“Yes, that’s right,” Paige’s mum replied, “I’m his wife, Sarah Webb, this is my daughter Paige.”
“My name is Doctor Harvey, I will be your husband’s primary physician during his time here.”
“What happened to the surgeon who saw him when he was admitted? He’s a family friend.” Paige’s mum said, her voice shaking.
“Doctor Short was called away, but please don’t worry, I will do everything I can to help your husband,” Doctor Harvey flipped to a different page of her notes, “I will get straight to the information you need – as you know, your husband has a fractured skull and significant swelling in his brain. The surgery we performed removed skull fragments and clots to repair the damage. The operation was a success, but Mr. Delford isn’t out of the woods yet. We will continue to monitor him, and we are giving him intravenous antibiotics in case of infection. We also have him on a diuretic medicine to try to reduce the swelling in his brain.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Paige’s mum said.
“Do you have any questions?” Doctor Harvey said.
“Yes, um...” Paige’s mum stood up, running her fingers through her hair to push it back from her eyes, “When will he wake up?”
“We have him in a medically-induced coma at the moment, but if the swelling goes down, we should be able to bring him out of it later this week.”
“Oh my god...” Paige’s mum muttered, placing a hand over her mouth as she sank back down and began to cry.
“He is in a critical condition, but there is hope. Only time and continued monitoring will help. Please try to get some rest if you can and take care of yourselves.”
“Thank you,” Paige said, walking over to hug her mum.
ELEVEN
They stayed with Tom for the next 24 hours, talking, trying to distract themselves and taking it in turns to nap in the uncomfortable armchair in the corner of the room. Doctor Harvey came in every few hours to check on him but was unable to give them much more information.
“It was a serious head injury – he needs time,” she said, not unkindly, but with the kind of clinical detachment that showed she had seen this situation many times before.
Two days after the accident, Paige awoke from a nap, stiff and with pins and needles in her foot. She stood up, the tingly sensation taking a moment to dissipate. Her mum was stood at the other end of Tom’s room, on the phone to a relative or friend.
Paige took the opportunity to head to the canteen, mouthing to her mum if she wanted anything to eat, but she waved her hand dismissively in reply and shook her head.
The canteen was just a short walk from Tom’s room and whilst it was the same plain, sterile space as the rest of the hospital, the smell of cooking food and hot tea perked Paige up slightly. She ordered a jacket potato with cheese and sat at one of the tables with her tray.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out, expecting to see yet another text from Rufus; he had been texting her since the accident. Instead, she saw a Facebook notification – “people you may know”. Desperate to take her mind off the current situation, she flicked through the suggestions, wondering if she might find some of her childhood friends from Oxford. After flicking through a few people she had known through work back in Cardiff, she noticed “Leo Eckland – 2 mutual friends” and smiled to herself, clicking the “add friend” button.
She continued swiping through another few friends of friends and the penultimate suggestion was an Oxford student, Jade Spencer. They had one mutual friend, one of her mum’s friend’s daughters who was a few years younger than Paige, but it was the profile picture which caught her attention. She immediately recognised her – she had dark almost black hair, dark brown eyes and a distinctive mole under her left eye. There was no mistaking her – this was the woman who had approached Paige at Oxpens Meadow on Monday.
Clicking on her profile, Paige looked through her pictures, mostly selfies and one picture with a ginger cat. Hoping to find a picture of Ella, she looked through her albums, but they were all set to private. She found the “tagged photos” tab and immediately saw a photo which appeared to have been taken in the same place as the memorial photo of Ella had been, somewhere hot in a hotel room, but this time of both Ella and Jade, hugging each other and smiling for the camera.
They were both holding cocktails and had tans. Jade had patches on her chest where sunburnt skin met pale white bikini lines. Jade looked different in this picture to her selfies – she wasn’t wearing any make-up and her clothes were casual.
Ella looked the same as she had done in the memorial photo, same shorts, top and high ponytail. Her smile seemed genuine and she was hugging Jade tightly round the waist.
The caption read “Holiday with the best uni roommate ever, love you Ella”.
Regretting her hasty exit on Monday, Paige decided to message Jade. At the very least she might be able to tell her whether Ella had known Eckland.
Paige Webb (16.23pm) – Hi, I hope you don’t mind me messaging. I saw you at Ella Gold’s memorial at Oxpens Meadow. I just wanted to say sorry for running away so suddenly and sorry for your loss.
As soon as she had sent it, she felt her chest flutter – what if Jade took offense? Her friend had just died, and Paige didn’t have much of a connection to either of them – she may have come across as nosey.
She locked her phone and put it down on the canteen table, tucking into her potato.
A few minutes later, Jade replied.
Jade Spencer (16.34pm) – Hiya! I remember
