The Accident (21 page)

‘No!’ Ella stares beyond the low hedge, at the blue Audi and the tall, thin woman walking towards us. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Because she’ll ground me forever.’

‘Then tell me where you and Charlotte went?’

Clack-clack-clack. Ella’s eyes grow wider as the sound grows louder.

‘No,’ she edges away from the front door, as though preparing to make a run for it, ‘you’ll tell Mum.’

‘I won’t.’

‘She’ll kill me.’

‘Not if I don’t tell her she won’t. Your mum doesn’t need to know anything about this conversation, Ella.’

There’s a jangle of keys and the sharp squeak of a gate being opened. Clack-clack-clack. Clack-clack-clack.

‘Tell me,’ I hiss. I take a step towards her. ‘Tell me.’

‘We went to Grey’s nightclub in Chelsea with Danny and Keisha.’ Her words run into each other she’s speaking so quickly. ‘Charlotte met a footballer and I had to get the last train back to Brighton on my own. That’s it, end of story.’

‘You left Charlotte alone in a nightclub in London with a man she’d never met before?’

‘And I had to travel across London in the middle of the night on my own to get the last train home. Anyway, she wasn’t on her own. Danny and Keish were there too.’

‘The footballer – who was he?’

‘I don’t know. A fit black guy with an accent. Some bloke said he was a premiership footballer but who knows if—’

She stares over my right shoulder, her eyes wide.

‘You again!’ A cloud of Chanel Number 5 wafts up my nose and there she is, Judy Porter, standing beside me. ‘If you’re bothering my daughter again I’ll call the police. This is harassment, Sue.’

‘It’s okay, Mum.’ Ella flashes me a look. ‘She’s not bothering me.’

‘What did she want then?’ She crosses her arms and purses her lips together, waiting for an answer.

‘To thank me for dropping off Charlotte’s mobile.’

What? I look at her in surprise. She was the one who put the phone through our front door?

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes,’ I look back at Judy. ‘It was very kind of Ella and the least I could do was thank her in person, seeing as I was in the area anyway.’

Judy uncrosses her arms, rocks back on a stiletto heel and looks me up and down. ‘You’ll be going now then?’

Ella nods, ever so slightly. She’s begging me not to ask any more questions. To go quietly.

‘I’m going. Nice to see you again, Judy. Ella.’

The mobile phone issue will have to wait. There’s somewhere I need to go first.

Friday 8th June 1991

Jess, the bar manager, rang me on Wednesday night to ask whether I was over my ‘flu’ yet and hinted, without actually spelling it out, that if I didn’t make it into work on Thursday I’d lose my job.

I had no choice but to go in. What little savings I had are long gone and my rent’s due next week and I’m not sure how I’m going to pay it.

My first shift started badly – I dropped a bottle of wine, snapped an optic and overflowed the drip tray when I was changing the bitter – but it was only 6.30 p.m. and the bar was empty and Jess had gone up to the office to work on the accounts so there were no witnesses to my ineptitude. I kept glancing towards the door. James only ever came into the bar on a Sunday and, according to Steve, he hadn’t done that for at least a month so why I was so terrified he’d walk in, I don’t know.

But then he did.

It was half past eight. The interval had ended fifteen minutes earlier and I was clearing glasses and ashtrays from the tables. He didn’t notice me at first, he was too deep in conversation with Maggie, the Abberley Players director, her arm looped through his, but then, as they approached the bar, he glanced up and our eyes met. The colour drained from his face and Maggie, who was in full flow, stopped talking and looked to see what had startled him. Her face fell when she saw me and she pulled on James’s arm, stood on tiptoes and hissed into his ear. Her voice was low but I caught the words ‘go somewhere else’. James put a hand on her shoulder and, for a second, I thought he was going to angle her out of the bar but then he glanced at me, patted Maggie on the shoulder and headed towards a table at the far end of the room.

I ducked down and clanked a few glasses around in the dishwasher.

‘Hello, Susan.’

I looked up, smiled. ‘Maggie.’

‘We haven’t seen you for a while.’

‘No,’ I had to fight the urge to glance over at James. ‘I haven’t been well.’

‘Oh dear.’ It was a good job she was a director and not an actor because her attempt at sincerity was as real as the silk fern in the corner of the room. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

I was about to ask how she was, whether they’d decided on the next play yet and when she’d want me in to measure up when she said—

‘Did you get my answerphone message?’

I shook my head. She hadn’t rung me once since James and I had split up.

‘Really?’ She faked surprise. ‘That is strange. I could have sworn I had the right number. Anyway, sorry again that we won’t be using you for the costumes any more but a friend of mine recommended this wonderful warehouse near Croydon where they stock a lot of ex-BBC wardrobe. Renting them works out a hell of a lot cheaper than making them from scratch. Anyway,’ her eyes flicked from mine to the fridge behind me, ‘cheers for all your help. You were fabulous. A bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses please.’

The sound of Maggie’s tinkling giggle and James’s low rumbling laughter filled the room and I ran from the room and fled to the ladies’ loo in the foyer. I bowled into a cubicle, certain I was about to be sick and bent over the toilet. Other than a few dry retches, nothing came out. I stayed there for a couple more minutes then, terrified that Jess would return to the bar and find me missing, I checked my reflection in the mirror, patted my cheeks with toilet paper and opened the door to the foyer. Maggie might have taken my unpaid job away from me but I was buggered if I was going to let her take away the one that paid my rent and
—

‘Ooof.’ I smacked straight into something tall and solid.

‘I’m sorr …’ The words dried in my mouth as James gazed down at me. His hands were on my shoulders from where he’d caught me.

‘Are you okay?’ His brow was knitted with worry, his voice soft with concern. ‘I saw you run out and I …’ He put a hand to his forehead. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking coming after you. I’m not your boyfriend anymore, I shouldn’t care.’ He turned to go.

He made it as far as the bar door then turned back.

‘No, fuck it.’ He put his hands on my shoulders again and craned his neck to look down at me. ‘I’ve missed you, Suzy. I’ve missed you like I’ve missed a part of me. Like my shadow had disappeared, or my arm or my heart. I tried everything to stop myself from missing you. I tried raging against you, blaming you, cursing you and hating you but none of those things worked,’ he thumped at his chest with his closed fist. ‘Not a day has gone by where I haven’t regretted what happened. I hate myself. Actually
hate
myself for hurting you like that but I had to do it, Suzy. When you looked at me in the doorway of your flat I knew it was time to leave. There was no light in your eyes anymore, no love. You looked miserable and I knew it was because of me. That’s why I left you, so you could be happy again.’

I said nothing because I was certain that, if I opened my mouth to speak, I’d choke on my own tears.

‘But when I saw you today. When I saw you standing behind the bar that image popped and I realized I’d been deceiving myself. I’d been making up fantasies to avoid finding out for myself how you were.’ He cupped a hand to the side of my face and I nearly gasped as the warmth of his fingers flowed into my skin. ‘So, I’ll ask you now. I’ll ask you once and then I’ll never ask you again. And if you tell me yes I’ll walk away and never come back.’ He paused, ran his thumb over my lips and I tensed, waited for him to kiss me. Instead he let go of my face as though burnt. ‘Are you happy, Suzy? Are you happy, my darling?’

New, hot, desperate tears spilled onto my cheeks as I shook my head. ‘No.’

James leaned nearer. ‘Say that again.’

I shook my head again. ‘No. No, I’m not happy. I’ve never been more miserable. I’ve missed you. I still miss you. I miss you every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up.’

‘Oh Suzy.’ James gathered me into his arms and pressed my head against his chest. ‘Oh Suzy, my Suzy, my one true love. I’ll never let you go again. Never, never, never. I’ll never let you go.’

I kept my cheek pressed into his jumper and my arms around his waist for the longest possible time, only opening my eyes briefly as the sound of high heels click-clacking across the foyer floor filled the air and Maggie strode through the open double doors and disappeared onto the street. Then I closed my eyes again.

Chapter 20

‘Okay Charlotte, I’m just going to lift your nightdress to clean your legs.’

Two of the nurses – Kimberley and Chris – are giving Charlotte a wash when I arrive at the hospital. I offer to leave but they shake their heads and tell me they’re nearly done.

‘Now we’ll do your teeth.’

I watch as Kimberley gently parts Charlotte’s lips and inserts a white stick with a small, square pink sponge on the end, into her mouth. It reminds me of one of the penny sweets I’d buy as a child – a square chewy lolly on a stick.

‘Just wiping it around your mouth,’ Kimberley says as she leans over my daughter and gently manoeuvers the ‘toothbrush’ around the contours of Charlotte’s mouth. ‘And over your teeth and tongue.’

Oli was surprised when I told him that the nurses clean Charlotte’s teeth. ‘But she doesn’t eat anything?’ he said. ‘She’s drip fed, isn’t she?’ I told him it was for hygiene reasons. I didn’t mention the scent of death and decay and gingivitis that hits me sometimes if I kiss her on the lips. It’s a smell so rotten you have to hold your breath not to gag. Charlotte, who’s always been so fastidious about hygiene, would be devastated if she knew. Not that I’ll ever tell her. There are some things she never needs to know when she wakes up.

‘We’re just going to change your catheters and then you’re done,’ they tell Charlotte as they raise her blanket and reach beneath the bed. I instinctively avert my eyes, not because I’m squeamish but because I know how mortified she would be if she knew I’d watched the waste being removed from her body. Before her accident she wouldn’t even let me mention the word ‘nappy’ without throwing a cushion at me and forbidding me from talking about ‘gross stuff’ to do with her babyhood.

‘Okay, Sue?’ Kimberley nods at me as she pushes the trolley towards the door. ‘I’ll be back later. We can catch up.’

‘Hi Sue.’ Chris touches me softly on the forearm as he follows her. There’s compassion in his eyes, even though his tone can be brusque. I see it in the eyes of all the nurses, particularly the mothers. There but for the grace of God go I, and all that.

‘Thank you,’ I say as they leave the room, pulling the door to behind them. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Hello darling.’ I pull up a chair so I’m sitting as close to Charlotte as I can. ‘Mummy’s here. How are you feeling today?’

I reach for her hand, press it to my lips and close my eyes. In a few minutes I’ll ask her about Grey’s nightclub and the footballer but I need to spend some quiet time with my child first. I need to know how she is.

‘Hello?’ I press the buzzer and peer up at the CCTV camera half a metre above my head. ‘I’m here to see Danny Argent.’

The door entry system crackles then falls silent again. I step back from the door and crane my neck upwards. The neon sign spelling out ‘Breeze’
over the door is grey and ugly without the fizz of electricity sparking it to neon life. I’ve never set foot in this nightclub – I haven’t set foot in
any
nightclub for over twenty years; James forbade me from going to bars or discos when we were together. They were meat markets where slags went for sex he said, not where monogamous people in relationships hung out. I tried telling him that my single friends weren’t slags and that I wasn’t going clubbing to cheat on him but to have fun and dance to the music. That’s when he reminded me about the conversation we had on our second date when I’d admitted to having five one-night stands. ‘You told me you met two of them in a nightclub, Sue,’ he’d said. There was nothing I could say to that.

A minute passes, then another and I buzz again. I’m starting to think that this was a stupid idea. It’s 5 p.m., of course there isn’t going to be anyone in a nightclub at this time of day but I had to come. I need to know more about the footballer Charlotte met in London. I need to know what he did to her.

I press the buzzer again. ‘Danny. It’s Sue Jackson. Could you let me in, please. It’s really very important that we speak.’

I press it again, thirty seconds later and repeat my request then bang on the door with my fist and listen.

Nothing.

There are no windows to peer through and no letter box to rattle. I was resting everything on the hope that Danny might be in his office doing paperwork but it doesn’t seem like anyone is in, not even the cleaner. I reach into my handbag and pull out my mobile. I’m just about to call Oli when
—

‘Sue? What are you doing here?’ The speaker above the buzzer crackles to life. ‘I’ll buzz you in.’

‘So, Sue,’ Danny places two steaming cups of coffee, complete with saucers and tiny Italian biscotti on the white resin table and pats the velveteen seat beside him. There are half a dozen booths exactly like this one running across two walls of the club. There are three small poufs, decorated in an identical deep red velveteen material around the resin tables, making enough space to seat six. I can almost imagine how this booth will look in five or six hours time – rammed with friends, clinking glasses, downing shots, shouting, laughing and scanning the dance floor for talent. It’s been years since the smoking ban was introduced but the air still smells musty – the unique nightclub blend of cigarettes, spilt drinks and sweat.