'Perhaps her blood pressure's too high. Or too low. I seem to remember Felicity having problems when she was expecting Joel.'

Thankful for Harriet's clear-headedness, Will relaxed a little. It seemed the obvious answer.

When they arrived at the hospital, she dropped him off at the entrance to the A & E department and went to find somewhere to park. 'I'll catch up with you in a minute,' she said.

It was a while before Will could find someone to talk to inside. It was bedlam; medical staff rushing about the place, rows of seats occupied by people in varying degrees of injury and drunkenness, and somewhere a child crying loudly.

'Has my daughter, Suzie Hart, been admitted?' he asked a hara.s.sed woman behind the desk.

After an interminable wait, she shook her head. 'Sorry, there's no one of that name.' A telephone rang and as she picked up the receiver, she gestured for him to take a seat. Frustrated, he moved away; he'd get no more help from her. Not knowing what else he could do, he went back outside and called Gemma's number on his mobile to find out what was going on, a.s.suming that she would be in the ambulance with Suzie.

She answered immediately. 'Dad, it's a b.l.o.o.d.y nightmare here. The ambulance hasn't sodding well come and Suzie's completely crashed out. We can't wake her. What the h.e.l.l do we do? Shall we get a neighbour to drive us to the hospital?'

'I'll ring for another ambulance,' he said, hearing the panic in Gemma's voice. 'Hang in there, Gem. It'll be fine.'

But he knew as he put a call through to the emergency services, his hands shaking and his heart pounding, that things were far from fine. He was just putting his phone back in his jacket pocket when Harriet appeared.

'What's the news?' she asked.

'It's a total c.o.c.k-up! The ambulance hasn't arrived. I've just called for another.' He swallowed. 'Gemma says Suzie's unconscious. They can't wake her. I should have gone there. We could have got her here by now.'

'Let's go inside,' she said. 'You find us a vending machine for some coffee and I'll have a word with someone on the desk.'

'It's no good, I've tried already. They're all so busy.'

'Just find the coffee, Will.'

Harriet explained the situation to the woman on the desk as clearly as she could, describing Suzie's condition, that she was eight months pregnant, that she'd collapsed for no apparent reason, and that it sounded as though she was now in a coma. At no stage had Will mentioned the word coma, but Harriet feared the worst.

Satisfied that she'd done everything she could to prepare for Suzie's arrival, she found Will pushing money into a vending machine. 'They'll be ready for Suzie when she comes,' she told him. 'We just have to wait now.'

He handed her a cup of something that smelled more like chicken soup than coffee. 'But for how long?' he muttered.

Each time there was a new arrival through the main entrance - a disorientated half-awake child carried by a parent, an elderly man in a wheelchair, a young lad in biker gear on a trolley with his neck in a brace - Will's hopes would rise. But it was twenty minutes later, almost midnight, when they heard and saw a rush of movement that had both him and Harriet on their feet. It was the sight of Gemma coming in behind the paramedics that confirmed for Will that it was Suzie on the trolley - her face was partially hidden beneath an oxygen mask. He rushed over but was immediately pushed aside by a whirlwind of activity. Forced to stand back helplessly while Suzie was wheeled away and the paramedics briefed the medical staff, he caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of what was said: 'Coma ... preceded by vomiting and drifting in and out of consciousness ... foetal heart beat dropping ...'

Paralysed with shock, he stared after his daughter. How could this be happening? How could his beloved Suzie be in a coma?

'Dad? She'll be okay, won't she?'

He turned. Gemma was standing next to him and the sight of her pale and dazed face brought him up short. He put his arm round her. 'She'll be fine, love. Once they've got her on the right medication or whatever it is they have to do, she'll be as right as rain.'

'Do you think she's going to lose the baby?'

'Let's hope not. I'm no expert, but it's probably strong enough to be born this early without coming to too much harm.' He led her away from the main entrance to a quieter area beside an artificial Christmas tree, and suddenly remembered his mother. 'Where's Nana Ruby? Didn't she come in the ambulance with you?'

'She's gone to Mum's. I got her a taxi and gave her my key. Mum should be here, Dad.'

Proud of his youngest daughter for her foresight, he gave her another hug. 'Good thinking, Gem.'

'I don't understand why she isn't answering her mobile or phone. What's she doing?'

'I saw her earlier in the evening,' Will explained. 'Before I went out for dinner.' He then told Gemma about Maxine cutting her foot. He didn't go into details about the odd mood her mother had been in when he'd left her. 'She probably decided to have an early night,' he said.

Gemma sighed. 'I just wish I'd learned to drive. If I had, I could have got her here quicker. Nana was upset too that she couldn't do it. Oh, Dad, we both felt so helpless. What if she - ?'

Will cut her short. 'Don't even say it. Do you want a drink?'

No sooner had he spoken than he saw Harriet coming over with a plastic cup in her hand. 'I thought you might like this,' she said to Gemma. 'Hot chocolate. With sugar. I can get you one without, if you'd prefer.'

Gemma took the cup. 'No, this'll be fine. Thanks.'

For the next few minutes they stood in a huddle of awkward silence, watching the clock and waiting for news. When a young doctor in a white coat approached them, Will tensed. He could see straight away from the man's face that the news was bad. Suzie must have lost the baby. His heart went out to her.

Chapter Forty-Nine.

After a brief round of introductions, the doctor ushered Will through to a room that was as cramped as it was uninviting. There were blinds pulled down over the windows blocking out any views - or perhaps it was to stop anyone looking in. There was a stark central light, chairs lined against the walls and Christmas decorations hanging wearily on a pathetically small tree in the corner. The doctor suggested they sit. He looked tired and much too young to do the job he did. Poor devil, thought Will. He probably hasn't slept in the last forty-eight hours.

'Mr Hart,' the doctor began gently, 'I'm so very sorry to have to tell you this, but you daughter suffered what we think, at this stage, was a ruptured aneurysm, specifically a subarachnoid haemorrhage. We won't know for sure, not until - '

Will's mouth went dry. He tried to swallow but couldn't. 'I'm sorry, could you explain what that is? In simple layman's terms.'

'Of course. It's a type of brain haemorrhage, in which blood from a ruptured blood vessel spreads over the surface of the brain. In your daughter's case it was a severe haemorrhage, which sent her into a coma. We did our best to carry out an emergency caesarean to save the baby, but I'm afraid - '

Will took in the deepening expression of sympathy in the young doctor's face. 'The baby didn't survive, did it?' he said helpfully. 'Does Suzie know?'

A shadow of what looked like awkward confusion pa.s.sed across the man's face. It made Will's blood turn to ice. 'Mr Hart, I'm afraid that neither the baby nor your daughter survived. Suzie never regained consciousness. I'm so very sorry.'

Will heard the words but it was as if his brain wouldn't compute the information. He blinked hard. 'I ... I don't understand. Dead? Are you telling me Suzie's dead?' Suddenly he was finding it hard to breathe. A convulsive trembling had seized him.

'Would you like someone to sit with you for a while, Mr Hart?'

While his body was caving in, his brain forged on trying to prove the doctor wrong. 'But she can't be dead. There must be some mistake. You're mixing my daughter up with someone else.'

'I'm sorry, Mr Hart - '

Whatever else the doctor had to say, Will was deaf to it. A crashing noise had filled the s.p.a.ce between his ears. He slumped forward, his head in his hands. His whole body seemed to have turned inside out and disintegrated. A terrible animal-like sound escaped him and he thought he might pa.s.s out. The next thing he knew, Harriet and Gemma were in the room with him. Harriet was trying to hold him, but he was shaking her off. He didn't want anyone to touch him. He looked around for the doctor and saw him standing in the corner talking to Gemma. Tears were streaming down Gemma's face. The doctor's hand was on her shoulder. He knew he should go to her, but he couldn't do it. All he could think of was Suzie. His beloved Suzie.

'Can I see her?' he said to the doctor. 'My daughter. Can I see her? Please.'

'Of course.'

'I want to see her too, Dad.'

'No.' Will's voice was flat. 'I want to do this alone.'

Harriet stood at the door and watched Will walk hesitantly beside the doctor. At one point he almost stumbled and the doctor put a hand to his elbow to support him. As they disappeared beyond the double doors at the far end of the corridor, it was a painful reminder for Harriet of the night Felicity and Jeff had died, when she had accompanied her father to identify the bodies. No parent should ever have to go through this, she thought. Poor Will. He was utterly devoted to his children. How would he ever come to terms with this?

Remembering Gemma, Harriet turned round to see if there was anything she could do to comfort the girl. She sat next to her, but sensed that Gemma wasn't even aware that she was in the room with her. Minutes later, when the sound of raised voices broke the unearthly hush, Gemma's head jerked up and she was instantly on her feet. 'It's Mum, she said. 'She won't know what's happened. I'll have to tell her.'

Feeling nauseous with impotent shock, Harriet once more found herself standing helplessly in the background. Gemma and her mother embraced, while an older woman, presumably Will's mother, hovered to one side. With a burst of fresh tears, the young girl broke the devastating news.

With tears in her own eyes, and unsure now what part she could play in this horrific drama, Harriet decided to leave. She wouldn't be wanted here.

Chapter Fifty.

Eileen and Dora were taking it in turns to cook for Will. Each evening they would leave a plastic food container in his porch with instructions on how to reheat whatever was inside. Harriet kept telling Eileen that he probably wasn't eating any of it, and that there was every chance he would feel patronised by their Meals on Wheels approach. 'It doesn't matter,' Eileen told her, 'at least he knows we care, that we're here for him if he needs us.'

A week had pa.s.sed since Will's eldest daughter had died and Eileen wished she had the courage to knock on their neighbour's door and tell him just how well she understood the pain of his grief. But Will had made it very clear that he didn't want to talk when Eileen had called over with the first of the food parcels. Most days the curtains stayed shut; his car had moved only once from the drive and that was the day of the funeral. She had arranged for some flowers to be sent to the church in Maywood where the service had been held and had hoped that Harriet, on behalf of the family, would attend. But she hadn't. When Eileen had asked her why not, Harriet's reply had taken her aback. 'I think I'm the last person he'd want there,' she said.

'But you'd been such good friends,' Eileen pressed, keeping to herself that she and Dora had long since suspected that there was more than friendship between Harriet and Will. This suspicion had been backed up by Freda telling Dora that Miles had said much the same thing. She would have liked to probe further, but Eileen knew of old that Harriet wouldn't welcome any intrusion into her private life. Especially as these days, living back at home, she had so little of it. All Eileen could imagine was that there had been a disagreement between them. Probably the night Will's daughter had died.

That was the night Eileen had deliberately gone all-out to deceive her husband. Determined to push Bob as far from her thoughts as possible, she had gone with Dora and Derek to the pre-Christmas dinner dance put on by the Soiree Club, all set to have some fun. Disappointingly, she had been put on a different table from her friend and had found herself sitting between two very different men. The one on her left was about ten years younger than her and totally full of himself - if he was to be believed, he was hardly ever in the country because he was so busy playing golf in the Algarve or Palm Springs. The other man was possibly the dullest person she'd ever met. His only redeeming feature, which kept her entertained for most of the evening, was his hair. She'd heard about hair transplants and she supposed this was what the pasty-faced man had had done. All over the top of his head she could see where the 'seeds had been sown' so to speak; tufty shoots of fine black hair looked as if they had sprouted in neat rows. Halfway through dinner she had suddenly got a fit of giggles as she pictured herself with a watering can poised over his head.

During the course of the evening, even when she was asked to dance by a variety of men, she knew that the night was not proving to be the success she had thought it would be. Yes, she was flattered by the attention, and yes, it was lovely to be wearing a new dress and feeling happily light-hearted as they pulled crackers, wore party hats and danced till midnight - one man even asked her for her phone number - but there was only one man she wanted to enjoy the evening with and that was Bob. But not the Bob he'd become. She wanted her old Bob back: the man she'd always loved and still did.

Driving home with Dora afterwards - Derek had driven home separately - Eileen had realised that cheating on Bob to teach him a lesson would solve nothing. A t.i.t-for-tat affair wasn't the answer.

'I could have told you that,' Dora had said when Eileen confided in her.

'Yes, but I had to see for myself.'

'So what are you going to do next?'

'I'm going to get Christmas over with and then I shall talk to Bob. Really talk. I'll tell him I knew about the affairs all those years ago, that I forgave him then, as I will this time round. I'll also tell him that I know why he's done it, that I understand.'

'You're more forgiving than I could ever be.'

'Please don't make the mistake of thinking I'm being terribly righteous. I'm not. It's just that I believe in my marriage and want to keep what's left of my family intact.'

'Will you tell Bob about tonight? How you were tempted to do the same because you were so angry and hurt, and that it was him who made you feel that way?'

'Yes.'

'And have you thought about the consequences if it backfires on you - if bringing everything out into the open gives him the courage to walk away?'

'Oh, Dora, I've thought of little else. But I have to risk it.'

When Dora dropped her off, the house was in darkness and there was no sign of Harriet's car on the drive. With Toby sniffing at her heels, Eileen had tiptoed upstairs, her shoes dangling from her hand. Bob was already asleep, but it was a restless sleep, his breathing ragged, his body twitching. Popping her head round Joel's bedroom door she saw that his bed was empty. She found him sleeping peacefully in Carrie's bed, his silky wrapped around his hand. She pulled the duvet over his shoulders and kissed him fondly on the cheek. He didn't stir.

Back downstairs, with Toby curled up again in his basket, she made a pot of tea. She was exhausted and knew that she would pay for her night of duplicitous excess the next day. However, right now, she wasn't sleepy; her mind was too active. She kept thinking how Felicity's death seemed to be a catalyst for change between her and Bob. She was still dwelling on this when she heard Harriet's key in the front door. As soon as she saw Harriet's face, she knew something awful had happened. Despite what Harriet had always thought, that she could compose her face to make it unreadable, Eileen knew how to read it perfectly.

'What's happened?' she asked.

'I've just come from the hospital. Will's eldest daughter died this evening. She had some kind of aneurysm and died, just like that.' She clicked her fingers.

Eileen had only ever seen Will's daughters from a distance as they came and went from his house, but she knew, as any parent would, what they meant to him. She put a hand to her mouth. 'Oh, the poor man. What about the baby?'

'Dead too.' Harriet pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. She lowered her head and rested it on her arms on the table.

Without asking her if she wanted one, Eileen poured a cup of tea for Harriet and joined her at the table. 'How is Will taking it?'

Harriet slowly raised her head. 'At a rough guess, I'd say it's d.a.m.n near killing him. Oh, Mum, why do we have to go through so much s.h.i.t? What's the point of it all?'

'I've no idea. I gave up wondering why and how a long time ago. Have some tea.'

Harriet obediently reached for the mug, but before she put it to her lips, she said, 'Will doesn't deserve this. He really doesn't. He's one of the nicest people I know. I wish I could turn back the clock for him.'

'None of us deserve it. But it happens, and somehow, don't ask me how, we find the strength to survive. Look at us. Look how we've coped, particularly you.'

Harriet shook her head vehemently. 'I'm barely coping, Mum. Believe me.'

'Rubbish. You've shown amazing strength. Without you, your father and I wouldn't have managed at all. And the children, who have lost the most, really look up to you.'

'Only because I'm taller than them.'

They both smiled, but then suddenly they weren't smiling, they were both crying and hanging on to each other, just as they did the night Jeff and Felicity died.

Since that conversation, Eileen had felt as if a barrier had lifted between her and Harriet, although until that moment she hadn't been aware of its existence. But it was obvious to her now that while they'd all been thrown higgledy-piggledy together, they'd each been living their separate lives with the barriers firmly in place. The children had school, Harriet had work, she had Dora, and Bob, well Bob had had to go in search of something to distract him - first Toby and then this woman who was consoling him.

Even aside from her animosity, Eileen didn't think much of this other woman because from what she could see, Bob was anything but consoled.

Dusting a plate of mince pies with caster sugar, Eileen covered the dish in foil and placed it carefully alongside an individual portion of shepherd's pie in a large plastic box for Will.

It was Sat.u.r.day morning, exactly a week before Christmas; Bob was out with Toby (allegedly), the children were upstairs playing - she could hear them thrashing around in Joel's bedroom and shaking the floorboards - and Harriet was sitting at the table, a foot tapping the floor while she read a letter from her conveyancing solicitor, a colleague of Will's friend, Marty, who was still covering for him while he was off work. One way or another it had been an eventful week. School had finished for the Christmas holidays and there had been the carol concert to attend, several parties Carrie had been invited to and the school nativity play to prepare for. Harriet had made Joel's day by managing to get the afternoon off work to see him perform as one of the innkeepers. He'd been so excited about his part that he'd refused to wash off the moustache he'd had painted onto his top lip until two days later. By then he resembled a miniature Hitler and Harriet had insisted on scrubbing him clean.

Watching Harriet slide the letter back inside the envelope, Eileen said, 'Everything still on track? No problems with the house?'

'It looks like we might be able to bring the completion date forward by a week,' Harriet answered without looking at her.

'Is that good?'

'It doesn't really make any difference. I'll be ready for either date.'

A sudden extra-loud thump from upstairs had them both glancing anxiously at the ceiling and listening for a subsequent scream. No scream came and Eileen said, 'I'll get them to simmer down in a minute when I go up for my nap.'

'Don't worry, I'll take them out with me. I need to do some Christmas shopping. Anything I can get you?'