More Than You Know (81 page)

Jennifer was sitting in her room reading after an early supper when she heard Emmie call out and then, almost at once, start vomiting; calmly cheerful, she had put her in a bath, changed her bed, and put her back in it in a clean nightie; fifteen minutes later it happened again. This time Sarah heard what was going on and appeared; the third time, Matt put his head round the nursery bathroom door.

“She looks terrible,” he said, “very hot; anyone thought to take her temperature?”

Jennifer looked at him and said that vomiting didn’t usually go hand in hand with a fever, but that she would take it anyway; the thermometer read one hundred and two.

“Right, well, I’m turning in,” said Hugh Wallace. “We’ve still got one shot to do in the morning, haven’t we, outside Crathie church, and I imagine we’ll be starting pretty early.”

“Yeah,” said Rob, “we need to catch the dawn light. Down here, what time do you reckon, Rex?”

“Oh … six should do it. Yeah, I’m definitely off to get my beauty sleep. I’m fucking exhausted. What about the rest of you?”

The twins said they would be going up right away as well; Rob ordered another bottle of champagne.

“I think she’s probably just got a bug,” said the doctor, “but she does seem a little disoriented. I’d give it another hour, and then if she’s no better, I’d get her along to casualty. She could become seriously dehydrated …”

Sarah looked at Emmie, lying on her pillows, her eyes closed, her face flushed, and then at Matt, and spoke the unspeakable.

“I wish Eliza was here,” she said.

Rob and Eliza were sitting on the deep sofa in front of the fire; she felt happily exhausted and said so.

“Or maybe you’re exhaustedly happy,” said Rob.

“Maybe. It’s been such fun. I’ve enjoyed it all so much.”

“Us too. Nice of Auntie Hugh to propose that toast to you.” He looked at her and grinned. “You look much better for your break from domesticity. You should do it more often. It clearly suits you.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to do it again for a long time,” she said with a sigh.

“Really? Why not?”

“Rob, you know why not.”

“I really don’t know what keeps you with the bugger,” he said. “He’s obviously not very nice to you.”

“Now, how can you tell that?”

“It’s bleedin’ obvious. You’re pale, thin, quite jumpy. Not exactly overflowing with happiness and fulfilment.”

“Yes, and you’re a great expert on relationships, of course.”

“Well, I’m certainly experienced. You’re so lovely,” he said suddenly, reaching out his hand and touching her cheek, “and so fucking loyal. You haven’t said anything mean about him, haven’t complained once. I think you’re a bit of a star, Eliza Shaw. And I fancy you something rotten; you know that?”

“Don’t come over all stud creative director on me.”

“Why not? I am a stud creative director, anyway. And in stud creative director language, I think you’re incredibly sexy and I have a very strong urge indeed to get into your knickers. Right now, as a matter of fact.”

“Rob … don’t be … Don’t spoil everything,” she said. “Please.”

“Now, why do you think I would spoil everything?” he asked. “Do you think we wouldn’t have a very nice time? Because I know we would. I’m not asking you to marry me, Eliza.”

“No,” she said, laughing, “although on your past form, I don’t think anything would surprise me …”

“Well,” he said, leaning forward, kissing her on the cheek, “I’m not. Not this time. But I think you should try to overcome your moral scruples, just for one night, and just enjoy yourself. Have some fun.”

“Yes, but—”

“Eliza,” he said, bending over her, moving his mouth onto hers, slowly, carefully, determinedly, his tongue working at her and somehow deep, deep within her as well, and it took all her strength and determination to pull away from him and say, while hearing her own voice, feeble and uncertain, “Rob, no, no,” and, “Oh, yes, yes,” he said, “come on, Eliza; let’s go up to bed. You want it just as much as I do; you know you do.” And suddenly it was gloriously, headily wonderful to be desired again, rather than repelled and rejected, and so fantastically uncomplicated and joyful, and it was true what he said; she did want it, in a harsh, hungry, needy way that she had almost forgotten, and she heard herself saying, as she pulled herself away from him, her eyes fixed on his, her mind on him and what he might do for her, “Yes, yes, I’m going up to my room now; don’t be long.” And then with no further thought of how insanely reckless she was being, of the risks she was running, taken over by a sort of madness that wanted her to be herself again, young, and sexy, and sure of herself, instead of somehow dying slowly, frigid and
frightened, and without being sure how she got there, she was lying in the bed naked, waiting for him with a sort of crazed intensity, and there was not a thought in her head that she might be doing anything wrong, or even unwise …

“Her pulse is very fast,” said Sarah. “He said to take her to casualty if she was any worse. And I think she is. Jennifer, what do you think?”

“I do think she’s dehydrated,” said Jennifer. “But I don’t actually think it’s at a danger level.”

“How are we supposed to know when it is?” said Matt. “And anyway, I thought you were a nurse?”

“No,” said Jennifer patiently, “I’m not.”

“Well, you’ve got the job under false pretences then. I remember seeing on your application that you were a nursery nurse.”

“Mr. Shaw, that is not quite correct. I did a nursing course, which is not the same thing as being a medical nurse, I do assure you.” She smiled at him; anyone else would have hit him, Sarah thought. Emmie was breathing very fast, she was very pale, and she was whimpering now and saying she had a headache. It was very frightening.

“I’m getting the bloody doctor back,” said Matt, “make him earn his keep. How dare he bugger off home when a child’s so ill; it’s bloody outrageous.”

The sex was wonderful; Eliza was quite shocked at herself, transformed as she was into a shrieking, shouting harpy, clawing, biting, laughing, crying, her long legs wrapped round Rob, her back arched, her head thrown back, her entire body consumed by her orgasm, making her body sing as she thought it had quite forgotten.

And as she came down, slowly, sweetly, exhaustedly, as she pushed back her damp hair and smiled rather shakily into Rob’s eyes; he smiled back at her with a certain triumph.

“I told you we’d have fun,” he said.

Matt came back into the room.

“He’s on his way. Bloody outrageous, he should never have left. He says he’ll come down to the hospital with us—”

“That’s kind,” said Sarah.

“Not at all, it’s his job.”

Sarah didn’t like to say that in sixty years of being a patient and the mother of patients, she had never known a doctor to agree to a second house call in one night and then to accompany a patient to hospital. “Er … Matt. I think perhaps we should ring Eliza. Don’t you?”

“Why?” he asked, and his expression was so filled with distaste for the notion that Sarah was shocked. “She can’t get here; she’s five hundred bloody miles away.”

“Yes, but … if Emmie’s really ill …”

“Emmie is really ill. There’s no
if
about it. And her mother should be here. But she bloody isn’t, and ringing her up isn’t going to help. So—”

There was a ring at the door; it was the doctor.

He came in, looked at Emmie, said he thought she was no worse, possibly a little better, but that she should be taken to hospital just the same.

“Let’s not take any chances.”

“Of course we’re not taking any bloody chances,” said Matt. “I’ll carry her; you can drive, Doctor. You two”—he turned to Sarah and Jennifer—“you can come if you want to.”

They both said they would come.

Matt bent down and picked up the half-sleeping Emmie, enfolding her in the bedclothes; there was such tenderness, such care in the gesture, Sarah felt tears in her eyes. What a mass of contradictions he was, this husband of Eliza’s; she saw suddenly and for the first time what difficulties Eliza must face living with him, probably on a daily basis: his bad temper, his abruptness, his near-rudeness, indeed, his perfectionism—and his adoration of this precious only child.