Chapter 4
I can’t help but think how much Maggie would hate all this fuss. She could fuss with the best of them when it came to others, but herself? That was out of the question. When I arrived this morning, I started counting the staff who come in to assess the monitors, her vitals, and whatever else might go awry while she lies there, as still as she has ever been, still utterly unresponsive. I counted six nurses then stopped. I figured my attention was better spent elsewhere.
At least I have, to some extent, begun to open up. I am speaking. Slowly—yes. Sticking to the good bits—yes. But speaking nonetheless. There is nowhere to hide when there is a bedside I need to be at. There is nowhere else I could be either. I cannot retreat to my study, bury myself in some papers or lock eyes with the cryptic crossword to avoid engaging with the gulf between us. How has it come to this? I never thought I would be saying the things I should have said for the past few months—hell, for a lifetime—to a face that has not moved an inch in forty-eight hours.
“You’re staying, then?” Daisy asks as she takes over the rearrangement of Maggie’s breathing tubes from an assistant who seems to be shadowing her.
“Pardon?”
“Here. You’re staying, then?”
“I can’t leave. I can’t, Daisy.”
“Hey, now, I didn’t say you had to, did I? Some doctors will say visitors ought to keep to their hours, but luckily for you, you’re dealing with Daisy. What Daisy says, goes. And Daisy says that if you want to stay, then that can be sorted. I can get you some bedding before I head home, if you’d like?”
She rubs her eyes with the edge of her wrist where her rubber glove ends. When she opens them again, they seem larger, discs of dusty blue awaiting my answer.
“Will you, please?”
“Sure, Frank. But mind, there’s no glamour here, I warn you. Think camping, then think less comfortable. Saves you going home, though. Saves you time. Unless you need to get back for something?”
Time. Yes. The eternal enemy. How long do I have left? Before they try to pull the cord on Maggie? For “compassion.” For budgets. For everyone’s sanity. The thought sends fresh waves of nausea crashing through me, and I try to suppress the image of a doctor’s hand wavering at the plug socket behind the bed.
Daisy has finished her adjustments, and for a second we hold each other’s gaze. I am the first to look away. There is something confessional about her presence, and this is a confession I am not yet ready to make, however big my first step has been. Not yet. Eventually. I’ll get there eventually. I hope I have enough time.
When Daisy excuses herself to locate a camp bed, I move a little closer to Maggie. In doing so, my stomach drops a fraction, its age-old response to nerves. I have spent a lifetime trying to get closer to her. Now I am too scared.
“Do you still recognize this voice?” I ask, running my finger down the soft skin of Maggie’s cheek. When it reaches her jaw, I can see my finger tremble. “Do you still want to hear it anyway? Please, Mags, just wake up and tell me it isn’t too late.”
In an unbelievable stroke of good fortune, you agreed to a second date. My nerves skyrocketed. There was so much more at stake. I wonder if you noticed my palms sweating, Mags, when I stood up to greet you. That awful moment when you went in for a double-cheek kiss—so sophisticated, so natural—and I stuck my hand out instead, like I was being interviewed for a job, not trying to start a relationship.
We met down a narrow alleyway. Do you remember it? The one near to where Edie moved a couple of years later. Anyway, it hardly screamed safe, let alone romantic. Earlier in the week, I had put instructions on a notelet and left it with reception at the surgery, half fretting whether my missive would make it to you, half terrified you wouldn’t turn up after you read it. As I would come to learn, you lived for that thrill of the unexpected. You would bring it out in me too. I always did say you were a miracle worker.
“So?” you ask.
“So, what?”
“So, what are we doing today?” You look so excited.
“I thought we might do a little boating.” I try out the voice I have been practicing in the shower this week. Confident. Assertive. One that suits the new Frank. If I’m honest, it is the sort of Frank I didn’t even know could exist.
“Ooh, I’d love that!”
Just as I am about to mentally toast my own victory—Two for two! Can I make it three?—there is an ominous rumble in the clouds above. We both look up at the gray overhead, only one or two white curls visible in a sea of slate. I look down before you and see that there is a smile hovering on your lips.
“They did say on the radio that it was going to be mild. The beginning of spring . . . ,” I begin. It is late February. We are both bundled up in coats and scarves. I wish I hadn’t been so trusting of the peppy weather presenter. “But now I’m wondering if perhaps this isn’t quite the weather for it . . .”
“Or maybe it’s the best weather for it after all?” You fix me with a look that is blatant in its mischief. “You’ve got me this far—there’s no way we’re not getting in a boat now.”
My heart thumps so loudly in relief that I wonder if you can hear it.
“Right, well, shall we?”
Logistically, things go from bad to worse. The boat I have rented, from a “close friend” of Piotr’s (not a phrase I would ever trust again), has a crack running horizontally under one seat and a set of the shortest oars I have ever seen. In a fit of gallantry, I take the seat above the crack and offer to do the rowing. You push us off, taking a run-up that sends me shooting off from the bank far faster than either of us expected. To get on board, you end up half splashing into the river and have to hoick yourself up with a violent push that sends the whole boat rocking from side to side. By the time you are in, we are both in hysterics.
You barely pause for breath before you are pulling off your loafers and emptying out the greenish-brown water that is sloshing around the soles. You stand up and immediately begin pulling down your tights. The first patch of skin that emerges, mid-thigh, is peppered with goose pimples. I feel indecent for looking and end up manically checking over my shoulders instead, as if on the lookout for the bank. Too late. We hit it with a judder that sends you flying forward. Just in time, I manage to catch you. My hands grab your shoulders inches before you crash into my face. I avoid a bruise, but the intimacy shakes me.
“My hero.” There is something playful in your tone that makes me stir. I imagine what would have happened if I had let you fall just that tiny bit farther, until our bodies touched . . . Then, in desperation, I think of my grandmother, down in Dorset, and the way she would pick the food out of her teeth with her nails after supper, collecting the larger bits on the side of her plate. I think of the black mold on the shower door, the blocked sink in the little side kitchen at work . . . anything to distract me from the tightness in my trousers.
Before I know it, you have sat back down again, opposite me. The moment has passed, and my breath returns to some semblance of normality. In all the excitement, the boat has continued on its own path downstream, and when I finally take up the oars, I realize the hard work may have been done for me. We are in a small inlet, the surface almost emerald with a series of large, overlapping lily pads. The boat has a hard time cutting through them, but for once, now that I am in your presence, I feel no need to be chopping and changing lanes to get on in life just that bit faster.