Liv thought about trying to write while her teenage son lounged around on the cream leather sofa. ‘Can’t he go into Paperpress with you and help out?’
‘He’s not much use with one arm.’
Johnny called through from his room. ‘I can heareverything. Go to sleep.’
Liv lay down and roughly pulled the covers around her, already missing the fine Egyptian cotton. She thought about how Ted had tried to shape Essie to fit his ideal version of a wife and a writer, and how Sven had wanted her to keep producing the same work over and over. She understood the author a little more with each day that passed, and wanted to keep peeling back the layers of her life.
Jake’s hand crept to her shoulder, making a small circle with his finger. Liv froze before shrugging it away. ‘I’m really tired.’
His hand thumped onto the mattress. ‘Okay. Night.’
As Liv settled down to sleep, she could still feel the glare of the sun on her neck and hear Euro disco thrumming in her ears. And she thought how much she preferred living Essie’s life to her own.
Chapter 21
Paper Planes
For the next few days, Liv tried writing at home. When she sat at the dining table, Johnny constantly drifted in and out of the kitchen, slamming the fridge door and cupboards. He munched cereal straight from the packet and glugged milk from the bottle, even though Liv told him not to. His answer to everything was, ‘I’ve only got one arm.’
When she changed the bedcovers, Liv found three sheets of Paperpress headed paper under Jake’s pillow. Items written in abbreviations had rows of scribbled figures set against them. Some of the amounts were alarmingly large but she couldn’t work out what they were for.
Liv scribbled edits onto her own printed manuscript pages as if she were possessed. She wrote while waiting for her bath to run, in bed before she went to sleep and even as she walked to Essie’s flat. All that existed in her head was crafting Georgia’s last story. It became like an addiction she had to feed, and she was ever more aware of the countdown towards the deadline. She relied on dressing in the blazer, floral dress and striped tie to help her to work.
Georgia pressed her hands flat against the glass box. The water was filling up inside rapidly, reaching her knees and then her thighs. It would take only seconds to reach her neck, then her mouth. She shivered but didn’t thrash her legs and arms, knowing panic wouldn’t solve anything. If she screamed, no one would hear her. She had to breathe calmly, keep focused, and think what to do next. She’d been in many dangerous situations before and had always managed to escape.
When Liv accompanied Johnny for a check-up at the hospital, she felt twitchy at leaving her writing behind for a while. She scrunched her head into her neck as she walked along the corridors with her son. She’d hated the place since childhood, after finding her mum waiting for her with tears streaming down her face.
‘I’m so sorry, love. Your dad’s gone,’ Carol had said. ‘They tried their best but couldn’t save him…’
The two of them clung together and Liv could still sense her mum’s heart palpitating against her cheek.
When the doctor pointed to Johnny’s X-ray on a computer screen, Liv was grateful for her thoughts to jump back to the present.
‘I’m very pleased with your recovery, young man,’ he said. ‘Your bones have aligned nicely and are healing well.’
Liv felt overcome with relief. ‘Will he need any surgery?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. He should rest his arm up for a few weeks more, and then we’ll book him in for some physiotherapy.’
Johnny moved his fingers a little. ‘What will they do to me?’
‘Nothing too tortuous. You’ll start with a few gentle exercises to get your arm moving again. With this kind of break your movement might be more restricted from now on.’
Liv swallowed. ‘By how much?’
‘He might struggle to reach books on top shelves.’
Johnny shrugged. ‘I’m not bothered bythat.’
Liv shook her head slowly at him.
Afterwards, they caught a bus back to the city centre where Liv picked up some dry-cleaning. She draped Essie’s black silk dress over the crook of her arm. ‘We’ll go to Essie’s flat to drop this off. I need to do some work.’
‘Cool,’ Johnny said. ‘She lives in that tall building, right? I think Daz Milan does too.’
‘Who?’
He fixed her with an incredulous stare. ‘Footballer, millionaire, playboy.’
