Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

And then: “Barney?”

She was standing above him, her huge eyes concerned; she had no makeup on, and she looked absurdly younger than ever. And absurdly lovely…

“Oh-hello, Emma.”

“You OK?”

“Yes. No. Well-just left Toby. He’s… he’s… well, got to have this final washout thing on Wednesday. And they’ve told him he might… might lose his leg. Or part of it.”

“Oh, Barney. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

She sat down beside him abruptly, her blue eyes full of sympathy.

“But… it’s not certain, is it? They’re still hopeful?”

“Toby doesn’t seem very hopeful. Anyway, I’m going to come down again on Wednesday. Be with him. Before and so on. And… and after.”

“That’ll help him a lot.”

“Really?”

“Well, yes. Positive support is really important on these occasions. What about his fiancée?”

“Oh, she doesn’t know.” He was unable to disguise the contempt in his voice. “Toby says it would upset her.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I feel like shit,” he said suddenly.

“I’m sure you do. You’re so fond of Toby, and-”

“No, no. More than that. I feel awful a lot of the time. About the accident. About us having that blowout, hitting the other car, that girl and her baby, all those people killed, Toby’s leg-and look at me, not a scratch. Doesn’t seem right.”

“Lots of people feel like that,” she said. “It’s the whole thing about people dying, you getting off without a scratch. It’s very common.”

“Really?”

“Really. It wasn’t your fault, Barney, any of it. You can’t start thinking that.”

“I have started thinking it, though,” he said, “I think it all the time. It’s… well, it’s horrible.”

“Maybe you should talk to someone about it. Someone who could help.”

She looked at him, her eyes so full of sympathy and concern he felt suddenly better.

“Oh… no, thanks. I’m sorry, Emma. I hate that sort of stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Oh, you know, what I call Guardian stuff. Counselling, all that crap. I’m fine, honestly. I’ll just have a fag; that’ll cure me.”

She laughed.

“Look, I’ve got to go now. But I’m here on Wednesday. On duty. Come and find me in A and E while he’s… well, in the theatre. If I’m not too busy, we could have a coffee or something, pass the time. If that’d be a help at all.”

Barney looked at her; her expression was sweetly earnest. Seemingly unable to help himself, he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

“That is so, so kind of you, Emma,” he said, “and of course it would be a help. Thank you.”

“Good, it’s a date then. Look, I’ve got to go. I’m late already.” She smiled at him, jumped up, half ran across the car park. Of course. She was off to meet the boyfriend, no doubt. Lucky bastard. Lucky, lucky bastard.

“There’s a letter for you, Mum.”

Christine smiled at her briefly, but it was a polite, rather cool smile, the one she had been using ever since Mary had told her about Russell.

Mary had phoned Russell the day after their conversation, when Christine was out, to explain; he had been surprisingly agreeable about it, had said he was sure she’d come round in a day or two. As the two became three and then four, he was growing impatient. And it was so hard to talk to him at all; she had to wait for the phone until Christine was out. Well, only another week, and then she’d be in her own home; and she had booked a cab to take her over to the hotel on Saturday, when Christine would be out for the day and wouldn’t know. But the long-term prognosis was not good.

She took the letter from Christine-it was written in that unmistakable American handwriting-and went upstairs with it. “My darling Little Sparrow,” the letter began. “How hard this new separation is…”

That afternoon, Maeve walked quietly into Patrick’s room; he was sitting staring straight ahead of him; he had become very pale and thin in his two weeks’ incarceration.

“Hello, Patrick.”

He scarcely looked at her, just sighed and said, “Hello, Maeve.”

“How are you today?”

“I’m how you’d think,” he said, and his voice was heavy. “I am sick of being here in this bed. I’m in pain, I can’t sleep, I’m going to be here for the rest of my life, and no doubt people would say I deserve all of that, and I would say it of myself. I’m a murderer; I killed all those people-”

“Patrick, hush.” She went over to the bed, put her arms round him, kissed his cheek. “Patrick, you don’t know that. You have to try to keep faith with yourself; something else might have happened… You can’t remember-”

“I remember enough,” he said, “enough to know I was desperate for sleep, biting my own fists, counting backwards from a thousand-”

“You don’t… you don’t remember this other person being there with you? It’s not… not clearing at all?”

“No,” he said, his voice bitter. “If anything it’s going farther away. I’m beginning to think it was some kind of hallucination, wishful thinking…” He reached for a tissue, blew his nose, wiped his eyes. “How are the boys?”

“They’re fine. They want to come and see you so much. Callum has done you a fine picture, look, and Liam says I have to give you fifty kisses-shall I bring them in tomorrow, Patrick? Mum says she’ll drive us all down.”

“I don’t want to see them,” he said. “I want them to forget about me.”

“Forget about you? And what sort of a child will forget his own father? As fine a one as you? And why should he?”

“If the father is a killer, if he’s been responsible for the deaths of many people, he’s better forgotten, Maeve. I wish only one thing now: that I had been killed myself, that I had died in that cab-”

“Patrick Connell, will you just shut up now?”

The seemingly endless strain and exhaustion finally defeated Maeve; she felt angry with him, angry not for what he had done-or not done-but for his willingness to give in, to turn his back on the children.

“How dare you talk like that, how dare you, when the finest doctors in this hospital have worked so hard to save you, when your own children cry every night, they want to see you so much, when I feel so tired I could just lie down on that floor and sleep for all eternity myself. But I can’t, Patrick, because someone has to keep going. Someone has to see after the children, and visit you every day, and work so hard to cheer you, and-”

He turned his head to look at her, and his expression was quite blank, his eyes dull and disinterested.

“You don’t have to come,” he said. “It would be much better if you didn’t.”

Maeve straightened up, looked at him very briefly, and then picked up her bag and walked out of the room.

Russell’s letter had been to tell Mary that she wasn’t to worry about him; they had the rest of their lives together, after all, but to concentrate her efforts on making her peace with her daughter.

“That really is the most important thing right now. How extraordinary this all is! I’ve started to worry about my children’s reactions as well. Maybe we should run away together to Gretna Green and get married with just a couple of witnesses. But it’s not what I want, of course: I want all our friends and family there; I want everyone to watch us being married, you becoming Mary Mackenzie. After all these years.”

But Mary could see that both their families might find this a little difficult. And she was sure Russell’s rather grand family would look down on her. What had seemed incredibly romantic and exciting suddenly was turning into a depressing mess.