Secret Obsession. CHARLOTTE LAMBЧитать онлайн книгу.
Thornton lay, on a life-support system.
His mother sat beside the bed watching him unwearyingly and for a few seconds Nerissa and her uncle stood in the doorway, watching her while she was unaware of them, so intent on her son that she had no attention to spare for anything else.
Nerissa looked at him, too—and away again, appalled by what she saw. Everything his father had told her was suddenly a reality, in front of her; she hadn’t believed it fully until that moment—now she had to.
It was a relief to look at her aunt instead. Grace Thornton was the opposite of her husband. Where he was tall, she was short; where he was thin, she was plump. His skin was brown and weather-beaten; hers was as soft as a rose-petal and as rosy as an apple.
His eyes were very pale blue and deep-sunk; hers were slightly protuberant, very bright and a warm, rich brown, and her curly, goldy-brown hair showed no trace of the grey which had taken over in his hair.
Her voice was soft and warm; it flowed unceasingly while Nerissa and John Thornton listened. She had always done all the talking in the family while her husband and her son and Nerissa listened, and it was somehow reassuring to hear her talking now—it made the alien hospital surroundings seem more homely.
‘And the top field will be given a dressing this next week—if your father gets round to it—now the ploughing’s done. The turnips are coming on nice, then when the sheep have eaten all the grass we can turn them into the top field to eat turnip tops—and turnips too, if need be. Did I tell you the vet had been to see that ewe we thought might be carrying? Well, she wasn’t. Hardly worth keeping her; she hasn’t lambed for eighteen months. Past it, I reckon. She can go to market with the others next time.’
John Thornton moved forward and his wife stopped talking and turned her head. She saw Nerissa and her face lit up.
‘Here’s your father now, Philip,’ she said conversationally. ‘And Nerissa’s with him! There, I told you she’d come, didn’t I? And she looks just the same; she hasn’t changed.’
She got up and held out her arms; Nerissa ran into them and they hugged, kissing. Aunt Grace moved back to look at her, tears sparkling in her bright brown eyes.
‘You look well. She looks well, Philip. Lost weight, mind. Skinnier than ever! Don’t you eat down there in London? Did your uncle take you to have a bite to eat before you came here? I told him to make sure you got some lunch first—I know those trains—nothing but sandwiches and crisps; that’s all you get on them these days. In the old days they had a proper buffet car and a three-course lunch, with waiters in white coats and silver cutlery and good glasses on the table, but these days they can’t be bothered.’
‘We stopped and had a ploughman’s in a pub,’ Nerissa said, and her aunt clucked her tongue.
‘Is that all? Did you hear that, Philip? Isn’t that just like your father? John Thornton, you should have taken her somewhere better than that. A bite of cheese and some bread isn’t a fit meal for anyone but a mouse.’
‘She said she wasn’t hungry!’
‘You shouldn’t have taken any notice of her!’
Nerissa had stopped listening. She moved to the bedside and looked down at Philip, her heart wrung, wanting to cry. The top of his head was bandaged, domed, only his face visible. He had been shaved, she noted. There was no sign of stubble on his cheek and she knew that Philip needed to shave every day. He had once stopped shaving for a weekend camping trip on Hadrian’s Wall, not far from his home, and come back on the Monday morning with the rough beginnings of a curly brown beard.
His mother wasn’t talking any more. She was watching her niece. ‘Say hello to him, Nerissa. He can hear you; they say he can, even if he isn’t showing any signs. You know she’s here, don’t you, Philip? You’re waiting for her to talk to you.’
His hand lay on the white coverlet, brown and strong, with wide-spanned fingers, nails cut very short, a practical hand used to hard manual work. Nerissa touched it lightly, whispered, ‘Hello, Philip, it’s me.’
‘Say your name,’ her uncle urged her. ‘Say, it’s Nerissa.’
‘He knows,’ Grace Thornton said, still watching Nerissa. ‘I told him she was here, didn’t I? Not that I needed to; he’ll have known her voice the minute he heard it. We’ll go and have a cup of tea, Nerissa, and leave you to talk to him.’
Nerissa didn’t look round, just nodded. She heard them go out, heard the door click softly into place. She sank down on the chair her aunt had been sitting on and picked up Philip’s hand, stroked it lightly.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t come until now. Your father only rang me yesterday.’
It had been one of the biggest shocks of her life. She had been at work, had picked up the phone expecting it to be a business call and heard her uncle’s voice with a start of alarm. She had known it couldn’t be good news; he wouldn’t ring her at work for that.
‘I came as soon as I could,’ she added. She couldn’t get over the blankness of his face. The emptiness. His features unmoving, unchanging.
This is how he would look if he were dead, Nerissa thought, and her body winced in pain. Maybe he is dying? If they switched off this life-support machine would he die?
‘Darling, wake up!’ Urgency possessed her. She was afraid to touch his face, afraid of jarring his head, so she put her face down against his hand and kissed it, held it to her cheek. She had half expected his skin to be cold but it was warm; she put her lips against his inner wrist and felt the blood pumping sluggishly there, in the blue vein which she could see threading beneath the skin.
‘Wake up, Philip!’ she whispered against this one sign of Me in him.
There was no response, of course; she didn’t expect any. He had lain like this ever since the car crash in which he had suffered head injuries necessitating surgery—surgery which had physically relieved the pressure on his brain, her uncle had told her, but had left him like this, in a deep coma.
She couldn’t bear the idea of Philip dying. They had grown up together, as close as twins. For most of her life Philip had been the most important person in the world to her.
Behind her she heard the door open and sat up quickly, still holding his hand.
‘You must be his cousin,’ said a friendly voice and she turned to see a nurse behind her. ‘Hello, I’m his day special—I look after him during the day. He has someone else at night. I’m Staff Nurse Courtney.’
Nerissa smiled shyly at her. ‘Hello.’
‘How do you think he’s looking?’ The shrewd brown eyes watched her. ‘Bit of a shock, I expect, seeing him like this, but his condition has stabilised; there’s been no deterioration over the last couple of days.’
‘Does that mean he’s getting better?’ Nerissa asked hopefully, and saw the other girl hesitate.
‘Not exactly. It just means he isn’t getting any worse, which, believe me, is a hopeful sign.’
Nerissa’s face fell and Nurse Courtney quickly added, ‘It could mean he is going to take a turn for the better any minute. His mother’s doing a wonderful job and now you’re here, too. Keep talking to him; he needs all the stimulation he can get, anything that keeps jogging his brain.’
She left a few minutes later and Nerissa sat down beside Philip again and took his hand. ‘Do you like her?’ she asked him conversationally. ‘She has a very nice face—it matches her voice. I think you’ll like her. She’s the one who shaves you every day, she says. She’s good at it, too; you couldn’t do better yourself.’
His parents came back while she was telling him that it had started to rain. ‘Typical—it was wonderful weather in London, but I get back here and down comes the rain! It’s a wonder we don’t all have gills and fins, the rain we get up here.’
John