Page 41 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER FORTY

‘Josie! … Josie! ’

The voice is coming from somewhere far away. No – it’s close. Is it?

‘Josie, darling, please.’

Yes, it’s close. It sounds like her mum’s voice. But why would her mum be talking to her while she’s asleep?

So it’s a dream.

It’s comfortable inside this dream. Whatever is happening in it. Not much. It isn’t easy to observe your own dreams. It feels kind of weird, actually.

She feels someone taking hold of her hand. Now that’s really weird.

A thumb is being rubbed over her thumb.

‘Darling,’ comes the whisper.

That’s definitely her mum. But what does she want in this dream?

‘She’s not waking up,’ she hears the voice – her mum – say. ‘Why isn’t she waking up?’

I’m not waking up because this is a dream!

She hears other noises now. A beeping. Rustling. Sounds that are further away from her than her mum’s voice. This dream feels really real.

Her brain starts whirring. Maybe it’s not a dream. But if it isn’t, where is she?

An image flashes into her brain. She’s driving round a bend on that windy road to Woy Woy.

Black spots in front of her eyes. She can’t breathe.

A car, coming the other way.

Back. Back, back, back.

An argument with her parents. What was it about?

She can remember how it felt but not what they said.

Brett.

Was the argument about him?

‘Josie, darling, please wake up,’ her mother is whispering.

‘Josephine.’ It’s her father’s voice on her other side. ‘We’re sorry.’

Sorry for what? What’s happened to her?

Now she has to find out.

But she’s tired. Really, really tired.

It would be easier to go back to sleep.

She feels pressure on her shoulder.

‘Josie,’ says an unfamiliar voice, ‘we need you to wake up.’

Who is that?

It’s curiosity that makes Josie blink her eyes open to see an off-white ceiling and a neon light. Someone gasps.

There’s a hand on her cheek.

‘Darling, darling, darling.’ It’s her mother, so close to her. Too close. Josie wants to tell her to get off. Get away.

What’s happened to me?

‘There she is.’ A more cheerful voice belonging to a smiling woman in a uniform.

Josie turns her head toward the beeping sound and sees her father, and machines, and a drip attached to her arm. The last – and first – time she had a drip was when she was a child and she had an ear infection that got out of control.

So the woman in the uniform is a nurse.

‘Do you know where you are, Josie?’ the nurse asks.

How would I know? she wants to say. I’ve just woken up!

‘You’re in hospital, love. You’ve had an accident.’

The bend. The car. The nothingness. Of course. An accident.

She has to get out of here. She has to check on the car. What happened to the car? She needs that car. It’s her freedom.

Her job. She needs to get to work. So she needs to get out of this bed.

She moves.

But she can’t. Her legs are too heavy. This thing is attached to her arm. It needs to come out!

‘Darling, your legs are broken,’ her mother says, stroking her forearm. ‘And you’ve fractured your pelvis.’

‘What?’ That can’t be right. She tries to move again but the heaviness is still there.

‘You’re in casts, Josie,’ the nurse says and she makes it sound as if it’s a great thing. ‘You’ll be stuck with them for a while.’ The nurse is looking at the drip. ‘I’ll get the doctor,’ she says. ‘He’ll want to know you’re awake.’

After the nurse leaves Josie’s parents crowd in and she wants to tell them to get away, but she has no power to make them go. No power to do anything. She’s stuck. Trapped. Right where they want her.

‘We love you so much,’ her father says.

‘Paolo, you’re holding her hand too tightly,’ her mother chides.

Josie hadn’t noticed, though. There are so many sensations now: her legs that feel like lead, the twinges of pain she is aware of in her pelvis, her arm with a drip attached.

Oh god, how is she weeing? Is there … There’s a bag at the end of the bed. Oh god. Oh god . It’s so embarrassing.

She starts crying, and that’s embarrassing too, but her parents are kissing her head and it feels comforting and she wants them there but she doesn’t want them there. There’s only one person she wants.

‘Brett,’ she whispers.

Her mother pulls back. ‘Who?’

‘Brett,’ she says more firmly. ‘I want to see him.’

‘No one by that name has enquired after you,’ her mother says.

Stop it! she wants to scream. Stop acting like my school principal instead of my mother!

A wave of nausea hits her. She wants to vomit and she looks around desperately.

The nurse, who has just returned, holds a plastic tray under her. ‘You’re all right, darling,’ she says. ‘It’s the morphine.’

She rubs Josie’s back and Josie closes her eyes and thinks that it’s the loveliest, kindest thing anyone has ever done for her. Then the vomit really does rise and she is grateful for the tray and the hand still on her back.

‘It’s so unpleasant,’ the nurse murmurs. ‘You’ll settle.’

Josie nods and takes the tissue the nurse hands her, wiping her mouth.

She glances up and sees her parents. They look so worried.

A flash of irritation – of anger, it might be – strikes her.

They’re only worried now because something’s happened that they can’t control.

All they’re interested in is controlling her.

After a minute or so has passed, she feels strong enough to do something about it.

‘Would Brett know I’m here?’

Her parents exchange glances and she sees only how complicit they are in keeping him away from her. This feels worse than the pain in her body. This pain is in all of her. This pain is her.

She cries harder, and they likely think it’s because of the accident, and she decides to let them, because lying in this bed, with everything that is wrong with her, there’s nothing else she can do and no one to come to her rescue.

Brett was the one she hoped would save her from her life. He’s not here. And any strength she feels to do it herself ebbs away as she decides to succumb to her misery.

So she closes her eyes and lets the tears silently flow down her face, not caring if her parents stay or go.