Lizzie drops my folder in its slot at the foot of my bed.
‘Oh god, not again,’ she says glancing down at me briefly.
No, no, Lizzie you can’t …
I blink twice, and I blink again, but Lizzie doesn’t see me because she’s turning to leave already, to join the other urgent feet that pound the ward as the doctors and other nurses run back again to the end of 9B.
But Charlotte sees me.
The alarms seem to ring through my organs. My heart monitor starts to beep as I watch Charlotte look left and right before she closes my curtains quietly and, coming back to me, she brings her face so close to mine I can feel her words as little puffs of warm air against my cheek, as she says, ‘You heard. You heard me talking about Jack.’
I think of Luce, of Alice; I have to keep still for them, I have to keep still for Cassie, for her baby. Charlotte keeps her eyes on mine. She’s fixed, deep inside me, as though she’s seeing something in me even I don’t know.
‘I know you’re there, Frank, I know you heard things you shouldn’t have.’
Her eyes widen around the truth and, as if in sympathy, her own eyelid starts to tic. She shakes her head and stands away from me, turning so I can’t see her. She’s not talking to me any more as she says, her voice desperate, ‘My god, he knows, he knows.’
Then the air around my bed stills and the silence is worse than anything she’s already said, and I feel my heart turn to ice in my chest because I hear her thoughts before I hear her words.
‘Frank, I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry.’
You’re sorry your son almost killed his wife?
‘You shouldn’t have heard any of it, Frank.’
Or are you sorry for lying to protect him?
Then she moves again, so she’s above me, staring down at me. She’s strangely absent behind her eyes, like she’s temporarily walked away from herself. Her eyelid keeps pulsing; she’s concentrated. Even though I can’t move, I still freeze.
At the end of the ward, a man, a heavy-sounding man, shouts out numbers; he’s giving the new patient CPR. Through the high-pitch squeal of the alarms and the voices shouting orders, I hear a lower, crunchy sound, like he’s snapping twigs as the patient’s ribs break beneath him. I will one of them, someone, to turn away, to know what’s happening here.
Charlotte hangs her head forward.
‘I’m sorry you heard me, Frank,’ she says again. She speaks in a hissed whisper that finds its mark quicker than normal speech. ‘But you have a daughter. You know how hard you’ll fight to protect your child. You’d do the same if you had to, Frank. You’d do the same.’
Time seems to yawn, stretching out before me. I don’t hear the noise from the new patient’s drama any more, or the shouts from the people told to save her. I keep my eyes steady, unflinching. Her hand shakes as she starts twisting the valve on my tracheotomy; my stomach crawls and writhes like it’s full of maggots.
No, no Jesus, no.
My throat starts making an unnatural gurgling sound, like water being sucked down a drain.
Please, please, Charlotte.
Then, suddenly, there’s no breath, no noisy rattle from my chest, and it’s a novelty until my lungs seize in panic. My breath has disappeared. I’ve been still for months but this is different; it’s an unnatural kind of still, like a wave that’s suddenly frozen.
I don’t want to go like this.
Boiling molten metal is poured into my lungs, and then they harden.
I was going to tell Alice everything,
Charlotte is cowering in the corner by my chair, her hands raised to her mouth like she’s trying to muffle a scream.
I was going to make Lucy proud.
Tears flow freely from her eyes, but she keeps them fixed on my face. My vision starts to blur, colours run like wet paint, which is a relief; I don’t want her face to be the one I take with me.
I was going to walk out of here one day, next to Lucy.
Everything melts to silence; even the weird orchestra of outraged alarms falls away to peace.
Sorry, Luce, I let you down again. I’m so sorry.
Lucy must have known I need her because she comes running up to my bed.
Ah, Luce, there you are!
She’s a little girl again, her fringe poking out underneath one of my dad’s old flat caps. She’s missing her front two teeth and her cheeks are flushed with fresh air and she laughs as she takes my hand and pulls me up. We’re not in the hospital any more; we’re on the plane again but this time she doesn’t want me to sit back down in my seat. She wants me to jump; she wants me to jump out of the plane with her. I tell her she’s crazy, but as I look at the clouds below I think what a relief it would be to let go, and I know it’s the right thing, the only thing I can do. Lucy wriggles her little hand in mine. She turns to me, her eyes dance with joy, and she laughs. ‘Ready, Dad?’
And we fall.
24
Cassie
Maisie’s whole body trembles with adrenalin. She leaps with every distant bang and fizz from the fireworks, as if she’s terrified of the New Year itself, fearful of the changes it may bring.
Cassie wants to pack for the Isle of Wight before Jack gets home. She doesn’t know how long she has so she only pauses to soothe the little dog briefly. She looks at her phone; it’s after 1 a.m. already. She took her time walking home, breathing in the rich night. The darkness felt nourishing; she felt like she could walk for ever, at last in tune with the earth beneath her. She pulls her mum’s old leather bag out of the spare room cupboard; its familiar animal smell puffs up to meet her. She’ll only take what she needs for a week or so. She opens drawers and lays out a couple of pairs of jeans, underwear, jumpers and T-shirts. She puts her mum’s photo album and diaries into the bottom of the bag; maybe she and Marcus can look through them together. Her wash bag can wait until early tomorrow morning, just in case Jack comes into the bathroom and notices her things are missing. She doesn’t want to risk raising the alarm tonight. That would only complicate things, muddy her decision with shouting and tears, when practical action is so much clearer, so much easier. In spite of everything, she wants to minimise the hurt she causes Jack. She doesn’t think he’s a bad man, not really. He’s just misguided, and so was she.
Cassie concentrates.
What about the shed? She thinks of her paints, smeary and twisted in their tubes, her paintbrushes stiff from lack of care. She’ll treat herself to some new ones in a day or two. She’ll leave with Maisie early in the morning, as soon as it’s light. If all goes to plan, she won’t even have to see Jack. She could be at Marcus’s house by lunchtime.