Dead To Me

34

‘MUM?’

‘Sammy?’ Expecting him to ask about a sleepover or money to go to the cinema.

‘I’m at hospital.’

‘What?’ Gill’s heart bucked in her chest. ‘Why?’

‘I’m OK – broke my wrist.’

‘How? What happened?’

‘Argument with a car.’

Her blood ran cold. I should have been there. ‘Which hospital?’

‘The General, A and E.’

‘Right, stay there. I’m on my way.’

Gill asked Andy to step up. Hopefully she’d be back in the saddle soon enough.

‘Anything I can do?’ Janet asked when Gill gave her the news on her way out.

‘No, ta.’

Her mind was spinning fantasies as she drove: what if he had internal injuries too? They didn’t always present themselves immediately. What car? Some pillock taking the lane too fast, fifty-five in a thirty-mile zone? Had they even stopped? Which hand? If it was his right hand, how would he cope at college? Hit and run? Had anyone else been hurt? Oh, God. He’d have said, wouldn’t he? Would he?

The car park was chock-a-block, so she pulled in near the ambulance bay. Where had he been when it happened? He must have already had an X-ray if he knew it was broken. Why hadn’t he called her earlier?

She spotted him straight away, on the chairs in the waiting area, talking to another patient or relative, an older bloke.

‘Sammy, you OK?’

‘Hi, Mum, it’s cool.’ He looked relieved she was there. One wrist, the left, was in a basic sling, but not cast or bandaged. His fingers were cut and grazed and she saw the denim on both his knees was torn, with traces of blood and dirt there. She sat beside him, touched his right shoulder gently. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded.

‘They should give you something,’ she said. Leaving him to suffer!

‘Said they will, after I’ve had the bandage on, then I’ve to come back to the fracture clinic in a few days for the plaster.’

Gill shook her head. ‘Did the car stop? Where were you?’

‘This is Matthew,’ he said, indicating a man on the other side of him.

What did she care?

‘It was his car,’ Sammy said.

‘Really?’ She’d break Matthew’s wrists, both of them, then his ankles.

‘He brought me here.’

‘Oh, how kind,’ she sneered.

‘Mum,’ Sammy said.

‘Runs you over but at least he stops, eh?’

‘Your son was skateboarding, in the dark,’ Matthew said crisply. ‘I didn’t see him until I was on top of him. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.’ He was blazing, but containing it – just. A craggy face, greying hair. Well spoken.

Gill was mortified. She turned to Sammy. ‘I have told you-’

‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘I didn’t realize it was so dark. It wasn’t when I started.’

‘What were you doing on the fucking road,’ she hissed. Aware of heads turning, of voyeurism rippling around them.

‘It’s the best surface,’ he said.

‘We’ve a whole driveway, Sammy.’

‘It’s not as smooth.’

She glared at him and he shut up.

‘I do apologize,’ Gill said to Matthew.

He gave a stiff nod. ‘It’s the distal radius, simple fracture, I’d say. I’m a GP,’ he added.

‘It must have been an awful shock,’ Gill said.

‘Yes,’ he admitted, relaxing a little now as he realized she did understand the situation.

‘You-’ Gill shook her head at Sammy, lost for words. She could imagine what Chief Super Arsehole Dave would make of it: Sammy running wild, getting in harm’s way, no supervision while Gill was at work. He’s sixteen, she said to herself. He could marry, join the army, live independently… so why hasn’t he got the sense not to go skateboarding on the road in the bleeding dark? When she thought of what might have happened, her stomach turned over. She felt a rush of love and exasperation in equal measure. She didn’t know whether to kiss him or kick him. Did neither.

Dave had left her to it, to all intents and purposes, but never missed a chance to criticize her. She had called his bluff a few months ago, during the school holidays. She’d done her utmost to pull together a hotchpotch of activities, trips, and visits so Sammy wouldn’t be left to his own devices too often. Even so, there were days when she had no choice but to leave him home alone. And she trusted him to be OK, but Dave got to hear of it and took her to task. Rang her up and started flinging accusations at her.

‘You do it then,’ she had said.

‘What?’

‘You have him. Stick him in with what’s-its-face – bunk beds or whatever. Sammy would love that.’ Not.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Dave snapped.

‘What’s ridiculous? If you don’t like how I’m coping with him, then pull your bloody finger out for once. He can live with you, come here the odd weekend. You see how easy it is.’

‘Gill-’

‘No, you don’t want that, do you? You just want to stand on the sidelines, taking cheap shots. Well, you can go to hell.’

‘Your car?’ Gill said to Matthew now.

‘Bodywork, headlight.’

‘BMW,’ Sammy said.

Shit. ‘Send me the bill,’ Gill said, ‘please. Here’ – she got out one of her cards – ‘the email will reach me, or…’ She scribbled her address on the back.

He took it. ‘I’m just down the road. The barn conversion.’

‘That’s you? How’s it going?’

‘Slowly. Camping out, but it’ll be fabulous when it’s finished.’

‘Nice views.’

‘Sammy Murray,’ a nurse called out. They all got up.

‘Thanks,’ Gill said to Matthew. ‘And I am sorry.’

‘Just glad it’s only a broken wrist.’ He smiled and nodded farewell.

It might only have been a broken wrist, but it made everything – eating, dressing, going to the toilet – a major operation. Sammy had a dicky fit when Gill offered to help him get changed. ‘I’ve seen it all before,’ she argued.

‘No way!’ His face red.

She told him to put something loose-fitting on, trackie bottoms or pyjamas, no zips or buttons.

‘What about college?’ he said.

‘Soon as you can manage it, you’re going in. You can’t afford to miss stuff now. I’m going to burn that bloody skateboard.’

‘Mum!’

‘Then you get lights and a helmet and pads, the works.’

‘I won’t go on the road again.’

‘Too right. Ever. Sworn in blood. Skate park or the drive, that’s it.’

Janet rang and Gill filled her in. ‘Never a dull moment, eh?’ Janet said.

‘Know what I’ve got him for Christmas?’

‘Go on.’

‘Sodding snowboarding session.’

Janet laughed, ‘Can you get a refund?’

‘Serve him right if I didn’t. Good job it was a doctor. He gave him a lift to the hospital.’

Janet sucked in a breath, ‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ she said, mock worried, ‘getting into a stranger’s car.’

‘Shut up!’ said Gill.

‘You sure you don’t want us in tomorrow?’ said Janet.

‘You hoping for some overtime, bit of spends for Santa?’

‘No – I can get my ironing done.’

‘I’d rather save the budget for when we really need it,’ Gill said. ‘There’s nothing we have to do at this stage where time is of the essence.’

‘OK, see you Monday.’

The whole business had obviously worn Sammy out and he was in bed by ten. Gill tidied up and poured herself a generous glass of wine and then rang Dave.

It was late, which was no bad thing; mess up the whore’s beauty sleep or wake the brat. It was Pendlebury answered. Dave was out. Oh, you poor cow, Gill thought, resisting the temptation to ask where, see what lies he’d spun her. ‘Just tell him Sammy’s broken his wrist, will you?’ Gill said matter-of-factly. ‘And Dave’ll need to help out next week.’

‘Oh,’ she said, disconcerted, and before she could frame a more comprehensive response, Gill said, ‘Bye.’

Gill did wonder about texting Dave, a little interruption to his shagfest, but couldn’t be arsed. She set their own phone to take messages, eager to banish Dave for tonight, and curled up on the sofa. You never knew what was round the corner, did you? Why was it so hard to remember that? Given that her job involved the sudden rupture in people’s lives, she shouldn’t have been surprised at the pitfalls and accidents in her own, but she was. Natural optimist. What was the alternative, some sort of premonition anxiety all the time? Walking along with one eye half-closed, shoulder raised, waiting for the blow to strike?

Who’d be a mother? Default position: guilt, responsibility. The first reaction when Sammy called, as if she was at fault, to blame, could have prevented it. Guilt was useless, Gill knew; certainly free-floating, groundless guilt was, and she didn’t dwell on it. Men – Dave, to be specific – it would never occur to him to feel guilty. He’d immediately be apportioning blame, not claiming any. She thought briefly of Denise Finn, losing first her son, then her daughter, to drugs, to violence. Herself a victim of her own mother’s inadequacy. A circle going on and on. Now they’d released Sean, who’d represented everything evil that had befallen Lisa. Denise would have no one to rail against, to blame.

Going up to bed, Gill heard a fox barking, the noise high and raw, like a scream. She looked out of her bedroom window, left the lamp off, but still couldn’t spot the animal. Over the way, she could make out a light in the velux of the barn. Matthew’s house. Thank God it was him Sammy tangled with and not some nutjob boy-racer or a little old lady who’d have had a heart attack. Close escape.

She was asleep in minutes, dreaming of tobogganing and chasing foxes in the snow.