The Night Gate

Chapter Twenty-Three

The waiting room was small and overlit. Unforgivingly hard plastic chairs and an ancient coffee machine whose hum filled the silence. Distant, muffled sounds from the maternity wing seemed to come from a very long way off. The pervasive perfumes of disinfectant and floor polish hung in the air.

Enzo sat next to Dominique and could barely meet the gaze of his son-in-law. Bertrand was perched on the chair opposite, despair apparent in the eyes above his mask. From time to time he stood up and paced the length of the room, then back again to resume his seat.

Enzo’s eyes stung with fear and fatigue. It had taken him a little over six hours to drive down from Paris, stopping only twice. Once for a coffee to keep his eyes from shutting as he drove. And once to call Dominique for an update. The only news had been no news, which was good news in the absence of bad.

He had arrived at the hospital a little after five and watched darkness fall through the windows of a waiting room witness to both the tears and the joy of all those who had passed through it over the years. It was now nearly midnight. A stream of coffees from the machine had kept hunger at bay but set him even more on edge.

The doctors believed that Sophie was suffering from what they called placenta praevia, in which the placenta that the baby required for nourishment had detached itself from the womb. She was several weeks premature and they were attempting to prevent her from going into labour. Both were at serious risk.

None of them had spoken for what seemed like hours.

And then swing doors pushed suddenly open and a lady doctor, still in gown and mask and shower cap, breezed into the room. Enzo and the others were on their feet immediately, fearing the worst, hoping for the best.

She said, ‘We’ve carried out a caesarean section.’ And raised a quick hand to pre-empt questions. ‘Successfully. Mother and son are both doing well.’

Enzo’s legs nearly buckled under him.

The recovery ward was somewhere at the far end of the corridor. Bertrand had been in with Sophie for nearly fifteen minutes. They had let him into the recovery room shortly after she came out of the anaesthetic.

At this end of the corridor, light flooded through a large window that gave on to the incubation room. Enzo and Dominique stood gazing through it at a row of six incubators. Three were occupied. Sophie and Bertrand’s little boy was in the middle. A tiny, crusty newborn baby, kicking and waving his arms energetically inside the plastic bubble that fed oxygen to lungs breathing prematurely. He had a fine head of dark hair, and Enzo had every expectation that one day there would be a silver streak running through it, and that his classmates would nickname him badger or magpie, as they had done with him. He only hoped that other less pleasant symptoms would not accompany it.

Dominique hooked her arm through his and gave it a tiny squeeze. ‘Just like his grandfather,’ she said. ‘Causing trouble already.’

Enzo’s smile was pale and barely extended beyond his lips. He didn’t quite trust himself to speak just yet.

‘I should probably get back to the apartment to check on Laurent,’ Dominique said. Nicole had driven over from Gaillac to sit with him. ‘And I should make us all something to eat. Bring Bertrand with you, Enzo. We can’t have him going back to an empty house on his own after all this.’

Enzo nodded distractedly and she kissed his cheek before uncoupling her arm and slipping softly away. Enzo stood staring at his grandson and knew that a little bit of Pascale lived on in him. And it broke his heart that she had not lived to see it.

He had no idea how long he’d been standing gazing past his own reflection in the glass when he became aware of Bertrand tugging gently on his arm. ‘She wants to see you,’ he said. ‘The doctor says it’s okay. Just for a few minutes.’

Her face was chalk white, brown hair lacking its usual lustre and sprayed out across the pillow. Her eyes followed him from the door to the bedside, where he sat down and took the hand that was outside the covers. There was still an intravenous cannula taped to the back of it. The thought of the surgeon’s knife cutting open his baby girl almost brought tears to his eyes. Hers, by contrast, were clear and smiling, and all he could see in them was her mother. The effects of the anaesthetic were more apparent in her voice, which was faint and husky.

‘Are you alright?’ she asked. Which made him laugh, almost out loud.

‘Me?’ He held her hand in both of his and squeezed it. ‘I was so scared for you, Soph, after what happened to your mum.’

Somehow she managed to free her other hand and clutched both of his with both of hers. ‘I knew you would be. But Papa, I was never ever going to die on you. Never. No way I could let that happen to you twice.’

And just as he had spilled tears for Charlotte at the start of the day, he spilled them again for Sophie and her mother at the end of it.

The lights of Cahors reflected in the loop of the River Lot that contained it. A town built by the Romans two thousand years ago. Once the financial crossroads of Europe. And now a sleepy departmental capital that had been Enzo’s home for nearly forty years. From where he sat now in the dark, at the top of Mont Saint-Cyr, he could see it stretching north, past the tower where the public hangings once took place, and beyond that to the rocky uplands they called the causses. Rocky scrubland washed by moonlight. Away to his left, he saw the lights of traffic crossing the viaduct on the RN20, and the sound of it carried faintly to him on the night.

By day this was a spectacular viewpoint that attracted crowds of tourists. By night a quiet spot for young lovers to bring their cars. But on this cold early morning in late October, Enzo was quite alone. As he had been that night thirty-five years ago when Pascale died giving birth to Sophie. The place to which he had retreated, like a wounded animal, to spill his tears and try to come to terms with his loss. From here it was possible to achieve a different perspective on the world, but he had never quite found a context in which he could place the tragedy that had marred his young life.

Raising his daughter on his own had never been easy. They’d had their moments. Quite a few of them. But he could hardly be more proud of her than he was now. Or of his new grandson. If only Pascale had lived to share in it.

He heard the tyres of a vehicle on gravel, and headlights raked the night air. He stood up. But from here, where the bench was set just below the lip of the hill, he could see nothing. A car door slammed shut and there were footsteps, crisp in the chill night air.

‘Who’s there?’ he called, and was relieved when Dominique came into view at the railing above him. Moonlight picked her out sharply against the black of the sky behind her.

‘When Bertrand came back to the apartment on his own he said he thought I might find you here.’ She skirted the railing and climbed down the steps to the viewpoint below. She ran her hand gently down the side of his pale moonlit face, then put her arms around him to pull him close. ‘I know what you are feeling right now, darling. And I don’t want to take the moment away from you. I want to share it with you.’

He slipped his arms around her and held her tight. ‘I love you,’ he whispered. Then drew back and touched her face and gazed into her eyes. ‘You would have liked Pascale.’ A sad smile. ‘And I’m quite sure she would have approved of you.’

He released her to turn and gaze out over the town below.

‘It all feels so long ago now. Like other people in another life.’

‘You still miss her?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that. I accepted losing her a very long time ago. But I’ve never stopped feeling her loss. Everything she’s missed out on. Watching her daughter grow.’ He chuckled. ‘Coming to terms with her son-in-law. As I had to. Looking through the glass tonight at her grandson. And just...’ He shrugged hopelessly. ‘Just... life. The whole life that lay ahead of her. I think of her every time the trees push out fresh leaves and another year passes that she never got to see. It’s so unfair, Dom.’

‘I know.’ She took his arm and moulded her body to his. ‘Her death took away your life, too. But you have another life now. With me. And you need to live every moment of it. And know that whatever happens, I’m not going to leave you, Enzo. Ever.’

He turned his face to hers and they kissed. Then he sighed and said, ‘Sadly, it’s me who’s going to have to leave you.’ And when he saw the alarm in her face, laughed and added, ‘Though not for long. But I’m going to have to go back up to Carennac tomorrow and try to bring this whole damned case to an end, once and for all.’