Sleight of Hand (8 page)

“Yeah. South America.”

She takes a step forward, forcing me to retreat to the front door. “Yes, I
know
Colombia,” she says. “I saw a documentary.”

“It's a country,” I say, sensing first hand the frustration that Colombian's must feel about their country being persistently reduced to drugs –
nothing
but drugs. “It's a whole, vast, country.” I run a hand across my forehead and realise that I'm feeling shaky and angry. “Jees … look … thanks for looking after Sarah. We can sort the rest out tomorrow, eh?”

“I'll call Jenny in the morning,” she says. “That's the best bet really.”

“They said after lunch. The people at the hospital. They said they wouldn't know anything till after lunch. Just so you know.”

“It's Frimley Park, I take it?”

“That's the one.”

“OK. I'll call her after lunch,” she says, already pushing the door closed.

“What other people see,”
I think, as I head back to the house. From alcoholic father to cocaine-trading-stealer-of-boyfriends in less than ten minutes.

I return to the house and pull a salad bowl filled with pasta, tomato sauce and ham from the refrigerator. I reckon that I can fish the lumps of ham out and that, tonight, I actually don't care if I miss one or two. I stick the bowl straight in the microwave.

I sit in Jenny's mother's kitchen and look out at the darkened garden, and think that I don't want to be here, that I don't want to be here at all.

But these moments of sheer emergency leave no room for manoeuvre – they simply
require
that you do this and then
require
that you do that, and you're left just batting away random balls as they fly at you. It's like being in a car sliding across the ice. I can do little but wait to see how far it will skid before my steering wheel gains some traction again.

In spite of my tired state, I barely sleep that night. Perhaps it's because not feeling able to lay claim to Jenny's bed, and not wanting to sleep in her dead mother's room, I opt for the sofa. Maybe it's just unknown house syndrome: the place is full of unfamiliar shadows and strange noises. Nothing truly sinister – just a coat hanging here, a branch moving in the moonlight, the grunting and groaning of a building at sleep, the tinkering of radiators and the wheezing of a gas meter … I'm jet-lagged and stressed as well, of course, but it's mainly the noises and the shadows that keep me awake.

At six, precisely, a milk float enters the close, and that sound, the whirring of its electric motor, the clinking of bottles, is one that is so familiar, so
reassuring … I yawn, and think that I haven't heard a milk float since I was a child. I'm so glad they still exist.

When I reawaken, I feel like I have merely dozed off for a few seconds. Initially I'm confused as to where I am, in which country even, but then I remember.

The VCR is showing nine-fifty-four which strikes me as unlikely so I switch on my phone to check the time and realise that I can now phone Ricardo.

A quick scan of the house reveals no signs of broadband – Jenny's laptop has an old fashioned modem plugged into a phone socket – so I text Ricardo with the house number and while I wait, I head through to the kitchen and scour the cupboards for breakfast options. In the refrigerator, hidden behind a pack of chilled toilet roll (does someone have haemorrhoids? I wonder) I find butter, Marmite, and joy of joys, crumpets. And that's what I'm eating when Ricardo phones.

He declares that he can't talk for long, but then patiently remains on the line for over an hour as I tell him about Jenny and the hospital, and then in reverse order of urgency, about the funeral, and Tom, and Sarah, and the neighbour. Finally, I ask him what he thinks might be causing Jenny's fits.

“If it is epilepsy,” he says, “it could be anything … tired, stress, flashing lights …”

“But wouldn't she know if she was epileptic?”

“Probably,” he says. “But, you know, you don't know you've got that kind of things until you know. And it might be cause by something else, some other illness.”

“Like?”

“Best to wait for the results,” he says, sounding suddenly doctorly. “No point speculating.”

“Right.”

“Now I really do have to go, Pumpkin. I'm meeting up with a friend downtown and I'm late.”

“You're still in Bogotá?”

“Yes. Going home tonight. I wish I was with you Chupy.”

“I'd rather be there with you, I think,” I say.

“It's no fun on either side,” he says. “Believe me. OK. Gotta go. Bye.”

And it's only once the line is dead that I remember that his mother has died as well. I can be so selfish sometimes, it scares me.

I send him a guilty text. “Thanks babe. Sorry about the me, me, me. Love you masses. xxx”

Ricardo immediately answers with, “But if love is never having to say sorry … ?”

“Aww … he knows Love Story,”
I murmur.

After much rather gruesome digging around, I find a front door key in what I assume to be Jenny's mother's handbag. Unable to get any information from the hospital other than the generous visiting times (two-thirty to eight-thirty) I eat another round of crumpets, put my vomit-stained trousers in to wash, and head off on foot towards the town centre.

The grey featureless day does little for Camberley. The pavements look dirty and grey, the houses repetitive and mundane. The town centre with its mall, and its Boots, Body Shop, and Superdrug is so generic it could be literally any town in Britain.

The crisp clean air and scintillating light, the postcard beaches and fragrant forests feel truly an ocean away today. It's never until you leave that you
realise what you're leaving behind. And it's never until you return that remember why you left in the first place.

*

I haven't really thought much about what to expect at the hospital. I suppose that if I guessed I would picture Jenny sitting up in bed, looking chipper, and being rude to the nurses. Or perhaps, perched on the edge of the bed waiting to be taken home – irritated because I am somehow, “late.”

In fact, she is snoring lightly when I arrive, so I sit and watch her sleeping, and wonder if the greyness of her complexion is caused by lack of makeup or if it reveals something unsettling about her condition.

Some fifteen minutes into my bedside vigil, I glance over and see that she has one eye open. I tip my head sideways and lean into her field of view. “Hello you,” I say. “How are you feeling?”

Jenny stares at me in silence. She looks sad. If she is thinking about anything, I would guess that it's the loss of her mother. Poor Jenny, she's really not having a good month. Thinking back to Ricardo, and Nick, and her dad, and her brother, I realise sadly that she isn't having a particularly good
life
.

Suddenly emotional, I swallow with difficulty. “Are you OK?” I ask. “How are you feeling?”

Because she still says nothing, I murmur, “I'll be back in a minute,” and cross the ward to speak to a nurse.

“Excuse me, but, Jenny Holmes, she looks awake but she isn't speaking … Is she OK?”

“Her over there?” the nurse asks in a thick Polish accent. “The girl who have seizures last night?”

“Yes. Did she have more?”

She shrugs. “I don't know. I just know she have seizures.”

“Right. She's not answering me. Is that normal?”

“She's tiring, I expect,” the nurse says. “They always are after seizure.”

“Right.”

“She just needs sleep,” she says.

“Should I just leave her then?”

“Sit with her. I'm sure she like that. But don't expect too much talk.”

“Right. And do we know … you know …
why
, yet?”

“Why?”

“Why she's having seizures?”

The nurse shakes her head. “She's book for CT scan at four, so we know more later. Now, I'm sorry, but I have to change dressing, so …”

“Sure, sorry.”

I take a deep breath and return to Jenny's side. “Are you actually awake sweetie?” I ask. “Because I'm not even sure if you can hear me.”

Jenny rolls her eyes, which I take as confirmation not only that she can, but that the sarcasm centre of her brain is still working.

“Do you need me to do anything?” I ask. “Do you want me to bring Sarah in to see you?”

Jenny's brow wrinkles, her expression shifts to concern. “Sarah,” she repeats quietly.

“She's at Susan's. She's fine. Do you want me to go get her? To bring her. Do you want to see her?”

“No,” she says.

“Right.”

I sit for a minute or so and wonder if she actually wants
me
here. It's not at all clear. “Is Sarah OK at Susan's? Are you happy with that?” I finally ask.

“Susan's,” Jenny says, visibly struggling to keep her eyes open. “Yes.”

“I think I should just let you sleep,” I say. “I'll come back this evening.”

I lean in to kiss her forehead, and she says, “Tom.”

At first I think she's confused, and answer,
“Mark
. Yes?”

Jenny swallows and says again, “Tom?”

“You want me to call Tom?”

She blinks slowly, so I force a smile and nod slowly. “Of course,” I say.

“Thanks,” she says, her eyes already closing.

I walk all the way back to town battling with myself to not feel peeved that she wants Tom rather than myself.
“Maybe Tom should come and sort everything out,”
I think, meanly. But as I walk, I manage to calm myself down. Jenny never had a lot of friends, and the fact that Tom was the only person our age at her mum's funeral speaks reams.

In town, I buy more crumpets and some strong cheddar, and then reluctantly head back to the close. I'm not really looking forward to speaking to Susan again, and I'm certainly in no hurry to call Tom.

The entire walk ends up taking well over an hour but the exercise clears my head.

Feeling sweaty but calmer, I head straight to the neighbour's house.

“Hello,” she says in a reassuringly neutral tone of voice. “Have you been? Have you seen her?”

I nod. “Yes. Is Sarah … ?” I glance behind her.

“They're playing out back,” she says.

“Good. She's in a pretty bad way,” I tell her. “I just came from there. She can barely answer, ‘yes' or ‘no.'”

“And do they know what it is yet?”

“No. Maybe later. They're doing some scans or something this afternoon. Is Sarah OK with you? For the moment?”

“Sure,” Susan says. “But will Jenny be back tonight? Because I can't look after her tomorrow. We're off to Sutton.”

“Sutton?”

“Yeah, my sister's place. I tried to call the hospital, but they wouldn't put me through.”

“No, well, as I say … she's pretty ill.”

“So if she's not back by tomorrow, well, we'll have to think of something else.”

“I'll have to take her,” I say. “But that's OK.”

“She seems to remember you at least,” Susan says, a shadow slipping across her features.

“I've known Jenny for twenty years,” I tell her. “We even dated once,” I add, hoping that this hint of heterosexuality will reassure her.

“Right,” Susan says in a tone of voice which indicates that my strategy probably hasn't worked. “Well anyway, let's just hope she's out by then, eh?”

“Yes,” I agree. “Let's hope for that. But otherwise, Sarah will be fine. Really.”

Susan nods. “OK,” she says, grudgingly. “Fair enough.”

As I open the front door to Jenny's house, I think, with some relief, that I don't have Tom's number anymore. But that's too selfish. I can, of course, use directory enquiries. Or I could, if I knew Tom's
current address, or even the number for directory enquiries.

On the hall table, though, is Jenny's Nokia. I should have taken it to her, of course. In the recent-call list, I find an entry entitled,
TOM - MOB
.

I sink to the bottom stair, groan and hit the “call” button.

Tom speaks before I can say a word, saying, “Hello beautiful, how are you bearing up?”

It's the first time I have heard this voice – this, normal, happy,
loving
voice, since we split up. The contrast with the way he spoke to me yesterday is so marked that I'm momentarily lost for words. After a few seconds listening to him say, “Hello? Hello? I can't hear you baby!” I hang up.

The landline in the house rings almost immediately. I brace myself and pick up on the third ring. “I couldn't hear you Jen,” Tom says. “Could you hear
me?”

“It's Mark, Tom,” I tell him.

“Oh,” he says, his tone shifting instantly. “Can you put Jenny on? She tried to call me and …”

“It was me,” I say. “She asked me to phone you. She's in hospital.”

“In
hospital?”

“She had some kind of fit. Just after you left.”

A shadow appears behind the patterned glass window of the front door. A bunch of letters, presumably addressed to Marge, plop onto the doormat. And then, without a sound, the shadow spookily fades away.

“A fit?” Tom asks. “What do you mean a fit? What kind of fit?”

“We don't know yet. They're doing some tests this afternoon.”

“Where is she? Can I call her?”

“Frimley Park – it's here, in Camberley. But there's not much point for the moment. She's virtually comatose.”

“Right,” he says. “Was it
stress?
Is that the cause? Because, well …”

“We don't know, Tom,” I say, cutting him off before he can imply that I am somehow responsible.