‘You always did have that independent streak,’ my mother tutted. ‘I suppose you don’t want us cluttering up that flat of yours. One day you’ll realise you need somebody else in your life, Jessica. You can’t always handle everything yourself. Your brother is as bad, going off to New Zealand like that. I don’t know why you couldn’t both just settle down locally and live quiet, ordinary lives.’
I sighed. The last thing I needed was a lecture from my mother about my working-girl lifestyle and what she saw as an inability to commit to a relationship.
There was a short pause at the end of the line, and then, ‘What about the man who took you to hospital? I hope you thanked him?’
A picture of Dan popped into my head and I smiled despite myself. ‘Mum, I’m not a child, of course I thanked him.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t need us…’ My mother was ending the call. ‘I’ll put Dad back on to say goodbye to you. Take care, Jessica, and do remember that you’re not Superwoman. If you feel at all unwell, then call us.’
‘Yes, Mum. Bye.’
Dad came back on the line, his voice gruff. ‘If you feel at all poorly, then ring us, lovely, won’t you? You know your mother and I would be there like a shot…’
‘I know, Dad. I promise I’ll call if I need you.’
‘Bye, lovely. Take care.’
‘Bye, Dad.’
I replaced the receiver and went into my little kitchen to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. The conversation with my parents had churned up old feelings of needing to prove myself to them in some way, especially to my mother, who thought I’d failed if I didn’t settle down with a nice average guy and have two-point-four children on whom they could both dote. I just wasn’t ready for those things. I had a career to forge. I wanted to take my law degree and be someone in the world; a self-made someone of standing—not just someone’s wife or someone’s mother. Maybe Mum had been happy with all that, but I wanted something more from life.
The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough. I watered my plants, picked a few dead-heads off the still-flowering begonias in the window box, made myself and Frankie some supper, and headed for the bath and an early night. If I felt okay when I woke in the morning, I told myself, I would probably struggle in to work. The office was always busy on Monday mornings and I wouldn’t want to let my boss down.
I settled myself as comfortably as I could in bed. It was difficult, as I liked to sleep on my side and the shoulder with the burns was tender, chafing against the soft fabric of my pyjamas. I knew I was tired, because my eyes felt gritty and dry, but it seemed my brain was refusing to give in to sleep. I tossed and turned, each time having to allow for the sore area on my shoulder, picturing the images I’d conjured up in my mind the previous night, wondering where and how I’d dreamed up the phantom family. I suppose I must eventually have dropped off, because soon I was waking again and the dream became blurred and faded.
Opening my eyes, I sat up and stared around me in disbelief. The first thing I did was to glance down at my left hand. The thin gold wedding band gleamed back at me, just visible beyond the spaghetti junction of fine hospital tape holding the canula securely in place in the back of my left hand. The drip, I noticed, was no longer connected to the canula, which had some sort of rubber bung on the end, presumably, I thought, to stop my blood running out of the open vein all over the crisp hospital sheets.
Shock presents itself in different ways, and with me it seemed to manifest itself in a bout of hysterical laughter. I sat and giggled stupidly. The thing was, I tried to tell myself sternly through the shaking sobs, this was just the dream again. And it definitely wasn’t funny. Soon I would wake up and this place would disappear. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and tried to return to sleep, but it seemed my brain was wide awake, and sleep wouldn’t come. I opened my eyes again and sat up, the nervous giggling starting again.
The room was quiet apart from the wheezing I was making as my shoulders shook with silent panicked laughter. I vaguely registered that I was no longer connected to the ECG machine, which now stood silently behind my bed. I stopped laughing with a jolt, realising that I actually remembered the nurse disconnecting my drip.
Because the side room was windowless, I couldn’t judge what time it was, but I had a horrible, gnawing feeling I knew exactly what the time was, just as I feared I knew that the drip had been disconnected just after two thirty in the morning.
Perspiration broke out on my whole body as I thought back. I’d gone to bed early, soon after eight o’clock. I’d tossed and turned for around an hour, which meant I’d probably dropped off soon after that. If it was around 9.15 p.m. at home, did that mean it was the same time in the morning here?
Twisting around, I found the buzzer and held my finger down until Nurse Sally appeared, looking flustered. ‘Thank goodness you’re awake at last!’ she exclaimed as she bustled round me, plumping the pillows and tidying the sheets. ‘I was about to bleep Dr Shakir to come take a look at you. I’ve been trying to wake you for the last two hours. I’ve never known anyone sleep so deeply, Lauren.’
‘What time is it?’ I asked.
She glanced down at the watch pinned to her uniform. ‘It’s nine twenty already. And you haven’t even had breakfast yet.’
‘What time was my drip disconnected?’
‘I’m not sure exactly, the night nurse said the last of the saline had run through and she disconnected it sometime in the early hours.’
‘Could you look it up in my notes?’ I persisted. ‘Please?’
She gave me a searching look, as if wondering what my interest was, but merely nodded and hurried out. As soon as she had gone, I rummaged through the bedside cabinet, which was back where it was supposed to be on the right side of the bed, and found one of the newspapers Grant had brought in for me the previous afternoon. It was a Sunday paper, which meant that yesterday had indeed been Sunday, 19 October. It ought to be Monday morning now, unless time had gone as haywire as everything else. Was this a dream? My mouth felt dry and my hands were suddenly sweaty with fear. I breathed as shallowly as I could, hoping to somehow melt into the bed and disappear from this place of nightmares.
Nurse Sally returned with a breakfast tray and the announcement that my drip had finished and been disconnected at 2.30 a.m. by the night staff.
‘Your husband is bringing the children in to see you in about half an hour,’ Sally continued cheerily, unaware of the sickening feeling of inevitability that her words had invoked in me. ‘I was hoping to have you up and bathed this morning now that your drip is down, but I think we’ll have to postpone that until they’ve gone. You’ll be able to get up today and dispense with the monitors and bedpans, that’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled unenthusiastically, poking at the dry toast in front of me. I wanted to shout, to tell her that in my other life I’d never been this ill to start with. The lightning had left me virtually unscathed; Jessica was at home and recovering. That this was a step in a direction I didn’t want to take at all.
Grant arrived while I was still brushing my teeth into a white plastic bowl on the bed-table that Sally had brought in for me.
‘You were so groggy yesterday, I didn’t think you’d need this,’ she’d explained as she’d wheeled the table in.
‘And you didn’t want anything cluttering the room in case I flat-lined again,’ I’d murmured, thinking of the bleeping monitor to which I’d been attached.
She had stared at me, hand on hip. ‘Well, that too, I suppose.’
‘Can you fetch me a mirror?’ I’d asked, moments before Grant and the children had arrived. ‘I haven’t looked at myself since the accident,