Free Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty Page B

watching surreptitiously, holding their breath almost, as if I am made of glass and Rees’s fleeting but ardent affection might shatter me. At such times, I want to scream at them all to fuck off . But there is no energy for screaming. There is no energy for anything except the motions of the day; sit in a chair in one room, sit in a chair in the other; drink the hot drink I am given and ignore the food on a plate before me.
    At night, there are fewer people but there are always several who stay over. The Empress must not be left alone. I sleep in Betty’s bed now, as I have done since the night I came back from the hospital, her duvet with the overblown purple flowers on it tucked tight around me and her impressively various zoo of soft toys lined across the foot of the bed. My bed, which I cannot bear to lie on, is available for guests. Aunt Lorraine uses it sometimes. Often, someone sleeps downstairs as well, sometimes David’s sister Ceri, sometimes Julie or another neighbour. The spare duvet is rolled up each morning and stuffed behind the sofa. Someone has brought round extra pillows. I lie awake at night, staring at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars on Betty’s ceiling, imagining that I am her. During the day, I want nothing but sleep.
    Apart from the regular visitors, there are people who come only once, and those are the people I hate most of all. They come for their own reasons, all needing affirmation from me, wanting to touch the hem of my garment. Sally, Willow’s mother, is one of them. She is in the kitchen when I descend mid-morning, three days after what has happened. I stand in the doorway and stare at her. She comes to me and holds out her arms. I stay stock still while she puts those arms – her fat, hot arms – around me.

    I realise something is expected of me, so I say, ‘How is Willow?’
    Sally steps back from me and has the nerve to look coy. ‘She’s still on the special ward, the one where they…’
    ‘The HDU,’ I say.
    ‘Yes, the High Dependency Unit, they just want to make sure.’
    I look at Sally’s round, owlish face, with her big blue eyes all wide and open, stretched alarmingly with the effort of not saying anything inappropriate.
    Still alive then , is what I want to say, on the HDU all strapped up with drips and whatnot and next to the nurses’ desk where they can keep a close eye, but still alive. They don’t allow parents to sleep on put-you-ups in the HDU. They have to keep the spaces next to the beds clear in case they need to bring in a crash team unexpectedly, so the parents with the most ill children get the least sleep, but still it’s better than having your child in intensive care. I can picture my Betty in the HDU. I can picture how annoyed I would get having to sleep in a chair beside her bed and be woken up every few minutes by the nurses’ chatter at the desk, how I would plead for her discharge, not realising how lucky I am, how much worse it could have been.
    I look at Sally oozing sympathy and think, I’ve never liked you. We were only friends because our daughters were friends, and now everyone will think I avoid you because my daughter has been taken away and yours hasn’t but actually it’s because I never liked you in the first place and it’s a relief not to have to pretend I do. I turn away, stiffly, and Sally gazes at me as I turn, her face open and distressed, and if I had the energy I would punch her with a closed fist.
    *
     
    Then comes the horror of Betty’s funeral. It comes in a series of pictures: Aunt Lorraine and Julie dressing me in my bed room, like a doll, buttoning my blue jacket and slipping on the kitten-heeled shoes I have only ever worn for job interviews – they have silver bows on the front, so even though they are black, I think of them as my silver shoes. Then, the town is passing by on the drive to the crematorium, the world unnaturally hushed from the inside of our sleek, sealed car. There is a single cloud in the