The Dark Water

by Helen Moorhouse

  Sue leaned over toward the bed. “Three nights in total,” she said quietly. “It was about three in the morning when we got you here and you’ve been pretty much out ever since – it’s Tuesday by the way. And it’s Will that we have to thank that you’re here at all. Not only did he rescue you, he knows CPR – and you needed it.”

  Sue looked away from Martha, down at her hands where she held the cup, as if regaining her composure. She cleared her throat and paused a moment before feeling ready to look back into her friend’s face.

  “Your dress is ruined, by the way . . .” she began to quip but as she looked at Martha’s face, she saw her eyes roll upward behind the heavy lids and her body relax against the pillow. She panicked for a moment, reached out a hand to press the ‘call’ button, but then looked again at Martha’s peaceful face as natural sleep overtook her.

  Sue closed her eyes for a moment, breathed deep with relief and exhaustion, before gathering together her belongings and leaving her friend to sleep.

  CHAPTER 42

  December 5th

  Bright morning sunshine gleamed in through the ward window as Martha woke again, gently roused by the bustle of a nurse. A more matronly lady than Karen, called Deborah, checked her vital signs in silence and, as she did, a care assistant arrived with a tray of tea and toast. Deborah encouraged Martha to eat and drink small amounts at a time. Martha devoured the snack in seconds, looking eagerly around for more, but Deborah had vanished to tend to something else and Martha was left with more of an appetite than she had woken with. When she saw Gabriel’s face peer through the glass panel on the door at her feet, her heart lifted, almost as much because she hoped he might have brought something to eat as anything else.

  Sue followed close behind, a broad smile on her face and a cheery greeting of “Morning!” on her lips.

  “Any food?” hissed Martha, pleased to hear that her voice sounded more like its usual self.

  “Absolutely not!” retorted Gabriel sharply as he flounced on to the bedside chair. “We were warned you were nil by mouth, or whatever they call it.”

  Martha’s eyes widened. “I’ve just had some tea and toast, for heaven’s sakes!” she protested as strongly as she could, catching Sue’s eye and grinning. She couldn’t help it. It felt so good to see the familiar, the people she loved. All she needed now were Will and Ruby.

  Gabriel closed his eyes as if to block out the request and made a sweeping gesture with his palm. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m giving you nothing. You’ve swallowed about a ton of pond sludge so it would be a complete waste of a Mars Bar to give you one. And if I did, and you were sick . . .” He wrinkled his face in horror at the thought, leaving the sentence unfinished. He glanced around the cubicle with distaste, as though something disgusting might manifest at any second.

  Sue sat on the end of the bed and Martha pulled her feet toward herself to allow her space.

  “Feeling better after your snooze?” asked Sue. “You slept most of yesterday and all last night too.” Martha nodded. “Much. I’d feel better with a lot more grub, of course, but orders is orders.” She smiled. “How’s Ruby, can she come in yet?” she asked then, hopefully.

  “All in good time,” said Sue. “The doctors want to give you a once-over now and they want any exertion kept to a minimum.”

  Martha’s face fell.

  “But,” added Sue sternly, “if you’re a very good girl, and do everything the nice doctors say, then there’s a chance they’ll release you later on today, on the proviso that you promise to rest when they do.”

  Martha’s face lit up. She could go home, to Calderwood, to Will, and close the door behind them on all of this. She smiled. “That’s good news then, I suppose,” she said.

  Sue nodded vehemently.

  Deborah bustled past again and Martha called her, enthused by the news of her imminent release. “Excuse me,” she said. “but what time do you think the doctor might be here?”

  “Soon, I’d imagine,” came the response and the nurse strode quietly from the room in her thick-soled shoes. The door gave a long creak as it closed behind her on its spring. Martha sighed, frustrated.

  “I’m impatient now,” she muttered. “I hope the doctor’s not off on an emergency or something.”

  Gabriel harrumphed. “A long emergency with a sand wedge,” he grunted.

  “What sort of sandwich?” Martha asked, keeping her face serious for a moment before breaking into a grin. She awaited a pithy response and her face fell as none came. For the first time since he’d entered the room, Martha noted that Gabriel seemed distracted and on edge.

  “Where’s Will today?” she asked, turning to Sue, who was staring into space. “I thought he might . . .”

  Martha’s voice trailed off as she saw Sue look directly at Gabriel. There was a pause as something passed between them. And then Sue sighed.

  “What?” asked Martha, her heart falling slightly.

  “You can walk now, can’t you?” blurted Gabriel suddenly. “You’ve had a practice? Only I’m not nudging you out of here with my nose like you’re a bloody newborn foal . . .”

  “Gabriel!” snapped Martha. “Stop trying to change the subject. What’s going on?”

  He looked imploringly at Sue.

  “Sue, will you tell me?” said Martha. “Will someone bloody tell me what all these looks are for?”

  Sue gave Gabriel a slight nod and he pushed his bulk out of the chair.

  “I’d best go get some coffees then,” he mumbled and left, without so much as a second glance at Martha.

  Martha turned an accusing glare on Sue. “You’d better tell me what all this is about,” she warned.

  Sue went and sat on the chair that Gabriel had just vacated. She leaned forward on the bed and fixed Martha with a serious stare. Martha felt very cold all of a sudden, even in the dull heat of the hospital room.

  “Look,” Sue said, “there have been some developments . . . some things that you need to know before we go get Ruby and go home.”

  Martha nodded, studying Sue’s face intently. “Okay,” she said. “Go on.”

  Sue took a deep breath. “Firstly, with Dan.”

  “What the hell was he doing here anyway?” demanded Martha, having the energy for the first time to address the issue that had seemed to drift into her sphere of consciousness over the past days only as soon there was no one left to question. “Who told him what had happened? Was it you? Will?”

  Sue drummed her fingers lightly on the bed. A sure sign that she was impatient. Martha stopped speaking.

  “He’s still here,” Sue said simply.

  “Why?” asked Martha.

  Sue sat back in the chair and then immediately forward again, as though she couldn’t get comfortable.

  “It was Will’s idea to call him. You know, the way he wanted to keep him happy while he’s sniffing around for access? He just wanted to keep him informed, now that he’s in the picture.”

  Martha nodded understandingly. “Of course. Will was right,” she agreed. “It would never do to drop it all into conversation casually at a later point. ‘By the way, Dan, your daughter spent last week on a rickety old jetty in a storm in freezing temperatures and was subsequently hospitalised with suspected hypothermia.’ Best be upfront and all that.”

  “Something like that,” responded Sue. She was still subdued in her answers.

  Martha’s heart fluttered a little as she realised that this wasn’t all that Sue had to tell her. “Go on,” she prompted.

  “Well, all that stuff he told you about setting up by himself in business and breaking up with Paula and that . . .”

  Martha took a moment to remind herself. Truth was, she hadn’t thought one jot about anything that Dan had said since all of this had happened. Why should she? Best to bury it all in the cold light of day and, besides, she had enough on her plate.

  “I took it upon myself to ring that awful Polly woman that you used to be friendly with in London
– still had her number from your hen night, would you believe?” Sue paused to make sure that Martha was with her and was rewarded with Martha’s puzzled face pulling itself into a deeper frown. “Why’d you do that?” she asked. She knew that Sue had little or no time for the London set. They were never real friends, Martha knew. Just acquaintances, work colleagues, wives of Dan’s friends, always treating Martha like an outsider, making her feel even more isolated with them than without.

  “Well,” responded Sue, “it’s Dan, for heaven’s sake. I don’t believe a word he says and I wanted to check up on him. Anyway, the thing is, as I suspected, a lot of what he told you isn’t true . . .”

  Martha wracked her brains in an attempt to remember exactly what he had told her. It was too much effort. She looked back at Sue for an explanation.

  “Well, he’s out of work – that bit is true. But he didn’t resign. He got the sack from A&M . . .”

  Martha’s eyes widened in shock. Dan? Getting the sack? But he was their model employee – he loved it there.

  “Because his recreational drug habit got a bit out of hand,” Sue finished, pausing to let Martha take it in.

  She gasped. “Dan? Drugs?” she spluttered. “Drugs?” she repeated, incredulous.

  Sue nodded, with a grim expression on her face.

  It did explain a couple of things though, thought Martha. He’d always liked to dabble a little behind her back – she knew that. And he’d looked so thin . . . and that cold he’d had when he’d called to Calderwood, the washed-out skin, the nervous disposition. “Of course,” she muttered under her breath. But to get fired? That was lax, even for Dan.

  “So Paula kicked him out, right?” she concluded.

  Sue grimaced. “Not exactly,” she said hesitantly. “Although he was, in Polly’s words, ‘totes unbearable’, he actually walked.”

  Another shock. “He walked out on Paula? But she’s the bloody love of his life?” hissed Martha. This was almost too much to take in. “Why would he do that?”

  Sue eyed her suspiciously. “Martha, be straight with me,” she stated. “I know you said you didn’t but do you have any feelings left for Dan at all? That night in Edinburgh before we came here? When you kissed him?” She had lowered her voice, looking behind her to make sure they were alone.

  Martha sank back against her pillows and looked at Sue in shock. “Sue,” she protested, “I swear on my lifethat I don’t have feelings for Dan. Jesus, I’d even forgotten I did that the other night –”

  “Good,” interrupted Sue bluntly. “Because if you did have feelings then what I’m going to tell you would hurt a lot. You’re sure?”

  Martha traced an X shape over her chest. “Promise,” she said.

  “Well, there’s no easy way to say this, but Paula’s pregnant. Due very soon. And Dan flitted when she was six months gone.”

  The world tilted a little on its axis. So he’d done the same to Paula as he’d done to her. And not only that, had left Paula to come to Edinburgh in search of her. Of some sort of reunion. The words were hazy but Martha remembered how he’d announced he’d fight for her, in that restaurant in Edinburgh. And for a weak moment she’d fallen for it.

  What about Paula then? His perfect woman. Babies weren’t his bag, he’d so memorably said. And there was no fear then of Queen Bitch deciding that she wanted any. But here she was, about to give birth to Dan’s child. How had that come about? What would it be? Oh God . . .

  Martha looked at Sue with dawning comprehension, tinged with sadness. She felt her eyes well up with tears.

  Sue frowned. “You promised,” she said sharply. “You promised you didn’t feel anything!”

  “I don’t,” whimpered Martha. “It’s not Dan, it’s Ruby. She’s going to be a big sister, but that was something that I was going to make her. Me and Will. Not bloody Dan and Paula. He never wanted kids – neither did she. She used to call me a ‘breeder’ behind my back. She had such contempt for women who wanted children. Thought we were weak . . .”

  Sue shrugged resignedly. “Well, she doesn’t now, clearly,” she said.

  Martha blinked. She didn’t know what she felt about this news. It was massive. Paula, expecting a baby. And now Dan back in her life. And the baby would have to be too, somehow. It had been easy to cut Dan out – in practical terms anyway – but now, there were two babies to consider. Both Ruby and his unborn child. Half-siblings . . .

  Martha sat forward, impatient, glancing to the door in frustration. “Where is this bloody doctor?” she said. “I need to get out of here. I need to talk to Will . . .”

  She felt a leap of optimism as the door squeaked and opened but it was short-lived as Gabriel reappeared carrying two coffee cups.

  “Have I missed much?” he quipped half-heartedly. “I nipped to the caff in the village. Can’t be doing with that hospital muck.”

  Sue glared at him. “Did you take the car?” she demanded.

  He looked sheepish for a moment. “It was a latte you wanted, wasn’t it?” he said, overriding the question.

  “And where’s Martha’s?” Sue barked again as he held out one cup to her and kept the other for himself.

  This time, his expression was genuinely blank. “Is she allowed one?” he shrieked in a high-pitched voice.

  Both Martha and Sue hissed at him to be quiet.

  He pulled his shoulders up to his ears and mouthed a ‘sorry’ before looking at Sue with a grave face. “Did you tell her?” he asked.

  Martha coughed. “I am here, Gabriel,” she said flatly.

  Another sheepish face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Martha ignored him. Instead, she turned back to Sue. “I need to get out of here. I need to talk it all out with Will.”

  There was another glance between Gabriel and Sue.

  “That’s the thing,” said Sue cautiously.

  “What’s the thing,” said Martha.

  “It’s about Will,” Sue continued. “Something else happened that you need to know about . . .”

  “Will’s gone,” blurted Gabriel suddenly.

  Sue jumped to her feet. “Gabriel, what the fuck did you have to go and say that for?” she shouted.

  “Gone?” Martha said, her voice high-pitched. “What do you mean – ‘gone’?”

  Sue sank back on the edge of the chair and placed her hand on Martha’s foot, curling it around her toes in a gesture of comfort.

  “Martha, I don’t know how else to say this but Dan told him.”

  For a moment, Martha was blank. Dan told him what?

  And then it dawned on her. About that night. That they’d kissed. Worse, that they’d talked. That Martha hadn’t batted him away when he suggested that they might be together again one day. That she’d flirted with him . . . Her cheeks suddenly burned a bright crimson, the heat spread to her chest, the tops of her arms and her back. She felt weak and looked at Sue with pleading eyes, begging to be told that it wasn’t true. But it was.

  Sue nodded, almost imperceptibly, a look of uncomfortable sympathy on her face. She squeezed Martha’s foot again as Martha turned her stare to Gabriel who pursed his mouth in an attempt at empathy. But he offered no comfort this time.

  “He’s gone back to Edinburgh?”

  Sue nodded.

  “When? When did he go?”

  “This morning,” replied Sue. “He went out to see Ruby after breakfast – as I told you, she’s been staying in Mrs Hibbert’s while Will’s stayed holed up in the castle. Dan was out there with Ruby and when Will came back he just stormed upstairs and packed his bags. He’d saved your life, Martha, at risk to his own and then he found all that stuff out.”

  “He rang me from the road,” added Gabriel softly, genuine kindness in his voice. “He told me everything . . .what Dan had said to him . . .”

  Martha put her hands to her ears. “Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t tell me.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut as more and more flashbacks from the night in Gaudi�
�s hit her. She couldn’t cry – it hadn’t sunk in enough for that. She couldn’t think beyond the fact that he was gone. That he had left. Because she had been stupid, done something so idiotic, but completely out of character. That stupid wine, those stupid antibiotics.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she said aloud, as Sue rubbed her arm and Gabriel silently sipped his coffee, glancing at the ward door to see if, indeed, the doctor would finally arrive.

  It was only after she had been checked over and released an hour later, and had walked from the hospital with Gabriel carrying her bag, and sat into the back of the car that Martha began to cry. It the prospect of seeing Ruby that made it sink home. Will was gone. And where he should have been at her side to bring them home as a family, suddenly she was completely alone again.

  CHAPTER 43

  December 8th

  Martha sneaked quietly down the stairs in her stocking feet. Sue had been already sound asleep by the time she’d made it back up to the bedroom with the painkillers and the water. Martha bit her lip, feeling guilty as she thought of how pale and hunched-over her friend had been when she’d arrived. “I think I’ve done my back in,” she’d said, with a grimace, and pleaded to go to bed early. Martha couldn’t have been sure but she thought that Sue might still even be in her clothes under the duvet.

  It was all her fault, of course. If she’d just grown a backbone and not begged Sue to drive all the way back from London – having only returned there three days previously – then she wouldn’t have hurt herself, hunched over the wheel trying to drive on icy treacherous roads. Martha could have kicked herself. She’d been wrong when she thought that she couldn’t feel any worse than she already did.

  The afternoon had been hellish. A stilted, heartbreaking meeting with Will at Gabriel’s flat. It had been difficult enough to go back there after everything – after what had happened there and then at Dubhglas – without seeing Will’s stuff around the place, knowing that he was sleeping in the spare room and that his toothbrush in Gabriel’s bathroom wasn’t just a temporary measure. Martha had left the apartment reeling. She’d thought she could talk him round, explain to him what happened. She sank onto the bottom step of the stairs and closed her eyes as the realisation hit her again. Will wasn’t coming back.