The Best of Times (63 page)

But then somehow he was in his father’s arms, where he had never thought he would be again, and his face was buried in his chest, and he was sobbing and clutching at him desperately, as if he might go away, and then he stopped suddenly and looked up and said, “Dad, it was my fault.”

And instead of saying something stupid and trying to comfort him, as if he was some kind of a retard, his father looked back at him very steadily and said, “Yes, I know it was.”

The words hit him like a lash; they were shocking, but they helped, made him calmer, stopped his tears.

“Did … did Mum tell you?”

“Sort of. Of course, she didn’t see—she wasn’t there—but Mick told me as well what happened, and I can put two and two together. Not all your fault, Charlie; these things never are. Mummy and I both played our part, but … well, in a way, of course it was, yes. I can see why you feel so bad.”

“Not even in a way,” he said, and the relief of being able to talk about it, to let the pictures out, made him feel just slightly better. “I … I wasn’t looking after her. That was why it happened. No other reason.”

“Go on. Just hang on a minute …” He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and looked at it. “No, it’s OK. Just wanted to check that Mummy hadn’t called me. Sorry.” He pressed a key, said, “Hi. I’ve got him; he’s fine; we’re downstairs together having a chat. Any news? No, OK. Ring me if you want me.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to use mobiles in hospitals,” said Charlie.

“You’re not.” He smiled at him suddenly, a warm, almost cheerful smile. “They’d better not tell me not to, that’s all.”

“I’m sure they won’t.”

“I’m sure too. Now … want to go on?”

He nodded, settled back on his chair. The words came slowly, had to be forced out. “She was annoying me. Making me cross. I couldn’t help it. I know I shouldn’t have felt like that, but … Anyway, Mum made me take her to the shop, and I wanted to go on the computer, and I was horrible to her, really horrible, telling her she was stupid when she went on about some kitten she wanted …” He stopped, remembering Daisy’s face as she talked about the kitten, so serious, so anxious to discuss the kitten’s possible name; she’d been all right then, fine … He gulped, swallowed some tears.

“It was on the way back. I just walked ahead, faster and faster; she was dropping things, Dad, and I wouldn’t help, wouldn’t wait. I knew she was getting upset; you know how she does.”

“Yes, I do. Go on.”

“Well, that was it. I was walking farther and farther ahead, and she called to me to wait, to help her, said the cover had come off her comic, and I still walked on, and then … then I heard it. Heard the car …

“You didn’t see it?”

“No, and I don’t know why, because it all happened really slowly …”

“Accidents do. Or seem to.”

“I just heard the brakes and I heard her scream and I turned round then and … there she was. On the road. Like a … a …”
Dead person
, he had been going to say, and he couldn’t, and then he started crying harder again, and hurled himself at his father, clutching at him, and saying, “I’m sorry, Dad, I’m so, so sorry,” over and over again.

Finally he stopped, looked up at him, and waited. Waited for the words, the shocked, shocking, angry words. Or worse, the stupid, rubbish words, saying he couldn’t have helped it. They didn’t come. Nothing came. Just a silence. His father was staring in front of him, and his eyes were sadder than Charlie had ever seen them; and then finally he looked at him and said, “Charlie, we all make mistakes.

Some don’t matter very much; some are terrible. Terrible mistakes that make other people very unhappy. Mistakes we’d give anything, anything at all, to change. To take back. But … we can’t. I made one, as you know. You’ve made one. Both serious mistakes that can’t be unmade. And that’s the thing. They are unchangeable. They won’t go away, whatever you do. So … the only thing to do is to live with them. Do the best you can. You can’t put them right. But you can put them behind you. Which isn’t easy, but … well, it isn’t easy.”

He was silent again; Charlie sat looking at him, his sobs quieted, his feelings oddly quieter too. After a while, Jonathan put his arm round him, pulled him closer; Charlie relaxed against him, rested his head on his chest.

And then Jonathan said, “I love you, Charlie. Very much.” And after quite a long time, Charlie heard his own voice, very quiet, almost as if it didn’t belong to him: “I love you too, Dad.”

• • •

“Oh, God. That’s so awful.”

“What?” Sylvie looked up from the TV; Abi was sitting at the table, staring at the newspaper, her face very white.

“It’s … Oh, God, how horrible. I … Sylvie, look at this. Look.”

Sylvie looked: a small paragraph, next to an item about yet another politician caught taking bribes: “Hero Doctor’s Child in Coma,” it was headed. “Daisy Gilliatt, seven-year-old daughter of top gynaecologist Jonathan Gilliatt, dubbed the hero of the M
4
crash last August, has been knocked down by a car and is in intensive care. Her parents and her elder brother were at her bedside last night. No one from the hospital was available for comment. Our medical correspondent writes …”

“God,” said Sylvie, “how sad.”

“I don’t know what to do, Sylvie.”

“What do you mean? What could you do?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. But I ought to do something, don’t you think?”

“No. Like what?”

“Oh … I don’t know. Call him, maybe, send some flowers to the mother …”

“Abi, are you out of your head? Do you really think that poor woman would feel any better if she got some flowers from you? I don’t want to be offensive, but it’d probably make her feel much worse.”

“Yeah, yeah, I s’pose so. You’re right. I just feel … well, I don’t know. I met those kids, you know …”

“Yes, I know. And I can see why you’re upset. But I really don’t think you can do anything.”

“No. No, maybe not.”

“Because he really is not going to feel better if he hears from you.”

“No. No, you’re right. Oh, shit, Sylvie, where is this thing going to end?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it just won’t let me go. The crash.”

“I can’t see what the poor kid getting run over has got to do with the crash. Or you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well … maybe it has. Maybe finding out about me stopped the mother from looking after them properly. Don’t look at me like that, Sylvie; it’s possible.”

“Of course it’s not possible. Mothers aren’t like that. They function whatever. My auntie Cath didn’t start letting her kids run around doing what they liked when my uncle ran off with that totty from his firm. She got harder on them, if anything. Stop beating yourself up, Abi.”

“Yeah, OK, I’ll try. But …”

“Abi!”

“Sorry. Look, we’ve got a committee meeting this afternoon here; you want to go out, or what?”

“No, I’ll stay, if you don’t mind. I won’t get in the way. And I always enjoy the sexy farmer.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, get in the way as much as you like. You
might have some ideas. We need them. Oh, shit, and it’s the inquest in a fortnight. S’pose the kid … well, doesn’t get any better—how will Jonathan cope with that?”

Sylvie sighed. “I don’t know, Abi. But it’s not your problem, honestly. Want a croissant?”

• • •

“It’s the first forty-eight hours that are crucial.” The paediatrician looked at Jonathan. “She gets through that, then we have reason for optimism.”

“And … now? It’s twenty-four. How’s she doing?”

“Well … she’s holding her own. The BP’s gone up, which is good. She’s definitely coming out of it a bit. She’s woken up several times this morning, sister tells me. Which is excellent. Those fractures are nothing. Apart from the fact that her lung’s been punctured. Biggest worry now, to be honest, is infection. She’s running a bit of a fever.”

“What is it?”

“Oh … only thirty-nine.”

He spoke overcasually; Jonathan winced.

“Thirty-nine is high.”

“Ish.”

“No, it’s high. She’s still on the antibiotics, isn’t she?”

“Of course. Look … have you been in to see her this morning?”

“Yes, of course.”

Well, how does she look to you?”

“Pretty bad,” said Jonathan, “to be honest.”

• • •

Laura stood, watching her daughter. Her pretty, sweet, merry-hearted little daughter. Reduced to something devoid of personality, a still, white ghost, most of her bodily functions taken over by machines. It was all very well for the doctors to keep saying her vital signs were
good, that the concussion was serious but far from fatal, that a few broken limbs were of no great importance. The fact remained that she was extremely badly hurt, her small, slender body knocked about by half a ton of moving metal, her small skull cracked, one of her lungs ruptured, a mounting fever invading her. They were talking now of packing her in ice; Laura knew what that meant. It meant the fever was very serious, very high. She was in pain, too, restless, turning her head constantly; her hair had been getting tangled, and Laura had asked if she might tie it back somehow, but it was difficult; Daisy seemed aware that something was bothering her, tried to push her away with her good arm.

More than anything Laura wanted to hold her, hold her safe, as she had all through all her small troubles, her minor childish illnesses and the more major recent hurts, to be able to say, “There, it’s all right, Mummy’s here, Mummy will look after you, Mummy loves you.” But she couldn’t look after her, however much she loved her; her efforts were of absolutely no value; indeed if she held her now, she would die. The only things that could help her were the machines, cold, unfeeling, efficient machines, helping her breathe, hydrating her, dulling her pain, telling them when her pulse rose, her blood pressure dropped.

She hated the machines, even while she knew she must be grateful to them. She wanted Daisy to be able to tell her that she hurt, that she was hot, that she felt sick; she didn’t want her function as a mother negated, didn’t want to be told that all she must do was stand back, be quiet, wait, not interfere. It was wrong, against the natural order of things: and yet she knew that without the machines, and without the skills of the doctors and the awesome power of the drugs, Daisy would most certainly have died by now.

• • •

Jonathan came in, stood watching Daisy with her, put his arm round her.

“All right?”

“Yes. I’m all right. Where’s Charlie?”

“He’s asleep in the parents’ room. I mustn’t be long; I promised I’d be there when he woke up.”

“How is he?”

“Oh … you know. Poor little boy.”

Jonathan was being amazing: not just sympathetic, not just supportive, but calm, positive, absolutely unreproachful. She had said she was sorry, that she knew she shouldn’t have sent Daisy out with Charlie, and he’d said nonsense, that she was right, they’d done it countless times, that children couldn’t be wrapped in cotton wool … “But they should be,” she’d cried, tears coming suddenly. “We should wrap them in cotton wool; that’s exactly what we ought to do; then they’d be safe, stay safe …”

“And grow up helpless, unable to look after themselves.”

“They’d grow up, at least,” she’d said, and he was powerless to answer that.

“How’s Lily?” she asked then.

“She’s all right. Your mother’s being so good. She said should she bring her over, did I want her to fetch Charlie, should she bring some food in, all sorts of wonderful things …”

“Should she bring Lily? Do you think?”

“No,” he said, “not unless she really wants to come. And your mother said she was better at home with her. They’re watching movies. Of course, if—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it.”

She knew what he meant. If Daisy got worse, if they had to say good-bye, then Lily must be there too.

• • •

“Right. Well, I think that’s about it. Well done, everybody.”

God, this was an effort. It was hard to think the wretched festival mattered. While that poor little girl …

“We’ll go firm on the date then?”

“Yup. Sure. And the dates for the play-offs. No news on a sponsor, I s’pose, Fred?”

“Nope. Sorry. They like higher-profile causes, most of them.”

“Surely not local ones?”

“Well … maybe.”

“Fred, haven’t you tried locally at all? Georgia?”

“Not … not really.”

“Well, why not, for fuck’s sake? Jesus, I thought you were going to take all that off us. I suppose I’ll have to do it, like I do everything else.”

“Abi …” said Georgia, “I’m sure Fred’s doing his best; we all are. But everyone’s busy …”

“You’re not.”

“Well, thanks for that. I am, actually—got three auditions this week. Look, I know this was all my idea, but it seems to be getting everyone down; it’s running away with us. Maybe we should rethink—”

“No,” said Abi, “sorry, I shouldn’t have lost it. Sorry, Fred.”

“That’s OK. I should have done more; you’re right.”

“No, you’ve got a lot going on. And you’re not even personally involved like the rest of us. I’ll take that over.”

“Well … if you can pull a few things out of the bag …”

“Sure.”

“I might go then, if that’s all right. Got a lot going on at home this weekend.”

“Sure. Sorry again, I’m … well, I’m a bit worried about something.”

“I’ll see you out,” said Sylvie, standing up. “Georgia, William, want a coffee or anything?”

“I should go too,” said Georgia. “Promised my mum I’d be back for this evening. Thanks, everyone, so much. Fred, wait for me.”

She was going to apologise to him again, on her behalf, Abi thought; perversely, it annoyed her.

“I’ll have a coffee, please, Sylvie,” said William, smiling at her. He quite clearly fancied her, Abi thought. And she played up to it. Bit annoying.

“I’ll have some wine, Sylvie, please,” she said tartly. “Oh, dear.” She looked at William. “I’m a prize cow, aren’t I?”

“I don’t think you’d get many prizes,” he said. “Not at the shows I go to.”

“Don’t joke. I am. I shouldn’t have said that to Fred.”

“Maybe not. What are you worried about?”