In the Still of the Night

There was so little of her left. Death would come as a kind release.

She stirred as if the intent gaze had penetrated her sleep and opened her eyes.

Fear lit them immediately. ‘Who are you?’ She shrank back against the pillows. ‘What do you want?’ Her sunken eyes looked from side to side around the silent ward. ‘Where am I? Where am I? What am I doing here? I don’t like this place, I want to go home.’

The nurse was carrying a white plastic kidney dish; Trudie looked at it and saw a hypodermic glisten in the half-light.

‘No, I’m not having that!’ she burst out. ‘I hate injections, I won’t have it, get away from me.’ She would have scrambled out of bed and fled, but she couldn’t move, her broken hip was agonising if she shifted an inch.

The nurse ignored her, rapidly threw back the bedclothes, pushed up the white hospital nightdress, baring Trudie’s thigh; the needle went in and the old woman gave a cry of pain.

‘That hurt!’

Without replying, the nurse walked off down the ward, rubber soles squeaking on the floor; Trudie watched the white uniform vanish, swearing under her breath.

Seconds later she clutched at her chest, gasping, her lips blue and her eyes rolling in her head.

Annie walked and walked, through the sleeping, secret streets of London, under street-lamps making yellow circles in the dark, and trees still bare and black, except where you saw a silver coin of a moon spinning through the sky above, passing in and out of the clouds. Few cars passed her and there was almost nobody else on foot in the streets tonight. She tried not to think but her brain was running like an overheated engine. Johnny had come back. She still didn’t know how she felt about that. She had spent years wondering what had happened to Johnny, grieving for him, missing him, and now that he had returned she couldn’t make up her mind about her feelings towards him.

He had changed so much. It wasn’t Johnny who had come back. Not surprising when you thought about where he had been. She still couldn’t believe it. It would never have occurred to her that he might be in prison all that time. Johnny! Attacking a policeman? Nearly killing the man? She still found it hard to believe.

In another way, though, he hadn’t changed at all; she could trace the sensitive, emotional boy she had loved in the man’s hard features, in those dark blue eyes. Johnny had been driven nearly mad by what she told him that night; he’d hit that policeman in a fit of rage and he had suffered a terrible punishment.

She paused, exhausted and shivering in the cold night wind. Only then becoming aware how cold she was, she ducked into an empty bus shelter and sank gratefully down on a metal seat for a few minutes.

She didn’t feel up to walking all the way back home, but while she was trying to decide whether or not to phone for a taxi she saw an early-morning bus lumbering towards her along the road.

It was almost empty except for a sprinkling of workmen on their way to start their day, and nightworkers going home after a long shift. Annie had a few pound coins in her jacket pocket. She paid the fare to a stop only a short walk from her home and within twenty minutes she was safely back indoors.

As she shut the door Harriet appeared from the kitchen, wild-eyed, her face drawn with anxiety.

She stared, breaking out hoarsely, ‘Oh, my God, Annie, where on earth have you been? I was just going to ring the police, I’ve already rung Sean …’

‘You shouldn’t have!’

‘Well, he wasn’t at home, anyway. I only got his answerphone, I left a message.’

‘Oh, Harriet! Why did you do that? He’ll come racing round here thinking God knows what.’

‘Well, you scared me out of my wits! There was a cat fight out in the garden, they were hissing and shrieking at each other and they woke me up, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up to make myself some cocoa, then as I went downstairs I noticed your bedroom door wide open and no sign of you. I ransacked the house looking for you, and realised you had actually gone out. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to think – someone could have got in and kidnapped you, forced you to go with him … I didn’t know, did I? You half-scared me to death. Where have you been at this hour?’

‘Walking,’ Annie said on a sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Harriet, I just couldn’t sleep, I walked myself tired.’

‘You must be crazy, going out alone in the middle of the night – anything could have happened to you!’

‘Well, it didn’t, I’m OK, and now I’m going to get some sleep.’

‘It’s past midnight, your car will be here soon, and you’ll be fit for nothing. Honestly, Annie, I could kill you.’

The phone began to ri

ng. Annie groaned.

‘That will be Sean returning your call! Well, you can talk to him. Explain it was all a storm in a teacup, I’m fine and he can go back to bed.’

Harriet lifted the phone. ‘Sean, I’m sorry,’ she began, and then stopped, listening. ‘Oh, yes, she’s here, hang on.’ She stopped again, listening, her face changing. ‘I see. Yes, maybe. Right, I’ll break it to her. Thank you for ringing. Goodbye.’

Annie was frozen on the bottom stair, her face turned towards the telephone.