Country Lovers (9 page)

“Turn right out of here, then first left turn, and then the left fork—no, no—right fork, and we're there.”

“So we did right then, getting a quick appointment.”

Letty was obviously preoccupied and didn't answer, so Rose paid attention to her driving instead. She pulled up in the first available space in the hospital car park, switched off the ignition, and took hold of Letty's hand. “Best get it over with. Eh?”

“Oh, Rose! I never thought for one minute I'd have to go for a scan. I'm absolutely bowled over with it.”

“Well, the only way to tackle it is head on. Straight in for the big punch, no messing.”

“Oh yes. I may be a while, though. What about Jonathan?”

“Don't worry about him. If he needs feeding, I shall feed him; I've no fine sensitivities about the matter. Come on.”

So Rose did feed Jonathan because he began his I-am-starving routine the moment she sat down to wait for Letty. It seemed an age, worrying about what Letty was to learn. At least they hadn't let the grass grow under their feet. Full marks for that. No, siree. But that meant it was urgent, didn't it? Poor Letty. Poor Colin. They'd both need all the support possible.

Eventually just as Jonathan had fallen fast asleep with his stomach so full he was fit to burst, Letty returned. A transformed Letty. A bouyant, bouncing Letty. A shining Letty who bent to kiss her cheek and kiss the baby too.

“Oh, Rose! Oh, Rose! Come on, let's go.”

She picked up Rose's bag and hastened her out of the hospital. “Oh, Rose!”

Scurrying along behind her, Rose said breathlessly, “You've got the all clear then. It isn't cancer?”

Letty nodded her head.

“Oh!” With the baby firmly strapped in, Rose got into the driving seat. “Thank heavens for that. What is it then?”

Letty said. “I must be the biggest fool under the sun.”

“Oh, I don't know about that; you'd have to go a long way to beat me.”

Looking out of the side window to avoid Rose's eyes, Letty said, “I can't believe it, but they say, they say,” Letty took a deep breath, “I'm about four months pregnant. I feel such a fool. At forty-seven, it's not a joke, is it?”

Shocked, Rose took in a great gulp of breath, then huge relief made her blurt out, “It is not funny!” But Rose began to laugh; in fact, she roared with laughter until she complained of a stitch in her side. “Oh, Letty! All this worry. All these weeks. A baby! Oh, my God! No wonder you thought you had a lump. Some lump!” She went off into peals of laughter again, leaving no pause for Letty to speak. In the end it was catching, and Letty began to laugh too. Then relief and thankfulness became two emotions too many for Letty, and streams of tears began running down her cheeks, and yet she was laughing at the same time.

Rose got out a tissue from Jonathan's bag of necessities and gave it to her. “I can't believe you didn't think it could be a baby.”

“I'd given up all hope years ago and…at forty-seven I didn't dare think it, for one moment. I knew I felt differently, more sentimental and such, and I caught myself drooling over some kittens at the practice one day, and there was that day when I cried when you brought Jonathan in and I couldn't bear the sight of him. I was so desperate thinking that it was all much too late for me and Colin. Life didn't seem very fair that day. But I never thought…would you?”

“If I'd never been pregnant, then I suppose perhaps I wouldn't. Jeez! Colin's going to get a shock. Catch your breath and then ring him. Go on, use my phone.”

“No, no, I'll wait till I get home. Thanks.”

“I insist. Think how pleased he'll be. What's his mobile number? Here, it's ringing.”

Colin had just come in from a full day of calls and was standing by the reception desk talking to Kate. They were discussing her options if her chemistry grade wasn't an A. “But it will be!” said Colin. “It's bound to be.”

“It isn't bound to be. I got a D last time and it's a big jump up to an A. Sometimes I think I've done all right, others I'm totally convinced I've done really badly, like last time.”

“It is not the end of your life if you don't get in. It might feel like it, but it isn't. There are other avenues for you.”

Colin's mobile began ringing, and he hadn't appeared to notice. Kate said, “That's your phone, Colin.”

“So it is.” Colin took it from the clip at his waist and switched it on. “Oh, hello! It's you. Something wrong?”

Kate watched him as he listened, saw his face go pale. “The hospital. For a what? The line's breaking up. Say it again. A scan? Whatever for? Are you ill? I didn't know you had an appointment. Yes. Yes. What? I thought you said…You did. Hell's bells! How did that happen? Yes, yes, OK. I'll be home as soon as I can. Jeepers creepers!” Colin switched off his phone and stood gazing at it.

Kate asked, “Everything all right, is it, Colin?”

Colin looked at Kate. “She's getting a lift home from the hospital.”

“Letty?”

Colin nodded, eyes fixed again on his mobile, preoccupied and silent.

“Are you all right? I mean, is it bad news?”

Dazed might have been the best word to describe Colin's appearance—he moved like a man in a trance. Finally, as he reached the main door and opened it, he said, “Kate! You won't believe this, but I think Letty said she was pregnant. She can't be, can she?”

Kate grinned. “No good asking me; how could I know?”

“Mmm. No. Of course you don't. I can't understand it,” Colin said and left, shaking his head in disbelief.

But when he got home, Colin was finally convinced because Letty showed him the printout of the scan, and there for all to see was a baby. A baby he'd fathered, a child Letty had conceived, a child, which, after nearly sixteen years of marriage, was nothing short of a miracle. A total, definite, absolute, downright, without any doubt at all,
miracle.

“I thought I had cancer.”

“Why didn't you say?”

“I was too frightened.”

“Letty!”

“Rose made me go. You know what she's like for being so sweet and kind; somehow I just came out with it and said how terrified I was, so she made an appointment for me at the doctor's and took me. She was dreadfully rude to them, but it meant I got an appointment straightaway. I've been such a fool! I daren't believe that I might be pregnant.”

Colin studied the printout again. “It is true, isn't it?”

“Oh yes! But they don't tell you if they can see it's a boy or a girl unless you ask.”

“Did you ask?”

Letty shook her head. “I was in shock. It never occurred to me. I couldn't believe what was happening. I told Dr. Mason he was wrong. I refused to believe him, in fact. I said I'd got cancer. I told him I couldn't possibly be pregnant, not after years of giving up all hope. But it's true. Isn't it? I mean, look.” She showed him the printout again.

“When we wake up in the morning and it's still true, then I shall really believe it. I can't take it in right now.”

“I thought you…you said…you said ages ago you didn't want children. I was so disappointed when you said that, it took me weeks to get over it. You see, I thought I was a disappointment to you. I know they said we were both OK, keep trying, but I honestly felt it must be me.”

Colin put an arm around Letty's shoulders and kissed her temple. “I remember saying that, but I only said it so you wouldn't feel too badly about not having children. Thought it would help.”

“So you are pleased then?”

“Of course I am.” He squeezed her shoulder again, his eyes on the scan. “I can't believe it.”

“Neither can I. It feels like a dream. I've been so disappointed so many times. All that yearning and longing. Maybe that was why I bullied you so much.”

Colin opened his mouth to protest that she hadn't.

Letty laid a gentle finger on his mouth. “Hush! I
know
I did. Don't try to be kind. I did, Colin, and I'm ashamed of myself. Rose says Dan is pure gold, and I could say the same about you. Pure gold. And I'm sorry I've been so unpleasant all these years.” She stretched out her hand to straighten his tie for him. “It was you who sent me those flowers and the complimentary card from that beauty shop and the weekend in Paris. You organized that, didn't you?”

Colin nodded.

“I never guessed, you know, not till just now. Pure gold, I said, and pure gold you are. Thank you for that. It was just what I needed. It made such a difference to me. It made me a new person, lighter hearted, kind of. But it did the trick, didn't it?” Letty laughed up at him and was rewarded with another kiss. “We'll light the stove. I've laid it; it just needs a match, and to celebrate we'll have a predinner sherry before we eat and talk about babies and what we'll need. Dinner won't take five minutes to put together.”

Colin looked at her with a solemn expression on his face. “Mothers-to-be shouldn't drink alcohol.”

Letty's hand flew to her mouth. “Ohhhh! Of course not. I never thought! That's the loveliest thing anyone has said to me, ever.” A younger, fresher, more vibrant Letty kissed him on his mouth and then said, “I've always loved you, Colin, but it kind of got lost under layer upon layer of resentment and anger. But that's sloughed away like a snake shedding its skin, and it happened all in a moment.”

         

T
HE
news was all around the practice by first thing the next morning. The reaction to the news went from sheer hysteria at the amazingly unexpected announcement, to wholehearted delight. Colin had to take huge amounts of leg-pulling from the male members of the staff, and someone suggested with a wink that it must have been the trip to Paris that had done the trick. Others said how pleased they were for Letty and for him, and Dan mentioned the sleepless nights and the upheaval a small baby can make in a household, but he shook Colin's hand with vigor as he congratulated him.

Colin took it all in good humor but found Rhodri's response difficult to understand. He didn't say the right words, and the expression in his voice was all wrong. “Lucky man, you are, Colin,
bach.
Very lucky. Bit of a surprise for us all, let alone you and Letty. Still, congratulations are in order.” And he'd shaken Colin's hand with less enthusiasm than if he'd been congratulating him on winning the father's race at a school sports day.

But Colin wasn't to know how despairing Rhodri was. He'd had as much as he could take from Megan's father the previous night. Megan had asked him to go for a meal and take a look at their farm cats while he was there. She'd managed to capture them all in the tack room close to the house when she fed them that afternoon.

“They're mostly feral cats who appear and disappear at will. These two black ones are ours; we brought them with us when we moved. The rest we kind of inherited. I don't know much about it, but I wondered if they had cat flu. Some of them are very low in spirits, and three of them have sticky eyes. What do you think, Rhodri?”

Rhodri counted ten cats altogether. “You feed all these every day?”

“Well, our own two come in the house and are fed morning and night, but the others I feed out here every afternoon; and our two turn up in the hope of stealing food but they never do—they're too soft to put up a fight.”

“I suppose you never handle these others.”

“They won't let me.”

“See the gray and white? I'm pretty sure that has flu. Its eyes are all bunged up, and I saw it sneeze just then. Appears listless too, disinterested kind of. Those two ginger ones might be going the same way. Are yours vaccinated? I expect they are.”

“Yes, definitely. They won't catch it, will they?”

“They shouldn't. The only way is for me to prescribe antibiotics and for you to put it in their food every day, and hope for the best.”

“Is that all we can do?”

In the dim light in the tack room, Rhodri looked at her, the wholesomeness of her refreshing his spirits after his hard day. “Give me a kiss.” She did with her familiar gusto, arms wrapped round his neck, hair tickling his face, and in his nostrils the lovely fresh smell of her he so loved.

“Must go in, Rhodri, the vegetables will be boiling dry. You always smell so nice, of tweed and disinfectant.”

“Oh! Thanks. I did shower before I came out.”

“Doesn't matter, it's always there, but it's the nicest possible disinfectant. My favorite, but that's only because it's you. Come on, see Da.”

Rhodri's heart sank. The price he had to pay for Megan's company felt too high tonight. Old Man Jones was sitting scrunched up in his favorite chair, all the trappings of an invalid scattered on the usual table. Tonight, despite the warmth of the August evening, he had a rug over his knees.

“Good evening, Mr. Jones. How's things?”

“Much the same. Grateful for the slightest easing of the pain. What about the cats? Megan says she's asked you to take a look.”

“That's right. I'm fairly certain they've got flu. Well, some of them have, but the thought of taking blood samples from that wild lot! So I've decided a general intake of antibiotics will possibly do the trick, and we'll have to keep our fingers crossed.”

Mr. Jones almost snarled, “I've told her not to bother with the wild ones. They're a waste of her time. As if she doesn't have enough to do. Damned idiotic of her.”

Rhodri sat himself down on the sofa. “It's her kind heart; she can't help but adopt them.”

“You should know.”

Rhodri looked at him and raised a questioning eyebrow. Mr. Jones said with a sarcastic lilt to his voice, “Well, she's adopted you.”

“Are you putting me on the same level as a feral cat? Am I no more than that?”