Chapter 11

As we crossed the US coastline over Cape Cod, we had, perhaps thirty minutes of flying time left before we touched down at JFK. It was just before three pm on Sunday afternoon, and I hadn’t enjoyed flying economy one little bit. I was trapped in a centre seat, next to the most enormously overweight man I’d ever seen on one side, and a fidgety small child on the other. To cap it off, the inflight movie had been Star Academy, and I still hated watching myself on screen. I swore that I was never going to travel that way again.

We tracked down the length of Long Island, just skirting the coastline and then turned over Long Beach to the airport. It was three thirty-seven when the wheels touched the ground and a few minutes after four when we connected to the jetway. Then the fun part started. Customs and immigration. The queues were horrendous, and it seemed that the immigration officers wanted a minute by minute account of your life from birth.

Out in the arrivals hall, I spotted a tall muscular man wearing of all things a Leeds United shirt, carrying a clipboard with a sheet of paper with my name printed on it.

I walked over and introduced myself, he responded with his own name Charles DeForrest, “Call me Chuck.”

“What’s with the shirt, Chuck?” I asked.

“Big fan,” he replied, “one day I hope to take in a game at Elland Road.”

“We’ll have to see if we can do something about that?” I said, “Who’s your favourite player?”

“The Chief,” he replied immediately.

“Probably everybody else’s,” I replied.

“Yeah, he’s brilliant,” he said, “so where to, boss?”

“Just David,” I replied, “Hoboken. Sinatra Drive.”

I know it,” he said, “along the riverfront.”

“That’s the one,” I said, “we’re looking for 333 River Street Apartments.”

“Got that,” he said.

Forty minutes later we pulled up outside Sandy and Maria’s apartment building and Chuck walked with me down the driveway and to the door. I pushed the buzzer for their apartment and was greeted by Maria’s voice.

“Hi, it’s David,” I said.

The door buzzed and I pushed it open, Chuck preceded me into the building and I noticed that his eyes were never still, always looking around at his environment. We walked across to the lifts and took the first one up.

At the door, Maria stood waiting, she greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, “who is your friend?”

“This is Chuck DeForrest, he’s security,” I said.

“Security?” she queried.

“My parents only agreed to me coming if I had security with me,” I said, “where is Sandy? And more importantly, how is she?”

“She’s at the University Medical Center on Willow Avenue, and she’s holding her own, but they’re keeping her sedated,” she said, “have you eaten?”

“Not since breakfast,” I said.

“You must be starving,” she replied, “I have Moussaka I can microwave. What about you Mr DeForrest?”

“I already ate thanks, Mrs Dunham.”

She looked at him, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll call you Chuck if you call me Maria.”

“I think I can do that,” he said, “Maria.”

“So, Chuck, you want a little Moussaka?” she asked.

“Well, perhaps just a small portion,” he agreed.

“It’s too late to go to the hospital tonight,” Maria said as I helped her to clear up, “Chuck, David is safely indoors, if you want to go off duty.”

“How about if I turn up at say eight-thirty tomorrow morning he said. I’ll bring the rest of the detail with me, then you can meet them,” he said, “Sorry David, but some of them think that gridiron football is a sport.”

“I can probably forgive them,” I replied.

He wished us both goodnight and departed, but not before Maria had given him the code for the outside door.

“So, how are you holding up Maria?” I asked.

“Not well,” she answered, “my baby is hurt, badly. I want to get hold of the ones who did this and kill them, with my bare hands.”

“What actually happened?” I asked.

“As far as we know, she was attacked on the train from midtown Manhattan back to Hoboken and just left there on the carriage floor. She wasn’t discovered until the train conductor walked through the train at Hoboken terminal.”

“How did that happen?” I asked, “surely there were people on the train?”

“Not at that time,” she replied, “there were very few people riding just then.”

“So when did it happen?” I asked.

“Four days ago, they think it happened around seven fifteen in the evening and she wasn’t found and taken to the hospital until around nine.”

“And she’s been there ever since?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “they’re keeping her sedated most of the time, but when she’s not, she just keeps repeating your name.”

“Maria,” I said, “I know it’s late, but if we went, would they let us in to see us?”

“I can visit any time,” she said, “I can probably get you in, but as her fiancé.”

“In that case mother-in-law dear, let’s go.”

It took twenty minutes to get to the hospital, five more to park, and it was only when I went to pay the parking fee, that I realised that I didn’t have any US currency. I had to go back to Maria and beg some money from her. Then there was a ten-minute delay while a doctor was found to authorise me to visit Sandy.

Duly authorised, we approached the door to the room in which Sandy lay. On reaching the door, Maria placed a hand on my arm.

“Let me have a couple of minutes with her, just in case she’s awake, I want to prepare her for seeing you.”

I nodded my assent and leaned with my back against the wall outside the door.

She was back out in about four minutes and motioned me into the room.

What I saw there shocked me.

There was a bed, with a table beside it, containing a number of instruments. A monitor above the bed showed pulse, heartbeat and respiration rates. In the bed was a figure, swathed in bandages, with one arm and the left leg encased in casts, what little skin I could see was a mass of bruises, and her face was totally obscured by bandages. Her nose had a breathing tube attached to it, and a machine at the opposite side of the bed was regularly pumping oxygen through it to help her breathe.

I walked slowly over and stood beside the bed. Her eyes were slits, I could just make out the colour of her irises, and, as I looked into her eyes, I thought I saw a flicker of recognition before they closed and she lapsed again into a sedative-induced sleep.

We stayed for an hour before Maria drove me back to the apartment. It seemed strange, as I climbed alone into Sandy’s bed, and my sleep that night was full of visions, of her lying in that hospital bed and of her struggling on a train, against a shifting number of men.

I woke early, it was just beginning to get light, and walked through to the kitchen in my sleep shorts to get a glass of water, pausing at the bathroom for long enough to make room for it. I found a glass in the cupboard over the sink and poured my water into it direct from the tap, sat at the table and removed my phone from the pocket of my shorts.

Mum answered on the third ring.

“Hi Mum,” I said, “how are things over there?”

“Things are fine here,” she said, “how’re things over there?”

“Bad,” I replied, “I don’t have any details, they won’t give me any. Maria had to list me as her fiancé just so I could visit. But she has a lot of broken bones, and she’s been raped. They’re keeping her sedated.”

“It sounds bad,” she said.

“It looks bad too,” I said, “her Mum is trying to put a brave face on, but even I can see it’s just a mask. Like she said, her baby’s been hurt.”

“Like when you decided to head-butt that bus?” she asked.

“Much worse,” I said, “and this was deliberate and malicious.”

“So, no prognosis yet?” she asked.

“Not that I know of,” I said, “and I haven’t really talked to Maria about it yet. That will come today. Anything happening back home?”

“Cal rang for you yesterday,” she said, “she says she tried your mobile but it was off, so I suspect you were somewhere over the Atlantic at the time. I told her where you were and why. She’d like you to ring her if you can.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a change for the better,” I said flatly.

“What is?” she asked, puzzled.

“She’d like me to ring her, rather than tell him to ring me,” I answered.

“I think she’s realised what a huge mistake she made,” she said, “I think she’s hoping to salvage at least something from it.”

“That remains to be seen,” I said, “but I can’t deal with her right now if she rings again, will you tell her I’ll call her when I’m back.”

“I’ll do that for you,” she agreed, “any idea how long you’re staying?”

“Not just yet,” I said, “I think, probably at least until the doctors say she’s going to recover, I’ll just play it by ear.”

“All right,” she replied, “just look after yourself, what do we tell the studio if they ring?”

“Tell them where I am,” I said, “I suppose at least if I’m over here, it will save them money on any airfares for costume fittings and such.”

“Or we could just let them pay for flights from here, cash the tickets in and rebook you from over there,” she said.

“We could Mum,” I said, “but that would be a little bit underhanded, and I’d rather leave the dishonesty to them.”

She laughed at that.

“One more thing, Mum,” I added, “would you please ask Dad to call off the security? I’m not in any danger here.”

After we said goodbye and hung up, I went back to my, or Sandy’s room, and decided to get some studying in until it was time to go off to the hospital.

I’d signed up with a website called online IT academy for a C++ programming course. I logged in and got started on lesson one. How to include header files.

Maria was up by nine, and she offered to make breakfast.

“Do they have a cafeteria at the hospital?” I asked.

“Yes, they do, why?” she asked.