The Day I lost You

by Fionnuala Kearney

  Beats me. You’re the doctor.

  ‘You scared me,’ he says, squeezing my hand.

  You were in a washing machine with me. I win.

  He leans in to me, strokes my damp hair away from my forehead. ‘You’ll feel so much better in a couple of days, I promise.’

  Next day, I demand to be released. I’ll be fine at home. I want to go home; I need to get Rose back, I tell anyone who will listen. Leah marches into the room and orders me back to bed.

  ‘Your X-ray has come back and you have fluid on your lung. What the hell is wrong with you? Gus, Sean and I have it covered with Rose. Just lie the fuck down, will you?’

  Leah doesn’t shout at me. Ever. I start to cry and have to stop really quickly for fear I’ll choke.

  Soon, I’m sitting up on fluffed-up pillows, behaving myself. ‘Sorry,’ I croak. ‘Just worried about Rose.’

  ‘Rose is fine,’ she shakes her head. She’s short, abrupt.

  ‘I scared you,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You did. And poor Theo. When he got to yours Sunday night. He was so upset. You were delirious,’ she says. ‘Talking a lot of crap.’

  I was? Suddenly I’m afraid. A nurse comes in and shakes a tiny white paper cup at me, hands me my glass of water, asks me how I’m feeling. I swallow three tablets. I’d make it six if it meant I could get out of here quicker. Leah is staring at me and I have to look away. Delirious. What in God’s name did I say to her that night, to Theo, to anyone who was listening to my feverish rants?

  ‘Confused,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t remember much. I took Valium on top of pain relief. Theo and I were in a washing machine, Anna was on a beach covered in snow.’ I try to shrug my shoulders but it hurts, everything hurts, and I end up having another painful coughing fit. She’s by my side, helping me catch my breath, a glass of water in her hand. ‘Did I say anything stupid?’ I ask.

  I love this woman, would do anything for her, and would do anything to avoid hurting her. I pray I haven’t said something about Gus before I’ve even decided if I’m ever going to say something about Gus.

  ‘Apart from calling me names?’

  I frown.

  ‘Maleficent,’ she says. ‘Or “Ma-leah-cent”, followed by a cackle giggle to be exact.’

  She’s back in her chair, and I’m relieved, crisis averted. ‘Mum wanted to drive down. I told her not to dare, that we have it all under control and that you’re on the mend. Call her as soon as you can?’

  ‘I’ll do it tonight.’

  ‘And I asked Gus to bring Rose by to see you after school.’

  ‘Good,’ I whisper.

  ‘I’ve got to get to work. You’ll be fine. Theo said he’ll drop by later too.’

  She kisses my cheek and is gone. I feel sick to the core, have an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach from thinking that my feverish rants could have been responsible for ruining my sister’s life. Anna could have been responsible for ruining my sister’s life.

  46. Anna

  Raw Honey Blogspot 28/11/2014

  Bloody hell, what do you reckon silence weighs? If you could lift it up as a real thing? Yesterday’s silence weighed a tonne. He didn’t speak and I found myself babbling, making excuses, but I knew. I suppose I should say I know. I know that somewhere, on some level, when this thing happened in that hotel room in Marlow, I knew what I was doing. I’d only just gone back on the pill and told Him not to bother with a condom. He’d asked me if I was sure. And it’s that question – the memory of Him asking – that filled the silence between us when I told Him I was pregnant.

  He went ballistic. I’ve never seen Him like that, and any romantic notion I ever had of us being together disappeared in that instant. It was as if in between any words He was using, what He was really saying was: We could get away with one child. We are never going to be able to ‘hide’ two. And I am never really leaving my wife.

  He used other words but that’s what He meant. Then He used another one I never thought I’d hear Him say. ‘Termination.’

  I told Him it was over.

  I’ve now finished with the love of my life. Honey, I tell myself, don’t be so bloody dramatic. You’re twenty-four. You’ll fall in love again – stop thinking about Him. Honey, stop crying and telling yourself you’ll never feel love like that again. If that’s true, well, be bloody lucky you loved each other at all. You can move away. You can and will put Him behind you. You can and will remember Him kindly when all of this is over.

  But all of it has to be over and first I have to face doing something I don’t want to do. I already fantasize about this child’s possibilities. It’s no more than a tiny collection of cells, but what if those cells were to form the heart and brain that would cure cancer?

  Fuck … This is my fault, because when this thing happened in that hotel room in Marlow, I knew what I was doing.

  My naïve mess, and only I can sort it. And whatever happens, I’ll have to live with it for a very long time.

  I howled on the phone to C earlier and now she’s on her way around. I have thirty minutes to pull myself together because I’ve never told my BF, C, about Him. I love the bones of her, but way back in the early days, when I told her I was seeing a married man, she let me know she disapproved. Then He and I had one of our regular break-ups and C did everything to encourage me and S to get together; felt that he was the best route for me to forget ‘the other bloke’. All I could do at the time was hope she was right.

  S and I were together only once and I just found myself in a situation that had what seemed like an easy solution. I let S believe he was going to be a father after one unfortunate coupling. An awful thing to do to anyone.

  I think, if I’m honest, my latest shit-fest is no more than I deserve.

  Raw Honey Blogspot 02/12/2014

  Readers, I’ve been thinking about friends. I have half a small handful. C, of course, ever since the time Death tried to run us over and missed, but T too. He’s an unlikely mate, because he’s also a good friend of Mama’s. I met him for the first time when he was on duty at A&E and I had my stomach pumped – drank too many smuggled-in blue alcopops at C’s sixteenth birthday party. At the time T worked the doctors’ bank at the hospital and was locum at the surgery Mama worked in, so she recognized him when she arrived to pick me up. He’s just a guy who since then I’ve instantly trusted, and over the years he sort of became my local dad: gave me summer jobs, babysitting work, and a reference for the job at the bank. J, my boss, showed it to me, and I remember wishing I really was the person that T described on that sheet of paper.

  He’s the only person I’ve ever told even half the truth to. I blurted it out to him one day after work because I knew I could trust him and, more importantly, because I knew he’d never judge. He’s a mate and a father figure, but without the worrying about me or the criticizing bit a dad would have.

  He’s also my GP and God, his poor face, when I told him what I needed today. He’s so good, but even his poker face goes south sometimes. He listened, and when his Kleenex ran out, he gave me his lovely crisp white hanky from his top pocket. Who carries hankies nowadays? More to the point, who looks like T (cute-and-young-for-his-age-pretty-good-looking) and carries hankies?

  Thinking about friends now, I wonder if I’ve just followed Mama’s lead? She has a lot of acquaintances but very few friends. Post-Dad, she trusted no one. Reality moment! I have indeed followed Mama’s lead! I have few friends and apparently I have trust issues!

  Looks like the only thing I’ve done of my own accord is have an affair.

  I’ve always thought that if T wasn’t married that he and Mama would … It doesn’t matter. He is married and neither he nor Mama would contemplate such a thing. Good moral fibre, the pair of them. Unlike me. Unlike little slutty me.

  47. Theo

  Charlie Everard, having been blue-lighted in two nights ago, was in the same hospital, so Theo took the chance to go and see him.

  ‘Doc!’ he cried as
Theo craned his head around the drawn curtain. ‘You working here today?’

  ‘No, No,’ Theo said. ‘All right to come in?’ He hovered by the curtained entrance to his cubicle. The man nodded.

  ‘I’m visiting a friend but I heard a whisper at work that they’d admitted you.’

  ‘You came to see me. Over and above the call of duty, Doc! Thank you!’

  Theo glanced at the intravenous drips, tried to read the notes on the end of the bed without making it obvious. ‘What have they said to you, Charlie?’

  Charles Everard scowled. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. They never tell us anything. We’re only patients. Fodder for their experiments.’ He gave Theo a knowing nod, tapped the edge of his nose with his forefinger.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Theo lifted the notes. ‘Your leg, nasty infection.’ He shook his head as he read. ‘Well, they’re blasting you with targeted antibiotics. It’s why you will have felt dizzy, why you fell. All those toxins floating around your body.’

  ‘Don’t like being in here at all, Doc, don’t mind saying. Cilla was in here before she died. How long before I can go home?’

  ‘Charlie.’ Theo shot him a warning look. ‘It’s going to be a couple of days, but you need to rest, eat to keep your strength up, and you should be home soon.’

  The old man grimaced.

  ‘Elaine tells me you’re painting again?’

  The expression on his patient’s face changed in an instant. It was like one of those Transformers things Finn had as a child. One thing one moment, and the next something completely different. Painting brought him happiness; converted his old frown into a joyous smile.

  ‘It’s good to see you smile, Charlie.’ Theo grinned.

  ‘It makes me happy, and I only ever make it happy,’ he said, the laughter lines plumping on his face.

  ‘Not sure what you mean?’

  ‘I paint, it makes me happy, then I owe it some happiness, so I only paint happy. I paint happy things!’

  ‘Okay, I get you.’ But he didn’t. He spent a few more pleasant minutes with him and walked away thinking there were still a few toxins floating in the old man’s body yet.

  He stopped at the Costa in the main foyer. Armed with a skinny cappuccino with chocolate sprinklings on top, he headed to the ward on the second floor. From just outside the room, he heard Rose’s laugh. As soon as he saw Jess, he could tell her breathing was much better. Though it was late, much later than bedtime, Rose was just leaving with Leah and Gus as he arrived. Rose clutched a small fabric heart and Jess held something white in her hand. When they had left, he raised the hand, kissed it. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, placing the coffee by her side.

  ‘Rose brought it in for me, told me that she knows I don’t want cut flowers, only like them in the garden, so she thought I should have one of her mummy’s T-shirts so I can smell her.’

  Her lower lip trembled and he leaned forward, kissed it still.

  ‘Ssssh,’ he whispered. ‘That was a lovely idea. Of course I knew you don’t like cut flowers too, which is why I brought you your favourite coffee.’

  ‘You never knew that.’ She tried to smile but coughed instead and took a sip of the hot drink. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘How long before I get out of here?’

  He laughed, the second time he had been asked that in twenty minutes; the second time he was lifting a clipboard of notes from the end of a bed. ‘Your oxygen levels are up. The X-ray taken earlier today showed you’re really responding to the antibiotics. I reckon day after tomorrow if you behave and rest.’

  ‘I have to get back to work, Theo. I’ve had so much time off. Helen can only have so much patience with me.’ She shook her head. ‘Time off when Anna … then the day at the Lakes and now this. She’s going to have to replace me at this rate.’

  He took a seat beside her. ‘You have to get well. Pneumonia is no laughing matter and has a high level of recurrence if you don’t allow yourself to heal now. You’re going to need a couple of weeks off.’

  ‘I can’t, really.’

  He sat back and shrugged. ‘You’re going to have to.’

  ‘Leah can’t be looking after Rose. I—’

  ‘Gus works from home. Between them they can work it out for a week or so, let you get some rest.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t want that.’ Her eyes fired up. ‘There’s something I should tell you, Theo. What Dad told me up at the Lakes … I should probably have told you as soon as I knew but I needed some time to figure out what I was going to do.’

  He steeled himself, felt his arms fold in front of him, some sort of defensive, protective measure. He wasn’t sure if he was protecting her from him or himself from her.

  She sipped the drink, took as deep a breath as her lungs would allow.

  ‘It’s Gus.’

  He feigned his best perplexed look, willed his face not to give him away. Lying, feigning, did not come naturally to him. Tell her, tell her you know. Tell her you’ve known about Gus since you read Anna’s letter; that Anna saw fit to include a whole new unimaginable dilemma for you. Tell her now. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

  ‘Gus,’ she repeated. ‘Gus, my brother-in-law, Gus, Leah’s husband, Gus.’

  He put a hand to his face, cupped his chin and mouth.

  ‘I know. I need you to promise me to keep this between you and me, Theo.’ Outside Jess’s room, an alarm sounded at the nurses’ station. Staff shouted orders at one another, feet hurried along the corridor. Jess looked towards the door. ‘Someone’s in trouble,’ she said her voice low. ‘Have I been watching too much Casualty or is that the crash team?’

  Theo nodded. ‘Your dad, how did he know? What—’

  ‘He saw them once, told Anna to finish it and she did apparently, until a few months before she went to France when the whole thing started up again.’

  ‘What will you do? About Gus. How do you feel?’

  She coughed into a tissue, grimaced and flopped back on her pillows.

  ‘Do? Haven’t a clue … And as for how I feel. I’m gutted. Every time I think about him and Anna, I want to throw up. Every time I think of him with Leah, I feel like punching his lights out. Now you see why I don’t want him picking Rose up from school?’

  ‘Could Sean do it?’

  ‘Sean is working his last week of notice and he’s leaving on Friday for Blackpool.’

  ‘Oh … Does Rose know yet?’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t had a chance to say anything. I think he wants us to do it together.’ She grasped the T-shirt, automatically raised it to her nose and inhaled. ‘It’s all such a mess.’ In the distance, further along the corridor, another alarm sounded. ‘Though there is always someone having a worse day …’

  Theo said nothing, just sat with her, kept his hand closed over hers.

  ‘I could pick her up, just for a few days.’ As he spoke the words, he had no idea if he actually could. He was scheduled all week for afternoon surgery.

  ‘Thanks, but no. I’ll just have to give in on this one. I want everything as normal as possible for Rose. Normal for her when I’m not around is to go to Leah and Gus. The bastard.’

  She closed her eyes for a few moments before saying, ‘I need a holiday. I’ve got the insurance money agreed. Did I tell you that?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Ha!’ she croaked. ‘I didn’t want to think you were after me for the money. I can’t call it my money. It’s Rose’s money, really. Anyway, I think it would be good for her and me to take Easter fortnight off, go somewhere sunny.’

  ‘That’ll be good for the lungs,’ he smiled. ‘Providing of course you let them heal in the meantime and you can fly.’

  ‘I’ll be a good girl,’ she said sighing. ‘I’ve had years of practice.’

  They sat together, quiet, him not wanting to make her talk, her not needing to. Theo tuned out the clattering sounds of the hospital, the familiar antiseptic smell.

  ‘You and me.’ Her low voice br
oke the silence. ‘We’re not a thing, are we?’

  He grinned. ‘Depends what you mean. Would a “thing” be so awful?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can do it … whether it’s in my makeup any more. So much has happened. I don’t know who I am right now.’

  ‘Whoever you are, I like you. Now, stop talking.’ He squeezed her hand.

  ‘So you talk,’ she whispered.

  He sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know if we’re “a thing”, but I know there’s a lot of change around and we’re all trying to find our feet. Brave new world and all that … I also know I spent twelve years doing all the talking in my marriage. Right now, I’d like to just be.’

  She covered his hand with her free one, smiled, and together they sat until he was thrown out by the staff at nine o’clock. She called him back and as he approached she rooted in her bag for something.

  ‘This, just so you know, is not because we’re a thing.’ She handed him her spare front door key. ‘This,’ she smiled, ‘is just so you can get in tomorrow and spray my ferns.’

  Back home, Finn was waiting. He put bread in the toaster as soon as Theo walked into the kitchen. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’

  Theo smiled, curled a fist and play-punched his son’s shoulder. ‘Thanks. It’s been a long day. Where’s Bea?’

  ‘Studying upstairs. She has an English exam tomorrow.’ Finn picked his thumbnail, the way he did when he was nervous. ‘How was Jess?’

  ‘Stick the kettle on as well, son, would you?’ Theo pulled a chair out from the table, the legs leaving a thin black line on the tiled floor. ‘She’s all right. Still has a bit of fluid on the lung but she’ll be fine in a couple of days.’

  Finn turned to the toaster, waited for his father’s food to emerge. He held a knife in one hand, the butter in the other. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you were saying this morning over breakfast.’

  Theo pulled open the tie from his neck. Finn and he had talked about the blog over breakfast. Theo had asked Finn not to read any more and Finn had agreed.