Every Woman Knows a Secret. Rosie Thomas

soon as she opened her eyes on the darkness Jess registered that it was the doorbell ringing, not her morning alarm. The time was almost three a.m. She groped for her dressing-gown, the old winter tartan one, and pushed her feet into her slippers. She lifted aside the window curtains and looked down into the road. There was a police car parked in front of the house. Its revolving light sent silent blue arcs sweeping over the street.

      She ran down the stairs, a mumble of fear in her head. The door was still unchained, so he was not home yet. But that was not so unusual. Quite often he stayed out all night. He was an adult now; how could she stop him, even if it had seemed appropriate to try? Jess thought of these things as she unlocked the door, for a last instant keeping the smooth sequence of reason between her and the police and whatever they had brought to her house.

      ‘Mrs Arrowsmith?’

      ‘Yes.’

      A woman police officer, round-faced and young, probably no older than Beth. If something had happened to Beth … Involuntarily Jess’s hand came up to her mouth. The palm of it, pressed against her nostrils, still smelt cleanly of bed, warmth and safety.

      The policewoman tilted her head to indicate the hallway.

      ‘May I come in?’ Holding up something, her warrant card, for Jess to see.

      ‘Of course, come in. What’s happened?’

      They faced each other under the bright hall light.

      ‘Is Daniel Arrowsmith your son?’

      Jess almost laughed before the terror hit her. It couldn’t be Dan because Dan was invulnerable. His happiness and ease protected him from injury. It was his older sister Beth who drew concern like a magnet.

      A snapshot. Beth’s small, furrowed face above a smocked frock and the wide gummy beam of her baby brother as she anxiously held him in her arms. Aged three and six months respectively. Ian had taken the picture with a new camera Jess had given him for his birthday. If only Ian were here now. She was afraid to hear this news on her own.

      All these images flickered through Jess’s mind faster than film through a projector.

      ‘Yes. What’s happened?’

      Some escapade, perhaps that was it. Some explanation she was being hauled out to deliver on his behalf, as she had been in the past by teachers and other authority figures.

      ‘I’m afraid he has been involved in a road traffic accident.’

      The film slowed and stopped, frozen.

      ‘Where? Is he hurt?’

      ‘Yes, he is. I’m sorry. The accident happened out on the bypass.’

      ‘How badly hurt?’

      ‘I’m afraid I don’t know exactly. He suffered head injuries and was airlifted to the Midland Hospital. We can take you there immediately, Mrs Arrowsmith. They will be able to tell you everything at the hospital.’

      No use in asking anything more even though the clamour of questions piled up within her. But he would be all right. Dan would always be all right, that was how he was.

      ‘Yes. I see. Can I … Will you just wait while I put my clothes on?’

      ‘Of course.’

      Halfway up the stairs, her hand gripping the banister rail to steady herself, Jess turned round.

      ‘Whose car was he driving?’ Dan did not own a car.

      ‘He was a passenger in a vehicle driven by another young man.’

      ‘What man?’

      ‘His name is Robert Ellis.’

      The name meant almost nothing. Dan might have mentioned it; she couldn’t remember.

      ‘Is he hurt?’

      ‘Only slightly.’

      ‘Was he drunk?’ Jess asked. Her mouth was dry.

      ‘The driver had been drinking, yes.’

      ‘I see. Thank you.’ She resumed the long journey up the stairs, past Danny’s closed bedroom door, to her own room and the empty bed and the clothes hanging in her cupboard. Her hands shook as she searched through them. Numbed, she couldn’t remember what she wore, or how to dress herself. On the way downstairs again she went into Danny’s room and took clean jeans and a sweatshirt and underclothes out of his drawers and stuffed them into a holdall. He would be needing clothes to come home in.

      ‘Mrs Arrowsmith? Come this way.’

      Jess followed a nurse down a corridor. The bright lights and hurrying people made a weird daytime out of the depths of the night.

      The nurse pushed through a set of doors and then another door. Jess wanted to run, to reach him quicker. But the nurse showed her into a small office, stuffy and overheated.

      ‘He’s in CT scanning. They are looking to see what is causing a build-up of pressure inside his skull. I’ll be able to take you to see him as soon as the scan is done.’

      Jess sat on a plastic chair, waiting. Danny had still been asleep when she left for work this morning. Yesterday morning now. The night before she had been reading in bed when he came home and tapped on her door. He had been himself, as always. He sat on the end of her bed for a minute and chatted. She couldn’t remember now what it was they had talked about.

      Jess thought, why didn’t I tell him what I feel about him?

      I will now, she determined.

      The nurse came back. ‘This way,’ she said. She put her hand to Jess’s arm, steering her gently as if it were Jess who was hurt.

      The room was full of people, doctors and a nurse, and a battery of machinery and equipment that frightened her.

      Daniel was lying on a trolley. His eyes were closed and there were tubes coming out of his mouth and his arms. Jess darted to him and put her hand over his. She stood looking down at his face.

      ‘I’m here, Dan,’ she told him.

      Then she bent forward and put her mouth to his cheek. She felt the shudder of an inward breath and the faint gasp of its expulsion. There were not, after all, any words that she could use belatedly to convey all the subterfuges and understatements of her love for him. I’m here was all that she could offer.

      Imploringly Jess looked to the nearest face.

      ‘How bad is it?’ she demanded.

      ‘Mrs Arrowsmith, I’m Dr Healey. What has happened is that your son hit his head when he was thrown out of the vehicle. We were afraid as soon as he came in that he had suffered a severe injury because his left pupil was dilating, indicating a build-up of pressure inside his head. We’ve just scanned him, and there is a mass of blood from the contusion building up between the lining of the brain, the dura mater, and the brain itself – an acute subdural haematoma – and it is pressing inwards on the brain tissue.’

      Jess stared at his face. Dr Healey looked tired and one of his eyelids was twitching. She licked her dry lips and asked, ‘What can you do?’

      ‘We are preparing him for theatre now. The neurosurgical team will drill burr-holes in the skull through which the accumulated blood can be drained off to relieve the pressure on his brain.’

      ‘Will that work?’

      ‘Yes, in the immediate term.’

      She didn’t want to be angry but still anger twitched within her.

      ‘What does that mean? Will he be all right?’

      ‘It’s too early to tell, Mrs Arrowsmith. He has a very serious head injury. The important thing is to operate as quickly as possible and to monitor him very carefully afterwards.’

      Jess’s eyes travelled from the doctor’s face to Dan’s. Extraordinarily,