She took a moment to compose herself and splashed some cold water on her face. Then she opened the bathroom door and went back into his room, where he lay on the bed in the same position he’d been in for the last few months. She was alone with him for a couple of hours, as Howard had gone home to get some fresh clothes.
She pulled up a chair and looking out of the window, saw that it was one of those early spring days that was a kind act from nature, an unexpected gift. She suddenly wanted Daniel to have it too and she opened the window. The air that came in was fresh but not cold, full of life, and she could hear birds singing. She sat back down again and held his hand.
‘It’s a lovely day.’ She couldn’t manage any more and stroked his hair to give herself a moment, thinking she had to do better than this or she’d ruin it. Now was not the time to fall apart. She tried again. ‘Just in case I don’t get the chance to say this to you later, in case—’ She stopped abruptly. She’d been about to say, ‘in case you have to leave suddenly . . .’ but something had stopped her, some maternal protective mechanism. She’d thought long and hard over the last few months about whether Daniel could hear what was being said to him and she thought – hoped – he could. She’d been about to tell him about all their memories, everything that she loved about him but knew now that she couldn’t. What if he didn’t know he was dying but could hear everything she said? She shuddered in horror. He’d be trapped, listening to the end of his life being pronounced but unable to communicate, to ask for comfort. It would be like being buried alive.
She climbed awkwardly onto his bed and gently laid her cheek next to his, being careful not to dislodge any of the plastic tubes taped to various parts of him. Then she took his hand. In her head, she relived two memories. One was of a baby girl, a perfect little thing with blue eyes and fair hair who’d died in her arms just a few days after she’d been born. The other was of an equally perfect little boy who, when he was small, would wake and climb into her bed with his toy monkey, snuggling up to her and sharing one of the monkey’s ears, the softest, most treasured part of the toy, with her. They would lie there, warm and close, whispering secrets to one another.
‘Daniel, I hope you’re not scared, not of anything, because you don’t need to be. I’m here. I always will be, no matter what. And I’m staying now until . . . until . . . I’m staying.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Monday 2 March
Cherry hung up and let the phone rest on the sofa next to her. Daniel was dead. She couldn’t take it in. He’d died; he had vanished; he was no more. While she was on holiday. She suddenly realized she hadn’t even asked Laura the exact day. What had she been doing on that day? Lying lazily on a sun lounger on the beach? Wandering around Chichen Itza? Or maybe even having dinner with Elliot. It had been a fleeting thing – that much she’d made clear – but she’d needed the relief spending time with him had given her. He’d approached her in their hotel bar and found that they were both travelling alone and their holidays overlapped by four days. They’d ended up spending pretty much all of those four days – and nights – together. Cherry didn’t feel guilty; she saw it more as a necessary healing balm after the last few months. Then he left and she got on with the rest of her trip.
It disturbed her that she didn’t know when Daniel had died, that she couldn’t pinpoint an event of such magnitude to a moment in her own life. She almost called Laura back there and then, but as soon as she had the phone in her hand, she dropped it. She didn’t feel up to asking questions yet – it was all still so unreal. A movement at the window caught her eye: people walking past, going about their lives oblivious to what was going on inside her flat. She jumped up suddenly, went to make a cup of tea. As she was holding the kettle under the tap, it hit her. She burst into tears, great wracking sobs, and dumped the kettle in the sink; then suddenly she remembered that next door could see in if their back door was open and the flat above them could see in if they looked down at a certain angle. She recoiled, hating her flat, Tooting, London, poor man’s London and the way people all lived on top of each other. Instead, she went into the bedroom, which was a little more private, and lay down, fully clothed, on the bed.
Daniel was dead. She thought she’d felt lonely, cast adrift when he was ill, but she realized that was nothing compared to now. She’d always believed he’d recover – she had read numerous accounts, reports on the Internet, studied it in books and journals until she felt she could pass as a doctor herself. But instead he’d left her. And her new life, the one she’d planned, had disintegrated. She couldn’t even say goodbye. She shrank inside remembering Laura’s words: ‘Family only.’ She wasn’t included. Was she not good enough? Not worthy? Not rich enough? Yet again she’d been slighted. It was like Nicolas all over again. Neither Laura nor Howard recognized her as a proper girlfriend, as someone who had meant anything to Daniel.
Where was he buried, or had he been cremated? If so, where were his ashes? She didn’t know the answers to any of these questions and was left in a vacuum of ignorance. She felt a sudden, violent anger towards Laura for keeping it to herself. She had cut her from his life. And she, Cherry, was stuck in a dead-end job that she was growing to hate, with no escape on the horizon. She couldn’t go through it all again. She realized that Daniel had made the job palatable, not just because he would eventually lead her out of it but because he was what she looked forward to at the end of the day. Talking to him, exchanging stories about the people they’d each had to deal with – he as a trainee doctor at the hospital and she as an estate agent. The way he’d held her and kissed her had made her feel good, feel as if she had value. Now that was all gone. She was a nobody again. The people she’d aspired to be like had unceremoniously kicked the door shut in her face. In the end, Laura had won.
TWENTY-NINE
Monday 2 March