I scramble, a Facebook amateur, to the more recent photos, stopping at the now-familiar photo Jack posted of Cassie decorating the tree, her hair bobbed and smooth. People have left comments like ‘Wow!’ and ‘Beautiful!’ underneath, but there’s nothing from Cassie, no thanks or acknowledgement. I zoom in on Cassie’s frozen face, just a foot away from my own; she’s almost to scale on the screen. A cold pebble forms in my throat as I stare at her. She looks different to me now. I remember what Jess said about her smile looking fake. I can see it now. In the photo, Cassie’s wearing the sort of smile that must make her jaw ache. She’s flexed, rigid, as if she’s grinding her teeth. She looks like she’s holding onto her smile. I imagine it falling away as soon as the camera was lowered. There’s something mildly intrusive about the photo, the glint in her eye like a secret.
The cold pebble drops down into my thorax. I remember what Jonny said when he came onto the ward. What was she scared of? Of Jack finding out the baby wasn’t his? Or of Jonny finding out the baby was his? Has Cassie been lying? Playing the doting wife but messing around with Jonny? I think about her baby. I pray again that I’m wrong, that Jonny isn’t the father. A mum in a coma and a dad in prison? I don’t want that for Freya and I don’t want that for Jack.
Without warning, my phone vibrates in my dressing-gown pocket.
‘Hello?’ My voice small in the dark morning.
‘Alice?’ Sharma’s accent sounds thicker over the phone.
I retie my bathrobe around me. He sounds disconcertingly close.
Without waiting for me to respond he asks, ‘Have you seen the Sussex Times this morning?’
‘No, what is it?’ I move the little arrow wildly across the screen, guilty suddenly, as if Sharma can see me snooping around Cassie’s life. I shut the pages down.
‘Just have a look and come in as soon as you can, will you? I’m on my way now.’ He doesn’t say goodbye before he hangs up and he didn’t say anything in Latin. Something must be up.
The headline, Local Celebrity in Coma: Pregnant, seems to leap off the page and slap me. I have to read it twice. I scan the article. I’m not interested in most of it; I go straight to the bit that means something.
‘A source close to Cassandra Jensen who wishes to remain anonymous …’
I sit heavily in the chair. They’ve used her real name, they know about Juice-C, and the article mentions Buscombe, and a ‘Jonathan Parker’, described as a ‘close friend’ (I imagine the journalists winking at each other when they chose that phrase) and a known local drinker who has been charged with driving under the influence and attempted manslaughter. It feels like catching myself talking in a mirror. A familiar story but framed all wrong. The cold pebble seems to twist and turn; it makes my whole chest ache.
I don’t realise I’m muttering ‘shit, shit, shit’ until Bob’s strong black nose pokes up in the crook of my arm.
‘Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. What’s up?’ David walks into the study just in his boxer shorts. He puts his hand on my shoulder and frowns at the computer screen. I stare with him.
‘God. How horrific.’ He turns towards me. ‘Is she one of yours?’ and I feel a twist of guilt for not telling him about Cassie, guiltier still for not telling him I’m pregnant.
I blink my eyes, forcing them to focus.
‘So this is why you haven’t been sleeping. God, I didn’t even know this was possible. Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I can’t tell you everything about my patients, David,’ I snap, irritated to be interrupted when I want to read the article again.
‘Yeah, but this? You tell me about the guy with the religious-nut wife, the patient who has no visitors, but you don’t tell me about a pregnant woman in a coma?’
He moves back, as I get up from the chair, creating space between us. It feels awkward, icy.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asks, a little wounded.
‘Oh, come on, David, she’s not some juicy bit of gossip. She’s a patient. You know why I didn’t tell you.’
‘Because you think I’d worry too much?’
‘No! Because of patient confidentiality! Look, I don’t have time for this, I’ve got to go to work.’ Before I get to our bedroom I hear David mutter, ‘Bollocks.’
I don’t bother with a shower and brush my teeth while I try and get ready, which doesn’t save any time. I dribble toothpaste on my clean uniform by accident; it looks like bird poo. My mind whirrs over who could have told the press. It could have been any number of people; the ward is always busy with visitors, student doctors and porters.
I feel eyes on me. David is staring at me from the door frame, his head perched quizzically to one side, like Bob when a rabbit he’s been chasing disappears down a hole.
‘Sorry, Ali, sorry for being a prat.’
I stand and move towards him. He bends forwards, closer to me so I can wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him quickly on the mouth. He smells slightly musty, someone who was recently fast asleep.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, over his shoulder. ‘You were partly right. I didn’t want you to worry.’
‘Are you OK with all this? It’s pretty crazy, pretty close to home.’
Now would be the time to do it … to tell him. Now, Alice!
But instead I pull away and start shoving kirby grips in my hair. I’m not going to bother with mascara. I shrug at myself in the mirror.
‘She’s a remarkable patient, but to be honest, it’s still just work, that’s all,’ I lie. I kiss David again, tell him not to worry and by 6.15 a.m. I’m in the car and driving too fast down the quiet, still-dark roads towards Cassie.
Lizzie was on night shift last night with a bank nurse. She hands me a cup of coffee. She’s so young the night doesn’t show on her face at all. I look and feel like the living dead after a night shift.
‘Mr Sharma said you’d be in soon, so I thought you’d want one.’
I thank her. ‘Have you heard, Lizzie?’
‘Mr Sharma told me,’ she says, nodding. ‘I’ve just been reading the websites. Other newspapers are starting to pick up on it, the Daily Mail and the Sun …’ The exhaustion might not show on her face, but her voice is clipped; she sounds startled.
I nod, take a sip of burning coffee.
‘You know, there’ll probably be reporters around the hospital for a few days so we’ll need to be extra careful, especially with visitors, OK? If anyone asks you anything you just say—’
‘No comment?’ she interrupts me. ‘Just like on telly.’
I nod. ‘Just like on telly.’
As I start making my way towards the nurses’ room, Lizzie asks, ‘Has anything like this happened before?’
I think for a moment. ‘There was a guy, a couple of years ago, an old seventies drummer who gave himself brain damage after a massive drink-and-drug binge. The local press got hold of that one. The poor receptionist actually drew a reporter a map to the ward.’ Lizzie’s eyes widen, as I add, ‘The receptionist was fired.’
I knock on Sharma’s door and it takes him a moment to answer.
‘Intrare!’
His ear is glued to his desk phone. ‘Incredible.’ He shakes his head at the receiver, holding it towards me.
I hear a distant, tiny voice from a recorded message.
He points at the receiver. ‘The Trust’s Head of Communications still clearly has no idea what’s going on.’ Sharma replaces the phone with a sigh and another shake of his head. ‘And I still haven’t got hold of the head of security.’ He looks up at me with a quick smile; a spark, excitement, animates his face.
‘How do you think it got out?’
We’re interrupted by an uncertain, quiet knock at the door.
Sharma isn’t interested in what I was saying. He calls, ‘Intrare!’, again, and Lizzie’s full, young face appears.