Would Like to Meet

by Polly James

  It’s drizzling, I’m out of breath and a bit lightheaded, too, partly from the running, and partly from worrying about how things are going to turn out with Dan tonight. Maybe that’s why I don’t spot the 4x4 that’s about to jump the red light, until I step out.

  Chapter 54

  I can’t see anything at all, so I have no idea where I am, or even which way up. Then I hear a voice close by.

  “I’m putting a blanket over you,” it says. “Don’t move, the ambulance is on its way.”

  I try to reply, but the words sound oddly muffled and then I realise I’m face-down in the road. That’s when I pass out again.

  * * *

  I don’t know how many times I come to, only to pass out again, but it must be quite a few. One minute I find myself in a brightly-lit ambulance, then everything goes black, until I regain consciousness while being wheeled at speed along a corridor.

  After that, I have no idea what happens until I come to again, this time in a curtained cubicle surrounded by people wearing uniforms.

  “You’re in A&E,” says someone on my right.

  She’s leaning over me and cutting Joel’s hoodie off. “Can you say your name again?”

  I do my best to oblige, though the words sound muffled.

  “I thought she said her name was Pam, last time you asked her,” says a man in a white coat.

  He’s just appeared on my left-hand side.

  “Have a look at her phone. That should tell you,” says yet another person, in the background. “Check for ICE numbers, too. Now let’s take her down for a CAT scan, asap.”

  “Cat? I’m supposed to be Catwoman,” I say, before everything returns to black.

  * * *

  At an unknown point in time, I regain consciousness but immediately assume that I must have died.

  I’m lying on some sort of bed or trolley, surrounded by a giant white halo. Beyond that, everything else within my limited field of vision is also white: walls, ceiling and low storage cupboards – and the room is silent, except for a low hum in the background.

  I panic and try to get off the trolley, only for a disembodied voice to say,

  “Just a little longer, Hannah. Try to lie completely still. We’re running the scan one more time.”

  I do try, but I’m now so anxious that I can’t help shaking and, by the time that I’m wheeled back into my cubicle, the shaking has become so severe that someone wraps me in a foil blanket.

  “Your temperature’s a bit low, so this should help to warm you up,” says the nurse, the one who wielded the scissors on Joel’s jogging bottoms. “You were lying in the wet road for quite some time, apparently.”

  I still can’t recall exactly what happened, and I’m about to ask when Joel comes hurtling through the curtains of the cubicle.

  “Mum!” he yells. “Oh, my God! What happened to you?”

  “Never mind me,” I say, mumbling a bit because of whatever’s buggered up my ability to move my mouth. “What happened to you? Nurse, can you please help my son?”

  Joel’s cheek is split by the most horrendous bleeding cut, which looks as if someone’s taken an axe to his face. I have no idea why everyone’s still fussing around me when there’s someone with much more serious injuries standing right in front of them, until Joel realises what I’m freaking out about and wipes half the “cut” off on his sleeve.

  “Face paint, Mum,” he says. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  That soon proves not to be one hundred per cent accurate, as a consultant arrives and says there is something for me to worry about. Several things, actually, the most pressing of which is the damage to my head.

  “You’ve got multiple skull fractures, I’m afraid,” he says. “In fact, your skull seems to have cracked all over, like an eggshell, so we’ll need to keep you in for a while and make sure nothing sinister’s going on inside.”

  It’s a funny old business, being a worrier. You fret and fret over what-if’s and what-might-have-been’s, but when someone confronts you with something genuinely worth worrying about, you barely react. I feel calmer now than I have since the day Dan walked out. I don’t know why, but maybe being totally powerless to influence anything just makes you roll over and wait to see what happens next. That’s what I do, anyway.

  * * *

  If I have died, then Heaven’s not too bad so far. Not if it involves waking up to find Richard Gere at your bedside, holding your hand.

  I blink the one eye that’s capable of blinking. (The other one seems to be permanently closed, though no one’s offered me a mirror so I’m not sure why.)

  “Hello, you,” says a familiar voice.

  It’s Dan – wearing a full dress uniform, just like the one Richard Gere wears in An Officer and a Gentleman. Now I get what he meant about sweeping me off my feet, though I hope he didn’t intend for that to happen via a 4x4.

  “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, without you getting yourself into trouble, can I?” he says, pressing his lips to the hand he’s holding, while his eyes seem to be either twinkling or watering a bit. It’s hard to tell in the weird half-light of the trauma unit, to which he says I was moved a little while ago. Probably while I was unconscious again.

  “Where’s Joel?” I ask.

  The last thing I remember is him saying, “I love you, Mum,” when we were still in A&E.

  “I sent him home to get changed once the doctors said you were stable,” says Dan. “He was causing too much of a stir with all that face paint on.”

  I try to nod, but give up when I’m almost poleaxed by a sudden increase in the pain in my head. Dan notices my distress and asks a nurse for more pain relief, then turns his attention back to me.

  “I’d have been here sooner if I’d known, but apparently you’ve only got Joel’s number listed under ‘in case of emergency’ in your phone these days,” he says. “If he hadn’t called me while they were moving you from A&E, I still wouldn’t have had a clue what had happened to you.”

  He clamps his lips shut, as if he’d like to say more on that subject but doesn’t dare, and then the nurse arrives with painkillers and a flimsy paper cup of water. Dan looks away while she manoeuvres a straw into my mouth to enable me to drink, and by the time he looks back again, his expression is unreadable.

  I don’t remember deleting his number from where it was stored under the ICE acronym, but I suppose I must have done, maybe when I was in a fury at him for walking out on me. I don’t remember a lot of things at the moment, actually. I just want to sleep, though the nurse seems determined not to allow me to, or not for more than fifteen minutes at a time.

  Every time I doze off, she rouses me and starts asking annoying questions like what date it is and which government’s running the country, for goodness’ sake. I get quite stroppy about it until I realise she’s ascribing that to my head injury, too, instead of to being asked daft questions while overtired. After that, I answer as best as I can each time, then squeeze Dan’s hand and go back to sleep.

  My insomnia seems to have disappeared now he’s sitting next to me, though the Exploding Head Syndrome’s a whole lot worse.

  * * *

  When morning comes, Dan hasn’t moved from his position alongside my bed, though he’s fast asleep in the chair. I lie still and stare at him, until he senses me looking and wakes up.

  “How do you feel?” he asks, rubbing his eyes, then taking hold of my hand again.

  “I’m not sure,” I say, though “Weirdly happy you’re here” would probably sum it up.

  I’m not letting myself think about the fact that, when he does go home eventually, it will be to the house he shares with Bonkers Alice rather than the one he used to share with me. Pretending that’s not the case gets even easier as the next couple of days pass in a haze of tests and further X-rays, all of which Dan insists on being present for.

  He breathes a big sigh of relief when the maxillofacial surgeon says there shouldn’t be any permanent damage to
my sight, as my eye socket looks as if it’s still intact.

  “Why does my mouth hurt so much?” I mumble. It’s like talking through a mouthful of pebbles, and as uncomfortable as that sounds.

  Dan informs me I bit through my lip when my face made contact with the bonnet of the 4x4.

  “The police said you left a perfect imprint of a kiss embedded in the metal,” he adds. “That’s why you’ve got a pout like Pamela Anderson’s at the moment, though she probably paid for hers.”

  I fix him with my one good eye, but he just looks back innocently, so I conclude his reference to Pamela Anderson must have been a coincidence. That’s a relief, as I’ve only just remembered about his date with Pammy. He’s bound to think she stood him up.

  He doesn’t seem too bothered about it, if he does, which is a good job given I’m nowhere near a computer so I can’t send him an email to apologise. Even if I could, I couldn’t, if you see what I mean. I’m not allowed to use any sort of screen until I’m fully over my concussion. I’m also not allowed to use the phone, which is why I have to rely on Joel to tell Pearl what’s happened, and Eva too, though I request that they don’t visit until I’m back at home. I don’t feel like talking much, and anyway, I’m perfectly happy being with Dan – and Joel, who takes over periodically, so Dan can get some sleep.

  Joel’s the one who’s with me when the neurologist appears at the end of my bed late on Sunday afternoon.

  “I was called in for an emergency,” he says, “so I thought I’d pop by and see how you’re feeling while I’m here.”

  Doctors never trust a patient’s judgement, do they? When I say I’m fine, the neurologist double-checks this with the nurse.

  “How’s Mrs Pinkman been doing?” he asks. “Any more signs of confusion since I last examined her?”

  “Not really,” says the nurse. “Though she did say she was in China on one of the occasions when we asked her where she thought she was.”

  * * *

  Joel says me thinking I was in China is “trippy”, but he finally agrees not to tell Dan about it when I say there’s no point worrying people about something that happened in the early stages after the accident, not when I’m making good progress now.

  “Fair enough,” he says, as Dan walks back onto the ward.

  He takes the chair that Joel’s just vacated, then smiles at me. I feel lightheaded when I look back at him, though I’m not sure if that’s the concussion or the relief of him acting like my husband again. It’s a nice feeling, whichever it is, and Dan seems happy about it, too. He spends the evening telling me about his plans for the future, the redundancy that’s now taken place, and a new project that he’s been working on. He won’t tell me what that is, as he wants it to be a surprise, but he does say he’ll be self-employed.

  “So I’ll easily be able to spend time with you while you’re recovering, Han,” he adds. “Then you won’t have to be on your own while Joel’s at work.”

  The mention of work seems to remind him that I’m supposed to be at Halfwits in the morning, though I’ve forgotten about work altogether while I’ve been in hospital. The only time anything Halfwits-related occurred to me at all was when one of the nurses told me that her daughter uses HOO to get other people to do her homework for her.

  “I’ll let your boss know what’s happened,” says Dan, standing up and getting ready to leave for the night. “But is there anyone else I should notify that you’re in hospital? Anyone important?”

  He says important in a very meaningful way, and seems relieved when I say no.

  “When you phone work, though,” I continue, “can you ask to speak to someone called Esther rather than the Fembot, please? Esther’s just been made a manager, so she’ll be keen to be treated like one.”

  Dan agrees but makes no further comment. Instead, he kisses me goodbye, though this time he puts his lips to mine rather than to my undamaged cheek, as he’s been doing up ’til now. It doesn’t seem to hurt at all, so I get him to do it again, to make sure.

  Chapter 55

  I’m going to be allowed home tomorrow and I can’t wait to tell Dan about it. I just wish he’d hurry up. He’s usually here much earlier in the day than this, unless now I’m getting better, the staff are insisting he sticks to designated visiting hours?

  Those are almost over by the time that he finally arrives, bearing a couple of bags containing clothes and toiletries, but he doesn’t answer when I ask why he’s so late.

  “God knows what’s in that bag,” he says. “I told Joel to pack whatever he thought you’d need.”

  “Well, I doubt I’ll have much call for sun cream,” I say, opening the sponge bag first. “Or beard oil, either.”

  Dan doesn’t laugh, and nor does he sit down. He doesn’t take my proffered hand either, not even when I waggle it hopefully in his direction.

  “Work said you’re not to worry about however long you have to be off,” he says, “and they all send you their love. Are you positive there’s no one else I should have contacted?”

  “No,” I say. “No one else.”

  Dan gives me a quizzical look, then turns to leave, even though there are still ten more minutes until visiting time is officially over. I reach out to detain him, then ask if he can drive me home from the hospital tomorrow, but he says he can’t.

  “Can someone else come and get you instead?” he asks. “I’ve got places to go and people to see tomorrow, I’m afraid.”

  “I suppose so,” I say, after a pause during which I try very hard not to cry. I’m not successful, but Dan doesn’t seem to notice the tear that rolls out of my undamaged eye.

  “Sleep well,” he says, and then he walks away.

  He doesn’t kiss me goodbye, he doesn’t look back – and no, I do not sleep well.

  * * *

  “Sorry, Mum,” says Joel when he arrives at the hospital to pick me up in Marlon’s psychedelic camper van. “I know you’d probably have preferred me to order a taxi, but Marlon offered. He’s trying to make it up to me.”

  “Make up for what?” I ask, though I don’t much care.

  I’m too busy worrying about what the hell is wrong with Dan. Has he worked out that I am Pammy? Or has he just remembered that, if he’s in love with either of us, it’s with her, not me?

  “Marlon abandoned a bro for the sake of a woman,” says Joel. “Which is so not cool.”

  He goes on to explain that Marlon got together with someone at Halloween when he and Joel gatecrashed Eva’s birthday party, which is the first I’ve heard of it.

  God knows what would have happened if I’d been at the party dressed as Catwoman to Dan’s Richard Gere and then Joel had turned up. I give a brief lecture on why you shouldn’t go to anything to which you haven’t been invited, and then Joel says he didn’t make it to the party proper, anyway. Apparently, he and Marlon had only just walked into the lobby at Viva Vintage when Joel got the call from the police saying I’d been in an accident.

  “Marlon had to go to the loo while I was still on the phone,” he continues, “so although he knew something had happened to you, I didn’t wait to tell him I was leaving. I just went. Now he’s claiming that he only got off with this woman because he ‘over-celebrated’ when I texted him to say that you weren’t dead. He’s been spending all his free time with her ever since, so he hasn’t used his van for days.”

  Joel wheels me out onto the forecourt of the hospital and gestures at Marlon to drive towards us, while I blink my good eye in a shaft of weak sun. The bad eye still can’t blink, so that just waters.

  “I thought this van was Marlon’s shag-pad,” I say, trying to take an interest in someone other than myself. “So you’d think he’d be using it more, not less, if that’s the case.”

  “It used to be,” says Joel. “But this woman’s got her own place, and Marlon says it’s great. He says she’s great, as well. I don’t know what’s got into him.”

  Whatever it is, Marlon’s looking happy about it. He b
eams at me as he pulls up in the van, and even offers to pull out the bed so I can lie down on the way home, if I like. I refuse and remain upright all the way, though my head’s spinning a bit by the time that we arrive, which could be due to the fact that the van’s psychedelic on the inside as well as the outside. It’s like an abstract representation of my state of mind.

  * * *

  Marlon drives off tooting his horn after Joel helps me out of the van and up the path. He’s still patting his pockets down in search of the keys when the front door opens from inside.

  “Surprise!” says Pearl.

  She hugs me so hard that I wince, then plumps the cushions on the sofa and orders me to sit down. It’s only when I’ve dropped clumsily into a half-prone position that I notice Albert.

  “How are you doing, Hannah, my girl?” he says. “Been in the wars a bit, haven’t you?”

  Kindness is such a bitch. Before I know it, I’m sobbing and hiccuping until my head hurts almost as much as it did on the day of the accident.

  “It’s the shock,” says Pearl to Joel, who’s looking completely freaked out now.

  I try to blow my nose as gently as possible and make a concerted effort to get a grip. It almost works, apart from the odd rogue sob.

  “Shall I phone Dad?” asks Joel, as yet another one escapes.

  I don’t trust my voice, so I just shake my head. If Dan cared about me he’d be here already, wouldn’t he? Everyone else who does is in this room, apart from Eva, and Joel says she’s coming round as soon as she’s finished work, now I’ve lifted my ban on visits by anyone other than him and Dan. Even my Halfwits colleagues seem to care more about me than I thought they did, as there’s a huge bunch of flowers in the middle of the coffee table and a card signed by everyone including Esther, and the Fembot, too.

  “They look nice,” I say, “though that’s a weird scent they’re giving off. It seems to be making my headache worse.”