If You're Not the One (24 page)

She'd been coming to France for years now so she knew the mountain roads like the back of her hand. Joe. She and Joe were going to be together. She couldn't believe it and
though it had been horrific having to tell Tim, it was done. She put her foot down a little harder. Now she just needed to get to him.

Heart racing and adrenaline pumping through her system, Jennifer didn't take a moment to gather herself. If only she'd stopped for a second and taken a long deep breath. If only she'd realised that once she reached Joe, they'd have the rest of their lives together and that getting to him minutes earlier wouldn't make any difference. The physical desire to be with him was so immense though that common sense simply took a back seat. The relief of telling Tim after the most painful year of her life was so enormous it propelled her down the twisty mountain roads in a reckless fashion that normally she wouldn't contemplate. She flew round the corners and bends perfectly, driving with accurate precision; but what she couldn't have known was that around the next bend a moped was approaching. A young man was coming back from the bars of Nice. Earlier on that day he'd found out he'd got a promotion so had stopped after work for a beer or two. Now he was veering unwisely into the middle of the road. As Jennifer turned the corner she saw him far too late, and was by now travelling at such a speed that she didn't have enough time to react. The shock of seeing his headlight in her line of vision was so great that she lost control of the wheel altogether and the jeep hurtled towards the edge of the cliff. Meanwhile, the brakes which she'd slammed on so hard simply didn't have time to bring the vehicle to a
stop. The man on the moped, who had managed to steer himself to safety, watched in horror as Jennifer's jeep smashed through the low metal barrier at the side of the cliff top and although her death would be instant once she made contact with the rocks at the bottom of the mountain, the drop down towards them wasn't. That fall took five long seconds and the thoughts that flashed through Jennifer's mind and the feelings she experienced in those last few terrifying moments were even darker than the ones Joe would have to live with for the rest of his life.

Max had hit a wall. His own health had taken a battering due to stress and lack of sleep and he was starting to feel quite unhinged. Only yesterday he'd been swamped by a worrying desire to grab Jennifer's inert body and start shaking it in the hope it might wake her up, jolt her out of her coma. It was at this point he finally admitted defeat and rang Karen. Up until now he'd refused to let her take over, worried that the one night he didn't keep vigil would be the night something happened. As Karen arrived, she could tell Max was on the brink of collapse. He couldn't even be bothered to put up any resistance as he had been doing for weeks. Instead he just waved goodbye sadly and ambled away.

Once he'd gone, Karen went to sit next to the woman who'd been her best friend since school, who she'd shared a quarter of a century of friendship with. A friendship she simply couldn't comprehend not having as part of her life going forward. Karen chose not to think like that though. As far as she was concerned Jennifer was going to get better and that was that.

‘Hello you,' said Karen. Unlike Max she didn't feel at all self-conscious talking to someone who was in a coma. If anything it was a similar experience to talking to Pete when he was watching West Ham play. ‘Do me a favour and get yourself sorted out will you? I miss you, you big lummox.

Max had been right of course. The one night he wasn't at the hospital something was bound to happen. It's simply the law of the sod.

It happened at around two-thirty am. Karen was asleep on the visitor bed which was next to Jennifer's. She didn't know how Max had suffered it for all these weeks and now fully understood why he'd been complaining of a sore back. The bed was profoundly uncomfortable, the springs having given up the ghost years ago, and it had taken Karen ages to drop off. However, she was finally sound asleep when the machines around Jennifer suddenly started to beep urgently.

At first Karen wondered if an alarm had gone off. Was it time to get up for work? It was only when a nurse suddenly burst into the room that she remembered where she was, at which point she sprang up, eyes wide with fear.

‘Oh my god, what's happening?' she asked frantically.

‘Just a second please,' said the nurse as two other nurses also joined her in the room.

The sound of the machines was distressing but not
as distressing as what Karen saw next: which was that Jennifer's face was contorted into the most frighteningly strange expression while her body was jerking in a disturbingly unnatural way.

‘Is she in pain?' screamed Karen, wondering what the hell she should do. ‘Why does she look like that? Is she waking up?'

But no one would answer her. The room was filling up with more and more medical staff all of whom were far too busy tending to the patient to give any clue as to what might be happening to her friend. They were all shouting at one another, mainly medical jargon which Karen had no chance of ever understanding. They administered something into Jennifer's arm by injection, they checked her pulse, changed her drip, there was more frantic shouting and then finally, finally the machines seemed to calm down, meaning whatever was happening to Jennifer was hopefully subsiding.

Karen was completely traumatised by what had just happened. She'd honestly thought her friend might be dying.

‘What happened?' she begged to know, tears rolling down her frightened face.

‘Don't worry, she's stabilised now,' said one of the remaining nurses. ‘She was having some sort of seizure. She seemed very distressed but she's fine now. You should try and get some sleep and we'll get the specialist to come and talk to you more tomorrow.'

‘OK,' said Karen, and her voice came out as a whisper.

Once everyone had left the room, Karen went to sit next to Jennifer. She took her limp hand. ‘Hey you. You gave us a bit of a shock there lovely…'

Karen stopped in her tracks.

Then she blinked and went to switch on the bedside lamp to make sure she was definitely seeing what she thought she was seeing.

When the light from the lamp illuminated Jennifer's face she could see that she wasn't hallucinating. There was indeed one very real tear rolling down her now still friend's face. It was quite possibly the saddest thing Karen had ever witnessed. What was going on in that brain of hers? And how could she have missed quite how unhappy she was? If she pulled through this (and after what had just happened, finally Karen was admitting to herself that it was if as opposed to when), she vowed to do everything in her power to make her friend happy again.

The next morning a vaguely refreshed Max arrived back at the hospital only to be told that his wife had suffered some kind of inexplicable seizure during the night.

As Karen filled him in on what had happened, any benefit he'd been feeling from his short break from the hospital was erased totally.

‘Max look, I don't know whether I should be telling you this because it's a bit upsetting but at the same time the doctors thought it was a very encouraging sign.'

‘Tell me now,' said Max.

‘OK,' said Karen, who knew she had to fill him in but was wondering how on earth to broach the second half of her news. ‘Well the first thing is, she cried. Or at least I saw one tear roll down her face.'

‘Really?' said Max, the mix of emotions he was experiencing at that moment unsteadying him.

‘Yes, which is pretty amazing. It shows more or less that there's no way she's brain dead. I mean, she can't be.'

‘What's the other thing?'

‘She said a word, Max.'

‘What? When?' He couldn't believe he'd missed it. His wife had done nothing but lie there for weeks and the one night he chose to be away it seemed she'd practically put on a show.

‘What? What word did she say? And when?' he demanded to know.

‘At about three in the morning, just after I noticed the tear rolling down her face.'

‘And what was it?' Max practically yelled.

Karen gulped and then she made a decision, for sometimes she decided, there was such a thing in life as a good lie. A bloody necessary lie.

‘The word she said was…Max.'

‘Was it?' said Max, his whole face lighting up and tears springing into his eyes. ‘I can't believe it. Oh Jen,' he said, rushing over to the bed and taking his wife's limp hand and rubbing it with his. ‘Oh Jen, I love you. Thank you so
much. I needed a sign, I really did, and now you've given me one.'

Karen watched nervously, a weak smile on her face. What on earth was going on between Jennifer and Max? Not for the first time she berated herself for not having paid more attention to her friend when she'd tried to tell her that she wasn't happy. It had been easier to assume that her friends were just having a patch. Looking at Max now though she could tell their problems had scratched far deeper than the surface. When had the rot set in?

In the meantime she didn't have the heart to tell Max what her friend had really said and more than ever she prayed that Jennifer would wake up soon. Apart from anything else she needed to ask her ‘Who on earth is Joe?'

Thirty-three thought Jennifer, studying her grey complexion in the harsh light of the bathroom and slapping on yet more pink blusher. She felt more like eighty-three. Eadie was two and a half and Polly was six months and teething badly, so sleep was a thing of the past and Jennifer had never been so desperately in need of a break from the crying, the nappies, the demands. A romantic dinner out would be just the recharge she required.

Of course, in some ways it was tempting not to bother and just to become at one with the sofa like they did most nights, but she'd always said that birthdays were to be celebrated and she was determined that this one would be no exception. So Max had booked a table at a local restaurant, fancy enough that it warranted her wearing something which wasn't leisure wear, but not so smart that the fact she hadn't been to the hairdressers for months was a problem.

It would be such a treat to spend some proper time with Max and sheer luxury to be able to abandon her babies for a few hours of precious, uninterrupted adult time.

She sighed now as she opened the bathroom door and the sound of Polly screaming from her cot hit her in a wave. ‘Coming baba, coming.'

Half an hour later, having plonked Eadie downstairs in front of CBeebies and strapped a still grizzly Polly into her bouncy chair, she called Max's mobile. It went straight to voicemail. This was a good sign. He was probably already on the tube heading home.

She left a message: ‘Hi, only me, birthday girl. I'm so excited! Eadie's bathed and fed and Polly's bathed, but not fed, because her gums are pretty much on fire. She's basically been screaming all day, but anyway,' she said in a sing-song voice, trying not to lose the plot, ‘I can't wait to hand over to Mum and more importantly I can't wait to see you. Can't believe I'm actually going to be getting out of the house and eating with someone who doesn't need their food cutting up or blended. So please hurry. Wahoo. Better go and grab Pol. See you soon, call me.'

One hour later and there was still no sign of Max. Jennifer's mum had arrived and had taken over looking after the girls leaving Jennifer wondering what to do. She felt trapped. By now she was literally desperate to escape the confines of the house but didn't particularly fancy sitting in a restaurant on her own. Where was he? Of all the days to be late back.

She phoned his mobile for the fourth time. Finally he picked up, but as quickly as her heart leapt with joy, it
sunk again like a stone when she realised the background noise was of a bar or a pub.

‘Where are you?' she said, instantly really cross. Had he not even started the journey home yet? She'd kill him. At that moment she was swamped by a really bad feeling about how the night was going to pan out.

‘I'm just having a quick pint with a few people from the office. I won't be long.'

‘But we're going out. It's my birthday and I'm ready. You said you were going to take me for a drink beforehand.'

‘Well sorry, but I couldn't really say no, they all wanted me to come for one. You know what it's like. You have a nice bath or something and I'll leave as soon as I've finished this one.'

‘But I'm ready and I can't believe you haven't left. Why do you need to have a drink with them? Why couldn't you just say that it was your wife's birthday? You see them every bloody day and meanwhile I'm sitting here dressed up to go out, with make-up on, for the first time in what feels like far too long, waiting for you!'

‘All right,' said Max, ‘calm down, bloody hell, all I've done is come for one pint. It's only seven. I'll be home for eight.'

‘Only if you leave right now,' said Jennifer, hot tears pricking her eyes. She was unbelievably upset. ‘I told you Mum was coming early, and how often do I get the
opportunity to go out before the girls are asleep? Never. Whereas you get to go out all the time.'

‘All right,' said Max moodily.

Jennifer could tell he was slightly pissed. The situation was getting worse by the minute.

‘I'll come now then,' he huffed.

Jennifer felt like bursting into tears. ‘Well that's very good of you given that it's my birthday. Or perhaps you'd forgotten?'

‘Hardly, as if you'd bloody let me, going on and on about it, like a ten-year-old. Every frigging year.'

Jennifer was stunned. She gulped, waiting for him to realise how cruel he'd been and to say sorry.

‘I'll see you soon,' was the only thing he said though before putting down the phone.

Jennifer felt like he'd taken a chisel to her heart and chipped a tiny little piece of it out.