Where the Rain Gets In (27 page)

Mike hesitated, and then nodded in
agreement. He reached up to Katie’s face with his free hand, but she moved away
from his touch.

“Go on,” she said. “I’ll find you when
I’m through.”

She pushed him away and pulled the door
across to shut him out. She didn’t know what she could possibly do here, but
she knew Mike had to be elsewhere.

As soon as Mike had left, Katie realised
this had come too quickly; she hadn’t thought it through. But if she had, would
she have come? Hearing Mike, seeing Mike – could she have refused this request?
Could she ever refuse Mike anything? Probably not.

Katie closed the door. She looked
through the glass, and watched as Mike walked away down the corridor.

She waited a second or so, and then
turned into the room. She looked across at the figure on the bed. Was Katherine
conscious, or aware? Might she have witnessed the intimacy between Katie and
Mike? According to Mike, the doctors believed Katherine was going in and out of
consciousness.

Katie rested her weight on the handle of
the door. Now that she was here, Katie felt certain that Katherine was a
conscious presence in the room. She had to believe this, otherwise there really
was no point.

The room was nice, but Katie guessed
this was the point of paying for a private room – no public ward hell for Mike
Maguire’s daughter. There were flowers on every available surface, and cards
and some stuffed toys. The wear and tear of the toys suggested they belonged to
Katherine, toys from a childhood that was not so very long ago. No amount of
flowers or cards or toys could distract Katie from the real business of the
room, however. Katherine lay on the bed surrounded on one side by monitors and
support machines and, suspended above her, the drip that fed into her arm.

Katie pushed herself away from the door
and into the room. All the machinery was around the head of the bed and along
the far side of Katherine. Katie picked up a chair by the backrest and carried
it over to the side of the bed. She breathed deeply and looked down at
Katherine on the bed.

Oh fuck, she thought, what are you doing
to yourself?

“Katherine.”

Katie said the name out loud, to see how
it sounded on her tongue. She didn’t expect a reply. She held on to the back of
the chair, and traced the metal studs that pinned down the leather upholstery.
She forced herself to look at Katherine’s face – it was a hard face to look at.

The lack of a reply from Katherine
accentuated the buzz and the hum of the support machines. How quiet it would
seem if they just turned everything off.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she
said, “or even if you know that I’m here.”

She paused and this set the pattern for
how Katie spoke while she was in the room. She came out with what felt like
short bursts of words, followed by longer periods of silence – a silence that
was really the humming noise of the machines. It was a strange and exhausting
experience to talk to someone in this way.

This is the last thing you need, Katie
thought for Katherine.

And this is the last thing you need, she
thought for herself.

Katie took off her coat and laid it across
the back of the chair, but she didn’t sit down. She introduced herself, and
tried to explain how Mike had asked her to visit, but it was hopeless. She was
a stranger here.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “this is really
hard.”

She thought about leaving the room, and
going back out to Mike. But she stayed.

Just talk, thought Katie. Just talk.

She talked about her years with Mike and
this made her think of the years without – twenty years was a long time for her
to have been on her own.

“Your dad just let me be me,” she said.
“He just let me be me.”

Katie was still standing by the chair.
She inclined her head slightly – asking Katherine for silent permission to sit
down – and decided to sit anyway. It felt more intimate to be at the lower
level of the chair. Katherine’s left hand – her free hand away from all the
instruments – was on the bed covers, close to where Katie sat. Her
identification bracelet was around the wrist.

“Your dad was in love with me back
then,” said Katie.

She watched for some reaction, but there
was nothing. This wasn’t getting any easier.

“Your dad was in love with me, but I
couldn’t love him back. It wasn’t that I couldn’t love him; it was just that I
couldn’t love anybody  . . . in that way.”

Christ, thought Katie, what does she
need to know this for? What good can it do? You only have one shot at this so
don’t fuck it up.

“Your dad accepted that he could never
understand me,” she said. “I gave him nothing, and he accepted it. I never gave
him an explanation and he never asked me for one and that’s why I still owe
him, even after all these years.

“I’m not sure I fully appreciated what
your dad did for me at the time, but I do now.”

Katie stopped and put her head in her
hands. This was unreal – talking into silence. Every now and again, she’d get
the feeling that Katherine was listening, at least to the sound of Katie’s
voice, but surely this was a mistaken hope? What would Katie’s voice mean to
Katherine anyway? It was going to take more than this to bring her back.

Katie looked at Katherine on the bed.
There was a clock on one of the monitors; it was almost seven o’clock – the
official visiting time was about to begin. Katie had been in the room for
almost an hour; she was beginning to appreciate Katherine’s stubborn refusal to
do anything but breathe.

Katie stood up and walked to the door.
She rested her hand on the door and took a deep breath – a very different
breath to the short, snatched gasps of Katherine on the bed behind her. She
looked through the glass door, out into the corridor.

What was she doing here? This was
wasting everybody’s time.

Katie turned again towards the room. She
walked over to pick up one of the stuffed toys from the shelf. It was a purple
teddy bear, soft and homely, and Katie knew it would be Katherine’s favourite –
it was a colour thing. She replaced the teddy on the shelf, and returned to her
seat.

She wondered if Katherine had any
control left over her own body. At what point would Katherine’s own strong
will, her determination to hurt her parents for hurting her, give way to a body
that could no longer help itself? Katherine’s strength of mind was making her
body weaker.

There’s something to admire in all of
this, thought Katie.

“I told you those things about your
dad,” she said, “because I want you to know that I understand what it means to
be loved by him. I don’t think for one minute that I can change your mind here,
but I want you to know this isn’t the first time your dad has failed to
understand a person he loves. It’s not the first time he’s been unable to help
someone who needs his help – and he hates it.”

Katie thought for a while.

“But this won’t make any difference to
you, will it? I mean, nothing I say will change the way you feel; I know you
won’t let yourself be helped. But the thing is – whatever you decide to do –
your dad’s going to love you anyway. Even if you hurt him like this, he’ll
still love you. I know, because he did the same for me, and he got nothing from
me but pain – well, maybe we had some fun, but still – all he did was love me
and set me free.”

Again Katie was quiet for a long time.

“And then he made his life with your
mother and he had you, his children. And I guess there were good times and bad
times, like there is in any family, but nothing prepared him for this – except
me, maybe, and I think that’s why I’m here.

“He’d try anything rather than lose you.

“But I think it might be too late.”

Katie leant forward on to the bed and
tentatively touched Katherine’s left hand. Katherine’s fingers were laying face
down on the bed covers. At Katie’s touch, Katherine’s hand moved slightly – a
short, spasmodic response. Katie took her hand away and looked at Katherine.
She reached again so that the tips of Katherine’s fingers were rested on her
own. There was no substance there, no weight. Katie stroked the fingers with
her thumb.

“When your dad asked me to come here,”
she said, “I think he thought I might be the only person who could understand
you. And that if I could understand you, I might be able to persuade you to
change your mind. Or that I’d be able to tell you something about myself that
would make you feel you weren’t so alone, that you weren’t so uniquely on your
own.

“He’s right about me,” said Katie, “but
I think he’s wrong about what I can do for you. No one can help you but
yourself, and if you don’t want to help yourself, then that’s an end to it. And
it’s an end to you.”

Katie took a deep breath.

“If you can hear me, Katherine, if you
can hear me and you want to listen, then this is what I want to say.

“Don’t live your life like me. I found a
way through, but it’s not much of a way. I think it’s a coward’s way compared
to what you’re doing.

“I could tell you all about myself, but
I don’t think it would mean anything. I think you’d say it has nothing to do with
you.

“And you’d be right.

“I could tell you all about myself, but
I can’t remember most of what there is to tell.”

Katie could remember a woman holding her
face between her hands, but she could only guess who that woman was.

“And isn’t that the point? That we’re
like we are for reasons we don’t want to remember?

“So, no, Katherine,” she said. “Don’t
live your life like me. I love your dad. I’ve always loved him, and I think I
always will, but I’ll never be with him because I can’t let myself . . . I can’t
let myself and it’s so crap – it’s just so crap, so please, don’t ever be like
me.

“I wish you could hear me,” said Katie.
“Whatever it is that’s wrong, I know you think there’s nothing that can put it
right. It’s just that, well, it’s just that if I had the choice again, then . .
. I don’t know. Twenty years spent on my own when someone could have loved me,
if only I’d let him. Twenty years when someone might have allowed me to be me –
when someone who didn’t know what it was they were offering, but were prepared
to offer it anyway – maybe that was too good a thing to pass up on.

“And for what – so I could be on my own?

“For a reason I can’t remember?

“Not much of a trade, really; not much
of an investment.”

There was a drop of moisture between the
tips of Katie and Katherine’s fingers. Katie took away her hand and wiped her
fingers on the bedclothes.

“I think you should do what’s right for
you,” she said. “And if this is what’s right for you, then this is what you
should do. But I wish it wasn’t. I wish you could get well – for yourself and
for your dad and for your brothers – and for your mum. I wish we could get to
meet and talk properly – I could tell you some things. I’d like to get to know
the daughter of Nice Guy Mike, because if things had been different, that might
have been my daughter too.

“I wish you could get well to see that
this isn’t all there is, that there’ll be other days – better days.

“But I think I’m too late, and I’m
sorry.”

Katie stood up. She leant into
Katherine’s face and put her lips to Katherine’s cheek.

Goodbye,” she said.

Katie pulled away and stood up. She
picked up her coat, returned the chair to the back wall, and left the room. As
she walked down the corridor, her balance gave way. She leant on a handrail
running along the length of the wall, and stopped for a second before
recovering and walking on. She found her way to the hospital entrance and saw
Mike, sat with his arms crossed and his legs outstretched on the far side of
the hallway.

As he saw Katie approach, Mike unfolded
his arms and sat up in the chair. He looked up at Katie.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” she said. “I’m so
sorry.”

She sat down on the hard plastic chair
next to him.

What could she say? Nothing, so she said
nothing at all.

The sat like this, together in silence
for almost five minutes.

“Will you stay in touch, do you think?”
asked Mike eventually.

“I don’t know,” said Katie. “Whether
that would be such a good idea or not, I mean.”

“Have you a phone number I can contact
you on?” asked Mike. “A home number, or a mobile?”

“I don’t have a mobile,” said Katie,
“and I think I’d rather contact you, if that’s okay? I know I can’t stop you
phoning me at work, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

“You’re going to disappear again, aren’t
you?”

“Not necessarily, no,” said Katie. “Give
me your mobile number – I’ll need to know about Katherine, at the very least.”

She took out a pen and a small black
address book from her bag.

“Do you have many names listed in
there?” asked Mike.