‘So she doesn’t know he’s come round?’
‘No, she does. That’s why I called her.’ It was another lie, her fourth now. One was breeding another.
‘Does he know?’
‘I haven’t brought it up, and he hasn’t mentioned her. But I think he may have guessed.’ She paused. ‘I think we need to protect him. If he does say something, I think it might be easier to take if he thinks she walked away some months ago.’
Howard was silent for a moment, angry at what his son still had to go through, then nodded.
For a moment, Laura couldn’t quite believe how easy it was. Then she breathed a silent sigh of relief and pushed the whole thing to the back of her mind.
Two months after regaining consciousness, Daniel finished his physio session and, returning to his chair, sat back exhausted. It hurt him – she could see that in his eyes – and she was about to tell him how well he was doing when he spoke first.
‘Where’s Cherry?’
A thick layer of dread stuck in her throat. This was her chance, the moment she could put things right. She could just say something about how Cherry was giving him space to recover but was dying to see him. She could tell Cherry – what? That she’d been delirious? Deranged with grief that her son had been given a day or two to live?
Life had taken on a new joy, a new purpose since Daniel had come back to her. It was as if someone or something had decided at the very last second not to take away her remaining child, despite her failing to keep her promise. Because she had failed. She’d said she would protect him, never let anything happen to him and in return he would be kept safe. No carelessness like with Rose, no misjudged calls. That had been the deal. And she’d failed to keep her side of it. She’d invited Cherry into the family. Yes, Daniel was dating her, but she’d encouraged it without even a thought to who she was. She’d asked her to come to France; God, at one point she’d even looked upon her as some sort of surrogate daughter. Laura shuddered. She’d failed so abysmally and yet had been given another chance. What kind of mother was she if she just let Cherry waltz back in again? She suddenly sat up straight. Was she mad? How many warnings did she need to get?
‘She’s not been to see you for a while,’ she said regretfully, pained. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. The look on his face told her everything; he’d deduced that she’d left him when he was in a coma.
He stared out of the window for a bit and Laura looked away, feeling awful. She had a sudden, urgent impulse to tell him it wasn’t true. But the seconds ticked on and she said nothing.
Daniel continued to improve and didn’t mention Cherry again. But still Laura worried. What if he tried to get hold of her? Once, when they were in the hospital gardens, taking a slow walk as his leg muscles were still so wasted, she tentatively brought it up. They’d been talking about his old school friends visiting that weekend and it seemed like the right time.
‘Are you going to get in touch with Cherry?’
‘No.’
And the subject was closed. Although she was relieved that he seemed to have moved on, part of her knew it would only take a simple call to unravel everything.
His phone was in a box in her dressing room. She went home that night and was going to delete Cherry’s number, just to make sure she left their lives forever, but then realized that it would look a bit odd if it was the only one gone. So she took the phone outside onto the patio and smashed it, taking the SIM out and destroying that too. She stared at the pieces and then hurriedly gathered them up and tied them in a plastic bag. She buried them under some rubbish in the bin, glad the bin men were coming the next day. The whole thing made her distinctly uncomfortable, and the only reassurance was that she knew she was getting to the end of the fallout from her lie. The loose ends were being tied up. No one knew anyone’s number off by heart anymore. Everyone relied on their mobiles so much; they told their owners where to walk, whether they were going to get rained on, and they stored their contacts so that most people didn’t even know the number of their own mother. Daniel was no doubt the same and would have input Cherry’s number into his phone once only, not even that if she’d called him from hers and then he saved it, and he would never have dialled it again. The phone would have done the work for him. She got him a new phone, telling him the old one had gone missing somewhere from hospital to hospital. It had a new number, just in case Cherry should accidentally call him.
But there was still one thing. Something that made her stomach churn with worry.
Cherry still worked a mere ten-minute walk from the house. If Daniel were to pass by her office . . . well, it didn’t bear thinking about. It tormented her, kept her awake at night, and she didn’t know what to do. It was the doctors who gave her the idea. It was only temporary, but it would give her some time to think. They said that Daniel was ready to go home soon but still had weeks of physio to face: swimming, walking and lots of recuperation. She knew exactly what to do: they would go to France, where it was warm. Daniel agreed without a murmur and Laura was deeply relieved. She booked their flights for the day he was discharged.
THIRTY
Monday 8 June
Daniel reached for the edge of the pool and missed. His face went underwater for a second before he lunged again, this time making contact. Ignoring the pain, he turned to do another lap. His clothes still didn’t fit him properly, and there was no way he was going to buy a whole load of new ones – for one thing, the idea of having to shop for them drained him of energy, and energy was something he was short on right now. No, he had to put on bulk and muscle, and then he could stop hitching his jeans up over his backside – and that was with his belt on.