Cold Feet: The Lost Years Read online

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Baby stories and the guilty parents club

  Didsbury Hospital, Manchester

  Pete, Jenny and Karen joined about a dozen or so other people in the waiting room of the hospital.

  They sat side by side on grey plastic chairs, waiting for some news from Adam or David.

  ‘Tell me, exactly how did it happen again?’ Jenny asked. She shifted on her seat to try to find a more comfortable position. As each day progressed, the pain in her lower back intensified and she was struggling now to get around.

  ‘One minute we were singing “I Believe in Love”, the next minute Matthew was on the ground,’ Pete said. ‘I tried to catch him. But I never was much good at catch in school.’

  ‘Adam must be beside himself,’ Karen said.

  ‘He was hysterical,’ Pete told them.

  ‘It was good of Ramona to take little Adam,’ Jenny said. She’d already said this twice before. But she hated the sound of silence. She needed to fill it anyway she could.

  Pete had rung them all after Adam left for the hospital, and Ramona suggested that he bring little Adam to Karen’s house. She was looking after Josh, Ellie and Olivia anyway, which meant Pete, Jenny and Karen could go to the hospital to be there for Adam.

  ‘Anyone else having the heebeejeebees being here?’ Pete asked.

  ‘The what?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Heebeejeebees. As in I’m creeped out here,’ Pete answered.

  ‘I am,’ Karen whispered. Her eyes were glassy with emotion.

  ‘What am I missing?’ Jenny asked when Pete reached out to hold Karen’s hand. Karen looked down at a thread that had pulled on her trouser leg. She wondered what would happen if she yanked it. She suspected that with every pull, she might become unravelled too.

  ‘Pete?’ Jenny asked again.

  ‘It’s just, this is where we were, when Rachel had her accident. We sat here for hours, waiting for news,’ Pete answered.

  ‘Oh jeepers, right,’ Jenny answered.

  ‘It was so cold that night,’ Karen said.

  ‘I don’t remember that,’ Pete answered.

  ‘You never feel the cold,’ Jenny said.

  He nodded. He didn’t. ‘I remember how quiet it was though. Not like this evening.’

  And with perfect timing, as sometimes is the way in life, a man jumped up, shouting to a nurse who was passing by, ‘A man could die here waiting to be seen! I’m bleeding out!’

  They all turned to look and sure enough he was cut on his arm. But it didn’t look that serious.

  ‘We’ll be with you as soon as we can,’ the nurse replied mildly, unruffled by his outburst.

  ‘Were you here long that night?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Hours,’ Karen answered. ‘We waited with Adam while they operated on Rachel. Then we waited for her to wake up . . .’ She couldn’t finish the thought, never mind say any more. ‘I have to get out of here. I need some air. Sorry.’ She walked towards the main entrance.

  ‘I’d go after her, but I don’t think my legs would put up with it,’ Jenny said. She looked down at the two swollen limbs that had replaced her normally thin legs. She’d overdone it today. She’d put her feet up tomorrow and they’d be back to normal again.

  ‘Give her a minute. She’ll be back,’ Pete said.

  ‘I can’t imagine how hard it must have been that night,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Be grateful you weren’t here,’ Pete remarked. ‘I’ll never forget it to the day I die.’

  The thing was, Jenny didn’t feel grateful. She bitterly regretted never having the chance to say one last goodbye to Rachel. She’d loved her. And she missed her every day. Why the hell did she ever go to New York? It all went wrong after that. She should have stayed here, then maybe this baby would be Pete’s, not that moron Grant’s.

  ‘Where are they?’ Pete asked, irritated that they were still clueless as to what was going on.

  Then Karen walked back towards them, with David by her side.

  ‘I was moving the car,’ David explained. ‘And look who I bumped into.’

  ‘How is he?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Waiting to see the doctor. But when I left, he was having a bottle. I think he’s okay. Gosh I hope so.’ And suddenly, David felt his calm quietness disappear and panic begin to bubble up inside him for his friend and son.

  They all fell silent again for a moment and Karen closed her eyes, praying once again that all would be okay.

  She felt a hand pat her shoulder, but it was an awkward gesture. She turned to see who it was. Jenny. She smiled weakly in response.

  They sat in silence for half an hour, watching the doors of the A&E swing back and forth, until finally they opened and Adam walked out, holding Matthew in his arms. Adam was pale, sweat patches staining his underarms. But Matthew was smiling at them all, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  ‘He’s okay?’ Karen asked, moving towards him, kissing his forehead over and over.

  ‘He’s got a head like his father. Titanium,’ Adam answered. ‘I didn’t know you were all here!’

  ‘Where else would we be, mate?’ Pete said.

  ‘Course we came. You daft ha’p’orth,’ Jenny added.

  And then Adam couldn’t stop the tears.

  He wasn’t on his own.

  He had his friends.

  They formed a circle around him, and then wordlessly, placed their arms around each other, in one big group hug.

  Adam wiped his eyes, feeling embarrassed by his tears. He was surprised to see the normally calm David doing the same. ‘You were fucking amazing,’ Adam said to him.

  ‘He was, you know,’ Pete said. ‘Dead calm.’

  Everyone turned to look at David and he shook his head in denial at the compliments. ‘I did what anyone would do.’

  ‘I went to pieces, but you were there to pick me up,’ Adam said. ‘I owe you.’

  ‘You owe me nothing,’ David replied. Then clapped Adam’s shoulder. ‘That’s what friends are for, right?’

  ‘The best of friends,’ Adam replied.

  Jenny was crying now and Pete pulled her in for a hug, blinking back tears of his own. ‘It’s the hormones,’ he told everyone.

  ‘Listen, as Jenny and Pete need to come to my house to get little Adam, why don’t we all meet back there and have a coffee. I have cake,’ Karen said.

  Half an hour later, they were all sitting in Karen’s kitchen. Matthew was fast asleep in his car seat, oblivious to all the earlier drama.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’ Jenny asked Adam. She was worried about him. He looked so lost and alone when he walked through those hospital doors. Trying to be brave, trying to be funny. But it was obvious he was deeply shaken.

  ‘Truthfully? I’m pissed off at myself. I fucked up. I took my eye off him and if anything had happened . . .’ He stood up and walked over to check on Matthew for the third time in five minutes.

  ‘He’s still asleep, mate,’ Pete said. ‘And welcome to the not very exclusive parenting club of “we’ve all fucked up”. ’

  Adam looked doubtfully at him. ‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’

  ‘I lost Josh once,’ Karen blurted out. They all turned to her and David patted her hand, remembering when it happened. ‘We were in the Trafford Centre – David, Josh and me. Shopping for a Mother’s Day present. David had promised me a new handbag and I wanted to choose it myself.’

  David said, ‘I’ve shocking taste in handbags.’

  ‘Anyhow, David went off in one direction and Josh was with me. One moment he was at my legs, the next he was gone,’ Karen said. ‘The panic I felt when I realised he wasn’t there, I will never in my life forget it.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘I ran to the security guard at the door of the shop and screamed at him to lock the doors! Raise the alarm. I kept thinking what if someone took him, what if he was being led out of the store right that minute by someone . . .’ Ka
ren’s face flushed at the memory.

  ‘Ever since James Bulger, that’s been my worse fear. I hate bringing little Adam with me to shopping centres,’ Jenny said. They all nodded in agreement, thinking about the little two-year-old who was brutally murdered by two young boys in Merseyside, ten years previously.

  ‘Where was Josh in the end?’ Pete asked.

  ‘He was exactly where I had been standing, looking at those handbags all along. He’d hidden in between two rails of clothing, thinking it would be fun to start playing hide and seek with me. He just forgot to tell me that I was it!’ Karen said.

  ‘He loved playing that game. Still does. The little monkey,’ David said.

  ‘So I understand how terrified you felt. And how guilty. I could have lost our son, for what? A handbag?’ Karen said. ‘And actually, now that I think of it, I never did get that present!’

  David threw his eyes upwards and laughed. ‘I knew this day would come. Noted. One handbag owed!’

  ‘You were great that day too,’ Karen said to David. ‘So calm. I never forgot that. Did I say thank you?’

  David shrugged. ‘No thank yous were needed. And I’m not always calm. I was terrified today, I was terrified that day, and I’ve never told any of you about this, but Josh nearly died once because of me.’

  Karen turned in shock towards him. ‘What?’

  ‘At his school. I was talking to Natalie, my old boss. She’d come to offer me a job in her new firm. One moment Josh was beside me, next he was running out on to the road. I got to him and pulled him out of harm’s way. But only just in the nick of time.’ David kept his eyes on his lap. He still felt guilt and shame that he could have inadvertently caused Josh’s death.

  ‘Oh, David. You should have told me,’ Karen said. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘It made me realise what was important in life. I’ll never forget that.’

  Pete then turned to Jenny and said, ‘Well, we both have lifetime membership of the parents-who-have-fucked-up club.’

  ‘Damn straight,’ Jenny replied.

  ‘Remember that day in the supermarket down the main street with little Adam?’ Pete asked.

  ‘With the wine and gin?’ Jenny said, becoming pale at the memory.

  They all sat forward. ‘This sounds like a good story,’ Adam said.

  ‘Well, we brought little Adam shopping and he’d just started to walk. He wanted to push the trolley,’ Jenny said.

  ‘It was so cute. His fat little bum sticking out as he pushed that trolley like a drunken sailor from side to side,’ Pete added.

  ‘And I was trying to get my camera out to take a picture . . .’

  ‘She never left home without that camera! Always snapping pictures of him. We’ve got thousands,’ Pete said.

  ‘As I was saying, I took my camera out. But it had the tiniest memory on it and I had to delete some pictures, so I could take the snaps. It was a rubbish camera,’ Jenny said.

  ‘It’s so hard to delete pictures of the children, isn’t it?’ Karen said.

  ‘Impossible,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Even the ugly ones.’

  ‘And then we were in the snack aisle and I had a real urge for chilli nuts,’ Pete went on. ‘So I went off to look for them.’

  ‘I looked up, finally ready to take the photograph, but little Adam was gone,’ Jenny said.

  ‘He’s fast,’ Pete said with pride. ‘Turned that corner to the next aisle on two wheels like a pro.’

  ‘We ran after him. And as we turned the corner ourselves, we heard the crash.’ Jenny covered her face in her hands. The memory still made her ashamed.

  ‘He was in the alcohol aisle,’ Pete said, his voice dropped an octave, to show how serious it was.

  ‘It was carnage,’ Jenny continued. ‘Little Adam crashed the trolley right into a huge pyramid of gin that was on special offer. Like a game of bowls, the bottles fell and rolled towards another display, this time all New World wines.’

  ‘From Argentina,’ Pete added.

  ‘And the trolley, meanwhile, carried on its merry way, ending up into the prosecco,’ Jenny said.

  ‘What about little Adam?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Unharmed. Glass was in broken shards all around him and he stood there in the middle of it all, with not even a scratch on him,’ Pete replied. ‘Then he just toddled off, looking for his trolley.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Karen asked, laughing.

  ‘I picked him up and said to Pete, run, and don’t look back,’ Jenny said.

  ‘A month’s wages in that carnage,’ Pete agreed.

  ‘That’s why you never go to that supermarket any more!’ Adam said.

  Karen refilled everyone’s cup and said, ‘So I think what we’ve learned here is that we’re all doing the best we can. And none of us are perfect.’

  Adam still wasn’t convinced. He wondered what Rachel would make of all this. He felt like he’d let her down. Again.

  ‘No you haven’t,’ Rachel said.

  She was back. Sitting cross-legged beside a still-sleeping Matthew. Watching over him.

  He stood up and walked over to her, leaving the others to chat.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Adam said to her. He sat on the other side of Matthew and looked at his wife, hoping to see forgiveness in her eyes.

  ‘You don’t have to apologise to me, Adam,’ Rachel said.

  ‘But I do. I messed up.’

  ‘Would you get over yourself? You’ll never make it to his eighteenth in one piece if you keep doing this. You need to stop beating yourself up every time you make a mistake.’

  ‘But I let him fall,’ Adam said.

  ‘Yes, love. And you’ll let him fall again, I’ve no doubt. He’ll climb a wall and you’ll watch him, proud of how fearless he is, then beat yourself up when he comes crashing down like Humpty Dumpty. You’ll cheer him on at football matches and then beat yourself up again when he has a clash with a bigger lad and gets a sore head. All part and parcel of being a parent. You need to toughen up.’

  Adam looked at Rachel in amazement. Even in death, she knew exactly what to say, how to reassure him, make him feel better.

  ‘Don’t forget I dropped Matthew once too,’ Rachel added. ‘And you can’t let yourself become overly obsessive about him now, like I did that time.’

  ‘I had forgotten that!’ Adam replied.

  One afternoon, while on maternity leave, Rachel had placed Matthew on the kitchen table in his car seat and he’d rocked it so much, it fell off. Rachel and he went through an awful time, because Adam felt so excluded by her, as she obsessed about every detail regarding Matthew’s care.

  ‘So basically what you’re saying is, I need to cop on,’ Adam said smiling.

  ‘Bingo. You’ve got it,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Thanks for being here.’

  ‘You know I’m always in your head and heart, whenever you need me,’ Rachel replied. ‘Besides, a mother never leaves her son. No matter what. Maybe you should think about that fact too.’

  And then she was gone again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The hypnotist and the ladies of the night

  Karen’s Publishers, Manchester

  The things her publisher got her involved in. A new client had written a book about hypnosis and Karen’s boss thought it would be ‘fun’ if they all had a session with him, in their lunch hour.

  So instead of her usual salad at her desk, herself and twenty or so of her colleagues all marched with little enthusiasm into their boardroom. The large desk had been pushed against the wall and they were all instructed to lie down on the floor. Karen had never been a fan of communal dorms, and she moved to the far corner of the room. She pushed herself against the wall, away from Cassie, the new intern who seemed to have taken a shine to her and wouldn’t leave her side.

  Roberto Moore, the author and hypnotist walked in, all long hair swishing, tanned and wearing a brilliant white T-shirt that matched his brilliant white toothy smile.

  �
�I know what you are all thinking,’ he said.

  Bloody telepathic too, Karen thought.

  ‘You think that hypnotism is all Svengali and mind control.’ He waved his hands up and down maniacally and most in the room laughed nervously.

  ‘Or else you’re worried I’ll make you do something that you are not comfortable with. Like snog your colleague.’ He smiled at one of the lads near the front.

  More nervous laughter.

  ‘And of course, I’m not going to make that happen. Unless you want me to.’ He gave a theatrical wink.

  Karen reckoned this guy had done this exact performance more than once before.

  ‘Today, I just want you to relax, let the possibility of the unknown into your imagination. And if you do that, I promise you, you will be able to tap into some amazing abilities that you did not know you possessed.’

  Tom from Accounting shouted to him, ‘So what are you going to do? Click your fingers and we’ll all nod off?’

  Claire, the receptionist chimed in. ‘I could do with a sleep. My husband snored all night long. He’d wake the dead.’

  The room laughed, relaxing a little.

  ‘There will be no circus tricks here. No stopwatches swinging from side to side, or clicking of fingers to make you sleep, I promise,’ Roberto said. ‘I just want to get you all into a state of relaxation. Then I can suggest some things to you all that might help you in your day-to-day lives.’

  ‘Like what?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Like anything. But for today, your management team want me to keep it simple. So we’ve decided that I’m going to suggest to you all the power of matching and mirroring. Lots of you do it anyhow. But this will perhaps fine-tune your technique. Basically, it will help you create rapport with others,’ Roberto said.

  He walked around the room, moving between prone bodies on the floor as he continued to explain. ‘Think about it like this. If you mirror the person you’re talking to – in speech patterns, body language, volume and pitch – you are making that person feel more comfortable. We all like people who are like ourselves. So, this is a great life tool to learn.’

  ‘Will it help me get a date?’ A guy shouted from the front.

  ‘Use it and people will subconsciously admire you more. It can’t hurt,’ Roberto said.