The Accident (33 page)

Strong? I was impossibly weak. I’d spent four years of my life with a monster of a man, being tortured by hate dressed up as love. I’d been humiliated, belittled, berated and cross-examined. I’d been judged, ignored, criticized and rejected. I’d cut myself off from my friends and my family, lost my job and been made to choose between my life’s dream and my love for James. And I hadn’t walked away. I tried, several times but I was weak. He always talked his way back into my life and into my heart. Strong wasn’t lying silently on a hospital bed as I aborted his child so I could be free. Strong would have been walking straight out of the World Headquarters club in Camden three years, two hundred and seventy days earlier when he laughingly called me a slut. Strong would have been refusing to ever see him again the night he refused to sleep in my bed because other men had been there first. Strong would have been reporting him to the police the night he raped me. Strong would have been stopping him from doing the same to another woman ever again.

I didn’t cry for the baby I aborted that day but I did every year afterwards, on the anniversary. I cried because it didn’t deserve to lose its life and I cried because I felt angry with James for forcing me into that situation. Mostly I felt guilty – if I hadn’t been so weak when I left him – if I’d had the tiniest bit of resolve left – maybe I could have taken him or her to Greece with me, somehow made it work as a TEFL teacher and a mother.

I thought I’d be punished for what I’d done. I thought I’d never conceive again but then Charlotte, our miracle baby, appeared a year into my marriage to Brian. I felt blessed, forgiven, like a new chapter of my life had opened up, that I was truly free. And then we tried to give her a sibling and I had four miscarriages in three years.

My miracle baby.

I put a hand to the door and push it open.

Charlotte is lying prostrate on the duvet-less bed, an oxygen mask covering her mouth, her chest polka-dotted with multicoloured electrodes. The heart monitor in the corner of the room bleep-bleep-bleeps, marking the passage of time like a medical metronome and I close my eyes.

‘Sue?’ There is a hand on my shoulder, heavy. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Brian?’ I blink several times.

‘Sue?’ He’s looking at me and his brow is furrowed but I have no idea what he’s thinking. ‘Sue, are you okay?’

‘Alright, Mum?’ I twitch at the word ‘Mum’ but it’s not Charlotte speaking it. It’s Oli, sitting at her bedside. He’s got a pile of
National Geographic
magazines in his lap and my best hairdressing scissors in his hand. There are a stack of cuttings on Charlotte’s bedside table.

‘Mum?’ he says again.

I can’t remember the last time he called me that.

‘I …’ I look from him to Brian and back again. What are they doing here? It’s as though my world has switched from the hyper real, a living technicolour nightmare, to the monochrome of the mundane. Why are they sipping tea? Don’t they realize how much danger Charlotte is in? I look at Brian questioningly.

He smiles, his hand still on my shoulder. ‘Oli popped by to pick up his magazines and said he’d like to visit Charlotte before he went back to uni. We came in his car.’

‘You came in Oli’s car …’

‘Yes. Mine’s still at home. It won’t start, some kind of problem with the fuel pipe, I think. The sooner I get myself an electric car the better.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘We waited for you to come back from the beach so you could come with us but when you said you wanted to be alone I thought …’ he tails off. ‘I would have left a note but, somewhere between grabbing my jacket and leaving the house, I forgot.’

Oli laughs. ‘Not like you to be forgetful, Dad.’

I stare at the two of them. They’re laughing and smiling but lying on the passenger seat of my car are two blood-stained booties and a card threatening our daughter’s life.

‘You look a bit pale.’ Brian angles me into the empty chair on Charlotte’s left and crouches beside me.

No one says anything for several minutes until he inhales noisily through his nose. He’s steadying himself to say something big.

‘I found these.’ He plunges a hand into his trouser pocket then uncurls his fingers to reveal two small white pills. ‘I was having a bit of a tidy up. I thought you’d appreciate it after everything that has happened but,’ he looks at the treasures he has uncovered, ‘I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to tell me, Sue.’

‘Yes.’ I sit upright, suddenly, which makes him lurch back in surprise. ‘Charlotte’s in danger. James has found me. I’m not imagining it this time, Brian. I’ve got proof. It’s in my car. Blood-stained booties. He knows about the abortion and he’s trying to get his revenge through Charlotte. He blackmailed her, that’s why she’s in the coma, that’s what made her walk in front of the bus that Saturday afternoon. But it’s not enough for him to hurt her,’ I grip Brian’s wrist, ‘he wants her dead. He’s going to kill her.’

I stare at his face, waiting to see rage, violence or murder but I see nothing at all, save a quick glance towards Oli.

‘Brian?’ I tighten my grip on his wrist. ‘You do believe me, don’t you? Look at my hands they’re …’ But my hands aren’t bloodied in the slightest. ‘Clean. But only because I used the hand sanitiser when I came in. If we go down to my car I can show you the booties and the—,’ I try and stand but Brian pulls me back into the chair. ‘Brian please! Why are you looking at me like that?’

He looks at Oliver and nods again. Three seconds later he’s standing beside me too, a plastic cup in his hand.

‘Sue,’ Brian eases my fingers off his wrist. ‘I’d like you to take a couple of these tablets.’

‘No!’ I look imploringly at Oli who looks down at the ground. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I only went along to the doctors because I made a mistake about that teacher at the school but I’ve got
proof
this time. I haven’t made another mistake. Please! Let’s just go down to my car and I’ll show you.’

‘Sue.’ Brian presses the tablets to my mouth. They graze my bottom lip. ‘Take the tablets and then we’ll talk.’

‘No!’ I try and stand up but he puts a hand on my shoulder. The pressure is gentle but insistent. He’s not going to let me up.

‘Please, Mum.’ Oli takes a step towards me, holding out the plastic cup like it’s a sacred chalice. ‘Take a sip. It’ll help the tablets go down.’

‘Oliver, no.’

‘It’s just water.’

‘I don’t care what it is. I’m not going to—’

‘Mum please! We’re worried about you. We have been for a while. You …’ he looks away, unable to sustain eye contact, ‘… you haven’t been yourself since Charlotte’s accident. All that talk about Keisha and Charlotte and who was best friends with who and asking for Danny’s number and address and … well, I thought it was a bit odd but I wouldn’t have said anything until Dad mentioned that he’d found your tablets down the side of the sofa.’

The haze that hit me when I walked into the room clears and I stare at my husband and stepson as though seeing them for the first time. They think I’m mentally ill. I can see it in their frowns, in the hunch of their shoulders, in their whispering voices. They’ve put one and one together and come up with ‘mad’ and nothing I do or say will convince them otherwise. What can I say? That I’ve spent more time with Charlotte’s friends recently than I have my own daughter? That I went to a club in London and got in a blacked-out car with a footballer’s agent? That I’ve been peering into the front rooms of strangers’ houses? They wouldn’t believe a word. Worse than that, they’d think it was all part of the delusion. And of course I’m deluded – I haven’t been taking my tablets, have I?

I could show them what’s on the passenger seat of my car but they’d probably think I did it myself, for attention or because I’m disturbed. Brian would take one look at the blood-stained booties and be on the phone to the GP quicker than you can say ‘psychiatric unit’. There’s only one option left to me. One thing I can do.

I look at the tablets in Brian’s fingers. ‘If I take them,’ I say steadily. ‘Will you listen to me then?’

A slow smile crosses his face. ‘Of course I will, darling.’

Chapter 32

‘So we’ll go to Millets then.’

‘We won’t be long.’

‘Just need to pick up a few things for Oli’s next trip.’

‘I need a coat that’s actually waterproof. This is a proper Lake District downpour we’re talking about not some kind of light drizzle.’

‘Two man tent.’

‘Hiking socks.’

‘Carry mat.’

My husband and stepson are talking to me. Their jaws are going up and down, their eyebrows are wriggling and twitching and their eyes are widening and narrowing, but nothing makes any sense. I can hear words, lots of words, rolling together like waves of sound then crashing together above my head but I can’t distinguish one from the other and when I open my mouth to ask what they’re talking about nothing comes out. After two attempts I stop trying and allow the heavy feeling in my bones to roll me back in my seat, my head resting against the wall, my eyes drawn to the strip light on the ceiling. It flickers, pulses and hums and I remember Charlotte, three months old, lying in her pram, looking up at the blue and grey Habitat lampshade in our living room, her eyes wide with wonder.

‘An hour.’

‘Hour and a half tops.’

‘Come and collect you afterwards. Oli will go back to uni and I’ll drive us both home in your car.’

‘You look a bit more relaxed.’

‘Is that a smile? I can’t remember the last time …’

My eyes swivel towards them and I’m vaguely aware of my mouth moving and words coming out. They sound nonsensical in my head but Brian and Oli smile and nod and it appears I’ve said something that reassures them that it’s fine to leave me on my own, because the next thing I know there are lips on my cheek, a squeeze to my shoulder, a pat to my head and then they are gone.

Without the roar and crash of their voices the room hums with silence. It hurts my ears and then …

Bleep-bleep-bleep.

I make out the sound of the heart monitor in the corner of the room. The medical metronome – Charlotte’s constant companion and now mine too.

Tick-tick-tick. Bleep-bleep-bleep. Tick-tick-tick.

We are in the living room. I am lying on the sofa, Charlotte is sitting on the floor. She picks up a plastic brick, throws it half a metre, crawls after it, picks it up, throws it again. Her face is a picture of happiness and pride – she has conquered throwing and crawling, now she can take on the world. I want to freeze the scene. I want to re-live it over and over again.

I glance at my daughter, asleep on her hospital bed, and reach out a hand to touch her hair. I am surprised when I don’t feel the fine silkiness of a baby’s curls but I continue to stroke anyway, the follicles of her hair soft and smooth under my fingertips.

I was afraid. A memory stirs in my mind but it is ephemeral, transient and slips away as my brain tries to anchor and examine it. I feel the pressure of Brian’s lips still warm on my cheek and Oli’s hand on my head. My life is perfect. I have been blessed.

There is a squeak, an interruption to my reverie and I am aware of the door opening. Did Brian and Oli shut it behind them when they left? I didn’t notice. A figure – a man in a dark suit – drifts past me and crosses the room. He stands by the window, his back to me, looking out.

Consultant.

The word pops into my head and I smile. He has arrived to give me good news, to tell me that Charlotte will wake up soon, that I can take her out of her incubator, give her a cuddle and bring her home.

‘Mr Arnold?’ I rise effortlessly, as though in a dream, and take a step towards him. ‘Will my baby be okay?’

There is something about the shape of the back of the doctor’s head that makes me pause mid-step, and halts my progress across the room. There is a spot of black in the glorious technicolour haze of my happiness and, as I gaze at the width of his shoulders and the uneven balance of his stance, it spreads, like black ink on a wet watercolour. My fingers twitch at my sides as if they’ve developed pins and needles after hours of sitting on my hands. My thighs twitch too, then my shoulders, my calves and my feet. My body is waking whilst my mind still snoozes and I feel a sudden compulsion to run but why would I? My child is here. She needs me.

‘Mr Arnold?’ I say again. ‘Is it bad news? Is that why you won’t talk to me?’

Yes, I have sensed that what he is about to tell me is bad news and my body is preparing itself for the worst, it is trying to shake my mind out of its soporific slumber.

For a couple of seconds the consultant does nothing and I wonder if he has heard me then his shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath and he turns to face me. I don’t immediately recognize the grey eyes flecked with blue, the large nose and the wide, thin mouth because I’m thrown by the thatch of grey hair, the deep lines around the mouth and the heavy stubble that covers his top lip, jaw and throat.

‘Hello Suzy-Sue.’

The shudder that goes through me speeds from my head to my toes then explodes back again and I shake violently, as if the temperature has dropped by forty degrees.

I thought I was ready for this moment. I thought I was old, strong and resilient enough not to be affected by the sonorous timbre of his voice but it’s as though I’ve stepped into a time machine and I am twenty-three again, hiding in the wardrobe, quaking as he walks from room to room, calling out my name. I take a step backwards, instinctively pressing a hand to my stomach, to hide my secret, to cover what is no longer in my womb. James notices and the blank expression he was wearing morphs into something else. His lip turns up in a sneer, his eyes narrow and his nostrils flare and then the revulsion is gone, replaced in a heartbeat by a wide, natural smile. I blink several times.

‘Hello Sue,’ he takes a step forward. ‘How’s Charlotte?’

The mention of my daughter’s name is all I need to snap out of my shivering stupor and I spring to her side, my hand on her shoulder, my eyes on James as he moves to the foot of her bed and unclips her notes and flicks through them making small uh-hum noises as he scans the pages. On the last page he purses his lips and shakes his head.