happening to someone else, to try and get people talking about this bloody horrible, sneaky disease.’
‘Do you know how to write a book?’ Tom asked.
‘No,’ Grace admitted, ‘but you know I love books and words, and my last boss told me I could do anything I put my mind to. He had faith in me. And Huw and Gilly can help me.’
‘Of course, we will!’
‘Yes. Absolutely!’
‘What will you call it?’ Tom sat forward, smiling at his wife with pride. This was her greatest strength: to have an idea and drive it though. He was confident she could make it happen, confident that she could indeed do anything.
Grace swivelled round, taking in the panorama of the river and the mountains. ‘I don’t know. I was thinking, something that isn’t just a title plucked from the air, something that means something. Something that makes people think.’
All four sipped their drinks, stared at the view and listened to Monty’s snoring.
Grace sat up straight. ‘I’ve got it! How about Three- and-a-Half Heartbeats? Because,’ she continued, quietly now, and with a sad, faraway look in her eyes, ‘somewhere in the world, someone dies of sepsis approximately every three-and-a-half seconds – that’s about every three-and-a- half heartbeats.’ She put her hand to her chest and paused, counting the beats.
‘I love it.’ Tom nodded, staring at his brilliant wife. ‘Three- and-a-Half Heartbeats.’
The four carried on with their leisurely lunch. Listening to Olive’s shrieks of laughter in the hallway, until it was time for Gilly to get back to her class. Huw decided to take Monty for a spot of fishing after he’d dropped Gilly in town, and Grace and Tom cleared the table before making their way back inside The Old Cowshed.
Grace flopped down on the sofa with her feet on a cushion on her husband’s lap. She picked up her pen and opened the first page of her spiral-bound notebook.
‘Where shall I start?’ she asked, tapping the pen on her teeth.
‘I don’t know.’ Tom gave it some thought. ‘I suppose just before Chloe was born?’
‘Good idea.’ Grace sat up tall and ran her hand over her baby bump before touching the pen to the page and beginning what she hoped would become a wonderful book, a book that would make a difference.
Grace Penderford had, for as long as she could remember, yearned for a child…
‘I just wrote my first line!’ She smiled.
‘How does it feel?’ Tom asked.
‘It feels pretty good.’ She nodded.
Tom smiled as his wife flexed her toes against his palm.
Sitting there with the man she loved gave her a glow of happiness. It was enough.
Grace paused and looked out at the majestic landscape of their Wye Valley home. She was unaware of being watched from behind the boundary hedge by a little girl in pink wellingtons and a matching raincoat, who gripped the hand of her grandpa; he, as ever, was resplendent in cricket jersey and striped tie, for once appropriate to the season.
The End. And the beginning.
If you have been moved by this book, please tell others, help us spread the word, help us stop more lives being devastated by sepsis. For more information about sepsis and to find out about the symptoms, please visit www.sepsistrust.org. If you would like to help us further in our fight to save lives, here is the link for donations: http://sepsistrust.org/how-can-i-help-mend-sepsis/donations. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you. X
~
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The UK Sepsis Trust
Amanda Prowse
About the No Greater Love sequence
About the No Greater Courage sequence
An invitation from the publisher
The UK Sepsis Trust
www.sepsistrust.org
All the proceeds from this novel will go straight to the Sepsis Trust. By buying it, you will help them save lives. Thank you for making a difference.
Sepsis is a common, potentially life-threatening condition triggered by an infection. Each year in the UK more than 100,000 people are admitted to hospital with sepsis and around 37,000 die as a result. Raising awareness of the condition could save many of those lives.
The UK Sepsis Trust was established to save thousands of lives every year from sepsis. This will be achieved by making sepsis a household word, by empowering people to speak up when worried, and by ensuring health professionals are on the ball.
Play your part. If someone you love is unwell, and develops any one of the following symptoms, don’t delay. Phone for help and say ‘I’m worried this might be sepsis’
Preview
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Wife. Mother. Daughter. W
hat happens when it all becomes too much?
Jackie loves her family. Sure, her teenage children can be stroppy. Her husband a little lazy. And providing round-the-clock care for her Alzheimer’s-ridden mother is exhausting. She’s sacrificed a lot to provide this safe and loving home, in their cramped but cosy semi with a view of the sea.
All Jackie wants is for her children to have a brighter future than she did. So long as Martha, the eldest, gets into university and follows her dreams, all her sacrifice will be worth something... won’t it?
Can’t wait? Buy it here now!
Prologue
When the last of the guests had left and Jacks had wrapped the leftover sausage rolls in clingfilm, the newlyweds kicked off their shoes and lay on their donated double bed, looking up at the ceiling.
‘That all went well, didn’t it?’
It had been a small, low-key wedding at the Register Office on the Boulevard. The registrar had mumbled and Pete’s mum had cried. And then everyone had piled back to their new home in Sunnyside Road, bought with the help of both sets of parents. Pete scooted round putting coasters under cans of beer, Jacks passed around plates of sandwiches and cakes, and her best friend Gina teased her for acting like a grown-up married woman. Jacks had looked around the small, square kitchen of their little Weston-super-Mare terrace, trying to stop her mind flying to the vast kitchen in the seafront villa where she had not so long ago lain on a daybed and succumbed to the charms of a boy who had told her about the big wide world beyond her doorstep and had made her believe that one day, she might see it.
Then she had spied her dad, Don, with his arm around Pete’s shoulder, and felt a strange sort of contentment. She sidled up between them.
‘I was just saying to young Pete here, the best advice I can give you is never go to bed on a cross word. And if you can smile through the bad times, just imagine how much you will laugh in the good.’
‘And the best advice I can give is don’t take advice from him!’ Jacks’ mum jerked her thumb in her husband’s direction. She spoke a little louder than she would normally – but normally she wouldn’t have polished off three glasses of Asti and four Martini-and-lemonades.
‘Thank you, Don.’ Pete had beamed at his new wife. ‘I’ll look after her, I promise,’ he’d said, as if she wasn’t present.
Pete stroked Jacks’ shoulder and brought her back to the present. ‘Feels weird having all these rooms to wander around in and only us to live in them. Three bedrooms, the bathroom and two rooms downstairs – I’m still used to being in my little bedroom at my mum’s!’
‘I know, me too. It’ll be great, Pete, all this space.’
She scratched the itching skin, stretched taut across her stomach. ‘There’ll be one more occupant before we know it!’
‘Yep. Can’t wait. Shall we decorate the littlest room, make it cosy?’
‘What with? Don’t think we’ve got any spare cash for decorating right now.’ She hated having to point out the practicalities and quash his enthusiasm.
‘I know, and I don’t mean anything flash, but we can manage a lick of paint. And Gina’s arty, couldn’t we get her to draw something on the walls?’
‘Blimey, I’ve seen her artwork. No thanks! Poor baby would be waking up to the Take That logo every morning.’
They both laughed. Pete reached for her hand. ‘I’ve got a wife.’
‘Yes, you have.’ She smiled.
‘Do you feel like a wife?’ he asked.
‘I suppose I do. What are wives supposed to feel like?’
She felt him shrug. ‘Don’t know. I guess like they are part of a pair, and no longer having to face the world on their own.’
‘Oh, Pete, you old softie! That’s lovely, and yes, in that case I do feel like a wife.’ She leant across and kissed him.
‘I wonder how long we’ll live here.’ Jacks let her words float out into the darkness.
‘I reckon a couple of years, just till we are on our feet. We should get this place shipshape, replace the windows, get the garden nice, put a new kitchen in and then move up.’
She smiled into the darkness, loving the idea of a new kitchen and a lovely garden. ‘Poor house, we’ve only been in it for three weeks and already we are planning on moving!’
‘It’s good to plan, Jacks, set our path and find a way. That’s how you get on in life, isn’t it. You work hard and you fight for better.’
‘I like that, Pete. Work hard and fight for better – it sounds like a plan.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I wouldn’t want much more than this, mind. Maybe an en-suite bathroom and room in the kitchen for one of them big fridges.’
‘I’d love a garage. I could have a workbench and a place to store all my tools and I could make things.’
She could tell he was smiling. ‘What would you make?’
‘Dunno. Things from wood and I could do repairs, fix things. I’d love to be out there tinkering.’
Jacks chuckled. ‘You sound like my dad!
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘I tell you what I would love, a conservatory, with wicker furniture in it. I’d sit in it and read a magazine and have a coffee, somewhere to put my feet up.’
‘That sounds like a plan.’
She nestled up to him and laid her head on his chest.
‘Funny how things work out, isn’t it, Mrs Davies?’
Jacks smiled at the unfamiliar title. ‘It sure is.’
1
She lay back and stared at the ceiling with its fringed blue paisley lampshade housing a single dull bulb hanging from the centre. They had meant to change the shade for something yellow to match the wallpaper, that had been the plan, they might even have had a look at a few in British Home Stores, she couldn’t remember, but fifteen years later it still hadn’t happened. Like everything else in the house that was defunct, mismatched or ageing, they had got used to it, lived with it, until it was just how things were. This even applied to the cardboard boxes full of clothes and bits and bobs that had been packaged up and stacked in the front hallway. They were intended for the loft. What had he said? ‘Pop ’em there, love, and I’ll shove them up in the loft next time I bring the ladder in.’ But three years later, they had taken root in the hallway, become furniture. She hoovered around them and stacked clean laundry on the top, and the kids threw their school bags on to them rather than take them upstairs. In fact she wasn’t even sure what was in a couple of them.
Opening her eyes wide, she tried to force herself into a greater state of wakefulness. Her nightie was twisted in an uncomfortable ring around her midriff; she lifted her bottom and in her crab-like pose pulled the fabric until it lay flat beneath her. She had got into the habit of wearing both a nightie and pyjama bottoms, whether for warmth, comfort or an added obstacle for Pete to navigate should the mood take him, she wasn’t sure. Although she had to admit the mood hadn’t taken him for quite some time and, if she was being honest, that was something of a relief.
She glanced across at her husband, who slept without a pillow, his head tipped back, mouth open, his dark stubble poking like little sticks through skin that could do with a good dollop of moisturiser. Chance would be a fine thing – he considered owning hair gel a statement of questionable sexuality. Unaware of her scrutiny, he raised his arm and scratched his nose. Then he turned and breathed open mouthed in her direction. She looked away; anything his body emitted at that time of the morning was less than fragrant. He was still a young man, still good-looking when he was spruced up, but there was something about him in the early-morning light, with the sweat of a warm night clinging to his skin and his breath laced with spices, that made her shrink from him.
She smiled at the irony as she flexed her toes inside his old sports socks that she slept in. Hardly sexy. He still on occasion had the ability to elicit a longing deep inside her, especially when he smelt good and was confident, reminding her of the self-assured banter of their youth. She remembered when they left school, eigh
teen years ago. She had been a beauty then, with her long, slim legs, blonde hair and a tan that seemed to last year round. Her nose was freckled and her long eyelashes framed her green eyes without the need for mascara. Whenever she stumbled across photographs from that era, it always shocked her how lovely she had been and how unaware of it she was. She recalled her many insecurities and how she had worried about the slight cleft to her chin, her gangly limbs.
They had married soon after they had started dating and in those days slept skin to skin, her face pressed into his chest, arms and legs entwined. Any time separated was considered a waste. They would wake in the early hours to make love before falling asleep again. Not that she had needed much sleep, not then. Neither sleep nor food sustained her, all she needed was him, him and her new baby. The sight of him, the thought of him, the feel of him against her, he was everything.
Jacks crept from their bed and looked back at him as he screwed his eyes shut, wrinkled his nose and farted. She rolled her eyes. ‘Those were the days,’ she whispered as she collected her towel from the back of the old dining chair in the corner of the room and headed for the shower.
‘Mum?’
‘What?’ Jacks answered without lifting her head from the newspaper. It was 7.15. She had shoved on some clothes, run a brush through her hair, turned on the lights, flicked on the heating, placed the breakfast cereal on the table and made a hot drink. She now sat at the kitchen table. This was her one small window of opportunity at the beginning of every day when she was able to read the local news. A brief moment before the world came rushing up to meet her and she had to run to keep up, like a lady she’d once seen balancing on a glittery ball in the circus. Her smile had been fixed, but under her elaborate false eyelashes Jacks had seen the terror in her eyes. One wrong step and she would fall off. Jacks knew exactly how she felt.
Three-And-A-Half Heartbeats Page 22