Beneath the Skin(100)

A purple Post-it note is protruding from his diary. Don’t panic, Judith has scrawled. Only a hundred and seventy-three days until I’m back! Seriously, though, call me if you need to talk. Remember what’s important. Appreciate what you have, xxx

He rakes his hands through his hair, tempted to call Jude there and then. He’s confused. He doesn’t know what’s important any more. He doesn’t love Olivia or his girls any less but at that moment he wants Antonia more. The need is constant and excruciating. He has to stop the wanting and the desire, but he has no idea how to begin.

He reaches for the telephone to call Judith but an incoming call from reception beats him to it. ‘Mike, two police officers are in reception for you. Shall I send them up?’

Mike hears voices, sees lights. The flashing lights of the police car. The Christmas lights twinkling on the way. The strip lights above the hospital bed.

‘Sorry, sir, we did try to contact you at the scene, but your mobile was off and your office people weren’t sure where you were,’ a police officer says.

Olivia is on a hospital bed, warm just for him, but dead. Her face is pale and empty. Her hair is hidden by bandages. Her chest moves in time with a machine, but her spirit, her essence has gone.

‘The trauma team did all they could. We’d like to call someone you’re close to, to be here with you. Mike? Can you give us a name and a number, Mike?’

He sits by the bed and numb time passes. Should he touch, should he talk? Like someone in a coma?

He turns to the door. Macclesfield hospital. Why have they brought her here? Turns his head back to Olivia and stares. Can it really be her?

The police come in and out of the room. A man and a woman. Good cop and bad. They give him information he doesn’t want. Ask him questions he can’t answer.

Olivia wasn’t wearing her seat belt, they tell him. The head injuries were inevitable. The lorry driver is traumatised, there was nothing he could do to avoid it, his brakes hopeless on the ice. It was confirmed by several witnesses, they say. She seemed to drive straight at him as though he wasn’t there.

The woman officer stares, cocks her head on one side. ‘The witnesses say Olivia was visibly distressed,’ she says. ‘Were there any problems? Any reasons why she might be so upset? Do you know where she was going? There were flowers in the car.’

He doesn’t know how to answer, he can’t focus, can’t think. But there’s a voice behind him. It’s shaky. ‘No. There were no problems,’ it says. ‘People with problems don’t buy flowers, for God’s sake.’

Mike turns to the voice. Then he’s standing and sobbing, Sami holding him steady with firm and strong arms.

After a few moments he pulls away. Above the rush of noise in his ears, there’s an unmistakable sound, the distant cry of a baby. Someone has given birth, the start of new life. But why would he care? His Olivia is dead.

A new person comes in, wearing a white coat. A doctor, he supposes. ‘A terrible accident,’ she says. She has kind pale eyes, like his Olivia’s. ‘I’m so very sorry, Mr Turner. But you’ll need to contact your wife’s family. So they can come to say goodbye before we …’ Her words trail off. The baby still cries.

Realisation hits like a slap. His girls, his girls. Little Hannah and Rachel. Oh God, oh God. How will he tell them?

Taking a step to the door, he speaks to the male officer. ‘My daughters. I need to go. I need to collect my girls. Can you take me?’

‘The girls are fine, mate. They’re with Sophie,’ Sami replies. His eyes are huge and tears spill on to his navy-blue suit. ‘I’ll take you home in a while but …’ He gestures to the doctor. ‘They think you should see the baby.’

‘What baby?’ Mike asks. ‘Olivia is dead.’

‘They saved the baby, for now. Very small. In an incubator. A boy.’

Ah, that baby, Mike thinks.

‘You go. I’ll wait here and …’ Sami starts, his voice choked with emotion. He clears his throat, wipes his face and tries again. ‘I’ll wait here and look after Olivia until you come back. Go on, mate. She’ll be safe here with me, I promise.’

‘This way,’ the white-coated woman says, gesturing with her arm. ‘I’ll come with you. Show you the way.’

Still frozen, Mike nods and he follows. A baby, my baby. Puts one foot in front of another and walks. Down a long corridor, past rooms and blank faces. A baby, my baby, he thinks. The one Olivia gave me; the boy that I wanted so much. But there’s a voice in his head. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ it says.





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR


Antonia sits at the bottom of the stairs still clutching her mobile. It’s dark. The limestone floor is unforgiving. She can hear the muffled cheerful radio chatter from behind the closed kitchen door. Like the chatter she had with Mike only a few hours previously, sealed in that room forever, like a phantom.

She clutches her knees with her head down, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, the way she was taught by Barry when the panic attacks were constant.

‘What have I done? What have I done?’ beats with the thud of her heart.

But her head replies, ‘It’s not your fault. Not this time.’

There was hammering at the door at four o’clock. Antonia thought it was Mike as he’d only just left, but there was something urgent and insistent about the noise. She walked cautiously down the limestone stairs, a similar frenetic hammering at a door still crisp in her mind despite the passing years. She looked through the peep hole. It was Olivia, pregnant Olivia. Olivia, Mike’s wife.