The Shell House

by Linda Newbery

  ‘You’ve killed him!’ Yusuf shrieked from above, hysterical. ‘It’s your fault! You made him do it!’ The other boy, the third one, was a pale, frightened face, looking from the place in the stairway with a gap missing like a bite, where Dean had fallen.

  Jordan craned up. ‘Get yourselves down here! Is there another way?’ The faces dodged out of sight; Greg heard the scrape of brick on brick, farther over.

  ‘Leave them,’ he shouted at Jordan. ‘Get the phone!’ He bent over the boy, checking for breathing again. ‘Dean! Dean! Can you hear me?’ The visible hand felt cold to the touch, the other was bent under the body. Greg pulled his sweatshirt over his head and covered the boy with it. Got to keep him warm. Dean gave a small whimper, his eyelids twitching. He looked pitifully thin—sprawled and twisted on the ground he was just a scrawny kid, with God knew what injuries to bones and internal organs . . .

  Endless, endless minutes. Jordan reappeared, having made the 999 call—thank God, thank whoever, for mobile phones. Yusuf and the other boy appeared at ground level, having slithered down some way Greg was glad not to have seen. Yusuf was aggressive, restrained by Jordan; the blonde one, huge-eyed and timid, hung back, only worried about the trouble he was going to get into. Greg resolutely stopped anyone from touching or moving the injured boy. Waiting, waiting. Wasn’t anyone coming?

  ‘You did tell them urgent?’

  ‘Yes, ’course. I’ll go and wait at the front, show them how to get in.’

  ‘You two, go with Jordan,’ Greg said.

  They went, Yusuf subdued at last, the blonde boy tearful, leaving Greg with Dean Brampton, the broken puppet, the fallen far-from-angel.

  What if he stops breathing?—what if he dies?—I said it — I wished it—with a bit of luck they’ll break their stupid necks—!

  At last, hurrying footsteps. Voices. Uniformed men—ambulance crew and police. Hands reaching, taking over, taking charge. All attention on the small figure on the ground.

  Intensive care

  Greg’s mental snapshot: a deserted corridor in the hospital. The strip of polished lino leads to a seating area furnished with red plastic chairs. Signs point to X-Ray, Out-Patients, All Wards, Operating Theatre.

  By the time he went to bed, very late, Greg had gone over and over the incident for the police and for Faith’s father, till the words began to sound like a rehearsed script, somehow losing the essence of what had happened. Finally, in the shower and in bed, the fall came back to him with all its shocking realness: he couldn’t get out of his mind that body-jarring, bonecracking flump that had been a human body hitting rough floor and strewn bricks. Again and again the boy whirled through the spaces of Greg’s mind. Again and again he saw the body unanchored and dropping, its fall arrested by the slam of concrete.

  They had ended up at Jordan’s house: a detective constable and a WPC, Jordan and Greg, and then Faith’s father (not Faith herself, to Greg’s relief), summoned by one of the police officers. There were a lot of formal introductions, hand-shakings, explanations. Jordan’s parents supplied cups of tea. Faith’s dad, very agitated, was questioned about the previous vandalism and the new security arrangements to the front of the house, then Greg and Jordan had to make separate statements. The words Greg shaped into a coherent account hid what he could not explain rationally: the jaw-clenching anger that gripped him when he saw Dean Brampton’s leering face. He had wanted to smash, to injure, to grab where it hurt. How could the police be expected to match that power to enrage with the pale, unconscious, stick-thin boy carried away on a padded stretcher?

  The WPC phoned the hospital, and came back into the room very serious-faced. ‘He’s in Intensive Care. Still semi-conscious. They’re afraid he’s got serious injuries to his spine.’

  Everyone was silent for a moment, then Faith’s father said: ‘We must pray for him.’

  For a wild moment Greg thought he was suggesting they should all get down on their knees that very minute, but the detective constable glossed over the remark. ‘Yes, indeed. Poor young lad. Well, we’ll find out first thing tomorrow if there’s any change.’

  Jordan looked as exhausted as Greg felt, and he had to be up early next day for training. ‘Are you all right to get home, Greg?’ Mrs McAuliffe asked. ‘I’ll drive you, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ve got my bike.’

  Jordan came outside with him. Greg stood by the bikes, loath to part.

  ‘See you tomorrow?’ Jordan said.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll phone.’

  And a brief touch: Jordan’s hand on Greg’s arm, Greg’s hand on Jordan’s shoulder. A manly acknowledgement of the ordeal they’d shared, that was what it was.

  As soon as Greg got in, Faith phoned, very agitated. ‘Isn’t it awful? I’ll see you on Sunday, won’t I? Greg, look, I’m really sorry about the other day. I made an idiot of myself. Can we forget about it?’

  And now, having had to go through yet another explanation for his own parents, Greg was at last in bed, wide-awake and restless.

  With a bit of luck they’ll break their moronic necks.

  My fault, my fault. Don’t be stupid, of course it’s not my fault. I didn’t make him climb the building. But all the same . . .

  I wanted him hurt, and now he is hurt.

  But I couldn’t have made it happen, just by wishing . . .

  I didn’t mean—

  Greg turned on his bedside light, sat up, lay down again, stared at the ceiling. Jordan. He needed to talk to Jordan, and now. He dialled Jordan’s mobile number, but got only voice-mail. ‘Call me,’ Greg said, ‘soon as you can.’ He turned off the light and rolled over in a huddle of frustration.

  We must pray for him.

  We. All of us. If the power of thought could send Dean Brampton plummeting, then the power of thought might make him recover. Not praying: Greg couldn’t. But he could wish . . .

  ‘Get better, you horrible little oik,’ he muttered aloud. ‘Get yourself out of there.’

  Why? Why do I want that? Just so I can let myself off the hook? Oh, this is stupid . . .

  He turned over, thumped his pillow and tried grimly to sleep. Eventually he was jolted from a dream in the early hours, with a hoarse yell of alarm that brought his father to his room. It was like being a little kid again: his dad tousled and concerned, Greg sitting up in bed, dizzy with shock, his heart pounding. ‘I’m OK, Dad. Sorry. Just a bad dream.’ In sleep he had seen Dean Brampton falling, arms and legs flailing, endlessly falling. In sleep he had waited for the crash-landing he was powerless to stop.

  At last he slept heavily, right through his alarm, waking only twenty minutes before he was due at the pool. Katy, up early for once on a Saturday, waylaid him excitedly in the kitchen: ‘Is Dean Brampton going to die?’

  ‘Katy!’ their mother warned. ‘You’re a callous little blood-sucker!’

  ‘Serves him right if you ask me,’ Katy said. ‘Has he got brain-damage? And how would anyone be able to tell?’

  ‘Katy—’

  ‘And why were the police questioning you last night, Greg? Was it your fault?’

  About to grab a croissant to eat on the way to work, Greg decided not to bother. His mother looked at him anxiously. ‘Are you sure you ought to be going today? Can’t you say you’re not well?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just tired.’

  ‘Want me to drive you there?’

  ‘No! I’m not an invalid, for Christ’s sake. See you later.’

  He just about made it; Paul was looking pointedly at his watch as the automatic doors sighed open to let Greg in. ‘I was about to phone, check you were coming.’

  ‘Sorry. Bit of a rush this morning.’

  Greg was down for a stint at Reception. Everything around him looked too bright, too brash, everyone too cheerful; it was like having a hangover. The phone rang: Jordan. ‘Got your message. How’s things?’

  ‘Bad,’ Greg said.

  ‘You’ve phoned the hospital?’

  ‘No.’
<
br />   ‘I thought that’s what you meant. ’Cos it is bad. They think he may be paralysed from the waist down.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘That bloke Michael—Tarrant, is it?—went round to the hospital himself. He phoned us after.’

  Silence. Impossible to talk properly in Reception; there was already a woman with two kids standing there, loaded with bags of kit, holding out her membership card and pointedly waiting for Greg to put the phone down.

  ‘I looked for you, earlier,’ Jordan said.

  ‘Overslept. You made it to training, same as usual?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a club meet tonight at Ravenscroft,’ Jordan said. ‘I’m doing ’fly and four-by-hundred freestyle and medley. Come and watch? It’ll take your mind off it.’

  ‘Show-off. You just want me to see you win.’

  ‘With a bit of luck and a following wind.’

  ‘You don’t need luck. Or wind. Must get boring, winning all the time.’

  ‘There’ll be room in the minibus. Sandy’s picking me up at the bus stop near the church. See you there six-thirty, if you feel like coming.’

  Given the choice between watching Jordan swim or going off his head sorting out a tangle of worries, Greg went. At twenty-five past six the minibus was already parked in one of the bays near the church. Jordan was waiting. Sandy, the wiry-haired man Greg had seen at the Wednesday coaching sessions, was in the driver’s seat.

  ‘All right if Greg comes with us?’ Jordan asked him.

  Sandy nodded, taking Jordan’s sports bag and stowing it in the back. ‘Plenty of room.’

  ‘He’s a strong swimmer,’ Jordan said. ‘Front crawl.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ The coach eyed Greg with speculative interest. ‘We could do with another good freestyle swimmer for the relays. Fancy giving it a go?’

  ‘I’m not fast enough.’

  ‘We can help you improve on that. You’ve got the physique. I’m at the pool every morning, Monday to Saturday, six-thirty sharp. Come along next week if you’re interested.’

  ‘Sneaky!’ Greg said as he and Jordan got into the back of the minibus. Other team members were arriving, stowing their bags, laughing and chatting.

  Jordan smiled. ‘I knew he’d snap you up.’

  There were few spectators at the Ravenscroft pool: just a dotting of family supporters. Greg went into the small gallery, next to a couple sharing coffee from a flask. He watched the first few races with mild interest, waiting for Jordan and the hundred metres butterfly, his speciality. If Jordan did well in the trials next month, and of course he would, he’d be swimming for the county, then the England trials . . .

  Eight swimmers were competing in Jordan’s race. They filed out to the starting blocks, stripping off tracksuits, putting on goggles. Greg had watched this at the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games: the almost gladiatorial build-up, the revealing of fantastically-toned bodies, the salutes to the crowd. Here there was none of the showiness, because there was no crowd to speak of. Greg’s eyes were on Jordan, who looked unfamiliar in a white cap. He had the physique, all right: slender but strong, longlimbed, less sturdy than Greg. He was in lane 4, in the centre of the pool, where he preferred to be. Next to him was the bald-headed guy he’d pointed out to Jordan as they arrived, his main rival from the Ravenscroft team. The bald man looked tough and hard, a few years older—but Ian Thorpe had won Olympic gold medals at seventeen, and Jordan had beaten this man many times before.

  They stood waiting, shaking out their legs, swinging their arms. Jordan looked nervous, Greg thought. He glanced across; Greg gave him a thumbs-up and an encouraging grin.

  ‘Take your marks.’

  Tense concentration, bodies doubled over, a neat row of them. The water, unruffled, shimmering, was so clear that every tile on the bottom of the pool was sharply outlined. The buzz of the starter sent the swimmers airborne like a hail of arrows, into the kink and plunge, the crucial few seconds underwater that could win or lose a race; nothing on view but the streaking torpedo shapes below the surface. Then, bursting through like leaping dolphins in a welter of spray, the leaders were into their strokes. Already the swimmer in lane 8 was badly behind, having spent too long underwater. Jordan swam as easily and fluently as Greg had seen many a time in practice, riding the water: humped back, the trail and overarching fling of arms that was so beautiful to watch; two strokes to a breath, hips undulating in the rhythmic sway and push Greg could never master. After the first turn, the dip and thrust from the poolside, the red-capped swimmer in lane 3 was edging ahead. Jordan wouldn’t be worried by that, with three lengths to go; he knew how to judge pace, saving himself for the final burst of speed. For the next two lengths the red cap was ahead, then Jordan, the bald man and one other keeping pace, the rest straggling behind, and the slowest beginning to tire and flail. And now the final leg: red-cap was flagging now as Jordan and the bald guy battled it out. ‘Go, Jordan!’ Greg was on his feet; the bald man, less fluent and graceful, was pulling ahead by sheer dogged strength. Jordan, with renewed energy, made a final surge, diving for the rail, but the other man was there a fraction ahead.

  Greg saw Jordan turn round with sheer, shocked disbelief on his face, used only to winning. Never beaten at butterfly since he was fifteen, he was beaten now. Greg knew that the time shown on the clock didn’t match the best he’d produced in training.

  Recovering, Jordan saluted the other man and turned to face the gallery, pulling a wry face at Greg. He vaulted out of the pool and tugged off his cap and goggles. Sandy came up and gave him a disappointed, perfunctory pat, then they exchanged a few words, the coach shaking his head. There was a brief huddle, members of the team coming up to find out what had gone wrong. One of them, Carly, the girl who had won the breast-stroke, gave Jordan a consoling hug and a kiss: Greg saw Jordan’s hand rest briefly on her waist, saw the girl smiling up at him, saw her shapely body in a racer-back suit, her long hair down her back. He felt something twist over in his stomach.

  Yesterday he had been almost sure, but in that second he was not. What if, even now, he’d got it wrong?

  Jordan had not swum his best, but still Greg thought of what he said yesterday: ‘I swim, therefore I am. No, perhaps what I mean is I am, therefore I swim.’ That time in the changing room—maybe what Greg had seen was not what he thought, nothing personal at all, but the afterglow of the almost spiritual experience that swimming was for Jordan.

  Now Jordan, beaten, threw a towel round his shoulders. He came over to Greg in the gallery and leaned on the rail. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Jordan smiled ruefully. ‘Mind not on the job.’

  ‘Yeah? What was it on?’

  ‘You know. Everything.’

  What did that mean? Greg glanced away and saw Carly staring across at them. What did that mean? He felt as if the air around him was sparking with electric currents.

  ‘Now what?’ he asked, trying to sound normal.

  ‘Relays—girls first, then us.’

  Jordan’s team won both the relays, medley and freestyle (why did they need another member?) and then it was over. Having turned in better performances, Jordan seemed cheerful as they went back to the minibus, whereas Greg felt deflated, exhausted, even though all he’d done was watch. Carly, with her long hair roughly towel-dried, sat in the seat in front of them, turning to Jordan. ‘Coming to the pub?’ She had a pert, pretty face—a scatter of freckles over her nose, a wide smile.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jordan said. ‘Going somewhere else.’

  Visibly, Carly tried to cover her disappointment. ‘Some other time.’ She looked at Greg. ‘You’re joining the team, then? We could do with some more male talent.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘And she’s not talking about swimming talent,’ said the girl next to her.

  ‘Oh! You—’

  ‘Carly,’ called Sandy from the driver’s seat, ‘did you say your parents could help out with transport next Saturday?’
r />   Greg took advantage of the diversion to ask Jordan, ‘Where you off to, then?’

  ‘Hospital. Coming?’

  For a confused second Greg thought Jordan must have injured himself, and that was why he’d lost his race. ‘What for?’

  Jordan looked at him. ‘See that little git Dean Brampton.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘ ’Course. Come with me?’

  Greg shrugged. ‘OK. If we must.’

  Jordan called out, ‘Sandy, can you drop us at the Green Man?’

  Sandy nodded. He pulled up at the lights beside the pub, where a road forked off to the hospital. ‘Remember you’re in training,’ he said sternly to Jordan. ‘See you Monday.’

  ‘He thinks we’re heading for a boozy night,’ Jordan said, as the red tail-lights pulled away. He shouldered his sports bag. ‘He’ll give me a hard time next week. But it’s all relative.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Me getting stressed about a few seconds off my race time. Dean lying there paralysed.’

  They were in the hospital drive, road noise fading behind them. The air was cool and soothing. Greg felt the tensions of the evening slide away, the tension he had felt keenly as an onlooker; but relief was laced with expectancy. Now it was just him and Jordan. And after this there would be Afterwards. Afterwards he would have to talk to Jordan or stay knotted up in this doubt and confusion that was scrambling his brain.

  ‘You know I . . .’ He kicked a stone.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yesterday I said to you, With a bit of luck they’ll break their moronic necks. You’re a witness. And within a few minutes he practically did.’

  ‘And I said how handy it would be if someone died and left a nice pair of kidneys hanging round spare.’

  ‘You don’t seriously think—’

  ‘We made it happen?’ Jordan said, with a sideways look. ‘Don’t be stupid! ’Course not.’

  ‘Is it stupid? He’s a horrible little oik but I wouldn’t wish that on him. Paralysed from the waist down—that puts some fairly important organs out of action, let alone being stuck in a wheelchair for life. But I did wish it. Why are we here, then, if you don’t think there’s some power in thinking—in wishing? We were talking about Gaia and God and stuff. Are you telling me you’re here out of sheer brotherly love for the whole human race? No. Guilt, that’s what’s brought us here.’