Bernard’s expression doesn’t change, Rose notes. Interesting.
‘Did you go to the hospital to see her?’ she asks Dan.
He nods.
‘She needed me, she’d rung me to tell me what she’d done. They wouldn’t let me in at first but I said I was herfiancé.’ Dan looks at the rest of the people as if ashamed of this lie. ‘I’d asked her to marry me years before so it was almost true, wasn’t it?’
‘How do you feel about that day now, months later?’ Rose asks.
‘All I can think of is the blood. That I should have done more for her, that I could have stopped her doing it,’ he says.
He’s staring into space, his entire being has time travelled to a hospital casualty department.
Rose keeps silent. She feels such pity for the unknown Julia and for Dan too.
Finally, he closes his eyes. He’s still crying.
‘She was on a trolley in a cubicle, wearing a white dress, a smock thing, not like she usually wears, she likes clinging things, silvery and gold clothes – sorry. That’s irrelevant. There was blood.Her blood. Everywhere.’
Dan’s voice catches at the memory.
‘She’s always so – I don’t know –glowing? In the hospital, she looked as if she was already dead.’
Both India and Keera look horrified.
Dan opens his eyes now. He looks around at them all earnestly.
‘Julia’s really beautiful. She’s always the most beautiful woman in any room. A doctor was examining her wrist to see if she needed surgery. I wanted him gone so I could tell her it was my fault, that I’d help her, fix her, that we were destined to be together.’
India reaches out and pats his arm again.
‘Why do you think it was your fault?’ Rose asks these questions in a low, hypnotic tone so as not to break the spell.
Dan’s eyes are distraught.
‘Because she said so. I hadn’t been there for her when she needed me. If I’d been there, she’d have never done it.’
Keera rushes into the silence.
‘Nobody can make anybody else want to kill themselves,’ she protests. ‘People choose what they want to do, even something like suicide. Trust me, I know that. It wasn’t your fault, Dan.’
Keera’s eyes are welling up.
‘Julia is her own person, Dan. Sometimes people are so broken that they don’t want to exist any more but can anyone else stop them?’
Dan blinks at this information.
‘You don’t understand,’ he says impatiently. ‘Julia loves life, she’s so vibrant.’
‘If you think it was your fault, what do you think you can do to make sure Julia never tries this again?’ asks Rose.
‘I could be there …’ he says, trailing off.
‘Twenty-four-seven?’ asks Rose. ‘In co-dependent relationships, one person can be very focused on people-pleasing.
That person is terrified of being criticised or rejected, so they try harder and harder to avoid conflict. They enable the other person’s behaviour, make excuses for them.’
Dan looks deeply uncomfortable.
