Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

“It was on the way back. I just walked ahead, faster and faster; she was dropping things, Dad, and I wouldn’t help, wouldn’t wait. I knew she was getting upset; you know how she does.”

“Yes, I do. Go on.”

“Well, that was it. I was walking farther and farther ahead, and she called to me to wait, to help her, said the cover had come off her comic, and I still walked on, and then… then I heard it. Heard the car…

“You didn’t see it?”

“No, and I don’t know why, because it all happened really slowly…”

“Accidents do. Or seem to.”

“I just heard the brakes and I heard her scream and I turned round then and… there she was. On the road. Like a… a…” Dead person, he had been going to say, and he couldn’t, and then he started crying harder again, and hurled himself at his father, clutching at him, and saying, “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m so, so sorry,” over and over again.

Finally he stopped, looked up at him, and waited. Waited for the words, the shocked, shocking, angry words. Or worse, the stupid, rubbish words, saying he couldn’t have helped it. They didn’t come. Nothing came. Just a silence. His father was staring in front of him, and his eyes were sadder than Charlie had ever seen them; and then finally he looked at him and said, “Charlie, we all make mistakes.

Some don’t matter very much; some are terrible. Terrible mistakes that make other people very unhappy. Mistakes we’d give anything, anything at all, to change. To take back. But… we can’t. I made one, as you know. You’ve made one. Both serious mistakes that can’t be unmade. And that’s the thing. They are unchangeable. They won’t go away, whatever you do. So… the only thing to do is to live with them. Do the best you can. You can’t put them right. But you can put them behind you. Which isn’t easy, but… well, it isn’t easy.”

He was silent again; Charlie sat looking at him, his sobs quieted, his feelings oddly quieter too. After a while, Jonathan put his arm round him, pulled him closer; Charlie relaxed against him, rested his head on his chest.

And then Jonathan said, “I love you, Charlie. Very much.” And after quite a long time, Charlie heard his own voice, very quiet, almost as if it didn’t belong to him: “I love you too, Dad.”

“Oh, God. That’s so awful.”

“What?” Sylvie looked up from the TV; Abi was sitting at the table, staring at the newspaper, her face very white.

“It’s… Oh, God, how horrible. I… Sylvie, look at this. Look.”

Sylvie looked: a small paragraph, next to an item about yet another politician caught taking bribes: “Hero Doctor’s Child in Coma,” it was headed. “Daisy Gilliatt, seven-year-old daughter of top gynaecologist Jonathan Gilliatt, dubbed the hero of the M4 crash last August, has been knocked down by a car and is in intensive care. Her parents and her elder brother were at her bedside last night. No one from the hospital was available for comment. Our medical correspondent writes…”

“God,” said Sylvie, “how sad.”

“I don’t know what to do, Sylvie.”

“What do you mean? What could you do?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. But I ought to do something, don’t you think?”

“No. Like what?”

“Oh… I don’t know. Call him, maybe, send some flowers to the mother…”

“Abi, are you out of your head? Do you really think that poor woman would feel any better if she got some flowers from you? I don’t want to be offensive, but it’d probably make her feel much worse.”

“Yeah, yeah, I s’pose so. You’re right. I just feel… well, I don’t know. I met those kids, you know…”

“Yes, I know. And I can see why you’re upset. But I really don’t think you can do anything.”

“No. No, maybe not.”

“Because he really is not going to feel better if he hears from you.”

“No. No, you’re right. Oh, shit, Sylvie, where is this thing going to end?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it just won’t let me go. The crash.”

“I can’t see what the poor kid getting run over has got to do with the crash. Or you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well… maybe it has. Maybe finding out about me stopped the mother from looking after them properly. Don’t look at me like that, Sylvie; it’s possible.”

“Of course it’s not possible. Mothers aren’t like that. They function whatever. My auntie Cath didn’t start letting her kids run around doing what they liked when my uncle ran off with that totty from his firm. She got harder on them, if anything. Stop beating yourself up, Abi.”

“Yeah, OK, I’ll try. But…”

“Abi!”

“Sorry. Look, we’ve got a committee meeting this afternoon here; you want to go out, or what?”

“No, I’ll stay, if you don’t mind. I won’t get in the way. And I always enjoy the sexy farmer.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, get in the way as much as you like. You might have some ideas. We need them. Oh, shit, and it’s the inquest in a fortnight. S’pose the kid… well, doesn’t get any better-how will Jonathan cope with that?”

Sylvie sighed. “I don’t know, Abi. But it’s not your problem, honestly. Want a croissant?”

“It’s the first forty-eight hours that are crucial.” The paediatrician looked at Jonathan. “She gets through that, then we have reason for optimism.”

“And… now? It’s twenty-four. How’s she doing?”

“Well… she’s holding her own. The BP’s gone up, which is good. She’s definitely coming out of it a bit. She’s woken up several times this morning, sister tells me. Which is excellent. Those fractures are nothing. Apart from the fact that her lung’s been punctured. Biggest worry now, to be honest, is infection. She’s running a bit of a fever.”

“What is it?”

“Oh… only thirty-nine.”

He spoke overcasually; Jonathan winced.

“Thirty-nine is high.”

“Ish.”

“No, it’s high. She’s still on the antibiotics, isn’t she?”

“Of course. Look… have you been in to see her this morning?”

“Yes, of course.”

Well, how does she look to you?”

“Pretty bad,” said Jonathan, “to be honest.”

Laura stood, watching her daughter. Her pretty, sweet, merry-hearted little daughter. Reduced to something devoid of personality, a still, white ghost, most of her bodily functions taken over by machines. It was all very well for the doctors to keep saying her vital signs were good, that the concussion was serious but far from fatal, that a few broken limbs were of no great importance. The fact remained that she was extremely badly hurt, her small, slender body knocked about by half a ton of moving metal, her small skull cracked, one of her lungs ruptured, a mounting fever invading her. They were talking now of packing her in ice; Laura knew what that meant. It meant the fever was very serious, very high. She was in pain, too, restless, turning her head constantly; her hair had been getting tangled, and Laura had asked if she might tie it back somehow, but it was difficult; Daisy seemed aware that something was bothering her, tried to push her away with her good arm.

More than anything Laura wanted to hold her, hold her safe, as she had all through all her small troubles, her minor childish illnesses and the more major recent hurts, to be able to say, “There, it’s all right, Mummy’s here, Mummy will look after you, Mummy loves you.” But she couldn’t look after her, however much she loved her; her efforts were of absolutely no value; indeed if she held her now, she would die. The only things that could help her were the machines, cold, unfeeling, efficient machines, helping her breathe, hydrating her, dulling her pain, telling them when her pulse rose, her blood pressure dropped.