Bloody Mary (31 page)

Sophie nodded and sauntered to the phone, distraught, with fresh tears brimming.

Harold, disgusted at the way his daughter was being treated, could only find one solution. “Phone Carlos tomorrow, first thing, and see how he’s progressing with Jaimee’s passport, tell him the situation and that you need it urgently. As soon as you get it, get on a plane, we can charge it to my credit card, and get yourselves back to England. We’ll find a good solicitor over here, someone who can work alongside Carlos fight to get your money back. Okay?”

She knew, her soul deflated, that he was right.

Darren was rasping noisily when she returned to the apartment, reminding her how grateful she was not to have to put up with the hideous racket every night, and she crept into the bedroom, taking a pillow and blanket from the closet to the sofa, before returning for the Moses basket. She brought a carton of wine and a glass through, and knocked it back, drink after drink, each one dulling her senses, and finally a drunken slumber took over, not even stirring when the hungry Jaimee woke for her midnight feed, eventually crying herself back to sleep.

When she awoke the next morning she momentarily forgot the events of the night before, recalling everything as her eyes opened and she saw the sofa rather than her bed, and heard the sound of Darren clattering about noisily in the kitchen area. Her immediate hope as she clambered up and checked Jaimee, was that Bob had been right, but Darren soon removed the optimism with a sneer, reminding her to pack her bags. She noticed he already had a whisky on the go, and her heart sank to the lowest depth it had ever reached.

Fed up with being bullied, and protective of her baby’s welfare, Sophie snapped, she stomped through to the kitchen and fronted Darren. “I am not going anywhere, Darren. You can’t get rid of me if I refuse to leave.” Darren raised his fist, threatening, but she remained firm.

“Stop being so dumb and go back to your parent’s house. We can sort this place out through solicitors.” The anticipated punch struck her powerfully on the cheek, she fell back, but scrambled up immediately, standing up to him again. But the next crack knocked her into the wall, her head smashing into it, she slithered down, unable to move from the pain, and she realised she’d lost the battle.

Darren stood over her winded body, chuckling with his dominance. “Your brat’s crying, hadn’t you better go and feed it?”

It hadn’t taken Sophie long to pack, she’d filled two suitcases, unwanted tears spilling copiously as she tried to come to terms with the horror that was her life. Darren had remained in the living area the whole time, poring through the Daily Express he’d picked up from the tiny British shop attached to the apartments whilst she was cleaning the cut on her face. If she’d realised he was going out, she would have put the chain across the door, but he hadn’t said anything.

Her heart was heavy as she dragged the suitcases to the front of the flat, and she left them to fetch Jaimee from the Moses basket she was dozing in. As she lifted the baby, Darren turned his attention to her. “What are you doing?”

There was no strength left inside Sophie to retaliate. She remained silent, face swollen with a mixture of sobbing and bruises. He jumped up and grasped at the child, but Sophie dragged her back. “I said you had to leave, you’re not taking her with you!” It was the first time he had acknowledged Jamie’s sex.

Sophie placed Jaimee in the car seat and lifted it on to the pram. How she was going to wheel the carriage as well as dragging the two suitcases, she had no idea, but, now she’d accepted that she had a choice between violence or departure, she was eager to get away. Darren snatched Jaimee from the seat, and ran back to the sofa, clutching her close.

Maternal instinct overwhelmed Sophie. “I am not going anywhere without my baby. Put her back.” Her voice boomed with aggression and protectiveness.

“Get out, you stupid cow. Me and my Dad are going to look after this thing. Just get your bloody ugly face out of my apartment.”

Sophie launched herself at him, hands scratching, teeth gnawing, and he threw the baby on the sofa, stood up, pushing her back, and thumped her to the floor, kicking, over and over, each impact rattling through her body, the pain dulling from the repetition. The final boot to the side of her head made her world instantly black, and Darren eased himself back to the sofa, watching for movement as he went, took the screaming baby, and replaced her in the Moses basket. “Shut up, you stupid brat!”

Kerry had decided to pop in to Sophie’s and see how things were going. As she reached the fourth floor and opened the fire door to the corridor, she spied two navy suitcases outside an apartment, not bothering to give them any attention until she realised it was Sophie’s place. Speeding her pace, sensing trouble, as she neared the bags she first saw the feet, then the body. She raced over, immediately checking for a pulse, and was relieved when Sophie stirred. “Sophie! Can you hear me, it’s Kerry.”

Sophie groaned, her body throbbing, every piece of her sore and bruised. The word was unintelligible to Kerry, but Sophie continued to repeat it, her eyes closed, in obvious distress. “Jaimee.”

Kerry, trained in first aid before she had started her family, her certificate expired but knowledge intact, was checking over Sophie’s body. “We need to get you to hospital, Sophie, you’ve been beaten up pretty bad.”

She managed to open her puffy eyes, pulling herself together with the last ounces of her waned strength. “No. No hospital. He’s got Jaimee.”

Kerry ignored the slurred statement, more intent on getting Sophie’s injuries dealt with suitably. “So the baby’s with her Dad, he’ll look after her, darling, she’ll be fine. But we need to get you into an ambulance and get you some treatment.”

Weak and in horrendous pain, Sophie struggled slowly to sit, holding her forehead as it pounded. She knew Darren hadn’t the slightest interest in Jaimee, he’d proven that, and the only reason he was insisting on her staying with him was his vindictiveness towards her. But how did she get Kerry to understand when her bloated lips and tongue, bitten through on each side from the punches and kicks, couldn’t form the words to express herself clearly.

Through the haze of her fuddled mind, she could hear Kerry’s hammering on a neighbour’s door, the brief explanation, and she felt, her eyes closed again against the agony, strong arms underneath, lifting, carrying, and soon she was laid on a comfortable sofa. In the background she could hear Kerry talking urgently in fluent Spanish on the phone.

The paramedics didn’t take long, the minutes passing in a blur of pain and confusion, but in her distress, Sophie was adamant she wouldn’t leave without her baby, forming the words carefully and pronouncing them as closely as she could muster. “My baby. Not safe. Baby.”

Kerry had lived in and around Spain for the best part of her life, the daughter of an affluent ex-pat, and her language skills were fantastic. “
Ella tiene un al lado del bebé. She’s preocupante porque el padre es violento. Ella won’ licencia de t sin el bebé
.”

After a quick, hushed word to her colleague, the paramedic called for the police on her radio, explaining the situation and the urgency required to get the badly injured patient to a hospital for treatment. Once she’d finished the request, the paramedic asked Kerry if the
padre violento
was the man who had beaten her patient so badly, and, her question confirmed, she reported the facts on her radio which would lead to Darren’s arrest.

The speed of the police response to the call was impressive. They checked Sophie briefly in the apartment, and realising the difficulty she was having forming words, turned to Kerry and the man who had carried Sophie into his home, who led them to the door of Sophie’s apartment. They knocked, receiving no response, but the sound of the wailing infant from inside was enough to justify kicking the door open. As they entered they saw Darren splayed haphazardly over the sofa, snoring, the glass still in his hand, contents spilled over his T-shirt. Not having been fed for hours, Jaimee was starving, and her incessant crying was pitiful.

Having heard the commotion, the male paramedic had run through, taking the baby in the Moses basket through to the patient so they could transport her immediately to the Hospital General de Muro.

Darren, barely waking through his abuse of alcohol over the past couple of days, was led to the police car. He faced deportment.

Bob, utterly trashed later by the news, faced a life in Mallorca alone.

I had been stunned to hear the news of Sophie’s injuries in the telephone call, and I replaced the receiver sullenly, wondering how I was going to break this latest heartbreak to Harry. As I’d expected, he was straight on the phone to the travel agent, arranging to get back to the island we’d only recently left. The flight wasn’t as pleasant as the return home the previous week, Harry being angry, agitated, and concerned, his mood swaying constantly in his urgency to find our daughter and her child safe. It was nearing midnight when we arrived, dishevelled, at the hospital, any worries about the money he was drowning in these critical journeys passed to the wayside for another day.

We stepped slowly to our daughter’s bedside, surveying the scene he’d already witnessed in the Derby City General. She wasn’t on a ventilator this time, but she’d been beaten horrendously, and her broken body melted his heart. This time it wasn’t her mother, Beryl, taking her other hand tenderly, it was her mother, me, his fiancée, in the rightful place beside Sophie. Years of hardship had hardened me, no tears were shed, just strength and belief in karma. Harry and I stayed by her side the entire night.

Sophie wasn’t unconscious, and her brain wasn’t damaged, and it was only this positive affirmation from the attending doctor the next morning, who thankfully spoke English, that prompted Harry to consider returning to the UK. “We want to take her home with us, how soon will she be able to fly?”

Juan Murillo was a pleasant man, in his thirties, extraordinarily handsome, or so I thought, and clever to boot. “She take, um, two, three day maybe. Come out, fly, her and baby good. Yes?”

It was timely, Sophie opening her eyes, bulging through the bruising, and she regarded the room, the people, the situation with confusion. “Where am… is Jaimee here?”

I leant across, patting her hand comfortingly. “Jaimee’s right here, Sophie. She’s fine. Darren’s been arrested for this,” I raised my hands, still in disbelief at Sophie’s condition, “this…” I had no further words to give.

Juan, pleased his patient was responding to treatment, stepped in. “Sophie. You have nasty attack. Your, er, husband,
la policia
, they deal with. You,” his fingers imitated the action of walking, “you go England with
momia
and
papá
.” He laughed joyously, displaying his caring zest for life and love. “And your
presiosamente
bambino
!”

She couldn’t smile, her face was too swollen, too sore, but she wanted to, and she wished more than anything that she wasn’t in hospital, wasn’t in a surgical gown, and had her make-up perfected and hair styled, because the stunning man before her had just made her heart do a double flip. I, watching Sophie, knew.

Although her injuries weren’t as severe as those she’d incurred in England, she was in hospital for longer, and Sophie wasn’t complaining: the daily consultations from Doctor Juan Murillo spiced up her day, he was such a pleasant, cheerful man, always brandishing a wide smile and a joyous ambiance. Sometimes she suspected he spent longer with her than with his other patients on the ward, but she’d rebuke these thoughts, berating herself for being silly.

Over the three days she’d been incarcerated her injuries had been healing well, the swellings reducing to near normal, the bruising turning an array of colours before settling to the green-yellow they now presented. She’d had no broken bones, a miracle in Harold’s eyes, but the repeated kicking to the head she’d endured had been a cause for concern, and Juan wasn’t willing to release her until he was absolutely convinced no brain damage had been sustained: and before he’d procured some contact details so he could keep in touch.

Carmela Ramos, a nurse at the hospital for three years, and long-time admirer of Doctor Murillo, although she’d accepted from the moment she met him that he didn’t reciprocate her interest, had struck up an unlikely friendship with Sophie. She found her to be interesting and articulate, attractive, with a sorrowful air of vulnerability, and bursting with droll witticisms. She’d taken to spending more and more time with her, just chatting, passing the time of day pleasantly, and was pleased she’d mastered the English language at school. Today was no different, and, having just finished her rounds, she perched on the edge of Sophie’s bed.

“Hello Sophie. How are you today?”

Sophie had been using her relaxing time in hospital efficiently, grasping Spanish, much to the amusement of the staff. “
Hola
, I’m good,
gracias
. Um,
cómo usted es
?”

Carmela laughed, correcting her. “
Cómo está usted
. You are crazy lady. You have seen the doctor this morning?”

She checked her watch. “No, not yet. Doctor Murillo must be busy, he’s usually been round by now.”

Carmela waved her arms. “No, no Doctor Murillo today, he’s not work today. Er,
día la fiesta
, how you say, er, holiday.”

Sophie’s face fell, exposing, against her will, her crush on the man, and Carmela realised she had yet another rival in the fight for his affections. With a sigh, conscious that he’d never shown her anything more than politeness and courtesy, she accepted that the competition for his heart, one that many of the other nurses were also contesting, would never be one that she would win. Charitably, she knew she had to do the right thing. “He like you, Sophie. He like you a lot.”