by Lulu Taylor
A few minutes later, the door opened and Sally came in, well wrapped up in an overcoat and untying a scarf.
‘Ah, what joy,’ Johnnie said under his breath, then more jovially, ‘Hello, Sally.’
Sally didn’t reply, going straight to David’s bedside to take his other hand while gazing mournfully at his face. ‘Good morning, my darling. I haven’t slept a wink thinking about you. I don’t want you to worry, I was fine driving myself in to the hospital even though I was feeling so dazed and exhausted.’
‘Oh Sally,’ Alex said at once, contrite, ‘you should have said, I could have picked you up.’
‘Please, it’s fine.’ Sally held up a hand and smiled mournfully. ‘I’m perfectly all right. I may have to get used to looking after myself a little bit more.’ Her blue eyes filled with tears. Despite her state, she was still immaculately turned out, her hair blown out into its usual silvery-blonde frosted cloud, her eyelashes spiky with blue mascara and rimmed in blue eyeliner, and her lips shining candy pink. ‘Where is that consultant? Honestly! Johnnie, go out and ask for me, will you?’
Johnnie got slowly to his feet and went out into the corridor to the nurses’ station. As soon as he’d gone, Sally turned to Alex.
‘How long is he staying?’
‘As long as Pa needs him.’
‘He doesn’t need him, dear. What bothers me is the energy Johnnie is bringing into the room. It’s very negative. I think David can sense it. It’s making me awfully uneasy.’ Sally’s lashes fluttered and her lips trembled. ‘Quite upset, if I’m honest.’
‘Oh dear.’ Alex felt the usual pull between her stepmother and Johnnie. She had always been in the middle of them, like a rag doll held by the arms between two squabbling children. Sally wants me to tell Johnnie to go home. But I’m not going to. ‘He’s just really worried about Pa. We both are.’
‘I appreciate that.’ Sally sniffed and tightened her lips. ‘Well, I’ll feel better when Mundo gets here.’
Alex felt a strange sensation over her back, as if someone had just drawn an icy finger across her skin. ‘Is he on his way?’
‘Oh yes. He wants to be here for his father, just as you do.’
His stepfather, Alex wanted to say, but she didn’t dare. It was Sally’s way to act as if Mundo was David’s actual son, and he’d called him Pa, just like she and Johnnie did, almost as soon as he arrived all those years ago. Once, years ago, Alex had actually ventured to ask Sally who Mundo’s father was. Her expression had closed like a portcullis slamming to the ground.
‘I don’t talk about him,’ she’d said with vehemence. ‘He doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.’
Alex had felt almost sorry for Mundo, who never saw his real father, except that he didn’t appear to mind at all, or consider himself deprived. He had Pa, and that seemed to be enough for him. Johnnie disliked the situation immensely, but it had been harder for him. Sally had constantly tried to manoeuvre Johnnie out of the picture and Mundo into the frame instead. It was so brazen at times that Alex couldn’t believe her father was unaware of what she was up to. There was the year that Sally held Mundo’s birthday party on Johnnie’s actual birthday – because it was the only Saturday the marquee suppliers could do, Sally said – and Mundo had got the cake and presents and singing, while Johnnie’s birthday was barely mentioned. It went on throughout their childhoods, with Mundo always getting a little more than the others: the special music lessons, the skateboard (when Johnnie had longed for one), the pocket money, the expensive school trips. The only upside of the special treatment was that Mundo was sent off to a grand boarding school while she and Johnnie went to local schools, which meant they got a bit of relief from him, and as he got older he went off on skiing trips and rugby tours in the holidays. They couldn’t exactly forget him, though. A portrait of him hung in the drawing room and there were photographs of him everywhere, often flanked by Sally and David, as though he was their only child. She and Johnnie used to laugh about it, but actually it had hurt. Of course, it wasn’t Mundo’s fault that Sally had so blatantly favoured him, but he didn’t help himself because he seemed quite happy with the situation and took advantage of it whenever he could. So Alex and Johnnie kept him at a distance and made sure he didn’t know when they were slipping off to the platform by the lake to spend time without him.
Johnnie came back in. ‘The consultant’s just coming,’ he said. ‘A few minutes away.’
‘That means at least ten,’ Sally said with a martyred look, and she settled herself on the chair Alex had been on, taking her husband’s hand. She glanced over at Johnnie. ‘How are you? How is the family?’
‘They’re fine, thanks.’
‘Your wife is a marvel. I don’t know how she copes. With Bertie’s . . . needs . . . and the other boys, and her career.’ Sally shook her head. ‘She’s a superwoman.’
‘I know. I’m very lucky.’
Sally put her head on one side, and blinked at Johnnie while she smiled, a tight-lipped, sad little smile as if to say that she knew how much they suffered. It was her little habit, Alex knew it well. What happened next could not be predicted; Sally’s brain was usually moving in a mysterious way while she nodded and smiled and blinked.
‘Of course she needs to be careful of osteoporosis,’ she remarked.
‘Sorry?’ Johnnie looked bemused.
‘Netta. She doesn’t eat enough. You ought to make sure she gets more calcium. Otherwise her bones can suffer in later life; it’s the little-known curse of women. I’ll send her some nice yoghurts.’
‘Okaaay.’ Johnnie sent a look to Alex, and he rolled his eyes lightly.
‘I expect she’ll need you home soon,’ Sally said. ‘We’ll understand if you need to get back. Alex and I can take care of David, you know.’
‘Yes, I know. But Pa’s not out of the woods yet, is he? I’m here until we know more.’
Sally sighed just a little. ‘Of course. Ah, here is the consultant now, thank goodness!’
The consultant talked them through the situation, which was more or less unchanged. David was stable. If he went through the next forty-eight hours without further strokes, they would reassess him. The risk was high, and the next stroke would most likely be the last, but every hour that went by was a good sign that he was hanging on.
‘I can’t say for certain what a long-term prognosis would be,’ the consultant told them gravely. ‘But you can’t hope for a total recovery. I’m afraid that’s a vanishingly small possibility.’
‘But not impossible?’ Sally said brightly.
The consultant hesitated. ‘We never like to say impossible. But it’s very remote.’
‘As long as there’s a chance,’ Sally said, and tightened her grip on David’s hand.
When the consultant left, Johnnie went after him into the corridor and said, ‘My stepmother is clinging on to the hope that my father will pull through. He won’t, though, will he?’
The consultant shook his head. ‘We can’t talk in certainties but I’m as sure as I can be. I’m sorry to say it but I have no hopes of recovery. The most likely situation is that your father will hang on until another stroke or an infection gets him.’ He gave Johnnie a sympathetic look. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ Johnnie said. A horrible sensation of something burning hot and dry in his belly flew upwards and seemed to fill him with a pain he hadn’t known before. The agony over Bertie was something different. This had within it a core of angry regret made acute by the knowledge that things between him and Pa could, so easily, have been different. If only . . . if only . . . But he managed a smile and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘We’ll talk about options in a day or two. Until then, there’s not much you can do.’
‘I see.’ Johnnie nodded briefly and turned back to the room. Through the glass panel to one side of the door, he saw Alex sitting against the wall, looking over at Sally. The expression on her face made him stop: it was a mixture of her own misery and a kin
d of apprehension that was close to fear as Sally talked. Sally was leaning over David, holding his hand, everything in her showing that she was defending her property. Alex, as usual, kept at bay, pushed into second place.
What the hell has Sally been so afraid of all these years? She got Pa, wasn’t that enough? Why did she have to push us away? There was enough of him to go around. Why couldn’t she share? The thought was amplified by the pain still burning through him. She can’t be allowed to get away with it. I’ll stop her.
He burst through the door into the room and Sally looked up at him, startled. He’d intended to shout at her but as she looked up, she seemed suddenly vulnerable and old, a sixty-year-old woman clutching the hand of her unconscious husband. He couldn’t do it.
‘Is everything okay?’ Alex asked.
Johnnie nodded, unable to speak. It seemed so awfully sad: Pa there, the three of them wanting him back so badly, wishing now that things could be put right.
‘Johnnie?’ Alex looked worried.
‘Yes. There’s nothing more to add. Look, Pa is stable. I’m going to think about heading back.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Sally put in. ‘If you go early, you’ll miss the worst of the traffic as well.’
‘Yeah. I think that’s what I’ll do.’ He bit his lip. Tears, unexpected and unwelcome, had rushed into his eyes. He blinked hard. ‘I’m just going out for a moment. I’ll be back.’
He walked through the hospital corridors, seeing little through the blurriness in his eyes, avoiding the shapes coming towards him and trying to find his way out. By the time he got down to the ground floor and made his way out of the huge glass doors, he had tears flowing freely down his face. No one paid much attention; tears were not unusual in a place like this. He made his way past a couple of smokers, one in a wheelchair with a cigarette in one hand, the other clasped around the pole of a drip stand, and found a space where he could sob quietly. It lasted only a moment but the weeping released some of the pent-up pain. He felt a hand on his arm.
‘Johnnie?’
It was Alex, her dark blue eyes concerned. ‘Are you okay?’
Johnnie nodded. ‘Just felt the strain there, that’s all. I’m fine.’
‘You’re not really going, are you?’
‘If he makes it to tomorrow, then I’ll go home. I’ll come back as soon as I’m needed.’
Alex looked anxious. ‘Of course. It’s just . . .’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. You’re needed at home, I know that. At least you’ll see the girls tonight.’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘That’s good. I’ll look forward to that.’ He sighed. ‘I just don’t know how much of Sally I can take.’
‘She’s being poisonous,’ Alex agreed.
‘No change there. I just wonder why she can’t let up, even now.’
‘I don’t think she sets out to hurt us, I honestly think she doesn’t know how it looks and sounds.’
Johnnie smiled at his sister, full of affection for her. ‘You’re too kind to her.’
Alex shrugged. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back in. I’ll treat you to a coffee from the shop if you want.’
‘Can’t resist that,’ Johnnie said, and they went back in together.
They sat together around the bed, drawn by the man who lay there. Nurses came and went, and they went out for soup at the canteen for lunch. Then, in the afternoon, conversation faded and they sat in their own thoughts.
When did I last see him? Alex wondered. She had driven around the previous Sunday with the girls, to Pa and Sally’s new house, a smart red-brick on the edge of the village in a development of similar houses, aimed at the prosperous retired: easy to maintain, with traditional looks and generous gardens and garages. Sally had brought out lemon drizzle cake and made tea, and they’d sat in the kitchen, talking about this and that. She remembered now that she’d asked him about the new arrivals at Tawray and he’d been very vague. Scottish people, he’d said. With a funny name.
‘I’d like to do the Christmas flowers,’ Alex had said. Sally had gone upstairs to make sure the girls weren’t in her sewing room and they were on their own for a moment.
‘Oh yes, dear, you must,’ Pa had said. ‘I can’t imagine Tawray without the flowers at Christmas.’
‘You’ll have to come and see them,’ Alex had said.
‘Oh no.’ He’d shaken his head slowly. She’d noticed again the way his hair was now almost entirely white, and how his face had hollows in the cheeks and was loose at the jaw – as the padding of youth had vanished, it had fallen in and down. He was not just middle-aged now, but elderly. ‘I don’t think I’ll go back to Tawray.’
‘What, never?’ She’d given a laugh of disbelief.
‘I don’t think so.’ He’d looked up and, to her surprise, his eyes were sad. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever go back again. My time there is over. To be honest, it was over a long time ago. I’ve just been a caretaker. I wasn’t really supposed to live there, not after you children had left.’
She hadn’t known what to say; too many questions rolled around her mind to find the one that was most important. And then Sally came back in, and the subject changed. Sally wasn’t keen on talking about Tawray, except in tones of relief that they didn’t have to be bothered with it anymore.
I had no idea that was the last time I would talk to him.
They’d parted as they had so many times: kisses in the hallway, a promise to see each other soon. He’d slipped the girls a five-pound note each. Then he and Sally had stood on the front step, waving, as they drove away. She’d quickly forgotten the afternoon, thinking about what needed doing in the coming week, simply trusting things would go on as normal. Instead, everything had changed.
We never know when that moment will come.
She had the strongest impulse to run over to Pa, shake him, beg him to come back. She could hardly believe he wasn’t going to wake, blink, cough and say, ‘Goodness, what on earth am I doing here?’
That isn’t going to happen.
She thought of the girls and looked at her watch. She’d said she would pick them up from school today, as they had their bags from the night before to bring home.
‘Shall we make a move, Johnnie?’ she asked.
He started. ‘What? Oh yes. Come on.’
‘Can I give you a lift home, Sally?’
‘Oh no. I’m staying here until they throw me out,’ Sally replied, smiling. ‘I can’t think of leaving him.’
‘I’ll bring the girls back later if you want a break.’
‘I can’t leave him,’ she said in a dramatic tone. ‘I can’t bear for him to be alone.’
‘Of course.’ Why does everything she say sound fake, even when I think she means it? ‘Well, please call me if I’m needed.’
‘Yes, dear.’ Sally looked over at Johnnie. ‘And you’re going home?’
‘I’ll come in the morning,’ he said quietly. ‘Then I’ll go back.’
‘I see.’ Sally brightened perceptibly. ‘Of course, Mundo will be here by then.’
Alex swapped a look with Johnnie.
‘Come on, Al,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Let’s go home. That’s what I need right now.’
Chapter Ten
1985
‘Everyone is worried about you, Julia,’ Lala said. She waved at the waiter, who hurried over. ‘Two glasses of Sancerre, please,’ she said, ‘and a dozen oysters.’
Julia said quickly, ‘Can’t I please have something else?’ Unusually, she was starving, and the idea of oysters was not just repellent but pointless. She needed substance. She’d already devoured all the bread in the basket and was hoping they would bring some more.
‘Of course – but what?’ Lala said with an air of faint surprise as though she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting anything other than oysters.
Julia looked enquiringly at the waiter, who passed her a menu. She searched for the heartiest dish. ‘Oh, steak, please, with fr
ites. And mash.’
‘And mash?’ echoed Lala, then looked at Julia as if for the first time, seeing her thin face and skinny arms. Worry crossed her face. ‘Absolutely. Mash too. Whatever you want, darling.’
They were sitting on the ground floor of a very smart restaurant. Above them was a hushed and luxurious dining room where a famous chef with a Michelin star served French food, but they sat downstairs in a brightly tiled bistro. Lala had brought Julia there for what she said was a treat but now, Julia saw, it was going to be a talk.
The price of a decent meal.
‘More bread too, please,’ Julia said quickly as the waiter departed. ‘God, I’m famished.’
‘You look like you haven’t eaten for a week,’ Lala said, her expression still worried. ‘In fact, you look terrible.’
‘Well, thanks very much.’ The bread basket was empty, so Julia took out a cigarette and lit it, hoping that Lala wouldn’t notice the faint tremor in her fingers.
Lala sighed. ‘You know what I mean.’ She looked suddenly sad. ‘Julia, this is awful. I hate seeing you like this.’
‘There’s no need to worry.’ Julia shrugged. ‘I’ve grown up.’
‘So I see.’ Lala obviously wanted to say more, but lit herself a cigarette instead, pulling the zinc ashtray across the table towards her. After a few puffs, she tapped her ash and said slowly, ‘You’ve had a horrible time, Julia. I’m so sorry about what happened. It was terrible.’
‘Mmm. Thank you.’
Aunt Victoria had said quite plainly that it was a doomed venture to try for a baby so many years after the last one. It was bound to end in tears. As though it was all Mummy’s own fault, and she deserved it. Julia had been alone in the house except for her mother when she heard the shriek and cry from upstairs. She’d run up the stairs, pelted along the landing, pushed open her parents’ bedroom door and seen no one. Then she’d heard the moan from the bathroom. Crossing the bedroom seemed to take forever, the pounding of her heart deafening her. She’d gone in, terrified, and seen . . .