Chapter 43
‘Gemm-a. Gem ma.’
The voice seemed to be coming at her from a distance, but she didn’t want to reply. It was as though she’d had a lovely deep sleep from which she was now slowly, very slowly, waking up. How rested she felt! Apart, that was, from a strange sensation in her right arm.
‘Gemma! Can you hear me?’
She didn’t know the chirpy voice but it sounded as though it knew her.
‘You’re coming round from your operation now and you’re in the recovery room. Everything is all right.’ Everything was all right? Then it all began to come back to her. The text from the hospital when she’d been at the disco. The news that by some incredible stroke of luck, her bone marrow matched Danny’s even though they weren’t related. Barry’s face when she’d pulled him to one side and explained what had happened.
‘But that means you’ll be saving the life of the child whose father is actually your husband,’ he said slowly. She put her finger to her lips. ‘I’ve got to do this. You do understand, don’t you?’
Why did his eyes look so uncertain? ‘For Sam or for Danny?’
Surely he got it? ‘For Danny, of course. I don’t feel anything for Sam any more.’
Barry was looking at her in that suspicious way she was beginning to recognise. ‘Did you see him in the hospital?’
She stepped away from him. ‘No, only Nancy. Look Barry, this is silly. I’ve got to get going. The hospital want me there tonight so they can do the operation tomorrow. I’ll only be in for a night. Two at the most.’ She tried to make light of it, although her heart was beating wildly. It was all so sudden, and she’d hated hospitals ever since Granny had died. Just hated them.
Barry reached for his jacket. ‘I’ll drive you there. No, honestly. I insist.’
That had been last night. At least she thought it was. Which meant that today was Sunday. Maybe Danny was having his operation right now. Gemma didn’t often pray, but she found her lips moving. Please God. Please make Danny live. Please make him well again. The words seemed to have a soporific effect. How heavy her eyes felt! ‘Just taking you back to the ward now, Gemma,’ said a cheery voice and she drifted back to sleep while, at the same time, being vaguely aware of someone wheeling her bed along a hospital corridor.
The next morning she woke feeling much brighter, in a smallish ward with five other women, two of whom had their curtains closed around them. Her first thought was Danny. Had he had his operation?
Was he all right?
The nurse who was bringing breakfast round on a trolley didn’t know, but promised to find out. Gemma wasn’t hungry. She felt restless with uncertainty. The sun was shining through the windows of the ward, so it would be a perfect day for the farm trip. Luckily, she’d managed to text Bella on the way into hospital to explain the situation. She only hoped that her assistant would remember to pass on the message to Joe and find an extra parent or member of staff to make up the adult/child ratio.
Joe! Gemma’s arm began to throb slightly where the drip had been inserted. She just couldn’t get the measure of him. First he was married. Then he wasn’t. He lent his flat to the Carter Wrights, showing that he was a better man than she’d thought. Then he brought his glamorous ex along to the disco. And he’d told her all that terrible stuff about Ed having an abortion.
Her eyes felt heavy again. How weird it was that Joe could be preying on her mind when the only thing that really mattered was Danny.
And Sam.
Had she really meant it when she’d told Barry that she was doing this for Danny? Of course she wanted to save the boy’s life but wasn’t there, as Kitty had suggested when she’d rung her at the hospital just before the op, a small part of her that also wanted to punish Sam? ‘It will be a terrible shock to see you if his mother hasn’t told him,’ her friend had pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t fancy being in his shoes.’
When Gemma woke up again, it seemed to be lunchtime. This time she did feel like having a small bowl of tomato soup, and she was able to pad along in her dressing gown and slippers to the loo, which, the nurses told her, was a very good sign.
‘You’ve got a visitor,’ said one of them when she’d cleared away lunch.
Barry! He’d promised to be back as soon as this was permitted. Gemma whipped out her mirror from the handbag in her locker and ran a hand through her hair before trying to get the last of her mascara out of a nearly empty bottle. Inside the locker sat her silver chain, which she’d had to take off for the operation. Somehow, despite knowing about Sam and Nancy, she couldn’t bear not to wear it any more. It had been part of her body for so long: a symbol of hope that he might come back, saying he’d made a mistake and that he loved her, enough to have their children. Slowly, she fastened the chain around her neck.
‘Gemma?’
Her blood froze. That wasn’t Barry’s voice.
She looked up as the tall, blond man who was standing awkwardly in front of her sat down on the chair next to her bed. It was Sam, all right. An older Sam, who had put on a bit more weight and grown a moustache. It suited him. His eyes, still the same stunning periwinkle blue, held hers uncertainly. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Nancy said you’d volunteered to be a donor. I don’t know what to say.’ His voice had a catch in it.
‘Don’t know what to say?’ repeated Gemma. The anger lashed out of her mouth, and the woman in the bed next to hers looked across curiously. ‘Are you talking about my bone marrow, which, by the way, I would have given to any needy child? Or are you talking about breaking my heart by declaring that you didn’t want children, although you didn’t mind having them with someone else? Perhaps we are talking about you going off and not leaving a forwarding address? Or maybe you don’t know what to say about leaving your “wife” and son to “find yourself” during an extended business trip. I think those were the words that poor Nancy used when she was crying on my shoulder not long ago.’
Sam reached out to touch her arm but she moved away. ‘Don’t.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry for all those things you’ve just listed, although actually I didn’t go off and leave you. You left me.’
‘Yes. Because you couldn’t cope when you thought I was pregnant.’ She was crying softly now. ‘I loved you, Sam. I loved you so much.’
He took her hand, the one that hadn’t had the drip in it. ‘I felt the same. I even went through all our photographs and blanked out your face in an attempt to get over you. Part of me wanted to come back and say I’d made a mistake, but I was too proud.’ His voice faltered slightly. ‘You’re still wearing my chain.’ She nodded, trembling, remembering how he had bought it for her as a wedding present from some tacky souvenir shop in Vegas.
‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you,’ he continued unsteadily. ‘I met Nancy on the rebound. It was very soon after you and I split.’ His eyes refused to meet hers. ‘I told her I didn’t want to get married or have children. I know I should have told her I couldn’t get married, but then things happened so fast. We’d only been dating for a few months when she got pregnant.’
How horribly, horribly ironic!
He glanced behind him nervously but there was only a nurse at the far end, talking to a patient. ‘Danny was an accident.’
Gemma tried to pull her hand back. ‘He’s a lovely little boy.’
At least Sam had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I know he is, but the truth is that he wasn’t planned. I had to think really hard about whether I could make myself do the right thing and stay with Nancy. But I did, Gemma. I did because I felt so guilty about not having stood by you when you thought you were pregnant.’
Congratulations! Did he expect her to clap?
Sam’s story was pouring out of him now. ‘We stayed in the States for a bit and then came back to London because of my work. I have to admit that I suggested living in Corrytown partly because it was easy to commute, but also because I remembered that your grandmother lived there.’
Gemma’s eyes smarted with tears. ‘ Used to. She died. But that was one reason why I took the job at the playgroup. It was near the nursery she ran, years ago.’
Sam shook his head bemusedly. ‘Neither of us expected to find the other through your Puddles playgroup.’
‘Puddleducks,’ she corrected him, ‘although Puddles isn’t a bad name, considering the odd leakages that occur now and then.’
Hang on. What were they doing talking about this, when the only really important thing was Danny? ‘How is Danny doing? Has he had the operation?’
Sam nodded. ‘That’s why I’m here. He’s still in the recovery room but the nurses say he’s come round. It’s too early to tell yet if he’s going to …’
His eyes filled with tears. This time it was Gemma’s turn to reach out to him. ‘He’ll be all right, Sam. I just feel it.’
Awkwardly she watched him struggling and trying to talk while holding back tears. ‘I hope so, Gemma. I really do.’ His eyes searched hers again and she could see the pain in them. ‘But I can’t help thinking that Danny might be taken away from us as my punishment for not being a good enough husband. To either of you.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘Nancy doesn’t know about me being married. I just told her that I wasn’t ready to get married to her yet. What a mess.’
She almost felt sorry for him. ‘Listen,’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘What really matters at the moment is Danny. OK, you might not have got off to the best start as a dad. But you can make up for it now. It’s not too late. So go and be with him, as soon as they let you. Sit by his side. Stroke his brow. Tell him how much you love him.’
Sam raised his head again, and this time his eyes were more hopeful. ‘You’re a lovely woman, you know that?’
‘And so is Nancy,’ said Gemma quickly. ‘You’ve got a family, Sam. You’re a very lucky man.’
Suddenly she realised he didn’t know something: something so important that she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t mentioned it before. ‘The divorce,’ she said urgently. ‘Our decree nisi. It’s about to come through.’
He looked shocked. ‘How did you manage to sort that out when you hadn’t got my permission?’
‘I saw a lawyer and she told me that in the case of a missing person, as she put it, I had to wait five years and then I could file for a divorce without your signature. But now you might as well sign the papers.’ She opened her handbag and began rustling through. ‘Here they are.’ She gave a short sigh. ‘Crazy as it sounds, I carry them around with me for reassurance. The address to send them to is at the bottom.’ Gemma watched as he took them with that wry smile that she used to know so well, and which still, dammit, gave her a slight pang.
‘You’re quite a girl, you know that, Gemma?’ He leaned towards her, brushing her cheek. ‘Some man out there is going to be a very lucky bloke some day.’
Then, with an enormous lump in her throat, she watched him leave, walking across the ward with his head bowed. It was clear he had a huge weight on his shoulders, yet the weird thing was that she felt as though her own weight had lifted. She had done her best to save Danny’s life. She had found Sam and started to put that part of her life behind her.
There was Barry, too: a kind, steady man who showered her with love and presents and for whom nothing was too much trouble. And there was Puddleducks, and her wonderful Puddleducks children, who would, even as she lay there, be tramping through the farm in their brightly coloured wellies, asking all kinds of funny questions.
‘Blow me,’ said a voice from the bed next to hers. ‘That was some story from your ex. Sorry, I wasn’t really eavesdropping but I couldn’t help it.’
Gemma was so mortified she didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s OK, love. I’m not going to tell anyone. But I watch a lot of those soaps and you know what? They couldn’t write a better storyline themselves. Just think. You wanted his baby. He didn’t want kids. Then he goes and has one with someone else. And you give his kid your bone marrow. That means this Danny boy is sort of yours now, doesn’t it?’