1848453051 (6 page)
Authors: Linda Kavanagh
‘Here, give me that –’
Kerry snatched the jacket from her and began searching the pockets. But the pen wasn’t there. ‘Maybe it fell to the floor –’ she told Laura, who was now screaming at the staff to do something to help.
But no one seemed capable of doing anything. Everyone seemed rooted to the floor in shock and terror as Laura cradled Jeff’s head, simultaneously screaming and crying. Crawling beneath the table on her hands and knees, Kerry began searching around in the near-darkness, but without success. There was no sign of Jeff’s adrenaline pen.
By now, Laura’s screams had penetrated the music and the laughter, and other people were beginning to realise that something was amiss. The music came to an abrupt halt as Laura continued to scream for help. ‘Get an ambulance – please!’ she cried. ‘He’ll die if we don’t get him adrenaline quickly –’
A man pushed his way through the crowd and eventually
managed to reach Laura. ‘Adrenaline, did you say? Has he an allergy?’
As Laura nodded through her sobs, the man pulled an adrenaline pen from his pocket, ‘Look, this is my own pen – I’m allergic to wasp stings, but it should help –’
Snatching it from him, Laura quickly ripped off the protective cover and rammed the needle into Jeff’s thigh through his trousers. Almost as quickly as he’d collapsed, Jeff began to come round. There were sighs of relief from the people milling around him as he sat up, disoriented but alive. His lips were still swollen, but his eyes were no longer bulging. He was clearly confused, and didn’t seem to know where he was.
The headwaiter was beside himself with guilt. ‘Monsieur Jones, I don’t know what happened! We are always so careful –’
Laura brushed him aside, eager only for Jeff to have enough space and fresh air to recover. Tears of relief were now running down her face. ‘Thank you, thank you!’ she sobbed, addressing the man who had supplied the adrenaline pen, clutching his sleeve as though she never wanted to let him go.
In the distance, the shrill sound of an ambulance could be heard. As the sound got nearer, Laura grabbed Kerry’s arm. ‘I’m going to the hospital with him. Can you get yourself home?’
Kerry nodded. ‘Of course. Don’t worry about me – Jeff is your priority now,’ she said warmly. ‘The restaurant will call me a taxi.’
Within moments, the restaurant doors were flung open and several paramedics made their way across the restaurant to Jeff’s table. Having explained to them what had happened, and that another diner had supplied an adrenaline pen, Laura began to sob quietly with relief. Her face tear-stained, she was still clutching Jeff’s hand as he was carried outside to the
waiting ambulance. Diners and curious passers-by had now gathered on the pavement outside, and Kerry had to fight her way through the throng to say goodbye to Laura. After the two women silently hugged, Laura stepped into the waiting ambulance.
Kerry stood watching in the darkness until the ambulance disappeared into the night.
A
s the months slipped by, Ellie’s life developed a pleasant daily routine. Every workday afternoon, Alan would leave his office for a late lunch, and they’d make love in her bedroom for most of the afternoon. They simply couldn’t get enough of each other.
But Ellie became more and more jealous of the woman who wore Alan’s wedding ring. And she became increasingly unhappy about his vague promises to leave his wife and young son when the time was right.
‘Look, love – my wife’s father’s money is the only reason that I still have the factory,’ Alan assured her as they lay in bed one afternoon. ‘If I divorce her now, her father will pull the plug and I’ll lose everything.’ He looked at her tenderly. ‘Then I won’t be able to pay your bills either. We just have to wait until the market’s more stable – then it won’t matter if they withdraw their capital. I’ll be able to keep the business afloat on my own by then. Just have patience, love – please.’
Ellie sighed, laying her head on his shoulder. She didn’t have any other choice – he meant everything to her, and she’d wait as he asked. After all, she was lucky to have someone who truly loved her, even if that love couldn’t be publicly acknowledged yet.
But Alan had a surprise for her. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out a little box and presented her with a thick, stylish gold band inset with a huge diamond. On the inside there was an inscription: ‘Alan and Ellie forever ‘.
‘Now you’re my secret wife,’ he told her, sliding off her old wedding ring and slipping on the new. ‘This ring can be an engagement and wedding ring combined. I doubt if anyone else will notice the difference – but you and I will know what it signifies.’
Ellie gazed at the ring, her heart full of love for him. ‘Of course people will notice – this ring is gorgeous! Thank you, my love – wearing your ring will mean so much to me,’ she whispered fervently, raising her lips for his kiss. The ring made her feel a lot more confident about waiting for him now. As she gazed at her left hand, moving it about to let the large diamond catch the light, it seemed to confirm the intensity of their love. Some day soon he truly would be hers.
She did feel guilty about Alan’s wife, and for that reason she always kept her distance when she saw her in the nearby village, wheeling her young son in his buggy. Sylvia had tried several times to engage her in casual conversation – usually about the weather – but Ellie always made an excuse to get away. It was obvious that Sylvia was just trying to be neighbourly, but Ellie didn’t want to be forced into an introduction. Nor did she want to acknowledge Alan’s child, since the boy would only remind her that another woman had been able to give him something she never could.
Besides, she wanted to keep their own little world separate and private. She didn’t want to be part of this other life that Alan lived. In a way, she feared that acknowledging the contrasting circumstances between his other life and hers might make her bitter. Although they only lived within half a mile of each other, his wife and family lived in a world of opulence compared to hers – no doubt they had crystal chandeliers in their drawing room and two cars in the garage. They dined in expensive restaurants and attended gala dinners. Although she knew he hated every minute of these events, she longed to be the woman by his side, greeting the mayor, dressed in the latest fashions and having all the other women envy her. Nevertheless, after these events, he’d hurry back to her little house as often as he could and she’d take him in her arms and make everything right again. But then, afterwards, he’d have to head home to the woman who rightly expected him to be in her bed every night.
Now, he kissed her forehead. ‘Some day soon, I’ll show you off to the world, dressed in the finest clothing money can buy,’ he whispered.
It was the waiting for these glory days that was so painful. But for now, the beautiful diamond and gold ring had given her new confidence in their future together.
T
he following morning, Laura awoke alone in the apartment she shared with Jeff. Sitting up in bed with a jolt, she recalled the events of the night before, remembering that her husband had been kept in hospital overnight, after the near-tragic incident at the restaurant.
Jumping out of bed, she quickly showered and dressed, wondering if her strange feelings from the day before yesterday had been a genuine portent of what was to come. She shivered. The incident had been one of the most horrific in her life – and that was saying something, given that she’d already endured the tragic loss of her family, been uprooted and sent to a new home and school, and then nearly died underwater two years earlier.
Munching toast in the kitchen, Laura went over what had happened. She was mystified – given his health problem, surely Jeff wouldn’t have been so careless? His adrenaline pen was a lifesaver, and would have been more important to him than anything else. How could he have mislaid it?
Abandoning her second slice of toast, Laura decided to turn detective, heading into their bedroom once again and specifically to the wardrobe, where Jeff would have taken out his best suit and transferred the pen from his workday clothes. Finding nothing in the pocket of the jacket he’d worn during the day, she surveyed the wardrobe from top to bottom, checking the
shirts stacked on the shelves at the side, the tie rack drawers on the bottom.
As her eyes scanned the floor of the wardrobe, they alighted on Jeff’s shoes, all expensive leather, all neatly in a row. And there, sitting in one of them, was his adrenaline pen.
Laura grabbed it, feeling angry at what she considered to be Jeff’s appalling carelessness. Hopefully after what had happened at the restaurant, he’d start to take his health issues seriously in future! He must have thought that he’d slid the pen into his pocket, but it had missed, falling instead into one of his shoes on the wardrobe floor. To test her theory, Laura stood exactly where Jeff would have been, and deliberately dropped the pen. When it fell silently into one of his shoes, she felt vindicated. She’d confirmed that the shoe’s soft leather would have dulled any sound that might have alerted Jeff to what had happened.
Leaving the bedroom, she headed back to the kitchen, and made a quick call to Greta, the Sociology Department’s secretary, explaining what had transpired the night before, and asking her to get another lecturer to cover for her that morning. With assurances from Greta that she didn’t need to worry, Laura hung up.
It also dawned on her that since Jeff wouldn’t be going to work that day, she ought to ring his place of business and let them know what had happened.
Normally, she contacted Jeff by mobile phone, and she was embarrassed to admit that she didn’t actually know the phone number for the stockbrokers where he worked. In the study, she scanned the phone book, but she couldn’t find any entry for Denham, Goodwood & Clayton. She then turned on her computer and typed the name into a search engine, but there didn’t appear to be a listing for any company with that name.
Could she have put the company names in the wrong order
– perhaps it was Goodwood Denham & Clayton? Typing in the names in this order, once again she came up with nothing. And the phone book again didn’t yield any company of that name either. Even trying the names in several different combinations didn’t yield any useful information.
Puzzled, Laura bit her lip. There had to be a very good reason why this was happening. Perhaps the company had changed its name, and Jeff had forgotten to tell her? It sounded rather far-fetched, but Laura was prepared to consider anything. After all, Jeff went off to work every morning. If he didn’t go to Denham, Goodwood & Clayton, where on earth did he go? And where did he get the money they lived on? They had an expensive flat in a prestigious part of the city, filled with beautiful, antique furniture and a state-of-the-art kitchen – all originally owned and paid for by Jeff.
Checking her watch, she grabbed her car keys and headed out of the apartment. It was time to collect Jeff from the hospital and bring him home.
In the hospital, Jeff was already dressed when Laura arrived.
She hugged him fiercely. ‘I’d thought I’d lost you!’ she told him, tears in her eyes.
‘I was a bit worried myself!’ Jeff admitted. ‘What the hell happened to my adrenaline pen?’
‘I found it this morning – in one of your shoes,’ Laura told him, taking out the pen and handing it to him. ‘You must have
thought
you were putting it in your suit pocket, but it fell to the floor instead.’
Jeff’s face darkened. ‘But I know I brought it with me! I remember checking that it was in my pocket while we were in the taxi, on our way to the restaurant!’
Laura kissed his angry face. ‘Well, you were obviously wrong,’ she told him. ‘Anyway, let’s hope nothing like this
ever happens again. I couldn’t bear to lose you –’ her cheeks dimpled ‘–especially now that there might be a new addition to our family …’
Jeff’s face lit up. ‘What? Are you telling me you’re pregnant?’
Laura smiled. ‘Well, I’ve missed my period this month, so I think it’s quite possible.’
Jeff kissed her enthusiastically. ‘That’s wonderful news!’
Laura silenced him with a finger to his lips. ‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet,’ she urged him. ‘I’ll make an appointment with the doctor, and get one of those pregnancy testing kits. I want to be sure before we tell anyone.’
Jeff nodded, but he was unable to contain his delight. ‘I’m going to be a father!’ he whooped. ‘We’re going to be a family at last!’
Back at the apartment, Jeff was still in a state of excitement at the news Laura had imparted to him. ‘I’m going to be a father!’ he kept repeating, a smile of incredulity on his face.
Laura was feeling upbeat too, and a new and exciting future was beckoning. Soon, she’d tell Jeff about all the money she’d inherited. After all, it didn’t feel right to keep such information from the man she loved. Kerry was worrying unnecessarily.
‘By the way, I tried to ring your office this morning,’ she told him. ‘I thought it only fair to let them know why you wouldn’t be in today. I looked them up in the telephone book, and Googled Denham, Goodwood & Clayton. But they weren’t listed anywhere.’
Jeff grimaced. ‘Ah,’ he said, looking at the floor.
Laura stared at him expectantly. There was definitely something amiss, and she was suddenly frightened. The silence from Jeff seemed to confirm her worst fears.
He began pacing up and down the room. Then he thought better of it and sat down, lowering his voice as he spoke.
‘Look, I’m going to have to trust you. But if you ever tell this to anyone, you could be putting my life in danger. And yours, too.’
Laura’s heart began to thud painfully.
