by Emily Elgar
There’s a photo of Cassie holding a border terrier like a baby in her arms, and a selfie of Jack and Cassie outside in a white-dusted field, with the grumpy-looking dog between them. The caption reads, ‘Let it snow!’
I stop at a black-and-white close-up photo of Cassie placing a silver bauble on a plump, richly decorated Christmas tree, her engagement and wedding ring glint at the camera. Underneath, Jack’s written, ‘My beautiful wife, tree decorating on our first anniversary’ under the photo. The camera seems to have caught her mid laugh, her smile so wide her large eyes crest like a new moon. I think about what Jack said about Cassie having a tough time recently, but I can’t see it, it all looks nauseatingly perfect. Despite my own happy Christmas and the fact I’m pregnant, I bite my bottom lip and feel another shock of jealousy and I remember why I never look at Facebook. I move forward in my chair, the photo pixilates but I keep staring at her fixed, unseeing eyes and I think she knew; she knew she was pregnant but she kept it secret. I think she waited, wanted to know the baby had a good chance. After she miscarried, I bet she wanted to protect Jack, her family, from more possible heartache.
I scroll through a few more photos before one catches my eye. Cassie’s a few years younger, grinning at the camera as if she’s on holiday, not in a hospice. She’s got one leg raised up on the bed where an older woman, jaundiced and emaciated, lies, a bright-blue headscarf wrapped around her bald head. They’re holding hands. They don’t look similar, but that’s the disease. I know immediately the woman is April, Cassie’s mum. On the other side of April is a man with longish white hair, the camera’s caught him smiling but his eyes are closed. He’s holding April’s left hand as delicately as if a butterfly just landed on him and he wants it to stay. They’re both wearing shiny gold rings.
‘Facebook? You’re never on Facebook.’ David’s right behind me; I’d been so engrossed I didn’t hear him come in.
‘David, you scared the shit out of me.’ I swivel round to face him, slap him playfully away, his T-shirt is sweaty, slightly damp.
‘Oooh,’ he says, fending off my attack by grabbing my wrists. ‘So who are we looking at?’ He leans towards the computer.
‘Oh, no one really.’ I turn back to the computer, wiggle my right wrist free and close the page before he can see. While David starts half-heartedly stretching his calf I try and keep my voice normal. ‘God, I forgot what a weird thing Facebook is, everyone posting about their life.’
‘Yeah, but it’s all window dressing, all carefully edited bullshit. People post photos of themselves wrapped around the partner they despise in an attempt to convince the world all is well, because if everyone else thinks they’re happy, then surely they are?’
Can he not see it in me? Do I not look a little more alive? Like a light has been turned on inside me?
‘Ahh, there he is … my very own little Grinch,’ I say.
‘It’s true!’ He shrugs and releases his calf as he turns towards the bathroom, saying in a silly voice, ‘Ah, good little wifey running a bath for me.’
I get up quickly from the computer. ‘Bugger off, it’s mine!’
We race each other to the bathroom like children and he pulls the tie on my bathrobe until I shake it off, he puts his hand on my stomach but he still doesn’t guess. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, kiss him full on the mouth. He’s surprised – I usually avoid sweaty kisses – but I kiss him again and say, ‘I love you, David.’ He holds the back of my head, and he says, ‘I love you, A-Lice.’ I think of Cassie and think I might cry suddenly because, for whatever reason, the world has given us both another chance.
8
Frank
Sleep is hard to come by on 9B. The ward sounds like the Serengeti at night. I remember hearing it on a wildlife documentary, full of whoops and moans, and night-time chatter. Here the commotion is led by Ellen, the old lady who goes back to the Blitz most nights. Because I can’t move and my eyes are shut I imagine it must seem that I sleep like the dead, but I’m just like everyone else; I have to be comfortable, which, most of the time, I’m not. I can’t shift blankets if I’m too hot, or yell at the other patients to shut the hell up.
I must doze off eventually because when I open my eyes Alice is with me, chatting away about David, how he’s started running. My head’s slipped and lolls to the right, like a marionette with slack strings; I can see my Christmas cards and the photo Luce sent. I don’t know what Alice is doing but she must be busy, buzzing around me; usually she’d prop my head up straight away. There’s a new lightness to her; she must still be all fizzy about Cassie and the baby.
‘Actually, that reminds me, Frank, I must get David some high-vis gear; I don’t like him running on dark roads …’
Someone clears their throat and, from behind the curtain, Lizzie says, ‘Alice?’
Alice pulls the curtain back and out of the far corner of my eye, I see Lizzie and Charlotte standing opposite Alice.
‘Morning, Charlotte,’ Alice says to the neat-looking older woman. She turns to Lizzie. ‘Thank you.’ Lizzie nods and goes back towards reception.
‘The family room’s free, I could make us some coffee?’ Alice asks Charlotte.
‘Oh no, no I’ve only got a couple of minutes actually, Alice. I just wanted to ask –’ she glances at me quickly, too polite to stare and her voice softens; she doesn’t want to offend ‘– about the private room for Cassie. Mr Sharma mentioned she would be moving a few days ago?’
Cassie’s leaving? My heart falls.
‘Oh, Mr Sharma didn’t update you?’ Alice asks.
‘Not since it was mentioned.’
‘The consultants have actually decided to keep her here, on nine B.’
Charlotte tuts, but lets Alice keep talking. My heart balances again.
‘The thing is, we have all the emergency equipment here for her, in case we need it. We can’t have those machines on standby for only one patient; it may put others at risk. And, besides, they were struggling to find a room with enough space for the machines we’d like to have available to her.’
She’s staying.
‘What do you think, Alice, honestly?’
At least she won’t be alone.
‘I think it’s probably the wisest decision. We have a minimum of two nurses here round the clock, the fastest access to equipment and meds; besides, it’s such a small ward, it’s pretty quiet here anyway, and we’ll do all we can to make sure you and your visitors have privacy.’
She nods again, looks up at me, as if for reassurance that I’m not going to be a nuisance.
I don’t take it personally. She shouldn’t worry; I’m a quiet neighbour.
‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that as well,’ Charlotte says, turning back to Alice. ‘We’ve decided to keep visitors to a minimum for now.’
Alice nods. ‘Yes, of course, if that’s what you want.’
‘It was Jack’s idea. He wants it to be just him and me for now.’
I hear surprise in Alice’s pause; Charlotte keeps talking.
‘The phone is ringing constantly with friends asking how she’s getting on, but we don’t want lots of people knowing about the baby just yet, when we’re still getting used to it ourselves. As you said, the most important thing is that we’re calm and positive around Cassie, and to be honest, I don’t want Jack dealing with streams of visitors. He doesn’t need that just now. He told me about Jonny making his way onto the ward. We don’t want anything like that happening again. We thought if she was moved and we limited visitors, he won’t be able to … anyway, keeping it to just us two seems like the simplest option at present. Does that sound OK?’
‘Yes, of course, Charlotte. Whatever you think is best. You can always reassess later if you want.’
I feel a quick stab of disappointment, I was looking forward to seeing Cassie’s friends, but if it means she’ll be calmer, safer without people like her wild-eyed neighbour about, then so be it.
I spend most of my day staring at the foot
of Cassie’s bed, wondering where she is in her coma, if she’s travelling in her subconscious, wondering if she, like me, is ever visited by the dead. Most of my visits happened on a plane. It was supposed to be my first flight, and I’m in my twenties again, on the flight I should have taken to America to start my new job, to start my new life. In the dream, the seat next to mine is always empty and I’m restless with fear unable to sit still, tapping the laminated emergency instructions I hold in my lap against a feverish leg that won’t stop shaking. The smiling, pretty, flight attendants – packaged in their uniforms like plastic dolls, shiny hair and red lips – aren’t even enough to distract me. The noise of 30,000 feet is not what I expected. It’s a sort of white noise, a great long moan wrapped around the world; it stretches on at the same note, and my ears are full of it.
‘C’mon, lad, shove over.’ I hadn’t heard that gruff voice out of our tiny, paisley-printed sitting room – that smelled of airless hours in front of television mixed with something a little sweet, white bread maybe – since I was a teenager, but I’m hardwired to obey that voice so, without turning, I move into the unoccupied middle seat next to me as my dad, who died when I was nineteen, eases himself with a wheeze and a wince into the aisle seat. I can’t remember ever sitting so close to him when he was alive, his brown polyester slacks almost touch my stonewashed jeans.
‘Your mother and me –’ always his preferred opening line ‘– want you to get off this flight.’ I look at him then. He’s looking forward, down the aisle towards a slim, blonde air stewardess who’s bending down in front of her trolley to get someone a lemonade. His jowls spill over the top of his shirt collar, like extra pastry on a pie. There’s a shock of white hair in his ears and I’m close enough to see hundreds of tiny blackheads on his nose that open out into larger pockmarks over the rest of his wide face. His deep-set eyes fix onto the blonde woman’s bottom and his grey eyebrows move as much as his mouth as he says again, ‘Yes, your mother and me … we want you to get off this flight.’
‘Dad.’ My voice far older, deeper than it was at twenty-seven. ‘What are you talking about? There’s no way we can get off.’
He pulls himself away from the blonde then, and nodding, turns his wide face towards mine. His breath smells, as it always did, of well-stewed tea. ‘It’s not safe, son, it’s not safe. This is no way to go. You could be stuck on this thing for ever. It’s not right, so it’s best you come with me.’
‘Dad, this is crazy. We’re somewhere over the Atlantic, it’s not safe.’
His eyes narrow at me.
‘Don’t argue with me, son. I know a way, you just follow me.’ He starts to heave himself up, but either he’s too fat or the seat in front of him is too close because it takes him a few tries, and the whole bank of seats shudder with the effort. I look around at the other passengers – businessmen on laptops, cuddling couples, kids giggling at a film – but none of them seem to have noticed my dead dad.
He’s waiting for me in the aisle now.
‘Come on, good lad,’ he says.
I stand and start to follow him, bending my knees to move out of the row of seats and then I notice the blonde stewardess has turned around. She’s pulling her steel trolley straight towards me, hips swinging in her high heels and she’s looking straight at me. Underneath the make-up I can see it’s June Withers from school. She dated my older brother Paul for a few months, which made me the coolest boy in my class for a brief moment, before June dumped Paul for a heroin addict. She was found a few months later face down in her own vomit at her mum’s house. Now I think that story about the heroin and the puke must have been bullshit; she must have been training to be an air stewardess all along.
Her red lips curl like a seashell into a smile, her teeth like pearls as she narrows her eyes in disbelief. ‘Frankie?’
‘June?’
‘Oh my god, it is you! How funny!’ Her smile crests over me.
‘Frank!’ My dad barks like a pissed-off terrier further down the aisle. I don’t turn away from June, but she must see him over my shoulder because she says, ‘Is that your dad?’
‘Oh, yeah. I think the altitude’s got to him. He keeps saying we’re not safe.’
Her smile disappears immediately, and her face knots. ‘No, Frank, listen to him. We’re safe, but you’re not. You have to go with him or you’ll be stuck on this plane for god knows how long.’
She starts shoo-ing me along with her manicured hands, saying, ‘Go on, follow him, Frankie, go on’, and forcing me forward, pulling the trolley after her.
Dad’s moved on down the aisle; he’s waiting for me. When I reach him, he starts walking again; his brown cardigan and the way his stout neck has receded between his broad shoulders makes him look like a retreating mole. I’m pressed now, between my dad and June who still flicks me on, as if I’m an annoying fly.
We pass the toilets and rows and rows of people. I’m escorted by Dad and June to the tail of the plane, where there are more toilets and a little beige cupboard area. Two more trolleys like the one June is pulling are parked up and there’s another air stewardess sitting on a case eating some noodles. She glances up at us with bored, black-rimmed eyes and then looks away again. Out of the corner of my eye I see movement and, to my horror, my dad is braced, tense and puffing out through his cheeks. He’s pulling the red handle of the emergency exit door.
I lunge towards him, but June’s sharp hand on my arm pulls me back and she says with a little laugh, ‘Don’t worry, Frankie; he’s doing the right thing.’
Then we hear a loud sucking sound and the light for the toilet flashes from red to green and the door concertinas as it opens and, after a second, my Luce walks out.
She claps her hands together when she sees me; she’s about twelve years old, her face round and flawless with youth. She reaches out to me and takes my hand.
‘Come on, Dad,’ she says. ‘We’ll be landing soon. Come and sit next to me.’ My dad stops wrestling with the door and June scowls softly by my side. They seem to know they couldn’t stop me going with Luce, even if they tried. Hand in hand, Lucy steers me back to my seat. That’s the last I remember from the dream. There are different characters, dead people from my life. Sometimes it’s my nan, my Auntie Christina and, once that I recall, our little Scotty dog Boots tried to bark me off that plane, but Lucy always arrives and pulls me back in the nick of time.
It’s Carol’s high-pitched laugh that brings me back from remembering the plane, landing me again on the ward. Carol’s usually in her office, but there’s a shortage of health assistants today so it sounds like Mary’s roped Carol into helping her change George’s bed sheets. My eyes are only open a fraction. Mary moved my head so all I can see now is the end of my bed, and a small bit of the ward floor. My chin is almost pressed to my chest, but my ears are perfectly tuned.
‘Just like old times, eh, Caz?’ Mary says and I hear George’s curtain dance along its rail as she pulls it around George’s bed. ‘Us two rolling up our sleeves.’
Unlike other nurses, they don’t count down before they lift George, and they don’t remind each other to tuck in the sheet corners. These two have been around for long enough, they know all the steps to this dance.
‘So did you speak to the police then, Caz?’
I get it. Mary is, of course, after a gossip.
‘They called this morning to say they’ve arrested that guy who found her, the neighbour.’ Carol’s voice is lower than usual, a voice for saying things she knows she probably shouldn’t. ‘They’ve charged him with drink-driving and attempted manslaughter. Paula says she’s surprised it took them so long; she says she could tell it was him when he tried to barge his way in to see Cassie last week.’
I feel movement behind the curtain, the tug as they pull away old sheets. The women pause.
‘Well, you know what I think?’ Mary doesn’t wait for a response. Carol will hear what Mary thinks whether she wants to or not. ‘They were having an affair, weren’t
they? This neighbour and Cassie. It’s obvious. She told him about the baby, their baby, and he panicked like a bloody idiot.’
‘Oh god, do you really think so, Mary?’
‘I really do. It’s just a pity we can’t do a paternity test now, get it over and done with for the sake of Jack and his poor mum, but with Cassie in her condition it’s out of the question.’
There’s a familiar swoosh as one of them floats a new sheet across the bed.
‘It’s heartbreaking. That poor man, he adores her. You know what Lizzie said the other day? She saw him reading one of those baby development books aloud to her? He’d be a lovely dad.’
‘I know, I keep thinking about his mum as well. They won’t find out for months if it’s Jack’s or not, not until the baby’s born. But you know, I’d rather know the truth, wouldn’t you? I mean imagine raising a kiddie, thinking it’s yours and then finding out years later it’s someone else’s. That’s got to be worse?’
Carol doesn’t say anything for a moment, practised hands slap over the starched, taut sheet.
‘I just hope this neighbour does the decent thing and tells the truth before the baby comes along. Little mite shouldn’t be born into all of this, should it?’
Moments later, carrying plastic bags with George’s old sheets bundled inside, I see the two nurses’ little white trainers pad across my narrow view. They stop whispering as soon as they’re on the ward and I try and feel glad like them, relieved that justice is a little more in reach for Cassie and her little one, but I keep thinking of his face, his eyes wide, fiery with terror, desperate for a new image of Cassie to wipe the one in the stream, crumpled and bleeding, from his mind. I think about how he froze, tense as a deer who knows he’s being hunted.
The afternoon rolls quietly into early evening. Jack visits Cassie. He plays her music. I can’t hear what he’s saying to her, if anything, over the music. The notes sing through my bones; I drink up every one like drops of nectar. At some point, my eyes shut and I drift away, to a place where a light breeze glances my skin, and Lucy is by my side.