by Vivien Brown
‘I don’t know what to say.’ Natalie brushed a sudden tear away and wheeled herself over to her own desk, picking up a pink heart-shaped pad of post-it notes that had certainly never been there before. ‘It’s wonderful. Whenever did you do all this?’
‘The moment you went home last night. Oh, don’t worry, it didn’t take us long, and it was fun. And we may have had a bottle or two to keep us company.’
‘Well, you could have kept some for me!’ A good strong drink was exactly what she could have done with after Jenny had dropped her bombshell only two hours before. And to think her mum had known too, and neither of them had said a thing.
‘What makes you think we didn’t?’ Josie slid open the bottom drawer of Natalie’s desk and pulled out an unopened bottle of red. There were at least another two lurking underneath. ‘White would have needed to be kept cold and we thought that lot from Accounts might steal it if we put it in the fridge. So, we’ll have a little drink at lunchtime, okay? To celebrate your impendings.’
‘Boozing at work?’ Natalie said, not having the heart to tell them what she was really feeling right then. ‘Whatever would Mr Baxter say?’
‘It was Mr Baxter’s idea!’ boomed a voice from behind her, and her boss stepped forward and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. ‘I know there’s still another week until you go on leave, Nat, but we wanted to make it a week to remember. Oh, I still need the work to get done, so no slacking, all of you, but let’s enjoy it for a change, shall we?’
‘Hooray to that!’ one of the girls shouted and everybody laughed.
‘Thank you. Thank you everyone. I really wasn’t expecting …’
‘What? That anyone would make a fuss, want to make this a special time for you?’ Josie said, laying a hand across her shoulders. ‘Nat, we haven’t had an office wedding for years. We’re almost as excited as you are!’
‘Come on, now, you lot,’ Mr Baxter yelled, clapping his hands together. ‘Work to be done.’ But he gave Natalie a cheeky wink as he walked away.
‘I wish Phil could see all this,’ Natalie said, switching on her computer and sliding the desk drawer closed. She could really do with seeing him too.
‘Bring him in. This celebration is as much for the groom as it is for the bride. Invite him over for lunch. The wine’s on us, but tell him to bring chips. Plenty of them. I’m not sure my cheese and pickle sandwiches will be enough to soak up the booze if I want to stay sober enough to work this afternoon!’
‘Thanks, Josie, I will.’ She forced herself to smile. She couldn’t tell them, couldn’t burst the happy little bubble they had created just for her. Happy face. Happy face. Keep it jolly. But she did want to see Phil and tell him everything. So badly. ‘I’ll get him to bring some salt and a big bottle of vinegar too. The chip shop never put enough on.’
‘Oh, don’t bother. You haven’t tasted the wine yet. Let’s just say it was quite cheap. Vinegar has nothing on this stuff!’
Natalie’s phone rang then and, as she answered it, she quickly switched into work mode, immersing herself in a world of irate customers and insurance claims and direct debit queries, but the strange and unexpected mixture of warm glow and terrible fear stayed with her all day as her thoughts swung wildly backwards and forwards between the good and the bad.
She was getting married in a few days’ time. But her dad wouldn’t be there. Her dad had cancer. She was going away on a wonderful honeymoon with the man she loved. But the other man she loved, almost as much, would be in hospital and missing it all. Because her dad had cancer.
She couldn’t cancel it all now, could she? Not after all the planning and the flowers and the cost, and Phil having booked the airline tickets. But her dad had cancer.
She could hardly wait for seven o’clock, when they had decided they were all going round to see him, together.
But Natalie knew that seeing him was going to make it all feel very real. And it was going to do one of two things. It was either going to reassure her, that he was okay really, that this was just a blip that the doctors were going to put right. Or it was going to frighten the life out of her. And, as she gulped back the tears, the worst possible thought flooded in and wouldn’t go away. Her wedding was going to be ruined because her dad wouldn’t be walking her down the aisle. And he wouldn’t be walking her down the aisle because he had cancer. And he just might die.
Chapter 35
Kate, 1991
It was the day that everything changed. Everything. One moment, life was as it always was. Chaotic, tiring, busy, but, at the same time, increasingly rewarding, fun, exciting. Bringing up three children at once was an experience that brought new challenges and new wonders, every day, and now that I was back at work, even if only on Saturdays, it felt like things were finally getting back to a manageable but slightly new version of normal.
But then the whole thing flipped over, like a train running out of control, hurtling at blinding speed until it left the track. My world shuddered and rocked and tumbled, tipping everything out, battered and broken and never to be the same again.
‘Kate.’ The bank manager’s hand rested on my shoulder as he knelt down beside me and spoke quietly into my ear. ‘Phone call for you.’
I didn’t see it coming. I looked up from my counter, a pile of cash in my hand, a queue of customers still awaiting my attention. ‘Can you ask them to wait? Or take a number and I’ll call back when I have my break?’
‘No, Kate.’ There was something about his face, the look in his eyes. ‘Go and take the call. Use my office. I’ll take over here.’
I didn’t argue, just stood up and went out to the back room, closing the door behind me.
‘Hello? Kate Campbell speaking.’
There was a silence and then there was Dan, not really sounding like Dan at all. ‘Kate?’ His voice was shaking, racked by sobs as he finally managed to get the words out. ‘You have to come, Kate. It’s Natalie. She’s been hurt.’
‘Hurt? What do you mean hurt? How badly hurt? Where are you? Where is she?’
‘We’re at the hospital. All of us. We came in an ambulance. Nat … she got hit … by a car. She’s …’
‘What? You were meant to be looking after her!’ I was screaming at him now, sinking into my boss’s leather chair, my knees suddenly unable to hold me up for a moment longer. ‘What was she doing anywhere near a car?’
‘I’ll explain when you get here, Kate, but let’s not get into all that now. Just get here, okay? Quick as you can. She’s alive, but she’s unconscious. And it looks bad. Really bad.’
I didn’t stop to explain, to close my till, to find my coat. I just grabbed my bag and ran. I didn’t have the car. Dan had kept it at home in case he needed to take the kids anywhere. Not that he ever did, not on his own. The hospital was only a few stops away on the bus but I couldn’t stand there on the pavement, waiting and watching, not knowing when it might come, whether it was on time, how crowded it might be. There wasn’t time for any of that, not when my little girl was lying on some bed somewhere, hurt, in pain, needing me to be there.
I ran and ran, my bag bouncing against my hip, not caring that my shoe was rubbing my heel, that there were tears streaking down my face, that I could hardly breathe with fear. And then I saw a taxi. It was going the wrong way, but it was empty, its ‘For Hire’ sign on display, so I flung my arm out to hail it and stopped running, panting hard, clinging to a lamppost and trying to get my breath back as the driver did a U-turn and pulled up beside me at the kerb.
‘Hospital, please,’ I spluttered, climbing in the back.
‘You all right, love?’ the driver said, peering anxiously at me in his mirror. ‘Is it A&E you need?’
‘A&E, yes.’
‘You’re not ill, are you? Only, I don’t want anyone passing out in my cab. Or being sick or anything. We’re not medically trained, you know. Cab drivers.’
‘It’s okay. It’s not me. It’s my baby. She’s been in an accident. She’s only three ye
ars old. Please, just get me to her. Please …’
‘Right you are, love,’ he said, suddenly bursting into action and revving the engine as if we were at the starting line of a Grand Prix. ‘Leave it to me. Three minutes, okay? Guaranteed. Or you can have the ride for free.’
***
Dan was pacing up and down by the reception desk when I got there, waiting for me, his face pale, biting his nails. ‘Oh, Kate. Thank God.’ He almost threw himself at me, and I could feel his hand shaking as he grabbed me and led me through a pair of glass doors marked ‘No entry’ and into the emergency room.
Natalie looked so small, lying on a narrow bed, all covered in wires and tubes, one of those big collar things around her tiny neck, her eyes closed as if she was fast asleep. She was surrounded by doctors and nurses, some rushing about, others standing to each side of her, touching her, talking to each other about things I didn’t understand.
‘This is my wife Kate. Natalie’s mum …’ Dan spoke quietly, as if he didn’t want to interrupt.
One of the nurses left the bed and came towards me. ‘Kate. Hello, I’m Lucy. Please, try not to panic. I know it looks frightening, but a lot of this is routine. Tests. Precautions, while we establish what’s going on.’
‘Oh, my God. What happened to her?’
I shouldn’t have left her. Not with Dan. Not with anyone. She was my responsibility, my baby. As I gazed down at her, not knowing if she was going to live or die, all I wanted to do was scoop her up and hug her, make everything all right. It was what mums were supposed to do.
‘It seems she was hit, pretty hard, by a car. There were eye witnesses and the police will tell you more, as soon as you’re up to it. But, for now, your daughter has injuries to both legs, a lot of cuts and bruises, a bump to the head, which means she’s still very groggy. But our main concern right now is her spine, finding out what damage there is, if any …’
‘Her spine? Dan? What do they mean? What’s happened to her spine?’
‘I don’t know, Kate.’ He was grasping for my hand again, but I already knew it was for his benefit, not mine. He wanted reassurance, forgiveness. He had allowed this to happen to our daughter and he wanted me to say it was all right, that it wasn’t his fault. But it was his fault, wasn’t it? Three-year-olds don’t just find themselves out in the street, going under the wheels of speeding cars. Three-year-olds don’t understand danger. Three-year-olds are meant to be looked after, watched over, kept safe. Especially by their own fathers.
I couldn’t look at him. I pulled my hand out of his and shook him away.
‘How? How did this happen?’
‘She just slipped out. I don’t know how. There was a parcel delivery. Something from one of your catalogues, I think. And the front door was open. I was signing some slip or other and I didn’t even see her go. He must have left the gate open as he came in. The delivery man. The next thing I knew was the squeal of brakes, the scream …’
I could see it happening. In my head. In horribly graphic detail. My child, running out onto the pavement, spotting something across the road, maybe a dog or another child, laughing to herself, wanting to go and investigate, the way she always did, stepping off the kerb … I closed my eyes but I could still see her, bouncing off the bonnet, flying through the air like a rag doll.
I could hear the car screech to a halt, hear her scream, hear the awful deathly silence that followed. And I was there, seeing it all. Right there. Only I wasn’t. I was at work, totally oblivious to my child’s pain, and it was Dan who was there. Dan …
Where was Dan? Where was he when my child was being hit? Being hurt? And where were the others? Then? Now? I felt a sudden panic wash over me.
‘My other children. Where are they? Beth and Ollie?’
‘They’re safe, Kate.’ Lucy, the nurse, pointed through the glass doors. ‘You can see them whenever you like. We’re looking after them, in the relatives’ room.’
Safe? How could I believe my children were safe, ever again? Natalie was meant to be safe, but she wasn’t, was she? She was lying there in front of me, looking anything but safe, and this was down to Dan. All down to Dan.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I turned round and slapped him, as hard as I could, across his face, my hand stinging with the force of it. I saw the shock on his face, his eyes widening, his mouth forming a startled O. See how it feels, Dan, I thought. Pain, that terrible unexpected pain, and from someone who’s supposed to love you.
One of the nurses came at me, her arms stretched out, trying to make sure I didn’t do it again, and I heard someone call for Security, but I didn’t have the strength to hit him again. Or the will.. I just grabbed for the end of the bed to steady myself and let the tears fall. I couldn’t have stopped them if I’d tried.
***
How do you tell a three-year-old that she may never walk again? Never run, like her brother and sister, never jump or hop or dance the way other children do? That her whole future was now on a new path, and that none of us knew where it led. Career? Boyfriends? Marriage? Children of her own? They told me they were possible, probable even, but there would be barriers, difficulties, obstacles at every turn. There were bound to be.
They told me I shouldn’t try too hard to think that far ahead, that I should concentrate on the here and now, that there was so much that disabled children were capable of. Swimming, riding horses. But not ballet, I thought, not twirling in a fairy dress or winning the hundred metres or showing me her somersaults. They said there were lots of schools who were adapting their classrooms and their playgrounds to accept children in wheelchairs, so she needn’t be separated from her siblings, needn’t feel different. That she could still lead a happy, well-balanced life. Read, learn, think. It could have been so much worse. But she wouldn’t walk. That was what kept banging away inside my head. She would not walk. Could not walk. And, barring some future miracle of medical science, she probably never would.
The house would need work too. Natalie would never make it up the stairs without someone to carry her, and we couldn’t do that for ever. She would grow, she would need her independence, her privacy, space to manoeuvre her chair.
I couldn’t get it out of my head. Any of it. The accident, or my imagined version of it, and the fact I had not been there. It was driving me mad, haunting me, night and day, until I could hardly function. The vision of a changed future I could never have imagined, even in my wildest nightmares. I lay there for weeks afterwards, night after night, finding sleep impossible, all the uncertainties flying around in my head, buzzing in my ears like persistent angry wasps.
And then she was coming home, to a very different life from the one she had left behind, and I couldn’t do anything to change it. No amount of widened doorways or wheelchair ramps or welcome-home toys were going to make up for what she had lost. Or for what Dan had done. And for that I didn’t think I could ever forgive him.
***
‘We can try for compensation,’ Dan said, slowly, carefully, into the darkness. I tried to breathe evenly, but my heart was going into overdrive. What? He couldn’t mean it, surely? But, of course, he did. I knew then that he was missing the point as usual, missing what really mattered. That nothing, no amount of cash, would ever be enough to compensate, and that Dan would never change. ‘Or something from the insurance. We should make someone pay.’
‘Who?’ I lay, flat on my back, aware of him next to me, on his half of the bed, not touching, the gulf between us widening by the day. ‘That poor woman driving the car? She didn’t have any chance of stopping in time, Dan. It wasn’t her fault. The police told us that.’
‘I know whose fault it was, Kate. You don’t have to keep reminding me. Don’t you think I feel bad enough already?’
I turned my back and stared into the blackness. Bad? Did I care how bad he felt? He deserved to feel bad.
I felt his hand on my shoulder, his body inch closer, the warmth of a bare leg pressing against mine. ‘Kate?’
I tried to ignore him, pretend I was asleep, but he knew I wasn’t.
‘No, Dan.’
‘Just a hug. Nothing more. Please, Kate, just a hug.’
But I couldn’t. I kept my back to him, shook his hand away, and buried myself in the torment of my own thoughts until, what felt like hours later, I finally fell asleep.
NUMBER FOUR
Chapter 36
Ollie, 2017
They all sat around Dad’s small living room and drunk mugs of tea that none of them had the stomach for.
Ollie had watched the girls all take their turn to hug him as they arrived, and had extended his hand to shake before realising that he needed a hug just as much as his sisters did, and pulling Dad in towards him. How thin he was!
And now they sat around under an invisible grey cloud they all knew was there, and struggled to work out what to say.
‘So, it’s all booked, then?’ Ollie said, draining his mug and searching for somewhere to put it down. ‘The op, and everything?’
‘Yes, so I don’t want any of you worrying. This thing has been caught early enough and I will beat it. I promise you I will. You don’t get rid of me that easily! So, I don’t want any negativity, okay? And …’ He was looking straight at Natalie. ‘No tears! Ollie will do a fine job of giving you away. In fact, there’s nobody I’d rather hand the responsibility to than you, son.’
Ollie gulped back his emotions and nodded.
‘I’m signed off work for a while, and I’ve still got a day or two before they take me in, so you’re all welcome to pop round again any time. It’s always good to see you. Well, you know that. I can’t remember the last time I saw you all together. A rare treat! And please come in and visit me in my sick bed once it’s done. Not you, Nat, obviously. You’ll be sunning yourself somewhere exotic. Bridlington, I think Phil said it was! Bring me in a bunch of grapes if you like. Do you remember, Kate, when Rich did that? Ate most of them himself by the time he’d gone, and left us the pips! Or sneak me in a bottle of wine if you like. And I’ll want to hear all about the wedding, and see pictures …’
