The Husband's Secret(160)

            She thought of the way Connor had smiled at Janie in the video before he lost his temper. The genuinely smitten smile. She remembered too the photo in Janie’s album: the one where Connor had been laughing so fondly over something Janie said.

            Perhaps one day she’d mail Connor Whitby a copy of that photo with a card. Thought you might like to have this. A subtle apology for the way she’d treated him over the years, and, oh yes, a subtle apology for trying to kill him. Let’s not forget that. She grimaced in the darkness, and turned her head and pressed her lips against Jacob’s scalp for comfort.

            Tomorrow, I’ll go to the post office and pick up a passport application, she thought. I’ll visit them in New York. Maybe I’ll even do one of those damned Alaskan cruises. Marla and Mac can come with me. They don’t mind the cold.

            Go back to sleep now, Mum, said Janie. For a moment, Rachel could see her so clearly. The middle-aged woman she would have become, so sure of herself and her place in the world, bossy and loving, condescending and impatient with her dear old mum, helping her get her first-ever passport.

            Can’t sleep, said Rachel.

            Yes, you can, said Janie.

            Rachel slept.





FIFTY-NINE





            The official demolition of the Berlin Wall happened as efficiently as its construction. On June 22, 1990, Checkpoint Charlie, the famous symbol of the Cold War, was dismantled in a strangely prosaic ceremony. A giant crane lifted out the famous beige metal shack in one piece, watched by foreign ministers and other dignitaries seated on rows of plastic chairs.

            On the same day, in another hemisphere, Cecilia Bell, fresh back from her trip to Europe with her friend Sarah Sacks and in an extreme state of readiness for a boyfriend and a properly structured life, went to a housewarming party in a crowded two-bedroom unit in Lane Cove.

            “You probably know John-Paul Fitzpatrick, don’t you, Cecilia?” the party’s host shouted over the thump of the music.

            “Hi,” said John-Paul. Cecilia took his hand, met his grave eyes, and smiled as though she’d just been granted her freedom.





            Mummy.”

            Cecilia woke with a giant gasp, as if she’d been drowning. She’d been dreaming of the little Spider-Man boy. Except in the dream he was Polly. Her mouth felt dry and hollowed out. She must have been asleep with her head tipped back against the chair next to Polly’s bed, her mouth gaping. John-Paul had gone home to be with the girls and get them both some clean clothes. Later on this morning, if Cecilia gave the word, he would bring Isabel and Esther in for a visit.

            “Polly,” she said frantically.

            “Try to watch your body language,” the social worker had said to her last night. “Children read you much better than you think. Your tone of voice. Your facial expressions. Your gestures.”

            Yes, thank you, I know what body language is, thought Cecilia. The social worker had her hair pushed back with a pair of oversize sunglasses, as if she were at a beach party, not at the hospital at six o’clock at night, talking to parents in the middle of their own worst nightmares. Cecilia couldn’t forgive her for the flippancy of those damned sunglasses.

            Of course, wouldn’t you know it, Good Friday was the worst time for your child to suffer a traumatic injury. A lot of the regular staff were off for the Easter break, so it would be a few days before Cecilia met all the members of Polly’s “rehabilitation team,” including a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a psychologist and a prosthesis specialist. It was both comforting and horrifying to know that there were procedures in place for this with information packs and “top tips” and that they would be traveling a path already trod by so many other parents. Each time someone talked with matter-of-fact authority to Cecilia about what lay ahead, there would be a moment when she lost the thread of what they were saying, because she would suddenly feel immobilized by shock. No one at the hospital was sufficiently surprised by what had happened to Polly. None of the nurses or doctors clutched Cecilia’s arm and said, “My God, I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.” It would be disconcerting if they did, but it was also somehow disconcerting that they didn’t.