Keeping Sam

by Joanne Phillips

  ‘Right, we’re all set,’ Marie said, emerging in a cloud of perfume, an umbrella shoved under her arm.

  ‘For what?’ Kate asked, eyeing the umbrella. It was at least twenty-five degrees outside, and humid as hell.

  ‘For our trip to the big smoke, of course.’ Marie linked arms with Kate and pulled her down the hall. ‘I thought I’d tag along, you don’t mind do you? I need to get my hair cut. It’s just totally out of control.’

  Kate smiled, taking in Marie’s lacquered hair, styled today into something resembling a beehive. She pitied the hairdresser tasked with putting a comb to that.

  On Bow Hill, the sun had turned everything hazy and the very pavement felt as though it was melting under their feet.

  ‘Marie,’ Kate said seriously, ‘I really don’t think you’ll need an umbrella. Unless there’s some freak weather system moving in that none of the rest of us can see.’

  She tilted her head to look out across the horizon. The haze was even stronger there, and the sky stretched on over blues and greens, broken only by the random pattern of a fishing boat or one of the leisure cruisers that sometimes moored off Corrin Cove. Her shirt was already stuck to her back and they’d only been outdoors for a minute.

  Marie giggled, then opened the umbrella – an enormous affair, with frilled edges and peacock blue circles and a bright pink handle. ‘Silly girl,’ she said, tipping the umbrella over her shoulder and nearly knocking Kate off the pavement in the process. ‘This is a parasol, not a brolly. I have to look after my complexion, you know. UV rays are hell for wrinkles.’ She peered at Kate’s pale face, then shook her head. ‘You don’t need to worry about that for a few years yet. But mark my words – no man wants a woman with skin like leather.’

  They set off down the hill arm in arm, and Kate found that she could simply carry her crutch in her free hand, so solid was Marie’s support. And after a while she found that she wasn’t leaning on her friend much at all. The sun lit up the world as brightly as a hundred watt bulb, and Marie lit up her mind with her chatter and her gossip and her seemingly endless supply of warmth. Eschewing the bus – ‘Public transport is just so sticky, don’t you find?’ – Marie insisted on paying for a taxi into St Austell, citing Kate’s crutch as reason enough to make it worthwhile. Kate found herself deposited outside the medical centre fifteen minutes later, with a promise that Marie would swing by and pick her up in two hours’ time.

  ‘Bye,’ Kate called, waving to Marie’s cheerful face pressed up against the taxi’s rear window. She turned and regarded the medical centre warily, then glanced again at her watch. She was early, but that was okay. Without Marie’s buoyant presence, Kate could feel her mood slipping dangerously. On the wall just inside the entrance was a sign for the cafeteria. She would buy coffee and cake, she decided, and try not to think about anything at all. One step at a time, Joseph had said. One foot in front of the other. Look at me now, she thought, pushing open the door to the cafeteria, hardly leaning on her crutch at all. Maybe Joseph was right – maybe it was all in the mind. She wondered if that theory applied to every part of life. If she could apply the same force of will to getting Sam back as she had to learning to walk again, she might just be in with a chance.

  ***

  Nico lacked Joseph’s steely-eyed determination, but within an hour Kate had been put through her paces and was declared to be doing ‘Very well indeed, considering.’ Kate thought this was fair praise, and asked about moving to a stick.

  ‘Maybe,’ Nico said, but this clearly meant yes because he produced a selection from a cupboard in the therapy room and proceeded to have Kate walk up and down with each of them in turn until she’d found one that felt right. She chose a metal-tipped walking cane that was made, according to Nico, from blackthorn wood. She loved the feel of its curved handle in her palm; loved how it flexed a little as she leaned on it.

  ‘This is the one,’ she said, smiling, and Nico nodded, his expression serious. He gestured for her to sit, and began to scribble notes onto a fresh page in her file.

  ‘It goes on computer later,’ he explained, nodding towards an ancient-looking computer screen collecting dust in the corner. ‘We’re not behind the times,’ he added with just a touch of defensiveness. Kate couldn’t care less. She stroked her cane and wondered whether she’d be allowed to keep it once she was fully recovered.

  ‘So, Kate Steiner,’ Nico said with a smile, ‘tell me how you are settling in down here.’

  She gave a tiny shrug, unsure how to answer. ‘The house social services found for me is really nice. I mean, the lady who owns it is nice.’

  ‘And your son?’ Nico asked, his gaze unwavering. ‘Have you seen him? It’s all in your file,’ he added when Kate blanched. ‘I don’t mean to pry. Your therapist in Manchester, he wrote it all down.’

  ‘Sure.’ Kate swallowed over a lump in her throat. ‘I’ve seen my son. And he’ll be coming to live with me very soon.’

  ‘Good.’ Nico smiled. ‘Are there any other symptoms you’ve noticed since being discharged? Physical or otherwise – you must let your GP know if you notice anything untoward.’

  There was something, but Kate was loath to bring it up. Besides, Nico was her physical therapist, not her doctor, as he himself had just pointed out. She hesitated, but then decided to mention it anyway. He’d probably tell her it was nothing, and then she could just forget about it.

  ‘I get nightmares,’ she confessed. ‘I mean, really bad ones. I don’t like to sleep much anyway – I lost so much time to sleep, it doesn’t feel right to just lie down and close my eyes. I suppose that sounds stupid to you.’

  Nico said nothing. Kate sighed, then carried on.

  ‘So, when I do let myself fall asleep I just have these awful nightmares. I think they … I think they’re about the attack. At least, that’s all I can come up with to explain them.’

  Nico glanced at her file again. ‘You were hit on the head by an intruder.’ He made it sound oddly mundane. Kate nodded, not trusting herself to speak for fear she might start crying. It was being in a hospital environment again, she told herself. It brought up all the feelings of insecurity and helplessness she thought she’d left behind in Manchester.

  ‘Do you see your attacker in your nightmares?’ Nico asked, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees. Like all physiotherapists Kate had ever met, he wore tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, making him look younger than perhaps he was, like a grown-up boy playing sports at school.

  She shook her head. ‘No face. Just this sense of someone behind me. It’s daytime, and I’m in my kitchen. It’s not the exact same kitchen, you understand, but it is where I live. Where I lived, I mean. And there’s someone in the room with me. I can’t hear him, but I can sense him. Just standing there. And I’m too afraid to turn around. In my dream, my legs are weak and my body is useless, just how it was when I first woke up from the coma. And Sam is there. Sam is sitting in his playpen, chattering away, gurgling and laughing and chewing on his plastic train, and all the time I’m just staring at him, unable to move a muscle. So scared. Just so afraid that something is going to happen to him, and if I just stay very still he might be okay.’ The tears came now, just as Kate had known they would, but there was nothing she could do about it. She wiped her face on her sleeve, just one quick swipe, hoping Nico wouldn’t notice. ‘In my dream,’ she said, ‘I can sense the man is behind me, he’s standing right there.’ She pointed behind her now, and then turned her head involuntarily, as though there might actually be somebody there. Stupid. She chastised herself, and looked at Nico to see whether he wanted her to carry on.

  ‘And?’ he said. ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, it’s just this terrible, paralysing fear. I wake up sweating, and then I curse myself for going to sleep in the first place. If I don’t sleep I don’t have the nightmare. So it’s easy enough to avoid.’ She laughed, but Nico’s face remained serious.

  ‘You need to sleep,’ he sai
d. ‘There is no option of not sleeping, no matter how long you were comatose, no matter how much time you feel you lost. You will sleep, and it will help you get better. This nightmare, it may be psychosomatic – a reaction to the feelings of helplessness and fear you had during and after the incident. Or …’

  He tailed off, regarding Kate with an odd expression. She opened her mouth to prompt him to continue, then closed it again. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he was going to say.

  ‘Or, Kate, it might be that you are merely remembering. And that you are afraid to turn around in your dream because if you do, you will see who it is who did this terrible thing to you.’

  It wasn’t as though the thought hadn’t occurred to her already, but now, hearing Nico say the words out loud, Kate felt a prickly sensation on her neck. She shook her head, and forced a smile onto her face.

  ‘I’m sure it’s just stress,’ she said. ‘Nothing more.’

  She left Nico’s treatment room with an appointment for the following week, and waited outside the medical centre for Marie.

  Was it possible that she had seen her attacker? If so, why didn’t she remember who it was? If she could recall a face, or any detail whatsoever, it would help the police to identify who had done this, and if they could find that person they might be able to recover the rest of her things. More importantly, if the police could arrest her attacker, Kate might be able to prove that the cannabis hidden in her flat was not hers at all, but had been put there by someone else. But why? To make her look bad? But who would want to do that? Perhaps they’d been disturbed and had hidden the drugs with the intention of coming back later. But disturbed by who? Not by Kate – the police report had been clear that Kate had been at the kitchen table when the attacker struck. If only she could remember what had happened ...

  If only the nightmares weren’t so terrifying that she woke up the very minute she began to turn around.

  Chapter 10

  In the taxi on the way home, Marie asked Kate why she didn’t get in touch with Sam’s father now that she was out of hospital and fighting to get custody of her own son again.

  ‘It’s not exactly custody,’ Kate explained. Although it might as well be, she thought, for all the rights she seemed to have.

  ‘Look,’ Marie said, straightening up the myriad shopping bags that fell over again every time the taxi rounded a corner, ‘I realise you can’t just waltz in there and drag him out of your parents’ house. I know you have to tread softly, for his sake. But surely if his dad were here too, they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. They couldn’t argue that you couldn’t cope, or whatever it is they’re saying, if there were two of you looking out for little Sam.’

  Kate sighed. ‘Marie, you don’t know the half of it. Things would be ten times worse for me and Sam if Evan were here, believe me. He’s bad news. No, really,’ she added, seeing Marie’s sceptical expression. ‘He is. You wouldn’t want him living in your house, put it that way.’

  ‘He’d be quite welcome if you vouched for him,’ Marie insisted.

  ‘Well, that won’t happen,’ Kate said, shivering involuntarily. ‘Look, I was young when I met him. Young and stupid. He swept me off my feet –’

  ‘So he’s a bit of a charmer, is he?’

  ‘Yes, but not in a good way.’ She could see that Marie didn’t get it. ‘Okay, listen to this. Evan had a friend, a guy called Jake. They decided to set up a business together – Evan was always off on some harebrained scheme or other, I don’t think he ever had a real, honest job in his life. So, Jake puts up the money and Evan takes off abroad to buy a load of stock. He’d sourced a place in Estonia, he said, that produced computer parts dirt cheap. Meanwhile, Jake was down at the local ProntoPrint getting sorted with business cards and flyers, and he found a unit on an industrial estate where they could store their stock. They’d even taken on an apprentice from the technical college, all totally above board.’ Kate looked out of the taxi window at the sweeping coastline and allowed her mind to slip backwards. She’d been so hopeful that time, convinced that Evan would come good.

  She should have known better.

  ‘So,’ Marie prompted. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You think you know where this is going,’ Kate continued with a sigh. ‘Someone like Evan, you think he’d just disappear with the money, go on a bender, gamble the lot, something like that.’

  ‘He didn’t?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Sadly not. What he did was much worse. The electronics were a cover for another deal that Evan was working on. He used them to get “merchandise” into the country – you can imagine what kind of merchandise. Worse still, he used Jake’s name to do the deal, used his passport to travel under, left a trail a mile wide for the authorities. He screwed the Estonian dealers out of their cut, then hot-footed it back to England with the money and the shipment. By the time the police got involved, Evan was nowhere to be found.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘Jake, however, was here large as life, with a storage unit full of dodgy electronics absolutely reeking of traces of Class A drugs.’

  ‘Kate! How on earth did you get mixed up with a character like that?’

  ‘I told you,’ Kate said glumly. ‘I was young and impressionable. When I met him I had no idea what he was capable of. And he did have a good side. He was fun, he could be caring – like really, really attentive. And he was very sexy. When Evan looked at you the world seemed to stop turning. It was kind of –’

  ‘Irresistible,’ Marie finished. ‘Yes, I know. Big Tony is just the same.’

  ‘Hardly.’ Kate laughed. ‘Believe me, in the lovable rogue stakes, your Tony wins hands down. There’s not much to love about Evan.’

  Marie fell quiet by her side, and Kate sank into her thoughts again. It was true that he had been irresistible. And very, very charming. And Kate had been so deeply in love that nothing Evan did affected her for the longest time. Until she finally grew up.

  ‘What did you do, Kate, before you had Sam?’ Marie had her purchases gathered up around her legs again; they weren’t far from the promenade.

  ‘I worked in a bar for a while. Did some cleaning. Just anything, really. I’ve never been afraid of hard work,’ she added, wondering why Marie thought it necessary to ask. Probably worried about the rent. ‘Listen,’ Kate said earnestly, ‘I’m serious about this alteration service, about standing on my own two feet. And if it doesn’t work out I’ll get a job. I’ll do anything, work around Sam as soon as he starts nursery. I know the benefits cover my rent for now, but I’m not a freeloader. I never have been.’

  Marie shook her head, but before she could speak the taxi lurched to a halt and all the shopping bags tipped over. Kate dived forward to help repack them, glad to be out of her landlady’s inquisitive gaze. The truth – that she was qualified for nothing and fit for even less – smarted a lot more back here in Corrin Cove than it ever had in the streets of Manchester.

  ***

  By Wednesday Kate was so desperate to see Sam it was like a physical ache. The morning brought a heavy fog that hung over a flat grey sea, tightening Kate’s chest when she went out for her walk. All the way along the promenade her stomach rolled and churned. She had a bad feeling, but couldn’t pinpoint why. Things were progressing okay; in fact, the process of getting Sam back had moved up a notch. Elizabeth had phoned that very morning to confirm that the application to discharge the guardianship order had been lodged with the court.

  ‘Are you certain there is no chance of doing this amicably?’ Elizabeth had asked again. ‘The court prefers a mediated solution in these cases.’

  Mediate it then, Kate had wanted to say. She knew it wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault, but why was everyone talking to her as though she could do anything about it? Hadn’t she tried to talk to her mother, to find some common ground?

  ‘If by amicable you mean that I simply agree to give up my son and visit him a couple of times a week then no, I don’t think that’s very likely,�
�� she said instead. She heard Elizabeth’s weary sigh. ‘Look,’ Kate continued, flicking her hair back over her shoulders and setting her jaw determinedly, ‘I’m happy for them to see Sam as often as they like when he comes home to live with me. They’ve done a great job, and it’s not as though I’m ungrateful. I’m not saying they’re monsters,’ she added. ‘It’s them who have a problem with me, not the other way around.’

  Kate shifted the phone to her other ear, wondering whether she was being entirely honest with Elizabeth. The knot in her stomach hadn’t eased after seeing her father on Monday; if anything it had only grown larger. Could he really have changed? And if so, what did that mean for her and Sam?

  ‘Well, that’s all good,’ Elizabeth said, winding up the call. ‘It will look good to the court that you are being reasonable, that you’re the more moderate party. Take care now. Enjoy your freedom – you’ll have Sam back very soon, I’m sure.’

  Those words had been like a balm for her soul. Kate had drunk them in, then replayed them over and over. When Marie came out, magically appearing as soon as the call was over, Kate had shared them, spoken the words out loud, and together they had started to make plans for Sam’s room, deciding what colour it should be painted, what kind of furniture he’d need.

  ‘I have a cot in the attic!’ Marie exclaimed. ‘I’ll get Patrick to fetch it down as soon as he gets in from work.’

  For once, Kate hadn’t argued.

  Her mother was courteous but cold when Kate arrived at the house.

  ‘Sam is in his bedroom,’ Barbara said. ‘You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it. It’s your old room.’