A Deeper Dimension (20 page)

She turned on the cold water and began to splash her face and slap it, uncaring of the hurt she inflicted. It couldn’t hurt on the surface any more than it did inside. After getting a little colour back on her cheeks, she took out her silver combs and combed her hair into some semblance of order, then replaced the combs in her hair. She took her time, oblivious to anything else but the fact that somehow she had to present herself to be intact and not the shattered mess she felt herself to be. She didn’t analyse; she was beyond realising just what had made her react the way she had. All she was aware of was that animal instinct, that determination to survive.

She finished her tidying up and moved to unlock the door. She opened it to face a pale Alex, eyes flashing vividly and furiously as he raked his hair back with one shaking hand. A maid hovered in the background, her face anxious and concerned. Diana looked at her and managed a smile, albeit a wobbly one. She had been the one to direct Diana to the bathroom, and, she guessed, the one to direct Alex to her too.

The maid smiled uncertainly back and then scuttled away; now that Diana was out of the bathroom, she was intent on getting lost.

Diana’s eyes swivelled to Alex. She took in his crisp white shirt, rolled at the elbows, with surprise. “Where did you get the clean shirt?” she asked curiously.

He sucked in his breath, searching her face intently. “Derrick and Alicia seemed to have my size in stock,” he said harshly, and continued, “Diana, let me explain what was going—”

She interrupted him desperately, “I don’t want an explanation of what was going on. I made a gross mistake, let’s leave it at that. All I want is to—”

“Dammit, you’re going to listen to me!” he snarled, lips tight against his teeth. He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her up against his chest. At this, she struggled so furiously that he was forced to loosen his grip a little to avoid hurting her. Voices sounded close by as a few people approached from down the hall.

Diana twisted hard and was suddenly free. She said, not looking at him as she rubbed her arms, “It’s very nasty out.” She spoke in a dull, flat voice. “I think we’d better go now.” They stood rigid and still as the people came into view.

Alex moved, a jerky and impatient gesture at the interruption. “All right,” he whispered. Only Diana could catch his words. “We’ll leave. But we aren’t through, not by a long shot, and you’re going to listen to me tonight one way or another!”

Chapter Nine

Diana avoided Alex’s eyes as they collected their coats. She went through the motions of putting on her coat and belting it, unaware of her surroundings or what she was doing. She kept wishing over and over that the evening would end and that she would have time to lick her wounds in private.

Alex took her arm and led her outside. They both instinctively flinched when the fury of the storm lashed and tore at them, whipping their coats around their legs. He propelled Diana into a run and after opening the passenger door, thrust her inside. Then he hurried to the other side and got in quickly, slamming the door behind him. They didn’t speak to each other as he started the car, reversed down the driveway and drove out on to the street. The darkness was a madness that howled and screamed as it whirled about the car, seemingly to try to reach the two sheltered in the car.

Alex started to speak. “Diana…”

“Don’t!” she said sharply. “Can’t you see? I don’t want to hear it.”

The fingers on the steering wheel started to tighten until his knuckles were white and strained. “You’ve got to listen to me,” he spoke quietly in an effort to stay calm. “Alicia had just come into the room because she needed—”

“Stop it!” Diana put her hands over her ears, trying to block out his words. “I won’t listen to you!”

“For once in your life, damn it, you’re going to have to!” he snapped intensely. She shrank back in her seat. “Nothing happened, for God’s sake! If you’d just sit still for a minute, I’ll—”

“Will you shut up!” Diana’s voice rose as she tried to drown out his words. “I don’t care what did or did not happen! It’s none of my business!”

Alex held the car on the road, swearing while he fought the buffeting winds that grabbed at the car and jerked it from side to side. The tyres gripped the pavement and he relaxed slightly, beginning to speak. “It is your business, Diana, whether you want it to be or not.” His face was hard, his voice implacable. “Your reaction tells me that much at least—”

“Shut up!” Diana’s eyes overflowed and tears splashed down her cheeks. She stared at him, but failed to see through the wetness blinding her. “I will not listen to this! I will not…”

She started to fumble at the car door latch, not really comprehending her own actions but intent only on getting away from Alex and his painful insistence. He glanced over to her and grabbed her hands with one of his.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” he shouted. His face was white, his eyes burning with an inner fire. She began to struggle with him, fighting to free her hand with a desperation and strength that he found hard to control. “Diana, stop! Sit back and put your safety belt on, now!”

She sobbed, “No! No, just leave me alone, I can’t take this. Will you let go of me?” She flung this as she managed to wrench her hand away and pushed at his arm. “Damn you, when will you let me be?”

Alex’s attention had been diverted from the road and when headlights flared suddenly in their path, he jerked his eyes back in front of him and started to wrench the steering wheel hard to the right in an effort to miss the oncoming car. The headlights in front of them swerved crazily and drunkenly as they blinded Alex and Diana. She sat frozen, horrified and panic-stricken as she stared right into the glaring light. Alex, trying desperately to stop some of their momentum, slammed on the brakes while battling the wheel, but the tyres refused to hold on the pavement and the car began a sickening, out-of-control skid. Diana felt a great lurch as the car left the road and the bottom of her stomach seemed to plummet as the car fell, fell, then there was the screaming and tearing of crumpling metal, a shattering of glass and a hard, hard blow.

Diana felt a wetness dripping down her face and seeping into her clothes. It was as if the world was crying, crying with a deep sorrow over the brokenness, the tragedy… With a supreme effort, she managed to force open her eyes after failing the first attempt. Getting her eyelids open a crack, she saw nothing at first. Sobbing with fear and pain, she opened them a little wider and realised that the darkness was not a complete blackness, but instead was made up of shadows of the night. The wetness was indeed a gentle rain that pattered on her face and covered the outside ground with innumerable puddles, the earlier storm having abated.

She looked around as she began to comprehend that she was indeed outside, part of her body being pinned under the heavy and numbing weight of the car. She felt the wet metal of the car with her hands as she tried to make out in the darkness what part held her pinned and realised that she must have been thrown out of the front of the car, through the broken windshield, for the front was what held her.

She looked up the side of the long, deep ditch and saw the other car perched half off the road on its side, its lights now dead and frighteningly dark. All around her was the terrifying and telling silence, implying that which she could not accept.

Diana tried to call out, but a pain in her chest prevented any sound louder than a feeble hoarse whisper. She coughed hard, spitting out something dark and wet and crying helplessly, for the pain was beginning to hit her in overwhelming waves.

“Alex?” she whispered. She rolled her head from side to side, trying to see better. “Somebody? Anybody? Oh, dear God, help me, please! It hurts. Alex?”

Then she saw the still dark figure that was still in the car and she stared at it in horror. It was a sight that was to haunt her dreams and waking thoughts for years. “Alex?” she called softly. She held out her hands to it and whimpered. Dark sticky fluid was on her arms and hands, oozing out and running down her arms as it mingled with the rain.

Pain hit her like a sledgehammer then, and she screamed over and over again. “Alex!” she cried out once more, then passed out.

Vague and fuzzy lights seemed to be bobbing up and down just beyond Diana’s eyelids and she flickered them open briefly. There were flashing lights up on the road that looked to be ambulances. Men were all over the slope where the two cars were and several came running towards her. She whispered, “Alex?”

One of them turned and shouted, “We have a girl over here alive! She’s trapped under the car—hurry!”

She tried again to ask about Alex, but her voice wouldn’t come out past her throat, which was swollen. The man who had shouted to the others turned back and bent down to stroke the wet and tangled hair off her forehead. He said gently, “Hold on, honey. Help is on the way now. Just hold on.”

Tears started to stream down her face as she tried to speak. She couldn’t make him understand, make him turn and look into the car at that horribly still figure. He crooned to her, “Don’t try to talk now. Don’t hurt yourself. Everything will be all right.”

Diana raised a shaking and bloody hand to point tremblingly at the front of the car, but the man didn’t look as he focused intently on her, feeling for her wrist for her pulse. He said, “We’ll have the car off very soon. I know it hurts, but we’ve got some medicine and it’ll help the pain.”

She moaned, sobbing now, and shook her free hand at the car. The man glanced at it, then shouted in astonishment, “Oh, my God! There’s a person in the car still! Quick, he might be alive!”

She couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and with a final sob of fear and pain, she relaxed once again unconscious.

When she finally opened her eyes again, all she saw was white. With an effort, she managed to bring things into focus and realised that she was in a room. Turning her head from side to side, she was able to see the bars on either side of her bed and see the stand by the bed laden with flowers, different vials and bottles and a phone. She relaxed her head on the pillow, sighing. I really am an idiot, she thought. Of course, I’m in a hospital. This thought brought back the rest of her memory of that black night and she scrabbled frantically around for a buzzer of some sort to call a nurse.

As she was searching desperately, the door to her right opened to admit a starched and white figure who hurried to her side when she saw her conscious and in great distress. Hands grabbed at Diana’s and the figure spoke. “What is it, honey? What did you need? Are you in pain? Here, see, this is the buzzer to press if you need anything, is that what you were looking for?” The nurse shoved a small box-like object into Diana’s hands. “What’s wrong, dear?”

“Alex?” she whispered weakly. “Alex?” Tears started to drip down her cheeks as she began to cry. She was certain he was dead. That still form in the crashed car had been too real.

“Alex Mason?” the nurse asked. Diana nodded rapidly. “He’s just fine, Diana. Don’t you worry about a thing. Alex is fine.”

She sobbed, “You’re lying, lying. He was hurt badly. I could see him in the car so still. He’s dead, isn’t he? I know!” The nurse started to say something soothingly, but Diana screamed at her, “Isn’t he?”

The nurse pushed a button and someone came in carrying an object that Diana couldn’t see. Then, as her arm was held by the first person who tried to soothe her, the other person jabbed the arm with a sharp needle and she sobbed despairingly as the room whirled and grew dark.

Grace was sitting in a comfortable chair when she whispered, “Hello, Grace.”

She looked immediately. Quickly getting to her feet, she moved over to the bed and put a cool hand on Diana’s hot forehead. “Diana—how do you feel, darling? Does it hurt much? I can get you a nurse if you need one.”

Diana shook her head weakly. The pain was bad, but it was bearable. She asked, “Tell me about Alex, please, Grace.”

Grace shook her head in return and replied, “Alex is doing really well. Don’t you worry about him. You worry about yourself and getting better.”

Diana closed her eyes. “Grace, don’t lie to me. Was Alex hurt in the accident?”

Grace hesitated and Diana’s eyes flew to her face to stare at her hard. “Yes, he was,” Grace said finally. “He was hurt pretty badly, worse than you were. At first, after surgery, they weren’t sure that he would live, but he made it through the night and he’s been improving ever since.”

“Ever since?” she asked, shocked. “How long has it been since Saturday?”

Grace smoothed the hair off of Diana’s forehead. She said gently, “Four days. It’s Wednesday, my dear.”

She sighed, “Good God!” Her eyes sought Grace’s, her expression begging for reassurance. “Will he be all right now? How was he hurt—will he recover? Completely, I mean?”

Grace spoke wryly, “I shouldn’t be telling you all this, you know. Upsetting the patient, and all.” Diana grabbed her hand impatiently.

“You probably shouldn’t be—but Grace, you can’t stop now. Damn it, you just can’t!”

She nodded, her lined face sympathetic. “I know, my dear. I’ve said too much already. He was hurt internally pretty badly, with a couple of broken ribs and some bleeding. He got a nasty concussion and a few cuts on his face that are pretty minor. The problem was when the doctors found out that one of his ribs had pierced the lung cavity.”