The Four of Us (34 page)

Behind her, still curled on the sheepskin rug, Destiny made a little snuffling noise in her sleep. Turning away from the window and stepping towards her, Artemis slipped off the cashmere cardigan she was wearing and laid it gently over Destiny's shoulders. She was going to behave for the rest of the day just as she would have done if the hideous row between herself and Rupert had never taken place. She was going to leave Destiny in the care of Kirsten, their Austrian au pair, and drive into Cirencester to buy the remaining few articles she wanted to take with her to the villa.

With a last, loving look towards her soundly sleeping daughter she left the room, went downstairs, told Kirsten that Destiny was asleep on the rug in the bedroom and, pausing only to pick up a jacket and her shoulder bag, left the house.

The rain that had fallen earlier was no longer in evidence and the fields and hedgerows on either side of the A436 were dappled in sunshine. As she drove through the loveliness of the familiar scenery, she began to feel less desperate about Rupert's attitude towards Destiny. It was an attitude that would change, when acceptance came. And acceptance would come – eventually.

She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't register the oil slick in the road as she approached the sharp bend – and the trees and bushes were so dense that she wasn't forewarned of the lorry that was heading towards her from the opposite direction.

One minute she was deep in thoughts of Rupert and Destiny and the next she was crying out in alarm as the back wheels went into a skid – feverishly she spun the wheel, trying to drive into it. In three seconds of mounting terror she registered that she was totally out of control of the car, that she was careening backwards into the opposite lane and, last and finally, that an enormous lorry was rounding the bend, about to slam broadside into her.

Restrained by her seat belt, the impact hurled her sideways across the front passenger seat at an ugly, almost impossible angle. For a beat of consciousness she heard metal screech and tear; was aware that the bodywork of her car was buckling in on her; aware of indescribable pain and of her own screams.

And then nothing.

Even when rescue workers cut her free, she still didn't regain even partial consciousness. Only eternities later, through a fog so thick she couldn't penetrate it with either speech or movement, was she aware that she was still alive.

‘Thank God, but you're so lucky, darling,' she could hear Rupert saying to her over and over again in an anguished voice, a voice so unlike his normal voice that she'd wondered if it really was Rupert. ‘You could have died. That you're still alive is an absolute miracle.'

With enormous effort she'd managed to move her hand, bringing pressure to bear on his.

There'd been a great deal of activity around her after that.

‘She's coming round from the anaesthetic,' she heard a woman's voice say.

A different voice, this time male, asked her if she'd like a piece of ice to suck.

As she'd made a movement, assenting, she'd felt Rupert's hand tighten on hers and gratitude for his nearness had swamped her like a tidal wave. She was alive, when she could very easily have been dead. Destiny hadn't been with her in the car. Destiny wasn't hurt. And Rupert was half out of his mind with worry and was at her side. Everything was going to be all right. Her little family wasn't falling apart. The three of them were going to win through. All that was needed was time.

‘Your recovery to mobility is going to be a lengthy process,' her surgeon said, standing by the side of her bed.

Artemis managed a brave smile. ‘I know.' She turned her eyes away from him to the array of pulleys that were holding her right leg, heavily encased in plaster from hip to ankle, at an improbable angle. Her right arm was also encased in plaster and her left shoulder and her chest were bandaged and strapped.

‘How long a time is it going to be?' she asked, her thoughts on Destiny; wondering how Destiny was going to manage without her.

‘Five months. Six months. It's difficult to tell at this stage. You will walk again, though due to your pelvic bones having been so badly damaged it's likely you will be left with a slight, residual limp. As to the other long-term damage …'

‘There's no need for that to be in words again,' she said swiftly. ‘My not being able to have a baby isn't the huge blow it may seem. My husband is sterile. Our daughter is adopted and, when we want more children, we'll adopt again.'

‘Good.' He smiled with relief. ‘Then all that remains, Mrs Gower, is for your bones to knit together – and for you to survive the next few months of immobility without too much impatience.'

Her first thought, when she'd known she was going to be hospitalized for a long period, had been that Rupert was going to have to engage a nanny to care for Destiny. Kirsten was well able to dress her and make her breakfast and drive her to and from school. She couldn't, however, take over caring for Destiny full time. She simply wasn't trained for such responsibility.

‘Norland, darling,' she said to Rupert when he visited her. ‘It will have to be a Norland-trained nanny – and it will have to be one who specializes in looking after children with slight learning difficulties.'

When he visited her the second time, he brought Destiny with him. It was a hideous experience. Destiny screamed in anguish at the plaster casts, refusing to believe that they weren't hurting Artemis. Artemis, unable to take Destiny in her arms and to comfort her, had become so deeply distressed her blood pressure had soared. Rupert, mortified at having a screaming, hysterical child in his care in a public place, had looked, and felt, as if he were about to have a stroke.

‘It would be hard enough explaining to any five-and-a-half-year-old why Mummy is trussed up in bandages and plaster,' he had said despairingly when he'd returned to the ward after depositing Destiny in Kirsten's care, ‘but it's even harder trying to explain to Destiny. I should never have brought her.'

It was so true that tears had streamed down Artemis's face. How was she going to manage months immobile and in plaster if she couldn't see Destiny? And what effect was their separation going to have on Destiny?

‘Take her to Spain for a long holiday,' she said to Rupert after much thought. ‘She loves it at the villa and she'll have Luis to play with and I don't think she'll be so constantly aware of my absence there.'

‘I can take her and the new nanny there, but I can't stay there with them. I'd cleared the decks at work for the duration of the month we intended being there, but now that's been and gone there are issues I simply have to be on the spot to deal with.'

He looked haggard. Though she wouldn't have admitted it to anyone but herself, Artemis rather liked the fact that he was taking her accident so hard. It showed how important she was to him – and she quite understood about his not being able to take weeks and weeks away from the bank, now that the summer was over and he was up to his eyes in work.

‘Destiny and Marielle have made good friends with each other, haven't they?' she said, after having had their newly employed nanny visit her several times in hospital in order to satisfy herself that she was absolutely the right sort of person to be caring for Destiny. ‘And though it's school term again in Spain, Luis finishes school at two o'clock. It means he and Destiny will still be able to spend lots of time together. I think things will be all right, even if you aren't there all the time, though you will keep flying out at weekends whenever you can, won't you?'

He promised to do so, setting all her fears at rest in a way that was quite new for him. Suddenly, he wasn't being as self-centred as usual. Suddenly he really was putting her – and Destiny – first in his thoughts.

Her private room looked out on to a vista of trees, their leaves beginning to turn yellow and crimson. In Marbella, though the weather would no longer be hot, it would still be warm and Destiny would be able to spend the greater part of the day playing out of doors with Luis. Her being absent from school for a long period would no doubt upset the local educational authorities, but that couldn't be helped. The circumstances were, after all, exceptional. In Gloucestershire Destiny would be constantly aware of her absence. In Marbella she would have Luis as a companion and wouldn't pine for her quite so much.

All that now remained was to say goodbye to her.

‘Do you think you should, Artemis?' Immaculately city-suited,

Rupert looked more like a visiting consultant than a visiting husband. ‘She's going to scream the place down when she sees you're still encased in plaster. I'm going to have to then remove her, kicking and struggling, from the building and you're going to be so distressed your blood pressure is going to leap off the Richter scale. It might be best for you not to say goodbye to her at all.'

She'd known he was right, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to agree to his suggestion.

‘I'm not going to see her again for
months
,' she said unsteadily. ‘I have to see her, Rupert. Perhaps if Marielle comes with her when you bring her, she won't be so frightened by the plaster casts.'

It had been a vain hope. Destiny had been just as bewildered and frightened as on her first visit.

‘Which is why, on the wards, patients aren't allowed to have children under the age of eight visit them,' Rupert said in exasperation as Marielle did her best to soothe Destiny and Artemis lay as helpless as a trussed chicken, tears rolling down her face.

With a great effort at patience, he turned his attention to Destiny. ‘Now be a big, brave girl and kiss Mummy goodbye,' he said, unable to keep exasperation from his voice.

Destiny did her best to do as he asked. Her body heaving with suppressed sobs, she threw her arms round Artemis's neck, kissing her with wet, sticky kisses.

A nurse entered the room and Rupert moved towards Destiny, lifting her away from the bed.

‘Mummy!' she shrieked hysterically as he handed her to Marielle. ‘Mummy! Mummy!'

Holding her hand, Marielle tried to lead her from the room, but Destiny twisted away from her, rushing back to the bed and crashing into it with such force that the hoist supporting Artemis's right leg juddered dangerously.

White-faced, Rupert yanked her up into his arms.

‘
Mummy
!' Destiny shrieked again, her arms stretching desperately out over his shoulders towards Artemis as he headed out of the room, a distressed Marielle at his heels.
‘Want Mummy! Want Mummy! WANT MUMMY!'

The door swung shut behind them, but her cries could still be heard. Not until Rupert stepped into a lift with her, and the lift doors closed, did Destiny's heartbroken sobs cease ringing in Artemis's ears.

The tears she had not given way to when Destiny had been with her streamed down her face for a long time. The last thing she wanted was to cause Destiny distress, and yet, because of her accident, that was exactly what she was doing.

‘But I'll make it up to you, cherub,' she said to the photograph standing on her bedside locker. ‘When I leave hospital, I'll make all these months of separation up to you. I promise.'

Four days later, first thing in the morning, one of the nurses who regularly attended her put her head round the door of the room, a very odd expression on her face. Instead of coming into the room and wishing her a cheery good morning, she ducked back out again, leaving Artemis wondering if the ward was short staffed and people were under strain.

Five minutes later the ward sister came into the room. Sister's round was carried out every afternoon at four o'clock and, at the sight of her even before breakfast had been served, Artemis's eyebrows rose.

‘What on earth is the matter, Sister?' she asked good humouredly. ‘Am I about to be transferred to another hospital or something?'

The sister shook her head, her face so grave that all Artemis's good humour vanished.

‘What is it?' If she had been able to move, she would have sat bolt upright. As it was, the only way she could express her growing alarm was by her voice and her eyes.

‘I'm afraid I have very bad news for you, Mrs Gower.'

Other people were entering her room. A nurse with a kidney bowl and a syringe. The Anglican vicar who visited those of the Anglican faith once a week, if they so wanted.

At the sight of him, Artemis's alarm turned to terror. ‘Is it my husband?' she demanded, desperately trying to remember what day it was; whether it was today Rupert was flying home from Spain, leaving Destiny in Marielle's care. ‘Has there been a plane crash? Is he hurt?'

Both the sister and the vicar seated themselves by the side of her bed. ‘There's been a fatal swimming accident, Mrs Gower,' the sister said, taking hold of her hand. ‘It occurred yesterday evening, but by the time we were informed you were asleep and the doctors deemed that you shouldn't be woken.'

‘Rupert's dead? Rupert's drowned?' She could not make sense of the information she was being given. How could Rupert have drowned? He was a polo player. He was fit and strong.

‘Not your husband, Mrs Gower,' the vicar said gently, speaking for the first time. ‘Your daughter.'

She tried to speak, and couldn't. She opened her mouth to scream, and couldn't. Immobile in plaster, she felt herself spinning into a world so bleak and empty and bereft that it was beyond imagination.

It was a nightmare world.

A world she was never going to be able to escape from.

A world without her child.
A world without Destiny.

Sedatives, administered for the first twenty-four hours by injection and then orally, kept her sane – or at least she later presumed they had.

A telephone trolley was brought into her room so that she could speak to Rupert.

‘Where were you when it happened?' she demanded in a voice no longer recognizable as her own. ‘
How
did it happen?'