The Hand That First Held Mine Read Online Free PDF Page A

to lean his head in his hands and breathe deeply, and he feels the earlier tears crowding into his throat.
     
    She’d almost died right there in front of them all. He’d felt death in the room, like a cloud gathering itself somewhere up near the ceiling, and its presence felt oddly familiar, as if he’d been somehow expecting it, as if part of him had known all along that this was how it might end. Don’t look, the nurse said to him, don’t look . And plucked at his sleeve. But how could he not? How could he turn away, like the nurse wanted him to, when it was Elina lying there, when it was his fault she was pregnant in the first place, it was him who’d done it, he was the one who’d whispered that time, in that hotel in Madrid, let’s not bother, just this once ? The nurse had taken his arm then. Come away , she’d said, more firmly. You mustn’t look .
     
    But he couldn’t not look. He’d held on to the metal rail of a gurney, shaken off the nurse. People were running and shouting to each other, and in the middle of the room lay Elina and her top half looked so serene. White and immovable, her face expressionless, her eyes half closed, her hands folded on her chest, she was a medieval saint from a painting. Her bottom half – Ted had never seen anything like it. And at that moment, he seemed to stop seeing it. He seemed to stop seeing anything at all. Except a horizon that was possibly the sea, a lead-coloured sea that heaved up and heaved down, a featureless expanse of water. It was its endlessness that made him feel queasy, its reflective skin that mirrored the clouded sky. Where is she? he could hear a voice saying. Where is she?
     
    Ted pushes his chair away from the desk with such force that it strikes the edge of the glass coffee-table behind him. He stands, he walks to the porthole in the door and back again. He sits down in his chair. He stands again. He strides to the window and lowers the blinds with a flick. He pushes the mouse one way, then the other. He picks up the phone, calls through to Reception and tells them to send the heist-movie director straight through when he arrives.
     
     
     
     
    Elina keeps having these odd jumps. Lapses, she thinks of them. She must tell Ted about them. It’s like the needle on the record player her family once had. She and her brother used to put on one of their parents’ old Beatles LPs and take turns in stamping on the floor. The needle would leap from one song to another. The glee, the unpredictability of it! You could be in the middle of Lucy and her diamond sky when all of a sudden John was on about a show tonight on trampoline. And then on again to Paul and the rain coming in.
     
    But there must be some kind of karmic punishment for inflicting damage on LPs because this seems to be happening in Elina’s life. Maybe ‘jumps’ isn’t the word. Maybe her life has sprung four thousand holes. Because one minute it was early morning and she was discovering the new smell and then suddenly she is lying on the living-room floor and the phone is ringing.
     
    Elina eases herself to her feet. The baby is lying on a rug next to her, arms waving in the air, as if he is directing traffic. She can feel that her hair is sticking up on one side, a little like the punk effect she used to try for when she was a teenager. She squints at the phone for a moment before picking it up. She is so tired that the floor tilts if she moves too fast. She rests a palm on the sofa arm to steady herself, remembering that she has done this very same thing only recently, steadying herself before answering the phone, and she has the distinct impression that she has spoken to her mother at some point today but cannot recall what they talked about. Maybe this is her again.
     
    ‘Hello?’ she says.
     
    ‘Hi.’ Ted’s voice is speaking into her ear. It comes from a place of noise. She can hear people shouting, people walking, a rustle, a bang. It is not the hushed, respectful