Thieving Fear

It was clear to Hugh that she was inviting no more, but at the end of some visible musing Annie said 'One thing that was funny – well, you mightn't have thought it was. No, I don't think you would have.'

With enough impatience for all three of Rory's visitors Charlotte said 'What wasn't funny?'

'It was just they were doing something for your Rory and the screen really was round his bed.'

'But you didn't see anything,' Hugh urged.

'Do you know, he got me so I almost thought I did.' Perhaps Hugh's expression made her add 'Don't fret, it was just a shadow. Nobody's that thin.'

Hugh was trying to decide whether he could risk looking behind him when Annie patted her husband's hand before levering herself to her feet. 'Will you keep an eye out for him while I go to the littlest room?'

'For your husband,' Charlotte said.

'There's nobody else for me to care about.'

This silenced Rory's visitors until Annie left the ward, but as soon as the doors met with a gentle thud Hugh said 'It was him.'

'I don't know why you sound so pleased about it,' Charlotte said.

'I'm not,' Hugh said and was provoked to turn to her. 'You know what I meant.'

'Perhaps I don't want to know.'

'You do, don't you, Ellen?' When she only held up her hands and lowered them as they strayed within her vision Hugh said 'Know, I mean, not want. I don't want either.'

'Then try not being so obsessed with it,' said Charlotte.

'That won't make it go away, will it?'

As he saw that they ought to be discussing how this could be achieved Charlotte said 'What are you imagining now? What sense does it make?'

Hugh felt his face grow blotchy, and was about to protest that it wasn't up to him alone to interpret the situation when he realised 'He stopped us coming last night, didn't he?'

'And the point would be . . .'

'Maybe he doesn't like us all to be together. Maybe he doesn't want us talking about him.'

'Rory can't, Hugh,' Ellen said as if addressing a patient.

'Maybe he's going to be able to now we're here. Maybe that's what he, not Rory, we all know who we're talking about, maybe that's what he's afraid of.'

'Ellen was talking about Rory.'

This felt like several rebukes compressed into one, but Hugh might have kept at his subject if he hadn't heard the ward doors bump discreetly open. Apparently both of his cousins welcomed the excuse to look away from him. 'Thanks,' Annie murmured as she returned to her husband's bedside. 'Sorry for going on about being thin. I didn't mean anyone here.'

Ellen's gaze fell inwards and did its best to hide. Before Hugh could revive his subject, if that was advisable within Annie's hearing, the doors emitted another polite thud and let in a tall pale figure. The pallor belonged mostly to a white coat, though the doctor's hair was on its way to matching. He frowned afresh at each patient he visited, scribbling observations on a clipboard, and gave Rory what Hugh hoped was a deft examination. Charlotte was opening her mouth to speak to him, since he'd acknowledged the visitors with no more than a single nod, when Annie said 'Excuse me, doctor, could I have a word?'

'Please,' he said and indicated the exit with the clipboard.

As he marched away as if impelled by his bent head with Annie in pursuit Hugh blurted 'Shouldn't we talk to him?'

'We're going to,' Charlotte said and sprang to her feet as though escaping from a trap.

'We'd better not all go crowding round him,' Ellen said.

'Just you go, Charlotte, and you can tell us what he says.'

Charlotte hurried down the ward but stopped short of the doors, the twin windows of which framed Annie's inaudible conversation with the doctor. As whichever door Annie was beyond let her reappear in full while Charlotte dodged past the other, Hugh said urgently 'What do you think while she's not here?'

Ellen gazed along Rory's immobile body at him for so many seconds that Hugh wondered if he had spoken too low. He was about to repeat the question when she said 'I can't see how talking about it will help. It might even do the opposite.'

'You mean you believe me?' This heartened him so much it left thought behind. 'We've got to persuade Charlotte,' he said.

'No we haven't. Maybe if we don't keep talking about it it'll go away,' Ellen said under most of her breath.

'Don't mind me,' Annie called across the aisle. 'I'm not listening.'

This made Hugh feel as if someone besides Ellen were, but he had to ask 'Wouldn't Rory want us to do anything we have to that'll help him?'

'I'm sure he would, only he can't know what that is.'

'But suppose we have to –' Hugh sucked in the opposite of a gasp, which left him briefly speechless. 'Did you see that?' he cried.

Ellen shook her head vigorously and seemed dismayed by the sensation. 'What now, Hugh?'

'His hand moved. His other hand.'

'I didn't see.'

'They do,' Annie contributed, if that was the word. 'It means they're still in there somewhere.'

'Has Rory that you've seen?' Hugh enquired, however impolitely with his back turned.

'Not that I've noticed, and I've been keeping an eye.'

'Ellen, I think I made him.'

He gazed at Rory's hand in the hope it might respond – just the twitch of a finger would do. 'I wish we could,' said Ellen.

'We can. I did, that's what I'm saying. Didn't you see, Annie?'

'To tell you the honest truth, I didn't.'

Hugh blundered to the seat Charlotte had vacated. He closed his hands around Rory's and then relinquished it, not merely because it felt limp as tripe and yet unnaturally warm, perhaps with sunlight through the window overlooking the bed, but in case he might appear to be manipulating it. 'You can hear us, can't you, Rory?' he said and found he didn't know how loud to speak, which left him uncertain where his voice might reach. 'Do you know what you want us to do?'

That was stupidly ambitious; the blazing of Hugh's face told him as much. Even urging Rory to signal yes and no with a finger, as he would in any number of films, might be. 'You know what we were talking about, don't you?' Hugh nevertheless insisted. 'Did he do this to you?'

No doubt someone was digging below the ajar window, and a breeze had brought the smell of earth in. 'Don't, Hugh,' Ellen said.

'Don't what?' Hugh retorted, fiercely for him. 'He doesn't seem to mind.'

'He isn't going to, is he?' Ellen's face worked as if she hardly knew how to shape it, and she sat forwards to lower her voice further still. 'You're just upsetting yourself and me as well. We both know the crash did this.'

'Yes, but what made him crash?'

As she gazed sadly at him Hugh was afraid that Rory would agree with her by indicating him with a finger. His brother didn't stir, however. Might a more explicit question rouse him? Hugh was searching for one that wouldn't sound like an attempt to displace his own guilt when the ward doors crept open. Their slowness unnerved him even once he saw they were admitting Charlotte.

He set about vacating her chair, but she waved him down. 'I'll sit at the end for a change.'

Ellen barely waited for her to finish. 'What did the doctor say?'

'Physically Rory isn't in a bad way at all. Not even any broken bones. The van's a wreck but his belt saved him.'

'You're making it sound as if that's bad somehow.'

'Of course that isn't, but –' Charlotte sat on the edge of the chair in the aisle. 'They've given him scans and everything else they do,' she said, 'and the doctor says they're going to change the treatment if there's no improvement soon.'

'I expect that's all they can do, isn't it?'

'It may be, but that's not my point. I couldn't get him to come right out and say it, but I don't think they know why Rory's in a coma. He couldn't tell me any reason at all.'