The Love She Left Behind (17 page)

The forceful scribble of Albie's pen squealed intolerably against the paper. Nigel caught hold of his arm. ‘Not so hard, darling.' And then, to Mia, blandly, ‘Has Patrick spoken to his solicitor lately? I would imagine he has all the hard facts.'

Mia's mouth tucked. She wasn't expecting to be thwarted.

‘Do you think I'm mad, marrying Patrick?'

It wasn't a question he'd expected. Looking up, he saw something he'd never encountered in Mia's face before: vulnerability. She was so young. So perfectly fucking young.

‘That's none of my business.'

‘I mean—' She stopped, put down her fork. ‘I'm not replacing your mother. I know how he felt about her.'

Nigel took a mouthful of coleslaw. It was vegetables, of a kind.

‘I presume you haven't mentioned it to Louise. Getting married.'

Mia nudged her plate, apparently embarrassed. Her mouth made a smile. ‘No, not yet.'

‘Very wise. I'd let her get Holly home, if I were you.'

Mia nodded. His prospective mother-in-law. The gods must be wetting themselves by now. Nigel pushed away his own plate. He could feel the grease sitting at the top of his gut.

‘Well,' he said, ‘I wish you every happiness.'

 

Paddy–

You need to put the dish in the oven at least 25 minutes to heat through, gas 3. No longer than 40 or it will burn, don't forget. Carrots on stove you just boil five minutes there's salt already in the pan. Worcester sauce on table, yogurt in the fridge for afters. I'll be back to make supper.

S x

Ps. They didn't have the razors you asked for, but these are Wilkinsons too. If no good I will change at Boots.

 

L
OUISE HAD ENDURED
the different shape of every day since Holly had been hit by that car, the way a good morning could turn into a bad afternoon, an infinite night you were terrified to get to the end of in case she wasn't still with you by morning. With the signposts of washings and feedings and sleepings removed and replaced by the unpredictable incursion of tests and consultations, time lengthened, never your own, however much of it you were required to fill between the arbitrary, anxious periods of attention from layers of doctors. Even though faces and shift patterns became familiar, the passage of the long hours remained unique to each day. But in the past week, with the physios dropping in to see Holly, and Jamie finally coming down to visit, the days had suddenly turned back into days, grey and uniform. Driving out of the hospital car park, it was a surprise to see the blossom heavy on the trees. Weeks and weeks of now had suddenly become then.

Jamie met her outside the hospital that morning. He'd taken an overnight coach and walked from the station in the rain. Without a coat, being Jamie. His light blue hoodie was soaked to navy on the head and shoulders, and he looked pale. He stank of fags when she hugged him, although Louise didn't say anything about that; he knew her feelings on the subject. It should have been enough of a warning seeing the patients out in the bay where he was waiting for her, some in wheelchairs, others steadying themselves against the poles of their drips, all determined to smoke on to the last.

‘Handsome Harry,' she said, giving him another squeeze. It was hard not to cry. Jamie asked her what she was like and patted her on the back so that he could step away. She could have sworn he'd grown.

Louise led him up to the children's ward. He was surprised at that; she thought she'd told him, with Holly only being thirteen. As he followed her directions to rub his hands with Sanigel from
the dispenser at the door, she saw Jamie clock the little boy walk past with no hair or eyebrows. Liam.

‘There's always someone worse off than you,' she whispered.

‘Stuff reeks,' Jamie complained, holding his disinfected hands away from himself.

She'd warned him about Holly still being on medication for the pain, and how it could make her slow, but she was awake when they got to her, watching TV. It made Louise's eyes fill to see the smile Holly gave her brother as he loped to her bed, even though she squawked, ‘Mind me leg!' when he dropped to cover her with a clumsy hug. She hadn't shown that much life for months. Jamie pulled up the chair by the bed and had a good look around, then back at Holly, riding the awkwardness, taking in the pinned casts that stopped her moving.

‘Doesn't she look great?' said Louise. This made the two of them burst out laughing, for some reason. It was the way they were together, always had been. The laughter hurt her heart, with the strange pleasure of pressing on an old bruise.

‘I knew you'd do her good,' she said, giving up trying to understand what was so funny. Anything set the two of them off, she knew.

Jamie nodded up at the telly on its ceiling bracket.

‘Nice,' he said. Holly pointed to the bedside table and said, in just the same way, ‘Nicer.' Their voices were solemn, which was part of the joke, but they were trying not to laugh. On the wall behind Holly's head was a framed print of a seaside scene: the striped backs of two deckchairs and a flag-topped sandcastle in pale, ice-cream colours.

‘That's nice,' Louise offered. A look pinballed between Jamie and Holly, exploding both back into laughter.

‘Don't,' Holly begged, tears on her cheeks, ‘I've got to wee. Tell him, Mum.'

‘It's not my fault!' said Jamie, delighted. But this was no laughing matter, now that the catheter was out, as Louise told him.

With him there, at least they didn't need to get hold of a nurse to struggle Holly into the wheelchair that waited by the bed. Holly didn't want Jamie to push it, though, as Louise suggested; she was indignant at the thought of her brother taking her to the toilet. When Louise got her into the cubicle she left her on her own, waiting for her resentful call of ‘Finished'. Since the accident, Holly was more volatile about her privacy than she'd ever been. During the weeks at the hospital, Louise had learned that even the pleasure she took in brushing Holly's hair or smoothing a clean sleep T-shirt made her writhe and protest, as if intimate contact with her was a poisonous irritant. Now she restrained herself to basic help, although it was a daily battle of self-discipline. She could have crushed her with love, eaten her up with hugs and kisses, the way you wanted to eat babies.

When Louise wheeled Holly back, she asked to be left in the chair. Jamie was working his way through a packet of Nice biscuits he'd found on the bedside table. She saw that they would be okay without her for a few hours. In fact, they would enjoy it. She asked Jamie if she could have a word and nodded him out of his chair.

‘What is it?' Holly wanted to know beadily, but Louise took him all the way to the nurse's station, out of earshot.

‘Don't let her have your phone,' she told him.

She could see the surprise hit his face, but she knew Holly would try it on. Only a couple of days after she was out of intensive care, Louise had caught her, woozy from the drugs and with half her body in traction, trying to fumble the phone out of Louise's bag on the bed where she had left it on a trip to the coffee machine. To call
him
, of course. It was like getting her off smack. Since then, Louise had been careful. It was a mercy that Holly's body was
healing, but there was still a battle to be fought, which was why she was particularly keen to talk to Kamila.

Jamie seemed to accept her command about not letting his sister near his phone. He'd always said that Louise could have gone to the police, with Holly's age and what that man had done—Louise could never bring herself to think he had a name—but she couldn't see the point if Holly still wanted to be with him. Holly might be underage but she'd never cooperate in any way, and it would just turn her further against her, if that was possible. And nearer to him, probably. Thinking about it, Louise grabbed at the corner of a larger understanding, that loving
him
was a way of hating Louise. Holly was too young to know that. Some people stayed too young the whole of their whole lives.

It was a beautiful day now, hot for early spring, the rain steaming off the roads and pavements as Louise drove herself back from the hospital. She'd told Jamie that she'd come back for him. It was ridiculous, really, not talking to Kamila on her mobile, but on the one occasion they'd tried it before, when Holly's consultant had rearranged an appointment at the last minute and she and Kamila ended up having a session with Louise sitting in the hospital car park, Kamila had found it hard to make contact. It made sense, that being in the house and calling from the phone that Mum had used for so many years allowed Kamila access to the vibrations she needed to do her work. Still, it was an unusual time for their call. Kamila preferred to work in the evenings, even late into the night; she said contact was always clearer the closer the material world was to sleep. But she had been firm that the only time possible today was early afternoon, between one and three.

The house felt empty when Louise opened the back door, which usually meant Patrick was asleep. Checking the momentum that followed the shove of effort needed to budge the misaligned wood, she nearly ran into a large cube in the middle of the kitchen floor,
swaddled in bubble wrap and packing tape. The invoice papers stuck to the top of it told her that it was a dishwasher, and that Mia had signed for the delivery before she left for London. Stepping around it, Louise made herself a cup of tea and moved into the hall. She was in good time.

‘This is Kamila.'

It was the way Kamila always answered, her accent crystalline and precise, her voice young, but today she sounded a little breathless, as though she'd had to hurry to pick up the phone. Just as they were about to get going properly, she excused herself—‘Excuse me, Louise, I am so sorry'—and muffled the phone to have an unflustered yet still disconcerting exchange in her own language with someone else in the room. It was possible that she was asking them to leave. A child, perhaps? Louise had never considered where Kamila might live, or in what circumstances; the immateriality of her voice made it easy to think that, like the voices she was attuned to, she inhabited the ether. Forced to imagine her at all, Louise envisaged a kind of greeting-card sprite, inhabiting a pastel glade that owed nothing to nature.

Kamila's voice returned, in the usual brightly lulling tones. ‘We are ready to begin. What questions do you have today, Louise?'

It was always such a relief, talking to her. Louise quickly got on to Jamie, and what she'd said to him about not letting Holly have his mobile, and her worry about Holly trying to run off again with that bastard the minute they were back in Leeds. As she always did, Kamila asked her to close her eyes, and then what colours she saw.

‘Blue.'

‘Light blue or dark?'

‘Darkish. Not really dark. Sort of a royal blue, if you know what I mean.'

Kamila maintained her silence.

‘Like the colour of school uniforms. Holly's school jumper, at their old school. The primary they both went to.'

‘She is going back to school soon?'

‘Not soon, but I've spoken to them. Probably not till after the summer holidays now.'

Another silence. ‘I can feel the colours changing,' said Kamila.

Louise saw the veil of blue lighten. ‘It's more yellow.'

‘Yes, yellow. She's here with us. Sara. She wants you to know she loves you.'

‘I love her too.'

‘She knows this.'

However many times Louise heard it, it always made her cry.

It was a good session, the contact clearer than they'd had in weeks. At the end of the hour, after they'd arranged their next conversation, Louise wished Kamila a nice evening.

‘I hope so,' she said. ‘My boyfriend is taking me to the Bon Jovi concert!'

She sounded excited. ‘Oh, well, have a lovely time,' said Louise. She forgave Kamila this small transgression into her private life, although she hoped it was a one-off. After Mum's communication, nothing was going to tarnish her good mood. It made all the difference in the world to her, to be so close at last.

 

For A Special Daughter

With Loving Thoughts on Your Birthday

To Louise,

On your special day

This comes to say

How much you're
cherished

And how much
pride
is felt

Having a daughter

As
special
as you.

Lots of love from Mum and Patrick. xx oo

Ps. Hope you can buy yourself something nice with enclosed!

 

W
ITH LOUISE'S DEPARTURE
finally imminent, Mia was finding it hard to make any kind of social effort, or to pretend that her presence was anything but a nuisance. She was getting messier, for one thing. Each evening, Mia made collections of the objects Louise left around the house during the day and piled them neatly outside her door: reading glasses, mobile, cardigans, used tissues, puzzle magazines. She couldn't quite bring herself to include the dirtied mugs and plates that Louise and her son left scattered around, so she stacked these significantly short of the recently acquired dishwasher, trusting the message was clear.

As with any domestic matter, when Mia had spoken to Patrick about ordering the dishwasher, she may as well have been tweaking his earlobes or performing some similar act of low-level, meaningless provocation, which he manfully refused to rise to. After a few similar interchanges, Mia decided to take his irritated forbearance as a sanction for all aspects of her improvements scheme. From then on, when she needed Patrick's signature, she just presented the form or document without the aggravation of an explanation. He always signed. Mia had been slightly surprised, herself, that the bank had been willing to give him such a chunky loan for the kitchen renovation, but the house was worth a lot. ‘Owner occupier' she had ticked on Patrick's behalf, when given the option on the forms. As for the credit cards, since she tended to use them over the phone, she didn't even need to trouble Patrick for a signature.