When they woke around nine the next morning, Connie groaned. "How do you feel?" Ric asked, his voice much deeper from sleep. "Everything hurts like hell," Connie told him miserably, showing that she clearly wasn't a morning person, even in the best of circumstances. "Have you got anything that might help?" "No," Connie replied, sounding even more miserable. "When I can summon up the energy, I'll have a hot bath. That helped yesterday." "I'm sorry to have to do this," Ric told her carefully. "But I'm going to have to leave you for a while today. Leo's coming over, and I haven't seen him in far too long." "You don't need to be sorry," Connie assured him. "He's your son, and I've taken up more than enough of your holiday as it is." "You still need looking after," Ric said, feeling the divided loyalties pulling him in different directions. "I'll be all right," Connie promised him. "All I really plan on doing, is either staying right here, or sitting in front of some mindless film on the TV." "I wouldn't want Michael to come back when I wasn't here," Ric told her, finally voicing his main concern. "Oh, don't you worry about him," Connie said with a mirthless laugh. "He won't come back here for a week or more." "Connie, do you know where he is?" Ric asked in surprise. "Of course I do," She astonished him by saying. "And no, don't worry, I haven't knifed him and buried him under the patio, though the thought did cross my mind at least once on Christmas Night. I suspect he's at his flat in London, hiding away and nursing his pride, until he can't avoid my existence any longer." "All right," Ric said, though not sounding remotely convinced. "But if you're worried about anything, you must phone me at Zubin's, he won't mind." "You told him, didn't you," She said, sounding almost resigned to the fact. "Yes," He said simply, expecting a tirade in response. "Ric, if I had even half the energy, I would demand to know why," Connie said exhaustedly. "But I suppose I should have expected it." "I could ask Zubin for some decent pain relief," Ric suddenly suggested, wondering why this thought hadn't occurred to him before. "I don't want anyone's pity, Ric, least of all Professor Khan's," Connie told him firmly. "I'll deal with it."
Around lunchtime as Ric drove back to Zubin's, he hoped she really would be all right. Connie was easily as stubborn as he was, if not worse in her own way, but she really did need some sort of pain relief. He had left her lying in a hot, scented bath, with a cup of tea and a good book. He had remade the fire before he left, so that it would be nice and warm for her if she went downstairs. When Zubin opened the door to him, he said, "Aha, the wanderer returns with my car. How is she?" "Connie, or your car?" Ric quipped back, coming in and closing the door. "He means Connie," Jess said firmly, from where she sat on the sofa holding a sleeping baby. "She's in a lot of pain, and feeling very miserable," Ric told them, sinking gratefully into an armchair. "Which makes her temper even more formidable than usual, I should imagine," Zubin said ruefully, handing Ric a coffee and Jess a cup of tea. "I can live with it," Ric said dismissively. "You've just got to know how to handle her." Then, after taking a sip of the steaming liquid, he said, "Actually, I feel quite useless. All I seem able to do is to let her talk to me, and try and take care of her." "Dad, that is helping her," Jess insisted with a smile. "It's probably exactly what she needs right now." Then, a little more carefully, she said, "Zubin said that you thought she might have been raped." "Yes," Ric replied stonily, turning to look over at Zubin. "Don't ever tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, will you. I was absolutely right on that score, though quite how she can think that being forced to have sex is entirely her fault, is beyond me." "That's unfortunately too often how it works, dad," Jess told him regretfully. But seeing something in Zubin's face, Ric turned on him. "You can't seriously think she's right?" He demanded, his voice rising with indignation. "Admittedly, Connie doesn't exactly have a very virtuous approach with regards to the interpersonal relationships she has with her colleagues, but that doesn't mean she deserved something like this." "Did I say she did?" Zubin protested mildly. "Sh, you two," Jess hushed them. "I don't want him to be all sleepy when Leo arrives." Ric flashed her a smile of apology, having temporarily forgotten about the sleeping baby in his daughter's arms. "Zubin," Ric continued. "He's almost completely broken her spirit. You'd hardly recognise her if you saw her now, and she woke up in the middle of last night after reliving too much of it. I really think she should be in hospital, but she won't hear of it. You know Michael better than I do," He added, slightly changing the subject. "Does he seem the kind of person to do something like this?" "Who does, dad?" Jess asked him philosophically. "I don't know," Zubin said meditatively. "That was always the thing with him and Connie, you never quite knew what lay under the surface, though I can say that he wouldn't have liked ever being told no to anything." After a long, thoughtful silence, Jess put in, "You're doing everything you possibly can do. If you've managed to get her to talk to you, then that's a huge step forward, because some people don't talk about that sort of thing for years. She'll do far better in the long run for having got at least some of it out of her head. So, whilst there's nothing else you can do for the time being, go upstairs, put some different clothes on, and cheer up. Leo will be here in a while, and he doesn't want to see you looking as though someone just died, when they are still very much alive." "Are you sure you two didn't get married on the quiet?" Ric asked her, getting up to do her bidding. "You're starting to sound more like your mother every day."
Many hours later, long after Leo had gone, Ric took the present his son had brought him, plus the cordless phone out into the garden. After rolling the joint, he dialled Connie's number. "It's me," He told her when she answered. "How was your day?" She asked, sounding incredibly tense and on the point of cracking. "Erm, interesting," He said evasively. The conversation between him and his son had been somewhat stilted, but Ric thought he had just about managed to lay a few stones of a new bridge between them. "How are you feeling?" "Erm, sort of all over the place," She admitted, sounding disgusted with herself for such a lack of control. "I'm terrified of Michael coming back even though I know he won't, I'm tired, depressed and in pain, and I would give anything for a cuddle. Oh, and I forgot the bit about entirely loathing myself for being so bloody weak and pathetic, because I can't bear feeling so vulnerable with anyone, never mind someone I'm sleeping with, which also makes me feel incredibly guilty, because you didn't come over here to drag me back on my feet, after what to all intents and purposes was a row with my long suffering husband. Sorry," She added, having come to the end of her outburst. Taking a long drag of the joint, and thinking that Leo certainly knew of a good supplier, Ric tried to mull some of this over. "Let's take this one at a time," He said thoughtfully, not sounding remotely put off by her anger, whether that was aimed at him or at herself. "Ric, are you outside?" She asked, hearing an owl in the distance. "Yes, Leo's idea of a Christmas present was at least enough for a couple of joints, and I don't want to smoke it in the house because of the baby, not that I suppose either Jess or Zubin would let me." "Will you save me some?" Connie asked, getting an idea. "It might be the best pain relief there is going." "I was going to save you some anyway," He told her with a smile. "I thought it might relax you." "Definitely," Connie groaned in anticipation. "Now, back to your catalogue of perfectly expectable grievances. You said yourself that you don't think Michael will come back, but if he does, you call the police, and then you call me. Is that clear?" "If I must," She replied a little grudgingly, unwilling to admit that she needed anyone's help. "As I am not there to soothe away any nightmares, which you mustn't feel bad for experiencing, I suggest that for tonight at least, you knock yourself out with a couple of the sleeping pills I saw in your bathroom cabinet. Now, I can't give you a cuddle right this minute, but I will give you all the cuddles you want, tomorrow. Connie, you mustn't feel weak, or pathetic, or anything else so pointlessly negative, because I can assure you, you're not. If you weren't still trying to fight with me, then I really would worry about you. However, perhaps the most important thing I really don't want you to feel is guilty. I would be trying to see you as much as I have been, even if you were still looking just as you did on Christmas Eve, and even if Michael was still in residence. Connie, I'm trying to do as much as I can for you, though I can't help feeling that it's precious little, because I care about you. All right?" "I'm sorry," She said quietly, and he could hear the tears in her voice. "I... I'm just not used to hearing something quite so sincere, and I'm certainly not used to needing to hear it." "I know," He told her gently. "But just try and accept that when I do say it, I do mean it. You are incredibly precious to me, possibly far more precious than you really want to be, but there it is." "Thank you," She said quietly, feeling immensely touched that he'd been so honest with her. "So, go and take a couple of those pills, go to bed, and I'll see you tomorrow." Putting down the phone, he stubbed out the joint and walked back into the house. "She all right?" Zubin asked in concern. "No, not really," Ric said regretfully. "But I think she'll be all right for tonight."