Chapter 22 #2
‘I bought an apartment several years ago – not far from the harbour. I come here when I want to escape.’ He pauses. ‘But actually, I have a confession to make. It wasn’t entirely an accident that I found you in the rain. I’d gone to look for you.’
‘For me?’ I screw up my face; this is getting weirder by the minute. ‘But how did you know I was here?’
‘I saw you with the old man when he collapsed. You know – the night the ambulance came out. You were with a Greek guy though, so I kind of thought I’d leave you alone – you seemed really friendly with him.’
‘But that would just have been Nicos,’ I say, aghast. ‘He owns the bar.’
‘I know who he is now.’ Adam is smiling. ‘I just didn’t want to get in the way of true love – again.’
‘Love?’ Staring at him, I feel my heart start to race. ‘You have to be kidding. You’ve got this all wrong. You see…’ I tail off as beside me, one of the machines starts to bleep. Instantly, one of the nurses comes over.
‘Your heart is beating too fast,’ she says crossly. ‘You must be calm, Tilly. This…’ She points to the machine. ‘This is not good. And you…’ She points at Adam. ‘You must leave. Now, please.’
‘No,’ I say hastily. ‘I don’t want him to go just yet.’
‘I am afraid he has to,’ she says firmly. ‘I am in charge here. If you want to get well, you must do as I say.’
‘Is everything OK?’ Getting up, Adam sounds worried.
‘Tilly will be fine. Please.’ She tries to usher him towards the door.
He meets my eyes briefly. ‘I’d better do as I’m told. You had, too.’ He pauses. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow – if that’s OK?’
‘Yes.’ But as he heads for the door, I’m realising just how much I want him to stay.
‘It is important you rest,’ the nurse scolds. ‘These affairs of the heart, they are not good for you.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I say heavily. ‘They have always been seriously, and I mean seriously, bad for me.’
‘Then this must change,’ she says quietly. ‘That man…’ She nods after Adam’s retreating back. ‘He is a good one. I can tell. No more bad men, Tilly.’
I gaze at her, slightly shocked at how she’s summed it up; that she has the measure of Adam. But she’s right. He is a good man.
Satisfied my bleeping has settled down again, she leaves me to rest. Lying there, I listen to her footsteps as she marches away.
But as I think about life choices, it’s true that not everything presents itself when you need it.
Or maybe it does and you just don’t see it at the time.
But also, there’s the question of how you look at it.
There’s the possibility also that sometimes there’s some shit to wade through first.
A sigh comes from me. Am I on my way to the good part? One of these days, am I going to leap out of bed, newly invigorated, a new Tilly, ready to embrace the rest of my life?
Because right now, what’s going on feels like an accelerated processing of everything that’s happened to me.
A kind of growing up that should have happened over the twenty-two years since marrying Gareth, years during which I’ve been going around with my eyes closed, that’s instead been condensed into a few days of wake-up calls.
Closing my eyes, I try to calm my breathing. Then I’m thinking of Adam, a sigh coming from me. Is it possible that even now, there’s still a chance for us?
Stupid Tilly, I berate myself. He saw you fall – he simply did what any decent person would have done. But you haven’t heard the rest of his story, I remind myself. Suddenly I can’t wait to hear the rest of it – when – if – he does come back.
* * *
It’s astonishing how much I’m sleeping at the moment.
But sleep’s when the body repairs itself.
The mind, too – and I’ve a lot that needs repairing right now.
Not just physically. There are all these realisations I’m processing, those spidery little neurons regrowing, so that hopefully, in some way, I learn from this.
When I next wake up, it’s dark. Gazing towards the window, I can just about make out the stars twinkling; feeling a sudden pang. Oh, I’ve missed the stars.
Almost immediately, my eyes close and I drift off to sleep again, waking when a nurse comes back.
‘Tilly?’ she says quietly. ‘The doctor is here. He wishes to talk to you.’
I know from her face something’s wrong. ‘Why?’ My heart beats faster, the dratted bleeping machine trying to keep up.
‘He will tell you.’ She hesitates. ‘I will ask him to come to see you now.’
It isn’t a comfortable feeling at the best of times, lying in a hospital bed, reliant on other people. Especially when they know more than they’re letting on. A very long ten minutes passes before the nurse comes back with a man.
‘This is Doctor Elias, Tilly.’ She glances at him. ‘I will stay.’
His face is unreadable as he looks at me. ‘I have been looking at your scan results.’
I frown. ‘What scan?’
‘While you were unconscious, we carried out a scan of your brain. There was some indication of bleeding.’
I gasp out loud. ‘Bleeding? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned it before?’
‘Sometimes these things disappear untreated. But…’ He glances at the nurse. ‘In your case, we have concerns that it has not.’
I stare at them both. ‘Why?’
‘For one thing, your speech has become slurred,’ he says quietly. ‘We would not usually expect that – at this stage. Also, there is weakness in your left hand.’
There’s nothing wrong with my speech. Ask Alex, or Adam. ‘There is not,’ I say hastily. ‘I’ll show you.’ I raise my right hand with relative ease. But when it comes to my left, it takes superhuman effort to move my fingers.
‘This is why,’ the doctor says gravely, ‘we must carry out another scan. Just to be sure.’
I try to take in what he’s saying. ‘When?’ My words sound fine to me. My tongue feels thick, but after what I’ve been through, that’s to be expected. Isn’t it?
‘As soon as we can find someone to move you. You are lucky. It shouldn’t be too long.’
As I stare at him, suddenly there’s two of him. Then everything blurs, and I can feel fear like never before, the worst fear since all this started. A huge wave of it gathering momentum before rearing up and crashing over me.
‘Tilly? Can you open your eyes?’ The voice is distorted.
I try to open my eyes, to cry out, What’s happening to me? But my body won’t respond.
It’s like I’m taking a step back from my life as I consider that I really haven’t learned anything, have I?
That’s what this is about. It’s another sign.
I might be saying I’m not Tilly the hub, but underneath, I still am, still thinking about everyone else.
Worrying about everyone else. Dwelling on the past, on my losses, mistakes, regrets, none of which I can change.
Forgetting that in all this, there’s only one thing I have control over. And that’s myself.
All of this whizzes through my mind at warp speed – which means there can’t be too much wrong – as in that moment, I send a plea out to the Universe. Not God – like I’ve already said, I’m not religious.
I’ll stop worrying about other people – about my dad, about Rick, Gareth, my marriage… I’ll do anything. I have so much life left to live. Just please… show me how to get over this…
This time, the haziness is worse. No longer a place of in-between, it’s where fear resides, a dark, overpowering presence, as I realise there are no guarantees, no reasons why the Universe should listen to me.
There’s no dressing it up. No spin to put on it.
The truth is brutal; this last realisation one my entire life has been designed to avoid.
In essence, I am alone.