Chapter Nineteen
Success
“Non e gi’usto,” Jayne murmured in a raspy and dry voice. “Io non prendutto la oppotunita a dire ciao a loro....Anche quando io visto loro....Ma io non sapere prima....Io non sapere quelle vanno a morire.”
As she spoke, Jayne became more and more emotional, and her voice grew louder. She became restless and fidgety, and she tried to get out of bed. Matthew held on to her, and as she stared up at him with tear filled eyes, she spoke much more firmly.
“Non e gi’usto, Matthew! Non e gi’usto! Io vado a pagare lui dietro per questo! Io vado a pagare Tyler dietro!”
Matthew looked round and stared at Sandra. “What’s she saying?” he asked her. “I can’t understand a word of it, but I’m sure she keeps saying my name. How could she know my name?”
“Maybe she heard us talking,” Sandra replied. She was rooted to the spot in the doorway, still in shock.
When Matthew had thrown open the door and shouted at her to come inside, Sandra had gone in without the slightest expectation. Now she stood with her eyes wide, staring down at Jayne.
Jayne Middleton was awake and moving. Her eyes were open and she looked scared and upset. She seemed to be struggling with Matthew who was holding on to her wrists, and Sandra could see her legs kicking about under the sheets. And for some reason she was talking in Italian.
“Esso Harvey colpa io incidente la macchina,” Jayne was saying as she continued struggling with Matthew. “Non e mio colpa! Ma io non sapere mio madre e padre vanno a morire! Non e gi’usto! Io vado a pagare Tyler dietro per questo! Non e gi’usto, Matthew!”
“Do something, Sandra!” Matthew pleaded. “Help me to calm her down!”
Sandra finally woke up. She ran into the room and took one of Jayne’s hands, prizing Matthew’s fingers from her wrist.
“Don’t be so rough with her,” she told Matthew. “You’ll scare her. Go and do something useful. Get her a drink of water. Go on!” Matthew hesitated before letting go of Jayne and hurrying out the door. Sandra then turned to Jayne and spoke to her clearly and calmly. “Listen to me, Jayne. You’re speaking in Italian and we can’t understand you. Do you hear me? Speak in English. And calm down, we’re trying to help you.”
Jayne stopped struggling and looked up at her. Her eyes blinked, and in a low voice she said, “Io sapere tu, tu nome e Sandra, si?”
“In English,” Sandra said. “In English, Jayne.”
“In English?” Jayne said, looking very puzzled. She blinked a lot and began to look very carefully around the room.
Sandra could see from her expression that Jayne was beginning to realise where she was at last, and that she was slowly regaining all her senses. This must all be very strange for her, Sandra thought as she watched Jayne. It was certainly very strange for Sandra.
All the time that she had been tending to Jayne, Sandra had always believed that she would never regain consciousness, that Jayne was, in fact, dead. Oh yes, she knew what Matthew was trying to do, and she knew how confident he seemed to be. But, to her shame, no matter what the advances were that Matthew had told her he had made with Jayne, Sandra had never really believed that he would succeed. She had never really believed that Jayne would actually reawaken. And now here she was, very much alive, and very much awake.
Matthew came back in with a glass of water, and as soon as Jayne saw him she was overcome with thirst. “Aqua!” she said, reaching out for the glass. “Si, io sono sete.”
Sandra helped her sit up, and Matthew held on to the glass as Jayne drank. She took big gulps and nearly choked. She coughed and spat a lot, then drank some more. Slowly, she finished the lot.
“More?” Matthew asked.
“Si, grazie,” Jayne said. But when he didn’t move, she looked up at both their faces, and nodding her head she said, “Yes, thank you.”
Matthew smiled at her. “Okay,” he said, and he went to refill the glass.
Jayne looked at Sandra who was also smiling at her. She smiled back. It was a weak smile.
“Do you feel better now?” Sandra asked her.
Jayne nodded, but didn’t reply. She didn’t know why, but she found it such a strain to speak in English. It was as if she couldn’t tell the difference. And then she realised that was exactly what the problem was. She couldn’t tell the difference, because she was even thinking in Italian, and so every time she spoke, it came out in Italian unless she consciously made the effort to say it in English.
When Matthew returned with another full glass of water, and Jayne had taken another big drink, she finally began to relax.
“I’m sorry, but I feel very.....confused,” she managed to say, speaking very slowly and deliberately.
Sandra stroked her hair. “That’s alright, love,” she said. “Just you take it easy. You’ve been through a lot, so if you want to talk in Italian, or shout and scream, you just go right ahead.”
Jayne’s response was to suddenly burst into tears. “Mum and dad are dead!” she wailed as she remembered again. “It’s not fair!”
Sandra looked questioningly at Matthew. He held up the local newspaper. “I was reading it out like usual,” he said. “There was a fire at her parents’ house. It was what finally woke her up.”
“Oh, no!” Sandra exclaimed, sadly. She stared down at Jayne, who was now sitting in bed, crying her eyes out. “Oh you poor thing!” she said, putting her arms around her and hugging her close. “After all you’ve been through as well. And now they’ll never know you woke up.”
In a second, Sandra was crying along with Jayne, and all Matthew could do was sit there on the side of the bed and watch them both. He felt like crying, too. But he also felt like cheering.
He’d done it! He’d actually done it! Jayne Middleton was alive and awake. She’d spoken to him. She even knew his name. And now she was sitting there in Sandra’s arms, the pair of them sobbing and wailing together in a big wet mess.
Matthew wanted to join in, he wanted to hug Jayne along with Sandra. But he couldn’t. He was too shy, too timid. All the time he had sat with her and watched her, he had dreamt about the day when she would wake up. He had gone over it many times in his head, how she would respond, what she would say, what she would think of him. It had always ended the same way. He wanted her to like him, he hoped that she would like him. He always dreamed that something would happen between them. He knew it was only a silly fantasy, but he couldn’t help it. He was in love. In love with a woman who had done nothing but sleep all the time he had known her. And now that Jayne was awake and cognisant at last, all Matthew could do was reach out hesitantly and stroke her hair.
Then another thought occurred to him. “Wait until Ben sees this,” he muttered.