Her mother-in-law, capped and gowned in white, looks older than her years this morning. Frail in a way that doesn’t mesh with everything Avril knows her to be. Cooper would laugh. He’d say something like My mother, frail? Ha! My mother always says she’s from a long line of women who had to be strong because strength was all they had. She wonders whether it’s true. No-one is ever as strong as other people think they are. Especially their children.

Laura is brushing the edge of the bed with her mittened hand, the closest she can get to stroking Cooper’s arm.

How is he today?

Avril shrugs. There is never anything to say, and Laura knows that. It doesn’t stop her from asking—it’s a compulsion both of them have, to ask each other these unanswerable questions—but at least she understands.

I’d better go. Appointments this morning. And I might phone Ben when I get a break. You haven’t heard anything?

No. Laura shakes her head but her eyes are on Cooper.

OK, then.

A glance at the clock behind the nurses’ station. Avril needs to be back home by nine-thirty. But she isn’t moving.

Um, Laura?

Laura twists round to face her, her gauzed fingers still moving across the sheet.

Do you want, um, coffee in the lounge?

~

Avril watches Laura running her hands through her hair absentmindedly, stretching out her legs—narrow black jeans and boots—as she drinks her coffee. She tries to concentrate on what Laura’s saying. Something about caterpillars. Away from the ICU, out of the whites, there is a more natural colour to her face, but it’s still drawn. She’s anxious, and it’s making Avril uneasy because Laura is always calm, always. Gravity is part of her very being—although it’s a frustration as well as a comfort sometimes. Avril is sick of the mindless assurances from all and sundry—her sister Pascale, her clients, neighbours, even the lanky boy who delivers her pizzas, for god’s sake—that Cooper will be OK, when it’s far from clear that anything will ever be OK again. Laura knows this, and thank god for that. But. Perversely, Avril finds herself wishing Laura would just occasionally play along with the naive notion of restitution, that the life she and Cooper had once had might be made whole again. That his body will heal, his brain will wake. Recovery is still possible, the doctors have assured them, although they’re cautious, evasive, about what recovery might mean. But increasingly Avril has the feeling that Laura knows, really knows, that it isn’t going to happen.

They’ve told you something, Laura, haven’t they? Something about Cooper’s condition?

Laura looks startled. No, of course not. They wouldn’t give me information and withhold it from you.

She’s right, of course. Practical. Calm down, relax, Avril.

Really?