Sophie's Run (10 page)

“Okay, all right, I get it,” Dan conceded, not quite convinced. “Anyway,” he drew circles on the table top in the condensation puddles that had run off our glasses. “What now? Where does Rachel go from here?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “First of all, we’ve got to get her out of hospital as soon as possible.”

Dan walked in through his front door carrying a hold-all when I stumbled bleary-eyed down the stairs the next morning.

“Morning,” he greeted me cheerfully, looking gleeful and excited.

“Morning,” I greeted him back. “Where have you been?”

“I,” Dan announced, clearly bursting to share his story, “tracked down the elusive Jordan
and
I collected all of Rachel’s things from his flat.”

“You
what
?” It was too much to take in so early, and I allowed myself to sit down on the bottom step while I digested the information.

It turned out that after I had gone to bed, Dan had driven round to Jordan’s flat and waited. Waited, until a very drunk Jordan finally rolled in in the wee small hours of the morning in the company of the very same long-legged blonde bimbo whose appearance had driven Rachel to her desperate deed.

“I can tell you,” he said, joining me on the bottom step, “I nearly lost the plot. I was so bloody angry when the two of them rolled up together, totally unaware of the misery they had caused.” His brow creased with cross lines as he recalled his emotions.

I had never seen him seriously angry, but I could imagine that that would be a frightful sight.

“But then I remembered that that’s not my style, really,” he carried on, “so I came up with something else instead. I sent the blonde bimbo packing and told her to have herself checked over at her local STD clinic, just in case she’d picked up something nasty.”

“You didn’t,” I breathed. “That’s slander.”

“I sure did, and I don’t care if it’s slander,” he retorted cheerfully.

Having dispatched the offending female, he made Jordan admit him to his flat and confronted him.

“What the fuck are you playing at,” he had yelled. “You were planning a wedding with Rachel and you dump her for a slut?”

Jordan, or so Dan said, had been quite taken aback by this turn of events. “I… I…” he had started, unable to string together a sentence.

“Too dumb, or too drunk,” I snorted, feeling vicious.

“Precisely,” Dan concurred. “Anyway, I pressed him and I pressed him and do you know what he said?”

I shook my head, uncertain whether I wanted to hear. Dan didn’t give me a choice. He was on a roll.

“He said,” he hollered, swept away by remembered anger, “he said he was
bored
. He said Rachel was
suffocating
him with all that
wedding
stuff and he just wanted to have some fun. Some
fun
!” Dan was furious even as he retold the conversation.

“I’ve done some pretty stupid stuff in my time, you know I’m not a saint,” he reflected on his own misdemeanors. “But what Jordan did on that boat, the way he treated Rachel so callously, so very carelessly, that was in a league of its own. That was contemptible.” He thumped the stairs with his fist to vent his feelings.

“Anyway, without another word, I collected every last little scrap of Rachel’s belongings that I could find, plus the keys to her flat. Jordan collapsed on the sofa in a blubbering heap while I put her stuff into my bag.”

He lifted the hold-all for emphasis. “He was crying like a baby, and it made me even more cross. I said to him, ‘Save the drama, mate, you’re too late, what you did was inexcusable.’ And then I just left him there.”

Dan, the avenging angel. I felt a warm glow of hero worship and affection, and if I hadn’t been quite so determinedly over this guy, I might have fallen in love all over again. I gave him a big hug, just for good measure.

After a quick breakfast, Dan drove me to Rachel’s flat so I could get some of her clothes and toiletries before visiting her back in the hospital.

When I got to the ward, Rachel was finishing her breakfast. She still looked very pale, but her eyes were alive and her demeanor was animated. The cannula had gone and there was little evidence of medical attention still being given. I pulled the curtain round her bed to give us some privacy from the other five ward-mates and we got talking. Rachel launched straight in.

“I’m so sorry to have given you such a fright,” she said, grabbing my hand and making me sit with her on the bed. “I don’t know what came over me.” She shrugged. “Well, I do actually, but it all seems so silly now.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

“It’s just…I was so
hurt
. Can you understand that?” She looked at me with pleading eyes. I nodded again.

“And I’d thrown the ring overboard, which you have to admit is
quite
a reasonable response, and it looked so pretty as it glittered and fell…and it was gone, and I thought, wow, I bet it’s nice and peaceful down there…and suddenly, I don’t know. The water looked so…inviting.”

I inclined my head to indicate that I had listened and motioned for her to go on.

“And then I was in it. In the river. It was cold. And quiet. I couldn’t hear any noise from the boat anymore, only the water whooshing past and my breathing in my ears. And I was so tired.” She trailed off and shrugged. “It all seemed so easy. Just to let go. No more worries. Just…flowing.”

“Is that why you turned away from the lifeboat?” I had to know. Of all the events I had witnessed, that was probably what had disturbed me most.

“I didn’t know it was a lifeboat. I couldn’t see properly. I thought it was Jordan coming to taunt me,” she explained.

I digested this. Okay, I could accept that. It sounded within the realm of the plausible.

“But didn’t they call to you?”

“They might have done, but it is really hard to hear in the water. And the engines were making a lot of noise. And frankly, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away.”

That sentence hung between us for a while.

“But why?” I eventually persisted, holding up a hand to stave off a quick response. “I know what Jordan did, and it’s truly despicable.” I took her hands and made her look at me. “But Rach, you’ve got so much going for you. Your friends, me, your job, your lovely flat… You can’t have wanted to throw all that away just because Jordan did something truly evil?”

She looked at me levelly.

“I simply couldn’t face picking up the pieces of my life all over again,” she finally offered. “I’d done it once before, and it took me years to put the light back into my life, and I didn’t think I had the energy to do it again.”

This was news to me. “What are you talking about?” I asked, gingerly.

Rachel sniffed. “My own thunderbolt-and-lightning man, and what happened with him,” she elaborated. “I never told you this before because it was too painful…but… Well, maybe it’s time I did.”

“Okay,” I coaxed, “go on.”

“What, here?
Now?
”

“No time like the present. Go on, out with it,” I ordered.

“Okay. I guess you’re right,” she said, but a nurse interrupted us, using that awful over-cheerful voice that set my teeth on edge every time.

“Good morning, Rachel,” she trilled, “and how are we feeling this morning?”

Rachel rolled her eyes at me.

“I
am feeling much better,” she retorted.

“Jolly good,” the nurse continued, unperturbed. “I can see that we’re feeling better. We must have a little chat with another nurse before we can go home later today, and our mum and dad will be picking us up, I think. So”—she whisked Rachel’s covers off briskly—“we might need to go for a shower to make ourselves a bit more presentable.”

Rachel snorted but obediently sat up. I proffered the bag of toiletries.

“Here, knock yourself out,” I suggested and gave a big start as the nurse snatched the bag right out of my hand.

“What’s in there?” she demanded, sounding terribly officious and rummaging through the bag. “These are only soaps and creams.”

“Yes,” I explained sweetly, “they’re her favorites, that’s why I brought them. I meant ‘knock yourself out’ in the sense of ‘make yourself happy,’ you see?”

The nurse handed the bag to Rachel and glared at me. Then she harrumphed her way down the ward. Rachel rolled her eyes at me in a sympathetic manner.

“You’ve been told,” she snorted. “Naughty girl. Right, I’ll be off to make myself look human. Don’t go anywhere.” With that, she swung her legs off the bed and trotted off to explore the hospital showers.

When Rachel got out of the shower, she made the bed, rolling pillows and covers together to make a sofa-like shape, and we settled down for a chat.

“His name was Alex,” Rachel launched in abruptly.

Just as abruptly, the curtain was opened and a short, rosy-looking nurse popped her head through the gap. “Rachel?” she asked.

Rachel raised her hand like a child in school. “That would be me.”

The nurse stepped into the curtained area. “I’m Rosie. I am the mental health nurse on duty. I’m hoping that you’ll have a chat with me about what happened yesterday.”

Rachel held the nurse’s gaze and answered evenly. “Of course.” The nurse cast a quick glance my way before continuing. “Based on our conversation, I will be able to assess whether we can discharge you today.”

Rachel nodded. “Okay.” Inwardly, I applauded loudly; she was doing so great being composed and reasonable.

The nurse stepped back and held the curtain open like a door. “Shall we go somewhere private?”

“Of course, yes, that would be good,” Rachel acquiesced, swinging herself off the bed yet again. I watched her walk down the corridor with Rosie and prayed for the best.

Half an hour later, she returned, looking a little drained but calm.

“She’ll ask the doctor to sign the discharge notice,” Rachel explained. “I did good, apparently. She doesn’t think I’m a danger to myself anymore.” She smiled sadly. “What a mess. Anyway…”

Rachel sat cross-legged on her bed and patted her side. “Pull them curtains again and let’s talk.” I did as instructed while she launched into her story again.

“His name was Alex. I met him in the library at college. No, this was before our time in Cambridge,” she clarified before I could query the statement. “Don’t interrupt me now. Right, so I met him in the library. I saw him across an aisle and I dropped the pile of books I was carrying. You should have heard the noise. It was like a tsunami.” She chuckled at the memory.

“Alex burst out laughing while the librarian was telling me off, and he came to help pick all those books up. We went for coffee, then dinner, skipping a few lectures… and that was that. We were an item. ‘Alex’n’Rach. Rach’n’Alex.’”

She sighed wistfully. “He was
gorgeous
. Delicious. Edible. He had dark brown hair that kept flopping into his face. Not like a toff.” She intercepted my look and punched me on the arm. “It was lovely. He had to keep pushing it back with his hand. And he had the most piercing blue eyes you’ve ever seen. They were like searchlights, and when he looked at you, it was like he could look straight into your soul. And when he was laughing, they seemed to be dancing. And when he was sad, they looked frozen and cold. I’ve never met anyone with eyes like that before or since.”

She gulped.

“He was tall, taller than me. He had the most gorgeous behind and…”

“Enough,” I laughed, “I get the picture. Spare me the graphic details.”

“I wasn’t going to give you the graphic details,” Rachel sulked. “I was going to say that he could wear Levi’s 501 as though he was born in them.” She grinned, and continued.

“So, we had this whirlwind romance. It was unbelievable. Heady. Exciting. I was swept off my feet, and he was the same. He was one year older than me, so he was in the throes of his final year when we met. But that didn’t bother him one bit, and we never thought beyond the end of the academic year.”

Rachel gathered her thoughts.

“That was a bad mistake. It turned out that he’d signed up for Voluntary Service Overseas for after uni. He was going to some remote place in Africa to help build a settlement and a well. When I realized that he was serious about going, I got really upset and we had lots of rows. He kept saying, ‘it’s only a year.’ And I kept saying, ‘but something might happen to you and I might never see you again.’ And so it went on for a few weeks.”

She paused.

“…
and?” I prompted eventually.

“And? The morning he had to go, we had another big argument. I started it, I was so upset about it all. I can see now that I was being stupid and selfish, but we were both still so young… Anyway, he got on that plane without speaking to me again. But he wrote to me. He wrote me on the plane and when he got there. He sent a letter every day, and photos. He was missing me, and he was sorry and apologetic.”

“That’s good, right?” I tried to feel my way into her emotions here.

“It would have been. Except…” she swallowed.