‘Can we go home?’ Elise looked at her, face stark with misery, hair tangled, salt traces on her cheeks where her tears had dried.
‘We need to stay here, see Vivien and Ken.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she said shrilly, frightened. ‘I don’t want to see them.’
‘I know, but we can’t just run away,’ Janet said.
We have to wait. No matter how tired and stressed they were, they had to wait to see Vivien and Ken. To be there, bear witness.
They stayed in the little room. Janet went for drinks, coffee for herself and hot chocolate for Elise. They sat and drank them in shell-shocked silence.
When Elise began to cry again, quietly and shielding her eyes, Janet went and sat next to her and let her cry. Eventually Elise’s breathing altered, became slow and shallow and Janet felt the tension in her body ease. She slumped into her mother. The nurse had said to keep her awake but that was hours ago now and Janet didn’t believe she was going to choke on her own vomit sitting upright next to her.
Janet’s phone rang, horribly loud in the boxy room, and Elise stirred. Janet checked the display – Vivien – and let it ring until her voicemail kicked in. What else could she do? Answer and lie about how Olivia was? Answer and tell Vivien and Ken that their daughter was dead? Not the sort of news you gave over the phone to someone who was driving in a desperate hurry. She set her phone to vibrate only. Didn’t listen to the voicemail.
There was a knock at the door. ‘Sorry, cleaning,’ the man, an African, said. He used a mop to wipe the floor. Then went on his way.
Some time later another knock and the doctor was back with Vivien and Ken. Janet saw that they had already been told, Vivien, white-faced, a look of utter devastation on her face, Ken, pale and trembling.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Janet said, standing to embrace Vivien. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
‘Olivia,’ Vivien was in shock, ‘Olivia,’ repeating her daughter’s name over and over again as if she’d call her back.
Alison answered the door to Rachel. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine, brought your bag back.’ Rachel twirled the clutch bag this way and that. Not her style but she’d needed it for the wedding and Alison had asked her a few times since if she could return it. ‘Have you lost it?’ she’d said the last time, getting suspicious. ‘No, I just keep forgetting,’ Rachel had told her. Now Rachel moved her head and winced, feeling the bruises Neil Perry had inflicted on her.
‘What?’ said Alison.
‘Nothing,’ said Rachel, ‘stiff neck.’
‘You coming in?’
‘Five minutes,’ Rachel said.