The phone was on Neil’s side of the bed. He had answered it before I was fully awake. With one eye open, I checked the time. The numbers glowed red and fuzzy. It was 01:35 in the morning.
Neil switched on his bedside light. I squinted my eyes shut, put my hand over them to block out the light.
I could tell by his voice that he was fully awake now. And that sparked something inside me. I forced my eyes open, engaged my limbs and sat up. If the call was sufficiently important to snap Neil into a fully awake state, it had to be important. Neil turned to me and held out the phone.
‘Christine, it’s for you,’ he said. ‘It’s Berriton hospital in Plymouth. Your father has had a heart attack.’
Even though I heard the word “Plymouth”, the word that seemed larger was “father”. So I immediately thought of Dad. I choked on the tears as I took the phone from Neil. Why had Dad had a heart attack? He was as fit as anything. It was only as I listened to the lady at the end of the phone that I realised it was Richard.
Of course it was Richard. He had a history of heart problems in his family. And immediately I knew it was my fault. It was me that had caused this. Turning up unannounced; finding him after all these years. All those questions I had asked him. Bringing up all the memories he had buried. I had dragged him through it all again.
‘Christine?’
It was the nurse.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Is he … OK?’
‘He’s very poorly at the moment. We’ve stabilised him and we’re monitoring his condition, but he is in a pretty bad way.’
‘I’ll come down,’ I said. ‘I’m a few hours away, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘There isn’t any point in rushing down here now,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t be able to see you yet anyway. If you want to come in the morning, that would be more sensible.’
Her words drifted through me. Not really catching as they went. I heard them without fully understanding each individual word. But I managed to grasp the gist.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there in the morning.’
Neil took the phone from me, put it back on his bedside cabinet.
If they didn’t want me there until the morning, why had they rung me in the middle of the night? Was it just to mess with my mind? Getting their own back for having to look after my father at such an ungodly hour?
‘Can I have my car keys?’ I said.
‘Christine.’
‘I need to go down there. I need to be by his side. He doesn’t have anyone else. It’s because of me that he’s there. I’ve caused this.’
Neil took my hand but I snatched it away again.
‘You haven’t caused this,’ he said. ‘If it had been the shock of seeing us, it would have happened that first day. He even invited you to stay over the last time you were there. It’s not us that’s caused the heart attack, Chris. It’s certainly not you.’
My eyebrow itched. I wanted to punch the living daylights out of the duvet. Vent the feelings inside.
‘And driving down in the middle of the night is a really bad idea,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t even want you driving anywhere during the day. But certainly not now. Not having been woken up with this news. It just wouldn’t be safe.’
‘Take me down there,’ I said. ‘We can go now.’
‘Michael and Rose?’ he said.
‘Shit.’
‘Chris, wait until the morning. I heard the nurse say that he wouldn’t be able to see you now anyway. They probably need to be careful with him at the moment. If he’s just suffered a heart attack it’s probably not sensible to have visitors getting in the way.’
‘I’m his daughter. I wouldn’t get in the way. He would want me to be there.’
‘Yes, but he wouldn’t want you to be there as another patient. If you try to drive down there — who knows what might happen.’
I thought he was being unfair. I hadn’t had a blackout for a while. In my view the risk was one worth taking. Neil took my hand again. He was a persistent bugger. Brave too.
‘I can drive you down there in the morning,’ he said. ‘We’ll get the kids off to school and ask Abi and Oliver to have them afterwards. I’ll take the day off and drive you.’
I sighed. Blew out all the duvet punching feelings.
‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘I’ll get the train down there. You’ve already done loads. Michael and Rose don’t need anymore disruption. I’ll get the first train in the morning.’
He leaned over and kissed me. I expected him to lie down, turn over and go straight to sleep. But he looked into my eyes and smiled.
‘Someone’s testing us,’ he said. ‘Testing you. I bet they didn’t think you’d be this tough.’
I didn’t feel tough. I felt beaten. Not beaten in the “it’s all over and I’ve lost” sense of the word. But in the physically beaten sense. As though I had been fighting since the day of the attack and I had been pummelled and beaten by onslaught after onslaught. I didn’t feel sorry for myself. It wasn’t that. I just felt physically battered. I wanted to float in a hot bath for a month. A bath of something with more substance than water. Something with the consistency of oil or cream. Something still liquid, but thick. Soft and surrounding. Warm and healing. For a month.
I hadn’t realised I had closed my eyes.
‘Are you OK?’ Neil said.
I opened them again. He was smiling at me. Eyebrows raised.
Either I misread them, or his timing was shit.
‘Are you still awake?’ I said.
‘I’m just going through the motions,’ he said. ‘Pretending I care.’
We hugged each other. I felt the ridges of his damaged cheek touching mine. His face was still warm and soft from sleep. I told him to turn his light off and get some shut-eye. As I lay back in the darkness, thinking about Richard, I tried to cobble together some sort of prayer that might somehow make him better. That might mend his damaged heart. The one that I had torn.
At 7:30 the following morning I stared out of the window as the train started its journey to Plymouth. I had Janice Ward’s phone number with me to cancel our meeting. And I had a small suitcase in case I needed to stay down there to be near Richard. I had woken that morning thinking about Ernie, his cat. Not about Richard’s heart attack, but about his bloody cat. Perhaps I really was mad.
I phoned Janice on my mobile and told her what had happened. I said I would call her as soon as I knew when I could come round, but it might not be for a while now. Maybe even after my assessment.
By 10:30am I was walking behind a nurse along a corridor to Richard’s room in Berriton hospital.
‘He may not be very responsive,’ she said. ‘He needs to rest.’
I tried to answer but the the words caught in my throat. I just nodded.
‘Just come and get one of the nurses if you need anything. We’ll just be along the corridor. Also he has a buzzer over his bed if you need to use it.’
I managed to croak out a ‘thank you’.
I had expected serenity. I knew he was ill, but the fact that he was in hospital made me think of white sheets, an uncluttered area and a look of general improvement in the patient. My father’s room displayed none of those things. Apart from the white sheets.
His face was grey. I could see why people said “ashen”. His hair lay limp on his head. The white sheets were marked with stains, presumably from they’d first brought him into hospital. There was a nasty gash above his left eye, partly covered with gauze padding, but with enough of the wound showing through to make my stomach flutter. They hadn’t told me about that injury. I guessed he must have fallen during the heart attack.
A drip beside the bed slowly allowed a measured amount of stuff into his body via a clear tube hanging from the back of his wrist. I rubbed the back of my wrist.
Wires protruded from under the bed sheets. They were connected to a monitor next to him. An oxygen mask hung over the bed, attached to a large metal oxygen tank behind the bed — as thoug
h he was preparing for several hours under the sea.
He looked much smaller than he had done previously.
I crept to his side. I didn’t want to disturb him. Certainly didn’t want to make him jump. I wanted to reach under the sheet for his hand. Let him know I was there — that he wasn’t alone. But I held back. My cheek tickled and I wiped away a rogue tear. Urged myself to be strong for him.
I pulled a chair to the bed and sat down next to him. Watched his ashen face. Watched the tiniest movement of the sheets rising and falling as he breathed. A cold tremor swept across my back. As though someone had just opened a window. I worried that something might be about to happen to me. Something I might not be able to control.
I stood up and moved, too quickly, to the door. I heard the chair clattering behind me. I had to get out of the hospital. I couldn’t lose it. Not here. Not with Richard like he was.
I ran along the corridor, tried to remember the way out. My hair blew back as I ran. A gust of wind blowing into me as I moved forward. Don’t lose it, Christine. Don’t blackout here. The smell of the sea. My face wet with dew, wet with fog. Keep running out of the hospital. Get to the reality of outside. Don’t blackout here. The sound of crashing. A deep thunderous roar. They are waves. Crashing waves. Thrashing against the rocks below. Screaming gulls carried on the wind. Everything buffeted. Pushed and pulled. There’s the exit. Almost there. Slam into the doors. Push them open. Suck in the air. Pull it into my stomach and my lungs. Deep gulps of fresh air. Real air. Pay attention, Christine. Look. No fog; no waves; no wind.
I stopped running and flopped against a wooden bench outside the hospital. Smokers looked at me, then looked away as I made eye contact. I couldn’t stay there, breathing in the smoke. I needed more fresh air. I stumbled off towards another bench further away. Sat down on it and breathed in, open mouthed. I didn’t want to shut my eyes. I wanted to see the reality of my surroundings. Wanted to anchor myself firmly to where I was. My heart pumped so hard it felt like it was pushing my chest and shoulders up a few inches with every beat. Forcing the bones to give it room. Making way for the hard work it was being asked to do. For a flashing moment I wondered whether I had heart problems too, like my father.
I leaned my head back and breathed in slowly through my nose. Calmed everything down a little. Risked blinking. It was OK. I shut my eyes for a few seconds. That was OK too. Had I fought it off? Had I successfully won against the onset of blacking out? I could imagine what might have happened if I had stayed in Richard’s room, with all the delicate wires and tubes monitoring him and delivering what he needed to stay alive. His room had been such an unreal situation. That was why I had needed to get out. Needed to find something real to hold onto.
I stayed on the bench for twenty minutes. Until I was sure I was through it.
I lowered my head as I walked towards the main doors of the hospital. I didn’t know if it was a new bunch of smokers or still the same ones I had stormed through earlier, but I couldn’t look at any of them.
I opened the door to Richard’s room. Two nurses looked up at me. The chair I had knocked over in my rush to get out of the room had been moved back against the wall. My handbag placed on the seat. My father’s head and upper body had been raised slightly. His eyes were open.
‘Are you OK?’ one of the nurses said.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I just had to get some fresh air all of a sudden. I think I got a bit overwhelmed with it all. But I’m fine now.’
‘How are you feeling, Richard?’ the other nurse said.
He moved his head slightly.
‘OK,’ he said.
Hearing him speak took my breath away. He had looked so ill I hadn’t imagined he would be able to talk. But his voice sounded so raspy and dry I silently urged him not to say any more for fear of permanent damage to his throat.
I moved closer. His lips were cracked. Splits of dried blood dotted along them. I could smell the open wound on his head and noticed that the gauze cover was gone. His face was still grey. His eyes distant and watery. They followed my movements.
‘Christine?’ he said.
‘They rang me,’ I said. ‘I came down first thing. You get some rest. Don’t worry about anything. I’m here.’
He nodded. Closed his eyes for a few seconds.
‘Ernie,’ he said.
‘I can see to him,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure he’s OK.’
‘Keys,’ he said. ‘You’ll need them.’
One of the nurses looked over at me.
‘Don’t worry, Richard,’ she said. ‘We’ve got your keys. We’ll make sure we give them to Christine.’
‘Stay there,’ he said. ‘Stay at the house. As long as you like.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be out of here in no time,’ I said. ‘I’ll be able to stay there with you. Make sure you’re OK. I can look after you and Ernie.’
It was now less than four days to my assessment. I needed to see Janice Ward, I still had another appointment with Colin and I wanted to be at home with my family. And I had only just managed to stave off another vision and blackout.
‘Don’t go, Christine,’ he said. ‘Stay here with me.’
‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to go anywhere.’
75
Inheritance Page 72