She blanched, swallowing, her eyes filled with alarm as they focused on the bottle. He could virtually see the blood draining from her face.
‘You found it?’ She lifted her veined hand to her throat, accentuating the rapid rise and fall of her breathing. ‘Oh God, Luc. I wish you hadn’t.’ She doubled over, clutching her chest. Her eyes rolled back and she slumped in her chair.
Luc jumped up and reached for her wrist. ‘Marthe. Marthe. Alphonse, call an ambulance,’ he yelled, feeling her thin, thready pulse. ‘I think she’s having a heart attack.’
He felt a hand on his shoulder and he glanced up into Hattie’s face. She didn’t say anything but her eyes signalled steadfast support. Gratitude for her quiet presence flooded him. Suddenly people were crowding around them but he held onto Marthe’s hand, the lump in his chest so hard he was finding it difficult to breathe. ‘Don’t die. Don’t die,’ he whispered to himself over and over. He knew she was old but he wasn’t ready to lose her. She was his family. Once she’d gone there would be no one who would always be there for him.
Agonising minutes ticked by as he hung onto Marthe’s hand as if hanging onto her life, anxiously watching the laboured breaths and constantly checking her pulse. It terrified him that if he stopped diligently monitoring her vital signs, either one would cease.
People had faded away, their voices subdued as if not wanting to intrude. Solange had come to sit beside him, while Hattie remained at his shoulder. Fliss and Alphonse had gone to open the gates to the orchard for the ambulance. He strained to hear the siren. Hurry up. Hurry up.
‘It’s okay, Marthe. Help is on its way. Hang on.’ He kept talking to her. Could she hear him? He prayed they wouldn’t be the last words she heard from him. There was still so much more he had to say. Had he ever said thank you to her? Told her he loved her? He could imagine her reaction. A brusquetsk. A dismissal of his sentimentality. But she’d be pleased. He knew it.
The wail of the ambulance made him grip her hand tighter, fearing it might be too late.
‘Do you need me to come to the hospital?’ asked Hattie, when the paramedics loaded Marthe into the bright white space of the ambulance. With an oxygen mask over her face and wrapped in a blanket on a stretcher, the indomitable Marthe had shrunk and looked every one of her ninety-five years. Fear skated over his skin and it took a moment for him to answer, as he stared into space.
Hattie saw his jaw clench and something inside her lurched when he finally shook his head.
‘I’ll be fine.’
He climbed into the ambulance and sat down in the functional square box, his eyes on Marthe as he reached for her limp hand. It was the loneliest sight she’d ever seen.
She watched as the paramedic shut the doors with a final clunk. The engine fired up and the ambulance, its blue light flashing, slowly drove away, lumbering down the track. As the others turned away, returning subdued to the orchard, Hattie stood watching everything as if from a distance.
‘Hattie?’ Chris called to her, coming towards her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Thinking,’ she said, starting to walk back to the orchard.
‘She’s very old,’ he said, putting an arm around her. ‘Someone told me she was ninety-five. She’s had a good innings.’
Anger bubbled at his callous words and his arm felt like a boa constrictor draping itself across her shoulders. With an impatient shake she dislodged it.
‘What?’ asked Chris.
‘I can’t do it,’ she said.
‘Can’t do what?’
‘I can’t come back with you. I’m sorry your mum is dead. Really sorry but…’
Chris suddenly looked wary, almost trapped, like someone caught out. ‘She’s not dead, exactly.’
Hattie stopped in her tracks. ‘What do you mean?’
He lifted his shoulders in a boyishoopsway. ‘I never said she wasdead. You … well, you just sort of jumped to that conclusion and … I mean, she is very poorly. In the hospital.’
Hattie stared at him. ‘You let me think she was dead?’ Her voice was full of disbelief. How could he?
Because he knew how to manipulate her. Fury built a small storm in her as her eyes bored into him. Sorrow filled her. How had she got things with him so wrong?
‘I know. I shouldn’t have done but I was desperate. But I have got a job now, for you. Everything is going to be different. I promise, Hattie.’
‘No.’ The word rang with emphatic denial.
‘No?’ he squeaked as if wasn’t hearing correctly.
‘No,’ she repeated and for some reason poked him in the chest to reinforce her meaning. ‘No. No. No.’
