Emily

Chapter Nineteen

I woke up next morning feeling ghastly, went straight to the loo and was violently sick. I had a blinding headache, took four Alka-Seltzers and was sick again. Rory was still fast asleep.

I tiptoed around the bedroom getting my clothes on. I only just managed to make it to Finn’s surgery.

There was only one woman in there when I arrived. Finn came out. He looked tired, but he smiled at me reassuringly.

‘I’ll just see Mrs Cameron first,’ he said. ‘She won’t take long.’

I gazed unseeingly at magazines and wondered why I was feeling quite so awful. Finn’s receptionist eyed me with interest.

Mrs Balniel looking like a road accident, she must have been thinking.

Mrs Cameron came out, thanking Finn effusively, and I went into his surgery.

It was large, and rather untidy, and amazingly comforting. Finn shut the door and leant against it. Then he came across the room and kissed me. It was a different kiss from last night. That was alcohol and pent-up emotion. This was slow, measured, tender, and left me just as weak with lust.

‘Aren’t we doing fearful things to the Hippocratic Oath?’ I said, flopping on to a chair.

‘I couldn’t give a damn. You aren’t my patient yet, though you ought to be, you look terrible!’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘And infinitely desirable. Nothing a few weeks away from Rory wouldn’t cure.’

‘I was as sick as a dog all morning,’ I said. ‘Nerves and booze, I suppose.’

‘I’ll tell Miss Bates to shove off, then I’ll give you a going over.’

‘You’d better wipe that lipstick off first,’ I said.

Finn laughed.

He wasn’t laughing half an hour later.

‘You’re pregnant,’ he said.

I was stunned by the news. ‘But I can’t be pregnant!’ I gasped. ‘Rory hasn’t laid a finger on me for months.’ Then I remembered. ‘Oh, God,’ I said.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Finn.

‘After that row on Christmas Eve when you knocked Rory over, he was so mad with rage, he sort of raped me.’

‘That must have been it,’ said Finn.

My brain was whirling. Me — pregnant with Rory’s child! What sort of chance would a baby have with Rory not loving me, and me fancying Finn absolutely rotten all of a sudden? I had a nightmare vision of Rory and me shouting at each other across the baby’s cot, of the baby crying all day, and Rory going spare because he couldn’t work.

‘Oh, heavens,’ I said shakily.

Finn went to a cupboard in the corner of the room and got out a bottle of brandy and two glasses. ‘We’d better have a drink,’ he said.

As I watched him fill the glasses, I was filled with a ridiculous mawkish sadness. I’ll never be able to memorize every freckle on his face now, I thought, or see the grey hairs gradually take the fire out of that red mane.

He put a glass beside me, then took hold of my frozen hands. His were warm and strong and comforting; I felt an irresistible urge to collapse in tears on his shoulder.

‘It’s a hell of a mess,’ he said gently, ‘but it doesn’t matter, we’ll sort something out.’

‘Can we?’ I asked dolefully.

‘Look,’ he went on. ‘You and Rory are washed up. Anyone can see that. Do you want to keep the baby?’

I thought for a minute. ‘Yes I do. Very much.’

‘That means you’ll stay with Rory?’

‘What else can I do?’ I said bitterly. ‘I’m signed up for this gig and I’ve got to play.’

‘You can move in with me.’

The room reeled. For a moment all I could think of was the blissful sanctity of Finn taking care of me.

‘Oh, Finn,’ I said, the tears welling up in my eyes, ‘I’d drive you round the twist.’

‘I wouldn’t think so. We can always try.’

‘But what about the baby?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘It’s Rory’s,’ I said, taking a slug of my brandy and nearly choking. ‘You’d hate that, you’d keep seeing all the things you hate about Rory in its character. And your reputation on the island would be absolutely ruined — your worst enemy’s wife shacking up with you, and pregnant to boot.’

‘My reputation can take it,’ said Finn.

‘Is it because you want to score off Rory by taking me away from him?’ I blurted out.

It was a terrible thing to say. Rory would have certainly hit me for it, but Finn merely looked at me consideringly.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I thought about that for a long time last night, after I’d dropped you off. Of course there’s an element of truth. I don’t have any compunction about taking you away from Rory. I know he’s made you miserable and unhappy. But even if you were married to my best friend, I don’t think it would make any difference. I’d still want you. It’s one of the unattractive things about loving someone — one just suspends all moral values.’ Then his face softened. ‘But there are an awful lot of attractive things about it. Come here.’

‘No,’ I said desperately. ‘Please, no.’

He held out his hands. ‘Why not? I want you.’

‘It’s very noble of you to make the offer, but I couldn’t.’

‘Noble! What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I know why you’re asking me. It’s from motives of altruism. Marina’s your sister and you feel guilty about the way she and Rory have fouled up my life.’

Finn drained his glass. ‘Emily, will you please stop talking nonsense! I’m the least altruistic person alive. Apart from being a doctor, I never do anything to please anyone except myself.’

‘You took me sailing yesterday…’

‘Look,’ said Finn, ‘I took you sailing yesterday because I thought you needed a break. Now I realize I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you — pulling up my roses with your teeth — in a black see-through nightie.’

‘Oh,’ I felt myself blushing furiously. ‘How kind of you to put it like that.’

‘And you don’t believe a word of it?’

‘No, you’d never have asked me to move in with you if I hadn’t been pregnant.’ I searched feverishly for a tissue and mopped my eyes.

‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ said Finn. ‘I’d have taken it more slowly.’

‘There’s absolutely no point in shacking up with someone one hardly knows, who one’s not in love with,’ I said shakily. That stopped him.

‘I suppose not,’ he said grimly.

I gave my eyes a final wipe.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep crying — it’s the shock of the baby, and finding out about Rory and Marina last night. And, besides, I’d be hopeless for you — I mean long-term. I don’t have the right face for greeting patients, and I’d forget to pass on messages about cardiacs and things.’

‘We can still go on seeing each other.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘When you’re pregnant you can’t go around carrying on with other people. I mean it turns you into a sort of nun, having a baby.’

Finn laughed, but bitterly. ‘You know, do you? From your quarter of an hour’s experience. You’ll still have to come in for check-ups. If you don’t want to see me, I suppose Jackie Barrett can look after you.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘My new intern.’

Oh, God, I minded about her. I minded like hell. I fought back the tears. I didn’t dare kiss Finn, or I might have broken down.

‘Goodbye and thank you,’ I said.

Finn looked suddenly tired and defeated. ‘All right, go back to Rory if you want to, but remember I’m here. You’ve only to pick up a telephone and I’ll come and take you away.’