I have no memory of how I got to Rushford, or why, but having got there, I lacked the strength or the will to go any further. Every time I tried to get to grips with things, my mind just slithered away.
The bit in my head that had kept me safe through childhood found me a two-room flat in an old building somewhere at the back of St Stephen’s Street. It was cold, damp, and dirty and I could barely afford it. I applied for jobs but rarely received even an acknowledgment. With no employment history, no previous employers, and no references, I had no chance.
It was an alien world. I’d been nearly five years at St Mary’s and everything had moved on and left me behind. It would have been a difficult readjustment if I’d left the unit normally, but this sudden displacement left me bewildered and lost. I had no place here. I was more at home in the Cretaceous period than in modern-day Rushford. Grief and shock kicked down my defences and left me vulnerable and exposed in a world I couldn’t comprehend.
I had one small electric cooking ring and lived off baked beans and packet soup but even so, my meagre savings melted away like ice in the sun.
The cold didn’t help. There were days when I barely moved, let alone went out. I was filled with a dreadful lethargy that could not be shaken off. I cut my hair. I couldn’t keep it clean and drying it was impossible in my damp, mildewy rooms. Besides, I didn’t need it any more. It stuck out in spikes everywhere. It scared me – God knows what it did to everyone else.
One day passed so much like another that I was shocked to find three months had passed. Small signs of spring began to appear. Then I began to cough.
I ignored it to begin with. I’ve been injured a lot; some of it friendly fire, but I’m rarely ill and waited for it to go away. It didn’t. I drank copious amounts of water and sweated it all back out again half an hour later. My temperature was so high I wondered if I could hook myself up to the broken water heater. My chest grew tight and hurt. Then my back hurt. Breathing in was one pain and breathing out was another.
And then, one morning, I had a different pain.
Fortunately, I lived in St Stephen’s Street with the Free Clinic just around the corner. I got myself there somehow, expecting antibiotics and maybe painkillers if their budget was reasonably healthy. I sat in a cubicle and tried to explain. I saw people’s lips move, but fortunately, none of this was anything to do with me, so I curled into a ball, closed my eyes, and let someone else sort it all out.
Chapter Twelve
Knowing you are pregnant for only twenty minutes is not the same as being pregnant for only twenty minutes. I wish it was.
I stared up at the ceiling above me and tried not to think about anything. In my head, Izzie Barclay said, ‘Everything you touch, everywhere you go, people die,’ over and over again, relentless and unstoppable. She was right. How many more lives would be lost because of me? How much more damage could I do? The last piece of Leon Farrell had gone. Now he really was dead. Now I really was alone.
They chucked me out after four days.
I stood outside in the sleety rain and tried to think. Even my bones were cold and that had nothing to do with the temperature. A passing van splashed me with cold water and I realised I’d been standing there for over half an hour.
My future looked bleak and consisted of a cold, damp, mould-filled flat and very little money. There was nothing left for me. I’d lost the man I loved and I’d lost his child too. Suddenly I was so tired, tired of everything, tired of trying to get by, tired of struggling with love and loss. I felt as if the strings of my life had been cut with a pair of scissors. This was the end for me. I’d had enough.
This is how it ends. One minute you have a job, somewhere to live, friends, and no provision for a future you never expected to have. Take away the job and the friends and the home disappear all by themselves. Then the last money is gone, benefits that were inadequate anyway are never paid, the rent is due, and suddenly a whole life just crashes to the ground, never to get back up again.
I wandered slowly down the High Street, stopping outside The Copper Kettle. Today’s special was roast beef and I had just enough money. I could stick two fingers up at the universe and go with a full stomach. It seemed like a plan.
It was warm and steamy inside. I ordered the beef, with a pot of tea to follow. I cleared my plate and by eating slowly, managed to make it last over an hour. The pot of tea lasted another half an hour and I read all their newspapers as well. I was in no hurry, but they would be closing soon. It was time to go.
As I began to get my things together, there was a bustle of movement; someone pulled out a chair and said ‘Hello, Madeleine, how are you?’
It was Mrs De Winter. I stared at her. Apart from a few glimpses at St Mary’s over the years, I hadn’t seen her since she handed me over to the Boss.