Close Your Eyes (42 page)

I’m standing on the edge of the cliff. A wave explodes against the rock shelf, creating a cloud of fine mist. I can’t see anything. Monk is on his mobile. He’s calling the coastguard and Royal Lifeboat crews.

I’m on my knees, my stomach.

‘You can’t go down there,’ says Monk, grabbing my belt to stop me sliding forward.

‘Hold me.’

I lean out further, looking into the maelstrom of white water. I scream her name. The sound hits a wall of wind. I try again, blinking into the spray.

‘Did you hear that?’ I glance at Monk. He’s heard it too. We both listen. It’s a hoarse baby-cry like a gull, startlingly close.

‘She’s down there?’

‘You can’t go – it’s too dangerous.’

The waves suck back and I see Charlie’s head bobbing in the swell. She’s trying to swim away from the rocks, but is being swept back and hammered against the cliff-face. She won’t survive.

I look at Monk. ‘I have to go.’

‘You’ll kill yourself.’

‘Let me do this.’

He doesn’t hesitate. A man with a wife and three sons at home doesn’t pause to reconsider. ‘We go together,’ he says. ‘Wait for the next wave.’

Side by side we contemplate the jump as rain runs down our faces and the sky and sea are one.

‘Now,’ he screams, and we’re running, falling. We hit the water feet first, plunging into the cold.
Kick. Surface. Breathe
. Salt stings my eyes. I can’t see Monk or Charlie.

The water sucks away. I’m at the bottom of a trough, between the swells, and can feel rock beneath my feet and the cliff ahead. I see some sort of cave. Then I’m hit from behind by the next wave and carried forward, slamming into rocks. Curling into a ball, I try not to fight the current or lose my bearings. The water seems to be holding me under. I need to breathe. The wave sucks back. Air. Light.

I see Charlie. She’s on the rocks, trying to climb. Monk is guiding her. He turns and yells for me to swim. I try to stand between the waves, but I can’t feel my feet and the rocks are so slick with weed that I cannot get a footing. Water surges over me, sweeping me across the ledge towards the cliff. It tries to suck me back, but I cling on and crawl forward. I’m at the rock-face, reaching blindly for a handhold. Another wave smashes me from behind. It recedes. I drag myself higher.

The cave is twenty feet above me. Charlie is almost there. She can make it. Monk will keep her safe.

I’ve stopped moving. My body won’t respond.
No! Not now! Not like this!
The following wave explodes over me and I feel as though I’m shattering into a million pieces, being scoured off the surface and washed away. I cling on. Climb.
Right hand. Pull. Left hand. Pull.

Impossibly, I feel someone next to me. An arm slips around my waist.

‘You can let go,’ says Monk. ‘You’re here now.’

The cave isn’t really a cave, but it’s above the water and out of the wind. I’ve never been so pleased to be somewhere so wet and cold. Charlie is holding me or I’m holding her, both of us shaking.

I don’t know how long we stay wrapped in each other’s arms. Until there are lights and voices and men on ropes are coming down the cliff. They have thermal blankets and head torches. They lower a coffin-shaped cage and buckle Charlie inside. I’m next. They strap my arms and legs inside. Someone tugs on the rope. The cage lifts and swings out.

Monk puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re a madman,’ he says.

‘I’m a father,’ I want to answer, but the cage carries me away.

The paramedics let me ride with Charlie and Emma in the ambulance. The girls are talking, which is good, recounting what happened as though we’ve all been on a big adventure, but every so often I catch Charlie staring into space. Emma hasn’t let go of my hand. She’s still full of questions and observations.

‘I wasn’t scared of the thunder, but why did that man pull my hair? He made us hide in a bush. Look at my knee. Will I need stitches? Will it hurt? Grace Adema fell out of a tree and needed twelve stitches in her arm.’

We’re taken to Weston General Hospital. My jaw is swollen, not broken, and Charlie has deep cuts in her hands and feet. The doctors poke and prod and bend limbs, shining torches into ears and eyes. I want to call Ruiz, but my mobile is somewhere at the bottom of the Severn Estuary.

Ronnie Cray stays with us at the hospital, which I appreciate. I keep asking about Julianne until she comes back with an update.

‘She’s critical but stable.’

‘Ruiz?’

‘He’s with her.’

Cray talks about Francis Washburn, telling me how he changed his name in his teens after a string of convictions for assault and a stint in a psychiatric hospital in Leicester. He spent two years at a seminary, training to be a priest, but was dismissed following complaints from other students, who accused him of spying on them.

‘You were right about the baby seat,’ says Cray. ‘Forensic services found traces of blood and the same household bleach.’

I ask whether Washburn survived, but know the answer already.

‘You saved us the trouble of a trial,’ says Cray.

That’s twice I’ve taken a life, but I will not regret this one – not for a minute. I will not lose sleep or have nightmares over Francis Washburn. All I care about is my family and right now I want to see Julianne.

‘Bennie is going to drive you,’ says the DCS. ‘She’s waiting downstairs.’

It is almost ten o’clock by the time we leave one hospital and reach the other. The storm has passed, leaving air so clear that every star resembles a pinprick of light in a moth-eaten curtain.

Emma and Charlie are with me. We cross the foyer and take the stairs. The corridor seems to get longer as our feet echo down its length. Each time I think we’re getting to the end there’s further to go. A nurse suddenly appears. She asks me if I’m looking for someone. I can’t get the words out.

‘My wife … I want to see her.’

She looks at my swollen face and bandaged hands. ‘Are you Mr O’Loughlin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dr Percival wants to talk to you.’

‘Where’s Julianne?’

‘If you’ll just come with me.’

There are nurses in the background. Hovering. Not making a contribution. I look for Ruiz. He should be here. Emma takes hold of my hand. I look at Charlie and see my own fears reflected back at me.

‘Can we see Mummy now?’ asks Emma.

‘Soon,’ I say, trying to sound upbeat. ‘Are you hungry? Charlie can take you to the cafeteria.’

‘It’s closed,’ says the nurse. ‘There are vending machines.’

‘I’m not leaving,’ says Charlie.

‘I’ll look after the little one,’ offers the nurse.

Emma complains and starts to cry. ‘I want to see Mummy.’

‘In a little while,’ I say. ‘Just do this for me.’

The nurse takes her hand. Emma looks put-upon, but she’s too exhausted to fight.

A door opens and Dr Percival motions us inside. She doesn’t seem surprised by the state of us – the borrowed clothes, bruises and bandages.

‘Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea?’

‘I want to see Julianne.’

‘Of course, I understand, but first I want to explain the situation. There was a complication with your wife’s surgery. It’s quite rare, but not unknown. The operation itself was uneventful. She had normal vital signs throughout. I removed the tumour as well as her uterus. The cancer was at stage one, which is what we’d hoped. Everything was pretty textbook. We moved Julianne into postoperative recovery. She seemed perfectly OK. I’m told you talked to her.’

‘Yes. What happened?’

‘At 4.53 p.m. this afternoon she suffered a massive pulmonary embolism. We believe the clot originated in her lower extremities after the surgery. Fragments detached and travelled through the venous system, passing through the right side of the heart and lodging in the main branches of the pulmonary artery. The right ventricle was unable to maintain adequate forward blood flow and her heart failed. We started resuscitation with intubation and administered epinephrine, but it took nearly fifteen minutes to restore her spontaneous cardiac output. A chest radiograph confirmed the embolism. Thrombolytic therapy was started immediately. Having increased the doses with little effect, we operated, inserting a catheter into her upper thigh and threading it to the clot.’

‘You found it?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s gone?’

‘Dissolved.’

‘And Julianne?’

She looks at Charlie and then me, her eyes over-bright and her voice wavering. ‘As I said, it took us fifteen minutes to restore her heart. She had suffered a catastrophic haemodynamic collapse. Head CT scans are suggestive of hypoxic cerebral damage. We won’t know for sure until she wakes, but at the moment she’s stable. Comfortable. Not in pain.’

The room seems to tilt and I feel a fluttering sensation as though every time I blink I’m closing the shutter of a camera, taking another image. I hear laughter from the corridor outside. The world is carrying on. It doesn’t care. Charlie is holding my hand. I can feel her fingers around mine.

‘Can we see her?’ I whisper.

‘Of course.’ Dr Percival gets to her feet. ‘I’m very sorry, Joe. This couldn’t have been foreseen.’

I don’t answer. I have no words. I follow her down the waxed white-tiled floor, aware that muzak is playing as though we’re in a Holiday Inn. She nods to the nursing station and a security door opens. Charlie whispers to me, ‘What did she mean by cerebral damage?’

‘Nothing. It’s going to be fine. If you’re going to have an embolism a hospital is a good place for it.’

‘But she’s in a coma.’

I can’t answer her. As we walk along the corridor, I see Ruiz emerge from the ICU. He has withered since I saw him last, his big frame buckling under the weight of events or the sadness pressing down upon him. How brittle he suddenly seems: how easily breakable.

My innards do a slow heave as he raises his eyes to mine. He pulls me into his arms, where I muffle a sob against his shoulder. He reaches out and grabs Charlie, bringing her into the hug.

‘She’s going to be OK,’ he says. ‘You can see her fighting. There’s colour in her cheeks and she’s breathing better just in the last hour.’

Ruiz notices our bandaged hands and the bruises on Charlie’s forehead. He brushes back her hair. ‘Are you all right, princess?’

She’s gnawing at her bottom lip. ‘It’s my fault.’

‘Don’t say that,’ says Ruiz.

‘I shouldn’t have gone to the nursing home.’

‘You weren’t to know he was there,’ says Ruiz.

Charlie sneaks at a glance at me, wanting to know if I blame her.

‘You’re here and you saved Emma. Nothing else matters,’ I say.

Dr Percival signals to us. We can see Julianne.

‘I’m going to get some fresh air,’ says Ruiz. ‘Where’s the little one?’

‘A nurse is looking after her,’ I reply.

‘Maybe I’ll catch up with them.’

He walks down the corridor, shuffling his feet like a little boy kicking at a empty can.

Charlie is ahead of me as we enter the ICU, moving past cubicles where desperately ill patients are being monitored by machines – wired, plugged in, taped up and ventilated.

I have been in places like this before, but never in circumstances that mirror this. I haven’t seen my wife in a hospital bed since she told me our marriage was over and I had to move out. That was six years ago. Before that it was when Emma was born and before that Charlie. Now I see her, lying on a white sheet, the bed tilted, an oxygen tube up her nose, an IV, catheter and cardiograph wires and pads. She is at the mercy of machines, looking greenish white in the diffused light – like an astronaut shot into space on her way to Mars.

I take a seat in a chair beside the bed and stare at her face, willing her eyes to open. Charlie is holding her other hand, looking at the monitors, trying to make sense of the numbers.

‘We have to talk to her,’ I say. ‘Tell her everything – old stories, new ones, but don’t tell her about today.’

Charlie nods. She leans forward and puts her head on the bed next to her mother. We talk and talk and talk. When Charlie falls asleep, I keep going, talking as though my voice alone will keep Julianne alive. ‘I am here,’ I whisper, tracing the words on her skin, letter by letter on her open palm.

‘I am here. I am here. I am here…’

In the days and weeks that follow I try to be all things to all people. I want to be a good father to Emma and Charlie, and to allay the grief of others. I accept their condolences. I make the arrangements. I decide on the service. I reply to the cards. And when it all gets too much for me, I lie on the floor of Julianne’s walk-in wardrobe, surrounded by her clothes.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that she didn’t feel a thing. She slipped into blackness, which is a nice way to go, much nicer than creaking and leaking into old age. That’s the good thing about dying young. You don’t have to lament too many mistakes or carry too great a burden of regret about the people you wronged or the dreams that were unfulfilled. It’s much better to die in your prime, before the damage is done to your body or other people.

Through the rest of the summer and the autumn, Emma sleeps in Charlie’s bed or mine. She’s not frightened of the dark. She’s afraid that the whole world will fall asleep and she’ll be the only person left awake, fighting the night on her own.

Asleep or awake, Emma lives in constant readiness to save us from unhealthy foods, passive cigarette smoke, dangerous drivers, and men who would drag children from footpaths. She has no problem with the concept of death. She knows her mother isn’t coming back, but believes she
will
see her again in Heaven. She also believes that evil comes in many guises – and that doctors and hospitals are to blame for what happened.

Charlie has been my rock. She has dealt with the day-to-day running of the cottage, making the meals and looking after Emma. She even cobbled me together from broken pieces so we could walk in front of the hearse, side-by-side, the three of us together. It was only a few hundred yards up Mill Hill Lane. Emma didn’t want us walking in the middle of the road because she was scared someone might knock us over.