In a room somewhere behind Millie, down one hall and then another and then another, Reg lies in a coma. She sits alone in the cold waiting room. The bell of the flat had rung in the middle of the night, over and over and over, and she ran down the stairs in her robe to find a man standing there, in his uniform, his eyes wild. I’m Brian, he said, maybe Reg mentioned me. Oh, my God, she said, what’s happened. Not a bomb, he said, a heart attack. A heart attack. Of course. Just like his brother. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? Why did she even worry about the bombs? I can give you a lift over to the hospital, he said, nodding at his motorcycle. So she wrapped her arms around this stranger, his belly soft, this man whom Reg had never once talked about, and they rode through the dark streets, the rain falling, cold and wet.
There’s nothing to do but wait, the nurse said.
She sits here, wanting to be anywhere but here. She wants to be with Beatrix. She wants to be with her mother. She wants to be with Reg but not here. She cannot sit in that room with his still body. She wants to run far away and never come back. How could he leave her alone.