Chapter 17 Elise #2
The curtains moved, and at last Robbie was there. Elise looked up at him from her chair by Charlie’s bedside. He was sombre suited and sombre faced. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to throw herself into his arms or to hit him. But in the end, she had energy for neither.
“Any change?”
He hadn’t received any of her messages. Not one of them.
“Claire says it won’t . . . it won’t . . .” she started to say but couldn’t continue; couldn’t complete the sentence.
Robbie reached blindly for her hand.
“I don’t think he’ll wake up again, Robbie,” she said, overwhelmed suddenly by a whirlwind of panic. “I’m not going to . . . be able to tell him how much I love him . . . one last time . . .”
Robbie rocked slightly, tears streaming down his face.
“D’you think . . . d’you think he’s always known, how much we love him?”
Robbie gave a juddering sniff. “Every day of his life, Elle. He’s known it every day of his life.”
And as she leant against him, sobbing, Charlie’s rasping breaths suddenly stopped. The machinery he was hooked up to began to bleep.
“No!” Elise cried, leaning forward to press the buzzer.
But it was too late. Charlie was gone.
“That day, when I couldn’t reach you. When nobody at your work could tell me where you were. You were with her, weren’t you? You were fucking Kate.”
Robbie couldn’t meet her eyes.
She shouted at him. Pushed him. “Tell me. Tell me the truth!”
“All right, yes! I was with Kate! But it’s not as if I planned it, Elle. I didn’t know how close Charlie was . . . to the end. I swear.”
“Are you still seeing her? She said you were.”
His head dropped again. “I wasn’t. I’d finished it. But then you went away, and I . . . Well, I was lonely.”
“You’re pathetic,” she said, stating it as a fact rather than an accusation, and then she turned her back on him, her legs propelling her back up the garden to the house. Lulu abandoned her digging to follow, leaving muddy paw prints on the floor.
“You’re right,” Robbie said, keeping up with her. “I am pathetic. If having a broken heart is pathetic. Needing someone to talk to when it felt as if my life was ending is pathetic.”
Elise turned to stab a finger to her chest. “You had me to talk to, Robbie. Me.”
“Did I, though?” he said, suddenly angry. “You closed yourself off, Elle. I felt as if my feelings were a burden to you. And it’s not as if you were always there for Charlie, is it? All those times you put your art first. Packed him off to your grandmother’s.”
“Charlie loved spending time with Gran.”
“Maybe when he was four or five he did. He was bored rigid there.”
“Did he tell you that? Did Charlie tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to. I recognised the signs.”
“If you’re so good at reading signs, you’d have come to the hospital sooner that day.
Spent more time with him before he died.
Do you know how many times I had to lie to him about why you weren’t with us at the hospital?
How many stories and excuses I had to make up for you?
In the end, he stopped asking for you. I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
You should have been there for him, Robbie. ”
He bowed his head. “I was afraid, all right? I just needed some time where I didn’t have to think about it all. It was sex, Elle, that’s all. It meant nothing to me. Kate meant nothing to me.”
“And yet somehow you’re still seeing her, so I can’t quite believe that. And anyway, if it is true, then I feel sorry for her. Because she obviously has feelings for you.”
Robbie ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been tempted by anyone else in all the time we’ve been together.
I’ve seen you at the private views of your exhibitions, remember?
All that flattery. All those good-looking guys with good-looking bank accounts falling over themselves to buy your paintings. ”
“If I have been tempted, I’ve never done anything about it. I wouldn’t. Because unlike you, I haven’t forgotten the vows we made to each other.”
She clipped on Lulu’s lead and headed for the front door. Robbie positioned himself in front of it, blocking her way.
“Look, please, don’t go. Please. I’m not a bad person, not really.
I know I’ve stuffed up, but I honestly don’t think I know how to do life without the two of you.
I miss Charlie so much.” He reached out tentatively to touch her arm, his fingers stroking gently, his voice lowering.
“We did a good job with him, you and me, didn’t we? He was such a great kid.”
Elise’s fury drained away. Sudden tears blurred her vision. “He was amazing.”
Then she thought of Sam, of Sam’s compassion and thoughtfulness.
If Jasmine were ever to be taken seriously ill, he would be right there at his girl’s bedside, refusing to leave even to get a cup of coffee or a shower.
He certainly wouldn’t be off somewhere having impersonal sex with a stranger to avoid facing the awfulness of it all.
She sighed, suddenly weary. “Charlie kept us together, Robbie. But he’s not here to do that anymore. He’s gone. I think . . . I think it’s time for us to accept it. To move on.”
“Please. Don’t make any final decisions just yet. What we had before Charlie was good, wasn’t it? We can go back to that.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think things have been going wrong with us for a while.” She picked Lulu up and moved past him to open the door.
“Please,” he said, following her. “Don’t go yet. Let’s eat together. Talk some more.”
“No. I’m tired. I’m going home.”
“This is your home. My home too. Though God knows it doesn’t feel like it without you and Charlie in it.”
Elise thought of Marsh House and longed suddenly to be there. “Goodbye, Robbie,” she said, and walked down the garden path to the street.
On the train back to Norfolk, Elise couldn’t stop thinking about what Robbie had said about Charlie being bored at her gran’s.
Was it true? Elise had always tried to take some time off during the school holidays, but inevitably there’d been times when, as a working mum, she hadn’t been able to—a deadline for an exhibition, a commission she’d needed to finish.
Robbie had never stepped in to take any time off; he’d always seemed happy for her grandmother to look after Charlie.
It was as if he assumed his work was more important than hers.
That Elise could more easily put her work on hold than he could.
But she hadn’t known her time with her son was going to be finite, had she?
If she had, she’d have packed in her work in a heartbeat.
She wanted to phone her gran to check. To ask, D’you think Charlie was sometimes bored when he was with you?
But how could she do that when her gran had gone out of her way to take Charlie to museums and play areas.
To drop him off for play dates with friends.
It would be the definition of cruelty to plant the same seeds of doubt in her mind that Robbie had just placed in hers.
Robbie had probably only said it to make himself feel better.
But knowing that somehow didn’t ease the doubt.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have made the trip to London, after all.
Elise stared out of the window, her conversation with Robbie playing over and over again in her mind as she tried to get her head round the fact that her marriage was over.
She had always done her best to give Charlie the right balance of security and freedom, not wanting him to feel fenced in, but wanting him always to feel safe.
Even before Elise’s mother had died, she’d always spent lots of time with her gran.
Contented time mostly, going to the park, making pictures, doing crafts, even though she’d yearned to be at home with her mum.
Her mum had been exciting—always doing things, preparing for things, getting dressed up to have fun.
When Elise had been the focus of this attention, it had been magical; just her and her mum, laughing, dancing around the room, dressing up.
But all too often her mum would take off with her friends.
Kiss Elise and say she’d be back soon and leave her at her gran’s.
Only the last time, when Elise was thirteen, her mother hadn’t come back at all.
She’d died at the wheel of her car on the way back from a party.
Elise suspected she’d been drinking; all this time later, Elise had yet to ask her gran to confirm that belief, but she was pretty sure of it.
Her mother had liked her life to be a constant party.
If it wasn’t, she soon felt suffocated. Elise had never wanted Charlie to be subject to the insecurity of not knowing what mood he would be faced with when he woke up.
Wasn’t it better to experience a tiny bit of boredom than a whole lot of insecurity?
She would never know, because she would never be able to ask Charlie.
Only when it began to get dark and all Elise could see in the train window was her own bleak expression, did she return her attention to the train carriage.
And that was when she first noticed the green stain at the bottom of her pale-pink backpack.
A stain the exact shade of green as the pen used to scribble on her drawing.
Frowning, Elise fished inside her bag to discover the cause, and pulled out a leaking green pen.
Puzzled, she held it in her hand, looking down at it.
Had Jasmine put it in her bag? She supposed she must have.
Either that or Elise was going out of her mind, and she’d defaced the drawing herself and had no memory of doing it.