She wasn’t wearing a seat belt . . .’
I always wear a seat belt.
‘. . . she would have been travelling at some speed to have gone through the windshield like that and she sustained a serious blow to the head on impact. She’s lucky to be here at all.’
Lucky.
‘All we can do is take things one day at a time,’ says the doctor.
‘But she will wake up, won’t she?’
‘I’m sorry. Is there anyone we can call to be with you? A relative? A friend?’
‘No. She’s all I’ve got,’ says Paul.
I soften when I hear him say those words about me. They didn’t used to be true. When we met, he was so popular, everyone wanted a piece of him. His first novel was an overnight success. He hates it when I say that, always describes it as the overnight success that took him ten years. It didn’t last though. Things got even better, then they got a lot worse. He couldn’t write after that, the words wouldn’t come. His success broke him and his failure broke us.
I hear the door close and wonder if I am alone again, then I hear a faint clicking sound and picture Paul sending a text message. The image jars a little and I realise I can’t remember him texting anyone before. The only other people in his life now are his mother, who refuses to communicate other than the occasional phone call when she wants something, and his agent, who tends to email now that they don’t have much to talk about any more. Paul and I text each other but I guess I’m not there when he does that. My thoughts are so loud he hears them.
‘I’ve told them where you are.’ He sighs and comes a little closer to the bed. He must mean my family. I don’t have many friends. An inexplicable chill makes its way down my spine as the silence settles over us once more.
I feel a stab of hurt about my parents. I don’t doubt that he’s tried to contact them, but they travel a lot and can be tricky to get hold of these days. We often go weeks without speaking at all, although that isn’t always to do with their foreign trips. I wonder when they will come, then I rearrange the thought and wonder if they’ll come at all. I am not their favourite child, I am the daughter they always had.
‘Bitch,’ says Paul, in a voice I barely recognise as his. I hear the legs of his chair scrape against the floor. The shadows over my eyelids darken and I know that he is standing right over me. Once more, I feel the urge to scream and so I do. But nothing happens.
His face is so close to mine now that I can feel his hot breath on my neck as he whispers in my ear. ‘Hold on.’
I don’t know what the words mean, but the door opens and I am saved.
‘Oh, my God, Amber.’ My sister, Claire, has arrived.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ says Paul.
‘Of course I should. You should have called me sooner.’
‘I wish I hadn’t called you at all.’
I don’t understand the conflict between the two dark shadows looming over me. Claire and Paul have always got on.
‘Well, I’m here now. What happened?’ she asks, coming closer.
‘They found her a few miles from the house. The car is a wreck.’
‘Nobody cares about your bloody car.’
I never drive Paul’s car. I never drive.
‘Everything will be OK, Amber,’ says Claire, taking my hand. ‘I’m here now.’ Her cold fingers wrap themselves around my own and it takes me back to when we were young. She always liked holding hands. I didn’t.
‘She can’t hear you, she’s in a coma,’ says Paul, sounding strangely pleased.
‘A coma?’
‘Proud of yourself?’
‘I know you’re upset, but this isn’t my fault.’
‘Isn’t it? I thought you had a right to know, but you’re not welcome here.’
My mind is racing and I don’t understand anything that is being said, I feel like I’m in a parallel universe where nobody around me makes sense any more.
‘What happened to your hand?’ Claire asks.
What is wrong with his hand?
‘Nothing.’
‘You should get a doctor to look at that.’
‘It’s fine.’
The room I can’t see starts to spin. I struggle to stay on the surface, but the water swirls around and inside me, swallowing me back down into the darkness.
‘Paul, please. She’s my sister.’
‘She warned me not to trust you.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Am I?’ Everything is so much quieter than before. ‘Get out.’
‘Paul!’
‘I said, get out!’
There’s no hesitation this time. I hear my sister’s heeled feet retreat from the room. The door opens and closes and I am alone again with a man who sounds like my husband, but behaves like a stranger.
Monday, 19th December 2016 – Evening
I get off the train and make my way along the quiet, suburban streets towards home and Paul. I’m still not convinced anything can be done to save my job, but maybe this will at least buy me enough time to do what I need to do. I won’t tell him. Not yet. I might never need to.
It wouldn’t be the first job that I’ve lost since we’ve been together. My career as a TV reporter came to an abrupt end two years ago when my editor got a bit too friendly once too often. He had a rather hands-on approach. One evening his hand slipped right up under my skirt and the next day someone keyed his BMW in the staff car park. He thought it was me and I never got on air again after that. I never got groped again either. I quit before he found an excuse to fire me and it was a relief to be honest, I hated being on TV. But Paul was devastated. He liked that version of me. He loved her. I got under his feet at home all the time. I wasn’t the woman he married. I was unemployed, I didn’t dress the same and I no longer had any stories to tell. Last year, at a wedding, the couple sat next to us asked what I did. Paul answered before I had a chance to. ‘Nothing.’ The somebody he loved became a nobody he loathed.
He said it made it hard for him to write, me being at home all the time. He had a fancy shed built at the bottom of the garden, so he could pretend that I wasn’t. Claire spotted the advert for the Coffee Morning job six months ago, she sent me the link and suggested I apply. I didn’t think I’d get it, but I did.
I stumble up the garden path and feel inside my handbag for my key. I’m puzzled by the sound of music and laughter inside the house. Paul is not alone. I remember that I tried calling him this afternoon but he never answered and didn’t bother to call me back. My hands shake a little as I open the front door.
They are sitting on the sofa laughing, Paul in his usual seat, Claire in mine. An almost empty bottle of wine and two glasses pose for a tedious still life on the table in front of them.
She doesn’t even like red.
They look a little shocked to see me and I feel like an intruder in my own home.
‘Hello, Sis. How are you?’ says Claire, getting up to kiss me on both cheeks. Her designer skinny jeans look as though they’ve been sprayed on, petite pedicured feet protruding beneath