Charlotte
‘I don’t understand.’
Mr Beardsworth looked tired. I guess it didn’t matter how many years you’d been a doctor, being dragged from your bed in the middle of the night probably never got any easier. Even harder was having to deliver to relatives the kind of news he’d just given to me. There was sympathy and quiet patience on his face, as he allowed me to absorb the information. But I was nowhere close to acceptance of the terrible diagnosis. I was still looking for a way out.
‘But surely there has to be some other option? What about a bypass, or fitting a pacemaker or something?’ I was desperately throwing random medical terms at him, without any idea of what either procedure actually involved. I imagined the cardiologist saw a lot of that, because to his credit he didn’t point out I might possibly need more than ten years of watching Grey’s Anatomy to make that kind of decision.
‘If we were dealing with heart disease, or severe angina, then a bypass might be a solution. But in your husband’s case, the heart itself is too badly damaged. Even implanting a defibrillator inside his chest would just be buying us a little more time; it wouldn’t be a cure. Regrettably, the only real solution is the one I’ve outlined.’
‘But a heart transplant,’ I said the words on a hushed whisper, as though to speak them louder would invoke a curse. Which was ridiculous, because weren’t things already just about as terrible as they possibly could be? ‘But David’s still so young. He’s healthy.’
‘And these are huge factors in your husband’s favour. We would have every reason to hope for, and expect, an extremely satisfactory outcome in a case such as his.’
I shook my head, still grappling with the shocking diagnosis. ‘And if he doesn’t have a transplant. Then what?’
Mr Beardsworth said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes. I could feel the sob tearing its way through my throat, determined to escape. Silently the consultant slid a box of tissues across the desk towards me.
‘But his heart . . .’ My voice trailed away. To the cardiologist the heart was just a pump, an organ, an admittedly failing one in David’s case. But to me, just talking about removing it felt as though the very essence of the man I loved would go with it. As much as I tried, I couldn’t separate the two. ‘It’s just . . . it’s just such a big thing to get your head around,’ I explained from behind a wad of tissues.
‘I do understand, completely,’ the consultant assured. ‘It’s a lot to take in. But each year around two hundred patients in this country undergo a transplant. Surgically, the procedure isn’t as complicated as you might imagine. The difficult thing, after we’ve fully assessed David’s suitability as a candidate, will be waiting for a donor heart.’
‘Does he . . . does he know?’
The doctor nodded gravely. ‘Even as sick as he is, your husband has a clear grasp of the situation. He asked me outright if a transplant was a consideration, and I saw no reason not to tell him.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘As well as anybody ever does,’ said Mr Beardsworth with a sad smile. ‘It’s a lot to absorb. For both of you.’
I could feel the acid pinprick of tears at his compassion. I closed my eyes until they went away. I needed to hold it together, now more than ever.
‘Many of the necessary tests have already been done; the remainder will be carried out immediately. But my strong recommendation is to place him on the Urgent Heart Allocation Scheme, which will give him priority should a heart become available. Until then, he will need to remain in hospital.’
‘He can’t come home? Not at all?’ Even to my own ears, my voice sounded as lost as a child’s.
‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Williams, he’s just too unwell.’
‘Can I see him now?’
‘Of course,’ said the doctor, getting to his feet and waiting as I scrabbled to mine. I almost lost the tattered remains of my composure, when he laid his hand on my arm in a kindly gesture as he led me from the room. ‘I am most dreadfully sorry that I can’t offer you more at this time. But please keep strong and stay positive. It’s important to keep David stable, emotionally as well as physically, while we wait.’
For someone to die, I completed silently, feeling the weight of the words descending on me like a boulder. David’s battle would be to hang on to his life, until someone else lost their own.
I took a moment to compose myself before opening the door to his room. I breathed in deeply a couple of times at the threshold, as though I were a diver preparing to jump into dark and unknown waters. My game face was in place as I opened the door. David was awake, his eyes fixed on the entrance expectantly. He’d been waiting for me.
I faltered for just a second at the sad look of apology in his eyes as I crossed the distance between us. His lips felt familiar beneath mine, but there was no strength in his kiss. I straightened carefully and sat as close as I possibly could beside him, careful not to tangle myself in the tubes that were supplying him with additional oxygen.
‘How are you getting on with that cute doctor?’ he teased wheezily.
As ever, I took my lead from him, and pulled a small face and wrinkled my nose. ‘I swapped him for a senior consultant.’
‘Oh yeah? Was that wise? He looks kind of old for you.’
‘I like them old. They don’t run so fast when you chase them.’
David tried to laugh, but the effort made him gasp, and the machine readings around him spiked and beeped in warning, making the nurse at his bedside frown disapprovingly at me.
It sobered us both.
‘I’m so sorry, Charlie girl. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.’
‘It is what it is,’ I said sadly. I gripped his hand and bent my head to kiss his knuckles. ‘But if you keep scaring the life out of me like this, then I warn you, I may have to divorce you.’ The nurse looked horrified, but David just smiled weakly.
‘No you won’t. Till death us do part, remember? I just didn’t figure I’d be fulfilling my part of the deal quite so soon.’
Rage flooded through me, not at him, but at life, fate or whatever it was that was leaching the fight out of him. ‘Don’t you dare talk like that. No one is leaving anyone here.’
David’s beautiful blue eyes were full of pain, not at what he was going through, but for what it was doing to me. ‘I just want you to be okay, Charlotte. Whatever happens.’
‘Nothing is going to happen,’ I refuted obstinately. ‘You’re going to stay right here until they find you a new heart, a good strong one, and then you can spend the next sixty or so years apologising for frightening me so much.’ I gripped his hand in both of mind. ‘This is a blip, a hurdle that we just have to get over and then get back on track. I don’t want to hear any more talk about death or being apart. You owe me a trip to New York, and I intend to claim it.’
David shook his head, his thick, dark hair making a scratchy sound against the starchy pillows. ‘So you knew about that, did you? I should have known better than to try to keep a secret from you.’ I tried to smile, but somehow it never quite made it to my eyes. ‘Okay,’ David continued, making a vow we both knew he had no control over. ‘No more flat-lining, I promise. No more going towards the light.’
‘Was that what it was like?’ I asked hesitantly, terrified to hear him speak – even jokingly – about how close I’d come to losing him tonight.
‘No, honey. It wasn’t like that at all. There was no brilliant light, no tunnel. Just darkness.’
‘How disappointing,’ I said, trying to match his flippant tone, but not really succeeding. ‘I’d always imagined there’d be some sort of welcoming committee, with everyone you’ve ever loved and cared about waiting for you.’
David’s eyes were tender as they went to mine. ‘Everyone I’ve ever loved or cared about in the world is right here in this hospital,’ he said gently.
His words were truer than he realised, and the guilt at what I was concealing from him hit me like a physical blow. He read it on my face. I should have known that he would.
‘Charlotte, what is it? What’s wrong?’
I took a deep breath, dreading what I was about to say, but knowing I had no choice. The time of secrets was past.
‘David . . . there’s something I have to tell you . . .’
Ally
They entered through the swing doors together, shoulder to shoulder, as though they needed that physical contact to get through this. I’d only been gone for a few minutes, taking the stairs down to the floor below, where I’d seen a drinks vending machine. I was walking back down the length of the corridor when I looked up and saw Joe’s parents standing just inside the entrance to the ward, like shell-shocked survivors of a bomb blast. They looked lost, they looked scared, and frighteningly they looked so much older than the last time I’d seen them. I broke into a run towards them, and the sound of my booted feet flying over the linoleum made them turn in my direction.
‘Ally,’ cried Frank, his voice quavering in a way I don’t think I’d ever heard before. I threw my arms around the joined entity that was my in-laws, and they clung to me. I knew Kaye was crying even before we broke apart. I could feel it in the trembling shudders that ran through her bowed shoulders. She’d spent most of her life convinced that something dreadful was going to befall someone she loved, and there was absolutely no satisfaction in finally having that prediction come true.
‘Hush now,’ Joe’s dad urged, reaching in his pocket with his free hand for a perfectly laundered handkerchief. That was when I noticed that, quite out of character, Joe’s parents were holding hands, their fingers wound so tightly around each other that I could see the white-boned knuckles through their skin.
‘I didn’t expect you to get here so soon,’ I said, directing my comment at Frank, and allowing Kaye a moment of privacy to dab at her face, where her tears had washed tiny rivulets through the layers of powder and blusher.
‘That driver you sent certainly knew his stuff. He made short work of the journey and drove through the storm and snowdrifts like they weren’t even there. I couldn’t have got here faster myself I sent up a silent word of thanks to Max, who was himself somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean by now, on his way to reach my side. The small pieces of my world were coming together like a jigsaw. Albeit one with a hugely important part missing.
‘How is he? How’s our boy doing?’ asked Kaye anxiously.
‘There’s been no change, I’m afraid. He’s not woken up yet.’
Kaye made a small moaning sound, and my concerned eyes flew to Frank’s, wondering whether I should have played down the severity of Joe’s condition. I saw the grim-set determination in my father-in-law’s jaw, which was in sharp contrast to the sparkling over-bright sheen in his eyes. I felt a moment of pure panic. They were old, and both of them had been unwell recently. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if either of them was strong enough to cope with any of this.
‘I want to see him,’ said Kaye. ‘Will they let us see him, do you think?’
‘Yes, of course they will,’ I assured her, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her closer to my side. Kaye had always been slight, petite even, but when had she become so frail? It felt like I was holding on to a bundle of bones wrapped up and held together only by the thick wool of her winter coat.
I began to steer them both towards Joe’s room. ‘I should warn you that they’ve got him hooked up to an awful lot of machinery.’ Kaye’s eyes widened in fear. I kissed her cheek and smelled the same Lily-of-the-Valley perfume that she’d worn for as long as I’d known her. ‘I have to keep telling myself that every scary piece of equipment is there to help him,’ I whispered into her short grey curls. ‘They’re doing all they can for him. He really is getting the best of care.’
Kaye nodded fiercely, not trusting her voice, while beside her Frank responded in an unusually gruff tone. ‘That’s good. That’s how it should be. That’s what we need to hear.’
Although I’d tried to prepare them, I don’t think my words had even pricked through the miasma of panic that had engulfed them since they’d received my call all those hours earlier. Were they able to deal with what was waiting for them on the other side of the door? Was any parent? The only thing I could imagine that could possibly be worse than having Joe in this situation, was if it were Jake lying in that hospital bed instead.
As the door to Joe’s room swung open, I saw their reaction. I felt it shimmer through the air like a shock wave from an explosion. They reeled backwards, and instinctively clutched at each other, their faces wearing identical looks of fear and despair.
Surprisingly, it was Kaye who gained control first. ‘Oh Joe,’ she breathed, the folds of her face softening. She appeared to hesitate for a moment, so I took her arm and together we went to his bedside; the woman who’d loved him from the moment he had entered this world, and the woman who’d loved him from the moment he had entered hers.
Kaye reached for his hand, the way she must have done a thousand times when he was a boy, when he’d been afraid, or in trouble, or lost. He was all of those things once more on this terrible night, and I saw a strength and determination glitter in her eyes as she looked down on her only child. There was an inner core of strength, a seam of iron, running deep within the woman who had raised the man I loved, and I don’t think I’d ever really appreciated that before. With her free hand she began to straighten the perfect un-rumpled bed covers, pulling and twitching them and flattening out an imperceptible crease from Joe’s pillow. She paused with her hand by his head, before gently stoking the thick, sandy hair, and it felt as though three decades had rolled away and I was witnessing a long-remembered nightly ritual. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to touch my own son’s hair in just that way. Joe and Jake were both my touchstones, and without them I was lost, alone and adrift.
From the foot of the metal-framed hospital bed, I heard Frank clearing his throat several times, before quietly blowing his nose. ‘Do you know . . . do you know yet what happened, Ally? How he ended up in the water?’
I nodded sadly. ‘A child was in danger on the ice. Joe rescued him, and then went back for their dog.’
Frank shook his head, his face a mixture of pride and despair. He reached out and awkwardly patted Joe’s leg through the woven hospital blanket. ‘Oh, son.’ When he looked back at me he was crying quietly. ‘I thought it would be something like that. That he was being brave and unselfish. That he was helping someone in trouble.’
‘He doesn’t know how to be any other way,’ I said with quiet pride. ‘You taught him well, Frank. You both did.’
Joe’s parents shared a look, and suddenly I felt like I was intruding on something that belonged to just the three of them. ‘Look, there’s only supposed to be two visitors at a time by the bed, so why don’t you both spend some time with Joe and I’ll wait in the Relatives’ Room; it’s just down the corridor.’
I don’t think either of them heard me leave, and when I looked back Frank was standing beside his wife, his arm around her shoulders as they stared down at the man who meant everything in the world to them, willing him to come back to us.
Charlotte
I saw Ally disappearing in the direction of her husband’s room with an elderly couple, who I assumed must be Joe’s parents, because I’d seen photographs of her own family years ago, and it didn’t look like them. For a moment I envied her, this time for the close family network and the support that gave her. The knowledge that Veronica would probably be here within the next twenty-four hours, no doubt intending to oversee every decision about David’s care, was no consolation and certainly no comfort. Even the indomitable Mrs Williams wouldn’t be able to improve her son’s condition. Whether David recovered – or not – was now in hands far more powerful than my mother-in-law, although I very much doubted she’d accept that.
I hadn’t been expecting Ally to return to the Relatives’ Room, and from the look on her face as she opened the door, she clearly hadn’t been expecting to see me there either. ‘I . . . I thought you were with the cardiologist?’ Ally looked tired, and drained. The night had been long and gruelling, and I’m sure I looked no better. I glanced at my watch. In a few hours it would be dawn. The hospital would soon be switching seamlessly into daytime mode. Cleaners would be pushing mop-laden trolleys, ancillary workers would be bringing the patients their breakfasts. Staff would be coming in to work, chatting mindlessly about last night’s TV, the forthcoming holiday season and the latest celebrity gossip. Yet Ally and I were stuck inside an entirely different world from them. A world where normality was now crash carts, oxygen masks and life-support machines. A world where husbands, who were meant to grow old and grey beside you, could suddenly be gone for ever. A world where the lines between friend and enemy had become strangely blurred.
‘I was. Then I was with David.’
Ally paused for just a beat, her eyes frightened before asking quietly, ‘How is he?’
She had every right to ask, and it wasn’t just because of the connection that would now link her to my husband for the rest of our lives. ‘He’s going to need an operation,’ I said. It was as much as I was prepared to share with her for now. She already had far too much of what was mine within her hands.
‘Oh. Will that be today?’
‘Not unless we’re extremely lucky,’ I replied bitterly, shocking myself with my reply. I looked away to hide my guilt, as I realised how quickly everything you think you know about yourself can be stripped away. How the sudden death of a stranger can fill you with hope, instead of with sadness.
There was a long moment of silence, and I wondered how much longer we would both continue to dance around the subject that hung suspended in the air between us.
‘You told him, didn’t you?’ Ally’s words were more a statement of resignation than a question. I wanted to be angry, I felt I had the right to be angry, I just didn’t have enough energy left to carry it through.
‘About your little boy? About Jake? No, I didn’t.’
Ally’s face looked as though all her Christmases had come at once. ‘You’re not going to tell him?’
I sighed deeply and shook my head. ‘No, I’m not.’ I paused and met her eyes. ‘You are.’ What little colour that the night hadn’t bleached from her face, drained away. ‘But you’re not going to tell him yet. He’s not strong enough. I don’t want him to know anything about his child until after the operation.’
I saw the challenge in her eyes at the words ‘his child’; it was there right along with her obvious relief at the temporary reprieve.
‘So you didn’t tell him that we’d both been here all night?’ Ally questioned cautiously. There was hope in her eyes. It didn’t stay there long.
‘Oh no. I told him. He knows that you’re here.’
I closed my eyes for a long second, remembering the expression on David’s face when I’d told him that impossibly, and unbelievably, his former girlfriend was here in this very hospital on this night. And it was only when I stepped cautiously back into our past, that I fully understood that the bonds that kept him tied to her were still there. For they’d risen up from the earth, and felled me like a trip wire.
Ally
Nervous didn’t even begin to cover it. Terrified even fell short of what I was feeling, as I stood outside David’s room, my hand fisted, preparing to knock on the door and walk right back into my past. Of course I could simply have said ‘No’. I could have told Charlotte that I had absolutely no desire to see David again, much less talk to him, but then I’d have been lying not just to her, but also to myself.
I’m still not sure I completely understood her reasoning. ‘Unless they move Joe to another ward, it’s inevitable that sooner or later David is going to see you here. I just want to make sure that nothing about that encounter is likely to shock or upset him.’
‘So what you really mean is, you want to manage the situation?’ I’d said.
Charlotte had looked surprised that I would find this strange. But then I found the whole situation strange. Would I have wanted one of Joe’s old girlfriends at his bedside? No, of course I wouldn’t. Unless I thought that might help him in some way. If that were an option, I’d have happily invited the devil himself to sit beside him.
‘The cardiologist said it was important to keep David stable. So all I’m trying to do here is avoid him having any . . . unexpected . . . surprises, until he’s strong enough to deal with them.’ Her substitution of the word ‘unexpected’ for ‘unpleasant’ was practically seamless. I let it pass. ‘But remember, there mustn’t be any mention at all about Jake. Not yet,’ she had warned. That one I had absolutely no trouble in agreeing with.
‘Come in.’ The response came from a nurse and that threw me for a moment. My hand was damp with perspiration and slipped a little on the doorknob as I twisted it open and entered the room. The most positive thing I could think, was that David looked marginally better than he’d done the last time I’d seen him that night. But given that a nurse had been performing CPR on him at the time, that wasn’t saying a great deal.
My steps faltered, halting me just close enough to the door that I could turn and bolt if necessary. I suppose that was why my hand remained upon it, holding it open.
‘Ally.’ One word, just one, and the years fell away. The door slipped from my hand and I walked towards his bed.
‘I’ve imagined this moment many times over the years . . . I thought I’d covered every possible scenario . . . but I never pictured it would be like this.’ Unexpectedly my eyes filled with tears at his words, because they were mine too. ‘You look the same,’ he said in a weak parody of the voice I remembered so well.
I smiled faintly, but didn’t say what I was thinking, which was ‘And you look like Jake, the little boy you know nothing about’.
‘How are you feeling, David?’
‘I’ve got to say, I’ve had better days.’ He inclined his head towards the vacant chair beside his bed. ‘Will you sit down?’ he asked, sounding so exhausted it made the nurse leave whatever task she was occupied with and return to her patient, eyeing the readings on each of the various pieces of equipment David was connected to.
‘You must remember not to exert yourself, Mr Williams,’ she cautioned.
I slid quickly into the chair, feeling the rebuff had been directed at me. I wanted no responsibility for making him worse.
‘Just for a moment then,’ I qualified. ‘I can’t stay long because I have to get back—’
‘To your husband,’ David completed. ‘Joe? That’s his name, isn’t it?’
It was beyond weird to hear his name on David’s lips. ‘Yes, Joe,’ I replied, aware that my face and voice changed, softened and mellowed, whenever I spoke of him. That wasn’t just because of the current situation. It had always been like that, for as long as I could remember.
I saw something surprising flash across David’s face as he recognised the expression on mine, and it took me a moment or two before I realised it was probably the same look I had once worn whenever I spoke of him.
‘I understand he’s been quite a hero. The nurses have been talking about him all night.’ Hearing him speak about Joe, even admiringly, made me feel strangely flustered and defensive. There was a merging and overlapping of the past and the present; there was a paradox here that I didn’t know how to deal with. There’s probably a very good reason why people lose contact with their first loves, because if the tumultuous and contradictory feelings battling within me were anything to go by, it was far too dangerous a game to become involved with.
‘Is he making good progress?’ David enquired, and I saw the genuine concern in his eyes. I looked away quickly, the way you do when staring at the sun. His eyes were the only thing unchanged and vibrant in his face. They were, as yet, untouched by his illness, and instinctively I could see nothing but danger in allowing myself to look deeply into them once more.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied sadly. ‘Not yet. Everyone just seems to be waiting for . . . something. No one has really told us that much.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. And it sounded as though he meant it.
David paused for a moment, waiting until the nurse had left the room, after assuring him someone would return shortly. ‘Is he good to you? Is he a good husband?’
About that, at least, I could sound positive. ‘He is. The best. He’s wonderful.’ David’s eyes closed for a long moment, so long that I actually wondered if he’d fallen asleep in mid-conversation. When he opened them again, there was a gentleness within them. ‘Good. I’m glad. I’m glad that you’re happy. You deserve that.’
I fiddled awkwardly with my hands, realising that I had unconsciously been turning my wedding band around on my finger as we spoke, as though it somehow brought Joe into the room with us as an actual physical presence. However ill he was, David’s powers of observation were still acute. He smiled gently at my hands, which I forced to be still.
‘Any children?’ he asked conversationally, and it was just as well I wasn’t the one hooked up to a cardiac monitor, because the reading would have gone clear off the scale.
‘Just the one. A little boy.’ David nodded absently, and I knew then, without a doubt, that Charlotte had told him nothing. I hoped Jake, who considered himself far too mature to be called a ‘little boy’ any more, would forgive me for the term, which I knew had made him sound much younger than his actual years.
We fell silent, each in our own way trying to find a footpath through the minefield of topics that neither of us was talking about. David took the first tentative step.
‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, not since . . .’
‘The night of the ball,’ I completed.
He nodded. ‘You and Charlotte . . . has it been alright tonight, meeting up like this?’
‘Well, I haven’t slugged her again, if that’s what you’re asking.’
He looked shocked for a moment at my reply and then began to laugh. The readings on his monitors changed from gentle zigzags to something which resembled a range of mountain peaks. I glanced at the closed door, expecting at any moment a worried team of medics to barge through it.
Unthinkingly I grabbed for his hand. ‘Are you alright?’ I asked, my eyes flickering to the monitors, which I couldn’t read properly, before returning to his face. He had laughed so hard that a single tear had escaped from the corner of one eye, and the urge to reach over and wipe it away was irresistible and unnerving.
I felt his fingers fold around mine, and it was so different from Joe’s hand, and yet so achingly familiar that I could feel a schism slowly begin to rip within me. The past and present had no business being here, in the same place. And yet they were.
‘I love her, you know. I love her very much.’ It wasn’t an apology. David didn’t owe me that.
‘I know you do. I can see that. I think, perhaps, I saw it before you did.’
His smile was slightly twisted. ‘She’s scared of you, you know. She puts on this big tough front, but beneath it, she’s scared that I’ve still got feelings for you.’
And there it was. The moment when the question And have you? was just lying there, waiting to be picked up and asked. But I wasn’t going to go there. I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t.
‘Would it be very weird if I asked you to look out for her, if . . . if anything happens to me?’
‘Yeah, it would be,’ I said, shocked on more than one level that he would ask me that. ‘Surely you both have family and friends for that? I’m probably the last person in the world Charlotte would choose to turn to.’
‘Her family are about as warm and welcoming as mine,’ David said by way of explanation. ‘My brother’s the only one she gets on with, and he lives in Australia these days. And as for friends, well . . . let’s put it this way, we’ve got an awful lot of acquaintances.’
I wasn’t used to feeling sympathy for Charlotte, and I didn’t know how to deal with the emotion. Her situation was so vastly different from my own. Instead, I switched the subject. ‘Besides, you’re going to be out of here in no time, aren’t you? Charlotte said you were having an operation?’
There was something in David’s eyes that troubled me. It took me a moment before I could name it. It looked a little like defeat. ‘Maybe. Who knows. Nothing is certain; it’s just a waiting game.’ His eyes went to mine, and this time I didn’t look away. ‘It’s funny, I always thought you were the one who broke my heart, but it turns out I’ve done a pretty good job of doing that all by myself.’
‘I’m sorry Mrs Williams, I’m going to have to ask you to—’ A nurse, one who had been attending to Joe earlier in the night, broke off in confusion as she walked in and saw me holding the hand of the only other patient on the ward that night. The one who wasn’t my husband.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice trailing away, as she glanced at our hands, and then looked back down the corridor towards Joe’s room. She was so comically perplexed at finding the wrong woman at David’s bedside, that she addressed the rest of her comments to the clipboard in her hands. ‘We need to prepare Mr Williams for some further tests that Mr Beardsworth has ordered, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to say your goodbyes and step outside.’ She backed out of the doorway, still looking confused.
David smiled. ‘What’s the betting she’s now hot-footing it down the corridor to see if Charlotte is sitting by Joe’s bedside, holding his hand?’
I wanted to laugh, but even more than that, I wanted to cry. Perhaps it was something to do with the nurse telling me to say my goodbyes to David. Perhaps it was finally acknowledging that those had been said many years earlier.
‘Get better,’ I said, rising to my feet and squeezing his hand one last time before laying it back down on the mattress.
‘I’ll try,’ David assured.
‘Don’t die,’ I told him, trying to make him smile with black humour, and ruining it all by sounding as though I was about to cry.
‘Going to do my very best not to,’ he promised. ‘Take care of Charlotte,’ he asked again, as I reached the doorway to the corridor.
I turned around for one last look, before quietly repeating his own words. ‘I’ll try.’
My phone vibrated against my hip bone as I headed back down the corridor. I glanced through the glass into Joe’s room, and saw his parents were still with him, so I pulled the device from my pocket and headed for the stairwell to take the call. The word ‘Home’ was illuminated on the screen.
‘Jake, honey, is that you?’ I asked in a panic, glancing at the wall clock and seeing it was only a little after six in the morning. Alice wouldn’t be calling at this hour unless something was wrong. But Jake might.
‘No, Ally, it’s Mum,’ said the reassuring voice of my mother. Her presence in my home at this ungodly hour made no sense, unless Alice had summoned her in an emergency.
‘Is Jake alright? Is anything the matter?’
‘Jake’s fine,’ soothed my mother, and just hearing her familiar placating tones brought me closer to breaking down than I’d been all night. I hadn’t realised how much I needed her with me until this very moment. ‘I couldn’t sleep, well not just me, your father too,’ she said, her own voice sounding a little more hoarse than usual. ‘Eventually we gave up trying and just piled into the car and drove to your place. I’ve sent that lovely neighbour of yours back home to get some sleep. The poor woman spent the entire night sitting awake in a chair outside of Jake’s room, in case he woke up and needed her.’
That was so typically Alice, that a small smile of gratitude found its way to my lips.
‘So fill me in, sweetheart. What’s the news on Joe?’
‘None,’ I said sadly. ‘There’s been no change yet.’
‘Oh,’ said my mother, summoning up a thousand alarm bells in that one small word. Suddenly it wasn’t a parent at the end of the line. It was an experienced ex-nurse, one who had spent many years working in intensive care wards.
‘That’s bad, isn’t it?’ I questioned anxiously. ‘They’re not giving me any information. They keep talking about waiting and giving things time. But what is it they’re not saying? Mum, you have to tell me.’
‘Ally calm down. The doctors can tell you far more than I can. I don’t know anything at all about Joe’s condition, and it’s been years since I last worked on the wards. Don’t go getting yourself into a panic now.’
It was probably a good twelve hours too late for that particular piece of advice.
‘Is Jake awake yet? How is he? Has he asked about Joe? What do you think we should tell him? Can you and Dad stay at home with him today, because I don’t think he should go to school, do you?’ The words came tumbling out of my mouth like boulders in a landslide. If I could hear the strain and anxiety in my voice, then it was an absolute certainty that my mother could too.
She did. ‘Ally, take a breath and slow down.’ I tried to do as she instructed, but my panic was like an escaped pony that had been tethered up tightly for so long, it didn’t want to be reined back in. ‘Jake is fine. He’s with your father right now, they’re making some toast for all of us before we leave.’
‘Leave? Where are you going?’
‘We’re coming up to the hospital. Jake’s worried and he needs to see his Daddy, and he needs to see you too.’
‘Oh Mum, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I don’t think they even allow little kids to visit patients on this ward, and if Jake saw Joe like this it’s really going to frighten him.’
‘Ally,’ said my mum, her voice soothing and patient, ‘he’s already frightened. Terrified, in fact. He’s an intelligent little boy, and his imagination is running riot. However scary you think it might be for him, it’s important that he sees it with his own eyes. It will help him process everything.’
Suddenly it felt very much like I was talking to an experienced nurse, rather than a loving grandma. ‘But he’s only seven years old. What if it’s all too much for him to cope with? Joe’s in a coma, Mum, he’s hooked up to a ton of machinery. He’s not even breathing by himself yet.’ I’m surprised she managed to decipher the end of my sentence, because it was lost in muffled broken sobs.
‘I think that’s precisely why he has to be there, why we all should be. For Jake, for you and also for Joe. And don’t worry about their visiting rules. In cases like this, it’s important to allow children to visit their parents, if they want to.’
It was hard to know what scared me most: my mother’s quiet insistence that our family should reunite, or hearing her refer to her much-loved son-in-law as a ‘case like this’. The need to shield your child from anything that could hurt them is inbuilt in every mother. And when shielding alone isn’t enough, then it’s a mother’s job to try to prepare them for the worst of all possible outcomes. I was doing that. And so too, I realised, was my mother.
‘How soon can you get here?’
I passed Frank in the doorway to the ward. He was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and hadn’t noticed me doing exactly the same thing, as I headed back to Joe’s room.
‘I’m just going to fetch us all some tea,’ Frank explained gruffly. ‘The nurse said we can use the staff canteen.’ I nodded, recognising his need to be doing something, anything. ‘We’ll all feel better with a hot cup of tea inside us.’ As much as I wanted to believe in its curative powers, I knew there was only one thing in the world that was going to make me feel better. And it wasn’t tea. Frank nodded, as though confirming his own words. ‘Yes, well, three cups it is then.’
I had taken two steps away from him before I paused and called back after him. ‘Actually Frank, could you make that four?’
Kaye looked up with a sad smile as I slipped back into the room. ‘How are you holding up?’ I asked, gently squeezing her shoulder. Joe’s mother gave a tired shrug, the fragile bones undulating beneath my hand. Her eyes were fixed on her son’s face, as she replied. ‘I don’t know, Ally. Better than Frank is doing, I guess. He’s not coping very well. He’s like Joe, he needs to be doing something, helping in some way. It’s hard for him, just having to watch and wait.’
‘I just spoke to my parents. They’re on their way here, and they’re bringing Jake with them.’
His other grandmother turned towards me then, her eyes softening with love. ‘That’s good. Good for Jake, and good for all of us.’
I sighed, and went around to the other side of the bed and bent to kiss Joe’s cheek. It felt warmer than it had done all night. That had to be an encouraging sign, didn’t it? Was this the first indication of improvement that the doctors had been waiting for?
‘Did you hear that, Joe? Jakey’s on his way. You don’t want to still be asleep when he gets here, do you? Wake up now, sweetheart. Please wake up.’
‘Maybe when he hears his little voice . . .’ Kaye sounded as though even she was struggling to believe her own words. I reached across the bed and squeezed her hand. ‘He’d do anything for that boy. If there’s anything in the world that can reach him, it’s Jake.’
Charlotte
I took the tea she gave me gratefully. The news . . . well, I didn’t take that quite so well.
‘Here? Do you think that’s a good idea? For him, I mean.’
Ally bristled physically, like an indignant porcupine, and I could hardly blame her for that. After all, what did I know about children? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
‘I think, as his mother, I’m the best judge of that.’
I bit my lip on all kinds of rejoinders that would blow our current truce to smithereens, as most of them would have brought into question her ability to determine what should – or should not – be told or kept secret.
‘He needs to see his dad. Joe,’ she added, quietly emphasising the name. Ally wasn’t being exactly subtle. ‘Don’t worry,’ she continued, ‘I have no intention of letting David see him, or know he’s here.’
I nodded. I wasn’t about to start an argument, but I was worried. Because if Jake looked as much like David in real life as he did in the photograph I’d seen, Ally was fooling herself if she thought she’d be able to keep his parentage secret. Somehow I didn’t think she’d even considered that.
‘Well, I just thought you should know, that’s all.’
‘Thank you for telling me.’
I waited until she had reached the door before I found the courage to ask her the one question that was burning through me like corrosive acid. It had been, since the moment she had disappeared into my husband’s room. ‘How did things go, with David I mean? Was it alright?’
She turned slowly, and looked at me for a long time, as though she were replaying their entire conversation in her mind. A small furrow appeared between her brows at the memory and part of me was dying to know what he had said to her, and the rest of me was far too scared to ask. Had he told her how he felt about her? How he’d always felt? I looked around the Relatives’ Room in the bleak early morning light. It was a hell of a place to learn that you were ‘the other woman’ in your own marriage.
‘It was fine. He was fine . . . well, obviously not fine physically. This operation he needs, it sounded serious. Is it?’
There was little point in lying. She could just as easily overhear a member of the medical team talking about it. ‘Yes. Very serious.’
Ally looked shocked, and I realised then that David must have played down the severity of his illness. For her protection? Possibly. Old habits always were the hardest to break.