The Mistake I Made (32 page)

She went back to smoothing the hair away from George’s forehead. ‘I have nothing to say.’

‘You think I caused this.’

And she turned to me sharply. ‘I would
never
say that.’

‘You don’t have to, Petra.’

She put her hand to her mouth to stifle the beginnings of another sob. Then she screwed her eyes up tight and took one deep inhalation, before grabbing hold of the metal frame of the bed for stability. ‘I am not blaming you,’ she said. Her words were measured, steady, but like vinegar in her mouth.

‘
I’m
blaming me,’ I told her, and I looked at her straight. ‘I caused this. There. It’s said. Now you don’t have to.’

‘Don’t be so flippant,’ she flared.

‘I’m not being flippant. Of course this is my fault! Of course it is! I know that. But I don’t want you here with all that anxiety, all that repressed bloody condemnation inside of you. Not while you’re hovering above my unconscious son, anyhow.’

‘Your son,’ she said tonelessly.

‘Yes, my son. For better or worse, Petra, I am his mother. Now you either say all that shit you want to say, or else you let it go. Because I can’t stand it like this.’

She stepped away from George. She walked to the end of the bed and gestured with her finger for me to follow.

Her face was hard. ‘You are a stupid, reckless woman who I am ashamed to know,’ she said. ‘Who I am ashamed to be associated with, never mind related to.’

‘Go on.’

‘Again, you proved that you take the easy way out. Always the easy way out with you. You never think what you do will hurt other people. You never think of the consequences.’

She was holding back somewhat. Her choice of words was almost business-like, I suppose out of respect for our surroundings.

She shook her head as she spoke. ‘I can’t believe you were sleeping with him. I can’t believe you had an affair—’

‘It wasn’t an affair.’

‘I can’t believe you had
an affair
with my friend’s husband. Of all the things.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. She batted the air in front of her as though this might send them back. ‘You are a disgrace, Roz, and you have embarrassed me deeply. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to—’

George opened his eyes.

He was looking at us with a puzzled expression. He tried to say something, and couldn’t understand why the words were not coming out as they should.

Trying to lift his hand to his mouth, he was aware there was something alien there. He frowned when he made contact with the intubation tube.

I rushed to him. ‘Don’t try to talk, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’ and he nodded.

He wasn’t scared. He just looked pleased to see me, as he would when waking as a baby. He would open his eyes to see me standing next to the cot and give a big, contented, sleepy smile. As though to say,
You’ve been here the whole time?

‘George, do know where you are?’ Petra demanded, her voice shaking. ‘Do you remember anything?’ I rolled my eyes at her and told her to give him a minute to get his bearings. Her face fell.

George blinked, and you could see him trying to figure out what was going on. He glanced down and tilted his head upon seeing the fixator around his leg.

I whispered to Petra, ‘Tell the nursing staff he’s awake,’ and she nodded, before scurrying off.

I crouched by his side George. ‘You’re in hospital. That tube in your mouth is to help you breathe. See?’ And I followed the tube with my finger, slowly, to where it was attached to the ventilator. ‘This thing breathes for you. Can you hear it?’ George smiled, and I said, ‘I know. Cool, eh?’ He watched for a moment and then returned his gaze to me. ‘You’ve hurt your leg pretty bad. That’s what all that metal is. It’s to hold the break together. Does it hurt?’

He stared at his leg, as though trying to figure out if it was painful or not. Then he looked back at me and communicated it didn’t. ‘They’ve given you medicine for that,’ I said, ‘to take away the soreness.’

I told him I was glad he was awake. Told him I’d been a bit lonely without being able to chat to him. I told him his dad would be along later but had had to nip home to fetch some more bits and pieces I needed. ‘He’ll be back soon,’ I said. George was pretty doped and passive, and I hoped he’d stay that way.

‘Well, hello there!’ came a voice from my left. Kyle, the nurse, stood at the end of the bed, all smiles, and told George he was way more handsome now that he had his eyes open. George went sheepish.

‘Can he come off the ventilator?’ I asked, and Kyle said yes, now that he was conscious, though it was likely he’d be on oxygen until the chest drains came out. I tousled his hair and told George again I was glad he was back, and that’s when I saw his face change.

‘You okay?’ I asked.

He stared at me, wild-eyed and fearful, before making an attempt to move.

‘What is it?’ I said. ‘George, you’ve got to stay still. What is it? Are you hurting somewhere?’

Petra was trying to pacify him, saying, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ over and over but George went rigid in the bed. My first thought was the head injury. His brain was swelling and we were seeing the beginnings of a fit. I turned to the nurse, but he didn’t seem unduly worried. ‘Are you remembering what happened, George?’ he said softly, and George nodded repeatedly, growing more and more afraid by the second.

I moved in closer. ‘You had an accident,’ I said.

No response.

‘George, you were injured by a car.’

And he shook his head as though he couldn’t remember that. He seemed in equal parts frustrated and terrified.

Then he tried to speak.

Foxy.

39

I HAD SIX
missed calls from DS Aspinall, along with two text messages asking me to make contact with her as soon as possible. I don’t use voicemail. Don’t know how. You may as well write your message on a scrap of paper and throw it in the lake.

Winston had returned to the hospital, and I had left him and Petra alone with George, while I stood in the corridor and called Celia to find out the latest on Foxy.

As far as I knew, the dog was fine. I couldn’t remember seeing her crushed or injured immediately after the accident, but then, I couldn’t remember seeing her at all.

Pacifying George with this was not enough. He couldn’t settle, quickly becoming distressed and tearful, to the extent that the registrar pointed out that might it just be easier to ‘Call the dog’s owner? Check the dog is actually okay?’

The corridor was busy. Two young male medics walked towards me, fresh -aced and full of enthusiasm. There is an unwritten rule inside the hospital whereby medics wear their stethoscopes around their necks, on display, but everyone else who requires a stethoscope – respiratory-care physiotherapists, nurses, and so on – must keep theirs inside their pockets. Just so everyone is clear where they stand in the whole scheme of things. The medics stopped conversing as they passed, smiled gravely, an acknowledgement of my position right next to the ICU. Which was considerate, I thought.

Celia picked up on the third ring.

‘Celia?’

‘Roz! What are you doing calling? How is he? Is he all right? Please God, let him be all right. How is his leg? Did they manage to save his leg?’

‘You were there?’ I asked her, a little stunned. I couldn’t remember.

‘Yes, we were there. How is he? How is George? Good Lord, Roz,
tell
me.’

‘He’s okay. The leg will be okay, we hope. It’s pretty smashed up. He’s just come round and … Celia? … Well, he’s asking about Foxy.’

‘Oh, she’s fine.’

‘Is she really?’

‘She tore her cruciate ligament in her knee whilst frantically trying to run home faster than she’s run in years, but don’t tell George that. He’ll only worry. She’s fine, Roz. Honestly.’

I exhaled.

I brought Celia up to speed and was about to get in touch with the detective and lay it on really thick about George, as it was apparent from her messages that she didn’t know about the accident – do the police not
talk
to one another? – when I saw Henry Peachey coming from the other direction. He had a bunch of flowers in one hand and a thick paperback in the other. He must have been on his way to visit Nadine.

At this point he hadn’t seen me. His head was down, and I wondered briefly whether I should duck inside ICU to avoid confrontation. But by the time I had pressed the buzzer and waited for a response, he would see me.

It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid him. I was desperate to talk to him, to apologize, to try to begin to make amends. But something in the way he walked made me want to flee. His ordinarily erect posture was absent; the confident, sure-footed way he moved not there. And, for the first time since Nadine had driven her car into my child, I felt an intense rush of guilt over something other than George.

My child was still here, and Henry’s was not.

I turned to face him and, when he caught sight of me, he stopped in his tracks. I offered an ineffectual, wan kind of smile and waited for him to come nearer.

For a moment he didn’t. He stayed where he was and regarded me in the way you might a rotting creature, blocking your path. Something to be sidestepped, avoided.

A porter pulling a wheelchair backwards along the corridor asked Henry to move over slightly so he could pass. This seemed to startle him, and he resumed walking my way.

‘Hey,’ I said.

‘Hey,’ he said back, not meeting my gaze.

‘How are you?’

He dodged that question and answered with, ‘I heard George was in a bad way. How is he doing?’

‘Just come around. He wanted to know how Foxy was so …’ I let my words hang, holding up the mobile to indicate I’d called Celia to find out.

He nodded, and tried to smile as though to say,
Yes, that sounds like something George would do
, but his face couldn’t really work in that way today. He kicked at the floor with the toe of his boot.

‘So—’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘I really need to get on.’

‘Henry, wait. There’s something I need to tell you.’

He sighed and looked beyond me along the corridor. In a moment of foolishness I reached for him, but he moved away quickly, as though he’d been stung. ‘Apologies,’ I said. Apologies – that was a mistake.

‘It’s a bit late for all this, Roz,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’m really sorry about what happened to George. And I’m so glad he’s on the mend. But I’m really not interested in listening to what you have to say. You’ve wrecked Nadine’s life. You made me look a complete fool. I’d rather not be around you, if that’s okay.’

‘Henry, listen. I appreciate you don’t want to see me right now, but I need to tell you this. I was not having an affair with Scott. It simply isn’t true. That thing he did at the party? Well, I don’t know what that was all about. But we were not in a relationship and we were certainly
not
in love.’

He didn’t respond. After a minute of silence he said, ‘Is that it? That’s what you wanted to say?’

‘I really liked being with you, Henry.’

He lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Really. I wasn’t stringing you along—’

‘So you’re saying you
weren’t
sleeping with Scott, is that it?’

I lowered my voice. ‘We had an arrangement,’ I said.

‘An arrangement,’ he mirrored, flatly.

‘Whereby Scott would pay me. This is not an excuse in any way, but I need you to know that I was not doing what I did willingly.’

‘You’re saying he forced you?’

‘No,’ I stammered, misunderstood. ‘I was forced through circumstance. You left the party before I had the chance to explain any of this. And, if you recall, I did try to back out of our dates, because I didn’t want you to—’

‘What? Find out? You were with him that time I saw you at the hotel near Lancaster, weren’t you?’

I nodded. ‘That was the first time,’ I admitted. ‘Listen, I didn’t want to hurt you. I never expected to feel anything for you. I thought we could go out once, pacify Nadine, and then call an end to it.’ I paused. ‘I didn’t expect you to be
you
, Henry. I didn’t expect to like you as I did.’

I thought I saw his jaw relax a little at this, so I gestured to the paperback, saying, ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ trying to diffuse the situation a little.

‘
Anna Karenina
.’

‘Any good?’

‘I’ve read it before. Far less adultery and a lot more farming than I remember.’

I smiled. ‘Henry, listen, I know you’re hurt. I know you’re deeply hurt and humiliated. But I need you to know that the arrangement with Scott started before I met you. And I did it for the money. Pure and simple. You said yourself that one could do practically anything for money if it was only for two days a week. I’m not excusing what I did. But once my money problems started to ease I called a halt to it. And I was desperate. I was being evicted. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.’

There was a tense moment of quiet when Henry seemed to be weighing my words and I thought he may have softened towards me.

Finally he said, ‘That’s what he said you’d say.’

‘What?’

‘Scott,’ he explained. ‘That’s what he said you’d say.’

‘Henry, I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Scott came to see me before he left—’

‘Before he left for where?’

Henry shrugged. ‘No idea. The Galápagos, for all I care. Nadine certainly doesn’t want him around. He took off yesterday.’

‘What
did
he say, Henry?’

‘He said this story you were peddling, about him paying you for sex, was exactly that. A story. He said you had instigated the affair during the first treatment session for his elbow. He said he’d gone along with it because he found you attractive and couldn’t say no.’

My mouth dropped open.

‘Scott said you were a gold-digger,’ he went on. ‘He said you pestered him for gifts – earrings and jewellery and suchlike, and perhaps saw him as a way out of your financial mess. He said you asked him for a loan.’

‘And you believed him?’