Out of My Depth (33 page)

‘Sure you don’t want to stick around and come home with us?’ Tamsin asked. She had to wait till the very end and she wanted Izzy to wait with her. ‘No problem dropping you off.’

‘Thanks, but I’ve got to dash,’ said Izzy. ‘Sharing a cab with the other Dinas girls. All booked. See you on Monday I’ll call tomorrow.’

‘Bye.’

Tamsin stood around, repetitively banging the toes of one foot on the ground. She had remained an observer, unpopular and unnoticed, for five long hours. She hated everyone and everything. Mrs Grey shooed her drunk charges away. Mrs Spencer made sure they got into the cars of their waiting, long-suffering fathers, or into taxis.

As they were leaving, Tamsin’s mother said, ‘I feel a bit light-headed. That’s the trouble with these things. You can drink orange juice all evening and still feel drunk by osmosis.’

I drove as fast as my car would go, with my foot flat on the floor. I tried to shut myself off from the panic, and just to drive. I had no worries about speeding, and I almost wanted to get stopped by the police so that they would escort me to the emergency department.

Tamsin had climbed over in the back to be with Izzy and Sam. I was trying not to use my rear-view mirror to check on him, because when I had last looked, his face was swollen and red, and this, I knew, was not good. It had distracted me from the road. I could hear Tamsin and Izzy conferring in urgent, low voices. They were all crammed together. The back of my little Merc was not built for three.

‘Was it a sting? You’re sure it was?’ Tamsin asked, as I pushed out onto the roundabout, forcing a blue Renault to stop suddenly. I took no notice of whatever signals the driver might have been making at me, spun round the roundabout, and overtook another car as I exited.

‘Sam said so,’ said Izzy, who was holding her son on her lap. ‘But he’s been stung before and it was fine. So I wouldn’t have thought he could be allergic.’

‘He could. He’s having an anaphylactic reaction, and that can happen if you’ve been exposed to the allergen before. So if he’s had a normal bee sting, his system reacted weirdly to it and now it’s massively overreacting to the same poison this time.’ For a few moments, I drove in tense silence. ‘He needs epinephrine,’ Tamsin said. ‘A shot in the thigh and he’ll be fine. Suse, how far are we?’

‘Ten minutes. I’ll try to be quicker.’

I clutched the steering wheel and realised that I had to stop driving simply dangerously and start driving like a racing driver. I needed to be insane. If I managed to get pulled over, so much the better. I had to get through part of Mont de Marsan to reach the hospital, and that meant traffic lights and junctions and queues. Sam’s life, and Izzy’s future, were hanging in the balance. I could not bear the idea that Izzy might be heading for my own particular brand of loss. I could not let that happen.

If he died I would always know it was my fault for holding back. That could not happen.

I swallowed hard and put my hand down on the horn. I drove as aggressively as I possibly could, making as much noise as I could in an attempt to make it safer. The road through the outskirts of town was long and straight, and I put my foot on the accelerator, kept my hand on the horn, and blasted my way along it. At a red light, I jolted onto the pavement to pass the queue, and swerved back onto the road at the corner. Cars pulled out of the way. Pedestrians stared. I was fixated on saving Sam. He might die. The reality of it propelled me round the inner ring road, through junctions, past cars, and along whichever side of the road was emptier. I shut myself off from the conversation behind me, did not want to know how the child was doing. I dreaded hearing Tamsin or Isabelle telling me to stop.

I pulled onto the pavement outside the hospital, and we ran in, Sam in his mother’s arms. I stole a quick look. He was floppy and seemed unconscious. The hospital was large and confusing, but I knew where they needed to go, and so I ran ahead of Izzy and in through the main entrance. A woman sitting behind a reception desk looked up at us calmly, and I rushed over.

‘A little boy,’ I hissed urgently, in French. ‘A bee.’ My words fell over each other, and I couldn’t manage to get ‘was stung by’ out of my mouth. The woman understood. She got to her feet and ran to meet Izzy and Sam, and she called, and two medical staff arrived and took Sam from Izzy’s arms, and everyone rushed away.

I followed, but I walked. Tamsin walked faster, then started trotting, catching up. I forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths. I was shaking. The smell of the hospital was reassuring. This hospital was clean and efficient, reliable. I was relieved that Sam’s life no longer rested in my hands. He had not, however, looked good when we delivered him to the professionals.

That, I reminded myself, was why I was going to remain childless. And I was childless, and not childfree, whatever Roman had to say about it. Sam’s accident was a cosmic reminder of why it had to be that way.

I walked to the accident and emergency department, and found Tamsin standing outside a treatment room.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked, not really wanting to know.

Tamsin shrugged. ‘They’re making him better. I hope.’

We looked each other in the eye. I saw my own hollow sickness reflected in Tamsin’s eyes.

‘What were you doing flirting with Patrick?’ I asked.

‘Oh, Jesus, Susie. What was I doing? I have no idea. I was being stupid.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

We stood together in silence.

‘Is Izzy with him?’ I only said it for something to say. Of course Izzy was with him.

‘Yes.’

‘How about I get some drinks? Sweet tea or something? Something for Izzy when she comes out?’

‘Is there somewhere?’

‘There’s a drinks machine. And a little café. Maybe I’ll go there. Chances are it would be nicer. I don’t know if they’d do takeaways though. Lots of places don’t, in France.’

‘Susie, let’s just wait. I think they only have to inject him and then he should recover.’

I swallowed. ‘Why’s it taking so long?’

‘OK,’ Freya said, sitting down on the cracked earth. ‘Now I’m really scared, Jake. I’m so thirsty.’

‘I know,’ Jake told her. He drew a deep breath. ‘Me too. I’m hot and thirsty and I don’t understand what’s going on here. We should shout.’

‘No one would hear us.’

‘How about if you get on my shoulders?’

Freya thought about it. ‘That’s a good idea,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll get up and have a look around and shout as loud as I possibly can.’

‘And that’s loud,’ Jake said. She poked him.

‘Shut up,’ she said. And help me up. What if we’re right in the middle of the whole field and I can’t see anything?’

‘Then you shout even louder.’

Freya didn’t want to admit how weak she was feeling. Her head kept feeling dizzy, as if she had been spinning around for five minutes without stopping. She was starving, and she was so thirsty that if she started thinking about water she thought she would die. She had to concentrate hard to climb onto her brother’s shoulders, because there were black and green and pink blotches everywhere. She felt very, very sick. She took two handfuls of his thick blond hair and held tight. Slowly, Jake stood up, holding her calves tightly.

Freya craned her neck. It was no good. She burst into tears, and once she started, she couldn’t stop sobbing. All her fear came out in choking gasps.

‘Frey?’ Jake was puzzled and annoyed. ‘Frey, what’s the matter? What is it? Frey, what can you see? You’re supposed to be shouting, not crying. What can you see? What?’

She struggled to catch her breath. ‘Nothing. I can’t see anything.’ Jake tried to look up at her, and she almost fell off his narrow shoulders. ‘Put me down,’ she said. ‘We’re not tall enough. I can only see the top bit of the maize.’

‘Oh,’ said Jake, and he knelt down so Freya could climb off him. ‘Well, if I stood next to a strong kind of plant, could you hold onto a couple of them and maybe stand up on my shoulders? Or we could build a ladder or something.’

Freya shook her head. ‘We’ve just got to walk,’ she said, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. ‘And let’s shout anyway. They must be looking for us by now. I bet they’re going frantic.’

Jake thought about it. ‘Yes, it’s ages past lunchtime, isn’t it? They must be out trying to find us. Mum’ll be going ballistic.’

‘Do you think they’ll call the police?’

‘Maybe they’ll come with helicopters.’

‘Then we’d need to flatten some of this corn down so they’d see us.’

‘Let’s wait till we hear them, though.’

On an unspoken agreement, they carried on walking in the direction in which they had been going. There was no point turning back. Freya tried out her voice as they went.

‘Help!’ she shouted. Her voice sounded silly the first time, but after a few more goes, yelling at the top of her lungs began to feel normal. ‘Help! ’ they shouted. Au secours! Help! Au secours!'

If they kept trudging, by the laws of science they were going to reach the edge of the field.

It seemed as if hours passed, but really it was only fifteen minutes. At first, Freya thought she was imagining it. A few steps later, she knew she wasn’t.

‘Jake?’ she said, hardly daring to believe her eyes.

‘Mmm? Help!' said Jake, unwilling to break the rhythm of his shouting.

‘Look, Jakey! It’s light. We’re walking towards the daylight!’

‘Au secours!' he said. ‘Oh God, Freya, you’re right.’

They looked at each other, amazed and exhilarated. ‘We did it!’ Freya shouted. ‘We did it! We’re here!’

‘Where are we?’ Jake asked.

They stepped cautiously out of the tunnel of maize. They were certainly not in Susie’s garden. Nor were they on the road that ran along the other side of the field. They were on a track which looked like a tractor path. It was brown and dusty, with a strip of parched grass in the middle. In front of them was another field of tall, brownish maize. They looked both ways.

‘Which way shall we go?’ Freya asked.

‘Well. We must be either on the top of the square that is the field, or on the left-hand side,’Jake decided. ‘So, if we’re on top, we should head this way.’ He pointed right. ‘Because that should bring us to the back of the garden. But if we’re on the side, we should go this way.’ He pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Because that will take us to the road.’ He looked expectantly at Freya. She thought about it.

‘So we should go left,’ she said confidently. ‘Because there isn’t a path like this leading to the back of Susie’s garden.’

‘OK,’ Jake said, equably. And they set off, their energy renewed, in what they hoped was going to be the direction of the road.

Patrick was mildly surprised to discover that he appeared to have the entire house and grounds to himself. After his dip, he went back to the bedroom, confidently expecting to find Amanda sulking on the bed. He had considered their situation, as he swam, and, after some reflection, he felt ready to confront her. He had never mentioned her problems to anybody before, although he knew that everybody must have been talking behind his back for years. It was liberating to have discussed it, even sketchily, with Tamsin, and he was determined to prove himself worthy, and to take action. He was going to force Amanda to confront her drinking and get some help. He was going to be firm but fair; the best friend she would ever have. She would fight him in the short run but ultimately it would bring them together. This was what he was telling himself. He took the stairs two at a time, hoping to make his speech before his nerve went.

Only she wasn’t there. The shorts she had been wearing earlier were crumpled on the varnished pine floorboards, and her blouse had been thrown over the end of the bed. She had, he imagined, changed into her bikini. Except that she was not by the pool, because he had just come from there. And anyway, her bikini was on the bedside table, its straps dangling down in what appeared to Patrick, for some reason, to be a suggestive manner. He tried to work out why she would have changed. Then he laughed. Amanda changed her clothes all the time. She was a woman.

He had left his own clothes in the bathroom, because he hadn’t wanted to disturb her. In truth, he had left them there because he hadn’t wanted to cross her path. He quickly changed back from his swimming shorts into his normal clothes and wondered what to do. He supposed he would locate his wife somewhere in this house, and . . . Yes, he was going to confront her. He practised what he would say, in his head. Amanda, he would tell her, and he said it aloud, trying to say it in a tone that signified that he jolly well meant business.

‘Amanda,’ he said, heavily. ‘A-man-da.’ He needed to say it in a way that would make her stop whatever she was doing, put down her magazine, and look at him quizzically, perhaps wondering who this masterful man was and where her silly little husband had gone. A-man-da., we need to talk. We need to talk about your drinking. Your drinking problem. Enough is enough. Together we’re going to get you happy.

He sighed. Nothing he said could possibly make her change her ways. He walked around despondently, knowing she hated him because he was bald and short and that she despised him for letting her get away with everything. He checked rooms, increasingly relieved to find them all empty
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