The Chaos (32 page)

‘Mia,’ I say. ‘Mia.’

She stares at me with her blue, blue eyes.

‘Mia. You’re safe now. It’s all right. You’re safe now.’

‘Is she all right?’

Adam’s voice is a whisper. His eyes are open too. 

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘she’s fine. Look, she’s fine. You saved her.’ 

I hold her down close to his face, so that he can see her, but he closes his eyes again. 

‘I can’t,’ he says. ‘I can’t look.’

‘Yes. Yes, you can. She’s fine.’

Mia coos and stretches her arms out towards him. The tiny hairs on her skin are singed, but her skin is pink and healthy and perfect. She touches his face, and he opens his eyes.

‘Oh my God,’ he breathes.

‘What is it?’

‘Mia,’ he says.

He says her name and he starts to cry.

Chapter 71: Adam

T
he fit didn’t kill her. She’s upset, but she’s fine and she’s back in Sarah’s arms, where she should be.

There’s just one thing that’s different, and it blows my mind. I can’t take it in. I don’t understand.

My eyes fill up with tears. I try to blink them away. I don’t want to stop looking at her face, her eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ Sarah keeps saying. ‘She’s fine. You saved her.’

And it looks like I did. That’s what it looks like. And yet. And yet …

She’s close to me. Her hand is on my face, touching me. She doesn’t smile. She looks at me, all solemn. She’s calmer now and she stares at me and I stare at her.

I’ve heard people talk about old souls and I never knew what they were on about. Now I think maybe I know what it means. There’s something timeless about the person looking at me. She can’t be only a month old – she’s seen things and been places. She knows. She understands.

Her face is the last thing I see before I pass out and it stays with me as I sink down and away. It floats in front of me and goes through my eyes and into my head. It changes inside me, fading from colour to black and white and then into negative, light where it was dark, dark where it was light. It turns inside out, its features break apart from each other and dance, then join back in the wrong order, teasing me about what a face should be. It’s a game. I know it’s only a game, but more than anything I want her face back how it should be. I want it to turn out right. The pieces have to fit back in a way that makes sense. If I can’t get them to do that everything will be wrong. If I can’t do it, I might as well die.

There was noise before – crackling flames, hissing and groaning from the building on fire, cries and shouts.

There’s no noise now, only a silence that feels like a scream.

Chapter 72: Sarah

I
t’s like a movie, a disaster movie. I’m in it, but I’m also watching it, as things play out around me.

The house is completely ablaze now. There’s no chance of saving it. In the back garden people are huddled in groups; around Adam, around Mia and me. All the things you see in a suburban back garden are still there; a couple of swings, a climbing frame, a trampoline. Dad’s body lies a metre away from a space hopper. It used to be mine and then the boys had it. Its mad eyes and grin are facing me. Dad’s face is covered up. Someone’s put a coat over him, but his hands and legs are sticking out.

Looking at him, I wonder what I should feel. I don’t feel anything, not yet. It’s just a body under a coat. It’s more upsetting thinking about Mum, slumped in the under-stairs cupboard. The flames will have got to her now. She’s being cremated. It’s too horrible to think about.

I owe her. Whatever went on when I was at home, she saved Mia. Even when she was dead, she protected her.

I look back towards the house.

‘Thank you,’ I say inside my head. ‘I love you, Mum.’
Do I? The woman who turned a blind eye? Did I – do I – love her?
The flames are roaring now, like some sort of animal, sending glowing ash and smoke high up into the sky. I crane my neck back, trying to see where it all ends, but I can’t.

‘We’re losing him,’ someone says. The words drag me back onto the ground. It’s Adam. They mean Adam.

He’s still lying on his side, but his eyes are closed now. The skin on his back and shoulders has turned pale – burnt white by the fire.

‘He’s gone into shock.’

All these weeks and months in my nightmare, I felt so desperate about Mia. My panic, my terror was focused on her. That’s what haunted me. I was sure she was going to die. 

I never thought it would be Adam. 

‘Don’t go, Adam. Don’t go.’

He doesn’t react. 

His eyes are open now but they’re fixed firmly on one spot. His face starts to relax. He’s almost gone.

I put Mia down on the ground gently, then I cup Adam’s face with my hands and half-crouch, half-lie down, so that my face is in front of his.

‘Adam. Look at me. Look at me, now.’ His eyes are open, but he’s not seeing me. The connection isn’t there.

‘Adam. Please, please!’

I lean forward and kiss him gently. His mouth tastes of smoke. He doesn’t kiss me back. 

‘It’s over,’ someone says.

‘No! No, it can’t be!’ I stretch forward a little more and kiss his eyes. As I pull back my tears fall down, spilling onto his lashes, splashing like rain.

Chapter 73: Adam

I
 used to hate seeing numbers. They scared me. I didn’t know why I’d got this gift, this curse. But it’s a number that saves me now. Sarah’s.

I’m in a tunnel, a long tube of darkness, but there’s light at the end; light and warmth and someone waiting for me. Mum. She’s how she used to be – not how she was when she died. She holds her hand out, and I reach towards her, but our fingers don’t touch. She’s smiling, and it feels so good to see her again. I never thought I would. She’s talking to me but her lips aren’t moving. I can hear her thoughts.

‘What you doing here, darlin’? It’s not time yet.’

I can hear other voices too, shouting, crying, but they’re miles away.

‘It’s over.’

‘No! No, it can’t be!’

And then someone’s close to me, really close, and I open my eyes, but I can’t see them. I can only see the light, and somehow the light is Mum and she’s the light. It’s all I want
to see. I’ve missed her so much.

Something splashes in my eyes, and it stings. I blink it away and now there’s another face. Sarah. And her number floods through me and it’s like the first time I ever saw her. It shocks me, how someone can leave this world so easily, bathed in love and light. And I know I’m going to be there. I’ll be with her, holding her in my arms. I’m part of it, part of her life. So I can’t go now, I’ve got to stay.

The tunnel’s gone, Mum’s gone, but it’s okay. Just seeing her was enough.

Chapter 74: Sarah

H
e blinks. Once. Twice. And then he looks at me.

‘Adam,’ I say. ‘Come back. Come back to me.’

And in that moment, that fraction of a second, he’s with me again. I want to keep him so badly. The feeling’s so fierce, it’s like a pain, but I know that all I can do is look. All I’ve got is my eyes looking into his, his eyes looking into mine. And everything else goes away. It’s the two of us again. We’ve got now, this minute, this second.

‘Come back to me, Adam. I need you.’

His mouth is moving now. I strain to catch his words.

‘I love you, Sarah.’

‘I love you, too. I always have, only I was scared.’

‘I’m scared now …’ He’s trying to say something else, struggling to find enough strength to get the words out.

‘Shh,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry. Tell me later.’

‘The numbers …’ he whispers. 

‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry about them. Not now.’

‘But Sarah, you don’t understand.’

‘What? What is it?’

‘Mia’s number …’

I freeze. Her number was today.
Oh my God, oh my God.
I lean closer, so my ear is next to his mouth. He’s talking under his breath. A list of numbers. I can’t make them out.

‘Two. Twenty. Two …’

‘Adam? Adam, what are you saying?’

‘Mia’s number,’ he says, his voice no more than a whisper, ‘it’s changed.’

‘Oh my God. Do you mean she’s all right? She’s going to be okay?’

‘I dunno. I don’t get it.’

‘Why? If it’s not today, then she must be okay, mustn’t she? Adam, tell me. Tell me Mia’s number.’

‘2022054,’ he murmurs. ‘It’s the same as Nan’s now. I’ve got to tell her. Where is she? Where’s Nan?’

I sit up and look round the crowd of faces peering down at us. She’ll be somewhere close at hand, but she’s not. I bend and twist, trying to see through all the legs, through to the others behind them.

And then I realise – I haven’t seen her since Adam put his arm round her shoulders and sent her off into the flames. She wasn’t there in the garden when I got out, but I heard her in the fire. I felt her hand guiding mine. Didn’t I?

‘Sarah.’ Adam’s looking straight at me now. ‘Sarah. Where’s Nan?’

Chapter 75: Sarah

H
e won’t leave her in the wreckage. He’s hurt, badly hurt. We need to get him to hospital so someone can treat the burns on his back, but he won’t let us.

‘She’s in there,’ he says, looking towards the house. ‘Nan’s in there. I’m not going anywhere.’

If he had the strength he’d go back inside, but the flames are too intense, and, besides, Adam’s beat. He only just escaped with his own life. His own and Mia’s.

There are no fire crews to put out the flames, only a gaggle of neighbours watching helplessly as the house is incinerated. One by one they drift away, back to their own shattered homes, or to see if they can find help. We stay in the garden – Adam, Marty, Luke, Mia and me – and we watch and we wait. We wait until the flames die down, and the column of smoke dwindles away to almost nothing. We spend the night camped out while metres away from us the embers glow.

In the morning, the hopelessness of our task is clear. The whole house has collapsed, reduced to a mixed-up pile of
ash, charred wood and metal … and, somewhere, human bones. My mum’s in there, as well as Val.

Adam stares and stares at the smouldering remains.

‘Adam,’ I say, ‘we can’t.’

I want to get out of here. Find some help for him. Overnight the skin on his back has puffed up and blistered. He says it doesn’t hurt, but it hurts me to look at him. I don’t know how someone so badly burnt can still be alive. But I’m glad he is. It’s true what they say: you don’t know what you’ve got till you lose it. And I came close to losing Adam. I think I did lose him. He went away and came back again.

‘She’s gone,’ I say, as gently as I can. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘We can’t leave her there.’

Suddenly I’m back at Carlton Villas, and Val’s staring into the rubble where her home used to be. She didn’t want to leave, but I made her. And now I’ll have to make Adam leave her.

‘There’s nothing else we can do for her,’ I say. ‘We need to find a doctor. You need a doctor.’

‘Why?’

I think he’s asking about his burns. He can’t see them himself, not properly, so he doesn’t know how bad they are, but then he says, ‘Why did she die, Sarah? How did her number change?’

‘I don’t know. Val thought that you could change numbers. She told me that, and I think you did, Adam. I don’t know how many people got out of London, but it must be hundreds, maybe thousands. You saved them. And you saved Mia.’

He looks at me then.

‘I don’t know about the hundreds and thousands. I don’t know what their numbers were, but Mia … Mia’s different.
You knew about Mia’s number,’ he says.

‘Yes. I saw it in your book.’

‘I was wrong. The numbers I saw were wrong.’

‘No, you saw them, but they changed. You changed them.’

He looks away from me then and his eyes fill with tears.

‘I wanted to save Mia, but I would never … I never …’

He doesn’t have to say the rest. I know. He would never have hurt his nan.

‘Did I do it, Sarah? Did I kill her?’

‘No, of course not. You saved people, you …’ I stop. He’s looking at me again and his eyes are so tortured. I want to say the right thing, make it all better. But there are some things that no-one can make better. And there are some times when bullshit just won’t cut it. ‘Adam, I don’t know. I don’t understand about the numbers. I don’t know what the rules are. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was Val. She wanted to help. She loved you so much, Adam. She was a powerful woman.’

‘I hated her, Sarah. I hated her … but I loved her too. I never told her.’

‘You didn’t need to. She knew anyway.’

‘Did she?’

‘Course she did.’

He shakes his head and looks away. 

‘Adam,’ I say, ‘you saved thousands of lives. You’re a hero.’ 

He won’t look at me now. He doesn’t reply. But a tear spills out of one eye and trickles down the scarred skin on his face.

Chapter 76: Adam

W
e stay on in London for weeks, first in the field hospital set up in Trafalgar Square and then, when they say I’m out of danger and my burns are starting to heal, in the Hyde Park camp. I don’t know what we’re waiting for. I s’pose we think that things’ll get back to normal soon. But as the days turn into weeks, nothing seems to change, except the queues get longer and our daily handouts of food smaller.

The city’s dark at night. The National Grid’s still down. We got generators here, but they turn our lights off at ten, and it’s pitch black until dawn.

There’s five of us in our tent, but it feels like five hundred after another night of the boys messing about, wriggling and crying. It’s not their fault. The things Sarah used to see in her nightmares belong to all of us now, even the kids. Especially the kids. When one of the boys starts crying, it wakes the other one up and then they start up too, and we’re all awake. Sarah does her best, but it’s not her they want in the middle
of the night. It’s their mum. And she’ll never cuddle them better again.