Split Second

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Andrew

The time until the trial, set for October, stretched out like a barren plain, a place of thin air and stunted grass and dust storms.

Andrew felt as if he and Val were shrivelling up, desiccated, living through a drought. As the time crept on, there were hazards to overcome, earthquakes splitting the ground beneath them, cracking the surface and threatening to suck them into the dark anew. Andrew’s birthday, Mother’s Day, Jason’s birthday in May. Taurus.

‘I’m a bull, Dad, what are you?’ Crunching his toast, jam on his cheek.

‘A fish.’

‘And Mum?’

‘A ram.’

‘Hah! I’m the strongest. I don’t think they should have bullfighting. It’s mean.’

‘It is.’

‘Why are they called star signs?’

‘Because the whole idea is based on the stars. In the ancient world people thought the stars affected everything that happened on the earth. I’ve a map somewhere, a chart.’

‘Get it!’ Jason eyes alight as he puts the last bit of crust in his mouth and clacks his sticky fingers together.

‘Wash your hands, then.’

Val was on sick leave. She’d made it through until the end of February, then had in effect been sent home from work. She couldn’t function properly, she couldn’t concentrate, she was depressed. She started taking antidepressants. He tried to help, to pamper her, to keep her company, but often as not she gave him that blank look that chilled him to the core.

Jason’s birthday loomed, growing closer, denser, darker, a storm on the horizon. Nineteen, Andrew thought. But he wasn’t, wouldn’t ever be. Andrew asked Val what she wanted to do, how they should mark it.

She closed her eyes, shook her head. He couldn’t do this on his own; he felt drained. He expected they would spend time at the grave, but what else? She kept the shrine going. Simplified now, as the original candles had melted, the flowers and cards ruined by the weather. He wondered if this was healthy, but was happy to go along with it.

One bleak, stifling Sunday, he tackled her, head on. ‘Val, we need to talk to someone, get some help.’

‘No.’

‘Why not? We can’t go on like this. You’re so unhappy, not communicating. We never talk, we never make love, we barely exist.’

She covered her eyes. He reined in his temper, lowered his voice. ‘I don’t know how to reach you any more. I don’t know what you want from me.’ He felt cold and tense inside.

She said nothing. He looked up to the ceiling, to the lampshade they had chosen, the paper they’d hung together. ‘I need you,’ he said. ‘I love you, Val, I don’t want to lose you too. But I don’t know how to make things right.’

‘You can’t. You can’t make it right.’

‘I can’t bring Jason back.’ His voice shook, he cleared his throat. ‘But you and me, our marriage, we need to work things out.’

She shook her head.

‘You’re depressed, I know that, but talking to someone, someone who’s experienced, the bereavement service, we could do it together. Or separately if you want.’

She sat there, dull, uninterested. ‘No.’

‘You won’t even try?’ He felt the ground rumble and shift. The future ripple and disintegrate. He heard the release of her breath. ‘Do you even want to be with me?’ he asked her.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

And his heart broke.

Emma

Emma knew she had to say something to Laura soon. She had intended to pull out of the holiday before they even booked it. Had sat there, her guts in turmoil, as they voted on which destination to try for. Meekly giving her passport details to Laura, who was going to scour the internet for deals that very evening. She promised herself she would ring Laura after work and explain. But then she hadn’t been able to. She stalled each time she picked up the phone, shame stealing over her skin. It was impossible to do it, to tell Laura, to say the words, because she’d have to explain why, and how could she tell anyone such disgusting things?

And the next morning Laura was so excited: she had found a brilliant full-board deal in Corfu, mid-May, with daytime flights. Less than three hundred pounds each. Emma had paid her deposit.

The balance was due six weeks before leaving and the date crept closer. At night, Emma lay awake and wondered about ways round it. But any excuses she came up with, she always found a way that it might unravel on her and end up costing her the friendship. If she said her passport had expired, Laura would insist she go get one Priority Service. Or if she said there was a family wedding or her mum was having surgery, so many other lies would have to be told.

Then they had a night out. Little Kim’s boyfriend was playing drums in a band and they were on at The Academy. Emma liked the music, it was a mix of folk and pop with lots of fast tunes that some of the crowd jigged about to. There were no seats, everyone had to stand. The venue looked a bit run-down really, a big barn of a place. Blonde Kim and Laura had both smuggled bottles of vodka in and shared them out, so they just bought soft drinks at the bar to mix.

Emma felt giddy and a bit sick by the time the band had finished, and agreed to go on to a bar in town with everyone. The band came, and friends of theirs, and Emma enjoyed being in the middle of the group and no one bothering about her but just accepting she was one of them.

The man who did the sound desk for the band, Simon, ended up sitting next to Emma. He chatted away to her about the band and then about cycling; he was in a cycling club and did races and things. He asked her if she’d ever been to the velodrome, and if she had a bike, but she said no. She thought he’d stop talking to her then but he didn’t. He had nice brown eyes. He bought her a drink, carried on chatting. He had a gap in his top teeth. A nice gap.

When Emma went to the loo Laura was there, redoing her eyeliner.

‘You’re in there, Emma,’ said Laura. ‘You fancy him?’

‘Jesus!’ Emma coughed, giggled. ‘Dunno.’ He didn’t fancy her, did he? No one ever did. Why would they?

‘Take him back to yours and try ’im out.’

‘Laura!’

‘Well give him a kiss, drop your handkerchief or something. I’m on my tod out there, but you’re in with a chance.’ Laura was single, had been since the previous summer.

‘Do you like him?’ Emma said. ‘We can swap places.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Laura said. ‘It’s you he’s interested in.’

‘How do you know?’

Laura sighed. ‘Because it’s you he’s talking to, you muppet. Go on, before he forgets what you look like.’

I can’t, thought Emma. Even if I like him, I could never… If I let him kiss me, let him take me out, I could never let him touch me, not properly. Because then he’d know…

‘I can’t go on holiday, Laura,’ Emma blurted out, ‘I just can’t.’

‘What?’ Laura looked puzzled. ‘Why not?’

‘I just can’t.’

‘Why? We’ve paid the deposit now and everything.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’ Emma made to leave, her heart tripping, but Laura caught at her wrist, swung her back. ‘Hang on, don’t go all weird on me. Is it the money?’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

Emma tried not to cry, but she felt the tears sliding down her face.

‘You’re not going till you’ve told me,’ Laura said. She wasn’t nasty but she was determined to have an explanation.

‘I can’t.’

‘Emma! I’m not doing bleeding twenty questions.’

The truth clogged in her throat. Laura kept watching her. ‘I cut myself,’ Emma said quietly, ‘on purpose.’

‘Okay,’ Laura said slowly.

Emma stared at her, stunned. ‘With a razor blade,’ she said, in case Laura hadn’t actually grasped what she was saying.

‘What’s that got to do with the holiday?’

Emma clutched at her head. ‘The scars on my legs.’ She waved a hand towards her thighs. ‘I can’t wear a swimsuit.’

Laura smiled, gave a little snort. ‘That’s why?’

Emma nodded.

‘Come here,’ Laura said. She hugged Emma. ‘You dozy cow.’ She stood back. ‘Just get a playsuit; you can get quite long ones, like bermudas. Or cycle shorts. No one’ll know.’ She looked at Emma. ‘How long have you been doing it?’

‘Three years.’ Emma thought about pinching herself. Laura hadn’t pushed her away or shrieked with disgust. ‘I’m bulimic as well.’

‘Thought you might be.’

‘Why?’ Emma stared.

‘Couple of things,’ Laura said. ‘My auntie had it.’

Emma felt dizzy. ‘Did she?’

‘She’s all right now. Still frets a bit about her weight, but she’s not chucking up all the time.’

‘And self-harm?’

‘Nah. She never did that. Why do you do it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Emma blew her nose, laughed awkwardly. ‘It helps.’

‘Helps what?’

Emma couldn’t say. The thing too big, too complicated, a shifting shape. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe you should find out,’ Laura said gently.

‘Don’t tell them?’ Emma begged.

‘Course not.’ Laura smiled. ‘You’d better fix your face, you look like a Goth.’

Emma glanced in the mirror; her mascara had run.

‘So the holiday’s on, yeah? We’ll work something out.’

Emma nodded. She felt peculiar. Like there was a bubble billowing in her chest, big and light. She cleaned her face and put on fresh make-up. She checked her purse and worked out she still had enough money to buy Simon a drink if he hadn’t gone yet. Just a drink. She wouldn’t lead him on, but it was nice to talk to him. She could tell him about the holiday, see where he had travelled.

Louise

There had been a visit from DC Illingworth in the week after the arrests to go over the details of the prosecution. Conrad Quinn was pleading guilty to wounding Luke and had agreed to testify against the others. They would face charges of murder and attempted murder. The detective stressed that although Quinn’s evidence would be a great help to the prosecution, it did not automatically mean that the others would be found guilty.

Louise thought of the faces in the paper, the smudged images from the CCTV. ‘What about the bus driver?’ she asked. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘He’s off sick,’ the officer said, ‘with stress.’ Louise stared at her, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Luke was moved to a high-dependency unit in Fallowfield at the beginning of March. It was closer to Louise’s than the hospital had been, and easier to park.

It was a twilight world, she thought, with several other patients in various states of limited capability. People suspended between life and death, lives riven by sudden, wrenching tragedy. She had no complaints about the staff, and the place didn’t smell, which was always a good sign.

She had further meetings with Dr Liu in the process of sorting out the referral and transfer. Louise shut her ears, her mind, to any talk of decisions about life support. Luke continued to be fed via a tube in his stomach.

Louise borrowed Deanne’s laptop while the kids were visiting their dad (Ruby had taken her machine to drama college) and began to do more research into the condition. Some of the information she came upon was unpalatable, and she avoided the medical sites where the talk was of studies and statistics and averages. Their savage facts made her stomach churn, threatened to snare her in a place of cold despair. Instead she sought out the personal stories of people who had ‘woken up’ against all the odds. The young mother hurt in a car crash who had regained consciousness after four months, the man in the US who’d woken after five years with a single dose of a drug, the child who had come round minutes before her feeding tube was withdrawn. Louise held fast to hope because it was all she had and it was all that sustained her. She didn’t believe in God or prayer or even miracles, though she knew what she was hoping for would be classed as a miracle. She would not give up, she would never give up.

‘What about Luke?’ Dr Liu had asked at the last meeting. ‘What would he want? Would he choose to live like this for the rest of his life?’

Louise thought of him: restless, always moving, climbing, running. Ducking and diving through his short life. Turning cartwheels, handstands in the park. Squealing with delight as Eddie chased him or tickled his tummy. ‘I can’t answer that,’ she said.

‘When you can, you will know what to do,’ the doctor replied. Implying that Louise was selfish. But she was doing this for Luke; he needed more time, more of a chance.

She could not contemplate it. Would not talk about it, even with her closest friends. Deanne asked her one day how long Luke could go on at the nursing home.

‘Indefinitely,’ Louise said.

Deanne’s eyes had clouded and she’d asked, ‘Till he’s old?’ And Louise had heard the revulsion and pity in her voice and said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

She dreamt about it often, dreams where he was hurt and crying and she had him in her arms, carrying him, running for help, her legs burning with cramp, heart slamming in her chest and the terror tearing inside, and then in the dream he would be fine. Just like that. He would be better and at home, just doing something mundane, sprawled on the sofa or sticking a bowl of beans in the microwave, and she’d feel relief like cool water flowing through her, waves of joy. Then she would wake up and the elation would shrivel to fresh disappointment.

She read some of the miracle stories with a pang of unease as the tales of a brother or mother opening their eyes or moving a finger unrolled to describe years of infinitesimally small progress. Even where recovery had been substantial and astonishing, relatives spoke of adjusting to altered personalities, and having to accept that their loved ones would never be the same again. They had gone. There was grief to be borne along with gratitude. So many prospects she shied away from; even as she stubbornly willed his recovery, she would admit no realistic picture of what that might mean: Luke paraplegic and incontinent, drooling; or dumb with depression; or dull and thick with lethargy. I just want him back, was the drumbeat of her hope, my Luke, the same.

The staff at the home told her about support groups she could join, and she smiled and thanked them and said she’d think about it: a tactic she had learnt over the years from some of her clients. Resist and people become persistent, evangelical; promise to consider a change, a new venture, and they’ll let you be.

People still asked after him: Angie and Sian, Omar, her friends, people she barely knew as well, when she ran into them at the supermarket. And sometimes they asked about the court case, in a hopeful sort of way, as though that would somehow make things better.

You’d see that on the television, the victims’ families talking about justice and how it would allow them to move on. Of course she wanted the people who had hurt Luke to be punished – she remembered arguing with Andrew Barnes, and the depth of her rage that he might mess up the police inquiry – but still she didn’t see how that would change anything for her. It was an ordeal to be got through and on the other side things would continue as they were. For her. For Luke. In limbo.