‘How you doing?’
I open my eyes to see Jo sitting at the end of my hospital bed and I’m so happy to see her, even if she hasn’t come alone.
‘If you didn’t want to come back to work after Christmas, you could have just said so, you didn’t need to crash a car into a tree and put yourself in a coma you know.’ She smiles and holds my hand. She looks so young. I wish time had been as kind to me as it has been to her. I can see my room and it’s so much nicer than I imagined, so bright and colourful. The window is wide open, framing a clear blue sky as birds provide us with a little background music.
‘Do you remember what happened yet?’ she asks. I shake my head. ‘You do know it wasn’t Paul, don’t you? He’d never hurt you. Not like this.’ I nod because I know now that she’s right. The truth has got a little tangled and twisted while I’ve been lying here, but the strands are starting to unravel and straighten out.
‘It wasn’t an accident, was it?’ I ask. It feels strange to hear the sound of my own voice out loud again.
‘No.’
I nod again. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to show themselves, but still don’t fit together.
‘Why did you do it?’ asks Jo. She’s no longer talking about the crash.
It’s so good to see her, she’s the only one I can be completely honest with, no secrets, no lies. I try to sieve the truth from my memories.
‘You know why,’ I reply.
‘I don’t know why you resigned, you didn’t need to.’
‘I only took the job to get to Madeline, you know that.’
‘I also know having that job was good for you, something of your own.’
‘It was a shit job.’
‘Being a presenter on a top radio programme, listened to by millions, is not a shit job.’
‘No, but I wasn’t really the presenter, was I? We just made that up for fun,’ I say.
Jo frowns. ‘Did we?’
‘Yes. I was just Madeline’s PA.’
‘Were you?’
‘Yes, Jo, you know this.’
‘Maybe I do. I think I forgot. Things get muddled in my head sometimes.’
‘No, that’s me – things get muddled in my head,’ I say and she lets go of my hand.
The air rapidly darkens and it starts to rain outside. The sound of birds has been replaced by an impatient wind, blowing the curtains and bed sheets about the place. The room seems to have faded, like I’m watching a remastered colour version of an old black and white film, I can tell something is not quite right. The scene no longer seems authentic and it reminds me that I’m lost. I sit up and reach for Jo.
‘Please find me, I want to be found.’
But the little girl in the pink dressing gown stands up and takes Jo’s hand before I can reach it. She pulls her towards the door. The room starts to fall apart, huge jigsaw-shaped pieces of it falling down into the darkness below. I have to hold on. I so badly want to knit the pieces of my life back together, but I don’t know how.
‘Do you have to go?’ I ask.
‘I think so, don’t you?’ Jo says and they leave my room together, closing the door behind them.