Page 18 of The Lie
‘Anezka won’t mind,’ Leo was saying. ‘She’s cool … Well, she’s very far from cool, actually. She’s feisty and takes no prisoners – leads Dad a proper dance, is my guess. But I’m sure she won’t mind you being here.’
Romy was not convinced, but she wasn’t going to argue. ‘We should get back,’ she said, finishing her coffee.
Leo nodded and they rose to their feet.
‘You like her?’ she asked, as they made their way to the lift. This was the first time she had properly asked Leo about Michael’s girlfriend. She hadn’t thought it appropriate to question the boys and they hadn’t volunteered much, although Rex – who liked a good gossip – haddropped the odd hint that he found it uncomfortable being around Anezka and his father in those months before he’d gone to Australia, because she was very physical and cuddled and kissed Michael openly.
‘Yeah, she’s OK. But she’s closer to my generation than his, Mum. It’s kind of weird.’
Romy pressed the lift button, avoiding the censure in her son’s eyes. Neither of them could understand why she had left their father after a lifetime together. Soon after they had told the boys about the split, Rex had said, ‘I don’t get what the problem is, Mum. You and Dad never seem to argue.’
‘That’s because we never talk,’ she’d replied.
He’d thought about this. ‘You used to.’
‘Not recently,’ she said, holding back further comment.
He’d frowned. ‘Has something happened, Mum?’
‘No, nothing,’ she’d insisted, ashamed of her lie.
Rex had nodded slowly, seeming to believe her. ‘I remember you and Dad laughing together a lot when I was a kid … but, yeah, maybe not so much recently, I guess.’
Romy had realized that laughing with Michael seemed a distant memory now. Not since the letter, certainly – which she refused to mention to her sons – but before that too. Nor could she explain the intricacies of a long marriage, the grey area where dissatisfaction and resentment run alongside friendship and passion in the early days, but the steady contentment many of her friends had grown to feel with their spouse as they became older would now never take hold in Romy and Michael’s relationship.
‘I’ll see how it goes with Anezka,’ she said now. ‘If I feel I’m in the way …’
But her son grabbed her hand. ‘Mum, I’m telling you, I can’t do this on my own. I don’t think Anezka will be great in a situation like this. She might require as much support as Dad.’ He stared at her. ‘I need you … Please,pleasedon’t go.’
As the doors of the lift opened on the intensive-care floor, Romy experienced an unpleasant thud of premonition and a sick feeling in her stomach, as if a large hand were reaching out to clamp her and drag her unceremoniously away from her promising new life.
13
Romy woke to find herself in a strange bed: the spare room in the flat, which she had never slept in before last night. After she’d moved out, Michael had apparently gone back to the main bedroom, and Romy found herself reluctant to sleep in what was now his and Anezka’s bed. And, anyway, the room was a mess. The bed had been pushed aside, the duvet balled and dumped in the corner by the window, the sheet half pulled from the mattress. There was a scrunched-up plastic hood of some sort littering the floor and a syringe cover – debris from the paramedics’ equipment.They must have been in a hurry, she thought miserably, as she began to set the room to rights.
The flat no longer felt like her home, but there were disturbing echoes everywhere of her life with Michael. She had taken very little to the cottage. The photos of the family on the walls, all her kitchen gadgets, the books and even various bottles of self-tan and sachets of hair mask in the bathroom cupboard were exactly as she’d left them. There was very little sign of the Czech girlfriend, except for a scented candle in the bathroom – scented candles always made Romy sneeze – and a few random items of clothing in her side of the wardrobe.
Leo was right: Anezka was quite something. Romy and Leo were sitting on either side of Michael’s bed whenshe’d arrived at the ICU the previous afternoon in a whirlwind of drama.
Tall, slim and very beautiful, she had a dramatic curtain of thick, brown hair, which she raked with her fingers, swishing it from side to side every two minutes as if she couldn’t decide where it was most comfortable, huge blue eyes in a classically proportioned face and full, perfect lips that made Angelina Jolie’s look amateur. Romy was taken aback. As Leo had observed, she seemed so young and so glamorous – for some reason she’d pictured a woman more like the tough, clever types Michael admired in his professional life.
She was dressed in jeans, a round-necked white T-shirt – which showed off her perfect breasts – and trainers with no socks. But she’d thrown over the simple ensemble an oversized grey and white checked duster coat that instantly lifted the outfit to supermodel status. Leo was clearly in awe, his youthful skin blushing under her enthusiastic hug.
‘Oh, my God, darling. What has he done? I can’t believe this is happening,’ she exclaimed loudly, drawing the attention of most of the nursing staff and those patients who weren’t actually in a coma.
Leo, recovering himself with effort, had introduced Romy and she’d seen the younger woman’s gaze flick up and down in an uncomfortably appraising manner. Then Anezka came towards her and wrapped her in her arms. ‘I am so happy to meet you at last,’ she said, with such genuine warmth that Romy almost burst into tears, the strains of the morning finally overwhelming her in the face of this unexpected kindness.
Anezka drew back, her huge eyes also glistening. Then she turned to the bed and took a deep breath as she stared down at the man she loved, tentatively laying a hand on his forehead, her own creased in concern. It was obvious to Romy that she’d had little experience of illness and that it frightened her.
‘Michael.’ She bent close to him. ‘Milác?ku … can you hear me?’
Michael opened his eyes at the sound of her voice. He had been in and out of consciousness but so far had not said anything coherent to Romy or Leo. Now, however, he spoke, his words slow and very slurred.
‘Annie … what is … what …’ His eyes closed, but Romy saw him clinging to Anezka with his right hand. His left flopped uselessly on the sheet, grey and lifeless, like a dead fish. His eyes opened again and he almost smiled, although the left side of his face drooped severely, giving his expression an almost piratical air. ‘So tired,’ he added, then closed his eyes again, his grip loosening.
Anezka looked triumphantly at Leo, then Romy. ‘He’s talking! A good sign, no?’ She sank onto the chair Leo had vacated and put her hands over her face. ‘I thought he was dead and you weren’t telling me,’ she said, and began to cry softly behind her long fingers.
Romy had suffered a painful stab of jealousy when she first saw Anezka, but she found her heart going out to the woman.Was the row serious?she wondered.Has she really dumped Michael?If he recovered – and there was no guarantee he would – it would be a long road until he was fit again.
