Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

He does not reply or look at me. I tell myself he must not have heard me, though I know in my heart he has.

In my heart, I already know everything.

I don’t remember much more about the car journey.

Thankfully, I remember even less about what came after that.

My adventures with hospitals are not over. Perhaps they will never be over. Live in hope, says Martin, and I try to.

Once more I am walking down a long hospital corridor, and I am looking for somebody.

This time, though, I know exactly where I am going.

‘Hey,’ I say, knocking on the wooden door. ‘Is now good?’

‘Oh hi. Yeah sure. Come in.’

Katie Browne is lying on her hospital bed in a pale green nightshirt. She puts down the iPad she was holding. From the tinny sounds that issue from it, I guess that she’s been watching The Hunger Games again.

Early on I lent her my iPad and told her to buy what books she wanted and rent movies on my account. Martin was sceptical, but so far she has always had to be pushed to spend any money on it.

It means, though, that I can see what she reads and watches – what she consumes – and what she consumes is fantasy Amazons, warrior-women skilled in sword and bow and laser pistol, protectors of the weak, champions of justice. Because I have access to the same books and movies on my phone, I’ve started to consume them too.

It’s surprisingly therapeutic, and touching. Through her wounded, unspoken front I see into her dreamworld, and it fills me with hope for her recovery.

And, by extension, hope for my own.

Through her window I can look down on the swarming roads and towers of Addenbrooke’s. She follows my gaze, smiles.

‘Yeah. It is a cool view.’

I sit on the chair next to her bed. On the little bedside cabinet there is a riot of brightly coloured greetings cards.

‘You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’ I ask.

‘Um, no.’ Her smile falters and she turns away, as though shutters have come down across her soul. It has been nearly three months, but Katie is not yet ready to discuss the cellar, or what happened to her, to the frustration of her support team. I can hardly blame her, really.

But when she is ready, I’ll be here.

‘I was going to say happy birthday.’

‘What? Oh, yeah!’ Her relief is palpable. ‘But you’re a day late.’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry. The meeting with the lawyers was yesterday.’

‘You met the lawyers?’ Her eyes widen. ‘I thought…’

‘No, not that meeting with my lawyers. I meant my divorce.’

Her dark eyes are wary. She does not know what to say about my divorce. Despite all she has been through, she is still essentially a child.

‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I’m over it.’

The meeting had taken place in London, which is where Stephen, my solicitor and newfound indispensable person, works from a smart office near Gray’s Inn. It was already late afternoon by the time I arrived, my guts heaving, my stomach in my mouth, and I was conducted into the ultra-modern meeting room and shown into a high-backed chair.

Eddy was already there. His presence was a physical shock, and I felt myself grow numb and light-headed.

Stephen’s assistant, Tanya, then moved to the sideboard. Behind her, London was visible in a milky dusk, framed by floor to ceiling windows. St Paul’s poked up tinily, like a novelty sugar bowl, and I almost wanted to lift up the lid and peek inside.

‘Would anyone like tea? Coffee?’ she asked in a small fluting voice, like a bird.

I shook my head. So did Eddy.

‘Not for me,’ he said.

Eddy looked the same, and yet also not – he was, as always, fastidiously neat, but his exquisitely cut white shirt and small lapelled black jacket made him seem like someone playing a part, perhaps that of a gangster or Bond villain, and his glittering cufflinks appeared vulgar, particularly in the context of our meeting and what it was about. It was as though he had lost the power to fill his own clothes. He was a generic version of himself, constructed of discount materials.

Or perhaps it was I that had changed, and I saw him with different eyes.

Who knows.

‘Penelope, you’ve had a chance to discuss the agreement with your client?’ asked Stephen.

Eddy’s solicitor was a woman, an ash-blonde tigress with a steely gaze, clad in a titanium-grey dress-suit and terrifying black patent high heels. I guessed instantly that this was the person who had advised him to get back with me so he could mortgage my house and use the proceeds to fight for his share of Sensitall’s innards.

This consideration really warmed me towards her, as you might imagine.

‘I have,’ she replied firmly.

‘Any questions?’

‘No, we’re fine.’ She glanced at Eddy, who was pretending to be engrossed in the highly polished table top.

Stephen flipped open a folder and took out copies of the documents.

‘Right then. Let’s get on with it.’

This agreement was a lot less scary to me than it could have been, for one simple reason: Eddy had been paid £30,000 for revelations about me that had appeared in a national tabloid. In a bleakly hilarious twist, there was a question as to whether I was entitled to some of this money as part of our shared assets.

The sheer betrayal of it all still took my breath away. He told some grubby reporter everything I had confided to him in the secrecy of our bed, that I confessed while we walked, hand in hand, along Grantchester Grind or through the Fens themselves; all of those deep and hidden things, which it turns out were all lies anyway, tales spun by the Red Queen out of desperation and terror, and always flight, flight, flight. Stories about the drug use, the breakdowns, the distant clashing rocks of my imaginary past.

Neither of us, however, is interested in fighting about this now. I, at least, have other priorities. As a consequence, I will keep my house, Eddy will keep his flat, and we will have no further dealings with one another.

Stephen pushed the sheaf of paper towards him. ‘Mr Lewis? You first.’

Eddy signed the documents quickly, contemptuously, as though this was all beneath him, and then shoved them over the desk to me.

There was a big cross drawn next to Margot Lewis, marking where I should sign my name. My pen paused over it, as though startled. After all, who is Margot Lewis? Can she legally sign documents? Does she even exist in any meaningful way?

In for a penny, in for a pound. My pen scratched decisively across the paper.

And just like that, we were done.

I lingered with Stephen on the steps of his offices while he fussed with his cashmere scarf.

‘Well, that was awful,’ I observed.

‘Yes, but better to have it over and done with.’ He fastened his coat against the cold breeze. Somewhere out there the City of London was knee-deep in rush hour, but here, in the medieval parkland of the Middle Temple, all was strangely quiet, serene. ‘I don’t think you’ve been holding out for a reconciliation.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Can I walk you to the station?’

‘Thanks, that’s very kind, but no. I’m meeting someone in the Delaunay.’

‘At least let me flag you a cab from the road,’ he said.

‘No really, it’s fine. I’d rather walk. And I haven’t spotted any reporters – though I haven’t properly beaten the shrubbery around here yet, so maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.’ I barked out a laugh, but he wasn’t fooled and he gave me a stern glance.