Helena spent Monday morning unwrapping a delivery of greetings cards and putting them on the revolving rack. It was a slow day, snowing lumps of sleet, which was keeping people indoors by fires, and she was glad. She was too distracted to serve customers enthusiastically, could just about hold her hand out, take the money and that was it.
She kept her phone in her cardigan pocket, hoping that Steffie would ring with an update. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night. So tired, she had taken the bus this morning instead of driving since she didn’t feel safe behind the wheel. Far easier to let someone else take responsibility.
She gazed at the Easter card in her hand. Easter was early this year, just over four weeks away. She wondered whether Jemima would be home for it, would be well enough to do Greg’s annual egg hunt at the lodge – foraging through wet rubbery plants, reaching into Jurassic undergrowth; epic!; pastel eggs mounting in the basket.
She moaned mournfully, continued putting the cards on the rack.
But what else had she just been thinking? About the driver of the bus taking responsibility. Helena had always been a bit like that – not lazy, but happy to relinquish control. She had never wanted to be a leader, not even of her own family; had always preferred to be led, within reason.
Her easy-going nature had suited the parenting style of the seventies, during a time when most mums had spent their days ironing, listening to the radio, preparing supper for husbands who expected a meal On The Dot. There were exceptions – plenty of them; it was just that Helena hadn’t known of any in Wimborne. Parenting had been a bit vague, ethereal almost. The days were long, seat belts weren’t law, cars smelt of petrol inside, washing machines broke down, the television needed time to warm up.
Motherhood back then had been rather like sitting on the bus, as opposed to driving it. There had been no point trying to take control because there had been little to take control of. There were no SATs, risk assessments, anti-bullying policies, key stages. It was a case of seeing your child off to school and then getting on with shelling peas or organising the airing cupboard.
Parenting had been practical then, in the main, focusing on manual skills: baking, sewing, gardening, painting, mending.
But modern mums had evolved into something infinitely more powerful. They weren’t the rats on the wheels, but the ones turning them. They were drivers, not passengers. Practical was passé, to a certain extent; and in its wake had come knowledge.
Today’s mums were astonishingly knowledgeable, Helena felt. They knew everything about everything – nutrition, healthcare, education – and how to apply that knowledge to everyday life. They went to the playground, meetings, doctors, coffee mornings, internet forums, armed with information that they used defensively, aggressively, helpfully, compassionately, as required.
To know all that – to have all that knocking around one’s mind – would be exhausting. Yet modern life virtually demanded it. For if you didn’t know how to do things, to do them well, on time, to maximum effect, then you would be caught short, found lacking.
Caught by whom precisely? Probably by one’s self. Because from what Helena had observed in Steffie, sometimes the taskmaster driving her on each day was none other than herself. She didn’t want to fail, to let anyone down.
Helena realised that her phone was ringing. A customer had entered the shop at the same time. She hesitated then reversed rapidly behind the counter, where she took the call.
It was Greg. He was speaking softly, saying something that she didn’t catch.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said. ‘Can you speak up a bit?’
‘Would you be able to come to Guildford?’ he said.
‘Uh …’ She thought for a moment. The answer was obvious, needed little contemplation, yet she was at an age where few responses were immediate or spontaneous. She was thinking stupidly of watering her plants, how much milk there was in the fridge, whether the ham would go off. ‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘There’s a train station here. There’ll be cabs outside, I’d imagine … Ask for the Royal Hospital. And I’ll settle up with you later.’
‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘I won’t hear of it.’
‘Well, we can argue about that when you’re here,’ he said.
She watched the customer who was flicking through a book on sheds – one of those amusing books that made gifts for men when desperate. ‘What shall I do about the shop?’ Helena said.
‘Just put a note on the door saying closed for a few days.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘If that’s all right with Steffie … Does she know you’re phoning me?’ And then she suddenly realised what he was saying. ‘What’s happening, Greg?’ She put her hand on the counter to steady herself. ‘Is it Jemima?’
She had raised her voice. The customer was looking at her inquisitively.
Helena bent her head, gazed at the floor.
‘It’s not Jemima,’ he said. ‘There’s no change there.’
‘Then what?’ she asked.
But she knew the answer.
She was a mother. And practical or not, bus driver or passenger, collector of Jasperware Wedgwood or Facebook Likes, she knew her child.
‘It’s Steffie, isn’t it?’ she said, feeling her face drain of colour.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just get here when you can.’
It was busy on the ward that afternoon. A new patient had arrived in the room opposite just after lunch and there had been a terrible kerfuffle – the mother crying hysterically, nurses running, alarms sounding. The child – a toddler, by the sounds of it – was evidently in a lot of pain, kept shouting, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy! Steffie had listened to the ordeal from inside their room, with her hand gripping Jemima’s bed rail and her body tense. She had wanted to offer help, to do something, but as usual here felt an awful sense of redundancy – of being unable to change the situation.
Finally, when the child was sedated or the pain had subsided, Steffie could hear only the mother’s sobs and a lower rumbling voice comforting her – the father, perhaps.
Steffie wondered what was wrong with the child – sensed that whatever it was the parents would eventually leave here changed in some way. They wouldn’t know the change right away, but it would be there. Because no matter how much people told you that the past didn’t count, that it was the present that was important, everyone knew that certain experiences – war, poverty, disease, death – never left the soul.
And now all was still. Steffie was sitting on her own beside her sleeping daughter – Greg had gone for a walk and the staff were preoccupied with other patients. Steffie could hear voices at the end of the corridor, footsteps hurrying; but as far as their little corner of the ward was concerned – the space occupied by Steffie and the faceless mother opposite – their children slept.
She gazed at Jemima, placed her hand on a small part of skin on Jemima’s arm that wasn’t covered by medical paraphernalia or a blanket. That was all she was allowed, that inch of her daughter.
She sighed, yawned. She was exhausted, yet sleep wouldn’t come, especially not at night in a ward where darkness never fell and activity never ceased.
She was feeling rather sheepish about the fuss she had made during the night. It had been a long time since she had had a phobia attack. She hadn’t expected to ever have one again.
There was a time before when dust had ruled her life, had brought her out in a chilling sweat, had driven her to bed. Yet she hadn’t gone for therapy, hadn’t discussed the problem with anyone but Greg – had even hidden it from her mother.
And she thought she had beaten it. But life thought differently. And the irony of anxiety was that it came to a head exactly when you needed it to disappear.
Greg had been extra careful around her this morning. He had a right to be concerned, but still… she found it vexing. It was the same patronising manner with which medical staff had treated her after childbirth, she recalled – taking any mention of tiredness or worry as a sign of neurosis or postnatal depression, scoring her responses out of ten on their mental health charts. She had found herself cracking jokes constantly back then, setting her face at Smile in the doctor’s waiting room.
Perhaps it was then that she had begun to use humour as a mask, like her counsellor, Yvonne, had said.
Anxiety and motherhood often went hand in hand, yet were not allowed to.
She had hidden her phobia not only because she was ashamed of it, but also for fear of being accused of being a bad mother, of having her baby taken away. Because that was what sometimes happened to parents who failed to meet the grade.
Everything was graded now, from children to parents. No one escaped unassessed.
And now her mother was on her way; proof that Greg thought that she was unable to handle this without support.
She would be pleased to see her mum, who would arrive with smiles and open arms, disguising all the worry and concern. Is Steffie coping?
She yawned again, rubbed her eyes.
A sudden, quiet rap on the door made her look up. She hadn’t heard anyone coming, wasn’t expecting anyone.
To her surprise, it was Mr Alexandrov, clutching a paper bag. ‘Ballet Shoes,’ he said, smiling. ‘And music.’
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said, smiling frailly in welcome. Today, one day deeper into hospital life, she wasn’t self-conscious before this man, no longer cared about whether she looked ghastly, which she no doubt did.
She glanced at her toffee-coloured nails that had felt so exotic only days before, applied so carefully in order to impress at the auditions – in order also, if she were frank, to pretty herself in light of Olivia’s glamorous appearance – and which now appeared utterly irrelevant, banal.
Mr Alexandrov stepped forward warily, halting a metre from the foot of Jemima’s bed. Just the sight of him made Steffie feel woeful, for he represented all that was past: Jemima’s health, her gift for dance, her future.
‘How is she today?’ he asked.
‘There’s no change, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘They did some more tests this morning, but the doctor said there was no improvement.’
‘That’s disappointing,’ he said, putting the bag down on Greg’s chair.
That was already Greg’s chair, and this one hers, she thought. Funny how quickly humans claimed things as their own, set up routines, owned spaces, in even the most paltry conditions and settings.
‘Is there anything else I can get you, or do for you?’ Mr Alexandrov said.
She had temporarily forgotten he was there. He was standing so still, he blended into the backdrop.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But thank you for the book … I’ll read it to Jemima.’
‘Good,’ he said, bowing his head slightly. ‘Well, I’ll leave you in peace.’
She nodded goodbye, and he left.
Really, there was nothing more they could say, nothing more he could do.
She wondered briefly whether they would ever see him again.
She rose to collect the paper bag from the chair and sat back down with it. Inside, was a hardback edition of Ballet Shoes, and a CD called An Evening at the Ballet.
The sight of the beautiful book caught her breath. She opened the cover, which creaked softly, and held the book to her nose, smelling the scent of unread pages.
There was a flutter as something fell from the book to the floor. She bent to pick it up. It was a compliments slip from the Phoenix Academy. There was something written on it in blue ink.
Never give up, Jemima.
Mikhail Alexandrov x
She gazed at the curly handwriting, at the kind sentiments. This was something that she would have cried at before. But her emotions had entered a vacuum until further notice.
So she tucked the slip inside the book, opened it to chapter one, and began to read.
As she read, the sun came out with sudden ferocity. Dust danced in the warm rays above Jemima’s bed, a veritable swarm of particles.
Steffie was suddenly aware of footsteps approaching rapidly down the corridor, raised voices. She lowered the book and the floor wobbled beneath her, as though it were a treadmill just starting. She stared in concern, but the floor was still again.
And then the detectives entered the room.
‘Mrs Lee,’ the sergeant said. ‘Here on your own?’
Greg had gone to stretch his legs – a quick walk around the corridors to brush off his fatigue. He wasn’t just weary because of trying to sleep in a chair on a ward, but because sitting endlessly beside Jemima was disquietingly tiring. It was like sitting on a coach for a very long time without air conditioning or distraction; except that they weren’t going anywhere.
Jemima’s lack of movement dulled the senses, reminding him that intimacy was all about exchange. It made him realise that love was all about the impression that it made on the recipient. Loving someone was all about watching the other person’s reaction – their mutual confessions, or kisses, or rebuttals. It wasn’t about feeling it and not channelling it. To love was to pass it on.
And here was Jemima, unable to pass it on. All their love was flowing towards her and it was resting there, blocked, static. If it were a force field, she would have a yellow glow all around her; for love was not pink or red, as one might be led to believe by the Valentine’s Day industry, but yellow, Greg sensed, like the sun. It was nurturing, warming, healthy; apart from when it was blocked. And then it was yellow for old, stale, unreplenished.
What would happen if it didn’t get replenished? he thought. What would happen if she didn’t pull through, if she didn’t wake up?
He shook his head, tried to think of something else. But it was hard to. All he could see was yellow, and sadness, and exhaustion.
He didn’t get very far with his walk, realised that perhaps he would be better off going back, getting Steffie and going outside now that the sun was out, rather than stumbling around the corridors. He always ended up getting lost, unable to get his bearings, having to rely on some doctor to point him back the right way.
When he got back to their ward, he was just about to clap his hands and force his voice into cheerful, when he saw the detectives in their room, their suits seeming big against the barren décor.
‘Oh,’ Greg said in surprise. There was always a possibility that the men would return, would be here at any given point. Yet he hadn’t expected them somehow, hadn’t wanted them here. It felt intrusive. He was beginning to care less about the case, cared more about Jemima waking up. The detectives took away from that, detracted from the most important thing.
He rested his hands on Jemima’s bed rail, trying not to betray his thoughts with anything but a pleasant expression. Steffie was sitting in her usual spot at Jemima’s side, holding a new book on her lap. He noticed the paper bag on the other chair. Evidently Alexandrov had been and gone.
‘Hello, Mr Lee,’ said Detective Sergeant Lamb.
The sergeant looked more dishevelled than usual – his hair sticking up, a handkerchief hanging from his trouser pocket. Greg glanced at Detective Constable Whyte, who was chewing slowly, looking slightly bored – an affectation, Greg suspected, intended to catch them off guard. The atmosphere didn’t feel hostile, exactly; more cagey, he felt.
‘We were just updating your wife on progress,’ the sergeant said, ‘concerning the medication in Jemima’s bloodstream.’
‘Oh right?’ said Greg.
‘We found a bottle of diazepam in a bin in the ladies’ toilets near the studios in the academy,’ Detective Constable Whyte said. ‘It was prescribed by a GP in Bracknell. Do you know anyone in Bracknell, sir?’
‘Bracknell,’ said Greg. ‘I don’t …’ He glanced at Steffie, who was gazing at the floor, her cheeks red in patches as though pinched.
‘As you can imagine, we were very interested to find out whose bottle it was,’ Detective Sergeant Lamb said. ‘The name of the patient didn’t match anyone on our records – no one associated with the academy. But then lots of professional women go by their maiden names.’
‘They do,’ Greg agreed. He folded his arms high on his chest, could feel his heart beating against his thumb.
‘So it took us a while to trace its rightful owner, but when we did it was very enlightening.’
Greg looked at the two men. It was growing dark in the room, as the afternoon light dwindled. Their mouths were shadows, their noses black beaks.
‘And?’ he said.
The sergeant smiled. ‘It belonged to Daisy Kirkpatrick’s mother.’
There was a thud as Steffie dropped her book. ‘I knew it!’ she said.
The detectives turned to look at her. ‘You did?’
Steffie blushed, bent to pick up her book. ‘Well, not really. I don’t mean that I knew, as such. Just that …’
‘What?’ said Detective Sergeant Lamb.
She shrugged. ‘I thought the mother was a bit aggressive, that was all.’
‘Aggressive?’ said the sergeant.
‘Yes. But then I just put it down to the stress of the auditions.’
‘And what about you, Mr Lee?’ the sergeant said. ‘Did you think Mrs Kirkpatrick was hostile?’
‘Not hostile,’ said Steffie. ‘I didn’t say hostile. I said agg—’
‘Sir?’ said the sergeant.
‘Well, to be frank, they were all like that,’ Greg said. ‘I didn’t think she was any different. She was just more honest, perhaps – wearing her ambition more honestly.’
‘I see. So your main reaction on hearing this news is that Mrs Kirkpatrick is honest?’
Greg opened his mouth and closed it again.
He didn’t like this at all. Beyond the men lay his daughter, his only child. He wanted to tell them to get the hell out, to leave them alone, in peace.
‘What do the Kirkpatricks say about it?’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you be there, grilling them, and not us?’
‘All in good time,’ replied the sergeant.
There was a pause. Then the sergeant spoke softly. ‘Mrs Lee …’ Steffie gazed up at him anxiously, clutching the book against her, recoiling from the sergeant as though he were formidable, even though he had food on his tie, and inky hands. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us, anything you can add, that might help us find out who did this to your daughter?’
Greg found himself holding his breath, waiting for Steffie’s response. Even the constable had dropped his boredom act and was staring at her with his deep-set eyes.
‘There’s nothing,’ she said.
Greg exhaled. The sergeant tutted as though disappointed; only a tiny sound yet it unsettled Greg. What had the man been expecting?
Steffie stood now, shook hands with the sergeant. ‘Thank you for updating us,’ she said. And the two men left, saying good afternoon, wishing them a good night’s sleep ahead.
Greg waited for Steffie to sit back down, to pick up her book and open it again, before he pursued the detectives.
‘One minute,’ he called after them.
Out in the corridor, the sergeant turned expectantly. Greg led them down to the reception before speaking.
His heart was racing. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. He spoke slowly, cautiously, concerned it would come out wrong. ‘Please don’t keep probing Steffie,’ he said.
One of the nurses on reception glanced up. Greg lowered his voice. The nurse looked back down at her paperwork.
‘She’s in no fit state. This is hitting her badly, as you can imagine.’
‘Yes,’ said Detective Sergeant Lamb, ‘we realise that, Mr Lee. But we have a job to do and we have to do it thoroughly … You want a result, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Greg. ‘Of course.’
‘Then what is it that you’re saying?’ said Detective Constable Whyte, hands in pockets, legs astride. Away from the niceties of conversations by Jemima’s bed or in the family room, this man was belligerent, Greg thought.
‘That I’d like you to go easy on her,’ Greg said.
‘Go easy?’ asked the sergeant, playing dumb.
‘Yes,’ said Greg, tiring of the sport. ‘Whatever it is that you’re looking for, it’s nothing to do with her, with us.’ He hesitated, then pressed ahead. ‘You won’t achieve anything by pushing her. You’re just upsetting her.’
‘So what would you propose that we do?’ said Detective Sergeant Lamb.
‘Just involve her less,’ Greg said. ‘If you need anything, come to me. But try to leave Steffie out of it. She’s got enough on her plate.’
The sergeant was narrowing his eyes at Greg, his mouth open. After a few moments of speculation, he said, ‘Fine,’ and nodded. He slapped Greg’s arm in farewell. And then they left, their footsteps clicking down the corridor, until they were no more.