Fractured(30)

I washed off the coating of suds and turned them thoughtfully this way and that under the spray from the shower. Both hands were equally grazed, as though I had fallen heavily and tried to save myself. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember when or how I had done this. I did remember falling to the ground beside Jimmy’s grave in the churchyard, but I had landed upon grass, not concrete. The only possibility I could come up with was that I must have grazed them against a headstone when I had finally collapsed. The progression of that thought left me wondering who it was who had found me in the cemetery and brought me to hospital. In the light of the larger more puzzling questions, I was happy to let that one go.

I wished there had been a mirror in the small utilitarian washroom, so I could see if my face bore any signs of injury, for as I soaped and rinsed the rest of my body, I found several other places that were both grazed and bruised. Again they all looked too raw and angry to have been sustained in anything less than a very hefty fall. I was beyond puzzled. I appeared to be covered in injuries where there should be none, while my father had an illness that had simply disappeared. I wondered if Alice had felt this confused when she had fallen down the well into Wonderland.

Still trying to resolve the irresolvable, one idea suddenly occurred to me as I dried myself briskly on the rough hospital towel. Perhaps the reason my father wouldn’t admit to his illness was because his treatment hadn’t been legal. I almost threw the idea out as preposterous. He was so honest, I couldn’t even remember him getting so much as a parking fine in his entire life. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made – in a totally nonsensical way. Maybe he was paying privately for some unlicensed medication or treatment forbidden in the UK. And if that was the case, well then he’d probably have to lie in order to protect whatever secret trial or doctor had helped him.

As I waited for the nurse to return with a clean gown, I felt happier to have found a workable solution to the mystery. Very probably, when away from the confines of the hospital, he would confess it all, when it was safe to betray his secret without others hearing. And as for secrets, well I had been hiding a pretty big one of my own from him too: the recurring headaches. I just hoped I would be able to find the time to speak to the doctor in private about the symptoms which had precipitated my collapse by the church.

As she took my arm to help me back to my room, the nurse supplied another surprising piece of information.

‘I’d better warn you that you have a police officer waiting in your room to talk to you now that you’re awake.’

I stopped mid-step and turned to the young nurse in consternation.

‘A policeman? Why? Whatever for?’

She gave me a curious look, as though amazed I could ask such a thing.

‘Well, they obviously need to get all the details about what happened by the church the other night.’

I looked back at her dumbly. What happened by the church? Were the police really so light on crime in this area that they had sent someone to question me about trespassing in the churchyard late at night? Was that really even a crime at all? It wasn’t as though I’d been vandalising the graves. Surely I wasn’t going to be charged with some petty misdemeanour? How much weirder was this day going to get?

In my wildest of dreams, I could never have guessed.

The policeman was seated half out of sight behind the door of my room. Dad had clearly been talking about me, judging by the guilty way in which he shut up like a clam as soon as I appeared at the threshold. In my peripheral vision I took in a dark uniform as the policeman rose to his feet.

‘Rachel, hon, the police need some information from you, but don’t look worried… look who they sent.’ He sounded as triumphant as a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, and I turned for the first time to look at the officer.

The room swayed; I knew my face must have drained of all colour. I reached out blindly for the doorframe, knowing it wasn’t going to be any use. As I crumpled to the floor, in a swoon worthy of any Victorian gentlewoman, I had time to say just one word:

‘Jimmy!’


The good thing about fainting in a hospital is that they know what to do with you right away. It was only a moment or two before I once again became aware of where I was. Seated on the chair which my father had occupied the night before, with my head stuck securely between my knees, I could feel the comforting hand of the nurse holding a cold compress against the back of my neck. I struggled to sit up.

‘Don’t go rushing to get up yet, Rachel. Take a moment or two.’ Then, presumably directing the next comment to my dad, ‘She may have been under the hot shower a wee bit too long, she’ll be fine in a moment.’ I very much doubted that. I strained against her hand, and sat up.