by Lucy Dawson
* * *
Tom wakes up at 3.14 in the afternoon, face down on his and Gretchen’s bed, completely disorientated. It takes him at least a minute of blinking and wondering before he can get his brain to work out that he closed his eyes for a minute over four hours ago. He swears and jumps to his feet. He was just so tired when he got back and discovered the flat stinking to high heaven of booze, shattered glass everywhere. By the time he’d carefully cleaned it all up, gathered the pieces of the whisky bottle and wrapped them in newspaper, then scrubbed the rug and collected the scattered pills, picked up the bottles in the bathroom and wiped up the remnants of vomit, he had to lie down, he had no choice in the matter.
Ten minutes later he has showered, changed and is ready to go. He gathers up his keys and then spies the rubbish bag, neatly tied up by the front door. He might as well take the rest of it out if he’s taking that one down. He shoves his keys and wallet in his back pocket and marches into the kitchen.
He lifts the bag from the bin, only the bloody thing catches as he yanks it out, which slices it open as neatly as a surgeon’s scalpel. The rubbish bulges out through the slit like an escaping intestine and Tom, by now wishing he hadn’t bothered, nearly slides the bag back in and shuts the lid – but then grits his teeth, thinking, if a job’s worth doing . . . and reaches for another bin bag, pulling open the drawer where they keep them. He holds the knackered one up and tries to lower it into the gaping second bag, without it touching his trousers or spilling anything. Unfortunately it spins mid-air and spits out an empty loo roll wedged either end with tissue, a soup can and – Tom nearly gags – some chicken bones and a polystyrene tray that once contained two fresh trout. It smells far from fresh now. He grimaces and picks the bones up first. Then he turns to the loo roll and sees that the tissue has come out of one end as it landed and there is something white tucked in the tube.
At first he assumes it is a used tampon applicator – but it is too long and plastic for that. Then he realises that he is looking at a pregnancy test.
Stunned, he picks it up and inspects it carefully.
‘Oh my God!’ he says out loud. And then he runs for the door.
I get out of my second taxi of the day, back outside the hospital at just gone quarter past three. I’ve packed everything I plan to take with me tonight and it’s all waiting back at the flat. I have called Vic, I’ve spoken to my dad, there is nothing left to do . . . except say my goodbyes to Bailey and Tom. I’m sure they will be here by now and will already be sitting watch over Gretchen’s silent but rapidly recovering body.
I walk past the signs to the chapel, past the café, past X-ray, up round the flight of stairs and through the heavy double doors of the intensive care unit for the last time. There is no one at the nurses’ station. The corridor looks just as it did this morning. I can see the door is open to Gretchen’s room. I walk up, turn the corner into the room and jerk immediately to a stop, frozen with horror.
Gretchen is sitting up in bed. Conscious and looking right at me, like all of my nightmare imaginings – only this time it’s real.
‘Surprise,’ she says, in a painful rasp. She is not smiling.
Chapter Thirty-One
I just stare at her. I am unable to speak. I can’t feel my feet and my bag just slips from my shoulder and crashes to the ground. My fingers clumsily half move to stop it, but I am horrified and transfixed by her expressionless face looking back at me, her eyes roaming around my features as if she’s reminding herself of me.
‘How . . . why are you even here?’ she says, forcing each word, and with that one sentence I know that she remembers everything.
Before I can say anything, a new nurse pops her head round the door and asks, ‘All OK?’ She smiles brightly, so she can’t know anything. Gretchen nods heavily. ‘Don’t overdo it,’ the nurse says. ‘You’re really tired. Try and keep it brief and make your friend do the talking.’ She winks at me and disappears, pulling the door to gently.
‘Good idea,’ Gretchen whispers with effort, when she’s gone.
But still I don’t say anything. I can’t. How can this be? They said tomorrow at the earliest . . .
‘You left me,’ Gretchen says eventually. ‘You didn’t call them.’ She shifts position uncomfortably and then waits.
My heart starts to thump.
‘I asked you to call me an ambulance and you didn’t.’
‘I did call them,’ I insist. ‘I was in the ambulance with you. I’ve been here ever since!’
She frowns, confused. ‘I saw you deliberately,’ she says the word carefully, ‘not calling them.’ Her voice trails off completely at the end and she tries to sit up a little taller and reach for the glass of water next to her. Instinctively I take a step forward to help her and she gives me a look of ‘You must be joking,’ so I back off.
‘How long did you wait?’ She swallows painfully and flops back on to the pillow.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Doesn’t really matter. Point is you waited at all. You did it on purpose.’ She closes her eyes tiredly.
‘I—’ I begin.
‘Go,’ she says, opening her eyes, turning her head and looking straight at me. ‘Just go. Don’t come near me ever again. Stay away from me, from Tom and stay away from my brother.’
‘I was going to anyway.’ My eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m leaving tonight.’
‘Where?’
‘Does it matter?’ I shrug with a half-smile, throwing my arms out uselessly.
She considers that. ‘Not really.’
‘Gretchen—’ I’m about to say how truly, truly sorry I am, but she cuts me off and says, with as much energy as she can muster, ‘Just go, now.’
‘I only want to say goodbye to Tom and Bailey,’ I say. ‘How can that hurt?’
She hauls herself back up determinedly and shakes her head. ‘No. I want you to go.’
‘But I’m going anyway. Can’t you just—’
‘If you try to stay,’ she says hoarsely, ‘I’ll tell them what you did. You decide.’
I look at her sitting there, a small tube still embedded in her arm, her hair plastered greasily back, violent shadows under her eyes, still fragile as a spider’s thread yet strong as steel, just like she was when she was telling me her lies about making Bailey dump me and confessing she had tracked Tom down to America.
‘Did you lose the baby, Gretchen?’
‘What baby?’ she says.
‘Your baby. The one you . . .’ I exhale heavily. ‘The one you wanted me to help you get rid of. You said it didn’t feel like Tom’s, you said I knew what you’d done in the alley with Paulo at the party.’
‘What the hell are you are talking about?’ She coughs painfully, grabbing her throat and then reaching for the water again.
I look at her in total disbelief. ‘You remember me not calling an ambulance, but you don’t remember what led to it in the first place? Bailey called me and said he’d been delayed in coming over to you and you seemed very worked up. I got to yours and you were drunk, had taken some pills and told me you were pregnant, wasn’t sure whose baby it was and had a plan to get rid of it. You were going to make it look like a suicide attempt, you said that everyone would assume that was what it was. I just had to pretend to find you so it didn’t go all the way, but far enough so you’d lose the baby. I tried to stop you – I begged you not to – and you punched me, then you told me you’d always wanted Tom, that you’d told him about Bailey on purpose and that you’d made Bailey dump me . . .’ I trail off and find that I’m shaking with adrenalin.
‘I have,’ she says and looks at me steadily, ‘literally no idea what you are talking about. There’s no baby, Alice. There’s never been any baby! Ask the nurse who just helped me change my pad, if you don’t believe me.’
I wince at such a graphic remark and feel overwhelmingly sad. ‘So you lost it?’ I say. ‘Like you wanted.’
She doesn’t flinch. ‘There was nothing to lose!
I have manic depression, I become delusionary. I’m ill! You know that.’ She leans over and takes another sip of water. ‘You can’t believe anything I say when I’m manic – I’m beyond reason!’
‘You didn’t seem beyond reason yesterday! OK, you were clearly manic, but you seemed to have calculated exactly how far you needed to go!’
She leans back, closes her eyes again and says, ‘It’s very simple. I stopped taking my medication because I was happy, I didn’t think I needed it. I obviously did. I’m sorry I hit you but I’m certainly not pregnant. I never was. And I’ll tell you what I do remember: you, rational, sober and in your right mind, deliberately not helping me when I needed you to.’ She forces the last words out with energy.
I sway slightly. ‘I . . . I didn’t want you to die, Gretchen,’ I say eventually. ‘I was just so appalled at what I thought you’d done. I didn’t want Tom to have to keep going through this and I was very, very angry . . . You said some foul things to me.’
‘So? You can’t make this OK!’ she croaks. ‘I nearly died because of you!’
She’s right, there is absolutely no excusing my part in this.
‘I called them! I did – I didn’t leave you!’
‘Just GO!’ she says fiercely. ‘Go, or I’ll call one of the nurses.’
I think of yesterday’s nurse, already suspicious and armed with what I blurted out to her about not wanting Gretchen to wake up.
She reaches towards the emergency buzzer and my heart begins to race.
‘Last chance,’ she says. ‘Go now and I won’t tell anyone.’
‘OK, OK!’ I say. Tears have started to run down my face and I wildly grab my bag. ‘But what are you going to say to Tom and Bailey?’
‘I’ll think of something.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
I’m running blindly down the corridor, unable to see for tears. At one point I bash into someone and they angrily shout ‘Hey!’ but I don’t stop, I just sob ‘I’m sorry!’ and clatter round the corner – out into the car park and the cold January sun. I run desperately over to the taxi rank; thank God – there’s one there. The driver sees me approaching, folds up his newspaper expectantly, shifts in his seat and undoes the window. I see him frown as I get closer.
‘You all right, love?’ he says – he’s noticed I’m crying. I nod dumbly, tell him the address and he says kindly, ‘Get in, we’ll have you there in a jiffy.’
He swings out, rather too fast, and pulls on to the road. The traffic lights ahead are on amber, and at the last minute he decides not to go for it, slamming on the brakes and jolting me forward, making me look up in shock. ‘Beg pardon!’ he says, ‘Lumpy petrol,’ and looks sheepishly in his mirror.
But all I’ve seen is a taxi approaching from my left, swinging round, with a man anxiously looking at his watch and then saying something to the driver and pointing out the hospital on his left.
‘Tom!’ I exclaim and grab the headrest to the passenger seat, shifting forward in my seat urgently. His taxi glides past us and I watch as he moves by me, totally unaware.
‘Want to stop?’ the taxi driver says, hand at the ready on the indicator. ‘Someone you know?’
I open my mouth to say yes, because surely this is God’s way of forgiving me just a little bit, offering me the chance to just say goodbye. But then she’s right, I don’t deserve it – she is ill, she needed me, and I withheld my help deliberately. What kind of person would do that to a perfect stranger, never mind someone who was their friend? Whatever I thought was the situation, whatever judgement call I made, whatever moment of madness, jealousy, anger – I should have picked up that phone. I should have called for help, no matter what she had done to me. I should have been the bigger person but I wasn’t. I am bitterly ashamed and repulsed by what I have done.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Keep going.’
I look desperately over my shoulder again. I can see him getting out, paying, becoming smaller and smaller and . . . I’m never going to see him again. At least not for a very, very long time. Just one goodbye! If I catch him before he goes in, she’ll never know.
‘Stop!’ I shout. ‘I need to go back, just—’
But the driver’s already on it. He’s hit the brakes and earned himself an angry honking from an oncoming BMW, which he completely ignores. He swings sharply round to the right and puts his foot down, roaring up behind Tom’s taxi and screeching to a stop. But Tom has already paid up, and for some reason is legging it towards the hospital.
‘Wait here!’ I say breathlessly, hand already on the door, and jump out. ‘Tom!’ I shout.
He doesn’t hear me.
‘TOM!’ I yell for all I’m worth.
This time the sound carries to him and he turns, looks astonished to see me, but then starts frantically beckoning me to him. I start to run, aware that a couple of people, shivering in dressing gowns and smoking, are staring curiously at us.
I reach him and, breathing heavily with the effort, can’t get my words out.
‘No, no! Don’t stop running!’ he says, grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the door.
I pull back. ‘Tom! Stop!’ I say desperately. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Al – she’s pregnant! I didn’t know! We have to tell them so they can do something. Before it’s too late!’
At that I feel unbelievably sad and say, ‘Oh Tom, she . . .’ and just as I am about to say ‘imagined it all’ I suddenly realise that he can’t even know she is conscious yet. He’s just arrived. So how the hell does he know about the pregnancy, or rather, lack of it?
‘What do you mean, she’s pregnant?’ I say carefully, as a bit of hair blows across my face and I draw it out of my eyes.
‘I found a test!’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t have, but the rubbish bag split and it fell out – she’d wrapped it right up. It was positive!’
‘You’re absolutely sure?’ I say.
‘Of course I am! I saw it with my own eyes! I have to get up there, and I have to say something, because they don’t know! She must have come off the lithium because she knew it would harm the baby, but that made her manic and confused. We have to do something! Quickly!’ He looks at me urgently, with haunted eyes.
And it’s then that I realise she has absolutely, totally, lied to me. There was a baby and there was a plan. She’s done it again. This will be Gretchen for the rest of her life, doing whatever it takes to get whatever she wants, by whatever means necessary. Woe betide anyone who gets in the way, but . . .
She is undeniably ill. There is no question of that. Is it just cruel to expect her to be governed by the rules the rest of us live by when she is so very incapable of doing so? When does all this stop being devious manipulation on her part and become excusable – or at least explainable – because she is unwell? Where can a line ever be drawn with someone like her?
All I can be certain of is how I behaved; what I did.
‘Alice, come on!’ Tom shouts. ‘Why are you just standing there?’ He reaches out for my hand again, but I resist. I pull back and suddenly I know exactly what I have to do.
‘Stop!’ I say, wavering on the spot but taking a very deep breath. ‘Tom, I have to tell you something.’
I lead him over to a bench, and even though it is freezing, we sit down and I begin to tell him everything. Absolutely everything, just as it happened. I leave nothing out.
He does not move as I speak. At various points he closes his eyes in shock and then anger – and at one point, when I start to cry but force myself to carry on, he reaches for me, but then I begin to say things that make him pull his hand away, and he looks at me in horrified disbelief.
But I say it anyway. I have to, because it is the truth, and I know that is all we have left now, and that it is the only thing that can set both of us— free.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Sarah Ballard and Joanne Dickinson for their advice, support and faith. The teams at both United Agents and Little, Brown have work
ed tirelessly and enthusiastically on this project, but in particular I would like to thank Jessica Craig and Lettie Ransley at UA, and Emma Stonex and Jennifer Richards at Little, Brown.
The help Lee Tomlinson, Sally Dawson and Camilla Dawson gave me proved invaluable, but as anyone with a medical background will realise, I only took their advice as far as it suited the plot. Thanks to the rest of my family, my friends and James for being there when I needed them too.
Finally, to Ruth Easton, for your encouragement and kindness, thank you.
Also by Lucy Dawson
You Sent Me a Letter
Little Sister
The One That Got Away
His Other Lover
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Sphere,
an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group.
Published in e-book in Great Britain in 2016 by Corvus,
an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Lucy Dawson, 2009
The moral right of Lucy Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 822 6
Printed in Great Britain.
Corvus