Anouska Knight - Letting You Go

Louisa’s eyes darted about the tea rooms but the waitresses wouldn’t see them sitting here. Louisa had chosen the booth, tucked away by the little side window.

She swallowed back angry tears. ‘But you know that I’m not, don’t you, Ted? I can see it in your face.’

He should never have come here. Then he wouldn’t have had to listen to her spiteful proposition, wouldn’t have had to push her away. Wouldn’t have made her want to hurt him back so cruelly.

‘Stop talking, Louisa. Just …’

He brought his sleeve over his own mouth, in case any of that red was left on his. His hands were shaking too. Ted rose slowly from his chair. Louisa’s eyes grew wide.

‘Where are you going? You can’t just leave.’

He should never have come. ‘Home, Louisa. To my family. I promised my son we’d play with his new arrows.’ The bow and arrows. Ted pictured Malcolm bringing them over to the house for Dillon. He felt himself hunch over the table for a moment, his fingers grasp the edge of the table-top.

Louisa’s chin wobbled. She held herself rigid and glared up at him. ‘You go back to her then,’ she spat. ‘To that frumpy little wife of yours. But I hope you’re good at pretending, Edward Foster.’

‘Every case is different, Mr Foster. It’s still very early days and there’s no saying how your wife’s symptoms will continue to present. I’m afraid it can be something of a guessing game in the initial weeks.’

Alex could tell her dad was trying to decipher how old this man delivering the fate of their family could possibly be. For a moment she found herself playing along. Dr Okafor was handsome in that way all young, intelligent here-to-help-your-suffering-loved-one people were, with his rectangular-rimmed glasses and candy-pink shirt that was only ever going to be OK on an acute assessment unit because he was educated, and knowledgeable, and because it complemented his flawless black skin perfectly.

Alex glanced at Jem to see if she was evaluating Dr Okafor too. Jem’s hand was resting comfortably through the crook of their dad’s arm. ‘You’re saying she might be in hospital for weeks ? Even though she’s woken up and managed to drink and …’

Dr Okafor lifted his hands apologetically. ‘We are very encouraged by your mother’s progress this morning, Miss Foster, but before you go in to see her you must be made aware that recovery can be unpredictable and sometimes erratic. As the swelling on Mrs Foster’s brain reduces, we would hope to see further changes in the rate of her progress but it can be a very … disorientating experience for your mother.’

Alex found her voice. ‘So what are you saying, Doctor?’

He looked softly at Alex, as if delivery was something they spent a whole semester’s study on in med school. ‘It is quite possible that your mother’s symptoms could get worse before she starts to feel better, and that is something we should keep in mind. Did you know that your wife suffers from arrhythmia, Mr Foster?’

Bingo. Dr Okafor had just delivered a body blow. It didn’t matter how much older and wiser Ted was, this guy, this kid, knew stuff. Important stuff that he didn’t. About his Blythe. ‘Arrhythmia?’ Jem ventured.

‘It’s her heart, Jem.’ Alex’s voice snagged, unready to speak when she’d wanted it to.

Dr Okafor smiled and dipped his head. ‘That’s correct. Arrhythmia is essentially irregular beating of the heart, its rhythm. Sometimes this can be the cause of the stroke, sometimes the effect. Has your wife ever complained of problems in this area, Mr Foster? Any discomfort, breathlessness, palpitations … maybe no more than a fluttering sensation?’

Alex felt her neck burning up. I did this to her. She knew it. She’d known it since she put down the phone to Jem in the cubicle at the leisure centre.

Alex heard her dad clear his throat. He wasn’t going to be caught out by a snagging voice, his age and experience at least gave him that much. ‘My wife’s a busy woman, Doctor. It takes a lot to slow her down. If Blythe has had any problems with her heart,’ he cleared his throat again, ‘she hasn’t shared them with me.’ Alex couldn’t read her dad’s expression. Her mum wouldn’t have kept that from him, would she? Her parents didn’t keep anything from each other, they didn’t have secrets, they just weren’t the sort.

Ted battled on. ‘Would she have had these palpitations all the time, Doctor? Or could they be triggered by something?’

Jem looked just as surprised by Ted’s obliviousness. Alex frowned. Why hadn’t her mum shared this with him? She deserved his support, why forfeit that and hide a fluttering sodding time-bomb, waiting to go off in St Cuthbert’s churchyard?

‘The symptoms might have been present day to day, Mr Foster,’ said Doctor Okafor, ‘or just here and there for no particular reason. There can be triggers. Stress, for example, can be a factor. There are many aspects we should consider.’

The burning in Alex’s neck was sweeping up through her head. Stress can be a factor. Stress. Define stress, Doctor. How about, say, the drowning of your only son? The years robbed of celebrating his birthdays like a normal family. The thought of him gasping his last desperate breaths while the daughter you’d entrusted him to was making goo-goo eyes at her boyfriend in the bushes. Would that be an aspect worth considering? Would that affect the rhythm of a mother’s heart?

Jem was looking over. In through the nose, out through the mouth … Alex could feel her heart thudding in her chest. Was arrhythmia contagious? Like an infectious yawn, jumping from one person to the next? She hoped so. She deserved it, she bloody well deserved it.

A bleep began pulling Alex from the internal disaster gathering pace inside her ribcage.

‘I’m terribly sorry. Would you excuse me? I’ll come and find you all again as soon as I’m back on the ward,’ Dr Okafor said apologetically.

Ted offered the doctor his hand, his acceptance of the younger man’s competence – his gratitude for it. Somewhere on the periphery, Alex heard Jem utter her thanks to the doctor too, then Jem’s voice grew louder beside Alex’s ear. ‘Come on, let’s go and give her a kiss.’

They filed into Room 2. Alex went in last, Blythe’s tired eyes dodging Ted and Jem, finding their way straight to her. Alex felt the muscles in her face ready themselves for a full on explosion of something unsightly. No. She wouldn’t. She had no right to cry so she swallowed it all down and let her throat close around it like a drawstring.

‘Hey, Mum,’ Jem said softly. Alex watched Jem sweep the hair from their mother’s face so it framed her equally on both sides of her pillow. Jem dove straight in for a kiss. ‘Mum? Alex is here,’ she declared, as if presenting their mother with the magic tincture that would save her.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Alex croaked. She needed to learn to swallow before she spoke, like her dad. Alex nudged herself forwards to the edge of her mother’s bed. It felt like nudging herself towards the edge of the pool at the leisure centre, her breathing elevating with each tentative step forwards. Blythe’s eyes slid shut as if she were drifting off to sleep again but Alex knew it was her invitation to nuzzle in all that paleness. Her mother’s cheek was warm, Alex laid a kiss there and held her face over it for a few seconds, to be sure it stuck. ‘Hi, Mum.’ she whispered again, her voice steadier now. ‘Didn’t see about those butterflies then?’ Alex pulled back to see her mother attempt a smile but one side of Blythe’s mouth remained slackened, unwilling.

Blythe mumbled. Alex tried to make it out but it was like trying to pick out a familiar face on the other side of mottled glass, the outline of her mum’s words there but the detail obscured. Alex took a steadying breath. That awful sound couldn’t have just come from her mum, from the same place those beautiful arias used to reach from on Sunday mornings when Alex was still lazing in bed and her mum was trying to keep pace with her favourite sopranos.