Free Sleight of Hand by Nick Alexander Page B

saying, “Hello beautiful, how are you bearing up?”
    It’s the first time I have heard this voice – this, normal, happy,
loving
voice, since we split up. The contrast with the way he spoke to me yesterday is so marked that I’m momentarily lost for words. After a few seconds listening to him say, “Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you baby!” I hang up.
    The landline in the house rings almost immediately. I brace myself and pick up on the third ring. “I couldn’t hear you Jen,” Tom says. “Could you hear
me?”
    â€œIt’s Mark, Tom,” I tell him.
    â€œOh,” he says, his tone shifting instantly. “Can you put Jenny on? She tried to call me and …”
    â€œIt was me,” I say. “She asked me to phone you. She’s in hospital.”
    â€œIn
hospital?”
    â€œShe had some kind of fit. Just after you left.”
    A shadow appears behind the patterned glass window of the front door. A bunch of letters, presumably addressed to Marge, plop onto the doormat. And then, without a sound, the shadow spookily fades away.
    â€œA fit?” Tom asks. “What do you mean a fit? What kind of fit?”
    â€œWe don’t know yet. They’re doing some tests this afternoon.”
    â€œWhere is she? Can I call her?”
    â€œFrimley Park – it’s here, in Camberley. But there’s not much point for the moment. She’s virtually comatose.”
    â€œRight,” he says. “Was it
stress?
Is that the cause? Because, well …”
    â€œWe don’t know, Tom,” I say, cutting him off before he can imply that I am somehow responsible.
    I hear him sigh deeply on the other end of the line. “How come you’re at her house, anyway? And how come you have her phone?”
    â€œI had to stay. Because of Jenny. And the ambulance guys didn’t give us a ten minute window to go around collecting her stuff.”
    â€œAmbulance?” he says.
“God!”
    â€œShe was vomiting and …”
    â€œShe had a lot to drink.”
    â€œIt wasn’t drink or stress. She had, like, an epileptic fit or something. Anyway, now you know. She wanted you to know.”
    â€œMaybe I should call,” he says.
    â€œI don’t know. You can try, but they probably won’t put you through.”
    â€œI can’t come back up. Not till the weekend. Can you …”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œNothing. Never mind,” he says.
    â€œTell her you called? Let you know if there’s any news?”
    â€œI suppose,” he says. “Both of those.”
    â€œSure. Of course.”
    â€œRight.”
    I can almost hear him struggling to find the largesse to thank me. “Bye Tom,” I say, saving him the pain. “I have to go now.” I stand and move through to the lounge.
    â€œRight. Yes. Bye,” Tom says.
    I sink onto the sofa and look around me at the old-lady lounge and sniff the air and think about the strange flowery old-person smell the place has. It’s actually making me feel a bit nauseous. Opposite, I spot a potential culprit – a plug in air freshener. I think about Jenny saying that the house,
“had death in it,”
and decide that making the smell of the place a little more neutral, a little less mumsy, can only be a good thing.
    I open all the windows, and hunt down three plug-in air fresheners which I stick in a kitchen drawer, and two bowls of really stinky potpourri which I bin.
    From the upstairs back bedroom – Marge’s old room – I can see Sarah playing in the back garden with the neighbour’s daughter. I stand unseen and observe her for a moment as she screams and runs around. She has grown up so much since I last saw her, she looks like a proper little person now. I wonder how well I will manage if I have to look after her tomorrow. I wonder what she eats. I wonder if she goes to the toilet on her own. What I don’t