‘You won’t say anything to Dominic about seeing me in the pub, will you?’
Mike appears to consider this carefully then a smile spreads across his face. ‘Of course not. Let’s just say this evening never happened, shall we?’
She relaxes her grip. ‘Good plan.’
As far as she’s concerned Dominic Peterson is forgiven.
16
Bella
‘Time for bed,’ says Courtney, as soon as Daddy goes out. ‘Remember the drill. Pyjamas, teeth, bed.’ It’s not even dark.
Courtney collects Bella from school. And babysits. She’s very bossy.
She moves all the papers around on Daddy’s desk and tells Bella to tidy her toys. Then she follows her upstairs.
‘Ooh, I’d like to see that,’ Courtney says, picking up the book by Bella’s bed. The one with lots of photos of her Mummy and Daddy. Bella wants to snatch it off her. To say no.
‘I’ll bring it back later,’ says Courtney. She better. Courtney puts those dangly strings in her ears then pretends she can’t hear.
Bella sits on her bed with her box of stickers. There’s a goldfish. And a dinosaur. The dinosaur’s her favourite. The stickers say, ‘I’ve been brave.’ That’s what the nurse says when she goes to the doctors.
‘This won’t hurt,’ says the nurse when she takes off the bandage where Daddy put the cream. Then she jabs her arm. ‘See? What did I tell you? Not even a little sting. My goodness, Bella, you’re the bravest girl I’ve seen this morning. I think you should have a sticker.’
Bella’s not scared of nothing. She counts her stickers. ‘One, two, three, four.’ She gets up to twenty but can’t remember which number comes next.
Daddy says she has to go to hospital soon. He says the doctors want to take her picture and she must be brave. Maybe she’ll get more stickers. But she’s nearly run out of pages in her book.
Courtney is talking loudly downstairs. Bella tiptoes to her door. Presses her ear to the crack. Courtney is on the phone.
‘No, no, no,’ she says, ‘I’ve told you before. It’s not fair.’
Maybe her boyfriend’s been naughty again. Grown-ups can’t be naughty though, can they?
Footsteps. Bella climbs into bed and switches on her light. The holes in it make freckles, which move around the wall. She opens her drawer and takes out her crayons.
Maybe Mummy would like a picture. But Mummy’s not coming back. Daddy says she’s gone to heaven. That’s where the angels sing.
Courtney sticks her head round the door.
‘What are you up to, little monkey?’ she says. She comes in, puts Bella’s crayons back in the drawer and pulls the curtains shut. ‘Lights out now, Bella.’ She tucks her in. ‘Night, night.’ She smells of mints and cigarettes.
It’s dark now, except for a stick of light coming through the bedroom door.
17
Ruth
Ruth needn’t have worried. He’d understood. She’d phoned him on the pretext of thanking him for the flowers, of course, but he must have noticed the hint of anxiety in her voice. Part nervousness, part lack of self-confidence. After last night’s disastrous evening in the pub she just wanted to hear his voice.
‘Why don’t I come over?’ he said, ‘I’m sure Courtney won’t mind babysitting. Can’t have you driving if you’re trying to rest your ankle.’
She’d tripped over the uneven flagstones in her back garden, she’d told him, while carrying a heavy watering can to refill the bird bath.
As they sat downstairs drinking coffee it had been so liberating to off-load her worries to him. The panic she felt on missing Margaret’s diagnosis, the tremulous anxiety that engulfed her when the pharmacist told her she’d prescribed ten times the usual dose of morphine for a dying patient. He seemed to get it. To understand. As he listened, he nodded, and squeezed her hand. Inevitably their discussion soon moved upstairs.
Dusk filters through the half-opened curtains now, casting spindles of shadow across the room. There’s the soughing of trees outside, their dark green profiles bristling against a silver sky. Inside the bedroom the air is warm and viscous. The duvet has been kicked into a rumpled ball. As she stretches her legs, her toe catches on the corner of the sheet, pulling it down to expose her breasts. Her nipples prickle, and she exhales slowly.
Dominic lies facing her, one side of his head buried in the pillow. She gazes at the exposed contours of his face and there’s a smoothness to them which is more apparent when he’s asleep. The tension lines round his eyes have softened, and the angle of his mouth has lifted. She watches the rise and fall of his chest, and her eyes followed the band of dark hairs down to the crescent-shaped scar under the left side of his rib cage. Very gently she traces it with her finger, his skin squirming at the tickle of sensitive nerve endings round its puckered edge. He opens his eyes.
‘You’re ticklish,’ she says.
‘Maybe,’ he replies in a throaty voice. ‘My splenectomy scar. I’ll tell you about it later.’
He shifts across the bed. ‘But first,’ he says, pulling her into a kiss.
They make love, and afterwards he rolls onto his side, avoiding pressure on his arm.
As the shadows in the room lengthen, the projected slats of her stickleback chair throw lines across the bed that cover them both, like the bars of a cell. It’s an odd image, so she rises and moves over to the window to pull the curtains. Outside, rain puddles on a garden bench, and the roses trailing the sill are beaded with moisture.
She turns around and switches on the bedside light, and he’s staring at her. And now she’s conscious of her nakedness. He blinks, then his face breaks into a broad smile. Little wisps of his hair float with static, as he lifts his head from the pillow. Propping himself up, his eyes move across her body. He holds out his hand and pulls her on to the bed.
‘I was dreaming about you earlier,’ he says, pinning her arms beneath her. ‘But it’s not a dream.’ Then he presses his body close and she can feel his warm breath in her hair. He tangles his legs around her again, as they roll over damp patches of mattress, and, once again, her anxieties are pushed to the perimeter of her consciousness.
Later they lie back, with the duvet pulled up over their shoulders. Ruth studies the uneven emulsion on the ceiling. He’s the first to speak.
‘Do you ever think about dying?’ He turns to look at her.
She raises her head slightly, pondering the weight of the question.
‘From time to time. Why?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot recently. Obviously.’
There’s an inflection in his voice she hasn’t heard before.
‘You see,’ he continues, looking away, ‘if I had a choice I’d much prefer it to be quick, rather than lingering. And I don’t think anyone dies peacefully, no matter what the announcements in the death columns say.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I mean, take that patient of yours, for instance. If the pharmacist hadn’t noticed your mistake, and the patient had died, it might have been a blessing.’
‘You can’t be serious.’ Ruth makes no attempt to mask the horror in her voice. ‘I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but that’s not the point. It was a genuine mistake. I don’t want to be struck off.’
‘It’s okay,’ says Dom, poking her in the ribs, ‘lighten up. I don’t always mean what I say. Still, don’t you think it’s odd that we all know we’re going to die, but we don’t have any say in how or when?’
Ruth tries to find the right words.
‘I’m glad of that. But you could say the same about life. We don’t have any say in how, when, or even where, we’re born.’
The silence between them is measured by the barely discernible rise and fall of the bedclothes that comes with their breathing.
He turns to face her. ‘My scars.
I promised I’d tell you about them.’
‘You did.’ Ruth nestles against Dominic’s shoulder wondering what’s coming next.
‘Difficult to know where to start. It was an accident. A horrific accident.’
Ruth feels Dominic’s muscles tense. ‘I understand if you’d rather not tell me, Dom.’ Her words are ignored.
‘My father was a pilot. Born and brought up in the UK, although his father and grandmother fled Armenia during the First World War. He met my mother when she was working as an air stewardess. By all accounts they were a glamorous couple. Things started to go wrong when they got married and I came on the scene.’ The resentment in his voice becomes apparent. ‘My mother gave up work to look after me, while my father was often away for days at a time in far-flung destinations. The cracks set in when he started to have a series of affairs. I don’t know how old I was when that started. It’s not the kind of thing you notice when you’re a child, but my mother tolerated it for several years apparently.’
Ruth studies a silvery cobweb hanging from the lampshade above them.
‘What I remember most is the fights they would have when he came home. Shouting long after I had gone to bed. Clanging doors. Shattered crockery.’
‘Poor darling.’
‘He got into debt. Started drinking heavily.’ His voice wavers.
‘Dom, you don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.’
As if he hasn’t heard Dominic continues, his voice like a fine veneer which could crack at any time. ‘One night, in the middle of summer, I had gone to bed but couldn’t sleep in the stuffy heat. I could hear muffled voices downstairs which gradually got louder. My father was shouting and swearing. Then I heard the clatter of footsteps on the wooden staircase outside my room. My mother screaming, “Get away from me.”’
He pauses and swallows. ‘I heard my father shriek, ‘‘this time I’m going to kill you, you stupid bitch’’ and her pleading for mercy. I got out of bed and looked around my room for something to defend my mother with. I lifted my cricket bat and went into their bedroom.’
Ruth feels the sweat pooling at the back of her neck and unsticks her body from Dom’s skin.
‘When I entered their room all I could see was the hulk of my father’s frame hunched over my mother. He had her up against the window and his hands round her neck. She was making horrible noises like she was snoring.’
‘Oh my God, how aw-’
‘I didn’t think twice. I took a swing at his head. He was taken by surprise, let go of my mother and lashed out at me. I lost my balance and fell through the plated glass. I was eight years old.’
Ruth sits up and brings her hand to her mouth. She feels sick. Dominic lies impassive, staring at the ceiling. ‘I ruptured my spleen and smashed my forearm in three places.’
Ruth brings her hand down gently to rest on Dominic’s thigh. She looks at the atrophied musculature and can only feel pity, not revulsion. Volkmann’s ischaemic contracture. That’s what she remembers from her final exams, though she’d never seen it until now. The wasted muscles deprived of their normal blood supply, in the aftermath of a nasty fracture. The scarred tissues pulling his hand into a claw deformity as the tissues healed. The chronic pain he continued to endure against the background of a splintered family. He turns to look at her and a muscle twitches in his cheek. ‘Ruth, I owe you an apology. I’ve been such a shit recently. Things haven’t been easy for me.’
‘Darling, don’t be silly. I’m the one who should be apologising. What you’ve just told me…I had no idea. That’s awful.’
‘My father’s dead now. Cirrhosis of the liver.’ He grinds his teeth. ‘Poor bastard. My parents split up when I had my accident. Went their separate ways. My mother brought me up on her own, then many years later, long after I’d left home, she re-married and moved to the States. She came back once, when Bella was born. But I don’t kid myself that that was to see me. It was to see her new granddaughter. Haven’t heard from her since.’
Ruth nods, her words inadequate.
‘Of course Bella’s my main concern now. I’m so worried about her,’ Dominic continues.
‘I know, I know. I understand.’
‘I haven’t told you, but she’s got to go for a scan tomorrow.’
‘A scan? What scan?’
‘The doctors think she may have scarring on her kidneys.’
Ruth’s shoulders drop. ‘Because of her urine infections?’
‘I think so.’
‘That’s par for the course, Dom. Routine. It shouldn’t be serious,’ she says, trying to reassure him.
She lifts his hand up to her lips and kisses it, and is caught by a sudden draught, as the duvet is lifted. Dominic arches his back. The moment is gone.
‘What time is it?’ he says, peering over her shoulder, towards the bedside clock.
‘Ten past ten,’ she says, rolling back and screwing her eyes tight to focus on the illuminated display.
‘I said I would be back around eleven.’ His head lolls back on the pillow.
‘Ruth?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I hope you understand that it’s easier if we meet here for the time being. For Bella’s sake. I mean, it’s early days.’
‘Of course.’
Her words curl away from her in disappointment. Of course she understands. But she wants to prolong this moment. Now. Here. In her bed.
The expression in his eyes changes. ‘I’m going to have a shower, then I better get going.’
Alone in her bed that night she mulls over the details of his accident. His words about death had unsettled her but now she understands. That’s his way of coping. He’s been dealt more than his fair share of death, after all. Pulling the duvet around her, she falls asleep to the sound of a solitary owl, calling from the cemetery at the bottom of her road.
18
Bella
Daddy is happy today. As they set off for her picture test, his head bobs up and down, as he sings.
‘Miss Polly had a dolly that was sick, sick, sick, So she called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick… join in Bella,’ he says. ‘Come on, you know the words.’
She doesn’t want to join in. She cuddles Roo and looks out the window. Cars go past. They stop at a zebra thing and a lady crosses the road holding hands with three children. The little girl on the end is skipping. She has bright yellow shoes. When the car starts again Bella turns her head and watches the yellow shoes disappear.
When they get to where they are going, Daddy gets cross.
‘Would you look at that idiot,’ he says. ‘I was going to go in that space.’ They drive round and round in an upwards circle. ‘Here we go,’ he says, and stops. ‘Come on, Bella. We better hurry up, we’re going to be late.’ He goes over to a door and presses a button then says, ‘This is taking too long, let’s go down the stairs.’ By the time they get to the bottom of the stairs Bella can feel her chest going, ‘BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.’
‘Now remember,’ Daddy says, as they find the right room ‘you need to keep still when you are having your picture taken. It won’t take long then we can go home.’
There’s a lady with glasses standing behind a desk.
‘Mr. Peterson?’ she says, then she looks down at Bella and smiles. She has a big hairy spot on her chin. ‘And this must be Isabella? Excellent. Take a seat, please. Won’t be long.’
The room has that funny smell. There’s a little table in the corner with comics on it. Bella sits next to her daddy. She has a funny feeling in her tummy and doesn’t want to look at the comics. A lady with lots of teeth appears.
‘Isabella Peterson?’
Suddenly she’s frightened. She sits back on the chair as far as she can go. Hangs on to her daddy’s arm. But Daddy peels her fingers off his sleeve. Slides her forward.
‘Yes,’ he says
to Big Teeth Lady. ‘Here we are.’
‘Lovely,’ she says, as she holds out her hand. The boom in Bella’s T shirt is getting bigger. ‘You can come in with us too, Mr. Peterson. It shouldn’t take long.’
Bella sinks to the floor, clinging to Daddy’s trousers. She starts to cry. Her tears sting. She’s not going anywhere.
‘Sshh’, says Daddy. He calls her a silly billy. If she lets go of his trousers he’ll come in with her. And if she promises to keep still she can have some Smarties when they get home.
Big Teeth Lady is waiting.
They follow her into another room with lots of cartoons on the ceiling. A lady with frizzy hair is there. Frizzy Hair Lady lifts Bella onto the bed and tells her to lie down. The boom boom gets bigger and quicker, as if it’s going to run away. Bella thinks the lady puts some bags of flour by her legs so she can’t move. From here she can see the pictures on the ceiling. It’s Alice in Wonderland and the White Rabbit and a whiskery man with a funny hat. Frizzy Hair Lady squeezes her hand, while Big Teeth Lady says, ‘Now my little princess, I want you to look up at the ceiling and tell me what you can see.’ But Bella looks down and sees that Big Teeth Lady has a tube in her hand. The jelly on her tummy is cold and she tries to wriggle. Frizzy Hair Lady is holding her so tight she can’t move. She starts to cry.
‘Oh, it’s okay, Isabella,’ says Big Teeth Lady. ‘Let’s sing a song. Old MacDonald had a farm Ee-I-Ee-I-O.’ She makes moo noises, then oink noises, then quack noises. Bella’s nose is full of snot. She buttons her eyes shut.
Big Teeth Lady is making miaow, miaow noises when Bella opens them again. ‘All finished!’ she says. ‘Over to you, Daddy.’
Daddy lifts her up, carries her outside and puts her down.
‘What a good girl you’ve been, Bella.’ He has his pretend smile.
Bella wipes away a drool of snot and tears with the back of her hand.
‘It’s okay, darling,’ says Daddy, but she yanks her arm away from him.
‘I hate you,’ she screams, stamping her feet. Hot tears run down her cheeks, snot gurgles at the back of her throat. ‘You never say what you mean!’ Her shoulders shake up and down, then the sick comes spilling out all over the floor. Her legs feel very wobbly, then suddenly she is lying on the floor and kicking her feet in the air.
Love Until It Hurts Page 9
