Gabriel's Angel Page 20

  ‘And the sperm?’

  ‘We didn’t have too much trouble finding eight good ones. Mrs Schmelling did a good job; so did your friend. Rest, then you can go home. Phone in the morning, and we will see how many embryos we have.’

  ‘How many do you think we’ll have?’

  ‘Five, six, maybe eight … we’ll see. Rest. Like I said at the beginning, one step at a time. Soon we will see if you can grow your baby; the rest we will freeze.’

  He got up to go. Ellie caught his hand. ‘Thank you. Can I ask a question?’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What is Mrs Schmelling’s first name?’

  ‘Hilda,’ he smiled.

  Ellie went home by cab. As soon as she got in, she took off her coat, lay on the sofa, and closed her eyes. She half slept, dreaming of Gabriel’s hobbling sperm being pushed into her eggs. In her imagination the two cells, hers and his, hesitate. They inhale the prospect of life and they can either choke on the fumes, or live. They live. And somewhere in her atheist’s head, her lost lover is cheering them on, the way he shouted at the TV when Chelsea were playing.

  She woke with a start. Instantly the ball of impending panic she had been carrying around with her since the accident returned, and she thought she was going to throw up. It was the phone. Ellie reached out and picked it up without looking.

  ‘Ellie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Sarah, from the hospital.’

  And Ellie thought: He’s dead. He waited until now; he held on and now he’s dead. ‘Yes?’ she whispered.

  ‘I wonder, when you come in today, if you could look in on me please. I need to talk with you.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘There’s no change, Ellie. I just want a chat, OK?’

  ‘Why … why do you want to talk with me?’

  ‘It can wait, Ellie. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Are you doing OK? Is the IVF going … OK?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ellie felt a mild panic. Did Sarah know? What could she do if she did? Could she take the sperm back?

  ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to tell me. I’m just asking you: are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Ellie sounded like a child. ‘Under the circumstances.’

  ‘Good, then when you come in, you and I need to have a little chat. Preferably when the consultant is seeing his private patients.’

  After she put the phone down, Ellie made herself a cup of tea and ate a banana. She thought of Gabriel, or at least tried to. He seemed more distant in her memory than he had yesterday. It wasn’t that she couldn’t remember the way he talked or walked, it was that the place where he sat in her head, the soft chair in the middle just above the eyes but back a bit, had been shifted downward. She didn’t remember that happening. She felt sad, not the same enveloping sadness she had been swallowing since the accident, but a different sad. The kind of teary, dreamy sad you felt after sex sometimes. She finished her tea, quickly changed her knickers and skirt, and went to see him.

  34

  Christopher thought dinner might help. He had said as much to Clemitius, but Clemitius had waved him away. Christopher had spent a long time watching people; he retained the belief that they are more likely to bond, share their feelings, and generally talk about what is important to them over good food and a nice Rioja than in any therapy group. Such a thought would be sacrilege to Clemitius. Indeed, even believing it made Christopher feel sinful but believe it he did, and his belief had been born out by the previous night’s meal.

  He called for Yvonne first. She answered the door quickly and immediately said, ‘If you have come to discuss my leaving the group, I really do not have anything to say. That little man is a fool who needs to take his head out of his arse.’

  ‘Er … actually, I was thinking it would be nice if you and the others and I all had dinner together again,’ said Christopher.

  She looked uncertain.

  ‘There’ll be wine,’ he added, smiling.

  ‘You know the way to a woman’s liver,’ she said. ‘Give me a minute, old habits die hard.’

  She went into her bathroom, emerging a few moments later wearing lipstick and a different blouse.

  ‘After you,’ he said. They went to collect the others. Gabriel didn’t seem to hear the first knock. Christopher knocked again; when Gabe finally answered he looked tired and a little pale.

  ‘Did we wake you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Yvonne, and immediately bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. That’s a stupid question …’

  ‘No … I don’t know … I feel different.’

  ‘What kind of different?’ asked Yvonne.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He thought for a moment. He actually looked, Yvonne thought, as though he had aged, or at least as if he had a really bad hangover. ‘I feel … like I’m going down with something? Is that possible? Here?’

  Christopher shrugged nervously. ‘Come and join us for dinner,’ he offered, half waiting for something sarcastic about how a bowl of tagliatelle and some fresh spinach would probably not make that much difference, but instead Gabriel just nodded and picked up his jacket.

  They collected Julie and finally Kevin, who Christopher thought had eyed him suspiciously when he asked him about dinner, before slipping on his jacket and bowing slightly. When he stepped from the room he smirked at Gabriel, who ignored him and walked slowly behind Christopher to the dining room. The table was set and there were two bowls of olives, some fresh bread, and two bottles of wine waiting. Yvonne poured the wine, ignoring Kevin’s glass.

  ‘So,’ said Kevin as he poured himself a glass of wine. ‘What did you see in this celestial cinema?’

  Nobody spoke at first. Julie picked up her glass and held it just below her lips, excusing herself from talking. Finally Gabriel murmured: ‘Ellie.’

  ‘She’s pretty. I imagine,’ said Kevin distractedly. Gabriel ignored him. ‘And you,’ he looked to Julie. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I saw my friends, Lynne and Michael, keeping what is left of me company.’

  ‘Was that hard? Seeing your friends,’ asked Yvonne.

  ‘Yes, but I feel better for having seen them. Maybe you should think about seeing your son?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m up to it,’ said Yvonne. And as she said it, it felt as though her heart, which she had been told had long stopped beating, went a little faster and seemed a little louder. ‘Anyway old misery-guts will probably stop me.’

  ‘Well that wouldn’t be fair,’ said Julie, looking at Christopher. ‘I mean, if Yvonne wants to see her son, she should be able to, shouldn’t she?’

  ‘Well, by that logic so should Kevin,’ Christopher said.

  ‘There isn’t anybody I want to see,’ said Kevin. ‘I am serious about this process.’ But nobody cared.

  Christopher thought for a moment. Julie was right, everyone should have the same opportunity and if the logic he applied to taking Gabriel and Julie to the viewing room was sound—that it would help them to come to terms with where they were and what they had to do—then it certainly applied to the others. ‘I’d be happy to take you back to the viewing room,’ Christopher said to Yvonne ‘Whenever you feel ready.’

  Yvonne nodded and looked at her half-empty glass.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I wonder if you would come with me?’ She looked at Julie. Yvonne had never pretended to be one of the girls, but she found herself feeling something here she had not felt for a very long time, something like loneliness perhaps, not that she wanted to name it.

  ‘I’d be happy to.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Gabriel. ‘Whenever you want.’

  ‘No time like the present,’ she said, standing up so abruptly the chair fell over.

  ‘I’ll stay here. I am serious about this process,’ repeated Kevin.

  ‘You aren’t invited to see my life,’ sneered Yvonne and marched off.

 
By the time they got to the viewing room, her pace had slowed. Yvonne paused for a moment. Julie imagined it was because she was afraid of the emotions she might feel and reached out awkwardly to touch Yvonne’s arm. Yvonne smiled. She wasn’t afraid of what she would feel, but—quite bizarrely under the circumstances—she wondered if it was OK to spy on her son, like walking into his room without knocking. She shook her head and looked at the floor. Christopher opened the door for her and stood back.

  It was, Gabriel thought, the quietest room he had ever been in. Yvonne sat in front of the screen and Gabriel sat behind her. Julie sat with Christopher. He told Yvonne to think of her son.

  The screen shone with life. There was Yvonne’s son, a tall and gangly fair-haired young man with a sallow, near-yellow complexion. His blue eyes, ringed with red, burrowed into his skull. His long thin fingers were massaging his temples. When Yvonne saw him she moaned slightly, as though someone had punched her in the stomach.

  He was sitting on the same sofa that Kevin had sat on as he waited for Yvonne. She wanted to tell him, her son, to move, to sit somewhere else lest he be contaminated, and she wanted to tell him not to cry and that she loved him. She wanted to tell him not to be alone, to call his father, even though he was useless and lived in America. But mostly she wanted to hug him, to reach right into the TV screen she stared at and hold him, as she had held him when he was nine and had come home in tears because he had been told he was to play Joseph in the school nativity but had later been replaced by another child who had cancer and wasn’t expected to make casting the following year. Anthony had cried with hurt but also shame and she was powerless to change the world that hurt him or to take the pain away.

  Julie moved closer to Yvonne and took her hand. Together they watched Anthony staring at the faded chalk mark on the floor where his mother had lain. The doorbell rang, and Anthony looked up.

  ‘Who can that be?’ said Yvonne, in the same way she might have done if she had been cooking his tea and was expecting a quiet night in with her son. Anthony walked round the chalk outline and opened the door to a fresh-faced, tall girl with long hair. She was wearing jeans and a grey jumper and was carrying a rucksack. As soon as he opened the door she dropped the bag and put her arms round him gently, kissing him softly on the cheek and whispering, ‘I was as quick as I could be.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I think I needed a little time on my own.’ He kissed her on the top of her head. ‘But I’m glad you’re back.’

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Gabriel.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Yvonne, transfixed.

  Tash sat next to Anthony on the sofa. ‘I brought some sandwiches.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I know, that’s why I didn’t bring pizza,’ she smiled softly. ‘But you need to eat something.’

  ‘I don’t know how I am going to get through tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s tomorrow?’ asked Yvonne.

  Christopher looked at her and said simply ‘Funeral.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘How come she’s dead but we’re not?’ whispered Gabriel.

  ‘Psyche profile.’ Christopher said quietly. ‘We had to find what would act as a more appropriate motivator, life or heaven. And anyway, what with medical technology and the “chance” factor, we cannot always guarantee a coma.’

  Yvonne watched as the girl held Anthony’s head to her chest.

  ‘I wish you’d met my mum,’ he said.

  ‘So do I. Do you think she’d have liked me?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, looking up. ‘At first she’d have fussed a bit, nobody being good enough for her son. She may even have asked if you were after my money.’

  ‘Too bloody right I would,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Well, we could have put her mind to rest over that.’

  ‘Yes, we’d have introduced her to your dad. Who knows, they might have hit it off. She was fun, my mum. People didn’t give her credit for that, I don’t think. Even after dad left she was fun. I loved her.’

  ‘I know. Did you tell her?’

  ‘Yes. I think so, every time we spoke.’

  ‘I think that’s important—if you love someone, to tell them, you know.’

  ‘I love you, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said the blonde girl, smiling. ‘I wasn’t fishing. And I love you, too.’

  Which was all just a bit too Ryan O’Neil and Ali McGraw for Yvonne, and she burst into uncontrollable sobs.

  Christopher watched her with something approaching pride. He was glad he had brought her here; it was important that people should get the chance to notice the lives they have lived and the people they have loved. Otherwise, he thought, how can they reflect? Or rest.

  After Yvonne’s sobs had quietened to gentle tears, they returned to the dining room. They expected to find it empty, but instead Kevin was still there and so was Clemitius. They both smiled as they came in.

  ‘More TV?’ said Clemitius. ‘I really am going to have to put a child lock on that thing.’ Kevin laughed.

  ‘I’m glad you decided to join us,’ Christopher said.

  ‘So is Kevin, I imagine. You did read the chapter on group scapegoating didn’t you? Because it seems to me that Kevin here is becoming something of a scapegoat,’ said Clemitius.

  ‘Well, it was nice of you to come and keep him company,’ Christopher said. ‘Will you be joining us for cheesecake?’

  ‘No thank you,’ Clemitius said. ‘Good night everyone.’ He paused for a moment before turning to Kevin, nodding his head, and saying, ‘Good night Kevin and thank you, thank you for your help. Sleep well.’

  ‘You are more than welcome,’ smiled Kevin. ‘I will.’

  And he may have. Gabriel, on the other hand, didn’t. After dinner he returned to his room and lay on the bed. Unable to settle, he had a shower, flicked through some magazines, and even watched a Star Wars video, but he could not rest. He found himself staring at the ceiling thinking of Ellie, which was pretty much what he did with every waking moment. But tonight felt different. Usually, when he imagined Ellie he had a sense of himself watching her, as though he was floating above her, or in the same room moving round behind the sofa and out of her way to make sure she didn’t bump into him. He was, in his head at least, a bit of a Hopkirk to her significantly prettier Randall, but tonight when he imagined her, he wasn’t there. He could see her—on the sofa, beside the fridge, in bed—but it was like thinking of photographs that he had taken rather than a video he was in.

  When he did finally sleep, it was restless and fitful. When he woke up, he felt ever so slightly further away from Ellie, and from himself, and he realised that something had changed. Deep inside he felt empty … not distant, but absent. And he knew somehow that he would not see Ellie again, not hold her, not smell her, and not annoy her. And that if she did by some miracle manage to have his child, then he would never see him or hold him or father him because he was—he understood now—dead.

  Gabriel buried his head in his pillow and sobbed like a child.

  35

  It was 6:30 in the evening when Ellie arrived at the hospital. Before going to Sarah’s office, of course, she looked in on Gabe. There was a nurse with him, putting up an IV fluid bag. ‘Any change?’ Ellie asked, without feeling.

  The nurse shook his head. ‘I’ll be back in a while to check that’s going through OK,’ he said. He was different to the others: older, male, with a lined and sallow face. He wasn’t very friendly either, and he left the room quickly.

  Ellie went over and kissed Gabe on the forehead, leaving her face near his for a moment and inhaling, looking for any trace of his scent, the smell of Gabe, the faintest of which had still been on his skin yesterday. She couldn’t find it and she pulled away, but not before whispering. ‘Now we wait, sweetheart.’ She went to see Sarah the ward sister.

  Sarah was sitting in her small office, talking quietly to her computer. ‘Oh purleese, just do what you do, so I can do what I do, you st
upid bloody machine.’

  ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘Are you any good with computers?’

  ‘No, Gabe was in charge of technology. What are you trying to do?’

  ‘Open this file?’

  ‘Have you double-clicked?’

  Sarah looked at her and smiled.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Ellie. ‘That really is as far as I go.’

  ‘Oh, it can wait. Come in, sit down please. I need to talk to you about your friend.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Izzy.’

  Ellie looked confused.

  ‘You see, the fact that you look like you don’t know what I’m talking about makes me worry.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well I don’t quite know how to explain this, but the ward round found Izzy with Gabriel. She said she was trying to help you, and I thought I understood … but the doctors …’

  ‘Sarah, please tell me what you are talking about.’

  ‘We found Izzy touching … Gabriel … we found her trying to stimulate Gabriel sexually, and humming loudly …’

  ‘Humming?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t remember what...it may have been something by Abba or the Beatles or something.’

  ‘The Beatles?’

  ‘Yes … I don’t think that is really what matters. I had assumed that, given what you were going through with the IVF, that she was trying to help you, but Moira had … well, I happen to know that Moira had already seen to that—and all that Izzy would say was that she was trying to help—and well … I wondered if you knew what was going on?’

  ‘I didn’t—hang on, you said you know about Moira?’

  ‘Yes, I’m not stupid Ellie, and this is my ward, there isn’t supposed to be stuff going on here that I don’t know about. Like I said, in your position I think I would have done the same. I didn’t mind letting that happen, I could do it without anyone finding out—but Izzy as well?’

  Ellie thought for a moment. What had Izzy been doing?