TouchStone for ever (The Story of Us Trilogy) (3 page)

I
can’t accept what he’s saying. “But it’s what
you
wanted. You said so;
to finally have a family. You won’t have that, not if you stay with me.”

“Beth.
I don’t give a fuck about what I said. This is about us now. We’ll get through
this, together.”

I
pull my hands free of his. “No. I can’t let you do it. You deserve better. I
can’t give you what you want most. I’ve been nothing but trouble since the day
we met. Leave! Just leave!”

He
looks at me with undiluted horror. “No! Why would I want to leave you?”

“Because
I don’t want you here.” I slip down under the bedding and turn away from him. I
can’t allow him to settle for me. I have always been damaged goods. I’ve been
soiled and now …

His
hands are in his hair. “You’re upset. I get that, but you’re doing what you
always do. You’re taking the fall for me; trying to let me off lightly when
it’s
all
my fault.” He’s shaking his head, massaging his neck and so
fueled with rage I think he may explode. “I should have organised 24 hour
security for you. I should have kept you safe and I’m the one responsible for
this not you! I’ll leave so you can rest but, no matter what, I will
always
come back to you.” He storms out of the room, leaving me open-mouthed and
speechless.

Left
alone to reflect on my unreasonable behavior I struggle to hold onto a rational
thought. The drugs have dampened my senses, I’m not thinking straight. I didn’t
mean what I said. He’s not responsible. I sit bolt upright and call out his
name. “Ayden.”

No
one comes.

“Ayden!”

Nurse
Lorna appears, leaving the door ajar. I catch sight of Ayden sitting on the
floor, his back against the far wall; his head in his hands. Jake towers over
him, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“Lorna,
please get Ayden.”

She
senses my agitated state. “Now, Elizabeth, please settle down. Are you feeling
any pain?”

“No.
Please get Ayden.”

“Can
I get you a drink or anything?”

“No!
Just get me Ayden,” I yell at the top of my voice.

Looking
startled she returns to the door and opens it. I see Ayden snatching the keys
out of Jake’s hand. His fists are clenched and he is visibly shaking and
yelling. “Give me the fucking keys!”

Before
I can form a sentence, he’s gone. I call out his name, “Ayden!” But no one
hears; only Jake turns and glares at me, stunned, realizing what just happened.

What
have I done?

***

Too incensed to
return to work, Elise storms out of Dan Rizler’s apartment and dives into her
car. She heads home harnessing her thoughts long enough to call her office,
claiming to be laid-up with a migraine.

Once inside her top
floor apartment she makes straight for the tray of spirits neatly arranged on a
wooden cabinet and pours herself a very large whiskey. She gulps it down and smashes
the glass onto the tray with a noisy clatter.

Kicking off her shoes
as she goes, she drags a dining chair beneath the loft opening and begins
lowering dust-coated boxes one at a time until three of them litter her tidy
lounge. They were once labelled but the letters have long since faded and the
occasional streak of a marker pen is not enough to distinguish one set of
contents from another.

With hands covered in
a layer of black soot, she tears open the first box; a plume of dust scatters
across a cream rug, speckling it with black polka-dots until it resembles a
snow leopard.

Unconcerned, she
rifles through the contents, lifting out estate agency paraphernalia:
brochures, a Contract of Employment, old wage slips. Realising it’s not what
she’s looking for she pushes it aside and tears off the tape from the top of
the second box. Inside are old exercise books, a Certificate for taking part in
a Tennis Tournament and a small winner’s cup for an under 16’s Netball
Competition. All these things are worthless in her eyes. The one thing she is
looking for must be in the third box.

She scratches off the
tape with her fingernails and lifts back the flaps. Inside are multi-coloured
pouches from an assortment of photo processing companies; odd photos are
bundled together in years or holidays. Right at the bottom are a selection of
photos that have faded and yellowed over time. At least two of them are 22
years old but no less important for the passage of time.

She takes hold of
them, one in each hand. The first, on the left, is of her with an older boy. He
has waves of black hair and eyes that sparkle like the Caribbean Sea. He has
his arm around her shoulders as if protecting her from all the horrors of a
cruel world. She rubs her thumb across his image and smiles at the
recollection; days spent in summer sunshine, hours spent in the library, just
the two of them; him reading aloud, her dozing under his arm, listening to the
gentle beating of his heart. She holds the photo to her breast and closes her
eyes, as if it will magically take her back to a time when she felt safe and
loved.

When she opens her
eyes she’s still a woman sitting alone, surrounded by an assortment of memories
that pale into insignificance compared to the photo she has in her right hand.
She holds it so tightly her thumbnail turns a ghostly white, chilled by the ice
that has leaked into her bloodstream.

Like an injured
animal she whimpers at the sight of the three of them together; her with Saffi
and
that
girl who came to stay for a week. The one he watched over, took
under his wing and married beneath swathes of dust-sheets and ladders they had
transformed into a Cathedral. She played the part of the priest; made up
something or other about being in love forever and gave them her blessing. This
little speck of a girl was the princess and Saffi, well, they both adored him
so much he could be whoever he wanted: a lord, a king, even a prince.

Pushing everything
aside, she places the photo down onto the parquet floor and takes the torn
image from Dan’s apartment out of her bag. Just to make sure, she places it
beneath hers. Recognising the stance, the hair and the emerging beauty of the
dark haired girl, she comes to only one conclusion. Ayden has married Frances;
he must have looked high and low for her. That one realisation cuts through
clothes, flesh and bone and pierces her heart.

She voices her
desolation with an agonising cry. “You looked for her but never looked for me.”
She beats her fists onto the floor and sobs while her tears fall and crash
around her like hailstones.

Still hoping she’s
wrong she drags herself across the floor and opens a drawer, taking out a
newspaper cutting of the recently married Mr. Stone.

She spreads it out
beneath the university photo and makes comparisons. The hair colour has changed
but it’s the same girl. There’s no mistaking her childlike stance and gentle
smile.

Elise’s body appears
to crumple beneath her; she visibly wilts like a flower on the verge of
blossoming but starved of attention and left out in the midday sun to die. Of
all the disappointments in her life this is by far the worst.

She rocks back and
forth and wails mournfully for the love she thought she once had; out of a long
line of painful disappointments, that was the single sliver of goodness she
could look back on and retain in her memory as one might a precious particle of
hope in a vacuous empty space.

With that gone, she
is left with nothing.

She tries to stand
but the combined effects of grief and neat whiskey have affected her balance.
Instead she crawls on all fours over to the cabinet and uses the knobs and
frame to stand. With one trembling hand she holds the glass and with the other,
starts to pour the whiskey until all her fingers are covered. She sips at the
golden liquid and staggers over to the dining table. In front of her is a
notepad and pen but she won’t be jotting down the names of prospective
homeowners or addresses for viewings, this will be the last thing she ever
writes. Thinking only of Ayden, she puts pen to paper and begins …

To S.

When there was nothing but
dark shadows in my life, I had you. Your radiance was so bright I was happy to
kneel at your feet and lift my gaze to catch some of that light on my innocent
face.

When the dark shadows took
me away I called for you every night until I realised you wouldn’t come. I was
alone …

Having completed it,
she throws back the dregs from the glass and folds the notepaper in two, her
dirty fingerprints serving as a seal of sorts. She places it in her bag and
stumbles as she steps over the tattered pieces of meaningless flotsam; all that
remains of a world now in pieces.

She grabs one of the
sharpest knives out of the kitchen drawer and drops it into her bag, taking a
lingering look at herself before she reaches the front door. Her brown eyes are
framed in mascara that has become smudged and runs like grey scratches down her
cheeks. Even her blouse is spattered with dusty black patches from lifting
boxes down from the loft.

“What a fucking
mess,” she exclaims, throwing down her bag. “I can’t face you looking like
this.”

She makes her way
across the corridor in the direction of her bedroom, dragging herself along one
step at a time, through a drunken fog that clouds her vision and numbs her
senses; smearing the wall with dirty fingerprint. Not stopping to close the
curtains, she tears off her clothes and sorts through her wardrobe for
something suitable for the occasion. She finds a figure hugging black dress
just above the knee with a neckline that shows off her ample bustline. She
sniggers, “You’ll love this.”

She ties back her
hair and washes the smudged make-up from around her eyes and from her cheeks
with a flannel until only the palest of canvases remains. As per her routine
she applies moisturizer, foundation, blusher and eyeliner with trembling hands
and a body that sways like a boat lost at sea. The crimson-coloured lipstick is
the final touch.

She smiles into the
mirror, having intentionally transformed herself, incorporating everything
Ayden despises in a woman. She knows what men want; she worked that out at an
early age, too early. He’ll see her as she is: flirtatious and brazen to the
core. High heels and a couple of squirts of heady perfume and she’s done.

She grabs her bag and
car keys and leaves the apartment, wobbling on black stilettos as she descends
three flights of stairs. She flings back the exit door, leans into the icy wind
and prepares to right all wrongs.

No
matter
which
way I turn I cannot sleep. I’m haunted by the memory of Ayden’s panic-stricken
face. I had no right to say the things I did. It was a knee-jerk reaction that
I should have thought through, considered with a level head and a less troubled
heart. I’ve hurt him badly with my flippant disregard for his feelings. Why
must I continue to be plagued by my own insecurities and subject him to them?
What possessed me to send him away?

I’m attached to these
tubes and electrodes like a woman on her deathbed but I have to get them
removed. I press the buzzer by my bed and wait for the nurse to arrive.

When she does, she
instantly recognises my unease and begins to fuss with my bedding.

I draw her attention.
“Will you get me my phone, please? I need to make a call.”

“I think you should
be resting, Elizabeth. We don’t want you worrying about making phone calls.”

I’m shaking my head.
“I really do need to call my husband, right now.” I’m becoming more distressed
with each word; my breathing is becoming jagged and uneven.

She takes my hand.
“Elizabeth. Your husband is very worried about you. He has probably gone home
to collect clothes and toiletries.” She starts to pat my hand. “Now can I get
you a cup of tea or anything?”

I feel helpless but
I’m too physically and emotionally exhausted to put up a fight. “A cup of tea
would be very nice. Thank you.”

Ayden will be back
soon …

Sedated by hot tea
and a nurse’s affirmation that all’s well, I’m listening to the radio, allowing
myself to paint pictures in my mind. A fifties classic by the Flamingos voices
my thoughts.
I Only Have Eyes for You.

From beneath grey
clouds, hanging like dirty laundry obscuring a clear blue sky appears a
terracotta landscape and a technicolour slide show of our Vegas trip; images
that comfort me and help to reshape my bruised face into a smile. I hear
Ayden’s voice and feel his lips on mine but then … my artistic endeavours are
abruptly halted by the sound of irate female voices outside my door that are
increasing in volume.

“I know what bloody
time it is. This is important …”

“I’m sure it is, Miss
Miller, but Mrs. Stone is sleeping.”

No I’m not

“Believe me, she’ll
want to know what I have to tell her. Get out of my bloody way!”

Only Charlie would
cause such a commotion and unsettle the still evening air with the velocity of
a tornado.

The door opens.

“Move out of my way!”

I turn to face them
both. “It’s alright nurse, I’m not asleep. Let her come in.”

She closes the door
behind her. “They’re like the friggin’ Gestapo in here!”

I see something in
her eyes that worries me. She is the bearer of bad news, I just know it.
“What’s up Char? What’s got you so fired up?”

She flops herself
down on the bed on my right side and reaches for my free hand. “I’ve been here
a few times while you’ve been out of it and you’re looking better every time I
see you.”

She’s stalling.

“And you caused such
a fuss to come here and tell me that?”

There’s more …

Her eyes evade mine,
momentarily. Then she faces me square on. “There’s been an accident and I don’t
want you finding out off some friggin’ nurse.”

What little colour I
have on my cheeks begins to fade as I am gripped by fear. “What do you mean,
accident?”

“It’s Ayden.”

Air fills my lungs in
a gasp and a whimper leaves my open mouth. “What!”

“He was driving
Jake’s car too fast on the motorway and it hit the central reservation and then
careened off onto the hard shoulder. It came to rest in a ditch.”

“Oh my God!” I’m
clenching my fists, trying to hold onto the desperate thought that he’s okay.
“Please tell me he’s alright!” I grip her hand much too tightly.

She glances at the
heart monitor that is beeping, recording my anguished state. “Beth, you’ve got
to calm down.”

“Just tell me he’s
alright,” I plead, seeing her through eyes that are bubbling with tears.

“He’s alright but …”

“But what? Tell me!”
I’m shouting.

“He’s concussed and
appears to have an injury to his face from the windscreen when it smashed. Also
a couple of bruised ribs from the seat belt …”

“… But he’s not in
any danger?” I’m thinking of the word fatal but I can’t bring myself to say it.

She shakes her head
and tries to reassure me with a flat smile. “He’s not in intensive care or
anything, but he’s pretty shaken up.”

I’m beginning to sob,
torn apart by both relief and guilt. “It’s
all
my fault!” I mutter,
weakly.

Charlie grips my
hand. “No it isn’t your fault. How could it be? He was driving recklessly. Too
fast. Why the hell was he driving Jake’s car, anyway?”

I know why.

“I made him leave. I
said some horrible things to him and he was so distraught. I tried to call him
back but he rushed off and took the car keys.” I shake my head despondently. “I
was so worried that something like this might happen.”

“Even so, you
shouldn’t blame yourself. That’s just not right.”

“But I do. He wanted
to stay. Oh Char, what am I going to do?” I look into her eyes in search of an
answer but I see only compassion.

She reaches around me
and I rest my head on her breast, only for a moment before she leans back and
strokes my hair. “The first thing you’re going to do is get some rest and get
yourself better. He won’t want you worrying about him. He’s physically fit and
he’ll bounce back. You’ll see.”

“I pray you’re right.
He doesn’t deserve to suffer like this, not after all he’s done for me.”

 “He’s not suffering.
They have him here in the hospital and they’ve done every test known to man.
Jake’s had them
running
around like ants.”

I’m suddenly alert.
“He’s here, in this hospital?”

She nods. “Jake had
them bring him here. The Cromwell Hospital is recognised as one of the best in
London.”

 “I didn’t think to
ask what hospital this is.” I feel like such a fool.

“Well now you know.”
She’s smiling, affectionately.

I have an idea. “Then
I want to see him now.”

She’s shaking her
head. “You can’t. It’s late. You’re all wired up.”

“Then go and get
someone to unwire me!”

“Beth …”

“I mean it Charlie. I
have to see him.” I lift my left hand, watching the tubes to the IV bag sway
and jiggle around.

“Whoa! Be careful.
I’m going, I’m going. Jeez!”

When she returns she
isn’t alone. A rather disgruntled nurse is pushing her aside to check the
cannula inserted into the top of my left hand is intact.

“Mrs. Stone, you
really should calm yourself.”

“As you can see from
the machine I am calm. Now I want you to disconnect me from it so I can go and
see my husband. He’s been involved in a car accident.”

She prepares to speak
but recognising my dogged determination, reconsiders. “I can’t do that without
authorisation from a doctor, I’m afraid.”

“Then go can get the
doctor,” I instruct, unwavering in my stare.

She’s shaking her
head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I didn’t ask you for
your opinion. I just need to be disconnected, now. So I can leave this room.”

 She leaves the room
in a flurry or disapproving sighs.

“Charlie. Get my
bathrobe and slippers from the wardrobe please.”

She places the fluffy
robe on the bed.

“Go see if you can
get a wheelchair from somewhere.”

Now she’s blowing a
strand of hair off her face. “For someone who’s supposed to be sick, you’re
friggin’ bossy.”

All I can do is shrug
my shoulders.

After a ten-minute
conversation between the Head Nurse and my consultant, Mr. Roper, I’m separated
from the heart monitor, but the cannula must remain.

With extreme care,
the IV bag is pulled through my left sleeve and in 30 minutes I am dressed in
my nightie and bathrobe, ready to be wheeled across the hospital to Ayden’s
bedside.

The night nurse leads
the way and Charlie pushes me down empty corridors smelling of disinfectant and
floor polish, taking long strides to keep up. We take the lift up two floors
and, when the doors open, we are greeted by the duty nurse.

“This way, Mrs.
Stone. Your husband is comfortable but unconscious at the moment. Sometimes
this can happen after a serious accident.”

Fearful of her
answer, I ask one question, “When will he wake up?”

“It’s difficult to
tell.” She smiles apologetically.

“I have to see him.”

She stretches out her
hand to open the first door on my right. “This is his room.”

Before entering I
close my eyes, saying a silent prayer. I feel Charlie’s hand on my left
shoulder, squeezing it gently. Instinctively I hold onto it with my right hand.
Ayden’s words resonate in my head like a song.

“Be bold baby.”

He is lying beneath a
single light, looking like a sleeping prince in a fairy-tale; his hands by his
side, fingers outstretched, motionless. The familiar beep, beep of the heart
monitor is reassuring. At least he’s alive.

Silently, Charlie
wheels me over to his bedside. Across his forehead are small scratches like
splashes of red paint, but most shocking of all is the pad of white lint
covering his right cheek. The last time I looked upon him like this was in
Rome, when I awoke and observed him sleeping, dreaming. We watched the sunrise
over the rooftops and met the new day with confessions; we made love and
conceived our first and probably only child. And now, here we are, all that
shot to hell.

There are things I
need to say to him, alone. “Will you give me a minute please?” I whisper, not
really asking at all.

Charlie kisses the
top of my head. “We’ll be right outside.”

I nod silently.

Ever the professional
my nurse leans into me. “Please don’t stand, Elizabeth. I don’t want you to
fall.”

I nod again.

Once the door clicks
shut behind me I crumple like a pack of cards. Quietly sobbing, I wheel myself
nearer to him. I take his right hand between mine, comforted by the warmth of
his fingers against my cheek. But it’s a dead weight and I must hold it in
place, wrapping my thumb around his, folding his fingers around my hand in a
tender embrace.

After a hard swallow
I begin. “Ayden, I’m so sorry for sending you away. I don’t know why I said the
things I did. I love you so much and I want you to have everything. That
includes a family. But we
are
a family, I realise than now. You’re my
family, you’re the family I’ve never had but only dreamed about, waited for.
And I’m yours. I have always been yours.”

His eyes flicker.
There’s a slight increase in the heart rate displayed on the monitor, or maybe
it’s just wishful thinking.

I wipe my tears on my
sleeve. “We created life and it was the best of both of us, and it’s gone. But
I’m still here, you’re still here and the best is yet to come. I just know it.”
In a faltering voice I prepare to address my promise; the promise I made on our
first date. The one I have broken.

“I promised to take
care of you, Ayden, to always be here for you however you needed me. Please
forgive me for forgetting my promise and come back to me. I can’t live my life
without you.”

I bow my head and
reach out to brush the left side of his face with my fingertips but I can’t
reach and settle for bristles masking purple coloured bruises. “You’re still my
beautiful Saffi, my husband, and the only man I will ever love.”

In an act of
contrition I bow my head, resting it on his bed and cry so woefully I think I
may drown in my own tears. Like a miracle, I feel his fingers against my hair,
the gentle caress of a lover raised from the dead.

Yet, when I lift my
head, he’s motionless, statuesque in his gentle repose. His right hand rests on
the covers, in the same place. Did I imagine it?

Having regained a
little composure, I run my fingers under my eyes. “I know you can hear me and I
know that, when you’re ready, you’ll come back to me. Because what we have
Ayden is bigger than both of us. We have to get through this … together.”

I pull up the covers
around his chin and wheel myself backward. “I can hear you saying I love you,
Beth so I’ll say I love you more. Goodnight sweet prince. I’ll come back
tomorrow and awaken you with a kiss. You’ll see.”