The Woman He Loved Before Page 8
He suddenly comes down to my height, enclosing my hand in both of his, as though trying to protect as well as comfort me. ‘No matter what, we’re going to get through this together,’ he says. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’
I nod, knowing that he doesn’t believe that any more than I do.
libby
I’ve never thought of myself as ugly.
By the same token, I have never really looked in the mirror and seen myself as outstandingly beautiful. It often amazes me that other people do. That they can make such firm judgements on themselves – especially the ones who aspire to be models – by simply looking in a mirror.
I am looking at myself in the mirror, and I am seeing myself for the first time.
I am not ugly.
My black-brown eyes are surrounded by whites that are threaded and veined with red. My nose is wide and flat, my skin is an even-toned dark brown that has always been easily invigorated with a little foundation. My forehead is gently curved, my chin is small and unobtrusive. My lips are wide and full.
I am not ugly. A little tired looking, maybe, but that is not surprising considering the last forty-eight hours. But I do not fundamentally look any different. This is who I am. This is who I have been my entire adult life. And I am not ugly.
Until I allow my eyes to properly focus, to stop the Libby in the mirror from being a slight blur, then I can see who I am now. Today. This minute.
On the left side of my face, from my ear to about a quarter of the way up my hairline, and then straight back to the nape of my neck, I have no hair. Instead, I have a bald, brown scalp with a jagged, blood-red scar that is held together by thick black stitches. That’s where my head collided with the partially open window causing the skin to split open, like the skin of a tomato peels apart after it has been in boiling water.
From the middle of my nose to the middle of my cheek, running in a straight tangent, is another dark-red line, but this one is thin and has tiny, careful stitches that are the work – apparently – of a master surgeon. This scar is from where a piece of metal – probably from the car’s roof – sliced across my face as we were crushed against the lamppost.
The left side of my face is scattered with scratches that will fade to nothing over time. These are from flying, shattered glass.
I am lucky that the force of the crash didn’t cause the open window to crack my skull; I am lucky the metal didn’t scrape a bit higher because it could have hit my eye; I am lucky I was wearing a seatbelt so that the internal injuries were limited to my spleen; I am lucky I had a fireman to talk to me and keep me awake, to stop me falling into a coma I probably never would have woken up from. I am lucky to be alive. I am lucky.
That’s why huge, gut-wrenching sobs keep quaking my body but escape as small gasping whimpers; that’s why my eyes are swimming with tears that don’t fall. I am lucky. Everything I am seeing in the mirror means I am lucky to be alive.
‘The repair work on your face has been very successful, so with the right after-care the scarring should be minimal,’ the doctor explains gently as the nurse takes the square mirror away from me. I don’t need the mirror any more, the image of myself – changed and branded – is clear in my mind, burnt like a holographic image onto my eyelids. ‘And your hair will grow back around the areas that are damaged on your scalp,’ he adds, even more gently.
When the nurse removed the mirror, Jack’s hand took its place. ‘You can wear a scarf or something around your hair until it does,’ he adds, helpfully. I change my gaze to him, realising that he’s known me less than three years. He doesn’t know me as having anything other than long, straight black hair. He knows I have my roots re-straightened every eight weeks, but he doesn’t know how long I searched for a hairdresser who wouldn’t damage my hair, rip me off, or keep me waiting for hours. He has no idea that I spent years travelling all over London, sometimes further afield, looking for the right hairdresser. He has no clue that even when I moved to Brighton I had to keep going to London to see my hairdresser until I happened to meet Angela, a mobile hairdresser who was fantastic and professional.
He doesn’t understand what it means to be a black woman trying to have her hair looked after properly. Which is why it is easy for him to say I can wear a scarf or something until my hair grows back – he has no idea that it will take maybe a decade to get it back to this length.
‘When can I go home?’ I ask the doctor, ignoring what Jack has said because this is not the time to try to explain it to him.
‘You’re making excellent progress, so I should think you could be home in a week or so.’
‘OK. Thank you.’
‘Thank you,’ Jack echoes as the doctor nods and leaves the room.
I am lucky to be alive, I tell myself as the nurse fusses around me, straightening the sheet, making sure that my pain medication dispenser is close to hand.
I am lucky to be alive.
I am lucky to be alive.
I am lucky to be alive.
I am going to keep saying that to myself until the horror that is bubbling up in my mind goes away. It doesn’t matter what I look like, I am lucky to be alive.
Before I know it, before I can stop myself, my shoulders are shaking and I’m breaking down again. This time not so quietly, not with any of the dignity I have been trying to maintain.
‘Oh God, Libby, don’t cry,’ Jack says, desperately. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wish it was me that was hurt and not you. I’d do anything to take your pain away. I’m so sorry.’
‘I know, I know,’ I say. ‘I just …’
‘It’s going to be OK.’ Jack easily fills the gap where my words have failed. ‘It’s going to be OK, that’s what the doctor said. We’ll get you the best care, a nurse at home if necessary. You’ll be better in no time and you’ll hardly be able to notice the scarring, especially once your hair starts to grow back. Time will fly by and we’ll get you well again. It’s going to be OK, I promise.’
I let him speak because he needs to. He is feeling guilty, and scared. I know Jack, I know he’ll be terrified that I’ll hate him for this, that I’ll always blame him because I’d reminded him more than once to have the airbag seen to. ‘You do realise that my little car is probably safer than yours to drive right now?’ I’d told him. And he’d meant to get it done, I know he had. I don’t blame him.
I am crying, not only because of what I have seen in the mirror, but also because I still feel so disconnected from everything. I can touch things, and they are real, but I can’t say the same about what is going on in my head. I think things, I remember things and I do not know if they are real, if they happened. In the ambulance, I heard a woman’s voice who spoke like she knew Jack and she knew me. Before the fireman, I was awake – I think – and I was trying to tell Jack something important.
Between what I know and what I remember, there is a huge gulf that is terrifying me. I do not know what it is that is sitting at the edge of my memory, but it is trying and failing to get my attention. It is, however, making me scared.
‘What happened?’ I ask Jack. ‘After the crash, what happened?’
‘After the crash, they cut you out of the wreckage and brought you here,’ he replies, staring at me with his dark emerald eyes, they remind me sometimes of green velvet, so soft and deep you want to feel them on every part of your body.
‘I mean after the crash and before the fireman, what happened?’
Jack kisses my fingers where he has linked them through his. ‘You don’t remember?’ he asks, his eyes now cautious and guarded.
‘No, it’s gone. I remember—’ The violence of the car being rammed shudders through my body and I close my eyes against it, feel the jolt, then the falling sensation as the world around me is lifted and—
Jack’s hand tightens around mine. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’
My eyes fly open and I’m in the hospital room with Jack; I’m safe.
‘I remember the moment of the cra
sh, and I remember the fireman,’ I say when my breathing has slowed and the terror has moved away. ‘But something else happened and I don’t know what.’
‘It’s not important now,’ Jack says. ‘All that’s important is getting you better.’
‘Something happened. Tell me what it is,’ I ask, almost begging. I don’t like not knowing, I don’t like to think that I was conscious and doing something, saying things that I have no memory or knowledge of now. The days of drinking to that point are way behind me, and this is different, anyway. Back then there was enjoyment; this is like staring into your past and seeing nothing but a gaping black hole, ready to gobble you up and trap you there, disconnected from everything. ‘Tell me, please.’ The edge of that black hole is creeping closer.
‘Nothing happened. We were both a bit shaken up, and you were incredibly brave while they were cutting you out. Nothing happened, I promise you.’
Jack is looking at me while he speaks but the pupils of his eyes dance around, never settling for too long in one spot. Is that because of my scars or is it because there is something he can’t tell me?
‘Do you want to see people?’ he asks, changing the subject, which allows him to change his line of sight – to the door, beyond which my family and friends are waiting. They saw me when I was unconscious, they saw me with the bandages on, now they’ll see me with my newly carved up face and scalp. I’m not ready for that. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready, but right now I definitely am not.
‘No,’ I say, ‘tell them I’ve gone to sleep and I’ll see them at home.’
‘OK, beautiful,’ he says, automatically. The word stings my skin, scrapes inside my ears, rubs salt into my scars. He could barely stand to look at me, how am I supposed to believe what he just said? He kisses my forehead, the most undamaged part of me. ‘See you later.’
‘Yeah, see you later,’ I reply.
As he reaches the door, I call, ‘Jack?’
He stops and turns to me, a smile on his lips. ‘Hmm?’ he asks.
‘You would tell me if something happened, wouldn’t you?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘Yeah, of course. Yes.’
chapter four
libby
There are eight stone steps from the pavement to the front door. It’s going to take me a while to climb them unaided.
Although I am not in constant pain any more, it is still hard to walk without the fear of tugging apart the stitches in my abdomen, or feeling something pull inside making me worry about the damage I’m doing.
I stare at the steps – smooth and curved at the edge of the treads, an ordinary grey stone – that I have walked and run up many a time. Not this time. This time, I have to wait for Jack to help me, just like I’ve been doing in hospital all week – I have to wait for someone to help me to do the most basic of things: go for a wash, get to the toilet, brush my teeth, wash the undamaged parts of my face without the aid of a mirror. And I’ve had to put on a happy face for my visitors.
The visits were short and pleasant enough, but I always had to let them know that I was ‘O’
‘K’ with what had happened; I was focusing on the positives of being alive; and I wasn’t dwelling on the hair thing, the face thing, the recovering from major surgery thing. After each visit I would sag against my pillows and will myself better so I could go home and at least not answer the door if anyone came who I didn’t want to see.
The taxi driver has left my bag on the top step. Jack is now standing with him up there, paying.
The hospital made it clear that I was going home in a car or in an ambulance – the taxi was the lesser of two evils as the thought of an ambulance brought on panic attacks. We sat in the back of the taxi, not speaking, his hand wrapped around mine, while my petrified body did not move, and I kept my eyes closed to avoid seeing any other car that came near us. I’d been extremely relieved when we pulled up outside our house. Our home.
I’m scared to go inside.
When I was lying in hospital, I was desperate to get out of there, to be at home and, now, ‘home’ is where I’ll have to start again. I’ll have to be me with this face and this hair in the place where the other me lived. That’s a terrifying thought.
‘Your parents, Angela, Grace, and my parents wanted to have a welcome home party,’ Jack had told me as he wheeled me to the waiting taxi, ‘but I told them you probably wouldn’t want that. Not right away. I hope I did the right thing.’
‘Yes,’ I’d said, ‘that was the right thing.’
Jack puts his wallet into his back pocket, opens the outer door, then the inner door, to put my bag inside.
‘Good luck,’ the taxi driver says as he passes, an unexpected blessing from a stranger. ‘Take care.’
How many people does the taxi driver wish good luck? I wonder as I watch the man I married descending the steps to help me. Random people, hospital returnees, or damaged people who look like they need it? I suppose I am all three.
A smile overtakes Jack’s face as he stands in front of me, and I smile back. All of this would be so much harder without him. I don’t think I’d have coped as well, would have had some good hours in among the hours of despair, if I didn’t know he was there with me all the way.
May, 2009
‘So you’re Elizabeth,’ Jack’s mother said as we stepped over the threshold. She was beaming, with her arms stretched out in welcome. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me close, surrounding me with that soft, intoxicating, talcum-powdery smell of a woman who takes pride in her appearance and has almost always had the money to do so. She had never ploughed her way through the bargain bin in her local supermarket for the right shade of eyeshadow. She was elegantly attired: a fawn-coloured silk shift dress under a cream, cashmere cardigan; fawn court shoes on her feet, although this looked like the type of house where visitors usually took their off shoes. Her light brown hair, streaked with strands of silver, was cut into a stylish bob, and she had gold and pearl earrings in her ears.
She clutched me tight, checking I was real perhaps, then stepped back, her hands slipping smoothly down to take my hands.
‘Let me have a look at you,’ she said, and gave me another wide, genuine smile. ‘You’re nothing like I expected. My son wouldn’t tell us a thing about you. But you’re beautiful.’
‘Mother,’ Jack said.
‘Oh, shush,’ his mother said, jovially. ‘You should be grateful that I like her. How many young women complain about having a mother-in-law who doesn’t like them? Many, I would wager. But Elizabeth, you have been such a tonic for my son.’ She moved back a little further, still holding onto my hands. ‘He has been like a different person since you started courting. I never thought I’d see him laugh, or take an interest in life again …’ All four of us in the corridor, not least Jack’s mother, were horrified when her eyes began to mist over with tears.
‘You must excuse my wife. She does come on a bit strong sometimes,’ Jack’s father said, coming forward. ‘You’re embarrassing the poor girl. You’ll frighten her off.’ He held out his hand and his wife immediately let my hands go to allow me to shake his. ‘Hector,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Jack had inherited his father’s frame, height and self-possession. I was sure there were very few people on Earth who made Hector feel insecure. Jack had mentioned in passing that his dad still went to the gym and played golf – it showed: his skin was smooth and unblemished, while most of his thick head of hair was neat and disconcertingly shiny.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, too,’ I said, sounding prim and proper. I hadn’t intended to, but it had come out that way.
‘While my wife might have been a bit overwhelming, it is a pleasure to have your company today, Elizabeth. My son has been very circumspect, some might even say evasive, about you.’ He shot a pointed look at Jack, who lowered his head. ‘I see absolutely no reason for that. You are most welcome in our home.’
A little churning began in my stomach, the butterflies of
nerves at meeting them, but also the anxiety by the fact I’d have to tell them that my name wasn’t Elizabeth. They were both being so nice, so gracious and welcoming, how could I say it now? I realised with a start that Jack didn’t know it, either. The man I was about to marry didn’t know my full name. And you’ve managed to convince yourself you’re not rushing into this? I berated myself.
‘Are we going to spend all our time in the hallway?’ Jack asked.
‘Of course not, of course not,’ Harriet said. ‘Come in, come in.’ Hector let go of my hand, which was still tingling from the firmness of his handshake, and Harriet immediately hooked her arm through mine and began to lead me along their hall towards the living room. Since I’d walked in, one or the other of Jack’s parents had kept hold of me – almost as if I might disappear or run away. Maybe that’s what happens to a family after someone dies: they cling to anyone new in their world. I actually thought it would be harder, that they would look at me with suspicion and disdain – they would question my motivations for being there, while showing their slight disgust at me daring to try to replace the person they lost.
‘Now, Elizabeth, you must tell me all about what you’ve got planned so far for the wedding. I’ll be as involved as you want. I would love to take over because I don’t have a daughter but I’m sure your mother is already doing that.’
‘Umm, not really. Jack and I haven’t really talked about what we want from the wedding. We thought it best to meet each other’s families first.’
‘That is sensible,’ Hector said.
‘Who wants sensibility when there is love and romance involved?’ said Harriet with a smile that was practically a wink.
Their living room, like the rest of the house, was huge. I could fit my whole flat in there twice over with room to spare. The walls were a pale sage green topped with high, white ceilings, and many display cabinets and sideboards lined the walls, as did pieces of ornate, elaborately pretty furniture that were obviously expensive antiques. Jack came from money, I knew that, but this house drove the point home that we were different, we had different experiences of the world.