A Family Affair (61 page)

‘Yes, I expect he will,' Heather said, profoundly relieved. The thought of a confrontation between Bryn and Carrie was not a pleasant prospect at the best of times. Carrie had one more surprise for her yet, though.

‘You can tell our Jenny from me that if she wants to bring the baby home here, she might as well. Joyce Edgell knows about it anyway, so there's no point trying to hush it up any more.'

Heather stared at her in amazement and saw Carrie exchange a look with Joe. ‘We'll manage somehow. Just as long as they're both all right, that's all that really matters.'

‘They'll be all right, m'dear,' Joe said comfortingly. The very real bond between them, sometimes obscured by Carrie's bossy ways, was clear to see.

‘We'll get going then,' Heather said, feeling suddenly as if she had intruded on a private moment.

Carrie followed them to the front door.

‘Heather …' she caught at her daughter's sleeve, ‘you won't tell her … will you …'

‘About the letters? She'll have to know, Mum.'

‘But not now. Don't go upsetting her now. If she's poorly …'

‘Give me credit for some sense, Mum,' Heather said.

‘And you will give her our love?'

‘Of course I will.' But she was wondering if that would be possible. The last she had heard, Jenny had been unconscious.

She half ran down the path to the car, nervous energy igniting every nerve and muscle. All she wanted was to be with Jenny, for Jenny to be all right, and for their relationship to return to something like normal.

‘She'll be all right, m'dear,' Joe said again as Carrie came back in. ‘Things'll turn out, you'll see.'

‘Will they?' Carrie felt as though the whole of her world was falling apart and she was floundering in a whirling mill pond of emotions, each clamouring for her attention: the desperate anxiety for Jenny – and for the baby, though until now she had never thought of the baby as anything but an unwanted obstacle to Jenny's future and her own well-ordered life; dread of the now inevitable scandal, the wagging tongues attacking the bastion of her respectability and the triumphant glances that would follow her down the street; and guilt. Guilt that even at a time like this she could still feel anxiety over what people would say and most of all guilt at what she had done.

All her life Carrie had forged ahead, taking control of situations, doing what she thought best without questioning what she saw as her God-given right to do so. So sure had she been of her own wisdom and the rightness of her decisions that she had found a way of justifying to herself even the most outrageous actions.

Not this time. Carrie had known, even before Joe had confronted her with it that this time she had overstepped the mark and done the unforgivable, and the knowledge somehow cast doubt on all her other decisions over the years. They had been the stepping stones laying out the path to what was happening now, each one of them inexorably paving the way to disaster. She had sought only to do what she believed was best for her family and this was how it had turned out. For the first time, Carrie acknowledged there was no-one to blame but herself.

‘Oh, Joe, I've been such a fool,' she said.

He patted her hand, his old, placating self once more.

‘You'm all right, m'dear. And so will they be. You'll see.'

‘Joe Simmons – I love you,' she said. And there were tears in her eyes.

Bryn stood looking down at the tiny scrap of life in the incubator. So small, so incredibly vulnerable, and yet so perfect. His baby. His and Jenny's. As yet, no-one would promise him that she would survive. He hoped desperately that was because they were afraid to commit themselves. The thought of that miracle of life, fluttering with each rise and fall of the small chest, being extinguished, was too terrible. Until a few hours ago he hadn't even known he was going to be a father. Now, hope and longing for her filled his world. His daughter. The word itself was a miracle. Bryn bent his head and for the first time since he himself had been a child, he prayed.

Jenny floated up through layer upon layer of cotton wool towards consciousness. Fragments of awareness came to her like haunting dreams and with them, blinded washes of emotion. She tried to grasp at thoughts, force them to take form, and failed. Each time they slipped away from her, elusive as butterflies.

Someone was holding her hand. She could feel the warm pressure of fingers on her own. She forced her heavy eyes to open. A white ceiling, swimming with myriad molecules. The effort was almost too much for her. She closed her eyes again, moving her head restlessly on the pillow.

‘Jenny?'

The sound of his voice brought conscious thought within reach once more, though still she could not grasp it, could not believe what seemed more like a dream than reality. She turned her head toward the voice, opened her eyes again, and his face swam into focus. Wonder filled her, and a tide of happiness. Suddenly, for the first time in weeks – months – Jenny felt safe.

‘Bryn?' she whispered through dry lips.

His mouth was on her hand where those comforting fingers lay.

‘Oh, Jenny – thank God!'

Heather's nervous energy propelled her along the hospital corridor just as it had propelled her down the path of her mother's house. Throughout the hour-long journey it had kept her on edge, so that the bouts of black silence when she was unable to speak were punctuated by repeating the same things over and over again, and her hands fiddled ceaselessly, picking at bits of dry skin around her nails. Now she went all of a rush along the corridor, Steve trailing behind her.

A nurse, all starched linen, intercepted her.

‘Can I help?'

‘Jenny Simmons?'

‘Are you a relative?'

‘I'm her mother.' It seemed the most natural thing in the world to say.

‘If you'd like to take a seat …' The nurse indicated a row of chairs lined up against the wall.

‘Can't I see her?'

‘She can only have one visitor at a time.'

‘Oh, I see.' Obviously Bryn must be with her. ‘She's all right though?'

‘Just take a seat. I'll get someone to come and talk to you.'

‘What about the baby?'

‘I'll get someone to come and talk to you,' the nurse repeated.

Steve sat down but Heather couldn't. She paced. Each time the doors to the ward swung open she jumped in anticipation. At last a white-coated doctor approached.

‘Mrs Simmons?'

‘Mrs Okonski,' she corrected him.

‘Jenny's mum, anyway.'

‘Yes. How is she, Doctor?'

‘Considering what happened to her, she's in pretty good shape. No serious damage as far as we can tell. But she did take a very nasty knock and she had undergone a Caesarean section to deliver her baby. It's all pretty traumatic and what she needs now is plenty of rest. Needless to say, we shall be keeping a close eye on her over the next few hours.'

‘And the baby?'

‘Holding her own. As yet it's too early to say. Would you like to go in and see Jenny for a few minutes?'

‘Can I? The nurse said …'

‘If it's just yourself, and provided you don't excite her, I think I can allow it.'

‘It's all right,' Steve said. ‘I'll wait here.'

The curtains were drawn around Jenny's bed. As the doctor pulled them aside for Heather to go in her nerve almost failed her, all that eagerness superseded for a moment by nervous awkwardness and a twist of gut-wrenching terror.

Bryn, sitting beside the bed, holding Jenny's hand, looked up and saw her.

‘Jenny?' he said. ‘It's your sister.' And that, too, of course, was entirely natural.

Jenny turned her head and Heather saw with a shock that one side of her face was swollen to twice its usual size with a great angry discolouration running its entire length. But there was no sign of the rejection she had been so afraid of. Jenny smiled. And though in the puffed mask it might have appeared almost grotesque, Heather thought that smile was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

‘Oh, Jenny,' she said. ‘Oh, darling Jenny. I've been so worried!'

And to her surprise, Jenny whispered: ‘I'm sorry, Heather.'

‘What do you mean –
you're
sorry?' Heather was fighting back tears. ‘We're the ones who should be sorry! Oh, darling – what have we done to you?'

‘I'm OK,' Jenny said. Her voice was just a husky little whisper. ‘I'm OK – now.' And she managed another smile, tremulous, this time at Bryn. ‘Can I talk to Heather? Alone?'

He nodded, bending over to kiss the unbruised part of her face before getting up.

‘You won't go away again though, will you?'

‘I'll be just outside. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere.'

Heather took his seat, pulling it close to the edge of the bed.

‘Jenny …'

‘Heather.' Jenny's hand found hers. ‘Tell me the truth. The baby … ?'

‘Is doing as well as can be expected.'

‘Are you sure? She's not …
dead
… and they won't tell me?'

‘I'm sure. It's touch and go, Jen, but at the moment she's holding her own.'

Jenny's face crumpled. She closed her eyes and a tear rolled out from the corner of the one that was not swollen.

‘Thank God!' She was silent for a moment, then she opened her eyes again. ‘She will be all right, won't she? She's got to be all right!'

‘I think she will be, yes. I expect she's a little fighter – like you. And Jen … look … there's going to be no more pretence. When she's well enough – when you're both well enough – you can bring her home.'

‘But Mum …' She still thought of Carrie as Mum and always would.

‘It's OK. It was Mum said to tell you. And she sends her love.' She hesitated. ‘She means well, Jenny. I know some of the things she does are very hard to forgive, but you have to remember she does them because she loves us and wants the best for us. She's never done a single thing out of spite or malice or because of bad feelings. It's just that she's … well, a bit like a tigress with her cubs. Stopping at nothing to protect us or ensure our welfare. You must remember that. It's all done out of love.'

‘I know that,' Jenny said. ‘I've always known that.'

‘But there may be some things she's done that are even harder to forgive.'

‘Mum is Mum!' Jenny said. ‘She's always been the same, and I expect she always will.'

‘And me?' Heather said after a moment. ‘Can you forgive me?'

‘Oh, Heather, I know now how you felt, don't I?'

The nurse was hovering.

‘I think that's long enough. Jenny needs to rest.'

‘Heather …' Jenny caught at Heather's sleeve, ‘I just want you to know. When it happened – the accident …'

‘Yes?'

‘I was coming home.'

For the next two weeks, Jenny's baby's life hung in the balance and then one day Jenny got the news she had been waiting for. She was to be discharged and the baby – whom she had named Sarah – was to be transferred to the Special Care Baby Unit in Bath.

Jenny travelled with her in the ambulance and saw her safely installed – that tiny, most precious thing in the whole world – and then David drove her home.

Walking back into the house she had last seen almost three months before was the strangest feeling. Then, she had felt bereft, lonelier than at any time in her life. Now, though she was returning alone, she had so much! Sarah might still be in hospital – oh, how Jenny ached for her, to be able to cuddle her, hold her! – Bryn might have returned to his base, but she knew they were both out there and it was only a matter of time before they would all be together.

They had talked about marriage as he sat beside her bed, holding her hand, but curiously Jenny had felt no sense of urgency for that. She knew now, with a certainty that came from deep within, that married or not he was not going to leave her and Sarah, and the time for hasty propriety was over. Now they had all the time in the world.

‘I want to be really better before we get married,' she had said. ‘I want to enjoy every minute of our wedding day. And in any case, I wouldn't feel like a proper wife until we can live together, and you can't get married quarters as a National Serviceman, can you?'

Carrie had visited her too in hospital, and restated her pledge that Jenny could come home with the baby.

‘We'll just hold our heads up high and show them,' she said, a flash of the old Carrie showing through. ‘I'll look after Sarah for you and you can pass your exams and get a good job.'

She was still managing things, Jenny thought wryly, but this time her mother's plans coincided with her own. She might never now be the career journalist she'd dreamed of being, but it could only be an advantage to gain her qualifications whilst she had the chance. After that – who knew? Her brush with death had made Jenny aware of the slimness of the thread upon which life hung and demonstrated how fate could take the most unexpected turns.

When Jenny had unpacked her things, she went back downstairs. Carrie was in the kitchen making a cup of tea for the two of them – David had gone back to work as soon as he had dropped her off. The familiar feel of the kitchen enveloped her, the trappings of home that she had missed so much, and she bent to fondle Sally's silky ears. Sally had been so excited to see her! But Jenny sensed an edginess in Carrie.

‘What's wrong, Mum?' she asked, leaning against the corner of the cooker. ‘You're not having second thoughts are you.'

‘No – no, it's too late for that.'

‘You
are
having second thoughts.'

‘I'm not. You and Sarah are both going to be all right, and that's all that matters.' She hesitated. ‘I've got to talk to you though, Jenny. There's something I have to tell you, and I only hope you'll forgive me.'