taken lightly. It can be quite debilitating. And the scarring and so on.’ I felt like she was running through a checklist of things to say to the family. ‘Why don’t you discuss it with her, anyway. If not, we’ll have to wait for an anonymous donor.’
I didn’t know what to say. How could I ask Cassie to do this, cut up her body, take bits out of it, for God’s sake? Did Mike even deserve it? I nodded mechanically, and the doctor gave me her tired, automatic smile, and went out. I’d promised I would talk to Cassie, but of course I didn’t have to. I was her mother, and she was underage. I could just not give consent. I could just not tell her the tissue matching was an option.
Mike was there, but not there. I felt I was alone in the room, even though he lay there, his chest rising and falling, his cheeks yellow-tinged. His face was growing greyer by the day. His skin was dry, shrivelled, washed by efficient hands with astringent hospital soap from a squirty jar. He would have hated that, with his moisturisers and toners. I brushed the hair from his face. Despite myself, despite knowing he’d cheated on me multiple times, and in my own home too, I felt guilty. I was as bad as him now. I’d taken Bill into our bed.
And yet I didn’t feel bad. I felt as if, finally, I’d done the right thing. How patient Bill was. What a stupid, naïve girl I’d been, dangling myself in front of him like that, darting back to Mike if things ever went too far. It served me right that Bill had been swept up by a beautiful, assured older woman. But it all could have gone so differently that night of the ball, and maybe it would have, if Martha Rasby hadn’t died.
‘What happened that night?’ I muttered to Mike, once again. ‘Did you really leave her safe in the garden?’ It didn’t sound right, as I said it out loud. If he was so concerned about helping the poor drunk girl, why not stay with her, see she was safe? Why take her to a secluded spot then just leave her? Oh Mike. Just wake up, will you, so I can ask you these questions? Under his dry grey eyelids, his eyes moved. I wondered what he was dreaming.
Mike was in a coma. Maybe he had no idea that, as soon as he woke up, he was going on trial for rape. He’d no idea I knew about the extent of his affair with Karen. Or that Jake was his son. Had he really not known, never suspected? I thought of the money going out of our accounts, the neat regular sum every month. Almost like child support. Had he been paying Karen off all this time? My mind told me it was impossible, unthinkable, but I knew that nothing was impossible any more. I wondered what he’d say, if he knew the choice was between him and Cassie, if he’d want her to donate part of her liver or if he’d rather take his chances on the transplant list. I wondered, once again, how we ever ended up here.
‘Mrs Morris?’ It was DC Devine again, with a light tread.
I jumped. ‘Oh, hello. There’s no change, I’m afraid.’
‘I know.’ He looked at me, his kind features rearranging themselves into formal, anxious lines. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
1996
Here’s what I know. Although it’s hard to recall the details over so many years, this is the truth as far as I can remember, as opposed to what I have sometimes imagined late at night, lying awake beside a sleeping Mike.
Martha was ‘on it’ that night, was what I heard muttered by Victoria Adams in the loos several hours into the ball, and I was flattered she was even speaking to me, Victoria who kept her own horse stabled just outside of town. ‘Jesus, she’s really on it,’ was what she said, flicking at her long blonde hair in the mirror. ‘I should take her home.’
I could tell she wanted me to talk her out of it. ‘She’ll be OK. Everyone’s a bit pissed. She won’t want to go.’ I lowered my voice and jerked my head to the door. ‘Karen never goes home when I try to make her.’ She rolled her eyes at me and I thought how strange it was, me and her in cahoots