Afterwards

‘I’ll be outside then,’ Jenny said.

She’s never given us privacy before; never seemed to even consider we might need it. It’s Adam who dashes out of the kitchen when we have a hug and a kiss. ‘Being mushy! Yuck!’ But Jenny’s radar hasn’t detected any embarrassing parental passion. Maybe like most teenagers, she thinks that’s long gone, while they discover it and keep it all for themselves. So I was touched by her.

I waited for you; listening to the sound of trolleys and bleeping machines and the soft foot-fall of nurses in plimsolls; wanting to hear your footsteps, your voice.

The seconds ticked past and I had to be with you. Right now! Please.

And then you were running over the slippery linoleum towards my bed, a nurse pushing a trolley out of your way.

You put your strong arms around my body, holding me tightly against you; the softness of your linen important-meetings-shirt against my creased stiff hospital gown. And for a moment the room smelt of Persil and you, not the hospital.

You kissed me: one kiss on my mouth and then one on each closed eyelid. For a moment, I thought that like a princess in one of Jenny’s old storybooks your three kisses would break the spell and I’d wake up and I’d feel your kiss – your stubble scratchy on my skin by that time of day.

But thirty-nine’s probably a little old to be a sleeping princess.

And maybe a bash on the head isn’t as easy to reverse as a witch’s curse.

Then I remembered – how could I have forgotten, even for three kisses – Jenny outside; waiting for me.

I knew that I mustn’t wake up, mustn’t even try, not yet, because I couldn’t leave her on her own.

You understand that, don’t you? Because if your job as a father is to protect your child, and mend her when she’s broken, my job as a mother is to be there with her.

‘My brave wife,’ you said.

You called me that when I’d just given birth to Jenny. I’d felt so proud then – as if I’d stopped being the usual me and had instead abseiled down from the moon.

But I didn’t deserve it.

‘I didn’t get to her in time,’ I said to you, my voice loud with guilt. ‘I should have realised something was wrong before; I should have got there before.’

But you couldn’t hear me.

We were silent – when have we ever been silent together?

‘What happened?’ you asked me, and your voice cracked a little, as if you were winding back the years to your teenage self. ‘What the hell happened?’

As if understanding could make it better.

I started with the strong, warm breeze at sports day.

* * *

Your eyes are closed now, as if you can join me if your eyes are shut too. And I’ve told you everything I know.

But of course you couldn’t hear me.

‘So why do it?’ that bossy nanny voice says to me. ‘Waste of time! Waste of breath!’ A cognitive therapist would send her packing but I’ve got used to her and besides I think it’s good for a mother to have someone bossing her around, so she knows what it’s like.

And she has a point, doesn’t she?

Why talk to you now when you can’t hear me?

Because words are the spoken oxygen between us; the air a marriage breathes. Because we have been talking to each other for nineteen years. Because I would be so lonely if I didn’t talk to you. So no therapist in the world, with whatever logic they brought to bear, could get me to stop.

A woman doctor is coming purposefully towards us. I’m reassured by her being in her fifties; by her air of tired professionalism. Beneath her sensible navy blue skirt she’s wearing high, spiky red shoes. I know, a silly thing to notice. You’re looking at her name badge and rank; the important things. ‘Dr Anna-Maria Bailstrom. Neurologist. Consultant.’

Is it the Anna-Maria in her that wears the red shoes?

‘I thought she would look worse,’ you say to Dr Bailstrom. Neurologist. Consultant. ‘But she’s hardly hurt, is she? And she’s breathing for herself, isn’t she?’

The relief in your voice strings your words together.

‘I’m afraid that her head injury is severe. A firefighter told us that a part of the ceiling had fallen on her.’

There’s tension stringing Dr Bailstrom’s words together.

‘She has unequal pupil reflexes and isn’t responding to stimuli,’ she continues, her voice tight as wire. ‘The MRI, which we will repeat, indicates significant brain damage.’

‘She’ll be alright.’ Your voice is fierce. Your fingers tense around mine. ‘You’re going to be fine, my darling.’

Of course I am! I can quote medieval poetry and tell you about Fra Angelico or Obama’s health reforms and the heroes in Beast Quest books – and how many people can do all that? Even my bossy nanny is still in place, in her element actually. The thinking me isn’t in the body me, but I’m right here, my darling, my mind undamaged.

‘We have to warn you that there’s a likelihood she may never regain consciousness.’

You turn away from her, your body language saying, ‘Bollocks!’

And I think you’re right. I’m pretty sure that if I tried, I’d be able to get back into my body. And then – maybe not right away but soon – I’d wake up again. Regain consciousness, to put it into Dr Bailstrom language.

Dr Bailstrom is now leaving, precipitous on her red spiky heels on the slippery linoleum. She’s probably letting you have some time for it to sink in. Dad, with his GP hat on, was a firm believer in sinking-in time.

I’m talking too much. The problem with being ‘out of body’ is that you don’t need to take a breath for new sentences and so there are no natural physical pauses.

And you’re so quiet. I think you have stopped talking to me altogether. And I am so afraid that I scream at you.

‘Jenny’s been badly hurt, darling,’ you say. And my fear is swept away in compassion for you. You tell me that she’ll get better. You tell me that I’ll get better too. We’ll be ‘right as rain,’ again.

As you talk I look at your arms: strong arms that years ago carried three boxes of my books at a time from the bottom of the student house to my room at the top; that on Tuesday carried Jenny’s new chest of drawers upstairs to her bedroom.

Is your character that strong too? Is it really possible to be as brave as you are now – this resiliently hopeful?

You talk about the holiday we’re going to take when this is ‘all over’.

‘Skye. And we’ll camp. Adam’ll love that. Making a fire and fishing for our supper. Jenny and I can climb the Cuillins. Addie can manage the smallest one now. You can take a whole stack of books and read by a loch. What do you think?’

I think it sounds like a paradise on earth that I never knew was there.

I think that while I have my head in the clouds, you climb a mountain to do it.

As I did earlier at Jenny’s bedside, I cling onto your hope; let myself be carried by it.

I see that Sarah has arrived on the far side of the ward, on her phone. Busy, efficient Sarah. The first time you introduced us I felt I was being interviewed for something I’d inadvertently done wrong. But what? The crime of loving you and plotting to take you away from her? Or, worse, of being fraudulent in my affections and not loving you enough? Or maybe – the one I picked – not being worthy of you; not being as interesting and beautiful and downright remarkable as I should be if I was going to claim her brother and become a part of your clan.

Even before this, I saw myself paddling round a duck pond in a rubber dinghy, while she steered her life on a fast, direct course to a clearly mapped destination. And now here I am, unable to speak or see or move, let alone help you or Jenny or Adam, head partially shaved, in a hideous hospital nightgown – and she’s sailed in, competent