Page 44 of The Love Game

Violet hadn’t felt this relaxed for a long time. She was warm, and her bones were heavy. If she could just stay here then everything would be just fine.

‘Nurse! I think she’s waking up! Nurse!’

She really wished that people would stop shouting. Frowning, she tried to lick her lips to ask them to be quiet but her mouth was too dry to force any sound out. Oh. That wasn’t right. It was no good, she needed to open her eyes and see what was going on.

Cranking one eyelid open, she swallowed painfully, blinking and then opening both eyes to bring whoever was holding her hand and saying her name into focus.

‘Violet,’ a nurse said, adjusting the clip on her finger and consulting a chart. ‘Can you hear me, love?’

Vi nodded, and wanted to say something like Too bloody well, thank you very much , but then her eyes slid to the other side of the bed, to Cal. He looked awful. Dirty. Why was he so dirty?

She closed her eyes, and then it all came back in one big horrific rush. The pier. The fire. The gates. Oh God, all those people. She tried to sit up but everything ached when she jolted, especially her ankle.

‘Shh, lie down for me Violet, you need to try to rest,’ the nurse said, easing her back against the pillows. She looked at Cal.

‘I’ll leave you two to talk,’ she said. ‘I’ll be at the desk just outside, buzz if you need me and I’ll be right in.’

Cal nodded, kissing Violet’s fingers once they were alone.

‘All those people on the pier, Cal,’ Vi said, voicing her worst fear.

Cal squeezed her fingers. ‘Everyone made it,’ he said. ‘I promise you, everyone is okay.’

‘Even those who jumped?’

He nodded. ‘All accounted for.’

‘Charlie?’

Cal nodded. ‘He’s okay. Smoke inhalation, he’s in a room down the corridor. He’s being kept overnight, but he’s going to be fine, Violet. Everyone is – it’s you everyone’s been worrying about.’

Something hovered on the edge of her consciousness, then it hit her like a hammer blow and her hands flew to her stomach.

Tears filled Cal’s beautiful eyes.

‘My baby,’ she said, her heart cracking down the middle.

‘Is fine. Still there. Tiny, but still there,’ he said.

For a minute, they didn’t speak at all, overwhelmed by the enormity of it. Cal brushed her hair back from her forehead, held her hand. She lifted her other hand and cupped his jaw, wiping a streak of soot from his mouth.

‘I thought I’d lost you. I’ve only just found you, and I thought I was going to lose you,’ he said.

A tear slipped from the side of her eye and he wiped it away with the back of his fingers.

‘Are you tired?’ he said softly, and she nodded, overwhelmed.

‘Close your eyes,’ he whispered. ‘Close your eyes, I’ll stay here with you.’

She squeezed his fingers. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said, her eyes already drifting down.

‘I won’t. I promise.’

Cal watched Violet sleep. She’d been like a doll in his arms earlier, barefoot in her ballgown, too fragile, too pale.

He’d gone to pieces when she’d passed out and his mum had taken charge, getting an ambulance crew to prioritise Violet, staying by his side, asking questions, taking over because he needed her to rather than because she wanted to.

He had no doubt that she’d be out there in the waiting room right now, and that she’d still be there come morning if it took that long for him to emerge.

It had been a long time since he’d needed his mum, but he needed her now.

He turned as the door opened and the nurse led an older couple in; Vi’s parents, no doubt.

They’d been called from the hospital not long after Violet was admitted a few hours back.

They must have thrown themselves straight in the car and broken every speed limit to get there so soon.

Their expressions reflected his own feelings; pure, naked fear.

They barely noticed him as he stood aside to let them get close to their daughter, and he backed out of the room unseen, leaving them alone.

‘Mum.’

Cal spotted his mum sitting in the corner of the waiting room, alone amongst the soot-streaked walking wounded from the pier. She looked up at the sound of his voice, then stood and picked her way over to him near the doors.

‘Can we go outside?’ he asked, laying his hand on her shoulder. ‘I could do with some air.’

‘Have they checked you over properly?’ Gladys fussed, feeling his brow before sitting down alongside him on a bench outside.

‘I’m fine, Mum,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

She shook her head and huffed softly. ‘I’m your mother, Calvin. I’ve worried about you since the day you were born.’

It was the most heartfelt thing she’d said to him in a long time.

‘Why were you there tonight?’ he asked.

Gladys clasped her hands in her lap. ‘I only ever wanted the best for you, you know,’ she said. ‘Oh, I know you think I’m an interfering old prude, but I know how this world works,’ she said. ‘Is it so wrong to want to see your son settled and secure?’

He shook his head. ‘No, of course it isn’t. But you can’t live my life for me either, Mum. I am settled and secure, just not in the way you want or expect me to be.’

He realised that she’d dodged answering his question and didn’t push her for an answer; no doubt she’d been coming to try and throw a spanner in the works any way she could manage.

‘I just wanted to see if you’d won your award,’ she said, so quiet he almost missed it.

‘Oh Mum,’ he said, exasperated. She’d always been there at every prize-giving assembly, the loudest clap in the room, the mum with the biggest shouts of encouragement on sports day.

He knew why, of course. Losing her husband had left Gladys devastated, and perhaps she’d tried too hard to be both father and mother to him as he’d grown up.

It hadn’t been too bad in his younger days, but they’d clashed badly when he’d hit his teenage years.

He wasn’t all that proud of some of the things he’d said and done in his youth; for all her bravado, he knew his mum had a soft streak a mile wide, even though she went to great pains to hide it from most of Swallow Beach.

She was a force to be reckoned with; it must have cost her dearly to confess to wanting to come and cheer him on tonight.

‘And then I hung around hoping to watch the fireworks,’ she said, sounding like a little girl.

‘I just wish I’d noticed that bar steward come and lock the gates earlier,’ she muttered.

‘I know I had those gates chained myself earlier in the summer, but to do it with people on the other side of them like that was wicked. Lambs to the slaughter.’ She shook her head.

‘I only shut my eyes for five minutes on that bench by the monument, knew the bangers would wake me up again.’

The idea of his mum snoozing alone on a bench with her briefcase clutched in her arms, excluded from the party, keeping an eye on him from the promenade fair broke his heart.

‘You were the hero of the night,’ he said, perilously close to tears. It had been the most frightening night of his life and his mum had waded in to save him.

‘I know you all laugh at my briefcase,’ she said. ‘Never know when it’s going to come in handy.’

He laughed softly and squeezed her shoulders, not letting go. ‘I love you, Mum.’

She leaned against him, her shoulders heaving. ‘I love you too, my stupid, wilful, wonderful boy.’