‘I promise, Dottie.’
Dottie smiles weakly and sinks back on the bed. ‘Hurry George. Save the babies. Please, save them.’
‘I will. Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to the babies or to you. Everything will be fine, Dottie. I promise.’
***
The doctor turns away from the sleeping woman and nods at George to follow him into the corridor. Outside the ward, the fluorescent lighting throws a garish shine over the worn blue linoleum floor.
‘Mr Parry, I’m afraid your wife has had a very bad time of it. She was quite far along in her term. There was … I’m very sorry. There was considerable damage. We’ve had to perform a hysterectomy.’
‘A hysterectomy?’ George stares at the doctor. The man’s dark hair has threads of silver running through its careful combing, and there’s a smudge of grease – a thumbprint – on his round glasses. A pin on the white lapel of his lab coat. Dr F.J. Fry ‘You mean …?’
Dr Fry shakes his head. ‘She won’t be able to have any more children.’ He reaches out and pats George’s shoulder. ‘I’m very sorry.’
George’s eyes widen. ‘What will I tell my wife?’
‘You’ll find a way. She’ll come to accept it eventually. You’ll just need to give her time.’
George rubs his forehead. ‘You don’t know my wife. I promised, you see. I promised the babies would be fine.’
‘Of course you did. Any husband would have done the same.’
George draws his eyebrows together in a frown above the rim of his glasses. ‘You don’t understand. I promised her. She’ll never forgive me. She’ll never forgive me for stealing her life from her, not just once, but twice.’
Chapter 69
Tippy’s Tickle – 16 September 2011
She wakes with a start, pulled out of a dream where she’s drifting on a boat with Sam, black-eyed whales swimming and breaching around them in a steel-blue sea. She opens her eyes. Blue smoke hangs in the air like fog. She coughs, but every intake of breath draws the smoke deeper into her lungs. Pressing her hand to her mouth, she leaps off the sofa and stumbles to the bedroom where she’d left her phone charging on the bed.
She pushes open the bedroom door. Hot air and smoke blast from the room, sending her staggering back as she throws up her arm to shield her face. The bed is ablaze and yellow flames crawl up the curtains and eat at the wooden panelling.
She makes it as far as the kitchen before the smoke brings her to her knees. Gasping for breath, she claws at the floorboards as she crawls towards the porch. She pushes her body against the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks from the heat and smoke. The thick fog of smoke presses on her back like a boulder, squeezing the breath out of her lungs. Reaching through the smoke, she grasps the leg of a wicker chair in the porch.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
She gasps as the smoke burns into her lungs, choking her. Then nothing.
***
A tongue laps at her face. Something pushes at her chest. She chokes and coughs, gasping for air. Cool air. A drop of water on her face. Then another. A dog barks.
‘Oh, my Jaysus God! She’s okay, Ellie! Get away, Bear. Let the maid breathe.’ Florie’s voice.
Sophie opens her eyes. Above her the sky is white like a blank page. A face looms into view, the blue-grey eyes hooded with worry. ‘Are you all right, darling?’ Ellie brushes a hand along Sophie’s cheek.
Sophie moves to sit up, but coughs rack her body. Someone shoves a water bottle into her hand. ‘Drink this.’
She raises her eyebrows as she takes the bottle. ‘Thank you, Emmett.’ She drinks the water, the coolness lubricating her dry throat.
‘Jaysus God, duck,’ Florie says as she and Emmett help Sophie to her feet. ‘You gave us some fright. I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind when Bear started barkin’ to beat the band.’ She rubs the dog’s huge head and kisses its forehead. ‘If it wasn’t for him, you’d be cooked to a crisp.’
Sophie looks around the clearing beside Sam’s cottage. ‘Where’s Sam?’
‘I’m here.’
Sophie turns her head. He is standing in the doorway of the cottage, his relieved face streaked with soot. But there was something else. Something about the way he looked at her. Shock? Panic? Fear?
‘I’m so sorry, Sam. The phone charger must have overheated on the bedcovers.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m just glad you’re safe.’
‘Is the damage bad?’
‘Just the bedroom and smoke damage in the rest. I’ll manage.’
‘It’s my fault. I should never have left the phone charging on the bed.’
‘Don’t worry. It was an accident.’
‘Accidents seems to follow you around, Sam.’
Sophie jerks her head around to Emmett.
Ellie squeezes Sophie’s arm. ‘Are you all right for walking back to the house, sweetheart? Let’s get you back and get you some tea. Florie’s cooking roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for my birthday dinner, just like I used to eat in England.’
Florie takes hold of Sophie’s arm. ‘Tea’s your ruddy answer for everything, Ellie. The poor maid needs a shower and a lie-down.’
‘The war in England was won on tea, Florie. Don’t underestimate it.’
Sophie looks back at the cottage, but Sam and the dog are nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 70
Tippy’s Tickle – 19 June 1954
‘Oh, look, Winny!’ Ellie points across the kitchen table to Emmett who balances the plate with the birthday cake in his hands as he shuffles across the green linoleum floor. ‘Nanny and Emmy have made you a cake.’
Emmett lays it gingerly on Agnes’s best linen tablecloth. ‘It’s chocolate.’
Ellie buries her nose into Winny’s soft blonde hair and jiggles the baby’s chubby feet, which are clad in the pink booties Agnes has knitted as a birthday present. ‘Oooh, chocolate, Winnybel! Your favourite.’
‘Chocolate’s your favourite, Mam,’ Emmett says as he slides onto a wooden chair. ‘Winny never had cake before, so she can’t have a favourite.’
Thomas sets down his beer beside the other empty bottles and, picking up a knife, winks at his son as he leans over to cut the cake. ‘He’s got you there, Ellie Mae.’
Agnes sets a stack of her late mother-in-law’s best Royal Winton dessert plates on the table with several silver forks. ‘And what do you think you’re doing, Thomas? We haven’t sung ‘Happy Birthday’ yet.’
Staring at his mother, he places a hand on her forehead. Agnes pushes his hand away. ‘What in the name of all that’s holy do you think you’re doing?’
‘You don’t have a fever, so it’s not that. Did you fall, Mam? A cake and ‘Happy Birthday’? You never made me a cake, nor even Emmy here. Ellie always has to go over to Martha Fizzard’s to bake Emmy’s cake ’cause you hide the cake tins on her.’
Agnes glares at Ellie. ‘She said that, did she? She couldn’t find a fly if it was on her nose. I never hid anything.’