The Fleeting Years Read online

  ‘Silly to worry about things,’ she murmured, not explaining where her thoughts had taken her. ‘Not long and it’ll all be over and she’ll be her old self again.’

  And she believed she spoke the truth.

  Ten

  ‘Have a quick bath, then pretty yourself up and come with us.’ Zina tried to put enthusiasm into the suggestion when she looked into Fiona’s bedroom on her way down to rustle up some breakfast. ‘We thought we’d be away as soon as we’re all ready. We could get through the shopping quickly and then drive out of town to get a pub lunch in the country.’

  ‘Jolly hockey sticks!’ was Fiona’s answer, with what sounded like a sneer. ‘Little minds are easily pleased. I shall stay in bed till I hear Mrs Cripps go. I can do without her empty-headed prattle.’

  Zina turned away, shutting the door sharply, the action speaking as clearly as any words just what she thought of the remark. Fiona glanced round the room, the room that had been hers almost as long as she could remember, then she buried her head in the pillow as if that way she could escape a day she was frightened to contemplate. Just before nine o’clock she heard both doors of Peter’s car slam and then the deep throbbing purr of the engine. Sitting up in bed, for the umpteenth time she opened the drawer of her bedside table and checked its contents. Ouch! That hurts! Having gone through her pregnancy suffering with no physical pain, sitting in bed she drew up her knees and bent forward gripping them as if that would drive the pain away. Gradually it eased until she almost believed it hadn’t been as violent as she’d imagined. Then she wriggled to lay down. Had something happened? The wretched thing was still. That’s when she realized she hadn’t had that revolting feeling of it moving inside her since she woke. Perhaps it was dead. But if it had died before it was even born how would they get it out of her? She was frightened to think. But what did it matter? What did any of it matter? Hearing Mrs Cripps plodding up the stairs, she turned on her side and pulled the bedclothes high around her, pretending to be asleep. When she heard her bedroom door open she didn’t stir.

  ‘Poor little lass,’ the faithful cleaner shook her head sadly, ‘nought but a child herself.’ There was nothing unusual in her speaking her thoughts aloud, it was the habit of years. ‘Best I leave the vacuuming till she’s up and about, don’t want to wake her with my clatter.’

  Nor with your stupid chatter, Fiona thought scornfully, then stamped firmly on the feeling of shame.

  Almost silently Mrs Cripps closed the door, then clumped down the stairs taking the vacuum cleaner with her. Peace! Now they’d all gone. Oh no, the pain was coming again. No, oh please no, don’t let it be the baby starting to come. Wish Mum was home – no I don’t, of course I don’t. It isn’t due until just after Christmas. Ivor ought to be here, I wish Ivor was here – no, of course I don’t. I’m glad he isn’t. There mustn’t be anyone. Yes, it’s the pain again. Perhaps it hurts like this because it’s got something wrong with it, ooohhh, ough. No. I mustn’t call out. She’ll come back up with her stupid blabbering … She mustn’t; no one must come. I feel all wet …’ Whimpering silently, she put her hand beneath the bedclothes to try and find out what had happened. Yes, the bed was wet. Did that mean the baby was starting to come? Please God help me, don’t let me mess it up. This is it! It’s got to be now, there’s no time to mess about. There’s no time to even think about it; it’s got to be now. So frightened. Wish Mum was here. No I don’t, no I don’t. She’d try and stop me doing it … got to be by myself … I wish … no use wishing … too late for that … too late for anything … don’t even think.

  The shopping expedition went well and soon after eleven o’clock everything was ordered and paid for.

  ‘She may think she’s hard done by, but in fact she’s jolly lucky. Pram, baby bath, cot, carry cot and car seat, a better wardrobe than most babies have waiting for them. Mrs Ivor Huntley’s baby will lack for nothing,’ Zina said as they travelled in the shop’s lift down to the ground floor.

  ‘I wish that were true,’ Peter answered. ‘What she or he will lack is more important than any of those things we’ve just bought.’

  ‘It’ll be different when it comes,’ Zina said fervently, ‘please God it’s got to be different. What’s happened to her, Peter, that she can behave like she does? It’s as if her personality has changed. She’s like a stranger.’

  He shook his head, and she wondered what had gone on between them the previous evening while she bided her time in the kitchen. ‘It’s not her parents she should be sharing these months with; it’s her husband. When does he arrive for Christmas?’

  ‘Any time after the sixteenth, I think that’s what she said when he phoned the other day. She didn’t even seem interested. And Tommy will be home on the twentieth. It would be wonderful if she could be a few days early and get it all over by Christmas.’

  As the door of the lift opened on the ground floor they got out, a feeling of freedom gripping them as he took her elbow and steered her towards the street. Then, with the smile that time had no power to change, he said, ‘Now we’ll go adventuring, Mrs M.’ It seemed to draw a line under all that had gone before, Fiona and her moods, the layette that was to be delivered before the shop closed that evening and all the other paraphernalia that would come the following day. Now they were free, these next few precious hours were their own.

  Instead of driving miles into the country, they headed back towards home, then turned coastward to Chalcombe where they knew they would find a good pub lunch at the Lobster Pot. The log fire was a welcoming sight and they had a leisurely meal. When an inner voice told both of them that this was a day they would remember, they looked around them and at each other and believed those were the unforgettable moments. But the day had more in store for them and their first suspicion of it was as they turned into the drive of Newton House and saw the doctor’s car parked in front of the building.

  ‘Oh my dear Lawks, I’m that glad to see you,’ Mrs Cripps said as she rushed down the front steps of the house before they’d even come to a stop. ‘It’s all stations go here, you’d not been gone above an hour when the poor child gave a scream such as I’ve never heard. And they’re still at it up there with her, the midwife and the doctor too.’

  Peter was already out of the car and rushing into the house.

  ‘Is everything going all right?’ Zina asked anxiously. Then: ‘Oh heavens, we haven’t got so much as a vest or a nappy in the house until the order arrives. Tell Peter I’ve gone to the village shop in Myddlesham. Straight there and back, I won’t be many minutes but I must get something to wrap the baby in and a packet of nappies.’ As she talked she had moved over to the driver’s seat and switched on the engine. Then with a skid of tyres on the gravel drive, more akin to Peter’s driving than her own, she turned the car and was gone.

  Indoors Dr Hutchins had heard their arrival and, as Peter started up the stairs, was coming down to meet him.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Peter greeted him, superstition making him ask full of hope, for surely if he gave a hint of how his heart was pounding it would be akin to losing faith. ‘Is everything going all right? She’s a month early.’

  ‘I’ve already phoned for an ambulance. The child must be delivered by Caesarean section.’

  ‘Has something gone wrong?’

  This wasn’t the first time Ernest Hutchins had had to prepare a family for what he feared was ahead, but he had never seen even a young husband look more distraught than the father of young Fiona Marchand, as he still thought of her, having brought her into the world and known her until she went off to make a film star of herself when, in his opinion, she would have been better at school. But you couldn’t tell these stage folk anything.

  ‘She isn’t able to help herself at all; she’s barely conscious.’ And at that the doctor led the way into the dining room, and closed it firmly behind them. ‘She’s young, she’s always been a healthy girl, I would have expected her to go through a confinement as nature intended.�
� For a second he hesitated, then feeling in the pocket of his white coat he pulled out four new-looking but empty packets of painkillers. ‘These are not to be taken lightly. The dose is no more than four in twenty-four hours. Four packets, all of them empty and I’d swear they have only just been opened, you can see they’ve not been handled.’

  ‘You mean …? Christ, but she can’t …?’ Peter stood gripping the back of a dining chair. ‘She must have had them for headaches or something. They can’t be new! What are you saying?’

  ‘Was she anticipating motherhood with fear? With eagerness? With horror?’

  ‘She was frightened. But wouldn’t any girl be frightened the first time? Zina says that once it’s over she’ll be her old self.’ Peter clutched at a thin straw of hope, but the doctor’s expression did nothing to give him confidence. Dr Hutchins would have given much not to be faced with what he had discovered and was thankful when he heard the siren of the ambulance.

  ‘I hear the ambulance. Can you contact her husband? Not my place to ask but I’ve known you all a long time. Is everything well between them? Is he happy at the prospect of a child?’

  ‘Extremely. There is nothing wrong in their marriage, he was simply committed to being back in the States and he agreed that while Fiona waited she would be better here with Zina.’

  ‘Good, good. Now the sooner she is in hospital, the sooner she can be helped. She’s in no physical state to help herself. You’d better destroy these empty packets. I found them on the floor by the side of her bed.’

  By the time Zina arrived back with a packet of newborn nappies and a small and very soft blanket, which was the best Myddlesham had to offer, Fiona was already on her way to Deremouth. Such a short time ago she had thought that this was a day that would stay with her always, but with memories so very different.

  The baby was delivered but it was too late for it to bring the healing to Fiona’s mind that Zina had hoped, for under the anaesthetic she had drifted from unconsciousness to eternal sleep. The news was brought to Zina and Peter as they waited on the bench just inside the entrance to the maternity department.

  Peter said nothing, simply sat like a statue, his face an expressionless mask. Zina knew it had to be up to her to ask, ‘And the baby?’

  ‘A little girl. Six pounds one ounce, so even though she was early she isn’t very below the average weight. She is perfect.’

  Zina nodded, frightened to trust her voice. But she knew the strength had to come from her, so she made herself ask, ‘Does she have to stay here or can she be taken home? Are there things we have to do here?’ To her ears the voice didn’t sound like her own and, from the look of Peter, he was travelling into realms known only to himself or perhaps himself and Fiona.

  Looking back later she had but a hazy picture of the next hour. Hour? Half hour? Few minutes? Time had no meaning. They were taken to see their grandchild, such a tiny bundle cocooned in warmth in a crib behind a glass screen, then – or was it before? Nothing was clear in her mind – they were led to a room where Fiona had been moved to a hard, flat bed, covered with a sheet which was pulled back so that her pale and expressionless face was visible. That moment was indelibly printed on Zina’s mind, just as the cold and impersonal feeling of the colourless cheek as she bent to touch it with her lips. She took Peter’s hand, not letting herself look at him as she drew him towards the lifeless figure … Fiona, their little girl, their daughter. Most vivid of all, and something that would stay with her till the end of her days, was Peter. He might have been a sleepwalker. He showed no emotion, and as he bent forward towards Fiona, she found herself praying with all her strength that he would hang on to his unearthly calm. She wanted just to get him away, somewhere where they were alone.

  The baby was left in the care of the hospital and without a word passing between them, she and Peter got into the car, he not seeming to notice that it was she who went to the driver’s side. They were about a mile from home when she felt rather than saw a change in him; it was as if something had snapped. Taking a quick glance at him she was frightened by what she saw: from head to foot he was shaking, his mouth half open as he fought for breath, silent sobs seeming to choke him. Pulling to the side of the empty road she stopped the car, wanting to take him in her arms, but a sports car with a gear stick between them made it impossible. So she got out and went round to his side and opened the door then, with little comfort or elegance, squatted down so that she was at his level. Was he even aware? She didn’t know and she had never felt so helpless. Then his face crumpled and, like a child, he howled. She felt relief. Now surely she could help him.

  As he cried, he gradually became aware of his surroundings and of her.

  ‘Why did she do it? Why? Why couldn’t she have known that we wouldn’t let her down. The baby could have stayed with us. Why didn’t we tell her so? Zee, we failed her. All she wanted was for everything to be as it had been before, and so it could have been if we’d understood and told her we wouldn’t let her down.’ Crying as he was, it was hard to understand all his words, but the first ones were clear in Zina’s mind.

  ‘Why did she do what?’ she shook Peter’s arm as she asked. ‘Peter, we didn’t fail her, I won’t listen to rubbish like it. But what did you mean by “Why did she do it?”? She did nothing, for months all she did was run away from the truth.’

  Tears seemed to have drained his strength as he turned to look at her, really look at her. Then he wriggled to find something in his jacket pocket and produced four, squashed flat, empty boxes of painkillers.

  ‘Dr Hutchins found these by her bed.’ He managed a whole sentence before his next trembling gulp. ‘New packets – you can see they were new – but they were empty. She’d taken them all. Is that why she wouldn’t come shopping? Why couldn’t she have talked to us?’

  Zina looked first at the evidence of what had happened and then at Peter. Gone was her determination that she must be his prop, she felt stripped of all hope as from her squatting position she sank to kneel on the hard ground of the empty lane and lent forward, her head on his lap. She had made herself strong to help him and yet now his strength came from her own weakness. She felt his fingers moving gently on the back of her neck.

  ‘Our little girl,’ she whispered through her tears, ‘such a happy child she’d been. And Tommy …’ She raised her face and they looked at each other in helpless misery. ‘What’s this going to do to Tommy?’ Somehow the thought of Tommy helped them face what had to be faced, for how could they think just of their own grief when, surely, for him it would be as if something of himself was lost.

  Somehow they got through the days and weeks that followed. The Ivor who flew from California for Fiona’s funeral was a different young man from the happy one who had brought his bride to England only half a year before. He arrived the day before the funeral and returned the day after, this time Peter driving him to Heathrow and then returning to Devon. The nameless baby had to be registered and it was Ivor who, in the short time he was with them, borrowed the car to drive to Deremouth to register the birth. And so it was agreed that for as long as he wanted, and permanently if he would give his consent, little Ruth (after Ivor’s own mother) Fiona Tommi (which to Peter and Zina didn’t seem like a proper name at all, although they were glad Tom hadn’t been forgotten and believed Fiona would have been pleased) was to live with her grandparents at Newton House.

  When just before Easter Ruth was baptized in the village church at Myddlesham, Ivor asked Tom to be her godfather, and arriving from the States brought two friends who had agreed to be godmothers. Their presence made the day a hard one for Peter and Zina, and for Tommy too, although he was less certain why he resented them. But Peter and Zina knew exactly what made their presence so hard: both women were good-looking, but that was only the start. Their make-up was superb, its application an art form; their clothes were up-to-the-minute fashion – in fact ahead of the minute – their attire exaggeratedly glamorous. All that, the Marchands were prepar
ed to accept, perhaps Peter more easily than Zina, Jenny and Derek or even Tom, who was of the visitors’ generation. Yet, somehow their presence seemed to make the thought of Fiona alien, for they were examples of what she had craved. It was a difficult occasion and Newton House (this included unchanging and unchangeable Mrs Cripps) breathed a sign of relief when the taxi carried them all off to Exeter station.

  ‘So, here we are,’ Zina said as, the visitors gone, the family sat down to dinner. Jenny and Derek had gone home; there were just the three of them left. ‘A new chapter and you with a new responsibility, Tom, godfather to Fiona’s little girl.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Will you be all right, Mum? She seems to yell a lot in the night.’

  ‘A habit babies have.’ Zina was determined not to let it show how much she longed for a night of sleep. ‘But it’s not for long. Think what it was like when there were two of you shouting for attention.’

  ‘You were younger then,’ Peter said. ‘And I seem to remember you used to tell me that having a baby prepared your body for looking after it – or them as in our case.’

  ‘I’ve always thought so. But I’m fine and Ruth and I are getting along very nicely.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Peter said, watching her with concern, ‘you’re twice the age you were when the twins were born – added to which she’s getting heavier all the time and I’m not going to risk you putting any strain on your shoulders. We must get a nanny to live in.’

  ‘Oh Peter, no. Don’t you remember what it was like after my accident. The house didn’t feel like our own with nurses underfoot. I’ll be OK, honestly I can cope.’

  He shook his head. ‘Perhaps you can, but you’re not going to. I shall stop off at the agency on my way back to London – back to London on my own. With a nurse – once she settles in and we know Ruth takes to her – you can come with me sometimes like you used to.’