Page 47 of The Dressmaker's Gift
We go out that weekend to celebrate, meeting Simone and the rest of the crowd in the same basement bar where Thierry and I first met. There’s music and friendship and many, many drinks to toast my new career. And Thierry and I hold hands under the table, not wanting to let go for a moment now that we’ve found each other.
At the end of the evening, we decide to walk back to the apartment in the Rue Cardinale with Simone. We say goodnight to the others and the three of us begin to wander slowly homewards. Simone hangs back a little, giving me and Thierry space to walk on ahead. I love the feeling of being close to him, his arm wrapped around my waist. I turn to glance back and see Simone is rooting in her handbag for something. She pulls out a pair of earphones and waves them at me triumphantly, then begins to walk again, still a few yards back, listening to her music.
I hear the faint wail of sirens behind us and turn to see the flicker of blue lights in the distance. They are approaching fast, speeding along the street as they chase a white van, herding it towards us. Simone, still wired to her music, is oblivious and she smiles at me enquiringly. Thinking I am waiting for her to catch up, she good-naturedly waves her hands, shooing me on ahead. But the van is speeding towards her, the driver losing control. The lights of the police car are gaining on it, engulfing the white sides of the van in their blue flames as it draws alongside, trying to force the driver to pull over. Time seems to stand still as the van swerves and mounts the pavement behind Simone.
Without thinking, I run.
I run towards the blue lights, towards Simone, who has stopped, frozen, as the lights envelop her too, silhouetting her against the white metalwork which will throw her high into the air when it hits her, crumpling her body into a broken, huddled mass.
I reach her a split second before the van does, my momentum carrying me on as, with all my strength, I push her out of the way.
I hear a scream and a noise like a whip cracking.
And then all the lights go out at once and there is darkness.
My father is reading me a bedtime story. It’sLittle Women, I realise, one of my all-time favourite books. I listen to the rise and fall of his voice, chapter after chapter, telling the story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. I’m dreaming, of course, but it’s such a comforting dream that I don’t want to open my eyes and make it come to an end. And so I keep them closed, so that I can stay just like this, resting in a time of innocence from years gone by.
Something keeps trying to pull me out of the dream, though. A nagging thought that I can’t quite grasp, just out of reach. It’s telling me to open my eyes, saying that, while that part of my past was filled with kindness and love, I have a present and a future that are filled with even more love. Another voice – not my father’s – tells me that it’s time to wake up and live.
When I open my eyes at last, the soft light of an autumn afternoon turns tumbling brown leaves into spun gold outside the windows of an unfamiliar room. My head feels strangely heavy and constricted, as if my scalp is too tight. Very carefully, I turn it a fraction, first one way and then the other. To the left, my father sits in a chair at my bedside, intent on the book he holds in his hands as he continues to recite the March family’s story. To my right is Thierry. His head is bowed, as if he’s praying as he listens to the words my father is reading. He is holding my hand, carefully avoiding the tube which runs from my arm to a drip stand beside the bed.
Experimentally – because everything seems very far away and disconnected and I’m not sure I can feel my fingers – I give Thierry’s hand a gentle squeeze. He doesn’t respond. So I try again.
This time he lifts his head. And when his eyes meet mine, a smile like a sunrise spreads slowly across his face, as if all his prayers just came true.
My hospital room is filled with flowers. A vase of bright sunflowers from Simone sits on the windowsill, alongside roses from Florence and my colleagues at the Agence Guillemet and a bunch of sweet-smelling white freesias from Sophie Rousseau at the Palais Galliera.
The biggest bouquet of all is from my stepmother and sisters and it was delivered with a card sending their love and urging me to come home. ‘They’re longing to see you,’ Dad says. ‘As soon as half term arrives, they’re coming over. We’re all so proud of you, Harriet. And the girls never stop talking about how cool it is having a big sister who’s made a career for herself in French fashion.’
‘It’ll be fun showing them round the museum,’ I say – and I find that I mean it. I actually quite miss them.
I’ve been asleep for five days, apparently, in a medically induced coma. And my father has sat at my bedside on every single one of those days and read from the book my stepmother put into his hastily packed suitcase. ‘Take this to her,’ he tells me she said. ‘It was always Harriet’s favourite.’
Thierry visits often and the nurses have all fallen in love with him, they tell me. ‘Not that he ever notices us. When you were in the coma, he wouldn’t leave your side,’ they say. ‘Such a romantic!’
My mind is a blank when it comes to remembering the accident, so Thierry fills in the missing parts of the jigsaw for me. ‘The police were chasing a suspect. And the tip-off they’d been given was right – they found bomb-making materials in the back of the van. The driver was part of a terrorist cell. There’ve been several arrests.’
He takes my hand, and strokes it, carefully avoiding the tape covering the needle which connects me to the drip at my bedside. ‘You pushed Simone to safety – without a doubt, you saved her life. The van would have flattened her. But when you ran towards her, the wing mirror caught your head, a real crack, it knocked you out cold. I thought you were dead. Those were some of the worst moments of my life. The police wouldn’t let me hold you – you had a severe head injury and they were worried that your neck might be damaged too, so we couldn’t move you. At last the ambulance arrived and they brought you here. They did a scan and then operated straight away, to relieve the pressure on your brain. You were put into a coma to allow the swelling to go down. It was touch and go, they said. They told me to call your father and ask him to come as quickly as he could. Simone and I were beside ourselves. She was in shock at the time too, of course. She’s been here every day as well, but they only allow two people in at a time.’
Thierry phones Simone to let her know that I’ve woken up and she demands to speak to me. We don’t have much of a conversation, what with my drowsiness and her crying as she thanks me, over and over, for saving her life. But through her tears, she promises she’ll be in first thing tomorrow morning.
I feel exhausted. My head is still heavy, my brain thick with drugs and concussive shock, so Dad kisses me on the forehead, just below the line of the crepe bandage, and heads back to his hotel for the night. After he’s gone, Thierry kicks off his boots and climbs on to the bed beside me, gently wrapping me in his arms.
‘I have something for you,’ he says. He reaches into his pocket and brings out my charm bracelet. ‘They had to take this off you before you went into the scanner and the nurse gave it to me for safe-keeping. I know how much it means to you.’
‘Thank you. Can you help me put it on, please?’
He fastens the catch. And then he fishes something else out of his pocket. A little square box. He helps me to open it and inside is a tiny golden heart, engraved with the letter ‘H’.
‘I thought maybe your bracelet might have room for one more charm,’ he says.
Smiling, I rest my throbbing head on his shoulder, which feels more comfortable than any pillow. And then, still holding the little box, I drift off into another deep, deep sleep.
Simone arrives as I’m finishing my breakfast the next morning. It’s a plastic-wrapped croissant and a cup of coffee but, given that it’s the first proper food I’ve eaten in almost a week, it tastes pretty good to me and certainly a lot more satisfying than an intravenous drip.
After she’s hugged me so hard that I can hardly breathe, Simone wrinkles up her nose at the remnants on my tray. ‘Ugh, that looks inedible,’ she says, picking it up and moving it to an empty table at the bed opposite mine. She fishes in her handbag and draws out a punnet of sweetly perfumed strawberries, a freshly made drink from the juice bar around the corner from the apartment in the Rue Jacob, a box of macaroons from Ladurée and two bars of Côte d’Or chocolate.
‘Here,’ she says, handing me the juice, ‘drink this first. You need your vitamins. And then you can eat the rest.’
