Like the drawing room. The library. The conservatory… Was his track taking him there automatically because he remembered the last time he had been in there? With the awful music and that glow of happiness and pride in his mother’s face? And Bella, making the very air in this house feel like it had more oxygen or something in it?
There was nobody in the conservatory but there was a half-drunk cup of tea on a glass-topped table that was part of a suite of cane furniture screened by oversized potted palm trees. Beside the cup and saucer was a blood-glucose meter that still had a testing strip poking out of the end. Beside that lay an empty insulin syringe.
Oliver’s breath left his chest in an exasperated huff. The syringe might have a needle that was small enough to be virtually invisible but it should have been put in a sharps container the instant it had been finished with.
Bella should know better.
Where the hell was she?
Raising his head as if to look for her, Oliver saw that the French doors of the conservatory were open and beyond them he could see a figure standing in the middle of the lawn. His mother, apparently caught by the shimmer of the sea in the soft light of dusk.
With a surge of relief, Oliver strode outside.
‘Mother!’ he called as he got closer. ‘How are you?’
Lady Dorothy didn’t answer. She didn’t even turn her head.
‘Where’s Bella?’ The inflection on the query faded as if Oliver didn’t actually expect a response. Maybe he had instinctively known there wouldn’t be one. He was still operating on autopilot, however, bending to kiss his mother’s cheek. Well before his lips brushed her skin, he knew something was wrong.
Lady Dorothy was still staring out to sea, totally unaware of his presence. The lights were on but nobody was home and Oliver knew exactly what was happening. He didn’t have to touch her skin to feel how clammy and cold it was. Or to pick up her wrist to feel the rapid pulse. His mother’s blood sugar was dangerously low and she was only seconds away from losing consciousness completely.
And she was standing outside. Byherself.
With a speed and control fuelled by fury, Oliver picked his mother up in his arms as if she weighed nothing and strode back into the house. Through the conservatory and back towards the kitchen, almost colliding with Bella as she came flying down the staircase.
‘Oh, my God,’ she gasped, the colour draining from her face. ‘What’s happened?’
Oliver kept going without saying a word, aware of Bella following because he could hear her breath hitch in a half-sob. Carefully, he put his mother down on a chair beside the kitchen table, pausing for a moment to check that she was still conscious enough to remain upright. Bella crouched beside the chair, her arms outstretched to offer support.
Lady Dorothy sat there in her robot-like state, apparently unaware of Bella’s horrified face even though she was staring straight at her nurse.
‘What’s happened,’ Oliver finally snapped as he headed for the fridge, ‘is that you left my mother alone,outside, to have a hypoglycaemic attack.’ He wrenched the fridge door open and jerked out the drawer that held the insulin supplies. Amongst all the preloaded syringes were some clear plastic sachets. He was ripping one open as he turned back to his mother.
‘I’d only been gone for a couple of minutes.’ Bella’s voice was strained, her face as pale as his mother’s was. ‘Lady Dorothy thought of somewhere else her necklace might be and she said I had to go and look right now in case she forgot later…’
Oliver ignored the flow of words that were obviously supposed to be excusing the inexcusable. He was rubbing the glucose gel from the sachet across his mother’s gums and over her tongue. She could still swallow safely, thank goodness, but if it was necessary, he had the supplies available to administer intravenous glucose.
His anger hadn’t faded at all yet.
‘I have a job I have to go to, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ he told Bella. ‘I can’t be in two places at once so, unless I give up my position at St Patrick’s, I can’t take total responsibility for my mother’s health care. That’s what you were employed for and I thought you could be trusted.’
Bella wasn’t saying anything. Oliver ignored the tiny sniffle he heard. Why did women seem to think that crying was going to fix anything? He glanced at his watch. If the glucose gel was going to work, it should be starting to have an effect by now.
He would call an ambulance if he had to, of course, but remembering how upset his mother had been the last time such a fuss had been made, it would be preferable to avoid such drastic measures.
And the glucose she was rapidly absorbing through her mucous membranes seemed to be working finally. He could feel the tone returning to her sagging body and saw her blinking her eyes.
‘Oh… my…’ Lady Dorothy’s voice sounded surprisingly strong. ‘Where am I?’
‘In the kitchen,’ Oliver said. ‘You had a hypo, Mum.’
‘Oh, dear. I’m sorry, darling.’
‘There’s no need for you to be sorry,’ Oliver growled. ‘It was hardlyyourfault.’
* * *
It was her fault.
