by Lucy Diamond
He didn’t. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘What’s for dinner then?’
‘You choose,’ she snapped, slapping the menus on the worktop. ‘I’m going to unpack.’
She ran upstairs, tears spilling down her face. What a fool she’d been ever to think she could get away and have an adventure. Like life was ever that simple!
That evening Izzy phoned to say goodnight to the girls, keeping her voice cheerful and bright and, as far as Alicia could tell, not letting on about any of the trauma she’d gone through. ‘Are you up to a visitor later?’ Alicia asked, after Hazel and Willow went off to get ready for bed, both looking perkier.
‘Please,’ Izzy said. She sounded wrung-out, as if she’d used up her last shred of energy faking normalcy to her daughters.
‘I’ll find out when visiting hours are and come over when I can,’ Alicia promised. ‘Have a think if there’s anything you want me to bring, and text me a list. Hang in there.’
No list arrived, but Alicia hunted out a few things that she knew she’d have wanted in Izzy’s place: a clean nightie, a spare toothbrush and toothpaste, a magazine, some fluffy bedsocks and the get-well cards that the girls had made. Rifling through her drawers, she found two brand-new, unworn pairs of knickers and stuffed them in the bag too. They were probably miles too big for Izzy’s tiny bum, but it was better than nothing. She also put in some shower gel and shampoo, a couple of apples and a slab of chocolate cake.
Seeing Izzy in the hospital – tough, capable Izzy, who’d always seemed so in control – upset Alicia more than she could say. She looked like a frightened little girl in the bed, pale and wan, her foot bandaged and up in some sort of sling. Tears sprung to Izzy’s eyes when she saw Alicia.
‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, her lip trembling. ‘And thank you so much for having the girls. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
Alicia sat down and took her hands. ‘Oh, love,’ she said. ‘How are you doing? I’ve brought you some things.’
Izzy’s eyes became wetter still as she saw the assortment of goodies Alicia had packed, and she sniffled when she read the felt-tipped cards from Hazel and Willow. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, blowing her nose. ‘Are you sure they’re okay? Did they say anything about Gary?’
Alicia chose her words carefully. ‘Hazel mentioned that he’d been to see you. I didn’t tell her anything. Willow seemed a bit anxious, until she spoke to you on the phone.’
A tear rolled down Izzy’s cheek. ‘How will I tell them?’ she said, choked. ‘What will I say?’
Alicia hugged her, feeling desperately sorry for her. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she soothed, stroking Izzy’s dark hair, and wishing she could come up with something less bland to say. ‘It’ll be all right. I promise.’
‘It’s all my fault,’ Izzy sobbed. ‘I should never have come here. I—’
‘No,’ Alicia said firmly, still holding her. ‘It’s not. None of this is in any way your fault. Ssshhhh. It’s okay.’
They stayed like that for some moments until Izzy had cried herself out. She blew her nose again, hands shaking, and attempted a watery smile. ‘Bet you’re wishing you’d never met me now.’
‘I’m not wishing any such thing,’ Alicia told her. ‘You’re my friend. Now. Tell me what the doctors have said. How long do they think you’ll be here?’
The doctors felt Izzy had got away lightly, apparently. ‘You’ve been very lucky, Mrs Allerton,’ one of them had said, with no trace of irony, according to Izzy. She had a compound fracture of the bones in her lower leg, the tibia and fibula, probably where she’d been ‘sympathetically braking’, the doctor explained, leaving her leg locked and bearing all her weight. She would need surgery in the morning and pins inserted to keep the broken bones in place, as well as a plaster cast for at least six weeks. On top of that, she had mild concussion, whiplash, a cut on the head and the most horrendous bruising, lividly marking where her seatbelt had been. Not to mention the psychological trauma of having her ex-husband die in the driver’s seat next to her, the unenviable prospect of having to tell all of this to her little girls, the guilt that the police officer driving the car was also injured and in hospital, and the prospect of no longer being able to work as a dance teacher for a while. When you looked at the sum of the injuries, it didn’t strike Alicia that her friend had been ‘lucky’ at all.
‘I should have stopped him,’ Izzy said, pleating the bedcover between her fingers in agitation. ‘I should have calmed him down. If I’d sorted things out better in Manchester rather than running away, he’d never have been so angry with me. He’d still be alive today.’
Alicia squeezed her hand. ‘And you’d still be black and blue, and living in fear,’ she pointed out gently. ‘He was the one who made bad choices, not you.’
A nurse popped her head around the curtain and walked in with a clipboard. ‘Just need to do your observations,’ she said. ‘How are we doing for pain?’
‘It’s …’ Izzy looked as if she was about to tough things out, but then dropped her head. ‘It’s pretty bad actually,’ she admitted.
The nurse bustled around her. Any misgivings Alicia might have felt about cancelling Paris and being Izzy’s ‘phone-a-friend’ had long since evaporated, leaving only a dreadful feeling of selfish shame for even thinking of complaining.
Once the nurse had left, she took Izzy’s hand. ‘So, I guess you’ll be out of action for a little while, if you’re going to be in plaster,’ she began. ‘And I doubt you’ll be able to manage the steps up and down to your flat – second-floor, did you say? No chance. So let’s work out a plan …’
Izzy nodded. ‘There’s one thing I really need you to do,’ she began.
The following morning was Saturday, the start of the Easter holidays. Fortuitously Izzy had no dance classes on anyway, and the boys’ cricket club was taking a fortnight’s break, so Hugh nobly took all five children to the beach, while Alicia sped round to Izzy’s flat armed with a set of keys and some empty bags. According to the hospital, Izzy had had a reasonable night’s sleep and was due to have surgery later that morning. They anticipated that she could leave hospital the following day, providing she was fully recovered from the anaesthetic, although she was going to need some looking after for a while.
Alicia stopped at the florist’s on the way and bought, as per Izzy’s instructions, several pots of spring flowers and a large bunch of freesias. Then she drove the short distance to the flat and parked the car. Izzy’s flat was in a modern block, boring and boxy to the eye. The whole of the front garden had been given over to car parking, with just a scraggly little hedge offering any sort of greenery or screening from the main road.
As she approached the front door, she could see that one of the glass panels there had been shattered and someone had clumsily patched it up with cardboard and masking tape on the inside. The front area had been swept clean, with just one tiny blue fragment visible from the smashed flowerpots that Izzy had described.
Alicia carefully set down the pots she’d brought by the entrance and brushed the soil from her hands. The flowers bobbed their heads in the breeze, the flashes of yellow, red and blue breaking up the monotony of the brick and concrete around them. It was a start.
Then she unlocked the front door and went up two flights of stairs, shaking her head at the thought of her friend being able to manage them herself any time soon.
After dropping the freesias in to Mrs Murray and explaining what had happened, Alicia opened the door to Izzy’s flat … and let out a gasp. The inside of the flat was, in complete contrast to the outside, colourful and vibrant. The hall had been painted a cheerful pink, and a large red heart had been added around the small mirror that hung on the wall. MUMMY LOVES WILLOW AND HAZEL was spelled out above the coat rack, and a series of bright flowers painted in a wild assortment of colours and styles blossomed along the skirting boards. Inside, the living space was similarly dazzling. Children’s artwork lined the walls, shell-mob
iles dangled from the ceiling, the sofa had a stuffed monkey and a beaming blue bear in its corners and a collection of library books adorned a small bookcase.
Alicia felt a lump in her throat. The furniture might be shabby and old, the building might not be the prettiest, but with every slap of paint, with every Blu-tacked picture, Izzy had turned this into a home – a happy, fun place for her and the girls. A place of refuge, their little pocket of safety. Until yesterday anyway, when Gary had done his best to wreck everything.
Poor Izzy. The desperation had been quite naked in her eyes, the panic in her voice unmistakable. The girls had no grandparents, no aunties and uncles whatsoever. All the family they had in the world was her. ‘And what use am I, like this?’ she’d fretted. ‘How can I possibly look after them? They’re going to end up in care, just like me. I know it!’
Alicia had had to use her strictest, most no-nonsense teacher’s voice. ‘That is absolutely not going to happen,’ she had said, looking Izzy straight in the eye. ‘They can stay with me for as long as you need. Nobody will put them in care, or anywhere else. You’ve got me now, and I’ll help you.’
The fierceness of her own voice had startled even her, but now she was glad she’d laid it on the line so clearly. They just had to think of a way to make it work so that everyone was happy.
Unzipping her holdall, she went into the girls’ bedroom and started to pack some clothes and toys, thinking hard.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Have you ever,’ Emma began thoughtfully, ‘done something really, really awful that you knew you’d probably regret … but you just couldn’t help yourself?’
She was speaking to Flo, her assistant, but her voice must have carried across the office because an awful lot of ears seemed to prick up at the question.
‘I took this job, didn’t I?’ Flo said grumpily. She had an enormous pile of invoices on her desk and looked sorely tempted to stuff the lot in the bin. ‘I’m totally regretting that today.’
‘Why do you ask, Jones? Are you plotting mischief?’ Greg put in, an eyebrow raised as he leaned over the desks.
‘I wasn’t talking to you, Big-Ears,’ Emma replied, but it was too late, the others had taken up the question as if some kind of personal challenge.
‘A friend and I once did a runner from the Hotel du Vin restaurant,’ Lottie confessed coyly. She was on a protein diet and had been nibbling slices of ham from a packet since she’d arrived that morning. ‘I was so pissed – I’d been on cocktails all night – and it seemed a good laugh at the time. Right until we got hauled back by the manager anyway. Walk of shame or what.’
‘Oops,’ said Emma. ‘Does the future husband know about your dreadful life of crime, Lottie?’
‘No, and you mustn’t tell him!’ she giggled, a manicured hand flying to her mouth. ‘Really, you mustn’t. He thinks I’m a nice girl.’
‘Poor sod,’ mumbled someone, possibly Greg.
‘Once, when I was a teenager and had been grounded, I sneaked out with a mate and went to a gig in town,’ Rhodri said. ‘Climbed out my window, into a tree … proper SAS stuff. Had to sleep in the shed that night and had the most wicked hangover the next day. Didn’t regret a thing.’
‘I once smuggled some drugs into Malaysia for a mate,’ Greg said airily. Of course, he had to go one further than anyone else, thought Emma, rolling her eyes. ‘Stuffed a bag of smack up my arse and tried to blag it.’
‘No way,’ Flo breathed, open-mouthed.
‘You didn’t,’ cried Lottie, appalled.
He snorted, bemused. ‘Of course I didn’t, you muppets,’ he roared. ‘What kind of a man do you think I am?’ He waited a good two seconds for effect, then added, ‘I stuffed it up Hester’s arse, of course, got her to do it instead. Like I’d take that kind of a risk myself!’
The others laughed, but Lottie still looked disapproving. ‘The worst thing is, Greg, I can actually believe you’d do something like that,’ she said primly, her mouth pursing into a tut.
He pulled a face at her. ‘Nah. I’m too busy stuffing her other orifices with—’
‘ENOUGH!’ Emma yelled hurriedly. ‘Honestly, Greg, why does every single conversation have to end up with poor Hester getting dragged into things? Can you not leave her and her orifices out of it?’
Greg sniggered.
‘Sounds like a Woody Allen film,’ commented Rhodri. ‘Hester and Her Orifices …’
‘Oh, not you as well,’ Emma sighed. She rubbed her eyes wearily as she shut down the browser page she’d been looking at: Bristol Uni’s Art History Faculty, where a photo of Nicholas Larsson gazing cool-eyed out of the screen had given her pause for thought for the last few minutes. She was clearly going insane. Insane. Why else would she be reading up on him, after all these years? Why on earth had she dredged up so many old memories, as if returning to a neglected, locked room and stirring up the dust?
‘I once cheated on someone I really loved,’ Flo put in suddenly. Her eyes were on Emma and the mood changed. ‘Biggest mistake of my life. One I’m still regretting.’
Emma shivered and a favourite phrase of her grandma’s slipped into her head. Like someone walking over my grave. She wished Flo would stop gazing at her so intently. It was almost as if she knew what Emma was plotting.
She got up abruptly, claiming to be heading out for a lunch meeting. I’ll just grab a sandwich and wander over to Queen Square to clear my head, she told herself. Even as she was thinking the words, she knew they were a lie.
As soon as her miserable period had started yesterday, regular as clockwork, and she’d found herself arguing on the phone to David, the obsessive need to do something – anything – had seized hold of her and wasn’t about to let go.
Nicholas Larsson was about to take a trip down memory lane, she’d decided. And what better time to start his journey than now?
The university buildings looked remarkably unchanged from when she’d been a student there, she thought, driving through the campus a short while later. She half-expected to see Sally or Kez waving at her from outside the Union bar, lecture notes tucked under their arms, their clothes a mismatch of charity-shop finds with the uniform clumpy Doc Martens on their feet. Happy days.
She shut her eyes for a moment after she’d parked and rubbed her temples gingerly. This might, of course, be an enormous mistake. Catastrophic. She could be on the verge of something very, very wrong and very, very bad. But desperate times called for desperate measures, wasn’t that right? And, put simply, she’d never felt more desperate. She wanted a baby so badly, the longing had taken over her whole life. Sometimes the end justified the means. David never had to know.
She checked her lipstick in the rear-view mirror and faked a smile. Her eyes were as hard as diamonds. For a split-second she wondered what the hell she was getting herself into, and whether she should just start the engine and drive away again, fast.
This is madness, Em. What good can come of it? Go back into town and get your wretched sandwich before you do anything you regret.
She tamped the thoughts down and got out of the car. Remember me, Nicholas? You soon will.
The art history building felt distinctly empty when she stepped inside. No footsteps, no voices, no ringing telephones. Then it clicked. Of course. Easter was approaching, term must be out; the students had evidently all buggered off back to their parents’ houses with bin bags of smelly washing in tow. She hesitated, feeling self-conscious with no crowds of students to hide amidst. Would the staff be away too, putting their feet up in their own homes or sunning themselves on distant beaches?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
Her heart stepped up its pace as she went over to the main reception desk. A printed note on the counter informed Emma that the office was closed for the next two weeks, and that all enquiries should be taken to the main reception. I don’t think so.
She glanced around, trying to gather her thoughts. The whole notion of turning up here had been so
impulsive that she’d barely had time to plot a convincing cover story. In the car, she’d decided she would gush out some nonsense about being on campus to meet an old friend, but the closer she came to Larsson’s office, the thinner and more easily picked apart the lie began to feel. Yes, I was just randomly walking past your office door – what a coincidence! How ARE you these days? It must be years …
Hmmm. He’d have to be stupid to fall for that one. And she’d have to be stupid to think it might suffice.
Her eye fell on the staff pigeonholes behind the desk, an old-fashioned wooden construction, rectangle built upon rectangle, the exact same place she’d handed in essays herself once upon a time, as well as secret love notes, tucked deep into the shadowy corners, saying, I dreamed about you last night and When can we see each other again?
The thought of her round, curling handwriting, the adornments of biroed hearts, gave her a pang inside. She’d been such an innocent, after all. Practically still a child.
She skimmed the names – PROFESSOR K. MALLORY, DR V. KHAN, M. CURTIS – and then there was his, printed black on white, DR N. LARSSON, and her legs suddenly felt boneless. He’d been here all these years, right where she’d left him.
Leaning slightly over the reception desk, she eyed the trays of paperwork, the files, the Rolodex – all abandoned for two weeks, according to the printed notice. What information might she find stored there? she wondered, adrenalin rising in her like sap. What might she be able to unearth about dear old Nicholas?
The sudden sound of footsteps behind her made her jump and she whirled around, feeling shifty, only to see …
Whoa. His presence hit her like a physical blow as he approached along the corridor, as dapper and smart as he’d ever been. His hair was now shot through with seams of silver-grey, and his frame was somehow smaller than she remembered, but his eyes were still so piercing they made her shiver. Dr Larsson, I presume.
