The Lonely One Page 14

  Bridget looked at her, at the appealing expression in her shadowed eyes, and said abruptly, ‘Tell me something, Bobby. Why did you ever want me to be one of – of your set? I mean, I wasn’t a bit like you. I needed you all right – I know that. I was lonely, and awkward, and shy, and you three – specially you – you sort of dazzled me. But why did you want to include me in your life? I don’t understand it. I was – dull. Naive. Always trying to back out of things. Yet you kept on at me – got mad when I tried to – to tell you I didn’t like David, made me go on with him, because if I hadn’t you’d have dropped me. That mattered to me – a lot. But why should it have mattered to you? I don’t understand.’

  Bobby shrugged slightly. ‘I don’t really know. I – just liked you, I suppose.’

  With a sudden shrewdness, Bridget said, ‘Was it because I helped you all with your work? Did your notes and all that?’

  Bobby had the grace to blush slightly. ‘A little, perhaps. But it was more than that. I did like you – I still do – you were calm, and quiet, and I suppose I needed that.’

  Bridget laughed shortly. ‘You needed me for that? Not really. Bobby. Not really.’

  Bobby looked at her sideways, through lowered lids, then with an apparent effort said. ‘All right. I’ll tell you. And you won’t like it.’

  ‘I’d like to know, all the same.’

  Bobby let her head droop, so that her hair swung forwards and hid her face, while she watched her fingers at their incessant pleating of the sheet.

  ‘It was Josh,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Josh.’

  Bridget felt herself go cold suddenly.

  ‘I knew – he liked you,’ Bobby said. ‘At that party – do you remember that first party in the mess? He – he looked at you. And I knew he liked you. And – I liked him. Very much. I – wanted him. And I knew enough to see that the only way I could make sure he’d – go on seeing me for any length of time was if you were included in the things we did. If you were around. So – so I planned it so that you always were.’

  Bridget stared at her, her heart sick. ‘And you pushed me at David – ’

  ‘I pushed you at David so that Josh could see he was wasting his time yearning after you. It was easy then – he was attracted to you, I knew that, but not so much that he’d march off or anything if he saw you with someone else. I thought if he saw you with David, he’d give up, and settle for me.’ She raised her head then, and looked at Bridget, her eyes glinting with something of the old Bobby. ‘And he did, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bridget said in a low voice. ‘He did.’

  ‘I suppose I’ve mucked it all up for you, Bridie, and I’m sorry.’ Bobby’s voice was smooth. ‘If I hadn’t been around, you and Josh – maybe you would have got somewhere with him. But I was – ’

  Bridget closed her eyes. To look at this girl, to hear her admitting that she had set out to take away from her the only man she had ever really cared about was dreadful. But the voice went on, inexorably.

  ‘It’s too late for you now, Bridie. Josh is mine now.’

  Bridget opened her eyes then, and looked at her with a startled expression.

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Of course.’ Bobby smiled, sleekly. ‘He’s – an honourable type, old Josh. He – won’t leave me in the cart now. Not after – what’s happened to me.’

  ‘What – what do you mean?’ Bridget’s own voice sounded cracked. ‘What do you mean?’

  Bobby opened her eyes widely at her, and smiled. ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I know I’m not having the baby – won’t ever have a baby’ – and at the sight of the sudden pain that crossed Bridget’s face, she laughed aloud – ‘no need to look like that – I’m not cut out for motherhood – it doesn’t matter to me that I’ll never be saddled with brats – but even though I’m not having his baby, Josh isn’t the type to leave me to dree my own weird, as they say – ’

  ‘His baby?’ Bridget whispered. ‘His?’

  ‘Who else’s?’ Bobby put a pained expression on her face. ‘My dear Bridie, who else’s?’

  ‘He – does he know?’ Bridget said.

  ‘Of course he does! Poor old Josh – he was sick when he realised I’d gone to that ghastly woman, and saw what she’d done to me, but he knows I did it for him. He doesn’t want kids any more than I do – ’

  Somehow, Bridget got to her feet, somehow, managed to walk to the door.

  ‘Don’t go, Bridie – ’ Bobby sat in her pool of light and looked across the room to where Bridget stood shaking and almost in tears.

  ‘Can’t we let bygones be bygones?’ Bobby said sweetly. ‘Can’t we?’

  Bridget shook her head. ‘No – Bobby. No,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘Not now. Goodbye, Bobby,’ and she pulled the door open, to almost fall out into the corridor.

  And behind her, in the quiet room, Bobby snuggled deep into her pillows, her arms behind her head, and smiled up at the ceiling.

  Bridget reached her room, the haven of her room, almost without knowing how she got there. And then sat in her chair by the window, staring out at the winking lights of the hospital, away over the garden, feeling as though she were so much dead flesh, not a person at all. He had lied to her. Lied to her. The words thumped and twisted in her head until she wanted to scream. He had lied to her. The happiness that had so short a time ago seemed so close within her grasp had gone, gone for always. There was nothing left.

  She slept fitfully, tossing on her bed, sinking into vague and terrifying dreams that brought her sitting bolt upright, shaking, her eyes wet with tears. And so odd was the night, so confused her feelings, that when the night staff nurse suddenly appeared at her door, to switch the light on and fill the room with dazzle, she wasn’t even surprised.

  ‘Sorry to get you out, Preston,’ Staff Nurse said. ‘But there’s an emergency call.’

  Bridget blinked at her stupidly from her pillows. ‘An emergency?’

  ‘There’s been a multiple smash-up on the motorway – four lorries and a motorbike and a couple of cars – a right holocaust. The police want an emergency medical team, and the ambulance depot can’t help because their team is out on another call at a factory some place. Night Sister says they need two good surgical nurses – and the Casualty Department is full, so we can’t send any of our people. And the theatres are working tonight on top of it. There’s only you and Jessolo available, so you’ll have to get up – Come on, girl – it’s an emergency!’

  Almost in a dream, she dressed, climbing into slacks and a sweater rather than uniform, for the staff nurse told her that this was the best clothing for what she would have to do, and followed the impatient older girl across the dark courtyard to the hospital.

  There was a hospital ambulance waiting there, its engine ticking over, and as Bridget arrived, Nurse Jessolo appeared behind her, her eyes still thick with sleep, also in slacks and a sweater.

  The ambulance driver leaned over, and hauled the two girls in beside him.

  ‘Come on you two – the doctors are in the back – we’d better get moving – ’ and as they huddled themselves into the small space beside him, the engine roared, and with a wide sweep of its headlights that threw the walls of the courtyard into glittering brilliance, the ambulance shot out of the hospital gates and on its way.

  They sped through the silent streets, past shops with windows blank behind their blinds, along the shining tarmac, wet from the thick mist that lay close to the ground. As the ambulance reached the flyover that led on to the motorway, the fog seemed to thicken, to swirl in patches that made Bridget’s eyes smart, and set Jessolo coughing.

  They came on the scene of the smash-up almost with shock. One minute there was nothing but the patches of fog, the brilliance of the headlights on it, then there was noise, and light, and people.

  One lorry lay on its side, two more piled drunkenly alongside it. Police, with huge emergency spotlights, and firemen, their black coats seeming to gleam yellowly in the light,
were clambering over the wreckage, while alongside, on the grey-looking grass of the verge, three bodies lay under police greatcoats, ominously still.

  The ambulance drew up alongside the lorries, its wheels screaming in protest at the sharp braking, and the girls tumbled out, Bridget bewildered and frightened at the noise, the suddenness of it all. At the back of the ambulance, the driver fumbled with the doors, and three men jumped out, to stand blinking in the light for a moment. Two of them, grabbing the bags of equipment the driver tossed out, made a beeline for the people lying on the verge and one, as he passed Bridget and Nurse Jessolo called out, ‘Hey – you two – ’

  It was the senior RSO, and still in her dream-like state, Bridget, with Jessolo close behind, followed him and the other man towards the side of the road.

  A policeman seemed to materialise from out of the fog and stopped them.

  ‘Hospital? Thank God you got here – listen – two of them are dead, far as we can tell. T’other’s pretty rocky – out cold, and breathing bad. Chest stoved in, seemingly – ’

  The RSO nodded. ‘Right – Prater’ – he nodded at the other doctor with him – ‘take one of the nurses and have a look – ’

  ‘And there’s a car under the other side of that lorry,’ the policeman went on. ‘And there’s someone in there moaning – woman – can’t get much out of her but moans – and the other car’s over there – and the motor-cyclist – got a kid under it. They’re trying to get him and the driver out now – ’

  ‘Right – ’ the RSO said crisply. ‘I’ll take that car. Simpson – you take the other nurse, and see about the woman – get on – ’ and he ran across the road to disappear into the yellow mud of the fog.

  For a moment, Bridget stood rigid, for the first time realising that the last of the three men who had been in the back of the ambulance was Josh. Then, as Dr Prater ran towards the men at the side of the road, with Nurse Jessolo loping awkwardly behind him, she felt his hand on her arm.

  ‘Come on,’ he said briefly. ‘Work to be done – ’ and she let him pull her along with him, to the far side of the crumpled lorries, her feet icy with cold, her body shaking with fear, in anticipation of what she might see.

  The car was a little red mini, looking like a toy as it lay crushed under one huge wheel of the articulated lorry almost on to of it. The side nearest the driver was miraculously free, and Josh dropped to one knee beside the fireman who was beside it, working to free the jammed door with an acetylene blow-torch.

  ‘Nearly got it,’ the man grunted, his face lit to a ghastly blueness in the light of his torch. ‘Nearly got it – ’

  She could hear the unearthly moaning that was coming from the car, above the noise of the torch, above the sounds of shouting voices and engines that filled the night with hideous sound. A rhythmic even moaning that filled her with sick terror.

  ‘Got it,’ the fireman said, and the door swung back on its ruined hinges, to lean drunkenly against the bonnet.

  Josh, his back straining, moved swiftly. Bridget could see his arms flex, the muscles strain hard, as he backed away from the car, a woman held awkwardly in his arms, her head thrown back against his arm, her mouth wide and red as she moaned and moaned interminably.

  ‘Easy does it, girl, easy does it,’ Josh was murmuring. ‘We’ve got you, lovey, we’ve got you – easy does it now – ’ He straightened, and moving with cat-like smoothness, carried her to the side of the road, to lay her down on the big tarpaulin a policeman had laid ready.

  Bridget, following, dropped to her knees beside the tarpaulin, and as Josh felt for her pulse, and then started to straighten the bent legs, she leaned over the moaning woman, and murmured, gently, as though to a crying baby, ‘It’s all right, my dear, it’s all right – we’ve got you – there’s a doctor here, and we’ve got you – don’t cry, we’ve got you – ’

  The woman opened terrified brown eyes, the whites showing all round the edge of the iris, and her moaning changed, became gasping.

  ‘Baby – baby – baby,’ she said, her voice rising to a scream at the end of it. Then she arched her neck, and opened her mouth wide to scream in agony once more.

  Bridget looked up, to where Josh was kneeling beside her, pulling the woman’s coat from her sides, and as she did so, his face whitened in the fitful light.

  ‘Oh, my God, she’s pregnant – ’ He put a hand on the distended abdomen, and leaned towards the woman’s face.

  ‘Listen, my love – listen – don’t scream, try not to scream – tell me – how far on are you?’

  She opened her eyes again, to stare at him in terror, and her lips pulled back over her teeth in a feline grimace.

  ‘Eight – eight months – baby – eight months – ’ she said, and again, arched her neck, and screamed.

  Bridget, clutching at the woman’s icy hands, held on to her like grim death, feeling utterly helpless, only able to offer her own physical presence as a help in the woman’s agony.

  Josh’s voice came crisply, ‘That’s a contraction – and a strong one – she’s gone into labour – how long was she under that lorry?’ and the policeman’s voice above them said gruffly, ‘Close on half an hour since it happened, sir.’

  ‘Rig me some sort of screen, will you?’ Josh was pulling the woman’s clothes back out of the way. ‘Get a set of emergency gear from the ambulance – she’s going to deliver – we’ll never get her to the hospital before she does – Nurse – here – ’

  He indicated to Bridget, with a curt gesture of his head, to come to the other side of him.

  ‘Hold that leg – hold her, do you hear? Bend the knee – that’s it – here, you – ’ The young policeman who had been standing on the other side dropped to his knees on the other side of the woman, who was moaning again, her neck once more extended in a long arc. ‘Hold that leg – like Nurse is – bend the knee – that’s it – now hold her – other hand on her pelvis – at the side – hold her firm – got her?’

  The policeman who had gone for the emergency case reappeared out of the fog, and with quick fingers, Josh undid the covers, and with careful movements, opened the packets inside.

  ‘Bloody sterile this’ll be,’ he muttered. Then, as the woman once more stiffened and let her moans rise to a scream, said loudly, ‘Easy does it, lovey, easy does it – we’ve got you – ’

  He fumbled in his pocket for his stethoscope, and with a swift movement, pushed the woman’s torn clothes away, and set the bell on to the high dome of the abdomen.

  ‘Foetal heart’s all right – thank God for that – and here’s another contraction – ’

  Bridget watched him, her heart pounding in her chest, as he pulled a pair of gloves from the emergency pack on to his wide hands, and heard him tell the woman, ‘Now, listen, lovey, take it easy. I’m going to examine you – see how near this babe of yours is – easy now – ’ and his hands moved gently but firmly, as he felt for the baby’s head, while Bridget held on to one leg, and the young policeman, head averted, hung on grimly on the other side.

  ‘Ye gods, she’s crowning – ’ Josh said loudly. ‘Here we go – ’ and under Bridget’s terrified stare, the crumpled scalp, with black hair lying on it in even waves, like those left in beach sand when the tide goes out, appeared. The woman stretched herself again, pushed her legs hard against Bridget and the policeman, and the rest of the head appeared, the face looking furiously angry in its crumpled dusky redness.

  There was an apparently interminable pause, and then, as the woman gave a deep grunt of intense effort, the rest of the baby’s body appeared, the cord attached to its abdomen thick and gleaming in the glare of the spotlight. Josh held it high, both feet firm in a brown-gloved hand, and the baby squirmed, opened its wide, red mouth, and squalled lustily, its head held back in a sort of imitation of its mother’s position just before it was born.

  ‘It’s a boy – a right lusty little so-and-so, too,’ Josh said exultantly, grinning from ear to ear in relief that the child w
as all right. ‘Hear that, mother, lovey? It’s a fine boy! Prem, but a good six-pounder, I’ll bet – here, Bridget – give me a towel from the pack.’

  And Bridget did, and held it carefully as Josh laid the still-squalling baby into it, to wrap him carefully, and hold him still, while Josh clipped and cut the cord.

  ‘Give him to his mother,’ he said. ‘And tell her to hang on. We’d better deliver the placenta before we move her, if we can – ’

  And gently, Bridget knelt on the muddy grass of the verge, the fog moving sluggishly round her, to lay the baby beside his mother, who was now lying, her head at rest at last, with closed eyes in her white face.

  ‘There he is, my dear,’ Bridget whispered, and the woman opened her eyes, and looked at her, and then at the baby, wonderingly.

  ‘All – all right?’ she whispered, and as the baby opened his mouth to shout his rage at his unceremonious arrival, Bridget smiled and said, ‘Listen to him – ’

  The woman’s face lit into sudden brilliance, and she fumbled for the child, to peer eagerly into his creased face, to touch the streaked cheeks with a gentle finger.

  ‘Here’s the placenta – ’ Josh said at length, as the woman gave one more effortful grunt, and then he worked in silence for a while, eventually to stand up and sign to the ambulance man on the other side of the hastily rigged tarpaulin screen.

  ‘Get her back to the hospital fast, will you?’ he said. ‘Got an ambulance to spare?’

  The man nodded. ‘Three more just got here. This is the last case, anyway – we’ve got all the others away. You comin’ back with us?’

  ‘If there’s nothing else to do here – have the rest gone back?’

  ‘Gone with their patients – and the dead ones – shocking business – shocking.’

  Josh nodded. ‘But at least we’ve got one extra – very much alive – listen to the little devil,’ and the baby squalled louder.

  Together, Bridget and Josh rode back to the hospital, sitting beside the sleeping and exhausted mother, while Bridget cradled the baby warmly in her arms. And when Josh caught her eye, and smiled at her, his face warm, and with a question on it, she dropped her eyes, to look at the baby’s crumpled little face. She could not look at Josh for the life of her.