Was it the old dues, she wondered, that she was dutifully playing? Or did she use them as an excuse for not meeting a greater challenge?
Annie thought briefly of Matthew.
Matthew had gone. Steve knew that. She had the sense of choices again, multiplying, and a great windy space all around her from which all the familiar landmarks had been lifted up and tumbled away. And then regret, sharpening, because after all she lacked the courage to enter the space herself. Steve let go of her wrist. His hands settled on the chair-arms again. Annie was close enough to him to feel the tension from inactivity that vibrated in him.
But he simply said, ‘Thank you for saying what you feel,’ and smiled at her.
No, Annie thought. What I ought to feel. Regret, again.
‘Look.’ Steve nodded towards the television. ‘The afternoon movie is Double Indemnity.’
‘I’ve never seen it. Martin will know everything about it. Who the second cameraman was, who built the sets. He’s the film buff, not me.’
‘You should see it. Shall I move our chairs?’
The oddness of their knowledge of one another struck her all over again. They had never shared a meal, or seen a film or a play together, never even properly seen one another in day clothes. None of that mattered, she understood that now. Perhaps, in her life with Martin, she had set too much store by it. What had mattered to them, to Annie and Steve, was the recognition and understanding that had come and grown in the darkness.
Annie stared at the grey images on the television screen.
Was it enough, then, to fall in love by?
She knew the answer without asking herself. It was enough.
They stood up, helping one another to their feet, and positioned their chairs side by side, behind Frank and the others.
Annie wanted to turn to Steve, to say, Wait. He stood until she was sitting comfortably and then lowered himself awkwardly into his chair. He was close enough for her to feel his elbow touching hers.
After a moment, he turned to look at her. The bitterness seemed to have evaporated and he smiled again.
‘We can watch television together. Just like real life. That’s safe enough, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Annie said softly. And she thought, He sees quite clearly, the difference between what I say and what I feel.
She made herself sit perfectly still and they pretended to watch the film together, counterfeiting the ordinariness of real life.
Afterwards, when it was over, they stood up again and went in their opposite directions, back to the wards.
The day of Double Indemnity set a pattern.
Annie’s body healed rapidly. The doctors and nurses began to call her Wonderwoman, joking elaborately about the rapidity of her progress. Every day she felt a little stronger. The walk down the ward became routine instead of a challenge. She walked down to the physiotherapy department, and upstairs to pay a visit to Brendan. He pursed his lips when he saw her, and walked in a circle around her before whistling his admiration.
‘Not bad at all. I wouldn’t like to have had a bet on it, you know. I was anxious, back there, just for a day or two.’
Annie laughed at him. ‘You should have had a bet. I’m pretty tough.’
‘Is that so? Tell me now, how’s that handsome friend of yours?’
‘Steve’s doing okay. He’s impatient, that’s all.’
Brendan sighed. ‘Some people have all the luck, love, don’t you? Take me, then. If I’d been buried alive, it would have been with some little old lady. Not your hero.’
‘I didn’t plan it that way,’ Annie protested.
‘Luck, I said.’
Annie rested, and slept as much as she could, welcoming unconsciousness except for the fearful dreams that still came. She dutifully ate all the food that was presented to her, and her face lost the sharp angles of sickness. She submitted to tests and exercises and the routines that were imposed on her, and she was rewarded with returning strength. Her family and friends came to visit her, and every evening Martin sat beside her bed and told her the day’s news. She tried hard to feel the intimacy of home in the hour of evening visiting, with the over-familiar flowered curtains enclosing them.
She felt closest to Steve, aware of him near to her when they didn’t meet, keeping her manner deliberately neutral when they did. It was hard, and she knew that they both felt the falsity of it.
When they met in the day room they talked about the books they were reading, the progress they had made, the day’s newspapers, but the artificial distance that Annie had imposed made no difference. Sometimes she thought that the casual talk did no more than emphasize another, silent dialogue.
One morning Annie was sitting reading in the chair beside her bed. At the ward sister’s suggestion Martin had brought some of Annie’s clothes in for her, and she had dressed herself in a skirt and jumper. The clothes felt thick and strange, and dowdy with her feet in slippers.
It wasn’t visiting time, and Annie was startled to look up and see her mother making her way slowly towards her bed. She relied on a stick now, and her knuckles stood out sharp and knobby as she grasped it. Annie stood up and went to her mother, putting her arm around her shoulders.
Anxiety made her demand, ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
‘Nothing at all,’ she answered. ‘Your father dropped me off on his way somewhere. The ward sister kindly let me in. Here I am.’
Her mother was proud of herself, Annie saw. The little solo journey from the hospital doors to the ward was a triumph. The mother and daughter smiled at each other, and a little hopeful flame flickered between them. Perhaps, after all, she was getting better. Annie hugged her.
‘Thank you for coming. Sit down in this chair, Tibby.’
Annie’s mother’s real name was Alicia, but from childhood she had been called Tibby. Thomas and Benjy used the name now.
‘It sounds better than Granny. Sort of furry,’ Thomas said.
‘Like a cat, of course,’ Tibby had agreed. She was close to the two little boys, and it was an added sorrow for her that they tired her too much now to spend more than a few minutes with them. Before her illness Tibby had taken them on day-long expeditions, planning them in advance with Thomas and packing careful provisions in their picnic boxes.
‘It was clever of you to get them to let you in,’ Annie said. ‘They’re quite strict about it.’
Tibby was tired, and she sat down gratefully. ‘Couldn’t really turn me away, could they? Once I’d landed myself, stick and all. I wanted to see you. They’re asking me to go into some place, for a rest, that’s what they call it.’
The flame of hope went out, at once, and Annie saw the darkness. She felt cold, and pointlessly angry.
‘When?
