The Perfect Present

by Karen Swan

  ‘Dan.’

  It wasn’t even a whisper. Just a small expulsion of air, easy to lip-read, his meaning clear.

  ‘Dan,’ she echoed, giving him confirmation. Shifting her weight off her knees, she turned her body and stretched out her legs so that she could rest his head on them, but the weight of him caused a sharp, sudden pain in her thigh and she cried out. She recognized the terror in his eyes as she looked back down at him, and she tried to smile, to reassure him as she undid the clasp of his helmet beneath his chin and gently eased it off so that his brown hair, unexpectedly long, flopped out. There was a pressure groove across his forehead from where the helmet had rubbed, and she smoothed it away gently as a hum started to sound out from somewhere deep inside her. The ground began to feel warm as she hummed and stroked him, lying here in the glass, in the glow of the blazing van. His skin was cool to her touch, in spite of the heat behind her, and looked dove-grey in the blue lights that suddenly whirled up.

  ‘They’re here, Dan,’ she whispered, gripping his chilled hand more tightly. ‘They’ve come for us.’ She twisted to see a fleet of ambulances pull up, green-uniformed paramedics spilling out into the desolation. They didn’t stop to cast pitying glances or catch their breaths. They just ran headlong into the noise. One, catching sight of her red hair and the blood-soaked tourniquet round Dan’s torso, ran over.

  ‘His name’s Dan,’ she said as he knelt over them, two fingers pressed to Dan’s neck.

  The man put his hand on her arm instead. ‘He’s gone, love,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She blinked at him, her eyes blank.

  ‘He’s died.’

  ‘No. You’re here.’

  ‘We were too late. I’m sorry.’

  Sorry? She looked back down at Dan. His eyes were opaque and distant, unblinking, but the tear was still sliding down his cheek.

  ‘I have to help those I can do something for. I’m sorry,’ the paramedic said, picking up his bag again and standing up. ‘You’d better get yourself seen to at the station over there. Some of those cuts are deep. You’re going to need stitches.’ And he ran back into the noise.

  She hadn’t heard. Her eyes were on Dan’s, waiting for another tear to form. But it didn’t. The first, only, final tear just slid to the edge of his cheekbone, where it hung for a few seconds, elongating out of recognition, before smashing with silent violence on to the crystals below.

  Carefully, she closed his eyes with her fingertips, taking care not to graze his face with the glass embedded in her hands. His body may have been blown apart, but his face had escaped untouched; a small mercy for his mother when she came to kiss him goodbye. And she would make sure that she did get to kiss him goodbye, that he wouldn’t go unaccounted for in the body count. His name was Dan and she alone here knew it. She would stay here with him till the fire went out and the screaming stopped and someone came to get them both. ‘I won’t leave you, Dan,’ she said, stroking his hair. ‘I won’t leave you.’

  The lights whirled and the fire roared, and she watched in silence as people staggered and crawled and were carried into the pristine white safety of the waiting ambulances. She made no attempt to move, even though she could feel her skin beginning to blister in the radiant heat. A river of blood had made its way along the ground and was creeping around her, keeping her warm, because dusk had fallen now and the first evening chill was mixing with the smoke. And she found that the longer she sat in the glass with Dan, the safer she felt. It was as if she was watching from behind a plate of glass.

  ‘Are you okay?’ The voice sounded far away, but a man put his hands on her shoulders lightly as his eyes scanned her body. She looked down at herself with vague curiosity and saw that all that remained of her clothes were ribbons of sooted fabric flapping like bunting in the fiery breeze. Beneath those scraps, her entire body glimmered and gleamed, tiny red rivulets racing each other between the sparkling glass shards that peppered her skin. She went to pull them out, but the man stopped her, his fine hands suddenly on hers.

  ‘No!’ he protested, and she thought how very blue his eyes appeared against his charred skin. ‘Some of these are pretty . . . pretty big.’ He swallowed, his eyes snagging on a large jagged slice that was embedded in her thigh. ‘Let’s get you over to the ambulances. Can you walk?’ His arms were under hers, trying to get her to stand up, but she shook her head.

  ‘Dan.’

  He seemed puzzled. ‘I’m not Dan.’

  ‘No.’

  He followed her gaze down to the dead boy in her lap, a look of dismay rippling over his face as he clocked his missing arm.

  ‘This is Dan?’ He looked back at her, his eyes narrowed in scrutiny. ‘He’s dead.’

  She shook her head and looked at Dan’s face. There was no trace of the tear now. Its track had completely dried up, taking evidence of his sorrow at dying too soon, on a beautiful winter’s afternoon, with it. ‘I promised.’

  ‘Promised what? Look, you need help. You’re bleeding heavily.’ He tightened his grip around her arm, tried to pull her up, but she wrested herself out of his grip and fell back on to the glass. The ground instantly felt wetter and warmer than it had a minute previously, as though she’d landed in a puddle.

  ‘No.’ Her voice was weak but firm.

  The man dropped his head in his hands for a moment, then stood up. He started calling out, waving his arms in the air. ‘Over here! I need help here! Please!’

  A paramedic came running over, a different one from before, throwing out questions as he jumped over the already dead. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Her leg’s bleeding badly, but I can’t get her to leave this dead guy here.’ He dropped his voice a fraction. ‘I think she’s in shock.’

  ‘Show me someone who isn’t.’ The paramedic knelt down next to her and began studying her leg.

  ‘I’m Patrick. What’s your name?’ he asked as he unceremoniously moved Dan’s head to the side to get a better look at her leg wound.

  ‘His name’s Dan,’ she said, tightening her grip around his head protectively. The paramedic noticed the possession in her gesture, the way she’d blindsided his question, the flatness in her voice. He grabbed his radio and issued some hurried instructions into it. Then he opened his bag and grabbed a strap and tied it tightly round her thigh. The pain made her cry, but she kept her grip around Dan. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what he was going to try to do.

  The paramedic looked straight at her, just as three more ambulance men rushed up with a couple of stretchers. ‘We need to get you to a hospital right away. I think you’ve got a nicked artery.’ He touched her arm, anticipating her response. ‘But Dan can come with us, okay?’

  So he understood. She nodded weakly and let her grip on him loosen, just for a moment, but that was all it took to find herself suddenly rising through the air and then laid flat and strapped down.

  ‘What’s her name?’ the paramedic asked the blue-eyed man as she was ferried through the air. ‘Look in her bag there.’ She kept her eyes on Dan. No tricks.

  ‘Does it say anything?’ the paramedic asked, placing a mask over her face. His voice was the last thing she heard before the darkness rushed in. ‘Lily. Lily Cunningham.’

  And then the silence won.

  ‘Lily!’

  Laura awoke with her usual sudden terror, heart pounding, her muscles clenched rock-hard as reality asserted itself slowly. She threw the covers off her, trying to cool down. It was hot in the room, and even lying down she could feel her heart racing. She brought her hands to her head. She’d never felt so bad. She opened her eyes and bright light instantly clamoured at her. She squeezed them shut again, but white light streaked behind her eyelids – there was no escape.

  She tried again, opening first one eye, then another as her sight adjusted. The room was actually pretty dim, with just a strobe of pale December light whimpering through a slit in the curtains. Rolling on to her elbows, she pushed herself up into a half-sitting position
, moaning.

  The first thing she took in, other than that she was back in the hotel room, was her dress lying crumpled on the floor. Cat’s dress. A thousand-pound dress that should be hanging up on a padded hanger in acid-free tissue paper in a dehumidified vault. Not lying on the floor. She went to get out of bed to retrieve it, but her head wouldn’t let her, and she allowed her arms to slide along the sheets so that she fell face first on to the mattress.

  ‘Owwwwww,’ she whimpered softly, wrapping her hands behind her head and beginning to cry.

  ‘Please don’t,’ a voice said quietly from across the room. She whipped her head up – a bad move – to find Rob slumped in a chair behind her by the far window. He shook his head at her. ‘It’s been a bad enough night. Please don’t cry.’ He looked shattered. His skin was grey, with black circles beneath his eyes and those healthy first signs of a beard that she’d admired so much in Verbier. If she looked anywhere near as bad as he did . . .

  She swallowed back the tears, trying to remember the sequence of events. Rob had caught her, only just, as she fainted. She remembered coming to in the lobby as the fresh air hit her face and a taxi was hailed. She recalled the lift in this hotel and Rob struggling to find her room key in her bag. ‘How did I end up . . . ?’ She looked down at herself to find she was in just her underwear.

  Rob raised a weary eyebrow. As if it mattered about him seeing her in her underwear. For a brief moment she recalled Alex’s lascivious look that first night in Verbier when he’d ‘accidentally’ burst in on her. The difference between the two men’s reactions almost made her laugh. Almost. Except she couldn’t laugh. Her body had forgotten how.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, sitting up further. ‘You needn’t have stayed with me.’

  ‘It was your first time, of course I did.’

  ‘How do you know it was my first time?’ she asked. But he just raised another weary eyebrow.

  ‘Where’s Cat? Shouldn’t you be with her?’

  ‘It’s not her first time. Besides, she’s not back yet.’

  ‘Not back?’ Laura echoed in alarm. ‘But where is she?’

  An unrecognizable expression – almost like a spasm – crossed his features before he shook his head. ‘With friends. They’ll look after her.’

  Laura’s face fell again and she dropped her head, trying to hide the tears. What had she done?

  ‘Do you remember much?’ he asked her, getting up from his chair and picking the dress up from the carpet.

  Laura watched him, feeling more wretched with every act of kindness.

  ‘I remember forcing you to buy the styling session for Cat,’ she murmured.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I remember . . . spending a fortune on paragliding.’ She groaned.

  He stared down at her. ‘I can cover it, Laura,’ he said after a moment.

  She looked up at him sharply. ‘No! It’s my mess. I’ll sort it.’

  ‘You were out of your head.’

  ‘I’ll still sort it.’

  ‘Do you have that kind of money? Were you lying about that?’

  She shook her head. She still couldn’t bring herself to touch the inheritance money, but she could sell the investment trust she’d built up working at Goldman. ‘No. It was the truth.’

  He paused, then nodded, relieved. ‘What else do you remember?’

  She inhaled slowly. ‘I remember dancing.’

  ‘With?’

  ‘With Garth.’ The moment she said it, she regretted it. Why was she trying to hurt him, even now? As if Garth featured anywhere in her memories. He turned away from her and walked to the window to draw the curtains tighter together so that the blindingly sharp sliver of light was blocked out. ‘And you. I remember dancing with you,’ she whispered to his back.

  He fell still, his back to her, his head bowed. ‘What then?’

  ‘I remember talking to Bertie Penryn. He’s going to come to Cat’s party.’

  ‘And?’ He turned, his hands jammed in his trouser pockets, his dinner shirt rumpled and untucked. She saw his jacket and tie slung over the desk.

  Laura was quiet for a long moment. ‘And he told me about the charity we were fund-raising for.’ Her voice was tiny.

  Rob came and sat on the foot of the bed, and she instinctively tried to shuffle back a bit to create more distance between them. But moving wasn’t going to be her strong point today.

  ‘You went sheet-white when he mentioned the Covent Garden bombing,’ he said in a low voice, the tips of his fingers lightly spreading over the tips of hers. ‘Is that what it’s all about?’

  Laura looked at their hands, connected by the merest of touches, and nodded.

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You survived.’

  ‘But many didn’t,’ she murmured.

  ‘Like Lily. She’s the “we”?’

  The sadness in his eyes made sobs rise up in her like air bubbles. She struggled to swallow them down. ‘Yes.’

  They sat in silence for a long time, Laura trying not to wince as her body struggled with gravity, Rob’s finger just skimming lightly over hers, back and forth, in a meditation.

  ‘Do you hate me? For what I did to you last night?’ she asked after a while.

  He gave a small smile, his eyes meeting hers for the merest of moments. ‘I wish. It would make everything a lot . . . easier.’ He looked away again.

  ‘Why do we get so angry with each other?’ she whispered.

  ‘It . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘It signifies that we have a problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That we’re under each other’s skin.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head feebly.

  ‘I’m not saying I like it, Laura,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m married.’

  ‘And she’s my friend.’

  His eyes met hers. Her message was clear. She would put Cat before him.

  ‘It’s just one of those things. We can wait it out. It’ll pass,’ she said quietly. They fell still.

  He withdrew his hand and stood up. ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ He crossed the room and picked up his jacket. ‘I’d better see if she’s back. I’ll order some room service for you. Have plenty of fruit and juice, but keep off anything dry, and whatever you do, don’t go anywhere near caffeine.’

  ‘I’ll never go anywhere near any of it again,’ she sobbed, resting her forehead in the bridge of her hand.

  He stopped at the door and looked back at her. ‘Try and rest. I’ll come back and check on you in a bit.’

  Laura listened to the sound of his door open and close in the room beyond the wall. She slid back down under the sheets, tucking herself into a foetal position around a pillow and letting the tears fall, untrammelled, down her face. She couldn’t believe what she’d done in the course of one night. She scarcely recognized herself. Who was she now? Not the shy, quiet jeweller coasting along in a flatline life with a boyfriend she couldn’t love. Not the aunty figure who could eat her bodyweight in cake and mime all the words to ‘Little Donkey’. Certainly not the party girl snorting coke in the loos and blowing the cost of a flat on an adrenalin kick.

  She wasn’t any of those women. Because, without Lily, she simply wasn’t anyone at all.

  She awoke three hours later to find a glass of freshly squeezed juice sitting on the table beside the bed. Rob? She stayed lying down, staring at the curtains and smelling the acrid scent of the damp, sweaty sheets. She knew she had to get up sometime; however much she didn’t want to move, she had to get home.

  Pushing herself up, she drank the juice in one go, feeling the cold liquid soothe her raw throat and cool her head. She found she could move more easily now and she swung her legs, one at a time, out of the bed. Yesterday’s clothes had been folded and placed on the chest of drawers. Gingerly, she stepped into them, splashed her face with water and brushed her teeth before taking a sheet of paper from the complimentary pack and writing with a shaky hand
:

  Didn’t want to disturb you. Have gone home to prepare for the party. Back Friday.

  Love Laura xxx

  She stared at it for a moment. Would it appear rude not to thank them for last night? Or ridiculous if she did? After all, it had hardly been the evening they’d all anticipated.

  Grabbing her bag and the dress, which would need to be dry-cleaned, she let herself out of her room, sliding the note beneath the Blakes’ door. She rode the lift with her eyes closed and took a moment to react when the doors opened. With her back pressed against the wall, she stared out miserably into the small lobby, straight through the doors on to the streets beyond. A low-slung sports car had pulled up. A flash of grey chiffon that was trapped in the door flapped like a wing in the snowy breeze.

  Laura focused immediately and started crossing the hall to greet her, for it was clearly Cat in the car. Laura saw the door open and watched those long legs slide out with a grace that was far beyond Laura’s reach this morning.

  Laura stopped dead in her tracks as Cat swung the car door shut with an exuberant panache – something in the movement was flirtatious, victorious – and Laura quickly darted behind a pillar. She felt her heart hammering in her ribs as Cat strode through the lobby, radiant in last night’s clothes, with stale make-up and mussed hair. Her body was clearly not crashing; it was soaring. She angled her head very slightly in Laura’s direction as she passed, but Laura took a further step back, out of sight.