Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell

by Debbie Carbin

  The brothers have not discussed what they both believe is the reason behind Jake’s disappearance. Glenn doesn’t dare to open up that particular package – he knows that if he even touches it, he will not be able to survive the shockwave. Hector is keeping silent on the matter. He knows that too.

  Slowly, slowly, the brothers crawl through the cold streets, at times reassured by the absence of many people; at times disturbed by it.

  ‘What was that?’ Glenn barks suddenly.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Back there, next to that letter-box.’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘Fucking hell, Hector, turn the car round.’

  At the house, Sparks is getting a message on his radio. I’ve come down now and am whipping round the living room with a duster. I’ll need to hoover after this – the dust is really quite thick. Is there a limited amount of dust that can collect on your furniture? Does it reach that depth and stop, like saturation point; or if you leave it for a hundred years would it just keep getting thicker and thicker and thicker?

  ‘Excuse me,’ Sparks says, getting up and leaving the room as an incomprehensible voice hisses out of the radio on his shoulder.

  Sarah jumps and watches his exit with wide eyes. She stands up and takes a step towards the door to follow. Daniels gets up too and takes Sarah’s arm. ‘Best leave it a minute, Sarah,’ she says kindly.

  Sarah looks at the police officer with wild eyes. ‘B-but . . . He . . . he’s . . .’

  Daniels nods. ‘If it’s any news, he’ll come straight back and tell you. Try—’ She bites off the end of that sentence with a glance at me. We lock eyes for a nanosecond, then I resume polishing the mirror over the fireplace.

  Sparks re-enters the room, his expression unreadable. Our three anxious faces turn to him expectantly.

  ‘They’ve found his rucksack,’ he announces tonelessly.

  When he said ‘found’ Sarah jerked out of her seat with a small sound, but now she sinks down again, looking at me helplessly.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she asks, and I’m wondering the same thing. While Sarah is gazing pleadingly at Sparks, take a quick look at Daniels. Did you see it? For just a moment, a fraction of a second, her face showed freezing dread at Sparks’s news. But then she composes herself, rearranges her reassuring smile and touches Sarah’s arm.

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything, Sarah. Don’t read anything into it, honestly. It means nothing.’

  But we saw her face, didn’t we? We know she’s lying.

  The radio crackles again and we all jump. For a moment Sparks doesn’t move, as if he knows what is coming, and it’s not good. He shoots a meaningful look at his colleague, then retreats to the hallway again.

  For twenty-three seconds, Sarah and I live in a world where Jake is dead. My scalp freezes, my mouth dries and burns; Sarah’s eyes lose the ability to see, her ears to hear. Everything is a thunderous rushing sound and all the light in the room closes in around the one thing I can’t look at: Sarah’s frightened face.

  ‘They’ve found him! He’s found!’ Sparks re-enters the room suddenly, speaking as he enters. He bounds over to Sarah and flings his arms around her, squeezing her tightly and bouncing her up and down. I am touched by his obvious enjoyment in imparting this wonderful news. Sarah grips his arms and stares intently into his eyes, as if trying to reassure herself that he is telling her the truth. ‘Your husband rang in just a few moments ago—’

  ‘Glenn . . . found . . .?’

  ‘He found the rucksack, on the pavement by Jake’s school. Then within ten minutes of that, we had another call from a member of the public saying he’d witnessed . . .’ He pauses, just for a second, stumbles, then carries on. ‘He found a small boy, only a bit further along. The description matches what you’ve told us about his clothes and appearance.’

  Witnessed what? I’m thinking. And why match him to his description? Why not simply ask him who he was?

  ‘Steve, what else did they say?’ Daniels says calmly. ‘Where was he found?’ I don’t see how this matters right now. ‘How is he?’ That’s a good point. ‘And where is he now?’ Very good point.

  Sparks and Sarah disengage. ‘They’ve taken him to hospital,’ Sparks says, looking at Sarah.

  ‘Ho—?’

  ‘He has been injured,’ Sparks goes on.

  ‘Wh—?’ Sarah’s hand goes to her mouth. She looks as if she’s about to vomit. I drop the duster and go to her side as her legs buckle under her and she collapses on to the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  WE’RE IN THE back of the police car, speeding towards the hospital. The siren’s on and the lights are flashing and inside the car it is absolutely deafening. We can’t hear anything, we can’t speak to each other, we can’t even think. Yet the howling siren is somehow the perfect accompaniment to the squeezing agony that’s going on in my belly. If there was a sound equivalent of that pain, this is it.

  Before we left the house, Steve Sparks told us what he knows so far. It seems that the motorist who phoned the ambulance was driving along Church Road behind a motorcyclist. He claims that he saw the motorcyclist swerve suddenly and wobble dangerously, and at the same moment he saw something flung backwards on the pavement. He assumed something had fallen from the motorcycle’s pannier. He didn’t know it then, but he had just seen a six-year-old boy being struck by the speeding motorcycle and left bleeding and unconscious in the gutter. He continued on for another hundred yards or so but couldn’t escape the feeling that he had seen something that wasn’t right, so eventually turned round and went back. He walked up and down in the darkness for a few minutes before finally finding Jake’s battered little body under a hedge. He was so shocked and horrified, he threw up on the pavement. He must have thought Jake was dead. I know how that feels. He called an ambulance and went to the hospital, though, so he knows he’s not dead now. Sparks and Daniels have to speak to him when we get there. God willing, they will also speak to Jake himself.

  When Sparks said it was Church Road, the first thing I could think of is that he was on his way to school, as it’s very near to there, but what would make him want to go to school on his own, at night? The more I think about that, the more I am convinced he was on his way somewhere else, not to school. I have a theory, but I’m not going to talk to Sarah about it until I have a chance to see what Jake says.

  Sparks said that there is the possibility that he was picked up by someone, and dropped off on Church Road, before the motorcyclist struck him. It’s a line of enquiry, although it seems unlikely that anyone would do that and not contact the police, or at least make sure that he got safely to his destination.

  ‘Umph,’ I say and you can see from my poor face that another searing pain is ripping through me. No one hears me, though. Not even me. The siren’s screech is louder than mine and, if I’m honest, wailing to myself as the pain grips me does help somehow, even though I can’t hear it.

  I’m not thinking what you’re thinking. I am having a caesarean next Thursday. In six days’ time. The plain old fifth of April. I’m booked in already, so I can’t do it now.

  Five minutes later, we’re arriving at the hospital. Sarah’s acting as if her clothes are on fire. She practically flings herself out of the police car even before it has stopped properly, and rushes into the Accident and Emergency department, her eight-month pregnant friend hobbling in awkwardly behind her in the company of two police officers.

  As we enter, everyone in the waiting room turns and looks at me with interest, the dark blue of a police uniform instantly drawing every eye, even those whose heads were turned away. How do they do that?

  Sarah is standing at the receptionist’s window, having just shouted out Jake’s name apparently.

  ‘Would you mind keeping your voice down, please?’ the receptionist is saying. ‘We do have some very sick people here.’

  ‘I know that,’ Sarah says, really slowly. ‘My six-year-old son is one of them. Now ca
n you tell me where he is, please?’ Look at her face – she looks like she could rip a few arms off herself.

  At this point the receptionist notices the two police officers come in and is momentarily distracted, smiling at Steve. ‘All right, Steve?’

  Sarah leans down to the window. ‘Jake McCarthy,’ she says through gritted teeth.

  Turns out he’s been taken to Intensive Care, which is on the third floor. ‘Follow the yellow line,’ the receptionist says, pointing at the floor.

  We follow the line until it comes to a lift so we get in. When we come out on the third floor, there is the yellow line again, reassuringly familiar. Comforting, Sarah says. The colour yellow in a hospital context makes me think of pus and fever, but I don’t say this to Sarah. She’s walking extra fast and won’t stop talking.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Rach, he’s been hurt, my poor little baby was out there all alone and got hurt by someone and I couldn’t help him, I’ve never been to this part of the hospital before, I’ve only been to the maternity area, which is only on the first floor, really good place to put it too cause when you’re heavily pregnant you don’t want to be hauling yourself up three or four flights of stairs when the lift breaks down. Oh God, I hope Jake is all right. I just can’t bear the thought of him out there all on his own wanting his mummy so badly and me not coming.’

  The two police officers are following along behind. I’m assuming the man who found Jake is up in Intensive Care, waiting to be interviewed. I really don’t like the idea of this stranger hanging around our boy. Yeah, thanks for finding him, now clear off home and mind your own business, it’s got nothing to do with you.

  Do I sound ungrateful? I don’t mean to be. It’s just losing Jake like that for all that time has made me so fiercely protective of him. I want to claw out the eyes of anyone who hurts him. And as we arrive at an archway with a sign hanging in it saying Intensive Therapy Unit, I am starting to feel that way about the man who found him too, hanging around where he’s not wanted. I feel like telling him, when I see him, that he’s bloody well in the way, this is a private family matter and we need our privacy, so he should just—

  ‘Nick!’

  Just inside the archway, sitting hunched on an orange vinyl chair with a rip in it that’s been mended with black tape, is Nick Maxwell. Doesn’t he look pale? And small, somehow. The expression on his face is frightened, anxious, those beautiful eyes wide and dark, his lips trembling as if he wants nothing more than to have a good cry. His eyes widen further when he sees me. They have to, to fit me in.

  ‘Rachel? What are you doing here?’ He stands up and approaches me eagerly, some of the strain in his face smoothing away. What was that, then? Was that relief? Is he relieved to see me? Why?

  ‘I’m with my friend. Her little boy has been injured. What about you?’ Behind me, Sarah has hurried on past to the nurses’ station.

  ‘You won’t believe this. I’ve just seen a bloody awful accident, right in front of me. Some motorcyclist hit a little boy on the side of the road. Right in front of me. It was awful. The bastard didn’t even stop.’

  I stare at him. I really don’t want Nick Bloody Maxwell to be the hero of this story. ‘You? You found him?’

  He looks back at me. ‘Yes, me. Oh, God, Rachel, it was so awful. I thought—’ He breaks off, taking in what I’ve said, the fact that I’ve arrived with two police officers who are, even now, moving in. ‘Wait a minute. Is it your friend . . .? Is it her child . . .?’

  I nod.

  ‘Wow. Small world.’

  ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions, please,’ says Daniels, stepping forwards.

  ‘Course, course,’ Nick says, edging closer to me. ‘I’ve already told the guy on the phone everything, though.’

  He glances at me, as if he would really like me to stay with him, but the two officers are clearly waiting for me to leave, so I do.

  It’s not until I’m round the corner by the nurses’ station that I realize I completely and utterly forgot to go and see Nick at work today (God, was it only today?) and tell him about his imminent fatherhood. I go back and peer round the corner at him, talking to Sparks and Daniels. He raises his right arm above and behind his head and puts his head to one side, obviously demonstrating the position Jake was lying in when he found him. Perhaps now is not the best time.

  The Intensive Therapy Unit is a hushed, low-lit environment where people talk in muted tones and walk slowly in soft-soled shoes, so that the peace is not disturbed by raised voices, or loud footsteps. Even the rattle of the food trolley and the clatter of stacked plates make no impact here; none of the patients is on solids.

  At the nurses’ station, a very young male nurse points me towards Jake’s bed. I approach with small steps and held breath. Sarah is sitting on a chair by the side of the bed, holding a tiny white hand in hers and stroking the hair away from his eyes.

  Jake is lying on his back, bare to the waist with blankets over his legs. He looks so out of place here. The tubes that go in and come out of him are adult-sized; his body is too small for the bed; huge machinery pumps vigorously up and down; giant bleeps appear on a screen; everything is white and silver – there are no bright primary colours. His eyes have been taped shut. The treatment he’s receiving looks as though it will do him more harm than good.

  ‘Sarah,’ I whisper in horror, approaching the bed, tears blurring the sight of him. I can’t bear to look at him, but I can’t take my eyes off him. One side of his face is scraped and raw, all the way from his forehead to his chin. There are other bruises just turning blue on his arms and chest. But these are minor things that will heal. The real terror lies in the enormous dressing on his head.

  Sarah looks as if someone has drawn all the blood from her veins. She is empty, a pallid lifeless shell of herself.

  A nurse comes over and smiles. ‘Are you his mum?’ she says softly to Sarah, who nods mutely, not taking her eyes from Jake’s white face. ‘Don’t be too concerned about the tape on his eyes. It’s just to make sure they stay shut while he’s unconscious.’

  ‘Uncon . . .?’

  The nurse rubs Sarah’s arm. ‘I’ll get someone to come and talk to you.’ She walks away.

  ‘Look at him, Rach,’ Sarah whispers. ‘He’s so small . . . His little body . . . so fragile, so . . . unprotected. How could such a tiny, delicate little boy survive all on his own?’ She leans forward in her seat and presses her lips on to Jake’s unmoving cheek, lingering there for several seconds. Even when she moves away, she does not sit down but stays, bent over him, her face inches from his. ‘You’ll be fine, my brave little boy,’ she says. ‘Mummy and Daddy are here now, you’ll be good as new. I promise.’

  I start. Bloody hell! Glenn. Glenn and Hector, to be more precise. They’re still out there, searching, worrying, terrified. I look at Sarah, nuzzling her boy’s cheek. I must go and ring them and get them here. I touch her arm. ‘Sar, I’m going to go and ring Glenn and—’ I stop as my stomach closes in again suddenly, constricting everything, cutting me off. I wrap my arm across my belly and feel the iron-like mound beneath the skin. I wonder if Plum can feel this – and what it feels like. My head is pounding and the pain almost takes me off my feet. I lean heavily on the bed, doubled over, eyes screwed shut, immobilized until eventually it eases off and releases me.

  Very near by, in an unreachable place, tiny black, sightless eyes are wide open and tiny arms push uselessly at the walls. A small heart beats faster with anxiety as the sensual being understands a change is happening. The walls are squeezing and squashing, tightening and holding, and doll-sized legs try in vain to straighten out. The walls will not stop pushing in, on to chin, shoulders, arms and toes. The legs cannot stretch out and the body cannot move, so it stops, and waits.

  ‘All right, Rach?’ Sarah whispers across to me, dragging her eyes away from her son’s face for a moment. I nod.

  ‘Mm-hmm, fine, just Braxton Hicks. No problem. I’m off to call Glenn.’


  She dismisses me and turns back to Jake. ‘Oh, yes, Glenn. Please ring him. Daddy will be here really soon, little man. Really soon now.’

  I wander off, one hand pressed into the small of my back, which is aching like crazy. It must be the stress, I tell myself, starting not really to believe it.

  There’s a pay phone back along the corridor near the lifts. I pass the ripped orange chair on my way out, but Nick and the police have gone. I ponder for a moment what that could mean. Has he been arrested? Was it him who hit Jake and he’s made up the motorcyclist to conceal his own guilt?

  No, I don’t believe that. He’s a filthy, two-timing, cheating little scumbag, but a very considerate driver. And he did seem genuinely upset just now.

  On the way down the corridor, I’m rubbing absentmindedly at the small of my back as I walk, breathing through my mouth. The young male nurse who was at the station in I.T.U. earlier is walking towards me. He grins at me. ‘Good luck!’ he says with a wink as we pass each other.

  ‘Th . . .’ I start to say, but then I’m not sure whether he means with the phone call, with Jake’s recovery or with . . .

  No, can’t do that now, must call Glenn and Hector. That is going to happen next Thursday. Fifth of April. Not now, can’t do it now, too much going on, it’s just false labour.

  The anxious expression on my face says different.

  Hector’s phone is answered on the first ring.

  ‘HELLO?’ It’s Glenn, shouting down the phone. The car noise is very loud.

  ‘Glenn, it’s Rachel. Jake’s been found, he’s here, he’s alive.’

  There’s a pause. In the background I can hear Hector shouting frantically, ‘What?’

  ‘WHERE ARE YOU?’ Glenn shouts.

  ‘In the Edward Hospital. Get here as soon . . . Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!’ This time it takes my breath away as white-hot pain knifes through every part of me with Plum, my precious little Plum, at its epicentre. I bend over as far as I can, feeling instinctively that the pain will lessen if I can wrap myself around it, cradle it with my body. I’m breathing hard, a little whimper escaping me on each exhalation. The receiver is still in my hand and I can hear Glenn’s voice coming out of it, calling to me, then shouting at Hector to turn towards the hospital. Then it clicks and goes dead and I let go of it, watching it dangle backwards and forwards on its metal rope.