Restoring Grace (40 page)

‘Yup. Not surprising, really. You've had a long
day’

‘And being pregnant doesn't help,' she said,
and then could have kicked herself. Why draw his attention to something he
might well have forgotten?

‘
Can you
manage your bag? I want to get the paint
ings into a stable atmosphere as quickly as possible.’

‘
Of
course.’

He handed her a bunch of keys. 'You get the
house
unlocked and yourself in it. I'll
bring the paintings.’

‘
I could
come back and carry one.'

‘No, you couldn't. You have no idea of how to
handle such delicate objects.'

‘Well, that's your fault for not teaching me
anything, only making me clear up stuff.'

‘Will you get in the house! I'll be quicker if
the door is
open and we can get both panels
somewhere safe!’

‘
OK, OK,
keep your hair on.’

She juggled with the keys. 'Which one first?'

‘
Oh, for
God's sake!' He took them from her and
unlocked the door himself.

‘You are a bad-tempered old so-and-so, aren't
you?' said Ellie.

‘I wonder why it took you so long to come to
that conclusion?’

Chapter Sixteen

 
Grace
shifted Demi's position a little; her arm felt as if it would drop off through
lack of blood. She looked at the clock. The hands seemed to be going backwards.
They'd been here three hours.

Flynn had gone off in search of coffee. The
drinks machine was only serving tepid water, possibly because it was after
office hours and a Friday. Grace closed her
eyes
and tried to doze, but it was hard with Demi slumped
on top of her.

It had been such a shock,
finding her like that. They'd
known they were
at the right house because of the music
which seemed to make the building actually throb. They'd
been
lucky that the front door was ajar or they would
never have been able to get anyone to open it. They could
have
knocked all night before anyone heard them.

As they squeezed themselves
past several people
talking and smoking in the
hallway, Grace gave Rick
credit for having rung Ellie. Demi
could be anywhere in this lot, but he must have been sufficiently aware of her
state to realise she needed help.

Only the kitchen seemed to have any lights on,
and it was there that they found Demi. She was sitting on a
chair, staring into space, blood pouring down her
face. A
young man, presumably Rick,
was beside her, dabbing at
the wound with a filthy tea towel.

‘What's happened!' Grace shrieked at him in
panic. 'You never said anything about her being injured!’

Rick was making a supreme effort to keep upright and
to enunciate
clearly. His eyes were in a condition that told
even Grace, who'd led a sheltered life, that he
was very
very high on something. 'She wasn't.
Injured. When I
rang. She fell down the stairs after.'

‘
It looks quite a bad cut,' said Flynn. 'I think it needs
stitches. We'd better get her to A and E.’

It took Grace a few moments
to realise he meant
Casualty. 'Demi?' she shouted into her face,
almost pleading with her to wake up and not be dead. 'Can you hear me? It's
Grace. Demi?' She patted her cheeks until at last Demi turned towards her and
blinked.

‘Grace?'

‘Yes.' Relief that Demi could talk and
recognise her
made Grace feel a lot calmer,
although her breathing was
still fast. 'Now, what have you taken?' A
moment later
Grace realised that Demi was
probably not the best person
to ask. She turned to Rick, who was at
least standing. 'Rick! What has she had?'

‘Only some dope. And alcohol, of course.'

‘What sort of alcohol?' asked Grace.

‘How strong was the dope?' asked Flynn.

Other people, aware their space was being
invaded by
people who were very uncool,
shifted away slightly. 'It
was
skunk,' said someone who seemed to be working his
way through an entire
packet of biscuits. 'Well strong.'

‘And what alcohol?' Grace repeated, turning her
question on to the man who had known about the dope.

‘Mate, I have no idea!' He held up his packet
of Rich Teas in a gesture of surrender. 'I don't do alcohol.'

‘Oh, for God's sake, let's just get her out of
here,' said Grace. 'It's no good asking this lot anything.'

‘Shame,' said Flynn. 'The hospital is likely to
ask us a whole lot of questions we don't know the answers to.'

‘We'll just have to tell them we don't know!'
snapped Grace. 'Demi!' she shouted in her ear. 'Can you walk? We're taking you
to hospital!'

‘Don't want to go,' said Demi. 'I just need to
lie down.’

‘
Your head
is cut open,' said Grace. 'You need stitches.
You're bleeding.'

‘Oh,' said Demi, and burst into tears.

No one in the house was
in any state to help Grace and
Flynn get Demi
into the car, but they finally manoeuvred
her into
the back seat and Grace got in next to her.

‘I hope she's not sick,' she said, for the
first time conscious of her Armani dress. The blood from Demi's
head had become sticky and slow moving; Grace felt
able
to avoid it.

‘
There
should be a roll of kitchen towel somewhere.
See if you can find it
before we set off.’

Grace burrowed around in
the footwells until she found
the kitchen towel. She tore off a
couple of sheets, and then struggled to get Demi strapped in. 'OK, all set. We
can go.'

‘
Do you have
any notion about which direction I should
go in?' Flynn asked.

‘Oh shit! No. Just go towards the town centre -
there are bound to be signs.’

Grace was beginning to
feel sick herself by the time they lurched into the hospital. The back streets
of Bath had felt
like a maze - just as you felt you were getting
out, you found yourself confronted by another one-way street.

‘I'll have to drop you off and park the car,'
said Flynn,
drawing up in front of the
hospital. 'They'll clamp me if
I stay here more than a second.'

‘Surely not! You're getting a patient in!'

‘It's how they make their money these days. Can
you manage?'

‘
I'll have
to. Come on, Demi! Wake up! You've got to
get out of the car now.'

‘Want to sleep,' pleaded Demi. 'I'm so tired!'

‘You can sleep when you're inside,' said Grace.
'Now move your leg. Please.’

Flynn got out and came
round to the back, opened the
door and hauled Demi out of the car.
Grace scrambled
out after her and took her
weight when Flynn handed
her over. He didn't get back into the car.

‘
I'll be
back as soon as I can. You could just wait here,'
said Flynn.

‘
I think
we'll try and get inside,' said Grace. 'Apart
from anything else, I'll
freeze to death with only this
cardigan and
Demi should be in the warm too. She hasn't
got much on.' Grace wondered if they should have got
her
something warmer than a jumper to wear and then
realised how impossible it would have been to get her
into a coat.
'Besides, I feel a bit of a fool out here.’

Flynn seemed to think this was funny, and was
definitely laughing when he got back into the car. It was all
right for him, thought Grace, as she tried to
shift Demi's
leg with her own, to
kick start her, so to speak. He didn't
have to take Demi on the long
journey from the pavement, through the double doors, and into the hospital.

They had gone about two paces before Grace
realised
it would be more sensible just to keep
Demi upright, and
not try and get
her to move. But she'd told Flynn she was
going to move her, so move her
she would. She'd teach him to laugh at her!

‘
OK, Demi,
we're going to play a game. It's a three-
legged race, only no one's tied our legs together. OK? You
move
your leg at the same time as I move mine. I'm
holding
you up, you can't fall over.' This was a blatant
lie, but Demi wouldn't notice. 'OK? Right - move your
leg. That
one. Good! You're doing fine.’

Several people passed them as they made their
slow
progress, but as almost all of them
were drunk, and even
more of them bleeding worse than Demi, Grace
decided it didn't matter.

Flynn appeared in time to
open the doors. 'Sorry!
Bloody car park is miles away, and
then I didn't have
the right change and had to ask someone for some.'

‘
I'll pay you back.' said Grace, for the first time aware
of how much Flynn was putting himself out for her and Demi.

‘Don't be bloody ridiculous. Now let me take
her. You go to the desk and register, or whatever it is you do.’

The woman behind the desk
looked very tired.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, Grace
noticed it had gone eleven. It felt still later, somehow.

‘
I've come
with Demi Ravenglass. She's over there,'
said Grace.

‘Drunk, is she?' asked the clerk.

‘Yes. And I think she's taken some drugs.'

‘Are you her mother?'

‘No! I'm her stepmother – her friend.'

‘OK. Give me the details, then.’

Above the desk was an electronic sign, which
presumably altered as patients came and went. 'Waiting time three hours.'

‘Have we really got to wait three hours?' asked
Grace,
when she'd supplied the clerk with all
the information
she could.

‘
You're
lucky. The night is young. You got in before the
rush. Go and sit down
now. There's a coffee machine down the hall. Next?’

The 'next' was half a dozen very large young
men escorting their friend who seemed to have walked into something tougher
than he was and mashed his face.

Grace felt dreadfully vulnerable among all
these noisy people who all, without exception, seemed to be drunk.
How she would have managed without Flynn, she
hadn't
a clue. She resolved to thank
him at the first opportunity.

*

Flynn came back with something in a plastic
cup. 'It's called Hot Chocolate, though it might be Chicken Soup. But it's hot
and liquid.’

Grace rearranged her
over-sized baby and took the cup.
It was
chocolate and very soothing. She became aware of
being
hungry.

‘You must be starving,' she said to Flynn. 'Is
there anywhere you could get a sandwich or anything?’

He produced a bar of chocolate from his pocket.
'This will have to do. Have a bit.’

The nurses and doctors,
perhaps predictably, were not
very patient with Demi. The doctor
decreed that her wound didn't need stitches, just a clean-up and some
Steri-strips to hold her wound together.

The nurse, who was tired, and quite possibly
looked after her own children all day while working at night,
made it quite clear how she felt about people who
got
out of their heads on drink and
drugs and then fell over.

‘
They haven't got the brains they were born with!
And look at her, obviously comes from a nice home.
What is she doing messing around with chemicals at
her age?’