Call it karma, call it fate, or you could say the gods were bored and wanted a small diversion, but someone once told Daisy not to tempt fate (more than one person, more than once actually, and it was a phrase she’d used herself, so she should have known better) but both of the times she’d been to the hospital in the past few days, she had thanked her lucky stars that she hadn’t had an accident getting there.
David wasn’t so lucky.
He’d become caught up in a five-car pile-up on the motorway south of Worcester, a couple of hours after Daisy phoned him, and it was Dr Hartley (of all people), who came to tell her.
‘Can I have a word?’ he asked Daisy, sticking his head through the curtain.
Zoe had yet to be moved to a ward (a lack of beds apparently, and Daisy had heard the nurses saying there’d been a couple of emergency admissions), and Daisy was trying her best to console the grieving girl. Unsuccessfully, she might add, so she was grateful for the diversion, even if it was the doctor from hell who was providing it. At least she had finally managed to contact her mum, who was on her way, and Daisy looked forward to handing over the bedside-sitting duty to Sandra.
‘I’ll only be a sec. Probably more paperwork,’ Daisy said, while Zoe nodded blankly, too immersed in her sorrow to pay much attention to what was happening around her.
‘Well?’ Daisy demanded. ‘Come to accuse me of sleeping with anyone else?’
He didn’t rise to the bait, but instead led her down the corridor until they stood in the exact same spot as before.
‘It’s about your brother,’ he began, and his expression was one of pity.
It chilled Daisy to the bone.
‘He’s been involved in an accident on the motorway—’ the doctor said.
‘Is he dead?’ Daisy shrieked.
‘Hush, no, he’s sustained a nasty injury to his leg, hopefully nothing that an operation, a pin, and several months of physio won’t fix. He’s also sustained some minor cuts and bruises.’
‘An operation?’ she demanded.
‘He’s broken his leg in three different places. It will require an operation to insert a pin into the bone, but the prognosis is good.’
‘Is he here?’ Daisy looked around her as if she expected to see her brother limping down the corridor.
Dr Hartley nodded. ‘He was brought in a half an hour ago by ambulance. He’s being prepped for theatre as we speak. I did the initial examination,’ he added.
Yeah, based on previous experience, Daisy didn’t hold out much hope that the doctor would recognise a broken leg if it jumped up and bit him.
‘Can I see him?’ she asked.
‘That’s why I came to get you. He’s worried about his wife and he wants to see her.’
Zoe! What was Daisy going to say to her?
As if the doctor had read her mind, he continued, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell Zoe until he’s out of theatre and we know exactly what we’re facing.’
‘I’ve got to tell her something. She’s expecting him to arrive any minute.’
Dr Hartley thought for a moment. ‘Tell her the traffic is abysmal?’
Right, that was really going to work. ‘She’ll want to speak to him. I’ve been trying to ring him for the past half hour.’
No wonder he hadn’t answered. David had been busy having his leg smashed to smithereens. It never rains but it pours, Daisy thought, recalling another of Gee-Gee’s sayings.
‘Bad signal, battery dead…’ the doctor said. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’
‘She’ll have to know eventually,’ Daisy pointed out.
The doctor gave her an odd look. ‘Of course she will. I’m not advocating keeping it from her forever, just for the next few hours, until he’s out of surgery.’
Daisy had a go at reading between the lines. ‘Do you think it might not go well?’
‘All operations carry a risk.’
‘Don’t tell me that,’ she pleaded, wishing she hadn’t asked.
He patted her on the shoulder. ‘Your brother had a narrow escape, others involved in the accident weren’t so lucky. David is alive, and the outcome looks good, but I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t point out the potential risks.’
‘I want to see him.’
David looked awful. She hadn’t known what to expect, but seeing her once-healthy, robust brother lying on a trolley, his face pinched and grey with pain, one eye black, dried blood around his nose, and looking older than his twenty-seven years, made her want to weep.
But she held it together because she had to. He needed her to be strong, for him and for Zoe, at least until her mum and nan arrived to share the burden.
The sheer terror in his eyes squeezed her heart.
‘Zoe is okay,’ she said. ‘Sad, but okay, and the baby is fine.’
‘The one we lost isn’t,’ her brother replied, shortly, and Daisy heard the anguish in his voice.
‘No, it isn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘So am I.’
Nothing Daisy could think of to say was going to make even the tiniest dent in her brother’s grief, so she said nothing else, leaning forward to kiss his forehead instead.
‘Time to go, David,’ a cheery nurse said, bustling around the bed. ‘We’re going to take you to theatre, my lovely, okay?’ She checked a chart on the end of the bed, and glanced at Dr Hartley for confirmation.
‘Take him up,’ the doctor said, then spoke to David. ‘You’re in good hands with Mr Smythe, he’s an excellent surgeon.’
‘I want to see Zoe.’ David struggled to raise his torso off the bed, but fell back in pain. ‘I want to see my wife.’
Dr Hartley stepped closer and leaned over the other man. ‘We haven’t told your wife about your accident,’ he explained. ‘I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. I’ll bring her to see you personally, once you’re out of theatre,’ he promised.
Daisy gave her brother one last peck and let the orderly take him. ‘Please keep him safe,’ she murmured.
‘We will,’ Dr Hartley said.
She hadn’t been talking to anyone in particular, she had been speaking to karma (who wasn’t being particularly kind at the moment), but she let it go, saying instead, ‘That damned sixpence has brought nothing but trouble.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘It was supposed to be lucky. Yeah, bad luck.’ She ignored the fact that the run of bad luck had started before she’d even put the coin in the pudding. It had started when she came home to find her boyfriend shagging another man.
But whatever the luck, why was the sixpence targeting her family? Surely the bad luck should stay remain with her, and not migrate to everyone she cared about? Was it haunted?
This was day four of Sixpencegate, and she fervently prayed things wouldn’t get any worse.