The Woman He Loved Before (11 page)

I am crying, not only because of what I have seen in the mirror, but also because I still feel so disconnected from everything. I can touch things, and they are real, but I can’t say the same about what is going on in my head. I think things, I remember things and I do not know if they are real, if they happened. In the ambulance, I heard a woman’s voice who spoke like she knew Jack and she knew me. Before the fireman, I was awake – I think – and I was trying to tell Jack something important.

Between what I know and what I remember, there is a huge gulf that is terrifying me. I do not know what it is that is sitting at the edge of my memory, but it is trying and failing to get my attention. It is, however, making me scared.

‘What happened?’ I ask Jack. ‘After the crash, what happened?’

‘After the crash, they cut you out of the wreckage and brought you here,’ he replies, staring at me with his dark emerald eyes, they remind me sometimes of green velvet, so soft and deep you want to feel them on every part of your body.

‘I mean after the crash and before the fireman, what happened?’

Jack kisses my fingers where he has linked them through his. ‘You don’t remember?’ he asks, his eyes now cautious and guarded.

‘No, it’s gone. I remember—’ The violence of the car being rammed shudders through my body and I close my eyes against it, feel the jolt, then the falling sensation as the world around me is lifted and—

Jack’s hand tightens around mine. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’

My eyes fly open and I’m in the hospital room with Jack; I’m safe.

‘I remember the moment of the crash, and I remember the fireman,’ I say when my breathing has slowed and the terror has moved away. ‘But something else happened and I don’t know what.’

‘It’s not important now,’ Jack says. ‘All that’s important is getting you better.’

‘Something happened. Tell me what it is,’ I ask, almost begging. I don’t like not knowing, I don’t like to think that I was conscious and doing something, saying things that I have no memory or knowledge of now. The days of drinking to that point are way behind me, and this is different, anyway. Back then there was enjoyment; this is like staring into your past and seeing nothing but a gaping black hole, ready to gobble you up and trap you there, disconnected from everything. ‘Tell me, please.’ The edge of that black hole is creeping closer.

‘Nothing happened. We were both a bit shaken up, and you were incredibly brave while they were cutting you out. Nothing happened, I promise you.’

Jack is looking at me while he speaks but the pupils of his eyes dance around, never settling for too long in one spot. Is that because of my scars or is it because there is something he can’t tell me?

‘Do you want to see people?’ he asks, changing the subject,
which allows him to change his line of sight – to the door, beyond which my family and friends are waiting. They saw me when I was unconscious, they saw me with the bandages on, now they’ll see me with my newly carved up face and scalp. I’m not ready for that. I’m not sure I’ll ever be
ready
, but right now I definitely am not.

‘No,’ I say, ‘tell them I’ve gone to sleep and I’ll see them at home.’

‘OK, beautiful,’ he says, automatically. The word stings my skin, scrapes inside my ears, rubs salt into my scars. He could barely stand to look at me, how am I supposed to believe what he just said? He kisses my forehead, the most undamaged part of me. ‘See you later.’

‘Yeah, see you later,’ I reply.

As he reaches the door, I call, ‘Jack?’

He stops and turns to me, a smile on his lips. ‘Hmm?’ he asks.

‘You would tell me if something happened, wouldn’t you?’ I ask.

He nods. ‘Yeah, of course. Yes.’

libby

There are eight stone steps from the pavement to the front door. It’s going to take me a while to climb them unaided.

Although I am not in constant pain any more, it is still hard to walk without the fear of tugging apart the stitches in my abdomen, or feeling something pull inside making me worry about the damage I’m doing.

I stare at the steps – smooth and curved at the edge of the treads, an ordinary grey stone – that I have walked and run up many a time. Not this time. This time, I have to wait for Jack to help me, just like I’ve been doing in hospital all week – I have to wait for someone to help me to do the most basic of things: go for a wash, get to the toilet, brush my teeth, wash the undamaged parts of my face without the aid of a mirror. And I’ve had to put on a happy face for my visitors.

The visits were short and pleasant enough, but I always had to let them know that I was ‘O’

‘K’ with what had happened; I was focusing on the positives of being alive; and I wasn’t dwelling on the hair thing, the face thing, the recovering from major surgery thing. After each visit I would sag against my pillows and will myself better so I could go home and at least not answer the door if anyone came who I didn’t want to see.

The taxi driver has left my bag on the top step. Jack is now standing with him up there, paying.

The hospital made it clear that I was going home in a car or in an ambulance – the taxi was the lesser of two evils as the
thought
of an ambulance brought on panic attacks. We sat in the back of the taxi, not speaking, his hand wrapped around mine, while my petrified body did not move, and I kept my eyes closed to avoid seeing any other car that came near us. I’d been extremely relieved when we pulled up outside our house. Our home.

I’m scared to go inside.

When I was lying in hospital, I was desperate to get out of there, to be at home and, now, ‘home’ is where I’ll have to start again. I’ll have to be me with this face and this hair in the place where the other me lived. That’s a terrifying thought.

‘Your parents, Angela, Grace, and my parents wanted to have a welcome home party,’ Jack had told me as he wheeled me to the waiting taxi, ‘but I told them you probably wouldn’t want that. Not right away. I hope I did the right thing.’

‘Yes,’ I’d said, ‘that was the right thing.’

Jack puts his wallet into his back pocket, opens the outer door, then the inner door, to put my bag inside.

‘Good luck,’ the taxi driver says as he passes, an unexpected blessing from a stranger. ‘Take care.’

How many people does the taxi driver wish good luck?
I wonder as I watch the man I married descending the steps to help me.
Random people, hospital returnees, or damaged people who look like they need it?
I suppose I am all three.

A smile overtakes Jack’s face as he stands in front of me, and I smile back. All of this would be so much harder without him. I don’t think I’d have coped as well, would have had some good hours in among the hours of despair, if I didn’t know he was there with me all the way.

May, 2009

‘So you’re Elizabeth,’ Jack’s mother said as we stepped over the threshold. She was beaming, with her arms stretched out in
welcome. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me close, surrounding me with that soft, intoxicating, talcum-powdery smell of a woman who takes pride in her appearance and has almost always had the money to do so. She had never ploughed her way through the bargain bin in her local supermarket for the right shade of eyeshadow. She was elegantly attired: a fawn-coloured silk shift dress under a cream, cashmere cardigan; fawn court shoes on her feet, although this looked like the type of house where visitors usually took their off shoes. Her light brown hair, streaked with strands of silver, was cut into a stylish bob, and she had gold and pearl earrings in her ears.

She clutched me tight, checking I was real perhaps, then stepped back, her hands slipping smoothly down to take my hands.

‘Let me have a look at you,’ she said, and gave me another wide, genuine smile. ‘You’re nothing like I expected. My son wouldn’t tell us a thing about you. But you’re beautiful.’

‘
Mother,’
Jack said.

‘Oh, shush,’ his mother said, jovially. ‘You should be grateful that I like her. How many young women complain about having a mother-in-law who doesn’t like them? Many, I would wager. But Elizabeth, you have been such a tonic for my son.’ She moved back a little further, still holding onto my hands. ‘He has been like a different person since you started courting. I never thought I’d see him laugh, or take an interest in life again …’ All four of us in the corridor, not least Jack’s mother, were horrified when her eyes began to mist over with tears.

‘You must excuse my wife. She does come on a bit strong sometimes,’ Jack’s father said, coming forward. ‘You’re embarrassing the poor girl. You’ll frighten her off.’ He held out his hand and his wife immediately let my hands go to allow me to shake his. ‘Hector,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Jack had inherited his father’s frame, height and self-possession. I was sure there were very few people on Earth who made Hector feel insecure. Jack had mentioned in passing that his dad
still went to the gym and played golf – it showed: his skin was smooth and unblemished, while most of his thick head of hair was neat and disconcertingly shiny.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, too,’ I said, sounding prim and proper. I hadn’t intended to, but it had come out that way.

‘While my wife might have been a bit overwhelming, it
is
a pleasure to have your company today, Elizabeth. My son has been very circumspect, some might even say evasive, about you.’ He shot a pointed look at Jack, who lowered his head. ‘I see absolutely no reason for that. You are most welcome in our home.’

A little churning began in my stomach, the butterflies of nerves at meeting them, but also the anxiety by the fact I’d have to tell them that my name wasn’t Elizabeth. They were both being so nice, so gracious and welcoming, how could I say it now? I realised with a start that Jack didn’t know it, either. The man I was about to marry didn’t know my full name.
And you’ve managed to convince yourself you’re not rushing into this?
I berated myself.

‘Are we going to spend all our time in the hallway?’ Jack asked.

‘Of course not, of course not,’ Harriet said. ‘Come in, come in.’ Hector let go of my hand, which was still tingling from the firmness of his handshake, and Harriet immediately hooked her arm through mine and began to lead me along their hall towards the living room. Since I’d walked in, one or the other of Jack’s parents had kept hold of me – almost as if I might disappear or run away. Maybe that’s what happens to a family after someone dies: they cling to anyone new in their world. I actually thought it would be harder, that they would look at me with suspicion and disdain – they would question my motivations for being there, while showing their slight disgust at me daring to try to replace the person they lost.

‘Now, Elizabeth, you must tell me all about what you’ve got planned so far for the wedding. I’ll be as involved as you want. I would love to take over because I don’t have a daughter but I’m sure your mother is already doing that.’

‘Umm, not really. Jack and I haven’t really talked about what we want from the wedding. We thought it best to meet each other’s families first.’

‘That is sensible,’ Hector said.

‘Who wants sensibility when there is love and romance involved?’ said Harriet with a smile that was practically a wink.

Their living room, like the rest of the house, was huge. I could fit my whole flat in there twice over with room to spare. The walls were a pale sage green topped with high, white ceilings, and many display cabinets and sideboards lined the walls, as did pieces of ornate, elaborately pretty furniture that were obviously expensive antiques. Jack came from money, I knew that, but this house drove the point home that we were different, we had different experiences of the world.

I sat on the sofa nearest the fireplace and was surprised that Jack immediately sat on the arm of the sofa, laid his arm along the back of it and rested his hand lightly on my shoulder. I liked being near him – having his warmth and scent right next to me was one of the best things about being his lover – but this was different; odd. Almost a forced show of solidarity, as though marking out his territory, but also showing that we were A COUPLE. Maybe his parents weren’t as cool about us getting married as they made out. Maybe they were waiting to be convinced in some way that I wasn’t simply the rebound girl, and that he wasn’t rushing into this. The twirling in my stomach intensified. Jack not knowing my name was hardly a ringing endorsement about our knowledge of each other.

‘Tea, Elizabeth? I baked some scones this morning. Hector is desperate to try them with the clotted cream he brought back from a business trip to Devon last weekend. I think I also have some homemade strawberry jam left. Last year we had such a wonderful crop of strawberries that I managed to make pots and pots of it. Which was a good thing because this year’s crop wasn’t quite as successful. Can I tempt you?’

‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ I said.

‘Make it a coffee instead of a tea, please,’ Jack said as his mother turned towards the door. ‘Libby only drinks tea in the evenings. And she’s not that keen on strawberries, she finds them too tart on her palette. But you’ve got some marmalade, haven’t you? She loves that. Even though it’s not really done with scones. I’ll have the same, if that’s all right.’

I’d always known that Jack noticed the details, but this was astounding.
How does he know all that? I’m sure I’ve never told him those things explicitly
.