The Goodbye Gift

by Amanda Brooke

  ‘If that’s the advice you’re giving her then I’m more worried than I was before. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s followed your example and headed straight into trouble.’

  Her friend had a point so Helen hadn’t argued. ‘She’s actually admitted she envies me. God knows why!’

  ‘Do you think she’d deliberately get pregnant?’

  ‘Personally, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to get pregnant, but I suppose she might be daft enough not to avoid it, if you know what I mean. She wants a family, one that doesn’t just include her nan.’

  Julia had shaken her head. ‘But not everyone’s like John,’ she had said and before Helen could make some derisive remark about her husband, she added, ‘If we stand back and let Phoebe get involved with this bloke, then what happens if, or should I say when, things go wrong? Would the life-model-cum-stalker hang around once there was a baby on the scene, or would he already be looking for his next conquest?’

  ‘He probably thinks baby oil was only invented for rubbing on his chest.’

  ‘Then we have to stop Phoebe from making a huge mistake.’

  ‘Will you speak to her?’ Helen had asked. It was the reason she had confided in Julia in the first place.

  ‘She was nine years old the last time I saw her – she’s hardly going to listen to me. No, what you need to do is speak to this Paul and put him off – tell him she doesn’t want to see him.’

  ‘I can’t do that! What if Phoebe found out?’

  ‘Then we tell her how we did it for her own good. Look, once he’s out of the way we’ll all go out together. I’ll take Phoebe under my wing and convince her to go back to college and make something of her talents. By the time she finds out, if she ever does, she’ll be a successful artist and will thank us for it!’

  Helen didn’t have to look at Phoebe now to know that there wasn’t so much as a hint of gratitude showing in her face – not that she could bring herself to look at her.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Julia said when she noticed Helen staring into space.

  ‘Go on,’ Helen replied cautiously.

  ‘You’re already wondering what it’s going to be like when the baby comes.’

  ‘Well, obviously you are,’ Helen said and tried to give Julia her best smile, which she briefly directed at Phoebe. Even someone as cold-hearted as Helen could appreciate how painful it was going to be for Phoebe to sit there and listen to endless baby talk.

  As they chatted, Phoebe did try to engage in the conversation but it was obvious, to Helen at least, that she was struggling. Julia was carrying Paul’s baby and already looking forward to its birth. Had Phoebe briefly done the same before her nan had told her what needed to be done?

  ‘I can’t wait to tell Paul,’ Julia was saying.

  ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how he’ll react,’ Phoebe said, a little too honestly.

  ‘I can. In fact, I can’t think of anything else,’ Julia said. ‘He’s been in such a dark place lately and this is going to be like an explosion of light hitting him between the eyes. I can picture the exact expression he’ll have on his face.’ She broke into a soft laugh. ‘Everything else is behind us now. There’s only the future.’

  ‘I should think Milly’s going to be ecstatic too,’ Phoebe offered in an awkward attempt to move the focus away from Paul.

  ‘Ooh, I never thought of that,’ Julia said. There was a look of unrepressed joy on her face as the news kept getting better. ‘If there was any remaining doubt in her mind about staying with you, Helen, then this has to be the clincher.’

  Thinking of the good times ahead, Helen willed herself to believe that there was a chance they could all right themselves, and then Julia’s phone beeped. It was a message from Paul to let her know he was waiting in a pick-up bay.

  ‘Come on, let’s put him out of his misery,’ Julia said.

  Phoebe moved quickly but only to grab Julia’s hand luggage. ‘I’ll take that,’ she said.

  Julia didn’t argue and Helen struggled to keep up with her as they hurried out of the station with Phoebe trailing behind.

  ‘There he is!’ Julia said.

  Paul was standing next to the car, his head down and his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a condemned man. It was a poignant reminder of Paul’s adultery and the warm fuzzy feeling that had been insulating Helen from darker thoughts began to cool until she couldn’t feel it any more. It was impossible to escape the fact that Paul and Phoebe had betrayed someone who loved and trusted them and that Julia’s life was at risk of being torn apart just when she was coming so close to getting her heart’s desire.

  Taking Julia’s suitcase, Paul deliberately avoided making eye contact. ‘Don’t you want to ask what’s going on?’ she asked, momentarily taken aback by her husband’s continued silence. It was his expression that gave away his guilt and Julia stopped looking confused and began looking fearful. Before he could answer her, she blurted, ‘Let’s get in the car first.’

  As she disappeared to the front of the car, Helen handed Paul her suitcase. She wasn’t sure if she was angrier at him for sleeping with Phoebe or for being such a terrible liar. ‘You fucking idiot,’ she said under her breath.

  Phoebe had arrived just in time to hear the exchange and Paul glared at her. In a low growl, he asked, ‘Why, Phoebe? We said it meant nothing. Why tell her now?’

  ‘I didn’t—’ Phoebe started but then stopped, colour draining from her face as she looked over Paul’s shoulder. Julia was standing behind him.

  ‘I wanted the water bottle from my bag,’ she managed to say, her voice hollow. She was staring at Paul.

  ‘I’m sorry, Julia. I’m so sorry,’ he said.

  No one spoke another word as they forced the rest of the luggage into every available space before squeezing themselves into the overcrowded Beetle. It was probably a good thing that Julia and Paul were sitting up front so they couldn’t see the tears slipping down Phoebe’s face. If Helen had had more time to think she would have refused the lift and insisted that she and Phoebe take the train home to give Julia and Paul some space. It was too late now; they were all trapped in the car, wishing they were somewhere else.

  Once they hit the motorway, the silence in the car became as taut as a band stretched to breaking point. The traffic was heavy but moving, and although Paul had to weave across lanes once in a while, there was nothing else to occupy his mind other than the thickening atmosphere.

  ‘Julia,’ he said, ‘please say something.’

  ‘I’m not sure I have anything to say, Paul,’ she answered faintly. ‘Not any more.’

  Paul kept looking at his wife with only one eye on the road while Julia stared straight ahead. Phoebe let out a brief sob until Helen silenced her with a glare and neither of them noticed the swarm of red brake lights appearing up ahead, or the tanker that had begun to jackknife. It was Julia who saw what was about to happen first and she let out a scream. Two cars closest to the tanker had no time to react and took the full impact of the collision as Paul turned the car violently to the left. Time slowed as they swerved to avoid the carnage and there was a split second when Helen thought they were safe. But then she saw a minibus spinning out of control and a moment later the world went dark.

  34

  Now

  Phoebe had moved to the edge of her hospital bed so she could watch over Julia. Her friend had her eyes closed and her face was held in a constant grimace.

  ‘Do you want me to get the nurse?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’m sure she’ll get to me when she can. They’re busy enough as it is.’

  ‘She said she’d be five minutes but that was over half an hour ago. You’re in pain, aren’t you?’

  Julia gritted her teeth but left it to Phoebe’s imagination to work out how much pain she was in, not all of which had to do with her injuries but rather the agony her husband and best friend had put her through.

  ‘I’m going to find that bloody reg
istrar.’

  ‘Find Paul while you’re at it,’ Julia said.

  ‘He was right, you know, about it not meaning anything. We were both trying to get back what we’d lost all those years ago and we realized too late that we were chasing something that never really existed. Paul and me were meant to be friends, that was all, and I’m so sorry I let things get as far as they did to find that out. It’s no excuse but I think all this focus on having babies messed up my emotions too.’

  Rather than agree or accept Phoebe’s version of events, Julia simply said, ‘Bring him back to me.’

  Phoebe’s hospital gown gaped open at the back and her feet were bare, but it was the site of the keyhole surgery on her left side that made her progress out of the ward tentative. Her legs trembled as she held onto her drip stand and the pain was so intense that it left her short of breath, but she pushed on. Anything was better than lying in the bed next to Julia, waiting for her friend to be strong enough to think about her future and decide if Phoebe deserved a place in it.

  Helen had already made her feelings known on that score but right now Phoebe was more concerned about her surviving than she was about their friendship. She feared for Milly too. Phoebe knew what it was like to lose a mum at a young age and while Milly would be looked after, Helen’s loss would create a fault line that would change the landscape of her daughter’s life forever.

  Reaching the corridor, Phoebe found the nurses’ station deserted and briefly considered whether or not she could carry on all the way to the Critical Care Unit, even with a gaping hole in the back of her gown. But Julia still needed pain relief and at that moment a visitor’s chair looked particularly inviting. She had just sat down when Anya appeared. Phoebe was surprised when the nurse didn’t immediately order her back to bed but continued slowly and silently down the corridor towards her.

  ‘Julia’s in a lot of pain,’ Phoebe said.

  Anya’s only response was to sit down next to her patient. She took hold of Phoebe’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ she said.

  The taxi was waiting and the time for arguments was over. Lucy had been right not to let her parents see them off at the airport: standing at the door hugging her mum one last time was literally heart-wrenching but at least it was in the privacy of their own home.

  Mrs Cunliffe showed no signs of releasing her and looked over her shoulder to her other daughter. ‘You look after her.’

  ‘I will,’ Hayley said with the same catch of emotion that had made her mum’s words tremble. ‘Now can we please get going before the taxi leaves without us?’

  The moment her mum let her go, Lucy was already missing her and couldn’t bring herself to move away. They needed to take one last look at each other.

  ‘Come back to me,’ her mum said.

  Lucy could only nod as she hurried to leave the house before the dam of tears burst through her resolve. She was aware that she was being watched as she and her sister loaded up the taxi, or to be more precise, when Lucy looked on while Hayley and the cab driver transferred the suitcases from the doorstep to the boot. She was shivering against the biting February wind and dared to turn back only briefly to wave at her mum one last time before getting into the back of the cab.

  ‘I thought you might want to keep hold of this,’ Hayley said before getting in beside her. She was holding the small shoulder bag Lucy had left with her luggage that held her passport and holiday money.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I better had.’

  Hayley put it to her ear before handing it over. ‘Your phone’s beeping.’

  ‘It’ll probably be a message from Dad wishing us luck,’ Lucy said, although she suspected his message would be more along the lines of: please don’t do this to your mother.

  When she checked her phone, there was a missed call and a text message, neither of which were from her dad.

  ‘Oh. My. God!’ Hayley said as she peered over Lucy’s shoulder to read the message she had opened.

  ‘John Lennon Airport is it, love?’ the cab driver asked.

  Rather than answer, Lucy continued to stare in disbelief at the text message.

  ‘What the—?’ the driver said as he spotted Mrs Cunliffe racing out of the house with a phone pressed against her ear. With more drama than was entirely necessary, she threw herself in front of the stationary vehicle for fear of it speeding off. The driver took his hands off the wheel and held them up in surrender.

  The car door opened and Mrs Cunliffe crouched down in front of Lucy who immediately grabbed hold of her hand. ‘Mum? Is it really happening?’ she asked and then burst into tears.

  ‘The transplant nurse was afraid you’d already left. Look, it’s not definite, it might come to nothing …’ Lucy’s mum stopped and tried to smile but she too let out a sob. ‘Someone somewhere still needs to make a very difficult decision. God bless them, but I hope they know your life is in their hands.’

  35

  The only windows in the room faced inwards and gave no clue as to what might be happening beyond the clinical confines of the hospital. Julia had no idea of the time but she guessed that in another version of her life, she and her friends would be spending their second day in London indulging in some beauty treatment or other. Instead, she had been caught up in a warped version of reality that she was struggling to make sense of. She was sitting in a wheelchair with one leg sticking straight out in front of her, but at least she had dispensed with the need for a drip stand. She was on oral meds, having done everything the registrar had asked of her just so she could get here – even though it was the last place she wanted to be.

  She wished she had stayed on the train yesterday, but then she wished for so many things. She wished she had taken the pregnancy test before leaving the house, or that she had simply left it until they had travelled too far for Paul to be able to pick them up. She wished she had phoned and told him the news instead of insisting it had to be in person. Perhaps if she had given him even the subtlest hint about what was happening, that it was good news she was about to impart rather than an accusation, then maybe …

  As she released a sigh, Julia tried to let go of all those ‘what if’s’ but they clung to her like leeches, draining her spirit and dragging her down into a dark world. There was only one person in her life who would be strong enough to pull her to safety, but he couldn’t reach her, nor she him, even though he was lying in a hospital bed only feet away.

  Paul had been taken to A & E along with the rest of them and it had appeared that he had walked away with only minor injuries. The minibus had hit the passenger side of the Beetle and Helen and Julia had taken the brunt of the impact. Once Paul’s minor wounds had been dressed he had refused further treatment or tests and had become one of the many walking wounded who had remained in the hospital to be close to loved ones. By the time Julia had seen him the following day he had seemed fine. Or at least he had looked fine.

  But now Julia could hear Paul’s life force ebbing away, released with a hiss at regular intervals as the ventilator kept her husband’s chest rising and falling. She stared long and hard as she tried to make sense of what she was being forced to witness.

  ‘It looks just like he’s sleeping,’ she said.

  A hand rested gently on her shoulder.

  ‘I know,’ Anya replied.

  Julia’s eyes were red and swollen but her tears had dried, leaving her skin feeling itchy and tight. She shook her head. ‘What do I do now?’

  The doctor had told Julia much of what she needed to know, giving her the salient facts about Paul’s condition and his prognosis. She could recall everything she had been told; she simply couldn’t process that information. Her mind was pulling her towards the safety of an emotional vacuum and she had no reason to fight it, there was nothing she could do to save him.

  ‘Would you like me to go through it again with you?’ Anya asked.

  Julia wouldn’t take her eyes from Paul. ‘We’re going to have a baby,
’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  Julia smiled. ‘You must know more than you want to by now. Goodness knows what you think of us all.’

  ‘I think you care very deeply for each other and, if I’m not mistaken, I’d say you’re the one who looks after everyone. You’ve been the strong one, Julia,’ Anya told her. ‘And now you’re going to have to be stronger than you ever thought possible, for you, your husband and your baby. But I promise you, I’m going to be here for you every step of the way.’

  ‘Don’t you ever go home?’ Julia asked, keeping the conversation light as if it wasn’t a life-and-death decision she were about to make.

  ‘I’m going to stay as long as you want me to, but first there are some decisions you need to make. I know this is impossibly hard for you, Julia, but you do need to think about what’s going to happen next.’

  Julia nodded, but then in a contradiction of everything the doctors had told her, she said, ‘He’s going to come back to me, Anya. He’s strong. He can do it.’

  The nurse’s reply was spoken gently but her words were brutal. ‘No, Julia. I’m sorry, but he’s not. The brain haemorrhage was catastrophic and it’s only the machines that are keeping your husband alive. His body is a shell.’ She left a pause, as if that bitter blow had left her breathless too. ‘The tests the doctors have now performed twice confirm brain stem death. I wish it could be different but he won’t be coming back to you.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ Julia cried. ‘The doctors don’t know him like I do. They said we wouldn’t be able to conceive naturally but Paul proved them wrong. And if he did it once, he can do it again. He will do it again!’

  Julia knew she was being delusional, but she had to have one last chance to make things right between her and Paul because the alternative was unthinkable. If only she could go back in time! ‘I should have told him. I shouldn’t have been so pig-headed and made you all keep it a secret,’ she said. ‘This morning when he came onto the ward and tried to talk to me I knew he was in agony, that he was sorry for what he’d done, and I believed him when he said he loved me. He would have been so happy if he’d known I was pregnant, feeling twice as guilty but deliriously happy. Only I wanted him to suffer. If I’d known time was running out …’