Authors: Graham Hurley
‘Fuck.’ Suttle was impressed.
‘Don’t stop.’
He bent to her again. This time it took longer. Towards the end she lifted his head and told him to take his clothes off. Then she nodded at the other stool and settled herself on his lap.
‘As quick as you like.’ She kissed him. ‘I’m Santa.’
Suttle wanted to laugh. He couldn’t remember sex like this ever. Not with her. Not with Trude Gallagher, Not with any of the women he’d known. Ten minutes ago he’d been dreaming up clever ways of avoiding a row. Now this.
She began to move, her eyes half-closed, her hands cupping her own breasts. This, too, was new, and a definite turn-on. Maybe she’s been on the Internet, Suttle thought. Maybe Gill has a favourite site and they’ve been getting in the mood. Seconds later Lizzie came, Suttle too. She clung to him for a long moment. Suttle could feel the thump of her heart through her tiny frame.
‘Happy Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘I love you.’
Misty was asleep when Winter made it back to Hayling Island. The sale on his Gunwharf apartment had finally gone through, and his solicitor had organised completion for 2 January. What was left of his belongings occupied a modest stack of cardboard boxes in the otherwise empty sitting room, and he’d called by to pick a couple more up. These last few weeks he’d been living full time with Misty, an arrangement that seemed to be working remarkably well.
He returned to the Lexus and carried the boxes into Misty’s hall. She’d cleared a couple of rooms downstairs for the bits of furniture he wanted to keep, pending – in Misty’s phrase – whatever the fuck happened next. This subject, to Winter’s
relief, they were both leaving well alone. Misty was sentimental about Christmas, and the last thing she needed was a row. Over the last couple of months he’d noticed a slight reticence on her part, a hint of detachment he’d never seen before, but he’d been careful to fence off the weekends so they could have a bit of time together, and after a couple of drinks things went pretty much the way they’d always gone. Plenty of laughter. Some excellent sex. And still friends next morning.
He padded up the stairs, soaped his face in the en-suite, returned Misty’s discarded gown to the hook behind the door and stepped back into the bedroom. Misty’s light was still on and he was bending to find the switch when she stirred.
‘Paul? Is that you?’
‘Yeah.’ He gave her hand a squeeze.
‘I thought I heard the phone earlier. I was probably dreaming. You mind checking it, pet?’
Winter went downstairs. He hadn’t been in the kitchen so he hadn’t seen the message light flashing on the phone console. He lifted the receiver and keyed playback. A woman’s voice. Lots going on in the background.
‘This is a message for Mrs Gallagher. Please can she call this number and ask for Sister Ballantyne. I’m afraid it’s urgent.’
It was a Southampton number. Winter scribbled it down. His first thought was Trudy. As far as he knew, she was in for the night. He went back upstairs and checked the room she was using. The bed was empty, the brightly patterned duvet half on the floor. A litter of shoes led to the wardrobe. The wardrobe door was open. Returning downstairs, he phoned the Southampton number. Another voice answered, male this time.
‘ICU.’
Winter was staring at the phone. He knew a great deal about intensive care units. He gave his name and said he was calling on behalf of Mrs Gallagher.
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Gallagher. Someone left a message earlier.’
‘One moment please.’
There was a longish pause. He could hear the clank of a hospital trolley in the background. Next came a low murmur of conversation. Then he was talking to the woman who’d left the message. He listened for what felt a very long time, nodded, said he understood. Then he put the phone down.
Misty was calling him from upstairs. She’d heard the tinkle of the phone connection. She wanted to know what was going on.
Winter took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then he went up.
Misty knew at once that something was wrong. She was up on one elbow, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She reached out for Winter. Her hand was icy.
‘What’s the matter, pet?’
Winter sank onto the bed, put his arm round the bareness of her shoulders. All he could think of was Karl Sparrow, hanging from his hoist, totally helpless.
‘It’s Trude, Mist. We need to go to Southampton.’
The Princess Anne Hospital was in the north of the city. Winter left the Lexus in the car park and followed the signs to the main entrance. It was half past one in the morning, and away from A & E the hospital was nearly deserted. The woman at reception directed them to the Intensive Care Unit. The doors to the ICU were locked. Winter, hugging Misty close, rang the bell. After a while a male nurse appeared, inspected them through the glass panel and opened the door. Winter gave their names. The nurse nodded and led them through to a nursing station in the centre of the unit. The sister in charge was on the phone, he explained. She’d be with them as soon as she’d finished.
They took a seat. Misty was hyperventilating, her head back, her eyes half closed. She kept clutching at Winter’s hand, the way a child might. She wanted information. She needed
reassurance. She prayed that nothing really horrible had happened. She wanted them all back at home in Hayling Island. Intact.
The sister asked them to come into her office. She shut the door. She explained that Trudy had been in a road accident. Mid-evening there’d been a pile-up on the M3 north of Southampton. A lorry had jackknifed, trying to avoid a car joining the motorway. Traffic behind had hit the lorry, and the impacts had rippled back. The police would know more, but as far as the sister understood, Trudy had been a passenger in a car that had hit the lorry. The initial impact had thrown her forward, then multiple impacts from behind had snapped her neck back. She had fractures of the skull, probable broken ribs and damage to her spine. The latter was especially problematic. Just now, she was still unconscious, breathing with the aid of a ventilator. Paramedics had done what they could to stabilise her neck and spine, and soon, God willing, she’d be transferred to the hospital’s neurological unit.
‘God willing?’ Misty looked terrified.
‘She’s very sick, Mrs Gallagher. I can’t pretend otherwise.’
‘So will she …’ Misty couldn’t complete the sentence.
‘We hope so.’
‘But you can’t be sure?’ This from Winter.
‘No, I’m afraid not. In these situations there are never any guarantees.’
‘Can I see her?’ Misty seemed to have recovered. ‘Is she close? Can I sit beside her?’
‘Of course.’
Misty and Winter followed the sister to a shadowed open-plan ward. Trude was in the bed at the end. Her head, swathed in bandages, was immobilised, and there was clearly damage to her legs as well because the bed was tented with some kind of frame. Tubes ran out of her body to a variety of bottles and drips, and the silence was broken by the steady sigh of the ventilator. Misty crept towards the bed. She wanted to touch
her daughter, to stir a flicker of movement, a hint that it was still Trudy in there, but she seemed to have lost her bearings.
‘Go ahead, Mrs Gallagher.’
Misty stood at the bedside, bent low, put her cheek to Trudy’s. Then she took her hand and stroked it, murmuring something Winter couldn’t quite catch.
He asked the sister how long this was likely to go on.
‘Unconsciousness, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘We never really know. Guessing would be unkind. She might come round in a minute or two. It might take days. It might …’ She offered Winter a tired smile. ‘We just can’t say.’
‘What about the rest of the people in the car?’
‘I understand the driver died. That’s all I know.’
There was a waiting room, she explained, if they wanted to stay. Trudy’s condition would be reviewed by a couple of consultants in the morning. They’d probably be able to tell them a great deal more than she could.
Winter thanked her. He found a chair for Misty, another for himself, and settled down to wait. Misty couldn’t take her eyes off her daughter’s face. A screen above the bed displayed a series of lines that monitored various vital signs, and when a peak or a trough caught her attention, she’d glance up and frown as if the machine was somehow to blame for this terrifying event, but her real focus was Trude. She had to know her mum was with her. She had to know she wasn’t alone. They were going to see this thing through together. Come what may.
After a while Winter fetched a couple of coffees from a vending machine in the corridor. He selected double sugar for Misty’s, thinking she might need it, but when he carried the coffees back through she barely registered his presence. Mother and daughter occupied a bubble cut off from the rest of the world. Nothing else mattered.
By six o’clock in the morning there were stirrings in the ward. Nurses came and went. Cleaners. Someone important-looking
with a clipboard and a pen. No one spared Misty and Winter a second glance. Trudy was still deeply unconscious, her chest rising and falling at the bidding of the ventilator.
‘Do you think she feels any pain, pet?’ Misty’s hand found Winter’s.
‘No.’
‘And when she comes round? What then?’
‘She’ll be confused, Mist. You need to be here. She needs to see a face she knows.’
‘And you, pet?’
‘I’m here too.’
‘Bless you.’ Her hand tightened in his. ‘You’re a good man.’
The ICU consultant was Indian. Misty refused to leave Trudy’s bedside, so he took Winter to the room reserved for friends and family. The rows of stuffed animals reminded Winter of Misty’s bedroom. He was glad she wasn’t here.
‘So what’s going to happen?’
The consultant wouldn’t go much further than the sister. Except to warn Winter that the neurological consequences could be lifelong.
‘I’m not with you, Doc.’
‘We did X-rays last night. She has fractures here and here.’ He touched the nape of his own neck. ‘We call them C5 and C6. Until she’s fully conscious again we’ll have no idea of the extent of the damage. The spinal cord runs down through these vertebrae. Spinal nerve tissue is very sensitive and it doesn’t heal. If it’s damaged the effects could be permanent.’
‘Like how?’
‘Like having no sensation below here –’ he touched his shoulder blades ‘– and no control, either.’
Winter nodded and said nothing. Karl Sparrow again, banged up in his Tipner bedroom with a lifetime of DVDs to look forward to. Helpless. Incontinent. Fuck.
The consultant wanted to know whether there was anything else he could help Winter with. He knew it was tough, but
there was still a chance Trudy could pull through without permanent damage.
‘How much of a chance?’
‘A chance. That’s all I can say. Good luck, my friend. We’re all doing our best.’
He gave Winter’s arm a tiny pat and left. Winter settled heavily into the nearest armchair and let his head fall back. Then he closed his eyes and squeezed them very hard. He felt totally knackered. In his own way he loved Trude as much as her mum did, a different kind of love maybe but no less real. The kid had always been alive, always on the move, always ready with a quip or a little dig. If anyone could bounce back from something like this then she could. But then he knew only too well that the body wrote its own script, did its own bidding, and that from certain kinds of injury you never came back. How was he going to break this to Mist? What on earth would he say?
By the time he got back to her, he’d decided to say nothing. Trudy was still away in her private world, somewhere beyond reach. Misty asked what the consultant had said but Winter shook his head. ‘No news is good news,’ he muttered. ‘These guys won’t commit themselves.’ Misty nodded, happy enough not to know. She looked exhausted, but when Winter suggested she might go back to the car and have a kip she wouldn’t hear of it. Trude might come round any moment. And when that happened she had to be there.
Winter put his hands on her shoulders and started to give her a massage. He loved the way she’d said ‘when’ and not ‘if’ but he could feel the tension in her neck. After a while an orderly asked whether they’d like something to eat. He could offer scrambled eggs and toast. Misty barely heard him. Winter said yes.
He ate breakfast alone, back in the room with the stuffed toys, wondering where he could find some pepper and salt. Then he heard a flurry of movement in the corridor outside, a
couple of nurses hurrying past, and he put the paper plate to one side, getting to his feet, sensing that something might have happened. He could remember three or four patients in the surrounding beds. Please, he thought. Please let it be Trude.
It was. She couldn’t move her head, but her eyes were open. She was looking at Misty. And she was trying to smile.
It was midday before they headed back to Hayling Island. Trude was still in the ICU, still on a ventilator, drifting in and out of consciousness, but her vital signs were improving and the medics seemed to have no doubt she’d make it through. What kind of damage her spinal cord had suffered was still unclear. She reported no sensation below her neck, but these were early days and according to the neurological consultant she could yet make a full recovery. Limb by limb, sensation and control might return as the swelling around the injury began to subside. Either way, staff would be monitoring her very closely over the coming hours and days. Better, therefore, that Misty and Winter took the chance to get their heads down.
Misty slept most of the way back. When they turned into the drive, she jerked awake and Winter knew that for a split second she was telling herself nothing had happened, it had all been some vile dream, Trude was upstairs, tucked up in bed, nothing had changed. Then she looked across at Winter’s face and knew none of that was true. They were in deep, deep trouble. All three of them.
In the kitchen Winter made a pot of tea. Misty sat on her favourite bar stool, staring out at the rain. She’d put up decorations only a couple of days ago, cheerful little loops of tinsel that ran around the kitchen and moved in the draught when she opened the window. Christmas Eve, Winter could sense her thinking. What a fucking joke.