‘Are you saying-?’
‘She made the running. I wouldn’t have dared.’
Dee stared, barely able to believe what she was hearing. ‘So when you and she…she was the one who…? But I don’t understand. She was always so strait-laced, saying we must be “good girls” and the way she acted when Sylvia went away with Phil-’
‘People often do that,’ Joe observed. ‘Talk one way, act another. It was Sylvia’s disappearing that she really minded, and the fact that she went off with a married man. She’d have forgiven her the other thing, because it was what she did herself. She told me later that she was determined to start a baby so that I’d have to stop dithering like a twerp and make my mind up,’ Joe said with pride. ‘She really loved me, you see.’
‘Yes, she did,’ Dee agreed.
‘And when you’ve found the right one, do what you have to. So you get on with it, girl. And don’t you worry about your mum and me. We’ll be all right here together.’
Armed with Joe’s encouragement, she began staying overnight at the hospital, sleeping in the Nurses’ Home so that she could spend as much time with Mark as possible. She fed him, changed his dressings, soothed him when he half awoke, listened to his soft moans at night.
Gradually the amount of painkiller he needed lessened, and he began to sleep more peacefully. The bandages were removed from his head, and Dee marvelled at how little he seemed to have changed. The burns on his body were terrible, but his face was undamaged. To the outside world he would seem the same handsome young man he had always been, a little older, a little more weather-beaten, but basically the same. Yet this was an illusion. The damage might be hidden, but it was there.
She checked his pulse, wondering if he would awaken soon, and would he still ask who she was? Would she be nothing but the nurse who cared for him, without individuality, no different from any other? Would he even recognise her as that?
He stirred and she laid his hand down on the sheet, waiting until at last he opened his eyes, looking straight into hers.
‘Hello,’ he whispered.
‘Hello.’ She sat beside him, smiling and trying to seem cheerful.
‘Where am I?’
She gave him the name of the hospital, wondering if he would recognise it as the one where she worked, but he said nothing. ‘You’ve been here nearly a week,’ she added.
‘What happened to me?’
‘You crashed. I’m afraid you’re badly burned. Are you in pain now?’
‘No, I just feel dizzy. I don’t know anything.’ He gazed at her intently. ‘You’ve been looking after me, haven’t you?’
‘You remember that?’
‘I know I’ve seen you somewhere before. You’re Nurse-?’
‘Nurse Parsons,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes-you were always there-and someone else-I’m trying to remember-did anyone come to visit me while I was unconscious?’
‘Your commanding officer came, and a couple of your comrades looked in. I couldn’t let them stay long. They just wanted to see for themselves that you’re alive.’
‘Nobody else?’ he whispered, and she wondered if she only imagined that his voice was full of hope.
‘Nobody else. Was there someone else you wanted to see? Can I find them for you?’
He sighed softly. ‘Thanks, but no. She wouldn’t want you to.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Dee said quickly. ‘If she’s a good friend, who cares what happens to you-’
‘A good friend,’ he echoed with a wry smile. ‘She was the best friend I had, but I didn’t know it.’
‘But if you know it now, perhaps she’d like to hear you say so.’
‘I doubt it. Where she was concerned, I talked too much and said all the wrong things-did all the wrong things, too. She was glad to be rid of me.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘I can. She despised me. She made that very clear.’
‘She probably didn’t mean it that way.’
‘When a woman tells a man to go and jump in the lake, there’s no doubt what she means.’
‘She actually used those words?’
‘Words that meant the same. She dressed it up, practically made it sound as though I was the one breaking it off, but that was just her way of smoothing things. The truth is, she despised me.’ He gave a sigh. ‘And she may have been right.’
‘No, she didn’t despise you.’
‘You can’t know that.’
Then inspiration came to her. Turning the lights out so that there was only the one small bedside lamp, she returned to sit beside him, turning so that her face was in shadow. Perhaps now she looked no more than a shadowy presence, and that might be the trigger.
‘But I do know that,’ she said.
He stared at her, startled. ‘What do you know?’
‘Everything she knows. You’ll understand soon, when the drugs wear off.’
‘Dee? Is that really you? I think…I’m beginning to understand now. Put the light on.’
She shook her head. ‘Better not.’ She didn’t want him to see how shaken she was, eyes brimming in relief, that he had finally recognized her again.
‘You’re right,’ he said after a moment. ‘It’s strange how I know you now that I can’t see you properly.’
‘You never did see me properly,’ she murmured.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s all in the past now. We’re not really the same people that we were then. When did we last see each other? A year ago?’
‘Longer,’ he murmured. ‘Much longer. It seems to stretch back for ever, into another life-’
‘I know, it feels like that to me too, but it’s just a year. So much has happened since.’
Tentatively, he stretched out his hand and she took it between hers. ‘I’ve sometimes dreamed that it was you,’ he said huskily. ‘I’ve even tried to pretend that it was-but I told myself I was being foolish because you must still be angry with me.’
‘I was never angry with you.’
‘You gave me back my ring.’
‘Not from anger. I just thought our paths were leading away from each other. We’re still friends.’
‘Are we? When I was injured, I was sure you’d come to me at once. When you didn’t, I knew you hadn’t forgiven me.’
‘But I did come to you, as soon as I heard you were here. You were unconscious, so I sat and talked to you, praying for you to wake, but then you did wake and you didn’t know me. You asked who I was. I said I was Dee but that meant nothing to you. The accident had wiped me from your memory.’
‘No, nothing could do that. I’ve been in a dream. You were there, yet you weren’t. I could hear you talking to me, saying things that-’
‘Yes?’
He screwed up his eyes as though fighting an inner battle.
‘I don’t know,’ he said desperately. ‘They made me happy but when I awoke, I couldn’t remember them. Was it you? Did you really say everything I heard?’
‘How can I tell?’ she said lightly. ‘Since I don’t know what you heard.’
‘It was…it was…oh, dear God!’ He closed his eyes desperately. ‘Tell me. Say it again so that I’ll know.’
‘Not just now,’ she said gently. ‘You’re going to be here for some time, and we’ll take it step by step.’
‘But you’ll be here, too? You will, won’t you?’ His grip was tight enough to be painful.
‘Yes, I’ll be here. Hey, don’t break my fingers or I’ll be no use.’
He released her at once, letting his hand fall on the blanket in a way she would have called helpless if it had been any other man. Now his expression was resigned and she knew he’d accepted her words and manner as a rejection. If only she could take him into her arms and tell him of her love, which was stronger than ever. But instinct told her he wasn’t strong enough to stand it right now. There would be a long road until he was ready, but they would travel that road together and discover where it led.