Laurie rushes over to me. ‘Why don’t we get something to drink? A cup of tea,’ she suggests. ‘It’s horrible being stuck in here. Holly? We’ve got to stay positive. Come on,’ she beseeches, tugging at my arm. ‘Let’s go.’
As I get up and follow her out of the room my legs give way and I’m struggling to breathe. Laurie guides me back on to the chair, helps me sit down. ‘Breathe in, in through your nose,’ she says, kneeling beside me, ‘and out through your mouth. In through nose, out through mouth.’ She reaches into my handbag for my bottle of water, hands it to me, encouraging me to take sips.
I grip her hand as I try to regulate my breathing. ‘I’m here,’ she says, squeezing my hand back. ‘I’m here. I ain’t going anywhere. Keep breathing, Holly. Breathe. In. Out. Here.’ She hands me the bottle of water again. ‘Angus is going to be OK. He’s a survivor. We’reallsurvivors, right? We’re a team.’
When I look at Laurie, I no longer see a little girl, frightened and alone, clutching Teddy. I realise then that Angus isn’t the only one I love. ‘You’re safe,’ she promises, ‘safe with me.’
‘They ain’t nice, are they?’ Laurie says.
‘They’re horrible. I forgot how frightening they are.’
‘When was your last attack?’
‘The night after Jamie’s funeral. I came home to an empty house.’ I close my eyes, remembering the chilling silence as I walked through the front door. ‘The loneliness can be suffocating, Laurie. I go to bed, lie in the darkness. Everything feels so much worse and scarier in the darkness and if I think about how scared I am, I panic, and can’t breathe. It’s frightening.’
She nods. ‘They’re awful, so bad I sometimes think I’m gonna die. They’re hard to explain, right?’
I nod.
‘I tell Ian to think of someone walking behind me on a street, right, someone like him, six-foot, built like a brick shithouse, and this man puts his arms around me, from behind, and he squeezes me. It’s a little squeeze at first, but then it gets tighter and tighter, Holly, and I’m begging him to let go, but it’s too late, I can’t breathe. I try to get away from him, but my legs are like jelly. I can’t walk, can’t see, it’s like I’ve got this blurry cap or something over my eyes.’
‘It’s exactly like that,’ I agree. ‘How many times do you have them, Laurie?’
‘Used to be ’bout twice, three times a week.’ She shrugs. ‘Now less. Maybe once a week.’
‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’
She shrugs. ‘I’m good at pretending things are better. I had one before I met Angel,’ she admits, ‘and I had a massive one before my interview at the café.’
‘I thought I might have one before mine too.’
Laurie looks surprised.
‘Before I started volunteering, I was a recluse,’ I tell her. ‘Went to work, went to bed. I lost all my confidence. I’m good at pretending things are fine, but the truth is I shut myself off from the world. Volunteering, doing something different, was frightening. Change terrifies me.’
She nods. ‘I have them when I’m doing anything new or if I don’t know someone.’
I picture Laurie running across the park on that grey drizzly morning. Her effort to turn up to Angel’s class feels even more courageous now.
‘Thank you,’ I say, ‘for being with me. I don’t know what I’d have done without you, Nurse Laurie.’
‘Nurse Laurie,’ she repeats. ‘I like that.’ There’s a long silence which Laurie finally breaks. ‘I don’t want to lose him either, Holly. He’s awesome, one of the best people I know.’ She nudges me. ‘But don’t tell him that. Don’t want him to get a big head.’
I nudge her back. ‘I won’t. The moment he’s betteryoutell him.’
‘He’s like a dad to me. And you’re like the mother I never had.’
Laurie reaches for the box of tissues on the table. Hands them to me. ‘Stop crying!’ she says, thrusting a tissue my way. ‘I was saying something nice!’
‘That’s why I’m crying!’
And soon we’re both laughing and crying. ‘We’ve had a shit day, haven’t we?’ she says.
‘Not the best.’
‘There’s shit, right, and then there’sshit.’
We laugh again, and it feels good, like such a relief. I compose myself, before glancing at my watch. It’s been forty minutes since the doctor spoke to us. They must have done the scan by now? He must have news soon? And Sophie is surely going to arrive any minute now? I’m anxious about meeting her, not knowing what I’ll say or how long Laurie and I should stick around, but I figure we’ll work it out along the way. The only thing that matters, right now, is Angus.
