Page 20 of The Lie
Romy watched Jasmine – so young, so eager – put on her reassuring face as she approached.
‘OK … So he’s not had a bad night,’ she said. ‘His swallow reflex is improving and he’s been drinking little bits this morning. They’re doing an ultrasound scan on his carotid artery later, to see if the blood clot has dispersed. The signs are encouraging, but he’s not out of danger yet, Mrs Claire. We’re still monitoring him very closely. We’ll be able to tell you more after the tests.’
Romy nodded her thanks, but didn’t feel particularly encouraged. Michael was obviously still far from out of the woods.
The hospital had a soporific effect on Romy. It felt like a separate world: overheated air, polished corridors and pleated blue curtains, frightening equipment and people talking a language that made her feel stupid and out of control. There was nothing to do except sit and watch asdifferent elements of the medical team zoomed in on Michael, like bees to a flower, performed whatever service they were required to provide, then melted away.
She ate too many biscuits and crisps and drank too much coffee. She had brought her book and tried to read. But in the end she just sat vacantly, unwilling to analyse her presence beside Michael’s bed or her feelings about the man lying in it.
In her mind’s eye, an old memory sprang up, an event she hadn’t thought of in years, triggered because it had taken place in a large house in one of the streets behind the hospital. It was a New Year’s Eve party they’d been to before the boys were born, given by one of Michael’s fellow trainee barristers in his parents’ home. She’d had on a gorgeous strappy dress in deep raspberry. The band was top class, Michael a great dancer – like everything else in his life, he wanted to be the best – and she just followed his lead. She remembered his dark eyes flashing with pleasure as he whirled her expertly around, skirt swirling out from her long legs, remembered the exhilaration she felt just being in his arms.
Will he ever be able to dance again?The thought brought tears to her tired eyes.
14
Michael’s condition had gone up and down in the five days since his stroke. It was Saturday now. Romy still felt scratchy and bone-tired from worry, but also cautiously optimistic. Michael was no longer considered critical and they had moved him out of the ICU to the stroke ward on the floor below – where, to Romy’s guilty relief, visiting hours were limited to the afternoons.
He was definitely more compos mentis now, although his speech was still extremely slow and distorted and his whole left side hung uselessly from his body, making him horribly lopsided and incapable of balancing on his own when the nurses got him out of bed. But the danger of another stroke was still a real threat, according to the doctor.
Today he seemed pleased to see her, raising his good hand to take hers when she reached the bed. Someone had shaved him and put his pyjamas on, and he looked a bit more like his normal self. Her husband had always been striking rather than handsome. A lean man of average height, he had begun shaving his head decades ago, after he’d cut it open getting off a faulty ski lift, then decided he preferred the look. It accentuated his high cheekbones and large dark eyes, his Roman nose – inherited from his Venetian grandmother – and made him stand out among the more conservatively presentedjudiciary. But now his exposed skull just made him look ancient.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I brought you some chicken broth.’ She placed the Thermos on the bed table, moving aside the inevitable grapes and a pile of books brought in optimistically by Leo, none of which Michael had even glanced at. ‘Bit of a cliché, but you’ve always been fond of my soup and I’m sure the food in here is shit.’
Michael nodded and smiled. ‘I’m very fond of … things you cook,’ he said slowly, obviously searching for words, the meaning hard to glean from his mangled speech. Then, to Romy’s horror, she noticed a single tear course down his cheek. Then another.
‘Michael?’ She stroked his hand, finding a tissue in a box on his bedside locker and handing it to him. The tears stopped almost as soon as they’d started.
Michael gave her a weak smile. ‘Not sure … why that … why I …’ he mumbled, appearing bewildered rather than embarrassed. Romy had rarely seen him cry, not even when his beloved mother had died. It shocked her that he was so disarmed; it touched her heart.
‘Shall I pour you some soup?’ she asked, to cover her own emotion.
He shook his head, but she couldn’t understand the words he was trying to articulate.
The afternoon wore on and there was no sign of the boys or Anezka. Michael’s long-time colleague and friend, James Bregman, with whom he shared chambers, dropped in, clutching a lavish, dewy bunch of flowers, which he waved vaguely around, and finally laid on Michael’s bed.
‘Thanks, these are gorgeous,’ Romy said, after she’d greeted James. ‘But I’m not sure they allow flowers on the ward, these days.’
His expression fell and he looked ill at ease – although James was not someone easily discomposed – as he hopped from foot to foot in his expensively tailored suit, his plump, fair face flushed. ‘Sorry, didn’t think …’ He stared at Michael’s sleeping figure. ‘Bit of bad luck this, eh?’ As if his friend had just lost on the horses.
James, through all the guff and posturing, was actually a decent person, Romy knew – he would have done anything to help, had she asked – but he was not the easiest man to talk to, even though she’d known him for decades, unless the subject was the law.
‘Are you and Michael –’ James was interrupted by the arrival of the ward staff nurse at Michael’s bedside. He looked relieved. ‘Better leave you to it,’ he said. ‘I’ll pop in another day.’ And he was off, leaving the flowers on the bed, without having said a word to his ailing friend.
The nurse cleared her throat. ‘Perhaps we could step outside for a moment,’ she said in a low voice.
They stood in the corridor. Staff Nurse Weeks had her arms crossed over her uniform. She was dark-haired, neat and businesslike, her friendliness slightly forced as if she considered this part of her job a chore.
‘It’s early days, Mrs Claire, but I wanted to touch base with you about Michael’s rehabilitation.’ When Romy, caught off guard, did not instantly reply, she went on in her clipped voice, ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a lot to organize. Obviously Michael’s not ready to go home quite yet. But we try not to keep stroke patients in hospitalany longer than necessary. We find they do much better in familiar surroundings, as long as they have proper support.’
Romy felt a shaft of panic. ‘I’m not really the one responsible for that,’ she said. ‘Michael and I aren’t together. We haven’t been for a while.’
She seemed taken aback. ‘Oh. No one mentioned this to me.’ She paused. ‘So will your son be responsible for Michael when he goes home? Because we need to check there’s someone arranging his care package for when the time comes. Such as taking charge of his finances while he’s incapacitated. I’m sure the family has thought of this, but he’ll need his accounts monitoring, his bank informed and his bills paid until he can do it himself. Plus someone will have to oversee the various aids and equipment he’ll need in his current situation and make sure there’s always someone present – he can’t be left alone. Is this something –’
‘He has a partner,’ Romy interrupted, although she knew as she said it that this might very well not be the case any more. But she was uneasy about steaming in and potentially treading on Anezka’s toes.Can she be totally sure about splitting up when Michael is too incapacitated to have a proper conversation about the row they had?‘I think you should talk to her,’ she added.
Weeks nodded. ‘Is she coming in today?’
‘She might be,’ Romy replied uncertainly. Because Anezka hadn’t visited in the last couple of days, only kept in touch with Leo on the mobile. But even if she did come in, Romy was having trouble imagining Anezka picking out which Zimmer frame would be most suitable forMichael. As she stood watching the retreating figure of the staff nurse, she suddenly felt frighteningly alone, like a drowning person. The finger of responsibility seemed to be pointing directly, inexorably, at her.
