‘Yet you stayed for so long?’ Alice had blurted the same question that she’d asked herself a million times.

  Bernadette had given a sad shrug. ‘It’s not that simple, is it?’

  Alice hadn’t been able to tell if that was a hypothetical question, or if Bernadette could sense some kind of kindred spirit in her. And she hadn’t had the courage to ask. So much for her being brave.

  Bernadette had continued speaking. ‘For some of us, it’s a trade-off and there’s too much to lose. He had more power than me and I was scared of what he’d do to my family. So I waited until the kids were grown. I was lucky. I had a good job and I could support myself. What I’ve learned is that women like me go when the time is right. Sometimes that’s after the first cruel word. Sometimes it’s after a lifetime. But one way or another, we leave. And life is so much better when we do.’

  The room had fallen silent for a few seconds, but as their eyes met, Alice had felt sure that this was so much more than just a chatty woman who liked to tell people her life story. But still, she’d given away nothing.

  After a few beats of her heart, the loaded atmosphere had been lightened by Bernadette, who’d broken into a wide smile as she’d patted her thighs. ‘Would you listen to me rambling on?’ she’d said, as if they’d been talking about the weather. ‘I do it all the time. I swear there isn’t a woman who’s come in to this hospital that I haven’t told that story to. All those years I kept quiet and now I can’t stop talking about it.’

  Alice had wondered if she’d imagined that there was anything personal in this at all. She’d almost convinced herself that there wasn’t, when Bernadette had stood up, and said cheerily, ‘Anyway, Alice, I’ll leave you be. You know where I am if you need me. For anything at all. Even if you just feel you’d like a chat.’

  Again, nothing too loaded in the words, but there was something in the way they were said. Just a feeling. Alice pondered if she’d ever live up to Bernadette’s words, and be brave enough to tell her story.

  Before she could answer that question, she’d been distracted by a new arrival in the room, this time, an elderly lady who’d come in to have a seat while her husband was having his foot plastered. He’d taken a tumble in the garden while he was trying to prune their roses, she’d told her. They’d had a perfectly lovely chat about gardens and the weather, and it struck Alice that after years of retreat and seclusion, this was the second time she’d had an actual conversation with a stranger today. Despite the circumstances, there was something in the normality of it that felt good and lifted just a little weight off her stooped shoulders.

  ‘And what about you, then?’ the woman had asked kindly. ‘Nothing too serious, I hope?’

  Alice had shaken her head. This wasn’t the time to introduce reality or, worse, honesty, into this conversation. She didn’t want to risk spoiling the moment or being a topic of conversation for gossip later. ‘My husband. Just a routine operation. I’m sure all will be well,’ she’d said breezily.

  ‘It was so lovely to meet you,’ the lady had said, sweetly, when her son had arrived and told her that her husband was ready to go. As she’d got up to leave, she’d added, ‘I’ll keep you in my prayers.’

  Alice wasn’t religious, but she would take any good thoughts that were going. Seeing the woman’s son, who must have been in his fifties, guide his mother out gave her a lump in her throat. She’d give anything to have that too.

  She was snapped out of her moment of self-pity when the door opened and Richard Campbell came in. Once upon a time, she would have made a mental note to send a letter to the hospital board, expressing her gratitude for the outstanding care that Richard had shown to her husband and to her. Now, she knew that a letter of commendation from the McLenns was more likely to be viewed as a negative reflection on someone’s work or character.

  As always, she searched his face for some hint of good or bad news, but she saw neither.

  Once again, he took a seat on the opposite sofa. ‘I’m heading upstairs for a meeting shortly and I’ll probably be there for the rest of the day, but I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing.’

  Alice managed a grateful smile. ‘I know you suggested going home, but I’ve just not felt ready to leave yet. I’ll go shortly.’ She was very aware that she was now over twenty-four hours in the same clothes and without a shower. One of the nurses had handed her a little kit with soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste and a comb, so at least she was hygienic, but she must look awful. Thankfully, there were no mirrors in here, so she’d decided that oblivion was her friend.

  ‘I take it there’s been no change?’ she asked.

  He sighed, and a frown crossed his chiselled face. Whoever was married to this man was lucky to have him. Handsome, smart and caring. Once upon a time, back in her naïve youth, she’d thought Larry was all those things too, but she’d learned the hard way how deluded she had been.

  ‘I’m afraid not. We have visiting in the ICU today from 5 to 7 p.m. though, so you’re welcome to go and sit by his bed if you’d like to do that.’

  She couldn’t think of anything worse, but the need to say what would be expected of her kicked in with, ‘I’d like that, thank you.’

  This would be the time to go home. To shower. To change her clothes. If there were still journalists hanging around here, hopefully by now, they’d have given up and decided that she wouldn’t make an appearance.

  ‘I’ll get off then. I’ve let the staff in ICU know to text me if there are any developments. I know it’s hard, Alice, but try to stay positive.’

  There was a question that had been floating in her mind, and she decided to ask it. ‘Richard, how often have you seen people in this situation go on to make a full recovery?’

  Of course, everyone was different and there were exceptions and outliers to every norm, but she just wanted to know the likelihood of the best and worst-case situation.

  He thought before he answered. ‘Many times. I know it’s a cliché, but the body really is a pretty amazing thing. I’ve seen people with very serious damage come back and live a normal life again. But I’ve also seen it go the other way.’ He didn’t have to spell out what he meant. ‘We don’t know exactly why he hasn’t come around yet. It could be due to damage caused to the brain when he arrested, or it could be a reaction to the anaesthetic. That’s why I’m wary of making promises or being unrealistic, because much as we have to stay optimistic, I also need to be careful not to raise expectations. It’s a difficult balance. Cautious optimism – I think we should go with that.’

  ‘I can go with that,’ she agreed. Hadn’t that been what had got her through the last few years? Cautious optimism that she would find a way to escape from Larry McLenn and that she would spend every day of what was left of her life without having to clap eyes on that cruel, miserable face.

  As he got up to go, she spoke again. ‘Richard, I feel that no thanks could be enough for your kindness, but I just want to say thank you again.’

  ‘There’s really no need. I’ll let the nurses know you’re planning on coming in to visit later.’ With that, he was out of the door and she was alone again. Blissfully alone.

  She sat back on the sofa and cast her glance up to the TV. Football. Of course. It was Saturday afternoon. She’d lost track of time. Now she knew why prisoners carved numbers on their cell walls. Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen, without actually watching it. She had absolutely no interest in sport, but she had spent every single weekend of Rory’s childhood on the touchline of a football pitch, cheering him on as he played his heart out. Just her. Never Larry.

  One morning when he was five or six, he’d been upset that his dad never came to his games, and Alice had broached it with Larry that night. ‘He’d really like you to come,’ she’d told him, her feelings mixed. On the one hand, her heart broke that it upset her boy, but on the other hand, she had no desire to stand next to Larry for an extra two hours every week. She needn’t have worried.

  ‘Fuck, that boy is soft. You’ve made him that way, you know that?’ It was classic Larry – step one, lead right in with abuse. ‘Let me think, let me think,’ he’d said, holding his temples dramatically. Step two – follow up with sarcasm. ‘What would be the best use of my time this weekend? Meet with industry leaders to discuss plans for the enhancement of the city or come and watch a bunch of fucking kids who can’t lace their football boots up without their mothers yet? It may take me a while to decide,’ he’d sneered.

  She’d turned and walked away, just as step three was kicking in. Self-importance and grandiosity.

  ‘Honest to God, sometimes I think you have no fucking clue how much it takes to move the fucking mountains I shift on a daily basis.’

  The following Saturday, she’d knelt by Rory’s side and told him that Daddy loved him very much and was devastated he couldn’t be with them, but he had to help all the other people who needed him. It was a refrain that got trotted out again and again over the next few years, but, of course, the gullibility of youth hadn’t lasted.

  Rory had been about twelve or thirteen when he’d realised that the reality was that his dad wasn’t out helping other people, he just couldn’t be arsed taking an interest in anything his son was doing. Larry gave him nothing. No love. No validation. No interest whatsoever. Just the occasional outburst of irritation if Rory got in the way, if he played music too loud when Larry was on the phone, or had friends over when Larry was working in his home office. Nothing was ever good enough and everything that wasn’t about Larry didn’t matter.

  If she could have gone back and given her twenty-five-year-old self one piece of advice, it would have been to go to a library, take out a medical textbook and look up malignant narcissism, so that she’d know the signs and then run a mile when she encountered them.

  Meanwhile, her and Rory were this tight, unbreakable team, who, without ever really discussing it, constructed a family life comprising of just the two of them. Most of the time, Larry was away, so it wasn’t too big a leap. Several of Rory’s pals at high school were the sons of single mums who did incredible jobs being both mum and dad to their kids and Alice tried to do the same. And Larry never knew that every single week at Rory’s football game, she was cheering on her son on the outside, but on the inside she was making plans for the day she would leave the husband she hated.

  Now, as she gazed unseeingly at the footballers on the TV screen, her ever-present self-recrimination that she hadn’t left him when Rory was a boy swooped in again, followed by the tiny voice that reminded her time and time again why she’d felt there was no way out.

  Step four in the Larry McLenn playbook – cruel threats. He’d told her he’d cut her off, he’d sue her for custody, he’d blacken her name and he’d win. They both knew that it wasn’t that he couldn’t bear to lose them, it was because the dutiful wife and the happy family were crucial to his public image. If she left him, he wouldn’t hesitate to tear her apart, to malign her, accuse her of God knows what, because it would be the only way to salvage the optics.

  She’d decided that she couldn’t put Rory through the trauma of that. Or maybe that was an excuse, because she didn’t have the guts for the fight. Until the day she died, she would never know if staying with him made her a coward or a warrior. Maybe both. But at least she’d had her son. A reason to live. Her greatest accomplishment. One that she’d taken the decision to cut out of her life when the fallout of the scandal had threatened his happiness, even though the pain of missing him made her heart ache.

  The train of thought was interrupted when she heard footsteps outside and then the door swung open again and Richard Campbell returned.

  ‘I was on my way to my meeting when I came across someone who was looking for you, so I thought it best to bring him back here,’ he told her.

  Alice’s brow dipped into a frown. There was no one she wanted to see, so whoever it was would be unwelcome. Maybe a journalist, who had duped Richard into thinking he was a friend? Or some guy from Larry’s taxi office? Her next thought was that maybe Richard felt a priest or a minister would be helpful, so she mentally prepared to put on her public face of polite appreciation, while getting ready to contain her irritation.

  She soon realised that she didn’t have to. Because Richard stood to one side, and the next words she heard changed everything.

  ‘Hello, Mum.’

  20

  RORY

  When he’d reached the hospital, the first thing Rory had seen as he’d driven into the car park was that there was a press pack hanging about over at the main entrance to the building. It didn’t take a genius to work out why they were there. Nothing sold newspapers like scandal, corruption, public humiliation and the spectacular downfall of a titan, and the Larry McLenn story had all of those things. Part of Rory understood why Julia wanted to escape, because even now, years later, the press and public backlash was brutal. He’d just hoped she loved him enough to survive it. Apparently not.

  Keeping his head down as he drove past them, he’d retreated to a space in the furthest away corner of the busy car park, then fished over onto the back seat for the baseball cap he’d worn when he was playing golf last weekend. Into the glove compartment next, where he found his sunglasses and slipped them on. He wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt or Matt Damon-level paparazzi fodder, but when the Larry McLenn scandal was headline news, Rory had been photographed many times, so his face would be recognisable to anyone in the media. If they were looking for a new image to run with a story about the accident, then one of the villain’s son entering the hospital would be the one they’d go with.

  He’d ducked out of the car, with a clear plan of where he was going. He’d been at this hospital a few times over the years with his mum, at openings of new facilities (and once, when he was twelve, with a broken ankle after a fourteen-year-old the size of a shed tackled him on the pitch), and on the official occasions, they’d come in through the staff entrance at the side of the building. That was where he’d headed, baseball cap down, skirting the perimeter of the car park so that he wouldn’t be noticed. At the staff door, he’d got lucky – someone was coming out as he was going in, so he didn’t need to swipe a pass. He’d stepped two feet inside the entrance and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he’d heard, ‘Excuse me, sir – can I see your ID?’

  Busted. A security guard with a very serious demeanour and one raised, menacing eyebrow, had stopped him in his tracks. Shit. He wasn’t very good at this undercover entry stuff. If he could never get another job in finance, a career in MI6 obviously wasn’t within his skill set.

  The only option had been to come clean.

  ‘I don’t actually have one, but please don’t eject me until I explain.’

  He’d pulled his hat and specs off, and saw absolutely no recognition in the man’s face. Clearly not a news junkie.

  ‘My father is Larry McLenn and I believe he’s been brought in here after a car crash.’

  ‘If you go out to your left, and round to the front of the building, you’ll find the main entrance there.’

  Dammit, he was going to sound like a completely entitled dick, but there was no option.

  ‘I can’t do that. You see, there are photographers there and I don’t want them to see me. Like I said, my dad is Larry McLenn.’

  Still no recognition. Damn. He should have gone with Billy Connolly or Ewan McGregor.

  ‘Out to the left, and round to the front of the building.’

  He’d been getting nowhere, so he’d had to think fast. The last time he was here was about five years ago and he was with his mother at the opening of a children’s play area in the Emergency Department. There had been a doctor who had made a speech, and damn, shit, bugger, what was his name?

  The security guard was starting to puff up his chest in a blatant power move, when Rory had blurted, ‘But Doctor Campbell told me to come to this entrance and ask for him.’

  Two eyebrows now raised. Cynical expression, but chest depuffed. Rory wasn’t sure if this was a win or just a stay of execution.

  ‘Dr Campbell?’

  A quizzical tone.

  ‘Yes… Dr…’ Think. Think. Think. ‘Dr… Richard!’ Yassss. ‘Dr. Richard. Campbell.’

  He’d sent up a silent prayer that it was the correct name, that the doctor would be here today, and that he’d give Rory the time of day to explain why he’d just told a blatant lie and used him to gain entry to the building.

  Five minutes later, he’d got the answer. After a phone call from the security guard, Dr Richard Campbell had marched through the set of double doors to the left, and – thank you, universe – he’d immediately recognised Rory’s face. A second thanks went up when Richard didn’t turn him away. Rory wouldn’t have blamed him, given his family’s reputation now. ‘Thanks, Eric, I’ll sign Mr McLenn in. Come on through, Rory.’

  After receiving a pass on a lanyard, and thanking the guard profusely, the doctor had escorted him along into the warren of corridors in the staff area of the hospital.

  ‘You just got lucky – I was on my way to a meeting when I got the call. Two minutes later and you’d have missed me. I’m guessing you didn’t want to go past the waiting committee at the front door?’

  ‘I’m camera-shy,’ Rory had joked nervously, as they walked. ‘Thanks for doing this. I saw the reports about my dad, and I couldn’t get a hold of my mum. Is she… is she…’

  He hadn’t been able to say the words. Hurt. Dead.

  The doctor had read his fear.

  ‘She’s fine. I was just speaking to her. She’s up in the family room, so I’ll take you there now.’

  It had taken a few moments for him to remember that he should enquire about his dad too. ‘And my father, how is he?’

  Dr Campbell had given him the rundown. Heart attack. Surgery. Now in ICU. Hadn’t come round yet. Cautiously optimistic. Rory barely heard any of it, because all he could focus on was that his mum was fine. She was okay.