by Lucy Diamond
‘Hi,’ croaked Bunny in a small voice. There was a large bandage around her head and a surgical dressing taped to one cheek, her eyes were puffy and red and there was a sore-looking red graze on her chin. Normally she was gorgeous, Bunny, with her blonde hair carefully styled and her makeup beautifully applied, but today there wasn’t so much as a lick of mascara on her lashes, and her hair lay clumpy and tousled against the pillow. She reminded Robyn of a broken doll, lying there so still and quiet, the white sheets pulled up almost to her chin. ‘Thank you.’
‘Poor you, what a nightmare,’ Paula said, perching in a plastic chair by the bed. ‘Mum and Dad send their love, by the way. They’re back home and haven’t argued once yet, apparently, so I think it’s happy days Chez Mortimer again – touch wood. But enough about them, how are you?’
‘Did Dave . . . Is he here?’ Bunny asked.
‘Um . . . no,’ said Robyn, glancing round as if he might appear from behind the curtain. ‘I mean, he didn’t come in with us, no, but he might be on his way,’ she added, as the other woman’s face crumpled.
‘He texted everyone last night to let us know how you were doing,’ Paula said. ‘He’s told your boss at the café as well, by the way, so don’t worry about that. Have you got to stay in here long?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Bunny replied, but in such a subdued voice she almost sounded as if she didn’t care either way. ‘Did Dave say . . . anything else?’
‘Just that he’d been in to see you and that you felt pretty crap, but that it could have been worse,’ Paula replied. ‘Has he been back today?’
‘No,’ said Bunny, and Robyn saw, to her dismay, that tears were forming in Bunny’s eyes. ‘I don’t know if he will.’
‘I’m sure he will!’ Paula cried in surprise. ‘He doesn’t get off until five-thirty usually, does he? We’re only here this early because my four o’clock viewing cancelled on me at the last minute and my boss said I didn’t have to come back in. Luke’s been roped into looking after Robyn’s kids, so we thought we’d pop on over.’
Bunny blinked at the barrage of information delivered in one single breath. ‘Thank you,’ she said listlessly.
‘It’s amazing the power you have over a fifteen-year-old boy when he’s got a birthday coming up,’ Paula joked. ‘Which reminds me – I’m doing the birthday tea for him at our place this time: Sunday, three o’clock. Mum’s actually agreed to hand over the responsibility for party teas to me from now on, so I’m going all out to make this first one a goodie. Obviously everyone’s invited,’ she said, with a meaningful glance at Robyn. ‘And don’t worry, it won’t be me doing all the baking, so nobody will end up with food poisoning. Mum’s still doing the big cake, but Matt reckons he can knock up some sausage rolls, Joe’s on scone duty and actually Luke himself is such a good cook, he’s dead keen to get involved and show off his skills. My job is to buy all the ingredients and wash up afterwards. So there’s something to get yourself better for,’ she told Bunny.
Bunny said nothing, but a tear trickled from her eye into the pillow. ‘Hey,’ said Robyn gently, plucking a tissue from a box on the side. ‘Come on, now. You’ll feel better soon.’
Bunny sniffled. ‘I might not be able to go to the party,’ she said mournfully. ‘Because Dave—’ A sob engulfed her, and Paula and Robyn exchanged concerned glances.
‘What’s Dave gone and done?’ Paula asked. ‘Honestly! These bloody brothers of mine, they’re all as bad as each other. Do I need to have a word? Cross him off my Christmas list and all?’
‘Should I get the nurse?’ Robyn asked, wondering if Bunny’s tears were due to the pain of her injuries rather than emotional goings-on. ‘How about a drink of water?’
But Bunny shook her head miserably, declining all options, until the other two women felt quite useless. It must be the concussion making her so upset, Robyn thought, biting her lip and hoping their visit hadn’t in fact made Bunny feel worse.
‘Sorry,’ spluttered Bunny eventually, pressing a tissue into one eye, then the other. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry. Will you tell him that for me? Will you tell him that I said sorry?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Paula said, puzzled. ‘But don’t worry, I’m sure you haven’t done anything to be sorry for.’
Bunny shuddered, her eyes dark and haunted-looking. ‘But I have,’ she insisted tonelessly. And then she turned away and wouldn’t say any more.
Life could change so fast, thought Robyn later on, once she’d picked up Sam and Daisy from Paula’s and was driving them home. The last time she’d seen Bunny, she’d been the vibrant, fun-loving girl, giving it her all on a dance floor – and now today she was whimpering and despairing in a hospital bed, barely able to stop crying. One ill-timed spin of her front wheels, and her spirit seemed to have been as badly wrecked as the bonnet of her car.
‘I hope she’ll be all right,’ Paula had said worriedly when they came out of the hospital. ‘You hear such scary things about head injuries and brain damage, don’t you? She seemed all over the place.’
‘It must have been shock too,’ Robyn said, although she had been similarly alarmed by Bunny’s fragility. ‘And I bet they’ve got her on really powerful painkillers – they can make you over-emotional. It was all that stuff about Dave that took me by surprise, though; I’d always thought those two were rock-solid.’ Like me and John, she thought dully. Which went to show how little anyone really knew about someone else’s relationship.
‘Same,’ Paula had mused. ‘But Bunny obviously doesn’t.’ She hugged Robyn goodbye. ‘You okay, by the way? Sorry, we didn’t get much of a chance to talk about you. How are you doing?’
‘Hanging in there by the skin of my teeth,’ replied Robyn grimly, having made it through the weekend and now a day’s work, albeit with enormous effort. Stephen had dropped in the other evening with a massive bunch of flowers for her, and his commiserations. He’d done his best in Edinburgh, he’d told her, but John was still firmly convinced he was in love with this student, and that was that. I’m sorry, darling, he’d said, hugging Robyn. What can I say – he doesn’t deserve you. She’d been so touched by his kindness, she’d nearly burst into tears on him.
‘Well, you know I’ve got your back,’ Paula told her now. ‘So you just keep on hanging in there and ring me any time you want to chat. And I’ll see you soon, yeah? For Luke’s party?’
‘Yeah,’ Robyn replied. ‘Thanks. We’ll be there.’
With a last goodbye, she set off, driving home extra-carefully with Bunny in mind; keeping well under the speed limit, checking her mirrors with exaggerated deliberation. You never knew when an accident might happen – when a freak skid would send you flying, when a loving husband would walk out of your life. However hard you tried to keep your world safe, there was just this unknown random element that could topple you without warning. As she parked up and let the kids into the house, it struck her that the really crucial thing was to make the most of what you had while it was still there – and not to allow bad feeling to fester between loved ones.
And so, just as soon as she’d put the oven on and slid two supermarket pizzas inside (look, she was going to start cooking from scratch properly again soon, all right? Definitely next week), she dialled her mum’s number for what felt like the hundredth time since Saturday. If Alison was getting sick of her calls, then so be it, but Robyn felt more determined than ever to put things right between them. Not really expecting her mum to pick up, she had a speech prepared for the voicemail regardless, about how important family was, and how much she valued Alison, as well as apologizing again for what she’d said. Which meant that she was taken by surprise when, after three rings, she heard her mother’s voice in her ear. ‘Hi, love.’
‘Mum, hi!’ Robyn said, all of her planned eloquence immediately deserting her. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ Alison replied. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m okay,’ she said, ‘but, Mum, listen, I was ringing to say that I really don’t
want to fall out with you, and I’m truly sorry. The advice you gave me the other day was spot-on and you were only being kind, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.’
‘I don’t want to fall out, either,’ Alison told her. ‘But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. What you said to me . . . I found the comments hard to take. They got to me. But perhaps that was because there was an element of truth in them. And perhaps I needed to hear it.’ A small sigh came down the line. ‘Sometimes you just have to take the medicine, don’t you, however nasty it tastes.’
‘I shouldn’t have upset you, though,’ Robyn replied wretchedly. ‘I could have said those things in a far nicer way, rather than beating you over the head with them.’
‘True,’ Alison agreed. ‘But the fact is: you spoke from the heart. I have been a coward, you were right. I’ve not really dealt with my feelings very well, I’ve not been brave. And maybe I just needed a kick up the backside to realize that. After talking to you and a client I had today, it’s made me decide: I’m going to do my best to change.’
‘You don’t have to change!’ Robyn cried, feeling more guilty than ever. For all the times she’d wished her mum would leave the safe confines of her comfort zone, she didn’t want it to be like this – with Robyn forcibly tipping her out. ‘Not if you don’t want to, Mum!’
There was a pause where Robyn pulled a bag of salad from the fridge and automatically dropped a handful of leaves onto four plates, before remembering that John wasn’t there for dinner any more. When would she get used to that?
‘I think I want to change,’ Alison said quietly in the next moment. ‘I want to get out there and . . . have another try. Say yes to a few things again, rather than no all the time.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Believe it or not, when you called me last Wednesday, the reason I wasn’t at home was because . . . well, I was actually on a date. So, you know, I’m not past it just yet.’
‘Mum!’ Robyn could hardly believe what she was hearing. She felt quite lost for words – for a whole two seconds anyway, before the questions came gushing forth. ‘So did it go well? Did you like him?’ Then reality dawned on her and she choked on a cry. ‘Oh God. And I interrupted it! I’m so sorry. Did you abandon him?’
‘Yes, I bloody did, and I’ve never been so glad to make an excuse and leave,’ Alison told her. ‘Honestly, he was awful. Absolutely awful. Two dates I’ve been on, and they’ve both been terrible. The good guys were all snapped up decades ago, it seems.’
Two dates! She was a dark horse. ‘Well, you know what they say,’ Robyn replied encouragingly. ‘Third time lucky, Mum. There’ll be a real-life prince for you next time, I bet.’
‘Hmm, I’m not so sure there’s going to be a next time,’ Alison replied. ‘But never mind. Chalk it up to experience.’
‘Forget men for the time being, then,’ Robyn said. ‘And let me take you out one night – to the cinema or for dinner, or . . . whatever you want to do. My treat for you rescuing me last week and being so kind and lovely when I needed you.’
‘Oh, now,’ said Alison, but she sounded pleased and didn’t argue, for once. ‘That would be very nice. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Robyn said, glad that the two of them seemed to be back on their usual footing once more. ‘Anyway, I need to be brave too,’ she went on, eyeing the fourth plate she’d accidentally set out, before tipping the salad leaves back in the bag and returning the plate to its shelf on the dresser. ‘I need to start living again, without John – to sort myself out, just like you were saying the other day. I’ve got to get my head around the fact that he might not come back, that there’ll just be the three of us for the foreseeable future. So maybe we could make a pact together, that we’re both going to do our best to nail this life-business, somehow or other. Okay?’
‘You’re on,’ said Alison, sounding much more positive. ‘Now, enough pep-talking, it’s nearly time for my favourite TV programme – I’m joking! Not really. I’m going to leave the telly off tonight, pour myself a glass of wine and make a plan of action. The bold new Alison Tremayne starts here! How about you?’
‘I’m in,’ said Robyn. ‘The independent new Robyn Mortimer is just waiting to come out of hiding too, I’m sure. And we’ll meet up soon to compare how go-getting and invincible we are, yeah?’ She peered through the oven door to see that the cheese on top of the pizzas was bubbling and just starting to brown. Perfect. ‘I’d better go. Bye, Mum. Love you.’
‘Bye, darling. Thanks for ringing. Love you, too.’
A plan of action, thought Robyn, cutting the pizzas into slices and bellowing for the children to come and wash their hands. Options to ponder over, decisions to make, worlds to conquer. She could put out feelers in her old department, she supposed: brush up her CV, get on the phone and see what work she could drum up. The thought of calling the shots again, taking control in this way, was daunting but at the same time kind of exciting.
No more sitting around waiting for John to come home, no more needing to be rescued by another person, she told herself staunchly. She was Robyn Mortimer, and she was perfectly capable of rescuing herself.
Lying in her hospital bed, Bunny kept having woozy flashbacks to the last time she’d been similarly indisposed, when Mark Roberts had punched the living daylights out of her and done his best to break every bone in her body. Back then, of course, she’d been glad to stay within the safety of the hospital where he couldn’t get her; back then she’d drifted in and out of painkiller-fuelled delirium, grateful for the novelty of being cared for. This time, though, she felt imprisoned; trapped by her own bad luck, with the added misery of wondering if Dave was ever going to forgive her for her deceit. If things had been different, she’d have been in a new town by now, setting out the parameters of a whole new life for herself. Unfortunately she was going to have to stay right here and face the music of her old one instead.
She’d felt so embarrassed when Paula and Robyn had turned up earlier that afternoon, all concerned faces and kind comments, she’d hardly been able to look them in the eye. How much did they know? What had Dave said? Did he hate her? Did they? Too befuddled by the drugs, too scared to ask outright, she’d had to try and read between the lines of what they’d said, but that had proved less than satisfactory. From what she could gather, Dave hadn’t told his sister any of the drama that lay behind her secrets – which gave absolutely no clues as to his feelings on the subject.
And now it was six o’clock and the ward was filling with visitors; you could hear them arriving either side of the privacy curtains, fussing over their loved ones, bringing cups of tea and exchanging small items of news. The woman in the bed to the left – Elsie, Bunny thought she was called – was telling some uninterested-sounding bloke about the cottage pie they’d been served for lunch, while the woman on her right was speaking in what might have been Polish, very fast and animatedly, to a friend. Meanwhile, in Bunny’s cubicle all that could be heard was the ringing No-Dave silence. Was he going to strand her there in her own miserable company all evening, punish her by abandonment? He must have gone home and Googled her last night, as she’d instructed him to, and discovered everything. Now that he was wise to what she’d done, he clearly didn’t want to know her any more, just as she’d predicted. It felt awful. Even though she’d originally tried to leave, saying that he deserved better and she wasn’t good enough for him – the fact that he now seemed to be agreeing with her seemed a much harder pill to swallow.
After he’d said goodbye the night before, she’d had her phone ready beside her for hours afterwards, braced for a text or a call, some word that would tell her Dave’s response. But no word had come. Her phone remained resolutely silent. And then this morning she’d woken up and reached for it, only to realize in dismay that at some point it had gone stone dead, with no means of recharging. She couldn’t even text Dave a tentative hello, let alone anything more exploratory. Short of passing her brief message to him via Paula, she was just going to have to wait
for him to make contact – if he even chose to, that was.
‘As for the peas, they were straight out of a tin. And ruddy disgusting they were, too!’ exploded Elsie from the left just then. ‘I said to the nurse: I’m not eating those. You’d have to pay me to eat those!’ (It was true, Bunny had heard her scathing refusal with her own ears. The entire ward had.)
‘Oh dear,’ said her visitor, who sounded practically comatose with boredom by now.
Elsie went on to describe the insult that had been the treacle sponge pudding (‘with the runniest custard – like water it was, and I’m not exaggerating!’) while Bunny’s thoughts turned to the possible whereabouts of her phone charger, which had last been seen in the boot of her car, stuffed into one of her bags. She wondered what had become of it, as well as the rest of her things, for that matter – not to mention what had happened to the car itself. One of the paramedics had brought her handbag in for her when they’d arrived in A&E, but that was the sole possession she had at the moment. If Dave was really angry with her, might he have destroyed the rest of her stuff? Dumped the lot of it in the nearest skip? How could she go creeping back for her clothes and make-up when he probably wanted nothing more to do with her? With her car a write-off and barely one hundred pounds in her account, she wouldn’t be able to get very far now. What was she going to do?
‘All right there, pet, let’s have a quick look at you,’ said a nurse just then, whisking through the curtain with a portable blood-pressure monitor. ‘How are you feeling this evening?’
Like my heart is breaking and I’ve got nowhere to turn. ‘Still a bit weird,’ Bunny confessed, shuffling up into a sitting position.
‘Don’t we all, my darling,’ replied the nurse. She was in her forties, broad-shouldered and freckly, her auburn ponytail swinging as she bent over Bunny to slide the blood-pressure cuff up her forearm. ‘But in your case, at least you’ve got an excuse, with that bumped head of yours. How are you managing with the pain?’
