“I told you not to bring any cocaine into this house,” Caro admonishes.
“Not that kind of powdering.” Charlie Dutton grins. “I’m going to the loo, okay? How’s that?”
He turns to leave as I sit there, still blushing, more so because I’ve just been the center of attention, and because I think I’ve just made a horrible fool of myself. Not that, fortunately, I flirted back. I run back to our conversation, to what I said, and I breathe an audible sigh of relief. Nothing I said could have been construed as flirting; nothing would have given away that shock of attraction I felt.
My blush starts to fade and the others start to talk among themselves again. I relax. And then I hear a voice in my ear.
“Just for the record,” Charlie Dutton says incredibly softly, “I meant what I said,” and I sit there, as still as a stone, and pretend I didn’t hear. But I cannot help the small smile that plays upon my face.
Later, just as we’re leaving for the restaurant, I go to the loo to make sure I’m not shining, and to reapply my lipstick.
I open the door and walk smack bang into Lisa.
“Are you having fun?”
I nod enthusiastically, having spent the last half hour chatting with Jonathan and Caro, trying to ignore Charlie Dutton altogether, finding myself exhausted with the strain of there being two men I’m having to ignore—albeit for different reasons—and exhilarated by this flirtation, by the knowledge that I’m still attractive! I’m sexy! Someone other than my husband thinks I’m…delicious!
“They’re all so nice!” I say. “So warm, and charming. And I love Caro and Jonathan; what great people!”
“I know,” she says. “And what about that…Charlie Dutton?”
“Charlie Dutton?” I affect nonchalance, willing myself not to blush, willing myself not to give the game away. “What about Charlie Dutton?”
Lisa raises an eyebrow. “What do you think of Charlie Dutton?”
“I think he’s also lovely,” I say.
There’s a pause. “Just be careful,” she says. “I don’t know him, but I’ve heard about him. He’s very attractive, with a horrible reputation as someone who is not—how shall I put this—okay, someone who is not discouraged by the fact that people are married. If anything, it seems to be something of a turn-on for him.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I say, wanting to ask more, wanting to find out everything about him, everything about the women he’s known, what he’s attracted to, what his reputation is exactly, but not of course asking any of those questions, not wanting anyone, not even Lisa, to know how I feel. “So he was flirting with me a bit. I’m married, Lisa, and not the slightest bit interested in being unfaithful to my husband.
“It was flattering,” I continue. “That’s all. God, do you know how nice it is to have a man pay you a compliment when you’re still feeling fat and frumpy after having a baby, and men never ever look at you or flirt with you or compliment you because you’re now a mother in their eyes, and a dowdy one at that?”
I look at Lisa, and I can see she doesn’t know. Of course she doesn’t know. How could she possibly know? “You wouldn’t understand,” I say more gently now. “Look how gorgeous you are, but for the rest of us mere mortals we take it where we can get it.”
Lisa laughs. “Okay, okay. Forgive me. Just promise me you’re not going to have an affair with him, because I’ve heard he really is a heartbreaker, and you’ve got a good one in Dan. Trust me. I know.”
“I absolutely promise I’m not going to have an affair with him. You know how I feel about that. I wouldn’t risk losing everything I have with Dan. No way.”
She hugs me and we go back into the living room, where Dan is standing white as a sheet, holding the telephone receiver, and nobody is talking.
Everybody is looking at me.
And I know. Instantly I know that something terrible has happened, and the world stops moving.
“It’s Tom,” Dan whispers. “There’s been an accident.”
20
I’m not aware of much that happens immediately after that.
Dan takes me by the arm and leads me outside to the car, and I’m vaguely conscious of being hugged, of worried faces, of mumblings about who should come to the hospital, who should stay.
I’m aware of what’s going on, but aware from afar. It’s like being submerged under water—I can see and hear, but everything seems fuzzy, and I am completely calm, as calm as I have ever been in my life, and my heart, rather than pounding with sheer panic, the reaction I would have expected, given that the worst possible thing I could ever imagine happening seems to be happening, my heart feels as if it’s slowed to the point of almost stopping.
I am aware that Dan is still as white as a sheet, and that Trish insists on driving, and that Dan and I sit in the back, each looking out our respective windows.
I am aware that Trish asks Dan what happened, and Dan says something about someone carrying Tom and tripping, and dropping Tom down the stairs, but not being able to say anymore because he starts to cry.
I am aware that I am completely numb. That I cannot think about anything, say anything, feel anything, until we pull into L’Hôpital des Broussailles in Cannes, park the car, and rush to the emergency room.
“Tom Cooper,” Dan says urgently to the nurse behind the desk. “Mon fils. Nous cherchons notre fils.”
And then we hear “Dan?” and we turn to see Linda and Michael rushing round a corner, tears streaming down Linda’s face.
“We got the neighbor to come in and watch Amy,” Linda explains through her tears. “We came straight here.”
“Where’s Tom?” Dan demands. “Where is he? What’s going on?”
“I’m so sorry,” she says, keeps saying, and my heart turns to stone, and all I keep thinking is please God, no. Please, God. No. No. No.
“Oh, my God.” Dan inhales sharply. “He’s not…” He can’t say it. The word won’t come out.
“No!” Michael says, gently elbowing a now-hysterical Linda out of the way. “He’s still being examined by the doctor.”
And finally the feelings explode out of me in a primal scream, exploding into the worried whisperings of this all-white space.
“Let me see my son! Where’s my son? Let me see my son. Now!”
The doctor speaks English. Thank God.
“He has a broken leg and a fractured wrist, but we are more concerned about any head injuries.” He pauses. “He is an infant, and his bones are still soft, and the orthopedic surgeon is on his way to—”
“What do you mean, you’re more concerned about head injuries?” Dan speaks, as the fear those words have induced has rendered me speechless. It’s all I can do to carry on breathing.
The doctor sighs. “We have x-rayed his body and established what has happened to his bones, but it is not so easy with the brain. The head trauma that is causing his lack of consciousness has been caused by a contusion to the brain.”
I look at him blankly.
“We need to do a CAT scan to check for bleeding in the brain.”
“When?” Dan says softly. “When are you going to do that?”
“We are preparing for that now,” he says.
“But what does that mean?” I whisper. “What do you mean, bleeding in the brain? Could he still be fine? What does that mean?” My voice is rising, on the verge of hysteria, and the sense of calm, of lack of reality, leaves me in an instant, replaced by an icy-cold clutch of fear around my heart. “Does that mean brain damage?”
The doctor looks away. “I think it is too early to speculate. There are a number of outcomes, and the CAT scan will tell us more. The best-case scenario is that the blood is reabsorbed naturally into the body.”
“And then he’d be fine?” Dan has again gone white.
The doctor nods. “Then he would be fine.”
“And the worst case?” I don’t want to know. But I have to ask.
“If the bleeding is causing a swelling of
the brain, or increased pressure in the brain, we will begin treatment immediately to relieve that pressure.” The doctor lays a gentle hand on my arm. “We will know more after the CAT scan,” he says. “Have faith.”
I look down at Tom’s tiny body, his eyes closed, wires all over him hooked on to various machines, and I start to cry. Huge, gulping sobs that I can’t keep in anymore, and Dan puts his arms around me and I can’t stop sobbing. I just lean into him and cry and cry and cry.
This can’t be happening to me, I keep thinking. How can this be happening? I lost my mother when I was a child. Isn’t that enough tragedy for one lifetime? What have I done that’s so awful that this could be happening to me again? Why me? Why us? Why this tiny helpless baby?
We don’t go home that night. Nor the next. Nor the next week. The doctors and nurses are kind and solicitous in a way I fear they reserve only for the parents of the truly sick, the ones that may not make it through.
Tom is taken in for regular CAT scans, and so far the news is good. There has been some bleeding, but no swelling, and as we hoped, it appears the bleeding is being reabsorbed back into the body.
Oh, God. The body. Not the body. Tom. My baby. Why is this happening to us?
Dan and I sleep—and I say that with a large dose of irony because of course we barely sleep—in makeshift cots next to Tom’s bed. We take turns sitting with him, singing to him, holding his tiny hand, and I leave the room only to go to the bathroom or to get some more coffee in the middle of the night.
I am aware that people come to the hospital. I know Linda and Michael are outside in the waiting room a lot. I know Trish and Gregory have been, and Lisa, but I can’t see them. Can’t see anyone. There’s nothing to talk about, nothing to say, and all my energy is going into being there for my son and praying to God that he will be fine.
His leg has been pinned, and he is surrounded by a huge contraption, hooked up to various machines, on various IVs. Sometimes I thank God he is not conscious, unaware, I hope, of the pain it must have caused him, to have these metal pins going through his bones and these needles going through his skin.
Linda tried to talk to me once. I had left Tom’s room, desperate for some air, and she came over to me and started to speak, started to say something, but I couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t even look at her, so I just turned and walked away, left her standing in midsentence.
I don’t care.
This isn’t about her. This isn’t about what she may or may not have done, did or didn’t do. I’m not interested in hearing how terrible she feels about dropping my son. I’m not interested in hearing what she was doing carrying my son in the first place, when I know he was supposed to have been sleeping. I’m not interested in her asking for my forgiveness.
All I’m interested in is Tom. Linda doesn’t exist for me right now. I’m not sure she ever will again.
We spend seventeen days in the hospital. Each day we have a little more information. His bones are healing nicely. The brain scan hasn’t picked up anything, but now he needs to regain consciousness before we can tell any more.
On day twelve, I’m sleeping in the cot, when a baby cries in my dreams. I’m in my old office at Calden, in a meeting, and all we can hear is a baby crying. Damn, I think in my dream. I’m not allowed to bring a baby into work and now they’ll all know. In my dream the baby is in my office, and I excuse myself, rushing frantically back to the office to soothe the baby, who, incidentally (and I’m not sure what this means), isn’t Tom, and I can’t find the baby, I can just hear the wailing that goes on and on.
I rouse myself out of sleep, leaving the dream behind, except I can still hear the crying, and I suddenly realize it’s Tom, and I leap out of bed and Tom is wailing, his mouth wide open as he screams, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and I attempt to soothe him, to hug his tiny body through the wires and frames, and I start to cry and laugh with relief.
He’s awake.
He’s alive.
Dan rushes in, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He immediately leaves it on the table and comes over to join me, shaking his head in disbelief, then bursting into tears.
“I didn’t think he’d ever wake up,” he says, sobbing into the bedclothes as he clutches Tom’s hand. “I didn’t think this would ever happen.”
The nurse comes in, and then the doctor, and we are moved out of the way while they examine him.
“What are they saying?” I keep asking Dan, but he doesn’t know. His A-level French didn’t extend to hospitals and medical terminology.
“Shh, shh,” he keeps telling me, attempting to understand, to pick up a word perhaps, or a sentence that might shed some light, but they are all talking so quickly, and with such unfamiliar vocabulary, that he can’t understand.
“Well, we know one thing,” the doctor finally says, walking over to us in the corner of the room. “His lungs are not affected,” and he smiles, and for the first time since this accident I feel relief. Relief that there suddenly appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel, relief that this doctor, who has been so serious and so careful with us all this time, now sees fit to make a joke, which must mean that he is confident, or at least optimistic, about the outcome.
“This is good, though, isn’t it?” I say. “Does this mean he’s fine?”
“This is very good news,” he says. “But we must run a few more tests.”
On the day we leave, the day after Tom was finally given the all clear, Linda is sitting in the waiting room by herself. Dan is still inside signing the discharge papers and organizing the insurance. I am cradling Tom in my arms and about to go downstairs, from where we will take the rental car straight to the airport to fly home.
I don’t see Linda immediately. She comes over to us and reaches out a hand to Tom, and I move my body to shield him from her, won’t allow her to touch him, not anymore.
Because now I know what happened.
Tom was lying in bed babbling, and Linda decided to bring him downstairs because he clearly wasn’t ready for sleep. Just for the record, Tom often lies there babbling, but seven o’clock is his bedtime and so I let him lie there until he babbles himself to sleep.
Linda chose to ignore my instructions—because I did make it very clear before we went out that he would talk and she should ignore him—and picked Tom up. As she started down the stairs, she tripped and (she still can’t believe she did this, will never forgive herself for doing this) instinctively put her arms out to catch herself.
She caught herself, and in doing so dropped my son.
If you had asked me, before this happened, what I would do, how I would feel, should Linda ever cause harm to my child, I would have told you that I would scream at her, unleash my rage, my hurt, my fury.
I imagined screaming my hatred for her, venting that poison and enjoying the shocked look on her face, her inability to reply.
But in the event, I don’t feel any of that. I just feel tired. And relieved. But mostly tired.
“Please let me see him,” Linda says softly, tears already running down her face. “Just let me look at him,” and for the first time I actually stop and look her straight in the eye.
“No,” I say, ever so softly, but my voice has never been firmer, and never have I meant anything in my life as much as I mean these words now. “You cannot look at him and you cannot hold him. You need to know now that I will never ever forgive you for what you did. Do you understand? I. Will. Never. Forgive. You.”
And with Tom in my arms, I turn and walk away.
I’d like to say that life returns to normal once we are back in London, but I’m not sure what normal is anymore. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel normal again.
Tom spent six weeks in a frame until his bones healed, and now he is absolutely fine. We have been assured he’ll be playing football and rugby with all the others.
And brain damage, or permanent damage of any kind, has been ruled out. As our GP here in London said, Tom’s as good as he was befor
e. Hell, with the metal pins in his leg he may even be a little better.
The same cannot be said, however, for Dan and me. Every time I look at him I remember him that evening, before we went out, saying, “What do you think’s going to happen, for God’s sake? Tom will be fine. They’ll all be fine.”
Did I know something? Could I have prevented it? Maybe not, but, irrational as it may be, I look at Dan and I hear that conversation. I look at Dan and I see Linda.
Needless to say I blame Linda more than anyone.
But I also blame Dan.
21
Christmas comes, and Tom is fine. Better than fine. Delicious, gorgeous, delectable. We don’t spend Christmas Day with Linda and Michael. Bizarrely (and yet it was so nice), we spend it with my father.
My father and Mary phoned and left a message, saying how wonderful it would be if we all spent Christmas together, and instead of phoning back and saying we had plans, I phoned back and said yes, we’d love to come down and spend Christmas Day with them in Potters Bar.
Dan was furious. But it got us out of being with Linda and Michael, and gave my father a chance to be with Tom; and while he may not have been the greatest father in the world, he was wonderful with Tom, and they bonded instantly.
Dan sulked for most of the day, but I found it strangely relaxing, and infinitely more relaxing being with them than with the Coopers.
So Tom is fine, but Dan and I, on the other hand, are not. How ironic that the holiday in France, the holiday we were so desperate for, went from paradise to hell in such a short space of time, and is continuing to affect our lives every waking moment.
Dan says, over and over, that it’s not his fault. And rationally I know that to be true. Dan says that it’s all in the past, that the only thing that matters is that Tom is fine, and as soon as I let go of the anger, we can move on with our lives.
But the problem is I can’t let go, don’t know how to let go, and at this moment in time can’t see myself being able to let go, ever.