After You (30 page)

‘Lily!’

‘It’s all right. She laughed when I told her that.’ She smiled to herself. ‘It was the kind of thing Dad would have said.’

‘Well,’ I muttered, when I’d caught my breath, ‘sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’

She shot me a look. ‘Don’t say it like that.’

‘Sorry. It’s just … I’ll miss you.’

She beamed, an abrupt, brilliant smile. ‘You won’t miss me, silly, because I’ll still be back down in the holidays and stuff. I can’t spend all my time in Oxfordshire with old people or I’ll go mad. But it’s good. She just … she feels like my family. It doesn’t feel weird. I thought it would, but it doesn’t. Hey, Lou …’ She hugged me, exuberantly. ‘You’ll still be my
friend. You’re basically the sister I never had.’

I hugged her back and tried to keep the smile on my face.

‘Anyway. You need your privacy.’ She disentangled herself and pulled a piece of gum from her mouth, folding it carefully into a torn piece of paper. ‘Having to listen to you and Hot Ambulance Man shagging across the corridor was actually pretty gross.’

Lily is going.

Going where?

To live with her grandmother. I feel strange. She’s so happy about it. Sorry. I don’t mean to talk about Will-related things all the time, but I can’t really talk to anyone else.

Lily packed her bag, cheerfully stripping my second bedroom of nearly every sign she had ever been there, apart from the Kandinsky print and the camp bed, a pile of glossy magazines and an empty deodorant canister. I dropped her at the station, listening to her non-stop chatter and trying not to look as unbalanced as I felt. Camilla Traynor would be waiting at the other end.

‘You should come up. We’ve got my room really nice. There’s a horse next door that the farmer across the way says I can ride. Oh, and there’s quite a nice pub.’

She glanced up at the departures board, and bounced on her toes, suddenly seeing the time. ‘Bugger. My train. Right. Where’s platform eleven?’ She began to run briskly through the crowd, her holdall slung over her shoulder, her legs long in black tights. I stood, frozen, watching her go. Her stride had grown longer.

Suddenly she turned and, spotting me by the entrance, waved, her smile wide, her hair flying up around her face. ‘Hey, Lou!’ she yelled. ‘I meant to say to you. Moving on doesn’t
mean you loved my dad any less, you know. I’m pretty sure even he would tell you that.’

And then she was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

Her smile was like his.

She was never yours, Lou.

I know. It’s I suppose she was the thing I felt was giving me a purpose.

Only one person can give you a purpose.

I let myself absorb these words for a minute.

Can we meet? Please?

I’m on shift tonight.

Come to mine after?

Maybe later in the week. I’ll call you.

It was the ‘maybe’ that did it. There was something final in it, the slow closing of a door. I stared at my phone as the commuters swarmed around me and something in me shifted too. Either I could go home and mourn yet another thing I had lost, or I could embrace an unexpected freedom. It was as if a light had gone on: the only way to avoid being left behind was to start moving.

I went home, made myself a coffee and stared at the green wall. Then I pulled out my laptop.

Dear Mr Gopnik,

My name is Louisa Clark and last month you were kind enough to offer me a job, which I had to turn down. I appreciate that you will have filled your position by now, but if I don’t say this I will regret it for ever.

I really wanted your job. If the child of my former employer hadn’t turned up in trouble, I would have taken it like a shot. I do not want to blame her for my decision, as it was a privilege to help sort things
out for her. But I just wanted to say that if you ever need someone again I really hope you might consider getting in touch.

I know you are a busy man so I won’t go on, but I just needed you to know.

With best wishes

Louisa Clark

I wasn’t sure what I was doing but at least I was doing something. I pressed send, and with that tiny action, I was suddenly filled with purpose. I raced into the bathroom and ran the shower, stripping off my clothes and tripping on my trouser legs in my hurry to get out of them and under the hot water. I began to lather my hair, already planning ahead. I was going to go to the ambulance station, and I was going to find Sam and I was –

The doorbell rang. I swore and grabbed a towel.

‘I’ve had it,’ my mother said.

It took me a moment to register that it was actually her standing there, holding an overnight bag. I pulled my towel around me, my hair dripping onto the carpet. ‘Had what?’

She stepped in, closing the front door behind her. ‘Your father. Grumbling incessantly at me about everything I do. Acting as if I’m some kind of harlot just for wanting a little time to myself. So I told him I was coming here for a little break.’

‘A break?’

‘Louisa, you have no idea. All the mumping and grumping. I can’t stay set in stone, you know? Everyone else gets to change. Why can’t I?’

It was as if I’d come halfway into a conversation that had been going on for an hour. Possibly in a bar. After hours.

‘When I started that feminist consciousness course, I
thought a fair bit of it was exaggerated. Man’s patriarchal control of woman? Even the unconscious kind? Well, they only had the half of it. Your father simply can’t see me as a person beyond what I put on the table or put out in bed.’

‘Uh –’

‘Oh. Too much?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Let’s discuss it over some tea.’ My mother walked past me and into the kitchen. ‘Well, this looks a bit better. I’m still not sure about that green, though. It washes you right out. Now, where are your teabags?’

My mother sat on the sofa and, as her tea grew cold, I listened to her litany of frustration and tried not to think about the time. Sam would be arriving for his shift in half an hour. It would take twenty minutes to get over to the ambulance station. And then my mother’s voice would lift and her hands would end up somewhere around her ears and I knew I was going nowhere.

‘Do you know how stifling it is to be told you’re never going to be able to change? For the rest of your life? Because nobody else wants you to? Do you know how awful it is to feel stuck?’

I nodded vigorously. I did. I really did. ‘I’m sure Dad doesn’t mean for you to feel like that – but listen, I –’

‘I even suggested he take a course at the night school. Something he might like – you know, repairing antiques or life drawing or something. I don’t mind him looking at the nudies! I thought we could grow together! That’s the kind of wife I’m trying to be, the kind that doesn’t even mind her husband looking at nudies, if it’s in the name of culture … But he’s all “What would I want to go down there for?” It’s like he’s got the ruddy menopause. And as for the rabbiting on about me not shaving my legs! Oh, my days. He’s so hypocritical. Do
you know how long the hairs in his nostrils are, Louisa?’

‘N-no.’

‘I’ll tell you! He could wipe his plate with them. For the last fifteen years, I’ve been the one telling the barber to give him a trim up there, you know? Like he’s some kind of child. Do I mind? No! Because that’s the way he is. He’s a human being! Nose hair and all! But if I dare not to be as smooth as a ruddy baby’s bottom he acts like I’ve turned into flipping Chewbacca!’

It was ten minutes to six. Sam would be heading out at half past. I sighed, and pulled my towel around me.

‘So … um … how long do you think you’ll be here?’

‘Well, now, I don’t know.’ Mum took a sip of her tea. ‘We’ve got the social services bringing Granddad his lunch now so it’s not like I’ve got to be there all the time. I might just stay for a few days. We had a lovely time last time I was here, didn’t we? We could go and see Maria in the toilets tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be nice!’

‘Lovely.’

‘Right. Well, I’ll make up the spare bed. Where is the spare bed?’

We had just stood up when the buzzer went again. I opened the door, expecting a random pizza delivery, but there stood Treena and Thom and, behind them, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets like a recalcitrant teenager, my father.

She didn’t even look at me. She just walked in past me. ‘Mum. This is ridiculous. You can’t just run away from Dad. How old are you? Fourteen?’

‘I am not running away, Treena. I am giving myself breathing space.’

‘Well, we’re going to sit here until you two have sorted this ridiculous thing out. You know he’s been sleeping in his van, Lou?’

‘What? You didn’t tell me that.’ I turned to Mum.

She lifted her chin. ‘You didn’t give me a chance, with all your talking.’

Mum and Dad stood there not looking at each other.

‘I have nothing to say to your father right now,’ Mum said.

‘Sit down,’ said Treena. ‘The both of you.’ They shuffled towards the sofa, casting mute glances of resentment at each other. She turned to me. ‘Right. Let’s make tea. And then we’re going to sort this out as a family.’

‘Great idea!’ I said, sensing my chance. ‘There’s milk in the fridge. Tea’s on the side. Help yourselves. I’ve got to pop out for half an hour.’ And before anyone could stop me I had whipped on a pair of jeans and a top and was running out of the flat with my car keys.

I saw him even as I turned the car into the ambulance-station car park. He was striding towards the ambulance, his pack slung over his shoulder, and something inside me lurched. I knew the delicious solidity of that body, the soft angles of that face. He turned and his step faltered, as if I had been the last thing he had expected to see. Then he turned back to the ambulance, hauling open the rear doors.

I walked towards him across the tarmac. ‘Can we talk?’

He lifted an oxygen tank like it was a tin of hairspray, securing it in its holder. ‘Sure. But it’ll have to be some other time. I’m on my way out.’

‘It won’t wait.’

His expression didn’t flicker. He stooped to pick up a pack of gauze.

‘Look. I just wanted to explain … what we were talking about. I do like you. I really like you. I just – I’m just scared.’

‘We’re all scared, Lou.’

‘You’re not scared of anything.’

‘Yeah. I am. Just not stuff you’d notice.’

He stared at his boots. And then he saw Donna running towards him. ‘Ah, hell. I’ve got to go.’

I jumped into the rear of the ambulance. ‘I’ll come with you. I’ll get a taxi home from wherever you’re headed.’

‘No.’

‘Ah, come on. Please.’

‘So I can get in even more trouble with Disciplinary?’

‘Red Two, reports of a stabbing, young male.’ Donna threw her pack into the back of the ambulance.

‘We have to go, Louisa.’

I was losing him. I could feel it, in the tone of his voice, the way he wouldn’t look at me directly. I climbed out of the back, cursing my lateness. But Donna took me by the elbow and steered me towards the front. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said, as Sam made to protest. ‘You’ve been like a bear with a sore head all week. Just sort this thing out. We’ll drop her before we get there.’

Sam walked briskly around to the passenger door and opened it, casting a glance at the controller’s office. ‘She’d make a great relationship counsellor.’ His voice hardened. ‘If we were, you know, in a relationship.’

I didn’t need telling twice. Sam climbed into the driving seat and looked at me as if he were going to say something, then changed his mind. Donna began sorting out equipment. He started the ignition and put the blue light on.

‘Where are we headed?’

‘
We
are headed to the estate. About seven minutes away with blues and twos.
You
are headed to the high street, two minutes from Kingsbury.’

‘So I’ve got five minutes?’

‘And a long walk back.’

‘Okay,’ I said. And realized, as we sped forward, that I really had no idea what to say next.

‘So, here’s the thing,’ I said. Sam indicated and swung out onto the road. I had to shout as the siren was so loud.

His attention was on the road ahead. He glanced at the computer readout on the dashboard. ‘What have we got, Don?’

‘Possible stabbing. Two reports. Young male collapsed in stairwell.’

‘Is this really a good time to talk?’ I said.

‘Depends what you want to say.’

‘It’s not that I don’t want a relationship,’ I said. ‘I just still feel a bit mixed up.’

‘Everyone’s mixed up,’ said Donna. ‘Every bloke I go out with starts our date with how he’s got trust issues.’ She looked at Sam. ‘Oh. Sorry. Don’t mind me.’

Sam kept his eyes straight ahead. ‘One minute you’re calling me a dick because you’ve decided I’m sleeping with other women. Next you’re keeping me at arm’s length because you’re still attached to someone else. It’s too –’

‘Will is gone. I know that. But I just can’t leap in like you can, Sam. I feel like I’m only just getting back on my feet after a long time of … I don’t know … I was a mess.’

‘I know you were a mess. I picked up that mess.’

‘If anything, I like you too much. I like you so much that if it went wrong it would feel like that again. And I’m not sure I’m strong enough.’

‘How is
that
going to happen?’

‘You might go off me. You might change your mind. You’re
a good-looking bloke. Some other woman might fall off a building and land on you and you might like it. You could get ill. You could get knocked off that motorbike.’

‘ETA two minutes,’ said Donna, gazing at the satnav. ‘I’m not listening, honest.’

‘You could say that about anyone. So what? So we sit there and do nothing every day in case we have an accident? Is that really how to live?’ He swerved to the left so that I had to hang on to my seat.

‘I’m still a doughnut, okay?’ I said. ‘I want to be a bun. I really do. But I’m still a doughnut.’

‘Jesus, Lou! We’re all doughnuts! You think I didn’t watch my sister being eaten by cancer and know that my heart was going to break, not just for her but for her son, every day of my life? You think I don’t know how that feels? There’s only one response, and I can tell you this because I see it every day. You
live
. And you throw yourself into everything and try not to think about the bruises.’

‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ said Donna, nodding.

‘I’m
trying,
Sam. You have no idea how far I’ve come.’

And then we were there. The sign for Kingsbury estate loomed in front of us. We drove in through a huge archway, past a car park and into a darkened courtyard, where Sam pulled up and swore softly. ‘Dammit. We were meant to drop you off.’

‘I didn’t like to interrupt,’ said Donna.

‘I’ll wait here till you get back.’ I crossed my arms.

‘There’s no point.’ Sam jumped out of the driver’s door and grabbed his pack. ‘I’m not going to jump through hoops to convince you to be with me. Oh, crap. The bloody signs are missing. He could be anywhere.’

I gazed out at the forbidding maroon-brick buildings. There were probably twenty stairwells in those blocks and
none you would have wanted to walk around without the company of a large bodyguard.

Donna shrugged her way into her jacket. ‘The last time I came here – heart attack – it took four tries to find the right block, and that gate was locked. We had to find a caretaker to unlock it before we could bring in the mobile unit. By the time I made it to the right flat the patient was dead.’

‘Two gang shootings here last month.’

‘You want me to call in a police escort?’ said Donna.

‘No. No time.’

It was eerily quiet, even though it was barely eight p.m. These were estates in a part of the city where only a few years ago children might have been playing out on bikes, sneaking cigarettes and catcalling long into the evening. Now residents double-locked their doors long before dark, and windows were braced with decorative metal bars. Half the sodium lights had been shot out, and the odd remaining one flickered intermittently, as if uncertain whether it was safe to shine.

Sam and Donna, now outside the cab, were talking, their voices lowered. Donna opened the passenger door, reached in and handed me a high-visibility jacket. ‘Right. Put that on and come with us. He doesn’t feel safe leaving you here.’

‘Why couldn’t he –’

‘Oh, you two! For God’s sake! Look, I’m going to head this way, you follow him that way. Okay?’

I stared at her.

‘Sort it out afterwards.’ She strode off, her walkie-talkie buzzing in her hand.

I followed close behind Sam as we went along one length of concrete walkway, then another.

‘Savernake House,’ he muttered. ‘How the hell are we supposed to know which one is Savernake?’ The radio hissed.
‘Control, can we have some guidance? No signs on these buildings, and no idea where this patient is.’

‘Sorry,’ the voice said apologetically. ‘Our map doesn’t show individual block names.’

‘Want me to head off that way?’ I said, pointing in front of us. ‘Then we’ll have three walkways covered. I’ve got my phone with me.’ We halted in a stairwell that reeked of urine and the stale fat of old takeaway cartons. The walkways sat in shadow, only the occasional muffled burble of a television behind the windows suggesting life deep within each small flat. I had expected a distant commotion, some vibration in the air that would lead us to the injured. But this was eerily still.

‘No. Stay close, okay?’

I saw that having me there was making him nervous. I wondered whether I should just leave, but I didn’t want to find my way out by myself.

Sam stopped at the end of the walkway. He turned, shaking his head, his mouth compressed. Donna’s voice crackled across the radio: ‘Nothing this end.’ And then we heard a shout.

‘There,’ I said, following the sound. On the other side of the square, in the half-light, we saw a crouching figure, a body on the ground under the sodium lights.

‘Here we go,’ said Sam, and we started to run.

Speed was everything in his job, he had once told me. It was one of the first things paramedics were taught – the difference a few seconds could make to someone’s chances of survival. If the patient was bleeding out, had had a stroke or a heart attack, it could be those critical few seconds that kept them alive. We bolted along the concrete walkways, down the reeking, dingy stairs, and then we were across the worn grass towards the prostrate figure.

Donna was already down beside her.

‘A girl.’ Sam dropped his pack. ‘I’m sure they said it was a man.’

As Donna checked her for injuries, he called into Control.

‘Yup. Young male, late teens, Afro-Caribbean appearance,’ the dispatcher responded.

Sam clicked off his radio. ‘They must have misheard. It’s like bloody Chinese whispers some days.’

She was about sixteen, her hair neatly braided, her limbs sprawled as if she had recently fallen. She was strangely peaceful. I wondered, fleetingly, if that was how I had looked when he’d found me.

‘Can you hear me, sweetheart?’

She didn’t move. He checked her pupils, her pulse, her airways. She was breathing, and there was no obvious sign of injury. Yet she seemed completely non-responsive. He checked all around her a second time, staring at his equipment.

‘Is she alive?’

Sam’s eyes met Donna’s. He straightened up and glanced around him, thinking. He gazed up at the windows of the estate. They stared down at us like blank, unfriendly eyes. Then he motioned us over and spoke quietly. ‘Something’s not right. Look, I’m going to do the drop-hand test. And when I do, I want you to head for the rig and start the engine. If it’s what I think it is we need to get out of here.’

‘Drugs ambush?’ muttered Donna, her gaze sliding behind me.

‘Might be. Or turf-related. We should have had a Location Match. I’m sure this is where Andy Gibson had that shooting.’

I tried to keep my voice calm. ‘What’s the drop-hand test?’

‘I’m going to lift her hand and drop it from above her face. If she’s acting, she’ll move her hand rather than hit her own face. They always do. It’s like a reflex. But if there’s someone
watching, I don’t want them to get wind that we’ve worked it out. Louisa, you act like you’re going to get some more equipment, okay? I’ll do it once you’ve texted me to say you’re at the rig. If anyone’s near it, don’t go in. Just turn round and come straight back to me. Donna, get your pack together, and ready. You go after her. If they see two of us leaving together they’ll know.’

He handed me the keys. I picked up a bag, as if it were mine, and started to walk briskly towards the ambulance. I was suddenly conscious of unseen people watching from the shadows; my heartbeat was thumping in my ears. I tried to make my face expressionless, my movements purposeful.

The walk along the echoing concourse felt achingly long. When I reached the ambulance, I let out a sigh of relief. I reached for the keys, opened the door, and as I stepped up, a voice called from the shadows, ‘Miss.’ I glanced behind me. Nothing. ‘Miss.’

A young boy appeared from behind a concrete pillar, another behind him, a hoodie pulled forward to obscure his face. I took a step back towards the rig, my heart racing. ‘I’ve got back-up on the way,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘There’s no drugs in here. You both need to back off. Okay?’

‘Miss. He’s by the bins. They don’t want you to get to him. He’s bleeding real bad, miss. That’s why Emeka’s cousin is faking it out there. To distract youse. So youse’ll go away.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘He’s by the bins. You got to help him, miss.’

‘What? Where are the bins?’

But the boy glanced warily behind him, and when I turned to ask again, they had disappeared into the shadows.

I glanced around, trying to work out where he meant. And then I spied it, over by the garages – the protruding edge of a bright green plastic rubbish container. I edged along the
shadows of the ground-floor walkway, out of view of the main square, until I saw an open doorway out to the refuse area. I ran over, and there, tucked behind the recycling bin, a pair of legs sprawled, tracksuit bottoms soaked with blood. His upper half was slumped under the containers and I crouched down. The boy turned his head and groaned quietly.

‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

‘They got me.’

Blood seeped stickily from what looked like two wounds to his legs. ‘They got me …’

I grabbed my phone and called Sam, my voice low and urgent. ‘I’m over by the bins, to your right. Please. Come quick.’

I could see him, looking around slowly until he spotted me. Two elderly people, Samaritans from a previous age, had appeared beside him. I could see them asking questions about the fallen girl, their faces blanketed with concern. He gently placed a blanket over the faking cousin, asking them to watch over her, then walked briskly towards the rig with his bag, as if to get more equipment. Donna had vanished.

I opened the bag he’d given me, ripping open a pack of gauze and placing it over the boy’s leg, but there was so much blood. ‘Okay. Someone’s coming to help. We’ll have you in the ambulance in a moment.’ I sounded like someone out of a bad film. I had no idea what else to say.
Come on, Sam.

‘You gotta get me out of here.’ The boy groaned. I put my hand on his arm, trying to keep calm.
Come on, Sam.
Where the hell are you?
And suddenly I heard the rig’s engine starting, and there it was, reversing through the garages towards me at some speed, its engine whining in protest. It bumped to a halt, and Donna jumped out. She ran towards me, threw open the back doors. ‘Help me put him in,’ she said. ‘We’re getting out of here.’

There was no time for gurneys. Somewhere above I heard shouting, multiple footsteps. We shouldered the boy towards
the ambulance, shoving him into the back. Donna slammed the doors behind him and I ran for the cab, my heart racing, and threw myself in, locking the doors. I could see them now, a gang of men, racing towards us around the upper floor, hands raised with – what? Guns? Knives? I felt something grow liquid inside me. I looked out of the window. Sam was walking along the open space, his face turned to the sky: he had seen them too.

Donna saw before he did: the gun, raised in the man’s hand. She swore loudly and slammed the rig into reverse, steering it round the garage, headed straight for the grassed area where Sam was still walking towards us. I could just make him out, the green of his uniform growing larger in the passenger mirror.

‘Sam!’ I yelled out of my window.

He glanced at me, then up at them. ‘Leave the ambulance alone,’ he yelled at the men, over the whine of the ambulance’s reverse gear. ‘Back off, all right? We’re just doing our jobs.’

‘
Not now, Sam. Not now
,’ Donna said, under her breath.

The men kept running, peering over as if calculating the quickest way down, relentless, moving forward like a tide. One vaulted nimbly over a wall, swinging his way easily down a flight of stairs. I wanted to skid out of there so badly I was limp with it.

But Sam was still walking towards them, his hands raised, palms up. ‘Leave the ambulance, boys, okay? We’re just here to help.’ His voice was calm and authoritative, betraying none of the fear that I felt. And then I saw through the back window that the men had slowed. They were walking now, not running. A distant part of me thought,
Oh, thank God
. The boy lay behind us, still moaning.

‘That’s it,’ said Donna, leaning around. ‘Come
on
, Sam. In you come. Come on over here now. And we can get the –’

Bang.

The sound cut through the air, amplified in the empty space so that I felt, briefly, as if my whole head had expanded and contracted with the sound. And then, too quickly –

Bang.

I yelped.

‘
What the f—
’ Donna yelled.

‘We need to get out of here, man!’ the boy shouted.

I looked back, willing Sam to get in.
Get in now. Please.
But Sam had gone. No, not gone. There was something on the ground: a high-visibility jacket. A yellow stain on the grey concrete.