Letting You Go (8 page)

Jem reached for more water. Something pretty caught Alex’s eye. ‘Jem! Your bracelet! Did your company make that?’

‘Ah, just a little something I knocked up.’ Jem said modestly.

‘It’s beautiful, Jem,’ Alex admired, running a finger over the edge of the bracelet. ‘I bet you’ve sold a few of these.’ Pottery had been Alex’s bag. She’d been all set to become the next Emma Bridgewater.

‘I wish. I’ve only made two, they’re such a bugger to make. I do love them though. They’re my best pieces.’

‘Have you seen
Wedding Wars
?’

‘
Wedding Wars
?’

OK, so Alex probably needed to rein in the late night telly watching. ‘Jem, I’m telling you, you should go into the bridal market. You’d make a fortune.’

‘And deal with all those finicky bridezillas or, worse, their mums? No thanks. They’re not all as chilled out as Blythe, you know. Just ask Mal.’ Jem stabbed at a piece of carrot then thought better of eating it. ‘I wonder when her next meal will be.’

Alex had stopped eating too. She pushed a slice of potato around her plate. She’d been hasty, hopeful this morning of
her mum waking up and them bringing her home in no time. Then they’d come in to change Blythe’s catheter and Alex realised. Blythe wasn’t just sleeping, she was dependent. For now, at least.

Alex sat perfectly still, listening to the clinking of Jem’s cutlery against her plate and a houseful of silence behind it. ‘She needs to come home, Jem. It’s too quiet.’

‘She will. This place will be jumping again once she’s home.’ But they both knew that it probably wouldn’t. It had been years since either of them had heard the sounds of their childhood. Years since Blythe’s voice had effortlessly chased the rising and falling of dramatic melodies while
Madama Butterfly
or
La Traviata
played through the house. When Blythe did eventually come home it would just be more obvious. Dill had taken all the noise with him.

‘Y
ou’re
lying.
’ Ted’s voice sounded thin against the cheery 20s jazz playing out in Frobisher’s Tea Rooms.

Louisa’s hand was trembling. Her glass lying upended on the table-top. She wiped at the lipstick smeared messily from her lips. Ted saw the tears pooling in her eyes and felt nothing. He might have worried that he’d hurt her, been too rough, if he could think straight.

Louisa’s eyes darted about the tea rooms but the waitresses wouldn’t see them sitting here. Louisa had chosen the booth, tucked away by the little side window.

She swallowed back angry tears. ‘But you know that I’m not, don’t you, Ted? I can see it in your face.’

He should never have come here. Then he wouldn’t have had to listen to her spiteful proposition, wouldn’t have had to push her away. Wouldn’t have made her
want
to hurt him back so cruelly.

‘Stop talking, Louisa. Just …’

He brought his sleeve over his own mouth, in case any of that red was left on his. His hands were shaking too. Ted rose slowly from his chair. Louisa’s eyes grew wide.

‘Where are you going? You can’t just leave.’

He should never have come. ‘Home, Louisa. To my family. I promised my son we’d play with his new arrows.’ The bow and arrows. Ted pictured Malcolm bringing them over to the house for Dillon. He felt himself hunch over the table for a moment, his fingers grasp the edge of the table-top.

Louisa’s chin wobbled. She held herself rigid and glared up at him. ‘You go back to her then,’ she spat. ‘To that frumpy little wife of yours. But I hope you’re good at pretending, Edward Foster.’

‘E
very case is different, Mr Foster. It’s still very early days and there’s no saying how your wife’s symptoms will continue to present. I’m afraid it can be something of a guessing game in the initial weeks.’

Alex could tell her dad was trying to decipher how old this man delivering the fate of their family could possibly be. For a moment she found herself playing along. Dr Okafor was handsome in that way all young, intelligent here-to-help-your-suffering-loved-one people were, with his rectangular-rimmed glasses and candy-pink shirt that was only ever going to be OK on an acute assessment unit because he was educated, and knowledgeable, and because it complemented his flawless black skin perfectly.

Alex glanced at Jem to see if she was evaluating Dr Okafor too. Jem’s hand was resting comfortably through the crook of their dad’s arm. ‘You’re saying she might be in hospital for
weeks
? Even though she’s woken up and managed to drink and …’

Dr Okafor lifted his hands apologetically. ‘We are very
encouraged by your mother’s progress this morning, Miss Foster, but before you go in to see her you must be made aware that recovery can be unpredictable and sometimes erratic. As the swelling on Mrs Foster’s brain reduces, we would hope to see further changes in the rate of her progress but it can be a very …
disorientating
experience for your mother.’

Alex found her voice. ‘So what are you saying, Doctor?’

He looked softly at Alex, as if delivery was something they spent a whole semester’s study on in med school. ‘It is quite possible that your mother’s symptoms could get worse before she starts to feel better, and that is something we should keep in mind. Did you know that your wife suffers from arrhythmia, Mr Foster?’

Bingo. Dr Okafor had just delivered a body blow. It didn’t matter how much older and wiser Ted was, this guy, this kid, knew stuff. Important stuff that he didn’t. About his Blythe. ‘Arrhythmia?’ Jem ventured.

‘It’s her heart, Jem.’ Alex’s voice snagged, unready to speak when she’d wanted it to.

Dr Okafor smiled and dipped his head. ‘That’s correct. Arrhythmia is essentially irregular beating of the heart, its rhythm. Sometimes this can be the cause of the stroke, sometimes the effect. Has your wife ever complained of problems in this area, Mr Foster? Any discomfort, breathlessness, palpitations … maybe no more than a fluttering sensation?’

Alex felt her neck burning up.
I did this to her.
She knew
it. She’d known it since she put down the phone to Jem in the cubicle at the leisure centre.

Alex heard her dad clear his throat. He wasn’t going to be caught out by a snagging voice, his age and experience at least gave him that much. ‘My wife’s a busy woman, Doctor. It takes a lot to slow her down. If Blythe has had any problems with her heart,’ he cleared his throat again, ‘she hasn’t shared them with me.’ Alex couldn’t read her dad’s expression. Her mum wouldn’t have kept that from him, would she? Her parents didn’t keep anything from each other, they didn’t have secrets, they just weren’t the sort.

Ted battled on. ‘Would she have had these palpitations all the time, Doctor? Or could they be triggered by something?’

Jem looked just as surprised by Ted’s obliviousness. Alex frowned. Why hadn’t her mum shared this with him? She deserved his support, why forfeit that and hide a fluttering sodding time-bomb, waiting to go off in St Cuthbert’s churchyard?

‘The symptoms might have been present day to day, Mr Foster,’ said Doctor Okafor, ‘or just here and there for no particular reason. There can be triggers. Stress, for example, can be a factor. There are many aspects we should consider.’

The burning in Alex’s neck was sweeping up through her head.
Stress can be a factor.
Stress. Define stress, Doctor. How about, say, the drowning of your only son? The years robbed of celebrating his birthdays like a normal family. The thought of him gasping his last desperate breaths while
the daughter you’d entrusted him to was making goo-goo eyes at her boyfriend in the bushes. Would
that
be an aspect worth considering? Would
that
affect the rhythm of a mother’s heart?

Jem was looking over.
In through the nose, out through the mouth …
Alex could feel her heart thudding in her chest. Was arrhythmia contagious? Like an infectious yawn, jumping from one person to the next? She hoped so. She deserved it, she bloody well deserved it.

A bleep began pulling Alex from the internal disaster gathering pace inside her ribcage.

‘I’m terribly sorry. Would you excuse me? I’ll come and find you all again as soon as I’m back on the ward,’ Dr Okafor said apologetically.

Ted offered the doctor his hand, his acceptance of the younger man’s competence – his gratitude for it. Somewhere on the periphery, Alex heard Jem utter her thanks to the doctor too, then Jem’s voice grew louder beside Alex’s ear. ‘Come on, let’s go and give her a kiss.’

They filed into Room 2. Alex went in last, Blythe’s tired eyes dodging Ted and Jem, finding their way straight to her. Alex felt the muscles in her face ready themselves for a full on explosion of something unsightly. No. She wouldn’t. She had no right to cry so she swallowed it all down and let her throat close around it like a drawstring.

‘Hey, Mum,’ Jem said softly. Alex watched Jem sweep the hair from their mother’s face so it framed her equally on both sides of her pillow. Jem dove straight in for a kiss.
‘Mum? Alex is here,’ she declared, as if presenting their mother with the magic tincture that would save her.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Alex croaked. She needed to learn to swallow before she spoke, like her dad. Alex nudged herself forwards to the edge of her mother’s bed. It felt like nudging herself towards the edge of the pool at the leisure centre, her breathing elevating with each tentative step forwards. Blythe’s eyes slid shut as if she were drifting off to sleep again but Alex knew it was her invitation to nuzzle in all that paleness. Her mother’s cheek was warm, Alex laid a kiss there and held her face over it for a few seconds, to be sure it stuck. ‘Hi, Mum.’ she whispered again, her voice steadier now. ‘Didn’t see about those butterflies then?’ Alex pulled back to see her mother attempt a smile but one side of Blythe’s mouth remained slackened, unwilling.

Blythe mumbled. Alex tried to make it out but it was like trying to pick out a familiar face on the other side of mottled glass, the outline of her mum’s words there but the detail obscured. Alex took a steadying breath. That awful sound couldn’t have just come from her mum, from the same place those beautiful arias used to reach from on Sunday mornings when Alex was still lazing in bed and her mum was trying to keep pace with her favourite sopranos.

‘How are you feeling, Mum?’ Something had happened to Jem’s voice too. Ted’s face was grave, his oil-stained hands hanging at his sides, both thumbs rubbing relentlessly against their neighbouring fingers. He was clearing his throat again, over and over, trying to ready his voice like
an engine on one of his cars, it was turning over but not quite ready to fire up like it should.

Blythe murmured again, more decipherable this time, as if she were simply drunk or groggy from the dentist. ‘Hell-lo. My darl—’ Blythe stopped.

‘Oh, Mum.’ Jem whispered.

Ted still wasn’t ready, his thumb still rubbing back and forth. Alex felt that drawstring in her throat tighten again. Her mum’s eyes shone with effort. Somebody had to return her pitiful attempt; someone had to validate it. It came from nowhere, an eruption of fortitude.

‘It’s all right, Mum. Everything’s going to be all right.’ Alex smiled, forcing her facial muscles to do what her mother’s couldn’t and bluff through this new horror that had descended on them. ‘We’re going to help you get back on your feet, Mum. You’re going to be OK.’ Alex felt herself default to work mode, it was like an outer body experience. She knew this role, the gentle encouragement, the championing of small steps back to something more familiar, more bearable. For a few sweet seconds Alex was galvanised, and then she caught sight of the small glistening trace of saliva escaping from one side of her mum’s mouth. Something began crumbling inside her. Blythe didn’t need a square meal and a few shopping bags of emergency food. It wasn’t Blythe’s financial situation that was broken. It was her self.

S
usannah Finn had left a chicken chasseur on the front porch. Two mercy meals in two nights. First Helen Fairbanks, now Finn’s mum. The chasseur had been repeating on Alex for the last hour. At first she’d thought it was the indigestion keeping her awake but she’d tried a glass of milk, two Rennies from the back of her mum’s medicine shelf in the pantry and, finally, the last dregs of a bottle of Gaviscon that been out of date for four months. Three trips downstairs, three clean-up operations each time the puppy had bounded towards Alex’s legs, peeing as she went.

Alex sat in her dad’s chair, the puppy asleep in her lap. She looked out through the lounge window onto the darkness outside. The front path was lit pale by the moonlight. It must’ve looked the same to Susannah as it did the last time she’d brought a food parcel up to their house, the sherry trifle Susannah had made for them all the Christmas after Dill’s accident.

It had started with a kindness. That was Helen and Susannah’s role, to help Alex’s mum, jolly Blythe’s family as best they could through the festive season. Helen had
knitted Ted a Christmas jumper with a giant pudding on the front and wanted Alex and Jem’s reassurances that they’d make him wear it at least once. Susannah had made them all the trifle because she knew how the girls had enjoyed it the year before.

Alex stared into the darkness and remembered Susannah and Finn pulling up to the house. Alex had stationed herself there at the window on snow watch. It had been trying all day. Alex had watched through the glass as Finn had carried the large crystal bowl up the path. Her dad had been out there on the porch, freezing despite Helen Fairbanks’ cheery jumper, his Christmas bottle of Jack Daniel’s already opened and half gone. When he’d stood, Alex had first thought it was to greet them.

Alex squeezed her eyes closed and felt for Susannah all over again. Susannah hadn’t known what she was walking into, what she was walking Finn into. She must’ve thought about it earlier this evening when leaving that chasseur on the porch. Ted must’ve thought about it too, he hadn’t touched Susannah’s dinner tonight.

‘What do you think you’re doing bringing
him
to my house?’ Ted had slurred. Susannah hadn’t read the situation, hadn’t realised the danger. Why would she have? None of them had seen him that way, it wasn’t the norm. Alex remembered how she’d wanted to intercept, but she’d froze instead.

Jem had heard Rodolfo bark and had gone outside to tell him off on the porch. Their dad’s voice had twisted. He’d
waved his glass of JD and slurred at Jem, spilling some on his shoes. ‘Joy to the goddamned world! Mrs Finn has brought her little boy over. He probably wants to try his luck again with your sister. Perhaps you can go start a house fire, Jem? So he can watch us burn while he has another crack of the whip.’

Susannah’s face had lapsed in horror.

Blythe rushed from the house. ‘Ted, that’s enough. You’re upsetting the girls.’ But it had been the tremor in Blythe’s voice that had scared Alex the most. That was when Susannah and Finn had stopped walking, hovering halfway down the lawn like two rabbits spotted by a fox, as Ted stepped off the porch.

‘Ah, look, Blythe. They’ve brought dessert! Now I’m not saying I don’t like, what is that? Trifle? Now I’m not saying I don’t like trifle, Susannah, but I don’t think it’s really a fair swap now is it? My son, for your trifle? Lose a child, gain a pudding … I mean, call me ungrateful …’ They’d all watched in horror as he’d took another glug from his bottle.

Alex made it out through the hallway and onto the porch. ‘Dad, don’t,’ she’d tried. They’d all tried. But he was like a juggernaut.

Susannah had tried to turn Finn back towards the car. Jem, fearless Jem, had tried to hold her own father back, all on her own. A thirteen-year-old girl with skinny arms trying to stand against the biggest man in their lives. Blythe hadn’t thought twice, she’d taken no chances and had gone back in to call the police.

‘Stay away from my son, Ted. You’re upset, we all are.’

‘Can’t he talk for himself, Susannah? Fight his own battles?’

‘He’s eighteen years old.’

‘S’posed to be a man then. But you’re no man, are you?’ Alex rubbed the puppy in her lap more vigorously while she pictured her dad jabbing a finger into Finn’s chest. ‘You’re just like your father aren’t you, boy? He hid behind your mother too. You’re a coward, just like him.’

‘Don’t speak to my son like that. And don’t you dare touch him again!’

‘Take what you want from my family and then leave us to pick up the pieces. The consequences of your actions. Well you’re not coming near my family again,
Finn.
’

‘I’m warning you, Edward Foster.’

Blythe rushed back out of the house then. ‘I’ve called the police, Susannah. I’m sorry. Please, take Finn home. Now.’ But the juggernaut just kept going.

‘I don’t expect you to see it, Susannah. You’re his mother. A mother can love anything. A mother’s love goes beyond all, it doesn’t matter what her son has done, or even what piece of shit fathered him.’

Blythe began sobbing. ‘Ted, please.’

‘And what have you got, Susie? For all your unconditional love? A selfish little bastard who only cares about himself, and getting his end away WITH MY DAUGHTER!’

That was when Finn had pushed his mother behind him, still managing somehow to hang on to the trifle.

‘I’m sorry for what my dad did to your business, Mr Foster. And I’m sorry I couldn’t get to Dillon quicker than I did. I tried. I promise you, I tried. But I don’t only care about myself, you’re wrong about that. I care about your daughter. A lot. Actually, Mr Foster … I’m pretty sure that … I love her.’

He hadn’t meant to, but Finn had flipped the switch.

‘What did you say to me?’

‘Son, go wait in the car,’ Susannah tried again. Finn didn’t move.

‘I’m not leaving you here, Mum.’ Finn had straightened up; he’d looked older to Alex then. Not the lad she’d been wiling away free periods at college with, but a grown man, standing firm, a matter of feet from her father.

Ted staggered further across the grass, closing the distance between them. ‘What did you just say about my daughter?’

Finn seemed to reconsider. And then, ‘I said, I love her.’

Alex heard the crack. Finn’s face exploded in a red riot. The blood was so much brighter than everything else, redder than Ted’s Christmas jumper, redder than the strawberries that would pepper the path shortly afterwards.

Ted snarled like a wild animal. ‘If you love my daughter, let me hear you say it again, boy!’

Alex looked at Finn, the blood was streaming over his mouth. She shook her head, imploring him not to.
Please, Finn … don’t
, she mouthed. Alex saw something in his
expression shift – step down. Finn looked beaten, in every sense.

Ted stood over him, nostrils flared like a wild animal. ‘Didn’t think so.’