by Dani Atkins
Working on an instinct so strong it wouldn’t allow me to ignore it, I suddenly bent down to the girl lying in the bed. Up close her skin was the perfect white of a carved statue; her dark hair gleamed with a shine that could have featured in any commercial. The life growing within her was enhancing a beauty that I suspected had been there long before her pregnancy. She had so much, and yet strangely she had nothing at all.
On the bedside cabinet was an enormous vase of deep red roses, with a small white card nestling among the stems, a single word written upon it: Ryan. Did Maddie know that her fiancé filled her room with flowers, even though she couldn’t see them? On impulse I reached for the heavy vase, lifting it down so that the fragrant blooms were just beneath her nose. ‘These are from him,’ I whispered. Our faces were so close that my own hair had swung down and had fallen onto her pillow, mingling with hers. My wrists began to ache and my arms started to tremble, but I held the flowers to her face for as long as I could, hoping to find a way – any way – to reach her that might not have been tried before.
Eventually I replaced the vase, and looked down sadly at the woman whose life had already entwined itself inextricably around mine, like a fast-growing ivy.
‘When I come next time I’ll bring some books from the library. What do you like to read, Maddie?’ I smiled and reached out and gently touched her shoulder. Beneath the skin I could feel the sharpness of her collarbone. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find something you like,’ I assured her. I was still smiling down at her when Ryan returned carrying two cups of steaming coffee. It was almost a surprise that there weren’t three drinks on the cardboard tray.
There are all sorts of things you’re not meant to do if you undertake any type of voluntary work at a hospital. Most of them you probably don’t need to be told, because they’re basic common sense. But the one they make a point of telling you anyway, spelling it out in big bold letters on your very first day, is don’t get emotionally attached to the patients. If you do, it’s going to end up breaking your heart. For two years I’d successfully managed to keep that instruction at the forefront of my mind. But that autumn I broke that rule spectacularly, not once, but twice.
Surprisingly for someone who was spending so much of her free time with his fiancée, I saw very little of Ryan over the next month. I knew from the nurses on the ward that he’d gone back to work; apparently he was there early every morning for about an hour, dressed in a suit and tie, and then back again in the evening, similarly attired, presumably having come straight from his office. Normal visiting hours had long been waived for the devoted partner of the long-term coma patient on the sixth floor. The ward staff said that some evenings he was there well beyond midnight, before reluctantly saying goodnight to the woman he never wanted to leave. I had no idea how he was able to carry on like that, and neither did the nursing staff.
‘He’s going to burn out or collapse for sure,’ commented a sparky, freckle-faced nurse called Ellen who’d recently joined the hospital. ‘Then we’ll end up with both of them in hospital!’ It was a worrying thought.
The rain hit me like an assault as I ran head-down through the hospital sliding doors. It had only been spitting when I’d got off the bus just twenty minutes ago, but a lot had changed in that brief period of time. The paved walkway was now scattered with deep puddles which reflected the orange glow from the street lamps. The hospital car park was now filled to capacity with the cohort of evening visitors. And the life of a patient who I’d grown far closer to than I should was now over.
A sound escaped me, part sob, part cry of injustice. She shouldn’t have died, not like that, not all alone. A pain – so real it felt almost physical – tore through me. My tote bag slipped from my shoulder, and the book we’d been in the middle of reading fell face-down onto the wet tarmac. It felt heartbreakingly symbolic. I stood staring down at the book, making no move to retrieve it as the rain mingled with the tears falling relentlessly down my cheeks. A hand came into view, a man’s hand. It picked up the book, shaking the ruined pages as they dripped water. The grisly cover image of a bloodstained dagger, protected beneath its plastic jacket, was still intact.
‘Chloe.’ I didn’t look up, though I knew who it was. ‘Chloe, what’s wrong?’
I gave an involuntary shudder, although it wasn’t really cold, despite the rain. ‘You ran right past me in the doorway. I called your name, but I don’t think you even heard me.’
I hadn’t, but I probably wouldn’t have stopped even if I had. All I’d wanted to do was to get as far away from the hospital as possible, because tonight it didn’t feel like a place of healing, it felt like a place of death. The memory of arriving on the ward and seeing the stripped hospital bed, and the locker bare of her personal effects was still raw. I’d worked there long enough to know what it meant. The jumbo-size bag of jelly babies I’d been holding slipped from my fingers, and I left it where it fell at my feet, like a marker. From the corner of my eye I could see one of the nurses walking towards me, her rubber-soled shoes soundless as she crossed to where I stood. My hand reached out and curled tightly around the cool metal of the bed frame. I looked for the glass holding the grinning dentures of the ward’s longest-serving resident, but it too was gone.
‘Gladys?’ I asked, making the elderly woman’s name a question that didn’t need to be asked.
‘I’m sorry, Chloe,’ said the nurse kindly, her hand briefly squeezing my shoulder. ‘It happened this afternoon,’ she added, pre-empting my next question.
‘Was anyone . . .’ my voice cracked, as tears which I rarely shed for patients began to pool in my eyes. ‘Was anyone with her?’
The hand squeezed one last time before dropping away. ‘No. She went quietly,’ the nurse replied, her voice sombre, but not sad. She was used to this in a way I realised I never would be. The nurse bent to pick up the dropped bag of sweets, Gladys’s favourites. ‘Shall I get rid of these for you?’
I nodded, unable to take my eyes away from the bed. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ the nurse suggested kindly, and I couldn’t help feeling that her concern was as much for the other patients as it was for me. No one needed to be reminded about the fragility of life on this ward; its occupants knew that only too well.
I’d been okay as I walked slowly down the first flight of stairs. This had happened before, many times. It would happen again. My pace increased, and my descent grew quicker, as though I was trying to outrun my emotions. But they caught up with me anyway, even though I was practically running by the time I reached the ground floor. I charged out into the wet October night, knowing I would be of no use to anyone that evening.
‘You’re getting drenched,’ Ryan said, his hand resting lightly on the sodden sleeve of my jacket. ‘Why don’t we go inside, to the cafeteria, and you can tell me what’s wrong.’ I shook my head so violently droplets of water sprayed in twin arcs around my face. I still didn’t trust my voice.
‘Okay,’ said Ryan, showing incredible patience for a man who was getting practically drowned. ‘But you really need to get out of this rain. If you don’t want to go inside, why don’t we sit in my car for a moment?’
I looked into Ryan’s concerned face. Raindrops had gathered like jewels on his eyelashes. I wasn’t the only one who needed to get out of the deluge. He nodded his head towards the row of parked vehicles. ‘I’m just over there.’
I gave a single sharp nod, and he reached for my elbow, guiding me towards the bay where a sleek black car was parked. He blipped to open the door and gently helped me into the passenger seat before I realised I was dripping all over the cream fabric upholstery.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ assured Ryan, slipping into the driver’s seat. The darkened car offered a cavern-like refuge, which could have been peaceful if it weren’t for the embarrassingly loud clattering noise that appeared to be coming from me, as my teeth chattered in a way I’d never heard before.
‘You’re freezing,’ declared Ryan, switching on the engine and
allowing the air from the blowers to fill the car.
‘I’m f-f-fine,’ I protested.
His eyebrows rose, and that was all it took to knock the fight out of me. I sank back against the cushioned seat like a deflating crash dummy. Ryan reached behind him, and a moment later a luxuriously soft jumper was placed in my hands. ‘Here, use this to dry your face and hair.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ I repeated, trying to pass the garment back to him. I knew cashmere when I felt it, even if none of my own clothes were made from it.
‘It’s okay, it’s clean,’ he reassured, gently forcing the soft woollen sweater back to me. Our hands were touching as we played pass-the-parcel with the expensive jumper. I could see the name of a designer in the label, and an uncanny instinct told me Maddie had bought this for him.
I abandoned my protests and used the soft folds of fabric to dry my face and the dripping ends of my hair. Ryan sat back in his own seat, as though watching me ruin his top was exactly how he’d planned to spend his evening.
‘What happened?’ he asked quietly.
For a second I considered not telling him the truth. Does a man whose own fiancée was lying in limbo in a hospital bed really need to hear about someone dying? ‘One of the old ladies on the ward passed away this afternoon,’ I said quietly, my eyes not on him, but on the windscreen. The wipers weren’t turned on, and the rain was falling so heavily that the hospital and the rest of the car park were completely obscured. ‘I know it sounds stupid. It’s a geriatric ward; people pass away all the time. But this lady . . .’ My voice trailed away, unable to articulate or explain – even to myself – why this one death had affected me in this way.
‘Was it the jelly-baby lady? The one with the taste for grisly thrillers?’
I gave a small broken laugh, though his words had brought a lump to my throat. ‘It was. I can’t believe you remembered that.’
Ryan gave a small shrug, but I remained impressed. ‘Her family weren’t with her. They don’t visit often. Didn’t visit often,’ I corrected sadly.
There was a wealth of sympathy on Ryan’s face for an old lady he’d never met, but then he was a man whose whole life revolved around not neglecting a loved-one in hospital.
‘The stupid thing is,’ I said, and then shook my head as I started to cry again. I looked down at my lap, where his expensive cashmere jumper was twisted like a wrung-out rag in my agitated hands. Absently I wondered how much it was going to cost me to replace it. ‘The stupid thing is, she was so excited because I’d found a book we’d not read before. And she was really enjoying it. And now . . . now she’s never going to know who committed the murder.’ We both looked at the sodden book which Ryan had placed on the dashboard. ‘It’s ridiculous to get so upset about something like that, isn’t it?’
Ryan shook his head, and there was an expression in his eyes as he looked at me that warmed me far more than all the hot air blowing through the jets of his car had done. ‘No. It’s not ridiculous at all. In fact it just proves that asking you to spend time with Maddie was the best decision I’ve made in a long time.’
He reached for his seat belt and looped it over his shoulder. ‘Buckle up,’ he instructed.
‘What? Why? Where are we going?’
‘I’m driving you home,’ Ryan replied as though it was obvious.
‘No. No, you don’t have to do that. I can get the bus.’
‘Absolutely not. I can come back to the hospital after I’ve dropped you home. I’m sure Maddie will understand and forgive me for being late,’ he added with a smile. And the weird thing was that after four weeks of talking, reading, and idly chatting to the woman he loved, I found myself agreeing with him. Maddie would understand.
‘This is all yours?’ there was no mistaking the surprise in his voice. I looked through the windscreen at the large four-bedroom house which appeared and then disappeared behind the sweep of the wipers. I suppose it was a very large property for just one person. ‘It’s where I’ve lived all my life,’ I said by way of explanation, my hand reaching for the car door.
‘You don’t share it with anyone?’
‘I’ve thought about getting a lodger—’ I began, and then felt my cheeks begin to grow warm, as I realised that probably wasn’t what he was asking me. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend. I mean, I don’t live with anyone,’ I finished clumsily, giving him all sorts of information he’d never asked for.
‘I know that.’ This time it was his turn to look embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t prying,’ he assured me quickly. ‘One of the nurses mentioned it in passing.’ I was trying to imagine how that topic could possibly have come up, when Ryan explained: ‘I think I said something about how spending so much time at the hospital must be really hard on your personal life.’ Ryan looked uncomfortable, like someone who wished he’d never taken this conversational side-street. That made two of us.
‘No boyfriend. Well, no one significant. Not for a while,’ I said lightly, my hand pressing down on the door handle.
He’d wanted to walk me to the door, but I wouldn’t let him. There was no need for both of us to get wet again. ‘Thanks again for the lift home,’ I said through the rolled-down passenger window. ‘And also for listening, about Gladys, I mean.’
‘It’s the least I can do after everything you’re doing for us,’ Ryan said gratefully.
Us. Even though he’d not heard her voice or felt the touch of her hand in almost four months, Ryan still felt the enduring bond of being part of a couple; part of an ‘us’. I had no idea how that felt, I thought sadly, as I let myself into my house and watched his tail lights disappear into the falling rain. I’d been economical with the truth in my reply. What I should have said was that there’d never been a boyfriend of any significance. Not one.
It wasn’t the first time I’d attended the funeral of a patient. Some deaths go by without touching you; while others will always leave their mark. Gladys had been such a colourful character on the ward it hadn’t surprised me that several of us had wanted to pay our respects and say goodbye.
I recognised some members of Gladys’s family at the church from the pages of the well-thumbed photograph album she’d often shown me. Have you seen these pictures of my grandchildren? she’d ask, her wrinkled fingers grazing over the faces of people I’d never seen visit her bedside. Perhaps I was being unfair; perhaps they visited her when I wasn’t there.
They were here today though, dressed in black and looking sombre. I tried not to judge them as I listened to the vicar speak about a completely different Gladys to the one I knew; one without her wicked sense of humour or penchant for bloodthirsty crimes. It was still a moving ceremony, and the nurses who’d accompanied me were dabbing at their watery eyes almost as much as I was by the end of it.
‘We’re going to have to go straight back to the hospital,’ Diana apologised as the strains of the final hymn faded away. ‘Are you staying?’ I nodded, and after hugging them both goodbye I went to join the shuffling line of mourners waiting to pay their respects to the family.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ said the middle-aged woman, who I recognised as Gladys’s daughter. Behind her glasses her eyes were red-rimmed and her nose was shiny. ‘How did you know Mum exactly?’
‘I’m one of the volunteers at the hospital,’ I explained.
‘Oh, you must be Chloe,’ she exclaimed. ‘Mum spoke about you all the time. I know she really appreciated your visits with her.’
‘It was my pleasure. She was a lovely old lady.’
Her daughter looked slightly baffled by my words, and I felt sad that perhaps she was the one who’d missed out by not visiting more often.
‘Well, thank you for all that you did, and for coming today. It means a lot.’ I was about to walk away when she stopped me in my tracks with her parting words. ‘Oh, and please thank your friend too for the lovely flowers. That was very thoughtful.’
‘My friend?’ I asked, certain she was muddling me up with someone else.
‘Brian? Is that his name? Or something like that? Anyway, it was very kind of him. You can see the flowers. All the floral tributes have been laid out in the courtyard.’
Brian. I knew no one of that name. It was surely just a coincidence that it sounded like the name of someone I did know, I told myself as I walked down the path lined with floral bouquets and wreaths.
I found it at the very end of the row of tributes; a bright yellow arrangement, its colour defiantly cheerful among the blood-red roses and waxy white lilies. I crouched down, wobbling a little in my black dress and high-heeled shoes. There was a black-edged card, nestled among the yellow blooms, and I pulled it out to read with fingers that were trembling from a peculiar emotion I scarcely recognised. To Gladys, it said, in bold black penmanship. Wishing you the safest of journeys for your next adventure. With warmest best wishes, Ryan (Chloe’s friend).
My hand went to my throat, as though to silence the small sob that I knew was going to escape anyway, whatever I did. But even as I began to cry, I was smiling widely at the final line of Ryan’s message: Just thought you would like to know . . . it was the brother-in-law who did it.
Chapter 10
2012
I held the book in my hands and flicked through its pages, flipping past the glossy illustrations and concentrating mainly on the text. I gave a little nod of approval and added it to the growing pile on the table beside me. There was quite a gap on the shelf by the time I’d finished, and when Sally’s face suddenly appeared within it my heart jumped so violently, several years were probably shaved off my life expectancy.