Chapter Twenty-two
In the end Imogen couldn’t face going to Exeter to buy the last baby things. She had left it so late for fear of spending
money, but now, with hardly any time left, the need was unignorable. Instead of going out shopping for new stuff, she made
herself a mug of tea and turned to the internet. Using eBay and Facebook Marketplace to source the cheapest and most basic
secondhand options she could find, she saved herself a fortune, organizing to go and pick things up in her car in the week
between Christmas and New Year. Just in time. Splashing out money when she didn’t have any—the book deal advance had been
modest—and accumulating stuff when she didn’t even know where she would be living soon seemed reckless and idiotic, but thank
goodness she could at least do this.
Thinking back to the school nativity, the irony of being pregnant, so near giving birth, and so near being homeless quite so close to Christmas did not escape her. Perhaps she and the baby would end up living in her
car? Gabriel couldn’t take that away from her, at least.
It was the early hours of the morning before she slept.
Next morning, she awoke from restless dreams feeling leaden-limbed and deeply weary. This was more than just late-pregnancy fatigue. She placed her hand on her forehead experimentally. It was fiercely hot, and clammy too. Surely she had been too isolated to have picked up a bug, but the evidence was incontrovertible. Someone had shared their germs with her, and just before Christmas too. Delightful. Lightheaded just from heaving herself out of bed, she leaned on the windowsill to catch her breath. Dawn had broken with an evil red glow, backlighting her view of the manor house on the horizon and reminding her of its owner’s devilish aura. Storm clouds pressed down from the sky, making day barely lighter than night.
Dragging herself downstairs wrapped in a blanket—her dressing gown gaped so much over her swollen belly she didn’t wear it
anymore—she thought about calling her mother to report that she was ill but then decided she couldn’t be bothered. Worrying
her mother pointlessly was even worse than the forlorn thought that no one was expecting to see her all day. The prospect
of spending Christmas Eve totally on her own made her feel even more grateful for Simon’s last-minute Christmas Day invitation.
It would be lovely to see Genny too, although the thought of navigating a day spent with Gabriel—and perhaps Louise too—made
her head ache even more. Perhaps she should just stay home and keep her germs to herself.
Listlessly putting aside her latest set of drawings and unable to concentrate on the newspaper, she curled up in front of
the television with a cup of hot chocolate. It’s a Wonderful Life had just started, and Imogen watched with one eye, her aching head buried in the softest cushion she could find. Barely half
an hour in, she was fast asleep.
A thunder crash shook Imogen violently awake. She sat up, heart pounding, and looked toward the window. Slanting rain was
washing in icy sheets down the windowpane. An explosion of light and sound tore through the air, sending Tango scuttling from
the room. The lights flickered ominously. The clock on the mantel said four o’clock. What daylight there was would soon be
gone.
Whimpering, she staggered, lightheaded and shivering, to the kitchen to find the matches and candles. Matches were easy, but
her search for candles produced two blackened stubs and a broken kitchen candle mixed up with the tea towels. Gathering them
up, she grabbed an old saucer and arranged her little hoard on the table. No sooner had she turned to put the kettle on when
a giant tearing crash she could feel in the soles of her feet shook the house and plunged it into darkness. Fumbling in the
gloom and trembling with fever, she snapped the first match striking it against the box. The second time she created a fragile
flame, and the candle guttered into life, casting a mean light that seemed to create more shadows than it penetrated.
The amount of rain falling was colossal, Imogen thought, worried now about the culvert that Gabriel had warned her about.
It needed to be cleared. As far as Imogen was aware, no one had done it.
“Thank goodness it’s not colder,” she remarked to Tango, who had just slunk back in, having failed to find sanctuary elsewhere. “If this were snow, it would be up to the windowsills by now.”
Saying it out loud made her feel braver, but her voice was a surprise to them both, raspy and thin as an old lady’s. Her throat
felt dry and red-raw.
“I’m off to bed,” she announced, “and I suggest you come too.” She tried to sound like she didn’t care either way, but feeling
sorry for herself and a tiny bit lonely, she hoped Tango would join her. In an unusual shared agenda, he tried to look like
he didn’t care either, but the storm had made him edgy, and he was happy to lead the way. She crawled into bed, with him on
her thighs, and slept.
Paralyzed with fright, Imogen watched the motorbike ahead of her on the long, straight road. It was barely a smudge on the
horizon, but she knew it was Nigel. The engine snarled and roared as the black BMW raced toward her. She sweated and moaned
as she tried to dive out of its way, but nothing would make her legs move. The bike was screaming now, yards away, spraying
gravel from its wheels. Daring to look into the darkened visor as it filled her vision, the last thing she saw was a ghastly,
grinning skull, shreds of flesh still clinging to the cheekbones as the bike plowed into her, doubling her up in agony as
it hit her middle...
A breathless, sleep-paralyzed scream escaped from her as she woke. She struggled to get up, pushing away the bedclothes that
pinned her down. A tearing pain ripped through her body, crushing her bones as she pressed her face into the pillow, groaning.
At last, it lifted. She lay bathed in a cold sweat, listening and letting the last images of the nightmare dissipate. The
rain still lashed the window in violent flurries like gravel flung against the glass by a giant hand. The wind wailed down
the chimney. She clicked the switch on the lamp. Damn. Still no power. Trying to breathe calmly, she did a mental check. Her
head was pounding as hard as her heart and the bedclothes were soaked in sweat. More than just the effect of the nightmare
and the pregnancy, this was definitely a vicious dose of flu. Obviously, the pain in the tummy didn’t fit the diagnosis. Imogen
had just persuaded herself it was one of those Braxton-Hicks contractions—practice contractions—that Morag had told her about,
when it crept up again, crushing her in a vise of unbearable pain. She found herself gripping the bed rail, rocking and moaning
until she thought she couldn’t bear it anymore. Long seconds later, it started to ease.
“Okay, not Braxton-Hicks,” she commented to Tango, who merely registered his disgust at her inability to stay still so he
could sit on her.
She picked up her mobile, scrabbling at the smooth cover. The action of bringing it to life expended its last gasp of battery
life, and it shut down in her hand as she wailed in disbelief. With no electricity, there was no point in even feeling around
for the charging cord in the dark.
She staggered down the attic stairs, leaning on the walls with her hands. As she picked up the old-fashioned landline telephone in the main bedroom, her stomach lurched with dread. Instead of a dial tone, the line buzzed dully. Could she even remember anybody’s number? No one memorized numbers anymore... And then—her heart leaping in hope—her eyes fell on the note Gabriel had sent her after their lunch all those months ago. His offer of driving lessons was written on a stiff, white postcard with the address and phone number of Middlemass Hall printed at the top. With shaking fingers, she dialed but there was no ringing, just the infernal faint buzzing of a damaged line.
Going to the window, she looked across the valley to the manor. Hallelujah. The lights winked reassuringly in the near distance.
No power cut there, apparently. There was nothing for it—the Hall was her nearest sanctuary—she would have to walk across.
Following the path through the wood, and with a torch, she could get help within half an hour. Vaguely she remembered Morag
saying that babies took ages to come, and first babies longest of all—that she should stay at home for as long as possible
in labor. She’d also said to make sure Imogen had someone with her.
Imogen put on the first pair of shoes she could find, never mind about socks. Her coat was in the hallway downstairs, and
so was the torch. Feeling her way, she went down the last flight, but she stopped short of the bottom, puzzled. Her eyes were
playing tricks on her—it had to be the effect of the flu—but the moonlight breaking through the clouds was eerily reflected
on the hall floor. The normally gray flagstone floor was like a pool of oil, glossy and smooth, and three feet too high. Straining
her eyes to make sense of this nonsense, she carried on and gasped as her foot disappeared into the glassy lake. Water. It
gleamed evilly, returning to stillness in seconds, unlike the tumult that continued outside.
Imogen sank onto the step, sobbing. A yomp through the woods, in the dark, ill and in labor, during a storm had seemed briefly reasonable. The terror of wading through floodwater, its calm surface hiding currents and obstacles, made the journey impossible.
Carefully, shivering, she waded to the coat stand and found her coat, holding it above her head as she waded back to the stairs.
At least the torch was there, in the pocket. Time passed. Contractions came and—thankfully—went. She tried to time them by
shining the torch on her wristwatch, but it was impossible to concentrate. She vaguely remembered there was something significant
about two minutes but couldn’t remember whether it was the length of the contractions or the time between them. She checked
her watch—nearly two o’clock in the morning. There would be no one dropping in, no fortuitous visit from the postman or Morag
the midwife on Christmas Day. Her only hope was that Simon and Genny might eventually wonder where she was, but she wasn’t
even due at their house until midday. How long would they wait before they seriously queried her absence? She was alone. Worse
still, her torch was fading, so she switched it off and sat in darkness. Drawing her coat around her, she closed her eyes.
Time passed, and she stopped counting the contractions as they ripped through her.
The phantom motorbike with its terrifying rider had returned, its headlight burning across her retinas as it careered toward
her, swerving right and left. Twitching with terror in her dream, she longed to run away as the ghastly figure on the bike
loomed over her.
A shattering crash woke her, and nightmare met reality as she opened her eyes to find there really was a bright light veering from side to side, illuminating the hallway. She watched in horror at the smashed stained-glass window next to the door as a hand reached around to lift the latch. Finding her voice at last, she launched herself screaming up the stairs, clambering on her hands and knees as the door slowly opened against the weight of the floodwater.
“Imogen! You’re there. Are you all right? For Christ’s sake, stop making that noise.”
She was vaguely aware of Gabriel next to her, holding her face in his hands, then putting his arms around her. Never mind
that this was the man who wanted to ruin her life and who had spent that very evening proposing to another woman. At that
moment he was the only person in the world that Imogen wanted to see.
“You weren’t there!” she wailed, finding words at last.
“I’m sorry.”
“I was all on my own,” she sobbed helplessly.
“I’m here now. I’m here now,” he said softly, stroking her hair.
She clung to him. Despite—or perhaps because of—the relief, she couldn’t stop sobbing and gasping convulsively, her tears
and snot soaking his shoulder. She gradually noticed it was the one bit of him that seemed to have stayed dry until that point.
He was sodden from his feet to his waist.
“Imo?” came another reassuringly familiar voice.
Simon loomed into the circle of torchlight around them, throwing ten-foot shadows onto the wall.
“Hullo, darling. Did you leave the bath running?” he joked.
“What are you both doing here?” asked Imogen.
“We’ve been at the Hall, thinking we should probably check on you in the morning with this storm, and then the phone rang,
but there was no one there. Why aren’t you tucked up in bed asleep?”
“Not feeling too good,” Imogen muttered. He held a hand to Imogen’s forehead and then to the pulse in her neck.
“Christ, she’s as pyretic as hell, and tachycardic,” he muttered to himself. “Darling, what have you been up to?” he said,
louder.
Imogen started to explain about falling ill, but another contraction caught her by surprise. Blimey, they were getting overwhelming
now. She was oblivious to both men for a while and then found herself clutching Gabriel’s hand.
“Okay, I think we can assume the baby’s planning to make an appearance,” Simon said lightly, but his face was stern. “When
did the contractions start?”
“Don’t know. It was dark—I think. What time is it?”
“Nearly dawn,” said Gabriel. “We tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”
“It wouldn’t have been ringing at this end,” explained Imogen. “There’s something the matter with the line, I think, and my
mobile’s dead.”
Simon waded to the telephone table and lifted the receiver. “It must be the flood,” he said. “And”—he fumbled in his jacket
pocket—“yes, damn it, my mobile’s got no signal here either.”
He smiled reassuringly. “Imogen, I’m going to have to examine you to see how far on you are. Gabriel, could you hold the torch?”
“Nooo!” shrieked Imogen like an outraged maiden aunt, drawing her pajamas around her in an attempt at dignity.
This time Simon was a little more firm. “Come on now, darling. I am a doctor, and I really do need to check.”
“Can’t it wait?” interrupted Gabriel. “She can hardly have her baby on the stairs in the middle of a flood anyhow. Let’s get
her back to the Hall. At least there’s light and heat there. I can take the Land Rover and fetch Morag from the village.”
Suddenly Imogen wanted the uncompromising and taciturn Morag with her very much indeed. She nodded at Simon eagerly, looking
from him to Gabriel, who hugged her to his side reassuringly.
“Okay, well, I don’t think we’ve got many other options. Given the water levels here, there’s no chance an ambulance is going
to get through the valley.”
Gabriel gathered her up into his arms, not for the first time.
“Sorry,” said Imogen. “This seems to be becoming a habit.”
“I don’t mind,” he said, puffing exaggeratedly to make her laugh, “but I can’t say I don’t wish you’d lose a little weight.”
Simon grinned. “She will. Soon.”