Charlotte
‘He mourned you, you know. Like you’d died.’ I gave a bitter laugh as I bit down more firmly on the cyanide capsule I’d avoided for years. ‘I think he’d have gotten over you more easily if you actually had.’
Ally’s face turned chalky white. I knew why. It felt wrong and dangerous to talk of death in these corridors. It was close enough already, we didn’t need to invite it to pull up a chair and join us.
‘David grieved. It wasn’t just a break-up – at least not for him. It was genuine grief, we could all see it.’ I paused, wondering if I had the strength to carry on. Apparently I did. ‘Sometimes I think he’s still grieving in a way. Even now.’
‘I . . . I . . .’ Ally looked from David’s closed door, back up the corridor to the room where her own sick husband lay, before finally turning back to me. ‘Why are you telling me this? Why now? Tonight? It all happened so long ago. We’ve all moved on.’
‘Have we? Sometimes I’m not so sure. Maybe the slates haven’t been wiped as clean as you think. Maybe there are still secrets hiding in dark corners. Perhaps it’s time they came out.’
Ally shook her head fiercely and looked again towards her husband’s room, as though she could draw strength from him, even from this distance. There was a vulnerability to her, like a deer who knows the hunter’s cross hairs are positioned right over its heart.
‘He looked for you everywhere, you know.’
Ally swivelled back to face me. Her eyes were bright with tears and there was a brittleness in her voice as though each word had been snapped off. ‘Well, he didn’t look very far, did he? I hadn’t left the country, I was home with my parents. I wasn’t hard to find.’
‘I think it was easier for him to look for you in the places he knew he wouldn’t find you,’ I said, acknowledging something I had believed for a long time. I was suddenly tired, bone-achingly tired, and I didn’t want to be doing this, I didn’t want to be opening this door, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself.
‘It was worse on campus. It was like he had an inner radar. He’d be talking and laughing, yet you’d see his eyes follow any girl with long dark hair.’ My laugh sounded hollow as though the humour within me had withered and died. ‘He also attended a lot of concerts in those final months, for someone who wasn’t that interested in music.’
‘Graduation day was the worst, though. But then I think we all thought you’d be back for that.’
I closed my eyes, and was suddenly back in the darkened auditorium. It was a sweltering hot day, and we were all melting beneath the heavy weight of our graduation robes. Each faculty had an allocated seating area, and from where he sat David couldn’t see the Music students. I was two rows behind him. Close enough to see him pick up the programme and run his finger under her name of graduating students. When they started calling up Ally’s classmates, I saw him stiffen, his eyes fixed on the short flight of stairs leading to the stage where they were filing up, waiting for three years of hard work to be exchanged for a red-ribboned scroll. But they’d gone straight from the Ms to the Os. Although written in the programme, no microphoned voice called Alexandra Nelson to the stage.
‘I graduated in absentia,’ Ally said quietly.
I nodded. ‘I didn’t see David for almost a year after graduation.’ I saw genuine surprise on Ally’s face. ‘We were never together at university. Not even after you left.’ I could have stopped there. There was no need to bare my entire soul to her. But I wanted no more secrets here. ‘But that was his decision, not mine.’
Ally’s green eyes held mine for a long moment, before she nodded. And I could tell I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. Her suspicions had never been entirely groundless.
We both jumped at the sound of the door opening behind us.
‘Mrs Williams?’ I leapt to my feet as though on springs. ‘Just five minutes, now,’ the doctor warned.
I was at the door, ready to duck beneath his white-coated arm, or barrel him out of my way if he didn’t clear a path and let me through. Ally’s voice was so quiet, that I’m surprised I even heard it. My name on her lips still sounded alien to me. ‘Charlotte, I’m . . . I’m glad you told me this. Even after all these years, it couldn’t have been easy.’
I didn’t need to tell her that it hadn’t been. The truth was written all over my face. I turned to go, but she wasn’t quite done yet. ‘Charlotte,’ Ally reddened slightly, and she raised her hand to her face. ‘I’m sorry for . . .’ her voice faltered; she lost the words to complete her apology and instead ran her fingers across the smooth plane of her skin, from cheekbone down to jaw line.
I never thought I would hear her say that. Even more astounding, I never thought I’d hear myself say, ‘Forget it.’
And yet I did.
Ally
Joe’s room was a haven of quiet after the frenetic activity in David’s. The nurse attending to him turned and smiled as I entered. She was yet another new face.
‘Come for a wee visit, have you?’ she asked, in a soft Scottish burr, as though wandering the hospital like a refugee in the middle of the night was quite normal. I suppose to her it was.
‘Has there been any change? Any sign of him coming round?’ I asked, taking my place beside Joe’s bed.
The nurse shook her head regretfully, and then busied herself in the furthest corner of the room, to give us as much privacy as the glass-walled cubicle allowed.
‘I’m back,’ I whispered, bending to kiss Joe’s cold, still cheek. The ends of my hair dangled across his face. It should have tickled or irritated him, but he didn’t so much as twitch. I reached for his hand, threading my fingers between his. ‘Max is on his way,’ I said conversationally, as though we were chatting over dinner and it was our farmhouse kitchen table between us, instead of a rock-hard hospital mattress. ‘Jake will be so excited to see him again. And so will I. It’ll be good to see an old face.’ I didn’t add that I’d already had my fill of spectres from my past for one night. There would be plenty of time to tell Joe all about that when he woke up.
I glanced over at the nurse, who was doing her very best to look as though she wasn’t listening to our conversation. But I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that she was the only one listening. I searched for some sign that my words were reaching Joe, but there was nothing. I laid my head down on the woven blanket beside his hand, inhaling that indefinable ‘hospital smell’ on the fabric. It took me back to another night, in another hospital. Except that time I had been the one in the bed, and Joe was the one beside me. I smiled into the waffle thread of the blanket. It was the only time I had ever seen my strong and capable husband afraid of anything.
Ally – Seven Years Earlier
I was bent double, gasping in pain, when I heard Joe’s key in the front door.
I raised my head as he walked into the sitting room. From the mirror hanging over the fireplace I knew my face was drained of colour, and there was a thin slick of perspiration on my brow. One look at me, hanging on to the back of the sofa and struggling to stand up straight, and Joe’s complexion quickly matched mine for colour.
I put his first ridiculous comment down to sheer panic.
‘Oh my God Ally, what’s wrong?’
I waited until the pain had swept out like a tide, glorying for a moment in its absence. Then I rubbed my hand against the low nagging pain in the small of my back, which told him what he needed to know. Although as my belly was easily the size of a small weather balloon, I was surprised he needed even that hint.
‘It’s time? It’s time?’ So much for all of his assurances that he was crisis-proof, I thought. ‘But it can’t be time. It’s too soon. Are you sure it isn’t something you ate?’
‘Not unless I’ve eaten a baby,’ I said. For once, my brave attempt at humour, which I thought was quite witty given the circumstances, failed to amuse him.
‘But it’s too early. You’re only thirty-six weeks,’ Joe said. He frowned, talking more to himself than to me. ‘Although that’s nothing to worry about. Everything is viable by now. The lungs should be good. But still, the baby might be a little on the small side.’
I could feel the beginnings of a new contraction, but I still had time to sound amazed. ‘How on earth do you know all that stuff? Do you moonlight as a midwife?’
Joe looked a little embarrassed as he replied. ‘Well, you’ve been leaving baby books lying around the house for months. I thought you wanted me to read them.’
‘No. I’m just untidy,’ I gasped, feeling the pain digging fingernails as sharp as talons into my abdomen. Instinctively I threw out a hand, and Joe’s large, work-roughened one caught it. He held on to me as though I was in danger, hanging from a cliff face as he slowly pulled me away from the pain and back to safety. I was surprised at the comfort I found in just the strength of his hold.
‘Have you called the hospital?’ Joe asked, when he was certain I was capable of talking again.
‘No, because I’m not having this baby yet. Not tonight and not without my mum. I’m not deviating from my birth plan.’
To his credit, Joe seemed to be recovering from his initial moment of panic and spoke soothingly, as though I was a toddler about to throw a major tantrum in a public place. ‘Ally I know you’ve planned on your mum being your birth partner, but as she’s six hundred miles away in Scotland, I think you might have to be a little flexible on that one.’
‘But I don’t want anyone else with me. You know that,’ I added accusingly.
‘Yes I do,’ Joe replied equably. ‘And to be fair, if everything had gone to plan your parents would be back from their trip and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But you were the one who insisted they didn’t cancel their holiday, weren’t you?’
It was the closest Joe was prepared to go to a reproach. But I couldn’t, in all conscience, have allowed my parents to put off a trip they’d really been looking forward to, a trip they’d booked long before they knew I was pregnant. Once the baby was born, Mum was going to stay with us for as long as I needed her, so it didn’t seem fair to ask them to cancel their coach trip around the Scottish lochs.
‘I’m seriously not having this baby without Mum,’ I said mulishly, my voice wobbling with fear and my lower lip joining in for good measure.
‘Okay, that’s fine,’ Joe said reasonably. ‘But just on the very small off-chance that your parents aren’t able to get back here on a supersonic jet, or in Doctor Who’s TARDIS, don’t you think it might be a good idea if we get you to the hospital? Just in case?’
I gripped his hand, as another contraction began to sneak up. I saw Joe glance at his wrist-watch and knew he was timing them. He really had been reading those books, I thought, straightening up with a slightly twisted smile. ‘Don’t fancy delivering a baby in your front room?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
I nodded. There was no point in taking it out on Joe. It wasn’t his fault the baby had decided to put in an early appearance. ‘Sorry,’ I apologised.
‘What for?’
‘For being snappy and unreasonable.’
He gave me a small smile. ‘You weren’t.’
I smiled back. ‘Not yet. But I can guarantee I’m going to be. Didn’t you know? It’s in all the books.’
Joe looked somewhere between resigned and terrified. ‘Just tell me where your case is and let’s go,’ he urged.
It was only a twenty-minute drive to the hospital, but by the time we’d swung onto the sprawling site, my sassy attitude had already dissolved beneath the waves of pain that were flooding in far quicker than I’d been expecting. I’d read the same books Joe had, plus my mother’s experience as a nurse had prepared me – or so I thought – for a lengthy drawn-out first labour. But this wasn’t a slow tide easing into shore, it was more like a tsunami that threatened to engulf me.
‘Just breathe, Ally,’ instructed Joe, his eyes on me instead of the road ahead.
I had to wait for the pain to abate a little before gasping in reply, ‘I am breathing.’ Although I had to admit, I was doing it as smoothly as an asthmatic marathon runner. Why had no one warned me about this? I felt overwhelmed, scared and hugely ill-prepared. And it didn’t matter that I was a capable young woman who was about to become a mother herself, because all I wanted right then was my own mum beside me.
‘It’s going to be alright,’ Joe promised, taking his hand from the wheel and gripping mine.
‘No, it’s not,’ I said tearfully. ‘Nothing is alright. Nothing. It’s all happening too quickly, and Mum isn’t going to be with me.’
He took his eyes from the road again, making me grateful that there was so little traffic around, because I really don’t think he was concentrating on his driving at all. ‘No, she won’t be,’ Joe agreed sadly. The hand still holding mine squeezed it gently. ‘But I will.’
That wasn’t in my plan. Nor his. But with those three words Joe threw me a lifeline, and I grabbed on to it. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
Joe pulled into a parking space, wrenched on the van’s handbrake and jumped out of the vehicle with the speed of a stuntman. ‘I’m going to find a midwife to help us,’ he said through the open door of the vehicle.
‘I think I’m okay to walk,’ I started to say, but the final word turned into of a banshee’s wail. I looked up at Joe with horrified eyes. ‘Oh God. I want to push,’ I gasped, finally realising there was every chance I was about to become one of those women who simply don’t make it inside the hospital on time.
‘Don’t push,’ Joe implored before disappearing at an impressive sprint towards the glowing lights of the maternity unit. He was back in less than a minute, virtually dragging two midwives with him, one of whom was propelling a wheelchair so fast it was practically flying over the potholes in the tarmac.
All three of them raced around to the passenger side of the van. The midwives took over, managing the situation with an artful blend of calmness and urgency. ‘I think she’s in transition,’ came Joe’s voice from somewhere behind them, sounding more than a little panicked. ‘And she wants to push.’
‘I’m in a transit, not transition,’ I panted back in denial. ‘And I’m not giving birth in the car park, I’m really not,’ I said, as though I had any choice in the matter.
The two women exchanged a knowing look. ‘Don’t worry. No one is giving birth out here tonight, my love,’ the elder midwife assured me. ‘Although you certainly wouldn’t be the first person who had. But we’ve still got time to get you up to the delivery unit.’ I don’t know whose sigh of relief was greater, Joe’s or mine, but they were both cut short as the midwife added, ‘As long as we hurry.’
I don’t remember much about the speed flight in the wheelchair through the car park, or whether we even stopped at Reception to book in. I remember a short ride in a lift, and seeing Joe’s worried face reflected in the burnished steel of its walls, before the doors slid open and we were in the brightly lit corridor of the delivery unit.
I realised time was of the essence as we hurtled down the passageway, with the midwife calling out as she ran, ‘I need a free room. Now.’
Luckily there was one, and as we swung into it I suddenly realised our party of four had diminished to just three. Joe stood at the doorway, still holding my small case which he’d remembered to bring from the van.
‘Don’t just stand there. Come on in,’ urged the midwife, already moving to the sink to scrub her hands, while her colleague wheeled in a trolley laden with all sorts of things I really didn’t want to know about, but was rather afraid that very soon I would.
‘Actually, I’m not . . . it’s just that she hadn’t planned . . . I don’t think this is . . .’
The midwife turned to me, with a look of exasperation. ‘Do you want him in or out?’
I looked at Joe, my eyes pleading and frightened. ‘In,’ I whispered.
Everything seemed to stop for a moment. Even the onslaught of contractions faded into the background, as Joe’s face softened with an expression I don’t think I’d ever seen on it before. He took a decisive step across the threshold and towards the bed.
‘In it is,’ he declared, reaching for my hand.
It wasn’t the measured and controlled birth that I had planned. My mum wasn’t there to witness the arrival of her first grandchild. In fact, we never even got word to her at all until after Jake was born. But it wasn’t quite as rushed as the midwives had first feared. There was time for Joe to set up the CD player I’d packed in my case, and ensure the soothing strains of my favourite Debussy concerto were playing quietly in the background. There was also time for Joe to rub tiny slivers of ice over my dry lips, mop my forehead with a cooling cloth, and lose several layers of skin on his palm, as my nails dug deep into his flesh as everyone chorused at me to ‘push’. I remember them asking Joe if he wanted to see the baby crowning, and the weird look on his face when he politely declined. Then everything merges into a flurry of blurred memories, which culminate in a pretty impressive first cry as Jake entered the world, and moments later was handed to a euphoric-looking Joe.
I will never forget the expression on his face as he looked down at the small, undeniably prune-like, scrap of a human being cradled in a blue blanket in the crook of his arm, before moving with such caution you would think he was defusing a bomb, to place the baby into my waiting arms.
There were tears in his eyes as he looked down on us both. I know I didn’t imagine that. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. The second time came much later, on our wedding day.
‘You are incredible,’ Joe said, his voice awed as he watched me fall in love with this tiny human being who would change my whole future. ‘Amazing, astounding and incredible. I will never, ever, forget this moment. Not for the rest of my life.’ His voice was hushed as though he was speaking in church, or in the company of angels as he gently reached out to caress my head, his fingers weaving through the long strands of my hair.
Ally
My eyes were closed and I realised I must have fallen asleep. I could still feel the scratchy hospital blanket beneath my cheek. And I could still feel the memory of Joe’s fingers sliding through my hair. My scalp tingled at the phantom touch, as his fingertips gently grazed the sensitive skin of my ear. It felt so heart-breakingly real.
‘Ally,’ his voice was a hoarse croak, but it pulled me out of the depths of slumber and shot me to my feet as though my chair was electrified.
‘Joe!’ his name was almost unintelligible on my lips, swallowed by a noisy gulp and a loud sob. ‘You’re awake. You’re back. Oh thank God.’
I gripped hold of the hand that had been caressing my hair, latching on to it with all my strength to anchor him to me. I felt him return my grip, but I couldn’t see him properly any more because I was crying so much. I rubbed the back of my hand brutally across my eyes to clear my vision.
Joe was still horribly pale, his eyes were blinking rapidly in the over-bright room and on their lids were tiny traces of the tape he had torn from them. But he was awake, he was alive, and the joy of the moment couldn’t be eclipsed by anything. He was back and it was the miracle I’d been silently praying for.
I whipped my head around for the nurse, but wouldn’t you know it, she must have stepped out for a moment, for we were alone in the room.
‘Oh Joe, I can’t believe it. I’ve been so terrified. You looked so sick.’
‘Oh baby, don’t cry,’ he urged in a croak that was almost his normal voice.
‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ I said, running my free hand over every inch of his face as though I needed tactile verification of the miracle.
Joe shook his head slowly, his lips finding the sensitive hollow of my palm and kissing it. ‘You’ll never lose me. I’m not going anywhere. I promised you that a long time ago.’
I nodded at the memory. It was what he’d told me on the night he’d proposed, dropping to his knee and taking my hand and placing it over his pounding heart as he told me how much he loved me, and that if I said ‘yes’ I would make him the happiest man in the world.
And of course I’d said yes, and Jake cooing in his crib behind us had added his own agreement.
‘I should get the doctors,’ I said, looking over my shoulder to see if there was anyone in the corridor who could summon them.
‘In a moment,’ Joe said, his eyes fastening on my face as though drinking in the sight of me.
‘I want them to check you’re alright.’
His hand came up to cradle my face, dragging with it the tubes attached to his arm. ‘I just want this moment. I just want you.’
That made me cry again. ‘Joe, you have me. You’ll always have me. Although I swear if you ever frighten me like this again, I might just kill you myself.’
He laughed, but there was no strength in the sound. ‘There was a boy. How is he? Is he alright?’
My tears were raining fast, even as I was smiling down at him. A human rainbow of emotions colouring me in; it was everything I loved about him. ‘He’s fine. You saved him, you were a real hero. I saw them downstairs earlier on. You saved their whole family,’ I told him quietly, keeping to myself the thought that his bravery had almost destroyed our own. ‘You could so easily have died in that water, Joe.’
‘Water? Oh, yes the sea, I remember.’
‘No. The lake in the park. It was frozen and you went through.’
Joe looked at me strangely as though I was surely mistaken, before the memory floated back into his consciousness. ‘Oh yes. I remember now.’
A single finger of fear tapped me lightly on the shoulder as though it was trying to get my attention, but I ignored it. ‘I should go and phone Jake. I should let him know you’re alright.’
Joe looked confused. ‘He’s too little to disturb in the middle of the night.’ Joe’s face softened, as it always did whenever we discussed Jake. ‘How is our baby boy?’
I frowned, and somewhere deep inside me a tiny alarm bell began to ring. ‘Big enough to give up Simba to keep you safe,’ I said, nodding at the plush toy still positioned by the footboard of the bed. Joe studied the soft toy, a new frown creasing his forehead, as though he’d been given a puzzle he wasn’t equipped to solve.
‘Look, let me get someone in here to examine you. They should be shining a tiny flashlight in your eyes and checking you know what day of the week it is.’
‘In a minute,’ Joe repeated. ‘I just want to hold you in my arms for a moment, then you can summon as many doctors as you like.’ He held out his arms and I flew into them, ducking beneath an IV tube to nestle against his body. I could feel his heart beating beneath my head, it was thundering fast, as though he’d run a race to come back to me. I wondered if the sound of my voice, reminding him of our past, had shown him the way home.
‘Before I fell asleep I was reminding you about the night Jake was born. Did you hear that?’
Joe’s hand came up and rested on the back of my head, stroking gently. ‘I don’t think there’s any chance of me ever forgetting a single thing about that night. How could I?’ I smiled into the solid wall of his chest. ‘I remember telling you how much I loved you, right there in front of the doctor who delivered the baby,’ Joe said.
Like an animal sensing the presence of danger, I tried to raise my head, but Joe’s gently caressing hand wouldn’t let me. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Joe was mistaken, he’d never said that – at least not on that night. And Jake’s birth had been attended by the two women midwives who had rushed to the van with him, not a doctor. He was remembering everything wrong, and a new chill ran down my back.
Very gently I disentangled myself from Joe’s hold and reached for the emergency call button and pressed it. I half expected to hear a distant buzz or ringing sound, but there was nothing, just an eerie silence. My finger remained on the button and I pressed continually as though sending a Morse code message: There’s something wrong with my husband.
‘What else do you remember about that night?’ I questioned carefully, hoping he couldn’t read the concern in my eyes. Where were the doctors? Where was the nurse that was supposed to be continually by his side?
‘Everything,’ said Joe, although behind his smile I could see he had caught the anxiety I was failing to conceal. ‘I remember going out into the waiting-room, with Jake in my arms.’
I was shaking my head slowly from side to side. That had never happened.
‘I remember how everyone leapt to their feet when I walked in. Your parents were crying, they were so happy.’
‘My parents were in Scotland,’ I breathed, so softly that I don’t think Joe heard me.
‘And my mum and dad just couldn’t stop smiling. I’ve never seen them look so happy. They even brought Todd with them, do you remember?’
‘Todd? Who is Todd?’ My voice was a ghost, full of fear.
‘My dog, of course,’ Joe replied, although the certainty in his voice wavered as he saw my face. ‘My dog . . . he went through the ice . . . is he alright?’
I jumped off the bed. ‘I have to get someone,’ I said, already rushing from the room. I threw one last terrified look at the man who had come back to me, and was now slipping away once more. The hallway was empty. Someone should already have come hurrying when I’d pressed the call button, and I had no idea why they hadn’t.
‘I need some help here,’ I cried out in the empty corridor. ‘I need a doctor. Now!’ I didn’t care if I was overreacting, I thought, as I ran towards the nurses’ station. They could tell me off for making a fuss after they’d examined Joe. I reached the desk, which was lit with a small downward-angled desk lamp. There was a cup of tea still steaming beside it, but no one there to drink it. I ran behind the desk and pounded on the door where I had seen the nurses congregate earlier. Were they having some sort of meeting? Why hadn’t they answered the emergency call, or come when I screamed for help?
I didn’t bother waiting for a reply and flung open the door. The room was empty.
I could hear the hitch of panic tagging on to every breath as I ran back into the corridor. There was only one place everyone could be. Because there was only one other patient on the unit that night. Everyone had to be in David’s room.
It felt as though I was running through thick syrup as I sprinted down the hallway, my bare feet making small slapping sounds on the linoleum. I glanced at the Relatives’ Room as I raced past, but it was empty. Of course, Charlotte would be at David’s bedside. I screeched to a halt outside his room. The ceiling to floor blinds were still pulled down. I didn’t even bother knocking this time. I burst through the door and straight into a nightmare. The room was empty. Not just of people, but of everything. The walls were bare, there was no bed, no medical equipment, nothing. It was all gone.
I stood in the middle of the floor, and heard the door slam shut behind me. I raced back to it, but as hard as I tried I couldn’t open it. It was locked.
‘Joe,’ I screamed, desperate to alert him that I was still there, that I hadn’t abandoned him. Hot tears were coursing down my face. ‘Joe! Joe! Joe!’
A hand was on my shoulder, gently shaking me. I could feel the scratchy hospital blanket beneath my cheek, only it was wet, completely sodden with the tears I had silently been crying in my dream.
‘Is she alright?’ asked a voice I recognised, weighed down with a degree of concern that I didn’t recognise in it at all.
‘Aye, she was just having a wee nightmare, that’s all.’
I didn’t want to raise my head. I didn’t want to look up. And I didn’t want to look at Joe, because I knew what I’d see there, and I didn’t think my heart was strong enough to take it. But I looked. Of course I did. I had to. His eyes were once more taped shut, his arms were motionless at his sides and the only sound was the soft hiss of the machinery breathing for him, because he still couldn’t do that for himself.
Charlotte
I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how solid the bridges we’d been building were beneath us. Were they strong enough to hold me? I took a tentative step forward and rested my hand lightly on her shoulder. It said I’m here; it said I know what you’re going through; it said, Keep strong. Ally turned her head; her eyes were over-bright with tears, which spilled as she blinked.
‘I came to find you,’ I said unnecessarily. Ally nodded, understanding there was so much more behind those five words than either of us was capable of expressing properly.
‘How’s David?’
I gave a small, lost shrug. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think they know. They’re expecting the cardiologist any time now.’ I bit my lip, before continuing. ‘I don’t think that can be a good sign. They don’t drag those guys out in the middle of the night for nothing.’
Ally’s face was a perfect mirror reflection of my own fears.
‘So, this is Joe,’ I said, striving to make my voice sound as though this wasn’t the most bizarre way of meeting the man who Ally had turned to, after she’d finished with mine. He actually looked very nice – well, as much as you can tell from someone who is completely unconscious. He looked strong and capable, and I imagined he had one of those faces that turned unexpectedly and amazingly good-looking the moment he smiled. There were grooves running like fantails from the corners of his closed eyes. This man did a lot of smiling. He was happy, they both were, and something inside me broke free and took flight, and it felt good and somehow sort of right. It felt that there was a reason we were all here tonight in this place. There was healing to be done, and I didn’t mean by the doctors or nurses, but by us. And it was happening right now. I wondered if Ally could feel it too.
The aura in Joe’s room was different to David’s. I wasn’t really a spiritual sort of person, but the yin and yang symmetry couldn’t be denied. In David’s room the battle was full-on and aggressive. Joe was in the same fight, that much was obvious by the gravity of his condition, it was just being staged much more quietly, that’s all.
My eye travelled the room and settled on the one thing that looked totally out of place within it. There was a small cuddly toy lion propped up in the blanket valley between Joe’s feet. I saw Ally stiffen slightly as she caught me looking at it.
‘Lucky mascot?’ I hazarded.
Ally looked uncertain, although I had no idea why. ‘It’s . . . it’s not his.’
I nodded. ‘Does it belong to your child?’
Ally’s emerald green eyes widened in surprise, and I realised then that she probably didn’t think I knew she and Joe had children. I’d always wondered if she’d recognised me that day. I guess she hadn’t.
Charlotte – Four Years Earlier
The winter sun was low, and despite pulling the sun visor down, I still had to reach for my sunglasses in the glovebox. I was smiling as I slid them in place, in fact I’d pretty much been smiling for the last forty-five minutes, ever since I’d walked away from the restaurant. I’d virtually had to squash a childish desire to skip in my high heels over to my parked car, which certainly wouldn’t have been the right impression to make, had the clients still been watching me. But I could probably be forgiven, because it’s not every day you clinch the biggest deal you’ve ever brokered, right out from under the noses of the rest of the competition. It was the sort of deal that elevated you out of the baby pool and let you swim with the big boys.
I glanced down at the caramel-coloured leather briefcase on the passenger seat, and patted it with satisfaction, my fingers grazing over the discreet C.W. embossed in the corner. It had been a gift from David, to bring me luck, he had said. And it had certainly done that, although the signed contract within it wasn’t my victory alone. Tomorrow I would celebrate with the small team of employees who had worked without complaint long into the evenings with me to make this happen. And tonight . . . I let my hand skim over the bottle of champagne laying beside the briefcase . . . tonight I would celebrate with my husband.
David had been behind me all the way, encouraging and supporting me. Telling me I could achieve anything I wanted in life, all I had to do was believe. I felt my good mood begin to slip slightly as a critical voice (which incidentally sounded disturbingly like my mother’s) whispered in my mind that sometimes just believing wasn’t always enough. I shook my head, feeling the swish of my newly styled blonde hair swing and fall back into place, as I blocked that thought from slithering in like a serpent. No more of that. Not today.
I didn’t know the town I was driving through, but I trusted the sat nav to get me home in enough time to be waiting with two chilled glasses of vintage champagne when David walked through the door. Perhaps I would wear that dress he liked so much, I remember thinking, as I followed the automated voice when it instructed me to take the next turning. Or perhaps I wouldn’t wear anything at all . . . I was still smiling at the thought when the traffic lights at the pedestrian crossing ahead of me changed from green to amber. My foot pressed slowly down on the brake, my mind still on the evening ahead. I noticed the scene around me peripherally, the way you do when you’re driving. There was a funfair set up in a large park on the left-hand side of the road, and there were three figures at the crossing opposite its entrance, waiting for the signal to change. I could see two adults, both clasping the hand of a small child who was three or maybe four years of age – like most people without children, I wasn’t that good at judging age. I remember the child was holding a balloon on a stick, grasped within their hand, and I even recall noting the familiar logo of a high-street bank etched on the bobbing balloon.
It’s the sort of memory that should be instantly logged and then dismissed by your subconscious, and I have no idea why this didn’t happen. It was almost as though some inner part of me already knew that I should be paying closer attention. The day was bright, but cold, and the child was well wrapped up in a thick quilted coat, with the hood pulled up to cover its head. The child’s mother wore no such coat, and it was her hair I saw first. It was blowing behind her, like the long chestnut mane of a thoroughbred. I remember thinking it was suddenly uncomfortably warm inside my perfectly air-conditioned car. It wasn’t her, of course it wasn’t. Lots of women had hair that shade, that length. And anyway I hadn’t seen her for four years and she could have cut it, or dyed it, or anything. It was just a passing resemblance, that’s all.
I saw her bend down to say something to the child, then the man looked at her and she laughed, turning towards him . . . and me. She looked the same – and entirely different – as she had done the last time I had seen her. Ally had always been beautiful, even though she truly had never seemed to realise it. But now, smiling up at the man beside her, who I could only assume was her husband, and holding tightly on to the hand of the small child between them, she looked radiant and complete.
Everything that was missing from my own life was there on her face. She wore it casually and carelessly, not realising she had possession of all that I dreamed about. She hadn’t stolen it from me. What she had was her own, but I wanted it. Well, not that child or that man, but I wanted what she now had. I wanted it with David.
I heard the beep of the signal alerting them that it was safe to cross. I could feel my right foot trembling on the brake pedal, as I stared at the trio as they stepped from the kerb. The man turned my way, and raised his hand in thanks. My own hands gripped the steering wheel with such intensity, I left tiny fingernail indents on the leather trim. They walked in jaunty strides, lifting the child off its feet and swinging him in a series of bouncing leaps across the striped zebra beneath them. They were almost at the other side of the road, almost gone, when the woman turned back towards my car and lifted her arm to add her thanks to her husband’s.
The smile I remembered so well froze a little and a small frown furrowed her brow. Was she just dazzled by the sun, or had she seen it was me? I pressed myself further back against the thick padding of the driver’s seat, trying to sink from view. She was ten metres or more from me, the sun was in her eyes and I was behind a tinted windscreen and wearing sunglasses. The chances of her having recognised me were so slight they were hardly worth considering.
I had almost convinced myself that Ally had no idea of the identity of the driver in the shiny blue car at the crossing. Except, as they mounted the pavement, and the child between them tugged them impatiently towards the funfair, I saw her in my rear-view mirror, staring after my car as I drove away.
Ally – Four Years Earlier
It couldn’t have been her. Of course it wasn’t her. The hair was wrong for a start. And of course, it was totally unlikely that she’d had a haircut in the last four years, taunted a voice in my head. She and David didn’t live anywhere near here. And you know that, how? The car didn’t look like something she’d choose to drive. You do realise you’re grasping at straws here?
‘Ally? What do you think?’
I came back to the present with a jolt, to my husband patiently waiting for me to tear my eyes away from the now empty road, and my small son, who was trying his three-year-old best to pull my arm out of its socket in his eagerness to reach the funfair entrance.
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
Joe smiled as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. ‘I said, how about we go out for dinner after the fair? All three of us. We ought to celebrate.’
I felt something inside me melt at the expression on his face, which in its own way was almost as excited as the one our son Jake was wearing. Just for a very different reason. He hadn’t been sure how things would go at the bank that morning, but I’d never been in any doubt. It was a good business plan; he’d worked hard on it. It deserved to succeed.
‘That loan isn’t going to last us very long if we blow it all on fancy dinners.’
‘I think Jake would probably prefer burger and fries to filet mignon, to be fair,’ Joe teased, pulling the bright red hood back and ruffling our little boy’s thick, dark hair affectionately. ‘What do you say, kiddo, shall we have a rest from Mummy’s cooking tonight?’
‘Yes please, Daddy,’ enthused my son, in a way that wasn’t entirely complimentary to my culinary skills, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered today. Today was a special day, and I wasn’t going to let some silly random sighting of someone who probably wasn’t even her upset me. Charlotte had no power to hurt me, not any more. Thanks to Joe and the life we’d built together, I was finally fireproof. But that didn’t stop the terrifying thought from intruding: Just what would I have done if it had been her, and she’d stopped the car and got out?
Charlotte
‘Does it belong to your child?’
Ally took a surprisingly long time to answer, and before replying she curled her fingers into the fur of the cuddly toy, as though just touching it earthed her in some way. ‘Yes. Yes, it does. It’s our son’s.’
The nightmare – whatever it had been about – had clearly rattled her far more than she’d let on. Everything about her seemed suddenly nervous and jittery, as though the threads holding her together had slowly begun to shred, filament by filament. It made me think of a string of small lustrous pearls slowly falling like white rain from a broken strand.
‘Do you and David . . .’ Ally’s voice faltered, as though some intuition had warned her my answer could hurt someone. But who, her or me? ‘Do you have children?’ she finished.
It was almost as though she knew. But how could she? Even our closest friends had no idea. I never spoke of it. I wanted no one’s sympathy or compassion. I hid my infertility as though it were a guilty secret. But there were clues, if you looked closely enough. I overcompensated. A lot. The largest bouquet in the maternity ward? That was the one I’d sent. My name was on the gift tag of the ridiculously oversized teddy, or the expensive designer baby outfit. I was careful to let no one but David see how a little piece of me died each time someone we knew said: ‘We have some really exciting news . . .’
Ally had fed me my cue. My answer was practised and convincing, I must have said it fifty times or more. But when I opened my mouth, the excuses about careers, travel, timing and lifestyle all stuck in my throat, like an obstruction I might choke on.
‘Actually, we . . . we can’t have children. Or rather I can’t.’ If anyone had told me that I would reveal this for the first time, to the woman my husband had loved before me, on the night when there was a very real danger I could lose him for ever, I would have called them crazy. I was practically placing a dagger in my enemy’s hand and asking them to slice me with it.
Ally stared at me for a very, very long time before saying quietly, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Charlotte. Really, I am.’ I didn’t doubt for a minute that she was sincere, I could see it in her eyes. She reached for Joe’s motionless hand and wove her fingers through his. ‘You know, they’ve told me it might help bring him back if I talk about our happiest memories, remind him of all the good times, and practically every single one of those involves Jake.’
I nodded, as though I understood, but I had only an outsider’s knowledge of what she was talking about. I knew as much as anyone could glean from peering through a crack in the curtains of a play for which they’d failed the audition.
‘Jake. That’s a nice name,’ I commented.
And that was the moment when it happened. Ally leaped to her feet so abruptly, her chair would have crashed to the floor if I hadn’t reached out to catch it. She didn’t even seem to notice. Her eyes were bright but a little unfocused, and although she was staring in my direction, I got the impression she was looking right through me.
‘I have to go out . . . somewhere. Have you seen my bag?’
I glanced around the room, my eye meeting the curious gaze of the nurse on duty. She gave a small shrug, but her expression said it wasn’t her place to dissuade her patient’s wife from leaving the hospital. Well, I didn’t think it was exactly mine either.
‘Ally it’s the middle of the night. Where could you possibly need to go at this hour?’
‘Just out,’ Ally replied mysteriously. Clearly she had no intention of sharing her secret with me. Which was hardly surprising, seeing as a couple of hours ago we hadn’t even been on speaking terms.
Ally had dropped to a crouch and was looking beneath Joe’s bed, presumably for her missing handbag.
‘You probably left it in the Relatives’ Room,’ I suggested, remembering our frantic dash from there when the alarm had sounded for David. Ally gave a sharp nod of agreement, and I could practically see a plan evolving behind her eyes, and whatever it involved I could tell there would be no deterring her from it. None of my business, I told myself. Nevertheless when she headed for the door, I followed. She went straight to the place where her coat was bundled on the seat, thrusting her arms crazily into its sleeves, like a lunatic leaping into a straitjacket. The analogy was no exaggeration, because there was a kind of mania to the way she was acting. I didn’t think she would listen to me, but it was worth one last try.
‘Ally where are you going? You can’t just leave the hospital. Joe needs you.’ It was true, and should have been my trump card, but Ally just shook her head in denial.
‘It’s for Joe that I’m going,’ she said, from a kneeling position on the floor, as she continued to hunt for her missing bag. ‘Ah, here it is,’ she declared, plucking the black tote out from its hiding place with a vigorous yank on its straps.
Her hand swooped inside it, like a heron catching fish. ‘Did you happen to notice if there were any twenty-four-hour shops near here? A supermarket maybe?’
I was shaking my head slowly, wondering if I should either forcibly restrain her from going, or offer to accompany her. I didn’t think I’d have much success with either option. ‘I’m not sure. There might have been a mini-mart or something on the corner of the road opposite,’ I said doubtfully. ‘Sorry. I don’t remember.’ The taxi journey to reach David already seeming like it had happened weeks or even months ago, instead of just hours.
‘Yes, I think you might be right,’ Ally declared stuffing her feet into her boots. ‘If any of the doctors need me, can you tell them I won’t be long?’
‘So you’re coming back?’
‘Of course I’m coming back,’ she replied, as though I was insane. Which I thought was pretty rich, seeing as I wasn’t the one about to go haring off into the night like a mad woman.
As she spoke, Ally continued to rummage frantically within the depths of her bag, her hands capturing and then discarding its contents. ‘Damn. Where is it? Where’s it gone? Where’s my purse? It’s not here.’
She looked across at me as though I knew the answer. If she accused me of swiping it, I was just going to walk out. ‘Are you sure you had it when you got here?’
‘Of course I had it. I always keep it right here,’ she declared, thrusting the bag towards me so I could see the empty side pocket where apparently her purse should be.
‘Well, when did you last have it?’ I asked reasonably.
Ally was too stressed to be reasonable. ‘I don’t know. This afternoon, at Jake’s school . . . no, wait. I might have taken it out when I thought there were carol singers at the door. Only it wasn’t carollers, it was the police, coming to tell me about Joe’s accident.’
The fever in her face died at the memory. ‘I must have left it in the hall.’ She looked so bereft I didn’t even stop to think about whether it was wise to be encouraging her on whatever mission she was so hell-bent on completing. I reached for my own handbag, slid open the zip and extracted my wallet. I flipped it open and pulled out a twenty-pound note.
‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ said Ally, her eyes fixed on the note I was holding out towards her.
‘Is that enough? Do you need more?’
Ally stopped protesting that she had another option and reached for the money. ‘This is fine. I’ll pay you—’
I waved my hand dismissively. ‘Just go and get whatever you need so desperately and then get your butt back up here.’ I looked in the direction of first David’s room and then Joe’s. ‘I can’t keep an eye on both of them for long, you know.’