A Twist of Fate

by Joanna Rees

  She still had flashbacks, even now – those images seared on her brain. The sight of the tower with Tom Lawson in it, collapsing as he’d waited for her to arrive.

  She’d sent her condolences to Shelley and Duke, but her card had seemed pathetic. After all what had she ever done but bring their son heartbreak? It was because of her that he was a lawyer, and because of her that he’d never found happiness. And she couldn’t help feeling that it was because of her that he’d died. If she hadn’t made that appointment to see him, who knew where else Tom Lawson might have been that day.

  She felt that she had no right to grieve for him, when she hadn’t seen him for nearly ten years, and yet in the aftermath of the Twin Towers privately Thea had broken apart.

  So she understood perfectly that being involved in a car-bomb explosion might have affected Michael in ways she couldn’t begin to imagine. But since Johnny’s letter she’d thought of Michael so often, and now, on her latest trip to Germany, she had the perfect opportunity to see him.

  She felt a shimmer of nerves as she stared up at the fluttering flags outside the hospital’s main entrance. She steeled herself for the worst.

  Young men in baggy hospital whites and Wayfarer sunglasses sat in small groups on the benches scattered amongst the flowerbeds, chatting in the sunshine, smoking cigarettes, some of them in wheelchairs, while others sat alone in silence.

  Over to the right, between the rows of regimentally neat buildings, Thea glimpsed an exercise yard, where twenty or so soldiers were doing push-ups, egged on by an instructor with a loudhailer.

  As she passed the chatting men on her way into the reception block, she heard one of them softly wolf-whistle. She’d assumed her grey Chanel suit with its short pencil-skirt was a sober enough outfit to wear, but she must look more sexy than she felt. She turned and saw the soldier smiling, a question in his eyes, and found herself thinking of Reicke and their formal goodbye this morning.

  Once again he’d failed to say anything personal to her and, since their liaison, their relationship had become ever frostier. It annoyed her that the only thing he’d mentioned was how impressed he was by Brett, who’d just announced his controversial deal to buy out an Internet search engine. Brett had chosen the timing of his announcement, Thea was sure, to overshadow her achievements with Maddox in Germany.

  Even more annoyingly, he’d chosen to use the publicity to crow about his new relationship with the actress Bethany Saunders. Their nauseating photo-shoot, which had been syndicated to magazines around the world, had made Thea’s blood boil, especially because of the accompanying copy in which Bethany had simpered about Brett being the most caring man in the universe. And Reicke Schlinker had expected Thea to be impressed! If only he knew.

  She forced herself to put it out of her mind and walked through the automatic doors to where harassed-looking medical staff in green pyjamas marched purposefully past her, pushing trolleys and clutching clipboards to their chests. A lingering smell of disinfectant permeated the air. Air ducts hummed in the ceiling. Servicemen limped on crutches along the corridors, and she felt self-conscious as her high heels clattered on the shiny white floor.

  She asked for directions and soon she was following an efficient-looking nurse through the warren of corridors to Michael’s wing. As they passed a window overlooking the parade ground, Thea’s attention was snagged once more by the men doing pushups out there. Up close, she saw that most of them were missing limbs. She thought about the logo she’d seen on the way in: Selfless Service. She felt ashamed right to her core. Because when she’d seen those words it had crossed her mind that she too gave selfless service to Maddox Inc. But it was only watching the men outside that she saw what a joke that was. Her personal sacrifices for business were incomparable to what these men had gone through.

  The nurse stopped and smiled and pointed to a glass-panelled door.

  She said, ‘You’ll find Captain Pryor in there.’

  As the nurse retreated back up the corridor, Thea stepped up close to the door and peered through the soundproof glass. There Michael was, alone in a large, bright lounge, which had been furnished with sofas and armchairs and potted plastic plants.

  A television mounted on the wall showed pictures of a press conference at the White House, no doubt more revelations about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the dodgy evidence that had been uncovered. Whatever the so-called justification for the US invading Iraq last year, Thea – along with many others – had opposed the war, even though she had been so personally affected by 9/11.

  But seeing Michael sitting on a stiff-backed chair by the window, gazing unblinkingly outside, she knew she wouldn’t be able to share her anti-war politics with him. The rhetoric she dealt with on the international news desks controlled by Maddox Inc. suddenly seemed meaningless compared to the reality here.

  As Thea put her hand on the door, she felt her palm sweating. She’d hoped today would be as joyful and happy a reunion as the one with Johnny had been, but she now understood with absolute certainty that this wouldn’t be like that at all.

  Michael turned slowly to face her, at the sound of the door swishing open. He gazed at her blankly. He had a deep scar running diagonally from just above his right eye across to his left cheek. Thea forced her smile not to waver, not wanting to betray her distress. ‘Relatively unscathed physically’ was what Johnny had told her. And by the standards around here, Thea thought, that was certainly true. Even so, Michael would clearly be scarred for life.

  He’d grown a scruffy-looking beard that didn’t suit him, she saw, perhaps in an attempt to conceal his injury, or perhaps, she worried, because he no longer cared about his appearance.

  Even as she approached him from the other side of the room, she could see the grey steaks in his hair. It was this – how old he suddenly looked – that shocked her more than his scar, or the fact that he failed to acknowledge her arrival.

  What had she expected? she wondered, still somehow managing to keep her smile tightly locked in place, putting her hand up in a pathetic wave as she reached him, before immediately regretting it and letting her arm flap uselessly back down by her side. Had she really thought Michael would be the same handsome sixteen-year-old of her dreams? Or that he’d smile at her now just as he’d smiled at her then? She saw now how foolish she’d been.

  She murmured, ‘Hello,’ her confidence failing her now.

  He said nothing. When she leant down to kiss him on the cheek – his right one; she was careful to avoid the scar on his left – he remained motionless. The skin her lips brushed against felt rough, almost brittle, like a newspaper that had been left out in the sun for too long.

  Stepping back, she waited for him to speak. He stared past her, towards the door. A chill spread through her as she wondered whether he recognized her at all. She took a plastic chair, drew it up next to him and sat down.

  ‘So how do I look, Thea?’ he said.

  Her breath caught in her throat. So he did remember her. He did know she was here.

  She stared into his eyes as they locked on hers. His blank stare had vanished. But what, she wondered, had now taken its place? Certainly nothing friendly.

  ‘Hideous?’ he said. ‘Disfigured?’

  Thea felt her skin prickling as she recoiled at the bitterness of his tone. ‘No . . .’

  ‘Then what?’

  Up close, she could see his bitten nails and the tired lines and heavy bags around his eyes. What did he want to hear? she thought. A lie? That he looked great? That he looked just as handsome as he always had? Michael was sick, not stupid. She decided to tell him the truth.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ she said. ‘And angry.’

  He stared down hard at the floor.

  ‘They did tell you I was coming to visit you, didn’t they?’ Thea said. ‘They did say I was coming today?’ She felt terrible. If he hadn’t wanted her here, then why hadn’t he asked them to keep her away? The last thing she wanted was to upset him. />
  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They told me. They told me, but I didn’t believe them.’

  There was a roughness to his voice, but this time when he looked up into her eyes, she saw that the anger – the violence – was gone. Something else had replaced it, something warmer, gentler, something so familiar from so many years ago.

  She felt her stomach contract as they held one another’s gaze. A flare of hope rose up inside her. He was still here, the boy she’d once known. His hazel eyes were darker now, their yellow flecks having lost their sunshine. But he was still Michael. Her Michael.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,’ he said. ‘Apart from on the cover of Forbes . . . or Vogue . . .’

  There was an awkward silence. But he was right, wasn’t he? Their worlds really had grown that far apart.

  Thea looked away, out through the window, at the leaves of a poplar tree shimmering in the breeze. She wondered how much Michael really knew about her, whether he’d read in the financial papers about her promotion to the board of Maddox Inc. Whether he’d seen any of those magazine articles speculating on her love-life – or lack of it. But most of all she wondered if he cared.

  A thudding sound. The door burst open. Another patient staggered into the lounge shouting, clamping his hands over his ears, looking desperately behind him, back through the door, before curling up into a quivering, sobbing ball on the floor.

  Thea stared in horror as two burly male orderlies rushed in and crouched down on either side of the man. One of them started trying to calm him, but the patient’s only response was to start screaming the words ‘Kill me’ over and over. He twisted away, roaring, then froze. His eyes had locked on Thea. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered then, spittle stretching from his lip, before burying his face in his hands and starting to shake.

  The orderlies gently lifted the man up under his armpits and led him back out of the room.

  ‘Francis,’ Michael explained, after they’d gone. ‘Got hit by an IED, the same as me. They had to cut fragments of his best friend’s skull out of his back. He was lucky to survive, but some days he thinks he never left there at all.’

  Had Michael been like that six months ago? Was that why she’d been told to keep away? That poor man . . . Thea didn’t know what to say. All she could think about was how petty her life’s traumas were compared with what the patients in here had gone through. It made her feel pathetic that she talked to her yoga trainer about how she longed for a proper relationship and how she had failed to get her work/life balance right, when the reality was that she was rich, successful and privileged. So much so that she wondered now whether she was brave enough to hear about the things that haunted Michael or the horrors he’d seen.

  Not that she knew if he’d ever confide in her about any of that. Not that she knew what he might want from her, or how she might help. All she knew was that she’d do all she could.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I don’t know when they’re going to let me out of here. Keeping me under observation, that’s what they call it.’ His expression darkened. ‘They won’t send me back out there, though,’ he said. ‘Not now. All that training, and I’m no longer wanted.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Story of my life, huh? People turning their backs on me and chucking me out, once they think I’m no longer any use . . .’

  His words hit her like blows. It was as if they were right back where she’d last seen him – outside Little Elms with her father, saying a stiff, excruciating goodbye. It was just as Johnny had said: Michael thought of her, not as herself, but as Griffin Maddox’s daughter after all. And he’d just been staff. Nothing more.

  She should go, she supposed. But she couldn’t bring herself to. She still needed . . . but what did she need? What had she come here for? she wondered. Forgiveness? For what her father had done? For the way he’d just let Michael and his mother and the rest of them go? Or for Michael to tell her that Johnny had been wrong? That their friendship had been real? And that somehow they could pick up where they’d left off – that somehow they could still be friends.

  Was that why she’d come here? Because she needed a friend? Because she still needed and wanted Michael, after all these years?

  ‘I went to see Johnny,’ she said, wanting Michael to know that she hadn’t ever stopped caring about them, and that she still wanted them all in her life.

  She opened her mouth to tell him all about the stud-farm and the vineyard and how well Johnny had looked, but stopped herself. Johnny’s life in that beautiful place and Michael’s here in this sterile limbo seemed too unbearable a contrast. She worried it would only upset him more.

  Michael sighed wearily. ‘Don’t tell me you came all this way just to talk about Johnny?’

  In part, Thea thought, yes, I really did. Because after seeing both Johnny and Shelley Lawson, she did want to tell Michael what she’d discovered – that Johnny and her mother had had a baby together, meaning that she now had a half-sister somewhere out there lost in the world. And she wanted to ask Michael if he’d ever known about Johnny and her mother. She wanted to share all this with him, because he was the only one who’d known them both. He was the only one she could now share it with.

  But equally she now understood – with a great heaviness in her heart – that this wasn’t the kind of information you could ever discuss with a stranger. And that’s what Michael had become.

  She felt the memory of what he’d once been to her drifting away like smoke.

  ‘I came here,’ she said, ‘because I wanted to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your mother . . .’

  Michael looked down at his hands and Thea noticed them trembling. She had to force away the urge to lean forward and put her hands over his to still them.

  ‘I’d like to help,’ she told him. ‘I mean, I’d like to offer to get her the best care possible—’

  ‘We don’t need your charity.’ He practically spat out the words.

  Indignation tore through her. ‘It’s not charity. Your mom practically brought me up,’ she snapped. It had happened so long ago and yet, talking about it now, it felt as raw as it did back then. ‘Do you think I didn’t miss her when I was shipped off to boarding school? Do you really think I didn’t care?’

  She felt tears rising up and fought them down furiously. Why did she have to get emotional now? Michael was the one who needed support, yet here she was being weak.

  ‘She wrote to you every week,’ Michael said. ‘You never replied.’

  Thea stared at him, letting out a small gasp. ‘I never got her letters,’ she said, her mind racing over the fact that Storm must have thrown them away, or had simply not bothered to send them on. ‘I had no idea where you were. Where either of you were. I was cut off, Michael. From everyone and everything I loved.’

  She felt the colour blossoming in her cheeks, but he looked away. He rubbed at his brow, confused.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said then, swallowing hard. ‘I never knew. I never knew that at all.’

  She did take his hand then. She clasped it between hers. She felt it trembling like a baby bird. She watched him close his eyes. His shoulders slumped.

  ‘I can give you the name of the care-home she’s in,’ he said. ‘It’s not far from Little Elms. I’ll be going there to see her as soon as they send me home.’

  ‘And you’ll let me help?’

  He didn’t answer. But why would he? she thought. He’d never ask for anything. That much about him, at least, hadn’t changed one jot. He still had too much pride. And so what if he hadn’t actually given her permission? Thea thought. He hadn’t said no, either. And one thing she’d learnt as a businesswoman was this: not saying no was the same as saying yes.

  She squeezed his hand tighter. In her mind the deal was now sealed.

  A blonde-haired female soldier in dark-green fatigues pushed through the door and smiled at Michael.

  ‘Hey, Mikey,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, yourself,’ Michael replied, a sudd
en warmth in his voice. He sat up straighter in his chair. ‘I hear you’re shipping out,’ he said.

  Thea let go of Michael’s hand. The woman – strike that, Thea thought, she can’t be much more than twenty-two – had a Canadian accent. And was pretty with it.

  Thea smiled, stepping aside and walking over to the window as the girl came over to where Michael was sitting and started chatting about some mutual friend who’d just got hitched.

  Thea watched them reflected in the glass. The girl liked Michael – that much was clear. She didn’t stop smiling, not once. And Thea, much to her surprise, found herself smiling as well. Not at anything the two of them were saying. More because the girl kept glancing her way, clearly curious as to who she was, maybe even seeing her as some kind of competition. And for some reason Thea couldn’t quite rationalize, that thought made her feel pretty good.

  When the girl finally left a few minutes later, Thea went back to sit at Michael’s side.

  ‘She seemed nice,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Attractive, too.’

  ‘I suppose . . .’

  Thea glimpsed it then, just a flicker, just a trace of the old smile he’d always given her whenever they’d been sharing a joke.

  ‘So what will you do when you get home?’ she asked.

  ‘This and that. I have various leads. You don’t have to start worrying about me, after all this time.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing . . . I never stopped worrying about you, Michael.’ She said it almost before thinking it.

  Michael broke the awkward silence that followed.

  ‘Thea,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming. Would you let me have your number?’

  She took one of her business cards out of her Gucci bag and handed it to him. He looked at it for a moment as if memorizing it, or not quite believing it was there. Then he sighed heavily, only not out of anger or frustration this time, she thought, but out of fatigue.