A Perfect Heritage (71 page)

‘Why?’

‘Because I couldn’t stand having someone else there. Anyway, I’d feel such a brute, he’d be so hurt.’

Not like he’d feel if you told him you’d slept with his wife, Bianca thought.

‘Anyway, something’s got to be done.’

‘Unless Patrick does actually leave me.’

‘Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, that would solve it. Look, if you think of anything, just let me know, will you?’

‘Of course, Saul,’ she said briskly. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to hurry it along a bit. A divorce, I mean.’

‘Oh, no, that would be unfair,’ he said, missing the irony as always. ‘It would have to be of his own volition.’

‘Yes, of course. Look, I must go. Unless you’ve got anything else to talk about. Oh, is there any news about Dickon?’

‘No. She’s playing a waiting game.’

‘Does Dickon talk about it?’

‘Sometimes.’ His voice was abrupt. ‘How are you feeling about the launch now?’

‘Petrified. Totally petrified. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, feel sick all the time. I know, I absolutely know, it’s going to flop.’

‘No it’s not. It’s going to be a huge, wonderful success. The earth will move for you. You and the House of Farrell. Almost literally, I suppose. And how are things with Patrick?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bianca with a sigh. ‘I don’t know what to do or what to think. I don’t even know how I feel about him any more.’

‘Oh, I do,’ said Saul, and he was looking at her in a way she hadn’t seen before. There was affection in that look – and something close to regret. ‘You love him.’

‘Saul, I don’t think so.’

‘Oh yes you do. No doubt at all. Take that from your one-time lover. Now, I must go.’

Patrick woke up with a splitting headache and looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. God, he felt terrible. He went downstairs to the kitchen; the house was silent and there was a note from Sonia.

‘Tried to wake you, failed. Fergie will also be out till tomorrow. He’s going back to stay with Giles after the cinema. Then they’re both going to football training in the morning and Giles’ dad will bring Fergie home. See you on Monday.’

Patrick sighed and fixed himself a bowl of soup. He had a beer, and then, because it semed like a good idea, another one. His head was no better.

He decided to go for a walk, and then realised he felt really weird and went back to the house where he sank down on the sofa in the snug, determined not to go to bed, and watched some absurd movie for an hour. He considered calling Bianca, but rejected the idea; he couldn’t face the excuses as to why she couldn’t come home.

The movie had made his head worse. It was now appalling. He’d have to take something for it; and then he might be able to stay awake . . . or even go to sleep.

He went upstairs, rummaged in his flight bag. Right. Paracetamol. What he really needed was codeine, but he tried not to take them, they were so strong and supposed to be addictive. He didn’t believe it for a moment, but Bianca was strict about that sort of thing, and scolded him if she found he’d taken any. Not that she was here to scold him now, probably never would again. He took two paracetamol and then, ten minutes later, as the pain intensified – more like a migraine, this – he took two more. They couldn’t do him any harm. That was all he had left anyway. The little brown bottle – he always decanted pills into them for travelling because they took up so much less room than those enraging blister packs inside cartons (getting at their contents was like playing pass the parcel) – was empty. He was beginning to feel very weird. Maybe he’d lie down again for a bit. He walked very unsteadily out of the bathroom and into their bedroom. He wondered if he should go into the spare room, but then that would feel more like a hotel again. And the room was a bit swimmy and he wasn’t sure he’d make it. He flung himself down on the bed, still clutching the paracetamol bottle and thought maybe he would ring Bianca after all. If only to warn her that he was home and in their bed. Their bed? Not really.
Her
bed. God, it was all so sad.
He
felt so sad.

‘Hi, this is Bianca Bailey. Please leave a message after the tone.’

Patrick cleared his throat. ‘Bianca, it’s me. I’m at home. Just to let you—’

And then his eyes closed, as if he’d been given anaesthetic, and he dropped down into a huge, black, sleepy hole . . .

Bianca was with Tod and Jack, working on the presentation for the launch. It had been decided that she would talk about the overall concept, the little shops all over the world, the tiny jewels in the Farrell crown, and then they would take over, first Tod and then Jack, explaining what everyone (everyone? One, maybe two, journalists . . .) was about to see, that it was a first, a unique experience, and then, back to Bianca, to do the final few sentences and then – then most probably the site would crash; or there would be a power cut, or the two journalists would say they had to go, or . . .

She didn’t hear her phone.

After three attempts, when she had fluffed her lines continually, said she didn’t like the music she had chosen and decided the Singapore shop was rubbish – ‘Look, it doesn’t look remotely like the arcade!’ – Tod told her she should go home.

‘You’re exhausted and we’re not getting anywhere. We’ll do it again in the morning. But Bianca, you can’t change the shops now, or the music, OK? Bianca – are you all right?’

She was listening to a phone message, a look of dismay on her face.

‘No. No, I’m not. It’s – it’s Patrick. Listen to this – he sounds terrible. I must go home straight away.’

Tod listened. ‘He does sound a bit – odd but it’s probably just jet lag. Yes, you go, of course. Do you want a cab?’

‘No, I’ve got my car thanks. I didn’t even know he was home, I—’

‘Should one of us come with you?’

‘No, no of course not. I’ll – I’ll let you know if – well, if I do need you. What’s the time? Oh God! He left this two hours ago.
Shit
. OK, I’m off. Bye, thanks.’

‘Sure you’ll be all right driving?’

‘Yes, fine.’

She sped through the streets, driving hideously fast, she knew. The needle shot up to eighty, ninety, a hundred and bloody hell, what was that flashing light behind her? Shit, it was the police, shit, shit, shit!

She pulled over and a cop who looked just a little older than Fergie peered into her window, another one standing on the other side of the car.

‘Good evening, madam. Do you realise the speed you were doing just then?’

‘Yes, yes I do.’

‘And would you like to tell me what it was?’

Sadist
.

‘A – a hundred.’

‘And did you realise this was a built-up area?’

‘Yes. Yes I did, but—’

‘Have you been drinking, madam?’

‘No, I haven’t. Unless you count coffee. Look, I really need to get home. It’s urgent. My husband is – is . . .’ What was he? What could she say he was, that wouldn’t delay her still further? ‘Just back from a business trip,’ she finished.

‘You’re obviously very keen to see him,’ said the other cop. He exchanged a look with the first one. She knew what that meant. They thought she’d been with a boyfriend . . .

‘Look,’ she said, ‘can I please go now? I’m sorry about the speeding, and I’ll give you all my details of course, but—’

‘I’m afraid we have to breathalyse you,’ said the first cop.

‘But I’ve only been drinking coffee.’

‘We are still obliged to, madam. I’m sorry. If you could just step out of your car.’

She complied and stepped; it was easier.

She finally got home at two thirty; let herself in, calling his name, running from room to room. There was an empty beer glass in the snug, a soup carton on the sideboard in the kitchen. He did that, when he thought she wasn’t looking, heated it in the microwave, spooned it straight out of the carton.

She ran upstairs; along the corridor, looking first in the spare room and then into their bedroom. And there he lay, sprawled across the bed, apparently unconscious.

She went over to him, shook him, trying to wake him, totally failed; he was, and she shuddered at the cliché, dead to the world . . .

‘Patrick, Patrick, please wake up, please!’

And then she saw he was holding something in his hand; a small bottle, with – oh, God, no, no – ‘Sleeping pills’ written on it, on a small white label, in Patrick’s handwriting. It was empty. Quite, quite empty . . .

Questions roared through her head. Why? Was he really that desperately unhappy? Why on their bed? Why fully clothed? How many had he taken? The bottle was hideously, unarguably empty. What did she do, ring 999, the doctor? She tried again, shaking him furiously, slapping his face, shouting his name.

Remorse flowed into her. Remorse and panic. Had she really made him so unhappy he had wanted to die? Had her refusal to give up Farrell’s for him broken his heart? Had he seen it as the rejection it undoubtedly was, a rejection of him and their marriage? And how could she not have seen it too, the coldness of it, the arrogance? Putting herself and her career and some bloody stupid company before him and their happiness and the happiness of their children? What kind of cold, calculating creature would do such a thing? Her kind, she thought, the Bianca Bailey kind, the self-centred bitch kind, and looked through her tears at him lying there on their bed, the bed that had seen so much happiness, so much closeness, so much laughter and so many ridiculous, laughing, clinging, shaking after-sex tears. She had driven him from that bed, as she had driven him from their marriage, and, indeed, from wanting to live any longer.

Crying openly now, she reached for her phone to dial 999. Berating herself was a self-indulgence, moments were crucial, it might already be too late . . . But even as she pressed nine the second time, miraculously it seemed, he did stir, open his eyes, stare blankly at her, half smile and say ‘Hello’ before lolling back again, and beginning to snore. She hurled her phone down, heaved him up on the pillows, grabbed the glass of water on the bedside table, tried to force it into his mouth.

‘Patrick, Patrick, don’t go back to sleep! Don’t, please! Here, drink this, come on, come
on
.’

‘Leave me . . . alone,’ he said, his voice heavily slurred. ‘Let me go – go to sleep . . .’

‘Patrick, how many did you take?’

‘Huh?’

‘How many sleeping pills did you take? You must tell me, it’s terribly important. How many?’

‘Not . . . not . . .’ his eyes opened again, tried to focus, then he managed, ‘not sleeping pills.’

‘What? What then? Patrick, don’t go back to sleep, what did you take?’

‘Para . . . para . . .’

She sat back, looked at him lying on the pillows. Paracetamol? Was that what he had taken? And was that better or worse? She knew paracetamol caused fearful liver damage if it was left in the system. He could die of that as easily as the sleeping pills . . .

‘Patrick, are you sure? Sure it was paracetamol?’

‘Paracetamol. Yes. I said. In the bottle. Bianca . . .’ And then he was lost again.

‘And – how many?’

‘Four. Very very bad – bad headache.’

Suddenly she realised what might have happened. He travelled with his various medications in those little brown bottles pills used to come in, labelled by himself. Had he taken the wrong one out of his bag, thinking it was paracetamol? He’d had two beers, he was jet-lagged, he always drank a lot on the plane, he’d have been exhausted and possibly confused. She looked round; his flight bag was on their bathroom floor. She rummaged in it furiously, hurling things out of it. Nothing. She checked his toilet bag, nothing in that, then tried the pockets of the bag, and, yes, here it was! Another little brown bottle, labelled – yes, thank God, thank God, ‘paracetamol’. She was right. He had mixed them up. She sat down on the bed next to him, shook him again; this time he surfaced just a little more easily.

‘Patrick. Are you sure, quite sure, you only took four of those pills? It’s important, Patrick, it’s so important.’

‘Four, yes. Head terrible. Sorry. Knew you’d be cross.’

‘Oh Patrick, darling, darling Patrick!’ She put her arms round him, laying him back on the pillow, crying and laughing at the same time. ‘Oh Patrick, I’m not cross, I love you, I love you so, so much.’

‘I . . .’ But he was gone again, lost to her, and she sat looking at him, stroking his hair back, kissing his face, his hair, his hands, her tears falling on to him, so weak with relief she could scarcely sit up.

Her phone rang; not the police, please, please not the police. It was Tod.

‘Bianca, you all right? Patrick all right?’

‘Oh Tod, yes, yes, thank you, we’re both fine,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Just a silly mistake.’ And then a thought struck her. ‘Tod, do you know if four sleeping pills would be all right? I mean, taken all at once, would it do you any – any real harm?’

Tod’s father was a doctor so Tod was a mine of useful medical information.

‘Four? Nah, shouldn’t think so. But I could ask my dad if you like. Sounds like it could be important.’

‘Your dad? But Tod, it’s nearly four in the morning!’

‘Oh, he’s used to being woken up in the night. Old school GP, you see. He’ll be round in his PJs under his overcoat, doctor’s bag in hand, if you’re not careful.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll call you back.’

He rang within five minutes.

‘No, four’s absolutely fine. He said Patrick would have a nasty head in the morning, but nothing worse. Get him to drink lots of water. As long as you’re sure it is only four?’

‘I am. I’ll ask him again, just to make sure, but I am pretty sure. Thank you, Tod so, so much. You’re the best advertising man in the world.’

‘Yes, I’d agree with you there,’ he said. ‘Night, Bianca.’

‘Night, Tod.’

She shook Patrick again, asked him again, was he sure it was four?

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said and there was a touch of irritation in his voice now. ‘Took two, then two more. Now can I go back to sleep?’

‘You can sleep, my darling, darling Patrick,’ she said. And went downstairs and filled a jug of water and then lay down, very carefully, beside him; looking at him, hardly daring to take her eyes off him, restored to her in all his dear self, Patrick, who she loved so very much and had so very nearly lost, and reliving all the memories, the most joyful, most important memories – the first time they had made love – and she had cried – the night he had asked her to marry him, nothing specially romantic, just turning to her as they were walking together along the Embankment one Sunday afternoon, ‘Because you are so dear to me that I can’t imagine living without you.’ Then the wedding, when he had told a vast marquee full of guests how much he loved her, and her father, afterwards, more quietly, how he would always take care of her and see it as a privilege; the birth of Milly, their first child, their immortality – all the brilliant, shining moments, interwoven into the stuff of real life, the more mundane stuff, the stuff that mattered just as much, given total importance by the rest.