‘Lex,’ she said. ‘I’m happy to talk to your mum. But I’m not going blazing round to have a go at John – not with the wedding coming up.’
‘Can I use your toilet before I leave?’
She nodded sadly. She knew as well as I did, this was over.
Ben had the same bedroom he’d always had – next to the bathroom upstairs. His door was open and there on his wall, just as I’d hoped, was his revision timetable. I took two photos to get it all in. He wasn’t the same as Cerys – hungry for A stars and busy with felt-tip pens and colour coding, but he took almost the same subjects as me and it was good enough to convince John I’d spent hours on it.
Next to the timetable was a poster of Ben’s top ten list of scary things for his movie. Number one was fear itself. He’d put a quote next to it: What we fear most, is fear.
This was followed by being buried alive, being burned alive, being stranded on an open ocean and being in a plane crash. Creepy animals and insects were number six.
Number seven was being lost in space, then a zombie apocalypse, followed by waking up in hell. There was nothing about being groped by drunk old men or being threatened with doctors or being told over and over there was something wrong with you.
My list would be very different.
But I took a photo of number ten: the unknown.
There was another quote: Bad things happen with no warning.
16
When Iris was four and I was thirteen I promised to show her a secret place. I held her hand down the stairs to the garden and when we got to the bottom I asked if she could guess where it was.
She scanned the lawn and the scrubby bushes by the shed. ‘Have you got a cave?’
‘Better,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a perch in a tree.’
‘Is that the secret? That’s rubbish. I already know about the tree.’
‘I bet you don’t know it’s an ash tree. Or that people think ash protects you from evil spirits. I bet you don’t know how to get up it without a ladder. Even your dad doesn’t know. There’re no branches near the bottom, see? You think I fly up there?’
Iris frowned. ‘Is there a rope?’
‘No. And you can only jump down to the wall, not climb up from it.’
She was interested now, standing on tiptoes to peer about. ‘Have you got a secret trampoline?’
‘There’s a trick I’m going to show you. But you must promise never to tell anyone, OK? Only me and Kass know. You have to shake on it?’
She nodded solemnly and put out her hand. ‘I promise.’
As we crossed the grass there was the sound of yelling behind us from the flats. Iris held my hand tighter, so I knew she’d heard. I told her we needed to concentrate on the tree. I told her I’d already checked it wasn’t rotten or dead and she should never do what I was about to show her with any other tree in case the branches snapped. I told her to adopt a good mindset.
‘What’s a mindset?’
‘It means you accept the challenge. It means you’re going to be brave, like when you have a ballet performance.’
‘They make me feel wobbly.’
‘Exactly, but you overcome the wobbles and launch yourself onto the stage anyway, don’t you?’
She touched the trunk. It was gnarly and full of crevices. ‘Hello, tree,’ she said.
I liked her talking to it. ‘Remember what it’s called?’
‘Ash.’
‘Correct. Now – watch very carefully.’
I pulled the length of fabric from my pocket and showed her how I’d made a loop for one wrist. ‘You can borrow it any time,’ I said. ‘I’ll show you where I keep it.’
I slipped my left wrist in and tightened the knot. I flung the loose end around the tree and grabbed it with my right hand. I wound it round my fist until the material was tight. I planted one foot on the tree and quickly pushed out and up, using the material to support my weight until both feet were flat on the trunk.
‘You have to practise holding this position until you can do it for one whole minute,’ I said. ‘Then you can start moving higher.’
Kass said once that, in terms of physics, I was overcoming gravity with my force pushing upwards while my outwards force was met with the opposing force of my hands. I made him say it three times, so I learned it. I said it to Iris now. It made me sound clever. ‘You have a go,’ I said. I jumped down and looked at her. ‘You might not be able to do it straightaway.’
Of course, she couldn’t. Her arms were too short and had no muscle. The first time I’d tried without Granddad’s help, I’d been nearly eight and had practised for weeks. I told her to trust the material, that it was made of hemp and wasn’t going to rip. I stood behind her and took her weight, letting her press her spine into my stomach, but she said she was scared. I took off her shoes, so she could grip the bark with her feet, but she couldn’t do that either.
She kept glancing back at the flats. ‘You think we should go in?’
‘I think we should sit in the tree. How about I lift you up?’
She weighed nothing. I got her sitting on my shoulders and she put her feet into my hands and I pushed up while she grabbed the lowest branch and then I shoved her bottom until she was sitting on it. ‘Hold on tight,’ I said. ‘I’m coming up.’
I threw the material round the tree again and wound it tight in my fist. I jumped and planted my feet. To move higher I pushed up with my feet, slid my hands up and pulled again. Slowly, slowly I inched up.
When I’d finally settled on the branch next to Iris, I pointed out all the things she needed to know – which windows were ours and how you could count along from the blue curtains in Mum and John’s bedroom to get to the kitchen, which was the best room for spying into. I told her that when I lived here with just Mum we only had the middle flat, and that after her dad turned up on the scene, he bought the one above and joined them together. I showed her the lines of new bricks, like a pink scar where he’d changed the windows.
‘The sun always hits those bricks last,’ I said. ‘In summer, once it goes completely dark on that wall, then you know you’re in massive trouble because you’re late for supper.’
‘Then what do I do?’
‘Go in and get bollocked or run away and hide. Kass and me used to hide for hours. When you’re older, I’ll show you how to balance along that branch and drop down to the wall. You can jump straight into the cemetery from there, even when it’s shut.’
‘I wish I was you,’ she said dreamily. ‘Doesn’t it smell nice up here?’
It smelled wild – a mix of bark and sap and growing things. I pointed out the magpie nest that was way above us in the top branches. I said the magpie had been building it for weeks.
‘I think the weather up here makes it smell nicer too,’ I said. ‘It’s because the clouds are closer.’
Far away I could hear John shouting and Mum pleading, which meant they were still at it, but it felt like something on TV that had nothing to do with us. If we climbed up to the branches Kass and I had pushed the boards onto, we could stay until they’d worn themselves to silence.
‘There’s someone in the kitchen,’ Iris said.
‘It’s Mum.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Your dad’s head would be higher.’
We watched a shadow get closer to the glass and peer out and then we could tell very clearly it was Mum.
‘She’s looking for us,’ Iris whispered. ‘She doesn’t know where we are.’
‘We’re not going in yet. She’ll be fine.’
But Iris started to fidget and said she needed the loo, and could we get down now? I tried to distract her, but her focus was back in the flat. I told her to stay there and let me get down first, so she could jump into my arms.
‘An important thing to remember,’ I said, ‘is that it’s harder to get down than to get up.’
Maybe I cursed her. Is that how it works? Because she flung herself at me rather than letting herself dro
p and we both fell backwards and even though I mostly caught her, she made a sound like a cat crying as we thumped to the grass.
I thought she was kidding. I scrabbled out from under her. I told her, ‘OK, you can stop pretending now.’
And then I saw blood dripping into the mud at the side of her head.
There was a stump from another tree. I’d never noticed it before, spikey and sharp in the grass right next to her. Had she hit that?
‘Iris?’ I said. ‘Iris?’
But she didn’t answer.
It felt like hours passed as I looked down at her and all she did was give a little moan and bleed some more. I didn’t know what to do. Should I try and pick her up? I shook her shoulder. ‘Iris?’
She opened her eyes and then shut them again. She let out a whimper. I hopped about. I looked at the flats. All the windows were glazed with sunshine.
‘Help me,’ I whispered. ‘Somebody help.’
I ran to the nearest downstairs flat and knocked on a window. Nothing happened, so I knocked louder. I knocked on the flat next door and the one next to that.
‘Please,’ I called. ‘Please, is anyone there?’
A woman opened a door and peered out. She was young, with her hair in a ponytail. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘My sister’s hurt.’
The woman came out and sprinted across the grass and knelt by Iris, who had her eyes open again and was groaning and trying to sit up. There was blood all down her T-shirt and the woman asked her to turn her head. There was a ragged hole above Iris’s ear that was full of grit and darkness. Blood oozed out and matted in her hair.
The woman turned to me. ‘Are your mum or dad in?’
I nodded.
‘Run and get them. Tell them to bring a phone.’
As I ran up the stairs I was thinking, He’s going to yell. He’s going to hate me. I kept wishing I could turn everything back to the time only half an hour ago when me and Iris had walked downstairs hand in hand. Or further back to when Mum told John to please stop talking to her like that or she was going to take her kids and leave, and John said, ‘You just try it and see what happens.’ I could’ve left Iris to put up with it and just got myself out.
John was at his desk when I barged in. I was breathless and gasping. ‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Flounced off.’
‘Iris fell. You have to bring your phone.’
His face collapsed. He aged a hundred years. That is how much he loves her, I thought.
He bolted down the stairs and I grabbed his phone and galloped after him. He stalled when he saw the woman – like he’d got it wrong, like this woman was stealing or hurting Iris instead of helping.
He’s never going to forgive me, I thought. It might be delayed now because the woman was here, but it would happen.
‘I don’t think it’s deep,’ the woman said, ‘but it probably needs stitches. She’s a bit groggy too. I guess she might have concussion?’
John didn’t answer as he scooped Iris into his arms. ‘Let’s get you inside, we need to wash that dirt off you, baby.’
The woman stood up. ‘I think she needs an ambulance actually.’
I held John’s phone out to him, but he walked past me and away across the grass.
The woman looked at me. ‘Is he going to take her to hospital?’
I shrugged. I never knew what John would do.
The woman dashed after him. ‘Excuse me, but I think it’s probably best to let a doctor look at her. I can give you a lift somewhere if you want.’
He kept walking. He started up the stairs. He said nothing. He never usually missed an opportunity to charm strangers, so I thought maybe he’d gone mad. I thought love for Iris had done that.
The woman turned to me. ‘Where’s your mum?’
‘I don’t know. She went out.’
‘Do you have her number?’
I scrabbled with John’s phone and gave the woman his emergency number, which I knew was Mum.
When I got back upstairs John was in the bathroom with Iris on his lap. She was very quiet and pale. He was mopping the side of her head with a sponge and whispering to her. He was telling her she was going to be fine. I wanted to remind him about the ambulance, but he was the adult and if Iris died now, it would be his fault.
His phone rang, and it was Mum, so I answered. ‘What’s happened?’ She sounded wild with fear.
She’s going to hate me too, I thought.
I told her Iris fell and hit her head and John was washing the blood off. She told me to put the phone on speaker.
‘John?’ she said. ‘What’s going on? How bad is it?’
Her voice came out high and ghostly and echoed around the bathroom.
‘John, if she’s hurt her head, you have to take her to hospital. Are you listening to me? Is she conscious? I can’t hear her crying. Is it bleeding a lot? Why aren’t you answering? Can you please answer me, John?’
It was like she finally woke him from a trance. ‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said.
‘Head injuries need a doctor, John. You don’t always know best.’
‘OK, OK.’
‘If I get a cab and meet you there, will you take her to A&E?’
He gathered Iris up in a towel and walked out the door with her in his arms. I grabbed the car keys and followed. He never said I couldn’t. He buckled Iris into the passenger seat and I sat in the back. I wasn’t totally sure he knew I was there, although I’d handed him the car keys. He still wasn’t saying anything, apart from whispering soft words to Iris that I couldn’t hear.
Mum met us in the car park at the hospital and took over. She was brilliant – not tearful and anxious like she’d been that morning, but calm and focused. It was like seeing someone I used to know. She pulled back the towel to look at the wound and didn’t seem freaked out by the blood. Iris whimpered, and Mum told her she was brave.
Every bit of me was cold. ‘Is she going to be all right?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ Mum said. She told John to sort the car out and meet her inside. She picked Iris up and cradled her. ‘Don’t go to sleep,’ she said. ‘Come on, we’re going to find a doctor.’
I don’t know why I stayed with John while he parked the car. It was stupid. There were no spaces in the hospital car park and all the surrounding streets were for residents only.
‘Why are there no fucking meters?’ he said.
I wanted to be with Mum and Iris. I wanted to be in the hospital with doctors and nurses. I wanted to explain to sensible people that I’d tried to catch her, that I was sorry, that the last person I ever wanted to hurt was Iris.
We got stuck behind a delivery lorry and John slapped his hand on the horn and it blared on and on until the driver came out from a house and asked what John’s fucking problem was. I sank lower in my seat. John opened the window and said his fucking problem was that he had a child in the hospital and the man’s fucking truck was blocking the road.
The man said, ‘Two minutes, mate.’
John said, ‘I need it moved now!’
I am not here, I thought. I am invisible. I tried to breathe small and light. I tried not to swallow. Soon this would be over – the lorry would move, we would park, we would be in the hospital and there would be people and bustle and noise. But even though I was trying to be invisible, John looked at me in the driver’s mirror and I looked back at him and he said, ‘Why do bad things always happen when you’re around, Alexandra?’
I shook my head. ‘They don’t.’
‘Your grandfather might disagree.’
I stared at him. Tears blocked my throat.
‘Nothing to say, no? Not your fault he lay on the floor all night in agony?’ He regarded me in the mirror. ‘On and on it goes, doesn’t it? First your dad buggers off, then your granddad dies and now your sister plummets from a tree. What’s the common denominator?’
I was crying properly now. Salt tears washed into my mouth.
He slapped
the steering wheel again. He leaned out of the window and blared the horn. ‘Will you please just move your fucking truck,’ he yelled.
The driver came out of the house, waving. ‘I’m moving it now.’
‘About bloody time,’ John said.
We did a big circle and ended back in the hospital car park. There was a space now and John put money in the machine and a ticket on the dashboard. Neither of us spoke. I walked behind him to the main entrance and he marched ahead.
You don’t have to follow him, I thought. You could just walk away.
But I followed as he went to reception and asked where Iris was, and still I followed as he jogged along the yellow lines on the floor to A&E.
Iris was in a cubicle with Mum and a doctor. She was fine. It was a scrape, the doctor said, and only needed cleaning and some special glue.
John threw his hands in the air. ‘Didn’t I say?’
Mum apologized for making a fuss and the doctor said head injuries often looked worse than they were. John said that’s what he’d told Mum on the phone, but Mum was a worrier and what could he do? The doctor gave him a smile as if she understood how exhausting that might be. The doctor told Mum not to let Iris go to sleep until bedtime and to bring her straight back if she seemed altered in any way. There was some paperwork to fill in, but then we could go. The doctor looked at me. ‘You the tree climber?’
I nodded, my eyes filling again.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’m not telling you off.’ She looked at John and smiled. ‘These things happen, right? In fact, I encourage children to climb trees. I’m fed up treating kids who’ve tripped over the TV cable. At least this is a good old-fashioned injury.’
‘Absolutely,’ John said. ‘Couldn’t agree with you more.’
They shared another smile.
It was in the car on the way home that John turned the charm off. He twisted around in the passenger seat and looked at me. ‘A tree,’ he said. ‘You took your four-year-old sister up a tree! Are you insane?’
‘Don’t,’ Mum said. ‘Leave it for now. Let’s just get home.’
Furious Thing Page 11
