Susan Lewis - One Minute Later

As far as Vivi was aware no one understood what had gone wrong, or, if they did they hadn’t yet told her whether the serious episodes she’d just suffered were in any way connected to the congenital heart defect she’d been born with.

‘How are you feeling?’ her mother asked fondly, putting down the magazines she’d brought in and pressing a kiss to Vivi’s forehead. Vivi caught the citrusy scent of her, light and fresh with the earthy warmth that came from her skin – as familiar as the sound of her voice and the movements of her hands.

How was she feeling?

‘Fine,’ Vivi replied. Her voice was stronger than a whisper now, but not as full as it should be. What was the point in telling the truth when there was nothing her mother could do to change things?

‘No pain?’

Vivi shook her head. She didn’t class the constant hurting in her chest as pain any more; it was more of an ache that occasionally flared up into something hot and untameable until the drugs kicked in.

‘How are you?’ Vivienne asked. ‘You look tired.’

Gina’s blink made her seem slightly lost, as though she’d forgotten that she might matter, and Vivi felt a flood of love filling her struggling heart. Funny how emotions didn’t hurt – or they did, but in a different way. They worried her too, in case they were causing undue strain, especially the negative ones. ‘Did you sleep last night?’ she asked.

Gina smiled. ‘I did,’ she said, but Vivi knew it wasn’t true. ‘You have a very comfortable bed.’

Thinking of her flat was as difficult as thinking of all other aspects of the life that was going on without her, and would continue to as if she’d died that day in Beaufort House. The world wouldn’t wait for her, it simply wasn’t possible, but she wasn’t to worry, her boss had told her when he’d come to visit, she’d still have a job when she was strong enough to return.

No one had told her that was never going to happen, but they didn’t have to, because on a deep and intractable level she knew it anyway.

Greg had come to see her, twice, but he’d seemed so awkward the last time that she’d almost asked him right then not to come again. His wide, baffled green eyes hadn’t been able to hide the panic he felt, or the helplessness, or the shameful need to escape. She could tell he hated himself for it. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, she was sure he did, but he wasn’t able to cope with her being anything other than the vibrant young woman he’d been dating. She’d decided to text him after he’d left. It would be easier that way, no pretence that things could be the same when she got out of here, no difficult goodbyes. She needed to be as pragmatic and brave about this as her mother was trying to be; as truthful and unemotional as the charts detailing her progress and mapping the way into her future.

She didn’t feel brave or pragmatic, or like being truthful or detached; what she felt was shattered and terrified, a wreck of the person she really was – and beyond angry with the cruel fate that had put her here.

She would fight it; show it who was in charge. It wasn’t going to win this battle and it might as well know it now. She’d find the weapons she needed, strength of body and spirit, indestructible determination of mind, belief in herself. Her dreams might lie in shattered pieces now, the debris of a collision with life’s capricious and brutal plans, but she wasn’t a puppet to be jerked about on the end of some random, intangible strings. She’d put everything back together and go on as she was before …

The flame of defiance was hard to keep alight when it was constantly assailed by fear; and when it sometimes took all her strength simply to summon the breath to speak.

‘Where’s Mark?’ she asked her mother, her voice low, the words croaked with effort.

‘I let him sleep on,’ Gina replied, taking out a tissue to wipe something from Vivienne’s cheek. A speck of breakfast? Maybe it was a tear. She felt like crying all the time, crying and crying as if somehow the flood would widen and deepen and carry her away from all this.

‘I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he wakes up,’ Gina added.

Vivienne remembered being told that he was sleeping on the sofa in her sitting room, the one she’d bought mostly for when he came to stay. She wished she could see him there. More than that, she wished he wasn’t there, because then this might not be happening. ‘He should be at uni,’ she said.

‘His exams haven’t started yet and he wants to be close.’ Gina drew a handful of white envelopes from her bag.

Vivienne looked at them and guessed they were get-well wishes from her mother’s friends and clients.

Gina watched her uncertainly. ‘Shall I put them away again?’ she asked, clearly ready to do so.

Vivienne didn’t know what to tell her, so she said, ‘Where’s Gil?’

‘Still at the hotel, I think.’

Gil, her wonderful, loving stepfather who’d left her mother, and Vivienne still didn’t know why. Or did she? For the moment she was struggling to get things straight in her head. She knew she’d asked many times, but had she ever been given an answer? ‘Is it awkward for you?’ she ventured.

Gina seemed puzzled, and Vivienne felt a stir of irritation. She’d apparently asked a question that didn’t chime with reality, or her mother was pretending it didn’t.

‘Why would you say that?’ Gina replied carefully.

‘I don’t know … I was … I’m glad he came.’

‘Of course he came. He loves you very much, you surely can’t doubt that.’

Vivienne loved him too, and had always wished he was her real father. Mark would be her real brother then, and they’d be a proper family with no divisions or secrets …

Gina gently curled her fingers round Vivienne’s. ‘Don’t worry, my darling, your memory will piece everything together again soon,’ she promised.

Vivienne nodded, but wondered how she would know if she was functioning normally when she couldn’t be sure what normal was any more. ‘Do you wish you’d tried harder to hang onto him?’ she asked hoarsely.

Gina looked so vulnerable for a moment that Vivienne almost said sorry, but then Gina was covering her feelings with a smile as she said, ‘It was all a long time ago …’

‘Almost ten years,’ Vivi put in, wanting to prove that she knew.

‘Indeed. We’ve moved on since then …’

‘ Why did you let him go?’

Gina’s gaze didn’t waver as she said, ‘Why are we having this conversation? It’s hardly important …’

‘You pushed him away. You always do that.’

Gina didn’t answer and Vivi felt herself falling into a sinking, darkening sense of defeat, or exhaustion, or something she didn’t really understand. She too wondered why they were having this conversation, when she felt sure they’d had it many times. Maybe it was because that bleak and difficult period when Gil left was easier to think about than the one they were entering into now. The one that she might not survive … Why was no one talking about that? Or maybe she’d been told she wasn’t going to make it and had blotted it from her mind.

‘Would you like to sleep?’ Gina asked gently.

Vivi realized her eyes were closed.

‘I can stay, or I can go,’ Gina said. ‘Whichever you prefer.’

Vivi wanted her to stay, wanted her never to leave so she could somehow make this all right, but she said, ‘You can go if you like.’

Gina settled herself into a chair and stayed.

There was a man standing at the gate, tall and fair-haired with his hands on his hips and a big smile on his face.

‘There’s my daddy,’ Michelle whooped, and zooming off across the schoolyard she leapt straight into his arms, yelping and laughing as he spun her round and around.