Safe With Me

by K. L. Slater

  ‘They said at the hospital you’d stopped taking it and that you must start again,’ I say. ‘I just wondered, with you saying you had a head—’

  ‘I’m taking it.’ Liam stood up again. ‘Why is everyone going on at me all the time? I mean why can’t you all just fucking leave me alone?’

  My heart drops like a stone, and I stare at him wide-eyed. I have never heard him swear before.

  He starts limping across the room, shaking his arms as if he’s trying to rid himself of something nasty that’s crawling over him.

  ‘Liam, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ I walk towards him but he turns his back and limps the other way.

  ‘Blah, blah, blah. Yak, yak, yak.’

  ‘Liam, seriously I think you should sit—’

  ‘QUIET!’ he yells and spins round to face me.

  My whole body goes cold. He stands stock still and staring, and I take a couple of steps back.

  ‘What on earth’s happening in here?’ Ivy appears at the door holding a glass of milk. She looks at us in turn as if she’s trying to work out what’s happening between us. ‘Liam, sit down. Come on, everything’s fine here, nothing to worry about.’

  Ivy hobbles into the room and stands in front of Liam, pointing to his wheelchair. He seems to deflate in front of her and limps meekly back.

  Ivy places the glass of milk on the coffee table, fusses around him a bit then turns to me.

  ‘It’s the mood swings that’s all; they warned me this might happen.’ She narrows her eyes, trying to get her breath. ‘You shouldn’t have got him upset, Anna.’

  I open my mouth to defend myself but don’t bother in the end. I don’t have to justify myself to Ivy.

  Liam flips over a piece of paper he is holding on his knee. It is a handwritten letter which he holds up to me. I frown when I catch the name signed at the bottom.

  ‘It’s from Amanda; she’s written me a note to apologise,’ he says, seemingly his normal self again. ‘She said she sent me a message on Facebook but I never got that.’

  I notice the computer then, behind his chair.

  ‘Great, isn’t it?’ He grins. ‘Beryl’s son set it up for me down here.’

  Thanks to Beryl’s interfering son, Liam is now free to reply to Amanda Danson’s messages all day long if he wants to.

  I stare at Liam’s pale face and weak arms. Despite being so upset a few minutes ago, he is now smiling and gazing happily at the note in his hand.

  ‘How did you get that letter, Liam?’ I keep my voice steady.

  ‘Amanda brought it round to the house this morning,’ Ivy cuts over me. ‘She wouldn’t come in. She was mindful that Liam gets his rest but she’s calling round here again tomorrow.’

  Liam won’t meet my eyes.

  I am struggling to process Ivy’s stupidity.

  Amanda Danson is trying to wriggle her way out of blame for causing the accident and this weak, stupid old woman is making it very easy for her.

  ‘How did she get your address?’

  ‘I gave it to her,’ Liam says without looking up.

  ‘You remembered where you live?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’ He is silent for a few moments while he takes time to stretch his neck over to one side then the other. ‘I found it on my copy GP letter the day Amanda came to visit me in hospital.’

  I look straight at Ivy; my tongue feels all knotted up with so many things I want to say. But I speak before I think and choose my words carefully.

  ‘How is he ever going to recover from this if she is bothering him every five minutes?’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so paranoid about Amanda.’ Ivy turns to tidy a stack of magazines but her trembling hands make the task almost impossible. ‘It’s really not for you to worry about who visits us and who doesn’t, Anna.’

  The subtext is fairly easy to translate: ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘You didn’t even know each other a few days ago.’ I can’t resist throwing her own rude words back at her.

  ‘It was a terrible accident for everyone involved but that’s just what it was, an accident. She’s suffering too, Anna.’

  ‘She’s not suffering like Liam though, is she?’ I hear my voice rise up an octave and see the look on their faces but I can’t seem to calm down. ‘Why can’t anybody but me see through her lies?’

  I’m struggling to get my breath.

  Liam and Ivy glance at each other but I don’t care. How can Ivy be so gullible?

  I snatch the letter from Liam’s hands, and in the process, I catch his glass of milk and send it flying. It cracks on the edge of the coffee table.

  Now the letter is torn, the glass is broken and there is milk everywhere.

  Ivy shrieks and, without thinking, I snatch at a jagged piece of glass and a sharp pain prickles my hand. I unclench my fingers and let the glass fall to the floor.

  ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ Ivy shakes her head. ‘I’ll get you a bandage.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I mumble, reaching into my pocket for a tissue to soak up the blood on my palm. ‘I just called in to see how Liam was but I have to get back now. I have things to do.’

  I hurry out through the kitchen door and run to my car, squeezing hard on my throbbing hand.

  * * *

  An hour later, I’m sitting in the car with my notebook and camera, watching Amanda Danson’s house. It is time to refocus on what really matters.

  The police told Ivy they would interview Liam at some point when he is feeling better. It is highly likely they will prosecute Amanda Danson for dangerous driving, and Liam’s evidence will be key.

  She will be perfectly aware of this, of course, cue her impromptu visits to Liam.

  Ivy seems in no rush to enquire at what point they were at in their investigations and appears to have mislaid the officer’s business card.

  It’s all happening again but nobody realises. Nobody but me.

  I can’t just stand back and watch Liam be destroyed and yet, the awful possibility is that if she starts visiting him regularly, she’ll soon know him better than I do. And then there is a risk that I will find myself pushed out of Liam’s life altogether and my plans scuppered.

  Amanda has got a confident manner that encourages people to open up to her. I suppose it’s the training from her previous job.

  Some people might say she is attractive, although I can’t see anything at all pleasant when I look at her. I hope Liam has more about him than to fall for anything as superficial as looks but women like her know how to get round men. They know what makes them tick.

  It is misguided and foolish of Ivy to encourage their friendship, and she is bound to regret it. I can envisage the day she will come crying to me when it all goes wrong, expecting me to comfort her, but there will be nothing I can do about it at that late stage.

  This nonsense has to be stopped right now.

  Someone has to hit Amanda Danson where it hurts but it is vital I keep the past to myself. For now.

  * * *

  It is nearly five o’clock: the exact time Amanda got off the bus and walked home when I followed her from work the first time. Today, there is no sign of her.

  Doubtless she will be out having fun with her friends or shopping for clothes and make-up.

  I am just debating whether to sit here for a bit longer or go home when the front door of her house opens. A woman in her late fifties appears: petite, with hair that has been dyed too dark for her pale complexion. Still, the resemblance to Amanda is striking.

  I watch as the older woman walks down the short driveway. She is heading for a small red Clio that is parked on the road and, as she turns from latching the small gate, her coat flaps open.

  I have spent enough time at the hospital recently to recognise that uniform. She must be a nurse at the QMC.

  I scour my memory for the faces of the nurses I’ve seen on Liam’s ward and feel satisfied she isn’t one of them but it’s starting to become much clearer as to why her
daughter had been able to stroll into Liam’s private room unchallenged.

  The red Clio pulls away from the kerb, and I start my own car, giving it a few moments to put some space between us and then pulling out behind her.

  Ten minutes later, the Clio pulls into a parking space in the large rear car park of the hospital that serves both staff and the general public. I park up two rows behind and watch as she pops a permit in the window and heads for the main doors.

  To get a ticket from the machine, I risk losing her so I slide yesterday’s ticket on my dashboard and hope for the best.

  I stay well behind her, and by the time she reaches the automatic reception doors, there is an elderly couple between us, also heading for the main entrance. She doesn’t turn left for the main wards, as I expect, but turns sharp right and disappears through doors marked ‘Accident and Emergency’.

  When I see the sign, my head starts to pound as I remember but I don’t slow down; I follow her straight through into the bustling reception area of the A&E department.

  I try my best to ignore the sour lump that has lodged itself firmly in my throat. My head is pounding and fuzzy, trying to force the memories back again.

  Not now. Please don’t let me faint now.

  Spotting the woman at the end of the corridor sharpens my senses again. She has taken off her coat and now carries a clipboard and a stack of record cards. She walks a short distance then disappears through a door on the left.

  I walk up to the door past a line of sickly looking individuals with a variety of obvious ailments such as busted noses, bandaged hands and black eyes.

  The sign on the door reads, ‘Triage Nurse’. Underneath it is a name plaque: ‘Nurse Emma Danson’. As I suspected, she is Amanda’s mother.

  An idea jumps into my head that is far too good an opportunity to miss.

  Chapter 26

  Joan Peat

  Joan had the distinct feeling that all wasn’t well with Anna next door.

  Just little clues, things that didn’t quite add up. There were the noises in the early hours; Anna pacing around long before it was time for her to go to work.

  Then the other day, off she went to work just before five a.m., as usual. Joan had enjoyed her first cup of tea and was back in the kitchen about to butter a slice of toast when she heard Anna’s car pull up again out the front.

  She had scuttled back into the middle room at a breakneck pace, surprised herself how fast she could still move if she needed to.

  But Anna hadn’t tapped on the window or popped in. She’d just gone straight back into her house, and there had been silence from next door for the rest of the morning. It was tiresome because Joan had been limited to what she could do before Linda, her care assistant, arrived at twelve thirty. She couldn’t risk Anna hearing her moving around.

  Joan tried to think why she’d returned so quickly. Perhaps Anna had felt unwell when she got to work.

  But those sorts of sounds in the early hours hinted at troubled thoughts. Joan had seen it all before when Anna had first been discharged from the hospital.

  Her neighbour had turned into a creature of habit but it hadn’t always been that way.

  Young Anna loved to have a go at new things. Arthur would often bring her back the odd toy from one of the factory’s production lines.

  Just before she started school, he tried to guide her into experimenting with new things. He always said he’d been given the stuff at work, but once or twice Joan had found receipts when he’d chosen something in particular he thought Anna would like. He wouldn’t have liked her thinking he was soft.

  But it was when he came back one day with a large sketchpad and a long tin of slender pastels that the real revelation came.

  Anna’s eyes turned wide as saucers and, within moments, her fat little fingers were in the tin, grasping at the pretty colours.

  ‘Careful now,’ Arthur said, pulling the tin out of her reach. ‘Nice things are worth looking after.’

  When he pushed the tin closer again, Anna chose one carefully and looked around for something to sketch.

  ‘Let’s see if you can draw Mrs Peat.’ He winked at Joan. ‘Do you think you can do a nice big conk and two sticky-out ears?’

  Joan had punched her hands onto her hips in mock fury as the two of them laughed.

  When Anna started scribbling, Arthur went back to his paper and Joan picked up her knitting.

  She kept glancing over and smiling at Anna, loving the way her eyes never left her face apart from to keep glancing down at the grainy white paper.

  Anna selected new colours, always replacing the last one carefully as Arthur had shown her.

  ‘Let’s have a look then,’ Arthur said at last, folding up his paper. ‘Let’s see if you’ve made Mrs Peat’s ears big enough.’

  Anna chuckled and handed him the pad.

  His mouth dropped open, and Joan jumped out of her seat to see.

  It was a portrait of her, alright. Detailed and wonderful.

  That’s when they realised that Anna could draw.

  Chapter 27

  Present day

  Anna

  I walk out of A&E and back down the corridor.

  A few minutes later I arrive at the hospital café. I pay for a latte and sit down at a table in the far corner, where I can see all the customers. It isn’t terribly busy, which serves my purpose well.

  Outside the window people gather in a small group smoking, including a couple of the porters. You would think they’d have more sense working in a place like this, witnessing all that disease and misery. But there they all are, puffing furiously at their cancer sticks, one after the other.

  Sometimes, there seems to be no justice at all in the world. Here are people who don’t give a toss about their health, able-bodied and getting on with their lives, while Liam is stuck in the house and struggling to recover from his ordeal. All caused through no fault of his own.

  I feel a biting heat in my guts, like red-hot coals are trying to expand in a space that is too small. I need to calm down and think about something else; the last thing I want is to draw attention to myself.

  A bored-looking waitress comes over with a tray, picking up used crockery. She gives the table a cursory wipe without meeting my eyes. I watch her shuffle around the other tables, then make her way over to a long counter, next to the toilets.

  I take a last sip of my coffee and stroll over to the toilet. Nobody so much as glances my way, and I am reminded that I’m in a hospital, surrounded by people either deep in worried conversation or staring into open space, not quite present.

  The only eyes that meet mine are beautiful, honest pools of melted chocolate belonging to a guide dog that sits obediently next to its blind owner.

  I get to the bathroom door and pick up a small glass as I walk past the counter that houses the dirty crockery. I slip it into my handbag and carry on walking.

  Inside the toilets, I fish out a pair of nail scissors from the bottom of my bag and cut a flannel-size strip of white, absorbent cloth from the taut fabric of the hand towel machine.

  I listen for a few seconds and, when I’m satisfied nobody is about to walk in, I drop the glass on to the hard floor from a height where I can be fairly certain it will break into several pieces but not shatter into smithereens.

  I pick up a shard of glass that looks the sharpest and shunt the remaining pieces into a corner out of the way in case the woman in the café brings her guide dog in. Albert once came home with a very nasty cut on his paw that the vet said was almost certainly from a discarded broken bottle. The selfishness of some people is staggering.

  I lock the cubicle door and inspect my palm. The earlier cut from the glass incident at Liam’s house is very shallow and little more than a deep scrape, although my hand had looked in a bad state at the time because of the blood.

  I trace the already fading lines with the tip of the glass, looking for the weakest area, then I clamp my teeth together and dig the broken glas
s in, raking it back along the earlier cut as hard as I can.

  I steel myself but the pain still surprises me. The glass is like white-hot wire slicing easily through my palm.

  I want to roar like a wounded animal, but I set my lips in a straight line and bite down hard on my tongue, closing my palm around the razor-sharp piece of glass. I grip it with my other hand and force the cutting edge deeper into my flesh.

  Finally, I release my hand, take a few deep breaths and inspect my injury, feeling a bit light-headed when I see the mess.

  Blood trickles down my hand, some bits already clotting like lumps of red gravy in the areas of the deepest cuts. I’m worried I’ve gone a bit too far.

  A smell like boiled cabbage emanates from the café, seeping through the outer door into the toilet. I fight the unpleasant thickness that hits the back of my throat and wrap the piece of cloth tightly around my hand.

  I tear off some loo roll and wipe up the blood from the toilet seat and floor with my good hand, then leave the bathroom, feeling a bit disconnected but nevertheless triumphant, my bandaged hand concealed behind my handbag.

  Five minutes later, I am walking through the doors of A&E again.

  Blood soaks through the white cloth on my cut hand, and I see one or two people glance at it with a curious concern.

  When I reach the registration desk, a plump middle-aged woman wearing too much make-up pushes a form and pen on a clipboard across the counter.

  ‘Fill this in, please,’ she says briskly without looking at me.

  Fortunately, it is my left hand I’ve damaged, so I manage to fill in the personal details without too much bother. Not that she’s noticed.

  ‘You’ll need to see the triage nurse first.’ She indicates the door Amanda’s mum disappeared through earlier. ‘Take a seat over there, please.’

  I sit down on the next available plastic chair in the row outside the triage room. There are four other people to go before me.

  My hand is throbbing hard now; I’m seriously beginning to fret I’ve cut too deeply.