49

Every day more reality.

They had moved her to another ward and Lizzie felt the demotion from critical to stable. The nurses maintained their professional cheerfulness but they were busier with more patients under their care. Lizzie imagined that they were tiring of her, as if she were a guest who had outstayed her welcome. She was tiring of hospital too. The drama of the intervention and then, later, the golden bliss of the morphine was resolving slowly into the frustration of rehabilitation. Gradually, more hours awake. Pain when she moved. The inglorious use of a bedpan, and then her first, slow walk to the toilet, wheeling her friend the trolley with the pack of fluids beside her.

‘No, I’m fine, Mum. I can do it by myself.’

She had pulled up her nightie and looked at the dressing on her side and the spreading bruise across her shoulder and arm. Hard to believe that this was a body that had once run long-distance; that had competed in cross-country and acquitted itself pretty well. She wondered if the runner’s high was lost to her forever. The wonderful power of it, the ease of her lungs, the strength in her feet – it was like remembering someone completely different. But it wasn’t just the physical aspect. It felt to her as though she was saying goodbye to some other, younger person who had seen the world through different eyes. She knew she had to turn herself around, a reluctant sailor tacking close-hauled into the wind. The doctor wanted to see her to find out what she was thinking about that matter they’d discussed. She was going to have to make a decision.

Julie had asked permission to visit, and she popped her head round the door cautiously. ‘All right for me to come in, Lizzie?’

She was carrying a plastic bag, and she sat down and lifted out a white box of fancy chocolates. ‘I googled them,’ she said. ‘Hope you like truffles.’ A hand-knitted cardigan followed. She held it up, and Lizzie saw finely blended moorland colours in herringbone with six thin red stripes zigzagging across the arms and chest.

Julie said, ‘I nicked the pattern from something I saw in Vogue. Pretty sure I got your size right.’

She handed it to Lizzie. The wool was soft.

Julie said quietly, ‘Wool-cashmere mix.’

‘It’s beautiful, but I’m sure I’m not allowed to accept it.’

‘Rubbish.’ Julie quickly folded it up with deft movements and put it in the locker beside the bed. ‘There, look, you’ve always had it. Your mum brought it in from home.’

‘Well, thank you. It’s really lovely.’

‘Don’t be silly. Skye and me wound the yarn together.’ Julie was back in the carrier bag, which seemed empty to Lizzie. ‘One other thing.’ She held out a loom band, bright pink and electric-blue. ‘Skye wanted you to have this. Not sure about the colours.’

Lizzie took it and slipped it on her wrist, next to the plastic hospital identity bracelet. ‘I wonder what happened to the other one she gave me.’

‘Maybe the medics cut it off when they brought you in?’

Lizzie lay back. Just the thought of it, those bright lights and the kerfuffle around her when they’d lifted her from the ambulance, made her feel suddenly very tired. She wondered if she’d ever have the energy for life again.

Julie said, ‘Well, I won’t stay long.’ She rubbed her hands together as if she was starting a fire in a survival movie. ‘Before I go, I wanted to say . . .’ She had tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Lizzie interrupted with a wave of her hand. ‘No, Julie. No. There’s no reason.’

‘There is a reason!’ And then Julie was crying full on and getting up in a fluster and saying, ‘I’d better go. They told me not to tire you.’ She paused by the bed. ‘Can I kiss you? Would you mind?’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No, I’d like that.’

When Julie had gone, Lizzie stared blindly at the ceiling. What struck her was how, for all her grief, all her loss, Julie was nothing but pleased to have another child to raise.

The doctor would be here shortly.

The obvious decision, the right decision, the rational decision was the one she had made before she’d gone into her house and seen Skye handcuffed to the radiator. She hated herself for not being able to make it. She wanted to be free and irresponsible, and more than anything, she hated the sensation that even though she was still in her twenties, she would no longer be young.

But she couldn’t do it. It was as if, the way things had worked out, she couldn’t give herself the choice. She and that tiny heartbeat had survived Brannon twice.

She got out of bed, struggled to the toilet with the trolley, struggled to pee. She didn’t believe in signs and portents. She didn’t want to make her life more difficult!

But what could she do? Time was moving on and the decision had to be made. Out of all this misery there was still this extra heartbeat inside her, and she couldn’t bring herself to stop it.