Chapter 18
18
A nnoying calls from Valerie notwithstanding, Fleur’s life was back on an even keel, and she was now on the countdown to going away. Even though it was still a good while off, it was close enough for her to feel and be ready for it. It couldn’t quite come soon enough. She had been telling herself for ages that she would be fine flying to LA on her own, but in the back of her mind, she was a little bit nervous. It was ironic, really, considering she’d spent the best part of the previous ten or so years driving around the labyrinthine network of motorways in the UK and staying in hotels on her own that getting on a gigantic box to fly up over the clouds scared her a little bit.
The travelling and quality of the hotels had, to be quite honest, often left a lot to be desired and put her in situations where she’d had to think on her feet. Therefore, she told herself that getting on a plane at Heathrow and hopping off at the other end in LA, where Patrick would be waiting for her, was actually safer than some of the places and situations she’d found herself in. So she stuck with that thought and tried to focus on the fact that everything would be fine.
Everything about the trip had been planned and arranged in typical Fleur style; her passport was double-checked and up to date, her travel insurance was in place, her bag was planned, and a special notebook had been made—not just the pre-holiday one, but another for when she was away. Everything was organised and scheduled to within an inch of its life. Our Champo was raring to go.
As she sat on the sofa, flicking through what she was now calling her Maui notebook, she soaked a cotton wool pad with toner, wiped the pad onto her face, did the funny little dabbing and tapping under her eyes thing that a beautician had told her and Cassy to do and waited. After she’d let that sink in for a bit, she opened a sheet mask, a gift from a spa she’d been to with Cassy, flicked it out, plonked it onto her face, leaned back, and settled into the cushions. Keeping her head tilted, she could feel the mask doing something, she wasn’t sure what, but assumed that the tingling was a good thing that was injecting vibes of health and glow into her face.
About twenty minutes later, the special ringtone which indicated that Ben was calling started going off. Frowning, Fleur shook her head, wondering what he could want. She hadn’t directly heard from him for ages. Probably money. Since the baby had arrived, anything to do with Lucy had more or less been refused payment, which wasn’t really much of a problem anymore because there were no school fees, and Lucy was obviously an adult, but Fleur had noticed Ben was no longer as keen to spend money on Lucy. For a good few seconds, she contemplated not answering, but he rarely called her, so she assumed it might be something important.
As soon as she heard his voice, she panicked, sitting bolt upright and listening. ‘We’re in Accident and Emergency. You need to get here.’
Fleur’s first thought was that something had happened to Sarah and the baby and, for some reason, Ben was calling her because he had no one else. ‘What’s happened? Is the baby okay?’
‘Not the baby! It’s Luce! She just suddenly collapsed, and we called an ambulance and—yeah—you just need to get here, Fleur, as quickly as you can.’
‘What do you mean? Oh my God!’ Fleur screeched. ‘Get where?’
‘I just asked them but they’re not sure. She was out cold. Sorry, they think she’s fine…’
‘You’re not making sense! What happened? She’s fine, she’s not, where are you?’
‘She kind of—I don’t know—lost consciousness. Is that it? I don’t know, I don’t know. Just get here!’
‘Ben! Slow down. Where are you? Which hospital?’
‘Sorry. St. Alexander’s. Do you know where it is?’
Fleur had parked in a multi-storey car park near the hospital many times because it was near a business centre where she’d delivered training courses. ‘Yes, okay, I’ll be there. I’ll text you.’
‘Try not to panic. I think she’ll be okay, right?’
‘Okay? No, I'm not okay! You are the one who is panicking!’
‘Yes, sorry. Look, I should have been calmer. Sorry, she’s okay but you need to come. Just get here.’
Fleur whipped off the sheet mask, ran upstairs, and started pulling on clothes. She quickly went to the toilet, opened the vanity unit, grabbed a toothbrush, some toothpaste, and deodorant, then hurriedly threw some clean underwear and a plain top into a bag along with a flannel, grabbed a jacket, and ran out of the cottage, pulling the front door shut behind her before getting into the car.
As she reversed off the drive, she repeatedly told herself to keep calm. The last thing she wanted was an accident. What had really scared her was the tone in Ben’s voice—he’d sounded petrified. A strange, unheard of voice, full of trepidation. She’d never heard fear like that in his voice and never wanted to again.
Driving along the lane, taking the route she knew well, she stopped at the ‘Keep Right’ sign at the end, drove out of Lovely, made her way out onto the dual carriageway, and tried to remain on an even keel. Ben had never been good in a crisis and despite his thinking that he was the capable one, in actual fact when things got iffy, he panicked like nobody's business. She’d seen it happen with him before. Pressing the button on her steering wheel, she called Patrick. He answered on the second ring.
‘Hey. How are you? Thinking about our gallivanting off to Hawaii yet, sunning ourselves on a beach?’
‘I’m not good,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve just had a call from Ben. Lucy’s in Accident and Emergency. That’s all I know. Ben sounded terrified. I’m on my way there now.’
‘What? What hospital?’
‘St. Alexander’s.’
Patrick swore but he sounded calm. ‘Where are you?’
‘Just pulling onto the dual-carriageway.’
‘Do you want me to meet you there? I can be there in about half an hour. An hour, I don’t know.’
‘I really don’t know. Ben sounded panicked but he’s not good in a crisis. He said she was out cold.’
‘I’ll call him. Don’t drive too fast. Just stay calm. I’ll phone Ben and make sure everything is okay. Don’t worry, you just get there. I’ll take care of anything else.’
‘Okay, thanks, yes.’
Patrick clicked off the call. Fleur pushed the button to end hers and focused on the road as her mind felt not like it was going at a hundred miles an hour, more like it was in a vortex of numbness. She kept her hands steady on the wheel, her fingers tight as she sped along. The familiar stretch of road blurred past as she barely registered it at all. All she could think about was getting to the hospital. All her mind could see was a vision of Lucy collapsed. What did that even mean? Was it exhaustion? Something more serious? Was she breathing when they found her? Was she awake now? The questions piled up in her head, none of them with answers, and she hated it. She could have wrung Ben’s neck, too.
Her phone rang again: Patrick. She pressed the button on the steering wheel. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I just spoke to Ben. He hadn’t heard anything else. I think she’s okay. I couldn’t get much sense out of him. He said that they said they were doing tests.’
Fleur's stomach twisted. ‘Did he say why? What’s wrong with her?’
‘No. They wouldn’t tell him much, just that they needed to do routine stuff but that overall, she’s okay and they think she will be fine.’
Fleur shook her head. Surely, they wouldn’t have taken her to the hospital for exhaustion. She swallowed hard. ‘Okay, I’ll be there soon and will get some sense. Ben is a nightmare.’
‘How far off are you?’
Fleur glanced at the satnav. ‘About twenty minutes.’
‘Right. Look, the traffic is at a standstill where I am. You get there and then if you want me to come, I will.’
Fleur nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. ‘Okay. You don’t need to. I’ll be fine.’
Patrick’s voice softened. ‘Try not to panic, okay? We don’t know anything yet and it sounds like she’s okay. I hate to say it but I think Ben put the willies up you for no reason. For someone quite as arrogant as him, he was, well, I can’t even describe it…’
Fleur sighed. ‘Yeah, tell me about it.’
‘Just get there safely.’
‘I will.’
‘I love you. Keep me in the loop.’
‘Yep, love you, will do.’
Patrick hung up. Fleur reminded herself that she needed to stay calm for Lucy’s sake. She pressed her foot harder on the accelerator and shook her head. Just when things had been going so swimmingly, too. There was always, always, always something that came up when she thought her life was going well. Every little part of her, every cell, every fibre wanted to curl up into a tiny ball.
F leur slowed down in the middle of the access lane to the hospital car park and looked up at the huge building towering over to her left. She couldn’t work out which way to go—whether to go straight on or right to where another bank of barriers led the way to what appeared to be thousands of parked cars. It seemed as if there were barriers everywhere and her brain couldn’t quite compute where she needed to go. Peering up through the windscreen, she squinted and then jumped as an angry, heavily bearded driver behind her beeped on his horn. She couldn’t have cared less about him as she glanced in her rear-view mirror and caught him waving his fist out the window of a bright yellow sports car. All she wanted was to make sure she went the right way so that she could get inside the hospital as quickly as possible.
Plumping for the short-stay car park aisle, she pulled up to a barrier, pressed her window down, and waited for the machine to do its thing. It seemed to take ages. Finally, she pulled out the ticket and drove in as signs here, there, and everywhere went left, right, and centre. Red signs, green notices, yellow posters taped to posts appeared to swim in front of her eyes. Taking the first right that she could, she drove past what felt like thousands of cars lined up in rows until she reached the very back of the car park, where there was half a row of unoccupied spaces. The man in the yellow car zoomed past her angrily as she slowly tried to reverse park into one of the gaps. Shaking her head, she completely ignored him; as if she was remotely bothered about an angry man in a stupid yellow boy racer car who had clearly forgotten to take the module at school that dealt with manners.
Once she’d manoeuvred into the space, she forgot all about her resolve to stay calm, grabbed her bag off the seat, locked the car with the remote locking system, and started to leg it through the car park, her cardigan and bag flapping behind her. As she passed the bearded man in the yellow car, he recognised her, shook his head, and called out something rude. Fleur registered his menacing looks in seconds; thick black beard, overworked gym body, tight shiny jogging bottoms, together with huge tyres on the lurid yellow car, and a spoiler on the back. Refraining from giving him the finger and shouting the worst swear words she could think of, instead, she put her head down and continued to sprint towards the hospital reception. No need to participate in acknowledging the dregs of the earth.
A few minutes later, she was standing at the entrance, looking up at a board, wondering why she couldn’t see Accident and Emergency anywhere. It appeared that just as she had thought when she’d slowed in the middle of the road by the barriers, she had gone the wrong way. She stepped to her left and peered at another sign that was very clearly telling her that Accident and Emergency was on the north side of the campus. Shame no one with a brain had thought about putting that on a sign by the car parks. Squinting at the map, she realised it would be quicker to go back outside, run along the walking track, and enter Accident and Emergency that way. Just after she’d gone back out the entrance she’d come in, had found the walking track marked by way of a blue line, and had started to half-jog, a text arrived from Ben.
Ben: I’ve just spoken to the doctor. She’s okay. They’re not sure what’s wrong with her. Where are you?
Fleur: I’ve just arrived, but I was on the south side, so I’m on my way now.
Ben: Thank God she’s okay by the sounds of it. Don’t panic.
Don’t panic! Bit late for that . Fleur rolled her eyes as she jogged and thought to herself that it was a bit rich now for him to be saying not to panic. Her legs felt like they were going to give way and she felt as if her top was sticking to her back. As if she wasn’t panicking, duh; her only daughter was in hospital. That was enough to make anyone panic. She typed as she ran.
Fleur: See you in a minute.
Finally arriving at the entrance, hot and most definitely bothered, again the signs seemed to pulsate in front of Fleur’s eyes. Why did it all have to be so complicated? Why were there so many signs? As she looked around, she inhaled and swallowed; everywhere she looked, sick, unwell people seemed to be multiplying in front of her eyes. A woman in a wheelchair with a pink blanket, a man hobbling with a stick, and two nurses on either side of a young boy who was holding a sick bag up to his mouth. A heavily pregnant woman stopped by a barrier, clearly in the middle of a contraction, let out a small, tight wail.
Fleur ran past them all, waited for the automatic doors to open, stepped inside, and nearly keeled over from the revolting smell. A mix of stale bodies, antiseptic, and sickness together with a healthy sprinkling of grot and grime. She didn’t like it. Not at all. The lights were horrible, too bright strip lights shining down on marked, grubby floors, and walls covered in old posters barking instructions left, right, and centre. To say Fleur was out of her comfort zone was an understatement.
She spied Ben launching himself out of his seat and striding over to her. His face looked like nothing she’d ever seen before. Completely drained, pale, and as if he’d aged by many years. He was the epitome of worry, standing right there in front of her eyes.
‘Is she okay?’ Fleur asked.
Ben pointed to a set of wide, grey, scuffed double doors. ‘She’s gone to an observation area or something. I was in there, but then they took her through and asked me to step out here to the waiting area again because they’ve got an emergency trauma case from a road accident and it’s chaos in there.’
‘Right, so, what happened?’
Ben shook his head. ‘Everything was fine. We were going out for a walk with the baby, and she just suddenly looked really unwell, and I don’t know, it went so fast. Like she fainted and we couldn’t get her to come round, she was just lying there. So, I called an ambulance, but by the time we got here, it seemed like she was better. Well, not better, but she’d come round and they said her vital signs were fine. And that’s all I know, really.’
Fleur sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think. She’s been great. I was only just thinking yesterday and Patrick mentioned that she’s much better. Now this out of the blue.’
‘I know, Sarah and I were saying the same.’
‘Thank God she was with you,’ Fleur noted. ‘It would have been worse if she’d been up in London.’
Ben frowned. ‘I hadn’t even thought about that. You're right.’
Fleur looked at the double doors and then sat down heavily on a plastic chair and Ben plonked himself next to her. ‘So, now what?’
‘I suppose we just wait. I’m sorry, I think she’ll be okay. I panicked like crazy there. Maybe I shouldn’t have phoned you in that state.’
‘You never were the best in a crisis.’ Fleur stated drily. She knotted her fingers together in her lap and looked around; it wasn’t a pretty sight. The whole waiting room smelled of disinfectant, sweat, and the faint, stale tang of something she didn’t want to think too much about. A baby cried somewhere down the corridor, a thin, reedy wail that set her nerves on edge and every few seconds, the sharp bleep of a machine sounded from behind the double doors, followed by the muffled sound of voices and machinery. She didn’t want to be ungrateful but from where she was sitting the NHS wasn’t looking very good. Fleur swallowed, her throat dry. ‘So, she just collapsed? No warning?’
Ben exhaled and scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Yeah. We were just walking, and she said she felt a bit dizzy, but I thought it was nothing, you know? She’s been so much brighter lately. I was literally saying to Sarah last night how much better she seemed.’
Fleur’s stomach twisted. ‘And she was okay this morning?’
‘Yeah. A bit tired, I suppose, now that I think about it, but nothing unusual.’
Fleur looked down at clammy hands and watched as a nurse walked past. ‘I should’ve realised something was wrong.’
‘You couldn’t have known. None of us did. She was fine.’
‘Obviously not if she collapsed, Ben! That’s not fine.’
Ben sighed, rubbing his hands up and down the side of his face. ‘I know. But we didn’t see it coming, there was nothing to suggest anything. I don’t know what to think.’
Fleur stared at the scuffed floor, dirty marks, remnants of a packet of crisps and a dirty paper coffee cup making her stomach turn. ‘Did she hit her head?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that.’
Fleur nodded. ‘That’s something, at least.’ Fleur’s throat felt tight and she could feel a sting of tears, but she forced them down. ‘I don’t understand. She’s been great, glowing even. She’s been happy. I thought we were past all this.’
‘She’ll be okay.’
Fleur didn’t say anything as she watched the hands of an oversized clock above her head tick around. It was going to be a very long, horrible, drawn-out day.