Chapter Eight

Sorcha was lying as flat as she could on the bed, with the blinds closed and the lights off. She had a pillow over her face to keep more of the light from her eyes, but she’d had to position it carefully so that it wasn’t pressing down at all on the right side of her neck or her shoulder. Hospital pillows seemed much heavier than the ones at home, and if she left it resting on the bits of her which had been slashed by the cocktail glass and then stuck and sewn back together it really wasn’t very comfortable at all. Her head had to be tilted to the left as well, so as not to rest on the bit which had borne the impact with the window. Trying to hold it at the right angle was almost impossible, so she had wedged another pillow just to the left of her head so that her cheek could rest against it, and after the exertion required to get herself into that position she didn’t intend to move for quite some time.

Lucky was a very peculiar word, if you actually started to think about it for very long; and it was even more peculiar if you tried to think about when neither your mind nor your body was functioning particularly well. Lucky seemed to encompass a fractured skull, concussion, a mildish degree of brain trauma and thirty-something stitches. Lucky meant waves of nausea suddenly hitting her from nowhere, shooting pains which were miles away from the bits of her that were meant to be hurt, and an awful feeling of being stripped bare and vulnerable to anything else that the world might decide to throw at her. Time had gone wrong, too. Mostly she felt outside of it, looking in. Even when they were still checking on her once every half an hour, to make sure that she hadn’t had a fit or slipped back into a coma, time had felt like it was happening to the people buzzing around her. It was difficult to understand was that out there, in the real world, it had actually only been a few days.

She was definitely getting better, though, and the nausea had more or less gone, but she had felt shaken when they had started to talk about sending her home. She didn’t like hospitals particularly, but right now nowhere else would have felt safe. And then they had hit the “is there someone who can stay with you for a while?” problem, anyway. Why did hospitals always assume that you have parents, children or a spouse ready to drop everything and watch over you? When you live on your own and have no children, no spouse, and your only remaining parent requires near full-time care from your only sibling they don’t quite know what to do with you, other than keep on asking the question until you suddenly invent a convenient friend or relative who can just drop everything and come to stay.

Pippa staying would have been worse than being on her own. Pip was fabulous, but also fabulously unreliable and prone to being terrified by the most mundane of things: there had even been one time when she had developed a phobia of pavements. She had come in on the Wednesday afternoon, and brought clothes and other essentials, but the world had barely been in focus at that point, and Pip had just seemed to be talking much, much too fast. Something had obviously happened as she left as well, although Sorcha wasn’t quite sure what. The rooms were reasonably sound-proofed, but she thought she heard some kind of scuffle in the corridor, and when she had tried to call Pip once she was more sure about which way was up she had just hit Daniel. He had droned on interminably and come up with a large number of nonsensical reasons why she couldn’t speak to her. Experience said that Pippa would re-emerge at some point, so Sorcha willed herself not to think about her any more.

Noman was clearly not an option either, although he had sorted out the hospital and the press, and had called a couple of times to check that things were moving in the right direction (his phrase, not hers: movement didn’t really come into her perception of the situation). He had come in too soon, on Wednesday, too, looking particularly unsure of himself, and had kept on calling her “little one” which had sounded like he really meant someone else. She had asked him where he had been, and he just kept saying that he had been ‘around’ and that she must have missed him. That had been about all of the conversation she could muster, mostly because of the hyacinths.

For all of his many, varied flaws, Norman knew how to do flowers. He sent them on birthdays, he sent them as thank yous, he made sure that they were waiting in hotel rooms after long days in meetings and on planes; and he had bought with him what was likely to have been a very beautiful bouquet about which she knew precious little other than that it had hyacinths in it. As soon as she had smelt them, it had been as if the room was filled with a piercing, howling feedback sound. She had begged him to get rid of them, but he had frozen and assumed that she was talking gibberish. Then she had thrown up, while trying to cover her ears.

She’d been relieved that he had left, but happy, too, that he kept on calling. It was probably the best she could hope for under the circumstances.

In the end Jane came to the rescue again. She had a christening at which she was due to be a Godparent on the Sunday, and a main board presentation on the Monday, but she would fly out on Monday night and retrieve her on the Tuesday. Sorcha had the phone propped in among the pillows as she asked for at least the fifteenth time whether she minded.

“Of course I don’t. I know that you’d do the same for me, I’m just sorry that I can’t get there sooner.”

“I never have had to do it for you, though, have I? And it’s not the first time you’ve had to drop everything and get on a plane in order to bail me out.”

“I’ve just been luckier than you have, that’s all. It’s not something I’m keeping score on.”

Sorcha almost grinned: someone had finally recognised that this wasn’t what lucky looked like. She had liked Jane from their first week at senior school, and loved her even more now.

“Thanks, Pet. It makes a huge difference you know: normally I’d just bluff it but I’m still quite shaky at the moment. I’m afraid I’m quite a bit more of a mess than last time, too.”

“I know. I’ve seen some of the pictures, remember. I know it’s a stupid thing to say, given it’s you I’m saying it to, but they looked like you couldn’t have any blood left in you.”

Sorcha had briefly seen a couple of pictures on TV, and had listened to a bit more of a report with a towel over the TV screen to stop the light and colours getting to her, but it wasn’t something that she was ready to deal with yet.

“I’m still best if I stay in the dark and don’t move very much, to be honest. The weirdest thing at the moment is that I seem to hear smells, and then the noise hurts. Various medical people have come and made me sniff things, and poked me a bit, but they don’t seem to be inclined to worry too much about it. I’m just warning you because you might find that I’ll yell at you that your perfume is deafening me.”

Jane’s voice changed: she was more interested and less worried.

“Isn’t that synaesthesia; like Nabokov?”

“I have no idea. I thought all I had in common with Nabokov was a fear of the dentist. I’m guessing from the questions that they keep asking that when this stuff happens you usually see words in colour: hearing smells appears to be a bit of a minority sport.”

“But it will go, right?”

“They don’t seem to know. They just mutter about head injuries and time, and I’ve already stopped listening when they do that.”

“Well, Tuesday isn’t that long, and then I can fuss around you for as long as you need me to.”

“That’s wonderful. Given it’s almost the weekend I don’t think they would let me out until Monday anyway. And truth be told I think I feel safer here, or at least I did until I got a card from You Know Who..”

Jane was suddenly properly angry, taking Sorcha unawares.

“John had the nerve to send you a card? What the hell did he expect to achieve by that, other than completely freaking you out…”

Sorcha cut in, wishing she hadn’t said anything.

“It’s OK. I’m guessing that it might even have been his secretary or someone. It just means that I had rather not hang around here for longer than I need to. Can’t wait to see you on Tuesday, my love.”

Sorcha was trying to put the phone back on the stand when she realised that someone had come into the room. The pillows muffled her hearing as well as blocking her line of sight, but it seemed as if whoever it was was hesitating. It must have been the thought of John that triggered the reaction, but she panicked. Suddenly it felt as if the pillow was being held against her face to suffocate her, and she started to gasp for breath and to struggle to free herself. Struggling was a bad idea: it hurt like hell. So did screaming.

It seemed like forever, but eventually the pillow was lifted off her face by someone who seemed at least as freaked out as she was. She wasn’t sure who it was, but all that mattered was that it wasn’t John. She was still safe; he hadn’t found her, and that thought was enough to make her burst into tears. It was a moment or two before she registered that whoever it was seemed to be struggling to catch their breath, just standing beside the bed with the pillow in his hands.

There wasn’t much light in the room, but the person holding the pillow seemed to be an even thinner version of the lift guy, wearing a surgical collar.

It took them a few minutes to get the room straight. A big, burly black guy had briefly stuck his head round the door and turned the light on, but had then been motioned away. Sorcha half thought that she ought to get up, but Jake had seemed intent on rearranging her on the bed instead and she was happy to go along with that. Eventually she was propped up on the pillows, the light was on, the phone had been put back on the wall and she could see him properly as he sat nervously on the edge of the chair next to the bed. He looked bruised, shaking, and so fragile the slightest touch might break him into thousands of tiny pieces. It was hard to tell how much of it was because she had seriously spooked him, or whether he had been in much the same state when he arrived. It didn’t occur to her that she was likely to look significantly worse.

“I’m so, so sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

Jake hesitated, and seemed to be contemplating his next move, before flinging himself into an attempt to say something.

“Are you sure you’re OK to talk? I didn’t know if you were trying to sleep or something. I wasn’t sure about coming, and I don’t want to make it all worse, you know.”

He was falling over his words, and seemed to be about to collapse in a heap. Sorcha breathed in deeply, and forced herself to relax as she breathed out. The light hurt a lot less than it had earlier, and focussing hurt less too: even if it was because they had found some painkillers that actually worked, it was welcome. She felt rather silly to have been caught hiding under the pillows in the first place, guilty for having scared him, and realised that this was a conversation that she wanted to have.

“I’m fine. I was trying to keep the light out of my eyes, but I think I slightly overdid it. Then I thought you were someone else and panicked. I’m so, so sorry I scared you.” His response to that was somewhere between a laugh and a shiver, “You look like you’ve had a rough few days.”

Jake seemed to be willing the shaking to stop, with some success, but he still didn’t seem able to look at her properly.

“It’s me that should be sorry. He was going for me, not you. I should have done something, so that you didn’t get hurt”.

“From the bits I remember, the other guy just seemed hell-bent on tearing you to pieces. And everyone keeps telling me that nobody, you included, has any idea why he did it. So I really don’t see how there was anything you could do, Pet. If I hadn’t been three parts to the wind I would probably have realised that it wasn’t the best place to be standing and got out of the way anyway.”

“But are you all right and everything? You’re going to be all right?”

For some reason, Jake reminded Sorcha of a boy from way back, in her first geography class at school. He wasn’t particularly bright, but he was a decent lad who had stood up for her when she got herself in a mess. If the analogy was right, Jake’s heart was definitely in the right place, but she was going to need to steer well clear of long words.

“I hope so, although everything’s still a bit weird at the moment.” She took a moment to try to get some kind of perspective on the conversation, “Look, we were never exactly introduced were we? I’m Sorcha Brompton. Shall we start again at the beginning?”

She held out her hand, forgetting that one of the cuts was across the palm of her hand and it had been covered with a large, square dressing. Jake held out a hand with a dressing on it that was nearly a perfect match. The uncanniness of the symmetry made them both laugh.

“I’m Jake, but I guess you’ve figured that out now.” It was Sorcha’s turn not to know whether to laugh or not, “Look, I bought you some flowers.”

He brought a bouquet over from a side table. Very tasteful, obviously expensive, white roses and lysianthus, and the best bit was that they weren’t screaming at her at all – there was just the faintest hint of rosewater and something like a Gregorian chant.

“They don’t smell too much, do they? You see my Mam’s a nurse, and she talked to one of the nurses here and they said that you were having problems with smells. I thought that these were OK though.”

“Oh God. So you heard about the howling hyacinths?” He smiled. If he had taken that much trouble, he deserved to smile. “Those are perfect, thank you. Very beautiful, and very quiet.”

Sorcha asked about the stage shows, not knowing what the schedule had intended to be. When he said that they were meant to be playing their first Wembley date the following night, she earnestly started wishing that she hadn’t, but at least he kept on talking and seemed to have recovered from her screaming at him. He knew he was out of most of the show, but there were still a few of the slower songs he could have gone on for, and a solo that she vaguely remembered from the 02. He obviously hadn’t the faintest clue whether he could do it or not, and everyone else was trying to be helpful by not taking the decision for him. It was hard to equate the man sitting slightly hunched on the edge of the chair with the superstar standing in the spotlight, glowing in the adulation. If he had been one of her team, she would probably have been trying to get him admitted to the Priory regardless of his views on the matter; but for some reason her battered brain thought instead of the Wizard of Oz. She wished she had a way of giving him his courage back.

“If you can find it in your heart to do it, they’ll all love you for it. You know that don’t you? I saw your show a couple of weeks ago, and the reception you got was amazing.”

He seemed surprised that someone like her had seen the show: one of the hazards of carrying on a conversation with this particular incarnation of Jake McDonald was the danger of drowning in deference. It took him a while to untangle himself, but it kept coming back to the same point.

“I just don’t know if I can do it, that’s all. Don’t want to let them down, you know.”

He said it as if it was a question, as if he wasn’t even sure that it was the right question.

“I don’t know much about what you do, but I do know that if you so much as set foot on that stage tomorrow you are going to bring the house down. If you burst into tears, that will just mean thousands more hearts breaking for you. I have no idea how you guys do it, but those crowds love you. You look like you could do with some loving at the moment.”

The smile that provoked was lopsided, but it would still have looked incredible projected up onto those screens. She had no idea whether he could take the surgical collar off or not, but the effect might actually be better if he didn’t.

“But what if I forget stuff?”

She wished she could just say that it couldn’t happen, but that would clearly have been complete and utter bollocks.

“You probably won’t, but given you have just been assaulted, look as if you are in some pain, and are presumably terrified that a lunatic is about to take a pot-shot at you it wouldn’t be that surprising if you did. Just make sure that there is always someone there to cover for you.”

Looking at him, she realised that might not be clear enough.

“Make sure that there are no points in the show which depend just on you. If there is a solo, make sure one of the others can do it, or get them to do something else instead. It’s always easier to go through with things when you know that if push comes to shove you don’t have to do them.”

Sorcha couldn’t help thinking that of all the advice she had ever given, this was probably where she was the least qualified, but it had seemed to hit a chord. She wasn’t sad when he went to leave: she had had run into a wall of exhaustion, and needed more time by herself in the dark. But he had one final surprise.

“Look, I know I shouldn’t have, but I heard part of your conversation before I came in. About you wanting to go on Monday but your friend not being able to be here and that. We have a free day on Monday, and my Dad’s around too.” A thirty-something pop star who kept his Dad in tow? Maybe it was just because of what had happened: she didn’t have the energy to question it, “We could come and get you if you like. And make sure that you were OK and everything, until your friend comes.”

She wasn’t exactly swamped with offers, was she?