patted my hand sympathetically.
‘That’s right, Jessica,’ he said. ‘Have a good cry. You’re probably still in shock from the lightning strike. You’re a very lucky young lady, you know.’
I nodded, leaning my head back on the starched hospital pillows, and gave a deep, shuddering sigh. So it had all been a nightmare. I’d been hit by lightning but the rest of it had been a ghastly, unsettling dream caused by nothing more than the shock of what had happened to me. I was still me, still Jessica Taylor. I peered down at my ringless fingers and wanted to sob for joy.
Glancing up, I watched as the nurse made his way back down the ward in search of a dustpan and brush. There were no small children hiding in the shadows, no husband trying to convince me I was his wife. As soon as the nurse was out of sight, I turned my face into the pillow and wept with relief.
I found it disconcerting to realise how my mind had worked on things while I had slept. In the dream I’d pictured myself much more damaged by the chance lightning strike than it appeared I actually was. In reality, there was no drip in my arm; no heart monitors attached to my chest and no large bandage round my neck and shoulders. It was as if I had prepared myself for the worst, and now I was pleasantly surprised to find myself almost unscathed.
A very young Chinese intern came to see me soon after I’d finished the rather spartan hospital breakfast of cornflakes and toast. He introduced himself as Dr Chin and assured me I’d got off very lightly.
‘The burns to your back and shoulder are minimal,’ he explained. ‘We have dressed the wounds lightly to prevent infection, but they are superficial and should heal in a few days without leaving permanent scarring.’
‘No antibiotics required then?’ I asked.
He shook his head, peering at a chart that had been hanging at the foot of the bed. ‘We only admitted you to the ward because you had not regained consciousness, but your two-hourly observations through the night have proved satisfactory.’
‘Did my heart stop at any time?’ I asked anxiously.
The intern shook his head of sleek black hair. ‘No, no, nothing like that. You are a very strong woman.’ He paused before adding, ‘You sleep very deeply, Ms Taylor. You have been asleep since yesterday. How do you feel now?’
I thought about this for a moment or two, then grinned at him. ‘I feel fine. Can I go home then?’
‘We will wait for the consultant’s ward round,’ he said, nodding. ‘But I am sure everything will be okay.’
He made as if to leave, then turned back to me and smiled. ‘Do you know that once, the Chinese believed lightning to be a very unlucky omen? It was thought that lightning was a sign of God’s disapproval. I do not think you are unlucky, though, Ms Taylor, in fact, I think you had a very lucky escape.’
You are not kidding, I thought, watching him scurry off down the ward. I lay back gingerly against the pillows, careful not to snag the light gauze dressing on my left shoulder. In my mind’s eye I pictured Grant and the four children. They had seemed so real at the time, and I wondered from where I had conjured up their names and images. It occurred to me as my mind drifted into a light doze that it was strange how I could remember the dream so clearly. I gave an involuntary shudder. It also occurred to me that I had indeed had a very lucky escape.
The ward round consisted of four white-coated doctors hovering round a fifth in ascending orders of rank, clustering together round each bed in turn. It was immediately apparent which was the most senior doctor, and, from the obsequious half-bows of Dr Chin, who stood on the furthest outer ring of the gravitational field of the consultant, I ascertained that my doctor was probably the most lowly figure among them. The realisation gave me fresh cause to breathe a sigh of relief. A less experienced doctor must mean that my injuries were minor and little cause for concern.
My mind went back to the dream and Lauren’s injuries. She had been far more badly injured than I had been. Of course she wasn’t real, just a figment of my imagination, but I wondered why, if I’d invented her, I had also envisaged her as having been struck more severely by the lightning—badly enough, it seemed, for her heart to have stopped beating altogether.
With half my mind still preoccupied by Lauren and the dream, I watched as the consultant, a bald-headed man with a smart pinstripe suit visible inside the flapping white lab coat, looked down his sharp beak-like nose at me as if appraising a joint of meat for his Sunday roast. I tried to dismiss the picture of the buzzard that leapt into my mind as I pulled the bedclothes protectively round my chest.
The buzzard spoke in a rather bored voice that belied the interest in his eyes. ‘So, what have we here?’
Dr Chin sprang into action, gripping my notes and reading jerkily, ‘This is Ms Taylor. Twenty-eight years of age. She was admitted yesterday with minor burns to the left back and shoulder after being hit by lightning.’
‘Ah, the lightning girl, eh? Saved by her coat. Jolly lucky escape, Ms Taylor, if I may say so.’ The consultant smirked and turned his attention back to the anxious intern. ‘Any related problems?’
‘Ms Taylor was unconscious on arrival. Two-hourly obs showed everything reading normal. On regaining consciousness, she seemed disorientated, but has since recovered all her faculties.’
‘So, ready to go home then, Ms Taylor?’
I nodded.
‘Good, good, I think we can discharge her today.’
Losing interest quickly, he moved to a bed on the opposite side of the room. I watched as he stared distastefully down at the next unfortunate patient swathed in bedclothes. ‘And what have we here?’ he intoned unemotionally from the other side of the room.
A commotion at the entrance to the ward diverted my attention from the huddle of doctors round the far bed. The male nurse who had been so kind to me earlier was talking earnestly with a visitor, whose face was barely visible behind a large bunch of flowers.
‘You’ll have to wait until the ward round is finished,’ the nurse was saying in hushed tones. ‘You can wait in the visitors’ room. Who is it you’ve come to see?’
The man lowered the flowers a fraction, and my whole body tensed with a mixture of excitement and apprehension as I recognised the stranger from the previous day. My first instinct was to slide down under the covers and pull the sheet over my head, but my body seemed to be stuck rigidly in position. He glanced into the room, his eyes searching, coming to rest on my face.
He looked different to how I’d remembered him, his short hair framing a square, masculine face. Behind the flowers he was wearing beige cargo pants with an open-necked polo shirt hanging loose at a slim boyish waist. Thank goodness I wasn’t connected to a heart monitor like in the dream, I thought, as I felt the blood pounding round my veins. It would have beeped off the scale!
He waved at me over the flowers, then followed the nurse out into the corridor, presumably to wait until the buzzard had finished his round. As soon as he was out of sight, I bolted upright and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to tease out some of the tangles. Quickly, I rummaged through the bedside cabinet, but this time there was no handy brush, mine or otherwise. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was without so much as a hairbrush or lipstick, when the most handsome man I had set eyes on for years was about to come visiting.
By the time the consultant and his followers had left
