Page 56 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
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Physio Fern is so pleased with my progress that she gives a little clap when she sees me walking. I’ve been practising over the weekend, when she wasn’t working, going a bit further each time. I can comfortably get around the hospital now. Not that there’s really anywhere to go, other than the various coffee shops. Then it hits me – I could go to visit Matt for once, rather than him visiting me. I store the idea away for later.
‘You’re doing brilliantly,’ Fern says.
And despite myself, I smile. I’ve always been something of a teacher’s pet. Always wanting to please.
‘Well enough to go home?’ I’m joking, but not entirely.
‘From my perspective, yes. I’m sure you’re capable of getting around your home, getting in and out of the bath, up and down stairs, all of that.’
I think of the flat above the Pheasant that I shared with Dee and then David. Do I still live there? I’ll ask Dee. ‘It sounds like there’s a but,’ I say.
‘There is, I’m afraid. I think the medical team want to keep an eye on you for a bit longer. Because of the bleed.’
I nod. ‘Fern?’
She tilts her head to the side, checks her neat bun with one hand. ‘Yes?’
‘Thank you for what you told me, about your husband.’
‘Ex-husband,’ she says.
‘Of course. Ex-husband. Can I ask something? Did he go to prison?’
She shifts a little, puts her small feet together and clasps her hands. I can see she’s uncomfortable, and it’s possible I could put a stop to it by taking the question back, but I really want to know.
‘No, he… I mean, I never reported him. I just found the strength to leave.’
This hits me hard. I don’t know why I assumed that her situation was like mine, that it had all come to a head, somehow.
‘So he’s just out there? Potentially doing the same thing to someone else?’
She drops her head, then lifts it and looks me dead in the eye. ‘I shouldn’t really have got into this with you, Shelley. I just wanted to help, but this is my personal life and it’s not really appropriate for you to judge…’
‘I wasn’t judging,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, I see how it sounded like that. It’s just… The reason I was asking is that I know my ex-husband will be out one day, and I don’t know how to feel about that. I don’t know whether he’ll come looking for me, because I testified against him. Because I effectively put him in prison.’
‘He put himself in prison,’ Fern says, and I just nod, because she’s absolutely right.
For about half a minute, we look at each other. Two women of the same generation but on entirely different tracks, with this one awful thing in common.
‘I moved away, after I left him,’ she says. ‘I don’t think he knows where I am.’
I take a moment to let this sink in. She uprooted her life, moved away from her family and friends, presumably, to live in hiding. It isn’t something I want to do. I’ve got no family to speak of, but I’ve always lived around here. It’s home. And there’s Dee, and her family who I’m keen to get to know again. And the pub. Or is there the pub? I can’t know for sure. It’s something else to ask Dee about.
‘I don’t think I could do that.’
She raises her eyebrows a tiny bit, and I think she’s saying that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. Things you think you can’t do.
‘He might come out changed,’ she says.
‘He might.’ I don’t think either of us believe he will.
‘And he might just want to start afresh. He might move somewhere new, or at least avoid settling somewhere too close to you.’
I think about finding out he’s been released – would someone notify me? – and starting to sleep with a kitchen knife under my pillow, just in case. I don’t want to live like that.
