Never Leaves Me

by C J Morrow

  Don’t be stupid.

  I’ll drink plenty of water to get rid of the hangover. I’ll wash my hair; will I have enough time to dry it? What time is it, anyway? It’s still dark; I don’t know why we’re getting up so early.

  I’ll see what my parents are doing this weekend. Catch up with Mads. Maybe we could go shopping, Mads and me, buy some clothes. She’d like that. I’d like that. It’ll make a change. Robin always comes clothes shopping with me, chooses what suits me. He has a good eye. He jokes he’s created my style. I laugh and frown but I think he’s probably right. He’s got such good taste in clothes; always has. That first night, when my dad brought him home, he had on a dark coat over stonewashed jeans. He was wearing Timberland boots. With his trendy dark hair, his tall, lean build, those cheekbones and lashes, he didn’t look like a teacher, he looked like a model.

  And my dad brought him home to be my Maths tutor. He reached across to shake my hand when Dad introduced me. His hand was warm and large. Mine was small and sweaty. I’d bitten off the turquoise nail varnish I’d been wearing, but not completely. I felt like a piece of shit. He looked like a god.

  ‘Hi Juliette.’ That was all he said and I felt my heart flip, my spine tingle, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If love at first sight exists, that was it. I couldn’t even manage a reply, other than a stupid grin.

  Later, much later, when it all got a bit nasty, Mum said it was just a stupid schoolgirl crush. She said I’d get over it. I didn’t.

  I didn’t have to, did I?

  Look at us now.

  Oh. Here’s Robin.

  He’s left his shower running. That’s not a good sign. And I haven’t even made it out of bed yet, despite my good intentions. It means there isn’t enough time for me to have a bath, I have to have a quick shower – he knows it will be quick because I hate his power shower. No time to wash my hair either. I hope we have enough time for breakfast. I’m starving. And thirsty. I must have a coffee before we go. I hope I’m all right to drive. Surely, I didn’t drink that much? I wish I could remember.

  I try to move. Really, I do. But the hangover is just too bad. It’s paralysing me.

  ‘Wake up, Juliette.’ Robin does his trick with the duvet; he flips and shakes it. He lets it fall back down on me, which is better than normal; usually he just rips it off completely. I’m grateful for small mercies. As the duvet lands back on me it settles over my feet first, despite them still feeling cold the duvet burns me as it scrapes over the ends of my toes. My feet flinch and flex.

  What a hangover.

  ‘Wake up, Juliette.’

  I’m trying. I really am. I try to speak but my mouth won’t work. I try to open my eyes wide, but they won’t comply. All I see is blackness.

  ‘Juliette. You need to try. Come on.’

  Robin rubs my arm, I wish he wouldn’t do that. The smell of alcohol is strong now, it must be on his breath too. Was he drinking? Surely not.

  ‘Come on. Wake up.’

  He’s pressuring me now and I don’t like it. Does he think I’m playing at being asleep? Doesn’t he know that I wouldn’t do that?

  Am I still dreaming? Is that what this is? All part of the same horrible, repeating car crash dream?

  I groan. Then Robin’s alarm goes off again. What the hell? The shower is still running and the alarm is going off and it’s making my headache worse and I’m so very confused.

  A sharp sting in my arm and it all stops. It’s silent. I’m calm.

  A hand strokes my forehead. It’s not Robin’s hand. Too small.

  I sleep.

  Gasp.

  I wake.

  ‘You need to wake up, Juliette. You’re in hospital.’

  I’m in hospital?

  Two

  What a disgrace I am.

  I am in hospital with a hangover. That’s disgusting. What a criminal waste of NHS resources. What the hell is going on? How did this happen? How did I drink so much that I am in this state? I must have alcohol poisoning. As soon as I get over this I’ll be scuttling out with my tail between my legs. I am so embarrassed. What the hell was I drinking? It must have been some potent stuff.

  This is awful.

  I’ve never done anything like this before. Three glasses of wine is my usual limit. Invariably I don’t drink at all as I’m always the designated driver. Robin rarely drinks but he doesn’t like driving unless he’s forced to. Though he does have a nice car, just in case.

  It wouldn’t be so bad, well yes, it would, but it might help if I could even remember last night. If it’s Friday today, whatever possessed us to drink on a Thursday evening? We both have work today. Actually, Robin seems okay.

  This is insane.

  And I feel so tired.

  ‘You just need to wake up, Juliette.’

  Yes, soon.

  The dream again, the burning car, the black coat with the too-big buttons, the body. What a nightmare.

  I know where I am. In hospital. I can’t open my eyes or move anything. I feel dreadful. And sorry for myself. What a sorry state I am in.

  I feel ashamed.

  I can hear machines beeping – it was never Robin’s alarm. That’s what the hissing was too, I suppose, not Robin’s power shower.

  ‘How is she?’ That’s my mum’s voice. Oh no. What is she doing here? Why did Robin tell her? Why has he dragged her in here for a hangover? This is just getting worse.

  ‘The infection is slowly responding to treatment.’ That’s a voice I don’t recognise. A nurse? A doctor? Not Robin.

  ‘Any sign of …’ Mum’s voice trails away.

  ‘Still unconscious. But we did see a little movement in her feet earlier. We’ve started to wean her off sedation, so we’ll see how it goes.’

  ‘Ahh. That’s good news.’ Mum’s voice sounds hopeful yet tentative.

  ‘Early days.’ A noncommittal reply.

  Infection? Infection? I have an infection? Not a hangover. Thank God. I’m not a complete idiot. Hang on, wouldn’t a hangover be better. An infection sounds serious. It IS serious; I’m in hospital. What kind of infection would put me in hospital? Meningitis? Sepsis? Isn’t sepsis the one everyone is talking about and fearing now? Isn’t it a silent killer? No wonder I’m delirious and having nightmares.

  I think I’d rather have a shame-laden hangover.

  ‘Now your mum’s here I’m going to nip home and shower.’ Robin’s breath is soft on my cheek. If I could move, if I could speak, I’d turn and smile and say thanks. He must have been up here all night. Have I been here all night?

  I hear the scrape of a chair, I feel pressure on the bed. I imagine Robin moving his chair so that Mum can have it. I imagine her putting her bag on the bed. I hear a soft flump as she sits down. There’s no conversation between Mum and Robin. That’s a shame. I imagine strained smiles across my prone body.

  Mum’s probably blaming Robin for this. She’s spent a lot of time over the years blaming Robin for anything and everything. It didn’t start out like that. She liked him in the beginning.

  Everybody liked him.

  It had been Mum’s idea to get me a tutor after the mock GCSE results, when my Maths had been so poor and everyone was horrified.

  ‘How can this be? Your father’s a deputy head.’ Mum was so angry, angrier than Dad. I didn’t see what the problem was, I didn’t go to Dad’s school. But Mum said it was shameful and embarrassing for Dad. He said he would give me extra tuition. Just for Maths, everything else was okay.

  We lasted two sessions, well, one-and-a-half really. Dad was tired. I was tired and irritable. I hated Maths. What did it matter if I didn’t get a good grade? I was good at other stuff. I tried not to have a tantrum, but I didn’t succeed. I was a stroppy teenager that day.

  ‘Don’t you want to go to university?’ Mum’s voice took on a tone of confrontation.

  ‘Yeah,’ I muttered. Did I? Yes, I probably did, all my friends would probably be going. But we had these exams to get through, th
en two years of A’levels. It was too far away to think about.

  Later, when I was in the kitchen and Mum and Dad were in the lounge I heard them discussing me.

  ‘It’s too much, on top of your job. You need to unwind when you get home, not start work again. And she’s so ungrateful.’

  Was I ungrateful? No. I just wasn’t grateful enough. Not for Mum. I see it now, all these years later, but back then I just didn’t want to know. I hated Maths. Everyone did, but they didn’t seem to struggle like I did. Algebra – what was that about? I’d never use that in real life, would I?

  Dad didn’t respond to Mum; or, if he did, his voice was too quiet, too low for me to hear.

  Two days later he brought Robin home. He came for tea, so Mum could check him out and make sure he was suitable. Mads was three then, she insisted he sat next to her, insisted he play My Little Pony at the table until Mum tactfully removed the ponies; siting hygiene as the reason. Robin looked relieved when the toys were gone but was happy to chat to Mads. He was really sweet with her.

  With his on-trend clothes and looks, he didn’t seem like a teacher. My dad looked like a teacher, his body wore that weary look of forced, extended periods of patience, his clothes were professional, if ironed out. Dad wore a shirt and tie, Robin didn’t. I thought he was amazing, wanting to spend his evenings tutoring after a day teaching. Later, I heard Dad telling Mum that Robin had just bought a house and needed the extra cash. Dad was paying him cash-in-hand. I didn’t know what that meant at the time.

  We began our first session in Dad’s study – quite an honour, I was rarely allowed in there – this was where he did his marking and planned his lessons.

  Robin told me a little about himself, he’d only been at Dad’s school for a term, having spent five years in a private girls’ school. I did a lot of nodding and smiling that first evening, too shy, too intimidated by his appearance, and my own shabby clothes – my washed out uniform – to say much.

  After an hour and a half of Maths tutoring my head was aching and I was relieved when he finally left.

  After that, when Mum declared that he seemed trustworthy and reliable, she agreed the arrangement; he would come twice a week, have tea with us first.

  Twice a week! Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  I felt both lucky and horrified. I spent every Monday and Wednesday evening washing my hair, ensuring my nails were good and I stopped wearing the turquoise nail varnish after Robin commented that it looked a bit tacky. I stuck to clear after that. I spent so much time on my appearance on those evenings that my other homework began to suffer. When she found out – my school rang her – Mum banished hair washing to the weekend and she supervised my homework at the kitchen table every evening.

  ‘You’ll thank me later,’ she said, when I whinged about it. ‘You shouldn’t be washing your hair that often anyway, it makes it more greasy.’

  Mum decided that Robin would only have tea with us once a week. I think she would have preferred to stop it altogether, but the pattern had been set. She made up some excuse about Thursdays being difficult, Robin didn’t seem to mind.

  I lived for Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I spent the whole week imagining Robin’s large, expressive hands spread across my dad’s desk as he explained Maths to me. Eventually it even started to make sense.

  Over the course of those glorious three months from March to May I learnt a lot, and not just about Maths. I had started wearing make-up in year nine, the same as all my friends, nothing too garish for school of course. But even at weekends we didn’t go over the top, the main aim was to look flawless, to hide our lumpy, red, spotty, teenage skin; to increase our eyelash curl and to enlarge our eyes with the aid of a few eyeliner flicks.

  ‘You don’t need all that on your face,’ Robin had said one Thursday evening after we had crunched through a dozen equations and I had fully understood them.

  I touched my face self-consciously. I felt myself blushing.

  ‘What I mean is,’ he said, smiling, he looked so devastatingly gorgeous when he smiled that I felt my stomach flip. ‘Is that you’re a good-looking girl, you don’t need any artifice.’

  I blushed even more then.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve embarrassed you.’ He laid his hand on my arm before standing up to leave; it sent a tingle so strong running up and down my arm I almost gasped. ‘I’ll see you next week.’

  Next week couldn’t come fast enough.

  After he’d gone I hurried up to my bedroom and looked up artifice.

  ‘Well,’ my mum says, patting my hand, which I can feel. ‘It’s a struggle to know what to talk about.’

  Right. Well. If I were able, I’d laugh. My mum never has any problem talking, or offering advice; especially when it’s not asked for.

  I hear her rummaging in her bag.

  ‘What I thought,’ she continued. ‘Well, that is, we’ve been told to chat to you all the time, that you can probably hear us, but even if you can’t hear us all the time, some of it might get through. So, I’ve pretty much exhausted all my topics of conversation during the last two weeks…. Her words fade away.

  Two weeks. Two weeks. Does she mean I’ve been here for two weeks? That can’t be right. Can it? I stop thinking and start listening to Mum again.

  ‘And because it’s just me coming during the day now, because as we explained yesterday your dad has had to go back to work, what with the Ofsted and him being the Head and everything, well, I thought I’d read to you. What do you think?’

  I wish I could respond. I wish I could nod. I wish I could ask what the hell is going on. What is this infection that has wiped two weeks of my life out?

  ‘So,’ Mum’s voice is slow and deliberate now. ‘I went into your bedroom, your old bedroom at ours not yours obviously, and had a look through your books.’

  My books? I didn’t even know I had any books there. I thought I’d given them all to Mads, including the ones she had sneakily borrowed. In fact, doesn’t Mads have my old bedroom now?

  ‘And I found this.’

  I feel a breeze on my face as she waves something across it. I wish I could see. Why can’t I see? I don’t think my eyes are open. But it’s too dark. Even with my eyes closed I should be able to detect light and dark, I should be able to tell the difference. Oh, my God, am I blind? Is the infection in my eyes? I feel a wave of horror and panic creeping through my body.

  An alarm goes off. I feel the presence of several bodies around me. Medical staff? I can’t hear anything except the rush of air and the alarm. Then a sharp sting coursing through my veins and I’m gone.

  The car is spinning, spinning, roof, wheels, roof, wheels, roof. I run, I stop, I go back. Why must I go back? The body is in the road. My body, in my black coat with the too-big buttons. The face is mine. There are no eyes. Just skin where the eyes should be.

  I’m blind. I’m blind. How will I be able to live if I’m blind? How will I be able to carry on with my life, my job, if I’m blind? How will I be able to drive, take Robin to work, if I’m blind?

  ‘Calm down, Juliette.’

  Robin’s soft voice is whispering in my ear.

  ‘You’re going to be fine.’

  Okay.

  ‘You just got a bit distressed.’

  Okay. Where’s Mum?

  ‘Your mum was here, she was going to read to you before… Anyway, she got upset. She’ll be back later.’

  Okay.

  ‘You need to concentrate on getting better. You need to wake up.’

  Okay. I’m trying. I really am. I wish you could hear me.

  ‘It’s going to be fine. You’ll get through this. Trust me, Juliette.’

  I do. I do. I always have. And that trust saw me though some tough times.

  My parents were delighted when I passed my Maths GCSE with an A*. I was elated. Robin was quietly proud. We all glossed over the less than stellar results of my other GCSEs, though they were all above grade C, but not quite as good as had been expected. I was
supposed to be a straight A student. I was carrying my dad’s reputation.

  Dad was philosophical about it, Mum bit her tongue and I jokingly said to Robin that it was a shame he didn’t tutor other subjects. He laughed. We both did. Together.

  Soon I was into A’levels – Maths, of course, but without Robin’s diligent tutoring I was struggling again.

  ‘I’m not as good at this as I thought,’ I wailed to him one evening on the phone. I had a pay-as-you-go mobile by then – a present for passing my exams, maybe it would have been a contract phone if I’d done even better. I sat in my bedroom facing the window, hopeful that my parents wouldn’t hear me.

  ‘You are. You just lack confidence. You are good. Trust me.’

  ‘Would you tutor me some more?’

  There was a silence, followed eventually by an ‘umm.’

  ‘I’m sure I can persuade my parents to pay.’ My bravado had no substance.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, though his voice sounded reluctant.

  ‘I’ll talk to my parents.’ I sounded so sure of myself.

  It took two days before I was able to broach the subject, then Dad gave me the perfect opener.

  ‘How are you settling into sixth form?’ Dad said, as we sat around the dinner table waiting for Mads to finish. We all watched her stab individual peas with her fork and eat them one by one. When one fell on the floor, she dropped down from her chair and retrieved it before popping it into her mouth

  ‘Urgh. Gross,’ I hissed.

  ‘We all have to learn.’ My mother lifted Mads back onto her seat. ‘Anyway, answer your dad.’

  ‘I’m doing okay. Thought it’s harder than I expected.’

  ‘But you’re doing your favourite subjects. You excelled at Maths.’ This was Mum speaking while Dad looked on, studying us both.

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Is it harder without your tutor?’ My dad’s eyes looked at me with a mix of pity and concern.