Cold Heart

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘I’ll be with you in ten, fifteen minutes depending on the traffic’

  Jake let the phone drop back onto the cradle. His body felt stiff and his mind blank. He was unable to take in what Rooney had said. He made himself go over the call again, then picked up his coat like a robot, and walked out. She was not going to die, he told himself. She was going to be all right.

  Rosie handed Rooney a cup of coffee from the machine and sat close, resting against him. ‘She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sipped the lukewarm excuse for coffee. ‘She’s as strong as an ox. She’s gonna be okay.’ But his words sounded hollow. Rosie’s tears trickled down her face. They had been waiting for news, any news, for fifteen minutes.

  Jake walked in, his features drawn and frightened. ‘How is she?’

  Rooney stood up, offering his hand. ‘We don’t know – they told us to wait here.’

  ‘You want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘We don’t know. We got to her apartment and found her. At first I didn’t think she was alive – she’d taken one hell of a beating. He used a baseball bat, left it by the door.’

  ‘Who did you call?’

  ‘Local guys, Pacific Area Homicide. They were on the spot within minutes, so were the paramedics. They brought her into Accident and Emergency to get her blood matched for a transfusion, and did some X-rays.’

  Jake sat down and clasped his hands. ‘You get a name? Someone I can talk to?’

  Rooney wiped his face with his hand. ‘Yeah, officer said his name was Larry Morgan.’

  ‘I’ll go call him.’

  Jake was gone for several minutes. When he came back there was an almost pleading expression on his face – begging for news, good news, but there had been none. He sat down beside Rooney. ‘They’ve taken the baseball bat for finger-printing, and they also got some bloody shoe-prints, some kind of sneaker. It looks like he broke in and was lying in wait – they found some screwed-up cans of Coke by the bed, as if he’d been waiting for her in the bedroom.’

  Rosie said, ‘I was there yesterday. I watered the plants, and there were no Coke cans then. I’d have seen them, put them in the trash can.’

  There was an awful silence, as all three sat staring straight ahead.

  ‘I’ve put out a warrant for this Lee Judd guy’s arrest,’ Jake said softly.

  ‘Good,’ Rooney said.

  ‘You think it was him?’ Jake asked, frowning.

  We’ll soon find out. They get prints off the Coke cans?’

  ‘Too early yet – it’ll take a couple of days.’ Jake got up, then sat down again.

  Rosie took out a tissue and blew her nose. She had been crying off and on ever since she found Lorraine. No sooner did she get a grip on herself than the tears poured down her cheeks again.

  Rooney lit a cigarette, ignoring a prominent ‘No Smoking’ sign. He leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, inhaling deeply and hissing out the smoke. He could think of nothing more to say to Jake, could think only about the lady he had grown to love and admire so much, sure that this couldn’t be the end: life couldn’t be that cruel.

  Jake sat straight-backed, gripping the arm of the grey airport-style armchair, still in shock, still unable to believe that he might lose the woman he felt it had taken him his whole life to find.

  The three sat in silence, but all with the same hope, that Lorraine would live. They were each wrapped in their own thoughts and memories of her, knowing there was nothing they could do but wait. That was the worst part of it all – the awful waiting, and the helplessness.

  ‘Perhaps I’m addressing myself particularly to other women artists,’ Sonja said. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the critical rumblings from the crowd gathered around the podium. ‘The relationship of art to life is a complex one, on which wiser commentators and greater artists than myself have expended a considerable amount of thought. Whatever else is true of art, it is true that its practice changes the nature of one’s relations with other people – and I think it deprives those relations of precisely the qualities of equality and repicrocity which women, in particular, cherish as ideal. For those reasons I think some women artists are not kept out of art by hostile conspiracies, but choose to remove themselves from it – as I now choose myself.’

  The room erupted into chaos: Sonja’s face had returned to mask-like impassivity, and she stood motionless on the podium, as people continued to shout, jeer, and hurl incoherent questions at her.

  As she turned to descend the steps, the crowd parted with ill grace to allow her to pass. She made her way to where her latest work was waiting to be unveiled. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to face the crowd.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Sonja said, ‘I consider art to be a sort of second-hand synthesis and simulacrum of other more truly destructive arts, acts in real life, of which the artist is also the author.’ She finished quickly before the reaction to her words set in. ‘That is certainly the case with this piece, my last, entitled Quietus Est, which I present to you now.’

  She pulled the cloth off the sculpture, to reveal a huge glass tank full of reddish water. People crowded closer to observe the figure of a man floating inside it, the head hideously damaged and the face as though exploded.

  Two more hours had passed, and Rooney and Rosie were still waiting in the small seating area outside Intensive Care, from which no amount of new carpet or pot plants could remove the atmosphere of anxiety and tension. Jake had gone to Reception to make some calls, and looked expectantly at them when he returned, but Rooney shook his head. No one had walked out of the unit, and the double doors had remained firmly closed.

  ‘They just arrested Eric Lee Judd – holding him overnight for questioning,’ Jake said. ‘What do you think is going on in there?’ He glanced at the doors.

  Rooney lifted his shoulders with a sigh. ‘Means she’s still alive. That’s all I can think.’

  They all turned as the doors banged open and a small army of green-clad doctors and nurses appeared, removing their masks as they walked past. They looked exhausted. One youngish man lagged behind the others as he took off his mask. ‘How is she?’ Rooney blurted out.

  ‘Are you relations?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rooney lied.

  As the doctor slid off his green cap he seemed less young. ‘I’m Dr Hudson – I’ve been heading the team. You mind if I sit down? It’s been a long night.’

  He sat, holding the cap loosely in his hands while his mask dangled round his neck.

  ‘I might as well give it to you straight. She’s in a very deep coma. She has a base-of-skull fracture and her right ear-drum is perforated, which means that she’s losing fluid from the brain through the ear.’ He rubbed his scalp, then took a deep breath. ‘She is on a ventilator. Her ribs have been fractured, and have punctured the lungs, so both air and blood are escaping into the chest cavity. We’ve had a tough fight in there, as tests have also shown her kidneys are malfunctioning. The right cheekbone and right side of the jaw have been shattered, and there is also serious damage to the right eye.’

  Rooney’s heart was pounding. ‘Is she going to live?’

  Dr Hudson twisted his cap. ‘She is critically ill and, as I said, in a very deep coma. We have a long way to go. We’ll just take each day as it comes, and see whether she regains consciousness when the sedation is reduced. The main work we’ve been able to do this evening was to insert drains in the chest wall to clear air and blood from her lungs. We have to stabilize her breathing before we can carry out any other procedures.’

  ‘Can we see her?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘You can see her through the viewing window outside the IC unit, but I’m afraid you will not be allowed inside.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll ask one of the nurses to come and take you through. It may be quite a while.’

  ‘We’ll wait,’ Jake said.

  Hudson kept on turning his cap in his hands. ‘I’m sorry it’s not better news.
Mrs Page is a very sick lady.’

  He hated these sessions, trying to give hope, when in reality there was very little. In Mrs Page’s case, it was already more than a probability that she had severe brain damage.

  It was midnight before Sonja got back to the hotel to find Arthur waiting for her, a glass of whisky in his hand. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you won’t believe it but it was one of the most bizarre evenings of my life. I announced that I was retiring and I couldn’t resist telling them that art had all but wrecked my life and that I was getting out because I was sick of it and that I wanted a life with you.’

  ‘You said that?’ Arthur was incredulous.

  ‘More or less. They went wild. But then I showed them the new piece and they went wild again – they loved it. I think I just had the most successful show of my life.’

  ‘Sonja,’ Arthur said evenly, ‘I haven’t asked you this before, but what is your new piece?’

  Sonja looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Arthur,’ she said, ‘I had to do it to get rid of him.’

  ‘Sonja,’ Arthur said again, ‘just tell me. I’ll see it in the papers tomorrow.’

  She said nothing for a moment, then looked him steadily in the face. ‘It’s Harry,’ she said. ‘It’s Harry in the swimming pool. The way they found him dead.’

  He knew then that Sonja had killed her ex-husband. For a moment he thought of asking her the question directly, but he knew there was no need to do so: they both knew the truth. Perhaps he, too, had become as detached, as amoral, as she was, for he found he was indifferent to Nathan’s physical life or death: the invisible hold he had had over Sonja for so long was all that concerned him.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘they loved it?’

  ‘They were practically jamming commissions into my coat pockets.’

  ‘So what’s the next project?’ Arthur said, with a sudden bitterness. ‘Son of Harry?’ Sonja flinched, and he knew his words had hurt her enormously, but he carried on. ‘Or should I say ghost of Harry?’ He was almost shouting at her now. ‘How long is this going to go on? We talk about it again and again, but nothing ever changes. Your heart belongs to Harry, winter, spring and fall.’

  It was the crudest and most painful speech anyone had ever made to Sonja, and it was only with an intense effort of self-control that she prevented herself from weeping. ‘On the contrary,’ she said, standing very still and upright, ‘I will not be working again, no matter what commissions are offered to me. I meant what I said – it is finished.’

  Arthur saw a tremor run through her and he knew that, no matter what Sonja said about wanting to give up her work, it was a sacrifice, and one that cost her dearly . . . Or maybe now that she had destroyed the man who had inspired and obsessed her, her art had simply left her as a bird takes flight from a tree. An abyss of doubt suddenly opened in front of him as he looked at the ring he had put on Sonja’s finger and wondered what bargain he had made, what it was to which he had pledged himself. A murderess? A woman who was finally prepared to commit herself to him, to make sacrifices for his happiness? Or just an empty shell? One never could know the secrets of another soul, he thought, and suddenly he knew that he did not care what she was or what she had done: what he felt for her lay deeper than any question, any answer, any doubt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving close to her and putting his arms around her. ‘Perhaps I’m the one can’t stop talking about him now.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, her voice oddly thick. ‘It really is finished now.’

  There was silence for a moment, and then she broke away. ‘How was your evening?’ she said with a smile, her tone normal. ‘Are we in the clear, or on the run?’

  He smiled back at her. ‘The former, it seems. It went even better than we hoped – the money will be transferred into the Swiss account by nine tomorrow.’

  ‘How much?’ she asked.

  ‘Twenty million dollars.’

  Sonja inhaled deeply, then let out her breath slowly. ‘My God, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘You’d better, it’s taken long enough but . . . we did it.’

  He crossed to the mini-bar and she watched him take out a half-bottle of champagne. ‘I think we should drink a toast.’ He opened it and handed her a foaming glass. ‘To Harry Nathan,’ he said, and saw her eyes widen in shock.

  ‘Arthur . . .’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Lay the ghost. To the man who made possible both our successes this evening. Harry Nathan, RIP.’

  ‘RIP,’ Sonja echoed. ‘I never want to say his name again.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s a second toast,’ he said. ‘To us.’

  She raised her half-empty glass, and he saw that she closed her eyes as she drained it, as though holding her nose to jump into a new and strange sea.

  ‘To us.’

  Lorraine’s head was swathed in bandages to just above her eyes, and her face was grossly bruised and discoloured. Drips for fluid, plasma and blood fed into her arm, while others had been inserted in her mouth. Her arm was encircled with a blood-pressure cuff, and she was connected to a cardiac monitor. The rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, pumping air into Lorraine’s lungs, and the dreadful bubbling noise of her breathing were the only sounds. A probe-like clip to measure the levels of oxygen in her blood was attached to her finger, and she lay perfectly still, unaware, in some limbo between life and death.

  ‘Oh, God,’ whispered Rosie, her hands pressed against the glass partition.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do here,’ Jake said quietly.

  ‘Come on, Rosie, let’s go home,’ Rooney said, taking his wife’s arm.

  ‘No,’ she whimpered.

  ‘We’ll come back tomorrow, and we’ve got to take care of Tiger.’

  They left, unable to speak. Seeing Lorraine so isolated, so vulnerable, so distant from them, frightened them. Having seen with their own eyes the terrible punishment she had taken, it was hard to believe she could ever be the same Lorraine again.

  ‘She’s a fighter,’ Rosie said hopefully, as she got in beside Rooney and slammed the car door shut.

  ‘This is one fight she might not win, Rosie. We got to face up to that.’

  Rosie wouldn’t look at him. She clenched her fists. ‘Well, maybe I know her better than you, Bill, and I’m telling you she’s as strong as an ox. She’ll beat this, I know it.’

  ‘I hope so, darlin’. I sincerely hope so.’

  Lorraine was closely monitored through the night: she remained in a deep coma, her pulse low. She showed no sign of movement in any of her limbs, and as yet they had been unable to establish the extent of the brain damage she had sustained. When the surgeons and staff reconvened the following morning, it was suggested that Lorraine’s close relatives be told to be ready to come. There had been no progress; if anything she had regressed, and there was little hope of recovery.

  Rosie had stayed with Tiger at Lorraine’s apartment. She packed nightdresses and toiletries ready to take to Lorraine as soon as she was allowed to have visitors, but she knew when Rooney called at eight thirty in the morning, it was bad news. At nine o’clock she and Rooney called Lorraine’s ex-husband to inform him of the situation. Mike Page was shocked, asked which hospital Lorraine was in, and if he would be allowed to visit. Rooney suggested he call the hospital himself, saying only that he had been asked to inform Lorraine’s immediate family and that she remained on the critical list.

  Mike replaced the receiver, shaken. Although he had not seen or spoken to his ex-wife in over two years, he was still affected emotionally by the news of what had happened to her. He immediately saw in his mind the Lorraine with whom he had fallen in love, the Lorraine who had worked day and night to allow him to gain his law degree, the Lorraine who had given birth to his two beautiful daughters. All memory of the violent drunkard, the pain-racked woman he had been forced to divorce for his own survival, was gone.

  Sissy, his wife, walked into his study with th
e morning’s mail. ‘You’re going to be late, darling, and the girls are waiting for you to take them to school.’ She stopped, and took a good look at him. ‘What’s happened?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘It’s Lorraine, she’s . . .’

  ‘Is she dead?’ Sissy asked.

  ‘No – on the critical list. It didn’t sound very hopeful. Not that they’d tell me much over the phone.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting her arms around him.

  ‘I’ll go and see her this afternoon.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you think I should take the girls with me?’ Sissy shrugged her shoulders, and began to tidy his desk. He took her hand. ‘Just stop that. I mean, she is their mother.’

  ‘Well, she hasn’t been one for a long time, Mike, and they’re so settled. I just don’t want them upset. The last time she visited – the only time – Sally was in a terrible state, and Julia . . . Look, it’s not up to me, but I’d think twice about it. Maybe see her first and then decide.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll go straight to the hospital after lunch.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. As I said, they weren’t too forthcoming over the phone. They just said the outlook wasn’t good.’

  Was she drinking again?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sissy. I’ll find out, and I’ll call you.’

  As he left, Sissy could hear the girls, waiting outside by the car, calling him to hurry up. She crossed to the window and watched them drive away, then went back to his desk, covered with family photographs – their son, away at camp, and the two girls. No one could believe they weren’t Sissy’s daughters: they were as blonde as she was, both tall for their age, both pretty, but so like their mother, Lorraine . . . It made Sissy feel sad just thinking about what Lorraine had lost, their growing up, their first prizes at school, their first tennis matches, their first time swimming without water-wings, the trill of their voices calling, ‘Mommy,’ because they both now called Sissy by that name – had done so from almost the start of her relationship with Mike.