by Rhoda Baxter
She stretched, her arms and back complaining with the night’s tension. Her throat and eyes stung from crying the night before. She felt as though she hadn’t slept at all. She needed a shower and a coffee before she could face anything.
As she showered, she thought about Peter’s phone call in the night. He had seemed genuinely concerned that Sally would want to hurt her. She had assumed that it was a momentary flare of temper that had caused Sally’s outburst. It was probably the strength of emotion that had suddenly given her the ability fling things. She wouldn’t be able to do it again now. Probably.
A few minutes later, she ventured downstairs, feeling much better for having washed the previous night off. The house was still. She turned into the kitchen and her breath caught. Sally was sitting on the kitchen table, head bowed.
Grace hesitated, not sure what to say after the argument the night before. She hadn’t said anything wrong. The one person who should apologise was Sally. So why should she feel bad? Grace took a step into the kitchen.
Sally raised her head. Her expression was utter misery. ‘Morning.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.
They stared at each other for a moment. Grace couldn’t think of anything to say. She didn’t know how she felt towards Sally right now. Nor how Sally felt towards her.
‘I’ve lost him,’ Sally said. ‘After all this, I’ve lost him.’ She raised her hands and dropped them again in a gesture of helplessness.
Grace felt a stab of alarm. Had Sally done something? Had Peter hit his head harder than anyone thought? ‘What are you talking about? In what way have you lost him?’
‘He doesn’t love me any more.’ Sally’s voice was a wail.
The first thing Grace felt was relief. Peter was okay. The next feeling was, unexpectedly, sympathy. Peter had rejected her for Sally. Now Sally thought he’d rejected her too. ‘Are you sure?’ she said.
Sally looked so miserable that there was no doubt. Grace decided that she needed caffeine before she could handle this.
She watched Sally out of the corner of her eye, as she filled the kettle. The ghost sat hunched on the table. She seemed somehow diminished. It was as though her personality had shrunk until she was just a woman in a wedding dress, not the bright, in your face Sally she was used to.
‘He saw me,’ said Sally, not turning around.
‘Just before he passed out? Yes. He mentioned.’ Grace sat down and pulled the sleeves down on her jumper as she felt the chill emanating from Sally.
Sally turned. ‘No. Before that. When I …’
‘When you threw a heavy object at me?’ said Grace.
Sally nodded her head and looked down again. It was a few seconds before she looked Grace in the eye. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I was angry.’
‘You can’t go around throwing furniture at people just for talking to your husband. That’s just mental.’ Grace stared at her. ‘You could have killed someone.’
Sally looked like she was going to say something else, but then shrugged. ‘You’re right. I overreacted. I knew he was falling for you and when I saw you guys together, holding hands, I just … lost it.’ She nodded towards the kettle. ‘Your kettle’s boiled.’
That was probably the closest thing to an apology that she could expect. Grace made her coffee. The words ‘he was falling for you’ went round and round in his head. Had he been? If he had, he’d certainly got over it now. She turned around when Sally began to talk again.
‘The thing I really loved about Peter was the way he looked at me,’ Sally said, playing with her wedding ring again. ‘But last night, he looked at me like he hated me. Like he was scared of me. It was … horrible.’
‘You’re a ghost. It’s pretty normal to be scared of ghosts, especially when they’re hurling things around.’
‘No, there was more than that. He … There was some stuff I didn’t tell him. About me and my addiction. And he found out.’
‘I gathered.’ She sat back down. ‘Sally, I’m out of this, okay? You and Peter are going to have to sort things out on your own.’
‘But you—’
‘Look, if it’s any consolation, Peter told me to stay away from him. That’s what we were talking about last night.’ Grace felt tears prickling again. This was hard. She should be used to losing people by now. And Peter wasn’t ill or dying. Why was this so hard? She blew on her coffee, hoping the steam disguised her teary eyes. ‘He didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t right by you.’
‘Really?’ said Sally. ‘He said that? Why?’
‘Because he’s a decent human being and he loves you. Or he loved you at some point. He said you needed to have a chance to defend yourself.’
‘He really said that? Wow.’ She looked away. Her posture had changed. Her back was straighter. The hangdog expression had abated. Grace looked away. Good. If Sally and Peter made each other happy, good luck to them. She was better off out of it anyway. Really. She was.
Sally tapped her fingertips on the table, as though she were thinking hard.
Grace blew on her coffee again and took a small sip. So here she was, again. Alone. There was no point moping about it. She had to do what she always did. Get up off the ground and deal with it. She was a fighter. That’s what fighters did. Peter didn’t want her. If she fought for him, she would never be able to shake Sally. Come to think of it, she was saddled with Sally anyway. No one else apart from drug addicts could see her, so Sally would continue to haunt her. The only way out was to go somewhere she’d never been.
‘Sally, have you ever been to Asia?’
‘What?’ Sally looked over her shoulder. ‘Why?’
‘Just asking.’
Sally picked something invisible off her sleeve. ‘We were going to Thailand for our honeymoon. Peter was going to show me the world.’
Grace nodded, no longer listening. She always faced up to things. Peter had made his position clear and Sally, well, Sally would find someone else to hang out with. Peter would sort himself out too, one way or another. She’d spent years doing stuff for other people. Maybe it was time she stopped.
Sri Lanka. She could go there. Maybe track down her father’s family. She wondered if they would want to know her. Probably not, but she’d like to see the country her father remembered so fondly. She could ask for unpaid leave from work and just go. She had some money left from her mother’s insurance payout. She could sell the house too. When she got back, she could move to something smaller. She didn’t need all this space anyway.
She immediately felt better. A long holiday would be just what she needed. She’d always wanted to see Sri Lanka. She could go and see Thailand and India as well. Who knows, she might like it enough out there to stay. Then everything would work itself out.
Except then Sally would be a ghost, drifting unseen and unheard through the world. She looked again at Sally, who was still thinking. Could she really condemn Sally to that? Sally was a pain in bottom, but did she really deserve that? Grace shook her head. There it was again. That irritating drive to worry about other people.
Peter woke up to hear the key in the front door lock. He lifted his head and wondered where he was. His arm had gone numb where his head had rested against it. He must have fallen asleep at the kitchen table. He was still dressed in last night’s clothes. There was a bottle of whiskey and a glass in front of him. His head felt horrendous and he felt as though he’d lost something. Memory crashed into him. Sally. Grace. Shit. He rubbed his face and felt stubble rasp against his palms.
‘Oh my god, Peter!’ His mother was standing in the doorway, holding a cool bag in one hand, keys in the other. ‘Oh my darling what happened to you?’
He looked down and realised that there was still blood on his shirt. ‘Uh …’
Diane’s gaze dropped to the whiskey bottle, which was nearly
empty.
‘Oh. I left it open overnight.’ He grabbed the lid and started to screw it back on. ‘I only had a couple of glasses.’ He frowned and winced as the cut on his forehead pulled.
Diane dumped her bags on the table. ‘What happened?’ She picked up the whiskey tumbler with two fingers and moved it.
Peter touched his forehead. ‘Oh, you know how it is. The wife beat me up.’ He smiled at his own joke. Except of course, it wasn’t a joke.
‘Stop being facetious Peter. How bad is that?’ She was reaching for his forehead. He pulled back.
‘I’m okay, Mum. Honestly. I had a bit of a fall at the party last night. I toppled into a statue. It’s no big deal.’
‘You’ve got cuts all over your arm and face.’ She stretched his arm out and examined it. ‘It looks like a big deal. Did you have these cuts cleaned?’
‘Yes. They had a very good first aider there. He and Grace sorted everything out.’
‘Grace? Your friend from the hospice.’
‘Hmm.’ His mother’s apparent recognition of Grace surprised him. He had mentioned her only in passing. Had Val mentioned something to their mother about Grace? He hoped not.
‘How drunk were you?’ said Diane, still examining his arm.
Peter gave a small laugh. ‘I’m not as hungover as I look,’ he said. ‘I just need to have a shower and get into some clean clothes, and I’ll be as good as new.’
Diane nodded and reluctantly let go. ‘I’ll make you some breakfast for when you come down. Then you have to tell me all about what happened.’
Peter headed up the stairs. Later, he stood under the stream from the shower and let the previous night wash off him. Who was he trying to kid? He would never be as good as new. He’d seen the madness of his wife. And he’d alienated the one woman he really wanted. An ache settled in his gut. He knew now, without a shadow of a doubt that he loved Grace. He even loved that she didn’t argue with him when he told her he couldn’t see her. She understood. What an idiot he was not to see that Sally had been playing him for a fool all this time. And how did he not realise that he loved Grace? Now that he did realise, what next? He was married to Sally. Peter tilted his face to the water and groaned.
When he got back downstairs he was greeted by the smell of bacon. ‘Mum, you’re an angel.’ He sat down to the bacon and baked beans his mother set down on the table. ‘You read my mind.’
She sat down next to him, a coffee cradled in her hands, and watched as he attacked his plate.
‘So,’ she said after few minutes. ‘Want to talk about it?’Peter took another mouthful and lowered his fork. He hadn’t told anyone other than Val about Sally and Grace. Perhaps he should. ‘It’s… a bit weird,’ he said.
‘Okay.’ She was watching him with a gentle expression. Suddenly he felt about ten years old.
‘Mum. Can you promise you’re not going to go crazy?’
‘Darling I—’ She stopped when she saw his expression. ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, but I’ll do my best to understand.’
So he told her. About Sally’s gambling problem, about the argument that crashed the car, about the guilt and the fear, about everything apart from the ghost. It flowed out of him in a torrent of emotion and sadness. His mother listened, quiet and absorbed, just like she’d always done.
‘So, in the end, she wasn’t at all who I thought she was,’ said Peter. ‘She lied to me about all these things.’ To his surprise, there was pain behind his eyes. He blinked. ‘The Sally I thought I knew was … well, she never really existed. It was just an act for my benefit. I was such an idiot.’ His vision was blurring. He clenched his fist around his fork, impatient at himself. ‘I feel …’ He lost the battle with emotions and a tear rolled down his cheek.
‘Like you’re losing her all over again?’ Diane finished for him. ‘Oh darling.’ She stood up and wrapped her arms around him.
‘All that time I sat next to her bed and hoped and prayed and wished for her to come back. All that pain and heartache and guilt.’ He said into her shoulder. ‘I loved her Mum. Really loved her and she’s gone. She never even existed in the first place. Which is worse.’
Diane held him. The familiar smell of her perfume and hairspray reminded him of being a child. Of comfort. Of safety. For a few minutes he let himself lean on her and fall apart. Diane patted him on the back and laid her cheek against his head. ‘Oh, my darling. If only I could have spared you this, I would. We tried, but you were so in love.’
Peter froze. ‘You tried?’ He pulled himself away and scraped the tears off his face with the back of his hand. ‘What do you mean, you tried?’
His mother looked uncomfortable. ‘When you first brought Sally round to see us, I … didn’t feel she was right for you. Neither did Valerie. We talked about it and Val said she’d talk to you.’
‘But I just got annoyed with her and told her to butt out of my business.’ He remembered the argument all too well.
‘Sally was everything you thought you wanted,’ said his mother. ‘I thought she was calculating and fake. I felt she wanted you for the wrong reasons. She didn’t seem that interested in what you wanted and … I just couldn’t imagine her ever having children, could you?’
Come to think of it, no, he couldn’t. God, how could he have been so stupid. ‘I can’t believe I fell for it so completely,’ he said.
Diane smiled. ‘I can. She was very pretty and I’m sure she could be very persuasive when she wanted to be.’
‘I guess.’ He picked up his plate and headed over to sink.
‘What are you going to do about Grace?’ said Diane.
‘Grace? Nothing. I don’t know. She probably won’t want to ever see me again.’ The thought felt like lead in his heart.
‘That’s a shame,’ said his mother.
Peter paused. ‘Pardon?’
‘Oh, come on darling. It’s obvious that you like Grace. And she likes you. She sounds like a very nice person. A very … genuine person.’ Diane stood next to her son and put a hand on his arm. ‘Apart from all that you’ve just told me, you’re wife has been as good as dead for a year. No one would blame you if you started forming other … friendships.’
This was his mother. Straight down the middle, Scruples-R-Us mother. ‘Mother, are you suggesting I be unfaithful to my wife?’ Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth.
She took a breath. ‘I … wouldn’t normally …’
‘What if Sally wakes up?’
‘What if she doesn’t? You need to move on. Accept the possibility that she may never wake up.’
Except of course, she already had, in a manner of speaking. He stilled, trying to sense if she was in the room. Still nothing. ‘I wonder where she is.’
Diane misunderstood. ‘We all do, darling. We all do.’
Sally watched the nurses changing her catheter bag and changing her. They chatted about their lives and loves and generally handled Sally’s body as though it were an object. Although they addressed it occasionally, it was as a matter of training. They didn’t expect her to hear.
They tucked her back into the newly changed bed and brushed her hair out so that it lay in a brown fan on the pillow. One of them checked the machines, did the obs while the other messed around changing the water for the flowers. It all took a few minutes and they were gone.
Sally felt the enormous loneliness of being invisible. She watched herself lying there and thought about the difference between someone unconscious and someone dead. The difference was barely noticeable, but it was there. Even the useless body on the bed had something in it. Life. It was a complicated thing. A body and a consciousness, each useless without each other.
Sally felt the sudden need to be with her body. She plonked herself on the bed and lay down. She frowned. Something was di
fferent. She carefully shifted herself so that she was in line with her physical body. As arms and legs and middle fell into place, there was a feeling of something changing. A feeling of something being right.
Suddenly, there was a blast of sensation. She could feel neurones firing from all directions. There was heat, there were sounds, there were smells and there was pain. Dear god, there was pain. She screamed.
Her body seemed to suddenly realise she was there. Glands kicked stuff out into her blood. Her heart started to race, just as Chloe’s had done.
‘No, no, no.’ Sally tried to slow things down, but that only made things worse. The machine next to her started beeping. People rushed into the room.
With a little effort, Sally managed to disassociate herself, partially, from herself. She lay there, half in, half out of her body, waiting for the heart to settle down. The room was filling up with doctors, someone had a defibrillator out. It was like something from ER. Except without George Clooney.
Without her to mess things up, her body settled down. The heart monitor went back to pinging gently. The medical staff were still babbling, standing around the bed. Sally ignored them. Now, she had an idea.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Grace fidgeted as she waited for the lift to reach Margaret’s floor. The decision to go away, once made, was exhilarating. Grace had spoken to her manager who was considering it. She wouldn’t normally be allowed to take six weeks off. Being a senior scientist came with responsibility. She caught herself assessing her team trying to figure out who could take on which aspects of her work.
Then there was Margaret.
Now that it came to telling Margaret, she was starting to feel guilty. Margaret had no one. If Grace disappeared for six weeks, that would be six weeks where no one visited her. As Grace strode along the corridor Harry’s father, pushed in his wheelchair by Harry, came out in the opposite direction. The old man was muttering to himself.