Now that Izzy had started her degree at Leeds it had been decided that during term time Marianne and Edward would look after Callum from Monday to Friday and Izzy would be back home on Friday night; at least, that was the theory, though sometimes it was not till Saturday that she would make it home to be with Callum. They had bought her a car, which Andy was also insured to drive, on condition that he never again took Izzy on the back of his motorbike, but she wasn’t too keen on either of them driving the car late at night after a concert somewhere the other side of London.
‘Andy still on the scene then?’ said Dorrie.
‘Yes, he’s stuck around – I have to acknowledge that much in his favour, though part of me is inclined to think that Izzy would be better off without him.’
Andy didn’t seem to have a job or any visible means of support – living, Marianne suspected, partly off Izzy and partly by scrounging occasional handouts from his mother in Glasgow. In term time he mostly hung around Izzy in her hall at Leeds; when in Cambridge he seemed to doss down at a squat somewhere off Mill Road. They didn’t object to him staying with Izzy in their house but often he preferred not to – or Izzy discouraged him, they were never quite sure which. Possibly he found their home too restrictive for his drinking and smoking habits.
‘I really must go now,’ said Dorrie, giving Marianne a long hug. ‘It’s really all turned out pretty well hasn’t it? The great baby drama.’
‘I suppose it has,’ said Marianne, laughing. ‘Have a fantastic Christmas and see you in the New Year.’
‘I will – and give my love to Ed and your beautiful daughter.’
Returning to the tree, Marianne was thinking about her parents arriving on Sunday, when she heard the front door slam and a few seconds later Edward came into the room.
‘You’ve just missed Dorrie.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ he said, kissing Marianne and standing back to admire her decorations. ‘I like it. But, I wonder, don’t you think perhaps there are too many of those silver baubles – particularly on the window side?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Marianne, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.
‘What news of Izzy?’ he said, walking back to the kitchen and pouring Marianne and himself a glass of wine.
‘I don’t expect her home till tomorrow. She said that if she can get away in time she might try to get back tonight, but I doubt she will.’
‘Doesn’t she have to go back to Leeds anyway?’
‘Apparently – for a couple of days to finish some work.’
‘Why doesn’t she go straight back to Leeds then?’
‘Ed, it’s the weekend. It’s supposed to be her time with Callum. Also, I need her here. I can’t get anything done if I’m looking after Callum all day.’
‘Well, it’s a freezing night, not ideal for driving – I presume she’s got the car?’
‘That’s a point – I suppose she might have taken the train.’
‘Well, if she comes by train I hope she’ll get a taxi and not hang around at the station for a bus. If she’s not too late I don’t mind picking her up.’
Conversation that evening centred on the arrangements for Christmas and the still unresolved issue of whether Claire and her family would come to Cambridge for Christmas Day or whether they would all go down to London to the rather grand house Claire’s husband Peter had bought in Holland Park. They heard nothing from Izzy that evening and shortly before midnight they went to bed.
Marianne dreamed she was in Vermont. They were all skating on the pond: her parents, Claire and her family, Edward, Izzy, and Larry was there too – or was it Daniel? Whoever it was, he was pulling Callum round and round on a little plastic sledge and for some reason he seemed to think that he was Callum’s father. Izzy skated behind Callum, lithe and graceful in her black woollen tights and red skirt, her fur hat pulled down over her ears, gazing with maternal pride at her tiny son. There was music playing, and now Izzy was doing pirouettes, faster and faster, but the music was too loud; sharp, high notes like bells – bells which turned into shrill ringing, dragging Marianne back into consciousness. She picked up the phone.
‘Hello… What… who are you? Yes… say that again. Yes, I’m Marianne Davenport… Oh God… Oh no…’
‘Who is it, Marianne?’
‘…the police,’ she whispered, turning to Edward. ‘Yes,’ she said back into the telephone. ‘Yes, I understand – yes, the hospital… Yes, we’ll come at once…’ Putting back the receiver, she said, ‘Oh, Ed, I can’t bear it – there’s been an accident…’
It was impossible later for Marianne to reconstruct the events of that night or the following days. Time ceased to be linear. It bulged; it contracted; it sprung forward at terrifying speed only to stall in a paralysing moment of agony from which she seemed unable to escape. Terrible fear, small shafts of hope, but mostly a crushing pain – a pain in her chest so all-consuming that it seemed impossible that she would be able to draw her next breath. There was also anger – a deep rage that this worthless boy had broken his promise not to take her on his bike and had destroyed their precious daughter.
On the fourth day – the nurse told her this; she had no idea how much time had elapsed – Marianne sat with Edward at Izzy’s bedside with a form and a pen in her hand. She looked at her daughter, then again at the form.
The eyes were the hardest part. She knew them too well. Until she had suckled Izzy as an infant she hadn’t believed it was possible for any human being to have such pure blue eyes: huge, round irises of the deepest sapphire which seemed to leave no room for the surrounding white. As she got older the blue became lighter with flecks of green and grey. Sometimes, if she was in a rage, Marianne would see flashes of yellow, like tiny nuggets of gold. But when she was happy her eyes seemed to bombard you with a beam of brilliant blue particles; it was an effervescence which few could resist.
The heart was easy. She was not sentimental about the heart. I could say that Izzy had a big heart, she thought, and it would be true; I could say she was generous hearted and that would also be true; I could even say that part of me was lodged in her heart, but what use are metaphors now? She ticked the box for heart just like she ticked the box for liver and kidneys and all those vital bits of our anatomy which we know are there but never see. Those parts were easy, but she couldn’t do it for the eyes.
Edward reached out and put his hand on her arm. Marianne gave a small shake of her head. Gently he took the form from her, studied it, then ticked the box for eyes, signed it and handed it back to her.
Marianne took the pen from him and for a few moments she stared at Izzy’s profile. Her small delicate nose, so perfectly proportioned, and her eyebrows with that distinctive curl which formed a slight upward tick at the outer extremity. The accident which destroyed her brain had left her face untouched, but the tape over her eyes and her slack mouth with the ugly ventilation tube marred the illusion of a natural sleep. Eventually she forced herself to look down at the form and make a scribble under Edward’s firm signature. A half-hearted, deniable, apology for a signature was all she would permit herself before she dropped the form on the chair and hurried from the room.
On the way home in the car Edward said, ‘It’s just the corneas they need.’
‘It said eyes,’ she replied.
‘Yes, but the only part of the eye they use is the cornea.’
‘Old people donate their corneas,’ she said. ‘They must have enough of them.’
‘They like to match up ages so they need corneas from young people as well.’