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“Yes—but—but there were reasons—” Hannah feels tears rising in her throat, forces them down. If only Will were here. “I ran there. You don’t understand.”
“Have you had any headaches? Flashing lights? Dizzy spells?”
“No! I mean—other than today, obviously, but the rest, no, absolutely not. I feel completely fine.”
“Well, I think we’d like to get it down regardless. I’m going to give you a prescription for methyldopa—it’s a very safe drug, we’ve been using it for years with pregnant women—”
“You’re kidding.” Hannah heart is sinking, a hollow feeling of guilt and anger at her body’s betrayal taking its place. “Medication? I don’t want to take drugs. Can’t I just—I don’t know—take it easy?”
“It’s very safe,” the doctor repeats. She is trying to be reassuring, Hannah can see that, but she feels anything but reassured. In fact her heart is racing, the trace on the monitor spiking up and up. She feels again that sickening slide into uncertainty she experienced after April’s death—the sensation that events have taken over, and that her life is spiraling out of control. Only this time it’s not police officers telling her where to go and what to do and how to feel, it’s a doctor with a white coat, but the same pitying, understanding smile that Hannah knows so well.
“No,” she says forcefully. “No, this isn’t okay. This can’t be happening!”
“Your baby is fine,” the doctor says again, gently. “This really is just about taking the best care of you both. I understand it’s upsetting when things don’t go—”
“I’m not upset!” Hannah explodes, though it’s so patently untrue that part of her wants to give a sobbing laugh at the irony of that fact. Her throat is tight and she feels like crying. But she cannot. Will not. She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I am, obviously, upset. It’s just—it’s so unexpected. I feel like things were fine a week ago and now, it’s like—”
It’s like someone has come in and taken over and everything is out of my hands and moving in a direction I don’t want and can’t control.
That’s what she wants to say. But she won’t. Because although it’s true, that is how she feels, the rational part of her knows that this reaction is only partly about the baby and her blood pressure. A far larger part of it is about April, and Neville, about what happened then, and about what is unfolding now.
And suddenly, with that thought, Hannah knows what she is going to do, and she feels her heart rate slow, and a kind of peace unfold inside her. Because Hannah has had her life ripped away from her by events beyond her control once before. She does not intend to let it happen again.
This time, she will be in charge.
AFTER
“So, where to?” November asks, as Hannah sinks into the leather-scented interior of the limousine. “Not back to work, clearly?”
Fuck. The shop. Hannah feels like smacking herself in the forehead with the paper bag of pills she is holding.
“I completely forgot about work. I need to phone my colleague. Can you drop me in Stockbridge? I live on Stockbridge Mews, it’s near Dean Park Street.”
“I have no idea where that is,” November says pleasantly, “but assuming Arthur does, then yes.”
She leans forward to talk to the driver, while Hannah calls the shop. When Robyn answers, Hannah explains the situation, fielding Robyn’s shocked concern and listening to her admonishments to go home, rest up, and on no account to come in next week.
“I’m not going to take it as sick leave,” Hannah says now, in answer to the last in Robyn’s long line of instructions. “I’m not ill—but I’ve got loads of holiday left, I’m going to ask Cathy if I can take a week as leave.”
“Good!” Robyn says sternly. “I don’t want to see your face for at least a week. Now go. Rest. Relax. Eat chocolate and don’t worry.”
She hangs up and Hannah sighs.
I’ve been sent home, she texts Will. Everything’s okay. Baby’s fine. I’m getting a lift. See you shortly. xx
“Everything all right?” November says, and Hannah nods.
“Yes, work is being really nice, it makes me feel like a complete shit.”
“Why?” November asks in surprise. “It’s not your fault.”
Hannah only shakes her head. It’s not because she believes what happened today was her fault. It’s because she has no intention of following Robyn’s advice. It’s not that she doesn’t want to—but she can’t. She was swept along by events ten years ago, and she has spent every year since struggling against that feeling of powerlessness and panic. This time she is not going to sit there while Geraint digs around in her past and lawyers do things behind the scenes. She’s going to take control.
“I’m going down to Oxford,” she says to November. “I think it’s the only way. Since Neville’s death I’ve been going crazy—running over and over my memories of that night, trying to figure out if I was right, if I really did see what I thought. But the more I find out, the more the whole case feels wrong. I feel like there was something that I missed, something that’s been eluding me all these years.”
“What do you mean?” November asks uncertainly. “What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know, that’s the problem. Maybe if I go back, talk to the other people who were there that night, speak to Dr. Myers…” She swallows. “I have a friend in Oxford—Emily. I spoke to her a couple of weeks ago, when Neville died, and she invited me down. I brushed her off at the time—I couldn’t think of anything worse than going back. But now… now I’m going to say yes.”
