Emily

Chapter Twenty-five

Later that evening I tried to read Buster’s pornographic novel while the little girl had her baby next door. I held my ears to blot out her screams, and the voice of her husband trying to reassure her. Finally, I heard the lusty yelling of the new-born baby.

Later, going out to the loo, I saw the husband outside the room, tears pouring down his face.

‘Is she all right?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘She’s wonderful, and the baby’s fine. A wee boy. We’re going to call him Finn after Dr Maclean.’

‘How would you like some whisky?’ I said.

‘I wouldna say no to a drop.’

I took him back to my room and got out the Lucozade bottle. An hour later we were sitting on my bed as tight as two ticks, laughing immoderately over passages in Buster’s novel. It was Nurse McKellen who discovered us. She was absolutely appalled.

I escaped to the loo, giggling feebly. I felt very peculiar. ‘At least I’ve got some colour in my cheeks,’ I said, looking at my flushed, wild-eyed face in the mirror.

Outside, I found Finn. I looked down the passage. There was no-one there.

‘Hello, darling,’ I whispered.

‘What have you been up to?’ he said. ‘Nurse McKellen’s spreading terrifying tales of drunken orgies.’

I giggled and collapsed against him.

‘You have been drinking,’ he said.

‘On the emptiest stomach in the Western Isles,’ I said, ‘and it’s gone right down to my toes. I’ve been celebrating the birth of little Finn the second, and reading porn. So I feel fantastically sexy.’

Finn tried to look disapproving, and then laughed. I wound my arms round his neck and kissed him. After a minute’s hesitation, he kissed me back, long and hard, until the blood was drumming in my head and I thought I was going to faint.

‘Wow, do I feel sexy,’ I murmured.

‘How the hell do you think I feel?’ he said.

A telephone shrilled in the next room.

‘I’d better answer that,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with you later.’

‘I’ve got you under my sk-in, I’ve got you de-heep in the heart of me,’ I sang as I swayed down the passage, slap into Rory standing in the shadows. He must have seen everything.

‘Oh, God,’ I said, going briskly into reverse. He caught my arm and held on tightly.

‘You bloody phoney,’ he hissed. ‘You bloody little phoney. All that Dame aux Camelias act. Not feeling well enough to get out of bed, you said. Depends on whose bed, doesn’t it? Doctor Maclean won’t let you leave. I bet he won’t. You’re having a ball together, aren’t you — aren’t you!’ he yelled.

I looked around for a convenient second-floor window to jump out of.

‘You don’t understand,’ I muttered.

‘Oh, I do, baby, I understand only too well.’

The whole thing was getting too much for me. With a sigh I forced myself to look at him. I’d never seen him so cold with rage.

‘You’re coming home tonight, before you get up to any more tricks,’ he said.

That moment Finn came out of the side door. I thought they’d have a right old set-to, but I was wrong. Finn had other things on his mind now.

‘A petrol ship’s blown up outside the harbour,’ he said. ‘They’re bringing the survivors back in the life-boats. Most of them are likely to have second-or third-degree burns.’

‘So you’ll be needing all the beds you can get,’ said Rory.

‘Yes, we will,’ said Dr Barrett, coming down the hall.

‘I’ll take Emily home then,’ said Rory.

‘That’s an excellent idea,’ said Dr Barrett warmly — the scheming cow.

Finn looked as though he was about to protest, then thought better of it. ‘If you can take her to the castle,’ he said, ‘where there’s someone to look after her. See that she rests as much as possible.’

‘Of course,’ said Rory. ‘Do you need any help?’

‘I’ll ring you if we do, but most of the poor bastards will have had it.’

‘The ambulance is leaving, Finn,’ said Jackie Barrett, going towards the stairs.

‘Just coming,’ said Finn. He looked at me as though he wanted to say something, but I could feel him sliding away, both mentally and physically.

‘I’ll ring tomorrow and see how you’re getting on,’ he said. Then he was gone.

I felt overwhelmed with desolation and fear.

‘And now, Emily dear,’ said Rory softly, ‘I think it’s time you came home.’

We didn’t speak on the way back from the hospital, but as the castle loomed into view, Rory shot straight past it.

‘Finn said you were to take me to the castle,’ I bleated.

‘You’re coming home,’ snapped Rory, ‘where I can keep an eye on you.’

‘You can’t force me to stay with you.’

‘I can — even if I have to strap you to the bed.’

‘Go directly to jail,’ I chanted. ‘Do not pass go, do not collect £200.’

I steeled myself for chaos when we got home. But the house looked marvellous. Someone had obviously been having a massive blitz. Rory steered me into the studio. The canvases had all been stacked neatly into one corner, a huge log fire blazed, and the smell of wood smoke mingled exotically with the scent of a big bowl of blue hyacinths on the window-sill.

‘Anyone would think you were expecting company,’ I said.

‘I was,’ said Rory grimly. ‘You. I came to the hospital to collect you.’

‘Oh, very masterful,’ I said, collapsing on to the divan in the corner.

Rory poured himself a good mahogany-coloured whisky.

‘I’d like one, too,’ I said.

‘You’ve had enough,’ he said.

He leaned against the mantelpiece, a long stick he had been about to throw into the fire in his hands. The expression on his face scared me — he was quite capable of beating me up.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘just how long have you been having an affair with Maclean?’

‘I haven’t,’ I said.

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he thundered.

‘Affairs begin below the waist,’ I protested. ‘All Finn has done is kiss me — three times, to be exact.’

‘You counted them?’

‘Yes I did! Because they mattered.’

‘And where did all this restraint take place?’

‘Finn looked after me the night I found out you and Marina were brother and sister. But the next day, as soon as I discovered I was pregnant, we stopped seeing each other. Tonight I’d been at the whisky and Buster’s porny novel, so when I met Finn in the passage, I suddenly fancied him rotten.’

There was a crack — Rory had snapped the lath in his hands. He was silent for a minute, his face strangely dead, then he threw the broken sticks on the fire. ‘You’re nothing better than a tart,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to be better than a tart,’ I said. ‘Men seem to rather like them.’

‘Well it’s got to stop,’ said Rory.

‘You have the teremity…’ I said.

‘Temerity,’ interrupted Rory.

‘I’ll say teremity if I like. You have the terem… or whatever it’s called… to carry on with Marina behind my back, and then kick up a dog-in-the-manger rumpus, just because I seek a little consolation from Finn. You’re only livid because you hate Finn, not because you care a scrap for me.’

‘Shut up,’ said Rory. ‘You’re drunk — you’d better go up to bed.’

‘No!’ I shrieked. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Sleep in that bed. Not after seeing you and Marina… I get nightmares night after night… I couldn’t sleep there, I couldn’t!’ My voice was rising hysterically.

Rory caught my arm. ‘Stop it, Em! You’re behaving like a child.’

‘Let me go!’ I screamed. ‘I hate you. I hate you!’

After that I said every terrible thing I could think of, and then started hysterically beating my fists against his chest. Finally, he was reduced to slapping me across the face, and I collapsed, sobbing, on the divan.