CHAPTER 40
Harry
October 2006
Harry was having difficulty concentrating on the concepts in front of him, for a new Rose Corp. HQ. But his distraction was for all the right reasons. He had a son. A bloody son! Little Eddie Rose, who’d entered the world with an apologetic whimper following his poor mother’s forty-eight-hour labor.
Janette had wanted a home birth, but as the labor dragged on and she became increasingly exhausted, Harry had pleaded with her to transfer to the hospital. She’d asked for more time—another of her “dreams” had been to give birth in a big bed at home. But there were complications, and by the time an ambulance was called, Janette had been past caring where she was.
Finally, to everyone’s relief, Eddie had arrived. But the placenta hadn’t, and Janette was whipped off to theater to have it removed.
Harry had been left in the delivery room holding the baby, and as he met Eddie’s solemn gaze, he felt it again, the sense of having met this little old soul before. “Hello there, old friend,” he said.
Harry gave up trying to understand the complicated architectural drawings and sat back in his chair. It was eleven days since Eddie’s arrival, and he was running on empty. He’d forgotten what it was like, being a new-parent zombie. He was getting on a bit for all this. Now that he had his longed-for son, he rather hoped this would be it, family-wise.
He yawned and stretched. He should probably take some time off, but these were busy times at Rose. The airline was going from strength to strength, and they’d added new routes to the States in the past year.
To help fund the expansion, Rose Corp. had bought up a number of failing companies, closing them down, laying off the staff, and selling their assets for a tidy profit. It was such easy money it had turned into something of a rampage, especially through the industrial north. Charles had jokingly called it the “dissolution of the factories.”
The asset stripping had made Janette uncomfortable—all those jobs lost. She rarely expressed her views on his business, but on this she’d begged him to stop, after a Panorama documentary on the effects of a factory closure on a northern town had left her in tears.
Terri, too, had loathed this new direction, and had sneaked a feature into the Rack on the union boss who’d organized a well-attended protest march. With the accompanying black-and-white photos of derelict factories and boarded-up local businesses, the piece had made for grim reading, and the media quickly picked up on the fact that plucky, principled Terri Robbins-More had taken a stand against her own boss, the powerful Harry Rose, who was suddenly losing the goodwill of the British public.
Harry had been apoplectic, his bellowed fury reaching every corner of the top floor. Secretaries and receptionists had cowered, but Terri stood her ground. “Someone’s got to prod your fucking conscience, Harry,” she’d said. “Just read it.”
While he didn’t give a damn what a few bolshie rabble-rousers thought of him, he cared very much about his public image. And he knew that if he fired Terri, she’d be out there as a loose anti-Harry cannon. He read the article and was moved. He’d wound down the asset stripping and let Terri off with a stern warning.
Meanwhile, TV was doing well, and Rose’s sortie into the provision of broadband, now that the market had opened up to competition, was promising. Later this week he’d be meeting with Charles and Andre to discuss streaming football live via the internet. Half of UK homes now had broadband, but the days when most would have the technology to watch live-stream football were still some way off. Years, probably. Harry intended to help make it happen.
Charles still handled many of Andre’s millions, but Harry hadn’t seen a lot of the Russian lately. Andre had fulfilled his dream of buying a football team. They weren’t in the Premier League yet, but at the rate he was buying up the world’s elite footballers, it probably wouldn’t be long. Mercifully, Andre’s obsession was keeping him busy, and Harry saw him only when they were invited to the same functions.
With all this expansion, Harry was overseeing the design of new premises to be built in Southwark. It was early days but, inspired by the Gherkin, he was talking towers with London’s most innovative property developers and architects. One had even suggested something in the shape of a rose. Harry liked this idea but was also in favor of being the driving force behind London’s tallest tower. It was going to be a tough choice.
His phone rang, and he looked at his watch: five fifteen. Perhaps he’d call it a day. He didn’t pick up.
It rang again, and he looked through the open doorway to see Tina, his secretary, pointing at her receiver. “You need to take this, Harry,” she called.
There was something in her voice.
He picked up the phone. “Harry Rose.”
The woman introduced herself as “Henrietta, the mum of one of Eliza’s friends.” She explained, her voice shaky, that she’d brought Eliza home after a playdate, and had worried when no one answered the door and they heard the baby crying.
Harry went cold. “Go on.”
“Eliza showed me where the spare key was kept, and we went in, and we found Janette unconscious on the floor. She was so dreadfully pale, and . . . oh it was awful, Mr. Rose. The paramedics said she’s in . . . they called it postpartum shock. She’s in the Royal Free. I’m still here with Eliza and the baby. He needs feeding. I’m not sure what to do.”
She was waiting for instructions, but his mind had gone blank.
“Mr. Rose?”
“The Royal Free, you say?”
“That’s right. I’m sure she’ll be fine now she’s there . . . Mr. Rose, we need to feed the baby.”
“Just a moment.”
He put the phone down on the desk and took some deep breaths. The panic started to recede.
Megan. She’d know what to do.
“I’ll call my sister, then come back to you. She lives close.”
Five minutes later Harry was on his way to the hospital, and Megan was en route to Primrose Hill, ready to stay over for as long as she was needed.
He sat by Janette’s bed, unable to take in what had happened. She was linked up to all manner of beeping machines, drips, and tubes, unconscious, clinging to life, but only just.
The ICU doctor told him it was postpartum sepsis—her body’s deadly response to an infection no one knew she had.
Sepsis? People didn’t die of that these days, did they?
Apparently they did, but the doctors were doing everything they could.
Harry held her hand, spoke to her softly. He begged her not to leave him. She’d been part of his life for so long, always there, always caring, so kind, bringing him such deep contentment. He’d be lost without her.
He bent his head, resting it on her hand, soaking it with his tears, pleading with her to stay with him, and Eddie, their perfect boy.
Hour after hour he willed it. Fight, Janette, don’t leave us.
Nurses came and went, checking, monitoring, bringing him cups of tea. At after two in the morning he finally dozed in the chair by her bed, still holding her hand. He’d had no medication since breakfast, no food since lunchtime, no proper sleep for weeks, and now the stress . . . his mind wandered in and out of consciousness, bringing disturbing dreams: shadowy figures in the room, murmured voices, a black silhouette in the corner. Another dark shape, a whisper: “She needs to die.”
He jerked awake. It was four thirty in the morning.
Janette lived only one more hour, slipping away as she’d lived her life—quietly, without a fuss.
Harry’s heart broke.
“You can’t stay here alone,” said Megan. “You clearly can’t look after yourself.”
The kitchen was piled with unwashed dishes and empty bottles. It was disgusting, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d told the cleaner to stay away, wanting to be by himself.
It had been—how long? Two weeks? He’d lost track of time since Janette died. His children were still at Megan and Charles’s, and he hadn’t been back to work yet. Alcohol and painkillers had dulled his mind, numbing the hurt to the extent that he was able to function, but only at home. He couldn’t face the world.
She was gone. Gone. How did a person simply cease to exist?
Janette’s parents had organized the funeral, and he’d sleepwalked through it. He could hardly remember giving the eulogy, or the tea and sandwiches afterward.
He was terrified of sleeping. He’d fall into vivid dreams that stayed with him throughout the day. Nightmares inhabited by pale ghosts—Janette, Ana, dead babies.
Paranoia was always lurking. A knock on the door or a ring of the phone could freeze him to the spot, convinced that whoever was there was not of this world.
He had blinding headaches, which handfuls of painkillers only reduced to a dull throb. Plain brown envelopes full of pills would be pushed through the letterbox every few days. Thank heavens for text messaging, though with his shaking fingers, tapping out a request to Andre’s contact was a challenge.
“Come and stay with us. I’m worried about you,” said Charles. “Really worried. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
Last time he’d done so, he’d seen Ana standing behind him. He hadn’t used a mirror since.
“No.”
“Darling, you look like a ghost,” said Megan. “Please, let us look after you. I know you want to be alone, but you’ve got to face the world sometime. We can help you.”
Harry laid his head on his arms and started to cry. “Why her, Megan? I can’t understand. Janette was such a good person. I should have made her go to hospital earlier. I should have—”
“Don’t, Harry,” said Charles. “It was a terrible thing, but it was no one’s fault.”
Megan began to cry too. “I don’t understand either. The bad things that keep happening to your wives. It’s like a curse. Why is fate being so unkind?”
“For fuck’s sake, Megan,” snapped Charles. “It’s not fate, it’s bad luck. Harry, you’ve got to get it together, for Eliza and Eddie’s sake. Come back with us and we’ll start thinking about how to move forward.”
“I don’t deserve you two,” Harry said, sniffing.
“Course you do, old pal. None of this is your fault. Now go pack a bag.”