there…’
Olive shook her head. ‘You can’t do that, Grace. You can’t go over every detail and blame yourself.’
‘Can’t I? Why can’t I? I think you’ll find I can do what the fuck I want. And I want you to go now,’ Grace retorted.
They fell silent again.
‘I mean it. I want you to go! I don’t want to see anyone!’ She was shouting now.
Olive laid a hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘If I could take all your pain and put it into me, I would, I would do it in an instant.’ she whispered as she crept from the room.
Grace placed her head on the pillow and listened to the murmur of conversation that floated up the stairs. Once or twice she heard laughter – how dare someone be laughing, laughing in her house, laughing today, laughing at all? Closing her eyes, she pushed her face into the soft surface of the pillow and wished for sleep. Remembering her mum’s words, she whispered into the dark, ‘There is no God. There is no God. There’s nothing. I don’t want to be any more. And yet I keep waking up. No one is listening to me, no one is helping me escape. What do I have to do to make this stop?’
An image played in her head, over and over, as it had since that morning when she’d watched her husband with vomit clinging to his skin as he bent over their little girl. It was like a movie that she couldn’t switch off, on a loop. She saw herself holding her newborn, kissing her little face and whispering, ‘Welcome to the world, little one. I’m Grace, I’m your mum and I love you.’
Grace must have dozed off because she woke with a start when the bedroom door opened. She recognised the outline of Tom as he shuffled in, removed his jacket and dropped it over the chair that sat in the corner. He tiptoed round the bed and slid down onto the mattress in his trousers, shirt and shoes. She could smell sweat on his skin and alcohol on his breath as he exhaled.
The two lay side by side, listening to family, friends and those they vaguely knew milling around below them. In other circumstances it would have been amusing that, in their own home, they were confined to their bedroom while strangers ate their food, sipped their wine, glugged their whisky and admired the cut of the drapes. But this wasn’t other circumstances, this was January the twentieth, the day their hearts had been further ripped in two. There were no rules on how to behave and no previous experience on which they could draw; it was entirely new, raw and all-consuming.
They lay in silence as the house grew quieter and quieter. Night crept up on them and threw its dark veil over the darkest of days.
7
Sepsis claims 37,000 lives every year in the UK. 37,000…
Grace woke in the throes of a nightmare. The sheets were twisted about her body and she lay in a cloying film of sweat. Her heart was racing, her throat was dry and tears clogged her nose. She sat up and closed her eyes, swallowing hard, trying to picture something different, trying to make the moving image that lurked behind her eyes go away.
It was the same dream she had on a semi-regular basis, where she imagined driving up to the hospital, getting out of the car and taking Chloe by the hand. But before they walked into the building, her little girl looked up at her and said, ‘Can we go home, Mummy?’ Grace then laughed, packed her back into the car and drove her home in time for tea and The Gruffalo .
Strangely, it wasn’t the dream itself that upset Grace; in fact quite the opposite: it was lovely to see Chloe again, to feel her hand in hers. It was waking up to the miserable reality that left her reeling and feeling physically sick.
Grace knew that the nightmare was a manifestation of the one obsessive thought that haunted her above all else. It was real and constant, the thought that had she acted differently, taken another decision, done… something, anything, Chloe might still be with them. She couldn’t bear the idea of apportioning blame and even at her
Olive shook her head. ‘You can’t do that, Grace. You can’t go over every detail and blame yourself.’
‘Can’t I? Why can’t I? I think you’ll find I can do what the fuck I want. And I want you to go now,’ Grace retorted.
They fell silent again.
‘I mean it. I want you to go! I don’t want to see anyone!’ She was shouting now.
Olive laid a hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘If I could take all your pain and put it into me, I would, I would do it in an instant.’ she whispered as she crept from the room.
Grace placed her head on the pillow and listened to the murmur of conversation that floated up the stairs. Once or twice she heard laughter – how dare someone be laughing, laughing in her house, laughing today, laughing at all? Closing her eyes, she pushed her face into the soft surface of the pillow and wished for sleep. Remembering her mum’s words, she whispered into the dark, ‘There is no God. There is no God. There’s nothing. I don’t want to be any more. And yet I keep waking up. No one is listening to me, no one is helping me escape. What do I have to do to make this stop?’
An image played in her head, over and over, as it had since that morning when she’d watched her husband with vomit clinging to his skin as he bent over their little girl. It was like a movie that she couldn’t switch off, on a loop. She saw herself holding her newborn, kissing her little face and whispering, ‘Welcome to the world, little one. I’m Grace, I’m your mum and I love you.’
Grace must have dozed off because she woke with a start when the bedroom door opened. She recognised the outline of Tom as he shuffled in, removed his jacket and dropped it over the chair that sat in the corner. He tiptoed round the bed and slid down onto the mattress in his trousers, shirt and shoes. She could smell sweat on his skin and alcohol on his breath as he exhaled.
The two lay side by side, listening to family, friends and those they vaguely knew milling around below them. In other circumstances it would have been amusing that, in their own home, they were confined to their bedroom while strangers ate their food, sipped their wine, glugged their whisky and admired the cut of the drapes. But this wasn’t other circumstances, this was January the twentieth, the day their hearts had been further ripped in two. There were no rules on how to behave and no previous experience on which they could draw; it was entirely new, raw and all-consuming.
They lay in silence as the house grew quieter and quieter. Night crept up on them and threw its dark veil over the darkest of days.
7
Sepsis claims 37,000 lives every year in the UK. 37,000…
Grace woke in the throes of a nightmare. The sheets were twisted about her body and she lay in a cloying film of sweat. Her heart was racing, her throat was dry and tears clogged her nose. She sat up and closed her eyes, swallowing hard, trying to picture something different, trying to make the moving image that lurked behind her eyes go away.
It was the same dream she had on a semi-regular basis, where she imagined driving up to the hospital, getting out of the car and taking Chloe by the hand. But before they walked into the building, her little girl looked up at her and said, ‘Can we go home, Mummy?’ Grace then laughed, packed her back into the car and drove her home in time for tea and The Gruffalo .
Strangely, it wasn’t the dream itself that upset Grace; in fact quite the opposite: it was lovely to see Chloe again, to feel her hand in hers. It was waking up to the miserable reality that left her reeling and feeling physically sick.
Grace knew that the nightmare was a manifestation of the one obsessive thought that haunted her above all else. It was real and constant, the thought that had she acted differently, taken another decision, done… something, anything, Chloe might still be with them. She couldn’t bear the idea of apportioning blame and even at her
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