The Godmother (34 page)

“Someone's looking for me?”

“I tried knocking, I buzzed, we've rung and rung, I got worried…”

“Who?” Had James come to tell me that Ben had got it wrong, he didn't have children, there was no wife. Or that there were all those things but he couldn't live without me, and he was leaving them. Or was it B—

“Billy. You must call her, it is urgent.”

I groaned. “I'll call her back later—”

“She is in the hospital.”

Billy was in hospital? My brain started moving. Billy was in hospital? Moving faster. Billy didn't go to hospital. Bam—I was awake. The most effective smelling salts invented. Unless—

“Cora,” I said, leaping out of bed. My legs gave way under me. I fell. What the hell had I taken? Roman helped me to a chair and brought me clothes as I drank his coffee and listened to the answerphone.

8:30 a.m. “Tessa, are you there? Your phone's switched off. Pick up.”

8:45 a.m. “I have a huge favor to ask you. Cora isn't well and Magda can't sit for her, she's got exams this whole week. Please, please could you come over…I guess you're in the shower. Call me when you're out.” I turned my mobile phone on, it immediately started to bleep. I had six missed calls. Five from Billy. One from Ben.

8:50 a.m. “Don't worry, the Calpol is working and she says she's feeling better. She's going to school. Call me, anyway, at work.”

11:28 a.m. “Tessa, slight panic. Cora's in the sickroom with quite a high fever—any chance you could be fairy godmother? I'm the only one at work, Sue's on holiday. Sorry to ask. If you can't, don't worry, I'll sort something out. Is your mobile broken?”

3:02 p.m. “I'm at Chelsea and Westminster. Cora is very ill. Please call me.”

3:44 p.m. “Where are you?!”

5:02 p.m. “Will you come? Whenever you get this message, just come…”

7:59 p.m. “They've done a lumbar puncture and they're taking her to intensive care. Tessa, they think it's meningitis…Oh my God, where are you? They say I should prepare myself for the worst…”

8:03 p.m. Dialing tone.
The worst
…?

8:22 p.m. Dialing tone.
The worst
…?

I didn't hear how many more times Billy had tried to call only to get the answering machine, because, half-dressed, I threw myself out of the chair and ran unsteadily to the door, leaving Roman in the middle of my bedroom looking bewildered.

He followed me into the corridor. “Mizz King, you should take it easy.”

“Don't you understand?” I shouted. “They need me.”

I saw him shaking his head as the lift doors closed. On Vauxhall Bridge Road I hailed a taxi. Sitting in the back of it anxiety, lethargy and disbelief overwhelmed me. Had I really slept through an entire day? I tapped on the driver's partition.

“Could you turn that up, please?” I asked.

According to BBC Five Live, it was true. It was Friday. The midday news. A scandal had erupted in government, according to the presenter, following “yesterday's revelations”…I had slept through a scandal. I had lost a day of my life. I hadn't been there when Billy and Cora needed me. I didn't know very much about meningitis except it killed children unless caught in time.
Any chance you could be fairy godmother?
No. I'd been too busy wallowing in self-pity. I shifted uncomfortably in the back of the taxi recalling how I'd sat on a park bench, in front of children, and swigged wine from a bottle. I recoiled at the thought of myself stumbling into my building wearing the dressing gown I'd stolen. What sort of crazy behavior was that? I remembered taking the first pill because I desperately wanted to stop thinking about Ben and James, Sebastian, my ex-boss and all the other pitiful excuses of relationships that I've had. Obviously I didn't realize how inebriated I was or I would never, ever have taken the pills with…I stared out of the window as the Embankment shot passed. I could still taste the bitter residue the pills had left at the back of my throat, and the sting of vodka as I gulped them down. I tried Billy's number again. It was still switched off. I stared out at the cloudless, blue sky and imagined the worst.

I paid the driver and, still uncertain on my legs, climbed out of the taxi. I felt stupidly weak as I half jogged, half walked through the massive revolving doors of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. The man behind the crescent reception desk took one look at me, excused himself from the person he was talking to and offered me his assistance. He rapidly explained where I would
find the children's ward, and told me I would be directed to the children's intensive care unit from there. I ran the length of the hospital to the correct bank of lifts and pressed the button. I was tapping my foot nervously; I looked up at the illuminated numbers to track the painfully slow journey of the lift coming down and saw a small cloud pass over the glass atrium of the hospital. Was I hallucinating or did that cloud look like an—

No, you can't have her back, I thought, shaking my head at the sky. Do you hear me? My heart was pounding in my chest so furiously I couldn't quite catch my breath. The lift doors finally opened. I stared into the empty lift and was frozen to the spot. Go on, I told myself, but my feet refused to move. Go on! I stood resolutely still. The lift doors started to close again; only when they were halfway across did I put my hand out to stop them. Get in the fucking lift, I told myself. My head was full of vile thoughts; funerals, coffins, eulogies, sympathy…I was losing my goddamn marbles. Why didn't I want to reach Cora's floor? Because of what I would have to face? Or what I would have to face up to?
The world is full of trickery
, but none more damaging than how we trick ourselves. I pressed the button for her floor.

If Cora was all right I would lock my thoughts of Ben away for ever. If Cora was all right, I would cease with these foolish dreams. If Cora was all right, I would be all right. Please, God, listen to me and look after all those I love. I felt the hydraulics hiss into action, up I went, one floor, two, three. Finally the lift doors opened. A haggard, grey-haired, shriveled woman was standing right in front of me. She burst into tears the moment she saw my face. It was Billy.

“She's going to be OK,” sobbed Billy.

I managed to stop my legs from buckling.

“What?”

“She's going to be fine.”

I stepped out of the lift, my heart still pounding in my chest. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“Sure.” Billy hugged me. “It's not meningitis, it's all right, Tessa. It's not meningitis.”

I still wasn't quite with her. I wasn't even sure it was really Billy. It sounded like her, but she looked so different. “Your message said…”

“I was going mad, she was so ill. My God, her temperature was so high and she was totally unresponsive. I thought I was looking at a corpse, I swear, I've never been so terrified in my life and they were doing all these tests to find out what it was. I was panicking…” We hugged again. “They did a lumbar puncture, to rule out the worst. All I heard was meningitis…They were worried, Tessa, I was so frightened. I'm sorry, I thought I called you back.”

“Doesn't matter, is she OK now?”

“She's not well, but it's not meningitis. I mean, it's still serious, just not like that.”

“What is it?”

“Pneumococcal pneumonia, common in children who've been ventilated at birth. That's why she was so unresponsive, it was her chest, poor thing. It's really weak and they say she'll need physio on it, but fucking hell, physio I'll take, physio I'll take any day…”

I put my arm around Billy's shoulders as we walked in no particular direc
tion. I felt her lengthy exhalation. “I've never been so frightened in my life,” she said, leaning against me.

You and me both, I thought.

“I'm so relieved, I can't tell you,” said Billy.

I watched one foot move in front of the other. Relieved? I was obviously in too much shock to feel the relief quite yet. Although my heart beat had slowed, I still felt winded.

“I'm sorry I didn't call you back,” said Billy.

So was I. I'd made a pact with God. Shut up, Tessa.

“Where've you been? Your phone's been switched off for days. I called your building and left a message with your security guy.”

It wasn't the time to share my last forty-eight hours with Billy. “There was a problem with my SIM card,” I replied.

“I rang the flat—”

“I'm sorry you couldn't get hold of me. Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

“I was about to go and get something to eat, I haven't eaten since yesterday. Do you have time?”

“Of course, but what about Cora?”

“She's sleeping. She's fine.”

“You sure?”

“Honestly, Tessa, she's all right now, they've got it under control.” We turned round and walked back to the lifts. “I wouldn't be leaving her if she wasn't. A quick bite to eat and I'll go back.”

We summoned the lift again and went downstairs. The atrium was filled with bright sunlight; we walked through the hospital and out into the stunning blue day. I looked up; the wisp of cloud had vanished. I shook my head quietly to myself. What had I thought I'd seen? Cora's soul? An angel? Her angel? Myself dressed in black, standing at a lectern, a coffin below me, a crowd out front?
Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings
…What the hell was wrong with me? I must have sighed more loudly than I'd realized.

“She's going to be all right,” said Billy, taking my arm and leading me across the pedestrian crossing. I nodded. I didn't trust myself to speak.

We found Bella Pasta. It was bustling with lunchtime trade, but Billy seemed reassured by the noise and haste. We weren't the only ones who'd escaped the hospital for some better quality sustenance: the restaurant was full of the walking wounded. There was a kid in a sling. A woman in a cast. A man on crutches. Each patient had at least two people with them. Mothers, fathers, grannies, friends. Billy had me. Better late than never, I guess. She told me about her hectic morning, bustling Cora off to school against her better judgment but with no alternative; the call from the school, the race to the hospital, Cora blacking out, her temperature rising, the lumbar puncture…I listened intently. So intently I almost drowned out my own thoughts. Almost, but not quite. The plate of pasta that was put down in front of me seemed to empty before I'd lifted the fork. I was hungry. I would be. The last thing I had eaten was lobster in the White Room in Blakes Hotel, I realized. How much had that cost, I wondered? It depended on the daily market price but I hadn't stuck around to check the bill. I ordered a side salad, which wasn't enough so I ordered pudding too. I needed refueling. I needed my head examined. I'd made a bargain with God, and he'd come up with the goods. Now I had to tread carefully.

“…would you mind doing that?”

I looked at Billy.

“Please?” she asked.

“Um, you know I'd do anything for you.”

“Thank you.” She passed me a piece of paper with a couple of numbers on it. There was a name above it.

“Oh no, Billy—”

“You just said you would.”

“I didn't think you meant call Christoph now,” I replied bluffing. I couldn't tell her I hadn't been listening. “I thought you meant, you know, about court, about the money. Why would I call him about Cora?”

“Please, Tessa. He has a right to know.”

“That's questionable. What do you think he's going to do about it? Come flying in on the private jet he says he doesn't use?”

“You said you'd do anything for me. What was that—some throwaway line?”

“No.” Yes. “No. I would, I just don't think you should phone him.”

“He has a right to know that his daughter is sick.”

“But she's going to be fine, you said so yourself.”

“She still needs him. Please, Tessa,” her voice was wobbling.

“You do it,” I insisted.

“He doesn't answer my calls.”

“He will if you tell him that Cora is ill.”

She shook her head.

“Well, he sure as hell won't listen to me then,” I said. “He never liked me.”

“But he'll believe you.”

I was getting frustrated. Now wasn't the time for this. Damn Christoph, and all like him. “What's not to believe? That his daughter got pneumonia because he is a tight-fisted lying bastard?”

“Come on, Tessa, it wasn't his fault she got ill. Please, just call him and tell him what's happened.”

“Oh, really? So it isn't his fault that you can't stay home and look after Cora when she's sick. It's not his fault that she doesn't get better care. It's not his fault that you can't afford a nanny to look after her when you are at work? It's not his fault that you never turn on the bloody central heating…”

“Tessa, look at me. I haven't slept, I'm wrung out, now is not the time for this.”

“You're right. You should go home, have a rest, and then decide whether you want me to make this call. You're not thinking rationally.”

“Thank you for that,” said Billy, stiffly, “but I'm not leaving Cora.”

“I'll stay with her. You should get some sleep. You're no help to Cora in this state.”

Billy glared at me, then methodically placed her fork and spoon across her plate.

“I mean, honestly, Billy, when are you going to see this for what it is?”

“Tessa…” warned Billy. But I wasn't to be warned.

“She doesn't need him, Billy. She needs you, not some mythical figure you call her father. She doesn't know him, she doesn't think about him, I don't think she even cares about him. It's you. You're projecting all of this on to poor Cora's head.”

Billy started fussing with the empty plates, then she waved at the waitress. I could see she was biting back the tears.

“I'm sorry, Billy, but I have enough information on Christoph to make sure you get plenty of money.”

She reached for the bill.

I tried to take it from her. “It's OK, I'll pay for it,” I said.

“No thanks,” said Billy. “I can cover this.”

“For God's sake, let me pay.”

“No!” shouted Billy. “Stop shoving cash in my hand. I can pay for my own lunch!”

“What the hell are you getting cross with me for?”

“Leave me alone, Tessa. Please.”

“I'm trying to help you.”

Billy looked at me. “No, you're not. You are not helping me at all. What you are doing is what you always bloody do. If anyone is using Cora, it's you! Somehow you manage to turn this into your own little drama, with you at the center of everything, telling us how to live our lives when you can't fucking well live your own! So, please, just leave me alone.”

“What are you talking about? You just asked me to call Christoph.”

“I know. It was a mistake.”

I was momentarily wrong-footed. “You don't want me to call any more?”

Billy looked at me for a moment. “Can't you see what you're doing?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on, Tessa. I know I may be treading water waiting for the impossible to happen—”

“Christoph to grow a heart.”

Billy ignored me. “But you are just treading water.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You. Whoever you are.”

“Now you're being ridiculous…”

“You can dish it out, but you can't take it.”

That was probably true. I didn't have siblings so I had never learned to be teased. Or share. I wasn't very good at sharing. I was generous. I gave a lot of things, but I didn't share my things. Thinking about it, I was quite particular
about that. Maybe I didn't want to share my life. Maybe that was the problem. My moment of clarity was short-lived.

“The Tessa King I know has got lost in some parallel universe where God knows what is happening, while you just fill the gap in her absence.”

I shook my head with a laugh. “I think you've just described yourself perfectly.”

“You're right. I'm stuck on Christoph, I wish to bloody hell I wasn't, but it was at least real, what we had was real, we had a child together. Do you have any idea how that feels? I love her so much it hurts me,” she jabbed at her stomach. “I thought the last forty-eight hours were going to kill me—you want that, you really ready for that?”

“I…” I tried to fish a response from the sea of words that engulfed my brain, but nothing I liked hooked on, so I threw them back in.

“We were together for eight years, Tessa—”

“Off and on.”

“Fuck it, there's no point talking to you—” I watched her count out enough cash to leave for lunch. I wanted to take that back immediately and apologize, but the words were strangling me. Billy threw her purse back in her bag, took her coat off the back of the chair and put it on. Don't go, I wanted to plead. This was all going wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I was the rock. I was the lynchpin, the fulcrum, the dependable one. They needed me.

“What about Cora?”

Billy didn't even bother looking at me. “What about her?”

“Can't I see her?”

“You know what? No. Go home, go back to doing whatever you were doing when I did need you.”

Now who was being overdramatic? “I'm sorry I wasn't around when you needed me. There is a reason, Billy,” I said, suggestively, “but I didn't want to bother you with it.” I was relieved because I knew I had my pills and vodka “get out of jail” card. Billy stared at me, then sighed heavily. But she didn't bite. So I went on.

“And I'm sorry I won't call Christoph, but—”

Something in her snapped. “Fucking hell, Tessa,” she shook her head. “You don't listen, do you?” Billy grabbed her bag. “I've got to go. Thanks for coming.”

“Billy?”

“Bye.” I watched her leave the restaurant then sat back down. I ordered a coffee. I shrugged apologetically at the waitress. Billy was stressed. Billy was tired. Billy was in denial. Poor Billy. I looked at the telephone numbers still in my hand. OK, I'd do it. For Billy. Pulling out my phone, I dialed Christoph's number.

I knew where Christoph was, I'd spent the previous week spying on him. He was building a second yacht for Sheikh Ahmed in Dubai, estimated to cost a staggering £13.5 m, of which Christoph would get a 20 percent commission. That didn't factor in the backhanders and tickles that he would receive from every fixture and fitting manufacturer in the boat-building business. Nor did it factor in the first boat he'd built, the one that cost a measly £5 m. The one he'd been photographed standing on, alongside his wealthy client, for
Ahlan!
—Dubai's version of
Hello!
He was ludicrous, and Billy was ludicrous to carry a torch for him.

There was no answer, or he was ducking the call, so I called the other number. His London home. “Hello?”

“Is that Mrs. Tarrenot?” I asked.

“Yes,” came a wary reply.

“It's Tessa King. I'm Cora's godmother.”

“Oh, hello. Christoph isn't here at the moment, can I take a message?”

“I'm in the hospital. Cora is ill.”

“Again?”

“What do you mean again?”

“Um, well—”

I cut her off. “Cora has pneumonia. They thought it was meningitis.”

Christoph's second wife didn't respond.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes…” I meant to sound certain, but this woman wasn't being very nice and I felt my voice crack. “I'm sorry…Obviously Christoph needs to…” My voice cracked again. My jaw ached with the stress of trying to hold off the tears and get the words out. “It's been a bit stressful,” I managed. I couldn't tell her I was crying because I'd just had an argument with my friend.

“It's all right. I'm sorry. Tell me what you want me to do.”

I pulled myself together. “Can you give me the number of where he is?”