Bored with playing Mystic Meg, and slightly unsure of the validity of my foresight, I place Sal’s hand gently back onto the bed, resting my hand lightly on top of it, within her non-existent grasp.
The bank of electronic instruments on the rack on the other side of her bed draws my interest, and I watch them for a while, finding the electronic ‘beep, beep, beep’ and the rhythmic green traces that pulse across one of the screens as they follow the opening and closing of Sal’s heart valves, both calming and slightly hypnotic.
I am tired now, and the warmth of the ward is making it hard for me to keep my eyes open.
“Beep, beep, beep…”
I look back at Sal’s hand, and my fingers lying within her grasp, and somewhere in my brain, a distant memory is stirred.
“Beep, beep, beep…”
My eyes close, my head falls slowly forward and I gradually fall asleep. Soon I am dreaming, memories of another hand-within-a-hand surfacing to top of a sea of forgotten recollections. As far as memories go, this one must count as one of my earliest of all, coming from a time when I was so small that my head is now resting comfortably against the top of a thigh. There is a hand in front of my face, and my hand is within it’s grasp.
The hand is large, soft, and feminine, and with a surge of emotion I remember that it belongs to my mother.
I look up, eager to see her face, and she is smiling at me, her face young, warm, round, and full of love. She reaches down towards me, gathers me up in her arms and lifts me up. My face is now level with hers, her face so large, so much bigger than mine, and as I struggle to keep my small, tired eyes open, I feel the softness of her lips on my nose, kissing me gently.
“Come on, sleepy head,” she says to me. “Let’s go.”
I feel her hand adjusting the warm coat around my shoulders, and pulling on the hat on my head, making me feel all snugly and warm.
I am only four years old, and I remember exactly what happens next. It is Easter Sunday about five o’clock in the morning, and my father has decided to wake us all up and take us out for a walk in the Queen’s Park in Edinburgh so that we can see all the rabbits playing on the grass in the first rays of dawn’s morning light. Our house was very close to the park, a massive public expanse of land that dominates the centre of Edinburgh and belongs officially to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official residence in Scotland.
At the time, the concept of being woken up so early in the middle of night to go and watch the rabbits play is met initially with howls of tears and protest, but once secure within my mother’s arms I am soon happy and content to go.
I don’t remember the walk to the park, but I can remember the smell of fresh grass and the dew, and the twittering of the birds as the sky began to turn red and the sun started to rise. My mother is wakening me, her soft voice telling me about all the little bunnies, and pointing them out to me as they scurry all around us. My mother is standing me up now on my own two feet, and I am holding tightly on to her hand. The grass underneath my feet is green and soft and wet, and as I look up and become aware of everything around me, I see that we are surrounded by an vast expanse of green grass and large, gorse bushes covered in bright yellow flowers. And rabbits. Hundreds of rabbits. No, thousands of rabbits. Everywhere I look I can see rabbits, all come out to greet us and to play and run around safely in the first rays of morning light. As we start to walk amongst them, the rabbits jump and bounce and run around, some darting for the shelter of the nearest bushes, while others simply remain sitting and staring at us, lifting their heads, twitching their nostrils and whiskers and sniffing the air, trying to understand who we are, such tall strange intruders into their world of morning play.
Hannah runs out in front of us, screaming and shouting with excitement, and my father steps forward quickly, gathering her back into his arms and whispering something in her ears. She quietens and then together, mother, father, son and daughter, we start to walk slowly through this incredible world of wonder.
The redness is now beginning to disappear from the sky and the sky is turning yellow, a yellow ball of sunshine creeping slowly above the edge of the sea on the horizon.
I am clapping my hands now, and my mother has set me free to roam amongst the rabbits at will.
Thousands of rabbits, millions of rabbits, rabbits everywhere I look; large rabbits, small rabbits, fat rabbits, thin rabbits. Old rabbits, young rabbits. More rabbits than I had ever seen before, and more rabbits than I have ever seen since. Above me the sky is full of birds, the sound of their joyful and carefree singing filling the air. I am in a world of wonder, an amazing world of nature that I have visited once and never since, although I know that I will see it again one day when I have children of my own.
The sky is blue now, and there is sunshine everywhere.
Hannah is crying, and my mother is picking me up. My eye lids are heavy now, and although I do not want to say goodbye to the world of rabbits, -I want to be left to run after them and laugh and skip and hop and jump in the grass around me-, my mother is gathering me up in her arms and cradling me to her. She is kissing me now, cooing something to me, calming me, reassuring me. “It’s time to go home, Sleepy Head, time to let you sleep some more in your own little bed…” I hear her say, her voice melodic, reassuring and the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my life. “Sleep Little One, sleep…”
Warm tears are running down my cheek… I feel someone squeezing my hand, drawing me back to the present.
I am twenty-six years old again, a man now, but I am crying like a little boy. A little boy of four. Someone squeezes my hand again, and my eyes begin to flicker open. Another squeeze. Firm this time. More constant and pronounced than before.
I breathe deeply and open my eyes, finding myself back in the ward with Sal, her fingers wrapped firmly around my hand, grasping it securely within her palm. Holding me tight. Reassuring me. Comforting me.
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“Nurse,…Mary!...” I shout aloud. “Quick, Nurse!”
A moment later the nurse comes running through the curtain, and automatically rushes over to Sal, checking the electronic traces on the equipment on the right hand side of the bed.
“She’s grasping my hand! Look!” I practically shout at her. “I fell asleep, started dreaming and I must have been crying in my sleep. Sal heard me crying and starting gripping my hand to comfort me!”
The nurse carefully takes Sal’s other hand on the opposite side of the bed, and places her hand in the palm, like I had done previously. “Sally, this is Mary, your nurse. If you can hear me, please close your hand onto mine, and squeeze my fingers. Please, try to show us that you can hear us. Or open your eyes and look at us…”
We both stare at her fingers.
There is a slight tremble of her right forefinger and the finger beside it, but her fingers don’t close.
“Sal, it’s Andrew. You’re still holding onto my hand with your right hand. Can you relax the grip, and tighten it again? Please try. Show us what you can do…”
Again we both stare at her hand, and remarkably this time her hand fully relaxes, opening up and letting my hand go.
“Now try and close on it again. Just like you did before, Sal. Close your hand and squeeze my fingers…”
But this time there is nothing. No further movement. And try as we might to encourage her over the next hour, nothing more happens.
“It’s progress, Andrew. Definite progress. But it’s very slow. I think we can see that there is something inside her that is stirring, but the question still remains whether or not she is able to open her eyes, and if and when she does, will there be any lasting damage? But this is good progress.”
“Although, what you’re saying is that it’s not good enough?”
“We just don’t want to raise your hopes too much. We have to be realistic. But this is good. Honestly. It’s very good…”
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I am sitting in the café in the hospital, too late for any food, but just in time to get a cup of tea. About ten minutes ago I sent a text to Slávka, telling her I was on my way down to the café, but she replied saying she was busy until 9pm. And would I like to meet her then for a drink?
Marrying Slovakia is open at page eighty-two, but I’m having difficulty focussing on it. Thoughts of Sal are running round inside my head and I am debating with myself what feelings I currently have for her now. In the past few weeks a strange bond has developed between the two of us, based upon our own special needs. Whilst struggling to overcome our individual problems, we have become the perfect team. I talk, and she listens. She now knows more about me that anyone in London, and even some things that Hannah doesn’t know.
Day by day I am trying to help her along the road to recovery, and as we walk together down this rocky path, she is helping me and supporting me to better understand and find myself. Together we might just make it.
I was genuinely excited when she grasped my hand tonight. I was also touched. Touched that even from so far away, -wherever she is just now-, she could still find the strength to reach out and help ease my pain. In spite of her own problems, she somehow managed so unselfishly to comfort me in my time of need.
I can no longer hate her, although ‘hate’ is probably far too strong a word for how I ever felt towards her. Let’s just say that I am no longer as angry with her as a person. Yes, I am angry, very angry, for what she did, but the crime she committed does not match up to the punishment she has received. She is a person, a human being, and she deserves mercy.
And yet, I am not the person to give her that mercy.
I care about Sal, in spite of myself. But I also care a lot more about Guy, and at the end of the day, it is Guy with whom my loyalty and allegiance lies.
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Slávka is looking tired when she emerges from the entrance to the hospital and I meet her in front of the foyer.
Tired, but full of smiles, and her eyes are still sparkling. She exudes a serene calm and elegance, and a charm that starts to work its wonder on me that moment she says my name.
“Andrew, it is so nice for see you again. I am pleased for see friendly face at end of busy, busy day.”
I say hello to her and she kisses me on the side of the cheek, wrapping an arm around mine, turning me and leading me out of the hospital grounds into the street.
“You said on mobile that you had not eaten, so tonight it is my pleasure for take you somewhere I know, and we can continue there our education of Eastern Europe. Ok-i-doki?”
I can’t help but chuckle at the way she intonates ‘Okidoki’, and readily agree.
“So, where are we going?”
“You will see,” she replies. “But since I pay meal tonight, you must tell me all about Andrew family. Parents, sister Hannah, and everyone else in London life, or anyone anywhere else who important for you. Is only fair, as I already tell you much about Malikova family.”
Her surprise turns out to be a small Polish restaurant about twenty minutes walk from the hospital. It is quite basic, no candles or fine napkins, but the food turns out to be fantastic. I let Slávka order, and she arranges a table full of small starter dishes that I have never tasted before. The main course is some form of goulash meat soup with the most incredibly flavoured sausages, with a side dish of some spicy cabbage.
“I think it must be good,” she says. “Andrew is very quiet and too busy eating for telling me of family…?”
“It’s delicious. Is this what you eat at home?”
“Similar. This is Polish food. What we eat is not same, but something like this. I think Eastern food is based on simple basic food, but is very tasty with good use of herbs. Most people from Eastern Europe are not rich, but still we know how we can eat well.”
“It’s brilliant,” I reply.
“And now,” Slávka says, waving at the waitress and saying something to her which could be either Slovak or Polish, “now you will drink Slovak drink with me.”
The waitress comes across with a silver tray on which is a bottle of clear alcohol and two small glasses. Slávka fills both the small glasses, and offers me one.
“Now I teach you first rule of Slovak eti-quette. In my country, when we drink we first say cheers and must look other person in eye before drinking. Like this…” She raises the glass, and opens her eyes wide and looks straight into mine. “Na zdravie” she says, smiling beautifully at me.
“Naastravvveeya”. I reply, raising my eyebrows and nodding my head slightly whilst maintaining direct eye contact.
We clink glasses, and she downs hers in one gulp, indicating that I should do the same. As I do so a fire erupts in my mouth and throat, and I find myself almost bending double and gripping the edge of the table for support. I cough a few times, sure that steam must be coming out of my ears.
“You like?” Slávka laughs. “Want more?”
“What on earth is that stuff?” I cough, struggling to regain my breathe in-between coughs.
“Is Slovak national drink. Slivovica. Very good for you during cold winter. Keep you alive.”
“I think it just killed me. Wow…you actually drink this stuff?”
“Yes. Very popular in Slovakia. Everyone drink like water.”
As she mentions the word water, I feel the alcohol hit me, a wave of light headiness and well-being coursing through my body. “Wow, it’s strong. I wouldn’t want to drink too much of that stuff.”
“Aha…Now you have more respect for Slovak plumbers. They have strong metabolism in-compari-son to English people.”
“I think that’s what they must use to clear blocked pipes…”I say, still reeling from the effects of one single small glass.
“Now, you tell me about your family. Or if you do not I will make you drink Slivovica once more.”
Which is how I come to tell Slávka about my family, my sad early childhood, and wonderful sister. I talk a lot about Hannah, beaming whilst I do so, and by the time the coffee comes and Slávka pays the bill, ignoring my attempts to go dutch, Slávka is saying that she would like to meet Hannah one day. “I think she sound like wonderful person.”
“She is.”
“Have you ever tried for find your mother?” Slávka asks out of the blue, catching me by surprise.
“No…”I start to reply, almost defensively, but decide quickly that I don’t want to lie to Slávka. There is something about her frankness and honesty that I really like. “Actually,…yes. Last Friday night, I tried to visit her for the first time…”, and I tell her all about the trip to Mitcham.
“And what you do now?” she asks immediately when I am finished and the story is told.
“Nothing. There is nothing I can do,” I reply. “My mother does not want to see us, and from what happened on Friday, I do not think I want to see her.”
“So you give up?” she asks. “I think that perhaps if I am you, I think carefully about this. Maybe I would talk with sister Hannah about this. Perhaps, if I you, I not give up until I see face of mother and talk with her at least one time, face with face. Lifetime is long time for regret not making correct decision about this. When you are old, and she is dead, it is too late for wondering what happen if you had made different choice…Who knows, maybe she change mind when she see how handsome her son is?”
She smiles at me, and I blush, a curious reaction in itself, but which is then immediately followed by a surge of emotion within me which forces me to frown, swallow hard, and quickly look away.
“I am sorry,” Slávka immediately says, the tone of her voice suddenly light and caring, full of genuine concern that she has upset me. She leans forward in her seat, and rests her hand on mine. “I not want for upset you Andrew. My apology.”
I cough, and force a small laugh.
“No, please. Don’t apologise. Perhaps
you are right. And it’s a good suggestion. I think I have to talk to Hannah about it…”
I put my other free hand over hers, and for a moment we both look at each other. I study her eyes, and see only warmth and goodness there, and I feel a sudden longing to be lost in her, to be part of her, to reach out to her and to hold her tight. There is an honesty and closeness in this moment that I think I have never experienced before, and although it is truly beautiful, it also makes me uncomfortable and I have to break it off.
“Another small glass of Slovak Paint Stripper before we go?” I ask. And Slávka laughs.
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It is a warm evening, and it is one of those nights where it is a pleasure to walk and simply breathe in the air and feel the summer night upon your face.
Slávka has wrapped her arm around mine again, snuggling up tight against me, and as we walk through the streets of London, I can feel her body heat against mine. There is a comfortableness between us that I have not experienced with any other woman before and just being with her, just existing alongside her, both soothes me and excites me at the same time. Slávka has a quietness of being that calms and warms me, a kindness and thoughtfulness that exudes from her every pore and washes over me, enveloping me in her presence and wrapping me in a cocoon of her aura that I am finding increasingly enjoyable and addictive. Yet, at the same time, never before have I wanted a woman so much.
I want to kiss her. Not because of heightened sexual desire or of the madness that occasionally drives me to the Road House, but simply because I feel a growing need to be connected to this woman, and the softness of her two beautifully formed lips is a door to a soul that I want very much to know better, to understand and to touch.
The Sleeping Truth : A Romantic Thriller (Omnibus Edition containing both Book One and Book Two) Page 25