Split Second (17 page)

‘I know.’ Deanne took her coat off, went and sat down. She stared at Luke. ‘It’s a crying shame,’ she said.

That was all it took and Louise was gulping and sobbing and the stupid, bloody tears were spilling through her fingers.

‘Louise! Aw, babe.’

Louise was up, half blind, seeking the door, the sorrow hot and fierce inside her. Deanne followed her out, hugged her close.

‘I didn’t want to bloody cry,’ she said when the worst of it was over, when she could no longer breathe through her nose and her lips were all swollen.

‘Course you need to cry,’ Deanne said. ‘You’re not a saint, Louise. You’re flesh and blood. With all this . . . Jesus.’ She rubbed Louise’s back.

‘I didn’t want Luke to hear me crying. He’s going to wake up, Deanne. He’s going to get better. If he can hear, what’s he going to think? Crying doesn’t help anyone.’

Deanne sighed. One of the nurses came along the corridor, smiled as she passed them by. Once she was out of earshot, Louise said, ‘Declan knows who did it – the main one. You remember Declan?’

‘Dopey Declan?’

‘Yeah. Apparently Luke had a set-to with this lad Gazza. Pulled him up for threatening a girl at a party. Gazza went for him and Luke tripped him up, took a photo and sent it round. Declan’s told the police; needed a kick up the bum from me first.’

‘Oh God,’ Deanne said. ‘I need a smoke.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

Deanne looked, her face fell. ‘You haven’t?’

‘Something’s gotta give.’

It was dark outside, the sky a sickly blend of sulphur yellow from the city lights and leaden grey. The air was cold, still, trapping the smell from a brewery and the high, acrid exhaust fumes.

They smoked, and Deanne talked about Christmas at the in-laws, the tensions, the food, the boredom. Louise caught a shadow in her friend’s gaze, a current of something sour in between the words.

‘Did the kids like it?’

‘Yeah, they were fine, a bit bored but okay.’

‘And?’

Deanne cast her a glance, took a long drag on her cigarette, blew the smoke up into the beam of light from the street lamp.

‘Me and Tony.’ Deanne wrinkled her nose. ‘We’re breaking up.’

‘Oh no.’ After what? Twelve years, thirteen? Three kids.

‘Bastard’s seeing someone else.’

‘And that’s it? There’s no . . .’

‘Yes. And no. I’ve told him I want him out by the end of the month. You can imagine the atmosphere.’

‘Who is she? Someone you know?’

‘No. Some little tart he met on his travels.’ Tony was a rep selling soft toys to outlets round the north. ‘Lives in Preston.’

‘Oh Dee, I am sorry. Do the kids know?’

‘Not yet.’ Deanne ground her cigarette out. ‘We need a night out.’

Louise felt weary at the prospect. ‘I don’t know . . .’

‘No arguments. Me and you and Fee. Nothing too demanding. Cocktails.’

‘But Ruby . . .’

‘She can stay at mine – I’ll pay her to babysit. Or rather Tony will.’ Deanne looked at Louise. ‘It’s not like we’ve got much to celebrate for New Year. You with Luke, me not with Tony. Jesus, Fee better have some good news for us.’

* * *

It ended up being just the two of them – New Year’s Day evening, when the rest of the world was too hung-over to get out. Fee had begged off: food poisoning from dodgy prawns.

Louise made the effort. Ruby helped her put her hair up in an elaborate twist, and she dug out a dress and heels and a glittery shawl. It was as much for Deanne as for herself, but also a way of sticking two fingers up at the situation. Life goes on.

Tony wasn’t there when Louise and Ruby got to Deanne’s. Deanne looked formidable in a leopardprint sheath and half a ton of gold jewellery. Ruby had sat before for the boys, and they’d go to bed when she said. It wouldn’t be a late night anyway; both Louise and Deanne had work the next day.

They went to Roxies, a cocktail bar near the canals in town, where Deanne had once been manager. The guy serving remembered her and gave them two-for-one. After her first Margarita, Louise felt like going to sleep; after the next, she got her second wind and started to enjoy herself. Deanne told her all about the finer details of finding out that Tony was a cheating bastard. The discovery of his affair and the ensuing fallout had all taken place at his parents’, leading to ridiculous scenes where they had whispered arguments and tried to hide what was going on from the rest of the family.

‘I ended up bloody texting him,’ said Deanne. ‘Can you imagine, rowing by text! Slagging him off and him sending “sorry, sorry” back. It all blew up big style the day after Boxing Day. I caught him on the phone to her. So much for “sorry, sorry”. I got his phone. Stuck it in the dishwasher.’

‘Deanne!’

‘Prat.’

‘You wouldn’t go see someone?’

‘Counselling? Nah.’ She shifted the umbrella in her drink, took a sip. ‘Maybe if I thought there was any hope of a future in it, but . . . I don’t think he loves me any more.’

Louise saw the brief twitch as Deanne’s lips tightened, saw the hurt.

‘I’m spitting mad at him, but when I think of the kids, I want to cut his dick off. How can he do it to them? Those boys adore him, Louise. And trying to imagine the place without him.’ She shuddered. ‘Do you still miss Eddie?’

Louise smiled. ‘Yeah, specially at a time like this.’

‘Carl not stepped up?’

‘Oh, he would, given half a chance. Carl’s all right, but he’s not the love of my life, you know?’

‘Fuck buddies,’ Deanne supplied.

‘Oh, charming,’ Louise scolded her. ‘Ey up, incoming at four o’clock. We’re being given the once-over.’ Three men had arrived and were waiting to be served. They looked as if they had come from work: suits and ties. Louise wondered what sort of work they did, given it was a bank holiday. One of the men, looking her way, leaned into his friends and made a comment. Something funny; they all laughed.

Deanne swivelled in her seat. ‘Three into two won’t go.’

‘Are you mad?’ Louise asked her.

‘The one with the striped shirt is mine.’

‘In your dreams.’ Louise took a drink.

‘Is that a dare?’

‘Whoa! No,’ Louise said. ‘You’re not going to blame this on me. You know what you’d be doing?’

‘Rebound sex.’

‘Revenge sex – even worse. I am going home after the next drink. And you are coming with me.’

‘Am I?’

‘You’ll have to. I’m taking your babysitter home with me.’

‘Bugger,’ Deanne said. ‘Smoke?’

They took their drinks out on to the roof terrace, where patio heaters belted out warmth on to the tables and benches. Fog hung over the city, diffusing the lights.

‘I can’t imagine going with someone else,’ Deanne said. ‘There’s only been Tony for so long.’

‘No rush, is there,’ Louise said. ‘Not like you’ll forget how to do it.’

‘Like riding a bike,’ Deanne shot back. Cracked them up.

‘It’s a bit weird at first,’ Louise said once she’d stopped cackling. ‘The dates. Someone unfamiliar. You get the jitters and that, like when we were kids.’

‘Where did it go, Lou?’ Deanne was suddenly sombre. ‘All those years.’

‘Hey, we grew up. You’ve got three lovely boys.’

‘I know.’ She flicked repeatedly at the end of her cigarette with her thumbnail. ‘I never saw it coming. Thought we were in it for life. Saw other people’s marriages fold, affairs, divorces, never thought it’d be me.’

‘No.’ Louise smoked, heard a burst of laughter from inside the club rising above the jazz funk that was playing. She shivered, stamped her feet.

‘What will you do if Luke doesn’t wake up?’ Deanne said.

Louise froze; she felt her skin chill and a frisson of fear bubble through her veins. And then a hot needle of anger at the question. ‘He’s going to wake up,’ she said sharply. And ground out her cigarette underfoot.

G
arrington. It was like a small seed stuck in his teeth, grit in his shoe. He ignored it for long enough.

They made love, the first time since it had happened. The familiarity, the physicality, the release were a reassurance. Val slept afterwards. He lay and watched her. So busy in her waking life, so active and energetic, when she slept she was still. Would lie in one position all night long. He saw she had lost weight, her face thinner, almost gaunt. He felt a crush of fear that she might get ill, that he might lose her too, and promised himself that he would help her.

In the becalmed weekend after the funeral, waiting for life to resume, he and Val found tasks to occupy their time. A blitz on the garden: clearing up the last of the leaves now the snow had melted and bagging them for compost; tidying the borders, the straggly spikes of lavender and the desiccated remains of Michaelmas daisies and asters.

He sorted out the polytunnel, repaired a small tear near the back, checked over the cabbages and leeks and dug up some of the potatoes. There were a couple of squally showers on the Sunday, and as the rain drummed on the plastic, he closed his eyes and took himself back to camping holidays: the three of them, and later just him and Jason. The smell of earth and wet wool and wood smoke. The murmured conversations that they held, rolled side by side in sleeping bags, the delicious hooting of an owl in the night, and dawn waking them as light seeped through the canvas. Showering in whitewashed sheds, littered with moths, and Jason reluctant even to use the toilets.

The past was solace, but the future stretched ahead barren, hopeless, hostile. A place of thorns and bones and sinking sands. Andrew decided the trick was not to think about it, not to look ahead, beyond. Not to imagine.

They had lost a date palm. The brutal frost left it scorched and black.

‘We should get rid of it,’ Val said. ‘It looks awful.’

Andrew tested it with the saw. The dead wood was fibrous but not too tough. He began to cut it into sections, and Val put the perished leaves in the recycling bin and hauled the pieces of trunk over to the drive – they’d go to the tip.

Garrington. Still there as he drove the saw to and fro, the pungent smell of sap in the air and a burning in his shoulder, still a little tender from falling when he’d chased after them.

Val brought out tea and he took a break. Sat beside her and gulped hot mouthfuls, his fingers smearing the mug with dirt.

‘Nearly done.’ She nodded at the stump.

‘The roots’ll be the worst bit, spade and fork job.’ He thought of their ragtag procession for Jason. The coffin and the tree, the spade and the watering can.

‘I’m going back in on Tuesday,’ Val said.

He nodded. He’d already decided for himself that he’d start back then, but Val had spare holiday left that she could have taken.

The phone went. He’d reconnected it eventually, and they hadn’t been pestered by the press since. He groaned as he got up, his muscles stiffening already.

‘I’ll get it,’ Val offered.

‘No,’ he said, moving towards the house. ‘It’ll be my mother, or Colin.’ They rang every day. ‘They said they’d do a meal tomorrow.’

‘Hello?’

‘Hi. Is Jason there, please?’

Andrew went dizzy; he felt as though he’d been kicked in the skull.

‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice, young, an unfamiliar accent.

‘I’m sorry, there’s been . . .’ His words were thin and dry. ‘I’ve, erm . . .’ He faltered.

‘I can’t get him on his mobile.’

‘I’ve some very bad news,’ Andrew said. ‘Jason died on the seventeenth of December.’

‘Died?’

‘Yes.’

‘But . . . Oh God!’

‘He was attacked when he tried to stop a fight; he was . . .’ Andrew didn’t want to say killed. ‘There was a knife.’

‘Oh God.’ She sounded shell-shocked.

‘I’m sorry, we told everyone we could.’

‘I’ve been home – Denmark.’

A foreign student? ‘You knew him from university?’

‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’

‘No, no, that’s fine.’ And of course it wasn’t.

‘The funeral was last Thursday.’

‘Yes. Yes, I see.’

He heard her breathing change and understood as she quickly ended the call. He replaced the phone. Allowed his mind to swoop around those unforgettable images: the crimson snow, Jason’s blanched face as he sat in their lounge, his body in the hospital anteroom. Then he forced himself back outside to dig up the roots of the palm. He continued even when the drizzle came and made the spade slippery to handle. Even as the crumbs of soil sneaked into his gloves and rubbed against the skin. He tugged out the last of the roots and discarded them. Broke up the clods of soil and forked it over. It was dusk by the time he’d finished.

He showered while Val prepared a meal. He complimented the food, hoping to entice her to eat more.

‘What time are we round at your folks tomorrow?’ she asked him. He hadn’t told her that the call had been from one of Jason’s new friends.

‘Six,’ he invented. He would call and fix that up with his mother after tea. If it didn’t suit them, then he could easily tell Val the plans had altered.

Garrington. Like a splinter under his nail. The more he tried to disregard it, the more it nagged at him.

He lasted until late in the evening. Val had gone up, and he was having a nightcap, ostensibly watching a rerun of
Coast
, the documentary series about the British coastline.

He moved abruptly, went through to the study and wrestled the phone book from the stack of directories.

Frost . . . Gane . . . Gardner . . . Garrington.
One entry:
V
, 22 Waterford Place, M20. He felt a shiver of excitement, a sort of sickly triumph. He tore the page out and folded it up. Put it in his pocket. The thrill of discovery beating inside him like a new heart.

Carl had brought vodka. Cherry vodka. From the distillery near his village, he said. The Poles were big on vodka, Louise had learnt, usually flavoured with fruit or herbs or honey. He’d brought duty-free cigarettes too. It was good of him, but within half an hour of Carl being there, Louise found her mind wandering. It was hard to concentrate on his stories from home; she felt irritated at the way he shook his head when he chuckled.