It felt like I’d only been asleep for a few hours. But when I woke, I knew from the change in the light coming through the skylight it must have been a lot longer. The pain in my head felt even worse than when it had been fresh.
When I came to, I found Mum and Ethan sitting either side of my bed, glaring at each other.
‘Who let you two in?’ I mumbled.
‘Now Kitty, don’t be like that,’ Mum said gently. ‘How does your head feel, my love?’
‘Like it’s full of rocks.’
‘The doctor lowered your painkiller dose while you were sleeping. She said it might hurt a little more, but not to worry. That just means you’re healing.’
‘Where’s Jack? I want Jack.’
‘You don’t need Jack. You need your mum.’
‘She needs her husband,’ Ethan snapped.
‘I think we’ll let Kitty be the judge of that, don’t you?’
‘Seriously, can you just give it a rest? I’m in a fucking hospital bed here.’ Despite the crushing pain, I felt oddly light-headed – maybe from the morphine. It was filling me with a liberating sense of couldn’t-care-less. ‘How the pair of you ever managed to shut the hell up long enough to have sex with each other I’ll never know.’
Mum looked shocked. ‘Kitty!’
I let out a little high-pitched giggle, closely followed by a sob.
‘This isn’t good,’ Ethan said in a low voice to Mum. ‘Maybe we should get the doctor.’
‘Not sure there’s any cure for whatever’s wrong with you two,’ I said. It was quite fun, saying just exactly what I was thinking.
I giggled again. Then I burst into tears.
‘Oh God, I think she’s hysterical.’ Mum sounded frightened. ‘I’ll go for Sarah. You stay with her, make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.’ She cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Think you can manage that?’
‘Just go, will you?’
Eventually, my crying fit settled into gasping sobs and I could speak again.
‘How long – was I – asleep?’ I managed to demand.
‘Two days, nearly,’ Ethan said.
‘Two days! Have you been here two days?’
‘Yes. Watching over you. Where else would I be when you’re ill?’ He ran a finger down my cheek. ‘You know I love you, Kitty.’
‘Get off. Don’t you touch me.’ I thrust the finger away. ‘Has Jack been?’
Ethan scoffed. ‘Of course he hasn’t been. It’s like I tried to tell you. If he can’t get what he wants from you, you’re no good to him.’
‘He’s not like that.’
‘Yeah? Then where is he?’
‘He probably just—’ I broke off, listening to the sound of voices in the distance. ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’
‘That voice. It sounds like… is that an Irish accent?’ I paused to listen. ‘That’s him! Oh my God, that’s him!’
I could just about distinguish the hum of two voices I knew well among the other hospital sounds. It was Mum and Jack, somewhere nearby. And it sounded like they were arguing.
I stared at Ethan in disgust. ‘You’ve been keeping him from me. Haven’t you? Both of you! Jesus.’
‘We… no. We just didn’t want you to get upset, that’s all. It’s not good for your recovery.’
I threw the covers back and swung my legs over the side.
‘Kitty, don’t! You’ll hurt yourself!’
But it was too late. I’d already pushed myself out of bed. I stumbled towards the curtains and flung them open, the various wires and machines I was connected to trailing after me. I could see my mum and Jack, arguing at the door of the ward.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ Mum was saying in a low voice. ‘Kitty’s made it quite clear she doesn’t want to see you. Just go, please.’
‘I’m not leaving till I’ve spoken to Kitty. If she tells me she doesn’t want to see me, then I’ll go.’
‘Absolutely not. You’ll only get her worked up. She needs rest and quiet, not—’
‘Jack!’ I called out. ‘I’m here. I’m…’
The world started to spin, and I gripped the metal frame of the cubicle to steady myself.
‘Kitty!’ Jack swept my mum to one side and came running towards me. ‘Oh God, Kitty, sweetheart, I’ve been so scared,’ he whispered, wrapping his arms around me. ‘No running away, remember? You promised me. No running away.’
I laughed breathlessly as he showered me with kisses. ‘I’m okay. I’m okay.’
‘You’re not okay. You’re about to fall down.’ He guided me back to the bed and helped me lay down. I kept tight hold of his hand, anxious in case he slipped away again.
‘Why didn’t you come before, Jack?’ I mumbled.
‘I did come. I followed the ambulance. They wouldn’t let me in to you.’
‘Because we knew you’d make her worse,’ Ethan snapped. ‘Just like you’re doing now. Look at her, she’s grey with the pain. Not that you give a shit, eh?’
I did feel awful. Standing up hadn’t been a good idea. But as long as Jack was there, holding my hand, I felt strong.
Mum came back through the curtains. ‘The doctor’s on her way.’ She glared at Jack. ‘I’ve told her there’s someone here causing trouble.’
‘Please don’t go,’ I whispered to Jack. ‘Don’t let them send you away.’
‘I’m going nowhere, Kitty. They’ll have to carry me out.’
The curtains opened and in came Sarah, looking irritated.
‘What’s all the noise about in here?’
‘It’s him,’ my mum said, nodding to Jack. ‘He’s upsetting my daughter.’
‘He isn’t,’ I whispered, as loudly as I could through the searing pain in my temples. ‘I want him here.’
Sarah glanced round at the three of them, clustered around my bed looking daggers at each other. ‘I think you’d all better leave. Visiting hours are nearly over. Kitty needs to rest now.’
‘No, please!’ I gasped, pushing myself up. ‘Let Jack stay. Please. I need to talk to him.’
‘I’m sorry, but I really must insist.’
‘Sarah, please! Just let him stay ten minutes.’
She hesitated a moment, scanning my face.
‘Well… ten more minutes then, if it’s going to distress you,’ she said at last. ‘But you mustn’t get yourself worked up, Kitty.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’ My knuckles, wrapped around Jack’s hand, had turned white.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jack asked in a low voice when Sarah had gone.
‘It’s them.’ I nodded to Mum and Ethan. ‘I was right, Jack. What I saw, I… I mean, I still don’t know about the trees. But I found his aftershave in Mum’s bathroom.’
Mum laughed. ‘What, is it aftershave now? First trees, now aftershave. You’ve got a good imagination, angel.’
‘I saw it,’ I said, glaring at her. ‘This time I know I really saw it.’
‘And where is it?’ Ethan asked.
‘I… don’t know. Smashed maybe, when I fell.’
‘Yeah?’ He grabbed my trousers from the chair and held them up in front of him. ‘Then these should be soaked in the stuff, shouldn’t they? But they’re not. No glass, no scent. No aftershave.’
He passed them to me so I could conduct my own sniff test. He was right. They smelt of washing powder, and fresh earth from where I’d landed in the garden. They didn’t smell of aftershave.
‘Maybe the bottle fell out,’ I mumbled weakly.
‘It’s the same old thing, my love,’ Mum said. ‘Seeing things. You lost your nana. That’s got to disturb your poor brain.’ She smiled fondly. ‘You were always a sensitive little girl.’
‘No, I… I did see it.’ I cast a helpless gaze up at Jack. ‘I did.’
‘I know you did.’
‘It does no good to humour her,’ Mum said to him. ‘You’ll only make it worse. She has to start distinguishing between these visions or whatever they are and reality. It’s the first step in getting better.’
‘Not in fact true, Petra,’ Jack said brightly. ‘Because I’m not humouring her. If Kitty tells me she’s seen a man’s aftershave in your bathroom, you see, I’m inclined to believe her.’
Mum scoffed. ‘Believe her? She doesn’t even believe herself. Not really.’ She patted my shoulder. ‘It’s okay, angel. We’ll talk to the doctors here, see what they can do to help you. Once you come home this will all go away, I promise.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Don’t listen to her, Kit. She’s playing games with you. Messing with your head.’
My head. My head felt like it had doubled in size and was currently being pounded with a huge rubber truncheon.
‘Rubbish,’ Mum said. ‘I’m her mother. Whatever I do is for her own good.’
‘Sleeping with her husband, was that for her own good?’
‘That was fantasy. It never happened except in her mind.’
‘Did it not?’ Jack rummaged in the pocket of his jeans for a folded piece of paper. ‘Because you see – Petra, Ethan – while you’ve been doing your best to stop me getting to Kitty, I’ve been making the most of my time elsewhere. Doing a little bit of investigation.’
Ethan scoffed. ‘What, are you Poirot now?’
‘It was Kitty’s stepmum – Bernie, is it? – who gave me a hint when she mentioned the wedding photographer. Even a Luddite like me could manage a basic Google search.’ Jack unfolded his piece of paper and passed it to me. ‘Does this look familiar at all, Kit?’
I blinked a couple of times until I’d forced my eyes to focus. It was a web page, printed off. The title at the top was Divine Photography. I recognised it. It was the local photographer Ethan had hired for our wedding.
Underneath was a photo. A little clump of trees, all decked out in fairy lights… oh yes, they looked very familiar.
‘They call it their Wedding Wonderland backdrop,’ Jack said. ‘Fully reusable miniature forest, for indoor or outdoor use. Nifty, eh?’
‘You bastards,’ I whispered to Mum and Ethan. ‘You bastards!’
‘What did you do with the aftershave, Ethan?’ Jack asked. ‘Take it out of her pocket while she was lying there? Or were you big-hearted enough to wait till the paramedics had seen her?’
‘Wanted me to believe I was going insane…’ I muttered, still staring at the Wedding Wonderland that had provided such a handy cover for their betrayal.
Ethan looked panicked now, his eyes darting around like a hare backed into a corner.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes you bloody do,’ I said, looking up to meet his gaze. ‘And you really tried to make me think… God, I thought I was losing my mind. You wanted me to think that. That is sick!’
Ethan hesitated, his gaze flitting from me to Jack, and then to Mum, while he decided whether there was any point continuing with the lie. Mum gave her head an almost imperceptible shake.
‘Kitty, I swear, it was just one time!’ he blurted out at last, his voice laced with desperation. ‘I knew she wanted it, and I… I’m only human. It was a mistake. I promise you, baby, it was just one time.’
‘You idiot!’ Mum hissed. ‘God, can’t you be trusted to do anything right?’
‘Don’t believe him,’ Jack said to me.
‘I don’t believe him,’ I said. ‘Aftershave in bathrooms doesn’t belong to a one-off. Not that that makes any difference. Once is plenty.’ I shook my head in disgust. ‘God, my own mother! You’re seriously disturbed, the pair of you.’
‘Kitty, please!’ Mum’s eyes were shining with tears. She looked absolutely terrified. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I’m truly sorry. I did it for you.’
I snorted. ‘You went to bed with my husband for me? How the hell does that work?’
She shot a resentful glare at Ethan. ‘Because he’s not good enough for you. He’s just a man, doing the only thing men know how to do. He never loved you. I had to prove that to you.’
‘Right. So you knew I’d find out, did you?’
‘Well, I—’
‘And then you lied to me about it because, what? You wanted to prove it to me but at the same time cover it up by convincing me I was going mad?’ I shook my head. ‘Thing about a lie, Mum. It really needs thinking through.’
She stared at me for a moment. Finally she dropped her head onto her palms and let out a defeated sob.
‘It was… too hard,’ she whispered. ‘I tried to say no, but it was too hard. Kitty, I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.’
‘And yet here we are.’ I nodded to the opening in the curtains. ‘Get out.’
‘Kitty, please—’
‘I said, get out, both of you. Visiting hours are over. Permanently.’
‘I do love you, Kitty, I swear,’ Ethan managed to whisper. ‘Whatever happened between me and her, it was always you.’
‘You don’t know what love is. Either of you. You never wanted to be with me, you just wanted to own me. While scratching an itch you couldn’t control behind my back at every opportunity.’ I sagged back against the bed, exhausted. ‘Just go,’ I whispered. ‘We’re done.’
‘Wait,’ Jack said. ‘Kitty, there’s something else.’
I frowned. ‘You can’t mean it gets worse?’
‘No. Not exactly.’ He hesitated, taking in my pale, drawn face, the tears gemmed in my eyes. ‘Think your head can handle another bombshell?’
‘What is it, Jack? Tell me.’
He nodded to Mum. ‘That woman’s not your mother.’