Afterwards

‘They wouldn’t let Jenny have her phone in the intensive care unit,’ she continues. ‘In case it interfered with the machinery and what-have-you. I said it would be off, just by her for when she wakes up. But even if it’s switched off it’s still no good because they said it might carry bugs and of course we don’t want that!

‘So I’ll leave it next to you and tell Mike it’s here because maybe he’ll want to keep it safe for her at home.’

Jenny is staring at her phone.

‘I still can’t bloody remember. If I could…’

She trails off, furious with herself.

Maisie has turned slightly away from me.

‘There’s something I have to tell you, Gracie. I don’t want you to hate me for it. Please.’

The curtains are swirled open around my bed and two doctors come in to do their usual frequent checks. One of them turns to Maisie.

‘Please don’t pull the curtains round her bed. We have to be able to visually monitor her all the time.’

‘Oh yes, of course, I’m sorry.’

The doctors leave but the noise and urgency of the ward is all around us; not even a pretence at a salon or kitchen now.

‘Donald came to visit Rowena earlier,’ Maisie says. Finally, she’ll confide in me. And I want her to. Maybe it will unburden her a little.

‘He’s so proud of her.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Jenny says – her frustration and anxiety so near the surface now. But I try to understand. Perhaps Maisie needs to keep that film of a happy family playing to someone who’s been watching it for years, maintaining the illusion, because the reality – Donald hurting her already injured child – is just too hard.

‘You know I’d do anything for Rowena,’ she says quietly. ‘Don’t you, Gracie?’

‘Except leave your husband so that he can’t hurt her any more,’ Jenny snaps.

‘It’s not that simple, Jen.’

‘Oh, I think it is.’

‘I didn’t finish telling you what happened,’ Maisie continues. ‘So you don’t know why he’s so proud.’

‘This is absurd,’ Jenny says, still snappy. I beckon her to be quiet so we can hear Maisie.

‘I told you that when you ran into the building, I ran away, to the bridge. I went up to the fire engines, told the firemen there were people inside the school and we all pushed cars out of the way. I told you that…’

I remember the sound of people shouting and horns going and the smell of diesel fumes and fire reaching the bridge as if Maisie’s sensory memory has somehow become mine too. No flimsy insubstantial film this time.

‘While I was there, on the bridge or maybe before, when I was still running to get there, Rowena went into the school.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Jenny says; neither do I.

‘She’d seen you run in too,’ continues Maisie. ‘Heard you screaming for Jenny. But she didn’t run away. She found a towel in the PE shed and she soaked it in water. She put it over her face. Then she went into the school to help you.’

Dear God. Rowena going into a burning building. For Jenny. For me.

‘They think she must have been overcome by fumes. She was unconscious when the firemen got to her. She’s not badly hurt, but they were worried she might have some kind of internal damage; they’re still keeping a look-out for that.’

I never guessed she had that kind of courage, or anything like it.

Her heroism is extraordinary.

I don’t think you’ll completely understand, but I know what it’s like to go in. Heat up the grill as high as you can then put your face inside the oven. Then your whole body. Add choking smoke and no oxygen. Shut the door.

Instinct and love made me run into that building and then pushed and shoved me onwards. I had the selfish desire to run away, yes, just as I told you. But I needed Jenny in my arms more than I’ve ever needed anything before. Ultimately more than I needed to save myself. And I discovered in that choking burning school that the reason self-preservation can’t win in a mother is because part of yourself is your child.

But Rowena went in without instinct. Without love. I’ve barely seen her since she went to secondary school and she’s never been friends with Jenny. But somehow she overcame that terror. Just her courage pushing her on. Like the knights in one of Adam’s Arthurian legends, heroically selfless.

Adam.

Rowena was comforting him as I ran into the building, not pausing to even speak to him. Was it Adam’s misery that prompted her?

‘I didn’t realise she was even missing,’ Maisie says. ‘When the fire engines got to the school there were so many people – parents and teachers and children and press people – and I thought she was there, among the crowd. I just assumed…’

‘I think she was trying to make her father proud, again,’ Jenny says.

‘And then a fireman brought her out and she was unconscious,’ Maisie continues. ‘When I told Donald-’

She breaks off, distressed. Then, with effort and emotion, continues. ‘You shouldn’t condemn someone, should you? If you love them, if they’re your family, you have to try and see the good. I mean, that’s what love is in some ways, isn’t it? Believing in someone’s goodness.’

‘Does she really believe that?’ Jenny asks.

‘Yes, I think she does.’

‘Jesus.’

Maisie holds my hand more tightly.

‘It’s funny, in one afternoon you know what you’re made of. And you also discover what your child’s made of. And you can feel such shame and such pride at the same time.’

But it’s her father, not her mother, who Rowena wants to be proud of her. It was for him she went into the burning school. And it was in vain.

I remember the ugly hatred in Donald’s voice. ‘Quite the little heroine, aren’t you?’ Her cry of pain as he grabbed hold of her burnt hands.

18

Sarah arrives at my bedside, looking as briskly efficient as ever and I am grateful for her competence; what good would a dinghy-on-a-duckpond person be to us now?

Maisie is sitting silently next to me, as if spent; her fingers shivering.

‘Hello, Grace, me again,’ Sarah says. ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here this evening.’

‘You think she can hear too?’ Maisie says.

‘Absolutely. I’m Sarah. Grace’s sister-in-law.’

I think I see anxiety on Maisie’s face. My fault. I’ve made Sarah out to be a dragon in the past.

‘Maisie White. A friend.’

‘So are you Rowena White’s mother?’ Sarah asks, a savvy police officer instantly recognising names.

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a canteen open somewhere. Would you like to get a cup of tea with me? Or at least something that passes for tea?’

She isn’t giving Maisie much option.

I hope to God she’ll get Maisie to tell her about the domestic abuse so Sarah will add Donald to her list of suspects. But in our years of friendship Maisie’s never even hinted at it. Or maybe she did and I wasn’t savvy enough – or sensitive enough – to hear her.

As they leave, Sarah spots Jenny’s mobile phone.