The Best of Times (19 page)

“This sounds like an awful pileup yesterday, Rick. On the M
4
. Did you see anything of it at all?”

“No. Why should I have?”

“Because you were on the bloody road, that’s why. Around the time. Four o’clock, it says here.”

“Course I wasn’t. I was delivering the stuff to that snooty cow in Marlowe by four.”

“Oh, OK. What if you’d been a bit later, though? Doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t.”

“Says here a lorry went right through the central median and the driver’s in intensive care, still unconscious, he was, last night. At least three dead, it says, and loads of serious injuries. It’s enough to make you think you’ll never get in a car again.”

“Yeah, well, some of us have to.”

“I know, babe, I know. Part of why your job’s so stressful, isn’t it? Was the traffic very heavy then, when you was driving up?”

“Not specially, no. Oh, I don’t know. Can we stop this, Dianne, talk about something a bit more cheerful?”

• • •

“Tamara, are you ready, darling? Daddy’s got the car in the front of the house.”

“Yes, coming, Mummy, just finding my shoes.”

They had to be the right shoes; it seemed important. Wearing the right clothes altogether was important. Toby was probably a bit down in the dumps today, and it would cheer him up to see her looking really great. A lot of girls might not have bothered about it, specially having been robbed of their wedding day, but Tamara was not being beaten by a little something like that. There could be another wedding day, and they would be able to start planning it that very morning. She had her diary with her so that they could choose another date, at least.

She felt extremely proud of herself, being so strong about the whole thing. She could think of at least half a dozen friends who would have been completely destroyed by it. Of course, she had been dreadfully upset yesterday, and there was no way she could have gone to the hospital last night; she’d looked appalling, her eyes all piggy and her skin blotchy with crying, and she’d felt completely and utterly drained by it.

But today … well, today was quite different. She felt really refreshed, and able to cope with it all.

She finally settled on a pair of white patent high-heeled mules, which went with the red shift she had decided to wear—it was one of Toby’s favourites; he said she was his own personal lady in red in it—and ran downstairs barefoot, holding them in her hand.

• • •

“It was so awful,” she said later, sobbing in her father’s arms in the car park. “I thought he’d be sitting up in his pyjamas, you know, and I could give him the strawberries and everything, and he was just lying there, looking all pinched and white, and there were lots of drips and things, and one of them was blood, and goodness knows what the others all were, and then he had this cage thing over his leg, with sort of pins going through his skin—it made me feel quite sick, actually—and he turned his head just very slowly and said my name, but he could hardly get that out, and he tried to smile, Daddy, but he couldn’t quite manage it, and then his eyes closed again, and he tried to give me his hand, but it sort of flopped before it reached me. And it was so upsetting I just started to cry. And then some beastly nurse said that if I’d like to wait outside, the doctor was coming to see him, and I said couldn’t I stay, and she said no, she didn’t think that was a very good idea—that’s the NHS for you, treating everyone like idiots—and I had to wait outside for ages, and then when the doctor came out I nabbed him, said how was Toby, and he said not very well, but he’d be back in a couple of hours and he’d have a better idea then. He seemed to think I could just wait. So I went back in to Toby and he just seemed totally out of it. And then the nurse came back and said she was sorry, but that was enough for now, and if I liked I could come back this afternoon. I’m just so … so disappointed and upset, Daddy, and so worried; he’s obviously much worse than anyone was letting on last night.”

“Oh, darling, try not to worry too much.” Gerald Richmond
passed her his handkerchief. “Come on, blow your nose. You’ve been so brave up to now; you’ve just got to keep it up a bit longer. Shall we go and have a nice lunch somewhere and then come back this afternoon? Would you like that?”

“Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know. I mean honestly, Daddy, if you’d seen him, you’d have wondered if there was any point in my going. It was quite … scary. He hardly seemed to be there.”

“Well … if the nurse told you to go back and the doctor’s been to see him, I’d have thought it was worth it. I’ll come with you, if you like. Just to hold your hand. As Toby can’t.” He smiled at her. “Come on, poppet, dry your eyes. We’ll go to the Bear, have a really good lunch, and then come back and see how he is. I’m sure he’ll pick up very quickly; he’s young and very fit.”

“Yes. All right. Thanks, Daddy, I expect you’re right. Oh, now look at me!” she said, half laughing as she studied herself in the mirror. “My mascara’s all run, and I don’t have any makeup with me. Maybe we could buy some stuff in Marlborough after we’ve had lunch.”

“Of course we can. You’re being very brave, darling. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Daddy. I don’t feel very brave. Oh, it’s all so sad. Pretty cruel, fate, isn’t it? Why did it have to happen yesterday? And to me?”

CHAPTER 15

Abi was in the gym; she felt absolutely dreadful, sick and exhausted, aching in every limb—and seriously stressed. She’d rung her phone repeatedly, in the hope someone would have it and answer it, but it remained stubbornly switched off.

Clearly she needed to speak to Jonathan; the police had told her
they would want a statement from her, as she had been in the forefront of the crash, and she presumed they had said the same thing to him.

The thought most frightening her was an odd, almost shadowy anxiety that she had in some way contributed to it. Jonathan had been on the phone—and she had been shouting at him, swearing at him, even; she’d provided a pretty serious distraction. And she and Jonathan had been right beside the lorry; suppose he’d swerved, made the lorry swerve too? It didn’t bear thinking about. And they’d surely be required to recount very precisely what they had seen. And if all she could tell them was that it was a blur, that she couldn’t really remember, they wouldn’t be very impressed. They might even think she was covering something up.

And then—she presumed—Jonathan would require her to go along with whatever story he planned to tell Laura: the reason for being on the wrong motorway, and her presence in the car. It was extremely unlikely, she felt sure, to be the bald truth; and that shifted the balance of power between them just a little. Yesterday, Laura could have been kept in ignorance of Abi’s existence—unless Abi herself confronted her with it. Today, she almost certainly could not. So if he wanted Abi to go along with any lie he might concoct, she held quite a few more cards than she had done; and that was, actually, rather pleasing.

Abi was not vindictive; in spite of her threat to Jonathan of confronting Laura, she actually had no intention of doing so. Rather perversely, she was on Laura’s side. She didn’t admire her; indeed she viewed her—and other wives like her—with something near contempt: for their dependency, their willingness to do what they were told and be what they were bidden.

Kept women, Abi regarded them as: lacking in courage, personal ambition, and self-worth. She had no wish to join their ranks; she would not consider moving into a large house, wearing expensive clothes, and driving a flashy car if it wasn’t due at least in some large part to her own efforts. She wanted her own stake in life, not
one bought by simpering at dinner parties and providing sex on demand.

Just the same, she felt that they did deserve better than being cheated on. She despised Jonathan for what he was doing to Laura: he was the real wrongdoer, in her eyes, the villain of the piece, playing with Laura’s happiness and love, and that of his children. It was he, and not Laura, who deserved to be punished.

But to punish Jonathan would be to punish Laura too, and not to be contemplated in the normal run of things. This run, however, was not normal …

• • •

“How’re you feeling, mate?” Barney smiled determinedly at Toby.

Toby opened his eyes with an obvious effort, said, “Cheers, Barney,” and managed a rather feeble smile. He closed his eyes again, grimaced, tried to shift his position. “Christ, this leg hurts.”

“The nurse said you were on morphine; thought that’d fix it.”

“I am. I certainly know when it’s wearing off, but it still doesn’t kill it. I’ve got a sort of pump thing; I can give it to myself, but it knows when you’ve had enough, so you can’t OD, unfortunately.” He tried to smile again.

“I hear you’ve had lots of visitors.”

“Yeah, Mum and Dad. And Tamara, of course. She’s been such a brick, so good about cancelling the wedding. Didn’t complain at all.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She wanted to set another date, but I just wasn’t up to it. She seemed a bit disappointed about that, but … maybe tomorrow.”

“Well, no rush, eh?”

“No, s’pose not. But it would make her feel better, she said.”

The thought of Tamara pestering Toby in his hospital bed about another date for the wedding made Barney feel slightly sick.

“How’s the food?” he said after a pause.

“Don’t know. I’m just getting stuff through these things.” He indicated the various drips and lines.

“Amanda sent some grapes. Here. But if you can’t eat them—”

“Thanks. How is Amanda?”

“She’s fine,” said Barney. “She says she’ll come in with me tomorrow if you like, if you don’t have too many visitors.”

“Yeah, course. Well, let’s see. Give her my love.”

He was clearly exhausted and certainly in no condition to talk about the things Barney was worrying about. More than worrying. He was haunted by them.

He patted Toby on the hand, told him he’d be back later, and went down to the main entrance, where Amanda was waiting for him.

“How is he?”

“Not good. In a lot of pain. Poor old Tobes.”

“Oh, dear,” said Amanda, “it’s just so, so sad. And so unfair.”

Her blue eyes filled with tears; Barney put his arm round her.

“He’ll be all right,” he said. “Promise. Come on, let’s start driving back, maybe have something to eat on the way?”

As they started going down the steps, Emma came running up them; she smiled.

“Hi. Nice to see you. How’s the patient today? I haven’t been up there yet, but I was planning to check.”

“Oh—not too good. Seems in a lot of pain.”

“Try not to worry,” she said. “It’s almost the worst day, this. Lot of trauma: medical trauma, I mean, swelling, bruising coming out.” She smiled at Amanda, held out her hand. “I’m Emma King. One of the A and E doctors. I met your … Mr. Fraser … on Friday night, when he was leaving your friend’s ward.”

“I heard you’d all been wonderful,” said Amanda, taking the hand. “Thank you so much. I’m Amanda, Barney’s fiancée.”

“Well … you know. We do our best.”

And they stood there in the sunlight shaking hands: two pretty girls with blond hair and blue eyes, worlds apart in education, class, lifestyle, and aspiration, slightly wary of each other without having the faintest idea why.

There was a silence; then Emma said, “Well, I mustn’t hold you
up. And I will go and see … Toby, was it? As soon as I can. Try not to worry. Bye now.”

“Bye,” said Amanda. “Come on, Barney, we must go too.”

• • •

So he did have a girlfriend, Emma thought, looking after them as they walked towards the cars; and what a suitable one. And she had a boyfriend, didn’t she? So … why was she even concerned about Barney? She wasn’t. She so wasn’t. And she was
so
late. She must go …

• • •

Mary sat in her bed in the cardiac ward, feeling physically better, but increasingly agitated about Russell, begging to be allowed to go home.

They kept saying no, that she had to stay another forty-eight hours, that Dr. Phillips was very pleased with her, but he wanted to keep an eye on her.

She’d had what they told her was a cardiac catheterisation the night before. “It measures the pressure actually inside your heart’s chambers,” Dr. Phillips had said. “Nothing to worry about; we just want to make quite sure everything’s OK.”