Life as I Know It (13 page)

We walked Frankie for the next twenty minutes, then returned to work with about a minute to spare. Stephen had obviously been waiting for me. He called me into his office before I’d even had a chance to take my jacket off.

“How did it go in court?” I asked, peeling off my coat and taking the seat opposite his desk.

“Oh, you know, the usual.”

He stared at me intently, then seemed to make up his mind about something.

“Jess, I’ve got tickets to a concert in the Albert Hall on Saturday. I was wondering if you might like to come with me?”

I stared at him blankly. This was the first time in two years he had asked me to go anywhere with him. I’d thought we’d made the transition from lovers to work colleagues remarkably smoothly, and I was happy with the arrangement as it stood.

“I’m sorry, Stephen,” I spluttered. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

“For goodness’ sake! I’m only asking you to a concert. There doesn’t have to be strings attached. I just thought you might enjoy a night out.”

He started banging piles of papers around on his desk and I felt myself tensing up. The room seemed very warm suddenly and my head began to swim. I put it down to the fact that I’d just rushed in from the cold outside, and ran a hand over my eyes.

“You don’t have to make a big deal out of it,” Stephen was saying indignantly. “If you don’t want to go, then that’s fine by me…”

His voice tailed off and grew muffled, as if he were walking
away from me down a long tunnel. I felt the heat rushing up the back of my neck and my senses grew woolly, then I felt myself pitch sideways and everything went black.

Hands were shaking me, calling my name.

“Wake up! What’s the matter with you?”

I tried to stir, forcing my senses to function.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know what…”

“Wake up, Lauren. For goodness’ sake!”

“What?”

I stared around me at the dark bedroom, my thoughts in total disarray. Grant was standing by the bed, shaking me roughly by my undamaged shoulder, his hands warm on my bare skin where the slinky nightie straps had fallen sideways.

Pulling myself into a sitting position, I registered the hysterical wailing that was emanating from somewhere along the landing. The children!

“What’s the matter?” I croaked, swinging my legs out of bed, feeling the deep pile of the carpet soft between my toes.

“Teddy’s having one of his nightmares, Lauren! He’s been sick everywhere. Now he’s set Toby off and he’s crying, too. I can’t cope with them on my own.”

Bewildered and disorientated, I set off down the landing, pulling Lauren’s satin negligee around me as I went. The boys’ bedroom light was on, both boys sitting up in bed howling loudly. Teddy was covered in vomit. It was on his pajamas, in his hair, all over his space-rocket duvet cover and even on his precious ball.

Sizing up the situation and glancing at Grant’s ashen face, I realized I was going to have to take charge.

“Could you run him a bath, Grant?” I instructed as I shushed Toby and gathered Teddy gingerly onto my lap.

Grant disappeared in the direction of the bathroom and I could hear the water running in the distance as I rocked the frightened little boy back and forth in my arms.

“I wa… want… Mu… Mummy,” he sobbed.

“I know, I know,” I crooned, trying to ignore the smell. “You’re all right now, Teddy, I’ve got you.”

He tried to push me away, but I kept him locked in a bearlike embrace, and after a moment I felt his little body relax and fold into me.

“Mummy was on fire,” he mumbled through his sobs. “I want Mummy back.”

“I know, Teddy,” I whispered. “Believe me, I know.”

I cuddled him for a long time while his breathing grew steadier and his body stopped trembling. As Teddy’s sobs subsided, Toby also stopped crying and rested his head back down on his pillow, sticking his thumb into his mouth and watching us quietly.

“Bath’s run,” Grant said from the doorway.

“Come on,” I said to the sleepy form in my lap. “You’re going to have a night bath! That will be exciting, won’t it?”

By the time Teddy was bathed, and I’d put a clean sheet and duvet onto his bed, Toby was fast asleep. Kissing them both on the tops of their heads, I gathered up the soiled bedding and trooped downstairs to load it into the washing machine. I wasn’t sure how this particular model worked, but I found detergent under the sink in the utility room and turned the machine on to what I hoped was the right cycle.

Grant was back in bed when I returned to our bedroom. I looked at him sitting propped against the pillows with his bare chest showing above striped pajama trousers and felt a flush of embarrassment that I was expected to get back into bed next to this complete stranger.

At least with Stephen, I thought, I had chosen to be there, even if he hadn’t been terribly exciting as a lover.

“Are they settled now?” Grant asked.

“Yes, they’re both asleep.” I found I couldn’t look at him and averted my eyes as I continued, “I checked on the girls and they don’t seem to have been disturbed by it.”

“They’re used to it. Teddy does that when anything’s bothering him.”

“Does L—I mean, do I always sort him out?” I queried as I went through to the dressing room to find another nightdress, then popped into the en suite bathroom and threw Lauren’s stained nightie into the bath. After slipping the clean one over my head and making sure I was suitably covered, I washed my hands and ventured back toward the bed.

“You or the nanny; though he’s not usually as sick as that. I expect it was the pizza. The children aren’t used to rich food so close to bedtime.”

I registered the mild accusation in his voice as I climbed discreetly under the covers and turned my back on him. Pulling the duvet up around my shoulders, I felt him settle down next to me as he turned out the bedside light.

A moment later, Grant’s hand arrived on my thigh, stroking me gently through the flimsy fabric of the nightdress.

“Stop it, Grant!” Alarmed, I yanked my leg away. “We talked about this earlier. I’ve got to get to know you all over again, and it will take time. Do you want me to move to the spare room?”

He grunted “No,” made a snorting noise, and rolled over in bed. With our backs turned firmly to each other, we fell asleep again.

I awoke to find a bright light being shone into one of my
eyes, and sat up with a start. Dr. Chin let go of my eyelid and jumped back in surprise.

“Where am I?” I asked, staring round at my unfamiliar surroundings.

The smell of antiseptic coupled with the sight of the surrounding curtained cubicles, blue-uniformed nurses, and shiny linoleum floors reflecting overhead fluorescent lighting brought the truth home to me before a familiar voice beside me answered, “You’re in the emergency room, Jessica. You’ve been unconscious for ages!”

Clara was sitting on a hard-backed hospital chair, her face pale even under her smooth Caribbean complexion.

“How long have I been here?”

Clara glanced at her watch.

“About an hour and a half, I suppose. Girl, you gave us such a fright! When Mr. Armitage called out that you’d fainted in his office, I went running in there to find you out cold on the floor. We tried sitting you up, Mr. Armitage even slapped your face, but you wouldn’t come around. In the end we called an ambulance and they brought you here.”

“How do you feel?” Dr. Chin asked, taking my pulse and scribbling something on a chart. “You had us worried, Ms. Taylor.”

“I’m fine now, honestly. I just felt a bit faint, that’s all.”

“You have been unconscious for nearly an hour and three-quarters, Ms. Taylor. Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

“Do you mean before the lightning strike? No.”

“I think we should keep you in for observation. I would like to monitor your vital signs for at least twenty-four hours.”

I became aware that I was attached to a heart monitor, which was beeping rhythmically beside the bed, the sticky ends adhering to my chest and left side.

“I don’t want to waste your time,” I said, looking beseechingly at the doctor, then at Clara. “You must have more urgent cases who need this bed. I’m feeling fine now.”

“She said she was feeling very tired earlier,” Clara volunteered helpfully. “She shouldn’t have come back to work so soon if you ask me.”

“I did tell you to rest,” Dr. Chin admonished, wagging a finger at me. “Lightning strike is a very unpredictable thing.”

“Have any of my vital signs been unstable while I’ve been unconscious?” I asked.

Dr. Chin stared at the chart.

“You appear to have been in a state of stasis. Very low heartbeat, low blood pressure, and low body temperature. Like a very deep, dreamless sleep. No abnormalities.”

“I really do feel fine now,” I said persuasively. “Couldn’t I just go home?”

“If you go home, you must take a day off work, maybe two.”

“I will.”

“Okay, I will talk to the consultant. If he agrees, I can let you go home later.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, I don’t think you should go home,” Clara said as Dr. Chin moved away. “They called him down from the ward specially when I told them you’d been in here on Saturday. I thought he was going to keep you in. He was really attentive while you were unconscious, coming to check you every twenty minutes or so himself. I can’t understand why they’re thinking of letting you out. You’re not yourself at all, Jess.”

I nearly laughed at Clara’s choice of words. I certainly wasn’t myself, at least for half the time anyway.

“I’m not discharged yet,” I cautioned her. “They might still change their minds.”

“I’m going to telephone the office,” she said, pushing back her chair. “And tell them you’re awake and okay. Mr. Armitage was beside himself when you wouldn’t come around.”

“Not concerned enough to come with me in the ambulance, though,” I pointed out.

“He had a client coming in at two-thirty, or I think he would have. I said I’d go with you, and he seemed very relieved. I followed the ambulance in my car.”

As soon as Clara had gone to find a phone, I tried to organize my thoughts. What had happened this afternoon was hugely worrying. It seemed to mean that not only was I inhabiting Lauren’s body during my night, but that if the need was urgent enough, she could draw me there even when I should be awake here. Where did that leave me? What about my own life? How could I ever contemplate a relationship of any kind with Dan, or anyone else for that matter, if there was a chance I might disappear at any time to be Lauren?

“What’s the time, Clara?” I asked when she returned from making her phone call.

She consulted her watch again.

“It’s nearly four o’clock. I could murder a cup of something hot. Shall I go and see if the hospital shop is still open?”

“I suppose you’d better check with a nurse or something before bringing coffee or tea into the accident and emergency department. But if they say it’s okay, I’d love a cup of tea.”

Clara took herself off again and I lay back against the pillows, fighting off despair. For a couple of days this had all seemed like
some strange adventure, a frightening game that had to be played for a while. But if this went on forever… it didn’t bear thinking about.

Clara and I had only just finished drinking the rather strong stewed tea from plastic cups when Dr. Chin poked his head round the half-pulled curtain.

“The consultant has looked at your readout, Ms. Taylor, and says you can go home. But you must rest. Lots of rest please.”

A young nurse came and detached the heart-rate monitor and brought me my clothes, then I followed Clara to where she had parked her car. I sat staring out of the window as she drove me to my flat. The leaves on the trees lining the road were turning from gold and brown to russet and crimson. The long, wet summer had resulted in the most glorious outburst of nature’s colors, and the weekend’s thunderstorm had uncurled the wilting leaves and filled them with fresh vigor.

Soon Clara was turning her bright yellow Honda into the parking space in front of the flats.

“Do you want me to come in with you?”

“No, but thanks anyway, you’ve been great.”

She handed me my bag, which she’d had the foresight to grab off my chair in the office when she’d left to follow the ambulance. “You take care of yourself, girl. Don’t you come in to work for the rest of the week, do you hear?”

I leaned over and gave her a hug.

“You’re a good friend, Clara.”

I watched as she maneuvered her car around until it was facing the way we’d come, then she headed off down the road, leaving me with a strange feeling of emptiness. I turned and made
my way down the steps into my paved courtyard and unlocked the front door to rapturous barks of greeting from Frankie.

After Frankie’s evening walk, I wandered around my flat, running my fingers over the dusty furniture and watering my indoor plants. I felt a need to reconnect somehow to my real life, the one I’d always known. I needed to be surrounded by my things, doing familiar chores and savoring the sights and sounds of home. I nearly rang Mum again, but decided she’d panic if she thought I needed her. I didn’t want her and Dad to trek all the way up from Somerset. And if they stayed over, how would I explain my early nights and fainting fits to them?

A sharp morning frost had made the begonias wilt in the courtyard, so I pulled them out of the pots, dug in a trowelful of compost, and popped in a handful of spring bulbs. I made myself a plate of pasta, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying to the clock on the sitting room wall. It was seven-thirty. I knew that by now Grant would be waking up on Wednesday morning and that Lauren would have to wake soon to deal with the children, but I wasn’t tired enough to go to bed.

Lauren would be exhausted, I reckoned, after being up in the night. Her body would only have had a few hours’ sleep since she’d been disturbed by the boys. Maybe I could let her lie in a bit longer.

I called Frankie to come and sit on my lap, and flicked through the channels on the TV while I stroked her silky ears, but I couldn’t concentrate on the programs. By eight-thirty I decided to get ready for bed, and went into the bathroom to run a bath. I was about to climb into the steaming water when the phone rang.