But now, hospital visiting was expectedof her. And the car was all hers.
Carefully, she adjusted the seat, the headrest and all the mirrors – Gareth would grumble when he was able to drive again but that wasn’t going to be just yet. Her internal butterflies danced a little jig – it was amazing how tense she felt behind the wheel – and she turned the ignition key. The engine responded instantly,vrummm!
‘Driving’s not difficult,’ she blustered aloud, as she eased the silver Peugeot up to the turning point further up the lane. But, as she moseyed along cautiously between the verges and the fields she was glad there was no one around to see her jerky progress.
Suppressing the adrenaline rushing around her system she flicked left to join the next lane, which took her to the main road, although there were only sheep to see. She flinched as she changed down to second to squeeze the car over the narrow bridge. Whoo-oops ...! But she made it without touching the sides, laughed in nervous delight and successfully negotiated the right at Main Road towards Crowland and Peterborough.
Once on the open road she felt her spine relax as the car co-operated beautifully, moving left or right according to her direction, slowing when she pressed on the brake. After five miles of being overtaken in irritated little rushes by other vehicles she let her foot weigh down the accelerator and began to enjoy the liquid sensation of speed and the little bob the car gave over bumps.
‘This is OK,’ she told herself, slackening her death-like grip on the steering wheel. ‘Dead easy.’
It all seemed so on the long lanes, the steering so light but positive that she even began to sing along to the radio in breathy little bursts as she made her way over the lengthy straights, faster and faster.
But she overcooked it when she arrived too quickly at a corner and the car wallowed unpleasantly, as if in imminent danger of plunging sideways into the unwelcoming depths of the roadside dyke. ‘Shi-hit!’ she cried softly, stamping on the brake and spinning the wheel frantically between suddenly sweaty hands.
The car halted. She opened her eyes. She was still on the tarmac. Or three wheels were, which was acceptable. She wiped her forehead and, shakily, restarted the engine that had stalled because, all her limbs being taken up with steering and braking, changing gear had been a task too many. She drove on more cautiously.
Set about with groomed lawns and coifed conifers the new Ackerman Hospital looked like a red-brick lantern, the upper storey smaller than the lower and crowned by a cupola of glassed-in offices. Diane stepped into the hushed building as if entering a church, surveying the navy, tan and deep raspberry pink carpet, the smiling staff, the plants twisted artfully up trellises. It didn’t look like a National Health hospital but it smelled no different.
A groomed, dark-haired nurse showed her into Gareth’s hotel-like room, although she felt sure she would’ve been successful at locating it by its room number. He lay quietly in the white bed. ‘He’s slow, after his concussion,’ the nurse explained, kindly. ‘Just let him sleep when he wants to.’
Diane found herself clutching the nurse’s arm. ‘But he’s lost all his teeth!’
The nurse patted her hand. ‘They’re still there. Under all that swelling – aren’t they, Gareth? They’ll reappear, in time. Should I get somebody to bring you coffee, or tea?’
For some time, Diane sat beside Gareth’s bed, drinking coffee, gazing at him as he dozed, waiting for him to rouse for more than a few seconds at a stretch. She’d expected that he’d be more alert. That there would be conversation.
With nothing to occupy her she began to worry about the journey home. Whizzing through the lanes had been OK once she got used to it but the journey had become a bit fraught once she met the A47, sucked around roundabout after ever-busier roundabout and squirted out onto the hectic dual carriageway that was Paston Parkway. The hospital’s position between Paston Parkway and open Fenland meant that at least she didn’t have to brave thundering Soke Parkway into the bowels of the city, as she would have if Gareth had remained in the district hospital.
But still, she glanced at her watch. Often.
She sipped her coffee and studied Gareth’s bloated head and plastered arm, all that could be seen protruding from the sheet. His fingers, in their troughs, were purple sausages. They made her wince just to look at them.
But his injuries didn’t give her amnesia about his unforgivable lies.
She sighed. She wished she’d brought a magazine.
She brooded on the hateful thing he’d done.
She fidgeted.
Rush hour was approaching. The thought was like cold custard in the pit of her stomach. Gareth was hardly aware that she was there ...
She slipped from the room, anxious to put the city behind her before the dreaded five o’clock brought traffic like a rush of demons from the mouth of hell.
After leaving Purtenon St Paul, James drove home to Webber’s Cross, Tamzin almost silent beside him.
‘I ought to go into the office,’ he said, experimentally. ‘I’m supposed to be in a Health and Safety meeting, this afternoon.’
After a moment, she nodded. ‘OK.’
He turned onto the A47. ‘But I could video conference it if you’d feel better with me at home.’
‘I’ll be OK. What about Mum?’
‘I won’t stay late. I’ll be home in time to take you to see her in the early evening.’
‘OK.’
