Don't Be Afraid Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d kept saying that it made her feel ill and, stupidly, I’d let her get away with it instead of convincing her, pressuring her. I’d thought we would just plod on, survive the best we could, and one day this whole thing would go away as suddenly as it had started. But she did what she did.
    So here we are, now.
    On the edge of the black hole, ready to swallow us both.

7
Brothers

    Let me wake you
Sleeping girl
    Â 
    Angus
    A hand touched my shoulder lightly and I jumped – I’d been dozing in the chair. It was a nurse. She smelled of nicotine and something vinegary.
    â€œYour brother is here,” she said. Bell was sleeping soundly, her eyelids still, her arms by her sides, her chest falling and rising softly, so I slipped out to the waiting room, where Torcuil was waiting for me.
    â€œHow is she?” he asked, concern in his eyes behind his glasses. He looked shattered. I probably looked worse.
    â€œWell, I suppose she’s out of the woods. Physically, I mean.”
    â€œCome. I’ll get you a coffee.”
    â€œI need a pint of coffee to keep going,” I replied. After Morag phoned me I drove up from London through the night, clutching the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. I was exhausted from fear and lack of sleep. Everything around me seemed to blur at the edges and every time I moved my head quickly I felt slightly sick.
    We sat in the hospital cafeteria, both dazed, terrified of what could have happened, what nearly happened, had Morag not found Bell in time.
    It didn’t bear thinking about.
    â€œIs Izzy sleeping now?” Torcuil asked as he placed a mug in front of me. I noticed that he had slipped into using his old nickname for her, and I was too overwhelmed to feel even a twinge of jealousy, like I normally would.
    Sometimes I wondered how much Torcuil and I had dealt with the past. Our history with Bell, I mean.
    â€œYes. Thanks for coming.”
    â€œThat sounds very formal.” He nearly smiled, but didn’t quite manage. “It’s the least I could do. How is she doing, did they tell you anything new?” I’d filled him in during an early morning call.
    â€œNothing new. Physically, she’s in okay shape, apart from her stomach being a bit battered, the doctor said. But I have no idea what she’s thinking . . .” I shrugged. “I don’t know anything any more. She insists she’s fine, but clearly, after what she did . . . Well, she isn’t.”
    â€œDid she tell you anything? About her reasons . . . about what was going through her mind?”
    â€œNot really. She said she won’t do anything like that again. I’m really trying to believe her.”
    â€œGod, how did we not see it coming?” Torcuil ran his hand through his hair, his nervous habit.
    â€œI don’t know. I blame myself . . .” And I did . Clearly I’d been too wrapped up in my work, or maybe I didn’t want to see. Probably a combination. Or maybe, who knows, you just can’t predict this sort of thing. Maybe some people carry a darkness inside them that not even the ones who love them can detect. And my wife was one of them.
    â€œHonestly, Angus, I don’t want to hear any of that. You can’t blame yourself for this. I won’t let you.” He looked down. We were both stiff, unsure, embarrassed about this outpouring of emotion. Our family doesn’t do feelings very well.
    â€œOh yes, I can blame myself,” I snapped, and all of a sudden I realised how angry I was. At myself, at the world. At Bell. “She refused to take her medication, and I let her get away with it. She had this counsellor coming to the house, but she stopped that, and again I let her. She swore she was better, and I believed her. I wanted to believe her.”
    â€œWe all believed her. She told us what we wanted to hear. And she is an adult; she makes her own decisions. You can’t force her