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"Freddie!"
He stops on the staircase. "Hector, you have a programme to present, I have a story to cover, there isn't time -"
The face of The Hour has a deeper crease between the eyebrows than Freddie has seen in a long time - in about eight months, since the doctors finally said Freddie was going to live, to be precise. "I need you to do something for me," says Hector.
"Can I do it on the way to Notting Hill?" Freddie says over his shoulder.
"No, Freddie - listen - it's Marnie." Hector grabs his elbow, and he wheels around. "She's in hospital. Having the baby."
Freddie examines Hector's face - the bluff, honest face half the country trusts more than the Prime Minister, although Freddie would never admit he counts himself among that number for any reason other than his great distrust for the Prime Minister - with quick eyes. In addition to the creased brow, the lines either side of his mouth are more pronounced, and his eyes are pinched. "So?" says Freddie. "Go to her."
"I can't, Freddie. You know why. We haven't got anyone else who can present this damned programme." Hector's eyes flick to the side, then back to Freddie's. "I need you to go tell her I can't come."
"No." Freddie shakes his head. "Someone has to cover - it's history, Hector, it's - and, besides, I'm hardly the best person to tell her -"
"You're the only person. Bel can't spare anyone else - or not anyone that Marnie knows, and I don't want to send a stranger. God knows it's bad enough I can't go myself. You - she likes you, and you're clever with words, you can -"
"- soften the blow? Hector, I have to cover this story, there isn't anyone else."
"Yes, there is," comes a voice higher up in the stairwell, and Bel appears, preceded by the sound of tapping heels and followed by Isaac at her elbow, wrapped in an overlarge overcoat and looking like an eager puppy.
Freddie's eyebrows rise. "No. No, absolutely not - Moneypenny, you can't send Isaac -"
"I can and I will," Bel interrupts him, forestalling Isaac's protestations She steps close to him - straightens his lapel - and looks up at him with the soft-eyed but steel-jawed expression of determination that, even after God-knows how many years, he knows, with a feeling of dread, he still can't say no to. "Freddie, it is dangerous out there. You might have forgotten how you nearly died chasing a story -" he does not flinch " - not even a year ago, but I haven't. Do you really think you could go out there and keep out of it? With reports saying these fascists are beating up police officers who try to intervene? Please, Freddie. Go, and hold Marnie's hand, and for once in your life stay out of trouble."
"Bel, this isn't fair." He looks around at their faces: Bel, beloved and stubborn, Hector, doing a very bad job of hiding his worry, and Isaac, dewy-eyed and hopeful. This could make that boy's career, assuming he doesn't throw it all away for a job in Drama. Freddie knows he could keep arguing, but none of them are anything if not stubborn, and they have to be on air in less than three hours - they really don't have time for this, so he says, "Fine. Fine! Where?"
++
No expense is spared for even one half of the Madden dream team: Marnie is in a private room. The girl on duty is reluctant when he asks to see her, but years of getting into places people don't want him to be have not been for nothing; five minutes of half-truths and outright lies later, Freddie tags along behind a nurse who pokes her head into Marnie's room and says, "Missus Madden? Mister Madden is here," and opens the door to let Freddie in.
When Marnie sees him, her expression moves from one of welcome to surprise, confusion and anger in a matter of moments before she once more composes it into a tense approximation of her neutral, diplomatic public face. He holds up his hands. "Hector sends his apologies. He says he really is very sorry, he'll be here as soon as he can, and he's sent me in the meantime."
Marnie is hospital-gowned and not made-up, her legs akimbo, and she regards him tight-lipped for another moment before she smiles, no less tightly. "Well, then, Mister Lyon. Since you're here, you might as well make yourself useful." She gestures him imperiously to the chair at her bedside, in a fine imitation of composure, and, once he is within reach, grasps his hand so tightly he thinks he feels the bones grate together.
"Why are you here, Freddie? Don't tell me the programme could spare you more easily than they could Hector," she says archly. Her teeth are gritted. He politely ignores this.
"There's rioting in Kensington and Notting Hill," he says. "Fascist kids banding together and attacking West Indians. The melting pot finally boiled over. And we don't have footage, it happened too quickly, but we couldn't lead with anything else. So we were going to go out with a camera, show it live."
"And that was going to be you?"
"Yes. Isaac's gone instead - probably make a pig's ear of it, even if he means well - do you think they'd give us a television set in here?"
Marnie laughs quietly. "I suppose I should be flattered. The Hour's star journalist here to look after me instead of doing his job. Really, Freddie, why?"
They're coddling me, not you, he wants to say, they don't want my life on the line for a story again so it's their lives instead. "They're concerned," he says instead. "They want to keep me off the front line. They aren't even trying to be subtle about it any more." He pauses. "But Hector is a very good presenter. People trust him. They really couldn't do without him, not tonight."
"He is," says Marnie. "But he doesn't love the news. Not like you do."
"He's learning to," Freddie says.
"I suppose he is," Marnie says, "that - that bloody man. Otherwise he would be here instead of you."
Even that slight obscenity sounds like it takes a great revolt of will. Freddie smiles. "If it helps, I don't think he would be here even if it were his own child."
Marnie fixes him with a chilly gaze. "Pardon me?" she says.
"Well, it's not his, is it? This - baby," he says, with a gesture encompassing her entire undignified situation, as if she needed reminding.
Marnie stares at him a moment longer, then tips her head back. "How did you know?" she asks, voice resigned. "Did Hector tell you?" Then she groans, crushing his hand tightly again.
Freddie shrugs, and waits for the contraction to pass and Marnie's eyes to be focused on him again before he says, "Bel told me that Hector told her he can't have children. It doesn't seem like it was a line, since he's hardly been discreet, but there's never been a whisper of anyone - in trouble." The expression reminds him of Ruth Elms. How long has it been since he thought of her? If things had been different, would he have been sitting beside a hospital bed while Ruthie delivered Peter Darral's baby, and Le Ray used all his acting prowess to claim it was his? He knows this is hardly the same: Hector wanted a child for its own sake, not as a pretext, and as far as anyone else is concerned, it will be his own child - he'll treat it as his own. Really, compared to poor Ruth, they have all been lucky.
Marnie lets out a sharp breath, neither a sob nor a laugh but somewhere between the two. "That bloody, bloody man. If only he had moved to ITV after all."
"Then," Freddie says, "he'd be advertising gravy powder right now, instead of making history."
++
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to The Hour - the most important sixty minutes of news of your week. Tonight we broadcast live from Notting Hill, where scenes of violence without precedent are raging on the streets of London. Our reporter Isaac Wengrow is on the scene."
++
By the time Hector gets there, it's all over. The nurses seem confused by his late appearance, but let him in. Marnie, more dishevelled than he's ever seen her, greets him with an exhausted smile and a finger to her lips, and Freddie is cradling a tiny, swaddled bundle, staring down at it with such an uncharacteristically rapt expression that it gives Hector pause. This is his wife, his child - or it might as well be - but somehow, he feels like the interloper.
Freddie looks up and says, "She's marvellous, Hector. Congratulations."
Hector sits down on the edge of Marnie's bed, and her hand slips into his.
"I said he could choose her middle name," she says quietly.
Hector pauses. "As long as it's not Petronella or Jezebel or something dreadful," he says.
"Would you like to hold her?" asks Freddie. Hector nods, then almost takes it back as the precious sleeping bundle is folded into his arms. He has a moment to marvel at the fragility of the skin and the tiny wrinkled fingers before the infant's tiny eyes slide open - and her mouth, too, letting out a wail too loud to come from such a small thing. The look on his face must be comical, because Freddie and Marnie both burst into laughter.
"I'll leave you to it, then," says Freddie after the mirth has died down. "I should get home to Bel - and check on Sey and Sissy, too. Anyway, you look like you know what you're doing, Hector."
Hector tries his best to muster a scowl. "Shut up, Freddie."
"Good night, Hector, Marnie, offspring," says Freddie, halfway to the door already.
"Good night," says Hector, and Marnie adds, "Thank you, Freddie."
Freddie's grin is not quite the dangerous one he would have worn two years ago, nor is it the cocky smile of a year ago. It is charming, still defiant but quieter than usual: the expression of a man who feels the world owes him something, but that it may be making steps towards settling the score.
When the door has closed behind Freddie, Hector turns to his wife, and asks, "So what is her middle name?"
Marnie smiles - a little wearily, and a little wryly, but still radiant, and Hector thinks he has never seen her so beautiful. "Why don't you guess?" she says.
++
MADDEN - Mr. and Mrs. Hector Madden are
proud to announce the birth of a daughter,
Diana Isabel, on the 30th of August, 1958,
at Queen Charlotte's Hospital. Mother and
baby both well.