Perfect People

32

Lying back in the soft leather seat, tired after the eleven-hour transatlantic flight, Naomi was lulled close to sleep by the soporific rocking motion of the large Mercedes that had collected them from London’s Heathrow Airport. John had his laptop open, but was slumped back, eyes shut.

It was a long time since she had been back, and she had forgotten how green England looked compared to Los Angeles. She felt an enormous sense of relief at being on English soil again; everything looked so peaceful, even the traffic on the motorway seemed so much calmer than the turbulent freeways.

She was longing to see her mother and her sister. And she was longing, also, for the bitter, salty taste of a Marmite sandwich – a new craving she’d had during the past twenty-four hours.

The hostess on the Virgin plane must have thought she was nuts, she realized, when she’d asked her if she had any frozen peas and then Marmite.

The car had been arranged by Carson Dicks, and Naomi appreciated the gesture. They were going down to Sussex, to stay in a hotel in Brighton. Tomorrow, John had a meeting at the Morley Park Research Laboratory with Dicks and the team he was going to be working with. Then he was going to have to fly back to LA to tie up his loose ends at work there and organize the shipping of all their possessions over to England.

Meanwhile, she was going to have to start house hunting. Everything seemed to be happening at a speed that was hard to keep pace with. It was just two weeks since that newspaper article in USA Today. Two weeks since their whole lives had been turned upside down.

Her mother always said that things were meant to be. Naomi didn’t believe that; she believed people controlled their own destinies. But she was an optimist. You just had to keep positive and eventually, somehow, things would work out OK.

Like now.

What do you think, Phoebe?

They hadn’t had a second opinion yet – it was another two weeks before they would do that – but already in their minds they were reconciled to the fact that they were having a girl. They’d started going through lists of girls’ names and last night, on the plane, they had settled on Phoebe.

Phoebe was one of the Titans in Greek mythology, who were of enormous size and strength. It seemed fitting.

She turned and looked through the rear window at the traffic behind them on the M23, watching for any vehicle that might be following them. There was a blue van immediately behind them in their lane, the middle lane. But then its indicator began blinking and it moved over and headed towards the ramp of the next exit. A small sports car was behind it. Then, a considerable way behind, a small green saloon and a red Range Rover, but both were slipping away into the distance.

Paranoia, she knew. It had been the same on the plane. She’d walked down the aisle, studying the faces of the passengers, watching for someone who might be following them.

What did a Disciple of the Third Millennium look like?

She lowered her window a few inches, and the roar of air intruded into the clubroom quiet of the interior. August. Summer in England. The air was close and damp. Small chinks of blue sky amid the darkening grey. She remembered that it often looked like this before it rained. But she didn’t mind. Rain was hell in Los Angeles, but it was OK in England. Here it could rain as much as it wanted; just so long as she and John could move back here, she didn’t care how much sun she had to sacrifice.

They were heading south. In the far distance she could see the green folds of the South Downs. This was where she and John had come not long after they had first met and fallen in love. She had brought him to England, first to Bath to meet her mother and to meet Harriet – and they had been charmed by him. Then he had brought her to Sussex to meet Carson Dicks and his other friends from the university. He had shown her off proudly, like a trophy, and she hadn’t minded at all. They had both been almost deliriously happy.

And, she was thinking, she felt happy again now. Happier than she had felt The pain struck with no warning at all. It felt like a jack-in-the-box had sprung open inside her and a fist on the end was trying to punch its way out of her abdomen. Every muscle inside her seemed to contract, twist, then spring free. She convulsed, jerking so harshly into the seat belt it felt like it was cutting her skin, and screamed. Then she emitted a series of terrible low, juddering moans that got louder as the pain worsened, then worsened again, so acute now she was closing her eyes, biting her lips, aware of the Mercedes doing a violent swerve, aware of John’s laptop falling to the floor. John, sprung awake, stared at her in confused terror, thinking for one moment they were having an accident. Then he saw Naomi’s face. Heard her voice again.

‘Darling? Darling?’

It was getting even worse, as if her entire insides were being ripped out with a white-hot knife.

‘Pleasssssee… oh… pleeaaassssssss… no… no.. .’

‘STOP THE CAR!’ John bellowed.

Violent braking. Horns.

‘Help me-help-me-help-me-help-me…’

They were pulling over, onto the hard shoulder. A truck thundered past inches away. Her face was grey, twisted, tears streaming down it, and blood was coming from her mouth. She was shaking like a deranged caged animal, hair flailing, the terrible moans coming faster and faster.

Blood coming from her mouth. Oh Christ. She’s dying. Oh Jesus, no, what the fuck have you done to her, Dettore?

‘Darling – darling – Naomi – darling-’

The moans stopped.

The blood was coming from her lip, not her mouth.

A moment’s silence. She turned to face him with unfocused eyes as if she was staring at some demon, her face clenched up into an emotion he could not read, it could have been pain or hate, or both. Then her voice dropped to a whisper.

‘Help me. Please help me, John. I can’t – I can’t – take – I can’t take another – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-’

Then she jerked violently upwards, her eyes rolled, she began juddering and let out a single moan that went on and on, for thirty seconds, maybe a minute, maybe even longer, John didn’t know, he was trying desperately to think straight, to work out what might be happening inside her. Miscarrying? Oh God.

He put a hand on her brow. It was clammy with perspiration. ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘It’s OK, you are going to be OK.’

She yammered incoherently at him, shaking her head violently, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying, nor interpret the message in her wild eyes.

‘Darling,’ he said. ‘Calm down, please, calm down, tell me, what is it, tell me?’

She tried to speak but her voice choked in her throat as she began juddering again, then she rammed the back of her wrist against her mouth, biting on it, eyes clenched shut.

John turned to the driver. ‘We need an ambulance – or – are we near a hospital – how-?’

‘Crawley. We’re ten minutes away – less – there’s a big hospital there.’

‘Go!’ John said. ‘Just go as fast as you can, I’ll – take care – any fines you get – please, just go!’