He hands me a leaflet on head injuries. ‘Watch out for any sudden changes like problems with your vision and worsening of pain. I’m happy to discharge you, but you will need someone to keep an eye on you for the next forty-eight hours. Have a nice Christmas,’ says Sidney, giving the stethoscope around his neck a squeeze.
‘Good luck with the proposal,’ I say, with a wink.
He nods. ‘It will be amazing. I’m a very lucky man.’
‘You are.’
It must have been the way I said it because he casts me an odd expression.
‘Ignore me – I am just envious of you. Six months ago, my girlfriend and I split up. I’ve been missing her like crazy. She was my best friend too.’
Sidney nods. ‘It sounds like you need to get her back… although get some rest first.’
Anna shoots out of her seat as I stagger into the hospital concourse. It’s nice to see a familiar face after several hours in my cubicle. She rushes towards me. I let her place her arm over my shoulders. ‘Oh, God, Rory, you look dreadful.’
‘Thanks.’
She laughs. ‘Right, have you got somewhere to stay?’
I try to shake my head but end up wincing at the pain. ‘No as I need to get to Brighton.’
‘Brighton?’ Her smile begins to fade. ‘Didn’t the doctor say you need someone with you? When Mum banged her head after falling in the garden, I had to stay with her for the first twenty-four hours. Let’s go back to my hotel room, you can lie down, and we can talk when you’re not tired. There’s a lot to catch up on and I need to tell you something.’
I hesitate and touch the outside of my shirt pocket to feel the gold chain and locket. My heart reminds me that this trip was about seeing Emily and Felix, not Anna. ‘What do you need to tell me?’
She slips her hand into my arm. ‘Come on, let’s grab a cab and talk in my hotel room.’
I stop her. ‘Anna, I could do with a coffee which has not come from a hospital machine.’
‘Well, there’s a late-night café down the road so we could go there. Since you went into A&E I have been a regular takeaway customer.’
We trudge down the road carpeted with snow and enter the café with coats adorned with white flakes. I take the seat by the window, decorated with colourful Christmas lights, as she goes to order us coffee. Looking around the café I smile at all the tinsel and decorations. I bet Felix will have covered Vivi’s house in decorations and it will be like entering Santa’s grotto. Last year Vivi let him loose with a box of decorations and me as his human ladder. We had so much fun hanging ribbons of cards, sticking up bunches of mistletoe, placing as many baubles as physically possible on the tree without any thought about a colour scheme and placing a Spiderman figure on the top.
‘How’s your head?’ Anna asks while placing the tray on the table. ‘What did the doctor say about it?’
‘Concussion. I have to take paracetamol, rest and put an ice pack on it.’
‘Did you have a CT scan? Head injuries can be nasty.’
I nod and watch her slide in opposite me.
‘How’s your mum doing? Is she still living the life in the Caribbean?’
Taking a sip of my coffee I savour the warmth. ‘She’s busy sailing around it in my stepfather’s new boat. I don’t hear from her much.’
From a young age I can remember Mum getting out colourful travel brochures and telling me and Lawrence that one day she would be sailing her own boat around the crystal-blue waters of the Caribbean. After Lawrence died and Dad married the woman with the mobile burger van, Mum met Phil, who has always had more money than sense. A few years ago, they decided to pack up their life in the UK and go sail around the Caribbean.
Anna raises a perfectly sculptured eyebrow at me. ‘Is that because she’s busy sailing or are you avoiding talking to her about him?’
Grimacing, I turn away.
‘I thought so,’ says Anna with a heavy sigh. ‘Does Emily know about Lawrence?’
I forget about my head wound and shake my head, then let out a yelp at the pain. ‘I never told her about him. I didn’t want to burden our amazing relationship with my dark feelings. Before Vivi died I wanted to tell her as she kept thinking I was being unfaithful with you, but then Vivi died, and everything got messy.’
‘So, am I the only person you talk to about Lawrence?’
I nod. ‘Yes, you are. You knew him so well, Anna. You even managed to drag him out of his introverted shell at uni.’ With a chuckle I raise a toast to her.
