Fractured(54)

We’d left the restaurant in good spirits, surprisingly so, considering the emotional traumas of the day. It had just started to snow as we began the short walk back to the hotel, and the soft white sprinkling falling around us, combined with the twinkling Christmas lights laced in the avenue of trees, made everything look somehow magical.

The pavements were already becoming icy and Jimmy took my arm without comment after the second near-slip, which threatened to leave me in a crumpled heap beside the road.

‘It’s these shoes,’ I protested, as his arm reached out with lightning speed, catching and steadying me before I managed to totally embarrass myself. ‘My other wardrobe was much more sensible.’

Jimmy chose not to remind me that my ‘other wardrobe’ was in fact, imaginary, but commented instead, ‘It’s not the shoes. It’s you. You’re a liability – you need constant looking after.’

‘Well, isn’t that what policemen are supposed to do? Isn’t that your motto: “protect and serve”?’

Jimmy laughed. ‘I think you’ll find that’s just the American police.’

‘I stand corrected,’ I murmured at the precise moment that I once again lost my footing and almost fell.

‘Really? From what I can see, it looks like you can hardly stand at all!’

We were both still laughing when we entered the warm and brightly lit hotel foyer.

We parted company in the hallway outside our adjacent rooms, but before saying goodnight, I reached up to hug him tightly.

‘Thank you for being with me today,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘I was wrong, I couldn’t have done this by myself. I’m so glad you came with me.’

His response was the gentlest of smiles, then he bent down and kissed me softly upon the lips. I drew back slightly, a little surprised, but while there was immeasurable warmth in his eyes, there was no fire. It was a kiss which said you’re welcome; don’t mention it; anytime. It was wholly appropriate and completely innocent. So why was it that, when we slid our respective pass cards into the locks and entered our rooms, I was left feeling as though I had wanted that kiss to say something else entirely?

I thought it would take me ages to fall asleep. I thought I would be replaying the day and all its outcomes over and over in my mind on an endless spool. But the combination of the wine we had drunk with dinner and sheer nervous exhaustion must have overtaken me, for I drifted off into oblivion within minutes of my head nestling onto the pillow. And for several hours I slept soundly, deeply and untroubled.

The dream began pleasantly enough. I was lying somewhere warm and relaxing, on a beach, I thought, and although I couldn’t quite make out his words, I could hear my father talking nearby. In my dream I kept meaning to say something, to ask him something, but I was so overcome by a delicious lassitude that to stir, even an inch, from the warm enveloping sand was all too much of an effort.

And then it all abruptly changed, in that bizarre way that dreams do. The beach was gone, and so too was my father. I was back in time, back to the night of the car accident, only this time it wasn’t Matt who had seen the approaching car heading towards us, it was me.

I knew what I had to do but when I opened my mouth to shout out a warning, no words came out, no sound at all. Frantically I tried to get everyone’s attention, but each one of them was deeply engrossed in conversation with someone else at the table, and despite my hysterical gesticulations, still no one but me was aware of the imminent danger. The waiters were laying our plates of food before us, refilling our wine glasses, while death hurtled towards us at around sixty miles an hour.

And it was then I saw that, incongruously, on the wall behind me was a large bright red emergency button. I slammed my hand down hard upon it and the responding beep of the alarm filled the air. Yet still no one moved. I struggled to get out of my chair but I was every bit as much imprisoned by the table as I had been on that actual night. Why couldn’t they hear the alarm? To me, the continual piercing bleep was so loud it was almost a deafening klaxon, but my friends remained oblivious as they sat at the table and waited for death to join them.

As the approaching car hurtled towards us, I relived the moment that had haunted so many of my dreams over the past five years, and then, finally, I found my voice. I screamed, not once but several times, and only stopped when the sound of breaking glass exploded all around me.

Only it wasn’t glass, it was the china base of the bedside lamp which my thrashing arm had knocked from the nightstand.

I sat up, hearing the thunderous pounding of my heart, waiting for it to slow down. Only the pounding wasn’t slowing down at all; if anything it was getting louder, and as I swam to the surface of full consciousness I could hear my name being called out urgently from Jimmy as he all but took the door off its hinges with his frenzied hammering.