Girl Unknown(37)

Back home, I went straight through into the kitchen, putting on the kettle for tea, my hands and feet still numb from the bitter cold of the mountain air. I didn’t hear the phone ringing in the hall. It was only when I heard Caroline’s voice saying, ‘Is she all right? What happened?’ that the rigour of her questions and her polite but worried tone alerted me to trouble. I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her speaking into the phone, growing more anxious as she said: ‘Of course. I’ll let him know immediately. He’ll be over right away.’

My mother, I thought.

But it was not my mother.

‘It’s Zo?,’ Caroline told me, her eyes fixed on my face, choosing her words carefully. ‘She’s in hospital.’

‘What?’

‘She’s fine, David. She’s out of danger.’

‘What happened?’

Lowering her tone, so the children in the next room wouldn’t hear, she said: ‘She took an overdose.’

Weakness came into my legs. The numbness left my extremities and I felt the stinging pain of pricking needles all over my feet and hands as the blood came rushing into them. ‘She tried to kill herself?’

Caroline didn’t answer that. Instead she told me which hospital and named the ward where Zo? was. I grabbed the keys from the hall table where I had left them and went back outside. My hands were trembling as I started the engine – it was still warm.

It’s something no parent ever wishes to see – their child lying helpless in a hospital bed. Even though Zo? had been a stranger to me only months before, even though I had missed all the birthdays and Christmas mornings of her childhood, the first day at school, the hockey matches and end-of-year plays, as soon as I saw her lying there, tubes travelling into her veins, I felt a rush of protective love so strong that I had to stop and collect myself, lest all that emotion might break inside me and flood out.

She was lying on her side, a blanket covering her body. She was not fully awake – sedated, perhaps, or deep in a depression. A bruise blossomed on her hand where an IV had been inserted. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I was afraid of disturbing her.

As I approached the bed, her head turned. As soon as she saw me, the mask fell away, her face contorting with tears that seemed to gust through her, savage and raw.

‘Zo?,’ I said softly, pulling a chair up next to her.

She was trying to cover her face, hiding her brokenness from me, but the sobbing and shaking spoke of her fragility. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, the words coming out liquid and halting, spoken between gulped breaths.

‘Sssh,’ I whispered. ‘You don’t need to apologize. I’m just glad you’re all right.’

She continued to cry but the sobbing had lost some of its raw edge, and while she was still upset, I could see she was calming. Passing my eyes over her, I noticed how pale and gaunt she was, skeletal under that harsh lighting. All the colour had drained from her – even her hair looked drab and lifeless. She was wearing a hospital gown, her bare arms emerging from the printed cotton. I was so used to seeing her swathed in baggy jumpers, or long-sleeved T-shirts, the cuffs tugged down over her wrists and hands. With a shock, I saw the markings on the inside of her arms – a series of vicious little cuts, as if a cat had clawed her, over and over. Some were fairly new, the scabs still present, while others had healed into fine pink lines, and a few had faded almost completely. I saw those lines and felt emotion inflate within me, tears of shock and pity coming unexpectedly. I swallowed them, taking her hand.

‘What happened?’ I asked gently. ‘You can tell me.’

‘You must wish you’d never met me,’ she said hoarsely.

‘Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite.’ It surprised me how much I meant those words. ‘Please tell me, Zo?. I promise I won’t judge. I just want to understand.’

She turned over so that she was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her face looked flatter, her eyes dulled. She had let go of my hand but still I sat close, leaning towards her, waiting.

‘It just got too much,’ she began. ‘Everything got on top of me. I felt like I was drowning.’

I nodded encouragement. When she didn’t go on, I prompted her: ‘Was it your studies? A lot of students struggle in the first year. It’s very common.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, but I could sense the tug of reluctance within her and knew there was something more.

‘There’s still plenty of time to catch up,’ I offered. ‘It’s only the end of Semester One.’

‘Time,’ she said drily. The tears were gone now, and what remained was dry deflation. ‘That’s part of the problem. I have no time.’

I knew that she had a part-time job to help pay her rent, but as she detailed the jobs she had and the hours she needed to work to pay her bills, it became clear to me the burden under which she was struggling, and how little time remained for her studies.

‘What about Gary?’ I asked, feeling somewhat awkward at mentioning his name. ‘I had the impression that he was helping you financially, paying your fees at least?’

Even as I said the words, I felt fraudulent. I was Zo?’s father, not Gary. Why did I expect a man I had never met to pay for my daughter’s education?

‘Gary has made it obvious that he wants nothing more to do with me.’