Where the Truth Lies

by Julie Corbin

  The children come to visit him every day. Charlie is worried about Julian but manages to act fairly normally around him, chatting about university and politics as he always has. Jack struggles to stay any longer than ten minutes. His hands hover over the covers; then he bends to kiss Julian but stops an inch from his cheek. His fists clench and unclench. His face flushes; then he rocks backwards and forwards on his trainers. ‘I’ll get you some coffee from the machine, Mum,’ he tells me, and leaves the room, blinking back tears.

  After the initial rush of questions from Bea – ‘Why is that tube in Daddy’s mouth?’, ‘Why doesn’t he open his eyes?’, ‘Why can’t he talk?’ – she sits on the edge of the bed and strokes his hair and chats to him. ‘And when you’re finished your long, long sleep, Daddy,’ she says, ‘you can see my new puppy because he’ll be born soon.’

  With my permission, Mary has promised Bea one of the puppies Douglas has fathered. Mary is becoming a regular visitor to our house. Julian had been in hospital a week when I knew I could no longer keep Mary’s revelation a secret. During the long hours next to his bed, I thought about her finding out that the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father, meeting my dad and then him dying before she had a chance to get to know him. I thought about how lucky I was having my father’s love for as long as I did. And about how lucky I still am to have those I love around me. I decided to tell Lisa first. I tried to break it to her slowly, but in the end there was no easy way to say it.

  ‘Dad had another daughter,’ I told her, as I sat with her at breakfast. ‘It’s Mary Percival, Bea’s nursery teacher.’

  I counted the beats before she could lift her chin off the table and speak. Five long seconds and then a slew of questions – ‘What the hell?’, ‘When did it happen?’, ‘Does Wendy know?’

  Lisa took a couple of hours to get used to the idea and then we told Wendy, mindful that this would be a reminder of our dad’s infidelity, something that had cost her many a sleepless night. She listened to the news without interruption and then, as ever, she humbled us both with her generosity when she said, ‘She’s part of our family? Girls! What news! We must invite her round.’

  With whole lives to catch up on, there’s no end to the talking and soon I realise that, when she sheds her shyness, this new sister of mine is fun. The boys and Bea think so too, but Bea refuses to believe she’s her auntie. ‘She’s my teacher, Mummy. You’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘It’ll take time,’ I tell Mary.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I’m just so happy that I’ve told you at last.’

  After ten days Julian is taken off the ventilator and he breathes for himself. He’s still unconscious, but it’s progress and so I’m thankful. He’s moved out of the HDU into a side room on an adjacent ward. He no longer has a nurse by his side at all times. He looks peaceful. His wound is healing, and his hair is growing back. The scans show that his brain is settling down. His pupils are equal and reacting to light. He responds to painful stimuli. These are very encouraging signs that he doesn’t have permanent damage. We just need him to wake up.

  I lurch between emotional states. I feel immensely grateful. My daughter is alive, blessedly, miraculously alive. I’m transfixed by the smallest things that she does. I watch her drinking juice. Her fingers don’t make it all the way round the cup, so she holds it with both hands. I am lost in the tilt of her eyelashes and the unflinching gaze she turns on me. I see God in her.

  Then abruptly, as if on dodgems in the fairground, my direction changes and my heart twists until I gasp. My husband is unconscious. The MRI scan shows that his cerebrum was damaged by the lack of oxygen. There were complications. He had raised intracranial pressure. The surgeon had to drill through his skull to release the pressure on his brain. If it were a cartoon, steam would escape.

  Home and hospital are two separate worlds. I leave Julian for the night and come home to the family. In my absence Wendy, Lisa and Jem have rallied round and my house is running better than it normally does.

  Lisa’s cancer is in remission. ‘Too much else going on,’ she says. She’s gaining weight, her pain medication is working, and the wound on her hip has healed. It’s unclear how long this phase will last, but I’m not counting days. I’m thankful that today, now, she’s well.

  Jem comes round every day. Pete has forgiven her for keeping her prison time a secret and she tells me she’s never felt better. She was always worried that it was going to come out and now that it has, she feels a weight has lifted. She’s working hard in the garden and has started what she’s calling Project Summerhouse. The boys told her that Julian was talking about doing it up and so she’s drawn up plans, shopped for the materials and is in the garden full-time, roping the boys in to help and bringing laughter and industry into their lives, the perfect antidote while we wait anxiously for Julian’s recovery.

  Wendy runs the kitchen. She turns out meals that manage to please everyone. She’s even taken to macrobiotics and, in Sezen’s absence, is working her way through the cookery book, sourcing the ingredients online and preparing foods with seaweed and soya that taste delicious.

  No one mentions Sezen, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t on my mind. I think about her often and wonder what’s become of her and Lara and Jalal. I make up my mind to try to find her. Not yet. When the dust has settled, I’ll ask Mac to trace her and see whether I can help her with Jalal’s situation. While I know very little about immigration law, I have contacts who do.

  Charlie spends a couple of weeks with a broken heart when he realises that, in spite of his attempts to win Amy back, she’s already moved on. I don’t mention meeting her on the pier, or the fact they had sex in Julian’s study; I’m simply there for him, as best I can be, as he wrestles with feelings of loss and betrayal before managing to file them away somewhere in his heart, what’s going on with Julian taking precedence over everything else.

  Mac calls me most days. Communication between us is strained since I found out he’d not only followed me to where Bea was being kept, but the information he had given me was not accurate. The witness’s name was indeed Batchev, but he was being kept somewhere in North London. Four of Georgiev’s men turned up to the Gordon Avenue address - so I guessed right after all - and were met by a dozen armed officers. After several shots were fired, two of them ended up dead and the other two were taken into custody.

  ‘And what if one of them had had the time to phone Megan?’ I say to Mac. ‘And Bea was still in the house? What then?’

  ‘It couldn’t have happened that way.’ He gives a confident shake of his head, flying high on the adrenaline of success. ‘We knew we’d have you out before the fight kicked off. Anyway’ – he looks at me with grudging respect – ‘you had everything under control.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  I walk away from him then, but the next day he calls me to let me know how the case is progressing. The trial has only been delayed by three weeks. Batchev is still in a safe house, all ready to testify. Megan was remanded in prison, charged with several offences that would see her serving upwards of twenty years. On the tenth day she slit her own throat. How she acquired the razor blade was never established and led to a Question Time discussion on the ‘overcrowding in prisons causing stress and increased suicides’. Mac visited Belmarsh Prison himself to tell Georgiev that Megan had taken her own life. He told me Georgiev cried like a baby. It seems that their love for each other, however warped, was genuine.

  I’m offered counselling and at first I refuse, but after two weeks with precious little sleep I decide to go along. The therapist is a woman in her fifties. She dresses in layers of cotton and cashmere, and is relaxed and kind. I tell her that all day long fear is my stalker. It taunts me from the sidelines, and as soon as I relax into sleep, it jumps on me and I’m awake again, my heart pounding as I gulp in air, the panic inside me even more intense than it was for those twelve hours Bea was missing. She listens to this. She holds my hands and looks me in th
e eye. ‘The first thing to remember is that you survived a major, life-threatening event. You all survived: you, your husband and your children. The resonance of this trauma needs time to leave your body.’

  That makes sense and it’s a relief to know that my reaction is normal. I won’t be this way for the rest of my life. She holds me as I cry. She listens as I talk about my fears for Julian and losing my mother and father and now my sister. It helps to talk and I find myself beginning to see my life differently. I don’t want to be defined by loss. I want to be defined by what I am and what I have.

  And then the momentous day comes: Julian wakes up. I’m sticking the latest card Bea has made for him on the pinboard at the side of his hospital bed.

  ‘Thirsty.’

  I stand stock-still.

  ‘Claire, thirsty.’

  I look down at the bed. His eyes are open. I scream with delight and then I laugh and then I jump up and down. ‘Julian!’ I kiss his face. ‘You’re awake!’

  The nurses come running. We give him some water and almost at once he falls back to sleep again. We’re all grinning like mad. I run to phone the family and word spreads. He recognised me. He’s still in there. After four long weeks he’s come back to us.

  His recovery begins in earnest. Sometimes it’s one step forward and two steps back, but for the most part it’s forward motion. He has two main areas to work on: a left-sided weakness in his limbs and a difficulty with language. He begins an intensive course of physiotherapy. Walking is tough. His left leg drags behind him and the therapists urge him to concentrate on lifting it up and then forwards. He grows tired and cross. The nurse tells me it’s common with brain injury, but still, it’s hard for me to watch. I’m used to the strong Julian, the patient Julian, not someone who cries and loses his temper, and I feel for him, wish I could save him from the pain and frustration of relearning what was once so familiar.

  Speech therapy is even more frustrating for him. He understands what’s being said to him, but has difficulty finding the right words when he replies. Nouns are especially hard to pinpoint. The therapist shows him cards and he has to say what the object is. Sometimes he’s close. He’ll say ‘shed’ for ‘house’ or ‘dog’ for ‘cat’. Other times his choice is completely random.

  Bea helps him. ‘You have to unscramble your head, Daddy,’ she tells him. She’s sitting cross-legged on his hospital bed. She takes her time choosing and then holds up a card with a banana on it. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Tortoise,’ he says.

  She giggles so much she slides off his bed and I have to lift her back on again. Unlike Charlie and Jack, who’ve realised that Julian will probably never work as a barrister again, Bea thinks his problem with language is funny and this helps Julian. Her laughter becomes his laughter and soon she’s calling the window a chair and he says the water jug is a pillow.

  When he’s seven weeks into his recovery, Mac comes to visit. He gives Julian the news we’ve all been hoping for – Pavel Georgiev has been convicted of people-trafficking, drug-dealing and several counts of murder. He’s given four consecutive life sentences. He’ll never walk free again. ‘And they wouldn’t have got there without all the hard work that you put in,’ Mac says.

  Julian smiles and I take his hand. ‘It’s finally over,’ I say.

  ‘Just need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and the case can be put to bed,’ Mac says, and asks Julian what he remembers about that night.

  Julian thinks hard. ‘She called me on the . . .’

  He looks at me. I’ve been told by the speech therapist to avoid prompting him unless I absolutely have to. I figure this is one of those times. ‘Phone,’ I say.

  ‘Phone,’ he says. ‘On the phone. She said she had important cooking . . . recipes.’

  ‘Information?’

  He nods gratefully.

  ‘So you opened the door?’ Mac says. His tone is not accusing, but Julian flinches.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And then . . .’ He looks away so that Mac can’t see the shame in his eyes. ‘I don’t remember anything else.’

  Mac thanks Julian and I walk with him along the corridor. ‘He hates not being the man he was,’ I say.

  ‘He’ll get there.’ He gives me a sympathetic smile. ‘And with you fighting his corner he’ll get there in double-quick time.’

  I stop at the top of the stairs. ‘Goodbye, then,’ I say.

  ‘It was good to see you again, Claire.’

  ‘Under those circumstances?’ I give a short laugh. ‘I could have done without it.’

  ‘You coped brilliantly.’

  ‘It’s the hardest, loneliest road I’ve ever walked and I never want to go there again.’ There’s a crack in my voice and he steps forward to give me a hug. I hold out my hand to keep him away from me. ‘See you around.’

  He briefly clasps my hand, then lets it go and shifts from one foot to the other. ‘Don’t be a stranger.’ He starts off down the stairs and glances back up at me, our eyes meeting for a few brief seconds, confirming that what was there between us is still there. And I suppose it always will be, but I am happy to bury it underneath the layers of love and commitment that I want to give to my family.

  I walk back along the corridor and into Julian’s side room. I see at once that he’s in a black mood. Unlike the old Julian, he now has fits of temper when he throws his walking stick or a book across the room, not to hit me, but to make a point. And then glares at me as if he hates me, as if it’s my fault that he’s in this hospital bed. I don’t retaliate, but still it hurts me to be the butt of his anger.

  He’s sitting on a chair at the side of his bed and I sit down opposite him. A wounded silence separates us. ‘Julian’ – I lean my elbows on my knees and look up into his face – ‘I love you. I’m so glad that you’re alive. I can only imagine how hard this is for you.’

  ‘Do you blame me?’ he blurts out.

  I take his hand. ‘For what?’

  ‘For Bea. For Megan.’

  ‘No!’ I almost laugh. ‘I thought you blamed me!’

  ‘I should have listened to you.’ There’s a sadness in his eyes that makes my breath catch in my throat. He looks defeated, beaten down by force of circumstance.

  ‘I didn’t see that coming, Julian.’ I stroke the side of his face. ‘I didn’t clock Megan. Nobody did.’

  I tell him then about my own feelings of guilt. I tell him the whole story of those intense few days: how I took matters into my own hands, went behind his back, went to see Mac. He holds my hands and listens and I can see that he doesn’t blame me.

  ‘The responsibility was mine,’ he says. ‘I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust my . . .’ He gropes for the word. ‘ . . . law . . . article . . .’

  ‘Judgement?’

  He nods. ‘I’m no good.’

  ‘Never say that.’ I put my arms round him. ‘It isn’t true. You must never, never say that.’

  We both cry. We hug each other, and for the first time in weeks I know I’m going to get him back. Maybe he’ll never be able to walk long distances and there will always be occasions when he can’t find the right word, but the essence of him, the man that I love, is coming back and I thank everyone – the angels, the gods, the sun, moon and stars – for this blessing.

  He’s been in the hospital for ten weeks and finally the day arrives when he’s well enough to come home.

  ‘I have to warn you that the children have organised a small party,’ I say, as we pull up outside the front door.

  I’m about to get out when he stops me. ‘Claire?’

  ‘Yes?’ I twist round in my seat to face him.

  ‘About Mac.’ He pauses. ‘I always wondered whether he might have been the one.’

  For a moment I can’t speak. Of course. Of course he knew that it was Mac I slept with. He knew and he said nothing, because to acknowledge the possibility might have jeopardised the smooth running of the case. While I was spewing out every doubt, every suspicion about
him and Megan, he kept this to himself, focusing instead on what was important. It makes me feel humbled. ‘You, Julian.’ I take his hand and look deep into his eyes, hoping he can read the sincerity in mine. ‘You’re the one.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘A hundred and ten per cent.’ I smile slowly and then kiss him. ‘Now, come on. They’re waiting.’

  He uses his stick to help him up the steps and we go inside. Bea is waiting just inside the door, carrying her new puppy. ‘This is Puppy.’ She passes the ball of white fluff to Julian. Small enough to sit on the palm of his hand, the puppy’s tail wags round in circles like the propeller on an aeroplane.

  Julian laughs. ‘So what are you calling him, Bea?’

  ‘Puppy.’

  ‘Doesn’t he need a proper name?’

  ‘Miss Percival says I can take a few weeks to decide.’

  ‘He’s lively as a bag of eels, I know that much,’ Jem says, walking through from the kitchen. She puts her hand on Julian’s back. ‘Great to have you home.’ And then she gives me a surreptitious thumbs-up.

  ‘Let’s go and sit down in the garden,’ I say.

  Bea claps her hand over her mouth and makes wide eyes at me. I put my finger over my lips and we follow Julian through to the back. He sees it from the kitchen window.

  ‘What on earth?’ He turns to look at me, his eyes shining. A cloth banner – ‘Welcome home, Daddy!’ painted in red and gold - is hanging in front of a brand-new purpose-built wooden summerhouse, equipped with running water and electricity and with a comfy chair for Julian to rest on.

  ‘They’ve been working hard,’ I say. ‘Go and have a look.’

  Jem on one side and Bea on the other, he goes down the back steps into the garden. Lisa, Mary and the boys are standing outside, smiling widely, and I watch them take Julian by the arm and show him around.

  I’ve waited a long time for this moment, ten weeks of hope and hard work, and my chest swells with love and with relief that we’re all back together again. But nothing in life is certain and I feel like from now on I’ll always be on my guard. So that next time I’ll see the danger coming.