by Dani Atkins
‘Ally where are you going? You can’t just leave the hospital. Joe needs you.’ It was true, and should have been my trump card, but Ally just shook her head in denial.
‘It’s for Joe that I’m going,’ she said, from a kneeling position on the floor, as she continued to hunt for her missing bag. ‘Ah, here it is,’ she declared, plucking the black tote out from its hiding place with a vigorous yank on its straps.
Her hand swooped inside it, like a heron catching fish. ‘Did you happen to notice if there were any twenty-four-hour shops near here? A supermarket maybe?’
I was shaking my head slowly, wondering if I should either forcibly restrain her from going, or offer to accompany her. I didn’t think I’d have much success with either option. ‘I’m not sure. There might have been a mini-mart or something on the corner of the road opposite,’ I said doubtfully. ‘Sorry. I don’t remember.’ The taxi journey to reach David already seeming like it had happened weeks or even months ago, instead of just hours.
‘Yes, I think you might be right,’ Ally declared stuffing her feet into her boots. ‘If any of the doctors need me, can you tell them I won’t be long?’
‘So you’re coming back?’
‘Of course I’m coming back,’ she replied, as though I was insane. Which I thought was pretty rich, seeing as I wasn’t the one about to go haring off into the night like a mad woman.
As she spoke, Ally continued to rummage frantically within the depths of her bag, her hands capturing and then discarding its contents. ‘Damn. Where is it? Where’s it gone? Where’s my purse? It’s not here.’
She looked across at me as though I knew the answer. If she accused me of swiping it, I was just going to walk out. ‘Are you sure you had it when you got here?’
‘Of course I had it. I always keep it right here,’ she declared, thrusting the bag towards me so I could see the empty side pocket where apparently her purse should be.
‘Well, when did you last have it?’ I asked reasonably.
Ally was too stressed to be reasonable. ‘I don’t know. This afternoon, at Jake’s school . . . no, wait. I might have taken it out when I thought there were carol singers at the door. Only it wasn’t carollers, it was the police, coming to tell me about Joe’s accident.’
The fever in her face died at the memory. ‘I must have left it in the hall.’ She looked so bereft I didn’t even stop to think about whether it was wise to be encouraging her on whatever mission she was so hell-bent on completing. I reached for my own handbag, slid open the zip and extracted my wallet. I flipped it open and pulled out a twenty-pound note.
‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ said Ally, her eyes fixed on the note I was holding out towards her.
‘Is that enough? Do you need more?’
Ally stopped protesting that she had another option and reached for the money. ‘This is fine. I’ll pay you—’
I waved my hand dismissively. ‘Just go and get whatever you need so desperately and then get your butt back up here.’ I looked in the direction of first David’s room and then Joe’s. ‘I can’t keep an eye on both of them for long, you know.’
Chapter 10
Ally
I jabbed repeatedly at the call button of the lift, until I was rewarded with a single ping announcing its arrival. There was no one in the carriage as the doors slid open, but that was hardly surprising, given the lateness of the hour. The entire hospital was in sleep mode, and as I followed signs for the main concourse and the exit, I passed no one in the corridors.
There were several shops in the hospital foyer, all in darkness, and I didn’t doubt for a moment that one of them sold the item I was dashing out into the cold December night to buy. I’m sure it was sitting there on a shelf, all I had to do was wait until morning for someone to come along and roll up the metal security barrier. I could wait . . . but I had no intention of doing so.
I looked out at the fiercely swirling snowstorm buffeting against the automatic glass doors, before burrowing a little deeper into the raised collar of my coat and striding towards them. The doors hissed apart and belched me out into the December night on a small pocket of warm air, which the wind instantly swallowed. Snowflake flurries whipped my face, stinging my flushed cheeks like a swarm of insects.
My black coat had turned completely white by the time I finally stepped through the hospital gates and onto the public highway. The road was empty, but thankfully lit well enough by the amber glow of the street lamps. I looked left and right, seeing nothing beyond the swirling white particles except shuttered shop fronts and darkened windows. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps wandering around deserted streets in an unfamiliar area at this hour wasn’t exactly a wise decision. I was certain that Joe – who never got angry with me about anything – would be furious if he knew the risk I was taking. Good. I couldn’t wait for him to tell me off, yell at me even (although it was hard to imagine my easy-going husband doing that). He should know that nothing except sheer desperation could have prised me away from his bedside tonight.
Remind him of the good times. That’s what the nurse had said. And I’d tried that, but it didn’t seem to be working. There were a thousand good times to remember in our past, but maybe looking backward didn’t have the power to pull him away from the place where he was lost. Perhaps what he needed was the prospect of something wonderful ahead of us. Something in our future. It was too early, I knew that. I hadn’t intended to think about doing this until just before Christmas. I’d even pictured the moment: it would be Christmas Eve, Jake would be asleep (finally), and it would be just the two of us, making another new favourite memory. Joe would be leaving smudgy boot prints on the hearth, while I finished arranging presents beneath the twinkling lights of our tree.
Each year we exchanged a single gift on Christmas Eve before going to bed, and although some people might think it a little strange, I already knew exactly what I hoped to wrap within a nest of tissue paper and give to him this year.
The shop was just where Charlotte had said it would be. The neon signage flickered through the darkness, and drew me towards it like a magnet. Surprisingly, considering the hour, I wasn’t the only shopper in the bright fluorescent-lit supermarket. I passed several people in the aisles carrying fully laden shopping baskets, browsing in front of freezer cabinets or dithering by the displays of fruit and vegetables. I spent no time wondering who on earth did their grocery shopping while the rest of the world was asleep, but headed straight for the toiletry section at the rear of the shop.
I found what I was looking for straight away. There were several to choose from, some more sophisticated than others. They had clearly come on a long way since I’d last had need to buy one. Quite out of character, I didn’t even bother considering their individual pros and cons, or even which was the most economical, but plucked up the packet that was digital (because I like technology) and promised it was 99% accurate (because I like to be certain).
I passed the assistant Charlotte’s twenty-pound note, and shifted my weight impatiently from foot to foot as she proceeded to conduct just about every test imaginable to check it was genuine. The woman was either anally thorough, or an ex-employee of the Bank of England. My hands were balled into tight fists of frustration as she held the note to the light, tilting it this way and that to check its authenticity. I guess it must have been a quiet night for the shop staff after all.
Eventually satisfied that I wasn’t doubling up as a counterfeiter in my spare time, my purchase was handed to me in a white paper bag. I actually don’t remember my journey back to the hospital. I know I was half running through the falling snow (which was a little dangerous, considering the icy pavements), but I don’t remember crossing the road, or even if I looked before doing so (which was even more dangerous).
I summoned the lift, but got off on the floor below the one where Joe lay. I was looking for a Ladies’ room somewhere far less populated with staff than the Intensive Care Unit, and from the dimly lit wards leading of
f from the bank of lifts on this quiet floor, it looked as though I’d found it.
I headed for the sign with the blocky silhouette of a woman, pushed open the door and flicked on the light. Aware I was acting more than a little bit paranoid about being interrupted, I didn’t dare take the long narrow box out of its bag until I had slid home the bolt on the cubicle door. I lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down to read the sheet of instructions, as thoroughly as though I was sitting an exam on them the following day. I think part of me was screaming out to just get on with it and pee on the damn stick, while another part was too scared of what I would see there after I had.
At about the point when I could virtually recite the instructions without looking, I got to my feet and pulled the pregnancy test from its box and prepared myself, once again, for the longest three minutes of my life.
Charlotte
It wasn’t my fault that Ally had run off into the night like a woman possessed. I couldn’t have stopped her, even if I’d tried. But that didn’t prevent me from feeling the guilt of an enabler. I was used to feeling a lot of things about Alexandra Nelson (now Taylor), but concern wasn’t one of them. Nevertheless, after she’d practically run off the ward, clutching the money I’d given her, I went to the far corner of the room and stood by the only window that had a view of the road outside the hospital, and waited.
It was snowing so heavily I wasn’t even sure I would see her at all when she emerged from the hospital grounds, but I did. At least I think it was her. I leant close enough to the glass for the chill of the pane to feel uncomfortable against the skin of my face. Yes, it was definitely her. She was standing on the pavement, and she looked so small and vulnerable out there all alone in the snow, that I had to fight the urge to pull on my own coat and go after her. Which was totally ridiculous, because if I did that there would be no one here for either of our husbands.
I kept standing by the window until Ally had disappeared from sight. I glanced at my watch, noting the time . . . just in case . . . I had no idea what I was worrying about, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety that was bristling like an irritant against my skin. It was cold standing there in the corner, beside the draughty window, and eventually I turned away from the blackened pane of glass.
It’s strange how things work out. How everything happens for a reason. I never really stopped to think about things that way before, but afterwards it all seemed so glaringly obvious, that I wondered why I had ever doubted it. If Ally hadn’t believed her bag had been lost, she probably wouldn’t have pulled it out with such force that something within it would have tumbled out. If her purse hadn’t been missing, I never would have given her the money. If I hadn’t given her the money I wouldn’t have felt responsible for her heading out into the night. If that responsibility hadn’t led me to stand beside that precise window, then I never would have noticed the oblong leather purse half hidden behind the legs of the chair. And if I hadn’t found Ally’s purse, then absolutely everything would have been different.
I bent to retrieve the leather wallet, intending only to pick it up and keep it safe until Ally returned. I certainly had no intention of opening it, or of prying within it. But the catch was loose, or something bigger and more powerful than any of us was at work that night, because the clasp fell open and the purse opened like a book in my hands. On one side, trapped behind two plastic windows was Ally’s pink driving licence, and a bank card. All perfectly normal and exactly what you’d expect to find there.
On the other side, behind another plastic window, was something that most definitely should not have been there at all, and just the sight of it drained the blood from my face and made my legs so weak I seriously doubted their ability to hold me up. I sank slowly onto a seat, my eyes transfixed on the photograph that didn’t belong in Ally’s purse at all . . . because it should have been in mine.
My fingers were trembling as they reached out to touch that familiar face trapped behind the plastic protection. I felt his brilliant blue eyes boring into mine from the wallet, as my fingertips grazed tenderly over the dark hair of his head. I closed my eyes, knowing the feel and texture of it as well as I knew my own. I could feel the sting of tears that blurred my vision making the face I have loved for so long swim and shimmer before me.
Why? How was this possible? How could I not have known this? He looked just the way I had always known he would. I’d seen him a hundred times in my mind, but I never thought, I had never even considered, that the first time I ever saw a photograph of David’s child it would be in Ally’s purse instead of my own.
Ally – Eight Years Earlier
I hadn’t wanted to give Max a lift into town. My mission was definitely something I wanted to do alone. But he said he needed to pick up a couple of things before returning to college after the Christmas break, and I simply couldn’t think of a decent enough excuse to stop him from coming with me.
‘So can I cadge a lift?’ Max asked, seeing my hesitation. ‘I promise not to backseat drive,’ he said with a grin. Max hated the way I drove, and I hated the way he constantly told me so.
‘Erm, yeah, sure,’ I replied, hoping he would put my reluctance for company down to my post-break-up misery, which I was still wearing like a rattlesnake skin, that I couldn’t quite manage to shrug out of.
Luckily, Max headed towards the opposite end of the High Street to the shop I wanted to visit. The chemist’s was crowded, and several people looked up as the bell above the door clanged when I walked in. My steps faltered, and I scanned the random shoppers for faces I recognised. Thankfully there were none. I picked up one of the plastic baskets by the door and began to wander up and down the aisles. I shuffled self-consciously past the displays of toiletries and electrical gifts left over from Christmas, imagining the real purpose of my visit was printed in scarlet lettering on my forehead for all the other shoppers to see. I walked past the stand displaying what I’d come to buy several times before I found the courage to stop. By the time I did, my basket was filled with a cellophane-wrapped box of my mother’s favourite perfume, some shampoo, a bag of cotton wool balls, and a bright red nail varnish. None of which I had intended to buy.
I was running out of time and if I didn’t hurry, Max was likely to come looking for me, which was the very last thing I wanted. I was acting like a nervous teenage boy about to buy his first pack of condoms. The thought made me smile wryly. It would have been a preferable purchase to the one I was about to make, although not entirely unconnected.
I was just handing my debit card to the shop assistant when Max’s voice whispered in my ear. I jolted and gave a gasping wheeze of surprise.
‘Hey, relax, it’s only me,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘Why so jumpy?’
I think my eyes glazed for a second, before I lied to my friend. ‘Oh, no reason.’
The assistant passed the white pharmacy paper bag across the counter to me, and I could see the top edge of the box I’d just bought below the rim of the bag. I practically snatched the carrier from her hand and scrunched the top edges together, effectively hiding my purchases from sight.
We walked back to my car, with Max irritatingly wanting to look at the sale displays in all the shop windows, while all I wanted to do was get back home. The bag beneath my arm felt as though I was carrying a ticking bomb through the High Street. A bomb capable of exploding not just my world, but that of many other people, to smithereens.
Max said nothing on the fifteen-minute journey home. He waited until I had pulled onto our drive, engaged the handbrake and switched off the car’s engine. I turned to him, expecting he would open the passenger door and get out, but he didn’t move.
‘So, how late are you?’
‘I . . . I . . . what are you talking about?’
He turned to me then, with a look of disappointment. ‘Really, Ally? You want to play that game?’
I shook my head sadly, all the time aware that a feeling of relief was already beginning to course through me. ‘How d
id you—?’
‘Let’s just say that MI5 aren’t going to be knocking at your door any time soon. You’d make a terrible spy.’ I looked at him, trying to see if there was even a trace of judgement on his face. But there was none, and I should have known there never would be. ‘Besides, you were a bit slow snatching the bag away. I saw the box.’
‘You never said anything.’
‘While you were driving? You’ve got to be joking. You take your life in your hands when you get into a car with you at the best of times, without throwing something like this into the conversation.’ Somehow he always knew just how to make me smile. It was the very best part of being his friend. ‘So, you never answered my question. How far along?’
‘Well, I might not be “along” at all. It could all just be down to stress,’ I admitted.
‘What!’ exclaimed my old friend, throwing open his door. ‘Here I am, practically knitting some bootees, and it might all be for nothing.’
I was properly laughing as I leaned over to the back seat and plucked up the carrier bag that would be able to tell my future far more accurately than my friend could do.
Max scooted around the front of the car and put his arm around me. ‘So when are we going to do the test?’
‘We?’
‘Absolutely,’ he confirmed, pulling me closer to his side. ‘Whatever happens, Al, you’re not facing this alone. Now come on, let’s go and pee on a stick.’
Each one of those three minutes felt more like an hour. At Max’s insistence we had gone to his house to do the test. ‘You don’t want your parents to come home while you’re waiting for the results,’ he reasoned.
