Page 132 of Who’s That Girl?

‘Huh?’ I look at her blurrily, trying to make sense of what’s going on. I feel as if I’m trying to crank my brain into gear, kick-start it like my old car with a flat battery, pushing on the accelerator until finally the engine fires. Only I’m pushing on the accelerator in my brain, pumping it furiously, and my brain’s a total flat battery.

‘You lie still now,’ the nurse is saying, patting my arm gently. ‘I’ll go see if I can find the doctor,’ and she disappears out of my range of vision.

Which is when it registers. I’m in bed. In a hospital. It’s hardly toppling dominoes, but it’s a start.

‘How are you feeling?’ whispers a voice.

I glance sideways again to see Beatrice. I’d forgotten she was there. Like I said, I’m a bit out of it.

‘Um … I’ve been better,’ I manage to quip weakly. My eyes have focused now and I notice she’s got dark shadows under her eyes, and her usually neat bob is unkempt. She looks as if she hasn’t slept for days.

‘You gave us quite a fright,’ she reprimands with a small smile.

‘What happened?’ I manage finally.

‘You were in a car accident.’

‘A car accident?’ I repeat in shock.

‘A head-on collision with a truck.’ She nods gravely. ‘The truck driver got away fine. You came off slightly worse – three broken ribs, a fractured left shoulder …’

So that explains the pain, I realise, instinctively trying to move my shoulder and experiencing a sharp throbbing.

‘… a punctured lung,’ she continues, counting my injuries off on her fingers, ‘and a gash across your left temple, which required twelve stitches.’

Automatically I reach up to touch my left temple and find a bandage. Suddenly I realise how sore it feels.

‘You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the last two days. You’re on morphine.’

‘Two days?’ I look at her in astonishment.

‘I’ve been on a round-the-clock vigil,’ she says loyally.

I smile gratefully.

‘You’ve been very, very lucky, Charlotte.’

I lie there in my hospital bed, trying to take it all in: the fact that I’ve been unconscious for two days, I’ve been in a head-on collision, I’ve got broken bones, I could have died … My eyes well up and without warning I burst into tears.

‘Oh golly, here, take a tissue,’ soothes Beatrice. ‘It’s the shock.’

I nod mutely and blow my nose with my good arm. ‘Sorry, I’m being pathetic.’

‘Don’t be such a silly goose,’ Beatrice tuts. ‘If it was me, I’d be in floods. I mean, you could be dead, or horribly mangled, or disfigured beyond recognition and you’d have to have one of those face transplants I was reading about in a science article.’ She stops as she sees my expression. ‘Not that you need a face transplant of course,’ she says quickly.

‘I just don’t understand …’ I shake my head, groping my way back through the fog that’s clouding my mind. At the press launch, finding the address, racing over to my old house, the diversion, the short cut, Julian.

‘According to the police, you were going the wrong way down a one-way street.’

I stop blowing my nose and look at her incredulously. ‘What? But that can’t be …’

‘Apparently, the one-way signs were obscured by trees. I’ve already put in a complaint with the council – it’s a complete hazard.’

I feel my certainty wobble. It doesn’t make sense, but thinking about it now, the cars were always parked facing one way and I never actually saw any other cars using that side street except … ‘No, that can’t be right,’ I say with renewed certainty. ‘I saw myself—’ I stop myself quickly. ‘I mean, I saw a girl driving an old Beetle in that direction.’

Beatrice looks at me sympathetically. ‘I think maybe you’re confused. That’s one of the side effects of morphine, especially in the high levels you’ve been on.’ She gestures to the intravenous drip I’m attached to. ‘It can make you imagine all kinds of things.’

She’s right about one thing. I am confused.