HELEN BROOKS - The Marriage Solution

‘It’s his heart, Katie.’ Mark Lambeth answered again, and it was in that instant that Katie realised how serious things were. Her father wouldn’t have tolerated being sidestepped in the normal run of things and Mark, old friend that he was, wouldn’t have attempted it. ‘He’s had several warnings and now—’ He stopped abruptly at the look of horror on Katie’s face. ‘Now he will have to come into hospital,’ he finished flatly.

The ambulance was on the doorstep within four minutes and her father totally refused to let anyone but Mark accompany him to the hospital. It hurt, but he had been hurting her all his life and, if Katie hadn’t exactly got used to it, she had learnt how to endure it without letting her feelings show.

She stared for some minutes down the long, wind-swept drive after the ambulance had departed, her thoughts in turmoil, before turning and re-entering the house where Mrs Jenkins was hovering anxiously in the hall. ‘Oh, Katie, I can’t believe it.’ The small woman was nearly crying as she wrung her hands helplessly. ‘Not Mr David.’

‘He’ll be all right, Mrs Jenkins.’ Katie reached out and hugged the woman she had known most of her life and who had been something of a substitute mother since Katie’s own mother had died when she was ten. ‘You know Dad; he’s as strong as an ox.’

‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ Mrs Jenkins swallowed deeply and made for the kitchen. ‘I’ll fix us both a strong cup of coffee and then we’d better try to contact Jennifer. Do you know where she is?’

‘On an assignment in Monte Carlo, I think, but the paper will have her number,’ Katie said flatly as Mrs Jenkins’ words reminded her of the telephone call of ten minutes ago. Carlton Reef. She’d have to phone him and explain somehow. He surely wouldn’t expect her father to phone him from the hospital, would he? She recalled the hard, cold male voice and the barely controlled rage evident in every word, and shivered helplessly. But then again...

It took her nearly ten minutes to find his number in her father’s address book on his desk in his study due to the fact that it was under a firm’s name rather than his own. ‘Tone Organisation. Chairman and Managing Director, Carlton Reef,’ she said thoughtfully as she read the scrawly handwriting.

She had been sipping Mrs Jenkins’ scalding hot coffee as she hunted and it had had the effect of stilling the trembling in her limbs and calming her racing heartbeat a little. In spite of her brave words to the housekeeper she was desperately afraid for her father, and the suddenness of it all still made her faintly nauseous as she made the call.

‘Tone Organisation. Can I help you?’ As the uninterested voice of the telephonist came on the line Katie took a deep breath and forced herself to speak quietly and coolly.

‘Can I speak to Mr Reef, please?’ she said politely. ‘He is expecting the call.’

‘I’ll put you through to his secretary.’

A few more seconds elapsed and then a cultured, beautifully modulated female voice spoke silkily. ‘Mr Reef’s office. Can I help you?’

As Katie gave her name and a brief explanation to the disembodied voice she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation of what was to come, and it was with a sense of anticlimax that she beard the secretary’s voice speak again a minute or so later. ‘I’m sorry, Miss White, I understand that Mr Reef was expecting your father to call.’ It was said pleasantly enough but with just the faintest condemnation in the soft tones. ‘He really can’t spare the time—’

‘My father has been taken into hospital,’ Katie said tightly as she felt her face begin to burn with impotent anger. ‘I’m fully aware of what Mr Reef was expecting but he’ll have to make do with me, I’m afraid.’

‘Just a moment.’ There were a few more seconds of silence and then the secretary spoke again, her voice faintly embarrassed now. ‘I’m sorry, Miss White, but Mr Reef said he did make it plain to you that it is your father he needs to contact. He doesn’t think there is any point in talking to you.’

‘Now just a darn minute.’ Katie fairly spat the words down the phone. ‘My father has been rushed to hospital with a heart attack and that creep you work for hasn’t even got the decency to talk to me? Whatever he is paying you, it isn’t enough for working for a low-life like him.’

‘Miss White—’

‘Look, this isn’t your fault but I see no purpose in continuing this conversation,’ Katie said stiffly before slamming the phone down so hard that the small table quivered under the force of it.

The pig! The arrogant, cold, supercilious pig! She tried to take a sip of coffee but her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t lift the cup, which made her still angrier. A combination of shock at her father’s sudden collapse and rage at Carlton Reefs total lack of sympathy brought the tears she had kept at bay so far burning hot into the back of her eyes. She sat for long minutes trembling with the strength of her emotions before she wiped her wet eyes with a resolute hand and dialled the number of the local hospital with her heart in her mouth.

She was put through almost immediately to Mark whose calm, unflappable voice reassured her somewhat. ‘It’s as I expected, Katie,’ the doctor said gently. ‘His heart is struggling a little—I’ve recognised it for some time—but with certain medication or perhaps even an operation he can carry on more or less as normal.’

‘Did he have a heart attack?’ she asked nervously.

‘I won’t lie to you, Katie; you’re over twenty-one and well able to take the rough with the smooth from what I’ve seen of you. Yes, it was a heart attack. He’s all wired up at the moment and the results aren’t too good but they’re far from fatal, so don’t let your imagination run riot. He’s been working too hard of late but you can’t tell him. At sixty he’s no spring chicken.’

‘No...’ She smiled shakily. ‘Can I come and see him?’

‘Leave it for now,’ he said gently. ‘He’d hate you to see him at the moment; you know how he is.’

Yes, she knew how he was, Katie thought painfully as the shaft of agony that whipped through her body made her gasp. If it had been Jennifer here he would have allowed her to see him, but the simple fact was that he didn’t rate his younger daughter at all. She shut her eyes tight and forced her voice to remain normal. ‘But he’s in no danger?’ she asked quietly.

‘Not now.’ Mark’s voice was soothing. ‘I only wish I could have got him in here months ago.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’ She could feel the tears bubbling to the surface and knew she had to finish the call quickly. ‘I’ll phone later, if I may?’

‘Of course. Goodbye, Katie.’

‘Goodbye, and thank you.’

She sat for long minutes in the overwhelmingly male study before wiping her eyes for the second time, phoning a local taxi firm and checking the address of the Tone Organisation in her father’s smart address book. Somehow, during that telephone call with Dr Lambeth, something that had been forming slowly through the last few years of her life crystallised in her mind.

She was aware that her father treated her with an offhand, almost casual and often slightly caustic tolerance that was totally absent from his dealing with her older sister. Jennifer had chosen a career in the cut-and-thrust, dog-eat-dog world of journalism and was doing wonderfully well. This her father could both understand and respect. Whereas she...

She blinked as she laid the book down on the desk. She had chosen to work with physically handicapped children in a local school after finishing her degree at university, despite better, more up-market job offers. The hours were long, the salary low and the mental and physical exhaustion that were part of the job sometimes seemed too much to bear but the rewards... She straightened her back as she stood up. The rewards as the children under her care learnt to live to their potential were enormous and something that her father would never understand, she thought painfully.