Page 17 of The Lie
‘He looked at me earlier and tried to speak, but I couldn’t understand what he said.’
Romy checked around the ward, light pouring in through the extensive windows. ‘Who can I talk to?’ There were medical staff everywhere, and a sense of professional calm, with enough room between each bed-station – she reckoned around twelve in all – to give a sense of privacy.
Leo pointed to a woman in blue scrubs with short mousy hair and a large bosom, a stethoscope slung round her neck, talking earnestly to a bespectacled man in a dark suit behind the nurses’ desk. ‘That’s her, Dad’s doctor.’
Michael’s scan, so Linda Stott later informed Romy and Leo in the patients’ waiting room, had shown a clot in the right carotid artery in his neck, which had reduced the blood flow to his brain.
‘So what happens next?’
Linda pursed her lips. ‘Well, there are a number of things, but the problem is that because it was quite a while after the stroke before your husband was brought in – judging by his deteriorated condition – we decided clot-busting drugs wouldn’t be so effective and could make things worse.’
The doctor stopped and, for a ridiculous moment, Romy – her mind flashing back to the unanswered texts and the scene on the sofa – thought she was reproachingher. She might as well have done; Romy felt a crippling guilt that she hadn’t responded to Michael’s cry for help. She knew it could be the difference – those lost hours – between a good recovery and a not-so-good one. Between life and death, even.
‘But there’s a plan?’ Romy asked urgently, when Linda didn’t go on.
‘Surgery to remove the clot is an option but, again, it carries risk. We feel the best thing to do is to monitor him and give him medication to prevent another potential stroke while we wait for the clot to disperse.’
Romy frowned. ‘Do nothing?’
The doctor gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Not nothing, Mrs Claire. We’re giving your husband the very best supportive care. But it’s vital he has time to stabilize. We don’t want to aggravate the situation.’
‘He’s going to be OK, isn’t he?’ This from Leo.
Dr Stott looked him straight in the eye. ‘I won’t lie to you. Your father’s in a critical condition – there’s a real danger that he might have another brain attack. The next forty-eight hours are crucial.’
Stunned, Romy stood by the bed, searching her husband’s face for signs of life. It was unbearable, seeing him like that, and also witnessing the shock imprinted on her son’s face. But there was nothing they could do, except this – the passive staring, the watching for any tiny twitch in the face on the pillow. After a while she dragged Leo out of the ward and down to the Costa café on the ground floor, where she got them both a strong coffee.
Finch had driven her expertly – at breakneck speed – to Fulham, then told her he would hang around for awhile in London, in case she needed him. She glanced around to see if he was in the hospital reception area, but there was no sign of him. And while she longed for his comforting and capable presence, she did not relish explaining him to her son right now.
‘Does Anezka know?’ she asked, when they were sitting at a table covered with crumbs and coffee stains, which Leo impatiently wiped away with a wad of napkins.
‘I left an urgent message, but she hasn’t got back to me,’ he said tiredly.
‘Try her again. She should be here.’
Dr Stott referring to Michael as ‘your husband’ had been unsettling. Yes, he was technically that, but Anezka – whom Romy had yet to meet – was really the person they should be talking to about his treatment. Or Leo … Rex if he were in the country. Because by leaving Michael, she had pretty much abdicated all responsibility for him.
Leo pulled his phone from his pocket, punched in a contact. After a moment with the mobile pressed to his ear, he shook his head. ‘It’s Leo again, Anezka. Please ring me. It’s really urgent.’
He clicked off, but his phone rang immediately.
‘Hi …’ He frowned, clearly taken aback by what he was hearing. ‘OK, no, I understand …No …Anezka,listen, for God’s sake. Dad’s had a stroke. He’s in hospital. They say he’s critical.’
After a further short exchange, Leo clicked off and widened his eyes at his mother. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘What?’
‘She and Dad had a terrible row yesterday evening, apparently. She says she dumped him. When she saw I’d called, she assumed Dad had asked me to mediate.’
‘Like your father would ever do that,’ Romy muttered. Then she realized what her son said. ‘Shedumpedhim?’
Leo nodded. ‘Sounded really upset … But she’s coming in now, anyway.’
Romy wasn’t sure what to do. ‘Maybe I should go, if Anezka’s on her way.’ She saw her son’s look of alarm and hurried on, ‘She’s his partner now, Leo … This row they had, it’s probably nothing. Won’t it be a bit weird, both of us sitting by his bedside?’
‘You can’t leave us, Mum. Please. Don’t you want to be here for Dad?’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ she said wretchedly. Which was true. She couldn’t imagine leaving him when it wasn’t certain he would live. And she would never leave her son to cope alone. But she was apprehensive.
