Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Emma

The Gardener

She hovers somewhere above her bed. Her body is not speaking to her in a coordinated way. It is a language of indeterminate senses: the feel of her neck tipped back on a pillow; the smell of something metallic– not rain; the itch in her leg; something white obscuring the vision in one eye.

She thinks of playing the memory game of images from the night Will died, but she cannot recall any of them.

She is moving. She knows that. Is she still heading to theatre for surgery? Or is all of that over?

She looks for Betty. She is not able to move her heavy head, but her eyes are flicking, checking, searching.

She finds her– Betty is walking by her side. She is not speaking, and Emma cannot see her face.

Ahead of them, double doors swing open, and her vision clears to show an empty trolley being wheeled through. They move to the side, and she watches it as it passes. She wonders who was on the trolley and where they are now.

She hears the doors clang a second time and looks towards the sound.

Les is walking through the doors towards them. His stride lengthens, and then he is running, large feet pounding the vinyl flooring.

Betty stops stock-still and then, as she takes one step towards him, he reaches her. He lifts her off her feet, and she is clinging to him, burying her head in his shoulder, sobbing.

Emma can hear Les's deep voice, muffled by Betty's curls. ‘It's all right, Betsy. I'm here, Betsy, I'm here.'

Betty is struggling to get the words out. ‘I told you not to come. I said I would be all right.'

‘I know you did, but what was I to do, my love, when I thought you needed me.'

Emma can feel tears trickling down the side of her head into her ears.

‘Oh, my little love,' Les murmurs as Betty sobs.

‘She … they…' Betty is trying to get the words out. ‘She was in there for hours, Les, and they've just told me…'

Betty cannot speak for crying.

She waits.

Les waits.

‘It was so tough, but in the end they got all the bone fragments out. She's going to be all right.'

And then Betty breaks down completely, and she clings to Les like her life, her happiness, her existence depends upon him. Which Emma thinks it might well do.

Then Les is looming over her, his large gardener's hand covering hers.

‘Better late than never,' he says, squeezing her hand.

‘And better the devil you know,' she whispers back through cracked lips.

Betty is now holding her other hand, and between sniffs, she adds, glancing up at her husband, ‘And you have to give the devil his due.'

‘Oh, I do, Betty,' Emma whispers. And somewhere deep inside of her is laughter. She can't quite bring it to the surface, but she thinks it will sit there and wait for her. And as Les would say: laughter is the best medicine.