A Change for the Better? (24 page)

Katie ran back into the other room.

“The ambulance should be eight to ten minutes – is there any response?” she added.

“I don’t know, I know what to do but I’ve no idea if I’m helping.” Ben answered desperately.

“Of course you’re helping” Katie reassured him, “he would have no chance if you weren’t here – if he comes through this it’ll all be because of you.”

Ben shot her a grateful smile and carried on for four or five minutes, though it felt like hours.

“Where is the ambulance?” Ben gasped, sweat pouring off him.

“It should be here any time now – let me do that for a bit, you’re shattered” Katie offered, she gripped one hand with other as Ben was
doing and took over the compressions, Ben did the first couple with her so she knew what pressure to apply.

“Count to 30 then stop and I’ll do the breaths,” he instructed. They worked on in perfect unison until finally the ambulance crew arrived and took over. Katie and Ben moved out to the kitchen and waited with Mary, Poppy and Lucy, all of them white and drawn and silently praying.

After what seemed like an age, Tom, according to his name badge, one of the paramedics came into the kitchen and told them that Ken was breathing now and showing some signs of recovery but they needed to get to hospital as quickly as possible now.

“Thank the Lord!” Mary collapsed onto a chair, crossing herself.

“You want to thank this pair here” the paramedic said, pointing to Ben and Katie, “without their intervention I don’t think we’d have been so lucky.”

Gently the paramedics, Tom and Jenny, lifted Ken onto a stretcher and pushed him out to the waiting ambulance. His face was as grey as a battleship and his chest rose and fell in short, sharp breaths, but at least he was breathing. Soon Ken was in the ambulance, with Mary holding his hand, blue lights flashing and off down the road to
Rawlinston General. Mary had begged Katie and Ben to follow
them. They
knew there was no way they could leave Mary on own at the hospital as Ken wasn’t out of the woods yet, but Ben still had Lucy to sort out – there wasn’t really time to get her across to Jean’s on the other side of Rawlinston and she couldn’t stay on her own. Ben was just deciding Lucy would have to come with them when Poppy piped up as she could see his dilemma, “I’ve got a put-me-up bed in the flat. Lucy can bed down at mine tonight and I’ll take her in to Rawlinston on the bus in the morning – if that’s okay? Then you don’t have to worry or come trailing back over here” she offered, “if you’re happy for her to stay with me?”

Ben simply hugged Poppy, “Thanks Pops – that’s perfect” he added and with Lucy sorted out Katie and Ben were soon on their way to the hospital, both nervous about what they might find when they got there.

The hospital was quiet when they arrived, in that ‘everything’s going on behind closed doors’ way that hospitals have. Katie and Ben entered the building and looked for anyone to help them. A efficient, but kindly, receptionist pointed them along the orange line on the floor to find the emergency room, as they drew closer a few more people appeared, in and out of doors along the corridor, pushing trolleys, carrying clipboards and the noise level increased as wheels squeaked,
machines beeped and intercoms buzzed. In the midst of it all they saw Mary, sat in her own stillness, gently weeping into her cotton handkerchief. Katie’s heart lurched as she saw her and she instinctively gripped Ben’s hand. What if Ken was dead? What if he’d gone?

Ben gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and led her towards Mary.

“Mary” he said gently, “what’s happening? Have you heard anything?”

“No, they took Ken in there” she said, pointing to a door on the far side of the waiting area, “and I haven’t spoken to anyone since. I don’t know what to do” she added helplessly.

Ben took control immediately, “Katie, stay here with Mary and I’ll go and see what I can find out,” he ordered and disappeared towards the nurse’s station they had passed back in the corridor. He was gone only five minutes but to Katie it felt ten times as long as she sat with Mary waiting, Mary twisting her handkerchief endlessly between her fingers. Ben returned stern faced,

“The nurse is getting someone to update us on what’s happening,” he told them, and true to their word a doctor in blue scrubs appeared from the emergency room and came over to speak to them. Katie realised she was holding her breath as the doctor got closer and her grip on Mary’s hand tightened.

“Mrs Clackett?” the doctor enquired, in a gentle voice. Mary nodded.

“Well, the good news is we’ve got Mr Clackett stabilised, but he is quite poorly, he’s had a very big heart attack I’m afraid”

“Will he be alright? Will he get better?” Mary stammered uncertainly.

“He’s got a long way to go and he may have to have a little operation but there’s no reason he shouldn’t make a good recovery. He’ll have to take things carefully from now on though.” The doctor told her.

Mary jumped up and hugged the doctor, “Thank you, thank you so much, I thought I’d lost him but now …………..   Can I see him soon?” The doctor said she could see him for five minutes now and led Mary across the waiting area and into the room where Ken was, leaving Katie and Ben to reflect on everything that had happened.

“Well that’s good then isn’t it?” Ben started, turning to Katie as he spoke and he saw the tears streaming down her face as she rocked backwards and forwards.

“Hey, hey” he soothed, enveloping her in a big hug, “he’s going to be okay, I’m sure of it.”

“But it’s all my fault” Katie sobbed, “if only I’d made him go to the doctor’s sooner – he was poorly on Monday morning but he wouldn’t let me tell Mary and I made him promise to go to the doctors with me tomorrow but I didn’t tell Mary – if I had ….” her voice trailed off as she thought of what might have been prevented.

“If you had” Ben cut in, “exactly the same thing would have happened. Except that he probably wouldn’t have said he’d go to the doctor’s at all if Mary had tried to make him! He’s a stubborn bugger when he wants to be. It’s not your fault Katie, these things just happen.”

“Really?”
Katie looked up at him with huge luminous eyes, brimming with tears.

“Really” Ben said, “it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Stop beating yourself up” he added giving her another comforting hug.

Katie smiled weakly and leant against Ben enjoying the reassurance of his embrace. Ben held Katie as she relaxed and thought, although he never wanted to see Katie upset, he knew he could quite happily hold her like this forever.

The next few weeks disappeared in a whirl for Katie. She spent her mornings at Declan’s restaurant preparing all the food for the fayre, then in the afternoons she was either visiting Mo or Ken, who, she was very pleased to see, were both recovering with remarkable speed. Then after her visits she was back to Tolpuddle House with a full programme of works, cleaning, painting, gardening and lots of other odd jobs she had listed to try and restore Tolpuddle back to its best. She had already transformed the front of the house, the creeping ivy gone and the pointing restored, she had sanded down and repainted the window frames and was currently toying with commissioning Cliona to make a hand painted name plate for the house. By the time Katie fell into bed each night she was exhausted but, surprisingly, content.

She hadn’t seen Ben since the night at the hospital and she had heard from Lucy that he was working away quite a lot on a project down south and he was busy trying to put it all together, the details were a bit sketchy as Lucy clearly had virtually no interest in whatever her brother was doing other than how it affected her and Katie didn’t like to ask too many questions in case Lucy misinterpreted her interest as something more than friendship.

It was now early April, with the shoots of spring visible all around the village, as trees budded, blossom bloomed and a parade of ducklings criss-crossed the green following their mother as if on an invisible thread. On a sunny Tuesday morning, Katie was in the garden preparing some ceramic pots for the potting plants she was going to display around the patio and filling the hanging baskets to hang either side of the front door that she had ambitiously decided to have a go at herself rather than buying the finished article. Katie smiled as she worked, who’d have thought she was an Alan Titchmarsh in the making! It was a beautiful spring day, one of the first of the year, when the sun had some real warmth in it. Katie had given herself the day off from any cooking, most of the food for the fayre was now prepared. Declan’s freezer was bursting at the seams with twenty quiches, pies of apple, cherry, peach and plum, batches of fruit scones, cherry scones and cheese scones, sponges of many flavours, sausage plaits, Cornish pasties and much more. Katie only had cheesecakes and the fresh food to prepare on the day now. She would be able to report that all was well and under control to Sergeant Hermione when she saw her for the final planning meeting that evening, but firstly Katie was going to visit Mo that afternoon. Katie had been visiting Mo regularly since she had been installed at Cheadle House and she was delighted with how well Mo was doing. Katie thought she’d be able to move home soon, of
course, that might mean Katie having to move out but that was always going to happen at some point she reasoned. Katie thought she might stay on for a few weeks once Mo was home just to make sure everything was alright. Mo had rung Katie the afternoon before and asked her to call in on her own, usually Poppy, Mary or Tamsin came along with her as they all loved to see Mo but not today Mo had asked, she had said she had something she needed to discuss with Katie in private. Katie was intrigued but thought it was most likely about Mo coming home – Mo always liked to make things as dramatic as possible! Just telling
Katie on
the phone would have been far too pedestrian for her.

Katie arrived at Cheadle House at three o’clock that afternoon, the sun was still shining through the clouds and had still enough warmth in it to let Katie leave her jacket in the car, she scrunched over the gravel and opened the huge front door and turned down the corridor towards Mo’s
room. Mo
was definitely about as Katie could hear her mischievous laughter echoing down the corridor, interspersed with Bert’s deeper guffaw. That was no surprise to Katie either as, these days, where one of them was the other was never far behind.

“And what are you two up too?” Katie affected a stern voice as she appeared around the corner of Mo’s bedroom. Mo and Bert sprang apart guiltily like two teenagers caught by their parents, Katie couldn’t be
sure but she thought they were holding hands and just for a minute she was lost for words, feeling like she had intruded on something private. With forced bravado she carried on, “up to no good. I’ll bet, so spill the beans”

Mo had recovered her equilibrium quickly and told Bert to push off so she could talk to Katie, Bert was a little hesitant until Mo gave him a swift slap on the bum and pointed him to the door. “It’s all fine” she added cryptically, “I’ll give you a shout when we’re done” Bert gave her a reassuring pat on the arm and smiled, almost apologetically, as he passed Katie.

“Well, Katie, my love, how
are
you? Are you eating?” Mo started with her usual interrogation but Katie decided not to play along today, she could tell by the way Mo was fiddling with the fringe of her cardigan that something was amiss and she wasn’t about to be fobbed off on pleasantries instead.  “I’m fine and I had a tuna sandwich for lunch. Spill the beans Mo, something’s up and I’m not leaving until I know what it is. Are you ill? Is there something else wrong with you?” she questioned, rather harshly, as she was worried and didn’t want to show it. Mo burst out laughing, which, although somewhat reassuring , was also a little irritating, “ Oh Katie K, don’t look so worried , there’s nothing wrong at all – in fact quite the opposite, I’ve got some news for you.” Mo stopped and seemed to be searching for the right words,
taking a deep breath she continued, “ you know how much I loved your Granddad don’t you Katie,” Katie nodded, wondering where this was going but seeing Mo needed some reassurance she held Mo’s hand and waited for her continue. “When he passed away a bit of me went with him, I thought that life would never be fun again. But you have to keep going – he told me I had to keep going and then all my guests, they had to be looked after too. So time passed on and gradually you start living again, but I always expected to be on my own – oh I know I’ll have you” she added as she saw Katie start, “I mean as a woman, I thought that was all behind me now. Until I fell down those pesky stairs, I thought it was the beginning of the end for me, not been able to cope at Tolpuddle anymore, shuffling about like an old person in case I fell over again. But then a miracle happened, Katie, instead of being the beginning of the end it turned out to be the beginning of the beginning. I met Bert. We clicked from day one like we’d known each other for ages and we laugh together, I can’t tell you how special that is Katie”

“You don’t have to Mo, I know how good Bert is to you and what great friends you’ve become.” Katie interrupted. Mo smiled and continued “Well, that’s the thing Katie, he’s become more than a friend, he’s come to mean a great deal to me and amazingly he feels the same way about me and he’s asked me to marry him and I said yes” Mo finished in a rush and looked up at Katie, holding her breath as she waited for a
reaction, but nothing came. Katie's face looked like a slightly more lifelike waxwork from Madam Tussauds.  “He’ll never take the place of your Granddad, Katie, you know that, he was the love of my life but I care about him, love him in a different way and I ….” Katie held up her hand to stop Mo, she could hear the distress in her voice. “Mo, stop, I’m thrilled for you, of course I am – how could I be anything else?” Katie’s grin spread across her face to show the truth of her words, “I’m just a bit gob-smacked
too” Katie
enveloped Mo in a hug and as she let go asked