Forget Me Not. Claire Allan

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СКАЧАТЬ my own hand trembling in hers.

      ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs O’Loughlin. I’m sure it’ll be a real help to the Taylors to hear from you.’

      ‘Please, Constable,’ I said, ‘call me Elizabeth.’

      She nodded with a small smile. ‘I will do, and you must just call me Patricia. I’m here as support for the family at this very difficult time. We like to keep things informal. It helps everyone.’

      I nodded and followed as she led me through to the small kitchen where three adults, two women and a man were sitting around the table drinking tea. I guessed they were all around the same age as poor Clare had been. Were they siblings, or cousins?

      They looked at me and to Patricia as I stood awkwardly, waiting for an introduction.

      ‘Ronan,’ she said, ‘this is Elizabeth O’Loughlin, the lady who was with Clare yesterday morning when she passed.’

      The man in front me, his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, got to his feet and crossed the room. He stretched his arms wide and pulled me into a hug. I could feel him shaking, heard him say ‘Thank you’ over and over. I felt like a fraud. Sure, what was there to thank me for? I’d done nothing. I hadn’t saved her. Maybe if he knew I was a nurse who didn’t save her his welcome wouldn’t be so warm.

      ‘Ronan’s Clare’s older brother,’ I heard Patricia say, just as I heard the two women who’d been sitting with him excuse themselves.

      ‘We’ll give you some space,’ one of them said.

      I wanted some space just then. Needed some air. I felt guilt and sorrow wrap around me just as Ronan’s arms did.

      ‘Maybe you’d like a seat, Elizabeth,’ I heard Patricia say and Ronan pulled away from me.

      Patricia just looked at me sympathetically. She’d known I was feeling overwhelmed, or she was familiar enough with horrible events like these to assume that I would be.

      ‘Thank you,’ I said, sitting down on one of the pine kitchen chairs.

      ‘Tea or coffee?’ Patricia asked.

      ‘Tea, please,’ I said as Ronan tried to compose himself, wiping his eyes with a tissue.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to thank you enough.’

      ‘I didn’t do anything, really,’ I said, feeling my face blaze. I didn’t like being thanked for my woeful inadequacy.

      ‘She wasn’t alone, at the end …’ he said. ‘The police told us you were holding her hand. Had put your jacket over her. That means a lot.’

      I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

      ‘Did she say anything? Did she speak at all?’ he asked.

      I was aware of Patricia close by. She’d asked me not to reveal what Clare had said to me. That it was sensitive to the case. I didn’t want to lie – that felt wrong – but I had to do what Patricia had asked, so I shook my head. I watched Ronan deflate in front of my eyes. Watched as Patricia took in every detail of our exchange.

      ‘She wasn’t really conscious, slipping in and out, you know …’ I told him. ‘I doubt she’d have been too aware of anything around her at that stage.’

      ‘But you held her hand?’ he asked.

      ‘I put my coat over her and called the emergency services, then I held her hand. Pleaded with her to hang on. She was just too ill.’

      I felt a tear roll down my cheek. Saw images of her poor, mutilated body flash before my eyes. I shuddered. Patricia placed a cup of tea in front of me.

      ‘It’s a great comfort to my parents to know someone was with her,’ Ronan said.

      ‘Mr and Mrs Taylor are sleeping at the moment; it was a bad night for them,’ Patricia explained.

      ‘I can imagine,’ I said softly.

      Although that wasn’t quite true. I didn’t need to imagine. I knew exactly how it felt to lose a child in the most horrific of circumstances.

       Chapter Ten

       Rachel

      I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, by the time I got home. I’d picked Molly up from crèche and had done my best to pretend everything was normal, but I could feel my facade slipping.

      Spending time with Ronan, and then his parents, had been harrowing. It had made it too real. Mrs Taylor was the kind of woman who was always impeccably dressed and made up. She used to give us girls make-up lessons when we were teens – warning us against the dangers of going overboard on the rouge or choosing the wrong shade of lipstick. I’d never seen her without her make-up before – not even when I’d had a sleepover at Clare’s. Yet, there she’d been, her face pale, devoid of its usual glam look, her hair pulled into a loose bun, wearing a pair of black trousers and a jumper that seemed to swamp her. She’d looked so small, so vulnerable that it had shaken me, but at least she’d been able to talk to us. Mr Taylor – this big teddy bear of a man with a booming voice and an even louder laugh – just sat silently, staring into a mug of tea that he didn’t once lift to his lips.

      Julie had been silent on the drive back to hers. I’d been grateful for it. There wasn’t much we could say to each other. We both knew how awful this was.

      But when I’d picked Molly up, I’d plastered on a wide smile and pulled her into a hug that was probably a little tighter than it should have been.

      ‘Why are you hugging me so tightly? Mammy! You’re hurting me!’

      I loosened my grip and she squirmed away from me. I wanted to pull her back into my arms, but I didn’t. I thought of Mrs Taylor, though – all the times she must have held Clare to her and never imagined that this was how things would turn out.

      How could anyone have imagined this?

      Beth was already home when I opened the door. If I wasn’t mistaken, I could smell the makings of a bolognese on the hob.

      My eldest daughter walked into the hall to greet me. Still in her pyjamas, her eyes still red, it was clear she was still hurting. All I wanted to do was protect her.

      ‘I’ve put some dinner on,’ she said, shrugging in that awkward way teenagers do.

      I knew she was trying to make life easier for me and I loved her so much for it. I pulled her into a hug. The same tight hug I’d given her little sister before. Beth didn’t wriggle away, though; she just hugged me harder.

      ‘I love you,’ I whispered.

      ‘I love you too, Mum,’ she answered, without a hint of her usual teenage sarcasm.

      When we pulled apart, she took Molly into the living СКАЧАТЬ