Mo took the hint, though he looked disappointed. Then he asked, ‘You heard any more about how the girls are getting on?’
He really was beginning to tick Jake off. ‘The girls’ – as if they were shared property. Tish was his girl. No one else’s. ‘It’s touch and go. Jess still hasn’t woken up, and Tish has had to have another operation on her face. A skin graft, to cover up where they had to wire up her jaw.’ Anita had told him. It had made Jake feel sick.
Mo blinked and didn’t ask anything else. They stared at the TV in silence. It was totally awkward. Jake was glad when his mum – who had no doubt been listening in the hall – came in and announced that Jake needed to take his meds. Mo stood up, politely said his goodbyes and left.
After he’d gone, Jake swallowed his pills and he told his mum he felt rough. She helped him through to the back room, where they’d made him up a bed. When he was settled, Anita kissed his forehead, despite it being covered in a sheen of sweat from the exertion of transferring himself onto the bed. She left the door ajar on her way out – just in case he needed her.
When she’d gone, Jake pushed down the duvet and looked at the damage. His leg was well and truly fucked – the question was whether it would ever get back to normal. The puckered skin, the screws, the pain that pulsed inside his bones. The sheer ugliness and uselessness of his body frightened Jake. Going back to work at the golf club was a distant prospect – he wasn’t going to be mowing the hilly seventh tee anytime soon; kicking a ball was a pipe dream; getting it on with a girl, ever again, a fantasy. And he’d been lucky. Not as lucky as Mo and Harry, obviously, but very lucky – compared to the girls. The image of them lying in their hospital beds, like pieces of meat, haunted Jake. A horror film, but real. He couldn’t imagine there was any way of coming back from that type of damage. And even if they did, what sort of shape would they be in? He couldn’t bear to think about it.
He knew he should arrange to go in and see Tish, the next time he went back to St Thomas’s for his outpatient’s appointment. He really should. He’d let Mo think he was in the loop, acted as if he’d been in to visit her again. Jake wasn’t sure why he’d done that. It was low.
He shifted and his leg throbbed. A wave of self-pity washed over him. The truth was that he wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t face it. It wasn’t only the physical state of Tish. It was the pressure of dealing with Sal. And Fran and Marcus. All that emotion, all that worry and pent-up love. It was too much. He lay back, closed his eyes and listened to his mum singing along to Freddie Mercury on the radio in the kitchen as she crashed about making tea. It was soothing. Just for now – he decided – he was going to take his mum’s advice, which was to concentrate on getting himself better before he tried to think about anybody else.
Chapter 30
FRAN PUT her arms round Sal and hugged her. People moved past them, barely paying attention. They were in the hospital canteen, the place where relatives came for a break and the staff came to refuel. Crying, hugging, napping, arguing, beeps going off – it was all part of a normal lunchtime.
‘Sorry.’ Sal pulled away and scrubbed the tears off her cheeks with the heel of her hand. Sunlight washed the room. Someone ordered a large portion of chips.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Fran said.
‘No. I am sorry for losing it.’
Fran understood. After the endless weeks of waiting and worrying and stress, with every muscle in your body tensed, it was understandable that when the release came, you fell apart. A change of scene, that was what they needed. ‘Shall we go outside?’ There was a garden with planters and benches that ran alongside the canteen. Sal nodded.
They chose a bench at the far side and sat down. Sal took Fran’s hand. ‘I couldn’t have got through this without you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Same here.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I know.’
‘I feel bad.
‘For God’s sake, why?’
‘For leaving you and Jess, and Marcus. In there…in that bloody awful place.’
Fran turned to face Sal. ‘It’s fantastic news that Tish is being moved off the ICU. We’re so happy that she’s turned the corner. Look at her now. Drinking on her own. Talking. It’s lovely to see.’ Sal teared up again. Fran chided her, ‘Don’t you dare.’
Sal launched into a frenzy of words. ‘If I think back to when she crashed,’ she swallowed, ‘and now. It’s amazing what’s possible. Once they got on top of the infection…I will keep praying for the same for Jess. You know that, don’t you? Just because I won’t be there, right across the way from you, don’t think that you won’t be in my thoughts. And I’ll text you. All the time. I’ll probably drive you mad. You will text me back when you can, won’t you? I’ll need to know what’s happening. Please, I can’t bear the thought that I won’t know what’s going on with Jess. And be honest. If you need me to come up, I will. I’ll come anyway, to visit, if they let me.’
Fran put her hand over Sal’s. ‘I promise. And I know you’ll be thinking of us.’ She took her hand away. ‘Now, don’t you need to get back upstairs? You’ve got some packing to do.’
Sal stood. Fran didn’t. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
Fran forced a smile. ‘I’m going to have another five or ten minutes of fresh air, then I’ll head back up.’ Sal hesitated. ‘You go. I’ll see you up there.’
Fran watched Sal walk back through the doors and travel the length of the dining room. Even from a distance there was a noticeable change in her gait. She was walking taller, her head up, looking forward – there was a lightness of step that had not been there before. Fran waited until Sal was gone, before letting her head drop into her hands.
There was no lifting of the weight for Fran. Her soul was heavy.
With her eyes closed, she felt the cool breeze on her skin. People walked past her. She kept her head in her hands, trying to reduce herself to a thing without thoughts. Not a mother. Not a wife. Not anything. She concentrated on the sounds – a burst of laughter, the scrape of a chair being pulled out in the dining room, the occasional bleep of the doctors’ pagers, something crashing on the serving hatch. She wished she could stay there for ever.
She couldn’t.
She lifted her head and opened her eyes. With one last glance up at the clear blue sky, she stood up.
Jess lay silent and unmoving up on the ward.
Marcus was sitting beside her, waiting.
They had a decision to make.
Chapter 31
THE MESSAGE went out to All Staff at the beginning of the day. It was read and passed on over and over again. Conversations were had about who could be spared and who could not. Far more wanted to attend than were able, but that was the way it was – even for this. Many of the frontline staff knew immediately that they wouldn’t be able to go. Their presence was required elsewhere. When your day job is a matter of life or death, the living take precedence. A number of people were secretly relieved to be denied permission. It felt wrong not to want to be there and wrong to be thankful to miss it.