Fifteen paces outside the door he took her arm and shunted her firmly to the side of the corridor, letting two wheelchairs whisper past on fat, rubber tyres, stooping to bring his head closer to hers. ‘You coping OK?’
Diane breathed in the faint smell of new leather from his jacket. ‘Don’t worry about me. Although it would be helpful if you’d explain who everybody is and why I’m supposed to know them.’ She lifted her brows.
‘I was beginning to suspect that you hadn’t a clue.’ James rubbed his hand over his hair. When he spoke again he had rediscovered the patient tone that Diane was beginning to find seriously annoying. ‘It’s quite straightforward. Tamzin is my daughter. Valerie, who’s had the accident, is my wife; you’ve got that bit. And Harold is Valerie’s father. Of course, Harold is Gareth’s father, too, so Valerie is Gareth’s half-sister.’
Diane stared. She went cold. She went hot. She felt as if she’d been caught up in some freaky dream but the smell of the hospital and the pinching of her new shoes were quite undreamlike. ‘Gareth’s father?’
‘Yes.’
‘And sister.’
He puffed out a sigh. ‘Half-sister. Obviously.’
Diane groped for sense and reason. ‘But – ’
As if to make up for the sigh, James returned to being overly patient. ‘I think Gareth’s told you about Valerie and me and our three daughters? Natalia, Alice – and Tamzin.’ He nodded at the room they’d just left.
‘But you can’t be talking about GarethJenner,’ she interrupted. ‘He hasn’t got a father.’ She knew this as certainly as she knew where the sun rose – unless someone had been messing with the celestial mechanics. Perhaps that was it! A shift in the universe might explain Gareth’s presence in a helicopter and how, when she knew so well that his family consisted only of a mother (deceased) and two brothers living in Peterborough, he’d somehow acquired a father and a sister. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
There had to be an explanation. Her suspicions had hovered earlier around the idea that Gareth was having an affair with this Valerie North but now that seemed comparatively tame.
Was she drunk? Was James drunk? Had somebody slipped him something? His slate grey eyes with their huge black pupils were fixed on hers with unnervingly hypnotic effect. ‘Do you think there could have been two Gareth Jenners admitted tonight?’
A corner of James’s mouth curled. ‘I understand from my brother-in-law, Gareth Jenner, that his wife’s called Diane Jenner. And, somehow, I can’t see there being two of you, too.’
‘No,’ she agreed, baffled. Someonemust’vebeen messing with the celestial mechanics, then. It was the only explanation.
Back in the little room furnished with squashy turquoise chairs, James removed the lid from a polystyrene cup of tea for his father-in-law. ‘How are you, now?’
Harold, pale but no longer chalky, grinned, unconvincingly. ‘Right as ninepence.’
James touched Diane’s arm, the heat of his fingers making her jump. ‘The introductions are a bit late but this is Harold Myers, Gareth’s father. And my daughter, Tamzin.’
Diane offered her hand and found it enfolded between both of Harold’s. In contrast to James’s, his fingers were chill and clammy.
‘I’m so pleased to meet you – at long last!’
She returned his smile, searching his face for some echo of Gareth to support the preposterous idea that he could, indeed, be Gareth’s father. To her, Gareth had always resembled his mother, the same hard mouth and rock-set jaw. But now she could see that Harold was smiling at her with familiar eyes; warmer, on Harold, but exactly the same combination of hazel and green.‘Gareth’s father,’ she marvelled softly.But Gareth doesn’t have a father.Gareth carries his illegitimacy like a chip on his shoulder as big as a boat.Growing up in an era when illegitimacy was a positive scandal, he’d suffered for his mother’s haphazard fortunes with a defiance matched only by his determination not to blame her.
Harold squeezed Diane’s hand. ‘Thank God that Gareth isn’t in any danger. Broken bones heal. We’ll get him and Valerie moved to the new Ackerman Hospital as soon as possible.’ He took out a clean handkerchief, ironed neatly into a square, to dab at the corner of his eye.
Ackerman was a private hospital. Gareth didn’t have a private hospital income. He barely had a new-pyjamas-for-hospital income. Diane opened her mouth, flicked her gaze around the surrounding faces then closed her mouth without speaking. Tamzin, hair hanging like straw, looked as if she’d already been in bed when news of the accident came. Harold was obviously bone tired, and James had the air that this was just one more day when the cares of the world had descended upon his shoulders. They had enough to worry about without Diane blurting out, ‘But we can’t afford a private hospital!’ No doubt there would come a point when she could explain to the staff, discreetly, why Gareth would remain in the arms of the NHS.
‘The helicopter must have come down with a bang,’ Harold observed. ‘Valerie was always telling me how safe it was. How do you think it could have happened, James?’
James shrugged. ‘Mechanical failure? Cross wind? That’s the Civil Aviation Authority’s province. There will be an enquiry, I expect.’ His voice was even but, again, Diane caught the glitter of anger in his eyes.
‘Do you reallythink Mum’s going to be all right?’ Tamzin sniffed. ‘I mean, she’s not going to ...?’
James threw an arm around her. ‘Tamz, she’ll heal. We’ll just have to be patient for a few months.’
‘What on earth were they doing in a helicopter, anyway?’ asked Diane, idly. The police hadn’t been able to provide any information beyond the preposterous fact that Gareth had been the passenger in a two-seater Robinson R22 helicopter that had crashed on take-off at Medes Flying Club. If they drove the country route to visit Gareth’s brother, Melvyn, she and Gareth passed the flying club, on the edge of Peterborough, without ever entertaining the notion of turning in under the matt black iron archway, past security. That was for other people, people in a salary bracket that Jenners only dreamed of.
Her enquiry seemed to rouse James’s annoyingly patient tone again. ‘Valerie got her private pilot’s licence for helicopters last year. She often takes Gareth up on his days off.’
‘On hiswhat?’ Diane spluttered her coffee all down her chin.
Silence. Wariness crept into James’s dark eyes. ‘Is there anyone you want me to phone? To be with you?’
