by Clare Boyd
I was about to ask for scrambled eggs when my phone rang again.
I showed Lucy the screen. ‘It’s Paul again.’
‘Maybe it’s about the cottage.’
‘Maybe Camilla’s burnt it down.’
‘Go on, you’d better get it.’
My stomach flipped over as I picked it up. ‘Hi. Paul. Is everything okay?’
‘Where are you?’ He sounded aggressive, and I braced myself for some abuse.
‘I’m staying with a friend.’
I looked over to Lucy for a friendly face. She raised her eyebrows and mouthed, ‘What’s happened?’
‘Look,’ Paul began, ‘I don’t really know why I should care so much, but I do. There’s been an accident at the Round House and I thought you should know. I think it’s John, but that’s only hearsay from Will at the pub.’
Lucy’s face blurred and the sounds of pots and pans behind me magnified into a violent cacophony. I pressed my finger hard into my ear to hear better, pressing so hard I wondered if I was pressing into my brain, pressing away the alarm.
‘What kind of accident?’
I could hear Lucy in the background telling Graham off for making too much noise. She must have seen the blood drain from my skin.
Paul replied, ‘A car accident, I think. Last night. I’m not sure. I imagine you can’t call the Tennants’ – he paused – ‘but he’s at the Royal Sussex if you want to see him.’
‘Thank you, Paul. Thank you so much for letting me know.’
My thoughts tunnelled into a black hole, with a light at the end that was John, whom I had to get to. Sounds were muffled and movements were slowed. I told Lucy that John had been in an accident and that I had to drive to the hospital now, and she told me that Alice could stay with them. I called up to Alice, trying to sound casual, announcing that I had forgotten something at home, that I would be back later.
I was relieved that she had not bothered to come down the stairs to say goodbye. If she had seen my face, she might have screamed.
Chapter Forty-Six
Two years ago
Francesca had waited, guiltily, for Robert to return from Sanjeev’s. She had expected him to climb into bed next to her, stinking of alcohol and cigarettes and weed, and she had dreaded it. She was petrified that Robert had heard her with John, through the door, utterly convinced now that he had. But with every passing minute, she had become more and more angry with Robert for staying at Sanjeev’s for so long. He was an arsehole. He had asked for it.
These awful things had been rotating around her head when she heard banging at the door.
Expecting Robert, she was shocked to see John, sweating and panting.
‘Did you miss your train?’
He spoke in short, breathy bursts. ‘Robert’s not at Sanjeev’s. I’m worried. I’ve heard ambulances. Please come.’
He yanked her coat from the pegs behind the door and held it out to her, imploringly.
They charged down the stairs and ran through the London streets, up towards Hornsey Lane and along to the bridge. John seemed to know where he was going.
At the bridge, Francesca stopped running, hit by an imaginary brick wall. She watched John run on, watched him press his head into the railings to see. His face was lit up by a flashing light below.
A small Virgin Mary shrine was at her side, scooped into a hole in the bridge. Francesca imagined the statue’s elegant hands cradling her head, lovingly. Go to him, he needs you, Mary whispered in her ear.
Francesca tripped forward, to John, whose wails and cries were like shattering splinters of glass in her brain.
Over the railings, on the A1 below, lay a dark, curled form, like an embryo in a womb, in stillness, in front of a red car. The bonnet’s dent was illuminated by the constant flashing of emergency vehicles, as were the figure’s clothes – a jacket and trousers that she had washed only last week. Unstuck images of Robert’s naked figure came to her, on top of her, his desire, his misery, this violent death. Flash, flash, flash, the view down there, two men in big reflective coats, bending down, over him, lifting him.
Get off him! Leave him alone! Francesca screamed in her head. You don’t know him! He needs me. He needs me!
She began running, barely upright as her torso pushed her legs forward. But as her lungs and legs burned, the sirens started up, crying out into the night.
They have taken him. They have stolen my husband.
She stumbled on the pavement, landing on her knees, and she retched into the road.
Then John’s arms were around her, helping her up.
‘We did this to him! We did this!’ she gasped, as she forced herself to stand, wiping spit and tears from her face. ‘He needs me,’ she sobbed, as they ran.
Chapter Forty-Seven
John
Dilys tucked the hospital sheet around him, poured him some water, and combed his hair. She was convincing in her show of love, and through his grogginess, he was trying to locate the feelings of hate towards her.
Flashbacks to his accident came every five or ten minutes. He revisited the moment when the car hit him the night before, when everything had changed in that split second: when he had felt the crack – as if a concrete block had been dropped onto his chest – when his arms and legs had started to burn, when he couldn’t move his lower body. He had seen trees above him and felt the wetness of grass. Fear and the agony had sent him reeling to another plane.
At the hospital, hours had slipped by in a blur, in and out of a nightmare-filled sleep. His bloodstream was flooded with drugs and his mind was addled by the trauma. He had been wheeled to and from Radiology for a CT scan and then for an MRI. Doctors had come to test the sensations in his legs, ask him to move his toes, and inserted a finger into his anus, asking him to squeeze it for muscle tone. He truly believed he had used those muscles, but he was told there was no movement there: a blinding terror. They asked him to shake his arms about, make strange movements with his hands. Nurses had come to take blood, to inject steroids, and to readjust his cannula, to change his wet bed, to insert a catheter. The doctors talked of surgery, but they remained undecided, and this infuriated Dilys more than him.
‘Why can’t they tell us anything?’ she kept repeating.
He had not been able summon enough courage, or clarity, to ask her about what had happened. He had not been able to organise the facts of the accident in his head, let alone get them out of his mouth. It had been impossible to believe she had driven the car at him deliberately. Doubt about his memory, and the stability of his own mind, and fear of Dilys’ volatility, had stopped him from saying anything to her while the medics circulated.
Now, he and Dilys were alone behind the drawn curtain. For the first time.
Dilys sat down on the visitor’s chair next to him.
‘Are you comfortable? I wonder when we’ll have the CT results back. I suppose it’s—’
‘There’s nobody h-here…’ he stuttered, low and croaky. ‘Drop the loving wife act.’
Her boney face loomed large above him. ‘John, don’t,’ she whined.
‘You drove at me last night.’
‘No! It was dark. And I was crying so hard, it was blurry. As soon as I saw you, I swerved away. I swear it.’
Through all his confusion a mass of guilt gathered inside him, but then he remembered the sound of the wheels swirling in the gravel, the car spitting stones at the garage doors behind it, speeding towards him. John did not remember her tears.
‘Then why did you’ – he paused, licking his dry lips, trying to sound less slurred – ‘move me. I was in the lane when the ambulance arrived.’
‘You’re remembering it all wrong. You crashed the Porsche in the lane.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘John. Jesus. What are you saying?’ she choked, sniffing. She found a tissue packet in her bag. John tried to remember if he had ever seen her cry with snot and heaving gasps and a red face.
‘Did you want
me to die?’
Her mouth fell open. ‘I love you, John,’ she whimpered, wiping her eyes carefully under her mascara, leaning over him, her hair dangling in his face.
His brain vibrated with panic while his body lay unnaturally still, alive inside but dead on the outside, desperate to move but trapped. The pain in his chest escalated. It was excruciating, like burning currents continually pulsing through his torso. He winced and hoped the morphine hadn’t run out. When the nurses came in to see him, he would ask them to check its levels. Should he press the panic button now?
There was so much to say but he was too uncomfortable, he couldn’t think straight.
‘I’m tired, Dilys. Please just leave me alone to sleep.’
‘Do you love her?’
Through his peripheral vision, he could see her red nails twirling the plastic tubes that fed him his morphine. He stared at her fingers, wondering if he dare answer her truthfully. She dropped the tube.
‘Do you, John?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even after she lied to you about Alice?’
A bewildering flow of mixed-up chatter hammered at his thoughts, from the past, from the present; from mouths of others, from his own, from minds of others, from his own. He felt mentally unbalanced, lost in doubt.
Dilys jammed a straw to his lips, trying to make him drink. He coughed, attempting to speak, ‘I’m not allowed…’ he began, choking more. ‘If I have surgery…’ Water dribbled down his cheek.
She clicked her tongue and sat down, out of his vision.
Tepid pools of saliva gathered around his tongue and he gagged. He was furious; a scrap of clarity returned to him briefly.
‘When I get out of here…’ he whispered, breaking off to swallow, continuing hoarsely, ‘it’s over.’
‘We’ll get Francesca out of your system, don’t you worry.’
‘No.’
No longer did he care what Francesca had or had not done, or what she was guilty of or not guilty of. He knew he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. He was more certain about this than he had been about anything in his life.
When Dilys next spoke, it was with a strained sweetness.
‘The children would be so upset if they found out that Daddy had tried to run Mummy off the road, wouldn’t they?’
‘What? I never…’ He trailed off, his memory wavering again. Uncertainty was flickering inside him like a faltering light bulb.
‘You were chasing me through the lanes in the Porsche, remember? You were drunk after all that wine.’
Her lilting Welsh sing-song was like a malicious lullaby.
Then her hands were on his chest, pressing down.
He wailed, wondering if he could die from the pain.
‘Oh, sorry, is that sore? I’m so sorry.’ She let go.
‘What is wrong with you?’ he rasped.
‘I just want us to be a family.’
He moaned, pole-axed by the pain, and squeezed his fingers into his upper thigh to displace the agony radiating through his upper body. He could not feel his fingernails in his skin.
‘They won’t believe you.’ His voice came out in a whisper. He knew his children wouldn’t believe her.
‘When they see the dent, and then they find out about Francesca, and Alice, I have a feeling they might believe anything I say about you. Let’s face it, you’re no longer the dad they thought you were.’
Her voice became distant. He wasn’t sure whether it was a dream or not.
‘Please don’t tell them like that. Don’t, Dilys,’ he begged.
Ignoring him, she continued. ‘And I think Harry’ll be so upset to find out why his uncle jumped off that bridge.’
‘No. You have no idea why.’
‘He jumped when he found out about your affair with Francesca, didn’t he? They would be devastated to know that, John, wouldn’t they?’
‘That’s not true. He didn’t know about Francesca. You can’t say that to Harry.’
‘D’you think he’ll want to live with you when he knows? Do you think the courts will favour you when they know you are reckless and suicidal, like your brother? How will you look after them when you’ll need twenty-four-hour care?’
‘I’m their dad.’ It came out as a whisper, but even if he had shouted it, the statement was inadequate.
Last night, when he had seen Harry’s face for the first time after the accident, he had cried tears of love and joy. And he had not cared what kind of state his body would end up in, as long as he could see his son’s face and speak to him and hear his news and feel his touch. When he had seen Olivia and Beatrice that morning, with his parents, he had felt the same rush of love and gratefulness. He was lucky to be alive, to have his children in his life. He would never take it for granted. It was all that mattered.
‘You’re depressed, my love. Just like your poor brother. That’s why you need me to look after you.’
Confusion whirled through his mind. To order his memories, he clung to Dilys’ reassuringly clear version of his accident. It played itself out in Technicolor, like the scene of a film in which he played the bad guy. But conflicting memories burnt through the reel, leaving sticky holes and garbled sound.
‘I need help,’ he said, possibly out loud, possibly in his head. He needed guidance from a psychologist or a friend, to talk through his accident, to pin down the real events.
‘If you forget about Francesca, I’ll help you.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘It’ll be easier when she’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘She’s putting the house up for sale. She called the estate agent today, apparently, and they called your mum straight away.’
John wanted to scream. It felt as though the bed had straps that Dilys had tightened across his legs and chest. He would never be able to get away from her. If he went to Francesca, he would lose his children. He couldn’t lose them. Nothing would make sense in his life without them. Not even Francesca.
Sacrificing Francesca was retribution for betraying his brother, and Dilys and his children. On that scaffolding, he hadn’t been thinking about their feelings. He’d had a choice, and he’d made the wrong one.
‘What about Alice?’
‘Your father called his solicitor and explained the situation. He says you’ll be able to demand visitation rights.’
After this, he closed his eyes. It was the only power he had over her, to not look at her, to not see her. She left his bedside and he heard the murmur of her talking to his parents in the ward, and he drifted off into oblivion. They had it all worked out, as usual. Everyone was in line. The plan was already in action.
What more could he do?
Chapter Forty-Eight
Francesca
By the time I had reached the A&E admissions desk at the Royal Sussex Hospital, I was none the wiser about what had happened to John. For the whole journey there, images of his rag-dolled body slumped over his steering wheel or flung into a ditch had been flickering through my mind.
‘Two Ns?’
‘Yes, T.E.N.N.A.N.T. Tennant.’
‘John Tennant. Here we go. He’s been transferred to the Bramshott high dependency unit.’
Fear shot through me.
‘High dependency? What’s happened to him?’
‘I can’t give out patient information, I’m afraid. If you take a right at the lifts, and follow the signs, you’ll find it.’
The shiny wide corridors became emptier as I walked deeper into the heart of the hospital. My terror increased with every step. I did not know what to expect.
The HDU was hushed, with families clustered around beds or murmuring behind the drawn curtains. A nurse informed me that John was in a bed at the end of the ward.
Camilla, Patrick and Dilys were in a huddle, a few beds away from where the nurse had pointed. I walked towards them, stiff with dread.
‘How dare you…’ Camilla hissed and started towards me, but Patrick held
her arm.
Dilys crossed her arms over her cashmere sweater and stuck her pointy chest out at me. She was flanked by Camilla and Patrick.
Their wan, strained, hate-filled faces glowered at me. I wanted to turn on my heel and run from the hospital. I had never felt such acute shame.
‘You can’t see him,’ Dilys said. ‘He’s got an operation scheduled in the next hour.’
‘What operation? Is he okay?’
‘I’m not sure you have the right…’ Camilla began, only to be stopped, once again, by Patrick.
Mounting fear made me angry. ‘Just tell me what happened.’
Patrick answered me. ‘He was in a car accident. The Porsche span out of control just outside the house. He’s fractured two vertebrae and partially damaged his spinal cord in his lower back. They’ll be operating later today, but the surgeon warned there is a significant risk of long-term paralysis in his legs.’
‘Paralysis?’ I uttered the word as though it was in a foreign language. I needed someone to translate it for me. I could not believe they had said this word in reference to John. Beautiful, strong, healthy John.
Patrick continued, using a voice a doctor might use to tell a patient, with facts and big words, but very little emotion. ‘The consultant has warned us that the operation is to fuse the vertebrae to stabilise his spine, but they cannot repair the damage to the spinal cord. They’ll be monitoring his movement and loss of sensation closely to establish whether or not they believe he will regain full mobility. The next few days are crucial.’
‘He will regain full mobility,’ I said. Saying it would make it happen.
Dilys began to cry into Camilla’s shoulder.
While the two women were distracted, I moved around them to John’s curtains.
Patrick did not stop me. In letting me go, I thought that he was being kind, that he felt for me on some level.
I slipped in through the curtains.
