by Ruth Mancini
The rest of the summer passed without incident. In August, Oli asked me out for dinner and I said yes. We went to a lovely fish restaurant in Covent Garden, where we ate Lobster Bisque and drank Prosecco, and talked about neurology and about France. I told him that I was in a long-term relationship with someone back home and he didn’t bat an eyelid or say anything that made him seem in any way predatory or insincere in his intentions towards me. He told me that he’d recently divorced. There were no children and the split was amicable. I got the impression that his wife had felt that he was married to his work, in which she’d had no particular interest. I didn’t want to be the stereotypical co-worker who ‘understood him’ where his wife didn’t, but I was finding the various projects that I was working on with Oli increasingly fascinating and couldn’t help but ask him question after question, which Oli clearly enjoyed answering, late into the night. It was nearly one o’clock by the time we’d left the restaurant and had a nightcap at a pub nearby. But though Oli saw me home and kissed my cheeks three times in the traditional French manner, he showed no signs of wanting anything more from me than my company and my help with his work.
Helena completed her registration at Uni during the first week in September and I helped her move the rest of her things into McLaren House. Her room was small, but the kitchen was nice and three of her new friends had already moved in and were sharing it with her. After she’d unpacked, I left her laughing happily in the common room on the ground floor. As I said goodbye, I felt a conflicting knot of both pride and pain tighten in my stomach. I knew that this was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, and yet another move away from me towards complete independence. As I walked out past the reception area towards the exit, I longed to ask the man at the desk to keep an eye on my precious daughter. Instead, I doubled back and poked my head round the door. Helena looked up.
“Don’t forget to let me know the date of your next competition,” I called to her.
Helena nodded, but looked embarrassed.
“Just smile and wave,” said one of her friends, and there was an eruption of laughter around me. “Just smile and wave.”
The following Sunday, my sister Keri phoned.
“Liz, it’s Mum,” she said. “She’s not well. She’s in hospital.”
“What’s wrong?” My heart fluttered. I felt momentarily dizzy and had to sit down. I realised that in spite of the apparent reprieve from the spectre of Martin that had been looming in every corner, I was still very much on red alert.
“She’s got a blood clot,” Keri said, her voice wobbling. “She’s suffered a mini-stroke. She’s okay now, but they’re trying her out on some new medication and they’ve kept her in at the Community Hospital in Saffron Walden overnight.” Keri burst into tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner. I didn’t know myself ‘til a couple of hours ago.”
“I’m coming straight there,” I told her. “I’ll meet you at the hospital. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour and a half. I’ll call you when I’m there.”
I quickly dialled Helena’s number. There was no answer. I left a message asking her to call me straight back.
“What’s up?” Zara asked, coming in from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal.
“It’s my mum. She’s got a blood clot. I need to get to the hospital in Saffron Walden right away. I was hoping I could borrow Helena’s car.”
My phone rang. It was Helena. I explained the situation.
“Oh no. Poor Granny. Is she going to be okay?”
“I hope so,” I said. “But I need to get up to the hospital right away. Public transport will be a bit of a nightmare on a Sunday. I could do with using your car, if that’s okay?”
The line went quiet.
“Do you want to come with me?” I offered. “We could go together. I could meet you at Old Street if that helps.”
There was another pause. “Sorry, Mum, but I’m... I’m not at home.”
“Okay, no worries. Where’s your car? I’ve still got that spare key.”
“My car’s... well, it’s with me.”
“So, where are you, then? Are you not in London?”
“Erm... no.”
I was getting frustrated. This was an emergency. Why couldn’t she just come out and tell me where she was?
“Helena,” I said. “I need to get to Granny. Can you just tell me where you and your car are, so I can work out what to do?”
“I’m away. I’m, uh... competing.”
I was both surprised and a little hurt at not having been invited. “Really? On a Sunday? Where?”
“Erm... Bath.”
“Bath? So when’s the race?”
“Soon. In, like, an hour.”
“Okay. Right. Well, never mind, then. I suppose I’ll just have to get the train.”
“I’m sorry, Mum.”
I sighed. “That’s okay, it can’t be helped.”
“I’ll come there. I’ll meet you there, okay? As soon as I can.”
“There’s no need. Really.”
“Yes, there is. I want to see Granny. Poor Granny.”
“Yes, but it’s too far for you to drive. She’ll be okay, I’m sure.”
“Was she...?”
“Helena, I need to go.” I spoke a little more sharply than I’d intended. I added, “You know how slow that slow train to Cambridge can be.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I love you.”
“Yes. I love you too.”
The journey took me a little over three hours, by the time I’d walked to the Barbican, got the Metropolitan Line to Liverpool Street, waited for a fast train to Audley End and then got the bus to Saffron Walden and walked to the hospital at the other end. My bag was heavier than I’d realised and I’d worn the wrong shoes. I had a backache and sore feet by the time I met my sister at the hospital entrance. She kissed me and I followed her down the antiseptic-scented corridor.
“Poor Mum,” she said. “Turns out she couldn’t tell anyone, so she just lay there until eventually she could move her right arm and then she phoned for an ambulance. She said she couldn’t speak properly, but she stayed on the phone and they were able to trace the call.”
“Good for her. She must have been petrified.”
Keri nodded. “Yes. But she’s much better now. Helena’s here, by the way,” she said.
I stopped in my tracks. “What?”
Keri smiled. “She’s been here a while. It was nice of her to have given up her swimming competition to come. She’s such a good girl. She does you credit.”
I was baffled. “How on earth did she get here before me?”
Keri shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she drove pretty fast.”
I shivered. “Don’t say things like that to me!”
“Sorry,” said Keri. “I’m sure she drove very carefully. She’s here, that’s the main thing. And Mum was so pleased to see her. She’s been talking much more since she arrived.”
Helena looked up guiltily when I entered the ward. I knew instantly that she’d been lying to me about the competition and where she’d been; it was written all over her face. But my attention quickly switched to my mum, who was lying in bed next to her, looking thin and poorly. Both sides of her body appeared to be functioning normally, I was grateful to notice, and her speech had fully returned. But she looked pale and quite clearly frightened by what she’d been through. I held her hand for a long time and stroked it with my thumb, the way she’d always done to me when I was a child. She attempted to chat, asking me about my new job, and how Christian was getting on with the house and the dog, but I kept my answers brief; I could see that she was exhausted, and after a while I decided that it was time for us to go and let her get some rest.
I nudged my sister and we all walked out into the corridor, where Keri suggested that we all go back to her flat to freshen up and get something to eat. Helena offered to drive us all back. Keri got into the front seat beside her and I climbed into the bac
k. I pushed an assortment of Helena’s shoes and clothes to one side to make room for my bag, but it wouldn’t fit onto the seat beside me, with all Helena’s clutter there too. I’d just moved a pair of Helena’s trainers from the rear passenger footwell and started to push my bag into the gap behind Keri’s seat when I noticed something on the floor. I leaned forward and picked it up. It was a man’s wallet.
“Are you alright there, Sis?” asked Keri. “Want me to shove forward a bit?”
Helena looked at me in the mirror. “You should have said. I could have stuck it in the boot.”
“There’s no room in the boot. I tried that,” I said, tucking the wallet underneath Helena’s cardigan and giving my bag a final shove into the space behind my sister. “I don’t know what you’ve got in there. Everything you own, by the looks of things.”
“I’m sure I can move forward.” Keri started rooting round, looking for the handle.
“You’re alright. Don’t worry. I’ve got it in.”
Helena resumed her conversation with Keri. “Biathlon’s just easier. Not so much kit, for a start, and you get to focus much more on improving your technique.”
I waited until Helena was occupied taking directions from my sister and slid the wallet out from under her cardigan. I opened it on the seat, with one hand, and glanced down. There were a couple of notes and a bank card, but I couldn’t read it. I really needed to get my eyes tested.
With my eyes on the back of Helena’s head, I used two fingers to open up the inside flap of the wallet, where I could see, when I glanced down, what looked to be the green plastic photo card of a provisional British driving licence. I pulled it out. Sky’s face grinned back at me. I tucked it straight back into the wallet again and quickly pushed it to the floor. When we arrived outside Keri’s flat, I pulled out my bag and carefully pushed the wallet back under the seat where I’d found it.
After we’d eaten, I told Helena that I was going to go back to the hospital for the evening and would then stay at Mum’s for the night.
“Want to do the same?” I asked. “I’m probably going to stay up here for a couple of days.”
Helena looked at me for a moment as though she didn’t understand the question. Her phone rang. She immediately jumped up off the sofa and headed into the kitchen.
“Boyfriend?” queried Keri, smiling.
“Not sure,” I smiled back, cupping my hand to my ear. “Let’s listen.”
Keri giggled and we both got up and tiptoed closer to the kitchen door.
“I don’t know,” we heard Helena say. “I’ll check the car, but I didn’t see it.”
Silence.
“Oh. Okay,” she said. “Give me five minutes. I’ll go and have a look and then I’ll call you back.”
She ended the call and Keri and I ran back to the sofa.
“Boring,” whispered Keri.
I shrugged and smiled. Helena came out of the kitchen and looked at us.
“Someone’s left something in my car,” she said. “I’m just going to run down and check.”
She tucked her phone into her handbag and opened the front door.
Keri got up and went to run a bath. I ran over to Helena’s bag and pulled her phone out. I swiped the screen, but this time, when I tapped in the PIN, the number for the iPad, it didn’t work. I sighed. I was just about to put the phone back in her bag, when it rang again. It was a landline number and I instantly recognised the dialling code as a Cambridge one. I quickly grabbed a pen from my handbag and copied the number flashing on the screen onto my palm. I pushed the phone back into Helena’s bag again and sat down on the sofa.
“Did you find it?” I asked, as the front door opened and Helena walked back into the room.
“No.” She paused and looked at me for a moment before saying, “It was Sky’s wallet. He thinks he left it in there earlier, before the... the, you know, the competition. You didn’t see it, did you?”
“No,” I lied. She obviously hadn’t looked very far. “So, what, did you leave him in Bath?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s only just realised it’s missing?”
“Erm. Yes. He had some money in his pocket.”
“How’s he going to get home?” I asked.
She thought about that for a moment. “I’ll have to go back and get him,” she said.
“Seriously? At this time of night? You’re going to drive all the way back to Bath and then back to London? That’s a five hour round trip,” I complained, although, I was pretty certain that Sky wasn’t in Bath anyway, and that he was in fact much nearer to home.
Helena looked defensive. ”How else is he going to get back to London?” She pulled her phone out of her bag. She looked alarmed for a moment and then asked, “Did this just ring? When I was outside?”
“I don’t know,” I lied again, keeping my left fist firmly closed. “I was in the bathroom.”
“I’m going to have to go, Mum,” she said. “And I can’t come back to Granny’s. I’ve got a lecture first thing. At nine. Do you want a lift back to the hospital?”
“If that’s okay.”
“It’s fine. Is Keri coming too?”
I shook my head. “No. She’s tired.”
I opened the back door of the car and put my bag back into the rear passenger footwell. I unzipped it slightly and started shuffling my belongings around, making out that I was checking to see that I’d left nothing behind. I watched Helena get into the driver’s seat, with her back to me, and then with one swift movement, fished out Sky’s wallet from under the seat and zipped it up into my bag.
At the hospital, we said goodbye and I extracted a promise from Helena to drive carefully and to stop if she was tired. She, in return, made me promise to call her in the morning with an update on my mother. Once inside the hospital building, I pulled out my phone and stored the number that I’d written on my hand. I sat with my Mum and chatted for a while until she dozed off again. When she woke, I kissed her and told her I’d return in the morning.
“Do you mind if I borrow your car?” I asked.
“No, that’s fine. Hopefully you’ll be able to take me home,” she said.
“Fingers crossed,” I told her. “But you’re in the best place for now.”
I slept in Keri’s old bed and tossed and turned all night. Soon after the sun came up, I got up and made some tea. I sat in my mum’s kitchen with her portable radio on Radio 4 and ate some toast and marmite, with one eye on the clock. At ten to nine, I called the number for McLaren House.
“I’m trying to get hold of Helena Taylor,” I said, when a male voice answered. “Her mobile doesn’t seem to be working. Her gran’s in hospital and she made me promise to give her an update.”
“Sorry, love. You’ve just missed her,” said the male on the other end. “She’s literally just walked out of the door. Around five minutes ago.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m positive. I know Helena. She’s got that lovely French accent. She always stops for a chat.”
I was pleased to hear that Helena had made friends with the staff there, who seemed to be keeping an eye on her as I’d hoped. But, more importantly at this moment in time, I could be certain that she was definitely back in London.
My heart beating in my chest, I changed the settings on my phone and withheld my number. I then dialled the number that I’d stored in my phone the night before.
A female voice answered. “Hello?”
I quickly hung up; wrong number. It wasn’t him. Then I kicked myself. I found the number on my phone log and pressed the dial button again.
“Hello?” the same female voice said.
I took a deep breath. “Hi. Is that... is that Lindsay?”
“Speaking. Who’s this?”
“Oh. Um. I was wondering if Sky was still there?”
“Sky?” A pause. “No, he left last night. Who is this, please?”
“It’s Helena’s aunt,” I said. “Keri. I’ve found
Sky’s wallet. I think he’s been looking for it.”
“Oh. It’s turned up. That’s good. He’ll be pleased.” She paused. “Do you have his number? Or you could just call Helena. As I said, they both went back last night. Helena had classes in the morning.”
“I did try her but I can’t get hold of her,” I said. ”She’s probably in class by now.”
“Probably,” Lindsay agreed.
“Thing is, I’m not going to be seeing Helena again now for a while. I could send it I suppose, but it’s got his driving licence and bank card in it. I don’t really want to trust the Royal Mail, you know?”
”No, I know what you mean.”
“I’m in Cambridge today, anyway, as it happens and I thought I could drop it round. I could pop it through the letterbox if you’re out?”
“Oh yes. You live near here, don’t you? Helena did say. How’s your mum?”
“She’s on the mend. Thanks.”
“Okay. Well then, that’s probably the best idea. In fact, now I come to think of it, they were talking about coming back up again next weekend.”
I felt a strange whirlwind of emotions engulf me. In some small way, it was a relief to find that my instincts had been correct. My discovery now signified an end to the months of speculation and the chronic uncertainty of the situation, but I was devastated, all the same. Helena was not only in touch with her father, she was staying at his house and hiding the whole thing from me. How long had this been going on, I wondered? Days? Weeks? Months? Even though a part of me had suspected it to be true, having it confirmed was like having a sharp knife poked into my chest. So much for sleeping giants, I thought, ruefully. I was the one who had just woken up.