Authors: Stella Whitelaw
It was a cloudy morning and although Lucas said they were going somewhere special, Jessica did not think her smart suit was right for the occasion. Instead she put on her indigo jeans and a long-sleeved white sweater. There was a nip in the air.
‘No need to dress up when you are going out with me,’ said Lucas with a straight face.
‘They are my best jeans,’ said Jessica.
‘I suppose that’s something.’
She held out her left hand. The sapphire twinkled on her finger. ‘And this is my best ring,’ she added.
‘Now that’s really something,’ he said, his eyes raking over her gently. ‘I’m so glad you are going to share my life. I need you and I love you.’
‘All this love talk before breakfast?’ Jessica teased. ‘I could get used to it.’
‘Let’s skip breakfast and do something more interesting,’ he suggested.
‘Not a good example to the children,’ said Jessica.
Lucas almost said
damn the children
but held back. The
children
were arriving in the kitchen for their breakfast. Lily had her school shirt on inside-out and Daniel’s jersey was on back to front.
‘So much for letting them dress themselves,’ said Jessica, sorting them out.
They all sat down together round the big kitchen table. A real
family. Muesli and fruit, scrambled eggs, toast and honey. Mrs Harris was beaming. It felt as if they were her own family. They were her family.
‘We’re going to see Maggie in hospital this morning,’ Jessica told the children. ‘I’ve got your cards and Lily’s toys and the lovely drawing from Daniel. Then this evening I will tell you all about it. I’m sure Maggie will be pleased. You see, she hasn’t had any visitors.’
‘You could take Floppy Ears,’ volunteered Lily, making another ultimate sacrifice. ‘He could be a visitor for Maggie.’
‘How about another time?’ said Lucas. ‘Floppy Ears might be a bit tongue-tied going to a hospital.’
Lily looked relieved. ‘He wouldn’t like having his tongue-tied.’
Once the children were on the school bus, Jessica and Lucas could leave. She made sure that Lady Grace was up, doing her exercises, and promising to come downstairs.
‘For goodness sake, stop fussing, girl. I can get myself downstairs by now. Go and enjoy your day off. I shall be glad to have a day’s peace from your nagging.’ Lady Grace was back on form. But there was little edge to her voice.
Jessica could not believe it when they were driving away from Upton Hall in the Porsche. It was too chilly to have the hood down. It reminded her of when Lucas had picked her up from the station, all those weeks ago. When she had felt drawn to him, despite wanting to turn round and catch a train back to London.
‘So Maggie first?’ said Jessica.
‘And I have a few patients to look at before we can have a spot of lunch.’
‘So not exactly a whole day off for you?’
‘It’s the whole afternoon off for me. You’ll understand when we get there. Trust me, Jessica. Soon it will all become clear. I’m trusting you, my sweetheart. You will understand everything soon.’
Jessica felt the intensity behind his words. This was no day
off for fun and laughter and a boozy pub lunch. It was
something
more serious.
He drove more moderately. It was not one of his
twenty-minute
manic speed journeys to the hospital. The random buildings loomed ahead. They were serious hospital buildings, where Lucas worked and put faces back together. He had his own parking space.
Jessica was at home in the hospital environment. It didn’t throw her. She recognized the smells, the hygiene, the silence in some areas. Her feet echoed along the corridors even though she was in her flat pumps.
‘I’ll introduce you to Maggie and then leave you,’ said Lucas. ‘These are my wards.’
Maggie had a side room. She was in a single bed with tubes attached to nose and mouth, feeding her both nourishment and liquid. Her face was heavily bandaged. The dogs had torn her mouth and arm. But her brown eyes shone brightly at the sight of a visitor.
‘Hi, Maggie,’ said Lucas. ‘Jessica has come to visit you. She’s the lovely young woman who looks after my two children. She’s come to read you some stories.’
Lucas waved and left them together. Jessica sat beside Maggie. There was not much of Maggie showing, but Jessica found a hand. It was small and soft.
‘Hello, Maggie. I’m Jessica. Lucas has told me all about how brave you are and I am so sorry about what happened.. But you will get better because Lucas is a wonderful doctor and he will do everything possible for you.’
Maggie had difficulty in talking. Her mouth was stitched up where the dogs had torn it. She would need plastic surgery to give her a normal, pretty mouth again.
‘’Lo,’ she said, her eyes smiling. ‘Story?’
She squeezed Jessica’s hand. It was a touching moment.
‘Lots of stories,’ said Jessica. ‘I’ve brought lots of books. I’ll choose one, then you choose one. Is that all right?’
Maggie nodded, delighted. She snuggled down in bed, her
eyes on Jessica and the open book.
The morning fled. At some point, coffee arrived for Jessica and juice with a straw for Maggie. By then, they were firm friends. Maggie loved the cards from the children and she insisted that Daniel’s shell drawing should be pinned on the wall. She was not so sure about Lily’s toys. She liked the soft, rag doll with braided yellow hair, a pinafore dress and white socks and shoes.
‘Baby,’ she said, pushing the other toys away.
Jessica understood. Maggie was quite a grown-up
five-year
-old. It came from living with a much older person, her grandmother. She didn’t have the same five-year-old bounce of Lily or the same tastes. She was much nearer in age to Daniel, especially as she now had difficulty in speaking.
Leaving Maggie was a wrench. Jessica was sorry when Lucas came to take her away. She knew she must not become attached to his patients but it was so difficult when it was a vulnerable child.
‘I’ll come again,’ she promised, as they clung to each other.
‘Please, please …’ said Maggie.
‘I promise,’ said Jessica, near to tears herself.
Out in the corridor, Jessica needed a few minutes to compose herself. She had not realized that she would become
emotionally
involved.
‘Not easy, is it?’ said Lucas, taking her arm and walking her away. ‘How do you think I feel?’
‘I don’t know how you do it. Maggie is a lovely little girl. I feel so sorry for her. I’ll come again, of course, if I can.’
‘Maggie will need a few weeks convalescing after the next operation to sort out her mouth so that she can talk and eat unassisted. Her grandmother would not be able to cope with her diet. How do you feel about having Maggie come to stay at Upton Hall, have fun with Daniel and Lily, be a normal child for a few weeks?’
Lucas was looking at her, full of respect, his words a trap. His kiss was only a breath away.
‘Of course,’ said Jessica. ‘Maggie must come to Upton Hall. I will look after her. She will have a lovely time, perhaps regain what it’s like being a child.’
Daniel might find it interesting to meet someone else who had trouble talking, and Lily would bounce Maggie back into childhood fun, show her the joy of running about, doing silly things.
Lucas folded Jessica into his arms, the outside world
vanishing
for the two of them.
‘How about that boozy pub lunch?’ asked Lucas, at last.
The boozy pub lunch was all that Jessica could have asked for. Two glasses of excellent Merlot went down well and rather fast. A jacket potato with grated cheese and a side salad was the perfect lunch. It was all that Jessica wanted. Lucas had a beer and a ploughman’s. Sitting opposite Jessica was all he wanted.
The pub was a cosy, Sussex/Surrey pub. Oak beams and rafters, old hunting prints on the walls, a real log fire already burning in the hearth. Jessica was not sure which county they were in but it did not matter. Surely Lucas had no more surprises which could destroy their happiness?
He leaned over the table and clasped her hands in his. ‘We have one more thing to do today,’ he said. ‘It may be very hard for both of us, but it has to be done. Our future happiness depends on this, and, oh my darling, I do so want us to be happy together.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Jessica, shaken. ‘Where are you taking me? Newgate Prison or Tyburn? People were hanged at both places.’
Lucas let go her hands and sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. ‘It was easier in those days to get rid of unwanted people.’
She did not understand what he meant. She did not want to know.
They both had black coffees. Lucas because he was driving, Jessica because she wanted to be alert for whatever was ahead.
What could be worse than seeing a five-year-old girl with tubes going in everywhere and hardly able to speak?
They drove through the rolling Surrey countryside. It was different to Sussex, more controlled, more sculptured, trees in staged groups as if being used for a television drama set. They turned in at a driveway, heavy iron gates opened for them after Lucas spoke to the man on duty. He was in a green uniform, belted. Surely it wasn’t a prison?
Lucas seemed to know the way without any directions. He parked in an area marked for visitors. Ahead of them was a rambling two-storey white building with what looked like a chapel at the far end. Jessica caught the glint of a stained-glass window. There were gardens and flower beds and people strolling about in pairs.
‘You have to tell me,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair. Where are we?’
‘This is a sanatorium for the permanently disabled,’ he said. ‘It used to be a convent called Saint Agatha’s, I think. There are still nuns. Follow me.’
He did not take her hand this time but seemed wrapped in his own thoughts.
Jessica kept close to him in case he abandoned her, here in the wilds of Surrey, with no idea how to get back to Upton Hall.
The reception area was cool and empty, except for a vase of flowers and a strong smell of polish. No comfortable furniture, no paintings on the walls. Lucas went straight to the desk and signed in. He seemed to know what he was doing.
‘This way,’ he said, pointing towards the stairs. The oak treads had also been polished. They went along a wide corridor, doors either side with numbers. Again no decoration of any kind, only the occasional vase of flowers on a wall bracket.
He stopped outside room 24. He did not knock but went straight in.
Jessica followed him. It was a simply furnished room, plain white walls with flowered curtains framing a large window that looked out onto the garden. The bed was surrounded by pulleys
and hoists which Jessica knew were only used for the severely disabled. A wash-basin was fitted in a corner. There was no
television
, no armchair, no table or bookcase.
Facing the window and the garden was a wheelchair. Jessica could only see the back of it. It was not a normal wheelchair, but a fully functional hospital chair with every device known to the medical profession.
Lucas went over to the chair. ‘Hello, sweetie,’ he said, bending low to speak. ‘It’s Lucas. I’ve come to see you. And I’ve brought a visitor, a very special person. This is Jessica.’
Jessica went over to the window, her heart thudding. The woman in the chair had her head held in a padded clamp. Her pale face was a mass of contradictions. Her greying hair had been combed back without any thought to style or appearance. She was wearing a cotton skirt and blouse, her thin legs bare, her feet in slippers. Her hands were immobile in her lap.
‘Hello,’ said Jessica, hesitating. ‘I’m Jessica. How are you?’
It was a stupid thing to say. The woman could not move. Her back was obviously broken, if not more. She could not hold her head up by herself. Her face had been repaired but was probably only a caricature of her former feminine looks. She smiled at Jessica but gave no sign that she had understood.
Lucas came over, moving in his usual economical and lanky way. He stood close to Jessica, barely daring to touch her in case she flinched. He barely knew what to say. It could only be the truth.
‘This is Liz, my wife,’ said Lucas. ‘She didn’t die in the car crash on the M25. But she is here, in a living death.’
‘You told me she had died,’ said Jessica, barely able to find a voice. ‘You said they had both died.’
‘It was easier to say that she had died. She has in a way. This is not Liz, my wife, the mother of Lily and Daniel, this is just a shell, a body with no mind. She knows nothing. She remembers nothing. She says nothing.’
‘How long?’ Jessica choked.
‘Since the accident. Liz went through the windscreen, severe
spine and head injuries. He was killed outright, steering wheel trauma. No seat belts.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He was the man she was leaving me for, leaving her two children, leaving her home and her husband. Lily was only a baby, a few months old. He promised her a life without nappies and bottles and disturbed nights. He promised her Monte Carlo, racing at Goodwood and sailing regattas in the South of France. She wanted the high life and money to spend. She wanted fun.’
‘How awful,’ said Jessica. ‘You must have been shattered.’
‘I don’t know how I felt now,’ said Lucas. ‘It was if a great fog descended on me. A bit like London smog. I barely knew what I was doing. Except when I was at the hospital. It was the only time I could think clearly.’
‘This isn’t much fun for her,’ said Jessica, wondering if her plans were collapsing round their feet. She was unable to think how this would affect their plans. Oh dear God, she breathed, her eyes closed, don’t let this be the end.
‘No fun at all,’ he said. He went over to Liz.
‘Hello, Liz,’ he said. ‘This is Lucas. My friend Jessica has come to see you. Isn’t it a lovely day? Look at all the flowers in the garden, they are so beautiful.’
Liz smiled as if she understood but it was obvious that she didn’t. Her fingers had some movement. They curled and uncurled in her lap.
Jessica realized she was still carrying the bag of Lily’s soft toys, the ones that Maggie had not wanted. Sometimes the feel of something different could stimulate an unresponsive mind. She went over to Liz.