Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
This is what Nora imagines.
What she sees happening, as if on film, as she floats out of her body, time paused but also on fast forward as the doctor comes down the hall.
In reality, he stops in front of her, this doctor in his scrubs who confirms her name and then Robin’s.
He says what he says about the brain bleed.
He says what he says about the trauma occurring, several weeks ago, and she sees Bren’s staggered white face, she sees that he is hearing what she is hearing, but not imagining what she is imagining, that’s all owed to her deep-set, private panic that does not actually come to pass, time frozen, worst-case scenario, flooding like a burst bank in her head.
What he actually says is that the procedure went well.
That it is a waiting game, now, to see how he recovers, that the anaesthesia will wear off soon, and then Robin will be awake.
Alive.
Are you all right, Miss Harper. Do you need to sit down.
Do you understand what I’m saying, here; this really is the best we could have hoped for, at this point, he’s so lucky he got here when he did, a marvel, really, that he was still walking and talking with that build-up of fluid in his brain.
It’s so rare, in a man his age, quite something – if he’d been a year or two younger, even, it could have been a different story, something to do with the space between the skull and the brain, widening with age – it’s lucky, again, so lucky.
Lucky.
The only word that makes sense in her head.
She will sew it into her dress. Carry it, always, as if it’s stitched into her heart.
The doctor says some more things, mostly to Bren because Nora can’t follow, says he’ll be back soon with more information, that they should take a seat, call loved ones, if they need to, and Bren finds his voice, Bren is the one to talk first, Bren is the one who asks if she can see him, who says they are meant to be getting married, today, and the doctor says yes, but only her; only family; and Bren says he’ll wait, tells her to go.
_
How did this happen, Goose asks Nora an hour later, both of them beside the hospital bed.
Machines bleeping. Shadows striped through the blinds.
Robin is out of it, heavy from the anaesthetic, the near-death brain injury that he survived because he is lucky, got himself to A and E just in time, wandered to a pharmacist that morning for extra-strength painkillers and that pharmacist sent him straight to the hospital.
Nora will bake this pharmacist a cake, every year, for the rest of her life. She’ll offer to make her wedding dress, too, when she sees the small diamond ring on her left hand the day that she goes to thank her, holds her, cries, tells her thank you, over and over.
For now, though, she is sitting in her own dress with Robin’s brother by his bedside, and Bren has missed his flight and left the hospital to make calls, gather supplies, because that is what being there for her, right now, has to look like, and there’s nothing like a near tragedy, a near miss, to show someone what kind of person they are: what kind of person they want to be.
_
You know what I like about hospitals, Goose says. Nora raises her eyes from Robin’s face, unable to conceive of an answer.
The vending machines, he says. They always have the really retro stuff you don’t ever see anywhere else.
Like what, asks Bren, who is sitting by the window. He’s pretended to be Robin’s brother, too, to be allowed in; has not left Nora’s side, other than to make the calls that she can’t. Brought her water, tea and a packet sandwich she hasn’t been able to eat, which Goose has devoured instead.
Caramacs, Goose says. For one.
Yes, Bren says. I forgot about those.
Right? And Pom-Bears.
My god.
And Nik Naks, Goose says, but the really weird flavour. Scampi and lemon, I mean, what is that.
Something that shouldn’t be in a crisp packet, Bren agrees.
And yet still tempts me, Goose says, every time.
Nora is looking at Robin’s face again, only half listening. He could be sleeping; is sleeping. The machine steady, bleeping. His brain bled out, but drained clean.
Bren says he needs them in his life. Like now.
Goose asks him to get two packets. Three, if Nora wants some.
I don’t want any Nik Naks! she says, because she is astounded at the pair of them, at how they are talking about such things.
I didn’t have you down as one of those brides that wouldn’t eat anything on her wedding day, Goose says.
Stop, Nora says, her voice thin. Please.
Bridezillas, man, Goose says, to Bren. Could you get me a Lucozade, too?
_
While Bren does that, Goose takes a call from his parents, who do not live nearby, who are making their way here.
Robin’s mum calls every half an hour, in case of change, and then that change comes.
While Nora is alone with him, not moving.
Her hand on his. The afternoon light, fading, like their supposed wedding day, when he stirs, and opens his eyes.
They are both still for a moment as Robin adjusts.
Nora afraid that if she moves, she will break it, this thing that is happening, this real-life miracle, this paramount, perfect vision of him waking from sleep to look at her, the way he has done every morning for the last nine years, and will do, for years to come, and then he smiles and says hey, don’t cry.
_
He – what?
He almost died?
I think so, says Bren, in his mother’s kitchen. It was touch and go.
Why didn’t you say so, on the phone?!
Nora didn’t want anyone to panic.
Panic! Too right I’d have panicked! My son-in-law, dressed to the nines for his wedding day, ends up having brain surgery, instead?! Panic ensues! Panic is appropriate! Panic is the only plausible reaction!
Freya, calm down.
Stop panicking, you mean?
It is late. There are two plates on the table where the mothers have shared dinner without him; presuming he was on a plane somewhere over South-East Asia, by now.
Bren has collected things that Nora might need, from next door: a toothbrush, a change of clothes from the selection she leaves at her mother’s, and he’s just downing a glass of water, the sound of the dishwasher normalising the otherwise surreal set of circumstances that have brought him back home.
It was you, wasn’t it, Bren, Freya says, as Bren puts his glass down. You poisoned him, as a part of your master plan, to make Nora yours?
But Bren cannot even laugh.
Something has happened to him, since that moment in the waiting room. Since he saw everything he had wondered about, crystallised into a real possibility. Nora, without Robin. Nora, with her own world collapsing. And everything has slowed for him, since.
Everything has clarified.
Freya stands up, then, and pats down the pockets of her dungarees. Bren is leaning on the kitchen counter, his rucksack abandoned somewhere. At the hospital, he thinks. In the waiting room where he’d left it. He realises, with detached interest, that this doesn’t matter to him.
Where are my car keys, Freya asks.
In the bamboo bowl, Josie guesses, in your hall?
I think the two of them might need some space, actually, Bren says.
Jackson Pollocks to that, Freya says. You give people space when they’re grieving, or heartbroken. Not when they don’t die and you need to tell them how glad you are about that.
The surgeon said he needs rest, Bren insists.
We can be restful company, can’t we? I’d like to see him, this son-in-law of mine! And my daughter, in her wedding dress.
They didn’t actually get married, Bren says.
But for all intents and purposes, Freya says, today is their wedding day. D’you know, she says to Josie, I never realised how okay I would feel about Nora marrying Robin, until it transpired she might not.
Same, Bren thinks. But does not say.
Shall we take grapes? Josie asks, after a short silence.
Nobody wants grapes, Josephine, Freya says. A stiff drink, maybe. Champagne? What is it one gifts, at a wedding, where nobody got married but nobody died, either?
There is a longer silence then, as the reality of this lands for all of them. That lucky cat, being lucky. Waving its left-hand paw.
_
Goose says he’ll come back tomorrow, with their parents, first thing.
Please don’t, Robin groans, but it is tentative, his heart not in it, because the realisation of all that has happened – or nearly happened – is setting in.
At Nora’s request, Bren has staved off a visit from Freya and Josie, too, so once Goose is gone the two of them are left alone.
To try to sleep. To hold each other, knowing that sleep won’t come.
You couldn’t write this, Nora says, curled onto the bed beside him. She is still in her wedding dress, too tired to get changed into the clothes Bren had dropped off.
You could stitch it, though, Robin says. Maybe along that bit, there.
He points to a swathe of fabric where there is space for something more.
A new date. A new line. A new part of their story.
She likes the negative space between the black thread: could’ve kept stitching, forever, but she’d had to draw a line somewhere, show him the work when it felt done.
Except they aren’t done. Won’t ever be. That’s the point of a shared story, she’s realised.
Life advice, Robin poses, tracing the blank space at her waist. Never clean the gutters, unsupervised.
Or be extremely careful on ladders, Nora suggests.
Will I have seven years’ bad luck, now?
That’s broken mirrors, Nora says. It’s walking under a ladder that’s bad.
Falling off one doesn’t seem the best plan, either.
Not when you ignore the blinding head pain that comes afterwards.
It wasn’t blinding, Robin reasons. My elbow hurt more, at the time, and the headache was sort of manageable, until yesterday. I just thought it was approaching forty, maybe. Or the wedding, or work. The whole Bren debacle, adding a bit of undue stress.
A bit of undue subdural haematoma, Nora says.