‘Hop in, then,’ said the paramedic.
‘Do you want to go as well?’ Charlotte chewed her lip, looking at Ella.
‘One person only, I’m afraid,’ said the quieter of the two paramedics. She typed something into her phone and looked up. ‘Right, let’s get this little one off to the hospital. You’re lucky you caught us on the way back from a shout. Not often we’re on the scene that quickly.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ella.
‘Oh –’ Jenny mouthed in concern. ‘Can you tell Lou? Let him know what’s going on?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell him there’s macaroni cheese in the fridge if he wants dinner and that he’s not to worry about tidying up because I’ll sort it later and he’s to remember his medication –’
The paramedic put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t you worry about that. It’ll get sorted.’
The ambulance headed back down the lane. Ella turned her thoughts to the pony who was still standing inside the school, tied by his reins to the wall. True to his usual gentle nature, he hadn’t moved an inch and looked at her through his long mane, whickering a gentle welcome when she walked in.
‘What’s happened to you, my lovely?’ Ella looked at him for a moment, scanning him all over for any obvious signs of injury. There weren’t any that she could see, so she began very slowly and thoroughly running her hands over his body. When she reached his near hind leg he raised it quickly, flinching. She looked closely and saw a swollen, raised area on the soft skin of the inside of his thigh.
‘Oh, sweetheart.’
Muffin kept lifting the leg up, clearly uncomfortable. Ella got the torch from her phone and shone it so she could get a closer look – she could see the tiny puncture mark. She remembered the buzzing as she’d moved the horse rug earlier: poor Muffin had obviously been stung by whatever angry insect she’d dislodged. No wonder he’d jumped in shock. Ella thanked goodness it was Muffin – another horse without his calm nature would have reared or even bolted, which could have caused even worse injuries for Hope.
‘Come on, little one. Let’s get you settled.’
The next client was a regular, and Ella could have hugged her when she took it in her stride when Ella apologized and asked if they could reschedule.
Muffin’s bite was bathed with some soothing lotion, and Ella added a sachet of painkiller to a handful of food for him as she sorted out the buckets in the feed room.
‘I could do this if you wanted to get to the hospital and check on Hope.’ Charlotte had apologized countless times, and couldn’t seem to grasp that she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was clearly in shock. She hadn’t stopped talking the whole time they’d done the afternoon feeds and checked over all the horses, making sure they had hay and water.
‘I want you to go to the hospital.’
Ella wavered. ‘I do need to check on Lou.’ She’d driven down the lane after Jenny and Hope had disappeared in the ambulance, only to find him half asleep on the sofa in front of a football match. ‘I’m not sure he’s taken in what’s going on at all. But I’m not sure about leaving you, either.’
‘I’m fine. Just a bit spooked.’ Charlotte looked more like herself when she said that, rolling her eyes. ‘I’ll watch telly and have some chocolate. Sugar’s good for shock.’
‘Ring me if there are any problems, OK? I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘Tell Hope I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘It’s not your fault, Charlotte.’
Ella shuddered, thinking about what could have happened.
During the fifteen-minute drive to the hospital, her mind was working overtime. It wasn’t Charlotte’s fault, no. It was hers. Poor Hope. If Ella had been holding the lead rein, maybe she could have stopped Hope from falling. Her logical brain said otherwise, but she couldn’t help it.
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel with irritation as the driver in front inched along at 25 miles an hour in a 40 zone. There was no way of overtaking on this bendy stretch of the road that looped around the edge of the hillside. ‘Come on,’ she muttered to herself, ‘come on.’
The car took a left and she put her foot down, speeding away from the junction. Driving at the speed limit after proceeding at snail’s pace for three miles made all the difference. She indicated right and drove down the hill to the outskirts of town, towards A&E.
She pulled a parking ticket out of the machine and drove forward into the car park as the barrier lifted.
Chapter Thirty-four
Ella
‘I’m looking for a little girl – Hope? She came in earlier with a riding injury.’
The receptionist frowned. ‘Is she a relative of yours?’
‘Friend.’
‘I’m sorry, she’s in cubicles. Relatives only. You can wait here if you like, or come back later?’ She looked down at her screen and typed a series of numbers on the keyboard.
‘But I can’t –’
‘Sorry, love – if I let everyone through there, we’d be in a worse state than we already are.’ She indicated the swinging doors. Through the window Ella could see people lying on trolleys in the corridor and harried nurses rushing past. One popped a head out.
‘We’re jammed in triage. Can you change the waiting time for non-emergencies to two hours?’
The receptionist tutted. ‘Or tell them to go to their GP.’
The nurse raised her eyes skywards. ‘Don’t get me started.’ She stepped back, and the door swung closed.
‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to get in the way.’ Crestfallen, Ella turned to leave. She didn’t know what else to do. Fishing in her pocket for change, she felt her mobile vibrating and pulled it out.
Not much signal in here. Tell me when you arrive.
Jenny.
She gave a sigh of relief and tapped in a reply.
Here now. Where are you? I’m in reception.
A couple of moments later, Jenny popped her head out of the swinging door where the nurse had been previously. She beckoned to Ella to come in.
The receptionist looked up.
‘She’s with me,’ said Jenny.
‘On you go.’ The receptionist gave a curt nod.
Hope was lying, a tiny shape, her eyes closed, on the hospital trolley. They were in a side bay which had been an offshoot of a corridor at one point, but which had been commandeered as an overflow.
‘They’ve had a look at it. We’re waiting for a call from X-ray, but the doctor says it’s obviously a fracture. It’s strapped up just now.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ella began. Jenny put a hand up, finger raised in warning.
‘Not in front of Hope.’
Ella nodded acknowledgement.
‘Can I get you anything? Tea?’ Ella suspected it might help.
‘I would love that.’ Jenny gave a polite smile. She perched on the edge of Hope’s trolley.
‘OK. I’ll go and find some.’
‘Here we are,’ she said a few minutes later, turning the corner into the little bay.
She stopped dead. There was no sign of Jenny, or of Hope’s trolley.
Instead, standing in their place, dressed in a suit, his tie in hand and top button undone, looking absolutely furious, was Harry.
‘She’s gone to X-ray.’
Ella stood stock still, holding the two cups of tea in front of her. Steam rose, curling up through tiny gaps in the lid. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly.
‘I said I’d wait here and let you know where they’d gone.’
‘I’m so sorry, Harry.’ Her voice was almost a whisper.
‘What the hell were you thinking?’
‘She was with Charlotte. I was only gone for a few minutes.’ Ella knew how pathetic it sounded.
‘She could have been killed.’ His eyes were blazing with anger, his mouth an angry line in his face. He pushed a hand through his hair so that it stood untidily on end.
The blood was rushing in her ears. She
felt ice-cold, then clammy. Her back was trickling with sweat from the heat of the hospital ward. ‘It was –’
She closed her mouth and looked at the floor. What was she going to say? An accident? A split second?
She swallowed, the back of her throat tasting bitter.
‘I think now I’m here, it would be better if you just left.’
The coldness of his tone stayed with her all the way home in the car.
‘Will you give Hope my love?’ she’d asked, turning to look at him once before she slunk out of A&E. Harry had nodded briefly, not quite catching her eye.
She checked on Charlotte when she got in. On finding her fast asleep on the sofa with the dogs, she pulled a blanket over her and closed the sitting room door, gently.
Ella sat alone, hugging her knees, her back against the Aga, long into the night.
Chapter Thirty-five
Jenny
Jenny had just settled down on the plastic chair next to Hope’s bed in the cubicle when there was a rustling and the sound of the curtain being pulled back. ‘Just in here, I think.’ A nurse popped his head in, smiling at her. ‘Someone here to see the patient.’
‘There you are.’ She put a warning finger to her lips and motioned to Harry to close the curtain. ‘Did you catch Ella?’
He nodded briefly, his face expressionless. ‘I told her we could take it from here.’
He had a teddy bear tucked under his arm. If he hadn’t stopped at the hospital shop to buy that, he might have been there five minutes earlier. She clenched her teeth. ‘You’re here now, that’s what matters.’
‘I was on the way back when you rang.’ He fiddled with the cotton sheet that was draped over Hope, who was drowsy. She mumbled and stirred, opening her eyes and then screwing them closed again against the stark white of the hospital light.
‘Here we are,’ Jenny kept her voice deliberately light and cheery. She stood up quickly and looked down at Hope’s pale face. Her skin had a greenish cast.
‘Daddy?’ Hope peered behind her, looking for Harry.
‘I’m here, sweetheart.’ There was an awkward scuffle of chairs and bags as Jenny stepped back so he could take her place.
‘How did you get here?’ Hope tried to sit up, but the weight of the cast pinned her down.
‘Magic,’ said Harry, smiling. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, brushing back the damp tendrils of dark hair that were sticking to her forehead. He whispered loving words in her ear and a tentative smile broke through.
‘I’ll go and see what happens now. I think it’s something to do with crutches.’ Jenny wished Lou was there. It seemed ridiculous. All she’d ever wanted for her Sarah was a partner who’d treat her kindly and make her happy. All those years battling to have a child of her own – so many losses when she and Lou first married, to a point where their GP had taken him to one side, gently, and suggested that perhaps they could consider adopting a child, or fostering. She’d always dreamed of a big, unruly family with a table full of rowdy children. But when she finally became pregnant – miraculously – and Sarah was born safe and healthy, Jenny felt she’d been given a chance of happiness, and that she’d be greedy to try for any more.
It seemed unbelievably cruel that Sarah’s life had been cut short, so she hadn’t had the chance to know her own little girl. And today they could have lost Hope. Jenny closed her eyes for a second, squeezing them tightly, trying not to think about all the things that could have happened.
There didn’t seem to be any nurses to ask. She caught a woman in pink scrubs and asked if she knew what was going on.
‘Sorry, I’m just taking a short cut to resus.’
‘Don’t worry.’
A handful of staff were gathered around a computer station in the corridor. Jenny stepped towards them hesitantly. They were all so busy and she didn’t want to get in the way.
‘Excuse me, I’m just trying to find out about – my granddaughter’s in a cubicle –’
‘Let’s have a check.’ A tall, gangly-looking man clicked the screen. ‘Chrissy, do you know what’s happening about cubicle four?’
‘Just waiting for crutches, I think.’
‘I don’t think she’s up to walking just yet,’ Jenny started to say.
‘Don’t worry. We’ve got chairs out there in reception. Pop her in one of them when you’re ready and you can wheel her out. Just bring it back afterwards.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’ Jenny grimaced, feeling the prickle of tears.
‘You all right, my love?’
She shook her head and blinked hard. ‘Just a long day.’
‘They all are, in here.’ He flashed her a smile and turned back to the screen.
‘I’ve brought you a chair so we can get you safely to the car.’ Jenny wheeled the chair into the cramped cubicle.
‘That’s lucky. We’ve just been delivered these –’ Harry raised a pair of tiny grey crutches. ‘Hope had to hop out of bed and try them for size, and she did very well, didn’t you, darling?’
Hope nodded. The painkiller she’d been given must have taken effect, because she looked much brighter.
‘Well done, sweetheart.’
Jenny gathered up her handbag, and the tissues she’d left sitting on a shelf, and straightened her coat. ‘Shall we get you home, then?’
‘Grandma,’ Hope said, looking up at her from the chair as they headed out into the darkened car park, her dark eyes serious, ‘is Muffin OK?’
‘I think – yes,’ Jenny corrected herself. She didn’t have a clue, but Hope’s state of mind mattered more than a small white lie about the pony that had caused this in the first place. ‘Yes, I’m sure she’s fine.’
‘He,’ said Hope. ‘Muffin is a boy pony, not a girl. And where’s Ella? You said in the ambulance she’d be following us.’
‘She’s gone,’ Harry cut in, before Jenny had a chance to speak. His face was an expressionless mask, but when his daughter turned to look at him, he shifted it into a kindly smile.
‘Perhaps she needed to check on Muffin.’
‘Yes,’ said Harry, after a long pause. ‘That was it.’
They drove Hope home, sliding her carefully into Harry’s car so her leg could stay propped up on the back seat. The shock – or the painkillers – had knocked her out, and when they got home in the darkness she was fast asleep. They carried her inside. Lou was waiting.
‘Ella helped me make a bed up on the sofa. I think we’ll have to keep an eye on her down here until she gets that temporary cast off.’
They lifted Hope onto the sofa and tucked the covers in. She stirred slightly, moaning in her sleep.
‘Poor little one,’ Lou said, bending over and stroking her forehead.
‘Have you eaten?’ Jenny couldn’t help fussing. She looked at the mantelpiece for his medication, checking it had been moved. ‘I left macaroni cheese in the fridge.’
‘Had some soup, had my pills. I’m fine.’
‘Soup?’
‘Ella brought it down. She came down to let me know what was happening, then popped in on the way back from the hospital. She looked pretty shaken up.’
A noise of disapproval escaped from Jenny’s nose. ‘She shouldn’t have put my granddaughter on a dangerous horse, then, should she?’
‘Oh, come on,’ Lou chided her. ‘Is this the same fluffy pony I’ve been hearing Hope rhapsodizing about for the last two months? The one that’s transformed her?’ He made a shoo-ing motion. ‘Off you go. Take the weight off your feet. I’ll make you a cuppa and you can calm down.’
‘I’ll do it.’ She stood her ground, blocking his path to the kitchen. ‘You stay here with Hope.’
Harry paced up and down the kitchen like a caged animal, throwing his suit jacket onto the table. It slipped off and onto the floor.
Jenny swooped down and picked it up, shaking it gently and hanging it on the back of the chair. She picked up a kitchen cloth and wiped the work surfaces, rinsing the soup tin Lou had left
sitting on the side, placing it in the recycling basket. Then she straightened the tea towel and wiped toast crumbs from the Aga surface into her cupped hand and ran them down the sink, wiping the sink afterwards.
Harry crashed down onto a chair, putting his head in his hands.
‘I should have been there.’
‘You can’t be there every second.’
‘What the hell was Ella thinking? How did it happen?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’
He looked up sharply. ‘Where were you?’
‘I left her with Ella and Charlotte. I had to pop into town and pick something up.’
‘Charlotte’s a child.’ Harry looked at her accusingly.
‘She’s eighteen, Harry. She is an adult in the eye of the law.’
‘I don’t care what she is. Ella should have been looking out for Hope, and she didn’t do her job.’ He looked ahead stonily, his jaw set. ‘I’ve a good mind to make a complaint to someone about this.’
‘You can’t do that – she’s just got a contract from the local authority for a really big job.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘She’s been good to us – to Hope.’
‘She’s irresponsible and she risked my child. Why the hell shouldn’t I?’
‘I think you’re over-reacting.’
Jenny reached into the fridge and opened a bottle of white wine, tipping a generous amount into two glasses. She pushed one towards Harry. He took a long draught and put the glass back on the table. She didn’t wish Ella harm – Harry’s reaction underlined that.
‘It was a mistake. Not even that. An accident.’
Harry pushed his chair back with a screech and stood up. It crashed back against the tiled floor and spun for a second. His hands were on the edge of the table, his knuckles white. His shoulders rose and fell as he tried to breathe and calm himself.
‘There’s a whole lot more to it than that.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘An accident.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I could write the book on accidents, and so could Ella.’
‘Ella?’ The kitchen was uncomfortably silent. The clock ticked loudly over the window, and when Jenny swallowed it seemed to echo around the room.
Finding Hope at Hillside Farm Page 26