After the One by Cass Lester (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

Now I’m going home to pick up Angie’s overnight things and put on a clean shirt, then I’m going straight back.’ Charley was only too capable of reading between the lines – Will was scared to leave Angie alone in case anything dreadful happened while he was gone.

‘Can I do anything?’ she offered.

‘No. It’s all covered. Tara’s looking after the kids.’

‘Can I come and see Angie?’

‘I don’t even know if you’re allowed visitors in special care. Sorry. I’ll find out and let you know.’

‘Give her my love, won’t you?’ said Charley. And then Will rang off and she was left bereft, holding her phone numbly.

‘Did I hear your phone?’ Pam asked as Charley went into the kitchen.

‘Yes. There’s no news.’

‘Okay,’ said Pam carefully, ‘Well, maybe no news is good news. Babies can be tenacious little buggers. They may be tiny but they can have a very strong grip.’

Charley sat slumped at the table while Pam made her some coffee and a mound of hot buttered toast, but Charley pushed the toast away. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You haven’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday,’ Pam reminded her. ‘You need to eat,’ and she pushed the toast back towards Charley, who ignored it.

Then Charley’s phone rang, again, and she leapt out of her chair and ran to her bedroom to answer it. It was a very pissed-off electrician telling her that he’d been standing outside her shop for twenty minutes and was anyone actually going to turn up and let him in? She grovelled profusely and promised him someone would be there within fifteen minutes. Then she went back into the kitchen and asked Pam to go and deal with him.

‘But I don’t even know where you want the sockets,’ Pam protested.

‘I don’t care.’ Just right now Charley didn’t give a flying banana about where the plugs went, she couldn’t have cared less if the electrician had literally screwed one onto her forehead. ‘Anyhow, I haven’t even showered.’

‘Okay,’ agreed Pam reluctantly, ‘but come down as soon as you can, yes?’

Charley shook her head. ‘I can’t face doing anything today, Pam, and anyhow, I need to stay here in case Will calls.’

‘But you’ll have your phone with you and the shop is nearer the hospital,’ Pam pointed out logically.

But Charley wouldn’t budge. ‘I’m too tired,’ she said wearily.

‘Well try and eat something,’ was Pam’s parting shot.

Irritated, Pam sped down to the shop, cursing every red light. She didn’t doubt Charley was tired, but Pam had been up most of the night too, and she was twice Charley’s age. Then she groaned out loud. That was a sum she wouldn’t do again. She slung the car on a meter – which would cost a fortune but would also save her a precious few minutes – raced to the shop and let the electrician in. Not wanting to make decisions without checking with Charley, Pam tried calling her a couple of times to ask where she wanted the socket for the till and the card reader, but Charley didn’t pick up.

Back in the flat Charley had pulled the curtains closed in the living room, then she’d curled up on the sofa. What she really wanted to do was run away, run away and hide. Not to anywhere or to anyone in particular, she just didn’t want to be right here, right now, because right here, right now was a crap place to be. Only a call or a text from Will, telling her that the baby was going to be fine would make it bearable. Picking up the remote from the coffee table she flicked the TV on, then she lay back down and closed her eyes. She didn’t care what was on, she only wanted the sound of other people without having to actually talk to anyone. Switching her phone to vibrate, she put it on the table, only intending to answer it if it was Will. Then she turned the ring on the landline phone off, too. She couldn’t cope with fielding calls from everyone, and it was pointless talking to them anyhow, since she couldn’t tell them anything more. If there was any news, she’d text them. Meanwhile, she was just going to hide.

A couple of hours later, arriving back at the flat to find Charley lying on the sofa with the curtains closed, a box of tissues and the phone by her side, and some rubbish or other blaring out from the TV, Pam’s irritation boiled over. Striding to the French windows she flung the curtains open. The daylight poured in, temporarily dazzling Charley, who scrambled to sit up and then fumbled to switch the TV off with the remote.

Pam stood in front of her, uncharacteristically confrontational, with arms folded. ‘Falling apart is not an option,’ she informed Charley brusquely. ‘You can’t just mope around like this.’

‘I’m not moping around as you put it. I’m tired and I’m worried. Extremely worried. Any minute now, Will might call and say… and say—’ But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words she was dreading that she might hear Will say.

In anyone else Pam would have scented melodrama, and would have accused them of hijacking Angie’s trauma, like some inappropriate outpouring of a ‘nation’s grief’ after some tragedy on the news, a greedy, egocentric appropriation of other people’s personal and private pain. But this was Charley… and Charley, she just now realised, had reverted to her own tragedy, ensnaring herself in the endless loop of her own loss.

Pam spoke to her gently enough, but with a slightly sharp edge to her tone.

‘Charley, I know how worried you are, but if Will does call… with bad news,’ even Pam struggled to openly voice their darkest fear, ‘then Angie is going to need you to be there for her, to support her, not sitting here wrapped up in your own grief.’

Charley reeled backwards as if she’d been slapped.

‘I’m not wrapped up in my own grief!’

‘You are, Charley. This is how you were when Josh died. This