To the Moon and Back

Chapter 2




Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip.

The sound of the heart monitor filled Ellie’s ears. As long as it kept on doing it, everything would be all right. With every fiber of her being, she willed the bipping not to stop.

It was four o’clock in the morning but the intensive care unit was flooded with blue-white light. Most of the nursing staff was busy working on an elderly patient at the other end of the ward, calling out instructions and rattling machines across the floor. Ellie shut out the noise they were making. She had to concentrate all her attention on the bips. And on Jamie, who was lying on the bed looking like a life-sized waxwork model of himself.

How can this be happening? How can it?

The left side of Jamie’s head was swollen and purplish-blue. He was unresponsive, in a deep coma. His skin was warm but when she held his hand he didn’t curl his fingers around hers. Saying his name provoked no reaction. Even when the doctor had rubbed his knuckles hard against Jamie’s sternum, he hadn’t reacted to the painful stimulus.

For God’s sake, he wasn’t even able to breathe on his own. A ventilator was doing the job for him. Plastic tubes were running into his body. Every function was electronically monitored. It looked like something out of a film but with ultra-realistic special effects. Except it was real. Already gripped with terror, Ellie jumped a mile when a hand came to rest on her shoulder.

‘Sorry,’ said the nurse. ‘But could we ask you to leave for a short time?’

‘Can’t I stay? I want to stay.’

‘I know, dear.’ The no-nonsense nurse shook her head, indicating the increased activity around the bed at the other end of the ward. ‘Just for a while, though. Go and have a cup of tea, and we’ll call you back as soon as we can.’

She wasn’t asking, she was telling her to leave. On wobbly legs, Ellie made her way out just as the doors crashed open and three white-coated doctors burst into the unit.

Time to phone Jamie’s dad. Oh God, how was she going to tell him about this? But she had to.

Please, just make it stop.

Outside, the sub-zero temperatures gripped her and her teeth began to rattle. The ground was slick with frost, the puddles were frozen. How had Jamie felt as the car had begun to skid on the ice? What thoughts had flashed through his mind when he knew he’d lost control? She couldn’t bear to think about it but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Horrific images replayed themselves over and over in her mind. If only there was a button she could press to switch them off. Had he cried out as the car had hit the crash barrier? When he woke up would he remember every detail or would his memory of the accident be blanked out?

OK, just do it, call Tony in LA and tell him what had happened. Would he be able to come over or would he have filming commitments he couldn’t get out of?

Ellie’s hands shook as she found the number on her phone. The time difference between LA and London was eight hours, so it was eight thirty in the evening there. How should she say it when he answered the phone? Which were the best words to choose? Right, just press Call. Do it. The sooner it was done, the sooner she could get back to Jamie.

Moments later she heard his familiar voice at the other end of the line. Do it now.

‘Tony?’ Aware that she was about to break his heart, her voice cracked with grief. ‘Oh, Tony, I’m so sorry. There’s been an accident…’

The nurse came out to find her in the relatives’ room fifteen minutes later. Making her way back into the intensive care unit where calm had been restored, Ellie saw the curtains drawn around the bed of the elderly man at the far end of the ward who’d been the center of attention earlier.

‘All sorted now, is he?’

The nurse said gently, ‘We lost him, I’m afraid.’

Lost him?

Did she mean the man was actually behind the curtains, dead ?

Oh no, that only happened on TV, at a safe distance. Not here, right in front of her, in real life.

‘Sit down, dear.’ The nurse deftly steered her on to the chair beside Jamie’s bed. ‘Take deep breaths and I’ll get you a glass of water. You have to be strong now.’

Strong? Ellie swallowed; she felt about as strong as a newborn kitten. Jamie was here on a ward where people died and every minute was more terrifying than the last. And she was wearing a Rocky Horror outfit that couldn’t be more inappropriate if it tried, but going home and changing into normal clothes was out of the question because she couldn’t leave Jamie…

Oh, Jamie, wake up, please just open your eyes and tell me everything’s going to be all right.

The dead man was placed in a covered metal trolley on wheels and removed from the unit by two porters. Two new patients arrived, a skeletal, yellow-tinged woman and a teenage boy. Relatives sobbed around their beds and looked strangely at Ellie in her jagged short skirt and fishnets. When none of the nurses had been looking she had kissed Jamie’s face but it hadn’t felt remotely like his face and now he had bits of giveaway glitter on his forehead and cheek.

‘Sorry about the glitter,’ Ellie told the nurse when she came back to do his vital signs.

‘It doesn’t matter a bit. We’ll just wipe it off with some damp cotton wool, shall we, so it doesn’t get into his eyes. Now, do you want me to see if we’ve got some spare clothes you can change into, or can you call a friend to bring something in?’

It still felt like the middle of the night, but the clock on the wall showed it was nine thirty. And it was light outside. With a jolt, Ellie realized she was supposed to be at work. Out in the real world, life was carrying on as if nothing had happened.

‘Um, I’ll call a friend.’

Outside again, she rang work. Paula answered the phone and let out a squeal of mock indignation. ‘You lazy bum, I had way more to drink than you last night and I managed to get in here on time!’

‘Oh, Paula, I’m at the hospital and I need you to h-help me…’

***

Hollow-eyed with lack of sleep and gripped with grief, Ellie stayed at Jamie’s bedside. The chemical antiseptic smell of the ward seeped into her skin. Doctors came and went. Various medical tests were carried out. Paula arrived in a taxi and floods of horrified tears, with a change of clothes and toiletries, and a hastily purchased Get Well card for Jamie signed by everyone at work. Not allowed into the unit, she clutched Ellie’s hands and kept sobbing, ‘You poor thing, I can’t believe it,’ and, ‘He’s going to be all right though, isn’t he?I mean, he’s not going to die?’

Numbly, Ellie submitted to the hugs. It was a relief when Paula finally unpeeled herself and left. All she wanted was to get back to Jamie and listen to the bips.

More hours passed, then the nurse came and told her that Todd was outside. This time, in lieu of family and because he was Jamie’s oldest and closest friend, the nurses agreed to let him on to the ward.

Ellie’s stomach clenched at the sight of Todd as he made his way over to the bed. There were cuts and bruises on his head and hands; kept in overnight for observation, he was limping but otherwise OK. He put his arms around her but she felt herself shrink away. She didn’t want to be touched and hugged; her skin was too sensitive. It was like having the flu, when it hurt to even brush your hair. How could two people be in the same car, in the same car crash, and one of them escape with scarcely any injuries at all?

It was unfair. So unfair. Fond though she was of Todd, what had he ever done to get off practically scot-free? Why did it have to be Jamie lying unconscious in the bed? Not that she could say this out loud, it wouldn’t be polite and it might hurt Todd’s feelings. Anyway, that was the thing about life and fate; it never was fair. Horrific things happened to good people and brilliant things happened to bad ones.

And it wasn’t as if Todd was even bad. It was just that out of the two of them, he wasn’t the one she loved with all her heart.

But he did love Jamie. Sitting back down, Ellie watched him move across to the bed and rest a hand on Jamie’s bare shoulder. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he gazed, ashen-faced, at his best friend.

Bip. Bip. Bip.

Bip. Bip.

Bippppppppppppppppppp…

‘Oh God, what’s happening? No no no—’

‘Don’t panic.’ The nurse bustled over, reclipped the electrode lead that had popped off when Todd’s sleeve had brushed Jamie’s clavicle. ‘There you go,’ she said as the regular bips resumed. ‘All fixed.’

‘Sorry.’ Visibly shaken, Todd backed away from the bed and wiped a slick of perspiration from his upper lip.

When the nurse had left them alone again, Ellie said, ‘How did it happen?’

‘I don’t know.’ A helpless shrug. ‘We weren’t going too fast. The car just took a bend and went into a skid. It was like slow motion, but kind of speeded up at the same time. I said, “Oh shit,” and Jamie said, “Oh f*ck.”’ His knuckles turning white with the effort of holding back the tears, Todd said, ‘We didn’t even know there was ice on the road until it was too late.’ His voice broke. ‘And then we just… went.’

***

Todd had left. More tests were carried out. Jamie’s bruises grew bluer. Night came and so did Jamie’s father; calling the unit, Tony informed them that he had just landed at Heathrow and was on his way to the hospital. The nurse who spoke to him recognized his voice and put two and two together. Within minutes, word had spread that Jamie was the son of Tony Weston… you know, the actor. Behind the professional exteriors, excitement grew. Watching them, hoping against hope, Ellie wondered if this meant they would somehow make more of an effort to help Jamie recover. Because if all they needed was an incentive to try harder, maybe she should offer them cash.

Then a vivid mental image sprang into her mind and she smiled, just fractionally, at the thought of explaining that to Jamie when he arrived home, gazed in disbelief at the bank statement, and demanded to know why she’d emptied their joint account.

Forty minutes later, Tony appeared. In his midfifties, tanned, and handsome, he was immediately recognizable to the staff as the respected actor who had moved to America and made his name as the quintessential upper-class Englishman, despite having been born and raised in a two-up two-down on a council estate in Basingstoke. If everyone else on the unit was discreetly thrilled to be seeing him in the flesh, Ellie felt only relief. She no longer had to be the one in charge. Jamie’s dad was here and he was a proper grown-up. Tears of exhaustion leaked out of her eyes as he hugged her.

‘Oh, sweetheart.’ It was all Tony said, all he needed to say. He smelled of airplanes and coffee and expensively laundered shirts; he was also unshaven. Turning his attention to Jamie, he gazed at him in silence and seemed to vibrate with pain. Finally he murmured, ‘Oh, my baby boy,’ and his voice cracked with grief.

The doctor materialized within minutes and introduced himself. Ellie watched him carry out the various neurological tests the doctors had been performing at regular intervals since Jamie’s arrival in the unit. She studied the expression on the man’s face, searching for clues, waiting for him to stop looking so grim and break into a smile of relief before turning to them and saying, ‘He’s really on the mend now, give him another couple of hours and then he’ll start waking up.’

Go on, say it.

Please, just say it.

The smile didn’t happen. She and Tony sat together in silence at Jamie’s bedside and watched the still-serious doctor write something in the hospital notes. Finally he turned to face them and Ellie felt as if her chair had been abruptly pulled away. A great rushing sound filled her ears; was this nature’s way of drowning out the words she already knew she didn’t want to hear?

The rushing sound was loud, but sadly not loud enough to do that. Fear coagulated like cement in her chest. Next to her, Tony was shaking his head slightly but the rest of his body had turned to stone. One of the senior nurses came to stand close to them, a sympathetic look on her face.

Don’t do this, please don’t say it, Jamie might hear you…

‘I’m so very sorry,’ the doctor said, ‘but the tests that have been performed are conclusive. There is no remaining cerebral function.’ He paused. ‘Do you understand what that means?’

No, no, nooooooo…

‘You’re telling us his brain is dead.’ There was a world of agony in Tony’s words. ‘He’s gone. My boy’s gone.’

The doctor inclined his head in somber agreement. ‘I’m afraid he has.’