by kendra Smith
When they got back to the cottage, Maddie had to be helped to do even basic tasks. There were no nurses to take care of every need. She sat down with a thump at the kitchen table as Ed filled the kettle, thumped some cups down and stared out of the window. After a while, Ed put a cup of steaming tea in front of her. She sat and looked at it.
‘Oh crap, crap crap! Sorry, Mum, you can’t lift that, can you?’
‘No.’ She couldn’t use her hands at all, so she couldn’t even open her front door. She certainly couldn’t drive, run a bath or get dressed easily. She stared at the cup of tea and then fought every fibre in her body not to burst into tears.
She sniffed. ‘Sorry, Ed.’
‘Hold on, I’ll get you a straw. There were some left after the party.’ He fetched a straw from the cupboard and put it in the mug and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Thanks.’ She took a small sip, feeling thoroughly exhausted already and they had only just got home.
*
She woke up about an hour later in her bed. She could hear Ed clattering around downstairs, the radio playing softly. After a while he padded upstairs.
‘You awake?’ he asked, coming to sit on the edge of her bed. ‘I’ve been to the shops, filled the fridge, with um, easy stuff, bought more straws.’ He glanced anxiously at her bandaged hands, then fidgeted with the duvet cover.
‘Ed, it’s fine.’ She looked at the clock on her bedside table. It was already three o’clock. The taxi would be here soon. They’d agreed at the hospital that he would go. ‘You need to get to the airport. Give your mum a kiss and take care. Text me when you’re at the airport and when you’re in Bali – and take photos of the blessing!’ She put on her best cheery voice, the sort of one she used to use when he had refused to go to kindergarten and she was jollying him along. Only this wasn’t kindergarten, this was the other side of the world. And she had to let him go.
‘Ed, I’ll be fine. I’ve got Lauren,’ she said wriggling to sit up better. He kissed her on the top of her head as she felt tears threaten, then he went down the stairs to the taxi outside. Her eyes swam with tears as she lay back down wearily on the bed.
*
She wasn’t sure how much later, but she woke to a noise in the hall. ‘Coo-ee! Lauren here!’ And some loud barking. Taffie! It was lovely to hear his bark. ‘It’s me, Maddie. I let myself in. Ed texted me to say he had left a key outside in a safe place,’ she said as she wandered up the stairs and looked round the doorframe. ‘Oh my.’ Lauren put her hand up to her mouth as she spotted Maddie’s hands. ‘How are you?’
Maddie just shrugged. Her lower lip started to tremble. No, you don’t.
‘Right,’ said Lauren matter-of-factly. ‘What we need now, is some – what do you guys call it – some supper.’ She put the emphasis on the last syllable. ‘And a nice bit of bad TV, something like Midsomer Murders, that will do. We won’t have to think. I’m going to make us food, I got some things on the way here, and I will feed you from a tray and it will all be fine,’ Lauren said emphatically. Maddie really wanted to believe her.
An hour later, they were downstairs with beans on toast cut up into tiny squares and Lauren was feeding Maddie. They hadn’t found any Midsomer Murders but they had found Marley and Me, a feel-good movie. They watched it with Taffie curled up by Maddie’s feet – but perhaps it wasn’t quite the right movie, because it had both of them sobbing at the end when the poor dog in the film passed away and Maddie clutched Taffie who was delighted with the extra bit of attention.
Maddie glanced outside at the large windows out to the bay. You couldn’t make anything out. It was dark, rain splattering on the glass windows making a din. Lauren got up and put on the small light. ‘You OK sweetie? I’ll help you get to bed before I leave.’
Maddie let Lauren help her get undressed and was her guide in the bathroom. She managed to swirl some mouthwash in her mouth and then collapsed into bed, exhausted. The doctors said the dressings would have to be on for a week. How was she going to manage? She couldn’t ask Lauren to come every night, could she?
Just before she left, Lauren made sure Maddie’s mobile phone was by her bed, fully charged. She could use her thumb on her right hand. It had somehow escaped the burns and wasn’t in a bandage so she could press the buttons on her phone if she really had to.
‘OK, honey,’ said Lauren. ‘I’ve fed Taffie – he’s curled up in his basket downstairs. You call me anytime, you hear, if you need anything?’
‘Thank you.’ Maddie nodded, watching the raindrops slither down the glass panes outside. She took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I’m fine. You go,’ she said. ‘Thanks so much.’
Lauren’s bangles clanked as she went downstairs. ‘Bye, hon,’ she yelled just before the front door shut with a thud.
Was this her punishment? Maddie sighed, then called for Taffie – usually forbidden upstairs – and let the small dog snuggle up close to her, grateful for the company and the warmth.
57
The next morning was an ordeal. Lauren couldn’t come. She had called to say that her mother was incredibly ill and she was trying to book flights back to the States but the computer kept crashing. Maddie tried to not be selfish. ‘No, you carry on, Lauren. Really, I’ll be fine,’ she said with faux bravery. How would she cope?
She had managed to use her thumb to turn the kettle on (Lauren had left it full) but she stood in front of it now wondering how you poured boiling hot water into a cup when you could not hold anything. She gave up, and managed to use her thumb and bandaged hand to pull some bread out of the packet instead. She ate it as it was, with no butter. Taffie was sniffing around her feet.
‘Taffie, I don’t know how I can feed you! I can’t use my hands.’ He jumped onto her lap as she sat on the sofa and she rested her head on his as he let out a whine. Well, this wasn’t getting her anywhere. She got up, went to the cupboard under the sink, used her foot to nudge the dog food packet out of it where it landed with a thump on the floor. Taffie looked at her expectantly. Now what?
Kneeling down, she gingerly used her thumb and bandaged hand (it was like wearing ski gloves) and her teeth, to open the little seal at the top of the packet. She managed to get it open, then pushed it over with her foot, right over the dog food bowl. Taffie bounced around. She’d covered the bowl in food. She sat down on the chair in the kitchen, wondering what to do next. She couldn’t dress herself; she couldn’t eat. She could just about go to the loo on her own, thank God for that.
She went upstairs, and painfully slowly managed to yank off her pyjama bottoms with a lot of wriggling. Then she slid her feet through her tracksuit bottoms. If she laid them on the bed, and then sat on top of them, she could get each foot, then a leg, and it took her about five minutes to slowly pull them up with her thumb on her right hand. Her whole hand was aching. She needed painkillers, but she couldn’t pop them out of their blister pack… She had to do something.
She slowly typed the number of a helpline she was given at the hospital and spent twenty minutes explaining her situation on speakerphone to the woman who kept transferring her to another extension. In the end, Maddie gave up just as a text notification pinged on her phone:
Sorry darling, I found a last-minute flight so I have to go see Mum. Hate to leave you like this… Lauren x
Maddie flopped back down on the pillows behind her. She was parched. She needed a drink badly – but how could she? She could use a straw, but how was she to get any liquid into a cup? She had to try. After hauling herself up from the bed, she wandered downstairs. She nudged a cup from the draining board with her bandaged hand to try to get it into the sink to pour water in, but it toppled over and fell on the floor and smashed. Damn. She tried again with another one and got it into the sink. Then she moved it under the tap. Next, she managed to turn on the tap with her right hand, which hurt. A lot. The cup filled up. But it sat there in the sink, full of water, and she couldn’t lift the cup. Straw? They were in the cupboard. Which she couldn’t
open.
Just then, as she moved to the left, she stood on the broken shards of porcelain from the cup on the floor and let out a cry. Blast! She’d now cut her foot. She hopped around the kitchen and then had to steady herself on the counter with her bandaged hand, which was throbbing again. Slowly, she let herself slide down to the floor against the kitchen cupboards. Her hands were aching, her foot was bleeding and she felt drained. She was tired, hungry and thirsty. She lowered her head, and then she did start to cry, her shoulders heaving as sobs left her. Taffie came up to her, licked his lips, cocked his head to one side and whined at her, then lay down next to her with his head in her lap. She put her bandaged hand on his fluffy body and gave him a half-hearted stroke.
After a while, there were no more tears. And her foot was in agony. She sat and sniffed. She couldn’t even use a tissue, so instead she wiped her nose with her pyjama sleeve. She pulled her shoulders back. No you don’t, Maddie, come on, a voice said. You need to sort this out. Laruen has gone. Ed is away. Think.
But all she could think of was Greg.
Her phone was upstairs. She had no choice. She limped up the stairs, looked at the phone on her bedside table. Using her thumb, she sent Greg a short text that took her ten minutes to type out.
58
There was a knock at the door as she lay slumped on the bed. She bum-shuffled downstairs because she couldn’t stand on her foot, and she couldn’t use her hands to steady herself. When she got to the bottom of the stairs she shouted through the door: ‘There’s a key, under the flower pot. I can’t use the door handle.’
Slowly, the handle turned and the door opened gently. Greg stood there, with an orange reusable shopping bag in one hand and a sleeping bag under his arm. He was wearing light blue denim jeans, a hoodie with the water sports centre logo on the front and a white T-shirt underneath. When he saw her on the floor he tried to hide the look of shock on his face as he noticed the bandaged hands and her bloodied foot.
‘I got your text,’ he finally said, stepping over the doorway, ‘and realised you wouldn’t send one like that if you could cope.’ He put the bag down and shut the door behind him.
‘Sorry, Greg, I didn’t know who else to contact. There was no one else.’ She looked up at him and tried to push her hair out of her eyes with her bandaged hands.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, bending down and scooping her up, one arm under her knees, one under her arms as he lifted her up.
She let her head fall on his firm shoulder and it was almost too much being this close to him. She let out a sob. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Hey, hey,’ he said, walking with her to the kitchen. He looked around and put her down gently on a chair away from the mess.
Carefully, he placed a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘What happened?’
‘I tried to have a drink,’ Maddie sniffed.
Greg’s eyes roamed the kitchen. ‘Where’s Lauren?’
‘On her way to America – her mother’s really ill.’ He stood back and looked at her.
‘Last resort, am I?’
She supposed she deserved that at the very least.
‘Sorry, right,’ he began, ‘first things first, I need to clean up your foot. He surveyed the mug in the sink, the teabags all over the counter, the dog food spilling from the bowl and the broken shards of coffee cup with blood on the floor. ‘Oh, Maddie,’ he said, turning to look at her.
Don’t cry.
‘Have you even managed to have a cup of tea?’
She didn’t trust herself to speak. She bit her lip and shook her head instead as he started to fill the kettle. Then he went upstairs and came back with some antiseptic, plasters and cotton wool. He knelt down beside her and carefully wiped her foot with the moist cotton wool, dabbing at the cut. ‘It’s not too deep,’ he murmured, rubbing in cream. He held her foot in his hand and peered at the cut. ‘No, I don’t think there’s anything in there.’ Then he ripped open a plaster and placed it over the cut, pressing down at the edges gently.
‘You’ve done this before,’ she managed.
He nodded. ‘Kids at the centre. They’re always cutting themselves. Comes with the job.’ Then he stood up and scooped her up in his arms again. Her head rested on his shoulder as he carried her though to the lounge and she stared at his strong jaw, the dark hair curling around his ears, the soft earlobe – and she shut her eyes. Slowly, he lowered her onto the couch and found a blanket to put over her.
‘Stay there,’ he said. ‘And I’ll make you a cup of tea and some toast now – you can have it using a straw; I bought some. Then I’ll make you some soup for later, and I’m going to tidy up.’ He wandered out of the lounge as she let her head fall back onto the cushions.
She could hear him clattering around and listened to the clunk of the china pieces falling into the bin. A few minutes later, he came through with tea in a mug, with a straw, and some granary toast, thickly buttered and covered in marmalade, cut up into tiny pieces on a tray, and set it down on the table in front of them both.
‘Want to say something?’ she managed, looking sideways at him, sneaking a glimpse of his expression, brow furrowed; the lines on either side of his eyes were more pronounced now, the creases deeper. He had stubble on his cheeks, with tiny flecks of grey just emerging where sideburns would be.
He nodded. Then he turned his face to her. ‘The first thing I want to say, is that I am not sure why I should help you, Maddie, when all you’ve done is lie to me.’
She had to admit to herself it was true. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry about what happened at the party. Tim, he was—’
‘A prick.’
‘Yeah, he was. I think you shut him up though.’
He nodded. A smile began on his lips. Then he took a few pieces of toast and held them to her mouth. She ate gratefully. They sat in silence for a long while as she replayed what he’d said. Eventually, Greg sat back.
‘I’m so sorry, Greg.’ She clung on to the fact that he had come to party… even if it was just to see Ed.
Greg looked out to the bay but didn’t say anything.
‘And, well,’ she said, taking a deep breath, ‘I need you.’
He turned to look at her. ‘Yes, you do now,’ he said curtly, glancing at her hands, ‘but you’ve made it quite clear in your life that you didn’t need me. I’m not sure I can get over it, I mean, there’s just so much between us now.’ He shook his head. His soft brown eyes were sunken and there were dark circles underneath them. ‘I came to the party, well, I thought I should come for Ed, but he despises me.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘He does, Maddie,’ Greg snapped as Maddie jerked herself upright at his tone. ‘Have you any idea how hard that is for me?’ He glanced at her hands. ‘Look, I’ll help you until your hands have healed,’ he added more gently, ‘but let’s not talk anymore. Not with you like this.’
She couldn’t bear this, but she knew she couldn’t push his friendship either. She was just happy to have a few scraps of time with him. If they were only ever going to be friends then it was her fault.
They sat for a while as she sipped her tea through a straw and he fed her some more pieces of toast, listening to the seagulls screeching outside. There was so much that had been left unspoken. She glanced out the window. It was a lovely calm day. There was a little breeze blowing the delicate cherry tree blossoms. The sun sliced through the lounge window, showing up streaks on the windowpane.
All the effort of the morning was catching up with her and she felt wrung out. After Greg had fetched her painkillers, put one gently on her tongue and held up a glass of water with a straw, he tucked her up on the sofa with the soft blanket, fetched Taffie’s lead and took him for a walk. As he closed the door to the garden quietly behind him, and the sun filtered through the windowpane across Maddie’s cheek, she felt, for the first time since she had got home, safe. She let herself drift off into a deep sleep.
*
She dozed off a
nd on, aware of Greg tidying up, sometimes humming. Once she woke up, she felt disorientated, then remembered where she was. She thought she heard the lawn mower outside and then it cut out. She could hear the blackbirds chirping in the garden through the back doors, which were ajar.
Her hands were aching and she winced as she tried to move them. One of them was tucked under her torso and was throbbing in pain. She needed to get the bandage changed in a few days. How would she get to the hospital? Ed should be back next week. It wasn’t long to wait. She shifted on the sofa awkwardly. It was dusky, pale shadows bleeding into the edges of the carpet from the sun disappearing outside.
Once her mind had stilled, she heard the methodical noise of chopping on a wooden board, water running and could smell the sweet aroma of onions frying. Her stomach rumbled. She looked up to see Taffie wander into the lounge. She sat up gingerly and moved a cushion with her elbow out the way and leant back against the sofa. When Taffie saw that she was awake he bounded up to her, sniffed at her hands, then let out a whine.
‘I know Taffie, it sucks,’ she whispered to him, and closed her eyes. How long had she been asleep for? She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece: six o’clock.
The next time she opened her eyes, Greg was standing next to her. ‘How’s the patient feeling?’
‘All right. Something smells good.’
‘That’s your supper,’ he said walking to the other side of the room and switching on the small lamp, which cast a golden glow across the wall. ‘I’ve made you a beef and ale casserole, which I am about to feed you, then I’ve blended a batch so you can have it through a straw tomorrow. Plus I’ve made some soup. I’ve laid out your painkillers for the next few days, so we both know where we are.’ Both. She held on to the word in her head. Then Greg went back in the kitchen and she heard cutlery clatter in the drawer and the fridge open and shut a few times. After a while he came out with a tray for her and placed it on her lap. ‘Right, I’ll help you, then get you upstairs to bed.’
