Читать книгу One Minute Later: Behind every secret is a story, the emotionally gripping new book from the bestselling author - Susan Lewis, Susan Lewis - Страница 8

This wasn’t a place Vivi knew, or a feeling she recognized, or a sound she could identify through the strangeness of this elusive reality. Thump, wheeze, thump, click, bleep. On and on, never stopping, never changing: soft, loud, lilting, dropping … There was a fog, not in her eyes, yes, in her eyes, but in her head too, deep inside her brain, spreading all the way through her right out to the edges of her vision, circling brief moments of clarity in a dim, misty halo.

She blinked slowly, and felt a clutching sensation around her mouth. She thought she might be standing on the corner of the Fulham Road talking on the phone, waiting for an ambulance to pass.

The siren wailed into silence; voices rose and rippled across an invisible divide. Someone was speaking her name. ‘Vivienne, can you hear me? Vivi. Vivienne.’

The fog closed in, colourless and opaque, and everything went quiet again as she floated back into darkness, away from the strange sounds and confusion of pain.

A while later Vivi’s eyes flickered open again. She could see a vague, bluish light and blinked to try to focus on it. She felt dazzled and trapped, pinned inside a place she couldn’t distinguish. She tried to make sense of the peculiar noises around her: heavy whispers; loud, desperate breaths. An unsteady hush was punctured by bleeps; grazed by a constant, low-pitched hum.

She moved her pupils to the edge of their sockets. She was lying down, that much was clear, and without trying she knew she couldn’t get up. In the semi-darkness her gaze reached the long, loose limbs of someone sprawled on a chair. It was her brother, Mark. She’d been talking to him on the phone while on the corner of the Fulham Road. A siren shrilled as an ambulance went by …

Now Mark was here, beside her, his head and body slumped awkwardly as he slept. He seemed younger than his nineteen years, more like sixteen, although the stubble on his chin and shadows, like bruises, around his closed eyes aged him again.

There was someone beside him, in another chair. He was asleep too, his handsome yet grey face resting on one hand.

It was her stepfather, Gil, here to wish her happy birthday. He’d probably brought flowers. He always gave her flowers.

She tried to speak, but something was filling her mouth. She wanted to take it away, but her hand wouldn’t move, weighed down by something she couldn’t see. Her tongue was heavy and too weak to clear the blockage.

Confusion and fear descended on her, like clouds gently bursting with the threat of more to come. This was a hospital, she realized. She was in hospital, but why? What had happened to her? She felt a sudden, desperate need for her mother, so powerful that she wanted to cry out for her, but her voice was a small, stifled moan inside the mask over her mouth.

Mark’s eyes opened, and as he saw her watching him he sat forward so quickly he almost slipped from the chair.

‘Vivi?’ he croaked urgently. ‘Oh God, Vivi,’ and he started to cry. ‘Dad,’ he muttered over his shoulder. ‘Dad!’

Gil woke with a start and shot to his feet almost before he knew what he was doing. He looked rumpled and afraid. ‘Vivi, sweetie,’ he murmured, coming forward. ‘Oh, Vivi.’

A nurse suddenly swept into the room, summoned by only she knew what. She slipped in front of Mark and Gil, blocking them from Vivi’s view, but her face was kind, her voice reassuring.

‘I’ll get your mother,’ Gil said, and a moment later he was gone.

Mark stood silently watching the adjustment of tubes and patches, the checking of readings and making of notes on a tablet. The small, plump woman was calm and efficient, smiling as she smoothed the hair from Vivienne’s forehead to inspect her eyes.

‘Hello, Vivi Shager,’ she whispered in a soft, accented voice. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Vivi couldn’t answer, wasn’t even sure what she’d say if she could. It was hard to think, to register everything that was happening, to move beyond the terrible pain in her chest.

A face appeared beside the nurse, gaunt, pale and trying to be calm. As Vivi’s eyes locked to her mother’s she felt safe for a moment, the way she had as a child when Gina had moved in to make everything all right, but then the feeling was gone again.

Gina’s voice, her tone as she said, ‘I’m here,’ provided another brief lifeline, but Vivi didn’t know how to grasp it.

Flashes of memory were showing themselves now – the brightness of sunshine in Beaufort House, friends’ faces turning from laughter to confusion and horror; a stranger thumping her chest, sirens wailing – and as the stultifying reality of it overwhelmed her she closed her eyes again, trying to shut out the fear.

A week passed in frightening and painful stages; a slow and often doubtful return from a near-fatal myocardial infarction – in other words a major heart attack. Vivi had been told more than once that it was lucky a doctor had been at hand, and that she’d been so close to the hospital, because every second had counted.

Apparently she’d suffered two cardiac arrests in the ambulance, and had twice been brought back to life.

She had no memory of that short, frantic journey to A & E, although some residue of it seemed sometimes to filter into her dreams. What had come next, her arrival, the emergency treatment, also remained a blank, but she’d been told about the resuscitation efforts, the urgent transfer to a cardiac catheter lab, how her poor, struggling heart had collapsed into near-catastrophic failure.

She was in the High Dependency Unit now, having been moved from Intensive Care two days ago, though she wasn’t sure she could remember it happening. She remained weak and sometimes disoriented, as though she was tuning in and out of someone else’s world. The monitors she was attached to registered her heart’s functions, from its rhythm, to blood flow, to pressure, while the drainage tubes in her chest and bladder performed their unjolly, but necessary duties.

In more lucid moments she felt as though she’d been slammed by a speeding truck. It hurt to breathe, to move, even to think. In some ways thinking was the worst for it invariably took her to a place of panic, to a dark, unnatural world she might never now escape from.

People came and went: doctors, nurses, medical students, technicians, friends and colleagues. Everyone was trying to bolster her, to tell her how much better she seemed today, but she didn’t feel better, and didn’t know what to say to them.

She wasn’t herself. She’d changed in ways she didn’t yet understand; she just knew it had happened, not only in her heart, but in her head.

As her strength staged a tentative and unreliable return she was weighed daily and encouraged to eat and drink. Her heartbeat and blood pressure were held steady by the inotropic drugs being fed through the IV in her neck.

‘I think we can remove the pacing wires tomorrow,’ Arnie Novak, the cardiologist, had told her this morning. He was a nice man, Eastern European, she thought, but she couldn’t tell which country, and she didn’t like to ask. She hadn’t said much to anyone since waking; often she didn’t have the strength to utter more than a few words, and just as often she wanted to hide away from what she might be told.

Now, hearing footsteps approaching, she knew intuitively that they were heading her way, and that they belonged to her mother. It was a kind of telepathy that made her feel secure and relieved, but other things welled up in her too, such as anger and resentment, things her mother didn’t deserve. Breakfast was barely over and here was Gina, worried, frightened, and failing to understand why this had happened when they’d been told, twenty-seven years ago, following two-week-old Vivienne’s arterial switch operation, that they had no more to fear, she could lead a normal life.

As far as Vivi was aware no one understood what had gone wrong, or, if they did they hadn’t yet told her whether the serious episodes she’d just suffered were in any way connected to the congenital heart defect she’d been born with.

‘How are you feeling?’ her mother asked fondly, putting down the magazines she’d brought in and pressing a kiss to Vivi’s forehead. Vivi caught the citrusy scent of her, light and fresh with the earthy warmth that came from her skin – as familiar as the sound of her voice and the movements of her hands.

How was she feeling?

‘Fine,’ Vivi replied. Her voice was stronger than a whisper now, but not as full as it should be. What was the point in telling the truth when there was nothing her mother could do to change things?

‘No pain?’

Vivi shook her head. She didn’t class the constant hurting in her chest as pain any more; it was more of an ache that occasionally flared up into something hot and untameable until the drugs kicked in.

‘How are you?’ Vivienne asked. ‘You look tired.’

Gina’s blink made her seem slightly lost, as though she’d forgotten that she might matter, and Vivi felt a flood of love filling her struggling heart. Funny how emotions didn’t hurt – or they did, but in a different way. They worried her too, in case they were causing undue strain, especially the negative ones. ‘Did you sleep last night?’ she asked.

Gina smiled. ‘I did,’ she said, but Vivi knew it wasn’t true. ‘You have a very comfortable bed.’

Thinking of her flat was as difficult as thinking of all other aspects of the life that was going on without her, and would continue to as if she’d died that day in Beaufort House. The world wouldn’t wait for her, it simply wasn’t possible, but she wasn’t to worry, her boss had told her when he’d come to visit, she’d still have a job when she was strong enough to return.

No one had told her that was never going to happen, but they didn’t have to, because on a deep and intractable level she knew it anyway.

Greg had come to see her, twice, but he’d seemed so awkward the last time that she’d almost asked him right then not to come again. His wide, baffled green eyes hadn’t been able to hide the panic he felt, or the helplessness, or the shameful need to escape. She could tell he hated himself for it. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, she was sure he did, but he wasn’t able to cope with her being anything other than the vibrant young woman he’d been dating. She’d decided to text him after he’d left. It would be easier that way, no pretence that things could be the same when she got out of here, no difficult goodbyes. She needed to be as pragmatic and brave about this as her mother was trying to be; as truthful and unemotional as the charts detailing her progress and mapping the way into her future.

She didn’t feel brave or pragmatic, or like being truthful or detached; what she felt was shattered and terrified, a wreck of the person she really was – and beyond angry with the cruel fate that had put her here.

She would fight it; show it who was in charge. It wasn’t going to win this battle and it might as well know it now. She’d find the weapons she needed, strength of body and spirit, indestructible determination of mind, belief in herself. Her dreams might lie in shattered pieces now, the debris of a collision with life’s capricious and brutal plans, but she wasn’t a puppet to be jerked about on the end of some random, intangible strings. She’d put everything back together and go on as she was before …

The flame of defiance was hard to keep alight when it was constantly assailed by fear; and when it sometimes took all her strength simply to summon the breath to speak.

‘Where’s Mark?’ she asked her mother, her voice low, the words croaked with effort.

‘I let him sleep on,’ Gina replied, taking out a tissue to wipe something from Vivienne’s cheek. A speck of breakfast? Maybe it was a tear. She felt like crying all the time, crying and crying as if somehow the flood would widen and deepen and carry her away from all this.

‘I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he wakes up,’ Gina added.

Vivienne remembered being told that he was sleeping on the sofa in her sitting room, the one she’d bought mostly for when he came to stay. She wished she could see him there. More than that, she wished he wasn’t there, because then this might not be happening. ‘He should be at uni,’ she said.

‘His exams haven’t started yet and he wants to be close.’ Gina drew a handful of white envelopes from her bag.

Vivienne looked at them and guessed they were get-well wishes from her mother’s friends and clients.

Gina watched her uncertainly. ‘Shall I put them away again?’ she asked, clearly ready to do so.

Vivienne didn’t know what to tell her, so she said, ‘Where’s Gil?’

‘Still at the hotel, I think.’

Gil, her wonderful, loving stepfather who’d left her mother, and Vivienne still didn’t know why. Or did she? For the moment she was struggling to get things straight in her head. She knew she’d asked many times, but had she ever been given an answer? ‘Is it awkward for you?’ she ventured.

Gina seemed puzzled, and Vivienne felt a stir of irritation. She’d apparently asked a question that didn’t chime with reality, or her mother was pretending it didn’t.

‘Why would you say that?’ Gina replied carefully.

‘I don’t know … I was … I’m glad he came.’

‘Of course he came. He loves you very much, you surely can’t doubt that.’

Vivienne loved him too, and had always wished he was her real father. Mark would be her real brother then, and they’d be a proper family with no divisions or secrets …

Gina gently curled her fingers round Vivienne’s. ‘Don’t worry, my darling, your memory will piece everything together again soon,’ she promised.

Vivienne nodded, but wondered how she would know if she was functioning normally when she couldn’t be sure what normal was any more. ‘Do you wish you’d tried harder to hang onto him?’ she asked hoarsely.

Gina looked so vulnerable for a moment that Vivienne almost said sorry, but then Gina was covering her feelings with a smile as she said, ‘It was all a long time ago …’

‘Almost ten years,’ Vivi put in, wanting to prove that she knew.

‘Indeed. We’ve moved on since then …’

‘Why did you let him go?’

Gina’s gaze didn’t waver as she said, ‘Why are we having this conversation? It’s hardly important …’

‘You pushed him away. You always do that.’

Gina didn’t answer and Vivi felt herself falling into a sinking, darkening sense of defeat, or exhaustion, or something she didn’t really understand. She too wondered why they were having this conversation, when she felt sure they’d had it many times. Maybe it was because that bleak and difficult period when Gil left was easier to think about than the one they were entering into now. The one that she might not survive … Why was no one talking about that? Or maybe she’d been told she wasn’t going to make it and had blotted it from her mind.

‘Would you like to sleep?’ Gina asked gently.

Vivi realized her eyes were closed.

‘I can stay, or I can go,’ Gina said. ‘Whichever you prefer.’

Vivi wanted her to stay, wanted her never to leave so she could somehow make this all right, but she said, ‘You can go if you like.’

Gina settled herself into a chair and stayed.

There was a man standing at the gate, tall and fair-haired with his hands on his hips and a big smile on his face.

‘There’s my daddy,’ Michelle whooped, and zooming off across the schoolyard she leapt straight into his arms, yelping and laughing as he spun her round and around.

‘And how was your first day at school?’ he asked, holding her aloft so he could see her sunny, freckly face, a small child’s version of his own.

‘It was really good,’ she told him eagerly. ‘My teacher is really nice, and I’ve got a locker all to myself.’

As he gasped in awe, five-year-old Vivienne watched, her eyes round and puzzled. This big, friendly man who was like a film star was Michelle’s daddy!

‘This is my best friend, Vivi,’ Michelle declared, sliding out of her father’s arms and grabbing Vivi’s hand in a proud, proprietorial fashion. ‘Vivi, this is my daddy.’

‘Well hello, Vivi,’ the tall man said, gazing down at Vivi with blue eyes that seemed to laugh and ask questions all at the same time. ‘That’s a very pretty name you have there.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Michelle told him. ‘It’s Vivienne, really. Our birthdays are nearly on the exact same day.’

Sounding impressed, he said to Vivi, ‘So you were born on February 15th as well?’

Vivi shook her head. She felt shy of him, but she liked him too and wanted to say something to please him. ‘I was born on April 15th,’ she said proudly, hoping it might make him realize she was as special as her grandpa always said she was.

‘See, the exact same day,’ Michelle chipped in, ‘just different months. So I will be six first, but it doesn’t matter, because we don’t care who’s the oldest, do we?’ she asked Vivi.

Vivi shook her head. It had been a whirlwind of a day, starting school, meeting Michelle, finding herself with a best friend for the first time ever, and now she didn’t want it to end.

‘Where’s your mummy?’ Michelle asked, looking around at the parents who were busily claiming their children.

‘I don’t know,’ Vivi replied, looking around too. Part of her wished her mother wouldn’t come so she could go home with Michelle and her daddy. Then her mother was there, pushing through the crowd, looking flustered and worried and then relieved when she spotted Vivi.

‘There you are,’ she gasped, stooping to pull Vivi into her arms. ‘The bus didn’t come so I had to walk. How did you like your first day?’

‘Hello, I’m Michelle,’ Michelle said, tapping Gina’s arm. ‘Me and Vivi are best friends.’

Gina broke into a delighted smile. ‘That’s lovely to hear,’ she replied, seeming to mean it.

‘This is my daddy. His name’s Paul.’

Gina turned to the tall, fair-haired man, and Vivi hoped they would fall in love and get married.

‘Hello, I’m Gina Shager,’ her mother said, holding out a slender hand to shake his big, bony one. ‘It’s very nice to meet you.’

‘We’ve met before,’ he informed her, ‘but I don’t expect you remember me. My wife is one of your clients. I come to pick her up from time to time. Yvonne Markham.’

‘Of course,’ Gina said, her smile taking on more warmth. ‘I do recognize you now.’

‘Daddy, can Vivi and her mummy come for tea?’ Michelle demanded. ‘Please say yes.’

Laughing, he said, ‘Maybe not today, sweetheart. We’re going to see Grandma and Grandpa, remember?’

‘Oh yes. Vivi lives with her grandparents, don’t you, Vivi?’ She said it with such admiration that Vivi immediately felt important and glad to say yes.

‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’ Paul Markham offered, as they walked away from the school.

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you,’ Gina replied, ‘but there’s a bus …’

‘It wouldn’t be any trouble,’ he insisted. ‘Are you going home, or back into town?’

‘Home. I’ve closed the salon for the rest of the day.’

‘Then if I’m not greatly mistaken you’re heading for Westleigh Bay. Isn’t that where you live?’

‘How do you know that?’ Vivi asked him, thinking he probably knew magic.

Twinkling, he said, ‘Didn’t Michelle tell you that I know everything?’

‘He does,’ Michelle asserted earnestly.

It wasn’t until after Paul and Michelle had dropped them off that Vivi said to her mother, ‘Do all daddies know everything?’

Ushering her along to the front door, Gina said, ‘I’m sure he knows where we live because Michelle’s mummy told him. Or maybe he knows Nana and Grandpa.’

Vivi felt a bit disappointed by that. ‘I wish you could marry him,’ she said glumly.

‘Oh, Vivi, don’t be silly,’ and pushing open the door Gina shouted, ‘Mum! Dad! Here comes our big girl after her first day at school. And you’ll never guess what, she already has a best friend.’

As Vivienne let the memory drift away she was remembering how she’d wanted to be the one to tell NanaBella and Grandpa that she’d made a best friend that day. Then the thought was gone as she saw Michelle leaning over her, except it wasn’t Michelle, it was a nurse showing concern with a smile that seemed to ask a question.

Was she waiting for an answer to something?

The nurse held up a mobile phone. ‘You’ve lots of messages,’ she said softly. ‘Would you like to read them?’

Vivi wasn’t sure what to say. It was hard to think straight, to know anything about what she did or didn’t want, apart from this not to be happening.

She didn’t want to connect with anyone’s pity. She understood they were sorry, that everyone was anxious to come and see her, but there was nothing they could do and she didn’t want them to try. It would only make everything worse.

Worse would be if they didn’t care.

‘I can read them to you if you like,’ the nurse offered.

Vivi looked at her round, olive-skinned face with its deep brown eyes and pear-shaped birthmark covering one cheek. She should probably know her name, but for the moment she couldn’t remember it, and realizing that, she felt tears sting her eyes. What was going to happen to her now? Who was she? Where was her mother?

She heard a voice and realized it was her own. ‘Arnie Novak is coming to talk to us in the morning,’ she said, naming the senior cardiologist. The nurse would already know this, but for some reason Vivi was feeling the need to say it. ‘My mother won’t admit it, but she’s afraid it’s going to be bad news.’

The nurse’s tender eyes gave nothing away as she said, ‘It’s natural for her to feel worried, but …’

‘I don’t seem to be getting any better,’ Vivi interrupted.

‘You’re stronger now than you were a week ago.’

Vivi didn’t argue, because it was true. She closed her eyes and felt the relief of giving in to exhaustion – it was so much easier than trying to fight it.

When Vivi woke up again Mark was there, plugged into his iPhone, probably watching the latest episode of Breaking Bad. He’d told her, when she’d first asked, that he was getting into The Walking Dead.

‘Good choice,’ she’d croaked drily.

‘I thought it was appropriate,’ he’d grinned, knowing it would make her smile too. They’d always had an easy, teasing relationship in spite of their difference in ages. From the moment her mother had brought him home from the hospital, all big blue eyes and grasping fists, Vivi had loved having a brother, and nothing had ever happened to change that.

Now, realizing she was awake, he tugged out his earbuds and removed his feet from the edge of the bed. ‘Hey, looking good,’ he said admiringly, looking a lot better himself than he had over the past few days. He’d shaved and made an effort with a comb, and with his naturally moody eyes, strong jaw and drop-dead smile he surely had to be the fittest nineteen-year-old going. Not that she was biased.

‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked.

‘Downstairs in the coffee shop with a couple of your work friends. Do you want some water, or anything?’

‘Water would be good.’

After sipping from the glass he passed her, she said, ‘You don’t have to hang around here, you know. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do …’

‘Hey, we’re only on season one of Breaking Bad. There are four more seasons to go after that.’

Lifting a hand she linked her fingers through his, careful not to dislodge the tube in hers. He was more man than boy now, almost six feet tall with toned biceps and broad shoulders, but he would always be her little brother. ‘It’s a good series,’ she told him, grateful for the distraction it had provided during the endless hours they were spending here, in spite of how often she nodded off. She couldn’t be entirely sure, but she suspected she was asleep more often than she was awake.

He shrugged. ‘Everyone said it was fantastic, but I never got round to it until now.’

‘Promise not to keep me here for the entire five seasons,’ she said wryly.

‘It’s a deal. Let’s aim for starting season two at home, yeah?’

Her eyes drifted at the mention of home. They both still referred to it as that, even though she’d left when she was eighteen and so had he. The only family they had in Kesterly these days was their mother, who’d moved back in with NanaBella after her marriage to Gil had ended. Gina now had the whole of number eight Bay Lane to herself, the last house of ten (there was now a 1A and 2A) past a private gate (always open) off the coast road. They were less than fifty metres from the towering coastal cliffs of Exmoor, with a back garden that climbed in wide, low layers up to a rocky ridge behind. Their front garden looked out over the circular turning space of the cul de sac to a wide stretch of sandy dunes that separated their house from the beach and constantly changing vista of the estuary beyond.

She and Mark still had their rooms at number eight, unchanged from the time they’d left, and always freshly made up in case they made a surprise return. All the neighbours they’d known while growing up had moved on now, having sold their desirable seafront properties to the London elite for use as holiday homes. Vivi had never understood why any of them would want a place in Kesterly-on-Sea when they surely could have afforded much more exotic locations on the south coast, or even in Europe. Never in a million years would she have chosen the dreary, depressing coastal town as a weekend or summer escape. She was a London girl through and through, she wanted colour, life …

She didn’t realize her eyes had drifted closed until she heard Mark say to whoever had come in, ‘I think she’s asleep.’

‘OK, I’ll stay for a while in case she wakes up,’ Gil murmured.

For the next few minutes Vivi drifted in and out of awareness, catching only parts of what was being said and who was saying it. However, it seemed Gil was going to be around for Arnie Novak’s visit tomorrow, and her mother, who had returned, was sounding grateful for it. Gil was such a good man, so gentle and considerate. She’d always feel grateful to him, love him, for the differences he’d made to her life during the time he’d been in it – differences he still made, in his way. Mark was lucky to have him as a father. Gil would be there for his son if the news wasn’t good tomorrow. He’d be there for Gina too if she’d allow it, but Vivi wasn’t sure that she would.

‘Why don’t you have a daddy?’ Michelle whispered.

‘I do,’ Vivi whispered back. She glanced at the bedroom door to make sure it was closed and no shadows were moving about in the cracks of light underneath. They were having a sleepover tonight, at her house, and she didn’t want her mother to hear what they were saying.

‘Then where is he?’ Michelle asked.

Vivi hesitated. She’d never shared this secret with anyone, hadn’t even admitted to herself out loud that she knew who her father was, but she thought she could trust Michelle. ‘I can show you if you like,’ she dared to suggest.

In the orangey glow from the nightlight Michelle looked excited and dreamlike, as though she was a kind of fairy whose very presence could make things come true.

‘You’ll have to be really quiet,’ Vivi cautioned. ‘I’m not supposed to know where he is, but I found him in my mum’s room when she was outside in the garden.’

Bemused and seeming a little worried, Michelle crept on tiptoe after Vivi, out of the room and along the passage to the three stairs that led up to a door that was half open.

Vivi paused, listening for the sound of the TV downstairs. Her mum and NanaBella always watched Come Dancing on Saturday nights, and from the sound of the music she could tell it had already started. That was good, because they wouldn’t be able to hear anything else, not that she and Michelle were going to make a noise. Grandpa, she knew, was out at one of his card nights, so he wouldn’t hear them either.

‘Better not turn the light on,’ she whispered to Michelle as they crept into her mother’s room, ‘but the curtains aren’t drawn yet, so we might be able to see.’

Michelle kept close behind as Vivi led the way round the high bed with four short posts and over to a chest of drawers with photographs of a baby on the top (Vivi), and a wooden-framed mirror that reflected an unlit chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling.

‘Ssh,’ Vivi murmured as she eased open the bottom drawer. ‘He’s in here.’

Michelle was looking worried again. ‘Is it a photo?’ she said faintly.

Vivi shook her head, and pushing aside a pile of clothes she found what she was looking for and lifted it out.

Michelle stared at the big round bundle. ‘If it’s his head I don’t want to see it,’ she said earnestly.

‘It’s not his head,’ Vivi assured her, and carefully unwrapping the muslin shroud she revealed a heavy bronze figure of a man in a hat and a baggy suit, with arms outstretched and legs that seemed to be moving. ‘This is him,’ Vivi whispered, holding it so Michelle could get a good look. ‘I think it’s why my mum always watches Come Dancing, just in case he’s on.’

Michelle was bewitched. ‘Why does your mum keep him wrapped up in a drawer?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You should ask her.’

‘I think she’d be cross if I did.’

Seeming to understand that, Michelle continued to gaze at the sculpture until Vivi wrapped it up again and put it back in the drawer.

Vivi was feeling strangely distanced from the life-saving equipment around her, hardly hearing it, or even sensing its attachments to her body, as she willed time to stop or, better still, turn back. Her mother and Mark were on one side of the bed, Michelle and Gil on the other and the senior cardiac nurse plus two junior doctors were grouped around the end, trying to look professional and compassionate. Dr Novak himself, with his Slavic features and easy manner, was studying the tablet he’d been handed on entering the room, assessing the latest reports of her progress and saying nothing yet.

Eventually he turned his attention to Vivienne and smiled in a way that made her feel fleetingly brave, even though she was racked with dread.

What was he going to say? Whatever it was she had to try to deal with it, even if it was bad.

As he came closer his grey eyes didn’t move from hers, and for a bewildering moment it felt as though they were the only ones in the room. ‘What I’m about to tell you is good news,’ he began in his pleasantly accented voice, but before Vivienne could register relief he was saying, ‘It probably won’t seem like it at first, but once you’ve had time for it to sink in I think you’ll agree that it is.’

Vivienne’s eyes went to her mother. Gina apparently didn’t understand either. She was clinging tightly to Mark’s hand.

‘You have presented us with an unusual situation,’ Dr Novak informed her, ‘because the sort of infarctions and arrests you’ve suffered are currently falling between two diagnoses. Please don’t look so worried.’ He smiled gently. ‘I said unusual, not impossible, as both conditions are treatable, it’s simply a question of going forward in the right way.’

This was sounding reasonable, not too frightening. Treatable was always good.

‘… because of the damage the muscle – your heart – has suffered, and the complications that have arisen, I’m afraid your recovery isn’t going in the way we’d hoped.’ He put a hand over Vivienne’s as though sensing the deepening of her fear, and wanting to hold her back from it. ‘It’s my professional opinion,’ he said softly, ‘that your heart isn’t strong enough to give you much more than a year of life, and that life won’t be like the one you’ve known up until now. This is why, with your permission, I’m going to recommend that you are assessed for a transplant.’

Vivienne heard a gasp, a small cry of shock, but she had no idea where it had come from. Maybe her; or maybe it was her mother. Her eyes were still on Dr Novak’s, her fingers holding fast to his, as if letting go would cause her to spiral down into an abyss of such darkness and despair that she would never find her way back.

He began speaking again, saying more, much more, but none of it changed what he’d already said. The heart she had was so weak, so sick, that unless it was replaced, and soon, she was going to die.