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53. END OF SUMMER 2013

It is Robert who is at Nicholas’s bedside when he opens his eyes, and it is Robert who tells Catherine the news. He sends her a text and she receives it during her second session with the therapist she had agreed to see through work. She had almost not gone, but she had a feeble hope that maybe it would help her. The therapist frowns when the text comes in. Her phone should have been turned off. Catherine stands up and says she has to leave. The young woman cocks her head and says nothing. The therapeutic experience feels to Catherine as if she is having her teeth individually pulled out with great earnestness and super care, and that the new dentures she will eventually be fitted with will make her feel a whole lot better. In the meantime though, it is important for her to get used to the gaping, bloody holes in her mouth.

“It’s my son. He’s just opened his eyes.”

The head cocks the other way.

“He’s in intensive care.”

A look first of surprise, then of enlightenment, as if the therapist suddenly understands what this is all about. She doesn’t, but it’s not her fault. Catherine hasn’t told her. She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked any of the right questions and Catherine had only responded directly to questions, not volunteering anything herself. She is an uncooperative patient, a patient who seems unwilling or unable to help herself.

When Catherine arrives at the hospital, a nurse tells her Robert left five minutes ago. He is careful to time his arrivals and departures so he doesn’t have to see her, but she is not sure she cares anymore. She sinks to her knees, leaning into Nicholas, telling him that she is there; telling him everything is going to be all right; telling him he is safe now: telling him she loves him more than anybody else — more than she has ever loved anybody. Nicholas has opened his eyes but he doesn’t focus on anything. He stares at nothing, unresponsive, but the doctor is hopeful. Patience. It will take time. They will carry out more tests, but so far the signs are good. He is likely to make a slow but possibly full recovery. It is good news. If the good news had not come, Catherine had decided she would kill herself. She’d thought about how she might do it. Throwing herself under a tube train was not an option: pills and alcohol were her preferred choice of death.

Robert still doesn’t know she was raped. She is waiting for the moment when he will be told. She hopes it will come soon. Surely Stephen Brigstocke will find the courage to do this one thing for her? If he doesn’t then she will have to tell Robert herself and she feels sick at the thought that he might not believe her. She shouldn’t have to persuade him, she shouldn’t have to convince him that she is telling the truth, but she fears that that is exactly what she would have to do. His contempt for her is so solid that now he is more likely to believe Stephen Brigstocke than her but still, it will be cruel to leave him in ignorance much longer. She is punishing him by delaying the revelation, but it was Robert who was so quick to allow a wall to come between them, Robert who slammed the door shut on her.

She will not hesitate to tell Nicholas. Now she knows they are both going to live, he must hear it from her and no one else. However painful it is for both of them, he must know. But he is not strong enough yet; it will be a little while before he is ready. She strokes his hand. His fingernails are too long. She will bring in some clippers and tidy them up. She has a sudden memory of the tiny clippers she’d used on his nails when he was little. How soft his nails were. In the end she’d used her teeth to gently nibble them down so he wouldn’t scratch himself in the night. She checks the time; Robert should have been here by now but she is glad that he is not. She catches the eye of a nurse. She saw Catherine look at her watch; she disapproves. They all disapprove of Catherine. They prefer Robert. The poor husband. The devoted father. She is an hysterical, unstable mother. The woman who attacked that frail old man. Once she would have cared what they thought, but not anymore. She lays her head on the bed and closes her eyes, grateful for this extra time alone with her son.