Truly Madly Guilty

To her surprise Oliver had answered Erika's phone. Holly was fine, he said. She was on the couch under a blanket with Erika watching a DVD. He said that Erika was asleep, and he sounded embarrassed about that, or bewildered, but apart from that, he spoke exactly as Oliver always did, with polite, throat-clearing reticence, as if it had been an ordinary night, as if he and Erika hadn't just saved Ruby's life.

From where Clementine stood on the first-floor landing she could see the ground floor of the hospital and the sliding doors at the entrance. She recognised Sam's parents first as they hurried in, their agitation clear in the way they half-ran, half-walked. They would have been caught in the same traffic jam as she and Tiffany had, and they would have felt that same demented frustration. Sam's dad had grown up in the country and abhorred traffic lights.

She watched as the four of them grabbed at each other, like the survivors of a natural disaster running into each other at a refugee camp. Her father, dressed in his 'around the house' clothes, jeans and a misshapen jumper that would never normally be seen in public, hugged Sam's tiny mother, and she put her arms up and clung to his back in a way that was almost frightening to see because it was so out of character. Clementine saw Sam's dad put his hand on Clementine's mother's arm, and they both turned around, their faces lifted, studying the hospital signs for clues about where to go.

Clementine's mother caught sight of Clementine first, and she pointed at the same time as Clementine raised her hand, and then they all hurried up the long, wide walkway towards her.

Clementine walked down to meet them halfway. Her mother was first, followed by Sam's parents, with her dad at the back; he'd had a knee operation after a skiing accident a few months back. The expressions on their faces were painful to see. They each looked terrified, and sick, and as if they were labouring to breathe, as if the walkway was a mountain Clementine had forced them to climb. These were four fit, trim grandparents enjoying their retirement, but now they appeared much older. For the first time they looked elderly.

Ruby and Holly were the only grandchildren on both sides of the family. They were adored and spoiled, and Sam and Clementine lapped up the adoration with such casual vanity, for hadn't they created these exquisite little angels? Why, yes they had, so they deserved their pick of free babysitters and they deserved to sit back and be fed home-made treats when they went to visit, for look what they offered in return: these glorious grandchildren!

'She's okay,' she said. By okay, she meant 'alive'; she wanted them to know that Ruby was still alive. But she spoke too soon, before they could properly hear, and she could see all four of them straining to understand, in a panic to get to her faster, and Sam's mother grabbed for the banister, as if it were bad news.

'Ruby is okay!' she called again, louder, and then they were all around her, asking questions, creating a roadblock for people trying to get up the walkway.

'They have her sedated,' said Clementine. 'And she's still ... intubated.'

She tripped on the terrifying word and thought of Ruby's white little face and the huge tube extending from her mouth. It looked like it was choking her, not helping her breathe.

'They've done a CT scan and there is no sign of swelling or brain injury, everything looks fine,' said Clementine. Swelling or brain injury. She tried to make the medical words feel meaningless, like a foreign language, just sounds coming out of her mouth, because she couldn't risk letting herself feel their full significance. 'They've done a chest X-ray and there is some fluid on the lungs, but that's to be expected, they're not too concerned, they've started her on a course of antibiotics. Her ribs are okay. No fractures.'

'Why wouldn't her ribs be okay?' asked her father.

Clementine cursed herself. She was trying to tell them anything positive she could but there was no need to tell them all the things that could have gone wrong but didn't.

'Sometimes the force of the compressions, the CPR - but it's fine, it didn't.' She heard Oliver counting out loud and for a moment she couldn't speak. 'In the morning they'll reduce the medication, wake her up, and get her breathing on her own.'

'Can we see her?' said Clementine's mother.

'I don't know,' said Clementine. 'I'll ask.' She shouldn't have let them come to the hospital. It would have been more sensible to tell them to wait at home, better for their elderly hearts. She hadn't thought. She'd just expected them to come, as though she were still a child and she needed the grown-ups.

Once, she and Sam had been out at dinner with Erika and Oliver and they'd got into a conversation about whether they felt like grown-ups. She and Sam had said they didn't. Not really. Erika and Oliver had looked perplexed and kind of appalled.

'Of course I feel like a grown-up,' said Erika. 'I'm free. I'm in charge.'

Oliver had said, 'I couldn't wait to be a grown-up.'

'So then,' said Clementine's mother, breathing heavily. Was she having a heart attack? Suddenly she lunged at Clementine. 'Why weren't you watching her?' She was so close Clementine could smell the spicy scent on her breath of whatever she'd been eating for dinner. 'You shouldn't have taken your eyes off her. Not for a single second. Not around water, for God's sake.'

'Pam,' said Clementine's father. He went to take his wife's arm, and she shook it off. A young pregnant woman squeezed her way past them and stared curiously.

'You're smarter than that. You know better!' continued Pam, her eyes fixed on Clementine with such intensity it was as though Clementine were a stranger to her, as though she were trying to work out who this person was who had harmed her granddaughter. 'Were you drunk? How could you? How could you be so stupid?' Her face crumpled into a million lines before she covered it with both hands.

Clementine hadn't even told her yet that it was Erika who had saved Ruby. Erika. The better daughter. The grateful daughter. The daughter who would never have made a mistake like this.

Clementine's father put his arm around his wife. 'It's okay,' he mouthed over her head. He led her up the walkway. 'Let's go and sit down.'

'It's the shock,' said Sam's mother, Joy. She was a woman who never left the house without 'her face', but tonight it was bare of make-up. Clementine had never seen her without lipstick before, maybe no one had. It looked like her lips were missing. She must have been having her nightly read in the bath when she got the call. Clementine imagined her panic. The throwing on of clothes before she was even properly dry.

'Come on, darling,' said Joy. 'Chin up.'

Clementine could barely stand for shame.

chapter sixty-two

The morning after the barbeque

'Clementine.'