Part IV
I
For the first few miles after leaving the hospital the roads were narrow and twisty, leading between the high Devon hedges. Because of the number of farm tractors that regularly used these lanes the road surface was muddy and slippery in the rain. Sue drove nervously and hesitantly, braking sharply as they approached corners, and steering around them with elaborate caution, craning her neck to see ahead. It was always dangerous for her to drive, demanding constant concentration, but these lanes presented an extra hazard to her. Fortunately the few oncoming cars they met were being driven slowly, so there was never any real danger of a collision, but the car felt large and unfamiliar and she wished they could reach the main road.
Richard was sitting beside her in the passenger seat, staring ahead and speaking hardly at all. He held the crossover seat belt with one hand, keeping it from pressing against his body, but whenever she braked for a corner he jerked forward with the momentum. She knew that he was tense because of the way she was driving, and that the lurching of the car was probably painful, but trying to compensate for this only made her more nervous.
A few miles beyond Totnes they came at last to the main A38 road, a modern two-lane highway with no sharp corners and only gentle gradients, and almost at once she felt more confident. She accelerated to a comfortable cruising speed of around sixty miles per hour. A fine drizzle was falling, and whenever they overtook a truck or some other large vehicle the windshield was blurred with a muddy spray. Once past Exeter the road joined the M5 motorway, leading directly via a link with the M4 to London.
At her suggestion Richard leaned forward and switched on the radio, tuning it to a number of stations before finding one they agreed on.
“Let me know if you’d like to stop somewhere,” she said.
“I’m all right for the moment. I think I’ll have to get out and walk around in about an hour.”
“How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
Sue felt fine too, glad to be returning permanently to London. She was exhausted by the frequent journeys to Devon in recent weeks. Richard had been walking unaided for almost a month now, and they had both grown impatient for his discharge. It was Dr. Hurdis who had delayed matters, saying he was unconvinced that the traumas had been dealt with. There had been several more sessions of hypnotherapy, but these, like the first, had been inconclusive. Richard himself was apparently untroubled, and anxious to be finished with the treatment.
Sue’s own dilemma was that she agreed with Hurdis; she knew for her own reasons that Richard had not yet come to terms with his past, but she was convinced that nothing more could be gained from conventional therapy. She had her own indecisions on this, a reflection of her personal needs. Richard had lost his glamour, and knew nothing of hers.
Adding to their wish to leave had been the practicalities of seeing him at Middlecombe. The deception of Middlecombe was that it looked like and felt like a hotel, but was of course a hospital. The comfortable surroundings, the discreet furnishings, the steward service, the haute cuisine food raised hopes of privacy and personal freedom, but the reality was that they rarely had a chance of being alone together. Walking in the grounds was the only time they had to themselves, but they could not do too much of this. And for the same reasons, Sue could not actually stay at Middlecombe and had always had to find lodgings outside, sometimes in Kingsbridge, once or twice in Dartmouth, and this had added to the expense of the visits and made further inroads into their time together.
In all her several visits, they had been alone in his room just once. Then, very tentatively, they had tried to make love. It was a failure; they were both too aware of their surroundings, the bed was functional hospital apparatus, and his body was still sore and stiff. Through the thin partition wall they had been able to hear two of the other patients speaking in the next room, and the need to be quiet became another inhibition. In the end they had settled for lying naked in each other’s arms for a few minutes. Even that had provided her with shocks: until then she had no notion of the extent of his injuries, and she was horrified by the scars from burns and operations. It marked a fresh phase in her feelings for him: the sheer scale of the hurt he had suffered awakened a new tenderness.
But now Middlecombe was behind them, and her own personal dilemma about Richard became pressing. What she wanted most was a clean start, a second chance, and on the surface there seemed no reason why this should not be. She still loved and needed him as much as ever, and simply because Richard had no memory of what had torn them apart before, the best thing she could do would be to build slowly from here.
She was rid of Niall at last. The accident had apparently destroyed Richard’s glamour. The emotional turmoil of finally breaking with Niall and of hearing about the car bomb had shocked her out of her own glamour.
Everything she had hoped for in the old days was now hers.
Richard, though, was intent on rediscovery. He wanted to know what had happened, how they had met, how they had loved, what had pulled them apart. She was terrified of his finding out, and had no idea what to do.
In this sense the glamour still united them, and still threatened them.
“I’m beginning to feel stiff,” Richard said, shifting in the seat and trying to readjust the position of the safety belt. “Shall we stop soon?”
They had been silent for most of the journey, listening to the classical music on Radio 3. She wondered what music he liked best, whether it was just classical music or if his taste extended to pop too. There were so many small things they did not know about each other, swept aside by the urgencies of love. What she remembered most about him was his passion, his exciting declarations, the impromptu of his feelings. In the hospital all this had been restrained by the conditions, but once they were home would she see this side of him again?
They were approaching Bristol, and just before the Avon Bridge she turned off the motorway and drove into the service area. After parking the car she went around to the passenger door and stood by it while Richard climbed out. He was able to do this on his own, insisted on it, but she wanted to be close by him. She reached into the back of the car for his walking stick, then locked up.
It had stopped raining, but the tarmac of the parking area was wet and scattered with puddles. A cool wind blew in from Wales, just across the Severn estuary.
She bought two cups of tea and some biscuits, and took them to the table where Richard was waiting. The cafeteria, brightly lit and garishly colored, was crowded with other motorists. She had never seen one of these places empty. From outside they could hear the electronic groans and whines of the video machines.
“Are you looking forward to being at home?” she said.
“Of course I am. But it’s been a long time. I keep thinking about what the flat was like when I bought it. It had just been modernized, and it was empty. It’s difficult to imagine it with furniture.”
“I thought you said you couid remember it?”
“My memories are all mixed up. I keep thinking of the day I moved in. I’d put the carpets at the back of the van, so I had to move all the furniture again. And I can remember later, when you were there, but it doesn’t feel like the same place. I can remember them simultaneously, one on top of the other. Do you know what I mean?”
“Not really,” she said.
“You haven’t been back there, have you?”
“No.” It had actually occurred to her once that she ought to call in to see if everything was all right, but she had never done so.