I tried again, but as the Hollywood Freeway loomed ahead, my legs gave way and I found myself sitting on the grass by a municipal tennis court, sick and dizzy. I pretended to readjust my shoelaces and admitted defeat.
Somewhere I could hear Jo’s voice, telling me I was a fucking fruit loop, and did I have any respect for my body? And I agreed with her; I agreed wholeheartedly, remembering how sad and sorry I used to feel when I’d seen skinny women rasping up the hills of Griffith Park in the scorching heat.
I went back to Jenni’s, showered and ordered a cab. It didn’t look like Jenni was going to make it to work anytime soon, and I couldn’t sit here a moment longer .
During my journey to our offices in East Hollywood, I planned next week’s pitch to the directors of a hospice company in California. We were so used to having our services solicited by medical units nowadays, that I was a little out of practice at the art of sales. Vermont was all snagged up, so I got out at Santa Monica and walked the last two blocks, rehearsing the pitch under my breath while sweat dripped, plock, plock, plock , down my back.
Then: Eddie?
A man in a taxi, waiting in the traffic jam on Vermont. Heading straight towards my office. Cropped hair, sunglasses, a T-shirt I was sure I recognized.
Eddie?
No. Impossible.
I started to walk towards the car. The man inside, who I would swear was Eddie David, was looking out at the confusing proliferation of street signs and checking his phone.
The traffic started to move at last, and honking started. I was in the middle of a six-lane road. Just as I was forced to turn away from the taxi, I saw the man take off his sunglasses and look at me. But before I could see his eyes, know for sure it was Eddie, I had to run or be run over.
Eddie?
Later that day, sent home by my colleagues (‘We’ve got this, Sarah – go get some rest’) but unable to sit still, I walked home. I stood at that same busy intersection for fifteen minutes, watching cars and taxis. An air ambulance landed on the roof of the Children’s Hospital and I barely noticed.
It was him. I knew it was him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Reuben and I flew in silence on a commuter plane to Fresno. Outside, the remains of a buttery sun melted over clouds; inside, civility hung between us on a fine thread. Tomorrow morning we would pitch to the board of directors of the hospice umbrella company, and Reuben was already angry with me.
On Monday morning he had arrived at the office with Kaia and taken us all through to the meeting room. He hadn’t quite been able to look me in the eye.
‘So, I have some really great news,’ he began.
‘Oh great!’ Jenni said. She didn’t quite sound like herself, but she was trying.
‘While we were in London last week, Kaia sent some emails to an old friend of hers, a guy called Jim Burundo, who runs a bunch of private special-needs schools in LA. Kaia told him all about our work, sent him some video clips, and he got back to her to ask if we’ll start regular Clown-doctor visits!’
There was a short silence.
‘Oh,’ I said eventually. ‘Fantastic. But . . . Reuben, we don’t have enough practitioners to take on a commitment like that at the moment.’
And Jenni had added, ‘Reuben, honey, we’d need to cost this up and get me a fundraising target. I need— ’
Reuben held up his hands to interrupt. ‘They’re self-funding,’ he’d said proudly. ‘Paying one hundred per cent of our costs. We can take on new Clowndoctors and train them and Jim’s company’ll pay everything.’
I paused. ‘But we still need to go and visit the school, Roo. And set up meetings. And a million other things besides. We can’t just—’
Reuben interrupted me with a smile that contained – shockingly – a warning. ‘Kaia has done a wonderful thing,’ he said carefully. ‘You should be pleased! We’re expanding again!’
Jenni seemed too worn down to intervene.
Kaia tentatively stuck her hand up, as if in class. ‘I really didn’t expect Jim to say yes on the spot,’ she said quietly. ‘I hope I haven’t made things complicated.’
‘I’m going to schedule some meetings so we can plan it out,’ Reuben said. ‘But for now I think we have a big “thank you” to say to Kaia.’
And with that he had started clapping.
We all joined in. My life , I thought. Jesus Christ, my life.
The first meeting had taken place two days later. And even though it did look like everything would work out, even though, yes, Jim’s people would fund everything, including training – Sure, just tell us what it is you need from us – I was on edge. It was all happening too fast. But when I tried to broach this with Reuben this morning, he’d actually snapped at me. Told me to be less corporate, more grateful.
I snuck a sideways glance at him as the plane began to bank into Fresno. He had fallen asleep, his face baggy and unguarded. I knew that face so well. Those long, midnight-black eyelashes; the perfect eyebrows; the veins in the deep valleys of his eye sockets. I looked at this familiar face and my stomach moved uneasily. I was meant to be back to normal by now , I thought, as the plane turned in the air and the low, golden sun stroked geometric shapes across Reuben’s face. I was meant to feel fine.
Later on, after we’d had dinner in a steak house next to our hotel, I went and sat outside by the small, probably never used pool. It was surrounded by a high metal fence, and its few sun loungers were covered in mildew.
For the first time I allowed myself to consider properly what Tommy had said about Eddie last week. What it might mean that Eddie and I had met in that place, at that time, on that day. Whether he had something to hide. It had felt like an absurd theory at first: Eddie had just gone out that morning because he’d needed a break from his mother and had been delayed on the village green because he’d met a sheep. To read any more into our meeting would be wrong.
But the problem was, I was beginning – at last – to get a handle on the thoughts that had been whispering at the peripheries of my consciousness these last few weeks. They were beginning to form a pattern. And I didn’t like what I saw.
I went inside as the first silver forks of lightning reached down from the sky, unable to shake the sense that a crisis was looming.
The next morning our meeting was preceded by a tour of the hospice.
Like anyone, I supposed, I found hospices hard – after all, few places in life treated death with such certainty. But I wore my best impassive face; kept the lurch of fear deep inside myself; made sure to breathe slowly. And I was doing quite well at it, I thought, until we walked into the TV lounge and I saw a girl in a chair near the window .
I stared at her.
‘Ruth? ’ She was wrapped in a soft blanket, waxy pale and horribly slight.
Ruth looked up, and after what felt like an agonizing pause, she smiled. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘This I did not expect.’
‘Ruth!’ Reuben bounded over to hug her.
‘Careful,’ Ruth said quietly. ‘Apparently my bones are brittle. You don’t want to snap me in half or anything. You know how fond Mom is of a lawsuit.’
Reuben hugged her gently; then I joined in.
Ruth had been one of our first patients, back in the day when it was just Reuben and me and we’d barely heard of Clowndoctors. She had been a tiny baby, in and out of surgery, and we’d always known that her life expectancy – if she survived at all – was very limited.
But my God, that girl had fought. And so too had her single mother, who had raised the money to go to the Children’s Hospital LA for her neonatal care because a doctor there was a world specialist in Ruth’s rare genetic condition. Their we-will-not-take-no-for-an-answer attitude had repeatedly compelled Reuben and me to push on with our own work.
I did not make a habit of meeting the kids. I found it far too painful. But there was something about Ruth I couldn’t resist. Even when my job had ceased to involve hospital visits, I still went to see her, because I couldn’t not.
Now here she was, aged fifteen and a half, wrapped in a blue fleece blanket with a moon print on it, an IV stand next to her armchair. Tiny and scrappy; her thin hair brittle. For a moment I stood still as shock curled around my throat.