On a Beautiful Day Page 2

  ‘Go, Jo!’ cheered Eve. ‘You dark horse, you.’

  ‘Whoa. Since when?’ squealed Laura. ‘I can’t believe this. Tell us everything! And show us photos!’

  ‘Amen, sister!’ cried India, putting a hand up for Jo to high-five. ‘This is brilliant news!’

  Until then, Jo had been so thrilled by her own good fortune that she’d felt superstitious about confiding in anyone else, for fear of breaking the spell. But now she found herself desperate to share everything with her friends, and the joy came bubbling right on out of her. ‘I know,’ she giggled. ‘I am one smitten kitten’ – which, even as she said it, she knew was completely ridiculous, because, being awkwardly tall with sturdy thighs and a bushy mane of red hair, she had never remotely thought of herself in kitten terms. Her own mother had once described her as ‘solidly built’ in the way that you’d speak of a bungalow or a kitchen extension. And yet, with Rick she felt feminine and frivolous and slinky. Remarkably kittenish, now that she thought about it. Meow!

  ‘Just look at you,’ India said approvingly, eyeing her from head to toe and taking in the French Connection asymmetric black dress (bought for her cocktails date) and the red lipstick (an impulse payday purchase, just because). ‘You look fabulous, like you’ve had a ton of sex. You lucky cow.’

  ‘I can hardly remember what that feels like,’ Eve sighed, but then she was smiling across the table. ‘You do look radiant. So is it serious, do you think? Are we talking the big L here?’

  ‘And when are we going to meet him?’ Laura put in before Jo could reply. ‘God! Talk about secretive. I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this to yourself. How mean!’ She was huffing out her lower lip, pretending to be indignant, but Jo could tell Laura was a tiny bit aggrieved for real. It had always been her and her sister against the world while they were growing up, and they were still close.

  ‘I didn’t want to jinx anything,’ Jo replied. ‘Remember Handsome Harry?’

  Oh, they all remembered Handsome Harry: Jo’s first date since her divorce, courtesy of a matchmaking app, and it had gone so well. So brilliantly well, in fact, that she’d texted all her friends the next morning saying: Oh my GOD! I’m in love! He’s amazing! Think I just met my Mr Right – only to never hear a single word again from Handsome Harry. Nothing. ‘You’ve been ghosted, my friend,’ Jo’s colleague Alison had informed her.

  The waitress arrived with their starters just then and the memory of Handsome Harry hung around the table with them for a few moments like a bad smell. ‘Anyway, it’s early days,’ Jo said firmly, remembering how the alarm bell had started ringing in her head the night before. How she’d gone home feeling confused and thinking: maybe this isn’t going to work out after all. She’d spent the whole night tossing and turning and changing her mind about what to do. Because who, having gone through a divorce, wanted to get hurt again, if they could avoid it? Not her. No, thanks. But then Rick had rung her twenty minutes ago, and had been so charming and apologetic and funny that she’d wavered again. ‘I’m . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe I’m not ready yet.’

  ‘Too soon? It’s been – what? – a year since you and Greg split up,’ Laura reminded her. ‘I think you’re allowed to have a bit of fun after a year. You are ready, you’re just being a wuss.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to take a deep breath and go for it,’ India agreed.

  ‘Sounds to me like the pros definitely outweigh any cons,’ said Eve, who was an accountant and couldn’t help calculating balance accounts, when it came to emotional situations as well as financial ones.

  Jo twirled her fork through the rocket leaves on her plate as she listened to them, one after another, being her personal cheerleaders: Team Jo all the way. They were probably right. She was out of practice when it came to dating, that was all, and last night’s unexpected ending was . . . well, she’d just have to deal with it. ‘Thanks, guys,’ she said, then decided to direct the limelight elsewhere. ‘Anyway, enough about me. How’s everyone else? Eve? What’s the latest with you?’

  Eve smiled brightly as the attention turned her way. Brightly but not sincerely, because she had been dreading this question. You could fool some people – her husband, her kids, her boss – that you were absolutely fine, by carrying on as normal, being your same old competent, organized self, but her best friends were less easy to beguile. They were the ones who’d look into her eyes and know; who’d see in an instant that, actually, she was not fine at all. Actually she was freaking out and didn’t know what to do.

  It had been there for three weeks now, a hard lump, the size of a pea in her right breast. Her fingers kept returning to its solid wrongness, prodding and poking, as if her touch might somehow erase it, as if she didn’t quite believe it was real. But it was real. And it was still there. And even though she had been telling herself that it was probably nothing, just a lump, some kind of cyst, harmless, loads of people got them, there was also this other voice in her head which kept whispering that she was going to die, and that Grace and Sophie would be left motherless, two small figures in black coats weeping over her grave.

  This was not a topic for India’s birthday lunch, though. No way would Eve bring down the mood with her secret worries, when India looked so cheerful, and Jo seemed positively dazzled by this new man. Added to which, Eve didn’t want to be confronted with their concerned faces staring back at her if she confessed her fears, either. India, an emotional sort, would probably burst into shocked tears. Laura would be upset too and would want to know every detail, her blue eyes shining with anxiety. As for Jo, well, she was a nurse and so would be chivvying Eve to get herself checked out, offering to go with her to an appointment, not letting up until Eve was sitting there opposite a doctor and being given a diagnosis. They would fuss, basically. They would fuss and be on her case, it would be impossible to tuck her secret back in the box again. And Eve just wasn’t sure she could handle any of that. Not yet.

  Burying her head in the sand, on the other hand – that seemed way simpler an option.

  The irony was that normally Eve prided herself on being in control. If one of the girls was falling behind at school, she’d be straight in to talk to a teacher, finding out what could be done. If her casework piled up in the office, she would stay late to tackle the backlog or plough through it on the kitchen table after dinner, methodical and focused. If there was a problem at home – a leaking tap, a missing roof tile, a blown light bulb – she would know about it, and either deal with the matter herself (she was pretty handy with a screwdriver or drill) or call in assistance from a professional. And yet this time, when her own body had done something it shouldn’t have, she was holding back in terms of immediate action. She was dithering and prevaricating, pretending the problem wasn’t there.

  Her friends were looking at her expectantly, she realized with a gulp, anticipating no doubt her usual sort of reply – an amusing story about the kids, or news from work about an annoying client – and she licked her lips, trying to formulate a valid response. She never did get to speak, though. Because all of a sudden there came a tremendous commotion from behind them and then, as she spun round in alarm, it was as if the world had sped up before her eyes.

  A blue car seemed to have lost control on the road, veering wildly across its lane, engine roaring. Other cars hooted in alarm, passers-by yelled and leapt out of the way. ‘Bloody hell!’ cried Laura. In the next second, the blue car came swerving in the direction of the café – straight towards them – and shouts of panic arose, glasses toppling over as people jumped up. ‘Shit!’ yelped India, scrambling back off her chair.

  Eve felt frozen to her seat, unable to move, staring in horror. The car was going to hit them. It was coming right at them. She could see the whites of the driver’s eyes, one hand clutching at his chest, his mouth opened in an agonized shout. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop!

  Then she blinked and the car lurched back away, zigzagging drunkenly across the road, before mounting
the pavement and crashing into the flower shop opposite. The noise was incredible, like something from a film but worse, louder, the air vibrating with the boom-crash of impact, the shatter of glass ripping through the atmosphere.

  ‘Oh my God,’ gulped Laura, swaying dazedly on her feet, eyes huge with shock. Jo, meanwhile, was already pelting towards the scene, shoes slapping across the tarmac. ‘Ambulance, please,’ India gabbled urgently into her phone, the colour draining from her face. ‘There’s been an accident.’

  Across the road, the car’s front had crumpled, as if a giant fist had punched it. A man in a City football shirt wrenched at the driver’s door to pull him out. ‘He’s having a heart attack. Somebody help me!’ he yelled before two women ran over, arms pumping with urgency. Buckets of flowers lay tipped sideways on the ground in front of the shop, water puddling around them. Traffic was backing up around the crash, there was a woman crying somewhere and high-pitched voices . . .

  Eve swallowed, blood throbbing in her ears. She could see Jo crouching beside a woman on the ground, other people hurrying to help. Everyone seemed to have reacted except her. So much for survival instinct, she thought shakily, trying to catch her breath. She had sat there in the face of danger, and done . . . absolutely nothing.

  I’m alive, her pounding heart told her. I’m okay. But what about the driver and everyone else?

  Chapter Two

  ‘Will I be able to walk again, do you think?’ the woman asked, her voice so faint that Jo had to lean in to hear. ‘Only I can’t feel anything below my pelvis, you see, and I’ve got horses. Two horses, and they’re my life. I’ll die if I can’t ride them again.’

  Jo had found herself amidst a scene of carnage. At a first glance, the blue car had hit at least three people before smashing through the shopfront; there were shards of glass and metal strewn about liberally, and the sales assistant from the florist’s was sobbing hysterically nearby. Further down the pavement, she could see someone giving chest compressions to the driver, who lay unmoving. A heart attack rather than a deliberate attack then, she thought with a shudder, but horrific nonetheless.

  ‘Can you tell me your name? I’m Jo, I’m a nurse – the paramedics will be on their way,’ she said, taking the woman’s hand and finding her pulse. There were flowers scattered around her on the wet pavement, the clashing scents of roses and lilies and hot metal in the air. Blood, too. You could smell the iron tang of blood.

  ‘Star and Chestnut, they’re called. They’re everything to me,’ the woman said desperately. She was wearing a smart fawn-coloured dress and silver earrings, her tights ripped to shreds where her legs had been crushed. There was a nasty graze on her temple and two stray marguerite petals in her hair. ‘I’m Miriam,’ she added belatedly. ‘Miriam Kerwin.’ And then her mouth buckled, and tears glistened in her very blue eyes. ‘Oh dear. You’d better tell Bill, I suppose. He’s going to be so worried. Will you ring him for me? Will you tell Bill?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jo promised, holding Miriam’s hand as the wail of an ambulance sounded in the distance. ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Please – on the house,’ said the manager of the restaurant, a tray of brandies on one arm, his eyes darting to the scene of the accident, where paramedics were stretchering people into ambulances. ‘We are the lucky ones, non? Lucky, but a little shocked, I think.’

  Lucky? None of them felt at all lucky. India was in tears, Eve was pale and quiet, dazedly asking for the bill, and Jo had returned from the crash site with a smear of blood across her cheek, shaking her head when Laura asked if she was okay. Laura, for her part, felt stunned. For a horrible moment she’d thought the car was going to plough straight into them and she’d been screaming, scrambling to get out of her seat, her adrenalin jagging through the roof. And I never got to have a baby, she’d thought, her life flashing before her eyes, before the car had swerved away again and she’d been left swaying there in shock, breath heaving in her lungs. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  ‘I just want to go home and hug Dan and the kids,’ India said with a sob in her voice, sniffling and dabbing her eyes with a napkin. ‘I feel terrible for moaning about that oven glove he bought me for my birthday now. Terrible. When there are people who might be dying – when we just s-s-saw . . .’ Her words petered out.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Eve said dully. ‘Neil and I had a row this morning about stacking knives in the dishwasher . . .’ Her lower lip trembled and she wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Seems kind of pointless, all of a sudden.’

  Jo had returned from the bathroom, her face clean once more, and Laura fought the urge to rush over and cling to her, as she’d done as a small child whenever their mum had gone off on one. ‘You all right?’ she asked instead, remembering that Jo probably felt worse than any of them. ‘That must have been grim.’

  Her sister was holding a small white business card with a bloody fingerprint on the back. ‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ she said miserably. ‘And tell some poor bloke that his wife . . . Well, she’s almost certainly lost the use of her legs.’ She grabbed a brandy from the manager’s tray as he went by. ‘Thank you. I’m going to need this.’

  Once they’d paid the bill and said goodbye, hugging each other for a second longer than was usual, the four of them went their separate ways, each with a heavy tread. Laura felt wired, her nerves jangled, as if she’d stayed up all night. Again and again the car careered towards them, in her mind’s eye; again and again she screamed and leapt to her feet. You thought you were invincible, you thought you had all the time in the world until something like this happened, shaking up your world as if it were a snow-globe.

  And I never got to have a baby, the voice kept saying in her head with such devastating clarity. I never got to have a baby.

  ‘Is that Bill Kerwin?’ Jo had found a quiet shady spot near the town hall and was sitting on a stone wall, brandy and adrenalin still spiking through her. ‘My name’s Jo Nicholls, I’m a nurse and I’ve just . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.’

  Christ, Jo found herself thinking as she outlined to Miriam’s husband what had happened, she had forgotten how you came up against it with emergency medicine. How brutal it could be, the intensely charged dramas involved – and how safe and straightforward it was for her these days, in comparison, working as a practice nurse: carrying out cervical smears, changing wound dressings, taking blood or giving injections, checking urine samples. You went in and did your job, helping patients in a routine sort of way, but you never had to tell a poor, stunned man down the phone that his wife had been badly injured and that life, as they knew it, was suddenly over.

  His voice was thick when he eventually replied; gruff, as if emotion had got the better of him. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll go there at once.’ And then his voice cracked a little and he added, ‘She’s the love of my life, you know. It’s only ever been her, for me.’

  Jo’s hand shook on the phone. Despite all her training and experience, sometimes a patient just got to you and it was impossible to remain detached. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, helplessly.

  ‘I forgot to tell her that I love her, before she went out,’ he said, sounding upset. ‘I forgot to say it.’

  ‘You can tell her at the hospital,’ Jo soothed. ‘I’m sure she knows you love her, don’t worry.’

  ‘I . . . I’d better go,’ he said shakily. ‘Thanks for letting me know. Do me a favour, will you? Tell your husband you love him today. Tell him. While you have each other. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘I—’ Jo felt slightly lost for words. Now was not really the moment to confess that she was divorced and had only recently started dating again. ‘I will,’ she assured him instead. ‘Take care, Bill. And give Miriam my best.’

  Right, then, Eve said to herself, walking away after lunch. Deep breath. Let’s get on with the rest of the day.

  She had always been good at compartmentalizing, at blocking out any troublesome wor
ries in order to concentrate on something more compelling. Whenever she walked through her office door, it was as if Home Eve was put on standby while Work Eve took over. Some of her colleagues had photos of their children on their desks and indulged in long daily conversations with their childminders or even the school-age children themselves – ‘Having a nice morning? How was your music lesson?’ – but Eve privately found such behaviour faintly pathetic. She loved her children – obviously! – but there was a time and a place for family, and the workplace was neither.

  So. She would put the roadside drama into a box too, seal it off, maybe come back to it later on, much later, when she could process how she had felt. When she could ponder at greater length exactly why she had reacted – or, rather, not reacted – in the way that she had. Why her survival instincts had failed to materialize, as if there was some disconnect in her reflexes.

  But anyway, onwards! Time to reset the afternoon and get on with the current list of tasks earmarked for attention today. A new towel for the bathroom. The length of gingham Grace needed for her Textiles project at school. A bunch of flowers for her neighbour’s birthday. Lots to do, no time to waste navel-gazing or wallowing. First stop: Debenhams.

  She moved briskly through the crowds, swerving to avoid the slow-moving packs of teenage girls, not making eye contact with the buskers, right foot, left foot, keep going, don’t think about it. But then, once in the bathroom department at Debenhams, a wave of shock suddenly caught up with her, flooding her system with anxiety so that her knees wobbled violently and she had to clutch onto the shelf of folded Egyptian cotton towels for support. Her heart pounded, adrenalin crashed through her, and then she caught sight of her face in a row of mirrored cabinets nearby, and realized in horror that tears were leaking down her cheeks and that she was weeping soundlessly, her mouth open and red.