‘OK, try going slower,’ I tell him before we get to work again. I think he blinks ‘L’ but then he blinks a juddery series as his eyelids spasm with exhaustion and I think I’ve got it wrong again. His eyeballs shudder in their sunken sockets. I can hear the effort within him – the catarrh echoes through his chest – and I know we can’t carry on.
‘Frank, I’m sorry. But that’s enough for now. You need to rest. I’ll come back later, we can finish then, OK? I promise.’
Frank blinks twice for ‘no’ but, as he does, I hear Mary calling good morning, warning Paula to watch out for roadworks on the A27 and I know it’s time for me to go. I can handle Paula’s disdain, but I know Mary will see through my weak excuses. She’ll know something is up and I don’t have the energy to try and convince her I’m OK. I grab my bag from Frank’s chair, ignore his furious blinks, put my hand against his cheek and tell him again, more firmly this time, that he has to rest. I promise him that I’ll be back later and it’s only when I hear Mary go into the nurses’ room that I pull Frank’s curtain back and walk quickly off the ward.
Mary was right; the traffic even so early in the morning is bad and it takes me twice as long to get home as normal. I’m still worried about Frank, but I tell myself that once the antibiotics take hold he’ll calm again as his infection starts to clear. In stationary traffic I watch early daffodils shake their heads on the grassy verge by the road, and my thoughts turn again, magnetised, back to Cassie, and I know what I’m going to do with my day off.
As soon as I get home, I bundle Bob into the back of the car. David won’t be home until the afternoon. The trains have been bad into the city recently, so he stayed at a hotel in London last night to make an early morning meeting. I told him on the phone last night that I was going to take Bob for a windy beach walk today, perhaps to Birling Gap, but as soon as we pull back into the traffic, I know I won’t follow signs for the coast. Instead, I stop at a petrol station and buy a big bunch of red and yellow tulips and follow the signs to Buscombe.
The morning sky is a picture-book blue against the peacefully sleeping mounds of the South Sussex Downs. Bob pokes his nose out of the car as I open the window; the air feels cool and new, a fresh batch. Visiting a local village isn’t a crime, is it? It’s a Wednesday so Jack will be working and even if I bump into Charlotte, I’ll pretend I’m visiting a friend who lives nearby and if she doesn’t believe me, then I don’t really care. Now I know I’m not going to be a mum, I feel strangely invincible, bolder in my new, toughened skin. I may not be able to protect my own child, I know that now, but I remind myself I can still try and protect Cassie’s as I turn down into the dappled shade of Steeple Lane.
I press my foot to the brake as I pass the sign for Steeple Farm and Cottage, Jonny’s place. Bob pokes his nose out of the window towards an elderly-looking Alsatian lying on the short rubbly drive that leads up to the farm. The Alsatian creaks arthritically onto his paws and, tossing his head in the air like he thinks he’s still a puppy, he trots down the drive, barking all the while at Bob, to either stop and say hello or to get off his patch. I’m just about to accelerate away when a man I can’t see shouts, ‘Dennis!’ The man whistles and then says, ‘Come here, boy!’
Bob almost clatters off the front seat as I slam on the brakes. My mind flicks through my nurse’s training. Did I miss the class on ‘not visiting the main suspect in your patient’s manslaughter case’? Have I gone completely fucking mad? The Alsatian is still barking, shaking his mane at us and ignoring the voice that keeps calling for him, getting closer. I can’t move. I have to see him. This is why I’m here; this must be why I’m here. Bob whimpers in the front seat to be let out. I just keep staring past him, towards the Alsatian as a tall, blond-haired man in cut-off denim shorts, with old, tan, leather boots that gape around his lower calves, walks in long strides out onto the drive. Jonny.
‘Dennis,’ he calls, a warning growl in his voice. At last, Jonny looks up. I’m not sure if he sees me peering out at him through the window over Bob’s shoulder. He stands up straight, peaks a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun and neither of us moves for a few seconds. I wonder whether this is the moment I’ll look back on and regret. Will my future self scream at the memory of this moment to ‘turn the fuck around, Alice’. But I don’t. I can’t. Dennis looks thrown, turning from Jonny to Bob and back to Jonny, before he breaks the armistice and starts running towards us, which makes Bob dance on the spot in the front seat and bark.
Jonny starts cautiously following him. His long legs and arms sway by his side, as though they’re only held in place by thin string. From a distance, there’s a boyishness to his movements, but when he gets closer, I see how his cheekbones protrude from his face like stumps and how worry has carved its telltale lines all over his face like battle scars. I wind down the window a little further, and hold Bob’s collar, pulling him back as he shoves his neck through the gap. Jonny curls himself down towards the window and we peer at each other over Bob’s shoulder.
‘Can I help you?’ he asks, politely.
His face darkens as soon as he sees me. He recognises me but I’m not sure he knows where from.
‘Jonny?’ My voice is small.
He frowns, immediately on guard; I know his name. Dennis picks up on his hesitation and growls by his side. Jonny rests a quietening hand on his head.
‘Who are you?’ he asks.
Bob bounds out of the car with me; I have to pull him by the collar to get him back onto the passenger seat, closing the door, before I walk around the bonnet of the car to Jonny. He looks at my face, his brow furrowed and his eyes full of warning. He has the shady uncertain look of someone who has recently learned not to trust people. I stand in front of him and say simply, ‘I’m Alice.’ He looks at me like I’m stupid for a second before I add, ‘I’m one of the nurses looking after Cassie.’
His face breaks in knowing at last and he waggles a finger towards me and nods as he says, ‘That’s right, that’s right … you were there when I tried to see her.’
‘That was me,’ I say, nodding.
‘You didn’t let me see her.’
‘I couldn’t, Jonny. You see, we have to be …’
He interrupts me gently, raising his hands, ‘No, that’s OK, I understand. It was a stupid thing to do, in retrospect. Didn’t do anyone any favours, least of all me.’ His face gathers itself and comes to rest in newly furrowed lines. ‘Is she OK? God, has something happened?’
I bite my lip and realise I have one chance, one chance before he spooks and turns his back on me.