Chapter Five
Present Day
A charcoal quilt smothered the sky, and a dull breeze stumbled and swayed over the roof of the State Department. Elizabeth stepped up to the edge and rested her hands against the cool stone wall. Beneath, the stop-start of rush hour traffic choked the streets and the crush of pedestrians crawled along the sidewalks. Car horns blared, and the clog of exhaust fumes lifted, thickening the air like summer heat rising from the tarmac.
July 1984
"Shhh!" Elizabeth held one finger to her lips as both she and Alice giggled. Lights out was half-an-hour ago, but the eerie off-white glow of the fluorescent strips still diffused through corridor. Elizabeth leant out of the doorway and glanced up and down the hall. No sign of the night staff. She crept out of their room and beckoned Alice to follow.
They scuttled along the hallway towards the double doors that formed the entrance to the ward, their giggles stifled in their hands. The doors to the other rooms were all ajar, but if anyone saw them, they kept to their silence. Secrets, camaraderie: the currency of the ward. When they reached the end, they ducked into the alcove that housed the patient phone and stood with their backs pressed to the wall.
"What now?" Alice whispered. Wisps of dark hair had escaped from her plaits and fanned out around her face.
"Just wait," Elizabeth said, and she nodded towards the doors. One good thing about the ward: it was as reliable as her father's watch. The thud of her heart beat out the time: one minute, two minutes, three—Then sure enough, the doors swung open and Dr Griegs stepped onto the ward. He sailed past their hiding place, and both Elizabeth and Alice crushed themselves against the wall. Elizabeth held her breath tight in her chest, and then, when Dr Griegs was just a few strides down the corridor, she darted out and caught hold of the door before it could slot back into its frame. She grinned at Alice—a flash—and then they were gone.
The air blew brisk over the rooftop, and it lilted with the trace of smoke. Each breath burned through Elizabeth's lungs and sent a buzz rippling through her veins. She opened her arms wide and leant back, as if she could embrace the sky. The stars shone down on her. Freedom, such freedom.
"I'm going to miss you," she said to Alice, and she looked to her friend with a sharp smile, "but I'm glad that you're leaving."
"Me too," Alice said, and her green eyes sparkled.
Thank God she hadn't seen Alice when she was at her worst; she couldn't imagine those eyes empty and dull, not when they held such life now.
"What are you going to do when you leave?" Elizabeth said. "Now that the whole world's before you?" And looking down over the grounds of the hospital, it felt as if the whole world stretched before them, waiting for them to return to it and make it their own.
"Finish high school," Alice said, "then apply to university." She paused, and her smile turned tentative. "I thought maybe I should become a doctor, so that I can help others like us."
Elizabeth's chest swelled with pride and the surge sisterly love. Where would she be now without her roommate, without those words that had comforted her and goaded her and forced her to face harsh truths? She didn't know what she would do with her own life, not yet, but one thing was clear: "I think you should too."
Present Day
Elizabeth let her head fall back, and she stared up at the shroud of ash and slate. No stars, not then, and the freedom had faded too. That girl on the hospital roof had no idea what life would bring her.
Just two years later she would go to UVA and meet a guy who would make her laugh and smile and cry—in the best way. He would break her heart, but only for three days. They would marry in spring, and their vows would be accompanied an almighty downpour—but neither would care as he carried her sodden to the honeymoon suite and proceeded to strip the wet lace from her skin.
He would go on active duty, whilst she found a home in the CIA, and they would write to one another—I love you, I love you more. And when he came home for good, they would learn each other anew, and he would surprise her with stories he had never told before. Pieces of his life, fragments that she fitted together, a mirror to reflect his soul. But she would hold the greatest surprise of all. A baby? She would nod, lip pinned between her teeth. And he would kneel before her and kiss her belly, then look up at her with such awe. Our family. And before she knew it, she would give him two more.
She would leave the career she loved, because the fear of losing him hurt like nothing she had known. And she would resent him for a while, but once she settled into their new lives—her job in teaching, their horse farm of a home—she would let it all go. Let's try for four, she would say one night, and the pain when God said 'no' would bring them closer than ever before.
She would be mucking out the stables when the president would turn up at their home. He would tell her that she could affect true change in the world. And this time her husband would say 'yes', and any lingering resentment would go. Spies, cults, a dirty bomb, her efforts to thwart a coup; they would risk their morals, their marriage, their lives, yet still return to their circle of two. And one day, far in the future, she would stand on another roof, and the world would stretch out before her. Possibilities, power, potential that her sixteen-year-old self never imagined she would hold. And one summer would not define her. But what would her life have been if she had told?
"Ma'am?" Blake's voice. Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder. Blake stood at the top of the stairs, clinging to the doorway like a child at the edge of an ice rink. He took a tentative step onto the roof, though one hand remained touching the door. "You have a meeting in five minutes."
Elizabeth frowned. "What meeting?"
Blake's expression faltered. And what was that—a wince? He let out a long sigh. "Russell Jackson requested that we schedule time for interview prep. Jay and Daisy—"
"Seriously?" Elizabeth leant back against the wall, arms folded across her chest. "He's hijacked my schedule now?"
Blake's mouth hung open. He looked at her almost pleadingly. "I'm just the messenger."
"Who found time in my schedule." She shot him a glare and then pushed herself away from the wall, her trench coat catching the breeze and billowing behind her. She made her way back into the stairwell, Blake just a step behind. She turned her face to him as they walked. "Well, your penance can be calling back that hospital. I'd like to visit this weekend. In private."
"Of course, ma'am." Blake's footsteps clattered after her. "At the risk of intruding…do you mind if I ask why?"
Elizabeth paused at the bottom of the stairs, and resting her hands against the door, the wood cool beneath her palms, she tugged her lips into a taut line. "Let's just call it catharsis."
The gloom from outside leached in through the net curtains of the office, a grey murk to contend with the amber glow that shone from the ceiling and the walls. Daisy stood up from the couch, Jay from the armchair opposite, but Elizabeth waved them back to their seats.
She took her own seat on the other end of the sofa, and as she leant forward to pour herself a cup of coffee from the pot, her gaze darted between them. "You are aware that you don't work for Russell Jackson and that we have plenty of more important things to do, things that don't involve pandering to people's desires to hear fluffy titbits about my life." Though there was nothing fluffy about a stint on a psychiatric ward. Russell Jackson would regret setting up this interview yet.
Daisy and Jay shared a look, before Jay said, "Yes, ma'am."
"Then why are you doing his bidding?" Elizabeth rested back against the cushions and crossed one leg over the other, away from Daisy.
"Because as much as it pains me to say it—" Daisy drummed her fingers against the edge of the notepad that she clutched in her lap. "—he's not wrong."
Elizabeth shot her an incredulous look—Russell Jackson's not wrong?—but Jay leant forward and cut in. "People's perception of you is just as important, if not more important, than your policies, ma'am," he said. He flapped one hand towards the television in the corner. "Just look at the Nixon-Kennedy debates."
Elizabeth took a sip of coffee and then clinked the cup down against the saucer. "Firstly, this is an interview, not a televised debate." She shook her head to herself. "And secondly, rumours that I'm planning to announce are just that—rumours."
Daisy and Jay shared that look again, as if to say she was crazy to think that people didn't know. Though of course they knew. It was DC. Everyone knew everything, right?
"Rumours aside," Jay said. "It isn't the sixties anymore either. It's the age of celebrity and social media and so many other wonderfully nightmarish things. The public don't just want policies; they want a piece of you, something to relate to. They need to know that they can trust you."
Daisy nodded along and then turned to Elizabeth. "It's about being likeable, but strong."
"A strong likeable woman, huh?" Elizabeth held her coffee cup to her lips. "It might be easier to find a meat-eating vegan."
Jay stared at her, hard. "Okay…I'm sensing some resistance…but here's the thing…" He leant even further forward, right at the edge of the seat. His tone sharpened, and his hand—fingers splayed—bounced in the air for emphasis. "This interview is happening—Russell Jackson could not have made that more clear—and the worst thing that could happen is that you go into it unprepared, that the interviewer catches you off guard and that you either freeze or say something that you can't come back from."
Elizabeth pursed her lips. The tick, tick, tick from clock on the mantlepiece diffused into the silence. She set her coffee cup down on the table and then settled back against the cushions, arms folded across her chest. She met Jay's eye. "I think you and I have very different definitions of 'worst thing'."
Like admitting on national television that my brain went haywire after my parents died and I spent six months on Lady Margaret Ward, and everyone thinking that I'm crazy and fragile and weak, not to mention what my family will think, or my husband realising he married a stranger. But guess what? If I don't come out and say it, some tabloid will splash it across the front page anyway: 'McCord's Secret Shame', 'Is she Fit to Serve?'.
Elizabeth shrugged and then threw her arms up. "Look, I'm just going to be myself, and the public can take it or leave it, because I'm sure as hell not pretending to be someone else just to drum up support because the White House want me to run."
Jay pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. He looked up at Elizabeth. "You're really not a politician, are you?"
"Never said I was."
That evening, Elizabeth was curled up on the window ledge in her and Henry's bedroom, feet up, knees drawn to her chest. The lights were off, surrendering the room to the deep blue haze that mingled with the licks of shadows. A slight chill crept in through the window frames; it ruffled the net curtains and prickled over her skin. It was strange that, the way that the cold air could elicit the same sting as the hot sands of Iraq.
The buzz of the television downstairs and the echoes of her children's laughter filtered up, and as she leant her head back against the wall—eyes slipping shut—the sound surrounded her, like a thin gauze that masked her from the world.
August 1984
A scream ripped down the corridor. It slithered up Elizabeth's spine and shuddered through her neck. She dropped her notepad and pen down on the end of her bed and tiptoed across the blue vinyl flooring to the door. With her finger wrapped around the edge of the frame, she peeked out.
"I hate you! I hate you!" Four nurses were dragging a painfully thin girl towards the room nearest the nurses' station. "Get off me!" The girl screamed again, and then she turned to Elizabeth, her head lolling, her face gaunt, a void behind her ash grey eyes.
Elizabeth shrank back from the door. Her heart pounded, and a cool sweat spread over her skin. She would never let herself be like that. Never again.
Present Day
"There you are."
Elizabeth jumped. "Christ, Henry." She buried her face in her knees as her heart hammered against her ribs. Her breath shook, and she winced at the glare as he flicked on the lights. At the muffled click of the door closing, she turned her head to face him.
His brow was furrowed, gaze studying her as he crossed the room. "Everything all right?"
Elizabeth nodded. She swung her legs over the side of the ledge and made space for him to stand between her knees, and once settled there, he cradled her head in his hands and pressed a kiss to her crown. With her hands on his hips, she nestled her forehead against his chest and breathed the scent of sandalwood, amber and cedar. His presence felt like the final stretch of an endless journey home. Just tell him. His fingertips traced the ridge of her spine, and she shivered and arched into his touch. Just say it. "Henry—"
"Did you speak to Stevie earlier?"
Elizabeth drew back, and her gaze flicked up to meet his eye. "Yes." She frowned. "Why?"
"She just seemed a bit down, that's all." Henry slid his hands up to her shoulders and then smoothed them down over her arms until he caught hold of her fingers and laced them with his own.
Elizabeth shook her head and sighed. When Henry squeezed her hands, she returned her gaze to his. "Jareth got engaged." And just saying the words made her heart sink again. "She found out on Facebook last night."
Henry's lips pressed into a taut line. "Well that's tough."
She raised her eyebrows, and a bitter laugh escaped her. "It sucks."
He let go of her hands, climbed up onto the ledge next to her and then rested his palm against her thigh; the warmth radiated through the thin cotton of her sweatpants, a comfort against the chill from the windows behind. "How's she taking it?"
"She's still mad at him." Elizabeth's lips tugged to one side. "Maybe a little mad at herself." She trailed her fingers over his, up and down, up and down. "I think she feels like she wasted all that time."
Henry shrugged. "Maybe if she had spent a little more time getting to know him in the first place…" Getting to know a person, like telling him what had happened just three summers before you met. And when Elizabeth's fingers stilled and she turned to look at him, he said, "Come on, babe. She does have a tendency to jump into relationships, then wonder why they fail."
"Is that what you think?" She frowned at him and barely managed to conceal the hitch in her voice. "That it was always destined to fail?" Are we destined to fail?
Henry twisted round, his hand retreating from her thigh. The gap between them opened. A chasm borne in centimetres. He folded his arms across his chest. "I think that if you're going to share a life with someone, you ought to know more about them than their name and their coffee order."
Elizabeth slid down from the ledge. She shook her head to herself as she paced across the room, and then hands on hips, she spun back to face him. "She knew more about him than that."
Henry clenched his jaw. "She hadn't even met his parents."
A wave of white-hot heat flooded her veins, and her fingernails bit into her hips. "So that's your criteria for a solid marriage? Having met your partner's parents. Well thank God you didn't marry an orphan."
The thud of her pulse surged through her ears and shook the silence. The chasm between them yawned, her words echoing off the sides—down, down, down—until they impaled themselves on the rocks at the bottom, and at last, died out. Body still burning, she sank down onto the end of the chaise longue, her head in her hands.
"Okay," Henry spoke slowly, "I thought we were talking about Stevie, but clearly I was mistaken." There was a thump as he jumped down from the ledge, and then the cushion dipped as he perched next to her. "Do you want to tell me what this is really about?"
She shook her head, and the word escaped as soft as a breath. "No."
He let out a terse sigh and then rested his hand against the small of her back. "I love you—" He kissed the tip of her shoulder. "—and I'm here when you want to talk." He rubbed firm circles through her tee, the cotton rough against her skin, and then his hand stilled and he kissed her again, just as delicate as before. "I bought you some gelato. It's in the freezer if you want it." He stood up and retreated towards the door.
But before he disappeared, she called after him, "Henry."
He turned back to face her, expectant.
"I'm going to Virginia this weekend."
Pause. "Do you want me to come?"
She shook her head. "I need to go alone."
