‘Yeah, sure. After about a hundred or so.’
‘Very funny. I’m being serious – will you? I’ll need to practise if I’m going to pass first time.’
‘And that’s the plan, is it?’
She’d yawned and stretched, upending her plate in the process, sending crumbs all over the carpet. He’d suppressed a comment. ‘Whoops. Sorry.’ She’d started picking up the specks of toast and rubbing at the butter-and-jam blobs on the carpet with the cuff of her sweatshirt. ‘Yep. By the middle of the summer.’
‘You mean just in time for your birthday?’
‘Well, if you did feel the urge to buy me a nice little Mini – a red one – that would be lovely. It would save you having to pick me up all the time.’
And he’d said, ‘In your dreams, young lady.’
That’s when she must have done it, with him sitting on the sofa, in exactly the same seat, obsessing about sodding toast crumbs. That’s when she must have checked a tick box on the application form and agreed to donate her heart, her lungs, her liver and anything else they wanted, in the event of her death.
And she hadn’t even mentioned it.
Chapter 35
FIVE DAYS later Sal was preparing for another, very different departure.
Tish was being discharged. They were going home, at last. But the mood in the room wasn’t one of celebration. It was one of tension. Tish was jittery, a bundle of nerves. Sal understood. After weeks inside the sterile walls of the ICU, then in the safe side-room on the plastic surgery ward, the long-awaited news that she was about to re-join the world had come as a shock. Jess’s death had hit Tish hard. Initially she’d got very, very upset – crying, agitated, sobbing like a child. That her breathing was still affected by the scarring had only made things worse. Then she’d become angry, pacing around the room, talking a lot, but making very little sense. Because her speech was still affected, it had been very hard for Sal to make out much of what Tish was saying. It was like watching a toddler having a meltdown: upsetting and stressful. Everyone was a target for her raging: the doctors, the nurses, Sal, Jake, Harry. Especially Harry. Tish seemed to be casting around for someone – anyone – to blame for Jess’s death. She found plenty of candidates. The storm had gone on so long that Sal had had to summon help. She’d been frightened that Tish was going to rupture something. Expecting sedatives to be offered, Sal had been surprised when the nurse had simply taken hold of Tish’s hand and told her to ‘let it all out’.
Since that initial breakdown, neither of them had mentioned Jess. Her death was still there, in the ether, but they both edged around and over it. Cowardice or self-protection? It was hard to say. Either way, Sal had no intention of bringing it up herself, because Tish was still unpredictable: one minute elated to be going home, the next mad about something and nothing. There had been tears, on both sides, already that day, tiredness making every tiny little thing seem like yet another mountain to climb. They’d been tied together too tightly, for so long, that they were both short of breath – and it wasn’t about to end. There were months of recovery and healing to come.
Their current wrangle was over the helium balloon that Mo had sent. At first it had bobbed around Tish’s room, tight as a drum, bipbopping against the ceiling, driving Sal to distraction. But over the past few days it had lost air, drooping lower and lower. Now it was drifting round the room, trailing its ribbon behind it like a sulky drag queen. Sal was tired of it – of all of it.
‘Just pop the damn thing and stuff it in the bin.’
Impeded by stitches and thickening scar tissue as she was, Tish managed a defiant, mumbled ‘I’m taking it with me.’
Sal sighed and gave up. They were ready to go, had been for the last hour; they just needed the discharge paperwork. She made herself ignore the sound of Tish unzipping one of the holdalls, yet again, and the huffing and puffing as she pulled everything back out. In truth, Sal was as anxious about leaving as Tish. Once they stepped outside the security of the hospital, it would be up to her: the dressings, the ointments, the routine of facial exercises, the discipline that the doctors had stressed over and over again was essential to deliver the best possible outcome – it would all fall on her. They had prepared her, given her some basic training, explained it all very carefully, so Sal hoped she would manage the practical care side, but it was the other stuff she was more worried about. Tish’s readjustment.
She knew that her daughter’s re-entry into the world was going to be difficult. How could it not be? People were going to respond to Tish very differently, because she was very different. No longer a pretty, confident girl, but a scarred, nervous one. Even within the confines of the hospital, Sal had seen the double-takes, the shock, the unconscious fascination with Tish’s disfigured features. It was proof, beyond doubt, that human beings only feel comfortable with the familiar and recognisable. Heartbreakingly, it was going to be a long time before Tish fell inside the margins of ‘normal’. The surgeon had said the skin that was pulling the whole left side of her face down, like a stroke patient’s, would relax with time, and that more dentistry would improve the shape and look of her mouth, but Sal knew that Tish would never look the same. The thought made her stomach twist.
Tish was still fussing with the packing, undoing what had already been done. Sal refreshed her smile and made a comment about the weather.
Two hours later they stepped out of the lift into public for the first time. Sal led the way, not looking back, making a beeline for the main doors and the taxi rank. A quick getaway. She felt anxious, but pushed on, forging ahead, her arms full of bags. One hurdle at a time. They needed to get home, back to the safety of their small house, into a routine. They needed time for Tish’s wounds, physical and emotional, to heal. But there were no taxis. Just a ragged queue of people waiting. Sal joined the back of the line. She turned to say something to Tish, hoping to reassure her, but she wasn’t there.
Sal panicked. She scanned the concourse. Saw her daughter immediately.
Tish was standing just outside the hospital entrance, getting in the way. People streamed past her, many of them turning for a second look. Bastards! People were bastards. She was stranded, frozen by other people’s cruelty. The only thing moving was the damn helium balloon. It drifted and twirled prettily around Sal’s once-confident, beautiful daughter.
Chapter 36
SIX PAGES of high-grade, pale-cream vellum paper. Copperplate script. Nine hundred and fifty-three carefully chosen words. Not an eighteenth birthday, a graduation ceremony, an engagement or a wedding invitation; not the announcement of the birth of their first or second grandchild. The order of service for Jess’s funeral.
Fran ran her fingertips back and forth across the staples, the sharp edges catching her skin. A flimsy anchor.
It had been a beautiful service. A fitting celebration. Everyone said so. Friends, neighbours, work colleagues, the three nurses from the ICU ward who’d spared the time to attend, the legions of Jess’s mates. There were a lot of people she didn’t know. It didn’t seem to matter. Irrespective of their individual connection with Jess, they all seemed compelled to offer their condolences – in person. They grasped her hand, kissed her cheek, hugged her unyielding body. Fran endured it, dry-eyed, straight-backed, holding herself in. It was all part of the tradition.