Rosamund Lupton - Afterwards

‘I’ll take you there.’

Jenny was waiting for me in the corridor. ‘Well…?’

‘You’re going to be fine. A long haul ahead, but you’re going to be fine.’

Still holding tightly to your optimism. I couldn’t bear to have told her what Dr Sandhu said.

‘They don’t yet know about scarring,’ I continued. ‘If they’re the kind of burns that leave a scar.’

‘But they might not?’ she asked, her voice hopeful.

‘No.’

‘I thought I was going to look like that permanently.’ She sounded almost euphoric. ‘Well, maybe not quite as bad as that, like a Halloween mask, but something like that. But I really might not at all?’

‘That’s what the consultant said.’

Relief shone out of her face; made her luminous.

Looking at me, she didn’t see you come out of the burns unit. You turned your face to the wall and then your hands slammed onto it, as if you could expel what you’d seen and heard. And I knew then how hard-won your hopefulness was; the bravery and effort it took. Jenny hadn’t seen.

We heard footsteps pounding down the corridor.

Your sister was hurtling towards you, her police officer’s radio hissing at her side.

I instantly felt inadequate. If Pavlov’s dog had had a sister-in-law like Sarah it would be a recognised emotional reflex. I know. Unfair. But spiky emotion makes me feel a little more resilient. Besides, it’s not that surprising, is it? The most important woman in your life from the age of ten till you met me; a sister-in-law/mother-in-law rolled into one; little wonder I feel intimidated by her.

Her voice was breathless.

‘I was in Barnes, doing a joint thing with their drugs- Oh for God’s sake it doesn’t matter where I was, does it? I’m so sorry, Mikey.’

That old childish name that she uses for you. But when was the last time?

She put her arm around you, held you tightly.

For a little while she didn’t say anything. I saw her face stiffen, hardening herself to tell you.

‘It was arson.’

Each of Sarah’s words a razor blade to be swallowed.

Someone had deliberately done this. My God. Deliberately.

‘But why?’ Jenny asked.

At four years old we’d nicknamed her the ‘Why-Why Bird’.

‘But why doesn’t the moon fall on top of us? But why am I a girl not a boy? But why does Mowgli eat ants? But why can’t Grandpa get better? (Answers: Gravity; Genes; They are tangy and nutritious. By the end of the day, worn out: ‘It’s just the way it is, sweetie.’ A tired kind of answer, but an answer.)

There was no answer to the why in this.

‘Do you remember anything, Jen?’ I asked.

‘No. I remember Ivo texting at half past two. But that’s it. I can’t remember anything after that. Nothing.’

Sarah touched you lightly on the arm and you flinched towards her.

‘Whoever did this, I’ll kill them.’

I’d never seen you angry like that before, as if you were fighting for survival. But I was glad of your rage; an emotion that met this information head on and fought back.

‘I need to see Grace now. And then I want you to tell me everything you know. After I’ve seen her. Everything.’

I hurried ahead to my ward, wanting to know before you did what state I was in, as if I could prepare you in some way.

There were tubes and monitors attached to my body now, but I was breathing without any equipment, and I thought that must be a good thing. I was unconscious, yes, but I really looked hardly injured apart from the neatly dressed wound on my head. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

‘I’ll be outside then,’ Jenny said.

She’s never given us privacy before; never seemed to even consider we might need it. It’s Adam who dashes out of the kitchen when we have a hug and a kiss. ‘Being mushy! Yuck!’ But Jenny’s radar hasn’t detected any embarrassing parental passion. Maybe like most teenagers, she thinks that’s long gone, while they discover it and keep it all for themselves. So I was touched by her.

I waited for you; listening to the sound of trolleys and bleeping machines and the soft foot-fall of nurses in plimsolls; wanting to hear your footsteps, your voice.

The seconds ticked past and I had to be with you. Right now! Please.

And then you were running over the slippery linoleum towards my bed, a nurse pushing a trolley out of your way.

You put your strong arms around my body, holding me tightly against you; the softness of your linen important-meetings-shirt against my creased stiff hospital gown. And for a moment the room smelt of Persil and you, not the hospital.

You kissed me: one kiss on my mouth and then one on each closed eyelid. For a moment, I thought that like a princess in one of Jenny’s old storybooks your three kisses would break the spell and I’d wake up and I’d feel your kiss – your stubble scratchy on my skin by that time of day.

But thirty-nine’s probably a little old to be a sleeping princess.

And maybe a bash on the head isn’t as easy to reverse as a witch’s curse.

Then I remembered – how could I have forgotten, even for three kisses – Jenny outside; waiting for me.

I knew that I mustn’t wake up, mustn’t even try, not yet, because I couldn’t leave her on her own.

You understand that, don’t you? Because if your job as a father is to protect your child, and mend her when she’s broken, my job as a mother is to be there with her.

‘My brave wife,’ you said.

You called me that when I’d just given birth to Jenny. I’d felt so proud then – as if I’d stopped being the usual me and had instead abseiled down from the moon.

But I didn’t deserve it.

‘I didn’t get to her in time,’ I said to you, my voice loud with guilt. ‘I should have realised something was wrong before; I should have got there before .’

But you couldn’t hear me.

We were silent – when have we ever been silent together?

‘What happened?’ you asked me, and your voice cracked a little, as if you were winding back the years to your teenage self. ‘What the hell happened?’

As if understanding could make it better.

I started with the strong, warm breeze at sports day.

Your eyes are closed now, as if you can join me if your eyes are shut too. And I’ve told you everything I know.

But of course you couldn’t hear me.

‘So why do it?’ that bossy nanny voice says to me. ‘Waste of time! Waste of breath!’ A cognitive therapist would send her packing but I’ve got used to her and besides I think it’s good for a mother to have someone bossing her around, so she knows what it’s like.

And she has a point, doesn’t she?

Why talk to you now when you can’t hear me?

Because words are the spoken oxygen between us; the air a marriage breathes. Because we have been talking to each other for nineteen years. Because I would be so lonely if I didn’t talk to you. So no therapist in the world, with whatever logic they brought to bear, could get me to stop.

A woman doctor is coming purposefully towards us. I’m reassured by her being in her fifties; by her air of tired professionalism. Beneath her sensible navy blue skirt she’s wearing high, spiky red shoes. I know, a silly thing to notice. You’re looking at her name badge and rank; the important things. ‘Dr Anna-Maria Bailstrom. Neurologist. Consultant.’

Is it the Anna-Maria in her that wears the red shoes?

‘I thought she would look worse,’ you say to Dr Bailstrom. Neurologist. Consultant. ‘But she’s hardly hurt, is she? And she’s breathing for herself, isn’t she?’

The relief in your voice strings your words together.