Keeping Sam (7 page)

What if she were to start making clothes again? Or what if she offered some kind of alteration service locally? It might be a way to earn some money, a way give her and Sam a better start in their new life together. A way to get back on her feet.

Kate jumped up, her scalp tingling with excitement. Marie would know people – didn’t she go to that slimming group at the community centre? There might be successful dieters in need of clothes taking in, and she could put up a poster in the newsagent’s and advertise for customers, start off small and grow by word-of-mouth. She could check out the competition, find out what they charged, make sure she wasn’t too expensive, but just add that personal touch ...

She ran her hand through her collection of threads and allowed the nugget of excitement to grow. Her room sat in disarray, packaging and clothes and boxes strewn by her feet, but Kate didn’t care. A plan was forming, and for the first time in years she felt strong. Better than strong. She felt in control of her future.

Chapter 9

The weekend passed in a flurry of activity, and while it didn’t drive thoughts of Sam from her mind, Kate found that having something to do helped her cope with missing him just a little bit better. She enlisted Marie’s help in setting up the sewing machine, and Marie had shot straight upstairs to get Patrick, who appeared on Sunday morning carrying a fold-out table he’d found at the junk shop on the Parade. Marie had her own contribution: a boxful of old curtains and a stack of vintage bedding.

‘They were my mother’s,’ Marie explained, throwing the fabric onto Kate’s bed with no care at all. ‘I’ve never had a clue what to do with them.’

Kate picked up a set of curtains – sunshine yellow with a pattern of green and gold leaves – and stroked them in awe. ‘These are silk,’ she said. ‘They must be worth a fortune.’ The fabric was soft against her cheek; they smelt of perfume, the flowery kind that no one wore anymore.

Marie shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t want them. Maybe you could make me a dress or something,’ she added, laughing as though the very idea was completely impossible. But Kate nodded slowly.

A swift assessment of the contents of her storage box had produced very few wearable clothes for Kate herself. Most of the items she had thought to be clothing when they were vacuum-packed in the transparent storage bags had turned out to be either her own collection of fabric scraps or the bits and pieces she’d made for Sam during the first few months of his life. These were currently hanging in Sam’s room, or in what would soon be his room, even though it was doubtful they’d actually fit him. Kate’s favourite piece was a sailor’s outfit she’d constructed for Sam when he was six months old. She remembered that she had used offcuts from an old shirt Evan left behind, and some navy cord from a skirt she sourced in a charity shop. The buttons had been scavenged from a jacket left behind from Kate’s clubbing days, the ship design perfect for the tiny outfit. Kate had sat at the kitchen table for hours, working in the light of an angle-poise lamp clamped to the edge of the chipped Formica, sewing on the buttons so securely they could never be pulled off by tiny hands. The sailor suit was her finest piece, and she longed to show it to Sam. She wondered whether he would remember it – maybe not consciously, but perhaps the memory of the sense of it, of how she had made it just for him, would have lived on inside him somehow.

There was no sign of the angle-poise lamp, but the table Patrick had bought for her was practically the twin of her old one. Kate tried to pay him for it, but Patrick wouldn’t hear of it.

‘It cost buttons,’ he told her. He was under the table, replacing a blown fuse in the socket she needed for the sewing machine. Kate watched him from her perch on the bed. He was lovely, there was no denying it. Even in his Sunday scruffs – loose T-shirt and greying shorts – he had a presence that made Kate aware of his every movement. He was different from Evan, different from any man Kate had met before.

Patrick was nice.

‘Well, that’s lucky, because I have buttons,’ she said lightly. ‘I can pay you with them.’

He eased out from under the table and looked up at her, his eyes twinkling. ‘Okay. It’s a deal. You can pay me in buttons.’

Was he flirting with her? Kate had no idea. But if she couldn’t read his signals, she was even less adept at reading her own.

***

On Monday morning, Kate dressed in her smartest pair of jeans and a white blouse she remembered buying from a Manchester boutique during one of her flush spells.

‘Morning,’ Marie said, magically appearing in her doorway just as Kate reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Off out, are we?’

‘Physio,’ Kate explained with a grimace.

‘Ah, yes. Hold on a minute.’ Marie disappeared back into her part of the house, which Kate had yet to explore, but which she imagined to be decorated in bright, gaudy colours with lamps shrouded in tasselled scarves and cushions plumping up every conceivable surface. She tapped her fingers against the worn wooden banister, then glanced at her watch. Her appointment was in fifty minutes. She’d be pressed to make it to the bus stop in time if she hung around much longer.

‘Right, we’re all set,’ Marie said, emerging in a cloud of perfume, an umbrella shoved under her arm.

‘For what?’ Kate asked, eyeing the umbrella. It was at least twenty-five degrees outside, and humid as hell.

‘For our trip to the big smoke, of course.’ Marie linked arms with Kate and pulled her down the hall. ‘I thought I’d tag along, you don’t mind do you? I need to get my hair cut. It’s just totally out of control.’

Kate smiled, taking in Marie’s lacquered hair, styled today into something resembling a beehive. She pitied the hairdresser tasked with putting a comb to that.

On Bow Hill, the sun had turned everything hazy and the very pavement felt as though it was melting under their feet.

‘Marie,’ Kate said seriously, ‘I really don’t think you’ll need an umbrella. Unless there’s some freak weather system moving in that none of the rest of us can see.’

She tilted her head to look out across the horizon. The haze was even stronger there, and the sky stretched on over blues and greens, broken only by the random pattern of a fishing boat or one of the leisure cruisers that sometimes moored off Corrin Cove. Her shirt was already stuck to her back and they’d only been outdoors for a minute.

Marie giggled, then opened the umbrella – an enormous affair, with frilled edges and peacock blue circles and a bright pink handle. ‘Silly girl,’ she said, tipping the umbrella over her shoulder and nearly knocking Kate off the pavement in the process. ‘This is a parasol, not a brolly. I have to look after my complexion, you know. UV rays are hell for wrinkles.’ She peered at Kate’s pale face, then shook her head. ‘You don’t need to worry about that for a few years yet. But mark my words – no man wants a woman with skin like leather.’

They set off down the hill arm in arm, and Kate found that she could simply carry her crutch in her free hand, so solid was Marie’s support. And after a while she found that she wasn’t leaning on her friend much at all. The sun lit up the world as brightly as a hundred watt bulb, and Marie lit up her mind with her chatter and her gossip and her seemingly endless supply of warmth. Eschewing the bus – ‘Public transport is just so sticky, don’t you find?’ – Marie insisted on paying for a taxi into St Austell, citing Kate’s crutch as reason enough to make it worthwhile. Kate found herself deposited outside the medical centre fifteen minutes later, with a promise that Marie would swing by and pick her up in two hours’ time.

‘Bye,’ Kate called, waving to Marie’s cheerful face pressed up against the taxi’s rear window. She turned and regarded the medical centre warily, then glanced again at her watch. She was early, but that was okay. Without Marie’s buoyant presence, Kate could feel her mood slipping dangerously. On the wall just inside the entrance was a sign for the cafeteria. She would buy coffee and cake, she decided, and try not to think about anything at all. One step at a time, Joseph had said. One foot in front of the other. Look at me now, she thought, pushing open the door to the cafeteria, hardly leaning on her crutch at all. Maybe Joseph was right – maybe it was all in the mind. She wondered if that theory applied to every part of life. If she could apply the same force of will to getting Sam back as she had to learning to walk again, she might just be in with a chance.

***

Nico lacked Joseph’s steely-eyed determination, but within an hour Kate had been put through her paces and was declared to be doing ‘Very well indeed, considering.’ Kate thought this was fair praise, and asked about moving to a stick.

‘Maybe,’ Nico said, but this clearly meant yes because he produced a selection from a cupboard in the therapy room and proceeded to have Kate walk up and down with each of them in turn until she’d found one that felt right. She chose a metal-tipped walking cane that was made, according to Nico, from blackthorn wood. She loved the feel of its curved handle in her palm; loved how it flexed a little as she leaned on it.

‘This is the one,’ she said, smiling, and Nico nodded, his expression serious. He gestured for her to sit, and began to scribble notes onto a fresh page in her file.

‘It goes on computer later,’ he explained, nodding towards an ancient-looking computer screen collecting dust in the corner. ‘We’re not behind the times,’ he added with just a touch of defensiveness. Kate couldn’t care less. She stroked her cane and wondered whether she’d be allowed to keep it once she was fully recovered.

‘So, Kate Steiner,’ Nico said with a smile, ‘tell me how you are settling in down here.’

She gave a tiny shrug, unsure how to answer. ‘The house social services found for me is really nice. I mean, the lady who owns it is nice.’

‘And your son?’ Nico asked, his gaze unwavering. ‘Have you seen him? It’s all in your file,’ he added when Kate blanched. ‘I don’t mean to pry. Your therapist in Manchester, he wrote it all down.’

‘Sure.’ Kate swallowed over a lump in her throat. ‘I’ve seen my son. And he’ll be coming to live with me very soon.’

‘Good.’ Nico smiled. ‘Are there any other symptoms you’ve noticed since being discharged? Physical or otherwise – you must let your GP know if you notice anything untoward.’

There was something, but Kate was loath to bring it up. Besides, Nico was her physical therapist, not her doctor, as he himself had just pointed out. She hesitated, but then decided to mention it anyway. He’d probably tell her it was nothing, and then she could just forget about it.

‘I get nightmares,’ she confessed. ‘I mean, really bad ones. I don’t like to sleep much anyway – I lost so much time to sleep, it doesn’t feel right to just lie down and close my eyes. I suppose that sounds stupid to you.’

Nico said nothing. Kate sighed, then carried on.

‘So, when I do let myself fall asleep I just have these awful nightmares. I think they … I think they’re about the attack. At least, that’s all I can come up with to explain them.’

Nico glanced at her file again. ‘You were hit on the head by an intruder.’ He made it sound oddly mundane. Kate nodded, not trusting herself to speak for fear she might start crying. It was being in a hospital environment again, she told herself. It brought up all the feelings of insecurity and helplessness she thought she’d left behind in Manchester.

‘Do you see your attacker in your nightmares?’ Nico asked, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees. Like all physiotherapists Kate had ever met, he wore tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, making him look younger than perhaps he was, like a grown-up boy playing sports at school.

She shook her head. ‘No face. Just this sense of someone behind me. It’s daytime, and I’m in my kitchen. It’s not the exact same kitchen, you understand, but it is where I live. Where I lived, I mean. And there’s someone in the room with me. I can’t hear him, but I can sense him. Just standing there. And I’m too afraid to turn around. In my dream, my legs are weak and my body is useless, just how it was when I first woke up from the coma. And Sam is there. Sam is sitting in his playpen, chattering away, gurgling and laughing and chewing on his plastic train, and all the time I’m just staring at him, unable to move a muscle. So scared. Just so afraid that something is going to happen to him, and if I just stay very still he might be okay.’ The tears came now, just as Kate had known they would, but there was nothing she could do about it. She wiped her face on her sleeve, just one quick swipe, hoping Nico wouldn’t notice. ‘In my dream,’ she said, ‘I can sense the man is behind me, he’s standing right there.’ She pointed behind her now, and then turned her head involuntarily, as though there might actually be somebody there. Stupid. She chastised herself, and looked at Nico to see whether he wanted her to carry on.

‘And?’ he said. ‘What happens next?’

‘Nothing. I mean, it’s just this terrible, paralysing fear. I wake up sweating, and then I curse myself for going to sleep in the first place. If I don’t sleep I don’t have the nightmare. So it’s easy enough to avoid.’ She laughed, but Nico’s face remained serious.

‘You need to sleep,’ he said. ‘There is no option of not sleeping, no matter how long you were comatose, no matter how much time you feel you lost. You will sleep, and it will help you get better. This nightmare, it may be psychosomatic – a reaction to the feelings of helplessness and fear you had during and after the incident. Or …’

He tailed off, regarding Kate with an odd expression. She opened her mouth to prompt him to continue, then closed it again. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he was going to say.

‘Or, Kate, it might be that you are merely remembering. And that you are afraid to turn around in your dream because if you do, you will see who it is who did this terrible thing to you.’

It wasn’t as though the thought hadn’t occurred to her already, but now, hearing Nico say the words out loud, Kate felt a prickly sensation on her neck. She shook her head, and forced a smile onto her face.

‘I’m sure it’s just stress,’ she said. ‘Nothing more.’

She left Nico’s treatment room with an appointment for the following week, and waited outside the medical centre for Marie.