What Came Before He Shot Her

Carole’s face clouded. On it flickered an expression so like Toby’s when he was gone from them that both Kendra and Joel drew an unsteady breath. Carole said, “Then I want to go home. Joel, I want you to speak to your father. You must do it straightaway. He’ll listen to you and you must tell him—”

“Gavin’s dead, Carole,” Kendra told her sister-in-law. “You understand that, don’t you? He’s been dead four years.”

“Ask him may I come home, Joel. It won’t happen again. I understand things now. I didn’t then. There was just too much. . . up here. . . Too much. . . Too much. . . Too much...” She had taken the magazine and was tapping it against her forehead. Once, twice. And then harder each time she said “Too much.”

Joel looked to Kendra for some kind of rescue, but Kendra was out too far beyond her depth. The only rescue she could come up with was getting clear of this place as soon as possible before irreparable damage was done. Not that irreparable damage hadn’t already been done. But she suddenly wanted no more of it, no further visitation on either her or the children from fate, karma, predestination, or whatever else you wanted to call it.

Although he couldn’t have expressed it in words, Joel understood from his aunt’s expression, her posture, and her silence that he would have to go this visit with his mother alone. There wasn’t a single nurse or orderly in the room to come to their aid, and even if there had been, Carole wasn’t harming herself. And it had been made clear from the very first time she’d ended up in this place that unless a patient meant to do harm to her body, there was no one to save her from the worst of herself.

He sought a distraction. “Toby’s birthday’s comin, Mum. He’ll be eight years old. I haven’t worked out what to get him yet cos I don’t have much money, but I got a little. Summick like eight quid dat I been saving. I ’as thinkin maybe Gran would send money, an’ I’d be able to—”

His mother grabbed his arm. “Speak to your father,” she hissed.

“Swear you’ll speak to your father. I’m meant to come home. Do you understand me?” She pulled Joel closer to her and he caught her smell: unwashed woman and unwashed hair. He tried very hard not to jerk away.

Toby, on the other hand, felt no such compunction. He backed away from Joel and into his aunt, saying, “C’n we go home? Joel, can we go?”

Carole seemed to rouse from some waking sleep at this. Suddenly she noticed Toby cowering and Kendra standing above him. She said in a voice growing ever louder, “Who’s this? Who are these people, Joel?

Who’ve you brought with you? Where’s Nessa, then? Where’s Ness?

What’ve you done with Ness?”

Joel said, “Ness wouldn’t . . . she couldn’t . . . Mum, this here’s Toby and Aunt Kendra. You know them. Course Toby’s gettin big now. Near eight years old. But Aunt Ken—”

“Toby?” Carole Campbell went inward as she said the name, attempting to sort through the train wreck of her memories to find the relevant one. She rocked back on her heels and considered the little boy before her, then Kendra, trying to make sense of who these people were and, more important, trying to understand what they wanted of her. “Toby,” she murmured. “Toby. Toby.” Suddenly her face filled with light as she managed to attach Toby to an image in her mind. For his part, Joel felt an answering relief and Kendra felt the passing of a potential crisis.

But then, as if on the edge of a coin, Carole’s comprehension slipped, and her expression crumpled. She looked directly at Toby and put her hands up—palms outward—as if she would fend him off in some way. “Toby!” she cried out, his name no longer a name to her but an accusation.

“Tha’s right, Mum,” Joel said. “This’s Toby. Tha’s who this is, innit.”

“I should have dropped you,” Carole cried in reply. “When I heard the train. I should have dropped you but someone stopped me. Who? Who stopped me from dropping you?”

“No, Mum, you can’t—”

She clutched her head, fingers deep in her ginger hair. “I must go home now. Sraightaway, Joel. Ring your father and tell him I must come home and God, God, God, why can’t I remember anything anymore?”