Breathe

by Cari Hunter

  “No, it’s not true,” she said quietly. “That wasn’t what happened, and he was discharged about an hour ago.” Gauging the disappointment in their expressions, she bit into her toast, enjoying its buttery crunch now that she’d taken the wind from their sails. If they wanted the full story, they could ask someone else.

  “He didn’t need emergency surgery?” Caitlin asked, her eyes narrowing as she tried to catch Jem in a lie.

  “He needed his shoulder popping back in and a couple of plasters.” Jem finished chewing her crust. “Would either of you like a piece? I’m going to do another, so it’s no bother.”

  “No, thank you,” Amira said. “I’m gluten intolerant.”

  You’re generally intolerant, Jem thought, and hid her relief behind her mug as their radios went off.

  “Why can’t they all just stay in fucking bed?” Caitlin said, grabbing the vehicle keys and stomping to the door. She’d only been a paramedic for a year, and her university diploma course had somehow failed to prepare her for the nonstop barrage of water infections, falls, overdoses, snotty kids, and the worried well. She was already talking about finishing her degree and getting a better paid job in a Minor Injuries unit, an ambition that Bob had been actively encouraging.

  Jem listened for the start of the engine, the creak of the garage doors, and the sirens that were blaring before the ambulance had even left the yard. The din faded with distance, the whoop and wail replaced by the occasional rumble of a passing HGV and chirps from the dawn chorus’s more zealous members. Jem set an alarm on her phone and sank into the closest armchair, too worn out to care that its headrest was greasy from years of use and that it smelled like an unwashed old man. Her eyes burned when she closed them, and even curled up she couldn’t get warm enough. She needed a hat like Officer Rosie’s, she decided: something woolly enough to withstand the winds at the highest point of Barton and stop her hair from blinding her. And if it happened to be as flattering as Rosie’s, that would be fine too. Shaking her head at the memory, she tugged her jacket tighter and dozed off, smiling.

  Chapter Three

  Watery sunlight peeking beneath the blackout blinds, along with a weird smell that might have been offal and orange, woke Jem before her alarm got its chance. She slapped a hand on the button to deactivate it and buried her face in her quilt.

  “Fergus!” Her summons was muffled by her fifteen-tog winter warmer, so she held her nose, ducked out her head, and tried again. “Ferg! Get your arse in here.”

  He appeared five minutes later, a contrite six-foot-three, flame-haired Scot wearing a stained apron and a liberal dusting of flour. Stopping short of the threshold, he proffered a mug of tea and a bacon barm like a flag of truce.

  “Get over here, you big idiot,” she said, ruffling his curls as he shoved onto the bed with her and helped himself to a bite of her butty. “What bloody concoction have you got on the boil down there? Slaughterhouse and potpourri?”

  “Kidney à l’orange. It sounded like such a winning combination in my head.”

  “And in reality?”

  He grimaced. “It tastes like death and Del Monte.”

  “Oh dear.” Although she’d aimed for sympathetic, her plate began to shake as she suppressed a laugh, and a rasher of bacon gave the game away by sliding out of her barm. As chief recipe developer at Pie Hard and its sister shop Pie Harder, Fergus was living his dream, and none of his ardent fan base needed to know about the occasional spectacular misses that occurred in pursuit of the much clamoured-after hits. “Back to the drawing board with this one, then?” she asked.

  “Aye. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.” He crossed his legs at the ankles and tapped the tip of her nose. “Sleep okay?”

  “Like a log.”

  “Shift okay?”

  “Yeah, not too bad,” she said, rescuing her errant rasher and avoiding his gaze.

  “Thought as much. Mr. Murphy pushed a note through to say you’d parked at the wrong house again.”

  “I did? Buggeration.” She sagged against her pillows, racking her brain for details of her journey home. The Murphys lived two doors down, but she couldn’t remember parking on their drive. She couldn’t even remember leaving station.

  “How bad,” Ferg asked, “on a score of one to ‘See You in Coroner’s Court’?”

  “Only about a three. Could’ve been worse. Trevor did quite well, considering. He lasted almost eight hours before he went off sick, so I’ll be solo tonight.”

  Ferg tugged her upright, her plate and mug clattering as he set them on the bedside cabinet. “You’re better off without that knob. Get in the shower. I’ll shift your car and rally the troops, and you can tell me all about it.”

  He shut the door behind him, and Jem gifted herself a moment to finish her butty, listening to the blue tits squabbling with the robins around the feeders she’d hung in the small backyard. She and Ferg had shared the terraced house for the past three years. He’d been an A&E nurse at the time of signing the lease, and they’d bonded over their mutual love of pastry, cakes, and all things calorific. She patted her arse as she rolled out of bed. The cheeks wobbled slightly beneath her palms, and she wondered how much of their current expanse was a direct result of being a prize baker’s taste-test stooge.

  “Most of it, at a guess,” she said, waiting for the shower to show willing and produce a hint of steam before she stripped off. The full-length mirror caught her naked body in profile, and she turned slowly to face the glass. She knew she’d never be rake-thin, and in truth she was quite fond of her curves. Her breasts were chipper enough, she didn’t have bingo wings, and while her tummy definitely wasn’t a six-pack, it hadn’t reached the level of keg.

  Using one hand to clear the mirror of mist, she gave her bedhead the evil eye and tugged on one of its tufts. Though she might be at home with her body, her hair was another matter entirely. It was stringy, mud brown, and best displayed beneath a cap, and she had always hated it. With no solutions of her own apart from shaving it all off, she kept the same style to appease her hairdresser, a myopic sixty-year-old who still thought basin fringes and backcombing were the height of fashion.

  “Balls to it,” she said, and stepped beneath the spray.

  Reconvening with Ferg on the driveway, she abandoned her attempts to kirby-grip her fringe into submission and greeted the frantic menagerie of mutts Ferg had collected.

  “Hallo, pups,” she said, squatting to hand out treats. She untangled three of the leads, dividing the load equally between her and Fergus, and clicked her tongue. “Right-o, best foot forward.”

  The rain had cleared as she slept, leaving puddles on the pavements, and the smell of fresh grass in Abbey Vale. Stretching across several miles of wetland, fields, and woodland, the nature reserve was high and open enough in places to give views of the Pennines and the monument atop Stanny Pike in one direction, and the city skyscrapers in the other. Jem had spent hours exploring its trails, and she walked the dogs more for pleasure and exercise than financial gain. Children were shrieking on the main playground, lured outside by the first clear weather in days, and two no-fixed-abodes had hung their sleeping bags to dry from nearby trees. They raised their lager cans in greeting as Jem steered her dogs by.

  “Seen rats in ’ere bigger than them,” one said. “Best watch out if you go near the lake. The seagulls will have ’em.”

  She ignored him, and Ferg’s amused snort.

  “Sod off, I can’t help it,” she said, once they’d rounded the corner. Nothing over knee height, that was her rule, and that meant her knees, not Ferg’s. She’d pushed the limits of her comfort zone by accepting a marginal beagle from an elderly gent with a bad hip, but she’d firmly drawn the line at the Murphys’ boxer.

  Ferg touched the smaller of two scars below her left eye. “I know, hen. I’m not really taking the piss. Besides which, toy dogs are brilliant for meeting women.” He scooped up Delilah, the tiny Chihuahua struggling to keep the pace,
and nodded and smiled at a pretty thirty-something blonde who’d slowed her jog to coo at their Pomeranian. Barely acknowledging Ferg, the woman beamed at Jem before accelerating away. He shrugged, not offended in the slightest. “I rest my case.”

  “I met someone last night,” Jem said, too shift-addled to consider how the statement might be interpreted. “No, no, not like that,” she stuttered, as he gaped at her. “She’s a police officer, and there was this lad, dangling, he was dangling off Barton Bridge, and we pulled him up together, and then the lad got dinged by a car, and she came to the hospital and made me a cup of tea.” She ran out of air, coughing as she tried to inhale and exhale simultaneously.

  Ferg steered her to the closest bench and waited until the rasp in her chest became less audible.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  “That little escapade going to cause you any trouble?”

  “No. Kev didn’t seem to think so.”

  He tickled Delilah beneath her chin, making her tongue loll out. “And what might be the name of this police officer who’s got you in such a tizzy?”

  “Her name is Rosie. And I’m not in a tizzy. She was nice enough, but she was nuttier than a fruitcake.” She and Ferg leaned back in unison, considering the pack of diminutive pooches milling around their ankles.

  “So, basically you’re made for each other,” he said at length.

  She slapped her knees and stood. “Absolutely. She’s the Thelma to my Louise, the Butch to my Sundance, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “You do realise all four of those went over a cliff.”

  She thought that one over, perturbed that even her subconscious tended toward pessimism. “Hmm, yeah, good point. Butch and Sundance survived, though. Well, for a while.”

  A fine drizzle began to fall, misting over the lake and gathering on her eyelashes. She dabbed them dry and held out a hand to pull Ferg up.

  “If you’re Sundance, exactly how butch was this Officer Rosie?” he asked, in a blatant attempt to lighten her mood.

  She let out an exaggerated breath. “Off the scale, mate. Hard as nails. She’d make mincemeat out of you.”

  He yanked his dogs to a halt and looked at her. “Really?”

  “No.”

  He snorted and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Okay, fair enough, I asked for that. Fancy a brew and a cake at the cafe?”

  “Are you buying?”

  A quick slap of his jeans pocket made coins jingle. “Yes, unless those all turn out to be pennies.”

  “I’m sure we’ll manage. We can always get one tea and two straws if we’re really desperate.” She squeezed his hand. “If we end up sharing a scone, though, I’m having the jammy half.”

  * * *

  If Rosie looked hard enough, she could see the odd mark on the wallpaper where she’d Blu-Tacked her favourite posters. The bunk beds were the other way around now, and her old desk had been replaced by a new unit for the television she’d always begged for and never been allowed, but otherwise the room was the same claustrophobic little box room she’d spent most of her formative years in.

  Humming along to an earworm Kash had inflicted on her the night before, she was about to reach for her mug of coffee when a shriek stilled her hands.

  “You nipped my ear, Rosie! You proper cut me. Is it bleeding? I bet it’s bleeding. I won’t tell Mam if you give me a fiver.”

  Rosie held the scissors aloft, examining them carefully for claret and chunks of lughole. “You’re a dirty fibber, Janelle Badu. Hold still so I don’t make a cock of your fringe.”

  Janelle—thirteen going on forty-five—folded her arms and scowled, her jaw working furiously as she chewed her bubblegum. “You don’t get to boss me about just cos you’re a copper.”

  “No, I get to boss you about because I’m older than you and bigger than you, and because Dad said I could.”

  “Stepdad,” Janelle said, wafting at the falling hair so she could continue to glower upward. “He’s only your stepdad, and he likes me the best.”

  Re-angling the scissors, Rosie sent more black curls spiralling into Janelle’s lap. “Hmm, I don’t know. I think Samuel has the edge. They both like footy, fishing—”

  “Farting,” Janelle added, and laughed so hard Rosie had to stop cutting. The laugh was infectious, a throaty, full-bellied roar that caught her up in its sheer enthusiasm. Janelle could be a pain in the arse at times, but she was good fun when she wasn’t setting the world to rights.

  “Boys, eh?” Rosie said, winking at her in the mirror.

  Janelle wiped her nose, smearing snot and loose hairs across the sleeve of Rosie’s smock. “Mam reckons they’re only good for one thing.”

  “Yeah?” Rosie closed her eyes, wondering what the hell Janelle had overheard. “What’s that?”

  Janelle blew a bubble and left Rosie in suspense until it popped. “Getting the lids off stuff. Are we done yet?”

  “Just about.”

  A liberal application of curl-defining gel rounded things off, and Rosie held up a smaller mirror, displaying the back and sides of Janelle’s new style for her approval.

  “Love it.” Janelle tore off the smock and kissed Rosie’s cheek. “Tammy wanted hers doing as well.”

  “Tammy will have to wait. I’m on shift in an hour and a half.” Rosie caught the hood of Janelle’s sweater. “Hoover, missy. Mam’s got enough to do without cleaning up after you.”

  “It’s like having two bleedin’ mothers,” Janelle muttered, her fondness for swearing still eclipsed by her reluctance to get in trouble over it. When Rosie tugged on one of her curls, she smiled shyly, the stroppy teenager morphing into the sweet baby half-sister who had made everything all right with Rosie’s new dad, and who had come to rely on Rosie for a good deal of her parenting when two further children had followed in rapid succession.

  Lured downstairs by a heady aroma of roasting meat and spuds, they walked into a kitchen filled with steam, the cloud all but obscuring Maggie Badu as she slid a tray of Yorkshire puddings from the oven.

  “Whoa, easy, Mam.” Rosie grabbed an oven glove and caught the tray as it began to tilt, drawing a relieved but frazzled smile from her mam, who placed the tray on the counter with one hand and rapped Janelle’s knuckles with the other.

  “Ow! Jesus Christ.”

  Swearing earned Janelle another smack, and she dropped the pilfered Yorkie to stick her reddened fingers in her mouth. Their mam ruled the roost, despite being a short, unassuming woman, and even her husband gave her wooden spoon a wide berth.

  “It’ll be ready in five minutes,” she told Janelle. “Go and help Tammy set the table. Rosie, be a love and carve the beef. I think your dad’s watching the footy with Sam.”

  “That sounds about right,” Rosie said, taking up the knife and stabbing the thick joint with a fork.

  Her mam was busy with the mashed carrots, pepper flying everywhere as she gestured with the grinder. “It keeps them out of my way, and they’ll be doing the washing up while I finish that nice bottle of plonk you brought.”

  Rosie put a hand on her heart, aghast. “It’s not plonk. I’ll have you know it’s a very fine”—she checked the bottle—“Australian Shiraz.”

  “Lidl or Aldi?”

  Rosie chuckled. It was impossible to pull the wool with her mam, and their respective budgets rarely stretched beyond the value supermarkets. “Lidl. They were two for six quid.”

  “Pity you’re working tonight. We could’ve watched Strictly and got sozzled.”

  “I’d need to be bloody anaesthetised to watch that crap. I’d rather be scrapping with a nowty scrote.” Rosie hefted the plate of meat and balanced the Yorkies on top. “Right, we’re good to go. Grab the gravy and corral the kids. I’m on a deadline here.”

  Speed eating was a skill most emergency service workers perfected in their first year. Those who didn’t tended to return to a nice nine-to-five, where lunch came bang on twelve o’clock, lasted an ho
ur, and didn’t give you an irritable bowel. Six years as a response officer had made Rosie a past master, and she was finishing her cherry cobbler as her mam shared out seconds in Yorkshire puds between the children.

  “Tammy’s got a boyfriend,” Sam announced to all and sundry, lofting his entire pudding on his fork and biting into it. “And she kissed him round back of Kumar’s.”

  From the corner of her eye, Rosie saw Tammy flush beetroot red and stop chewing.

  “No, I never,” Tammy said. “I don’t even like boys.”

  “That’s my girl,” Rosie said. “You keep your options open, love. There’s plenty of time to make these difficult life choices at a later date.”

  Tammy frowned, the advice flying right over her ten-year-old head. “Whuh?”

  “Never you mind,” their dad said, his deep voice almost a growl. Although he tolerated Rosie’s flexible approach to her sexuality, he’d never quite managed to throw off the yoke of his strict Christian upbringing. Thanks to his wife’s ardent liberalism, he no longer developed a twitch when Rosie brought a girlfriend over for tea, but he’d never be a card-carrying PFLAG member.

  Rosie dabbed her lips with a tissue and then stood and kissed his bald head. “It’s been a pleasure, as ever, but duty calls.”

  “There’s a parcel of leftovers in the kitchen,” her mam said. “Mind how you go out there.”

  “I will.” Rosie leaned down and hugged her. “Thanks for tea. Text me if you need anything.” Straightening, she eyeballed the kids. “Behave yourselves, rabble.”

  A chorus of farewells followed her to the doorstep, where she swapped the muggy warmth of the small terrace for the nip of Manchester in mid-March as she jogged across to her car. A quick check of her watch gave her fifteen minutes for her twenty-minute journey. With the following night’s tea safely stashed on the passenger seat, and the radio blaring out a song she almost knew the lyrics to, she turned onto the main road and stuck her foot down.