I Should Be So Lucky (34 page)

She turned back to the dithering receptionist. ‘Sorry, but where can I find her? Have you got her name right? Rachel Hendricks?’

‘She’s through there with her mate.’ Benedict pointed to a pair of swing doors as the receptionist carried on clicking the computer and tapping her head. ‘They wouldn’t let me in. I didn’t know … I mean, I had no clue, honestly. I just, like, met her, you know, down Portobello.’

‘You know Rachel? My
daughter
Rachel? Are you sure?’

‘I didn’t know her surname. Didn’t connect her with you, not once, no way.’ He was defensive now, clearly waiting to be told off. ‘I didn’t give her anything. But …’

‘
Give
her anything? Give in what sense? Tell me what
you
know, Benedict: what
the hell
is wrong with her? Has there been an accident?’

‘No, not an accident. Or, well, yeah, in a way. Her drink got spiked at my party. She’d had quite a lot of drink as well and she went all weird and collapsed so we got an ambulance. I didn’t know she was only fifteen.’ He kicked out at a pillar. ‘Fuck, why didn’t she
say
?’

Viola could almost have let herself smile at that. Why on earth would any just-fifteen-year-old girl tell a boy she fancied that she was way too young for him? ‘And I didn’t know she’d be at your party! I had no idea you even knew her. She never said,’ she snapped at him. Poor boy, she then thought, it was hardly his fault. ‘So what the hell did this “someone” give her?’

‘Not sure.’ He shrugged. ‘OK, it was ketamine. Soz.’

‘Jesus, what completely
stupid
idiots your so-called friends must be!’

‘Sorry. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have let them.’

‘Mrs Hendricks?’ The tapping receptionist looked as if she’d had a breakthrough. ‘Your daughter’s been a patient here before, hasn’t she?’

‘No. No, she hasn’t. Look, I do want to see her, please. Have you got it right? Rachel Hendricks.’

‘Oh!’ The mists cleared from the receptionist’s face suddenly. ‘My mistake! I’ve got her down as
Katherine
Hendricks – to be called Kate, it says here.’

‘Kate is her middle name; now can I please …’

‘Oh, well, that explains it! Silly me. See, I thought she
was
the same as this other one, but the age doesn’t tally. I had her down for a head injury, about a year and a half ago. Right, I’ll book her in again then.’ She started pecking at the keyboard with her long blue nails.

Something shifted in Viola’s brain, something about as seismic as it could get. ‘What date, the head injury?’ she asked, hardly more than whispering, already knowing exactly what she was going to hear.

‘I can’t tell you that, sorry. Patient confi—’

‘February 24th?’ Viola interrupted.

‘How did you know?’ Viola was looking at a big smile and wide blue eyes as astonished as if she’d accomplished an especially amazing trick.

‘Lucky guess,’ she said.
Lucky
. Hardly. The photograph she’d found in Kate’s bedroom of Kate, Rhys and herself at her wedding came to mind. Rhys and Kate, looking at each other and laughing. Had it been going on even
then
?

‘Your daughter’s through there.’ The receptionist pointed. ‘Cubicle three.’

Viola pushed past Benedict and was through the doors before the girl had finished her sentence. Rachel was lying on a trolley with a blanket over her, looking pale and sickly. Emmy was beside her and a nurse was checking Rachel’s blood pressure.

The nurse looked up, smiled and said, ‘She’s going to be all right, don’t worry. Teenagers – we get this.’

‘I’m sorry, Viola,’ Emmy muttered, her eyes filling
with
tears. ‘It was, like, so someone else’s fault, not ours.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Em. Nobody’s died. It doesn’t matter.’ Viola took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it gently. Rachel opened her eyes and squinted at her mother. ‘’m OK, Mum. Please don’t fuss about it, will you?’

‘No. I won’t fuss. Not right now, anyway.’

Rachel looked a lot younger than fifteen, more like a small, ill child. Would police be involved? If so, that was probably going to be more Benedict’s department, poor lad.

‘She’ll be fine,’ the nurse said. ‘Vital signs are all normal and she’s thrown up all the alcohol as well, so that’ll help. I just need her to stay for an hour or so to be on the safe side, then the doctor will sign her off and you can take her home. I’d get a cup of tea if I were you. You look like you could do with one. Machine’s in the corridor, in reception.’

‘I will, then I’ll come straight back and wait with Rachel. Emmy, tea?’

‘Yes, please. Two sugars?’ Emmy’s voice was small and defeated-sounding.

Viola leaned forward and gave her a hug. ‘It’ll be OK. You did the right thing, bringing her here and calling me. Give me a minute, I’ll be right back with the tea.’

Viola went out of the building and moved a little way apart from the small collection of nervy smokers exiled from the department. The night was soft, still warm and
heavy-aired
as if a thunderstorm wasn’t far away. She pulled her phone from her bag and scrolled down to Kate’s number, feeling anger and hurt deeper than any she’d ever, ever, experienced before. Oh yes, bad news definitely came in the middle of the night: Kate was about to get some
right now
.

‘Waited till 2, planted and left. Take it you changed mind.’ Oh God, Greg! At nine in the morning, Viola emerged from nowhere near enough sleep and found his message on her phone when she went down to the kitchen to make tea. The night before, all thoughts of hanging out in the dark and planting a load of bulbs had gone from her head the moment she’d had the call from Emmy. He’d understand, wouldn’t he? She hoped so, but for now, with all that was on her mind, it was a little as if she wanted to put him in a cupboard and bring him out later after she’d dealt with Kate, wherever she was. She hadn’t been at home – at 1.30 in the morning. To Viola’s furious frustration, nobody had answered either Kate’s home phone or her mobile, and she’d shouted impotently into the cold void of voicemail.

She quickly texted Greg: ‘So sorry – was a daughter emergency. Talk later?’

Viola took tea upstairs to Rachel, but she was fast asleep still. For about the fourth time since they’d got home, Viola gently felt her forehead for signs of fever, but her skin was cool and soft. The poor girl was going
to
have one hell of a hangover when she did wake, so Viola left her to sleep and went and had a shower. Marco, who she’d called as soon as she woke, was on his way over. Kate she would see later that morning, and then … oh God, what actually to say?

After she’d been unable to contact her sister, the momentum of the spontaneous fury that would have given her the immediate words she needed had died down, and she had spent the whole restless night rehearsing all kinds of speeches, every sort of confrontation. If only this didn’t have to happen at all, but it was going to be today, and it looked like it was going to be more public than she’d anticipated. Naomi had phoned, rounding all three of her children up for a family conflab later that morning, and making it sound important and serious enough for there to be no excuses for backing out. There would be no chance to get Kate alone before then, so it would have to
be
then.

‘Oh my goodness, look at the state of
you
!’ Marco, clutching tissue-wrapped flowers, came out to the garden with Viola to where Rachel was lying on a lounger in the sun with sunglasses on, and an expression of ongoing agony. ‘Do we feel sorry for ourselves or what?’

‘I so do,’ she agreed. ‘Never, ever, going out again. Not that Mum will let me, anyway, I’m certain sure.’

‘Oh, you’ll be over it soon. Here, a nice little posy of get-well sweet peas for you.’

‘Oh, gorgeous, thanks!’ she said, inhaling their scent. ‘But can’t you just be cross with me? Mum is.’

‘Too right I am!’ Viola told her, smiling at Marco.

‘She’s cross with you for lying and being sly, and so am I, don’t even
think
of doubting it. But we’re far more relieved that you’re not in intensive care. What were you doing, being just up the road from me and not even calling in? I call that rude.’

‘Sorry, Dad.’ A big tear trickled down Rachel’s cheek.

‘Hey, don’t cry. You can’t be a teenager and not make mistakes. It goes with the territory.’

‘It’s not just teenagers,’ Viola said wryly. ‘There are plenty of grown-ups who still make them.’

Of all the places to have it out with Kate, Viola wouldn’t have chosen the front path at her mother’s house. Viola pulled up in the Polo just as Kate was getting Beano out from the back of her own car. Miles climbed out of the passenger seat, looking, Viola thought, even plumper and more lumbering than usual.

‘Any idea what this is all about?’ Kate asked. ‘A three-line-whip kind of summons from Mum? Perhaps she’s going to announce she’s flogging off the homestead after all.’

‘You two wouldn’t be keen on that, would you?’ Viola said.

‘Well, we have always said it wouldn’t be sensible. You know my ideas on the perfect solution. Perhaps she’s going to ask you to move back in.’ Miles looked pleased with himself at the prospect of being right.

‘You haven’t returned my calls, Kate,’ Viola told her. ‘Are you avoiding me?’

‘What calls? Sorry, I must remember to check my voicemails. And no, of course I’m not avoiding you. Why would I?’ She locked her car and bent to put Beano on his lead, fussing with his collar.

It had to be now. Viola felt her heart rate whizz skywards.

‘Kate, I know what you did. And if you’d listened to your phone you’d know exactly what I mean.’

Kate, still crouching over Beano, seemed to freeze. ‘Did when?’ she said eventually, not looking at Viola.

Viola took a step closer and Kate stood up and faced her, frowning, eyes cold and glittery. Viola was aware of the front door opening and Naomi coming out. Miles went over to Kate and took Beano’s lead from her. For a moment, Viola had the impression that he must be thinking there was going to be a full-scale fight.

‘I was at the hospital last night with Rachel and I found out.’

‘Is Rachel all right? What happened?’ Miles asked.

‘She’s fine. But you weren’t, were you, Kate? Not when
you
were there. You hurt your head in the crash.
You
were
in
the car with Rhys when he died.
You
were the one who called the ambulance.’

Breathe, Viola told herself. In and out, stay even, stay calm. All three of them were lined up now, in front of her. Naomi standing to the side, Kate in the middle.

‘And even after you’d run off with my
husband
, cheating bastard though he was, at the hospital you even nicked my bloody
name
. Why didn’t you use your own? Or Rhys’s, come to that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kate sighed. ‘I panicked. I just
panicked
. I was hurt, just …’

‘
Hurt? You
were hurt? Rhys was
dead
!’

‘Fucking hell, Viola!’ Kate screamed at her. ‘Do you think I didn’t know that? I had to climb over his
body
to get out of that car and then sit next to it in the fucking
ambulance
and then later say
nothing
and keep it all bottled up while everyone felt sorry for
you
and you were the big victim at the funeral! Mum and Miles wouldn’t even let me grieve properly just so
you
wouldn’t get upset! It’s all about bloody
you
! All about protecting precious little accident-prone, unlucky baby
you
!’ She unlocked her car and opened the door to climb back inside, then looked back at the others, furious and tearful. ‘So you see? Now she knows and we can all stop playing bloody charades!’

‘You knew?’ Viola accused the other two, feeling faint. Neither of them spoke, which told her everything. Kate waited by her open car door, looking unsure.

‘You sent those cards,’ Viola suddenly realized, feeling chilled. ‘Even now, you wanted me out of my own
house
.’

‘Every time I went there, it reminded me of being with him. And of seeing
you
playing happy families with him. How do you think that felt? I’m so sorry, Vee.’ Kate was crying now. ‘But you know, you hadn’t a clue about Rhys. You never loved him, not really, and he didn’t love you – I was just too married to Rob at the time we got together and I hadn’t the guts to leave till it was all way, way too late. Rhys was
everything
to me.’ She leaned against the car and sobbed. Miles went and put his arm round her, looking like a big awkward boy.

Viola felt sick. ‘Oh God, that’s exactly what Rhys said about you,’ she said, her voice quiet and empty.

‘Come into the house
now
, all of you,’ Naomi commanded, ‘You’ll have old Joe next door coming out with his video camera. Come on, I’ll put the kettle on. Or maybe I should just open the gin.’

‘I don’t want to,’ Viola said, backing away. ‘I just want to go home, back to Rachel. Marco’s with her.’

‘No, you
have
to come in. I’ve got things
I
want to say. I’ve made a decision and you all need to hear about it.’

Viola felt exhausted. All her fury with Kate had melted away at that one poignant sentence: ‘
Rhys was
everything
to me
’. How much more Kate must have lost than she had when Rhys died. And she’d carried that loss and that love in silence all these long, sad months.

Miles led the still sobbing Kate into the house behind Naomi, and Viola trailed in after them.

‘Straight through to the back garden, I think. Fresh, reviving air.’ Naomi ushered them outside and went back into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. Viola, reluctant to join the other two, hung about in the kitchen, taking the old Jubilee biscuit tin out of the larder and piling up Jaffa cakes on a plate.

‘What’s the decision? Can you tell me now, then I can go? I don’t want to stay here with Kate.’ Viola could hear her own voice sounding sulky, like a bad child.

‘You’re staying. Just hear me out. This isn’t any easier for me than what you’ve just put Kate through.’ Naomi made the tea.