Chapter 31

‘Will you just fuck off! You've got your footage, now bugger off.' My brain might be woozy but it's pretty obvious Tom is rather irate. I try to gather myself but it's impossible. It's as if I'm behind a thick plate of glass and all my senses have gone into hibernation. I give up and keep my eyes closed, aware that I'm lying down and tucked in. It's the first time I've ever given up all responsibility for myself.

Tom is still shouting and although his voice is dull in my head, I can hear every concern-filled word.

Tom. I feel a little goofy. Tom is here. Everything will be okay if Tom is here.

‘Calm down, mate,' says a very reasonable voice a little distant to Tom's.

I wonder what the fuss is but it's hard to work out among the spaced-outness of my head. I'm not sure where I am or why Tom is here.

‘No, I will not calm down. Leave her alone. Just let them get her into the hospital, for fuck's sake.'

‘The viewers will want to know she's all right.'

‘She will be if you leave her the fuck alone. Will you switch that bloody camera off.'

It's the last thing I hear as I slip into the darkness.

* * *

There's movement and I feel myself being lifted. I open my eyes, I'm on a stretcher being lifted by two paramedics out of the white box of what I'm assuming is an ambulance. It's a new experience.

I try to say something but a garbled ‘Om' is all that comes out of my mouth.

‘Lydia.' He's immediately leaning over me, concern and worry etched into his features. No one would blame me for saying he's not looking his best, some might even say he's looking haggard. He takes my hand and he's not so much squeezing it as hanging on for dear life. ‘It's okay, we're at the hospital. You've got a drip.' He lays his other hand so gently on my cheek, you'd think I'm made of tissue paper. His fingers are icy cold next to my hot skin and I shiver but it's because I'm touched to my very bones by his tenderness. A foolish little warm bubble loosens in my chest.

‘You're going to be okay.'

Looking around, I see a cameraman, a sound man with a boom, and Mark, who's saying, ‘This is good stuff. Viewers are going to love the romance.'

Tom doesn't even glance away, although his impatient growl makes it clear they're lucky they've not been punched. ‘You okay?' he asks so softly, his eyes never leaving my face. I could almost believe he cares but then I remember. ‘She's nobody.'

* * *

When I wake several hours later, it's dark and I'm in a small room. Tom is dozing in a chair beside me, one hand on my arm as if worried I might go somewhere. The thought makes me smile as I study his sleeping face. The grey pallor has gone but he still looks exhausted, as if he's been through an ordeal.

I guess it's been quite a day. This morning seems a lifetime ago. Like Tom said, ‘We've been through an intense few days.' Amazingly, I'm feeling better – a full-blown miracle. The painful man-trap grip on my leg has eased and the paving slab on my chest lifted, making it so much easier to breathe. Aside from the physical improvement though, there's a calm inside me – a sensation of ease, though I don't really know why. Maybe it's because I'm resigned to what comes next. It's nothing new and no surprise. Tom might have put things down to Stockholm Syndrome, and that's his prerogative, but I know what I feel is real.

‘Lydia?' Tom's soft whisper pierces the quiet of the room.

‘That's me,' I say.

‘How are you feeling?'

‘Alive. Sorry for passing out on you.'

‘You should be sorry for a hell of a lot more.' He sounds angry, which I wasn't expecting, but I'm too exhausted to complain even though I want to. Seriously! What right does he have to be angry?

‘I spoke to Annette.' He leaves the sentence hanging.

‘Oh.' Why is guilt my immediate response?

There's a very severe expression on his face as he stands up and sits on the bed, leaning over me, one arm propped on the other side of my waist. My pulse takes a few missteps. I'm an idiot.

‘If you'd got sepsis, you could have died. You're not stupid, you knew you were taking a risk.'

I shrug my shoulders.

Tom grasps them. ‘Don't do that. It matters. You matter.'

I'm pissed off enough to rally and even though it hurts to confront it, I manage a small mocking laugh. ‘No. I don't. I heard you.' My voice cracks as I hear the words again in my head. ‘Y-you … t-told…' I'm back at school being laughed at, with my ‘Mike' schoolbag. A nobody with nothing. I lift my chin and hold his gaze. I won't be that person again. ‘You told your dad I was nobody.'

‘I did.' He doesn't flinch and a tiny part of me admires his honesty even though it hurts.

I swallow back the tears and stare steadily at him.

His face softens. ‘But I didn't mean it. I said it to get my father off the subject. I don't want my parents to be any part of us.'

‘Because you're embarrassed by me.' I sound petulant but I can't help it. It's no more than I expected. I'm Chlamydia Smith after all. He still doesn't even know my real name – why give him any more reason to walk away?

‘No, never.' Tom grabs my hands. ‘You're everything, Lydia.'

I shake my head, slumping back into the hard pillows. How can I believe him? Much as I want to, I know I'm clutching at proverbial straws. ‘Stockholm Syndrome, remember?'

‘I didn't mean that. I was trying to protect?—'

‘Please don't, Tom.' I turn my head away. I'm too weary to fight back. ‘Let's just leave it.'

Tom stands up, his mouth a grim line fixed above his set jaw, and he walks out of the room.

Stealth tears leak out of my eyes, but I leave them to run down my face. It's no more than I expected.

A nurse comes in to check my drip and introduces herself as she takes my temperature and pulse before checking the felt pen boundary line that has been drawn on my swollen leg.

‘What's that for and who did it?' I ask.

She gives me a cautious smile. ‘It's to measure how far the infection has spread and I'm pleased to say it's not moved. Dr Shadwell did it when you first came in. You were a bit out of it.'

I frown, trying to pull a memory out of my woolly brain, but there's nothing there. My last memory is of Tom picking me up and carrying me into Trafalgar Square. I remember Nelson's Column towering over me against the backdrop of the grey sky and then … nothing.

‘I hear you're on some reality TV show. They were trying to film in A and E but Doctor Shadwell soon put them right.'

‘Oh no,' I say, praying that they didn't manage to get any footage. I must have looked so pathetic and useless, relying on a man to carry me over the bloody finish line.

‘But so romantic. Your man there got quite heated, pushing them away and then insisting you have a private room. He's quite a hottie.'

‘He's…' I'm about to deny it but in the face of her appreciative grin, the words stall.

‘Do you want anything to eat? You missed dinner but I can get you a sandwich or something.'

I realise I haven't eaten all day, so I nod, but I'm not that hungry.

‘I'll see what I can find. It might take me a while but bear with…'

It doesn't sound promising and I wish I had my rucksack and my digestive biscuits. See? This is why I always carry food.

She disappears and in the corridor I hear her talking to someone about finding me some food. Whoever it is offers to go for her and she thanks them. I guess she has plenty of other stuff to do.

A minute later, Mark appears in the doorway, a sheepish expression on his face.

‘Hi.'

‘Hi.'

‘Thought I'd come and check on you.'

‘It's all right. I've no plans to sue,' I say. The acute discomfort in his body language suggests he'd rather be out on a mountain in freezing rain than here.

‘Good, that's good. I … em … I've got something to show you.'

‘Pardon?' All sorts of things whizz through my mind. I have absolutely no idea what on earth it could be.

He takes out his phone. ‘Some of the footage.' He hands it over as if it's a live bomb. ‘I think you should see it.'

A tide of red has risen up his skin from the neck of his black Henley T-shirt to the tips of his ears.

I take the phone and watch. It's Tom staggering over the crossing with me in his arms, his face in a tight grimace of determination. God, this is every bit as embarrassing as I thought it was going to be. I hate my vulnerability being on show for everyone to see. I close my eyes but I can't regret it. Tom will have his money and that's worth my discomfiture.

‘You need to watch,' Mark urges.

In the next moment, I see myself fainting but it's not me the camera pans in on, it's Tom's face, contorting with anguish as he cradles me before lowering me to the floor. It's when he phones someone that he turns and I watch as he breaks down. He's sobbing. It's as if my heart has been grabbed and squeezed hard and all the breath whooshes out of me. It's almost painful to watch. But there's more. I watch as Tom gathers himself and then hovers over me the whole time I'm out cold and then when he's getting out of the ambulance with me. If actions speak louder than words, then I've seen all I need.

I look up at Mark, an ember of hope burning bright.

‘Why are you showing me this?'

‘I'm a sucker for happy endings?'

‘And?' There's more, I can tell.

He looks up at the ceiling as if choosing his words carefully. ‘Tom.'

‘What? Tom asked you to show me this?'

He holds out his hand, requesting the return of his phone and looks over his shoulder before nodding. ‘I wasn't supposed to tell you.'

Hope leaps in my heart, as bouncy and joyful as a spring lamb.

‘Do you know where he is?'

Mark gives a non-committal shrug. ‘Around somewhere. We're doing a quick debrief before he goes home.'

As soon as I hand the phone back he scuttles out of the room like a small, chagrined boy rather than a six-foot man mountain.

I reflect on what I've just seen. Tom. Naked emotion on his face. There's no disguising it. In those shots, his emotions are totally obvious. Available.

Damn I need to find him. I swing my legs out of the bed and wince as my foot hits the floor. Fiery pains shoot up my leg and I have to take a moment to catch my breath. Forewarned, I take a more careful step and something tugs my hand. Bloody IV tube. I grab the rail on which the bag of solution is suspended and without thinking it through, start walking out of the room and into the corridor. I'm on a mission. I have to find Tom.

I've only taken a few steps when a voice from behind me shouts.

‘What the fuck do you think you're doing?'

I know that voice. I smile and slowly turn around.

Tom is marching towards me, a paper bag clutched in one hand.

He comes right up to me, sparks of anger dancing in his eyes. He looks quite magnificent and I sigh because I've gone all gooey inside.

‘Looking for you,' I tell him.

He puts his arms around my waist. ‘Jesus, woman, will you just get back into bed and stop giving me heart failure? The nurse said you wanted something to eat, so I've been out to get you something.'

Taking charge of my IV drip, he ushers me back to my room and spends an inordinate amount of time fussing over the bed, helping me in and rearranging my blankets before sitting on the bed, hemming me in.

‘Why did you leave?' I ask.

‘Because I needed proof. As you were brought out of the ambulance, Mark said viewers would love the romance. I wanted you to see what they'd seen.'

‘You love me,' I say with wonderment, scarcely able to believe it.

‘Been trying to tell you that. Although I'm still mad at myself for ballsing things up.'

‘That makes two of us,' I reply, but I'm smiling at him as he traces a hand down my face, pushing my hair back from my cheek.

‘No, you didn't do anything wrong, well … apart from putting your health at risk and not expecting enough from other people. From now on that stops. You deserve to be loved.'

He's right. We both deserved to be loved. Him for the person he is and not the person his parents want him to be, and me because I'm not that neglected child anymore. I'm a person in my own right.

‘And so do you,' I tell him.

I realise together we're everything.