On the way out of the ward she met Bob coming in, holding a bunch of grapes. ‘You look terrible,’ he said, bluntly, after he had inquired about James. ‘Did you spend all night here?’
Nina admitted that she did. ‘I lay across three chairs in the reception area for a while, but I didn’t sleep.’ They stood back as an empty trolley was wheeled past. ‘I would have paid good money for one of those by three in the morning,’ she said, staring after it.
‘Let me take you home. You can have a sleep.’
Nina shook her head. ‘I feel I have to be here. Haunting the place.’
‘You could get . . .’ Bob worked it out,’ . . . four hours or so. Then I’ll pick you up and bring you back this evening. How’s that?’
‘But you’ve only just got here.’
‘I only came to see James. I know Kerry’s all right. I’ll poke my nose round the curtain and say hello, and then I’ll be with you.’
The thought of her comfortable bed and cool cotton pillow was almost too tempting. She was already looking forward to collapsing. Then she remembered that the new, self-reliant Nina no longer threw herself on the mercy of others – particularly when it might be misread. She didn’t want Bob thinking she had any interest in him personally. ‘I will go home, but I don’t need a lift. I’m in your debt already,’ she said. ‘That Greek meal the other day.’
‘Do you think of all your friends in terms of creditors or debtors?’ Bob asked. ‘Do you keep the running totals in your head?’
‘It’s not like that. It’s just that I’m not supposed to be accepting any more favours. I’m committed to helping Others now.’ She explained the substance of her Agnostics’ Prayer.
‘Well, isn’t that what you’re doing all the time in your job?’
Nina thought for a moment. Her most recent case concerned a twelve-year-old girl, pregnant by her sixteen-year-old boyfriend. It was Nina’s job, as guardian ad litem, to advise the courts whether the child would be better off living with her mother – a recovering alcoholic – or in care. ‘I suppose so. Though most of my clients don’t seem to see it that way.’
‘Perhaps you should start with the old boy in the bed next to James,’ Bob advised. ‘The poor bloke can’t even see the TV from where he is. He’s just lying there bored to death.’
‘You’re right. I’ll take him some newspapers,’ she said. ‘Get him doing the crossword.’ She already had him marked down as her next project.
‘I bet you will too,’ he laughed, absent-mindedly starting to eat the grapes as he took Nina’s place in the ward.
41
Guy carried a sleeping Sophie from the car indoors and straight up to her bed, stepping over a pile of unopened post on the mat. Even the jolting she had taken when he had tried to unlock the front door without putting her down hadn’t roused her. He pulled off her shoes and socks and gently extricated her skinny arms from her cardigan and then looked around in the half light of the curtained room for a pair of pyjamas. He hadn’t a clue where such things were kept: Jane had her own mysterious system, which he’d never cracked. In any case, he hadn’t a hope of removing Sophie’s summer dress which was buttoned up the back and tightish, without disturbing her.
She looked so peaceful that he decided to let her sleep in it just as she was. It would be simple enough to iron out the creases before school in the morning. If he could find the iron. He felt a pang of conscience about her teeth, recently sluiced in lemonade at the hospital cafe. Jane would never let a child of hers go to bed without brushing their teeth: it was like a religious observance. Well, these were exceptional circumstances, Guy thought. It wasn’t surprising that standards were slipping. They hadn’t even had time to look at their mail. Besides, he had more important things on his mind, and he was knackered himself: the hospital routine was starting to exact a price. Generally Jane took the day shift, while Guy was at work. He would bring Sophie to see her sister straight after school, while Jane dashed home to shower and change. On her return, Guy would look in on James and give Sophie tea in the hospital cafe before bringing her home to bed. Once Harriet had been moved into a paediatric ward Jane was able to stay overnight beside her on a Zed Bed. The minimum level of comfort and relaxation necessary for sleep was just about achievable. All the same, Jane looked exhausted. ‘I want to be there in case she has a nightmare,’ Jane insisted, when Guy had expressed concern about her own health. ‘I’ll catch up when she’s better. It won’t be long.’
It was true that this state of affairs was not likely to drag on indefinitely. Harriet was greatly improved – eating, drinking, playing with toys, chattering to the nurses – and paediatric beds were much in demand. She would probably be turfed out before the weekend. The swelling to her face had diminished considerably and the discoloration was less livid, or so it seemed to Guy. The skull fracture would heal itself in time without any medical intervention, and Harriet didn’t appear to have suffered any lasting damage as a result of the injury.
There was a difference, though. He and Jane had both noticed it. She was calmer, more subdued, less prone to fits of rage.
‘It’s not surprising,’ said Guy, when they’d discussed it, in a busy corridor, out of Harriet’s hearing. ‘It probably hurts if she starts tossing her head around too much. She’s just protecting herself.’ He stepped back as the distant ‘whump’ of double doors heralded the passage of another trolley.
‘I don’t like it,’ said Jane. ‘I want her back the way she was.’ Through the doorway they could see Sophie and Harriet sitting in bed together, giggling. Harriet was pretending to feed one of her dolls, pressing its head to her chest.
‘And another thing,’ said Guy. ‘She’s enjoying being the centre of attention. We’re ready to do her bidding day and night. She’s got no reason to be temperamental.’
‘Maybe,’ said Jane, dubiously. ‘I just hope you’re right, and it’s nothing permanent.’
‘But you’ve always wanted her to be more docile,’ Guy protested. ‘You did nothing but complain about her tantrums and her bad behaviour.’
‘I know,’ said Jane. ‘I was horrible and selfish and wrong. I’ve been a bad mother to her: it’s me who needs to change, not her.’
‘That’s not true. You’re a good mother,’ Guy protested, hating to see her put herself down. ‘And a wonderful wife,’ he added, kissing her between the eyes and tasting salt tears on his lips.
She laughed at this. It was months since they’d made love, weeks since they’d slept in the same bed, days since they’d slept in the same building. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so . . . distant lately. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’
‘Don’t worry. Once Harriet’s home we’ll sort everything out. We’ll talk about things. We’ll make each other laugh like we used to.’ He put two fingers in the corners of his mouth and two up his nostrils and pulled a grotesque face, to the astonishment of a passing nurse. Jane laughed, out of gratitude more than anything. ‘Perhaps we could go for a long weekend somewhere, just the two of us,’ he said, getting carried away now.
‘I’m not leaving the children,’ Jane said quickly.
‘No, no. Of course not. We’ll take them with us. As soon as term ends we’ll drive to Pembrokeshire. I’ll book up a cottage.’
‘But it’s the money . . .’ Jane tailed off In his enthusiasm Guy had forgotten this detail. All major expenditure had been cancelled to pay James for the trumped-up decorating work.
‘Something will turn up,’ Guy insisted, Micawber-like. ‘We’ll bung it on a credit card for now. By the way, your friend rang last night. Emily.’
‘Erica,’ said Jane. ‘I wondered if she’d call.’
‘I told her Harriet was doing well and all that. She said she’s off soon, and cheerio, that sort of thing.’
‘To Kuwait? So soon?’ Jane wondered aloud. ‘I never said goodbye. I was in such a panic.’
‘She said something about going up to Scotland to see her parents first.’ He wishe
d he’d been paying more attention. There had been a piece of bacon under the grill when she rang and he’d been trying to cut things short before the smoke alarm went off. ‘And something about her car which I didn’t quite catch.’
‘Oh yes, I’m getting rid of it for her. I’d forgotten that.’ In truth she’d hardly given Erica a thought in the last few days. Their brief friendship and the strange, unreturned infatuation that Jane had experienced seemed as remote as her teenage crushes on Trevor from Cheshunt, or Séverine, the hairy French assistante. It was her own family who commanded all of her attention and emotional energy now. There was nothing left over to sustain any sort of fantasy life. Guy had been so brilliant, providing endless reassurance, and never a word of reproach. And he had leapt to her defence when his mother had criticized her over the telephone for leaving Harriet with ‘some boy you hardly know’. They had called her from the hospital with news of the accident. ‘Jane isn’t to blame,’ he had said, in the hard voice that he seldom used at home. ‘She feels bad enough as it is, without you sticking your oar in. You might just as well blame yourselves for not looking after Harriet that day.’ And his mother had been shocked into spluttering out a retraction. It was the first time Jane had ever known him to argue with his parents, and as she stood in the booth beside him, listening, she became aware of an unfamiliar sensation: the faintest stirring of sexual desire.
It was James that Guy had gone to see next, while Jane returned to the girls, who were now trying to crayon the same page in Harriet’s colouring book, elbows and nibs clashing.
He found the patient sitting on top of the bedcovers wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of gaping boxer shorts. Guy had observed on previous visits to hospitals that invalids often lost all sense of modesty. James’s catheter, drain and drip had been removed, and he looked moderately healthier. Even so there were dark shadows under his eyes, and his skin, formerly as pallid as tinned lychees, was only just beginning to recover its flesh tones. His plastered foot bore the imprint of a heavily lipsticked kiss. He was listening to a Walkman, in the absence of any visitors: Kerry had a follow-up outpatients appointment, and Nina was off somewhere, buying provisions. James pulled off his earphones as Guy approached.
‘How are you feeling, then, Jimbo?’ Guy asked, adopting the hearty avuncular tone that he always used for talking to Young People over a certain age.
‘Shitty,’ James replied. ‘Really wiped out.’
‘So you’re saying you won’t be finishing that bedroom ceiling tomorrow?’ Guy smote his forehead in mock exasperation.
James gave a twisted smile and shook his head. His one shaved, stitched eyebrow fixed his face in an expression of permanent inquiry.
‘Bloody typical,’ Guy muttered. ‘The youth of today . . .’
James ran a hand around his neck and chin, which were patchy with stubble and raised red spots. ‘Mum bought me an electric razor to use in here,’ he explained. ‘It’s useless – just chews your face up. How’s Harriet?’ He blushed at the sequence of his thoughts.
‘Okay. Better than you. She should be home tomorrow or the day after.’
‘I can’t even go and see her,’ James said.
‘Have you done much walking yet?’
‘I shuffle to and from the loo. That’s about it.’ He let his head fall back against the pillow as if even the notion of movement wearied him. For a second he reminded Guy of someone. He had a look of . . . Guy wasn’t sure whom.
‘Is there anything I can bring you?’ he asked, feeling that practical assistance was more his department than uplifting bedside conversation. Nina could provide that – round the clock if necessary.
James thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so. Mum brings me loads of snacks and newspapers every day. I’ll tell you what though.’ He indicated his Walkman on the sheet beside him. ‘I’m getting a bit sick of listening to music. I wouldn’t mind some of those audio-books. If you’ve got any.’
Guy hadn’t. He had always harboured the suspicion that they were designed for people too lazy to turn pages. ‘I’ll bring you some tomorrow,’ he offered. ‘But I don’t know what you like. Or what you’ve already read.’
‘Oh, anything,’ said James. ‘Whatever you think. It doesn’t matter if I already know it.’
‘Right,’ said Guy, racking his brains to try and remember what he had enjoyed twenty or so years ago. George Orwell and D.H. Lawrence. But hadn’t they rather fallen out of favour lately? He could see that this particular commission was going to expose all too clearly how little he knew of the tastes and interests of the modern teenager.
‘Oh-oh. What’s she got now?’ said James.
Guy looked up to see Nina come into the ward, laden with magazines, newspapers, books, biscuits, fruit, flowers. She was even carrying a chess set and a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of a Beefeater.
‘I said “No puzzles”,’ James remonstrated, but, ignoring him, Nina approached the neighbouring bed and addressed the elderly occupant.
‘Good afternoon. My name’s Nina. I’ve brought you some things.’ And she started to unpack her pile of goodies, placing the basket of flowers on the top of the unit, and arranging a pyramid of bananas, peaches and grapes on a paper plate.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’ the man protested, roused from his torpor to a state of anxiety, and failing to recognize Nina from their previous encounter. ‘I didn’t order these.’
‘That’s all right.’ Nina smiled encouragingly. ‘It’s a gift. Now do you prefer The Times or the Mail? Would you like me to read to you?’
‘Are you one of these religious people?’ the man demanded.
‘Oh no, I’m . . .’
‘I said I didn’t want any religion when I came in here.’
Guy and James, watching this scene, started to laugh.
‘I’m sorry, I should have explained,’ said Nina, refusing to be intimidated by this unexpected show of resistance. ‘I’m not a professional visitor, or anything like that. I’m James’s mother.’ She pointed across the divide. James gave an apologetic wave. ‘I noticed you didn’t have much in the way of entertainment and I thought you might like some reading matter and so forth.’
‘Oh.’ The man sounded slightly mollified by this explanation. ‘So you’re just giving them away?’
‘Exactly.’
Once it was established that he was not expected to pay or convert, the man cheered up considerably. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you. I’ll have a look at the Mail if you don’t mind. The big papers, they’re all doom and gloom.’
‘I hope you’re taking note of this so you can pick up tips on how to embarrass Sophie and Harriet in public when they’re older,’ James whispered to Guy.
‘Mmm,’ Guy replied, with the non-committal grunt of someone whose attention is elsewhere. He had picked up the clipboard from the end of the bed and was browsing through James’s medical notes. There were the temperature and blood-pressure charts, and dosages of painkillers administered, along with a slip of paper recording the details of the transfusion he had had at the time of his operation: serial number, blood group (AB) and quantity (500ml). Guy looked at it, frowning. There was something odd here, unless his memory was deceiving him. And then it struck him who it was James had reminded him of, fleetingly, as he lay on the bed bemoaning his state of infirmity: Martin.
Guy closed the bedroom door on Sophie and fetched the loft ladder down from its trapdoor on the landing. The aluminium steps chimed beneath his feet as he climbed up into the darkness. He threw the switch and the room was filled with flickering light from the neon strip on the ceiling. Either side of his desk the china alsatians sat, unsold, gathering dust. From its tripod beneath the skylight the telescope stared at him with its one blank eye, and for the first time he felt no inclination to share its secrets. It was selfishness, he now realized, to annex a whole room for the pursuit of an occasional hobby. He had spent too much time gazing up at the stars while neglecting what was underfoot. It would make a perfec
t playroom for the girls: its low, sloping ceiling would be fine while they were still small. All their toys could be kept here, liberating the living room and hall from the tyranny of Barbie and her million fragile accessories. Jane would be pleased. And if he sold the telescope they might be able to afford to go away somewhere nice after all. He’d get to work at the first opportunity. In fact he’d make a start now by getting rid of those dogs. Procrastination was pointless: the children were growing bigger every day; there were only a few years of innocent enthusiasm left before they became moody teenagers, and soon after that they’d be off to college or wherever, like James.
James. With a sinking heart, Guy remembered what it was he’d come up for. He located his diary for 1976 in the cardboard box, marked Nostalgia, in the corner, and sat down to read, alternately skimming or becoming engrossed as his eye caught a reference to some long-forgotten incident. He kept having to recall himself to his task, searching, searching. After half an hour he shut the book and laid his cheek on its faded vellum cover. It was all there, of course, as he’d known it would be. James wasn’t his; and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, he climbed down the ladder, threw himself on his bed and lay staring at the moving shadows on the ceiling for a long time, until the sky outside was quite dark. He would have slept there where he’d landed – in his clothes, like Sophie – but he remembered he hadn’t locked up downstairs and the porch light was still on, so he stood up, too quickly, and swayed dizzily as a kaleidoscope of snaking lights and floaters swirled before his eyes.
There was the mail on the doormat. He picked through it with one hand while sliding the bolts home. Several large, colourful envelopes, instantly proclaiming themselves to be junk mail, went in the bin unopened. Two bills, a bank statement and a begging letter from a children’s charity were put in the rack for later. Guy had almost thrown out the charity letter, but something in the reproachful gaze of the bruised child pictured on the envelope reminded him of Harriet, so he had kept it back. That left a pale blue aerogramme, postmarked Sydney, and addressed to Guy in the unmistakable, microscopic script – unchanged since schooldays – of Hugo. A printed address label announced his metamorphosis into Dr H. Blanchard-Etchells. Guy tore it open, obliterating most of the first paragraph. Piecing it together, he read:
A Dry Spell Page 36