‘How badly has the little girl been brain damaged?’
‘Oh,’ Sylvia shrugged, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you been to visit her?’ Sylvia flushed slightly.
‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘And don’t look at me like that! You know I’m no good in hospitals.’ She finished licking the envelope she was holding and put it down on the pile by her plate. ‘I’m holding this coffee-morning instead,’ she added, ‘as a gesture of support.’
‘Support!’ James guffawed with laughter.
‘It’ll be a fund-raising occasion,’ said Sylvia angrily, ‘so you can stop laughing, James.’
‘Oh, a fund-raising occasion.’ James grinned derisively. ‘I know your fund-raising methods. A sponsored gossip, is it? Fifty pence for every piece of information provided, whether true or not.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ cried Sylvia. She picked up a piece of toast and bit into it crossly. ‘Anyway,’ she added irrelevantly, ‘I thought you were supposed to be in Antwerp this week.’
‘I’m not going till Thursday.’
‘Good,’ said Sylvia, ‘you’ll be out of the way for my coffee-morning. How long are you there?’
‘Three days. Then I’m flying straight to Oslo.’
‘Even better,’ said Sylvia. She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms lazily. ‘Well, you needn’t hurry back.’
‘Don’t worry, my darling,’ said James, grinning at her, ‘I won’t.’
By eleven o’clock on the day of the coffee-morning, fourteen ladies had assembled in Sylvia’s drawing-room, and all were looking expectantly at the door. From the hall could be heard the rather flustered tones of Mary Tracey, who had just arrived. Mary, it was tacitly acknowledged by all, must know more about the whole affair than any of them. After all, she seemed to be Louise’s closest friend in the village.
And so, in deference to her, nobody began speaking on the subject of the swimming-pool accident until she had been persuaded to entrust baby Luke to the tender care of Mrs Greenly in the kitchen, had been led into the room, and then ensconced on a large Knole sofa in the centre of the room. Sylvia smiled warmly at her and held out a cup of coffee.
‘There you are,’ she said sweetly. ‘I hope it’s not too strong.’
‘Oh, er, no,’ said Mary, turning rather pink. ‘I’m sure it’s fine. Lovely.’
Mary didn’t usually attend Sylvia’s coffee-mornings, considering them a bit fancy for her, especially now she had Luke to consider. But Sylvia had been so charming on the telephone that she had felt unable to refuse. Now she looked around in slight alarm; she was probably the youngest woman in the room, and definitely the shabbiest.
There was a pause, as Sylvia returned to her own chair and took a sip of coffee. Then she drew breath. Everybody looked up.
‘And so, Mary,’ she said in sympathetic tones. ‘How is poor little Katie?’ Mary swallowed. Every eye seemed to be on her.
‘Well,’ she began hesitatingly, ‘she’s woken up from the coma.’
There was a general sigh of relief.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Mrs Prendergast, a large lady who lived across the road from Sylvia.
‘That’s marvellous news!’ said someone else, rather too gaily for Mary’s liking.
‘Yes,’ added Mary quickly, ‘but that doesn’t mean she’s better. She’s still very woozy, and they say …’ she swallowed and took a sip of coffee, ‘… they say she’ll probably be brain damaged.’ Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. What was wrong with her? she thought furiously. She’d known all about Katie for days. She should be able to speak more matter-of-factly about it, but somehow, telling all these women brought the horror of it back to her all over again. She felt a tear trickle down her cheek.
‘Oh, Mary!’ Suddenly Sylvia was by her side, stroking her hand. ‘Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.’
‘No, it’s all right.’ Mary struggled to control herself.
‘It’s just that we’re all so concerned about the poor little thing,’ continued Sylvia.
‘Brain damage!’ murmured one of the ladies sitting by the window. ‘How frightful.’
‘She won’t be a … you know, a total …’ Mary searched for an acceptable word, and gave up. ‘You know. And there is a small chance she might recover completely.’ She looked around the room hopefully, but none of the other ladies looked convinced by this show of optimism. They exchanged determinedly sombre glances.
‘How shattering it must be for them,’ exclaimed Mrs Prendergast, giving a little shudder. ‘I don’t know how I’d cope.’
‘Awful!’
‘Dreadful!’ There was a short respectful pause, then Sylvia turned to Mary.
‘But I gather’, she said in vague tones, ‘that there’s some talk of compensation? Damages? A court case?’ She cocked her head enquiringly. There was a tiny rustling sound as all the ladies moved forward on their seats.
‘Well,’ began Mary. She looked around. ‘Yes, that’s right. Louise and Barnaby are taking the Delaneys to court. Apparently …’ She paused and wiped her nose. ‘Apparently the Delaneys were negligent. The diving-board was dangerous.’
Mrs Prendergast gasped.
‘How horrendous!’ she cried. ‘I mean, my own children used to swim in that pool! They used to dive off that board all the time!’
‘So did mine!’ chimed in another lady. ‘To think it was dangerous all that time! It’s criminal!’ She looked around agitatedly.
‘Terrible!’ came another voice.
‘They haven’t actually proved anything yet,’ put in Mrs Quint, a quietly spoken woman who had so far contributed nothing to the conversation. ‘I don’t think it’s quite fair to assume it definitely was dangerous. And I have to say, it didn’t look particularly dangerous to me.’ The general air of excitement subsided slightly, and Mrs Prendergast looked rather aggrievedly at Mrs Quint.
‘Well, they wouldn’t be taking them to court if they didn’t have a case, would they?’ she said in triumphant tones.
There was a pause. No-one seemed able to contradict that assertion.
‘Well, I think those Kembers should go for everything they can get,’ said Janice Sharp, who had a weekend cottage in Melbrook and had come down especially for Sylvia’s coffee-morning. ‘Good luck to them! I mean, the Delaneys certainly look as though they can afford it.’ Mrs Prendergast nodded.
‘Did you know they’ve got houses all over Europe?’ she said, brushing crumbs vigorously off her lap.
‘Are you sure?’ said Mrs Quint.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Prendergast confidently. ‘One in France, certainly, and then I think there’s one in Italy and one somewhere else … They’ve got all that, but they’re too mean to keep their pool safe for our children to swim in! It’s outrageous!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Quint dubiously. ‘I’m not sure they’re as rich as that, and I assume the Kembers will be suing for a very large amount?’
All eyes turned to Mary, who blushed. She herself had been astounded when she’d heard the sort of sums that were being bandied about by Cassian and Louise. Staggered. But Cassian had been quick to show her exactly why Katie needed so much money and why it would be letting her down to claim any less. Mary blushed even harder as she remembered Cassian sitting next to her at Louise’s kitchen table, touching her bare arm with the soft cotton of his shirt; as she remembered the faint expensive scent of his aftershave and the way he smiled at her … Then, as she realized everyone was waiting for an answer, she shook her head impatiently to clear her thoughts, took a breath and said abruptly, ‘About half a million pounds. Or thereabouts.’ There was a sharp intake of breath around her.
‘What?’
‘You must be joking!’
Even Sylvia was surprised.
‘Is that true, Mary?’ she said. ‘Are they really going to ask for that much?’
‘So they say.’ Suddenly Mary became aware of the goggle eyes around her, and wondere
d whether she ought not to have kept some pieces of information to herself. But it was too late, exclamations of astonishment were breaking out all around the room. Mrs Prendergast was nodding at her neighbour and saying repeatedly, ‘I’m not at all surprised,’ in a defiant voice, as though daring someone to contradict her.
‘Imagine,’ said Janice Sharp. ‘Half a million pounds!’
‘That’s a lot of money,’ said Mrs Quint soberly. ‘Let’s hope the Delaneys are insured.’
Mary began to feel slightly defensive.
‘Well, Katie’s been very badly hurt!’ she exclaimed. ‘She may need special care for years. She deserves the money.’
‘Oh, I’m not saying …’ began Mrs Quint. She was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Sylvia stood up.
‘Do excuse me,’ she said, bestowing a gracious smile around the room, ‘and help yourselves to more coffee.’
There was animated chatter while she was gone. Mrs Quint tried to introduce a subject of more general interest into the conversation, but no-one appeared interested in the plight of her garden, nor willing to divulge their holiday plans.
‘I just think’, Mrs Prendergast was saying as the door opened, ‘that if people are actually charging you to use their pool, then they jolly well have a responsibility …’
Suddenly she was interrupted by Sylvia speaking from outside the room. Her voice was deliberately raised in a mixture of delight and malice, and she was saying, ‘Have you got time for a quick cup of coffee, Ursula?’
A couple of the ladies gasped. Mrs Prendergast’s head shot round. There, in the doorway, stood Ursula Delaney, with a benign expression on her face and a cake, sprinkled with almonds, balanced on her upturned hands.
‘Hello, everyone,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t stay, I’m afraid, but I wanted to contribute a little something.’
‘Not to worry, Ursula,’ said Sylvia, giving an amused little grin round the room. ‘I’d say it’s enough that you’ve come at all. You know most people here, don’t you?’ she added.
‘I think so,’ said Ursula, smiling vaguely around. She walked over to the table and deposited her cake. As she looked up again, there was an embarrassed shuffling. Nobody spoke.
‘Dear me!’ she exclaimed. ‘Please don’t stop the conversation just because of me. What were you talking about?’
There was a dreadful little silence. Mary Tracey felt her cheeks growing hotter and hotter. Then Mrs Quint cleared her throat.
‘I was talking’, she said firmly, ‘about the dreadful state of my garden.’ She looked severely at Mrs Prendergast. ‘Wasn’t I?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Prendergast hastily. ‘Yes, you were. And … and so was I,’ she added. ‘Mine’s in a terrible state, too.’
‘So is mine,’ chimed in several voices. Ursula looked around, a puzzled expression on her face.
‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘what bad luck! Our garden seems to be doing quite well.’ She gazed out of the window with a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘We do have very good mulch,’ she said eventually. ‘Perhaps that’s the answer.’
She looked around with raised questioning eyebrows. But no-one seemed to have a reply.
Chapter Eleven
Two weeks later a letter arrived for Hugh from his insurance company. He opened it at breakfast, read it, then silently put it back into the envelope.
‘What?’ said Meredith, whose eyes had homed in sharply on the logo on the front of the envelope. ‘What did they say?’
Ever since the announcement that Hugh and Ursula were going to be sued, Meredith had found herself waking every morning with an urgent fighting energy which she longed to put to good use. But Alexis had informed her candidly that there was little she could do in such early days, and he’d added again that the case was likely to last a very long time – maybe years.
Years of this tension? Meredith couldn’t stand the thought, and she knew she wasn’t the only one who was feeling the strain. While she’d been striding around the house with an impotent adrenalin; unable to work; unable to relax, Hugh had retreated silently into himself. His face was subdued and haggard; he’d admitted he wasn’t sleeping well.
‘What did they say?’ Meredith repeated, trying not to sound impatient.
Hugh looked up. He glanced at Ursula, who was peacefully eating a boiled egg and reading the Daily Mail, then attempted to smile optimistically at Meredith, but his eyes had a blank devastated look.
‘They think it’s most unlikely that they would be able to meet any claim for damages arising from a non-domestic use of the pool. They say …’ he gazed down at the letter, ‘they say that if we’d informed them that we were using it for a public function, they could have arranged additional cover. But we didn’t.’ Hugh put down the letter and looked bleakly at Meredith. ‘Basically, they say they’re not going to pay.’
‘Bastards!’ exclaimed Meredith. ‘They’re just using any excuse to weasel out of it!’
‘Maybe,’ said Hugh. He rubbed his face miserably. ‘But maybe they’re right. Maybe I should have given them a call; arranged extra insurance. It just never occurred to me …’ He broke off.
‘Let me see the letter,’ demanded Meredith. She grabbed the sheet from Hugh’s plate and scanned it. ‘It doesn’t say they definitely won’t pay,’ she said, after a few minutes. ‘It just says probably.’
‘I know,’ said Hugh, ‘but frankly, I don’t hold out much hope that they’ll change their minds.’
Meredith looked at the letter again.
‘I guess you’re right,’ she said. She leaned backwards in her chair and looked distantly out of the window. She couldn’t quite bear to meet Hugh’s gaze; to feel the unspoken implications of this letter flickering fearfully from his eyes to hers – bypassing Ursula, as did so many of their tacit communications. What if Hugh and Ursula somehow lost the case? she found herself thinking. What if they had to pay out huge damages? Hundreds of thousands of pounds? What would they do?
A bubbling fury rose up in Meredith and abruptly she pushed her chair back.
‘I’m going out,’ she said, and left the room before either Hugh or Ursula could comment.
She stalked out of the drive of Devenish House, and without really knowing what her intention was, strode briskly and deliberately towards Larch Tree Cottage, at the other end of the village. A vision of Hugh’s defeated eyes burned in her brain, making her stride more and more quickly, and she reached her destination panting slightly and wondering what she was about to do, exactly. But as she neared Larch Tree Cottage, she saw Louise coming out of the front door, and all hesitation disappeared.
‘I just thought you might like to know’, she said in a harsh abrasive voice, ignoring Louise’s gasp of surprise, ‘that it looks like our insurers are pulling out. So if you do win your God-awful case, Hugh and Ursula will have to pay you out of their own pocket and they’ll probably be ruined. Just so you know.’ She stopped halfway down the path, and looked at Louise for a reaction.
‘I’m afraid,’ began Louise in a shaky, but rather formal voice, ‘I really don’t think …’
‘No, you don’t, do you?’ broke in Meredith angrily. ‘You don’t think at all. If you did, you wouldn’t be bringing this fucking case to court. You wouldn’t be ruining the lives of two perfectly innocent people!’
‘I’m not …’
‘Do you know what this is going to do to them?’
‘Well, do you know what this accident has done to us?’ interrupted Louise, with sudden indignation. ‘Do you know what we’ve been going through? My God, you haven’t even visited Katie in hospital! None of you! You haven’t seen what state she’s in! So don’t start talking about ruining lives. You’ve no idea what this is like for us!’ Louise’s eyes blazed, blue and angry, at Meredith.
‘The reason we haven’t been to the hospital is because you’re suing us!’ Meredith’s voice rose, furious, through the air. ‘Did that ever occur to you? We’ve been advised not to go near
you. If you’d only drop the stupid case, we could help! We want to help!’
A smooth voice interrupted her.
‘If you want to help, you can leave the premises of my client at once.’
Both women’s heads whipped round. It was Cassian, coming out of the front door. Meredith scowled at him.
‘Yes,’ said Louise, emboldened by his arrival. ‘Just leave me alone, Meredith.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ said Meredith scornfully, ‘I’ll go, then. But just for the record, I do have some idea what you’re going through, you know …’
‘Will you please stop harassing my client,’ interrupted Cassian impatiently. Meredith ignored him and looked directly at Louise.
‘In case you’d forgotten, my husband went into a coma a few years ago, like your daughter. The difference is, he died.’ She broke off suddenly and Louise flushed faintly.
‘I can tell you now,’ Cassian said, ‘this outburst isn’t helping your case at all.’ He took out a notebook and began to write in it.
‘And the other difference is,’ said Meredith curtly, ‘I just accepted it. I didn’t look around for someone to blame, or try to make money out of it.’
‘I must request …’ began Cassian again.
‘Oh, fuck off, you little toad,’ interrupted Meredith. Louise broke in, without looking at Cassian.
‘Well, OK, so your husband died,’ she said, in a jerky voice, ‘but maybe what’s happened to Katie is worse; she could be brain damaged for life!’
‘Louise,’ snapped Cassian, ‘this conversation has got to stop. Go and get in the car.’ Louise glanced at him hesitantly, then obeyed.
‘Right,’ said Cassian. He brought out a mobile phone. ‘Now,’ he said to Meredith. ‘I can call the police – or you can go now.’
Without answering, Meredith began to walk back down the path. She stopped as she passed the car and tried to catch Louise’s eye, but Louise frowned and looked away. Meredith shrugged, and carried on walking back to Devenish House.
* * *
Hugh had spent the rest of breakfast patiently explaining to Ursula the meaning of the letter from the insurers, trying to make the situation quite clear, without frightening her. When he’d finished, she looked at him with a face only mildly wrinkled with anxiety, and said, ‘Oh dear.’