Chapter 64
SIXTY-FOUR
The beeps of the intensive care machine matched the rhythm of Scott Princeton’s heartbeat. Scarily slow. He’d been sitting for six hours, holding and stroking Cynthia’s hands, willing her to come round, to open her eyes and bark at him, like she usually did.
He’d been told that her riding hat hadn’t been done up tightly enough, so that when the horse threw her at a jump, it had flown off. She had hit her head on a tree trunk. Surgeons had removed a blood clot from her brain. The twenty-four-hour wait until they could assess the success of the surgery seemed endless.
Emma and Josh had gone to get him a drink and a sandwich as he refused to leave his wife’s side.
His red-eyed daughter put a packeted sandwich down gently next to him and stirred some sugar into his coffee. He took in her beautiful, young innocent face: the product of his relationship with the feisty, moral, driven, forthright woman who was lying here motionless, fighting for her life.
‘Don’t stay if you don’t want to, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. There is a room for me here, if I do need to sleep.’
‘OK, Daddy. I’m so tired and I don’t want to be asleep when Mummy wakes up. I’ll go home now, have a few hours’ sleep and come back early in the morning. You will call me if you need me, though, won’t you. I won’t turn my phone off.’
‘Of course, sweetheart.’ Feeling an intense surge of guilt, he stood up and held her to him – something he had not done for too many years. She felt frail, helpless – his baby girl.
‘I’ll look after Emma, Professor Princeton,’ Josh added in grown-up fashion.
‘Thanks, son.’ He shook Josh’s hand and pushed a wodge of cash into it. ‘Take that for petrol and anything else you might need.’
When they’d gone, he paced slowly around his home for the night, stretching his arms high above his gangly body. He thought he heard the rhythm of his wife’s breathing change and leant down so his face almost touched hers.
‘Come on, old girl, you can do this. I know you’re strong enough. Even if it’s for Emma and not me.’ His voice cracked.
A nurse came in and started doing the necessary regular checks.
He sat down and drank his coffee. He couldn’t eat. He looked at Cynthia’s bruised and swollen face with the tube down her throat helping her to breathe. She had always been so self-sufficient, never needy, and he felt an overwhelming rush of love for her.
What he and Maya had now paled into insignificance. Did he really love a twentysomething sex-worker? Somebody he would always have to look out for. Probably provide for. Or was it just the thrill of the sex, the naughtiness of the whole situation. Could he really see himself living with the girl, sharing wine, sharing memories? Did they really have anything in common? Did you need to have anything in common to be in love with someone? Actually, as you got older, he thought, yes, you did.
At whatever age a relationship starts, passion fades and then what are you left with? In twenty years’ time, where would he and Maya be? He would be sixty-five, she would be just forty-two – not even the age he was now. She might have traded him in for a younger model by then. He wasn’t ageing that well as it was.
Could he see himself sitting with her over breakfast? Opening The Sunday Times ? Chatting about current affairs? About life in general?
Here, in front of him, was his future. An intelligent, still very attractive woman, the mother of his beautiful daughter. What had he become? A selfish middle-aged man, who had spent too much time thinking of nothing but his own sexual gratification. It was time he woke up to what he had and not what he thought he could or should be having.
It distressed him even more that it had taken something as dreadful as this to make him realise the truth.
He liked Maya. He had missed her when he hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, and it really had been great to see her the other night. He couldn’t deny how he felt when he was with her, but it must have been lust, not real love, and if he didn’t face up to his responsibilities, he would end up a sad, lonely old man.