by Dani Atkins
‘Just for a little while then,’ I conceded. The nurse nodded, clearly pleased. My legs felt stiff and uncoordinated as I walked back down the corridor to the Relatives’ Room, like a displaced refugee, clutching the bedding to my chest.
In the end, all I achieved was seventy-five minutes before the emergency alarm woke me.
Ally
The emergency siren screeched through the silence of the ward, instantly throwing me out of the fitful sleep I’d fallen into. My legs tangled in the blanket that someone (who? one of the nurses?) must have thrown over me as I slept. The vertebrae in my back screamed in protest as I leapt off the hard PVC-covered chairs that I’d pushed together for a makeshift bed. On the other side of the room I saw Charlotte, also scrabbling to her feet. She hadn’t been in here when I’d fallen asleep; she’d been with David.
Through the porthole window I could see a red flashing light blinking on the wall beside the nurses’ station. It bathed the room in an eerie blood-like glow. The alarm in the corridor galvanised us, and after a momentary shared look of panic we both ran to the door. Neither of us stopped to collect our footwear, kicking aside my black leather boots and her red-soled stilettos as we raced for the corridor.
The siren was much louder here. It filled my head, my ears and my heart with dread. It was the stalling engine of the jet plane, the call to man the lifeboats, the announcement to evacuate the building. It was someone’s life hanging in the balance. Charlotte and I hesitated for a millisecond in the doorway, like lemmings with a change of heart. Then she looked to the right and I looked left.
‘Crash trolley!’ yelled a voice from somewhere I couldn’t see.
‘Coming through,’ came the shouted reply.
I heard the sound of wheels and the slapping of feet as a nurse emerged in front of us pushing the drawer unit containing the equipment needed to bring someone back. But who? The nurse thundered past, so close she almost ran over our bare feet in her hurry to reach his room. She was heading right. Charlotte fell into her slipstream and ran behind her. After a moment of hesitation I followed, throwing a grateful look over my shoulder as I ran. The two nurses in Joe’s room stood watching their colleagues swarm to the emergency, before turning back to their own patient.
The crash cart was driven through the doorway at such speed it was a miracle that it didn’t collide with the frame or any of the waiting medics at David’s bedside. We barrelled through the entrance behind it. I could hear snatches of barked-out instructions, none of which sounded intelligible, but thankfully everyone in the room seemed to know what they were doing. Everyone apart from Charlotte and me, that is. One of the nurses was kneeling on the bed, her arms locked as she performed CPR. David’s chest rose and fell, as though he were running, but the movement wasn’t of his making, it was hers. The pillows supporting him had been thrown into the far corner of the room, and David’s head was literally bouncing off the mattress at the nurse’s efforts to bring him back. Yet he gave no sign of being aware of it. A continuous beep and a straight line on the monitor positioned by his bed, told us that he wasn’t.
‘David!’ Charlotte’s cry was almost inhuman. It was an animal in torment, a soul being ripped from its body, a woman witnessing the death of the man she loves. She tried to push her way through the rugby scrum obstacle of doctors and nurses, all the time screaming his name.
‘Charlotte, no!’ I cried, but she was deaf to all sounds. Nothing and no one would stop her from reaching him, especially not me.
‘Get them out of here,’ ordered an extremely harried-looking doctor, glaring angrily at one of the nurses. With a strength it didn’t look like she possessed, the nurse placed her arm across Charlotte’s torso and literally dragged her away from the bed. Charlotte struggled to get free, but the nurse must have doubled as a bouncer in a nightclub, because she knew exactly what she was doing. Charlotte’s arms were outstretched towards her immobile husband as she was pulled from his bedside. Panting from her efforts, the nurse eventually manoeuvred Charlotte back into the corridor. From behind her I could hear commands I recognised. Anyone who has ever watched a medical show on TV would do.
‘Charging.’ ‘Clear.’ There was a loud bleeping sound, followed by a heavy thump, as though a large sack of grain had been thrown from a hay loft.
‘Nothing. Resuming CPR.’
‘Again.’
‘Charging.’
The nurse had positioned herself in the doorway, providing a living, breathing wall Charlotte would have to break through if she wanted to re-enter the room, but the fight had left her. She placed her hands on the glass and pressed her face against it as she watched the team at work.
‘You have to stay out here,’ the nurse explained unnecessarily. ‘You have to give them room to work.’ She looked from Charlotte to me. Charlotte showed no sign of having heard her, so I nodded our agreement.
‘I understand. But please . . .’ the nurse looked at me, waiting for the end of my sentence, ‘. . . please . . . tell them not to stop doing what they’re doing. Tell them not to give up.’
It was a promise she couldn’t make and I had no right to ask it, on a dozen different levels. Charlotte lifted her face from the glass to look at me. Her breath had left a cloudy circle imprint behind, and through the middle of it, trickling slowly down the pane, were tears. She turned back to the room, just as someone within it pulled on a cord, and venetian blinds rattled down like shutters from ceiling to skirting, concealing the raging tug-of-war as the doctors attempted to pull David back into this world and out from the next.
Satisfied that we weren’t about to go barging through the door behind her, the nurse returned to David’s room, leaving the corridor empty except for the two of us. Despite the overheated hospital ward, Charlotte was shivering violently. Shudders ran through her body, as though the storm outside had somehow found a way to permeate the walls of the building and was seeping inside her.
She collapsed into a nearby chair, wrapping her arms around her, like she was trying to prevent something from escaping, or getting in.
‘I’m going to lose him,’ she said, her voice small and defeated.
‘You don’t know that. You can’t.’
Her eyes met mine and then flashed to the closed door of David’s hospital room, daring me to contradict her.
‘David’s strong. He’ll fight back.’
I took the seat beside her, moving it slightly so that I could see the activity from within Joe’s room.
She followed the direction of my gaze. ‘You should be with your husband. With Joe.’
‘In a minute,’ I said quietly. ‘Unless you’d prefer to wait alone?’
I could hear the passage of each passing second on the large-faced clock fixed to the wall before she answered. ‘I’d like you to stay.’
Five small words. They weren’t enough to tear down the wall between us. But they were a start.
Charlotte
Seventeen minutes. That’s how long it took before they brought him back. I died alongside him many times over before the door finally opened and one of the doctors stood in its opening, nodding slowly, and giving a weary smile. Death hadn’t wanted to let David go, and it had been a battle, I could see that.
‘He’s not out of the woods yet . . . but we’ve got him back . . .’ His lips pursed at the end of the sentence, but I already knew the words he had decided not to add. For now.
‘Can I come in? Can I see him?’
‘Just give us a few minutes, then you can, but only for a moment.’
I nodded, wanting to thank him, to thank everyone, but he’d already disappeared back into David’s room. ‘Thank God,’ breathed Ally, and I could hear the genuine relief in her voice and God help me, the feeling was back for a moment, the one that had stalked me for years.
I turned with the suppleness of a geriatric to look at her. There was nothing on her face to suggest the past had stayed with her as vividly as it had with me. I opened my mouth to tell her that
I’d changed my mind; that she didn’t need to wait with me any longer; that she should go to her own husband now. But that wasn’t what came out at all, and I don’t know which one of us was more shocked.
‘David never cheated on you, you know.’
It was clearly the last thing she had expected me to say. Everything seemed to freeze around us, the noise from the ward, the howl of the storm outside, all of it fell away as we looked at each other, alone in the eye of the hurricane we’d created all those years earlier. Ally blinked, her eyes staying shut for a fraction too long; her throat moved, but no words came from it.
‘I know what you think, Ally, what you’ve always thought. But you were wrong.’
When she eventually spoke, there was no bitterness in her voice, just a tired resignation. ‘None of that matters any more. None of it is relevant. Especially not tonight.’
‘You’re wrong. Tonight it matters more than anything.’
‘I don’t agree.’
‘You don’t have to. You just have to listen. You can hate me all you like afterwards . . . but don’t hate him, don’t hate David. He doesn’t deserve that, he never did.’
Charlotte – Eight Years Earlier
‘What do you mean, they broke up? When did that happen?’
The boiling water I was pouring reached the rim of my mug and slowly trickled over the top and onto the work surface.
‘Charlotte!’ cried Pete.
I put the kettle down, my hand trembling slightly.
‘Stand back. Let me do that,’ said Pete, swooping in with a sponge cloth and enough sheets of kitchen roll to entomb a passing Egyptian. I watched him swabbing up my mess, before tipping out the tea and making me a fresh mug. This was pretty much how it had been 24/7 since the night of the attack. I think they were all a little bit envious of David, who’d charged in like Bruce Willis on a mission and rescued me. To compensate, my other three housemates seemed determined to provide me with the kind of protection service even members of the royal family would envy. I would have to say something soon, get them to ease off a bit, especially as the police had now arrested the guy.
But right now my mind was on other things. ‘So when did this happen?’ I asked, lowering myself onto one of the kitchen chairs. ‘How come no one told me?’
‘You’ve kind of had other things on your mind,’ said Pete. He was right. It felt like I’d spent the last week living in a surreal world, where I’d fallen out of my normal life and dropped straight into the middle of a TV crime drama. I’d never even been inside a police station before, but over the last seven days it had started to feel like my second home.
‘So what happened between David and Ally?’ I questioned, trying to keep a neutrality I wasn’t feeling in my voice. ‘Was it his decision, or hers? And why hasn’t he said anything about it to me?’
‘He probably didn’t want to worry you,’ suggested Pete, throwing a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. I really hoped they weren’t for me, because I had suddenly lost my appetite.
‘Why would it worry me?’ I asked, trying to sound indifferent, and failing miserably.
Pete shrugged and began pulling jars out of the cupboard, so I wasn’t able to read the expression on his face as he replied. ‘Because it all seems to have kicked off on the night of your attack. I think Ally was mad at him for getting involved, and then one thing must have led to another and then . . .’ his voice trailed away.
‘And then what?’ I asked, passing him the jar of peanut butter that he was clearly searching for.
‘Dunno,’ Pete replied, his answer lost in the sticky dollop of Sun-Pat’s finest which he’d loaded onto his toast. ‘He says he doesn’t want to talk about it.’
‘He’ll talk to me,’ I vowed quietly.
Except, he wouldn’t. I had to wait until much later that day to finally get David on his own. It had been particularly tricky managing to evade Mike, who took his body-guarding duties even more seriously than the other two.
‘There’s nothing to say,’ David replied, and there was a tight-lipped look on his face that should have told me not to probe any further. But there was no way that was going to happen.
‘Pete said you and Ally rowed.’
‘We always rowed,’ said David wearily. ‘Hadn’t you noticed?’
Deaf, dumb and blind people would have been aware that their relationship was volatile and vocal, but they’d also have been able to see that it was passionate, exciting and loving. And having spent far more time than was good for me watching them closely, I knew that better than anyone.
‘But then you always made up.’
‘Not this time.’
‘Why not?’
David sighed, and ran his hand helplessly through his hair, making him look achingly vulnerable. It made me want to fold him in my arms; it made me want to hold him close and tell him everything was going to be alright. It made me want to kiss him.
I put myself on the other side of the room in case I actually did any of those things. But there was still one question I had to ask.
‘Pete said he thought that you might have rowed about . . .’ my voice became hesitant and unsure, ‘. . . about me?’
David’s head came up and he stared at me with a look I simply couldn’t interpret. ‘You? Why on earth would we have argued about you?’
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ I muttered under my breath as I walked up the narrow pathway. I should be jumping up and down and punching the air in victory now that David was single once more. But instead I was standing in front of Ally’s front door, mentally rehearsing the speech I’d been honing all day. The one that was meant to persuade her to go back to her boyfriend.
I’m sure one of my mother’s analysts could have made a life’s study out of me and my screwed-up feelings of responsibility. I wanted David for myself. I had since the very first day that I’d met him. But not by default. Not like this. I wanted him to look at me, and want me, choose me. And not as his second choice. If he’d made the decision to leave Ally all by himself, that would have been different, but I knew that – intentionally or otherwise – I was partly responsible for the fact that David now looked more miserable than I’d ever seen him look before. And I was determined to be the bigger person here and try to fix that.
I heard the rattle of the security chain behind the door, and stood a little straighter and held my breath. I didn’t recognise the girl who opened the door. But she seemed to know who I was. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed in her beautiful face and my mind scrambled a barrage of memory cells in search of her name.
‘Hello. It’s Ling, isn’t it?’ Her eyes narrowed even further. If she does that any more she won’t be able to see me at all, I thought, a nervous giggle threatening to escape.
Ally’s housemate nodded tersely. ‘What do you want?’ she questioned sharply. ‘I’m just on my way out.’
I looked down at her feet in their pink fluffy slipper socks and the baggy jogging bottoms she was wearing. Somehow I didn’t think she was telling the truth. ‘I won’t keep you. Would you mind telling Ally that Charlotte is here?’ I asked, calling on every ounce of the politeness that had been drummed into me, in order to keep my voice pleasant.
‘I can’t do that.’
Can’t or won’t? ‘This won’t take long. I just want a quick word with her. I’m a friend.’ The look Ally’s housemate gave me told me that we both knew that wasn’t entirely true. Well, not any more.
‘I can’t tell her, because she’s not here. I already explained that to David. What is it with you lot?’
She had thrown me off my prepared speech by revealing that, far from being indifferent, David had actually been here before me. I felt my confidence beginning to waver.
‘Ally Is. Not. Here. She. Has. Gone. Home,’ Ling said, enunciating each word, as though I was a very annoying foreigner.
‘Oh. Okay, thank you, I—’ but I was already talking to the door knocker. Ling had gone.
We all tried to persuade him, but David was adamant, he was not going to go to the Snowflake Ball. He was as stubborn and intractable as a block of concrete. There was no moving him when his mind was set. In fact, the only person I’d ever met who could be that obstinate was Ally. It was little wonder that they’d reached a frozen impasse where neither of them could play their way out of the stalemate they’d created.
Not my problem, I thought, spraying a spritz of perfume at my throat and in the hollow of my cleavage. Let it go. I studied my reflection in the mirror, blinking as the silver sequins covering the gown flared like a thousand tiny flash bulbs as I turned under the light to examine my dress from all angles. It was a little over-the-top for a student ball, more of a red-carpet sort of a gown. Bought from a designer collection seen on a catwalk, my mother still had no idea that I’d rather have had something ten times cheaper, which we’d actually shopped for together. I shook my head, refusing to allow myself to be dragged down tonight by the things in life I didn’t have.
The guys were dressed and ready, with two rounds of tequila shots already under their belts when I joined them. They whistled appreciatively when I walked into the room, and I made some silly comment about how well they’d all scrubbed up, as I took the tiny glass Mike held out to me.
‘When’s the taxi coming?’ I queried.
‘Any minute now,’ said Pete, checking his watch.
‘Has anyone seen David? Does he know we’re leaving soon?’ I asked, trying to sound nonchalant and indifferent. Mike gave me a strange little look, so I guessed that was a fail.
‘He’s in his room. I heard music playing, but he’s not going to change his mind. Not now.’
I shrugged and slipped my arms into my coat which Andrew was holding out for me. Who needs a boyfriend, I thought. I was the lucky Cinderella who got to go to the ball with three Prince Charmings. How many girls could say that?
‘Taxi’s here,’ said Pete, pulling back the curtains and spotting the vehicle idling at the kerbside. We tumbled into the hallway in a jostling huddle and had already opened the front door when the soft pound of footsteps made us turn around. David was lightly descending the stairs, dressed in an immaculate dinner suit. The crisp white of his evening shirt made the tan of his skin look even warmer, and his vivid blue eyes sparkled as bright as cobalt.