Chapter Twelve
April 2016
Lydia woke up with a headache. She’d slipped into a blissful slumber after a day in Wiltshire visiting a spa – work-related and paid for – and had expected to feel rejuvenated for at least a few days. But somehow she’d ended up dreaming she was sitting in church of all places – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even entered one – and Jonathan came and sat next to her. Then there was a bride she didn’t recognise, but Theo standing with the bride at the front of the church, holding both her hands. Next up had been Connor, her boss’s brother-in-law, officiating the ceremony, which ended with the bride having a head massage from Theo and a simultaneous foot massage from Jonathan. Then she’d taken off her dress and thrown it to Lydia and yelled the word ‘Choose!’
Theo’s accident four months ago felt in many ways as though it had only just happened, and Lydia knew it was because she was in limbo, never moving forwards or backwards. Somehow she’d learnt to plod along and take each day as it came.
Anita was being more polite with her these days at least. She’d asked after Lydia’s family, they’d talked about Lydia’s job, Theo’s colleagues who had visited that morning, and the promotion he’d wanted but hadn’t managed to get.
Lydia dragged herself out of bed and popped two Nurofen tablets. She ran a bath, filling it with bubbles, and as she relaxed in the water her headache gradually began to subside. She’d already called Ian and said she’d be in late and he told her to take the rest of the day off given how hard she’d been working. She hadn’t wanted to point out that at yesterday’s spa not only had she interviewed visitors and staff, but she’d also been treated to the most heavenly Indian head massage known to man, followed by a glorious foot massage which apparently enhanced the ‘natural flow of energy’, according to the therapist giving it.
Lydia hadn’t taken any time off since she’d started the job, which couldn’t even be called a ‘new’ job now she’d been there a few months. So today she would visit Theo for a couple of hours and then she planned to use her free time to do some chores. She’d run herself ragged over the last few months and the house was in desperate need of a vacuum, she barely had any food in the cupboards and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done a big supermarket shop. All she had in the fridge was the corner of a block of cheese, an almost empty bottle of milk and various condiments that probably needed their best before dates checked.
Lydia was much better at cooking for herself these days. Once the winter misery lifted at the end of February she’d even downloaded a few easy recipes, usually making up at least four portions every time and freezing meals she could grab later. She took out the last piece of meat lurking in the freezer and set it on a plate to defrost, ready to make a chicken goulash this evening, once she had more fresh ingredients. She opened the back door to feel the temperature and decide whether she needed her jacket. It was early April so there was still a chill in the air but the weather app on her phone said sunny and no sign of rain, so when she only felt a slight breeze she grabbed a lightweight cardigan and her bag and left the house to visit Theo.
As she walked through the park, daffodils bowed in appreciation of the season and she took a deep breath in to inhale the aroma of the blooms that would soon flourish in flower beds and line the sides of the pathways. Spring was always such a happy season: full of hope and optimism and the promise of summer with its long nights and lazy days stretching ahead of them.
She sat on the bus on the way to the hospital, the sun warming her through the window, and thought about the past few months. What no one ever told you about having a loved one in a coma was how useless you would feel. You have a continual one-sided conversation without even a returning smirk, grimace or murmur of agreement. At first you wonder what’s the point but you soon get into a routine and realise that if you don’t talk, nobody else is going to. And somewhere, deep, deep down, you hope the person can somehow hear at least part of what you’re saying.
Today Lydia was going to tell Theo all about her trip to the spa in Wiltshire. She’d been given a discount voucher too, which was perhaps to ensure she wrote a decent write-up, but already Sally had leapt at the chance to accompany her for the day. They’d be able to book in for afternoon tea, use the swimming pool and sauna, perhaps have a treatment or two and even sip a glass of bubbly as they sat around in their white fluffy robes and nattered the day away.
At the hospital, Lydia followed the familiar route from the front entrance, winding through corridors she knew like the back of her hand by now. She nodded to a nurse she recognised and made her way to the high-dependency unit but as she approached Theo’s ward and saw Anita, she knew something was different.
Her legs felt weak and she slowed. Was this it? Was this the time she would have to let go completely?
Her face tensed as she told herself to put one foot in front of the other to join Anita and the consultant.
‘What’s happening?’ Lydia demanded, looking first at Anita, then the consultant. She wanted to push past them to Theo’s bed, see if he was still there, for once hoping to hear the words ‘no change’.
Tears ran down Anita’s face. She had a hand across her mouth but the consultant was called away on another case and so he patted Lydia lightly on the shoulder and said he’d let Anita explain and that she should find him if she had any more questions.
‘Anita, what is it? What’s happened?’ She didn’t want to let herself get too excited.
Anita sniffed, took a deep breath. ‘Theo opened his eyes. My darling boy opened his eyes.’
May 2016
The other thing people never tell you is that when a person comes out of a coma, it’s nothing like it is in the movies. In Hollywood the person would open their eyes, look at you and ask what day it was before going on to leave the hospital a few weeks later and resuming a normal life. You never hear that for some patients the eye opening is the first stage of a long, difficult recovery, and you never hear that for some, the eye opening is a stage at which their journey will stop. They won’t make any further progress, it’s the best you can hope for, and they could go right ahead and die anyway.
Lydia had always thought there was either being in a coma, or being fully alert and awake, but now she knew differently. There were various states of consciousness a patient could fall into, and it was a confusing state of affairs, categories filled with shades of grey, and none of it made her feel any better as she looked across at Theo. She’d been living with hope and optimism since the day those police officers had knocked on the door, and she wondered whether she’d used up her quota for the foreseeable future, because everything was much the same as it had been sitting at Theo’s bedside a month after he’d first opened his eyes.
Theo was now classified as in a vegetative state, a description Lydia hated with a passion. Anything to do with a vegetable didn’t sound like a label Theo would’ve been particularly happy with and it was hard to stomach. He was no longer in a coma and was having cycles of sleeping and waking, which was why his eyes were sometimes open, sometimes shut. Occasionally he’d make sounds, moaning low and throaty, and sometimes his face changed as though he was happy, at other times it looked as though he was upset. He was still unconscious but the functions of the body, including pulse, blood pressure and breathing – those known as vegetative functions – were working in the normal way, it’s just that Theo still wasn’t responding to what was happening around him.
If he could, he’d tell them to stop using that wretched description, Lydia was sure of it.
So here she was, still having one-sided conversations, except every now and then Theo would open his eyes. She’d get all excited, leap up and lean closer to him and ask, ‘Can you hear me? Theo, it’s me, Lydia?’ and Anita would more often than not come over in an instant – she barely left the hospital inside the visiting hours on the general ward where Theo was now placed – but then nothing else would happen.
Anita was desperate for another sign. She’d had the first one when he’d opened his eyes and had told Lydia it was because she’d been talking to him, but Lydia had talked with the consultant and this wasn’t necessarily true. The consultant had told Anita the same but she was choosing not to believe it at the moment and Lydia guessed, as a mother, it was her right and possibly even her job to think nothing but positive thoughts and hope for the best outcome for her boy.
Anita had made a subtle dig at Lydia the day they moved him to the general ward, talking about how the ward was filled with people who’d be walking out of here any day now and getting on with their lives, and how glad she was that Theo would have a chance to do the same. Looking at Theo, not moving, not talking, not doing anything much at all, Lydia wasn’t sure it would ever happen, but she’d learnt to keep her mouth shut.
‘So work is full on,’ she told Theo now, trying to ignore the visitor of the teenage girl in the bed next to them, who very much liked the sound of his own voice. So far the pair had talked about the wicked dragon tattoo on his calf and how it hurt like fuck, his night on the town with someone called Travis and how they’d been barred from entering a nightclub, and how when the girl got out of here they’d be on an all-inclusive holiday to Benidorm.
Lydia drew the curtain around Theo’s bed for privacy but unfortunately it wasn’t soundproof. She did her best to ignore any other sounds as she carried on. ‘My week in Devon and Cornwall was harder work than I thought, lots of driving around,’ she told him. ‘I had to visit glamping sites and meet a photographer at each one, but I’ve got plenty of material to put together a feature on the posher side of camping. I’m off to Somerset next week and then we’ve covered the south-west. Someone else has taken the east of England, another person the north.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of editing too, when I’m not out and about or putting together my own articles. The boss has been hiking and climbing mountains in the Scottish Highlands.’ If Theo could respond he’d do his terrible Scottish accent, which never failed to make Lydia laugh and talk about how it wasn’t right for men to wear skirts, full stop. ‘He took so many notes and pictures and did a great write-up for a feature, but let’s just say the article needed a fair bit of shaping into something meaningful that the general public will read.’
More relaxed in the general ward, Lydia took a sip from her bottle of water, put it back in her bag and held Theo’s hand again. Every time he opened his eyes it made her jump. You’d have thought she’d got used to it by now, but she hadn’t. It was taunting her almost, like he was coming back and then at the last minute thought, ‘Oh no, all too hard, I’m going back to sleep.’
