A Mother Never Lies

by Sarah Clarke

  ‘Ben! Wake up.’ There’s no response so I gently push him with my knee. ‘Ben!’ I’ve forgotten the ambulance call handler is on speaker phone so I jump at the sound of her voice.

  ‘It sounds like your friend is unconscious, Phoebe. Is there a lot of blood on his clothes?’

  ‘There’s so much blood! It’s everywhere!’ I know this isn’t helping. I need to be more accurate. ‘His T-shirt is covered, not his trousers though.’ I imagine a carton of milk; it feels about right. ‘I think he’s lost about a litre.’

  ‘That’s so helpful, Phoebe, thank you. I’ll let the crew know. Police and first responder will be there in six minutes. Ambulance in seven. But for now, I have a very important job for you.’

  ‘Okay,’ I answer meekly. She’s become my master; I’ll do anything she asks.

  ‘Is the knife still in situ?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. You mustn’t remove it.’

  ‘I haven’t touched it.’ It comes out triumphantly, like I deserve a gold star.

  ‘Brilliant. Now I want you to place your hands either side of the knife and push down, apply pressure to the wound. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘I’m doing it! I’m already pushing!’ I can’t believe it. I’m doing something right for once.

  ‘And is the wound still bleeding?’

  I look down at the wound. My hands seem to glow white in the darkness. The blood isn’t gushing like before, but I can’t stop my scrunched-up jacket turning a darker shade of red.

  ‘Yes. It’s still bleeding.’ Doing everything right and still getting it wrong. I cry then. Racking sobs that push down between my shoulder blades; test my resolve. But for the next six minutes my hands stay white. I don’t stop pushing down on the wound for a moment. Or pleading, ‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.’

  It’s all I can do.

  *

  I hear sirens first, then the snap of a chain breaking, and a gate smacking against the fence. Three paramedics rush towards me, one first responder and an ambulance crew, just like the woman on the phone said. As I turn my head towards them, I also see a blue light still flashing beyond the open gate. The police. They would have been responsible for cutting through the padlock, gaining access for the medical staff, but their presence is also a reminder that there’ll be questions to answer. Not now though.

  The elation I feel when the paramedics reach me is incredible, but when a gloved set of hands offers to take over my job, I find I can’t let go. What if the wound starts gushing blood again while we make the switch? What if that extra blood loss proves too much for his hungry heart? I can almost see it pumping madly in its desperate search for oxygen, totally confused why the usually reliable transport system is failing it so badly.

  ‘Phoebe, you’ve done an amazing job, but I’ve got this now.’ Her singsong Welsh accent makes the instruction sound casual, but her hands show the level of her determination. They expertly slide mine away and take over applying pressure. It’s seamless. I rock back onto my heels to create some distance, pull my knees into my chest, and listen to my teeth chattering inside my head.

  ‘Signs of haemorrhagic shock. I need two IV cannulae please.’

  Her instructions are calm and clear, but I can hear the tension in her voice. From my crouched position, I watch the older paramedic put an oxygen mask over Charlie’s head and pull two cannula sets out his bag.

  ‘We need to get him to the major trauma centre at St George’s ASAP,’ the Gaelic lilt continues.

  Major trauma. My teeth go into overdrive and they remind me of a comedy toy I once bought for Charlie in a joke shop. I start to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. A shiny metallic blanket gets wrapped around my shoulders. Fourteen years too late maybe. If I’d asked for help then, let the paramedics look after me and my baby, if I’d understood what really mattered, then perhaps I wouldn’t have caused all this devastation. But no one knows for sure of course, because that version of our lives was never written.

  ‘You have a nasty cut there. Want me to take a look?’ The third paramedic, the one responsible for the blanket, crouches down next to me. He looks about twenty-five and shines with the energy of youth.

  ‘No,’ I say firmly. Still not accepting help after all. ‘Will he live?’ I’m petrified what he might say, but I have to ask. He pauses for a moment, too long, I think.

  ‘It looks like a laceration to the liver. It’s a nasty wound, but you did absolutely everything right. If he survives, it’s down to you.’

  If. My vision shudders and the small garden around me moves with it. I struggle to ride the wave of nausea that it causes. ‘And if he dies?’

  ‘Listen carefully, Phoebe. It’s not your fault.’ He draws the words out to emphasise his point. ‘I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened tonight,’ he continues, like he’s read my mind. ‘But from a clinical point of view, he was lucky to have you here.’

  Is that true? Could he ever be lucky to have me? Right now, all I can think about is the pain I’ve caused him, but I need to believe that our first three years together still means something. It has kept me alive for so long, I can’t let it go now.

  ‘BP is stabilising. Let’s get him in the ambulance.’ It’s the first time the older paramedic has spoken, and his voice is the sharpest. Perhaps he’s become anaesthetised to it all; too many years playing witness to young lives being cut short by knife wounds like this. Or maybe he’s just good at hiding his true feelings.

  ‘Will you come in the ambulance, Phoebe?’ The Welsh girl thinks she’s asking a rhetorical question. She saw the desperation in my eyes when she took over applying pressure, and I can see the gravity in hers. In her mind, there’s no way I wouldn’t see this through.

  Except I can’t go with him.

  I can’t be there when Lucy and Greg arrive. I won’t be responsible for the distraction that will cause. ‘No,’ I whisper robotically, not daring to make eye contact. ‘His parents are called Greg and Lucy Moreton. They live at 16 Milada Road, Wandsworth. Their number will be in Ben’s phone.’ I dip my head towards the patio where the phone is still lying, redundant now.

  ‘Are you sure?’ There’s both surprise and concern in her voice.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ I try to sound genuine. She doesn’t need to know that I’ll go to the hospital anyway, find somewhere in the shadows to wait; that I won’t rest until I know whether he lives or dies. She shrugs and turns to go. There’s no time for discussion anyway. I watch the three of them carefully lift the stretcher and transfer it to the wheeled trolley. Charlie is covered in blankets and I watch her secure his motionless body with thick black straps.

  He might not survive the night, I realise suddenly. I need to say goodbye, to see his face one more time. I scramble to my feet, ignore the pain in my ankle, and run the few steps it takes to reach his side. His eyes are closed; he looks calm, at peace. I wish I could see the anger again, the rage that shows me he’s still alive. Even the look of hatred, that felt so painful only an hour or so ago, would be welcome now.

  I stroke his hair, gently guide it away from his face, and kiss him on the forehead. It’s the most intimate moment we’ve shared since he was 3 years old, and it took a loss of consciousness, the threat of death, to get here. Over the last two months I’ve tried so hard to make amends, listened to the tirades against his parents, his school, his sister. Forgiving him for the anger and violence. Did he sense it, my unconditional love? Did he crave it?

  I will never get the chance to find out because now I’m just the mother who left him, the liar who tricked him, the woman who murdered his father. I close my eyes and pray for Charlie to survive. There’s so much more I want to pray for, but it feels selfish, dangerous, to ask for too much, so I force those pleading voices away.

  Then I kiss him one last time, take a step back, and watch the paramedics wheel him away.

  Chapter 42

  Lucy

  Lucy dabs at a stray tear escaping from the cor
ner of her eye. She can’t cry now. Not yet. She picks up the waterproof mascara, blue-black, and starts curling it through her eyelashes. She doesn’t want to cry later either, not in front of everyone. But deep down, she knows the tears will come.

  Sitting back against the soft velvet cushioning of the Regency dressing table chair, she stares at herself in the mirror. Better. But even good make-up can’t hide the fact that she looks older. Tired. It’s funny, she’s spent years rushing around, trying to do everything. Be brilliant at everything. But it’s now, when life has become so much stiller, that she feels truly tired.

  She turns to look at the dress hanging on her wardrobe door. It’s still got the tags on. Of course she already has plenty of dresses inside her wardrobe that would have worked perfectly well today, but she wanted to buy something new. Something special. She owes him that. With shaking hands, she unclasps the tiny safety pin holding the tags in place and drops them into the bin. Lifting her arms into the air, she lets the simple black dress glide down her body, the silk cooling her burning skin as it falls.

  A gentle thud-thud on the stairs signals that it must be time to go. Lucy’s heart starts racing at the prospect and she dabs frantically at her eyes again. Keeping her emotions at bay is not going to be easy today.

  Greg appears at the door, a long raincoat covering his dark suit. He won’t let the weather define how smart he looks today. ‘Are you ready, darling?’ he asks.

  Ready? Not really. For so long, her life had been what she made it. Its success based on her working hard, finding solutions, believing that anything was possible. Even the trauma of Rosie’s birth had been fixable. She’d fixed it. On the day Greg agreed to try adoption, and then again when their darling Ben walked into their lives. A child who had suffered such trauma, who she was going to save. At least, she thought so at the time.

  Things are different now. Out of her control. But she knows that she has to learn to live with this new normal. ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she answers.

  Greg reaches for her hand and they walk slowly down the stairs. Rosie is waiting for them by the front door and they confront the miserable day together.

  *

  The journey doesn’t take too long and they do it in almost silence, each of them with their own thoughts on what today means, and what might have been. At one time, Lucy would have disapproved of Rosie’s chosen outfit, the preference for comfort over etiquette. But she’s learned a lot about priorities lately and now she’s just glad that Rosie is here. She leans over, squeezes her daughter’s hand. Then she risks looking into her eyes. In them she sees the reminder we’re here to celebrate Ben and she smiles in response. It feels good.

  At least the rain has stopped when they arrive. They walk up the steps and into a group of people. The oldest amongst them are quiet, more respectful of the occasion perhaps, while the young people chatter and giggle. Maybe it’s their way of dealing with the day’s magnitude. Either way, the unexpected crowd makes Lucy feel claustrophobic and she slips her arm inside Greg’s for support. She looks around her until she sees a familiar face.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  Lucy turns to face her son and straight away the waterproof mascara is put to the test. Ben even manages to make his academic robe look scruffy, and there’s no hiding the blue streak in his hair, but there’s an energy behind his eyes that overwhelms her. Because she still remembers seeing those eyes almost lifeless. Christmas Day 2019. Four and a half years ago. But etched in her memory like it was yesterday. She still can’t quite believe they’ve come this far, that they’re about to watch him graduate from the Slade School of Fine Art, one the best art schools in the world. On that dark night when her phone rang, and the world came crashing down, all she cared about was having him back.

  ‘Good to see you, fella.’ Lucy watches her husband and son embrace. A proper hug, held for many moments. Greg blamed himself, of course. For trying to stem Ben’s anger rather than letting him release it. For thinking he knew best. But the reality is they were all guilty of keeping the truth from him, not letting him mourn the family he’d lost. Even on that Christmas Day. Still trying to brush Ben’s past under the carpet, forcing him to deal with what he’d discovered all by himself.

  The relief of Ben surviving spurred them into action. Making good on all those deals they made with God during those long hours outside the operating theatre. If you give him back to us, I promise to work less, get him help, listen to him more. But it was the therapy that gave them the framework to move forward. For all those years, she’d thought she was doing the right thing. Putting his trauma behind them. Helping him avoid those terrible memories. But in reality, she just let them live inside Ben, eat away at him. He never confided in her about the nightmares he had, or about how he was feeling, but of course there were clues. If she’d looked hard enough.

  ‘Shall we go inside? The ceremony will be starting soon.’ For all her more relaxed approach to life, Lucy still can’t bear being late. Old habits die hard.

  ‘We just need to wait for Hana. She’ll be here any minute.’

  Lucy looks into the crowd again and sees Ben’s girlfriend walking towards them, her curly hair bouncing as she hurries along. She probably shouldn’t approve of the relationship of course. He was too young, too troubled, too vulnerable, when they met. But the truth is, Hana is impossible to disapprove of. The way she accepted Ben’s mental illness without question or judgement, invited him out to the Czech Republic to help him heal; those are the things that endeared her to Lucy forever. And rightly or wrongly, the partnership is still going strong. Who knows what the future will hold, but that’s another thing Lucy’s trying not to worry about so much these days.

  ‘Hi, everyone, sorry I’m late.’

  ‘Probably stuck in the Ferrari showroom organising my graduation gift.’ Ben leans down and kisses his girlfriend on the cheek. This is new too; his easiness with affection, and Lucy hasn’t managed to take it in her stride yet. Her heart still does a mini jig every time she witnesses it.

  ‘Ah Ferrari! I should have thought of that,’ Hana responds, clicking her fingers in mock frustration. ‘I went with the stale croissant in the end.’

  ‘Sentimental value?’ they both say in unison and start laughing.

  This is going to be a good day.

  The Slade is part of University College London, but they hold their graduation ceremonies at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank, a modernist building more loved for its soul than its looks. They walk inside the huge auditorium and Ben lopes off to his designated seat, self-conscious all of a sudden as he joins his peers. Big crowds will never be his thing. As they take their seats, Lucy can’t help being awed by the ambition of the building. It was constructed soon after the Second World War when confidence could have been low, but instead they created this monumental space. Optimism. It’s still a daily battle for her, but she’s getting there.

  ‘God, I hope he doesn’t talk as much as my provost,’ Rosie whispers behind her hand as a small man in a gown and spectacles bounds onto the stage. ‘I honestly thought we were all going to die of heatstroke before he finished raving on about our future potential.’

  ‘Well I’m not sure it was his fault that temperatures topped thirty degrees that day.’ Lucy feels the need to defend the man; she was actually rather inspired by his talk at Rosie’s graduation. ‘Although it is hard to believe it was only a week ago,’ she continues, making an involuntary shudder and pulling her grey silk shawl further round her shoulders. She didn’t plan her outfit for drizzly rain and gusty winds. Not what you’d usually expect in July.

  Rosie didn’t go to Durham University in the end. She told most people that she’d changed her mind about the course, but it wasn’t just that. Durham is at the other end of the country and Rosie decided that she didn’t want to be that far away from home. From Ben. King’s College London had happily offered her a place and she now holds both a first-class law degree and a wonderful relationship with her brother. She st
ill hasn’t worked out how to remove her clothes from the bedroom floor unfortunately.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family. Today you can be justly proud …’

  Lucy relaxes back against the foam cushioning of her seat, focuses in on her son as he plays idly with his new hairstyle, and lets the provost’s words roll over her. Ben is alive, and from her perspective, she doesn’t need a better future than that.

  Chapter 43

  Phoebe

  ‘Look at me. You’re going to be okay.’

  ‘No, can’t breathe.’ A tiny whisper, hardly a sound at all.

  ‘I’m here now. I’m going to help you.’

  My fingers point and flex with the effort.

  ‘I’m going to put this paper bag around your lips and I want you to breath into it. That’s brilliant. Now let go of that breath, force it out. That’s it. You’re doing it, see? You’re breathing.’

  I smile at the woman kneeling in front of me, get drawn into her shining brown eyes.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers, louder this time. ‘Thanks for saving me.’

  Her words jolt me back to a different time; to the memory of Dave and Jen helping me on that busy platform nearly five years ago. How life has changed since then. I tilt back on my sturdy black boots, enjoy the sound of my stiff jacket rustling as I move. ‘You were having a panic attack,’ I explain gently. ‘I used to get them too, so I know how scary they can be. But you would have beaten it without my help, I promise. We’re stronger than we think.’ Not my words originally, but I’ve adopted them. I believe them now.

  ‘Survival instinct,’ she replies and there’s a real gravity to her voice. It makes me wonder what her story is, what she might have been through; her heavy accent suggests that London is new to her. But I haven’t got time to delve any deeper. Friday evenings in South London are too busy for that.