by Julie Cohen
When he reached Felicity’s bed, the curtains had been drawn shut all around it. He slipped between them, quietly, so as not to wake her. She was gone.
The sheet was folded back almost precisely, in a very un-Felicity way. He glanced back through the curtain; both of the loos for patient use were empty, their doors open. Her bedside cabinet was ajar and her shoes were missing, as was her handbag.
Quinn set off at a rapid walk. He checked the side wards, the reception desk, the waiting room. The staff were busy at a bed in one of the other side wards, an alarm beeping out. If she’d heard it going off, she’d have known this was a good time to slip away unnoticed.
And go where? Just for a walk, or to escape? To meet the man she’d rung to rescue her?
The corridors were quiet. He met two orderlies pushing a sleeping man in a bed, railings up.
‘Have you seen a woman in a hospital nightgown walking by?’ he asked them. ‘Thirty years old, dark hair in a fringe. My wife’s left her bed and I don’t know where she’s gone.’
‘They wander sometimes after dark,’ said the orderly. ‘Full moon tonight. She’ll be safe. I’ll get some help.’ He raised his radio.
Quinn bit back a response about his wife not being a dementia patient. ‘I’ll keep looking.’
He was close to the stairs; he flew down them and towards the hospital exit. The reception desk was unmanned at this time of night and the lobby was empty. Outside, there were two patients smoking, strangers united in addiction.
‘Have you seen a patient come out? Dark hair in a fringe, slender, wearing a hospital nightgown and carrying a handbag? Could have got into a car, or walked off with a man?’ The smokers shook their heads, but their cigarettes were still long, they had just lit them; they might not have been there, or have been distracted by lighter and packet.
The entrance was quite well-lit by streetlights and lights from the hospital itself, but he couldn’t see Felicity anywhere. A small queue of cabs lined the kerb, but a quick question to each driver elicited no information.
She couldn’t have been gone for long. It had probably taken him twenty minutes max to get coffee, which would be long enough, but surely if she’d been missing from her bed for some time, some of the staff would have noticed. He wished he’d thought to touch her bedsheets to see if they were still warm. If a car had been waiting behind the taxi rank, the same place that Suz had parked the night before, she could have got into it without anyone noticing. If she’d rung the other man, and asked him to come and get her.
He ran to the end of the block anyway, looking around for her. A searching glance both ways down the street, and then up in the other direction. His footsteps echoed against the hospital building.
She could be anywhere. She could be gone.
Quinn pounded on his forehead with both fists. He’d suspected she didn’t want the surgery, but he’d dismissed it as too ridiculous. Why would she refuse something that would almost certainly save her life?
She’d risk it for love.
Breathing hard, he turned back to the hospital entrance. Maybe someone inside had found her. On the way, he tried ringing her phone, but he wasn’t surprised when it went straight to voicemail.
If she had gone with the other man, what message could he possibly leave that would convince her to come back?
He took the stairs up rather than the lift, and was about to push open the door to the second floor where the ward was, when something occurred to him.
Full moon tonight, the orderly had said. And the stairs continued up, towards the roof.
His phone, set to silent for the hospital, vibrated with a message as he climbed. He curled his fingers around it in his pocket, but didn’t pause to check it. At the top of the flight was a glass door to a rooftop garden. Open 10.00–18.00 NO SMOKING said the letters on the door, but when he pushed it, it opened.
It was cooler out here. The garden was surrounded by walls, with light shining from some of the windows overlooking it, but it was still dark and quiet. She sat on a bench not far from the door. Silver moonlight lit her face and the white of her nightgown. Quinn sat down beside her. She was looking up at the moon, so he did too.
‘I just left a message for you,’ she said. ‘I thought you might worry. Your phone was busy.’
‘I was worried,’ he said.
‘I wanted to see the sky. I might never see it again. It might be the last time.’ She drew in a deep breath. So did he, to taste the same air, perfumed with honeysuckle and warm asphalt.
‘You don’t want to have the surgery, do you?’ The dark made it easier to speak to her.
She shook her head. ‘I’m frightened.’
‘I thought you’d run off with him.’
She sighed, but didn’t answer.
‘Would he rescue you, if you asked him to? Take you away so you wouldn’t have to have the surgery?’
‘I’m going to have the surgery. And no, I don’t think he would. I think he’d be as vehement about it as you are. Because it will probably save my life.’
‘Who is he? How long have you been seeing him?’
‘I knew him when I was twenty. My mother painted a picture of him – I saw it when we went to New York.’ Her voice was weary and sad.
‘Is that when it started? When you saw the painting?’
‘A little before that. I had the first seizure thing in May.’
‘Had you been thinking about him before? During our whole marriage?’
‘No. I didn’t think about him. It came out of the blue, with the scent. And then the feeling, and the picture.’
Quinn clenched his hands on his lap. ‘How many times?’
‘How many times have I had the feeling? I’m not sure. A lot.’
‘No, I meant how many times have you slept with him?’
‘I haven’t.’
He let his silence show his doubt.
‘I haven’t, Quinn. Not for ten years. When you walked in, I was – I was just about to tell him to stop. That we couldn’t.’
He heard the hesitation. It was a lie, to spare him. And even if it wasn’t, did it even matter?
‘Do you think he really loves you?’ he asked instead. He knew the answer, but he wanted to know what she’d say.
‘He says he does. Though …’ She paused. ‘Yes, I believe that he thinks he’s in love with me.’
Careful phrasing. Hesitation. It was nearly as bad as walking in on them together.
‘But your feelings about him aren’t real,’ he said. ‘They might have been real at one point, but now they’re being triggered by seizures. You say you didn’t think about him at all before you started smelling the flowers?’
‘Not particularly. As something that happened once, but it was over.’
‘So he might love you, but the way you feel about him is a symptom. It’s not real. After tomorrow, it’ll be gone, or it’ll just be a memory. You’ll be back to normal. A few days in hospital, and right as rain.’
Even to himself, it didn’t sound convincing.
She gazed at the moon. He saw the glitter of her eyes and thought there were tears in them. ‘You don’t understand, Quinn. For me, the feeling is very real. And it comes and goes, yes. But when it’s there, it’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt.’
‘It made you leave me.’
‘And that’s why it has to be real. Don’t you see? If it’s not real, if it’s just a symptom, then I left you for no reason. Ewan fell in love with me again for no reason. I hurt you, I hurt your family, your mother hates me, Suz can’t bear the sight of me, because one of my arteries wasn’t working properly.’
‘But that’s good,’ he said wildly. ‘That’s wonderful. It means you’ll be cured, and everything will be fixed. You can come home and we can begin again.’
‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’
Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Serenitatis. Moon dust never stirred, it kept imprints for ever. Some hurts were too strong to be ex
posed to the air.
He spoke this one anyway. It had to be spoken aloud some time.
‘Even though it’s a disease,’ he said, ‘you still feel more for him than you ever have for me.’
The words hung between them.
‘I’ve known it,’ he said. ‘You’ve never loved me as much as I’ve loved you. I’ve known it from the start.’
‘I’ve had some doubts. I tried to hide them from you.’
‘We’ve tried to hide a lot of things from each other.’ He swallowed. ‘Why did you marry me?’
‘I was very sad, and you made me feel better. I wanted to marry you. I thought we would be happy. You’re a good man, Quinn. You’re the best.’
He made a derisory noise, an empty gesture at the moon. Here I am. Look where it’s got me.
‘You’re the last person in the world who I should hurt,’ she said. ‘And yet if I could feel so much for a man who wasn’t you, every day I stayed I was hurting you more.’
‘You’ve never opened up to me, Felicity. You’ve always been keeping part of yourself separate. We’ve been married for a year and I love you, but I feel as if you’re a stranger. I asked, and then I stopped asking, because you never told me how you were feeling.’
‘I wanted to rest. I had so many things going through my head and when I was with you, I didn’t need to think about them. You made it safe for me. When I first met you, I wanted to scream all the time. I missed my mother so much. I wanted to run into the street and tear my clothes and never stop crying. You made it so that I could be quiet. You made me smile again. I don’t think there was anyone else who could have done that for me. I’m so grateful to you.’
‘But that’s not enough.’
‘I thought it could be. I wanted it to be. I wanted it so much, Quinn.’
‘What can I do? What can we change so that we can be happy together?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure that I can trust myself.’
‘Other people rub along,’ he said. ‘They stay together even if it’s not perfect. They can move on from their problems. Why does it work for some people and not for us?’
‘Maybe because we want everything.’
I could have had everything, if you’d just love me back.
The door opened and someone poked their head out. ‘Hello? All okay out there?’
It was the orderly he’d spoken to earlier. ‘I’ve found her,’ Quinn called. ‘We’re having a breath of fresh air and then we’re coming back in, to the ward. Can you let them know?’
‘Hot night,’ agreed the orderly, and closed the door.
The sound echoed. Side by side, they looked up at the sky. She’d come up here to see it because it might be the last time.
Whatever happened tomorrow morning in the surgical theatre, this could be their last time seeing it together.
‘Tell me what you’re afraid of,’ he said. ‘Are you afraid that you’ll die?’ The neuroradiologist had gone through the possibilities in great detail: stroke, heart attack, problems with the anaesthesia. The procedure they’d chosen was less risky than opening up Felicity’s skull, but like any surgery, it wasn’t safe.
‘I’m afraid of waking up and not being me any more,’ she said. ‘What am I, except for what I feel and what I do? If all of that was caused by a blood balloon in my brain, who will I be when it’s gone?’
I’ll still love you no matter who you are. But was that true? Had he still loved her when he saw her in another man’s arms? That fury, the jealousy, the gut-wrenching pain – was that love? He dipped his face between his knees, and then looked up at the moon again.
‘Tell me something about who you are,’ he said. ‘Tell me anything. We might never get a chance again.’
She gazed at his face. He felt it rather than saw it: how she had turned her entire attention to him.
‘In my first memory,’ she began, ‘I was sitting on a baby elephant.’
Chapter Thirty-two
I TALK TO Quinn, watching his face. I tell him about my memories as I remember them, even though they might be wrong, even though they might have been created by paintings or changed over the years from recollection or anecdotes or from things unseen happening in my brain. Because one thing, maybe the only thing, that this whole experience has taught me is that the reality you carry within you is the only one you can act upon.
I may have fallen and broken my arm, or I may have been caught by my mother before I hit the ground. My mind wants me to know that I was safe and loved, never at risk from elephants. And that’s the greater truth, isn’t it?
I say all of this to him and more, there in the light of the full moon. His phone vibrates, but he ignores it. He listens to me. Twice he laughs; once he makes a movement that might be to take my hand before he thinks better of it.
I tell him things that happened only between my mother and me and which I’ve never spoken about: the feeling of her arms around me, the eternal smell of linseed, the smile on her face when I told my first Igor story, the way she spoke about her one true love whom I never knew but who helped to create me.
If something happens to me tomorrow, if I forget all of this, I won’t know it’s gone. Quinn will be the one who remembers it. Just like he’ll be the one who remembers all the secret moments between him and me. And they might not be the same way that I remember them – they may be poisoned for him with betrayal and disappointment – but Quinn’s reality is as important as mine. I trust him entirely.
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’ he says. ‘When I asked you? When I took you to New York? You clammed up. But these are good memories, Felicity.’
‘When I think about how she lived, I can’t help but think about how she died. And it was my fault that she died the way she did.’
I hardly believe I’m saying this out loud. But we’re here, outside. And I might never speak like this to Quinn again. I might never speak like this to anyone. On the night before I might be changed for ever, I want someone to know what I did.
I want Quinn to know. I want him to see me truly.
‘She died of cancer, didn’t she?’ Quinn says. ‘How could that be your fault?’
I said something similar to this to Ewan, when he was telling me about Lee’s death. I pretended not to understand how guilt can come in many forms. Even if it’s not your fault – even if it’s fate or cancer or a mechanical failure or an aneurysm in your brain – if you had a part in it, you are responsible.
‘She was living in Cornwall,’ I tell him. ‘And I was in London, so I didn’t see her as much as I should have done. She’d been feeling poorly for ages, but she didn’t tell anyone. I went to visit her, and she’d lost loads of weight, and I was frightened. She hadn’t gone to a doctor. She didn’t want to know, she said. She’d rather just carry on as she was.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ says Quinn, but his voice is kind.
‘I made her go to her GP, and then for tests. It was stage-four liver cancer. The doctor said it was going to kill her. He gave her a month without treatment, maybe six if she had chemo. My mother just smiled and thanked him and asked me to drive her home.’
‘You didn’t, though, did you?’
‘She told me that she’d achieved everything she wanted to, more than most people. And that she’d experienced everything. And that she’d seen me grow up and I didn’t need her any more. So she was ready to go. She thought she’d work right up until she couldn’t any more, and then she’d have a big party, maybe, with all of her friends and lovers and colleagues, and then she’d slip away.’
‘Okay,’ says Quinn. ‘I understand. You feel guilty because you let her have the death she wanted. But you could have told me that, Felicity. I wouldn’t have judged you for it.’
‘I didn’t let her have the death she wanted,’ I say. ‘I made her have the treatment. Chemotherapy made her sick. She couldn’t leave her bed or use the toilet, and even then I didn’t let her die at home, I brought he
r to hospital so that she could have another week. Another day. All that time that she didn’t even want. I couldn’t let her go, and because of that she had more pain than I can imagine.’
I expect him to say something: blame me for doing this to my mother, for not telling him before. Or soothing words to tell me that he would have done the same thing, if it were Molly who was sick.
He doesn’t say anything and it is so quiet on this rooftop, despite the traffic noise, filled with the silence between us again. But this silence gives me room to speak.
‘And on the day before she died I was beside her bed. I was holding her hand and she looked up at me and she could barely speak then – she was on so many drugs for the pain that she didn’t recognize me some of the time. But she looked at me and I could tell she knew who I was. She whispered it. She said, Why have you done this to me?’
My cheeks are wet. I wipe them.
‘She said, Why have you done this to me? And I didn’t have an answer, Quinn. I had no answer to give her.’
He shifts on the bench and he puts his arm around my shoulder. He pulls me to him and I curl into his warmth. It has seemed so ordinary until now, when I might lose it.
As always at night, he feels bigger than he looks during the day. More solid, more strong. He drops his head onto mine and speaks into my hair.
‘Everything you’ve done,’ he murmurs, ‘you’ve done out of love.’
‘I don’t think that makes it any better.’
He holds me, this man who, for now, is my husband. I listen to his breathing and his heartbeat. I feel his arms around me and I inhale his scent, of cotton and coffee, a faint trace of damp from the cottage. I haven’t known until tonight how much I missed him. How adrift I’ve been without him. How much he has mattered to me all along.
I take it all and try to store it away inside me, somewhere it won’t be touched tomorrow, when a platinum wire will change my brain.
