Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
her cheek against his hair. She kissed the top of his head, smiling, with the heat of tears in her eyes.
‘I’m so glad you’re better,’ he murmured against her shoulder. ‘Christmas wasn’t nearly so much fun without you.’
‘I know,’ Annie whispered. ‘There’ll be next year, you know. Lots and lots of Christmases to come.’
Benjy was hanging back with his head against Martin’s leg. He was watching her, half-eager and yet reluctant. Annie had never been away from him for more than a day of his life before, and she knew that he was distrustful of her now.
‘Come on, Ben,’ she said gently.
Martin lifted him on to the bed beside her and Annie took his hand. She wanted to squeeze it in hers and then kiss his round face, pulling him to her so that no one could ever take him away. But she made herself suppress the intensity of feeling in case it frightened him. She smiled and hugged him, and said cheerfully, ‘I’m sorry you couldn’t come to see me in the other ward. The doctors were very strict. It’s much better in here, you can come whenever you like.’
‘I want you to come home,’ Benjy said. ‘Straight now.’
They laughed and the little boy squirmed closer to her, reaching out to touch the marks on her face.
‘Is that a bad hurt?’ he asked and Annie said, ‘Not very bad. Benjy, I’ll come home just as soon as I can. I promise I will.’
Over the boys’ heads she looked at Martin.
‘You look much better,’ he said.
‘I know.’
Annie wanted to share the glistening happiness she had felt. She wondered for a moment how to express it, and then gave up the attempt to make it sound rational. She let the words come spilling out. ‘When they brought me downstairs this morning it was like waking up after a long, disturbed night. Or like recovering my sight after being blind. I could see everything so clearly, colours and shapes and people’s faces.’
Steve’s face, she remembered.
‘I felt so happy. As though there were no flaws, no ugliness or misery anywhere. Just for a minute. I’ll never forget.’
She thought that Martin didn’t understand what she was saying. He was listening, but not responding, and so she couldn’t share the miraculous delight with him. If joy in the simple rhythm of the ordinary world didn’t touch him, then it must be her words that were inadequate. Regret and guilt touched her briefly with their light fingers.
‘Do you see?’ she asked humbly.
‘It’s natural relief,’ Martin answered. ‘After what’s happened. Don’t take it too fast, Annie, will you? Don’t expect too much of yourself too quickly.’
So cautious. Not to seize on the happiness? Annie thought. Why not?
‘I won’t ever forget,’ she murmured, almost to herself. Then she made her attention direct itself outwards, beyond her own selfish concerns.
‘How is it at home?’ she asked. She felt the house, too, so clearly.
‘Oh,’ Martin shrugged with a touch of weariness, ‘we’re managing. Aren’t we, Tom?’
He told her that his mother was helping wherever she could, and Audrey was coming in every day. But Annie knew that the responsibility for the boys’ daily life, always hers in the past, would weigh heavily on Martin. He had less patience, and in two days’ time he would have to go back to work after the Christmas break.
‘McDonald’s every day?’ she asked Tom, and he grinned at her.
‘Just about.’
Benjy was lying quietly with his head against her good shoulder, his thumb in his mouth. Annie was still thinking about the house. It was so much part of her, she realized, that it was like an extension of her body. She could see the tiles in the kitchen, two or three of them cracked, the patches on the walls, the ironing basket overflowing next to the washing machine.
‘Can we get someone in? A temporary mother’s help?’
‘Very expensive,’ Martin said stubbornly. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll muddle through.’
Annie felt the ties of responsibility beginning to pull at her. She felt both guilty and relieved that she couldn’t respond to them yet. The hospital felt, momentarily, like a haven of peace and she remembered the brilliance of light that had illuminated it. It was a sanctuary from the demands that had followed her since the boys were babies. She loved them, all of them, but she couldn’t respond to their needs. Not yet.
‘What about my Mum?’ she asked. ‘How is she?’
‘Um. About the same. She wants to come in and see you. Are you up to it?’
Annie picked at a thread in the bed sheet.
‘Tell her to come. Whenever she can.’
They talked, the four of them, for a few more minutes. The boys told her about Christmas, shouting one another down as they listed their presents.
‘How marvellous,’ Annie said. ‘I wish I’d been there.’
Family. Gathered around her, needing her to pick up the threads again. It was hard to be all things, she thought, even some of the time.
Her head and back ached overwhelmingly now.
Martin stood up at last. Reluctantly she let the boys scramble away from the warmth of her hug.
‘Come back soon. Tomorrow?’
Martin kissed her, and she put her hand up to touch his cheek. ‘Thank you for being here.’
‘Where else could I be?’ he whispered.
They held hands for a long minute. Then, remembering something, Martin reached for a bag he had put down at the foot of the bed.
‘I brought you these. Essentials of life.’
Annie peered into the plastic carrier. There was a jar of Marmite and another of anchovy paste, both of which she loved. There was a big box of Bendick’s Bittermints. They always gave one another the dark, bitter mints as a consolation or a gesture of reconciliation. There was the latest copy of her gardening magazine, and the plant encyclopaedia that Annie often sat poring over on winter evenings. Every winter she drew up lists of the plants she would stock her garden with; every spring she failed to put her elaborate plans into force.
The little things were an expression of how well they knew one another, of how their lives had woven a pattern together.
What else? Annie wondered. The question pricked her, disturbing.
‘I love you,’ she said deliberately.
‘I know. Me too.’ He was gathering up the boys’ anoraks, helping Benjy into his. ‘Come on, you kids.’
‘See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow,’ they called to her. Annie waved to them. Martin took Benjy’s hand and with Tom scuffling beside them they went out in the tide of departing visitors.
Annie lay stiffly against her pillows.
She was wondering why she hadn’t mentioned Steve. She should have told Martin that they had met and talked.
But then, answering herself, she thought, No. That was separate. The thing had happened to them together, and it didn’t touch on her family. It was important that it didn’t because of the fear, and also because of the other things that she had felt with Steve today.
When it was over, when the dreams had stopped and she was well again, he would be a stranger again too.
Annie stood at the window of the