Читать книгу Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 57

COURTNEY rang in the morning to see how Harry’s night had been and said that she’d be in soon. Bridgette went with Harry for his hearing test and then surprisingly Raymond, the ENT consultant, came and saw him on the ward. ‘Glue ear,’ Raymond informed her. ‘His hearing is significantly down in both ears, which would explain the speech delay. It can make them very miserable. We’ll put him on the waiting list for grommets.’ It might explain the temper tantrums too, Bridgette thought, kicking herself for overreaction.

By late afternoon, when Courtney still hadn’t arrived and Harry was dozing, Bridgette slipped away and up to Maternity, even though she’d rung to explain things. Rita was nice and surprisingly understanding.

‘We’re having a family meeting tomorrow,’ Bridgette explained. ‘I really am sorry to let you down. I’ll do nights just as soon as I can.’

‘Don’t be sorry—of course you can’t work,’ Rita said. ‘You need to get this sorted.’

Though her family seemed convinced there was nothing to sort, and as Bridgette walked onto the ward, she could see Courtney sitting on the chair beside Harry, all smiles. She was playing the doting mother or ‘mother of the year’, as Jasmine would have said. Dominic was examining Harry’s new neighbor, young Roman, and Bridgette stood and spoke to Tony for a moment. Harry, annoyed that Bridgette wasn’t coming straight over, stood up, put up his leg and with two fat fists grabbed the cot, annoyed that with the barrier he couldn’t get over it—he was indeed a climber, it was duly noted, not just by the nurses but by Courtney. And Bridgette wondered if she was going mad. Maybe there was nothing wrong with her sister’s parenting and she, Bridgette, had been talking nonsense all along.

‘Thanks so much for staying last night,’ Courtney said. ‘I was just completely exhausted. I’d been up all night with him teething. Mum said that that can give them the most terrible rash…and then when he climbed out, when I heard him fall…’

‘No problem,’ Bridgette said. ‘ENT came down and saw him.’

‘Yes, the nurse told me,’ Courtney said, and rather pointedly unzipped her bag and took out her pyjamas. Brand-new ones, Bridgette noticed. Courtney was very good at cleaning up her act when required. ‘You should get some rest, Bridgette.’ Courtney looked up and her eyes held a challenge that Bridgette knew she simply couldn’t win. ‘You look exhausted. I’m sure I’ll see you at the family meeting and you will have plenty to say about his nappy rash and that I put him to bed without washing him to Aunty Bridgette’s satisfaction.’

Dominic saw Courtney’s smirk after Bridgette had kissed Harry and left.

He spoke for a moment with Tony, told him he would see him tomorrow. And Dominic, a man who always stayed late, left early for once and met Bridgette at her car. It wouldn’t start, because in her rush to get to see Harry last night, she’d left her lights on.

‘Just leave me.’ She was crying, furious, enraged, and did not want him to see.

‘I’ll give you a lift.’

‘So I can sort out a flat battery tomorrow! So I can take a bus to the meeting.’ She even laughed. ‘They’ll think I’m the one with the problem. She’s in there all kisses and smiles and new pyjamas. She’ll be taking him home this time tomorrow.’

‘She’ll blow herself out soon,’ Dominic said.

‘And it will start all over again.’ She turned the key one last hopeless time and of course nothing happened.

‘Come on,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

They drove for a while in silence. Dominic never carried tissues, but very graciously he gave her the little bit of silk he used to clean his sunglasses. With little other option, she took it.

‘I do get it.’

‘Sure!’

‘No, I really do,’ Dominic said. ‘For three years after Chris was born it was row after row. My father wanted him gone—he never came out and said it, didn’t have the guts, and I can tell you the day it changed, I can tell you the minute it changed.’ He snapped his fingers as he drove. ‘My mother told him to get out because Chris wasn’t going anywhere. She told him if he stayed in her home then he followed her rules.’ They were at the roundabout and she wanted him to indicate, wanted to go back to his place, but instead he drove straight on. ‘She got her fire back.’ He even grinned as he remembered his trophy-wife mother suddenly swearing and cursing in Spanish. He remembered the drama as she’d filled his father’s suitcases and hurled them out, followed by his golf clubs, as she picked up Chris and walked back in. ‘I really want you to listen, Bridgette. You need to think about what you want before you go into that meeting. You will need to sort out what you’re prepared to offer or what you’re prepared to accept, not for the next week or for the next month but maybe the next seventeen years—you need to do the best for yourself.’

‘I’m trying my best.’

‘Bridgette, you’re not listening to me. My mum could have gone along with Dad—she could have had a far easier life if she hadn’t been a single mum bringing up a special-needs child. Chris could have been slotted into a home. Instead he went to one when he was eighteen, to a sheltered home with friends, and my mother did it so that he’d have a life, a real one. She did not want him to have to start over in thirty years or so when she was gone. She thought out everything and that included looking out for herself. What I said was you have to do the best for you—you have to look out for yourself in this…’

Dominic gritted his teeth in frustration as he could see that she didn’t understand what he meant and knew that he would have to make things clear. ‘The best thing that could happen is that Courtney suddenly becomes responsible and gets well suddenly, becomes responsible and looks after Harry properly—and we both know that’s not going to happen. Now, you can run yourself ragged chasing after Courtney, living your life ready to step in, or you can work out the life you want and what you’re prepared to do.’

She still didn’t get it.

‘Bridgette, she could have another baby. She could be pregnant right now!’ She closed her eyes. It was something she thought about late at night sometimes, that this could be ongoing, that there could be another Harry, or a little Harriet, or twins. ‘Come away with me on Saturday,’ he said. ‘Come for the weekend, just to see…’

‘What about Arabella?’

‘What about her?’ Dominic said. ‘I told her last night the same thing I told her when we had coffee on Saturday. We’re through. And I’ve told her that I’m blocking her from my phone.’ He knew he was pushing it, but this time he said it. ‘You could be my moll!’

‘I’ve got other things to think about right now.’

‘Yes,’ he said as he pulled up at her door. ‘You do.’

And she didn’t ask him in, and neither did he expect her to, but he did pull her into his arms and kiss her.

‘Don’t…’ She pulled her head back.

‘It’s a kiss.’

‘A kiss that’s going nowhere,’ she said. ‘I’m not very good at one-night stands, in case you didn’t work it out. And I really think the holiday is over…’

‘Why won’t you let anyone in?’

‘Because I can’t stand being hurt again,’ Bridgette admitted. ‘And you and I…’ She was honest. ‘Well, it’s going to hurt, whatever way you look at it.’ And she did open up a bit, said what she’d thought all those days ago. ‘My life’s not exactly geared to hopping on planes.’

‘You only need to hop on one,’ Dominic said, and he was offering her the biggest out, an escape far more permanent than her flat.

‘Think about it,’ he said.

‘I can’t.’

‘Just think about it,’ Dominic said. ‘Please.’

He wished her all the very best for the next day, then drove down the road and pulled out his phone.

‘It’s Wednesday,’ Chris said. ‘Why are you ringing me on a Wednesday?’

‘I’m just ringing you,’ Dominic said. ‘It doesn’t only have to be on a Friday.’

‘It’s about Bridgette?’ Chris said, and Dominic couldn’t help a wry grin that he was ringing his brother for advice. ‘The one with the baby.’

‘It’s not her baby,’ Dominic said, because he’d explained about Harry as they’d walked along the beach.

‘But she loves him.’

‘Yep.’

‘Well, why can’t they come and live here?’

‘Because it’s not going to happen,’ Dominic said. ‘His mum loves him too.’

‘And you can’t stay there because you’re coming over on Saturday,’ Chris reminded him. ‘For my birthday.’ He heard the silence. ‘You said you would.’

‘I did.’

‘See you on Saturday,’ Chris said.

And Dominic did know how Bridgette felt—he was quite sure of that, because he felt it then too, thought of his brother all dressed up with his friends and his disappointment if he wasn’t there. He thought of Bridgette facing it alone.

‘You are coming?’ Chris pushed.

‘You know I am,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ll see you then.’

‘Are you still going to ring me on Friday?’ Chris said, because he loathed a change in routine.

‘Of course.’