‘Lizzie, what’s happened?’
‘Oh, god, sorry, Alice. I’m just …’ She fans her hand in front of her face and dabs her eye with the tissue. ‘Sorry, I know you’re busy so I’ll be quick.’ She breathes out. ‘I’m going to hand in my notice.’
I frown. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I thought everything was going well. You seemed happy here.’
She nods emphatically and blows into the tissue. ‘I am, I’m really happy here.’
‘Then why, Lizzie?’
She looks at me, her eyelashes slick with tears. ‘It was me, Alice. It’s my fault the press found out about Cassie.’ I frown harder. ‘What?’
The tears start again. Lizzie is shaking her head, saying, ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I honestly didn’t.’
‘What happened, Lizzie?’
‘I was out with Alex, you know, my new boyfriend? We went bowling with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend and, to be honest, Alice, I was really nervous because his brother’s girlfriend is gorgeous. I mean she really looks like a model, and she’s funny and everything. Anyway, I was an idiot. I always thought she looked down on me for only being a nurse, so I told her about Cassie; I wanted to prove I had big things going on. I didn’t know her dad’s a reporter for the Sussex Times.’ Lizzie’s breath comes out in ragged little puffs; it sounds painful.
‘Oh, Lizzie,’ I say, and she’s back to shaking her head, making mewling sounds into the tissue. I stand up, put an arm around her, and rub her shoulders. ‘Come on, just breathe.’
After a couple of minutes she’s calmed down enough to hand me a letter.
‘What’s this?’
‘My resignation letter. I thought it best to make it official.’
‘Well, I don’t accept it, Lizzie.’
She looks at me, her face puffing up in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I won’t accept your resignation because there’s no need for you to resign. Look. You’re happy here and you’re a great nurse. You’ve made a mistake. Definitely. A big mistake. You’ve broken patient confidentiality and it’s had terrible consequences, but you’re owning up to it, and I know it won’t happen again, will it?’
Lizzie doesn’t take her eyes off me. She’s still shaking her head, but this time she’s saying, ‘No, no, it won’t, I promise.’
‘So. No one’s been disciplined for talking to the press. If someone is accused, then we’ll need to step in but that’s unlikely to happen. When these kind of things have happened before, it’s blown over quite quickly.’
Lizzie stands and hugs me, her face damp against my own and says a few more thank yous and sorrys, before she at last walks quietly out of the little room.
I stand in the middle of the room for just a moment, before a bank nurse bundles in to get her belongings before heading home.
I walk back onto the ward. I think about going straight to Cassie but I decide to let the discovery of the note and my conversation with Lizzie settle in my mind before I go to see her.
I pull Frank’s curtain carefully behind myself and sit down in his visitor’s chair. Lizzie’s combed Frank’s hair and cut his fingernails. I appreciate these little touches and I bet Frank does too. His eyes are closed but I still gently turn his face towards me. I feel the envelope crinkle in my pocket and I know I can’t ignore it. I promised I’d look after Cassie and her baby. I lean in closer towards Frank so I’m sure he can hear.
‘I found something, Frank. A note from Cassie to Jack. It says she needed time away from him, a break from their marriage. It was hidden in her bag, like she was going to give it to him or post it. Everyone is so convinced it was Jonny, but I just don’t believe it.’
I look at Frank’s pale face. I know him well enough to know he’s not asleep; his face looks focused, concentrated.
‘But that’s not all, Frank, I just found out Jack was wrong. It wasn’t Marcus who told the police. I keep wondering what else he could be wrong about. She’d taken off her wedding rings; she was wearing her mum’s ring instead. Remember when Jonny came onto the ward, Frank? Jonny said something to me, Frank. He told me she was scared, that Cassie had been scared.’
I wonder what Frank’s thinking, what he makes of all this, and then the truth slices, clean and sharp like a knife. I think of the black-and-white photo, how tense her jaw looked, her smile forced and hard and yet the comments below called her ‘beautiful’ when she looked like she was on the brink.
‘She was scared.’ I lean in, closer to Frank and whisper because I can’t quite believe I’m going to say the words aloud. ‘Cassie wasn’t looking for her dog, Frank. She was scared. She was running away.’
17
Frank
Sharma, the pompous ass, is calling the episode ‘the media breach’.
The nurses have started using the phrase and I don’t need to see them to know they punctuate it with quick glances and carefully concealed smiles. Sharma seems oblivious, though; I suppose sarcasm can’t be taught.
He was right about the nationals, though. They picked up on the story pronto. By then, print versions of the articles were banned on the ward, but the nurses told me plenty. The papers knew about Juice-C. They were calling Cassie an orphan mum, a modern-day Sleeping Beauty. Cassie has become the new poster girl for the Sussex ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ campaign, and sales of Juice-C have almost doubled.
Hospital staff talk about reporters now as casually as they talk about the weather. I picture them, these reporters, skulking around the corridors, fiddling with their phones in the waiting areas, hoping to catch a nurse’s eye, someone who might know about Cassie; ideally, someone who even works on the ward. They aggravate the nurses like wasps at a picnic.
At any other time, the ‘media breach’ would be welcome entertainment, a new soundtrack to accompany the endless hours I stare at the magnolia ceiling, but I can’t enjoy the whispers and the gossip because even though I know she’s gone, that woman seems to hang in the air around the ward, the woman who hit Cassie. It’s as though that woman’s left a charge here, as though her visit has changed the cellular make up of the ward: the air feels squeezed, the oxygen forced into my lungs thinner, less nourishing somehow. Like fearing a virus hanging in the air, I don’t trust 9B any more; it’s not safe enough for Cassie, not safe enough for her baby.
I think about her constantly, that woman. I don’t know anything about her, didn’t see her face so couldn’t pick her out of a crowd, but I know her voice. How softly she spoke those words she probably hoped would soothe her burning guilt, at least for a moment: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’