Already tucked out of sight in the drawer of her bedside cabinet lay the offerings Evie had brought with her from Behran. Just glancing at the drawer was enough to make her shudder a little, because the pregnancy testing kit had too much power for her comfort. So she turned away to pull on her pyjamas, slid into bed and switched off the light without glancing at the cabinet again. Sleep came surprisingly quickly, but then it had been a long day.
When she woke up, perhaps an hour later, she thought for a few moments that Hassan must have come back and disturbed her when he’d got into the bed. But there was no warm body lying beside her. No sign of life in evidence through the half-open bathroom door.
Then she knew. She didn’t know how she knew, but suddenly she was up and pulling on a robe, frantically trying the belt as she hurried for the door. It was as if every light in the palace was burning. Her heart dropped to her stomach as she began racing down the stairs.
It was the sheikh. Instinct, premonition, call it what you wanted; she just knew there was something badly wrong.
On bare feet she ran down the corridor and arrived at his door to find it open. She stepped inside, saw nothing untoward except that neither the sheikh nor Hassan was there. Then she heard a noise coming from the room beyond, and with a sickening thud her heart hit her stomach as she made her way across the room to that other door.
On the other side was a fully equipped hospital room that had been constructed for use in the event of emergencies like the one Leona found herself faced with now.
She could not see the old sheikh because the doctors and nurses were gathered around him. But she could see Hassan and Rafiq standing like two statues at the end of the bed. They were gripping the rail in front of them with a power to crush metal, and their faces were as white as the gutrahs that still covered their heads.
Anguish lurked in every corner, the wretched sound of the heart monitor pulsing out its frighteningly erratic story like a cold, ruthless taunt. It was dreadful, like viewing a scene from a horror movie. Someone held up a hypodermic needle, clear liquid sprayed into the air. The lights were bright and the room bare of everything but clinical-white efficiency.
No, she thought, no, they cannot do this to him. He needs his room, with his books and his divan and his favourite pile of cushions. He needed to be surrounded by love, his sons, gentle music, not that terrible beep that felt to her as if it was draining the very life out of him.
‘Switch it off,’ she said thickly, walking forward on legs that did not seem to belong to her. ‘Switch if off!’ she repeated. ‘He doesn’t want to hear that.’
‘Leona…’ Hassan spoke her name in a hoarse whisper.
She looked at him. He looked at her. Agony screamed in the space between them. ‘Tell them to switch it off,’ she pleaded with him.
His face caved in on a moment’s loss of composure. Rafiq didn’t even seem to know that she was there. ‘Don’t…’ he said huskily.
He wanted her to accept it. Her throat became a ball of tears as she took those final few steps then looked, really looked down at the ghost-like figure lying so still in the bed.
No, she thought again, no, they can’t do this to him. Not here, not now. Her hand reached out to catch hold of one of his, almost knocking the nurse who was trying to treat him. He felt so cold he might have been dead already. The tears moved to her mouth and spilled over her trembling lips. ‘Sheikh,’ she sobbed out, ‘you just can’t do this!’
‘Leona…’
The thin, frail fingers she held in her hand tried to move. Oh, dear God, she thought painfully. He knows what is happening to him! ‘Switch that noise off—switch it off!’
The fingers tried their very best to move yet again. Panic erupted. Fear took charge of her mind. ‘Don’t you dare bail on us now, old man!’ she told him forcefully.
‘Leona!’ Hassan warning voice came stronger this time. He was shocked. They were all shocked. She didn’t care.
‘Listen to me,’ she urged, lifting that frighteningly cold hand up to her cheek. The fingers moved again. He was listening. He could hear her. She moved closer, pushing her way past the doctor—a nurse—someone. She leaned over the bed, taking that precious hand with her. Her hair streamed over the white pillows as she came as close to him as she could. ‘Listen,’ she repeated, ‘I am going to have a baby, Sheikh. Your very first grandchild. Tell me that you understand!’
The fingers moved. She laughed, then sobbed and kissed those fingers. Hassan came to grasp her shoulder. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he rasped.
He was furious. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer, because she didn’t know what she was doing. It had all just come out as if it was meant to. Inshallah, she thought.
‘He can hear.’ She found her voice. ‘He knows what I am telling him.’ Tremulously she offered Hassan his father’s hand. ‘Talk to him,’ she pleaded. ‘Tell him about our baby.’ Tears were running down her cheeks and Hassan had never looked so angry. ‘Tell him. He needs to hear it from you. Tell him, Hassan, please…’
That was the point when the monitor suddenly went haywire. Medics lunged at the sheikh, Hassan dropped his father’s hand so he could grab hold of Leona and forcibly drag her aside. As the medical team went down in a huddle Hassan was no longer just white, he was a colour that had never been given a name. ‘You had better be telling him the truth or I will never forgive you for doing this,’ he sliced at her.
Leona
looked at the monitor, listened to its wild, palpitating sound. She looked at Rafiq, at what felt like a wall of horrified and disbelieving faces, and on a choked sob she broke free from Hassan and ran from the room.
Back down the corridor, up the stairs, barely aware that she was passing by lines of waiting, anxious servants. Gaining entrance to their apartments, she sped across the floor to the bedside cabinet. Snatching up Evie’s testing kit, trembling and shaking, she dropped the packet twice in her attempt to remove the Cellophane wrapping to get the packet inside. She was sobbing by the time she had reached the contents. Then she unfolded the instruction leaflet and tried to read through a bank of hot tears, what it was she was supposed to do.
She was right; she was sure she was right. Nothing—nothing in her whole life had ever felt as right as this! Five minutes later she was racing downstairs again, running down the corridor in between the two lines of anxious faces, through doors and into the sheikh’s room and over to her husband.
‘See!’ she said. ‘See!’ There were tears and triumph and sheer, shrill agony in her voice as she held out the narrow bit of plastic towards Hassan. ‘Now tell him! Please…!’ she begged him.
‘Leona…’ Hassan murmured very gently.