Читать книгу Where You Belong - Barbara Taylor Bradford - Страница 9

White light, very bright white light, was invading my entire being, or so it seemed to me. I was suffused in the bright white light until I became part of it; I was no longer myself, but the light…

I opened my eyes and blinked rapidly. The light was bright, harsh, startling, and I felt disoriented. And for a moment I thought I had not really woken up, but was still in my dream, living the dream. As I blinked again, came slowly awake, I wondered where I was; still somewhat disoriented, I glanced around in puzzlement. The white walls and ceiling and the white tile floor, in combination with the brilliant sunlight flooding through the windows, created a dazzling effect…echoing the bright white light that had dominated my strange and haunting dream.

Shifting slightly in the bed, I winced as a sharp pain shot up my thigh, and immediately I remembered everything. Of course, I was in a hospital room. In Belgrade. After the three of us had been shot, we had subsequently been rescued by the Red Cross and patched up by the doctors on a temporary basis, so that we could travel. We had then been taken to Péc in the ambulance I had seen in the village when the fighting had first started.

Jake and I had not been as seriously injured as Tony, who had been badly shot up and was in critical condition, having lost a lot of blood. Fortunately, the medics in Péc had been able to give him a blood tranfusion before the three of us had been flown out.

Details of the flight came back to me as my mind finally began to clear. Tony had been on a stretcher in the transport plane, and I had sat next to him all the way, holding his hand, talking to him, begging him to keep fighting. The medics were hopeful he would pull through; they had told me and Jake that Tony had a better than average chance of making it. He had slept through most of the flight while Jake and I had kept a vigil by his side; our hopes had soared as we had headed towards Belgrade because he was holding his own so well.

But when was the flight? Yesterday? The day before? Or even earlier than that?

Glancing at my wrist, expecting to see the time, I discovered I was not wearing my watch. My eyes strayed to the utilitarian metal nightstand, but it was not there either. The top of the stand was entirely empty.

I pushed aside the bedclothes, and, moving gingerly, inched myself into an upright position, and then manoeuvred my body onto the edge of the bed. My bandaged thigh was still quite sore from the gunshot wound but I managed, nevertheless, to stand up, and I was surprised and relieved to discover that I was relatively steady on my feet, and had only the smallest amount of discomfort when I walked.

In the cramped bathroom attached to the hospital room, I ran cold water into the sink and splashed my face with it, patted myself dry with a paper towel and peered into the mirror. My reflection didn’t please me. I looked lousy, done in. But then what else could I expect? My pallor was unusual – normally I have such good colour – and there were violet smudges under my eyes.

Moving slowly, I made it back to the bed, where I sat on the edge, fretting about Tony and Jake, and wondering what to do next. My main concern was Tony. Where the hell was he in this hospital? And where was Jake? My clothes had apparently been taken away, and since I was wearing only a skimpy cotton hospital gown, tied at the back, I couldn’t very well go wandering around the hospital in search of them. My eyes scanned the room for a phone. There wasn’t one.

A sudden loud knocking on the door startled me and I glanced towards it just as it was pushed open, and Jake, heavily bandaged and supporting himself on a pair of crutches, hobbled in. He was unshaven and looked crumpled in hospital-issue pyjamas and an equally creased cotton robe.

‘Hi,’ he said, and propping the crutches against the wall near the nightstand, he half-hopped, half-limped to the bed, where he sat down next to me. ‘How’re you doing, Val?’

‘Well I’m obviously not going dancing ce soir,’ I said, glancing down at my bandaged thigh which bulged under the cotton gown and then at him. ‘I’ll give you a raincheck tomorrow. And you seem to be doing okay with your balancing act on those crutches.’

He nodded.

‘How’s Tony? Have you seen him yet? Where is he? When can I go and see him?’ I asked, my questions urgent, tumbling out of my mouth anxiously.

Jake did not answer me.

I stared at him.

He gazed back at me, still not saying a word.

I saw how pale he was, and haggard-looking, and noticed that his bright blue eyes were clouded, bloodshot, as if he’d been crying. Inside I began to shrivel, scorched by an innate knowledge I dare not admit existed. But it did. Oh yes.

Jake cleared his throat and looked at me intently.

My heart dropped. I knew instinctively what he was going to say; an awful sense of dread took me in its stranglehold, and I felt my throat closing. Clasping my hands tightly together, I braced myself for bad news.

‘I’m afraid Tony didn’t make it, Val darling,’ Jake said at last, his tone low, almost inaudible. And final. ‘He’d become far too weakened before we arrived here, and he’d lost such a great deal of blood initially –’ Jake paused when his voice broke, but eventually he went on, ‘It’s devastating…I never thought it could happen, I –’ Very abruptly, he stopped again and, unable to continue, he said nothing more, simply sat there helplessly, gazing at me, shaking his head. His sorrow was reflected in his face, which was grey, bereft.

I was speechless. Finally I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. There was a long, silent scream echoing through my brain and I snapped my eyes shut, wishing I could block it out, wishing I could steady myself. Instead I fell apart, began to shake uncontrollably as shock engulfed me.

I felt Jake’s strong arms encircling me, and I clung to him, sobbed against his shoulder. Jake wept also, and we held onto each other for a long time. And together we mourned the tragic loss of a man we both loved who had died before his time.