by Clare Boyd
John was flat on his back, wired to drips. The tip of his foot stuck out of the end of the sheet. His exposed toes made him look vulnerable.
He stared blankly up at the ceiling from his neck brace, and then closed his eyes. The brief glimpse of his pale, lost eyes, the prominence of his cheek bones and the dryness of his lips were enough to send a series of sharp pains into my chest.
I approached the bed. I wanted to touch his arm where the cannula was wedged, where his veins were pumped up and the flesh yellow and swollen. I wanted to lie next to him and kiss him better. My love for him could cure him.
Instead, I stood there like an idiot, staring at his deathly mask. What was I there to say? What had I expected from him? That he would see me and reach his arms out and we would cry about his injury and declare our love for one another?
‘Hi,’ I said.
If I moved closer, to look down at him, would he open his eyes? I would wait. If I could persuade him to look at me, it would be a start. Whatever he faced, I wanted him to know that I would be there for him.
‘Your parents told me what happened.’
Silence.
I looked at the blue box attached to his drip, which would be administering intravenous morphine.
‘Are you in a lot of pain?’
It was a stupid question.
‘You must be frightened about this operation.’
Silence. I waited, finding the courage to say what I really wanted to say.
‘I’m sorry. About everything. I’m so sorry. There was never a right time to tell you about Alice.’
More silence.
I stood there until I felt my feet throbbing. I had to think of something that would get a reaction out of him.
‘When you are better, Alice will want to see you.’
His eyes snapped open. He said, ‘My lawyers will be in contact to arrange visitation rights.’ And he squeezed them shut again.
I clutched my middle, winded by his anger. The curtain opened behind me but I was too stunned to move. When I saw Patrick’s smirk, I winced. Patrick had predicted John’s rebuff and he had wished me to experience it. The Tennants had closed ranks.
I pushed passed him and ran back through the plastic corridors, my lungs burning. When I reached the car park, I dropped my head over my knees and gasped for breath as though I had run a marathon.
That was it. It was over. John was going through one of the most horrifying experiences of his life, and he did not want me with him. I should have known that his loyalties to his family would always trump his attachment to me, just as it had been with Robert. I had once wanted my freedom from the Tennants, but now I had it, I felt desolate.
Chapter Forty-Nine
John
When John had seen Francesca out of the corner of his eye, flushed and breathless, he had weakened for a second, believing he could beat Dilys. Then he had remembered Dilys’ cruel sing-song warnings, and the reliability of his own befuddled brain. He had closed his eyes again, knowing his rejection and his silence would wound her deeply. It had taken every ounce of willpower to leave her questions hanging in the air. Would she ever be able to understand that he had no choice? Would she ever be able to forgive him if she knew he had chosen his children over her?
* * *
‘The nurse said the operation before yours is running late,’ his father told him.
John asked for the time. He could not dwell on how frightened he was. He couldn’t think of anything but Francesca, and how much he had hurt her. The future without her was as bleak as any future he could imagine. This was Robert’s punishment from on high. A divine punishment.
For ever, Robert will live on, he thought. The last moments on the bridge with him should have been the end, but forever he would live under the weight of his bullying.
John’s tears rolled from his eyes, down his ears and onto the hospital pillows. His chest heaved, and his face grimaced with the pain.
And his father watched, with his hands linked behind his back.
His figure, silhouetted grey against the hospital window, looked like a formal statue on a plinth in a town square, full of poise and pride, but cold and lifeless. John wondered if he might find the strength to move his left leg and kick him. No amount of willpower or rage was going to move his leg. He couldn’t feel them at all. The fear of long-term paralysis was not, however, at the forefront of his mind. The morphine might have skewed his brain, dampening the horror, managing it somehow, allowing the denial.
The door opened. A nurse and a porter came bustling in. ‘Right! We’re ready for you.’
While the nurse placed a paper cap on his head and fussed around the tangled cords of his drip, John looked up at his pompous, righteous father, and realised that he would not care if he never saw him again.
When he saw his mother’s stricken face, and felt her cool hand on his forehead – reminding him of how she would do this when he had a fever as a boy – resentment smouldered inside him.
The trolley ride to surgery was painful and it took all of his strength not to cry out. He bit his lip to counter the discomfort of the bumpy journey.
As the anaesthetist brought the mask over his face to put him out, he conjured an image of Francesca in his mind, and he went to sleep in peace.
Chapter Fifty
Francesca
Francesca,
We would like to let you know that John’s surgery to stabilise his vertebrae went well, but the incomplete T11–12 thoracic spinal cord injury has left him paralysed. Due to low levels of sensation and small movement, the doctors believe that, given time and intensive rehabilitation, there is a small chance he might regain the ability to walk. Needless to say, this is a very difficult time for our family, and I would ask you to respect John’s wish that you stay away. When you move, please inform us of your new address, for Patrick’s solicitor, who will be in touch about Alice’s visits to John and the children.
Dilys
Dilys’ cold delivery made me want to retch every time I read the email, which was often. She had sent it two weeks ago but, still, I could not process the news.
A telephone call from South Downs Property flashed up on my phone. I answered the call.
‘Hi, Francesca, it’s Alistair from South Downs. Any chance I could show someone around in an hour?’
‘I’ll be here,’ I replied, as I would do every time he called. There had been about five or six viewings in the past couple of days.
‘They’re first-time buyers, currently renting in London. She’s pregnant and they’re keen to get settled before she has the baby.’
‘Sounds good,’ I enthused, trying to hide my lack of interest. I didn’t care who bought the cottage: I just wanted it sold quickly, before Christmas, I hoped. That gave us about six weeks, which Alistair informed me was possible due to the high level of interest in the property, and the desirability of the village.
After a thorough tidy of the house, I answered the doorbell to Alistair and a young, fresh-faced couple. The woman was wearing a fitted waxed jacket with shiny brass buttons and her husband was wearing a checked pink shirt and a puffer gilet. I imagined they might suit the village much better than I had.
After greeting them, I told them I would leave them to it.
I could tell that Alistair did not like me being in the house when he was showing around prospective buyers. Not that I would dream of getting involved – pointing out the brand-new boiler or the spaciousness of the understair cupboard – so, as always, I headed off to my shed at the bottom of the garden, where I sat and read the newspaper on my phone.
When they knocked on the door, I pretended to draw on my easel. Alistair liked that I did this. It sold a lifestyle. Little did they know that I dropped my pencil as soon as they closed the door, and when they were gone I returned to the house to watch television.
I didn’t leave the cottage unless I had to. When I did go out, twice a day, to walk Alice to and from school, I had to pass the ‘For Sale’ sign wired
to my gatepost. It shot into the air above me like a banner of shame and failure, for all to see and gossip about.
Knowing Camilla, she would not have told a soul about the recent scandal in our family, whose reputation she guarded with such ferocity. Nonetheless, I was paranoid about everyone knowing. During the short excursions to school, I might spot someone I would normally chat to in the village and they would rush past me, busy on their phones. If they did stop, the way they would ask about John, and how Alice was, with a slightly sympathetic simper, suggested they had heard the gossip. Maybe Paul had told one person, and that person had told another, and so on.
The various people whom I had informed of our imminent move – the head mistress of Alice’s school, or some of the mothers – were surprised, but not devastated. They had not had time to form attachments to me and Alice; considering we had lived in the village barely six months, we were relative strangers. Alice and I would move on and disappear from their lives as though we had never been there.
Archie Parr had been different. He had sounded genuinely upset and, for a moment, I had wondered if I could stay and push through the pain barriers, to stick it out in the village. It had been a ludicrous thought, to stay for the sake of one old man; albeit a man whose kindness and intelligence had given me my hope back, whose quiet faith in me had reminded me that I could function normally in society again.
The worst was when I saw a red Mini Cooper or a black Land Rover Discovery or a green Jaguar pass by. My heart would race and I would look at the ground. I imagined little Beatrice waving to Alice, possibly confused about why she hadn’t seen her lately. Or perhaps they knew about Alice. I doubted they’d been told. She and Olivia and Harry were facing a future in which their daddy might never walk again. This was enough to cope with, and I hoped that Dilys was sensitive enough to remember this.
Certainly, I knew that I would not be seeing a white Porsche trundling through the lanes. John would not be driving for a very long time, if ever.
I thought about John constantly.
Before channel-hopping to find a black and white film or a good soap to watch, I reread the email from Dilys again, wishing to read something between the lines that would give me some more hope. It never did. The thought of John’s suffering had kept me awake all night, every night. In fact, night-time sleep was no longer something I took for granted. I would nap here and there in the daytime, but that was all.
I craved John, I dreamt of him, and I couldn’t bear that I was not allowed to be there for him. But Dilys’ email had been blunt. The Tennants had cut me out. It was obvious they would never get over it. When you were in the Tennant family, you were in, when you were out, you were so far out you might as well be dead. Dilys’ use of the phrase, ‘this is a very difficult time for our family’ riled me, as did the last sentence, ‘Alice’s visits to John and the children’. Why could she not have said, ‘Alice’s visits to see us’? Was she going to exclude herself from Alice’s visits? Was she going to blame Alice for existing?
Initially, I had decided not to respond. Today, I had a strange feeling that the fresh-faced couple might buy my cottage, and I put my anger towards Dilys aside. I turned the volume down on the television to concentrate, and I began to type:
Dear Dilys,
I am devastated for John. I would very much like the opportunity to see him before I leave. Please, if you could find it in your heart, I would greatly appreciate this one kindness, even though I do not deserve it. I am profoundly sorry for all the pain I have caused you. With love, Fran x
It had taken two episodes of a trashy soap for Dilys’ response to ping back, by text:
I’m afraid that will not be possible.
I had expected it. She was not going to let me see John, having finally got what she wanted: ultimate power. She was not going to let go now. I had no idea where John was, whether he would endure his rehabilitation at home or in a specialist hospital but, either way, Dilys would be micromanaging his life more than ever before. I contemplated barging past her, seeing him against the family’s wishes, and then I remembered John’s intractable expression. I did not have the strength to experience that rejection twice. The Tennants were not the main obstacle. John was. Nevertheless, I worried for him: how he was surviving the pain and the discomfort; whether he was being well looked-after and how well he was coping; how frightened he must be. My heart twisted at the thought of his suffering.
The slow countdown to the school run passed with me horizontal on the sofa, the blanket over me and my slippers on. When my phone rang, half an hour before I would have to force myself out of the door again, I knew it would be Alistair. I turned off the television.
‘Guess what?’ he said.
‘The lovely couple want to put an offer in?’
‘They’ve offered the asking price, they’ve nothing to sell and they’re keen to complete before Christmas. Is that too soon?’
‘I accept their offer.’
‘Congratulations!’ Alistair said.
I wondered if he had noticed that the enthusiasm about the sale was one-sided.
I trudged out of the door, collected Alice from school, and returned home, only half listening to her chatter. While the cottage pie warmed up in the Aga, I opened my laptop to search for two-bedroom flats in Hastings. There was no particular reason why I chose Hastings, other than I liked the idea that it was on the coast and that it was affordable.
An Edwardian house with sash windows and views over the rooftops to the sea was available, for the right price. I called up the estate agent and booked a viewing, knowing that I had just found my new home. I did not experience excitement or nerves or doubt. I might as well have picked it blindfolded.
After that, everything happened very fast. Official letters landed on my doormat every day, from Patrick’s solicitors, from my conveyance solicitors, from South Downs Property, from my mortgage company, and on and on. I was efficient and systematic about how I ran the move.
It was a completely different experience to the upheaval of selling Cheverton Road: there was no emotional attachment to the cottage, unlike our London flat, beyond the pinch of sadness about a future here that had once promised resolution. My footsteps had not worn through the carpet, and Alice’s fingerprints had not left indelible marks on the walls; the ghost of our movements would not linger in the air circulating between its walls. Our life in the cottage could be wiped away easily. Perhaps we had never really been there.
On moving day, there were some boxes in the loft that I had never unpacked. While scooting them along to the hatch, I hit my head on the beam and stopped to rub it. John’s face came rushing into my mind. Who knew, maybe that one powerful memory of us together might be important enough to linger in the fabric of the house. I thought back to his tall, strong figure stooping in the space, and I imagined his damaged body now. My throat tingled, threatening tears. But I redoubled my efforts to move the boxes speedily out of the attic and into the arms of the removal men below.
Later, I let Alice post the keys through the letterbox, ready for the next owners, and I promised her a chocolate croissant in the car to distract her from what we were doing.
We waved goodbye to the house, to Letworth, to Cam-Cam and Grandpa, to John and Beatrice and Olivia and Harry, and we drove away. Alice would not have understood the permanence of those goodbyes. I had not fully allowed her to understand. Her dismay would have broken my resolve and shattered my determination to remain comfortably numb about this move.
* * *
It had taken us two hours to get to Hastings, to our new street.
I parked up in the pretty, tree-lined crescent street, on a hill that sloped around and down towards the sea. From here, there was a five-minute walk to the shops and a ten-minute walk to the sea-front.
The sea wind sliced through my woollen coat and the squawk of seagulls reminded me of how different life was going to be.
It was the second time I had seen our new flat, but for Alice
it was the first. She had circled the packing boxes marked ‘Alice’, stacked in her tiny room, with manic excitement. She had no concept of all that we had left behind. I wondered whether I had truly grasped it either.
On second viewing, the flat seemed even smaller than when I had first seen it. And dirtier. I noticed the marks on the cream walls and the patches on the blue carpet.
I stood at the sash windows and looked out across the swirl of streets and terracotta rooftops, to see a tiny patch of slate sea joined to the horizon.
The sea was meant to bring healing to the sick and dispossessed. If I harnessed the entirety of its power for myself, I imagined it would do no good.
Chapter Fifty-One
John
Beatrice and Olivia were squeezed either side of John on the bed, watching a cartoon on the television, whilst Harry described the plot twists of a science fiction novel he had been reading. Dilys was shopping in the lanes of Brighton.
As he tried to listen to Harry, John’s mind drifted and his gaze wandered out of the hospital window, out to sea. He stared at the grey-brown water. He mentally zoomed down to its choppy surface and dove into the water; imagining the sound of the breaking waves, loud and certain and ceaseless. The view was comforting, peaceful. Water was comforting.
When he had first been given a shower in a shower bed, seven weeks after the operation, he had been embarrassed by his nakedness and his useless limbs. But he had closed his eyes and allowed himself to be soothed by the sensations of the warm flow over his head as the nurses washed him. Afterwards, he sensed that his skin was smiling, clean and fresh.
Two months after that first shower, he was spending three mornings a week doing hydrotherapy in a small pool, which were his favourite physiotherapy sessions. The treadmill under the water forced the movement of his withered legs, reminding him of what it felt like to walk again. He could not feel his feet on the rotation belt, and his harness pinched, but he had made progress. He was now moving without his legs getting tangled beneath him. Like a baby held up by the arms of his mother, his legs were relearning the pathways from brain to spine to legs, to trigger the instinctive motion of putting one foot in front of another.