In Too Deep

by Samantha Hayes

  ‘Oh Rick,’ I whisper into my tissue. ‘I can’t survive alone.’

  I feel the gentle squeeze of Hannah’s fingers around mine.

  ‘Not alone . . .’ she whispers.

  I bring her hand to my mouth, kissing her fingers softly. ‘Oh love,’ I say. ‘I know that. We have each other.’

  Over the next hour or so, she becomes more lucid. She takes deep, shuddering breaths, as if she’s just realised that she’s still alive. Her feet and legs twist under the sheet, but then her face crumples from pain. A nurse comes over, making some adjustments to Hannah’s pillows as well as taking her blood pressure and temperature. Her idle chit-chat dissolves the pressure cooker that’s ballooned around me.

  ‘How’s your pain, dear?’ she asks, holding a clipboard. ‘Can you hear me?’

  The nurse smiles and looks at me, giving a little shrug.

  ‘All right for some. Dead to the world.’ Hannah has drifted off again, so she gives her shoulder a pat, not knowing how deep her flippant remark cuts. ‘Let me know if she seems in great discomfort.’ She walks off.

  I sit quietly, losing myself in wild thoughts about what could have happened. Was it an accident or did someone deliberately hurt her – and if so, was Tom’s dad, Phil, responsible as she suggested? It could so easily have been the drugs talking, her troubled mind mixing up her thoughts. My mind races, wondering if it was someone who didn’t want her pregnant any more – the father of the baby being the obvious suspect, though asking his identity isn’t a question I can put to Hannah yet.

  I consider calling Kath Lane, to let her know what’s happened, that there’s been another incident in the Forrester family. But then I worry that more fuss and drama will dilute Rick’s investigation. Perhaps even turn the spotlight on me.

  Hannah groans, trying to turn over. I gently stop her, knowing she’ll hurt her wound if she does. She paws at the cannula in the back of her hand, and again I stop her from dislodging it. Eventually she settles.

  And still I wonder about the baby’s father.

  Rick and I speculated that her coming home last November was due to a break-up with a boy, though a baby was never in our thoughts. She hid her little bump well, but then Hannah has never been one for tight-fitting clothes, always preferring oversized sweaters and loose tops. I think back over the last few weeks. I should have been more aware, more alert to her needs . . . Her nausea, her lack of energy, her mood, not wanting to go swimming or in the sauna . . .

  With hindsight it is obvious. I should have spotted the signs, or at least considered the possibility. With hindsight, I feel like the worst mother in the world.

  I must have fallen asleep. My head is on the edge of Hannah’s bed, my neck bent and stiff. A nurse taps me gently on the shoulder, telling me there’s someone waiting in the corridor, that she’s been sitting there for over an hour.

  I ease my fingers from Hannah’s fist and turn to look at the clock on the wall. It’s well after lunchtime but the thought of food nauseates me. She’s still sleeping, her chest rising and falling peacefully beneath the sheets, the machines she’s connected to emitting reassuring bleeps every so often.

  ‘Go and say hello,’ the nurse encourages. There must have been a shift change as I don’t recognise her. ‘I’ll keep an eye on your daughter.’

  Grateful to stand and stretch, I do as she suggests.

  ‘Susan,’ I say, stepping outside the ward. ‘You didn’t have to wait all this time.’

  We parted company in the canteen. I assumed she went home.

  She stands up. Her eyes look red, and she stuffs a balled-up tissue into her pocket. ‘Tom’s gone to get me some tea. But you can have it if you like. You look like you need it.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Neither of us knows what to say. The very fact she is still here makes me suspicious of her motives. If we were just regular guests at her hotel, albeit it nuisance ones by now, then surely she could have just phoned to see how Hannah was? We seem way more than that to her.

  ‘Has Tom said anything to you?’ I ask, though no mother is going to betray her son in a corridor without knowing the truth.

  ‘Like what?’ As predicted, she sounds defensive.

  ‘I don’t mean to pry,’ I say. ‘But it’s just that Hannah said . . .’

  I glance down the corridor, watching as Tom approaches with two plastic cups. His stride falters when he sees me.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Forrester,’ he says politely. ‘How is Hannah doing?’

  ‘She’s OK, Tom. She’s sleeping mostly.’ I turn to Susan again. ‘Honestly, there’s no need for you to stay.’

  ‘I thought you could use a lift back to get some things for Hannah. You don’t have your car here.’ She gives me her cup of tea. I take it gratefully. ‘Or if you prefer, I could fetch whatever you need.’

  The thought of Susan rooting through our stuff isn’t appealing, even though she has access to our room anyway.

  ‘That’s really kind,’ I say, considering the practicalities. They said Hannah will be in hospital for several days, plus I absolutely have to get back for Cooper. A taxi would be expensive. ‘Thank you. Maybe we could go shortly, while she’s still quite sleepy. There’s nothing much I can do for her at the moment.’

  Half an hour later I’m sitting beside Susan in the front of her Audi, conscious that Tom is right behind me, that he’s staring at me in the wing mirror. I catch his eye once or twice, looking away immediately. But when I glance back, he’s still staring, his pupils wide and glassy.

  Before we left, I finished my tea at Hannah’s bedside, and it was almost as if the drink somehow revived her too. By the time I finished, she was sipping on water and sitting up in bed a little, even making noises about being hungry.

  ‘That’s music to your mum’s ears, young lady,’ the nurse remarked when Hannah said she might be able to manage a sandwich.

  She was right. These days, I have to take the simple pleasures when they come, pluck the tiny positives from life just to keep going. Without them, there isn’t much else.

  ‘I’ll make sure someone comes round with the food trolley, love.’ The nurse adjusted Hannah’s pillows and poured her some more water. Satisfied with her observations, she went off to another patient.

  Hannah looked at me. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said weakly.

  ‘For what?’ I’d nearly finished my tea. Susan was waiting in the corridor.

  ‘For finding me. For not judging me.’

  So she knew about the baby.

  ‘I just want you to be OK,’ I said.

  The reality of what had happened wasn’t even close to sinking in. A baby inside my baby.

  I left then, each of us too raw to talk about what had happened. I told her I’d be back in an hour or two with her stuff – her phone and charger, her toiletries, some comfortable clothing.

  ‘Will you bring Oscar?’ she said through teary eyes.

  I gave a silent nod. Oscar is Jacob’s battered old rabbit. She’s slept with it every night since he died. I can’t help wondering what secrets Oscar keeps.

  ‘Please, stay on at the hotel for as long as you need,’ Susan says as we pull up outside. ‘There’s no charge.’ Tom gets out of the car immediately, walking briskly up to the entrance and disappearing inside. He was silent the entire journey home.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, almost flinching as Susan’s hand reaches for mine. ‘Hannah said someone was with her when she fell.’

  Susan is about to open the door but stops.

  ‘She said it was Phil.’

  Her hand drops from the door. She looks at me, giving a little frown. ‘That’s not possible,’ she says calmly. ‘Phil’s in Seattle. He’s not due back until next Thursday.’ She swallows loudly.

  ‘Could he have come back early?’

  ‘No,’ she replies, opening the door. ‘No, he couldn’t have.’

  I watch as she gets out, heading up to the hotel. As an afterthought I call out to her, saying that I’
m going to see if my car is fixed. But when I walk up to where I left it with the mechanic, I find it’s gone. I check my messages, learning that he had to take it away. A spare part needed ordering, plus specialist equipment in the workshop was required to fit it. All being well, they’ll be able to return it late tomorrow.

  On a whim, I decide to head up to the stable block garage to take another look at the Range Rover’s dents, but when I get there, I see one of the up-and-over doors has been left slightly open. And when I peer inside the garage, there’s an empty space. The dark green vehicle has gone.

  Gina

  Our room feels dishevelled and abandoned. Hannah had started packing up her things – her holdall is on the bed with a few clothes stuffed in it. Cooper thumps his tail against my legs as we go in, still pleased to see me. Susan kindly arranged for her receptionist to come up to our room and fetch him, giving him a walk and some water and food. I thanked her profusely when I collected him from behind the front desk.

  ‘It was a pleasure to take care of him,’ she said. ‘And the guests loved him. I think we should get a hotel dog.’ She grinned and patted him as I walked to the stairs, Cooper following obediently.

  In the bathroom I pick up Hannah’s toiletry bag. I drop in her toothbrush and paste, her face creams, a flannel, a hairbrush and anything else I think she’ll need.

  I choose two clean T-shirts from the drawer, plus a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms in case she feels like getting out of the hospital gown. I grab her slippers, too, and her favourite fluffy cardigan. Then I see Oscar poking out from under her duvet. I place him carefully in the bag, giving him a kiss first. I try to imagine that he smells of Jacob, though the truth is that wore off long ago.

  Then my thoughts are on the Range Rover again. The Range Rover that’s not there.

  ‘What was I thinking?’ I say, shocked at how stupid I’ve been. I rummage in my bag for my phone, pulling everything out. It’s as if I’ve been looking at the world through a thick fog. I scroll down through the address book until I get to PC Lane’s number. As often happens, I’m greeted by her message service.

  ‘Kath, it’s Gina Forrester. Look, I’m away at the moment but there’s something that’s too important to ignore any longer. I think you’ll agree. It’s about a Range Rover. A dark green model from 2008.’ I take a deep breath, hearing Susan’s excuses rattling through my mind. Just who is she protecting?

  ‘It’s got a dent on the front left panel. Will you call me back? Thanks.’

  I hang up, refocusing on Hannah and getting her well and home. I pull her charger from the socket by her bed, and hunt around for her phone. It wasn’t with her when I found her. Then I see her bag – the soft leather backpack I bought her for Christmas, roomy enough for her university books. It was the best gift I could manage with Rick’s disappearance still so fresh in our minds.

  It’s stuffed full of things – her iPad, a make-up bag, several paperback books, some sweets and an umbrella. And then I see the notebook – a battered old thing held together with a thick elastic band. I recognise it, having seen her jotting down ideas and thoughts from time to time. A cross between a diary and a memory-jogger. Like Rick, she’s always preferred to write things down rather than make notes on her phone.

  I hate myself for it, but I can’t help a look. It might tell me who the father is.

  As I suspect, Hannah’s musings go back a while. Mostly it’s notes regarding A levels, things she had to remember at school, thoughts about her friends, how they were helping her in the aftermath of losing her brother.

  I knew the grief we all felt was deep and penetrating, different for each of us, but I had no idea she’s been struggling this much.

  Throughout the book, Hannah has written poems to Jacob – some describing his innocent charm, his beguiling smile, the way he could get away with anything just by tipping his head a certain way.

  I smile. So she noticed it too.

  Her simple words almost bring him back to life. Here and there, she’s stuck pressed flowers between the pages, newspaper clippings, tickets and other mementos, each illustrating what she was trying to say, highlighting a moment in her life.

  Quickly, I flip through the pages, skim-reading over details about university applications, notes on her personal statement, phone numbers, days out, a few recipes, and jottings about clothes she was saving up for.

  I skip past more pages, impatient to get to the present, and then, much further on in the notebook – it must be November because Hannah mentions her dad – she has written: Gone. My dad has gone. It’s all my fault.

  Then there are notes about what Kath Lane asked her when they chatted, plus her replies, underlining some parts. She’s described how I was coping – not very well, by all accounts – with falling apart mentioned several times. Hannah’s guilt is immense, though she never says why.

  But it’s what’s at the back of the notebook that catches my eye. Hannah logged things that Jacob’s school friends told her, as if she interviewed them, perhaps conducting her own long-abandoned investigation. It sounds like something Hannah would do.

  There are no dates, but she’s written that they’re in Year 10. I recognise the names – they were in the same class as Jacob, and a couple of them came round after school. They’d be in Year 11 now, so this was perhaps written about twelve months ago. It’s hard to believe that Jacob would be taking his GCSE exams this summer.

  James Donnelly, Hannah has written. Remembers last lesson. Then she’s put D-day in brackets. IT lesson. Mr Chase set a project. ‘Imagine you are travel agent organising English holiday for American couple.’ Hannah has put a string of exclamation marks under that bit, saying that she was once set the same project. Jacob liked High School, James had gone on to tell her. He had friends. Joined the football team.

  Mark Gibbs, Hannah wrote. Also remembers that IT class. Everyone mucking about. Jacob went to the loo looking upset. Mr Chase had to find him. Some kids laughed when he came back crying. Jacob was working alone.

  Rachel and Tom Swift (the twins) both liked Jacob, Hannah has written. Travel agent project. Had to arrange flights, transfers, hotels, tours and sightseeing. Stick to budget. Rachel told me Jacob was acting normal, chatting and working at computer, but suddenly he ran out. He didn’t go to football training. Someone said they saw him at the bus stops. (Danny?) After that, no one knows.

  But we do, I think. The police reckoned that he’d got confused at the school bus stops – Jacob had never been confident at finding his own way – and had got on the wrong bus. When he’d realised his mistake, that was when he’d asked the driver to let him off. They’d been several miles out of town by then.

  Hannah then wrote several pages of speculations – perhaps Jacob was being bullied, that he was having trouble with his friends, that he couldn’t do the work, or maybe he hated his new school (she’d put how she felt the same for the first term or so).

  I snap it closed and replace the elastic band. I’ll never know for certain. Then, as I find her phone at the bottom of her backpack, I wonder why she hasn’t made similar notes in order to work out what happened to her dad.

  Perhaps like me, I think, turning off the lights and locking up the room, she can’t stand to face the truth.

  *

  ‘Would you call me a taxi, please? My car’s been taken to the garage.’ Cooper stands beside me, wagging his tail as the hotel receptionist fusses over him. ‘And I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could . . . ?’ I glance down at him.

  ‘Yes on both counts,’ she says with glee. ‘Hello again, boy!’ She pats her thighs as I hand over his lead.

  ‘I won’t be too long. I need to take stuff back to my daughter in hospital and—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Susan says, emerging from the back office. She looks a lot more composed than half an hour ago. ‘Jane, don’t worry about the taxi. I’ll drive Gina.’

  ‘Really, there’s no need,’ I say, but Susan is already out from behind the desk,
her hand on my arm, leading me towards the door. Her bag is on her shoulder and her keys are in her hand. Despite my misgivings about her, she seems as genuine as anyone ever could be.

  Half an hour later, she parks the car at the hospital and buys a ticket. ‘I’ll come in with you,’ she says. ‘I’d like to see Hannah, if that’s OK.’

  We walk to the ward together, trying to keep the conversation light. I ring the intercom and a moment later a nurse lets us in.

  ‘Not heard a peep from her since you left,’ she says, leaving us to head down the corridor by ourselves. I smile, recognising her from earlier.

  ‘She’s got her own side room,’ I tell Susan, though I think it was more by design than luck. A bed on the general maternity ward is no place for a young girl who’s just lost a five-month pregnancy.

  As we go into her room, I stop suddenly. ‘Where is she?’

  Her bed is empty.

  I step outside again and check the number beside the door. It’s the correct room.

  Back inside, I check the folder at the end of the bed. It has Hannah’s name on it.

  ‘Perhaps a nurse took her to the bathroom,’ I suggest. ‘That’s a good sign, I suppose.’ My racing heart slows at the rational thought. It’s only when the nurse comes in to take her blood pressure, asking where Hannah has gone, that it speeds right back up again.

  Gina

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ I stare at the ward sister, unable to believe what I’m hearing. I force myself to stay calm, trying to convince myself there’ll be a rational explanation.

  Three nurses have now gathered in Hannah’s room, staring at the empty bed and disconnected drip stand as if she might reappear at any moment. They’ve already been round the ward twice, searching every toilet and bathroom and all the other individual rooms.

  ‘We don’t know where she’s gone, I’m afraid,’ the young yet competent nurse says. ‘In my opinion, she wasn’t well enough to leave her bed, let alone the ward.’ She shakes her head, as if my daughter is yet another nuisance patient who’s taken herself off to the canteen for a hit of chocolate or coffee.