Chapter 23
23
CARINA
The temperature in the hospital corridor was cool, but Carina felt like she was melting from the inside out, her panic stoking a fire underneath her skin, her mind ruminating, repeating the same words over and over. Please be okay. Please be okay.
Sitting beside her, Stevie was leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clutched together, head bowed as if in prayer as she said, ‘I just keep thinking that we somehow brought this on. The way we were joking about the climb causing a medical emergency… maybe we put it out there into the universe. You know, all that manifestation stuff.’
Carina pulled at the neck of her T-shirt to get some air. ‘Do you believe in that?’
Stevie shrugged, a sad smile on her face. ‘No. But I just feel so guilty about suggesting coming here this morning. If I hadn’t done that…’
Carina reached over and took one of her hands. ‘If you hadn’t done that then maybe this would have happened somewhere else. Look, we just need to keep telling ourselves that she’s going to be fine. She is.’
Stevie looked up at her with Lisa’s eyes. ‘Based on?’ It was exactly the kind of cynical response that Lisa would have had too.
‘Blind faith and optimism. Moira used that to get through every tough thing in her life, and I’m sticking with it now.’
‘I still feel responsible.’
Carina went straight in to refute that. ‘Stevie, you’re not responsible. If you hadn’t been a couple of steps behind her and caught her so quickly, she would have rolled down who knows how many more stairs and banged her head on each one. You didn’t harm her, you saved her. We were so lucky that you were there.’
‘I just couldn’t bear it if—’ Stevie began, and Carina forgot her own worries for a second, desperate to comfort this young woman who’d been through so much in the last month. ‘Don’t say it, Stevie. Blind faith and optimism. Stick with that,’ she said softly.
‘Okay, but I’m going to go try to find a doctor and get an update. I want to know if she’s fully regained consciousness yet, and if they’ve found out what caused her to fall. They’ll already have run the preliminary tests so if it was a heart attack they should have some indication by now.’
‘All right, but I’ll wait here in case anyone comes looking for us.’
She watched as Stevie went down the corridor, then through the double doors at the end, in the same direction they’d taken Moira earlier.
When Carina could no longer see her, she leant her head back against the wall. As soon as she closed her eyes, her mind began replaying the moment that everything had changed. One second, Moira had been on a Facetime call to Ollie, laughing and talking about how she’d see him again soon. Then, in what seemed like a heartbeat, she’d collapsed, fallen to the side, her phone smashing as she crumpled to the ground, banged her head on the stone balustrade and then began to slide downwards, rolling down a couple of steps, before Stevie had thrown herself behind her to break her fall.
What happened next was a blur. Moira, on the ground, unconscious. Stevie down there too, checking her vital signs, her pulse, her breathing, trying to bring her round. Tourists had swarmed around them, many of them trying to help. One gave them water, another put an umbrella above them to give shade. Someone else ran back down the stairs to the ticket office at the bottom, to ask them to call an ambulance. Carina had no idea how long it was until they’d arrived – probably only fifteen minutes or so, but it felt like hours. They’d stretchered Moira back down to the car park, loaded her into an ambulance, allowed Carina and Stevie to ride with them as they’d driven, blue lights flashing and siren wailing, to the hospital on Lantau. Moira had been flitting in and out of consciousness on the journey, and as soon as they’d arrived, she had been whisked away, and they’d been asked to wait. That’s why she was now sitting in a hospital corridor, waiting to find out if she was about to lose another friend.
Despite reassuring Stevie that they were going with blind faith and optimism, Carina felt panicked to her core.
She couldn’t lose Moira. She just couldn’t.
They’d only just reconnected after all these years, and now… no, she couldn’t lose her. She damn well refused.
‘Cary?’ She recognised the man’s voice and his nickname for her before she even opened her eyes.
‘Ben! You got my message. Thank you so much for coming.’ She stood up and let him wrap his arms around her. Her brother-in-law had been one of her favourite people for all of her adult life and she’d texted him as soon as they’d arrived at the hospital. He’d lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years now, so he’d been her first thought for advice, and for just being here and helping her to navigate getting Moira the best care.
‘Of course. How is she? Have you heard anything?’ he asked, releasing her and then taking the seat that Stevie had just left.
‘I don’t know. All I do know is that they’re running tests on her now to try to find out what caused it. Stevie mentioned that a heart attack is the obvious possibility, but I guess it could be anything. And she banged her head when she fell, so they’re probably testing for a head injury too. She started to come round in the ambulance, but she wasn’t making much sense and the blood pressure monitor kept going off so… Actually, I don’t know what that would mean. It’s all a bit of a blur.’
He took in everything she was saying. ‘That’s understandable. Everything I say right now is going to sound like a cliché, but let’s just keep the faith until we know more.’
Carina nodded. ‘I just gave that same speech to Stevie. Blind faith and optimism would get us through this, I said. But I don’t think I believed it either. All I can think about was that we were too late to find Lisa again. Surely, I won’t lose Moira too?’
‘You won’t lose her. Let’s stick with that optimism stuff. I still can’t believe Lisa is gone.’
When she’d called him a couple of days ago to tell him what had happened to Lisa, he’d listened to the whole story as she’d poured it out, stunned. ‘Christ, Cary, I’m so sorry to hear that. Poor Lisa. That’s tragic. And her daughter… she came to Hong Kong to tell you that she’d passed away?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t talk to you about it when you called earlier because Stevie was with us,’ Carina had said.
‘Stevie?’
‘Yes. Would you believe Lisa named her after Stevie Nicks?’
His voice had oozed sadness. ‘Yes. I think that’s probably the most “Lisa” thing she ever did.’
When she’d hung up, Carina had told herself that was the last of the sadness for this week. She could never have guessed that now, just a few days later, she’d be here.
They sat in silence for the next few minutes, until Carina’s gaze fell on a clock on the opposite wall, just a couple of metres away. Every tick seemed to last forever.
‘You know, the strange thing is, I didn’t feel this way when I left Dubai. When I left Spencer…’ She paused, tying to formulate her thoughts. ‘I thought I’d be grief stricken. Panicked. Devastated. But this… this is so much worse. I think maybe that tells me something.’
He sat with that for a few seconds before he replied. ‘He knows for sure that you’re here. I’m just warning you. You used your credit card somewhere and he saw it on your bank transactions.’
She had a sinking moment of realisation. ‘Shit, I bought the tickets for the cable car online. I must have used those card details. Damn it. I’m sorry if that puts you in a difficult position. I don’t want you to get stuck in the middle of me and your brother. That’s not fair.’
‘Don’t apologise. Pissing off my brother is one of my favourite sports. He already had a hunch that you’d come here, but that confirmed it. He called me, raging that I’d lied to him.’
Carina could picture that scene perfectly, hear every word that would have come out of Spencer’s mouth. He wasn’t a man who took kindly to not getting what he wanted. That was one of the things she used to love about him.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him not to come here, to give you space to figure this out and decide what you want to do.’
‘Did he listen?’ Carina already knew the probable answer to that.
Ben gave a gentle shrug. ‘Who knows. If he did it would be a first. But I told him he could risk everything if he tried to pressure you, so maybe that got through.’
Carina sighed. ‘It’s what, five days now? I’m surprised I got that long before he found me. Where is he now?’
‘He was in London when he called. I think he’d gone there to see if you were staying at your family’s house.’ Her dad was in his nineties, living in a wonderful care facility, in the grip of Alzheimer’s for over a decade now. She now co-owned her family estate with her brothers and often stayed there when she was visiting her dad – she got on well enough with them but they weren’t the people she’d turn to in a crisis.
‘I’d like to have seen him explain that one away if my mother was still alive. Although, given how much she adored him, she’d probably have taken his side.’ Her mother had passed away four years ago, and right up until her last breath she was still talking about how wonderful her son-in-law was, and how he’d saved Carina from a life unbecoming of her status. So yes, she had no doubt her mother would blame his affair on her. All those years ago, she’d thought that marrying Spencer would earn her family’s respect, but no. As far as they were concerned, she was lucky he’d chosen her. It had taken her a long time to have the experience and emotional maturity to realise that her mother was just one of those females who vehemently disliked other women. She was a bully who cared so much more about appearances than happiness. And where had that got her? She’d died a bitter old lady, still complaining and gossiping. If that was what living the ‘correct’ life got you, Carina wanted no part of it. Maybe it was time to let everyone else’s opinions go and do what she damn well pleased. It was telling that this week, she hadn’t missed a single thing about her life with Spencer, other than her daughters. Maybe it was time to live an ‘incorrect’ life on her own terms – one where she chose her own way and didn’t put up with people who hurt her.
Carina stared at the clock again. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. So slowly. At least talking stopped time from standing still.
‘Did he say where things stood with him and that woman?’ She couldn’t stomach saying Arabella’s name out loud. Not here. Not now. She didn’t matter. She was inconsequential in Carina’s life, especially when there were far more important people to care about right now.
‘No. But I do know that Imogen kicked her out of the house when she found out what had happened. Apparently Spencer finally confessed all to her yesterday and Imogen was furious with him. She hadn’t even realised that you’d left before the end of the party because Spencer had spun her some bullshit story about sending you on some surprise spa trip for your anniversary. Imogen hit the roof, ordered Arabella to leave and told him he was a disgrace and that he needed to sort himself out – said she’d quit if he didn’t make this right.’
It surprised her that Imogen had stood up to Spencer so forcefully. Just like with Ben, Carina hadn’t wanted to involve her daughters, to force them to take sides. She usually called Erin once a week, and she’d spoken to her on the night of the party, so her younger daughter would be blissfully unaware of the drama. As for Imogen, it was even more personal because Arabella was her friend. The fact that Imogen had sided with Carina… if she were anywhere else than right here, right now, that might even have given her a little surge of pleasure.
‘Did Imogen tell you that?’
‘Yes, she called too,’ Ben went on, ‘And I hope you don’t mind, but I told her you were here and safe, and with Moira and Stevie.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll call her later and I’ll—’ Before she could finish the sentence, three uniformed staff flew round the corner pushing a crash cart, all of them running towards the doors Stevie had gone through. Carina’s hand jumped to her mouth.
A few moments later, an ashen faced Stevie came back through the same doors. Carina felt all the air being slammed out of her chest.
Her words came out in a strangled burst. ‘Tell me she’s okay?—’
Stevie shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t let me see her. All they would tell me was that the doctor would be out to speak to us soon.’
‘Okay. Okay. So it’s not bad news. We’re staying positive.’ She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. With a jolt, she realised she hadn’t introduced Stevie to the man beside her.
‘Sorry! Stevie, this is my brother-in-law, Ben. Ben, this is Lisa’s daughter – Stevie.’
Ben reached out and shook her hand, and Carina could see his shock at just how much Stevie resembled Lisa. ‘I wish we weren’t meeting under these circumstances. I’m so sorry about your mum. She was a special lady.’
‘You were friends?’ Stevie asked.
‘We were.’
Carina zoned out of their conversation as the sound of the clock on the opposite wall once again became the soundtrack to this moment. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
With every tick came a realisation. She didn’t care that her marriage had fallen apart. Didn’t care that she’d left her home. Didn’t care that she had no idea what she was going to do next. All she cared about was watching that door at the end of the corridor, waiting for a doctor to come through it and tell them the fate of the only person who mattered right now.