Laura didn’t leave the hospital, fearing that if she did, Daniel would die when she wasn’t there. She called Mrs Moore to put aside some clean clothes and sent a cab to pick them up. At night, she slept on a temporary bed next to his that the nurses had put up for her. Howard came as much as he could, but his work meant that he had to spend at least a couple of hours in the office every day. The nurses said that often they could tell when a patient ‘didn’t have very long’ and would tell Laura so she could call her husband if that time came. Four days in, she noticed that some of the flowers were dying. It depressed her that they should mirror what was going on in the bed and she plucked them out with distaste. She didn’t even want them in the bin in the room and took them outside to dispose of elsewhere. As she closed the door behind her and started to walk down the corridor, she heard something, a deviation from the rhythm of the beeps that had become as familiar to her as her own heartbeat.
A nurse rushed past her. Jesus, thought Laura, he’s died. He’s died when I left the room. She let out an anguished wail and ran back in, rushing up to the bed desperate to hold him, for it not to be too late.
Dr Bell came in a split second after her. ‘Mrs Cavendish, if you could just give us some room,’ he said, and the nurse firmly took her by the elbow and moved her aside as he ran his eyes over Daniel and the monitors.
‘He’s trying to breathe.’
Laura stared incredulously. ‘He’s what?’
‘Breathe. On his own.’ Dr Bell smiled and looked at the readouts. ‘Three breaths in the last minute. Well, well, well.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He’s breathing independently. Some of the time. It’s good news,’ he said cautiously. ‘I think we’ll trial him with the ventilator, change it so it reduces the amount of work it has to do. Let’s see if he can take on more.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘He’ll be carefully monitored over the next twenty-four hours as we see how much his lungs want to take on.’
‘Then what?’
‘Let’s just deal with the next few hours first,’ said Dr Bell kindly.
Laura was ecstatic – for a few minutes – and then she’d swing back to despair again. It was just a cruel trick, medicine playing with her emotions, a strange grasp at life before he left her for good. She stayed glued to his bedside, watching him, staring at his chest, her eyes willing on every breath that he took. She asked the nurse exactly what each of the numbers on the machine meant, which were related to his lungs, and got obsessed with urging it to register another breath. She barely slept that night, lying close to him on her makeshift bed, and would get up every hour or so just to check the monitors.
Early the next morning, she and Howard waited impatiently for Dr Bell’s prognosis.
‘He’s doing extremely well. In fact, I think we should take him off the ventilator.’
Laura turned to Howard and they exchanged radiant, tense smiles, hardly daring to believe what was happening.
‘I’m just going to remove the ET tube.’ As he disconnected the ventilator, then gently took out the tube that fed down into Daniel’s lungs, Daniel suddenly coughed and his eyes opened.
‘Oh my God,’ said Laura, her hands to her face.
‘Daniel, can you hear me?’ said Dr Bell, placing an oxygen mask on him. ‘You’re perfectly safe. You’re in hospital. My name is Dr Bell and I’m here to look after you.’
Daniel stared around wildly, uncomprehendingly.
‘Don’t panic – everything’s fine. I’m going to hold your hand and I want you to blink if you can hear me.’
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then he blinked and Laura was filled with a joy that weakened her; it exploded through her body, and tears poured uncontrollably down her face.
‘You’re in hospital, and your mum and dad are here.’
‘I’m here, I’m here,’ said Laura, wiping away her tears as she went to him and took his other hand. He looked at her, but she wasn’t sure if he could see.
‘You’ve had an accident, but you’re getting better,’ said Dr Bell.
Daniel’s eyes closed again and Laura panicked. ‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s perfectly normal. He’ll come round gradually, regain his consciousness over time.’
‘So he’s OK?’
‘We’ll know more later, maybe over the next few days and weeks, but this is very good.’
His recovery started slowly, and at first Laura was constantly reminded of how much he couldn’t do. It took him two weeks just to sit up in bed; he still needed to be fed; the sores on his body and lips took so long to heal, but gradually she noticed little parts of him coming back to her. A smile, a hoarse word, a moment of lucidity, and after each of these she was amazed at the progress he made.
‘It’s because he’s young and he wants to get better,’ said Dr Bell, and Laura felt an immense pride that Daniel was so determined and would stare at him in wonder, amazed by the transformation. The doctors repeatedly reminded her that there was a long way to go – he could still have some damage to the brain; his memory could be affected – but Laura was filled with euphoria and brushed these niggles aside. So caught up was she in his recuperation that at first she forgot about Cherry. Then, in the kitchen one evening, preparing a meal for herself and Howard, it came back to her like a steam train, fast, thundering, flattening everything in its path. She’d told her he was dead. It was a huge problem but something she didn’t want to deal with at that moment. All her thoughts were taken up with Daniel’s recovery and the work involved – the physiotherapy, the speech therapy, the time spent just talking to him, encouraging him. She didn’t want that interrupted or complicated in any way, and Cherry was most definitely a complication. She had a vision of her sucking the new life out of him, telling lies, emotionally manipulating him with her eye on the prize, and she got a wave of fear. Although recovering well, he was nowhere near his optimum strength and she pushed aside the guilt and told herself it was the best thing for him that Cherry was kept away for now.
She went down to the cellar to get some wine for their meal and saw Howard thrashing out laps in the pool. She realized she’d have to think of something to tell him, something to explain Cherry’s absence. Thank God he hadn’t asked about her; presumably he’d been so involved in Daniel he hadn’t thought to. What on earth could she say? She felt panicked as she remembered what she’d done, the lie she’d told, and quickly moved through the pool room to the cellar and grabbed a chilled bottle of Chablis from the fridge. As she made her way back upstairs, she saw something wet on the floor – a patch of glistening tiles – and she bent down to investigate. It seemed to be water, but it hadn’t come from the pool. A languid drip fell onto her hair, and startled, she looked up. She was right underneath the opaque window. She frowned. Had it come from there? It was too far to see, but that would mean there was a leak.
‘What’s the matter?’ called Howard.
‘I think we’ve got a leak.’
He swam over and stared up at the ceiling. ‘What? We’ve only just got the tiles repaired. Bloody builders next door.’
‘I’ll get on to them.’
Later, as she and Howard sat down at the table, she tentatively broached the subject.
‘By the way, I spoke to Cherry a few weeks ago.’
‘Yes? What days has she been visiting?’
Laura hid her tremoring hands under the table. ‘She’s moved on.’
He put down his glass of wine. ‘What?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid she came to the decision just after she returned from holiday.’
‘That was ages ago. You didn’t mention it.’
‘I didn’t think it important. Too caught up in Daniel – you know, the bad news we thought we had.’