Waves of Betrayal (The Isabel Marsh Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

L
ouise Marsh received the phone call at five o’clock that afternoon. She had been pottering in the garden whilst Duncan sat in the conservatory planning his final lecture of the term on Spanish Twentieth Century Poetry. His reverie had been broken when he saw Louise walk slowly into the room, her hand covering her mouth, the other one limp at her side, her face drained of colour.

It had taken them only fifteen minutes to get to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth where they knew that they would find their beloved, only child. Within the walls of the grey forbidding building, somewhere within the maze of corridors, lay Isabel.

Duncan guides his wife towards the Reception desk as calmly as he can, fighting the urge to run wildly into the confusing labyrinth, shouting his daughter’s name. He knows he has to take control, for his wife’s sake, and they have to keep it together until they know how badly she had been hurt; how critical her condition is.

‘
Isabel. Isabel Marsh,’
cries Louise softly, reaching out a shaky hand towards one of the nurses sitting behind a computer. Seeing her distress, people in the queue disperse sympathetically and they are both shown to a little office and asked to wait for a few minutes for the Doctor. Did they want tea? ‘No.’ Did they want to call anyone? ‘No!’ Duncan paces the small room and stops, frozen in his steps, as a young, blonde-haired woman enters the room, wearing a white coat with a badge indicating that she is Doctor Shelley Cole. She clasps a file to her chest. The first thing that Duncan notices about her, is that she looks younger than Isabel. How can she possibly help my daughter? Then he notices that she is not closing the blinds as they do on all the Medical dramas on TV when they have bad news to impart. He sits and wraps his arm firmly around his wife’s shoulders as Dr Cole introduces herself. Calmly and professionally she explains that Isabel has been very lucky. The relief in the room is palpable as Louise can no longer hold back and begins to sob loudly.

‘Isabel ran into a moving car but it was a side street and the driver was going slowly, looking for somewhere to park. Your daughter ran straight at his car. He described her state as “hysterical”.’

Duncan and Isabel sit mesmerised by what they are hearing. Hysterical?

‘Was she being chased?’ asks Duncan, as calmly as he can, ‘Did anyone see anything? Is there an investigation?’ he asks hurriedly. Doctor Cole lays her hands calmly on the file in her lap, ‘No, Mr Marsh, she wasn’t being chased.’ She pushes her black rimmed rectangular glasses up onto her nose, ‘I can take you to your daughter in just a moment and I’m sure she’ll tell you everything. She was unconscious when she was brought in and has stitches in her chin where she slid over the car bonnet and knocked herself out on the kerb. She has two broken fingers, as she tried to break her fall, but it’s mainly just bruises and scrapes. She really is very lucky she didn’t break her jaw or bite her tongue. No broken teeth either. She’s a lucky girl.’

‘O
h mum,’ cries Isabel, as her parent’s slip worriedly through the curtains to her bedside. She has a big white plaster covering the stitches on her chin and raw grazes down the side of her beautiful face, yellow with iodine. Three fingers on her left hand have been bandaged together and they can see the bruising on her shoulders spreading beneath her hospital gown, across her collar bone.

‘Oh Izzy, my darling girl, what have you done?’ sobs Louise, resisting the urge to take her in her arms for fear of hurting her more.

Duncan stands bravely next to his wife watching the mother-daughter scene, fighting back tears of his own.

‘Oh dad, it’s all over. I can’t even talk about it. I don’t know what to do! I’m not going to marry Paul. Dad, we’re not going to buy a house, we’re never going to have children, we’ll never...’

‘Shhhh...’ Louise strokes her daughter’s face as she begins to become hysterical again, ‘Shhhh sweetheart. Just rest for a while hey? We’re here now. Nothing can hurt you. We’ll sort it all out...’ They are distracted by the movement of the curtain.

‘Isabel, oh my word, Paul called me...’

‘Claire,’ says Louise, momentarily pleased to see her daughter’s friend.

Isabel launches herself forward in her bed, gripping her bruised torso, ‘Get oouuuuttt!!!’ she screams in a voice that she doesn’t even recognise as her own.

Duncan pushes Claire gently backwards, away from the bed. ‘I think you’d better go, Claire. We’ll call you, ok?’ he says, frowning in confusion.

A nurse comes running to Isabel’s bedside ‘Well what’s all this noise about then, eh?’ she says, in the patronising tones of a stereotypical, old-fashioned ward Sister. She plumps up Isabel’s pillow and settles her down.

‘No visitors please,’ says Duncan firmly, ‘until my daughter is ready. She’s obviously still very upset.’

‘Of course Mr Marsh, all just a storm in a tea cup I expect, but I’ll see to it that you’re not disturbed.’ She purses her lips and bustles from the cubicle.

Isabel sleeps fitfully for an hour as her parents sip sugary hospital tea from paper cups, debating in hushed whispers what on earth could have happened. ‘What about Rachel?’ suggests Louise, ‘Maybe Isabel will talk to her? Maybe she has nothing to do with any of this. Maybe she doesn’t even know?’

Duncan nods in reluctant agreement and Louise heads outside to make the call, brushing his hand gently with her own on her way past. As she reaches the main entrance and steps out into the welcome evening air, she hears someone shouting her name. Louise turns back towards the main door, expecting to see a nurse, gripped by momentary fear that Isabel may have had some sort of relapse. But, there is no uniformed medic, only Rachel and Claire huddled together on a bench. Claire looks like she has been crying for hours and frozen to the bone in just a thin t-shirt. Rachel must have just arrived as she is dressed for the cool evening weather and is still gripping her car key. She looks worried and confused, holding her best friend close.
Just one of her best friends
, thinks Louise, looking sceptically at them both, her dark auburn fringe falling over one eye.

‘Look, I know how it must look Mrs Marsh,’ pleads Rachel, ‘but I promise you, I’ve just heard, and I can explain if you’ll let me.’ Louise studies them both carefully, tucking her fringe behind her ear, raising her chin and considering how much she can trust them after Isabel’s reaction earlier.

‘Rachel, where’s your car?’ she asks briskly, ‘and
you,’
she turns to face Claire as they walk towards the car park, ‘I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter,’ she warns, waving a perfectly manicured finger threateningly in her direction, ‘stay here!’

Settled in Rachel’s spacious Citroën Picasso, smelling vaguely of vanilla air-freshener, Rachel begins to explain the whole sorry story to Isabel’s mum.

Louise shakes her head in what Rachel interprets as pity, ‘but why didn’t Claire say anything to Izzy?’

‘She wanted to protect her I guess. She didn’t even tell
me
,’ Rachel sighs. ‘To be honest, I think she’s been very brave and it must be something of a relief for her, now that she doesn’t have to keep it from us.’ Rachel nervously twists the diamond engagement ring on her finger and picks at her flaky red nail polish.

‘Have
they
gone?’ Louise asks sternly.

‘Yes, they’ve gone. Loaded all their stuff in the van as soon as Paul told them what had happened,’ Rachel says, not taking her eyes off her hands in her lap.

Louise reaches over and takes one of Rachel’s squirming hands in her own, as tears begin to drop into her lap. ‘Oh no, poor Isabel,’ sobs Rachel, ‘she had plans you know? Big plans. Who’s going to explain it to her?’

‘I will Rachel,’ she says firmly. ‘Don’t worry. I think it’ll be easier coming from me. She’s having a hard time trusting anybody at the moment. My poor baby.’

Louise reaches over and hugs Rachel and kisses her on her tear-stained cheek, ‘I think it’s best if you both go home. I’ll send Claire out to you on my way back in, ok?’ Rachel nods. ‘I’ll call you as soon as I have spoken to Izzy. Thank you Rachel, you’re a good friend to my daughter.’ She pats her hand one last time and slides elegantly out of the car and strides purposefully in the direction of the hospital, pulling her cream woollen coat around her slender frame.

When Louise arrives back at the ward, Isabel is sitting propped up in bed after another visit from the bossy Sister, insisting that Isabel eat something. She is pushing a piece of dull, steamed fish around the plate on the tray in front of her. She watches as it slides in and out of the watery broccoli juice, her mind clearly elsewhere. Father and daughter look up, relieved to see her as she slides her coat onto the back of one of the worn plastic chairs. Louise hesitates a moment, then looks pointedly at both of them.

‘Right, here’s what we’re going to do,’ she announces confidently. A surprised Duncan seems almost amused by the fact that his wife is taking control. Intrigued, Isabel stops playing with her food and Duncan silently removes the tray and slots the portable table back into the cabinet beside her bed.

‘You’ll come and stay with us for a while until you’re better,’ starts Louise. ‘We’ll call James Lapthorne later, but no doubt he’s already heard about what’s happened along with the rest of the village. With only two weeks left of term that’s one less thing to worry about.’ She leans in closer to her daughter. ‘I’ve spoken to Rachel. She’s told me everything... now before you interrupt, you must listen to me sweetheart.’ Isabel opens her dry lips to protest but her mum continues. ‘I just met Rachel outside, when you were asleep. Claire had no choice but to call her. It was the first that Rachel had heard of any of what has happened and Isabel... shhhh...’ she interrupts herself and puts a calming hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘Listen, I believe her. You were right about Paul seeing someone else.’ Isabel gasps and begins to cry again, reaching out for her dad’s hand, still hoping that it is all just a horrible mistake, ‘But...’ Louise continues quickly, ‘it wasn’t Claire. Claire was trying to protect you, darling.’

Isabel shakes her head rejecting what her mum was trying to tell her ‘No, I saw her outside the pub with a man, with
Paul
. She...’

‘Yes,’ Louise interrupts, ‘she was arguing with him love. She had known for some weeks that he had been carrying on with that young girl next door to you.’

‘
Jules??’
she squeals, dropping her dad’s hand and pushing herself upright in bed, red with rage.

‘Yes, darling, Jules. Apparently Claire had seen them together when she had football training, after the boy’s team, on a Tuesday night some time ago.’

‘Then why the
hell
didn’t she tell me then?’ Isabel cries through gritted teeth.

‘Because he’d threatened her Iz. She had a secret of her own too that he swore he would tell everyone in the village if she dared tell you about him and that girl. He swore to Claire that it was a “one-off”, at least that was what Rachel called it.’

‘But I...’

Louise rests her hand over her daughters’. ‘The night you were in the pub, Claire was on her way to the toilets when she saw them, Paul and that girl. They let themselves into Joan’s house next door, practically undressing each other in the street. The little cow...’

‘I had the key... I...’

‘I know sweetheart, but do you see now why she didn’t want to tell you? She swore to me that she was going to speak to you as soon as she saw that Paul had quite blatantly lied to her about it being a “one off”. Oh I’m so sorry, darling, I really am.’ Louise looks sadly down at Isabel. She looks so small and vulnerable in the big hospital bed.

‘She did try, she did,’ Isabel sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her hand like a small child. ‘She called me on the beach, but I wouldn’t listen.’

The three of them sit quietly for a while, until Isabel frowns, ‘but how did he threaten Claire? I don’t understand.’

Louise strokes her daughter’s cheek lovingly ‘Claire’s gay Isabel. Paul saw her together with a girl after a match one Sunday, apparently he saw them kiss, he saw it as a way out. He saw an opportunity to blackmail her into keeping quiet. She’s struggling with it Izzy. Lisa, the girl she was with, is her first girlfriend. She wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet.’

‘Oh, Claire!’ she cries, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands so hard that she begins to see spots. She lowers her hands and thumps the bed in disbelief, ‘surely she should know that she can tell us anything. Oh... I need to speak to her...’

‘Tomorrow,’ says Louise calmly. ‘I told them both that I’d call later after I had explained everything to you. They’ll be desperate to come and see you tomorrow, no doubt love.’

Isabel’s eyes become wide and full of panic again suddenly, ‘but, Jules, Alex...?’

‘Gone,’ says Louise, ‘they loaded their van and took off as soon as Paul called and told them what had happened. It turns out they are brother and sister, living off mummy and daddy’s money and staying in their holiday houses in Cartheston and Tarifa. They won’t be back to the cottage sweetheart.’

‘And Paul?’ she asks in a small voice.

‘I don’t know sweetie. I expect he’ll go and stay with his friend Craig for a while. He’ll not be welcome in the village once every one hears what’s happened. Oh, and by the way, Joan called. She was getting really worried, because she couldn’t get hold of you. I told her that you had been in an accident. She said she’ll be back next week and sends her love.’

Isabel hides her face in her hands and groans ‘Oh my word, I’m so tired. I feel like I’ve been, well, hit by a car!’ she smiles momentarily at her weak joke and then her face crumples again, ‘Oh mum, what am I going to do?!’

A
fter a long night of recurring nightmares and disturbed sleep on the hospital ward, Isabel is almost relieved when the morning shift arrives and the staff begin to talk in normal voices again, shouting their ‘good morning’s’ and exchanging paperwork. Wondering what the morning routine will hold for her, she pulls herself stiffly up into a sitting position and runs her fingers through her hair. She smiles as she sees a note from her parents and a few ‘essentials’ on the bedside cabinet. They must have slipped out when she eventually dozed off last night. She gratefully pulls a cool wet facial wipe from its pouch and wipes her eyes and as much as her face as she can, avoiding her chin and the sore grazes down her cheek. Running the little brush through her hair with one hand she opens the folded piece of paper with the other;