Page 93 of Duplicity

‘She was exhausted,’ I whisper. ‘I remember. Fucking hell.’

I remember far too much about that hour in that bed with her. I remember the feelings that lying there with her elicited. The feelings that prompted me to freak out and behave like a callous, disrespectful twat.

That ends now.

‘It’s going to be different now,’ I promise Athena. ‘Now I know the score, I’ll look after her.’

She puts down her fork and lays her elbows on the table between us, glaring at me with her signature ferocity.

‘Let me be very clear. If you think what’s happening here is that you’ll swan in and save the day, then you’re wrong. Marlowe’s not a victim. She’s stronger than any of us. This is about you having the privilege of seeing her clearly for the first time, and fully appreciating what makes her so special, and then supporting her. It’s about her and Tabs. She’s been rescuing herself and her daughter for the past eight years without much help from anyone, so she doesn’t need you swooping in like Superman now. Got it?’

Yeah.

For what feels like the first time since I laid eyes on this beautiful woman at the RA, I finally get it.

Jesus, hospitals give me the heebie-jeebies. Like most unpleasantness in the real world, my family’s money has insulated me from this sort of stuff. I’m happy to keep things that way, even if I know deep down that money doesn’t guarantee good health. Far from it.

But I could really do without being reminded up close of the existence of a world where people are ill and suffering. Wherekidsare ill and suffering.

As Athena and I walk along the bright corridor, it occurs to me that this is an integral part of Marlowe’s life. Hospitals and valves and oxygen levels and God knows what else are all part of her existence, her vernacular. They’re second nature to her. Unlike yours truly, she doesn’t have the option of burying her head in the sand and pretending these parts of society don’t exist.

I’m a bit of a mess, to be honest. I barely slept last night, and I was up well before dawn packing my bags. Athena’s revelations on the flight over have hit me hard, and I’m still struggling to process, to recalibrate everything I thought I knew to be true. I’m also nervous as hell—nervous that Marlowe will hate me, that she’ll be furious with me for overstepping. And I’m scared of confronting her in this new reality, of having the truth of her suffering laid bare for me.

Luckily, my brother’s impressive girlfriend takes the lead, marching me briskly down endless corridors and stopping to ask staff members for directions when we get ourselves lost.

It’s when we get to a cheery nurses’ station decorated with the wordsTHE HEART HEROES UNITin colourful paperletters that I suspect we’ve reached our destination. Again, Athena takes charge, giving Tabby’s name to the duty nurse. I watch in trepidation as the woman points towards an open-doored ward.

‘Tabby is in bay nine,’ she tells us with a friendly smile.

‘Come on,’ Athena says impatiently. ‘What are you waiting for?’

I follow the noise, which escalates as we enter the ward. Fucking hell, this is utter carnage. Machines beeping and kids screaming and a hum of chatter—it’s like a refugee camp or something. Why the hell didn’t they get a private room? I look around in abject horror, attempting to process this hellish overstimulation of colour and noise.

And then I see them.

At least I think it’s them.

The third bed has a tiny blonde girl in it. She’s asleep, and she looks frail as fuck. The oversized headphones she’s wearing dwarf her small face.

Next to the bed sits a woman, her upper half slumped over the bed. She too looks to be asleep with her head in her arms, long blonde hair tied in a messy topknot.

Marlowe.

Even from here, she looks utterly defeated.

The two of them are still and quiet at the centre of this total fucking circus, as if even the chaos around them couldn’t stave off the demands of their exhaustion.

I take them both in, and I know for certain that I will never be the same again.

CHAPTER 44

Marlowe

I’m sucked rudely back into consciousness by a gentle hand shaking my shoulder and a familiar voice whispering in my ear.

‘Marlowe? Babes, it’s me.’

I jerk upwards with a shocked gasp from where I’ve been face-planted against the bed, adrenaline flooding my system.Athena?I look up and to my left, and there she is, a vision of well-groomed serenity in the midst of this zoo.

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