Being Lily. Qarnita Loxton
Nora was her name, I remembered, as I saw the initials on the name-tag clamped onto her square chest. The detail came back to me. This one looked kind, but she was the centre of hospital gossip – nearly all of it unkind.
“Mr Fisher is my fiancé.”
“Oh …” Her eyes rounded up, pushing her eyebrows together, a furrow up into her forehead. A Botox candidate. “That’s right – you do face stuff now, not a GP anymore. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise …” She started to bustle the papers on the reception desk. “Dr Salem said Mr Fisher can leave whenever he feels ready.” What an unexpected bit of news for a Saturday morning in Blouberg, I could see the wheels turning in her unblinking eyes. None of the nurses at the hospital had liked me. Direct and to-the-point wasn’t considered nice.
Owen was sitting on the hospital bed, leaning forward and holding an ice pack against the left side of his face. Courtney had her arms around him. I could hear her crying, see her back shaking, her face squashed into his neck. What is it with this woman? I keep walking into her back, as if I am the intruder. A beefy-looking guy, buffed-up arms crossed over his chest, was slumped in the hospital chair next to the bed. Spiky bits of hair sprouted on the top of his head like horns on the too-old potatoes we sometimes found in our fridge. If this was Jeff, then I felt even more sorry for Owen; those guns would have done some damage.
“Owen?” I said, so that they would all look up. Owen peered at me through one eye, the other a blue-purple slit of dried blood and mush. His red-splattered yellow Polo shirt was a violent abstract painting.
“Don’t freak out, Lily, it’s not as bad as it looks. It was just a misunderstanding. The doctor already said it’s only tissue damage.” And then it was as unbelievable as a scene from Grey’s ER. Courtney started to come over towards me, but she only made it halfway when she stopped and started crying in her hands. Like an overgrown three year old, she made big snotty sobs with gurgling sounds that could’ve been words. I don’t think I’ve ever cried like that, even when I was three.
The beefy one and his guns moved towards her.
“Hey, Courts, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean it. Truly,” he said as he stood up to reach out to Courtney. Owen tried to get up from the bed – I hope he was aiming to get past Courtney to me – but he stumbled over his own feet and bumped the nurses’ trolley so that it went crashing, spraying cotton swabs and rolls of plaster and syringes at my feet. The noise seemed to yank open the cubicle curtains next to Owen, and Chiara’s head popped through like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. She must’ve been lying on the bed next door; now she looked in as to if to check on the latest developments. Nosy Nurse Nora came running, her quick steps meaning she had the same plan in mind. Great. She’d seen me in gym kit with half my face sweated off and my bum bulging out, and she’d seen my effed-up fiancé with another woman she’d thought was his wife. Probably thought Chiara was their kid too. But if she thought she was going to see more, she had another thing coming.
I would sort this out at home.
“Everything all right, Doctor?” she asked, rubbernecking as I turned towards her.
“Yes, just the trolley got knocked over. We’ll be going now, thanks. Is that the script for the painkillers?” I nodded at the paper in Nora’s hand and walked her back to reception, my trainers squeak-squeaking along to Courtney’s sobs. It took half an hour to get the forms sorted, get out the hospital, and get everyone into cars to go home. Owen drove with me.
“What the hell, Owen? What happened to you? How does it go from leaving you sleeping in our bed to getting a call from Courtney to come see your face all bust up? Who is Jeff? And how can this whole thing be an accident? Did you accidentally run into his fist?” The indicator clicked loudly as I stopped just long enough to eye the traffic barrelling up and down the West Coast Road.
Speeding across the gap, I said, “You should be pressing charges, not letting him drive your car to our house. Next you’re going to tell me he wants to stay over too.” I wished I was on that Porsche driving course I’d done last year – I would’ve had an excuse to hurl the car around the circle. If I did that trick now, it would look like I was losing control. I don’t remember everything I said to Owen, or how many times I said the same thing, but I do remember that he didn’t say anything until we were behind the boom at Beach View.
“Lily, can you stop shouting at me and listen for a fucking minute.”
Owen never swears at me. It made me whip my head around at him.
“It was an accident. Courtney met Jeff at the airport in Durban and he sat next to her on the flight here. They hit it off, from the sounds of it, and she told him all her stuff about her ex and how scared she is that he would follow her. Two hours in the air and they’re in love.” At love, Owen curled his index fingers into hooks in the space between us. “This morning, I took Courtney and Chiara to the office to look up some of the rentals on offer and Jeff appeared out of nowhere. I’m not exactly sure what went through his thick skull but he thought I was the mad ex and he came shouting rubbish into my face.” Owen hung his head. “Idiot me thought he was the ex, and I shouted back. I swung first but he made contact, popped me one right there in the damn mall.”
Owen got into a fight over Courtney.
“You are kidding. Oh my God, Owen. You swung at that chunk of beef. What is wrong with you – what were you even thinking?”
I want to put my head in my hands when I remember those words. I hate it when my mother says it, but how shit must it be when your partner says it. Owen is usually the calm, controlled one. I’m usually the one who loses my head, speaks first, and regrets later.
“You’re not the kind of guy who gets into a punch-up – what the hell is going on with you?” What is it about Courtney that makes him take a swing at a guy? is the real question. Owen’s car pulled up behind us in the driveway. Jeff and Courtney in the front seat, Chiara tucked in the back.
“I can’t press charges. I’ve not invited him to stay. He’s staying with a friend at Eden – that’s why he was there. Says he wants to be around to protect Courtney and Chiara.” He stopped halfway before he got out the car, reached over to touch my face. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know how it happened, but don’t worry. My face will be fine for the wedding. If it’s not completely healed, we can change the wedding to a De Niro Mafia theme?” He tried to smile but he looked more Rocky than De Niro and I wasn’t yet ready to forgive him. Never liked Rocky much. “Can we go inside and be okay? I’m going to talk to Courtney as soon as I can – this story with Chiara needs to be sorted, it’s making me jumpy.”
“You and me both,” is all I said as I slammed the door.
8
By Sunday afternoon, I’d fled to my mother – that’s how bad it was. After the punch-up, Courtney left for training at the restaurant, a double-edged sword that killed the paternity talk but spared me her company. Owen spent the day on the couch, hiding his smashed eye from the world and using the good one to watch Netflix with Chiara. When Buff Jeff arrived at nine this morning to make another apology, bringing steak and salad for lunch, I hatched an emergency afternoon escape. It was saying a lot that I needed my mother as an excuse. I’d see Dad after. That would be my light at the end of the tunnel of the weekend. He would have advice on what to say when we talked to Courtney tonight. But first, there was Mum.
“Lilian Rose. You look perfect, exactly like the daughter of Camilla,” my mother announced as I stepped out of the lift into her V&A Marina apartment. (She says the Camps Bay village got too small for her, but what she means is that it was too close to Dad and Violet in Clifton.) A little hug so as not to crush her peachy silk shirt; air kisses next to my cheek so as not to disturb either of our faces. “How lovely you look, my darling, Lucio truly is a magician. I’m going tomorrow morning.” I couldn’t see why she would need to – all the blonde hair piled artfully Zsa Zsa-style on her head was perfect. I regretted the news I’d passed on to Lucio; she would get it out of him without any struggle. “I love that nail colour on you! What’s it called,