Sitting in the hospital corridor, his hand bound up so that it resembles a white boxing glove, Owen feels like what he is tonight, a little boy. A mobile of busy people turn around him, receptionists, nurses, doctors, patients, relatives. Rush, rush, rush. Everyone is occupied. Everyone seems to know what to do, everyone except him. His hand throbs and his shirt is soaked with blood, hers, whoever she was, and his. Two policemen stand nearby talking in subdued voices, waiting for the cut in his hand to be stitched up, waiting until they say that the young man is sufficiently well to go to the station and make a statement. After the paramedics pronounced Naomi dead, they took Owen in an ambulance to the hospital, with a police escort. Catherine was driven away to make her witness statement. She told him that she’d come back as soon as she could, but for now he is alone.
The lights shrill down on him, making his eyes hurt. And the pattern on the lino floor also bothers him because it isn’t sym metrical. They are not equilateral triangles. They are all made up of varying angles. All those angles and none of them appearing the same. It makes him feel insecure somehow. He closes his eyes and he is on the beach all by himself. Looking about him, he can see that there is a whole desert of sand here, dunes of it. And instinctively he knows if he crests one hill there will be another, and another, and another after that. He turns his back on the sand. But this is worse, much worse. The sea stretches before him for eternity. And he has to fish Sarah out, but he doesn’t know where to start. He ought to run roaring at the surf and demand that it regurgitates her, spits her back into life. But he knows the waves will only shake with mocking laughter at this.
‘D’you want a cuppa, son?’ one of the policemen asks. He shakes his head. He wants his mother. There is some kind of commotion at the far end of the corridor, raised voices, a row. Nothing out of the ordinary. This is casualty late at night. Owen turns his head robotically towards the rumpus. Who is flying down the corridor, crashing into the placid nurse, sending her papers fluttering to the ground, knocking over a chair, jogging the man by the coffee machine, making him drop his cup? Who is this creating a scene? It is a mother who has lost her son. She has been searching for him for fifteen years. There is no room for English reserve here. Ruth does not care about the nurse hurrying after her calling, ‘Miss, Miss. You’re not allowed to . . .’ Nor does she care about the man with the coffee splattered over his shirt who is swearing at her, or the fact that an orderly has bustled off to alert security. The cotton dress she is wearing, a pink and white patchwork print, is saturated. It immodestly hugs the contours of her body. Her brown hair is loose and dripping. Her sandals squelch as she sprints down the corridor. She is bowling people like skittles out of her path.
‘Owen! Owen!’ And the small boy hunched alone on the sand hears his name, hears the desperation in it. His head comes up instantly. Then he is on his feet waving his bandaged hand, tears gushing down his cheeks. Her arms strait-jacket wetly around him.
‘My son!’ And he is shaking with shock and relief, and mumbling incoherently. His father is here now, too, in the background, nodding at the policemen and looking rather sheepish.
‘I’m sorry,’ Owen says.
‘No . . . I’m sorry,’ she whispers back.