Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,8
them face-to-face and they had great black holes in their foreheads. Then I heard Elvira White’s voice shrieking at us all to get out. She might have died peaceful but she was mean and cantankerous, well, everyone knew that. She wouldn’t give me nothing, not even a sip of water. Snooty she was, but I believe her past would show she was no better than she ought to be. You won’t catch me going there again. Tell the kiddies to stay away and never play there.’
Haunted or not, Merrivale, although basically sound and with a bathroom of sorts, required its water to be pumped up from the well outside and it offered no other amenities. Dorrie thought the electrical wiring might be tricky. It was no place for a vulnerable baby to be born in, especially one without a father on the scene.
At the front door, Corky used his black snout for a thorough sniffing then had other ideas to settling down on the sitting-room hearthrug. He went off round to the back. The mock pagoda was one of his favourite places to snooze in. Dorrie made the telephone call. Rebecca Rumford’s landlady, Great War widow Mrs Agnes Pentecost, said she would track her down on her rounds and send her along to Merrivale directly. Dorrie had no qualms about mentioning the possibility of the baby’s imminent birth. Mrs Pentecost was the soul of discretion and very protective of her paying guest. Dorrie collected some things together, dashed off a note to Greg and was soon off and out again.
Everything to Finn felt skin-tinglingly odd. Intimidating. Scary. Frightening him more than ever. With alarming clarity he knew that he wasn’t in the throes of a nightmare yet it seemed he had been running back up the hill – just a length of several hundred yards and not at all steep – for hours in a kind of limbo world. The hedgerows, although draped in May blossom, bluebells, white wild garlic and cow parsley with shiny yellow celandines down near the ditches, broken in one place by a field gate, seemed to rear up either side of him, close in on him, and he half expected something suddenly to drop down in front of him and block his way back to his mother.
‘No! You can’t leave me, Finn,’ Fiona had screamed when he’d yelled in panic that he must run and get help.
He had found her on her knees on the bedroom floor clutching her huge belly, gritting her teeth, her pale hollow face flushed and grimacing in pain. A stab of fear had sent Finn’s heart thrashing so fiercely in his chest he thought his ribs would break. The woman down before him didn’t seem like his mother but some gargoyle-like version of her. ‘Mum, are you hurt?’ Had she hurt herself deliberately? She had so often cried out that she wished she were dead.
Fiona had motioned with a taut hand to give her a moment. After an endless time she let out a long desperate gasp, an ugly breath, and slumped forward, her rat-tailed hair swinging like a piece of ripped cloth hiding her face. It was a strange thought at the time but Finn felt heartbroken over the loss of her gleaming blonde hair that had once been immaculately sculptured into luxuriant waves or chignons. Fiona lifted her face to him and Finn got the impression he was looking down at a bewildered child and he reached out to her.
‘I’m in labour, Finn,’ she whimpered. ‘Help me up on the bed. After you left I was going to tidy up and try to cook us something, then I had a burning need to go to the bathroom. You may not understand this,’ she had heaved and puffed while he hauled her up to sit on the edge of the bed, ‘but my waters broke.’
‘There’s no immediate worry, is there?’ Finn had asked, reaching round to the dressing table and picking up her hairbrush. ‘Babies take hours to come, don’t they?’
‘I thought this one would – you certainly did, Finn – but I went straight into strong contractions and the birth is not far off.’
‘What?’ Finn’s gut constricted. He dropped the hairbrush and it hit the bare wooden floor with a thump that startled them both.
‘Finn, don’t,’ Fiona moaned. ‘Fetch some towels and bring over that box on the chair. I did manage to put a few things together that the midwife suggested. I’ve put back some money to