My Everything: the uplifting #1 bestseller

by Katie Marsh

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

'Devastatingly good - wonderfully warm, heartbreakingly real and completely uplifting' - Miranda Dickinson A gorgeous and emotional novel, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Jodi Picoult. On the day Hannah is finally going to tell her husband she's leaving him, he has a stroke . . . and life changes in an instant. Tom's only 32. Now he can't walk or cut up his own food, let alone use his phone or take her in his arms. And Hannah's trapped. She knows she has to care for her husband, the very same man she was ready to walk away from. But with the time and fresh perspective he's been given, Tom re-evaluates his life, and becomes determined to save his marriage. Can he once again become the man his wife fell in love with, or has he left it too late? My Everything is an unputdownable debut novel. It will make you cry, laugh, and stop to think about what's really important in life.

Release date: August 27, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 315

Sample

First of all, a lifelong thank you to George and Ann – aka Mum and Dad – for filling my childhood with stories. Thank you for bedtime reading, weekly trips to the library and for making me think the local bookshop was the eighth wonder of the world. I am also lucky enough to have a brother who has encouraged me from first word to final page. Richard, thank you for your unquestioning belief in me – it made a world of difference.

Huge thanks to my wonderful agent, Hannah Ferguson, for your eagle eye, your faith in me and for always making the time to support me through every stage of submission and publication. I am also very lucky to have such an incisive and creative editor in Francesca Best – thank you for your boundless energy and for working so hard to make this book as good as it could possibly be. Many thanks are also due to the wider Hodder team – especially to Anna Alexander and the brilliant rights team, to Emma Knight and to Naomi Berwin – I am so appreciative of your enthusiasm and dedication.

Many clinicians gave up a lot of their time to talk to me while I was researching this book. I owe a huge debt and several large drinks to Anthony and Karen Padgett, Dr Geoffrey Cloud, Dr Omid Hulse, Rachel Sibson, Alex Harling, Alyson Warland, Claire Edmonds and Helen Mann. An extra big thank you to Gill Cluckie for hours spent filling in the gaps in my knowledge and for wielding your red pen so tactfully as the scenes took shape. Any clinical mistakes or inaccuracies are entirely my own work.

I am grateful to Angela Jackson for your insights into working in schools, and to Rhian Fox, Louise Robinson and Vicky Lester for explaining the pressures and joys of teaching to me. Thanks too to my early advisors – Al Walmsley, Andy Kocen, Refik Gökmen and Robert Allcock.

Thank you to everyone on Team Novel for your advice, support and for strategic cocktails when required. I am indebted to Jo Rose, Myoung Rhee, Helen Winterton, Rza, Maria Nicholson, Sandra Iskander, Alice Jarvis, Nijma Khan and Rhona Muir for being so enthusiastic about early drafts. I am constantly thankful for Kate Holder’s shining encouragement, and am also very grateful to Louise Forbes, Andrea Marlow, Adam Cayley, Katie Jarvis and Diana de Grunwald. I owe many thanks to Henry Sutton for first draft advice, and am sending an extra big hug to Kim Curran – you have no idea how much your kindness and conviction spurred me on.

Most of all, thank you to my husband, Max, for keeping me in my writing chair and for believing so wholeheartedly in me and in this book. I would never have reached The End without you. And extra love to Evie for always knowing when to make me smile and for resisting the urge to colour all over the pages as they grew.

Finally I am indebted to the stroke survivors and families who were so honest with me about their experiences. Thank you to Jim Currie, Shumi and Nelesh Jeyadevan, Angela MacLeod and Viv Black. I am a little in awe of you all.

Hannah wakes up with a piece of toast stuck to her face.

She opens unwilling eyes and realises that the lights are on. She is fully dressed. Her teeth are unbrushed. Exhaustion oozes from every pore. She peers at the clock on the wall and closes her eyes again in despair. It’s 2 a.m. This day of all days isn’t meant to start like this. It’s supposed to be different. The start of things to come.

She rubs her aching neck as she pulls the soggy toast from her cheek and drops it onto the plate. Her phone is shuffling through the more embarrassing realms of her playlist and she hastily presses pause. Her body feels like it belongs inside a chalk line at a crime scene. She levers herself up on her elbows and surveys the marking laid out across the kitchen table.

‘Damn.’ She’s managed to knock her wine glass over in her sleep and now Year 10’s essays on Macbeth look as if they have been liberally spattered in blood. She wonders if she can get away with saying she did it deliberately to bring the play to life. She imagines her students’ sceptical expressions and very much doubts it. Their teenage antennae are on a constant hunt for scandal of any kind, and she suspects the school rumour mill will despatch her to the Priory before the week is out.

A text bleeps its arrival. Steph is in the middle of a marking marathon too.

Has he been home yet? Have you told him? x

Hannah taps out her reply. No and no.

Steph texts straight back. But you will? Promise?

Hannah exhales. Yes. Otherwise you’ll kill me. And I’d quite like to see the next series of Scandal.

Good luck. You can do it x

As Hannah pushes her chair back she hits the spoils of her latest doomed attempt to walk past a bookshop without buying anything. She reaches down and strokes the smooth comfort of the front covers, tempted to stay up all night losing herself in someone else’s story. Then she remembers what she is going to do today, and she reluctantly stands up, exhaling slowly to calm the nerves clutching at every breath.

Tom. I’m leaving you. She feels a skewer of fear at the thought of saying the words out loud. Of seeing his mouth opening and his eyes narrowing as he prepares to attack her for one final time. It’s one of his talents. Email. Voicemail. Good old-fashioned shouting. He always knows how to hurt.

She takes the plate to the overcrowded sink, squeezing it in beside an empty can of baked beans and a dirty pan that is busy generating some new kind of life form.

Later. She’ll deal with everything later. She switches off the lights and unbuttons her grey dress as she climbs the stairs. She stops in surprise at the bedroom door as she hears the rasp of her husband’s breathing. She had assumed he was still at the office. Another deal. Another night apart.

She slides quietly beneath the duvet.

‘Why didn’t you wake me when you came in?’

Tom’s only answer is a snore.

Scratch.

Hannah pulls the pillow over her head.

Scratch.

She can still hear it. She sticks her head out and looks at the clock. 4:30. She is raw from lack of sleep.

There it is again.

She turns over. ‘Tom, can you be quiet?’ Her voice comes out as a croak. ‘I’m trying to sleep.’ It would be so wonderful if he actually listened.

Fat chance. Instead he starts mumbling. His voice is breathy and slurred.

‘Sh. Sh. Sh. Shtuck.’

Reluctantly she leans towards his side of the bed. She peers through the darkness and sees a figure on the floor. Great. Clearly he’s been busy with whisky rather than work. Again. She reaches over and prods him but gets only a moan in reply.

‘For God’s sake.’ She rubs her aching eyes with her hands.

‘Shtuck. Hellllllmeeeeee.’ Wearily, she reaches over and turns on the bedside light. She looks down at him, blinking in the sudden brightness.

Something is wrong.

Horribly wrong.

Tom is lying on the floor, his body contorted, eyes wide and pleading as they meet hers. His face is ashen and lopsided, his distorted mouth straining to form words that Hannah can’t understand. She watches, horrified, as his right hand pushes feebly against the wooden foot of the bed. Scratch. His left hand is curved beneath him at an impossible angle, his fingers pulled upwards into a misshapen beak.

Something terrible has happened. Hannah’s pulse spirals and she stumbles out of bed and instinctively reaches down to try to pull him up. She strains every muscle but his body is a dead weight and he slumps back down to the carpet. She winces as she hears him groan, worrying that she has made things worse. Her mouth is dry and panic threatens to choke her.

They need help.

‘Don’t worry, Tom.’ Her fingers shake as she picks up her phone to dial 999. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be OK. You’ll be OK.’

If she says it enough times she might believe it.

Her call is answered instantly and her voice wavers as she asks for the ambulance service. Saying the words out loud makes this shockingly real. Tom’s eyes are pure terror and she reaches down to stroke his dark hair. It’s baby soft. It’s been so long since she has touched it.

A male operator asks her the questions she has only ever heard on TV. What has happened. Who. When. Where. She controls the shake in her voice as she answers, and he tells her that an ambulance will be with them very soon. She finds herself wondering who the operator is. What he looks like. Whether he can tell her what the future holds.

Maybe it’s better not to know. She hangs up and stands frozen for a moment, until she hears Tom mumbling a word that could be her name. She folds herself onto the floor and cradles his head in her lap, blocking out the future and trying to give him whatever comfort she can. She takes his right hand in hers and he clutches her fingers and they wait together for whatever comes next.

His hand feels cold. Heavy. Like responsibility.

Two paramedics arrive minutes later – a man and a woman whose names she instantly forgets but whose faces she will remember for ever. She follows their green uniforms up the stairs and into the bedroom.

‘What’s wrong? What’s happened to him?’ Hannah is starting to shake and crosses her arms tight across her chest in a vain attempt at comfort.

The woman’s chestnut ponytail flicks behind her as she kneels down next to Tom. She barely looks old enough to buy alcohol but her unruffled concentration steadies Hannah as she takes Tom’s pulse. ‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll just examine him.’ She stares at his face. ‘Hello, Tom. How are you feeling?’

‘Sh. Sh. Shtuck.’

‘OK.’ The girl nods as if he is speaking normally. ‘I’m just going to do a couple of tests so we can start to make you more comfortable. Can you raise your arms please?’

Hannah holds her breath. Come on, Tom.

His right arm rises but his left remains at his side.

Hannah wills it to move.

Nothing.

Hannah turns to the man as panic starts to rise. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

He looks at her with unwelcome news in his eyes. ‘Tom’s face is drooping. Together with the speech and movement issues, it looks likely that he’s had a stroke. We’ll need to do further tests to confirm.’

‘A stroke? Oh God.’ She tries to force away tear-stained memories of her childhood babysitter dribbling in a hospital ward.

‘We’ll get Tom to hospital as quickly as possible.’ The man’s voice is steady. Designed to reassure.

‘OK.’ She is struggling to focus. Her mind is shouting STROKE and her breath is coming in gasps. She digs her nails into her palms to keep the tears at bay. ‘Can I come with him?’

‘Of course.’ He drops his eyes tactfully to the floor. ‘You might want to get dressed first though.’

She looks down at her minimal pink T-shirt. Yes. Getting dressed is a good idea. She pulls the first clothes she finds from her wardrobe and goes into the bathroom to change.

She is still fumbling with her jeans as she walks out to see that Tom is in a portable chair and the paramedics are carrying him down the stairs. His short hair is drenched in sweat. His eyes are blank and his waxen face lolls to the right, cruelly contrasting with the energy and joy of the man in the wedding photos on the walls, punctuating his descent. Tears prick her eyes at the shock of seeing him so helpless. So mortal.

She must help him. However she can. She throws her coat on and pulls her bag from its peg in the hall before running out of the door. As she pulls it shut she catches a glimpse of someone reflected in the dark glass of the living room window. The flashing blue lights of the ambulance illuminate the curly hair exploding from her head. Her white face. Her terrified eyes.

It takes her a second to realise that the woman is her.

The ambulance screeches through south London streets and ten minutes later they are outside the hospital. It is clear that every second counts.

Tom is in danger.

Tom might die.

She can’t think about that. As the door opens Hannah steps down onto the tarmac, bracing herself against the whip of the January wind. The paramedics swiftly wheel Tom’s stretcher towards the red ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY sign that glows ominously through the darkness. Hannah reaches out and takes Tom’s hand as they pass a skeletal man standing by a large NO SMOKING sign. He is puffing defiantly on a cigarette and gives her a wink as she strides past. The gesture is so inappropriate she is tempted to slap him in the face.

No time.

The paramedics push Tom into the hospital and a tall man with stubble as dark as his eye bags strides towards them. He is tucking his tie into his shirt and Hannah sees the exhaustion beneath his smile.

‘Hi, I’m Dr Malik, the stroke consultant on call. You’re …?’

‘Hannah.’ He is already talking to the paramedics as they push Tom along the corridor. Words volley back and forth. Cerebral artery. Possible haemorrhage. Each one only serves to make her more afraid.

Tom is the silent eye of the storm. She squeezes his fingers but he doesn’t even react to that any more. His eyes are now closed and she can see him shutting down right in front of her. She won’t let him. She summons the strength she knows he needs and leans closer until her mouth is near his ear.

‘Hang in there, soldier.’ It’s an endearment from old times and his lids flicker open in response. For a second their eyes connect and she feels hope surge. Then his lids close.

‘Tom?’

Nothing.

‘Tom?’

No. She won’t let this happen. She turns to the paramedics, but they are already pushing Tom through a set of cream double doors labelled RESUSCITATION ROOM. She is about to follow but Dr Malik stops her. As the doors close she has a brief glimpse of bright lights and smells the metallic tang of blood. Bile rises in her throat and she takes a deep breath as Dr Malik steps towards her.

‘We’re going to take your husband for more tests. Then I’ll be able to come back and tell you more.’ He indicates some grey plastic chairs. ‘Wait here please. You can call someone if you need to.’

‘I …’ But he’s gone.

She is alone.

It’s terrifying.

She sits down and discovers that the chair has been ergonomically designed to give her a slipped disc. She springs back up and stares at the flaking wall in front of her. The colour resembles Tom’s face the morning after a bad kebab.

She thinks of him lying there. Powerless.

She clenches her fists.

Come on, Tom.

‘All right, darling?’

She spins round as the smoker from outside lands heavily across two chairs. He leans towards her and she is enveloped in an unappetising cloud of stale spirits.

‘No. I’m not all right.’ She steps away from him. Suddenly being alone doesn’t seem so bad.

He coughs and phlegm crackles in his chest. ‘Is that your husband in there?’ He indicates the cream doors with his head and leans back, spreading his legs wide. Hannah averts her eyes from the unfortunate hole in his jeans.

‘Yes.’ Her voice is high and strained.

‘Been married long?’

She looks towards the double doors, desperate to know what’s happening behind them. ‘Five and a half years.’

He nods. ‘Never made it that far, myself.’

Hannah can’t say she’s surprised.

Hannah jumps as Dr Malik pushes through the doors. His face is stamped with a gravity she doesn’t want to understand.

‘Come through, Hannah. We’re ready for you now.’

‘Good luck.’ Her companion gives her a thumbs up. ‘He’ll be fine.’

‘I hope so.’

Talk about clutching at straws.

She takes a deep breath and follows Dr Malik into the resuscitation room.

He was drinking a malted milkshake when he met her. Hannah. She was a waitress in a fantastically short skirt, her black curls pulled back unwillingly beneath a pink baseball cap. All he wanted to do was reach out and set them free.

She was so animated. So full of giggles and chatter. So out of his league.

Looking around, he thought most of the men in the diner were in love with her – including those who were the other way inclined. He was just the quiet student in the corner. Whenever she served him he found himself hiding behind his law books, any confidence dissolving into sweaty mumbles and a terrible urge to pun.

But he bided his time and drank so many overpriced milkshakes he had to work extra hours at the pub. And make a new notch in his belt. And then one day his patience was rewarded. He was arriving at the diner when she came out for a fag break. He said hello and held out his Union Jack lighter. A chance to impress her. To connect. At last.

The lighter didn’t spark.

He tried again. Nothing. He could feel panic rising. Then she put her tiny hand over his to steady it and the flame burst into life. And she looked at him. Really looked at him. Wide brown eyes examining his face. Red lips curving into a smile. She was so close he couldn’t think straight. Marlboro Red scented the air. It was now or never.

His mouth was moving. Apparently it was forming words. ‘I’ve never fancied a girl in a baseball cap before.’

Not his finest hour. A pause yawned between them, long enough to age him by a decade. He dropped his eyes. Shit. He’d blown it. Then …

‘I’ve never fancied a guy who can’t light a cigarette before.’ Her tone was so deadpan that he looked up at her face again. Checking. He saw a glint of mischief in her brown eyes as she exhaled a predictably perfect plume of smoke. ‘I was wondering how many more visits it would take to get a conversation out of you.’ She smiled. ‘It’s been a long campaign, soldier.’

He dared to exhale. ‘Well, I wanted the moment to be right.’ A shrieking hen party strutted past them bent on some serious Soho mischief. He grinned. ‘You know – just the two of us.’ A pigeon flapped above them and he became aware of a warm wetness on his forehead. He touched it with his hand and groaned. ‘Obviously the pigeon shit wasn’t part of the plan.’

She started to giggle and then threw her head back in an uninhibited roar of laughter. And he looked at her and began to laugh with her and he promised himself that he was going to do everything he could to get this amazing girl. Everything.

As she walks through the resuscitation room, antiseptic claws at Hannah’s throat. She blinks as her eyes adjust to the neon lights and she sees Dr Malik turn to her, running a hand through increasingly disorderly hair.

‘Can you confirm when you first noticed the symptoms, Hannah?’

She searches for an answer, but all she can think about is Tom’s body on the floor. His eyes closing. His left arm glued to his side.

She shakes her head to try to force the images away. She must remember. She must help.

‘I don’t know. About an hour ago, I suppose.’

‘And do you have any idea when they started?’

‘No.’ She feels as if she is failing some kind of test. ‘I’m so sorry. He was sound asleep when I went to bed at two.’ Behind a pink curtain to her left she catches a glimpse of a man rasping into an oxygen mask as though every breath were his last.

‘And would you say he is generally fit and well?’

‘I guess so. He plays football. And runs. Sometimes. Or he used to, anyway.’ She feels a pulse of frustration. She should know more. Be able to say more. The truth is, in the last few weeks she has spent more time talking to her newsagent than to her husband.

‘Does Tom smoke?’

‘Yes. Well, not much.’ They walk past shelves stacked with tubes and needles. ‘More in the last few months.’

‘And has he had any recurring symptoms recently?’

She struggles to think. ‘Like what?’

‘Headaches? Clumsiness? Forgetfulness?’

She thinks back. ‘He gets a lot of headaches when he’s hungover.’

‘And how often is that?’

‘Pretty much every day recently.’

‘And you’re sure he’d been drinking? Before the headaches?’

‘Yes.’ She nods, though uncertainty jolts her. She never bothers to ask any more. ‘Why?’

Dr Malik doesn’t answer and she follows him to the end cubicle, where she sees a figure in a pink hospital gown on the bed. A tangle of wires is attached to his chest and a black monitor bleeps out his vital signs. A nurse in a dark blue uniform is lowering an oxygen mask over his face, talking to him quietly as she pulls the strap over his head.

Hannah is about to walk on when she sees that Dr Malik has stopped and is pulling up the metallic slats at the side of the patient’s bed.

She looks at him again. He has dark hair and a wedding ring.

It’s Tom.

She raises a hand to her mouth as a sob explodes from her throat. Tom isn’t human any more. He’s all wires and veins and limbs. This can’t be the same man who whooped her over the threshold. Who spent their engagement party concocting lurid purple ‘Hantinis’ in a cocktail shaker. Who drove through the night in an ageing Ford Escort to bring her a ‘first day of teaching’ hamper of cake, Stilton and Amaretto.

Suddenly she can only remember the good times.

‘Let’s go.’ Dr Malik starts to manoeuvre Tom’s bed into the corridor. A bearded porter takes over the steering so Dr Malik can focus on his patient. The nurse stays at Tom’s head as they push him through an assault course of abandoned trolleys, cardboard boxes and hulking metal cages stacked full of sheets.

Hannah jogs to keep up. ‘Where are we going?’

Dr Malik lifts Tom’s left arm up but it falls down. ‘We’re taking him up to the CT scanner to see what’s happening in his brain.’

Hannah’s stomach plunges. ‘What are you looking for?’

They enter the lift. The heavy grey doors close and it starts to judder upwards at an infuriatingly slow speed.

Dr Malik checks Tom’s pulse and then raises his eyes to Hannah’s face. ‘Strokes happen when the blood supply to the brain is cut off, either by a blockage in an artery or a bleed in the brain. Do you see?’

Hannah swallows. ‘I think so.’

‘Good.’ He nods. ‘The CT scan will show us which one – if either – has happened to Tom.’

Hannah is twisting the strap of her handbag so hard it is cutting into her palm.

Dr Malik is looking at Tom again. ‘Once we can see what’s happening we’ll know how to treat him.’

‘OK.’ Hannah stares at Tom as the lift finally deigns to reach the correct floor. His stillness terrifies her. She thinks back to their last argument – the energy of his anger as he paced around her pointing out her long list of flaws. Naïve. Selfish. The same old list. Looking at him lying inert on the stretcher, she finds herself wishing he was shouting at her now. Wishing that he could.

Dr Malik helps to steer the trolley out. They turn yet another corner and enter the radiology department. The reception area is dark and uninviting.

Dr Malik keeps moving. ‘Please wait here, Hannah.’

‘No.’ Her hands ball into fists. ‘I want to be with him.’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. You can’t come through.’

‘Please?’

‘The radiation levels are too high. You’ll have to wait outside, I’m afraid.’ He drums his fingers impatiently on Tom’s chart. ‘We have to take him in now – every second is vital.’

‘OK.’ Her shoulders slump as Tom is wheeled away and she is left alone again.

It’s eerie out here. She walks towards the water dispenser but there are no plastic cups. Her stomach rumbles. She checks the time on her phone. Five thirty.

She hears the scanner being switched on as she scrabbles through her bag in search of something to eat. She eventually unearths an old jumbo pack of Maltesers and pulls it open. The chocolates have been squashed out of shape but the sugar comforts her and she pops another into her mouth. Then another. Then one more. Suddenly she’s cramming them in, trying to block out the sense that her world is about to shatter. Nine. Ten. Eleven. She closes her eyes and her world reduces to chocolate and the crunch of honeycomb between her teeth.

Soon she hears footsteps and Dr Malik approaches and sits down next to her.

‘Hannah.’

‘Yes?’

‘The scan has confirmed that Tom has had a stroke.’

She can’t accept it. ‘But he’s only thirty-two.’

Dr Malik shakes his head. ‘I’m afraid that doesn’t make any difference. The blood flow is blocked to the part of his brain that controls his left side, and we can see a small area of damage on the scan.’

‘Oh God.’ Hannah’s hands are clasped together so tightly she can’t feel her fingers any more.

Dr Malik continues. ‘We don’t know what time symptoms started, so the best treatment we have is to admit him to the stroke unit and monitor him carefully. We’ll be taking him up in a minute.’

He gives her a taut smile before turning and striding off. Hannah sits staring at the floor, the final Malteser melting slowly in her palm. She closes her eyes and tries to remember how to pray.

When they wheel Tom out of the scanning room Hannah leaps up and takes his hand again. It’s ice cold.

The lift reluctantly transports them upwards, and on arrival Tom is pushed towards yet another set of double doors. Hannah looks up and sees that they are entering the stroke unit.

Dr Malik is back. ‘We’re going to look after Tom in here for now.’ He gestures to the darkened ward behind him. ‘We’ll monitor him intensively and the nurses will make sure he’s stable.’ The ward is full of breath and night-time rustling. He gestures to a nurse behind the reception desk. She comes out and helps to push Tom into the bay on their left.

Dr Malik leans towards Hannah, speaking in a low voice.

‘We’re just going to set Tom up in a bed and get him settled. Please can you wait here?’ He gestures towards a door labelled QUIET ROOM. ‘We won’t be long.’

‘Why?’ Hannah feels a pulse of anger. ‘I should be with him.’

‘We just need a few minutes. Then you can come through.’

Once again Tom is surrounded by people while Hannah is left by herself. She walks to the window and looks down at a forbidding floodlit sculpture in the courtyard below. She thinks of all the calls she needs to make and the bad news she has to break and feels like banging her head against one of its twisted metal spikes.

She can barely acknowledge what’s happening herself. She has no idea how to tell other people.

She sits back down and pulls her phone out of her bag. She takes a deep breath and dials Julie’s number. As the phone rings she imagines Tom’s sister disentangling herself from whichever man she is dating this week. Not that she expects an answer – Julie has a strong track record of committed un. . .