‘Really?’ Amanda couldn’t believe her ears.
‘Absolutely, but the bigger question is, when can you start?’
Amanda gasped. ‘Now?’
‘We’re okay today but how about tomorrow? Eight a.m. start, finish at three.’
‘Seriously, you don’t know how much this means to me. I’ll work so hard and learn all the plants – I’ll be a plantopaedia.’
David laughed. ‘I think I’m going to like you, Amanda.’
Amanda stood up and put her hand out to him. ‘I will see you tomorrow. And thank you.’
Amanda felt like her car was flying home as she drove back to Moongate Manor. And the person she couldn’t wait to tell was Simon.
*
Diana – 1960s
It was two in the morning when Diana woke thinking she had wet the bed. As she stepped out onto the floor, more water rushed down and then a contraction came, taking her breath away.
The baby was coming.
Terrible timing, she thought, and she stood waiting for another contraction, counting in her head.
Five minutes apart, she thought. Was that enough time to drive herself to the hospital?
She could pull over when they came, she thought, and pulled her suitcase from under the bed as another contraction started. She buried her face into the bedclothes to muffle her moan and breathed through the pain until it passed.
She had no time to even dress. She took her handbag, suitcase and a coat, and carefully and quietly left her room and headed down the stairs and towards the front door.
It was all going to plan but then a contraction came unexpectedly quickly and she cried out in pain and dropped her case.
Bending over, she panted, trying to will the pain to subside.
‘Diana?’ It was her father at the top of the stairs.
She looked up at him. ‘I’m going to the hospital,’ she said as she opened the door.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, I will drive you. Let me get your mother.’
Diana almost screamed her protestations. ‘No, I’ll take myself.’ She picked up the case and walked to her car.
Please don’t let another one come for a while,she silently prayed as she put the case in the boot and closed it firmly. She had managed to get into the car and was closing the door when another one hit her. She threw her head back and made a sound she didn’t know she was capable of making.
‘Out.’ Her father had opened the car door and was holding her hand. ‘I’m taking you now,’ he said.
She noticed he was in his pyjamas, robe and slippers, as her mother came running out of the front door in a more respectable dress and shoes. She waved a bag at Diana. ‘I have some things,’ she said and Diana’s hope rose. So her mother had packed a little bag for the baby; perhaps she had been imagining all of their refusal to discuss the baby’s arrival and their plans to send her away.
Her father helped Diana over to the Jaguar and put her on the back seat.
‘I will ruin the leather,’ she said.
‘It’s only a car,’ said her father with uncharacteristic nonchalance.
Soon they were on the road and her father was driving just above the speed limit, all the way to the Princess Mary Maternity Hospital, a choice which her father was not happy about.
‘That’s a hospital for poor women,’ he said accusingly.
