скачать книгу бесплатно
‘You were crying in your sleep,’ the woman said, patting me. ‘It’s totally understandable in the circumstances. I’ve just started my shift, so I’ll be here all night with you. Just call if you need me.’ She moved away quietly, tending to someone else in a bed nearby.
Crying in my sleep? I blinked. My eyelids felt heavy and sore. I was in a hard bed with stiff sheets and the woman – I checked out the unflattering uniform – was a nurse. I was in hospital. What was I doing here? Where was Luke? I shifted myself up, beginning to feel scared. I felt bruised, inside and out. I moved my hands tentatively until they were on my stomach. It wasn’t flat and it still felt firm-ish but I could tell it was … hollow. Empty.
I felt a sob rising in my throat. The memories came back in a rush: the pain, the frantic phone calls to the midwife, to Luke, and eventually, to Dee, who must’ve called the hospital. I gripped the sheet. Doctors, nurses, my clothes being removed, a gown being tied. My hand being held tightly by someone (Dee? A nurse?) and screaming for Luke. But he hadn’t come. And I had … God, I couldn’t even think about what I’d had to go through. Stillborn, they said. Just one of those dreadful, regrettable things, they said, stroking my sticky hair from my face.
My beautiful, four-month-old baby … the baby we had longed for, was gone forever. They said it was a girl. This, I had taken in. A girl. A girl who should have had stars on her ceiling and a pretty, lilac bedroom.
I put my hands on my face and started sobbing, chest heaving, shoulders shaking.
‘Oh, darling.’ Dee appeared carrying two paper cups with lids. Her blonde hair was in disarray and she was wearing a pair of Hello Kitty pyjama trousers and a massive grey Transformers T-shirt that must have belonged to Dan. ‘I’m so desperately sorry.’
I started to cry again, hating myself for being such a girl. But it mattered, it mattered so much. The pain was unbearable. Not the physical pain, the other kind.
Dee put down the coffee. ‘I guessed your news at the barbecue when you didn’t drink Dan’s sangria.’ She took my hand and squeezed it. ‘I don’t even know what to say to you because it’s so bloody cruel. I’m so fucking angry that this has happened to you again.’
‘Where’s Luke?’ My voice sounded croaky.
Dee shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been so worried about you, I left it to Dan. He’s been calling and calling, but he can’t track him down.’
‘Did you check my phone?’
Dee bit her lip. ‘No. Sorry, Lucy; I didn’t even think … it’s all been so dramatic …’
‘It’s okay. I’ll have a look. Where is it Nurse?’
The nurse turned back to us. She picked up my notes and then her expression changed. ‘Lucy Harte? I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. You’re Luke Harte’s wife.’
‘Yes.’ I sat up. ‘Has something happened?’
Dee stood up, her eyes darting around. ‘What’s going on? Please tell us.’
The nurse hung the notes back on the bed, her mouth tight. ‘I’m going to get someone to come and see you. Wait here please, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
I turned to Dee urgently. ‘My phone …’
She rummaged in the bedside cabinet and found it. ‘Here. Jesus, there are tons of missed messages. Are they from him?’
‘No. Oh my God. I can’t … Dee.’ I listened to one of the messages. ‘They’re from Joe, Luke’s partner. Christ, he’s been in an accident – a serious one …’ I put a hand to my mouth. ‘We have to find him, now. Dee, help me … please.’ I flipped back the sheet and swung my legs over the side of the bed, trembling as my feet hit the cold floor.
Dee stood paralysed. ‘Shouldn’t we just wait? Oh fuck it, we’re doing this. I brought you some clothes …’
‘No time. I want to find Luke.’ I was petrified. What had happened to Luke?
‘I get that, but … hang on.’ Dee tore off her T-shirt, revealing a pink vest top. ‘Put this on. And these.’ She grabbed a pair of my flip flops from the side cabinet and threw them down by my feet. Grimly determined in spite of my fear, I led the way and we took a lift, two sets of stairs and meandered down several corridors. Dee kept trying to thrust me into empty wheelchairs that were lying around, but I refused, pausing only once to ask someone the way. The slap, slap, slap of my flip flops on the scrubbed hospital floor was driving me nuts, the sound incongruous against the relative hush of the corridors.
We were given directions to Luke’s room and my heart threatened to leap out of my chest. I felt Dee reaching for my hand and I curled my fingers around hers.
We went in together, almost bumping into a youngish doctor – or was he a consultant? He had some notes in his hand and he was talking to a nurse. They were in the way of the bed and I couldn’t see Luke.
‘Mrs Harte? I was just about to come and find you. I’m Dr Wallis, Luke’s consultant.’ He seemed surprised to see me, but he was calm and pleasant.
I squeezed Dee’s fingers. My terror was barely contained; it simmered just below the surface. I could feel the blood pumping round my body, was suddenly aware of its ebb and flow.
Dr Wallis turned to me. ‘This will probably be shocking for you, but I’m going to talk you through what happened to Luke tonight, okay?’
I think I nodded.
I stared past him, trying to catch sight of Luke. When I did, I felt as though I’d been knocked sideways. He didn’t look like himself at all. His lovely face was caked with dark, dried blood, especially round his mouth. Someone had tried to clean him up but there had obviously been more important things to tend to.
‘Luke was brought into A&E some hours ago,’ Dr Wallis was saying. ‘He was assessed by the trauma team and he was immediately referred to the general surgery team. The most life-threatening condition that needed to be dealt with was Luke’s ruptured spleen.’
A ruptured spleen. I searched my memory, trying to recall Luke’s study notes, the ones he used to recite aloud before exams. A ruptured spleen was dangerous but it might heal on its own or it could be removed.
I glanced at Luke again. His body was still, bizarrely so. Luke was never still; he was constantly talking, laughing, goofing around. He had bandages binding almost every limb, halting him, keeping him inert. He looked completely broken. Broken; as though he was made out of china, not from bones and organs and skin. What the hell had happened to him?
The specialist’s voice swam into my consciousness. As well as the ruptured spleen, Luke had several broken bones, including ribs, both legs and collarbone. Damage to the spine, full extent of damage not yet known. A head injury resulting from a shaft of metal from the front grill of the lorry sticking out of Luke’s head like a chocolate flake in an ice cream cone. Surgery to remove the metal.
‘Luke also had a cardiac arrest when he was brought into A&E,’ Dr Wallis said gently. ‘We think this was as a result of hypovolemic shock, brought on by his ruptured spleen. Spleens bleed like you wouldn’t believe,’ he added, ‘which in turn means there is a high risk of this kind of heart attack.’
‘This kind of heart attack?’ Dee asked, looking dazed. ‘Is there more than one kind?’
Dr Wallis smiled at her. ‘Yes. But I won’t bore you with the details of the other kind. The only other thing I must add, Mrs Harte, is that we are monitoring Luke closely as he is at high risk of developing a blood clot. We call it an embolus,’ he said, I think for Dee’s benefit. ‘Luke has undergone extensive surgery and now that he is immobile and in a comatose state, this is something that can be a concern.’
Really? A possible ‘embolus’ was cause for concern? Jesus. My brain couldn’t compute any of this. I flinched inwardly from the onslaught of information; I had to break it down. Broken bones could be mended – or operated on, worst case. The spleen had been dealt with. Comas were beyond my comprehension though, not something I could drag from my memory bank.
I walked slowly to the bed. Luke was hooked up to lots of machines. They were beeping intermittently, overlapping one another with shrill monotony.
I reached out a hand. It was shaking horribly. I wanted to touch him. Would he feel cold to touch? No, how silly. His chest was rising and falling rhythmically, accompanied by artificial sucking and blowing noises, which would have sounded comical, except that they were anything but. I took Luke’s hand. It was warm. Warm, but motionless. I gripped his hand, willing him to respond. His face remained immobile, his eyelids not even fluttering at the touch. He wasn’t Luke.
Dr Wallis was still talking. ‘The next few days will be critical. How Luke responds to his injuries early on will be a key indication of his overall recovery, but there is much for him to get through. If he stays in the coma for a few days or more, we’ll probably run a CT scan. This rules out bleeds or infarcts.’ His expression, when my utter bewilderment gave away how little I was following, was apologetic. ‘As traumatic as this is for you to see, Luke’s coma is probably helping him right now.’
I nodded. That I remembered. The coma was protecting Luke from the pain – it was the body’s way of shutting down and coping. The specialist murmured a few more words to Dee, then left. The nurse stayed. Protocol in ICU; I knew that.
‘He’s going to be all right,’ Dee said, putting her hand on mine. Her voice sounded artificially bright and I knew without turning round that she was crying. ‘He’s going to pull through and when he does, he’s going to tell us to stop being so silly and emotional.’
‘He … he doesn’t know about the baby, Dee.’ My chin quivered. ‘Should I tell him about the baby? What do I …? I don’t know what to do.’
‘Oh, darling.’ Dee bent down and curled her arms around my neck.
I felt her rest her face against my hair, her cheeks wet. I swallowed, twice. I could feel something rising up inside me and I knew that, when it took hold, it was going to overwhelm me. I willed Luke to wake up and make my world right again. He didn’t and it wasn’t.
My heart clenched. I had lost our baby. I had lost our baby and my best friend, the one person I needed to talk to about it, was lying in a coma. I needed Luke’s arms around me. I needed him to tell me it was all going to be all right, even though I knew it wasn’t. I just wanted to hear his voice.
When Joe – Luke’s paramedic partner – urgently dashed in and started telling me what had happened, I found myself unable to be brave any longer. Hearing Joe’s earnest, apologetic account of the ghastly details, I broke down and sobbed.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_f11a376d-0931-5dd0-a97f-d6f23e98a127)
Patricia (#ulink_f11a376d-0931-5dd0-a97f-d6f23e98a127)
Thirty minutes later, Patricia arrived at the hospital. Inside Luke’s room, she stopped abruptly in front of the bed. She wasn’t prepared … she hadn’t known what state he would be in. Lucy had left her a garbled message and, as soon as she had received it, Patricia had pulled on some clothes and driven to the hospital. But she hadn’t expected this – she hadn’t anticipated seeing her son looking as though he’d been broken in half and battered with a hammer.
Patricia felt hysteria coiling up inside her. My boy. My beautiful boy.
‘What happened? How could this have happened?’ Her voice became shrill even though she wasn’t sure who exactly she was addressing. A nurse looked up. She was unperturbed by the emotional outburst and seemed about to speak, but when someone else entered the room she placidly returned to her notes.
‘Mrs Harte. I’m so sorry.’
Distraught, Patricia turned. The young man who had just entered the room was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. She willed her brain to catch up.
‘I’m sorry. Have we … do I know you?’ Patricia noticed that he was wearing the same teal outfit Luke wore. He was a paramedic.
‘I’m Joe, Luke’s partner,’ the man explained. He was pale and his uniform was streaked with blood.
Patricia stared at it, sickened. Was that her son’s blood? She put her hand to her mouth. She was in danger of throwing up all over Joe’s trainers if she didn’t concentrate with every fibre of her being. Patricia turned away. She focused on Luke again, trying to make sense of everything.
This wasn’t right; she wasn’t meant to see her son’s life hanging in the balance like this. If anyone should leave this earth first, it should be her. Not that he was going to die. She wouldn’t allow it. She would gather him up in her arms and bloody-well breathe for him if it came down to it.
Patricia was stricken. What could she do for her boy?
‘I – I drive the ambulance,’ Joe said, raising his voice a little. He rubbed a hand over his neck, seemingly unable to tear his eyes away from Luke’s inert body.
‘Were you with him when this …’ Patricia waved a shaky hand in Luke’s direction, ‘happened?’ Her vision swam and she was grateful when Joe guided her into the chair next to the bed, worried she might faint. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
Joe took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I was with Luke. I – I can’t believe this.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Patricia knew she sounded peevish but she wanted to know the details.
Joe started speaking in an uneven tone. ‘We were driving to a house on Charlotte Street … a woman had fallen down the stairs, suspected broken leg. We were almost there and I was about to turn … I checked both ways. Right, left, right. It’s automatic, isn’t it? I do it twenty … forty times a day.’ He paused, the horror of the accident reflected in his eyes. ‘I turned, with plenty of time to avoid oncoming traffic and this lorry came out of nowhere. It was going so fast, but I saw it and I tried to avoid it. I nearly made it, too; it was only a glancing blow.’ Joe wiped a sleeve across his eyes. ‘It ploughed into Luke’s side, Mrs Harte. Right into it. The ambulance spun round once, maybe twice and then it tumbled right over and we hit the side of a house.’
Patricia sat numbly, gripping her handbag in order to contain herself. She sat primly, her knees and ankles rigidly locked. She was sure she must look frightful. Her hair was uncombed and she wore a crumpled top and skirt, the first thing she had happened upon when she had got Lucy’s message.
Patricia could hear Joe speaking, but she could barely register what he was saying. In the distance, Patricia heard a piercing cry and she panicked that she had voiced the horror spiralling up inside her. But no, it was someone else in another room. Patricia relaxed fractionally. Her agonised shrieks were still under wraps. Just about suppressed.
‘I’m just so sorry, Mrs Harte,’ Joe was saying, wringing his hands. ‘I keep going through what happened in my head, reliving it to see if there was something I could do differently.’ He shook his head. ‘But I honestly don’t think I could.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Joe,’ Patricia replied automatically. She had no idea whose fault it was, but she felt the need to reassure this poor man who clearly blamed himself.
‘Get yourself a cup of tea,’ she told him, feeling that he might appreciate some motherly concern. It was the best she could manage, in the circumstances.
The nurse nodded. ‘She’s right, Joe. Get some rest. There’s nothing more you can do here.’
Clearly dazed and perhaps realising he was superfluous, Joe left the room.
‘What’s going to happen to my son?’ Patricia asked the nurse. ‘Can someone please tell me? I’m … I’m thinking terrible things … I just …’
‘Of course.’ The nurse smoothly reassured her. ‘Dr Wallis, Luke’s specialist, has already been through the details with your daughter-in-law and I’m sure you’ll be spoken to as well.’
Patricia nodded dazedly.
‘Your daughter-in-law should be back soon,’ the nurse reiterated. ‘She’s just gone for some final checks and then she’ll be discharged.’
Final checks? Discharged? Puzzled, Patricia stared after the nurse. Lucy hadn’t been with Luke in the ambulance, so what on earth was the nurse talking about? Turning back to Luke, Patricia found her mind focused only on him.
My brilliant, funny son, she thought. Luke had been her rock when Bernard died. Clichés were clichés for a reason, as Bernard always said, and this one was true. Luke and Ade had shouldered the coffin together with the pall bearers at the funeral and when Ade hadn’t been able to manage reading their father’s favourite poem Luke had taken over. He had politely ushered everyone out of the wake when he noticed his mother crumbling and had put his arm around her when Ade couldn’t.
‘Do stop crying now, Mum,’ Luke had said, dabbing clumsily at her face with a tissue. ‘You look like Alice Cooper. Dad couldn’t stand him.’
‘I know. He always said he looked like a panda in drag.’
Luke smiled. ‘Yeah, that was it. Look, you know you’ll always have a plus one while I’m around, Mum. I might not be as handsome as Dad but I’m a much better dancer. Dad was the king of jive, but I do a mean Time Warp.’ He had tightened his grip around her shoulders. ‘Which is far cooler, when you think about it.’
She had soaked his jumper sleeve with tears at this, grateful for his support. Ade was the eldest, but he hadn’t shown half of Luke’s gumption and when – to her surprise and intense disappointment – he had let them all down for the last time, Luke had been left to pick up the pieces.
Patricia felt the familiar flash of resentment. Someone needed to tell Ade about Luke. Would he come home? He deserved to know, he might want to come back. And where was Nell? Nell should be here; Patricia had called her as soon as she had received the call from Lucy. And where was Lucy? Patricia had no idea.
Unable to suppress it any longer, Patricia let out a heartfelt cry of anguish at what had happened to her beloved son.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_6d557cf7-2086-5ee0-9d95-df94d3414cb3)
Nell (#ulink_6d557cf7-2086-5ee0-9d95-df94d3414cb3)
Nell felt a warm arm snaking around her body. A male arm; solid and reassuring. Hairy, too. She opened her eyes blearily, wondering where she was. She snuck a look to her right. Ah, yes. It was all coming back to her now. She leant on her elbow and checked her watch. It was 4am. 4am on a Monday morning.
Nell lay back down with a jerky sigh. After struggling to concentrate on her portfolio the night before she had headed out for a few drinks with friends. It wasn’t something she normally did on a Sunday night, but for some reason, she had felt the urge to let her hair down. And somehow, she had ended up here. Nell shifted slightly, hearing Cal stir.
Nell stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t bargained on receiving a phone call from him asking her to come over to his flat late last night. Such a thing hadn’t figured in her plans and she had surprised herself by hesitating. Or rather, she had been taken aback that she had hesitated for only the briefest of moments. It had been a booty call, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. Which meant that she was weak. And stupid.
Did Cal deserve this, this instant acceptance of his request? Nell bit her stumpy fingernail, then abandoned it. He had barely spoken to her over the past few weeks. He had just about acknowledged her at college, but only because it had been unavoidable.
Nell knew she should feel guilty. She should feel used. But she didn’t. She felt desired and loved and beautiful. She felt horribly guilty, too, but the other feelings were outweighing the bad stuff and that was what she was struggling with. Last night had felt special, just like the other times. It probably wasn’t though – at least, not for him. How could it be?
Nell glanced round the room, not sure she liked what she saw. It was inherently masculine with dark furniture and old-fashioned drapes she suspected had come with the flat. The classic ‘man cave.’ But, on reflection, perhaps the fact that it lacked a woman’s touch was for the best.
‘Hey.’
Nell turned over. Cal’s blonde hair was tousled and his eyes were a murky green in the faded light. He wasn’t handsome, by any stretch of the imagination. He had a crooked nose, his face was a craggy map of wrinkles and he really needed a shave because her chin was ripped to pieces. He was also nearly thirty years older than her. And that wasn’t the worst part.
Nell studied Cal. It was his mind she admired, his intellect. He was older, wiser, experienced and … yes, he was caring. He really was. Other women definitely found him sexy – she had heard some of her friends discussing him in lectures. Not that he actually conducted many these days. Since he’d been promoted to the title of professor, he told Nell, his days were spent wading through paperwork with the ‘odd, joyous moment of teaching’ thrown in.
Yes, Nell decided. Cal was sexy. But there had to be more to it, otherwise she was going straight to hell. She didn’t have a current reference – the only one she could come up with was to liken Cal to the actor, Richard Burton. Maybe it was the Welsh thing; Nell wasn’t sure. Or the charisma. Or the …
‘I’m glad you came over.’ Cal reached out and stroked her thigh.
Nell leant over to grab her T-shirt, pulling it over her head. ‘Where’s my phone? I thought I heard it in the night.’
‘Haven’t a clue.’ Cal yawned. ‘Check the floor. Most of your stuff ended up there.’
