False Hope

by Lynne Lee

  And I cannot stop and send a text.

  Daniel’s high school is a sprawling comprehensive, just off a big suburban thoroughfare. It’s just past turning-out time and, despite it being on at least two bus routes, all the surrounding streets are rammed with cars, and on my first circuit – all the while scanning for red Mini Coopers – I can’t find a place to pull in anywhere.

  It has the same knocked-about look that all schools seem to have as they empty for the day. Children streaming out in all directions, a few stragglers loitering aimlessly in pockets, teachers milling around to supervise, looking jaded and round-shouldered, probably weighed down by thoughts of the evening’s homework ahead. And the detritus of the day scattered like so much giant confetti: crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, paper bags, plastic bottles, all of which – because this is a school that prides itself on standards – is already being collected, by a man I imagine is a caretaker, with a small detail of morose-looking, bin-bag-wielding pupils.

  There are cars parked all over the place, a few with engines idling, some on the road, some listing drunkenly, half on half off the pavements. I scan for red again, on my second pass, as I search for a space. And I wonder what I’m thinking, what I’m doing here, exactly. What on earth can Norma really do to Daniel, after all? She might have plans to snatch him and take him off and— I can’t bear to think it . . . But there is no way in the world he would get into a car with her now, is there? Or would he? I’ve been so anxious to protect him from the darker truths about her – about everything – that will he too see her as essentially benign?

  No, I tell myself. No. He’s planning to go with Josh. He is desperate to go with Josh. And perhaps I should dial down my paranoia. After all, Jessica might be wrong. I might be wrong. She might not have designs on Daniel. Having delivered the bear, she might already be on her way up to Beachy Head. So perhaps I should let him go. Just see him, be sure he’s safe, and let him go with his friend. Leave the police to track down Norma – which, since Jessica will have called them, they might already be doing anyway.

  I find a space eventually, up a side street, and park, and try to calm myself. Daniel is safe. He’s on the school bus. He’s among people. He is safe. There is nothing Norma Kennedy can do to hurt him.

  I get out of the car and start walking up to the school gates, fifty metres away, feeling like a minnow swimming against a shoal of salmon, being buffeted by backpacks and glanced at incuriously, as waves and waves of pupils make their liquid escape. The very epitome of a fish out of water.

  And what could happen? In this place? With all these people still around? No, I think, when the bus comes I’ll just say hello. Just as long as I see him, that will do for the moment. See him off, with his friend, then head home. And when I see the bus approaching, I’m decided. I’m being ridiculous. I’ll see Daniel, get back in the car, speak to Matt, speak to DS Lovelace. Go home. Go from there.

  So when the minibus turns into the entrance, I wait. Only when it disgorges its occupants, all jostling and laughing, do I go over.

  ‘Mum, please,’ is the first thing Daniel says, his new friend hovering beside him. ‘Why can’t I go with Josh? What’s come up? We won’t be late or anything. I’ll do my homework after. Please?’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ I say, decided. ‘It’s okay now. All sorted. Why don’t you let me have your muddy kit, though? I’ll take it home for you.’

  He gives me a sideways look. Which is understandable, given that, as far as he’s concerned, I could just as easily have texted him and said I’d see him later. Not turn up to show him up. But he hands the bag over.

  ‘Where’s your mum, Josh?’ I ask him, because twelve is still twelve. And I need to actually see her to feel completely at ease.

  ‘Just down a bit, over the road, where she normally parks,’ he tells me. And Daniel looks at me with an expression I can read all too easily. Waiting in her car for them. Like any other normal mother would.

  So I hang back a bit as I follow them out. Out of the gates. On to the pavement. Up the road a short distance, to where Josh is now leading and pointing. To the pedestrian crossing, where they stand and wait, chatting, for the lights to turn red. For the two cars coming up the hill, on our side, to stop. They look both ways anyway, because it’s instinct, because they’re sensible. Then Josh starts to cross. Because it’s safe to. Because there is nothing coming down the hill.

  Daniel doesn’t, though. He stops and waves, to let me know I’m forgiven. A matter of seconds. A matter of steps. And there is nothing coming down the hill.

  Until there is.

  A red Mini Cooper.

  In my life, up to this point, I have never been in a position to test the theory that I would die for my children. Like any other parent, I’ve just automatically assumed – and on scant empirical evidence, frankly – that if it came to a straight choice, there would be no choice to make: since I’d kill for them, if it came to it I would of course die for my children.

  But would I? We all think it, we hope, we trust it would happen, but when it comes to it, we can’t ever actually know.

  As it is, I just see and react. To the fact that where, before, there was no car, there now is. A red Mini Cooper, which has been hidden in plain sight, and has now peeled away from the row of parked cars in front of it, and is accelerating towards the crossing, on the far side of the road.

  At no point do I think I might sacrifice my life. Which is not because I’m not thinking; I am thinking at warp speed. I’ve already processed the first part of the equation by the time I’ve seen her. Of course. Seventy-eight, and with the keys to a car. Was masterminding this very moment how she spent her incarceration? Now I take in the speed. The trajectory. The intent. The lethal power of a weapon that is several tons of metal. See my child, on the crossing. See the car, heading towards him. Make the mental leap, from no, it can’t be, to she is driving straight at him, to he has already looked left, right, and left – he doesn’t realise. And am already thundering across the crossing behind him, not thinking about dying – not thinking even tangentially about dying – just on the matter, the only matter that in this moment matters: that I must reach him before the car does and shove him to safety. That I must find it inside me to be Super-bloody-woman, because if I fail to, the sky will fall in.

  I must. And I can. And I do. A rigid-armed, two-handed, violent maternal thump, which connects with both his shoulder blades – my baby’s still-growing shoulder blades – which, with an almighty whump, sends him cannoning on to his friend.

  And then I’m spun, like a top that’s been whacked by a toddler.

  And that’s the first time the fragility of my existence hits me. The only time.

  That, and a kind of righteous validation.

  I was bloody right, is what I think, as I slam face-first against the kerb. Then, RTC, Caucasian female, mid-40s, glancing blow, query hairline hip fracture, compound ankle fracture, possible concussion, high GCS score.

  Still conscious. Eyes open, ears back, every nociceptor firing. I hear the car travel on, even faster, tyres squealing, engine screaming. I hear the impact, against the sturdy, red-brick front wall of the school. And as I lie there, heart thumping, I see a sudden flash of white, as Norma’s head punches the airbag through the windscreen.

  Chapter 29

  ‘Bought you a cup of coffee, Mrs Hamilton. A proper one, from the Costa. I’ll leave it here, shall I? How are you feeling?’

  Siddhant looks tired – same old, same old – but there is a certain liveliness about him; a spring in his step as he sashays into the side room in his pale shirt and brushed tan suede brogues. I suppose it’s not every day in the life of a surgical registrar when you are called upon to assist in emergency surgery on your own consultant.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen him since I was wheeled into theatre, because he’s been off to his conference, presenting his paper. Was it two days ago, now? Three? I’ve lost track of time. Being a patient in a hospital tends
to do that, I realise.

  I smile at him. ‘How was it?’

  ‘Textbook. Straightforward.’

  ‘Not the op. Your presentation!’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Yes, okay, I think. Nerve-wracking.’ He beams then. ‘But I got asked seven questions.’

  I’ve told Siddhant that questions are unquestionably a good thing. I clap my hands together. ‘Excellent. See, I told you. Go on, then,’ I add. ‘Tell me, how was it?’

  He grins at me. ‘Textbook. Completely straightforward. Mr Porter barely looked up from his Top Gear magazine.’ He grins again. ‘Only joking. Well, okay, so maybe he did do a bit of it. But not all of it. He didn’t need to. I was taught by the best.’

  I move my leg, to test the pain level, which is just about manageable. Unlike the emotion level, which is borderline not. ‘Don’t you dare set me off,’ I tell him. ‘And that’s an order.’

  ‘No, don’t,’ Matt says. He’s busy tapping away on my laptop in the corner. Busy filling in an online application form for a new job near Brighton, in the scant amount of time left available between taking Dillon to school, dealing with the washing and the food shop, picking up a prescription for Mum, picking Dillon up from school again, and making the boys’ tea, before taking them to the climbing centre, then bringing them back here again, and hopefully smuggling in an unauthorised pizza for me too, as the hospital food turns out to be every bit as unappetising as it’s always looked. I cannot wait to be home again with them tomorrow. ‘In fact, if I were you,’ he says, ‘I would discharge her right now. Bloody malingerer.’

  Safe to say, he no longer feels like a visitor in his own home.

  It’s been an up-and-down couple of days. I was – I thought – fine till about five the following morning. I knew I’d broken my ankle (my hip was only bruised, thank goodness) and pretty creatively, because it wasn’t exactly rocket science, after all: I was on the ground, literally, and with an unobstructed view of it. And could clearly see the spike of bone – jagged, white, and blood-smeared. But it was easy to disassociate because I needed to disassociate. Because Daniel was in bits, and he needed me not to be. I needed to be a super-bloody-woman, so I didn’t have a choice.

  Matt had quipped that to the boys, while I was being prepped for surgery. And I felt like a fraud. Not just because I was such a low-level casualty. But also because it turns out that when your child’s life is in danger, there is not an iota of bravery involved.

  And when I came round, my first feelings were of peace. Of relief. It was over. She was gone. Everything was going to be alright now. And I realised that alright was all things would ever again need to be.

  But then I woke in the night, sweating, disorientated, panicky. And, when I struggled to sit up, to see a navy-blue night; a full moon, slightly hazy, and a sky full of stars. And I thought about Hope. How much I missed my little sister. And in the near dark, with only the faint hum of air con, I cried.

  The loss of someone young creates a singular species of grief; we mourn the past, yes, but perhaps even more the future. All the tomorrows that are now going to be such different tomorrows to the ones we so blithely and confidently set in place for ourselves. I no longer had Hope, so I mourned the stolen friendship we were never going to know now. And because I’d never really known her, I mourned that as well – perhaps more.

  I resolved to read every Thomas Hardy novel I hadn’t yet read. To accept what I couldn’t change and what I was never going to know now. To put the past back in its box, and this time throw the key away. And, I resolved, as soon as I was home and could retrieve it, that I would take Hope’s spangled memory stick and, at the first opportunity, hurl it off the end of the Palace Pier.

  Then, on the Friday, Jessica Kennedy came to see me. Looking every bit as pale and exhausted as I’d have expected, given that she wasn’t only moving to Hull, she was also travelling on that long road from death to acceptance, where you have to hold on, white-knuckled, to the reins of your composure, in case it gallops away without warning and throws you.

  She came because she was there anyway, she said, bringing gifts to the ICU staff, and wanted a chance to speak to me before she left.

  She told me how it helped that she’d agreed to all the organ donations, because Aidan had, as a result of it, saved seven lives – three from death, and four others from lifelong disability. She was particularly glad, she told me, that those beautiful eyes of his would see again. Even if just the corneas, she said. And I told her I understood. It felt good, she said. And right. That she would sleep better for it. And also, without question, for knowing Norma had gone too. ‘I know I shouldn’t say it,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to say it anyway. Between us, Norma dying is the best thing that could have happened. I can leave here and know that I’m genuinely free of her. That the girls are . . . I know that sounds awful, but I mean it. I can’t help it.’

  Then she pulled something from her handbag. An envelope.

  ‘I have been agonising,’ she said, ‘about whether to give you this. My first instinct was to just rip it up and throw it in the bin, because I’m worried there might be stuff in there that nobody needs to know. And Dillon’s got his own life – a completely different life. I mean, does he even know who his father is?’

  The letter was still in her hand as she spoke, and I wondered if her giving it to me was contingent on how I answered her. But then she smiled. Corrected herself. ‘Sorry. I’ll rephrase that. Of course he knows who his father is – your husband. But does he know who Aidan is? And does he even need to?’ She passed the envelope to me then, on which Dillon’s name was written. Just ‘DILLON’, in capital letters, underlined. ‘Anyway, I didn’t throw it in the bin, as you can see. Because it’s not for me to keep it from you, is it? And he obviously wanted me to find it. But what you do with it is up to you – I obviously haven’t seen what’s in there. I don’t even know when he wrote it, to be honest. Could have been just before . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He could have written it ages ago. Look, just – well, all I’m saying is that you might want to look at it before you decide what to do with it.’

  I studied her face. Met her quiet, unblinking gaze. And then it hit me. ‘You know, don’t you? About his half-brother. He told you.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve always known. It was one of the first things I ever knew about him.’ She began to choke up a bit then, little lines forming between her eyebrows. ‘And I had this really, really bright idea. That I could save him from himself.’ She put the words in finger quote marks. ‘That I could succeed where every bloody woman in the entire history of the planet had already failed. Including your sister.’ There was a half-smile on her lips then, even as her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘But I was wrong. Because you never can, can you?’

  After she left, I sat for a long time with the letter in my lap. How many conversations had I had with myself, and Matt, over the years, about what to do when the question of Aidan arose? How many hours had I spent scrolling through conversations on forums, where other people agonised about what to do when that issue surfaced? How many times had I wrangled with philosophy and ethics? Fretted about the correct balance between rights and responsibilities; tied myself in knots about Dillon’s right to know versus our responsibility to minimise the emotional fallout?

  Did Dillon need to know the truth or would it be better if he was spared it? I picked the letter up. Should I open it? See what Aidan had to say about Aidan? Or put it away, for consideration at another, later date?

  Or should I dispatch it to the deep with Hope’s confession? Because what did a child really want to know most of all about where they came from, after all? That they were loved, unconditionally, by everyone who should have loved them. And he was. That was always true. I know that now. He was.

  He always would be. And if he ever asked, well, then, couldn’t I just tell him that myself?

  In the meantime, there is a tree house to be built.

  I’m still wrestling with my conscie
nce when I’m home the following morning, to find a building site where the end of the garden should be.

  I’m supposed to avoid putting weight on my ankle and to sit around in a queenly state for much of the day, at least for the next three weeks or so. Which won’t be happening – I’m already working out a strategy to get myself back to work sooner. And I cannot sit now either. I cannot cope with the FOMO.

  So I hobble across the grass, flanked by the boys, who are fizzing with excitement. In the three days I’ve been in hospital, it’s as if a whirlwind has blown in. Without telling me a thing about it, Matt has clearly been flat out. Without telling me a thing about it, he has made – and executed – plans. As in downloaded them, and collated them, and put them in a binder, and already ordered – and taken delivery of – a truckload of timber. Decking boards, and panelling, and balustrades, and posts. Fascia boards, and ladder rungs, and cleats and bolts and screws. He is going to make something. Something solid. Something substantial. Something permanent.

  Something that says we are going to stay here. Make a life here. And thrive here. Make this place – this new-old house – our home.

  Daniel has the ring binder because he is master of the plans. ‘So this is where the house will be, and this is the observation tower. And there’s going to be actual bunk beds, so we can sleep out in the summer. And do owl-watching.’

  ‘And a light,’ Dillon adds. ‘It’s going to have electricity and everything. And this is where the pulley will go, so we can winch up supplies and stuff.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I say. ‘Will it be strong enough to winch me up there too?’

  ‘Mum, there’s going to be a ladder,’ Daniel points out.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m going to be climbing up any ladders for a while yet.’

  ‘Course you will,’ Dillon says. ‘Mum, you’re Superwoman, remember?’