Her Perfect Family(15)
He didn’t want to leave, after what happened with Alex. But now? It’s a window to try Canada again. He scrolls through the contacts in his phone and then remembers he didn’t store the number. He googles the unit and dials, working out the time difference in his head. Five hours behind – the unit should be fully staffed.
A female voice answers. ‘The Meridale Centre. Can I help you?’
‘Hello. I’m ringing, please, to inquire about one of your patients. Laura Berkley. I just want to know how she’s doing, please. Nothing urgent. A general call.’
‘And you are?’
He pauses, his pulse quickening as he tries to decide whether to lie.
‘It’s just we can only share information with relatives. Are you a relative?’
‘Sort of.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Can I take your name?’
‘Look, I simply want to know if Laura Berkley is there. And if she’s OK. Surely you can at least tell me that?’
There’s a longer pause and some noise at the end of the line as if the woman is checking with a colleague or maybe a computer screen.
‘Excuse me. But are you a reporter?’ Her tone’s curt suddenly and Ed ends the call, aware of his pulse in his ear as he keeps the mobile pressed against it.
Why did she say that? Why did she think the media might be interested in Laura?
He’s shaken and to steady himself he moves to sit on the high stool at the breakfast bar. Are you a reporter?
Ed has no idea what on earth to do next. He thinks of his beautiful daughter in that hospital bed with the nasty frame shielding the stump which was once her leg.
He thinks of the cathedral. The moment Gemma fell . . .
And then he thinks of that other cathedral, all those years ago. The clock. The first sight of her.
Is it possible it’s simply a coincidence? Two cathedrals? Is he deluding himself as he clings on tight, tight, tight to the hope that this could just be a terrible and horrible coincidence?
CHAPTER 9
THE MOTHER
‘That’s probably enough for today, darling. It’s late.’ I put the bookmark in place and close the novel, smoothing its cover with my palm. Ed found the book in Gemma’s room on his first trip home and I’ve been reading to her to try to restore a sense of calm after the horrible scene earlier.
I still feel shaken and find myself gripping the novel too tightly. I stare at my white knuckles and loosen my grasp, turning the book over to examine the strange cover.
It’s an odd book about a group of girls who find themselves alone on an island with the option to send only one three-word text message each day to the outside world. No incoming messages are allowed and no other connection to the internet. The cover of the novel has an oasis of palm trees in a sea ominously coloured red. It’s well written and certainly unusual but I’m a little surprised it’s to Gemma’s taste, to be frank, and am worried it’s turning too dark. Borderline horror, which is clearly not the right choice just now for her or me. I consider telling Gemma this but don’t want to sound preachy. I may just get Ed to look for a different book. I’ll message him in the morning before he returns.
‘I think I’ll just sit and doze for a bit,’ I tell her. ‘The nurses are changing shift. You just rest. I’m right here if you need me.’
Each time I talk to her like this I still get this same flutter of disappointment when she doesn’t move. I try to be patient and pragmatic but the truth is I simply cannot help searching her face, her hands, her whole body actually, hoping that she will find some small way to signal that she can hear me. A flutter of her eyelids or a tiny movement of her fingers perhaps. But I scan and scan and there’s absolutely nothing.
Always this complete stillness.
At first in here, I held her hand almost constantly and told her that she could squeeze it ever so gently if she could hear me. I truly expected her to do this. It was a terrible shock to feel nothing. Just flesh on flesh. It was then I realised that in my head I had this absolute conviction that I was going to get my ‘moment’. Any minute. Any hour. I had conjured this ridiculous movie version of our situation; only now I’m slowly starting to dread that here in the real world there’s to be no Hollywood moment. I was simply creating too much pressure for both of us. Disappointment for me and, worse, possibly continual frustration for her. And so I stopped asking her to squeeze my hand. Now I just tell her that she’s not to worry about anything; I say that I know in my heart that she can hear me but it doesn’t matter if she can’t confirm this to me just yet. I don’t mind. She’s not to feel any pressure.
Still, I find it hard to take my eyes off her in case I miss the first movement. The first sign.
There’s a change suddenly through the glass on to the main ward – a dimming of the lights, signalling the night shift proper. The new nurses on duty have already been in to check on Gemma, logging all her readings on the little clipboard at the end of her bed. They know my routine.
I tell Ed that at night, I’ll sleep in the little room they’ve provided for us on the floor below but this isn’t true. I only nap in there in the day when he’s here to watch her in my place. When I send him home to rest, I can’t bear to leave our little cubicle in case something changes so I just sleep in this chair. The nurses don’t seem to mind.