Double Danger (5 page)

Jessica tried to put the letter and Brian out of her mind. At least her morning sickness had stopped and she felt physically fit. Sometimes she even felt happy because of the baby. She began to make plans for it, for them both.

Then one day the postman delivered a letter – an airmail letter. Jessica knew right away that it must be from Brian. Who else in the world would be likely to send her an airmail letter?

She stood with it in her hand for a very long time before she gathered enough courage to open it.

Jessica danced wildly around the room, around the whole flat. She waved the letter out of the kitchen window and called to the market below.

‘He loves me. He loves me. He loves me the same as I love him.’

Not only that. He wanted to marry her.

‘We’ll get married on my next leave,’ he’d written. ‘And don’t worry. I won’t expect you to leave your flat or the Calton. You can stay in your lovely flat as long as you like. I can be there with you every minute of every leave.’

What could be better in the whole world? She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs Mellors. She rushed down the stairs to find Mrs Mellors unpacking a box of woollens she’d been busy knitting at home all week.

‘Mrs Mellors, Mrs Mellors,’ Jessica shouted, jumping up and down.

‘Calm down, for pity’s sake,’ Mrs Mellors said. ‘What on earth’s happened?’

‘I got a letter from Brian and he says he loves me and wants to marry me. He wants us to get married right away on his next leave.’

‘Well, thank God he’s turned out to be a decent chap after all. I’m very pleased to hear it, Jessie, but sad too.’

‘How can you be sad? Isn’t this the very best thing that could have happened?’

‘For you, yes. For me, it means being without you and that hardly bears thinking about. First my son, and now my daughter.’

‘But you won’t be without me. Brian knows what my flat and the Barras and you mean to me. He says I can stay here and he’ll come over and spend every leave with me.’

Mrs Mellors thought for a minute. ‘I suppose that’s the best way. I don’t know how you’d get on in some god-forsaken place in the middle of the desert. And with the terrible heat I’ve heard there is out there, it wouldn’t be very good for a wee baby. Yes, I think him coming over here is for the best.’ She visibly relaxed. ‘Congratulations, Jessie. Now, we’ll have to start thinking about all the preparations for your wedding.’

‘Och, it’ll be a month or two yet before he gets over. Before he got my letter, he was due leave and he spent it in Dubai. That’s why it’ll be another few weeks before he gets another leave. And I seem to be getting fatter by the minute. So it’ll have to be a very quiet affair with just you and Evie.’

‘I’ll knit you a nice loose top. A real pretty one. You’ll be fine.’

‘Oh thanks, Mrs Mellors.’ Jessica pounced on her and gave her an enthusiastic hug. ‘You’re always so good to me.’

‘And you’re good to me, Jessie. You work like a slave at my stall.’

‘Some slave,’ Jessica laughed. ‘You know fine I love the work and you pay me well.’

‘Not well enough. But I’ll knit you a nice top. And maybe one of those capes that drape back across one shoulder.’

‘You’ve already knitted plenty for the baby.’

‘Knitting’s nothing to me. I can do it with my eyes shut.’

‘Oh, but isn’t it wonderful, wonderful news that he loves me.’

‘Why shouldn’t he? He’d be daft if he didn’t. You’re a very lovable wee lassie.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

‘Well, I do. Now calm down and help me unpack all this stuff and set it out on the stall.’

Jessica sang as she worked. She had never been so happy in all her life. Now she could have the best of both worlds. Her flat, her Barras, her Calton, and her Brian. Not to mention the baby they had made together that would be part of them both.

What a relief it was that she would not need to go to a strange country and be among strange people in what sounded like a very frightening place. Brian had told her about the terrorist attacks there had been on the compound. He had told her that the terrorists were always successfully repulsed by the armed soldiers who guarded the compound. Nevertheless, it sounded a very scary environment. She would worry about the baby’s safety and well-being, as well as her own. It would be bad enough worrying about Brian living there. But he seemed to be well used to the place, he enjoyed his job and had made lots of friends.

Yes, the arrangement he had suggested was best for both of them. She could imagine how it would be like a honeymoon each time he came home on leave. She was indeed the luckiest of mortals.

Mrs Mellors, and then the customers, laughed at her singing so merrily as she worked.

‘What’s happened to you that’s making you so cheery today?’ the customers asked.

Flushed with delight, Jessica kept answering, ‘I’ll be getting married soon.’

‘I’m getting married in the morning …’ Some of the customers burst merrily into the old song. And everyone laughed and it was a lovely happy day. Jessica would never forget it.

And when the day’s work was done, Mrs Mellors said, ‘Now, you’re far too excited. You’re not safe to be left on your own in the state you’re in. Get in the van and come home with me. You can relax in my peaceful wee cottage until you get back to normal. I’ll cook us a nice meal and then we’ll enjoy a wee drink in the Abercromby. You can tell your news to all your friends there as well if you like.’

It was the ‘tell your news to all your friends there’ that tempted Jessica and made her decide to go. She ran upstairs for an overnight bag and was back down, and breathless, within a few minutes.

‘You’ll have to learn to watch what you’re doing, Jessie. You shouldn’t be running up and down stairs in your condition.’

‘Well,’ Jessica laughed, ‘I couldn’t run very quick and I helped heave myself up and down by grabbing hold of the banisters.’

‘Still, look at you, all panting for breath. You’ll have to learn to keep calm and slow down.’

‘OK. OK.’

‘And another thing. When I said you’d be able to tell your friends when you meet them in the Abercromby, I didn’t mean you’d to go wild again and jump up and down and shout around as if you’ve gone off your head.’

‘OK. OK. I’ll be perfectly calm. Sedate even.’

‘That’ll be the day.’

Once she was in the van and they’d set off towards the outskirts of the city, Mrs Mellors said, ‘Now, we’ll talk about all the arrangements for the wedding, and anything else you want to talk about, once we get to my place and have our tea. Meantime, you just close your eyes and relax.’

‘OK. OK.’

‘That baby of yours will be wondering what on earth is going on with you making it bounce about inside you so much. Seriously, Jessie, you could harm the baby. It could bounce right out if you’re not careful.’

‘Oh gosh, I never thought of that.’

‘Yes, you’ve not just yourself to think about now. You can’t afford to forget that. That wee baby inside you is depending on you to be sensible and not hurt it.’

‘I’d never want to hurt it,’ Jessica cried out. ‘Never, never!’

‘Well, just do as I tell you. Close your eyes and calm yourself. And stop trying to run about and jump up and down and get over-excited.’

‘Yes, all right.’

Dutifully she closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. She had been behaving thoughtlessly and foolishly. She realised that now. Would she ever learn? Even now, the mere thought of Brian and seeing him again made her heart flutter and race. She began taking deep, slow breaths.

‘That’s the way,’ Mrs Mellors said. ‘Just keep calm and you’ll be all right.’

But how to keep calm, to keep calm all the time – that was the problem. If something happened to the baby, she couldn’t bear it. It was far too dreadful even to contemplate.

‘I’m worried now about the baby,’ Jessica admitted to Mrs Mellors once they had settled into the Vale of Lennox cottage. ‘Really worried.’

‘Well, the best thing to do about that and to put your mind at rest is to visit Dr Plockton again for a check-up. We can take a walk over there now and then hopefully we’ll be able to relax over a drink in the bar.’

‘OK,’ Jessica agreed, only too glad of the opportunity of getting checked over to make sure, absolutely sure, she had not done the baby any harm.

Mrs Plockton met them at the door and Mrs Mellors said, ‘We haven’t an appointment but Jessica here is so upset and worried in case she might have accidentally done something to harm the baby. She’s an awful worrier.’

‘Come in, come in, my dear girl.’ Mrs Plockton put an arm around Jessica’s shoulders, drew her away from Mrs Mellors and led the trembling girl into the house. ‘I’ll look after you now, my dear girl. You’ll be all right.’ Turning to Mrs Mellors, she added in a cooler tone, ‘You wait out there on the garden seat.’

Mrs Mellors flushed with annoyance, but for Jessica’s sake she said nothing and went across a well-kept lawn and sat down on the rustic wooden seat. She often felt like saying to Mrs Plockton, ‘You’re a two-faced, bullying cow.’ In fact, she’d dearly love to give Mrs Plockton a punch in the face.

She had actually once called her a bully of a woman to her face. Thus Mrs Plockton’s present hatred of her. Some people of a less strong character had been seduced by Mrs Plockton’s gushing sympathetic attention and then found out too late their lives were being taken over and ruled by the woman. Mrs Mellors knew of cases where marriages had been broken up because of Mrs Plockton’s insidious hints and lies and accusations against one or other of the marriage partners. Usually they had been perfectly happy together before her interference. Everything Mrs Plockton said or did, of course, was in the guise of heartfelt sympathy.

‘You have my heartfelt sympathy, my dear,’ she was often heard to say.

She’d once said it to Mrs Mellors and got the immediate retort, ‘Go to hell!’ She interfered endlessly with Dr Plockton’s advice and treatment.

‘Dear Pinkie,’ she’d say even in front of him. ‘The dear boy doesn’t understand.’

Mrs Mellors had remarked more than once to her friends, ‘Dr Plockton, a good doctor by the way, must often feel like throttling that woman.’

Now, sitting on the garden seat and looking across at the church spire on the Green, she prayed that Jessica would be all right. She could be so easily influenced.

Inside the house, Mrs Plockton was questioning Jessica and encouraging her to talk about not only her worries about the baby but the baby’s father and the situation of him travelling from Saudi Arabia to spend his leaves with her and how, after they were married, she would be remaining in her flat in the Calton.

‘Oh you poor soul,’ Mrs Plockton sympathised. ‘He doesn’t care about you enough to take you to his place. Doesn’t he want to be with you all the time?’

‘Oh yes,’ Jessica protested. ‘He loves me and wants to be with me. He told me in his letter.’

‘But not all the time,’ Mrs Plockton said gently.

At this point, Mrs Mellors appeared. The door had not been locked and, unable to bear the suspense of what might be happening to Jessica, she’d pushed her way defiantly in.

‘You just mind your own bloody business,’ she said to Mrs Plockton. ‘Now, where’s the doctor? That’s who we came to see, not you.’

The surgery door opened then, no doubt because Dr Plockton had heard the loud voice of Mrs Mellors.

‘Good afternoon, ladies.’

‘Good afternoon, doctor,’ Mrs Mellors said. ‘I’ve brought Jessica here for a wee check-up. She’s worried she might have unintentionally done something to harm the baby.’

‘Come through.’ He smiled and ushered them into his surgery. Mrs Mellors, always quick on the uptake, caught the quick glance of hatred that he flashed across to his mother.

Ah, I was right, Mrs Mellors thought. The poor guy had suffered so much all his life with that cow of a woman, he would love to throttle her. All the same, she hoped he never would. Not for that old cow’s sake, but for his own. It would be too terrible to see such a nice man, and such a good doctor, spend the rest of his life in prison.

After a gentle but thorough examination, Dr Plockton said everything was all right and both babies were fine.

‘Both babies?’ Jessica and Mrs Mellors cried out in unison.

‘Yes. Congratulations, you’re expecting twins.’

In a bit of a daze, they thanked him and left his surgery room. Mrs Plockton was waiting to pounce, her face creased with sympathy. Mrs Mellors kept a firm grip of Jessica and forced her to hurry past Mrs Plockton and escape from the house and across the pretty flower-surrounded garden and out to Abercromby Street.

‘For God’s sake, don’t have anything to do with that woman. Never listen to her, Jessie. She’s a dangerous troublemaker.’

‘She sounded so nice and sympathetic,’ Jessica said.

‘I bet she did.’

‘Right enough, she’d got the wrong idea about Brian.’

‘Yes, that’s what she does. Puts people against one another. I know more than one couple she’s caused to break up and end in the divorce court.’

‘Twins!’ Jessica echoed in a daze. ‘Fancy! Isn’t it wonderful! Mrs Plockton wouldn’t think anything wrong about that.’

‘What? Didn’t you believe her so-called sympathy and fall for her talk only a few minutes ago?

‘Well, maybe, but I wasn’t ever going to believe anything bad about Brian.’

‘Good for you. You love him and now you know that he loves you and he’s going to marry you. That’s all that matters. And I think he’s a great guy now that I know he’s going to tell you to stay in Scotland where you belong, and with me to keep an eye on you. And he’ll be delighted about the twins.’

Jessica laughed. ‘Changed days. You didn’t always like him.’

‘We all make mistakes, Jessie. And I made a mistake about him.’

‘The wedding’s all settled then. You’re giving me away and Evie’s to be my bridesmaid but it’s going to be a really quiet ceremony. Otherwise it’ll be a terrible embarrassment with the size of me.’

‘Jessie, has it never occurred to you that by the time Brian gets back, you might have already given birth and you’ll be pushing a twin pram to the ceremony?’