by Elena Wilkes
‘I can’t remember…’ And then it came to me. Paul. The shower.
‘You called me,’ she scrubbed the tear away. ‘You told me you weren’t feeling well, do you remember that?’
‘No,’ I shifted and the tubes and wires shifted with me. My head hurt like hell. ‘Emma, it was Paul.’
She looked at me patiently. ‘You were in the car by yourself, Luce. Paul wasn’t with you.’
‘No, I don’t mean… I mean Paul tried to—’ I stopped to find the words.
‘I thought he was going to rape me.’ I knew by her look the words sounded over-dramatic and odd. I lifted my hand, and realised it was bandaged so thickly I could barely move it. ‘I thought he was going to rape me, Emma…’ My voice came out in a whispered husk. ‘He threatened me, he came back drunk, accused me—’
‘Rape? No. No… Shhhh… Lie back, sweetie. It’s okay, it’s okay. They’ve given you all kinds of stuff.’
‘You have to believe—’
‘You told me you’d done something and you needed to talk to me. I’m here now Luce. You can tell me anything, you know that.’
‘Not me. Paul, Emma.’ I struggled to pull myself up. ‘He came home, raging drunk, he—’
Emma frowned a little. ‘But we spoke, Luce, do you remember what you said? You said he’d come home a bit worse for wear. Remember that?’
‘I wasn’t telling the truth, Emma,’ I rasped. ‘That’s not what happened.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No, I couldn’t tell you; he was there. I was going to leave him. I wanted to tell you, but—’
‘You need to sleep,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve been speaking to Paul. You—’ She broke off and I saw the pity in her face. Pity.
‘Paul. You’ve talked to Paul.’ I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes, feeling the tears leak from under the lids. A nurse came in, bustling round. She touched my arm and the sticky tape pulled painfully.
‘I think she’s very tired.’ I heard her say. ‘Maybe you should come back another time?’
I opened my eyes. Emma was pushing the chair back. ‘Of course. You’re absolutely right. I’ll be back when you’re feeling brighter, Luce. Take care.’ She bent to pick up her things and put her face close to mine. ‘I’ll ring him and tell him you’re awake.’ She kissed my forehead.
‘She just needs to sleep,’ said the nurse, turning down the light. She stepped forward to guide Emma awkwardly out of the door.
‘How long have I—?’
My head swam. Paul. Simon. Emma. Caitlin. Simon. Paul. Caitlin. Emma.
Their faces whirled.
The nurse chuckled. ‘Quite a while. A little brain bleed does that to you. Things get muddled. You’ll be a bit confused for a few days, but try not to worry. I’ll leave you alone and you can get some sleep.’
I heard the shunt of the door closing and I lay back on the pillows, my body flinching with memories I couldn’t make sense of. I was out of control; time was out of control: Paul. Emma. Caitlin. Simon. Images came to me, weird snapshots laced with the whine of tyres travelling too fast, the gusts of rain on the windshield between odd windscreen wipers swiping back and forth, each swipe revealing the faces of two laughing children. I could hear them: their squealing and shrieking.
‘Look at me,’ said a voice. ‘Concentrate on me.’ I saw again the flash of police lights and the wail of an ambulance siren, and my eyes fell open with a shock. ‘Lie still.’ It was her. I saw her staring down at me. My eyes widened. She’d been there. Caitlin. The face was Caitlin’s.
Chapter Eleven
‘Oh, you’re awake! Good, your husband’s here to see you.’
My stomach turned over. I squinted painfully. The nurse, Clare, bustled round the bed. I’d got used to her coming and going. She was someone I instinctively liked with her comforting wide hips and curly blonde hair. She clattered something into a tray. Please don’t leave me.
‘He’s been in a right two and eight!’ she laughed. ‘Mind you, he’s managed to find some old friends here. What a coincidence!’
I licked my sore lips.
‘Mr McAndrew was at university with him, apparently. What are the chances? Small world, eh?’
I heard Paul’s laughter in the corridor outside and another man’s voice, then the door clicked open.
‘There she is!’ His face registered absolute delight as he dragged a chair over and grasped my good hand. Every inch of me shrank from his touch, the drugs buzzed wildly in my ears, and I froze.
‘Lucy, this is John McAndrew, a really good friend of mine from years back. John, this is Lucy.’ I realised there was a man standing in the doorway. Paul looked up at the nurse and then round at him, smiling. I tried to pull my hand away; Paul grasped it tighter.
I looked at the man, his spiky blond hair, his pressed shirt, his tie. It didn’t immediately sink in.
‘John has a brilliant team here.’ Paul smiled. ‘You don’t have to worry about a thing.’
John stepped forward in a waft of aftershave. He had a freckled, sandy complexion. He smiled broadly. ‘We can have a chat, Lucy, when you’re feeling a bit stronger. I’ve got a really lovely colleague called Diane I’ll introduce you to. She’s very easy to talk to. I think you’ll get on with her splendidly.’
I blinked, not comprehending, the fog lifting a little as my eyes tracked down to John’s name badge. ‘Psychiatric Consultant.’ My body jerked. I know Paul felt it.
‘I’ve been explaining how you haven’t been feeling well recently. Things have got on top of you a bit. Even your friends couldn’t help.’
Emma.
‘God, I feel so responsible.’ He looked up at John. ‘I mean, I should’ve taken more care.’
John put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll come and see Lucy tomorrow and I’ll bring Diane, too. We can have a chat and see where we go from there.’
I’d become a case. A series of chartable functions: of pulses and pressures and levels. A non-person. A thing to be managed, and moved, and manoeuvred. I knew cases: I dealt with them. I knew how it worked – only now I was on the wrong side.
* * *
The next day arrived and brought McAndrew and Diane along with it.
‘Nothing like a bit of sunshine to cheer us all up, is there?’ He stood at the side of my bed, rocking uncomfortably on his heels. Diane’s crepe soles creaked softly somewhere behind his elbow. I looked down at the jigsaw puzzle someone had left on the table in front of me, staring at two pieces of sky that should go together, but didn’t.
‘Nothing at all.’ My voice didn’t sound like my own.
‘So… Is this a good time?’ His sickly scent wafted in waves. He raised his eyebrows as though he was actually asking a question. ‘I hear you had a good night, anyway.’
‘Yes thank you.’
‘So I just thought it might help to have a bit of a chat.’
I smiled and nodded at them both. Diane’s shoe made a sound like a dying animal.
‘I was thinking it would be good to try and make sense of what happened and see if we can’t get you home.’ The carrot was dangling: I knew it and so did they.
‘It appears you can’t remember much… About the accident, I mean.’ He sat chummily on the side of the bed. I saw the carrot jiggle. He ran his fingers down the length of his tie.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Do you remember how you were feeling when you got into the car?’
I watched his face. I knew I had to be careful.
‘I know you’d spoken to your friend Emma on the phone that morning and you’d had an ordinary pleasant chat. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded slowly.
‘You were happy, then. Happy that Paul had come home.’
‘Yes.’ I lied.
‘So something must’ve happened to change that?’ I was aware of him studying my face. ‘I understand when you made a second call to your friend you were in the car and were very upse
t about something.’
I swallowed. He saw it.
‘So there must have been some trigger that really upset you and made you feel…’ He chose the words carefully. ‘Not yourself.’
‘Yes I think there was.’ My instinct told me I had to offer up something. ‘I was in the shower. Paul got in with me.’ I paused. ‘We had a fight.’
‘Paul says that he was in the shower and that you got in and became enraged. You attacked him.’ The carrot began to move away, slowly.
I opened my mouth.
‘You believed he’d been seeing someone. That’s what your friend Emma said. Is that right? And you argued over that? You became violent. He has the marks.’
I understood immediately where this was going.
‘You’d been on medication for an injury to your foot, hadn’t you?’ He nodded sympathetically. ‘The second lot of pills were pretty strong. I’m wondering how many you took before you got in the car?’
I blinked. ‘Only… only what I was told to take.’
‘Right.’ McAndrew sat back in the chair. ‘I’m sorry.’ He licked his lips slowly. ‘Forgive me for asking this question in this way but when you got in the car did you have any intention of hurting yourself?’
‘Hurting myself?’ My face fell. ‘No! Absolutely not! It was an accident!’
His hand rested briefly on my arm. ‘We need to be clear and truthful, Lucy. I’m on your side, I’m not the enemy, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what was in your mind at that precise moment.’
Emma’s words came back to me: neither of us are the enemy. There is no enemy.
‘You see, you say it was an accident, but you asked the paramedics if you were still alive… As though maybe you didn’t want to be.’
I stared, horrified.
‘Do you remember saying that, Lucy?’
Caitlin’s face came back to me. Did I dream her? My head felt as though it was on a stalk. I must have dreamt her.
‘Maybe you feel very differently now, and that’s great, but it’s just that given the level of drugs in your system and the nature of the collision, the police are at liberty to talk to you about endangering life by dangerous driving. Are you aware of that?’
I shook my head vehemently as he sat back, linking his fingers loosely in his lap. ‘They were concerned, obviously, that you were out in your car, driving erratically and under the influence of drugs. They could have pressed for various charges, but we’ve persuaded them that we’d look at a care plan for you. Paul, of course, is resisting their attempts to get him to give evidence.’ My brain faltered, not fully comprehending. ‘And they know it’s not in the interests of the justice system to take this matter further if you are released into our care and remain at home. I also understand Paul has been granted compassionate leave to look after you.’ I heard the words as though he was talking about someone else.
‘Plus with regular meetings with Diane on an outpatient basis, I think we should be able to get you back on your feet.’ He smiled and his eyes twinkled bright blue.
I found myself gulping at dry air over and over.
‘How does that all sound?’
‘We.’ ‘Our.’ ‘Us.’
‘There we are, then!’ He slapped his knees decisively and went to stand. ‘All sorted. Great! Now, I’ll have to see if I can find that husband of yours and arrange some time to properly catch up! How brilliant after all these years!’ He grinned. ‘I lost touch with him after that bad business.’ He shook his head and then smiled. ‘Never mind, we’re back in contact now!’
* * *
I was trapped and I knew it.
Two weeks passed. I had no idea what ‘bad business’ McAndrew had been referring to and with crappy hospital wifi, I couldn’t spend hours finding out.
Some days he came with Emma. They sat, one on either side of the bed, laughing over stuff and chatting. Who are you? I wanted to ask him, but couldn’t. I watched Emma’s animated face as she laughed at his jokes. I didn’t know her either. How much could I even trust her?
‘Can you keep a secret?’
She arrived early one afternoon, but I knew Paul wouldn’t be far behind. She looked around her, theatrically. ‘Paul’s bought you a new car!’ she whispered bringing a finger to her lips. ‘But act surprised when he tells you!’
If I was going anywhere, I knew I had to act all kinds of things. Paul might be the jailor, but Emma, I had realised, held a whole bunch of keys.
‘That’s exciting, but a bit scary too.’ I picked at the sheet, knowing I’d got her attention.
‘Oh yeah – sorry, I wasn’t thinking!’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ve been wanting to say to you… About the accident.’ I glanced at the door. ‘That day. Do you remember what I said on the phone?… You know. What I said about Paul – What he did to me.’
Her face froze.
‘I realise now it was some kind of madness.’
Her face crumpled with relief. ‘Oh my God, Lucy! You don’t know what that means for me to hear you say that!’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking…’ I mused, ‘what I imagined had happened. I can’t believe I said it. Any of it.’
Emma was visibly heartened. ‘God. What you’ve been through though, Luce. What you’ve both been through.’
I carried on meeting her gaze, forcing my lips to stretch into a smile of agreement as I nodded and made the right noises. Thank God for all the professionals who’d helped me get to this point. Thank God I’d now seen the light. I stared down at my hand, still bandaged, the fingers peeping out of the end. They didn’t look like my own, they looked like they belonged to someone else. It was as though I was living someone else’s life. My real life was out there somewhere, waiting for me. I just had to find a way to get back to it.
* * *
‘I know it hurts, but we need to make sure you’re properly mobile before you go home tomorrow.’ Clare helped me out of bed for the umpteenth time. ‘The more often you get out and have a little walk, the easier it will get. You’ve done so well in the last three weeks, don’t let yourself slip back now.’
My legs still felt feeble as I put my bare feet to the floor, the soles numb and tingling. She helped me dress into tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt, some socks and slippers.
‘Take it steady now,’ she smiled. ‘Remember, don’t go too far, just up to the end of the ward and back, that’s all. We’re not aiming to do a marathon just yet.’
She watched me as I started out along the corridor. I kept close to the wall, my hand gently touching the rail for comfort. I knew I was getting stronger and it felt good: really good. Even my injured foot had healed and it was great to be on my feet again.
The double doors at the end swung open and a white-coated registrar flapped past. I lifted my head and sniffed the air. He smelled of something other than hospitals: he smelled of outside, of cars and shops and people and I realised how much I was yearning to get out there again.
Carefully following the green line on the floor, I headed towards the signs for ‘Exit’. My whole being thrilled. I stood back as the next set of doors swished open and a group of women bundled through, hooting with laughter. The doors stayed open, beckoning me, and I took the challenge and walked though them. Even the car park looked amazing. The early October weather had slipped into a real Indian summer: the soft morning sunshine warming my slippered feet. I watched the comings and goings: all the hospital staff beginning and ending their shifts. The parking spaces were laid out like some strange board game, intermittently filling up with moving counters. It looked like a whole new world.
I scanned the lines. There was a car there that was the same make and colour as my old one and I thought about what it would be like to get back behind the wheel again. Could I do that? An equal amount of anxiety and excitement tickled through me and then the excitement slowly died: Paul’s car was sitting in a bay. I didn’t know he was here. My eyes cast about nervously. I almost expected him to come st
rolling round the corner any second. I glanced back and suddenly understood the reality of what my life would be like once I left this place and all my protection was gone. This would be it: living with him, alone, always jumping and wondering and scared of what he would do next.
I turned into the safety of the foyer, the automatic door shunting open with a soft clatter, and with it, my stomach folded.
Caitlin.
I reeled with the impact, letting the doors close. This time she wasn’t a dream. She was standing checking the signs above her head and then looked down at the guide on the floor. Her head turned sharply as though someone had called her and suddenly, there was Paul. They spoke for a few moments. He looked shifty and tense, glancing about to see who might be watching before they walked together down the corridor. It was like some terrible, terrible premonition coming true in front of my eyes.
‘God, you’ll get me shot!’
I jumped as Clare cupped my elbow.
‘I said to the end of the ward, I didn’t suggest you take yourself off to town!’ she laughed. ‘Now come on—’
But I pulled back.
‘Paul’s here. My husband’s here.’
‘Bit early for him, isn’t it?’ she smiled. ‘The staff are only just coming on duty.’
‘But his car’s over there—’ I looked back into the car park. It had filled up considerably. I looked for his car, but the newly parked vehicles obscured the view.
‘You’ll never spot it in that lot!’ she laughed. ‘Now please, if I don’t get you back I’m going to be in real trouble.’ Her grip tightened and she steered me firmly in the direction of the ward. I couldn’t help myself: every person coming towards us, every voice at every turn had me snapping round in case it was him. But Paul didn’t appear. And neither did Caitlin.
* * *
I didn’t dare take my eyes off my bedside window. By the end of the morning I was exhausted. The afternoon rumbled into the early evening and still I couldn’t relax. What were they doing here together? What was their plan? I envisaged some terrible moment of them walking in here together and telling me Caitlin had moved into my house and they were about to begin their new life together.
