But instead, silent as an automaton, he unbuckled his seat belt, climbed out, helped Cleo to tilt the rear seat forward and took her hand as she wormed her way out.
Kullen told them he would wait for them here.
A few minutes later, after signing the visitors’ register, Roy and Cleo were met by a very businesslike woman with iron-grey hair, who introduced herself as the ward manager. She led them along a network of corridors that were vaguely familiar to him from his previous visit here, in January, then up in a lift.
His nerves began to jangle again. Cleo gripped his hand, hard.
‘Are you sure about this, my darling?’ he asked her for about the tenth time.
‘Yes.’
He could smell disinfectant as the doors opened. A man, his shrivelled face the colour of chalk, was wheeled past them on a trolley as they stepped out into the orange-painted corridor. There was a row of hard chairs on either side, a snacks vending machine and several picture frames on the wall with staff portraits of doctors and nurses with their names beneath.
His heart was thudding. Here again. It all felt so familiar. A man hurried past them in blue scrubs and yellow Crocs and went into the alcove where there was a drinks vending machine.
Shit.
This was Groundhog Day.
The woman with the iron-grey hair had told him that the patient, Sandy, had been conscious intermittently during the past few days, with moments of lucidity.
He glanced at Cleo. She was conservatively dressed, in a plain navy coat over a black sweater, blue jeans and knee-high suede boots, with the large, dark blue Mulberry handbag he had bought her — for an insane price last Christmas — over her shoulder.
She looked back at him. An expression he could not read.
They followed the woman through double doors into the Intensive Care Unit, breathing in the sterile smells as they passed rows of beds, each with a patient surrounded by a bank of monitors, and screened off on either side by pale green curtains. Turning a corner, they entered a small, private room.
Inside lay a woman with short brown hair, in a blue and white spotted gown, connected to a forest of drip lines, in a bed with its sides up like the bars of a cage.
Sandy.
He looked at Cleo again. Her face had paled.
He stepped forward. ‘Sandy?’ he said.
There was no reaction.
‘It’s Roy,’ he said, more calmly than he felt. He waited some moments, but still there was no reaction. ‘I’m so sorry — about your accident.’ His voice choked, as he became increasingly emotional. ‘I’m so sorry. I–I don’t know — I don’t really know what to say. I’ve moved on. I have my new wife, Cleo, with me. She wanted to meet you.’
He turned away, clutched Cleo in his arms, holding her tight.
Behind him, unseen by either of them, Sandy’s eyes opened briefly, flickered, then closed.
He composed himself, then leaned down and touched Sandy on her forehead. ‘I–I can’t believe it’s you. It’s really you. After all this time.’
Then, holding hands tightly, Cleo and Roy stood, watching her.
Sandy remained silent. Breathing rhythmically.
‘Sandy?’ he said. ‘Can you hear me? It’s Roy.’
There was no reaction from her for some moments, then suddenly she opened her eyes wide, startling them. She looked at Roy then stared hard at Cleo.
‘So you’re Cleo?’ she said. ‘You’re the woman he’s married?’
Cleo smiled awkwardly. There was a nervous pitch to her voice as she answered. ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
Sandy’s eyes narrowed into a glare. ‘Good luck,’ she said, acidly. Then her eyes closed.
A nurse came in, saying she had to change some of the patient’s dressings and administer her medication, and would they mind stepping outside for a few minutes. They could get themselves water or coffee, if they liked, just down the corridor outside the ward.
73
Tuesday 10 March
Standing in the small bay with the vending machines, Roy squinted at the choices then pressed the button for a large espresso.
‘Christ,’ Cleo said, ‘she looks awful. What did she mean by good luck?’
‘I don’t know — I’ve no idea.’
‘Listen,’ Cleo said, sipping her scalding tea, looking a little numb and shaken. ‘You have a lot of questions you need answers for. I think you should go back in and spend a few minutes with her alone. I don’t need to be there.’
He hesitated, then nodded.
‘I’ll go downstairs for some fresh air, wait for you out the front. Get some answers, she owes you that at least.’
He headed back to the ward and entered Sandy’s room again, closing the door behind him. She appeared to be asleep. His heart was hammering as he looked down at her silent figure, her eyes still closed, then perched on the end of the bed.
‘Hi, Sandy,’ he said. ‘I–I can’t believe it’s really you. After all this time. Nearly eleven years.’
He stared intently at her, at the woman he had loved so much, once. Despite much of her face being covered in scar tissue and bandages he could see how much she had aged in the intervening years. She wasn’t the Sandy who had walked out on him any more. All kinds of memories flashed through his mind, and he tried to link them to this woman lying here. But she remained a stranger. ‘What happened? Tell me. Why didn’t you contact me?’
She did not respond.
He took her hand, and lapsed back for some moments into his thoughts. Thinking how different things might have been. Wondering what he would do if she suddenly opened her eyes and threw her arms round him. ‘I’ve got a son,’ he said. ‘Noah. He’s eight months old. Maybe one day when you’re better we can meet and be friends. I’d like to think that’s possible. But before any of that can happen I need some answers. I need a lot of answers. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you make contact? Do you have any idea of the hell you put me through? Do you not care at all? I think I deserve to know.’
Her face showed no sign of any reaction.
Her hand felt strange, alien. ‘You were always so ambitious for me, wanting me to get to a higher rank than my dad. Well, I’ve been lucky. I reached Detective Superintendent. Did you ever think I’d do that?’
He waited, then said, ‘Me neither. I’m head of Major Crime for Sussex — although our branch has merged with Surrey. Lots of politics now that we didn’t have eleven years ago. I love my job, but there are days when I have doubts. Policing has become so damned politically correct. There’s good things about that and bad. All of us walk on eggshells, scared of offending almost anyone.’ He paused and looked down at her. ‘God, I wish we could just talk, tell each other all the stuff that’s happened in each of our lives in this past decade.’
He looked up at the bank of monitors and dials. They were all meaningless to him. ‘There’s a million things I want to ask you. One day, yes? Maybe?’
He glanced at his watch. Then as he looked back at her, he suddenly had a flash of déjà vu. He remembered sitting beside his father’s body, laid out in the funeral parlour in his pyjamas. His stone-cold hand. That was no longer his father, Jack Grace, the man he had loved so much. It was just a husk. An empty shell. His father had long departed it. And that was how he felt now. This was a husk, too. Breathing, perhaps, but a husk all the same. It wasn’t the Sandy he had known and loved. It was just a shell. The Sandy he had known and loved no longer occupied it.
Letting go of her hand, he stood up, abruptly. Her eyes opened, and she said, ‘Going already, Roy?’
He felt a catch in his throat. He sat back down, on the edge of the bed.