And maybe, because I’d refused to do anything about it, Slick was dead and Clare was smashed to pieces. Sometimes you have to face the consequences of your actions. God knows, I’d had to do that a few times. But it didn’t compare to living with the knowledge that I’d done nothing.
The bell had just rung on the second round of me beating myself up about that when my father walked in.
Actually, that doesn’t begin to do justice to his dramatic entrance. He swept in, looking tanned and healthy, with the kind of arrogance only surgeons at the top of their game can truly master. I teetered between dislike and admiration of his utter self-assurance.
An entourage of medical staff scurried in his wake including, I noticed, the young doctor to whom I’d given his number. They halted en masse in the corridor and let him come on towards me alone.
“So here we are again, Charlotte.” He greeted me with the slightest of wry smiles, although his voice was formal and without inflection. I couldn’t really tell if I’d annoyed or gratified him by my interference.
I stood, realising as I did so that he and a number of those around him were dressed in surgical blues. I hid my resentment that he hadn’t thought to seek me out as soon as he’d arrived by telling myself he’d gone straight to his patient instead. Never one to mistake his priorities, my father.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Being prepped for surgery,” he said, not quite answering the question. He caught my expression and sighed. “Your friend has serious and extensive injuries, but I feel we may be able to do something for her.”
I nodded, his confident tone lifting some of the weight from my tense shoulders. It made me suddenly tired and only too aware of the lack of food and the excess of coffee I’d consumed since breakfast.
“When can I see her?”
“Now – but no more than a minute,” he said, giving me a firm stare over the top of his glasses. “I would not normally allow it, but Clare has been asking for you quite insistently. Please bear in mind that she’s received a lot of pain relief and things will be a little hazy for her.”
“Thank you,” I said. An inadequate display of gratitude but the best I could manage. “And thank you for coming.”
“You might like to bear in mind that had I not still had some official connections with this hospital, your request would have been impossible,” he pointed out sternly. He paused, then added in a surprisingly gentle tone, “I can’t always come to your rescue, Charlotte, however much I might wish to.”
Ignoring my confusion at that, he turned and strode away. I was left to be scooped up by the junior staff in his wake. “This way, Miss Foxcroft.”
“It’s Fox,” I said automatically. I got an inquisitive glance in reply but I didn’t feel like elaborating. I’d shortened my surname after I was chucked out of the army to distance myself both from my parents and my past, but the reasons were too long and too tedious to go into with strangers.
They took me straight down to the prep room outside the operating theatre where they were going to work on Clare. I was given plastic over-boots and a gown and told to scrub my hands before I was allowed in. I found my friend lying on a trolley amid a stack of what appeared to be retro-industrial machinery. She looked pale as milk and about eight years old.
“Charlie!” she whispered, her voice fogged and edgy with the pain. “God, am I glad to see you.”
I moved in and clutched her icy fingers, mindful of the butterfly drip plugged into the back of her hand. She seemed to be wired up to just about everything.
She was wearing a short hospital gown that left her grossly swollen and misshapen legs uncovered. Both were bathed yellow with iodine and the bruises that were already starting to bloom. My eyes skimmed over her left thigh. It looked unnervingly flattened, like a rubber moulding from which all inner support has been removed. Both kneecaps were clearly dislocated.
I tried to avoid looking at the area around her hips. At the linked thin metal rods sticking out from her abdomen that were holding her pelvis together with all the sophistication of a Meccano set. Her modesty was protected by a piece of light sterile cloth draped across her lower body that resembled a partial collapse at a Big Top.
I swallowed and flicked back to her face.
“Don’t worry, Clare. They’ll fix you,” I said, my voice fierce with unshed tears. “I promise.”
She made a sort of fluttering motion with her other hand. “Just as long as they make it stop hurting,” she said faintly.
“They’ll do that, too,” I said. I hesitated, but couldn’t put off the next question. “Where’s Jacob?”
She shifted uncomfortably, gasped as a new spasm gripped her body. “Ireland,” she managed. “Don’t know where exactly. You know how he hates mobile phones. He’s travelling. Somewhere in the south. Buying trip.”
She began to cry without seeming to be aware of it, tears spilling down her cheeks. One of the theatre nurses threw me a sharply reproachful glance.
“You’ll have to leave now,” she said.
“I’ll find him,” I said to Clare, ignoring the nurse. It wasn’t Jacob’s fault. Thank Christ for that. “What the hell hit you?”
“Transit van,” she murmured. “Determined sod.” Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment then snapped open like she was having to fight to stay with me. “Take care of the dogs for me, Charlie. They’ve been stuck in all day. Poor old Bonny. And don’t let—”
“You really will have to leave,” the nurse said. “Right now!”
“I will,” I said, answering both of them at the same time. I leaned forwards, urgent. “Clare, what do you mean about the van? Determined to do what? Knock you off?”
The nurse grabbed my arm but I shook her loose. Another of the surgical team seized me by the shoulder. I stopped struggling.
“All right, all right, I’m going!” I snapped, allowing them to hustle me outside.
As the doors swung shut behind me I got one last look at Clare. Her eyes were closed again and she lay still and quiet as a corpse against the white pillows.
***
The same nurse who’d ejected me reappeared after a few minutes and passed me a set of keys. I recognised the key-ring as Clare’s and realised the nurse must have been sent scurrying back up to the ward to collect it.
“Mr Foxcroft strongly suggests that you go home and get some food and some sleep,” she said. “He’ll call you as soon as she comes out of theatre.” There was a respectful note in her voice that hadn’t been there previously.
I nodded. “I’ll be at Clare’s,” I said, and left her the phone number on another scrap of paper. I seemed to be handing a lot of those out today.
I retrieved the Suzuki from the car park where, surprisingly enough, it hadn’t been either clamped or stolen. Then I rode sedately through the centre of Lancaster and back out again, heading north.