OK, so Alex probably needed to rein in the late night telly watching. ‘Jem, I’m telling you, you should go into the bridal market. You’d make a fortune.’
‘And deal with all those finicky bridezillas or, worse, their mums? No thanks. They’re not all as chilled out as Blythe, you know. Just ask Mal.’ Jem stabbed at a piece of carrot then thought better of eating it. ‘I wonder when her next meal will be.’
Alex had stopped eating too. She pushed a slice of potato around her plate. She’d been hasty, hopeful this morning of her mum waking up and them bringing her home in no time. Then they’d come in to change Blythe’s catheter and Alex realised. Blythe wasn’t just sleeping, she was dependent. For now, at least.
Alex sat perfectly still, listening to the clinking of Jem’s cutlery against her plate and a houseful of silence behind it. ‘She needs to come home, Jem. It’s too quiet.’
‘She will. This place will be jumping again once she’s home.’ But they both knew that it probably wouldn’t. It had been years since either of them had heard the sounds of their childhood. Years since Blythe’s voice had effortlessly chased the rising and falling of dramatic melodies while Madama Butterfly or La Traviata played through the house. When Blythe did eventually come home it would just be more obvious. Dill had taken all the noise with him.
‘You’re lying.’ Ted’s voice sounded thin against the cheery 20s jazz playing out in Frobisher’s Tea Rooms.
Louisa’s hand was trembling. Her glass lying upended on the table-top. She wiped at the lipstick smeared messily from her lips. Ted saw the tears pooling in her eyes and felt nothing. He might have worried that he’d hurt her, been too rough, if he could think straight.
Louisa’s eyes darted about the tea rooms but the waitresses wouldn’t see them sitting here. Louisa had chosen the booth, tucked away by the little side window.
She swallowed back angry tears. ‘But you know that I’m not, don’t you, Ted? I can see it in your face.’
He should never have come here. Then he wouldn’t have had to listen to her spiteful proposition, wouldn’t have had to push her away. Wouldn’t have made her want to hurt him back so cruelly.
‘Stop talking, Louisa. Just …’
He brought his sleeve over his own mouth, in case any of that red was left on his. His hands were shaking too. Ted rose slowly from his chair. Louisa’s eyes grew wide.
‘Where are you going? You can’t just leave.’
He should never have come. ‘Home, Louisa. To my family. I promised my son we’d play with his new arrows.’ The bow and arrows. Ted pictured Malcolm bringing them over to the house for Dillon. He felt himself hunch over the table for a moment, his fingers grasp the edge of the table-top.
Louisa’s chin wobbled. She held herself rigid and glared up at him. ‘You go back to her then,’ she spat. ‘To that frumpy little wife of yours. But I hope you’re good at pretending, Edward Foster.’
‘Every case is different, Mr Foster. It’s still very early days and there’s no saying how your wife’s symptoms will continue to present. I’m afraid it can be something of a guessing game in the initial weeks.’
Alex could tell her dad was trying to decipher how old this man delivering the fate of their family could possibly be. For a moment she found herself playing along. Dr Okafor was handsome in that way all young, intelligent here-to-help-your-suffering-loved-one people were, with his rectangular-rimmed glasses and candy-pink shirt that was only ever going to be OK on an acute assessment unit because he was educated, and knowledgeable, and because it complemented his flawless black skin perfectly.
Alex glanced at Jem to see if she was evaluating Dr Okafor too. Jem’s hand was resting comfortably through the crook of their dad’s arm. ‘You’re saying she might be in hospital for weeks? Even though she’s woken up and managed to drink and …’
Dr Okafor lifted his hands apologetically. ‘We are very encouraged by your mother’s progress this morning, Miss Foster, but before you go in to see her you must be made aware that recovery can be unpredictable and sometimes erratic. As the swelling on Mrs Foster’s brain reduces, we would hope to see further changes in the rate of her progress but it can be a very … disorientating experience for your mother.’
Alex found her voice. ‘So what are you saying, Doctor?’
He looked softly at Alex, as if delivery was something they spent a whole semester’s study on in med school. ‘It is quite possible that your mother’s symptoms could get worse before she starts to feel better, and that is something we should keep in mind. Did you know that your wife suffers from arrhythmia, Mr Foster?’
Bingo. Dr Okafor had just delivered a body blow. It didn’t matter how much older and wiser Ted was, this guy, this kid, knew stuff. Important stuff that he didn’t. About his Blythe. ‘Arrhythmia?’ Jem ventured.
‘It’s her heart, Jem.’ Alex’s voice snagged, unready to speak when she’d wanted it to.
Dr Okafor smiled and dipped his head. ‘That’s correct. Arrhythmia is essentially irregular beating of the heart, its rhythm. Sometimes this can be the cause of the stroke, sometimes the effect. Has your wife ever complained of problems in this area, Mr Foster? Any discomfort, breathlessness, palpitations … maybe no more than a fluttering sensation?’
Alex felt her neck burning up. I did this to her. She knew it. She’d known it since she put down the phone to Jem in the cubicle at the leisure centre.
Alex heard her dad clear his throat. He wasn’t going to be caught out by a snagging voice, his age and experience at least gave him that much. ‘My wife’s a busy woman, Doctor. It takes a lot to slow her down. If Blythe has had any problems with her heart,’ he cleared his throat again, ‘she hasn’t shared them with me.’ Alex couldn’t read her dad’s expression. Her mum wouldn’t have kept that from him, would she? Her parents didn’t keep anything from each other, they didn’t have secrets, they just weren’t the sort.
Ted battled on. ‘Would she have had these palpitations all the time, Doctor? Or could they be triggered by something?’
Jem looked just as surprised by Ted’s obliviousness. Alex frowned. Why hadn’t her mum shared this with him? She deserved his support, why forfeit that and hide a fluttering sodding time-bomb, waiting to go off in St Cuthbert’s churchyard?
‘The symptoms might have been present day to day, Mr Foster,’ said Doctor Okafor, ‘or just here and there for no particular reason. There can be triggers. Stress, for example, can be a factor. There are many aspects we should consider.’
The burning in Alex’s neck was sweeping up through her head. Stress can be a factor. Stress. Define stress, Doctor. How about, say, the drowning of your only son? The years robbed of celebrating his birthdays like a normal family. The thought of him gasping his last desperate breaths while the daughter you’d entrusted him to was making goo-goo eyes at her boyfriend in the bushes. Would that be an aspect worth considering? Would that affect the rhythm of a mother’s heart?
Jem was looking over. In through the nose, out through the mouth … Alex could feel her heart thudding in her chest. Was arrhythmia contagious? Like an infectious yawn, jumping from one person to the next? She hoped so. She deserved it, she bloody well deserved it.
A bleep began pulling Alex from the internal disaster gathering pace inside her ribcage.
‘I’m