by Dani Atkins
‘My parents were in Scotland,’ I breathed, so softly that I don’t think Joe heard me.
‘And my mum and dad just couldn’t stop smiling. I’ve never seen them look so happy. They even brought Todd with them, do you remember?’
‘Todd? Who is Todd?’ My voice was a ghost, full of fear.
‘My dog, of course,’ Joe replied, although the certainty in his voice wavered as he saw my face. ‘My dog . . . he went through the ice . . . is he alright?’
I jumped off the bed. ‘I have to get someone,’ I said, already rushing from the room. I threw one last terrified look at the man who had come back to me, and was now slipping away once more. The hallway was empty. Someone should already have come hurrying when I’d pressed the call button, and I had no idea why they hadn’t.
‘I need some help here,’ I cried out in the empty corridor. ‘I need a doctor. Now!’ I didn’t care if I was overreacting, I thought, as I ran towards the nurses’ station. They could tell me off for making a fuss after they’d examined Joe. I reached the desk, which was lit with a small downward-angled desk lamp. There was a cup of tea still steaming beside it, but no one there to drink it. I ran behind the desk and pounded on the door where I had seen the nurses congregate earlier. Were they having some sort of meeting? Why hadn’t they answered the emergency call, or come when I screamed for help?
I didn’t bother waiting for a reply and flung open the door. The room was empty.
I could hear the hitch of panic tagging on to every breath as I ran back into the corridor. There was only one place everyone could be. Because there was only one other patient on the unit that night. Everyone had to be in David’s room.
It felt as though I was running through thick syrup as I sprinted down the hallway, my bare feet making small slapping sounds on the linoleum. I glanced at the Relatives’ Room as I raced past, but it was empty. Of course, Charlotte would be at David’s bedside. I screeched to a halt outside his room. The ceiling to floor blinds were still pulled down. I didn’t even bother knocking this time. I burst through the door and straight into a nightmare. The room was empty. Not just of people, but of everything. The walls were bare, there was no bed, no medical equipment, nothing. It was all gone.
I stood in the middle of the floor, and heard the door slam shut behind me. I raced back to it, but as hard as I tried I couldn’t open it. It was locked.
‘Joe,’ I screamed, desperate to alert him that I was still there, that I hadn’t abandoned him. Hot tears were coursing down my face. ‘Joe! Joe! Joe!’
A hand was on my shoulder, gently shaking me. I could feel the scratchy hospital blanket beneath my cheek, only it was wet, completely sodden with the tears I had silently been crying in my dream.
‘Is she alright?’ asked a voice I recognised, weighed down with a degree of concern that I didn’t recognise in it at all.
‘Aye, she was just having a wee nightmare, that’s all.’
I didn’t want to raise my head. I didn’t want to look up. And I didn’t want to look at Joe, because I knew what I’d see there, and I didn’t think my heart was strong enough to take it. But I looked. Of course I did. I had to. His eyes were once more taped shut, his arms were motionless at his sides and the only sound was the soft hiss of the machinery breathing for him, because he still couldn’t do that for himself.
Charlotte
I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how solid the bridges we’d been building were beneath us. Were they strong enough to hold me? I took a tentative step forward and rested my hand lightly on her shoulder. It said I’m here; it said I know what you’re going through; it said, Keep strong. Ally turned her head; her eyes were over-bright with tears, which spilled as she blinked.
‘I came to find you,’ I said unnecessarily. Ally nodded, understanding there was so much more behind those five words than either of us was capable of expressing properly.
‘How’s David?’
I gave a small, lost shrug. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think they know. They’re expecting the cardiologist any time now.’ I bit my lip, before continuing. ‘I don’t think that can be a good sign. They don’t drag those guys out in the middle of the night for nothing.’
Ally’s face was a perfect mirror reflection of my own fears.
‘So, this is Joe,’ I said, striving to make my voice sound as though this wasn’t the most bizarre way of meeting the man who Ally had turned to, after she’d finished with mine. He actually looked very nice – well, as much as you can tell from someone who is completely unconscious. He looked strong and capable, and I imagined he had one of those faces that turned unexpectedly and amazingly good-looking the moment he smiled. There were grooves running like fantails from the corners of his closed eyes. This man did a lot of smiling. He was happy, they both were, and something inside me broke free and took flight, and it felt good and somehow sort of right. It felt that there was a reason we were all here tonight in this place. There was healing to be done, and I didn’t mean by the doctors or nurses, but by us. And it was happening right now. I wondered if Ally could feel it too.
The aura in Joe’s room was different to David’s. I wasn’t really a spiritual sort of person, but the yin and yang symmetry couldn’t be denied. In David’s room the battle was full-on and aggressive. Joe was in the same fight, that much was obvious by the gravity of his condition, it was just being staged much more quietly, that’s all.
My eye travelled the room and settled on the one thing that looked totally out of place within it. There was a small cuddly toy lion propped up in the blanket valley between Joe’s feet. I saw Ally stiffen slightly as she caught me looking at it.
‘Lucky mascot?’ I hazarded.
Ally looked uncertain, although I had no idea why. ‘It’s . . . it’s not his.’
I nodded. ‘Does it belong to your child?’
Ally’s emerald green eyes widened in surprise, and I realised then that she probably didn’t think I knew she and Joe had children. I’d always wondered if she’d recognised me that day. I guess she hadn’t.
Charlotte – Four Years Earlier
The winter sun was low, and despite pulling the sun visor down, I still had to reach for my sunglasses in the glovebox. I was smiling as I slid them in place, in fact I’d pretty much been smiling for the last forty-five minutes, ever since I’d walked away from the restaurant. I’d virtually had to squash a childish desire to skip in my high heels over to my parked car, which certainly wouldn’t have been the right impression to make, had the clients still been watching me. But I could probably be forgiven, because it’s not every day you clinch the biggest deal you’ve ever brokered, right out from under the noses of the rest of the competition. It was the sort of deal that elevated you out of the baby pool and let you swim with the big boys.
I glanced down at the caramel-coloured leather briefcase on the passenger seat, and patted it with satisfaction, my fingers grazing over the discreet C.W. embossed in the corner. It had been a gift from David, to bring me luck, he had said. And it had certainly done that, although the signed contract within it wasn’t my victory alone. Tomorrow I would celebrate with the small team of employees who had worked without complaint long into the evenings with me to make this happen. And tonight . . . I let my hand skim over the bottle of champagne laying beside the briefcase . . . tonight I would celebrate with my husband.
David had been behind me all the way, encouraging and supporting me. Telling me I could achieve anything I wanted in life, all I had to do was believe. I felt my good mood begin to slip slightly as a critical voice (which incidentally sounded disturbingly like my mother’s) whispered in my mind that sometimes just believing wasn’t always enough. I shook my head, feeling the swish of my newly styled blonde hair swing and fall back into place, as I blocked that thought from slithering in like a serpent. No more of that. Not today.
I didn’t know the town I was driving through, but I trusted the sat nav to get me home in enough time to be waiting with two chi
lled glasses of vintage champagne when David walked through the door. Perhaps I would wear that dress he liked so much, I remember thinking, as I followed the automated voice when it instructed me to take the next turning. Or perhaps I wouldn’t wear anything at all . . . I was still smiling at the thought when the traffic lights at the pedestrian crossing ahead of me changed from green to amber. My foot pressed slowly down on the brake, my mind still on the evening ahead. I noticed the scene around me peripherally, the way you do when you’re driving. There was a funfair set up in a large park on the left-hand side of the road, and there were three figures at the crossing opposite its entrance, waiting for the signal to change. I could see two adults, both clasping the hand of a small child who was three or maybe four years of age – like most people without children, I wasn’t that good at judging age. I remember the child was holding a balloon on a stick, grasped within their hand, and I even recall noting the familiar logo of a high-street bank etched on the bobbing balloon.
It’s the sort of memory that should be instantly logged and then dismissed by your subconscious, and I have no idea why this didn’t happen. It was almost as though some inner part of me already knew that I should be paying closer attention. The day was bright, but cold, and the child was well wrapped up in a thick quilted coat, with the hood pulled up to cover its head. The child’s mother wore no such coat, and it was her hair I saw first. It was blowing behind her, like the long chestnut mane of a thoroughbred. I remember thinking it was suddenly uncomfortably warm inside my perfectly air-conditioned car. It wasn’t her, of course it wasn’t. Lots of women had hair that shade, that length. And anyway I hadn’t seen her for four years and she could have cut it, or dyed it, or anything. It was just a passing resemblance, that’s all.
I saw her bend down to say something to the child, then the man looked at her and she laughed, turning towards him . . . and me. She looked the same – and entirely different – as she had done the last time I had seen her. Ally had always been beautiful, even though she truly had never seemed to realise it. But now, smiling up at the man beside her, who I could only assume was her husband, and holding tightly on to the hand of the small child between them, she looked radiant and complete.
Everything that was missing from my own life was there on her face. She wore it casually and carelessly, not realising she had possession of all that I dreamed about. She hadn’t stolen it from me. What she had was her own, but I wanted it. Well, not that child or that man, but I wanted what she now had. I wanted it with David.
I heard the beep of the signal alerting them that it was safe to cross. I could feel my right foot trembling on the brake pedal, as I stared at the trio as they stepped from the kerb. The man turned my way, and raised his hand in thanks. My own hands gripped the steering wheel with such intensity, I left tiny fingernail indents on the leather trim. They walked in jaunty strides, lifting the child off its feet and swinging him in a series of bouncing leaps across the striped zebra beneath them. They were almost at the other side of the road, almost gone, when the woman turned back towards my car and lifted her arm to add her thanks to her husband’s.
The smile I remembered so well froze a little and a small frown furrowed her brow. Was she just dazzled by the sun, or had she seen it was me? I pressed myself further back against the thick padding of the driver’s seat, trying to sink from view. She was ten metres or more from me, the sun was in her eyes and I was behind a tinted windscreen and wearing sunglasses. The chances of her having recognised me were so slight they were hardly worth considering.
I had almost convinced myself that Ally had no idea of the identity of the driver in the shiny blue car at the crossing. Except, as they mounted the pavement, and the child between them tugged them impatiently towards the funfair, I saw her in my rear-view mirror, staring after my car as I drove away.
Ally – Four Years Earlier
It couldn’t have been her. Of course it wasn’t her. The hair was wrong for a start. And of course, it was totally unlikely that she’d had a haircut in the last four years, taunted a voice in my head. She and David didn’t live anywhere near here. And you know that, how? The car didn’t look like something she’d choose to drive. You do realise you’re grasping at straws here?
‘Ally? What do you think?’
I came back to the present with a jolt, to my husband patiently waiting for me to tear my eyes away from the now empty road, and my small son, who was trying his three-year-old best to pull my arm out of its socket in his eagerness to reach the funfair entrance.
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
Joe smiled as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. ‘I said, how about we go out for dinner after the fair? All three of us. We ought to celebrate.’
I felt something inside me melt at the expression on his face, which in its own way was almost as excited as the one our son Jake was wearing. Just for a very different reason. He hadn’t been sure how things would go at the bank that morning, but I’d never been in any doubt. It was a good business plan; he’d worked hard on it. It deserved to succeed.
‘That loan isn’t going to last us very long if we blow it all on fancy dinners.’
‘I think Jake would probably prefer burger and fries to filet mignon, to be fair,’ Joe teased, pulling the bright red hood back and ruffling our little boy’s thick, dark hair affectionately. ‘What do you say, kiddo, shall we have a rest from Mummy’s cooking tonight?’
‘Yes please, Daddy,’ enthused my son, in a way that wasn’t entirely complimentary to my culinary skills, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered today. Today was a special day, and I wasn’t going to let some silly random sighting of someone who probably wasn’t even her upset me. Charlotte had no power to hurt me, not any more. Thanks to Joe and the life we’d built together, I was finally fireproof. But that didn’t stop the terrifying thought from intruding: Just what would I have done if it had been her, and she’d stopped the car and got out?
Charlotte
‘Does it belong to your child?’
Ally took a surprisingly long time to answer, and before replying she curled her fingers into the fur of the cuddly toy, as though just touching it earthed her in some way. ‘Yes. Yes, it does. It’s our son’s.’
The nightmare – whatever it had been about – had clearly rattled her far more than she’d let on. Everything about her seemed suddenly nervous and jittery, as though the threads holding her together had slowly begun to shred, filament by filament. It made me think of a string of small lustrous pearls slowly falling like white rain from a broken strand.
‘Do you and David . . .’ Ally’s voice faltered, as though some intuition had warned her my answer could hurt someone. But who, her or me? ‘Do you have children?’ she finished.
It was almost as though she knew. But how could she? Even our closest friends had no idea. I never spoke of it. I wanted no one’s sympathy or compassion. I hid my infertility as though it were a guilty secret. But there were clues, if you looked closely enough. I overcompensated. A lot. The largest bouquet in the maternity ward? That was the one I’d sent. My name was on the gift tag of the ridiculously oversized teddy, or the expensive designer baby outfit. I was careful to let no one but David see how a little piece of me died each time someone we knew said: ‘We have some really exciting news . . .’
Ally had fed me my cue. My answer was practised and convincing, I must have said it fifty times or more. But when I opened my mouth, the excuses about careers, travel, timing and lifestyle all stuck in my throat, like an obstruction I might choke on.
‘Actually, we . . . we can’t have children. Or rather I can’t.’ If anyone had told me that I would reveal this for the first time, to the woman my husband had loved before me, on the night when there was a very real danger I could lose him for ever, I would have called them crazy. I was practically placing a dagger in my enemy’s hand and asking them to slice me with it.
Ally stared at me for a very, very long time before
saying quietly, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Charlotte. Really, I am.’ I didn’t doubt for a minute that she was sincere, I could see it in her eyes. She reached for Joe’s motionless hand and wove her fingers through his. ‘You know, they’ve told me it might help bring him back if I talk about our happiest memories, remind him of all the good times, and practically every single one of those involves Jake.’
I nodded, as though I understood, but I had only an outsider’s knowledge of what she was talking about. I knew as much as anyone could glean from peering through a crack in the curtains of a play for which they’d failed the audition.
‘Jake. That’s a nice name,’ I commented.
And that was the moment when it happened. Ally leaped to her feet so abruptly, her chair would have crashed to the floor if I hadn’t reached out to catch it. She didn’t even seem to notice. Her eyes were bright but a little unfocused, and although she was staring in my direction, I got the impression she was looking right through me.
‘I have to go out . . . somewhere. Have you seen my bag?’
I glanced around the room, my eye meeting the curious gaze of the nurse on duty. She gave a small shrug, but her expression said it wasn’t her place to dissuade her patient’s wife from leaving the hospital. Well, I didn’t think it was exactly mine either.
‘Ally it’s the middle of the night. Where could you possibly need to go at this hour?’
‘Just out,’ Ally replied mysteriously. Clearly she had no intention of sharing her secret with me. Which was hardly surprising, seeing as a couple of hours ago we hadn’t even been on speaking terms.
Ally had dropped to a crouch and was looking beneath Joe’s bed, presumably for her missing handbag.
‘You probably left it in the Relatives’ Room,’ I suggested, remembering our frantic dash from there when the alarm had sounded for David. Ally gave a sharp nod of agreement, and I could practically see a plan evolving behind her eyes, and whatever it involved I could tell there would be no deterring her from it. None of my business, I told myself. Nevertheless when she headed for the door, I followed. She went straight to the place where her coat was bundled on the seat, thrusting her arms crazily into its sleeves, like a lunatic leaping into a straitjacket. The analogy was no exaggeration, because there was a kind of mania to the way she was acting. I didn’t think she would listen to me, but it was worth one last try.