Before I Saw You

by Emily Houghton

  ‘It’s fine. Maybe it’s better this way; if it were up to me, I’d be keeping you here all night, and then you might miss your flight tomorrow morning. And that wouldn’t be good for anyone.’

  Alice reached for Sarah’s hand. One last chance to feel the lifeline that had been her anchor these last ten days.

  ‘Since when did you turn so positive?’

  ‘Since I don’t fancy you being escorted out by security as my lasting memory of our goodbye.’

  Sarah kissed her hand. ‘I love you, Alice Gunnersley. And I meant what I said. We will see each other very soon. I’ll make sure of it, OK?’

  Alice smiled. She looked at Sarah. Her wonderful, incredible, beautiful friend. How blessed she was to know her. ‘I love you too, Sarah Mansfield.’

  Alice finally took a deep breath and let go.

  ‘Don’t forget … he really is one of the best.’ And with a slight cock of her head towards the curtain, Sarah blew her one last kiss and walked away.

  Alice’s heart broke, and immediately Alfie’s hand was there holding hers.

  48

  Alfie

  Alfie didn’t let go of her hand, even after she fell asleep. It had been an exhausting day for everyone, and he wasn’t surprised to find that barely an hour after Sarah left, Alice was out for the count. There was so much he wanted to say to her, so many things to ask, that his mind was still spinning by the time he eventually closed his eyes.

  Alfie woke with a start. Sounds of hurried footsteps, beeping machines and panicked orders rang out across the ward. It was disorientating to be woken up suddenly, and it took Alfie a few moments to come round and realize that something was very wrong.

  ‘Mr Peterson, I need you to try and keep your eyes open for me.’

  Was that Nurse Bellingham?

  ‘I need some help over here, please, he’s not breathing.’

  What?

  Alfie’s eyes sprang open instantly. Then he heard it: the coughing, the calls for help almost lost amidst the gasping.

  ‘Mr Peterson!’ he cried out, wildly searching for his prosthesis. ‘Mr Peterson, are you OK?’ The fear was building rapidly inside him.

  ‘Alfie, what’s going on?’

  At first he didn’t register the voice drifting over from behind the curtain next to him. He was too busy searching for his spare leg.

  Where the hell is it?

  ‘Alfie?’ Alice’s voice was bleary, still dusted with remnants of sleep but firmer now.

  He paused from his erratic search momentarily.

  ‘Alice, please, you have to help me. It’s Mr Peterson. He can’t breathe.’ The words were rushing out of his mouth so quickly he could barely understand what he was saying. He had to get her to help.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Alice, I need you to come and pass me my crutches. I can’t find my prosthetic and I need to get to Mr Peterson now!’

  ‘But … but I can’t.’

  Why isn’t she here already?

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Alfie tried to shift his body closer to the edge of the bed, but it was no use. The dread seemed to be weighing him down so much that every move was painstakingly slow.

  ‘I … I just can’t come round there.’

  Alfie stopped struggling; he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

  ‘Yes, you can, Alice. Please!’

  He heard the familiar rustling of her movements next door. The sound of her sitting upright, positioning herself on the edge of the bed and preparing to stand. Then silence.

  ‘I can’t, Alfie.’

  ‘No, Alice. You just won’t.’

  There was no time left for arguing. Alfie knew he had to move quickly. He could see the crowd of nurses growing around bed fourteen.

  ‘Sharon!’ his cry rang out. He didn’t care if he woke anyone up; no one deserved to be sleeping while Mr Peterson was in danger.

  Maybe she couldn’t hear him above the chaos of the crisis?

  ‘SHARON!’ He was practically screaming.

  ‘I’m coming, honey, just one second.’

  Alfie couldn’t wait one second. He managed to haul himself right to the edge of the bed, and was just on the verge of toppling off when Sharon was suddenly by his side.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Alfie? You think you’re going to be good for anything laid out on the floor with concussion?’

  Without another word, she grabbed his crutches from the floor and was helping him move as quickly as possible towards the old man. The closer he got, the tighter Sharon gripped his waist. And the closer he got, the more ragged Mr Peterson’s breathing sounded.

  ‘What’s happening?’ He reached out for Nurse Bellingham’s shoulder.

  ‘Alfie, you can’t be here right now. We need space to work on him.’ The flash of panic in her eyes made Alfie’s stomach drop.

  ‘Work on him?’

  Alfie’s heart was pounding. His body was sweating, his breathing shallow. He felt like he’d been running at a million miles per hour, yet he was rooted to the spot.

  ‘MOVE, ALFIE. We need to get to him.’ Nurse Bellingham pushed him aside.

  ‘Honey, come over here, you don’t need to see this.’ Sharon was trying to pull him away.

  ‘No.’ She had his hand and was dragging him. ‘No, Sharon! I can’t leave him. I can’t.’

  ‘At least move over here a bit more. Make sure the doctors have enough space to help him, OK?’

  He didn’t care that she was treating him like a child. In fact, all he wanted right now was someone to hold him and soothe him and tell him everything was going to be OK. Instead all he had were his own words, repeated over and over like a mantra: ‘Please be OK. Please be OK. Please be OK.’

  And then the sound cut through.

  The eternal, unbroken sound of a heart that had stopped beating.

  Alfie didn’t even bother to watch as they tried to resuscitate him. Mr P wasn’t the kind of man that did things by half. If he’d decided to go, there was no way in hell he was coming back, no matter how much electricity someone passed through his body. Slowly Alfie started to make his way back to his bed, and it was only when he started to move that he realized how numb he’d become. He saw his hands move in front of him but he had to question who they belonged to. In an act of self-protection, his body and mind were shutting down and he was truly grateful for the void.

  He didn’t cry. He tried. He really fucking tried. He didn’t cry when he heard them announce the time of death. He didn’t even cry when someone mentioned breaking the news to Agnes. The thought of telling that woman her soulmate, her life partner, her entire world had just died without her even being able to say goodbye was beyond painful, yet still no tears came. All he could do was lie there, stare at the ceiling, and allow the commotion of the night to settle down around him.

  ‘Alfie? Can you hear me?’ Alice’s desperation was unmistakable. He finally understood how satisfying silence was as a way to shut people out.

  ‘Alfie, please?’

  He was perversely enjoying listening to her worry. He wanted her to feel bad. She should feel bad.

  ‘Alfie, I’m sorry. I just—’

  Something suddenly snapped inside him. Rage flooded him instantly, tearing through every part of his body until he wanted to rip his own skin off to escape the heat. For the first time since they’d met, Alfie prayed to be anywhere other than in this bed next to her tonight.

  ‘You just what, Alice? You just couldn’t get up to help me? You just couldn’t get up out of bed for one minute to help me get to my friend? My dying friend. After everything that’s happened, you couldn’t even fucking get up! For once I actually don’t want to hear what you have to say, so please do me a favour and leave me alone.’

  As he turned over to face the other direction, he could have sworn he saw some movement from the curtain. Funny how something you’d been thinking of obsessively for days could instantly become insignificant. He di
dn’t care if she was looking through at him. He didn’t care if she’d pulled back the whole goddam thing. Some things were just too little too late.

  *

  Alfie assumed that by the next morning at least some of the shock would have worn off. How wrong he was. He woke, still very numb and still very empty, unsure if he was even awake or still dreaming. Luckily, Alice didn’t try and talk to him. There was no way he had the energy for it today. It was hard enough to smile when Nurse Angles came to see him.

  ‘Alfie, honey.’ She placed her hand gently on top of his. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ He couldn’t stand to look at her; he didn’t want to see any kindness this morning, not when life kept proving how cruel it could be over and over again. ‘I know it looked traumatic, but the doctors have assured me he didn’t feel any pain. He was an old man, sweetie, it was simply his time to go.’

  There was nothing he could say. Nothing he wanted to say. All he could do was curl the corners of his mouth into what he hoped resembled some sort of smile of acknowledgement.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, but I’m here – we all are – if you need anything.’

  As she turned to go, he was suddenly struck with a devastating thought. ‘Does Agnes know yet?’

  ‘We told her this morning. She’s coming in to see him this afternoon.’

  The rest of the day came and went in a blur. Alfie was vaguely aware of people moving around, staff cleaning and talking amongst themselves, but he didn’t care about the details. When he looked over at Mr Peterson’s cubicle at the end of the day, he was stunned. There was no evidence that the man had existed at all. Everything had returned to its original sterile state. How quickly every trace of a person could disappear, wiped away and collected up to be replaced with fresh bed sheets and a brand-new resident.

  Before his own accident, Alfie could never really understand why people got so worried about forgetting their loved ones when they passed. Surely you could never erase those memories or moments from your mind? How could you ever forget a person who had meant so much to you? But you could. And you did. One of the hardest lessons he’d had to learn was that time doesn’t stop for anyone. If you don’t go with it, there’s a risk people will move on without you too. But to take that first step feels so much like betrayal it roots you to the spot. Watching the ward prepare for another person to move into Mr Peterson’s space was another stark reminder of how quickly the world carries on without you.

  ‘Alfie. Are you awake in there?’ One of the nurses’ voices broke his stream of thoughts. It was tentative and barely audible over the whirring in his head. It seemed everyone was treading on eggshells.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  She pulled back the curtain. ‘Agnes is here. She’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind?’

  Panic raced through him, stealing his breath as it went.

  ‘It won’t take long, dear. I know you’ll want to be by yourself today.’ Agnes’s voice sounded so strong and calm. Was she still in shock? Had it hit her yet that her husband was dead?

  ‘Of course, come in.’ He sat up, rearranging himself in the hope of masking the creases of grief that had folded themselves into him.

  She looked smaller than the last time he’d seen her, although maybe that was just in his mind. Her crinkled face was etched deeply with lines of laughter, of tears, of sun-kissed days and freezing nights. This was a worldly woman. Alfie got the impression there wasn’t much that could shock her any more. Today it seemed she was using everything she had inside her to keep upright and strong.

  She shuffled towards him and sat down in the chair by his bed. Her hands were clasped around her handbag, holding on to the worn leather so tightly that the paper-thin skin of her knuckles was turning white.

  ‘Agnes I’m so, so—’

  ‘Alfie.’ She stopped his words dead in their tracks. ‘It was his time to go and we must respect that.’

  Alfie sat with his eyes and mouth wide open, looking at the incredibly calm woman in front of him.

  ‘Of course, that doesn’t stop it hurting.’ She coughed and her gaze dropped briefly down to her hands. ‘I want to thank you for being there with him. Not just last night, but ever since you came to the ward. I’m not sure if he told you, because he was a stubborn old bastard at times, but he loved you. It’s funny; so many people have asked me if I’ve found it hard being apart from him for so long. Have I found it difficult knowing he was being left in this place without me? But whenever I’ve thought about it, I’ve come back to the same answer. I’ve never felt worried or guilty because I knew he was surrounded by love here. He had you. And he was so grateful for that.’

  Alfie shook his head. Alfie was the one who had stopped checking in on his friend as much because he’d got too caught up in another silly side story. He couldn’t bear the compliments. He didn’t want the affection. Niceties made the stabs of guilt more intense.

  ‘But I let him down.’ The words came out so small and quiet.

  ‘You did nothing of the sort.’ Alfie was taken aback by the slap on the wrist she gave him. ‘Stop that nonsense. I knew my husband for over sixty years, and I saw the way he looked at you. You were a good friend to him, and I am very thankful for all that you did for him. In fact …’

  She reached into her handbag and pulled out two worn, shabby-looking books.

  ‘I know he’d have wanted you to have these. I can’t stand the things, but I know you both loved puzzles so much. These are two of the hardest, apparently. He tried over the years to finish them but never got round to it. Now it’s your turn to try.’

  Only then did Alfie manage to cry.

  ‘Oh, look, don’t get yourself upset now.’ She handed him a tissue from her bag. ‘He’d want you to be happy.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m really going to miss him, you know?’

  She patted his hand one last time and shuffled her way up to standing. ‘You and me both.’

  49

  Alice

  She’d messed up. She’d messed up really, really badly.

  Straight after it happened, she tried to convince herself that she’d simply been too confused to do anything. Being woken up by the screaming had been disorientating and she couldn’t be sure if she was still dreaming or not. Confusion. That was the reason it took her so long to react, and then by the time she’d worked out what was happening it was all too late.

  It was a hard pill to swallow to admit it was all bullshit.

  Ultimately she was a coward. A selfish, unforgivable coward.

  It was true that she was disorientated when she first woke up; however, the moment she heard Alfie’s voice she knew that this was very real and something was very wrong. Yet despite his cries for help, she couldn’t go to him. Fear was holding her down against her will. The most ludicrous part of it all was that no one would be looking at her anyway. The only thing anyone would be caring about was saving the life of a man who was dying in front of their eyes. It was all in her head. She was the only one that cared. She was the only one standing in her way, and now she was suffering the consequences.

  At first she couldn’t work out what was worse, his anger or the silence. Hearing the disappointment in his voice was devastating, but it was the edge of repulsion that she couldn’t seem to shake off. He was disgusted by her actions. Well, her lack of. And no matter how many excuses she tried to find, Alice knew that he was justified in his feelings towards her. Knowing that seemed to make it hurt all the more.

  Even though she was still hidden away in her cubicle, Alice decided to wait until the evening to try to talk to him again. Being rejected in broad daylight was never a nice feeling, even when you’d tried to make yourself invisible.

  ‘Alfie?’ Her voice was tentative but definitely audible.

  Silence.

  ‘Alfie, please?’

  Nothing.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk to me I understand, but please at least hear me out.’

  She took his silence as a gr
een light.

  ‘What I did, well, what I didn’t do … it was unforgivable. I didn’t get up. I didn’t get up because I’m stuck in this ridiculous minefield of fear. I wanted to, I really wanted to be there for you, to help, to do something, but I just … I just couldn’t. Do you know how sick that makes me feel? How ashamed I am? I don’t want to live my life as a coward any more, Alfie, I refuse to live my life like this. That’s why I’ve agreed to have another operation. A second surgery to fix my face. I know it doesn’t make up for what I did, and it doesn’t bring Mr Peterson back, but … I want you to know that I’m going to change.’

  She waited, straining her ears for any sound of acknowledgement.

  ‘Alfie, I’m going to be better, I promise.’

  She heard him take a breath.

  Her heart rose slightly.

  She knew he’d still be there, like he’d always promised.

  ‘Well, good for you.’ His sarcasm coated every word.

  Alice felt her heart fall through the floor.

  I’m sorry, Alfie. I’m so, so sorry.

  *

  It turned out living in silence wasn’t that fun any more. Alfie still hadn’t so much as breathed in her direction since Mr Peterson’s death, and in fact the entire ward seemed to have descended into an eerie stillness. The only signs that there was life beyond her curtains were the faint shuffling of feet and nondescript noises of human existence. Grief had made its home here and there was no sign of it leaving. Even Nurse Angles was struggling to find a smile.

  ‘Morning, Alice. I have some good news.’ There was not one shred of joy in her voice. ‘Mr Warring has confirmed the date of your surgery. You’re scheduled for eight days’ time.’

  Wow. That soon?

  ‘Amazing, thank you so much.’ Alice’s cheeks hurt from her overcompensating smile. ‘I’m also so sorry for your loss. Mr Peterson was a good man and I know how much he meant to you.’

  God, you really are trying, aren’t you, Alice?

  All she received for her efforts was a tiny nod of acknowledgement, and then Nurse Angles was gone.