"Why don"t you beat about the bush a little?" she said. "Why don"t you talk about the weather or something?"
"Why?" I asked.
"It might make you sound rather less eager," she said.
"Do I sound too eager?" I said. "I"m sorry."
"Don"t apologize," she said, laughing. "In fact, I think I rather like it."
"So will you come?" I asked.
"To dinner?"
"Yes," I said.
"Where?"
"At my restaurant."
"I"m not eating on my own while you do the cooking."
"No, of course not," I said. "Come and watch me cook and then we"ll have dinner together afterwards."
"Won"t that be rather late?" she said. "How will I get home?"
I wanted to ask her to stay with me, in my bed, in my arms, but I thought it might not be prudent. "I will get you on the last train to King"s Cross or I will treat you to a night in the Bedford Lodge Hotel."
"On my own?" she asked.
I paused for a long while. "That"s up to you," I said finally.
There was an equally long pause at her end. "No promises and no strings?"
"No promises and no strings," I agreed.
"OK." She sounded excited. "What time and where?"
"Come as early as you like and I"ll pick you up from Cambridge station."
"Isn"t there a station at Newmarket?" she asked.
"There is but you have to change at Cambridge anyway and it"s not a great service."
"OK," she said again. "I"ll look up the train times and call you back. On this number?"
"Yes," I said. I was elated at the thought of seeing her again so soon.
"What do I wear?" she said.
"Anything," I said.
Even the prospect of being prosecuted under the 1990 Act couldn"t dampen my spirits as I skipped down the stairs. I laughed out loud and punched the air as I collected my coat and went out to the car. Caroline was coming to dinner! At my restaurant! And she was staying the night! Pity it wasn"t going to be in my cottage.
The brakes of my Golf failed at the bottom of Woodditton Road.
I was feeling good and my speed, probably like my expectation, was rather too high. I put my foot on the brake pedal and nothing happened. I pushed harder. Nothing. The car actually increased in speed down the hill towards the T-junction, with Dullingham Road at the bottom. I suppose I could have been quicker with my thinking. I suppose I could have tried the handbrake, or maybe changed down the gears to slow me down. I suppose, as a last resort, I could have turned the car through the hedge on the left and into the field beyond. Instead, I gripped the steering wheel tightly in panic and kept pushing the useless brake pedal harder and harder into the floor.
In a way, I was lucky. I didn"t hit a brick lorry head-on as my father had done. My dear little car was struck by a fifty-three-seat, fully air-conditioned coach, with individual video screens built in. I knew this because the Golf ended up on its side round the back of the bus and I could read the details of their service as advertised in large white letters painted on a red background. Funny how the mind works. I remembered the words as my consciousness slowly drained away: fifty-three seats.
CHAPTER 10.
I was being wheeled on a hospital trolley along a grey corridor. I could see the lights in the ceiling. But they weren"t the usual bright rectangular panels; they were different. Instead, they were round gla.s.s globes. And there were windows, lots of bright sunlit windows. And voices too, lots of voices, both male and female.
"I think he"s come round again," said one male voice above me.
"h.e.l.lo," called a female one on my left. "Mr Moreton, can you hear me?"
A face came into view. The face smiled at me.
"Mr Moreton," said the face again. "You"ve had a bit of an accident but you are going to be just fine."
That was a relief, I thought.
Nothing seemed to hurt much but my body, strangely, didn"t feel attached to my head. I felt as if I was looking down on somebody else"s corpse. Oh no, I thought, surely I haven"t broken my back?
I began to panic and I tried to sit up.
"Just lie back and rest," said the female voice, placing a restraining hand firmly on my shoulder. She looked into my face. "You"ve had a nasty bang on the head."
Oh G.o.d, I must have broken my neck.
I tried to wiggle my toes and was rewarded with the sight of the blanket moving above my feet. Waves of relief flowed over me. I lifted my hand to my face and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. All was well, I thought, even if the sensations were a bit unusual.
"You"re probably concussed," she said. "You"re on your way now to have a brain scan."
I hoped they"d find one.
I wondered where I was. I knew that I was in a hospital, but where? And why was I in a hospital? The questions were too difficult for my befuddled brain so I decided to take the easy option and do as I was told. I laid my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes again.
For the next few hours, I was dimly aware of being lifted and poked, of being talked about but not talked to. I just let the world get on without me.
I couldn"t remember why I was here. Rather worryingly, I couldn"t remember very much at all. Who am I, I wondered, and was comforted by at least knowing that it mattered. I decided that I probably wasn"t crazy. Surely, I thought, if I was crazy I wouldn"t know to ask myself the question in the first place. But, what was the answer?
Thoughts drifted in and out of my consciousness without any threads of connection. Come on, I said to myself, sort it out. There were clearly some priorities to make. Who am I? Why am I here? And where is here?
"Mr Moreton? Mr Moreton?" a woman called from my left and someone stroked my arm. Was Mr Moreton me? I suppose it must be. Did I really want to come back into the land of the living just yet? I supposed I should.
I opened my eyes.
"He"s back again," said the woman. "h.e.l.lo, Mr Moreton, how are you feeling?"
I tried to say that I was fine but it came out as a croak. The woman obviously thought it was a good sign that I had reacted at all. She leaned over me and smiled into my face. "Well done," she said. "You are going to be all right."
Why did I think that she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me?
I tried again to speak. "Where am I?" I croaked.
"Addenbrooke"s hospital," she said. "In Cambridge."
I knew I knew something about Addenbrooke"s hospital, I thought. What was it? Memory circuits in my head flipped and flopped and came up with an answer: Addenbrooke"s hospital was where the food-poisoning victims went.
Why did I think that? Who were the victims? Would they be OK? I decided not to worry about them. They would be all right, I said to myself. The woman had said so, and I believed her. I closed my eyes again. I wasn"t yet ready to partic.i.p.ate in the world any further.
When I woke next it was dark. There was a window on my right and it was black, with just a couple of yellow streetlights visible in the distance. I lay there looking out. I remembered I was in hospital, Addenbrooke"s hospital, in Cambridge, but I couldn"t remember why. I wondered what was happening at the restaurant.
"h.e.l.lo, Max," said a voice on my left.
I rolled my head over. It was Caroline. I smiled at her.
"h.e.l.lo, Caroline," I said. "How lovely."
"You know who I am, then?" she said.
"Of course I do," I said. "I may be in hospital but I"m not stupid."
"The doctor warned me that you might not remember who I was. He said that earlier you appeared not to remember who you were either. Seems you have been drifting in and out all day. How do you feel?"
"Better for seeing you," I said. "But why am I here?"
"You had an accident," she said. "You were hit by a bus and you banged your head. They think it must have been on the side window of your car. They say that you are just a bit concussed but you should be fine in a few days."
I couldn"t remember an accident, or a bus. "How did you know I was here?" I asked her.
"I called your mobile to tell you the time of the train I was coming on and a nurse answered it. She told me you were in hospital so I came straight away." Caroline smiled.
That was nice, I thought.
"What time is it?" I said.
"About two o"clock," she said.
"In the morning?"
"Yes."
"I"m sorry about dinner," I said. "Where are you staying?"
"Right here," she said. That was nice too. "It took a bit of persuasion but, in the end, they let me stay."
"But you must have somewhere to sleep," I said.
"I"m happy just here." She smiled at me. I was so glad. "I"ll find somewhere to sleep in the morning."
Wow, I thought.
"Are you still suing me?" I asked.
"Absolutely," she said, and she laughed. Her laughter turned to tears that streamed down her face. She was laughing and crying at the same time. "Oh G.o.d, I"m so relieved you are all right. Don"t you ever do that to me again."
"Do what?" I said.
"Don"t you ever frighten me like that again. When I called your phone they told me you were having a brain scan to check for any pressure build-up. They told me that they didn"t yet know the extent of any permanent brain damage." She was crying at the memory. "I don"t want to lose you, not when I"ve only just found you."
"I thought it was me who found you."
"Yes," she said, choking back the sobs. "So it was. How was that exactly? Perhaps it"s better I don"t know." She leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead, then she kissed me gently on the lips. I could get used to that, I thought.
"I"m sorry," I said. "It"s not a convenient time, but I really need to go to the loo."
"I"ll get a nurse," she said, and disappeared. She came back with a large middle-aged woman wearing a blue nurse"s tunic.
"Ah, you"re back with us again, Mr Moreton," said the nurse. "How are you feeling now?"
"Not too bad," I said. "I"ve got a bit of a headache and I need to go to the loo."
"Bottle or bedpan?" she said. It took me quite a few seconds to understand what she meant.
"Oh," I said. "Bedpan. But can"t I go to the bathroom?"
"I"ll see if I can find a wheelchair," she said. "I don"t want you walking yet after such a bang. You have a concussion and your balance may be affected."
She returned with the wheelchair and helped me out of bed and into it. I was wearing what could only be described as a nightshirt with an opening down the back. It did nothing for my modesty since my rear end was exposed for all to see as the nurse lowered me gently into the chair. My balance, indeed, wasn"t very good and the manoeuvre could hardly be described as elegant. I hoped very much that Caroline hadn"t been watching.
The nurse pushed me down the corridor to the bathroom. It was getting rather urgent and I started to get myself out of the chair and on to the lavatory.
"Just a minute," said the nurse. "Let me put the brakes on first."
The brakes. Wasn"t there something else about brakes? I tried to remember what it was.
As if wearing a gap-backed nightshirt wasn"t bad enough, the nurse insisted on standing next to me and holding my shoulders throughout the procedure in case I toppled off the lavatory and on to the floor. Hospital, I concluded, did nothing for one"s dignity.
Feeling much better but still embarra.s.sed by the process I was wheeled back to my bed by the nurse. She applied the brakes of the wheelchair. I sat there. Why was it that I hoped the brakes wouldn"t fail again?