It looks at first like the new normal. Mum’s on her ancient desktop when I get back, the streaks of silver more visible than ever as she distractedly pushes her hair out of her face, her bottom lip pinned by the jut of her front teeth. I know what she’s doing without even seeing the screen: trawling endlessly through estate-agent websites, hoping that her very own Manderley will have somehow have come on the market at a knock-down price. I hug her hello and go to the kitchen to make us both a cup of tea, ignoring the doorbell when it peals out. She’s nearer, I reason. Besides, it might break the unhealthy spell. I hear the door open.
‘What is this?’ she says, her voice rising like smoke from a blaze.
‘What’s happened?’ I say, racing through, nearly spilling boiling water on myself in my haste.
‘Mia . . .’ she says, a shaking hand thrust towards me like a stop sign, her face blanched white. A bulky, uniformed man is framed in the doorway, his van parked on the kerb, hazards flashing.
‘Madam, can you try to . . .’ His voice is no more than noise. I can’t breathe now, so faint I’m surprised I’m still upright. It’s odd how calm I feel, all at the same time, almost as if I’m soaring overhead, observing what’s going on. I scan the three letters, the flowers they’ve so skilfully woven together. There are chrysanthemums in there, roses and tulips too. MIA, it says, each letter large and ostentatious, pink and purple and white.
‘Just go, OK?’ says Mum, trying to push the door shut, the man still immovable, struggling to compute.
‘So you don’t want me to leave it then?’
‘That’s Mia,’ she says, gripping my arm too tightly. ‘My daughter, the one you’ve just delivered a funeral wreath for. Just get out.’
I hate the smell that hospitals have, that mingled stench of industrial disinfectant and sweaty bodies. It hits the back of my nostrils as soon as I get through the big revolving door of the monolithic white building and almost makes me gag. The reception area is thronged with people; apologizing profusely, I dodge my way past an old lady who’s being pushed in a wheelchair, my eyes trained on the front desk.
‘I’m looking for a Patrick O’Leary,’ I say, breathless. ‘He’s on Carroll Ward.’
I sprint for the lifts, then race down a maze of corridors, sticky with panic. Finally – finally – I find the door.
‘You know visiting hours are over in less than a quarter of an hour?’ says the battle-weary Ward Sister, clocking my flushed face.
‘So I need to see him immediately,’ I say. But as I set off behind her officious, uniformed backside, I suddenly long for nothing more than to gobble up her excuse whole. It’s all got too real. Even when Patrick’s been vulnerable he hasn’t been vulnerable – he’s felt complete in his Patrick-ness. If he’s broken, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it back.
I called him before I’d had any time to calm down, my words a gibbering stream of anger and terror. ‘Slow down, Mia, slow down,’ he said, and then, as he grasped what had happened, he started to swear. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I took you too close.’ That’s when I heard it: it was more than distress, his words were a dull croak.
The night before, he’d been grabbed from behind as he put his keys in the lock, beaten so badly that he was delivered here in an ambulance. The raid itself was a dead loss, revealing no more than a twisted little manipulator drilling through her scales, and a few short hours later, the wreath pitched up at our door, underlining the point. Stephen Wright is taking no prisoners, and he won’t be kept a prisoner either.
‘I’m coming now,’ I gabbled, yanking my coat on. Mum was staring up at me from the sofa, her eyes wide and glassy, the manic energy she’d had on the doorstep drained away.
‘Listen to me, Mia,’ he’d said, a stern-sounding nurse in the background telling him to hang up. ‘You have to stay where you are.’
He rushed around a team of detectives from the investigation, and they sprang into action, bagging up and photographing the wreath, dispatching more officers to question the florist. He had nothing for them: the flowers were paid for in cash by a man with a baseball cap tipped low over his face; there was no CCTV in the shop. Mum and I weren’t much better. Most of what I could tell them had already been diligently logged by Patrick over the preceding weeks. ‘I’ve stopped seeing her.’ I trotted the phrase out again and again, like a mantra, like it would ward off the evil spirits. I wanted to keep them from Mum most of all, couldn’t bear the way the shock had made a mask of her face, even though Nick had come back and held her tight against the solid wall of his chest.
I watched them together, shock still telescoping me in and out of that icy detachment. At least I would see Patrick. I would see him in a matter of hours, and then the scattered pieces would cohere into some kind of whole. I would feel whole again.
But now I’m here, I realize that the looping thought was no more than a dummy popped in the mouth of a screaming baby. Things might be about to get a whole lot worse.
And there he is, purple bruises like squashed blackberries decorating his face. His lip is split, a bandage around his head, and his right arm is in a cast.
‘Patrick!’ I say, rushing to him. He attempts to lift his bandaged arm, then winces. ‘Don’t move.’
He tries to smile, but that too is agonizing. I want to lie down next to him, to somehow suck the pain away and melt his bruises – but instead I stand there, useless, hoping the horror in my expression won’t add to his distress. ‘Mean Girls doesn’t cover it,’ he croaks. ‘We really pissed her off. No, actually . . .’ He pauses, gathers strength. ‘You really pissed her off. Jeez, Mia, are you like, the world’s worst therapist?’
And there he is, utterly Patrick under the bloody blanket of savagery. I don’t care any more. I rush forward, put my head against his chest, my tears soaking his horrible green hospital gown.
‘I was so terrified of what they might have done to you.’
He tucks my hair behind my ear with his free hand, his split lip brushing against it for a second.
‘And another thing, you’re rubbish at playing hard to get.’ I look up at him, my face a freeze frame of everything that’s flooding into me, nothing held back. I don’t want to be anywhere but here: I can’t imagine when I’ll ever start wanting to be anywhere but here. And I haven’t felt that since – since then. Muffin love! says Lysette loudly in my head, and I try to hug him without causing more injury. I feel him tremble with pain, but he doesn’t make a sound. I loosen my grip, but he pushes his bruised ribs back against me. ‘Looks worse than it is,’ he says, mouth still close to my ear. ‘They’re probably gonna let me out tomorrow or the next day. Give me your news.’
‘I’ve ended it with Marcus.’
‘Now you tell me,’ he says, something that sounds a little like delight in his froggy voice. ‘Course I’m in hospital.’
‘And I’m probably going to have to get a job in McDonald’s.’
‘Stop whingeing. You’ll rock that uniform.’
I take his bruised, clawed hand in mine. As if any of that stuff matters right now.
‘It’s my fault for trusting her.’
‘Come on,’ he says, smiling his disagreement. ‘They’re not messing around, these guys, and I took my chances with Gemma’s information. Information,’ he repeats, rolling his eyes. ‘I should’ve stopped you seeing her, not encouraged you to try and get more.’
Now my anger’s flooding back. I think of her sly little upward glance as she told me that I could redeem myself by becoming her mouthpiece.
‘She seemed so – so real – when she told me.’
‘She was weeping like a baby, apparently, but she totally denied she’d seen him. So did the teacher, and she’s got absolutely no criminal connections as far as we can work out.’
‘I just couldn’t help myself.’ Shame trickles through me – as if I need any more reminders of my shortcomings. ‘She reeled me in every time.’
‘Come on, Mia, enough of that chat. Stop whipping yourself. You know what you’re doing.’ He looks thoughtful. ‘It’s just possible that, despite my unparalleled genius, I’m the one who’s missing something.’
I shake my head at him, teasing him with my eyes. I remember what he said the day of the vegetable Apocalypse, how judgemental I was. I get it now: I get the fact that you have to grab every split second you can find on the sunny side of the street.
‘Patrick. For the love of God, leave it, at least for today!’
‘Fair point.’
We sit there for a moment in silence, his good hand intertwined with mine, our fingers criss-crossing. He gently strokes the wells between mine, then reaches up to stroke my cheek. How can quiet feel this full? I’m the one who breaks it.
‘Do you think she’s the reason you got beaten up, or is it . . . do you think there are people on your team sending information back to Wright?’
I feel a shudder run through me as the words leave my lips. I can’t give way to the fear. I have to believe it’s no more than a warning, trust that the cheerful policeman stationed outside our house for the next forty-eight hours is no more than a precaution. None of the lead detective’s calm, professional patter reassured Mum: she’s given in to the fear wholesale. I need to go back soon. The fact I came here in a police car only gave her a crumb of comfort.
‘Hard to say. Don’t worry about the guys taking care of you. No one’s gonna come after you, I’m sure of that, but they’ll look after you.’ He looks at me, rueful. ‘I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have got here, but we had to try it. Last bullet.’
‘Don’t say that. You can’t let them scare you off now.’
Patrick raises the hand that’s not in a sling and draws a shaky circle around his mashed-up features. Both of us start laughing, and once I do I actually can’t stop, the release of tension so unexpectedly delicious. ‘I’m sorry . . .’ I say, but he just smiles back, eyes soft.
‘Look, I’ll be there for Gemma’s questioning next week and, trust me, it won’t be easy for her. But we’re running out of time and there’s no sign of Daddy Dearest. It’s costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. We’ll probably have to accept the trial’s doomed to collapse and start investigating again.’ He shrugs. ‘If they’ll even let me.’
In that second I feel a surge of hatred for Christopher Vine that’s so pure, so molten, it frightens me.
‘You can’t just let him win this.’
‘Sweetheart, you of all people should not be saying that.’ He shakes his head, his look dark. ‘You say you feel guilty. How do you think I feel about them threatening you? That’s on me.’
‘But, Patrick, you’re right! If you didn’t have them on the rack they wouldn’t be . . .’ I can’t think too hard about what they’re doing. What they’re – what he – is thinking. ‘You’ve got to follow it through, whatever it takes.’
‘You’ve changed your tune.’
‘Yeah, well. It turns out I was tone deaf.’
Patrick tries to pull himself upwards. He hooks his feeble arm around my neck, and pulls me into him.
‘Kiss me properly,’ he mutters.
‘I’ll hurt you. And in case you haven’t noticed, that nurse has got a touch of the Nurse Ratcheds about her.’
‘Kiss me,’ he insists, and I do.
I know I don’t have long. I sit next to him, clutching his hand, hoping Nurse Ratched never comes back. Joy keeps creeping up on me, before fear gets it in a headlock. Did I really misjudge Gemma so badly? Was my sense that I understood her, that I was the one person who could scale the castle walls, nothing more than a self-serving cocktail of arrogance and projection?
‘I don’t want to go back out there,’ I say, my voice low. ‘I screwed this up so badly. I can’t see the wood for the trees any more. I feel like I AM a tree.’
‘In which case you’re a very elegant willow,’ he says, gently stroking my cheek.
‘I mean it . . .’ I say, very gently pressing myself towards his touch.
‘You’re an amazing therapist,’ he says, his voice low. ‘I’ve always got that about you. And I’ve seen you with her. It’s real, she trusts you. But think about the soil SHE’S grown up in. What kind of tree are you going to be? A pretty warped, rotten one.’
‘We’re more than that, aren’t we?’ I say. It’s too loaded. ‘We’re not equations. We’re not just the sum of our past.’
Patrick gives me a long look. He hasn’t forgotten.
‘Of course not.’
I sit there without speaking, listening to the hum of medical equipment and the ranged voices of the other visitors, whole families crowded close around their loved ones’ beds. I’d barely been aware of the sounds, squashed inside this tiny cubicle, my focus pin-tight on Patrick.
‘There he is!’ someone says in a loud Irish brogue. ‘I know I’ve only five minutes, but, trust me, I’ll make them count.’ The cubicle curtains open with a loud whoosh, revealing a stout woman with a determined expression on her red-veined face, a large Tupperware box in her hand. ‘Pat! The bus took an age.’ Her gaze swivels to me, and I move backwards in my plastic chair, my hands coiling back into my lap. ‘Are you a friend of my son’s?’
‘I am,’ I say, standing up and extending a hand. No shrinking. ‘I’m Mia.’
‘A work friend, I’m imagining.’ She grips my hand firmly, her smile tight. She’s looking at my outfit: a pleated silk skirt, above the knee, with a scoop-necked T-shirt and a pair of pink Converse. She doesn’t approve, this much is clear. She’s wearing a plain, dark cotton dress, Catholicly cut to mid-calf, with a modest V of red flesh visible at the top and a gold cross suspended over her impressive mountain range of a bosom. Her hands, gnarled and swollen, grip the Tupperware box like it’s a treasure chest. I look to Patrick. His dark eyes have got that woodland-creature quality to them, darting rapidly between the two of us.
‘Yes, sort of,’ I say.
He smiles at me, expression still nervy, and I grin back.
‘Mum, Mia’s more than a work friend.’
‘Oh?’
He looks at me, and my smile stretches wider.
‘She’s my girlfriend.’
A rush of fear jumps out of my chest, Alien style, but then it springs back in on itself with equal force. God, when I think of the Cold War between Marcus and me when we first started dating – neither of wanting to lose face and be the one to declare it a relationship. I look at him. We haven’t even . . . and he valiantly tries to smile back, mostly with his eyes.
‘I am,’ I say impetuously. ‘It’s lovely to finally meet you.’
‘Likewise,’ she says, voice clipped, narrowed eyes trained on me with the precision of a sniper’s rifle.
‘But I should leave you to it.’ I look at Patrick. ‘Call me later, if you’re up to it.’ He nods, gaze soft. ‘Or text me.’
I do an odd little Mexican wave of a goodbye with my fingers, far too intimidated to risk breaching the gap between me and the bed. Mrs O’Leary’s taken charge of the territory, a tank planted squarely on the battlefield.
‘Bye, Mia,’ he says.
I freeze for a long second, unable to force myself through the blue plastic curtain. I don’t want to go back out there without him, into a real world that doesn’t feel real any more. The loud chime from my phone startles all of us. I look down at it.
I didn’t lie to you, Mia. It’s the truth!! I need your help. Gemma xxx
That swaying, wobbling feeling, my legs barely holding me up. I peel my eyes away from the glowing screen.
‘What is it?’ he asks.
‘Nothing. It’s nothing for you to worry about.’ I give him a flash of a smile. ‘Just my mum.’
Delete. Delete, delete, delete.