IN THE meantime, they had to take snatched moments wherever they could get them. An hour here, a phone call there, a note sneaked into Kieran’s briefcase or Judith’s locker.
On Monday morning, Judith got Letitia’s liver function test results. A quick confab with Bella meant that the obstetric director gave her permission to talk to her father about the ursodeoxycholic acid trial, so she rang his office at the Hampstead Free.
‘Hello, darling. You don’t usually ring me at work. Everything all right?’ Ben asked.
‘Yes, of course it is. Can’t I ring my favourite professor because I feel like it?’ she teased.
Ben chuckled. ‘I’ve always got time for my favourite daughter. Business or pleasure?’
‘Business, actually. I’ve got a mum you might like to see for your ursodeoxycholic acid trial.’
‘Right. I’ve got a pen. Fire away.’
Judith gave her father all the details. ‘I’ll ring her this morning and ask her to call you.’
‘Do that, darling. How are you getting on with Kieran?’
Judith froze. Had her father heard any gossip about them? No, of course not. Kieran was a former colleague and her father was just interested in how he’d settled into his new post. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Actually, he’s really easy to work with.’
‘He’s a good man.’ Ben paused. ‘Are you singing again soon?’
‘Dad, if you looked at Mum’s calendar yourself, instead of relying on her to tell you things,’ Judith said, laughing, ‘you’d know it’s this Wednesday. I’ve already fleeced her for tickets.’
‘Wednesday? Oh, darling. I’m not going to be able to make this Wednesday. I’ve got a trust meeting. Your mother might still come.’
‘Hey, no worries. It’s just a fundraiser.’
‘Yes, but it’s my daughter singing,’ Ben pointed out. ‘Next time, I promise, I’ll be there. I know I haven’t made it to any of your fundraisers for a while.’
‘You’re a busy man, Dad. And you’re not missing that much. You heard me sing around the house enough when I was younger.’
‘Even so.’ He sighed. ‘I’d better let you go. Love you, darling.’
‘Love you, too, Dad. See you soon.’
Kieran stopped in the corridor as he heard her words. Love you too, Dad.
He hadn’t said that for well over twenty years.
His father had always fished for the words at the end of his visits. ‘Love you, son.’ Except Kieran hadn’t really believed him and had refused to say it back. If his dad had really loved him, he wouldn’t have walked out on his only child without explaining at least enough to make the little boy realise it wasn’t his fault. Tom Galloway wouldn’t have ignored birthdays and Christmases, not even bothering to send a card. He would have made the effort to ring his son and see how things were going, taken an interest in his schoolwork, listened to his dreams.
But he hadn’t.
And Martyn, although he’d tried his best to make Kieran feel like his real son, had always been that little bit apart. ‘Martyn’, not ‘Dad’. Now Kieran thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d told his mother or his stepfather that he loved them. Just Tess. Maybe it was because his little sister was younger than he was. She’d always been vulnerable in his eyes so it was safe to say it to her.
I love you, too.
Jude found it so easy to say. She was comfortable talking about emotions. Whereas he…Since the moment he’d admitted that he loved her, he hadn’t been able to say it again. Hadn’t been able to tell her the words he knew she wanted to hear.
‘You are the most pathetic man in the universe,’ he informed himself roughly. Tonight. He’d tell her again tonight. And mean every single word.
On the evening of the fundraiser, Kieran came home expecting to see Tess dressed up ready for a night out, but she was still wearing scruffy leggings and a T-shirt Charlie had dribbled food over. Breakfast and lunch, by the look of it. Her hair didn’t look as if it had seen a brush since she’d got up either.
‘Do you want the shower first?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s the fundraiser tonight.’
Tess shook her head. ‘I’m not going. I need to stay with Charlie.’
‘Rosemary said she’d babysit. You know he’ll be safe with her. And you haven’t been out for ages, Tess.’
She scowled. ‘Don’t nag.’
He frowned. He knew it took time for antidepressants to kick in, but he’d expected to see some kind of lift in her mood by now. A nasty suspicion flicked at him. ‘You are taking the antidepressants, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, will you get off my case? You’re worse than Mum!’
‘Only because I care.’
‘Care?’ Tess shook her head. ‘You’re stifling me, Kieran.’
The weeks of worry and treading carefully suddenly boiled over. ‘OK. If that’s the way you feel, I’ll go on my own. And I don’t know what time I’ll be back, because I’m going to help Jude, Holly and Zoe clear up.’ Thin-lipped, he strode upstairs to have a shower and change, and he didn’t bother saying goodbye—simply slammed the door as he left.
But by the time he got to the hospital social club, Kieran was feeling sick with guilt. Tess was ill. He should be treating her with kid gloves, not yelling at her. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and rang home. As he half expected, the answering-machine clicked in. And she didn’t pick up the phone. No doubt she was still too angry with him to talk to him. Or maybe she was giving Charlie a bath and hadn’t heard the phone ring.
Time for damage limitation. If he apologised now, at least she’d get the message and have time to simmer down again by the end of the evening. ‘Tess, it’s me,’ he said after the long beep. ‘I’m sorry. I was mean to you. Let’s talk when I get back.’ He cut the connection and went into the little room where Judith was running soundchecks.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ he asked Holly.
She shook her head. ‘Just enjoy it, really.’
‘I’ll help clear up, if you like.’ At her surprise glance, he added hastily, ‘To support my registrar, seeing as we’re getting a third of the proceeds.’
Holly smiled. ‘Cheers. I’ll hold you to that.’
As usual, Judith was brilliant. But Kieran couldn’t relax and enjoy it. Everything was too mixed up inside—how much he wanted to be with Jude, how mean he’d been to Tess. And how, despite what Jude said, his father’s genes were coming through loud and clear—because the minute something had stopped him getting what he wanted, he’d been nasty about it.
‘Where’s Tess?’ Judith asked Kieran when her set had finished and she came to help clear up.
‘Changed her mind,’ he said shortly.
‘That’s a pity.’
When he didn’t respond, she frowned. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘What’s the real story?’
He sighed. He should have guessed that she’d know something was wrong. ‘We had a fight. I did try ringing her earlier, to apologise, but she wouldn’t answer the phone.’
‘Hey. Why don’t you go home and make it up with her?’
‘I said I’d help here. And I wanted to walk you home.’
‘No need. Remember, Holls lives next door to me. I can go home with her.’ Judith put some brownies into a bag. ‘Take these as a peace offering and go and sort it out.’ She lifted one hand to silence his protest. ‘There’s plenty of people here to help, so don’t feel guilty.’
‘I’ll call you later,’ he promised.
‘If you can. Otherwise, see you tomorrow.’ She gave him a broad wink. ‘Cheer up. Or I’ll get Zo to sing to you, and she’s got a tin ear!’
The house was silent when Kieran got home. Weirdly silent. The back of his neck prickled. Something was wrong. Badly wrong.
He took the stairs two at a time and knocked on Tess’s door. No answer. Maybe she was asleep. He opened the door a crack. He could see Charlie in the cot, sleeping in his favourite position with his bottom stuck high in the air. But there was no sign of Tess.
If she wasn’t in bed and she wasn’t downstairs…then where was she? She would never have left her baby, Kieran knew.
He tried the bathroom door. Locked. ‘Tess? Are you there?’
No reply.
Maybe she’d fallen asleep in the bath. Cried herself to sleep, after the way he’d behaved towards her. He knocked harder. ‘Tess?’
Still no reply.
‘I know you’re angry with me, but just say something—anything—to let me know you’re all right. Tess?’
Still no reply.
Was she that stubborn—or had something happened?
He didn’t wait to go downstairs to get a knife and unpick the lock. He put his shoulder to the door and heaved until the lock gave way.
Tess was lying in the middle of the bathroom floor, a glass and an empty bottle of vodka next to her. And, more worryingly, a small box of pills. Paracetamol. And every capsule in the foil strip had been pushed through.
‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Tess. Tess!’ Paracetamol poisoning wouldn’t make her drowsy or sleepy, he knew. Hopefully it was the vodka that had knocked her out—he hadn’t noticed his sister drinking more than an occasional glass of wine in the evenings, so the spirits could have made her drunk to the point of unconsciousness.
He grabbed his mobile phone and punched in the number of the emergency services. ‘I need an ambulance.’ He gave his address, name and phone number. ‘Suspected paracetamol poisoning—she’s taken alcohol as well. I don’t know how much or how long, but it’s less than four hours.’ Which meant there was a good chance of stopping any damage to her liver or kidneys. ‘Please, just get someone here.’ He double-checked the details then rang off.
‘Don’t you dare die on me, Tess Bailey,’ he muttered as he checked her airway. Thank God, at least it was clear. She was breathing and her pulse was slow, but it was there. ‘We’re going to get through this. And this time I’m going to make damned sure you get proper help. For everything.’ He kissed her cold, clammy forehead, then put her gently into the recovery position and checked the bathroom cabinet. Nothing else was missing—just the packet of paracetamol. So she’d taken a maximum of sixteen tablets.
Please, don’t let there be another empty packet somewhere else.
As soon as the thought hit him, he rushed into Tess’s bedroom and switched on the light. The room was a mess, but there was no sign of a box of paracetamol. The kitchen wastebin yielded nothing. Not willing to assume anything, he unlocked the back door and checked the dustbin. Nothing there either.
When the paramedics arrived, he gave them all Tess’s details and as full a medical history as he could. ‘I think she’s taking antidepressants as well. I don’t know what, so I’ll bring her handbag—she keeps the tablets in there. These are the only paracetamol in the house and there aren’t any other empty packets in the bin or anything. Assuming it was a new packet, she’s taken sixteen tablets. There’s nothing else missing. I don’t know about the vodka—it was a house-warming present and I don’t drink it, so I’ve no idea how much was in the bottle.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It might be worth trying activated charcoal—otherwise she needs methionine.’ He shook his head. ‘No. She’s unconscious. Of course she’s not going to be able to take it orally. She needs intravenous NAC to stop any renal or hepatic damage.’
‘Medic, are you?’ one of the paramedics asked.
‘Obstetrician.’
‘And she’s your wife?’
‘Sister,’ he corrected. ‘Just get her to ED. Please.’
While the paramedics took Tess out to the ambulance, Kieran wrapped Charlie in a blanket and grabbed Tess’s handbag. There wasn’t time to ring anyone else—right now, he had to get Tess to hospital as soon as possible.
He spent the next hour or so pacing the floor, holding Charlie and hoping that his nephew wasn’t going to wake up and be frightened by the unfamiliar surroundings.
Tess could die. His baby sister could die. And it was all his fault.
Why, why, why hadn’t he realised that things were this bad?
Stupid question. Because his mind had been elsewhere. Working through another part of his anatomy. He’d been concentrating more on his love-life than on his little sister. And she was paying the price.
At last one of the nurses came out of Resus.
‘Mr Bailey?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve given her a gastric lavage.’
‘So she’s intubated?’
The nurse nodded. ‘Her bloods aren’t too bad. We’re giving her intravenous NAC. Rick—the paramedic—said she might have been taking antidepressants.’
‘I don’t know what her GP gave her—she won’t talk about it. But they’re not in her handbag. And there wasn’t any sign of overdosing on tricylics when I found her—no dilation of her pupils, no tachycardia.’ Kieran bit his lip. ‘I’ve got a nasty feeling she didn’t even see her GP, let alone get a prescription. She’s got postnatal depression and I’ve been nagging her too much about seeing someone about it.’
‘She’ll have to see someone about it now,’ the nurse said wryly. ‘We should be able to move her to an observation ward in another hour or so. You’ll be able to see her then.’
Kieran nodded. ‘I’d better ring our mum and tell her what’s happened. Tess is going to be all right?’
‘Fingers crossed.’
‘Thanks for all your help.’ He went into the reception area, found a payphone and prepared to ring his mother and explain what a total mess he’d made of looking after his baby sister.
Two hours later, Kieran was sitting next to Tess’s bed in the general ward.
Her eyelids flickered and came open. ‘Kieran?’ she asked groggily, seeing him. ‘Where am I?’
‘London City General,’ he said gently, taking her hand. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Lousy. My stomach hurts.’
‘It would do. They gave you a gastric lavage.’
‘My head hurts, too.’
‘That would be the after-effects of the vodka,’ he said sagely.
Panic flickered across her face. ‘Where’s Charlie?’
‘At home, with Mum. Who’s not going to judge you, by the way. She’s worried sick and loves you to bits. She’s given me quite an ear-bashing, though. And deservedly so.’
A tear leaked down her face. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean this to happen.’
‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart. I’m the one who should be apologising. I was supposed to be looking after you and I made a rubbish job of it.’ He paused. ‘Why did you do it, Tess?’
Her eyes were huge as she looked at him. ‘I just felt so lonely, so miserable. I couldn’t face going to the doctor. I didn’t want to go on drugs. But you kept nagging and nagging, and I felt as if you’d backed me into a corner. I didn’t know what else to do. And then we had that fight and I just wanted everything to stop.’
‘I’m so sorry, Tess. I shouldn’t have pressured you.’
She gulped. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
‘Of course you’re not going to lose me. I’m your big brother.’ He did his best to smile at her. ‘You’re stuck with me, squirt.’
‘But I was in the way.’
Ice trickled down his spine. ‘In the way of what?’ he asked, trying to keep his tone as light as possible.
‘I knocked your briefcase over. I’m sorry. I…’ She shuddered. ‘Anyway, all this stuff fell out. I put it back, but I saw this sticky note saying, “I love you.” It was signed “J”, with a heart. And you’d doodled “Jude” all over a bit of paper.’ More tears slid down her face, unchecked. ‘You were being so good to me, giving me a home and keeping Mum off my back, and all the time I was in the way. You couldn’t even see your girlfriend because of me. And I’m such a mess you didn’t even tell me you were seeing someone and it was serious.’
Kieran felt as if someone had just kicked him in the stomach. Hard. ‘So tonight you did this…because of me and Jude?’
Tess was crying too hard to answer.
Kieran shifted to sit next to her on the bed. He held her close, stroking her hair. ‘Oh, Tessikins. We never meant to hurt you. I didn’t want to lie to you. Neither of us did. I didn’t tell you about Jude because I was scared you’d think you were in the way and would run off to another grotty damp bedsit or something. I wanted to make sure you were all right before we told you about us.’ He shuddered. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this.’
She was still shaking with sobs, and he was aware that his own face was wet. ‘Tess, I could have lost you—my baby sister.’ And all because I’m just like my father. The pirate king. Taking what I want and to hell with anyone else—not even seeing how what I’m doing affects the people round me. ‘I promise you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Ever again.’