Growing Up Twice

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘Josh, it’s Ayla, she … there’s been an accident.’ As I watched him take in my appearance again from a different perspective, as his face crumpled and rearranged itself, my chest imploded with pain for him.

  ‘Is she OK?’ he asked hoarsely, blinking hard.

  ‘She’s badly hurt, she’s at the hospital, it happened about half an hour ago. I came, I came to get you. As fast as I could. To take you there.’ For a brief moment he pulled me to him once again in a tight, fierce and frightened embrace, and for just a second we stood limb to limb in silence, gaining strength from each other as we took in the enormity of the afternoon’s events.

  ‘Come on.’ He headed down the stairs and I followed him.

  Dan and the unknown girl stood in the hallway as we headed for his old Capri.

  The journey to the hospital seemed to take for ever. We drove in silence, Josh’s jaw working against tears and fear. I put my shoes back on and focused on the pain. I tried not to think about Ayla looking at me instead of at the traffic as she left the safety of the pavement.

  At the hospital we were ushered into the family room where Selin and her parents were already waiting. As the door opened they all stood up, Josh strode into their arms and they were caught in a family embrace.

  I sat in a chair in the corner and began to watch the clock.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  It’s been almost three hours now. I have sat here quietly in the corner feeling that I shouldn’t be here, feeling that I can’t just leave, not wanting to leave. Mr and Mrs Selin talk to each other in hushed Turkish. Josh sits quietly, his head in his hands. Selin sits with her arm draped around him, staring out of a window at the view of a brick wall. We all jump a little when she stands.

  ‘I’m getting a coffee, does anyone want a coffee?’ Her family just look at her blankly.

  ‘I’ll get us all one.’ Selin looks at me as if she is surprised and perplexed to find me still present. ‘Jen, will you help me?’ I nod and stand to follow her out of the room.

  ‘Seli, darling,’ her father speaks. ‘Call Nene, tell her what’s happened. Ask her to keep Hakam for a while longer. Try not to upset her too much, he doesn’t need to know anything. Not yet.’

  Selin holds her father’s gaze for a moment, swallows hard as she contemplates an impossible task and blinks back tears. ‘Yes, Dad, OK.’

  I follow her out of the room.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I ask her. She can’t look me in the eye, I know that if she looks at me she’s afraid she’ll lose it completely, and she’ll never be able to get it back. I know this instinctively even though I can’t remember a time when I have ever seen her really lose control.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m fine, it’s how she’s doing. That’s all that worries me. The doctors haven’t really said anything since we arrived. They said it was critical, that’s all, they said to be prepared for the worst. They haven’t been near us since.’

  Finally she finds the resolve to meet my gaze, with a questioning look. ‘What happened, Jen, why were you there?’ I concentrate hard on slotting two twenty-pence pieces into a vending machine and watch as beige-coloured liquid bubbles into a plastic cup, trying to map out what happened in words, trying to circumnavigate the lumpen sense of dread that has fossilised in my chest, the certainty that everything is down to me. This time I can’t look Selin in the eye.

  ‘I was meeting her after school. I was late. She was on her way home when I saw her across the street.’

  ‘But why? I mean, why were you meeting her?’ I pause, hand her the coffee, position a second cup, slot in two more coins and witness a brief replay, a dog barking, someone’s scream, the screech of tyres, Ayla’s dark eyes looking into mine, but not seeing. How could something that should have been a minor teen drama, a bit of trouble at school, maybe a couple of nights being grounded …? how could something that I should have been able to control have turned into this? For the first time in my life I had been the designated adult. I had failed, and failed at what cost? As I hear my own words I realise how impossibly ordinary and mundane my explanation seems.

  ‘She’d got into a bit of trouble with some girls at school. She didn’t want to worry you, any of you, what with all that other trouble at her old school. She wanted to try and sort it out herself before she told you. I was just there for moral support.’ Some moral support, I think.

  ‘I was late,’ I repeat lamely. I am trying to tell Selin, without telling her. It’s my fault.

  ‘Bullies? She was being bullied again? Bullies caused this?’ I can see the storm of emotions she is trying to battle through focus on anger and I quickly try to calm her down.

  ‘No, no. More complicated than that. She’d got mixed up with the wrong crowd, got herself into a bit of trouble. She was doing the right thing. The head was, is, going to call your parents tomorrow to talk it through with them. She’d stuck up for another girl. She’s been very brave.’ I realised that I had unconsciously been talking about her in the past tense. My clumsy change of gear stuck out like a sore thumb. I handed Selin another cup of coffee and began again, the synthetic aroma making my stomach lurch.

  ‘But then, how did it happen? The accident?’

  I tried to think of a way I could describe it without making it sound as senseless as it was.

  ‘I was late. When I saw her, the girls she’d … the girls she’d told on were giving her hassle. I was going to her but I, I wanted them to know she wasn’t alone.’ I paused and braced myself for Selin’s reaction. ‘I called out her name, Selin. She saw me, and she panicked, I suppose. She ran across the road. It was a mistake, stupid really. She should have been fine because the lights were changing, but she didn’t wait for the traffic to stop. The lorry driver ran a red.’ With the last two cups of lukewarm liquid in my hands I turn to look at her, flinching before I even meet her eyes.

  ‘That’s what happened,’ I say, ready for recrimination. But she only nods again, her face a dark-eyed mask. She’s heard what I’ve said but she hasn’t really understood. I called out Ayla’s name.

  ‘Listen, I, I don’t think I can talk to Nene, not without, you know. Losing it.’ Her voice is tense and strained. She’s talking but really, behind her tear-glazed eyes, she is still trying to make sense of it all, slotting the puzzle pieces together.

  ‘Give me the number and I’ll call her. She knows me. I’ll tell her not to worry,’ I say. I’ll lie, I think to myself on the way to the pay phone.

  A few moments later when I go back into the visitors’ room, Selin is recounting what I told her. Josh smiles absently at me as I hand him one of the coffees that I’m still carrying. As I pass one to Selin’s dad he catches my hand and squeezes it a little.

  I was late, I want to tell him. I was late. But the family don’t look at me, they don’t demand explanations or reasons. They merely turn to each other once again, communicating with silent solidarity as the second hand on the clock jerks forward. I settle back into my chair across the room and watch its endless progress.

  It’s odd how quickly a strange situation can become the status quo, and for a few minutes more that room becomes the whole world to us. So when the door opens and a doctor comes in we are almost surprised, it’s almost as if we have forgotten why we are there.

  Everyone stands.

  The doctor composes herself and in that moment we know it is bad news.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Mehmet, when Ayla came in she had sustained very serious head injuries. Further investigation uncovered extensive internal injuries that caused a massive amount of blood loss. The vehicle that hit her was going very fast. We tried everything we could to save her. I am very sorry to tell you that a few minutes ago your daughter died on the operating table. There was nothing more that we could do.’

  The family look from one to another, speechless. Hands reach out and fingers link, but no one says a word.

  The doctor coughs.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, should Ayla have survived the op
eration she would almost certainly have been brain damaged.’

  ‘Consolation?’ Selin rounds on her. ‘Don’t you think we’d rather have our sister back in any condition, instead of dead and alone up there, with people who don’t even know her? Who don’t even care?’ Josh takes her in his arms and she begins to weep; the sounds of her mother’s sobs soon join her.

  The doctor tries again.

  ‘I’m sorry, I really am. You can see her now, if you want. I’ll take you.’

  They file out one by one and leave me alone in the room.

  ‘You were at the scene, weren’t you?’ the doctor asks me, just as she is about to close the door.

  ‘Yes,’ I say quietly.

  ‘The police want to talk to you, can I send them in?’

  ‘Yes,’ I repeat. ‘Doctor, what about the lorry driver? Was he hurt badly?’ She looks away and shakes her head.

  ‘No. Small head wound, minor concussion. He’ll be sent home in the morning. He hadn’t been drinking,’ she adds as an afterthought and she shuts the door.

  The interview with the police took longer than I could cope with and they’ve asked me to go down to the station tomorrow to make another statement.

  As I walk out of the softer lighting of the family room into the harsh strip fluorescence of the casualty department, I blink under the bright lights. I can’t see anyone I recognise. I expect they’ve gone home. The pain in my feet kicks back in as the numbing effects of shock begin to wear off. I look in my purse for some change for the bus but when I hobble outside I find Josh, his shoulders huddled against the chilly evening, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘I didn’t think you smoked any more?’ I said with a weak smile.

  ‘I don’t. I just ponced this one off that bloke over there.’ He nods in the direction of a man with both legs in plaster, apparently stranded on a bench with no one to collect him. The man catches my eye, gives a comic shrug, and laughs at his own plight.

  ‘Is there … are they still here?’ I ask, unsure about things like death certificates and morgue arrangements.

  ‘No, they’ve gone home. I waited to give you a lift. You’ll be waiting for God knows how long for a bus round here.’ He looks at the sky as if he’s watching the stars that have been obliterated by the glare of the city.

  ‘Josh, you didn’t have to do that. You should be at home,’ I say, more grateful than he can know that I don’t have to make the trip home alone. He doesn’t answer but starts walking to his car, two quick paces in front of me.

  This time, with no one to see, no one to rescue, the journey home seems to take no time at all and as we pull up outside my flat I look up at the dark windows.

  ‘Looks like Rosie is out,’ I say. Another person who doesn’t know. ‘God, Rosie! She’ll be so upset.’ When I glance back at him, he is staring fixedly at the steering-wheel.

  ‘Oh, Josh, I’m so sorry. Look, thanks for the lift.’

  He nods and looks at me quickly, the silent tears in his eyes catching the glow of the street lamp. I reach out and grip his wrist for a second before opening the car door. I wait until the clatter of his car’s old engine has been washed away into the tide of night-time traffic before slotting my key into the lock. Just before I go in I have one quick into-the-night look for some stars, but still they are hiding.

  Chapter Forty

  When I get into the flat the answerphone blinks to let me know there is a message. Warily I press the button, half expecting some message from Owen, even though I know he doesn’t have my home number.

  ‘Jen, it’s Rosie. I won’t be back at the flat tonight, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. My mobile’s on if you have anything to say to me.’ Her tone is slightly imperious and huffy, but I have known Rosie long enough to know that this means she wants to clear the air as much as I do. I don’t know how I’ll begin to tell her about today. I remember the e-mails and text messages from Owen and my heart sinks even further. My mum always says things happen in threes. What will be next, I wonder? And how the fuck can I be so fucking shallow as to lump Ayla’s death in with some stupid fucking superstition?

  I dial Rosie’s number and wait for the slow clicking connection to insinuate its way across space. The phone rings for a long time before she picks it up.

  ‘Hiya,’ she says briskly and for once I wish mobile phones didn’t afford you the opportunity to be prepared for whoever calls you. Rosie is prepared for the wrong call, and I feel sorry for the advantage I have over her.

  ‘Hello.’ As I reply, I discover that my voice is cracked and husky.

  ‘Oh, you’re in then?’ Rosie must have been waiting for me to call her to sort things out.

  ‘Rosie, something’s happened.’ The tone in my voice takes the edge out of hers right away.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  I tell her in as few short sentences as I can. When I finish, silence crowds the line for long seconds.

  ‘I’m coming home now,’ she says. I can’t make out the tone of her voice.

  ‘Where are you?’ I expect her to be at Chris’s.

  ‘Jackson’s hotel,’ she says absently.

  ‘Oh. OK.’ I just want her to come home.

  ‘I’m coming home, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’m getting a cab, I’ll be twenty minutes tops, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  She hangs up and I turn on the TV. There doesn’t seem to be anything left for me to feel any more, as if the day’s events have drained me of every last emotion. I’m just terribly tired and my head throbs.

  When the door finally slams it wakes me up. Rosie hurries down the hallway to greet me.

  ‘I’m here,’ she says, and takes my hand.

  This time, as I tell her again, we sit turned to face each other on the sofa. Rosie watches me over the rim of her mug, some of her expression masked by the swirls of steam from her camomile tea. I’m tired of telling it but I need someone to react to the way it happened to me. I need to see if Rosie sees it the same way that I do.

  ‘So, she saw you and she just ran into the road?’ Rosie asks me again. I nod.

  ‘But, it was the lorry driver, right? Running a fucking red. The bastards do that all the time down that road. How many times have I said it? People drive like maniacs in this city.’

  ‘But if I’d been on time, if I’d met her at school, we’d all be round Mrs Selin’s right now lecturing her on the responsibilities of behaving like an adult. Instead I was late. Ayla’s dead. I just don’t understand it. How can something as mundane as stopping to look for a fax cause someone’s death?’

  Rosie shakes her head and sets her cup down. ‘You can’t blame yourself for this, mate. Please don’t even go there.’

  Although I’m relieved to hear her say the words I’ve wanted to hear, I’m surprised at the annoyance in her voice.

  ‘But if I’d been there on time,’ I continue, eager for more affirmation.

  ‘If you’d been there on time, if the bus hadn’t been stuck in traffic, if Ayla hadn’t got mixed up with bullies, if she hadn’t moved schools, if, if, if. You can’t blame yourself. This was an accident, a terrible random series of events that culminated in tragedy. Blaming yourself is too easy.’ Her face is hard with grief and anger, she is angry with me but not for causing Ayla’s death. She thinks I’m making myself the centre of this tragedy. Maybe she’s right, but maybe the alternative explanation, the arbitrary pointlessness of it all, is just too much to bear.

  I lean back and tip my head up to look at the ceiling.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say, suddenly afraid. ‘But how fucking awful.’ At last tears come to us both. Hugging each other for grim life, we weep together, holding hands tightly until we are too tired to cry any more.

  Finally I say, ‘Rosie, about yesterday. What I said …’ She interrupts me. ‘It’s all right, really. I know where you stand. You’ve been honest. Look, it hardly seems like it matters so much right now, does it?’ She extricates her hands
from mine and roughly wipes her face.

  ‘No, but …’ I try to continue because I want to, need to, restore the equilibrium of our friendship.

  ‘Just leave it, OK?’ Rosie says irritably. ‘I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.’ I look at her tired pinched face and back off. Just before she leaves the room she turns to me and says, ‘Poor Seli, how will she ever live with this?’

  We look at each other for a moment longer and I shake my head.

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know,’ I say as gently as I can, but she doesn’t answer as she goes straight to her bedroom. She must be shattered.

  For a few moments more I sit alone and watch the world for signs of change. Everything seems the same and it shouldn’t. Everything seems the same but I can’t help feeling that the last threads of continuity are slipping loose.

  Chapter Forty-one

  The arrival of October has chased away the last remnants of the summer, the fleeting blue-sky reprises and momentary reunions with warmth of September have now been completely washed away by the heavy soaked skies of autumn.

  It suits us all, and since Ayla’s death we have gone about our daily lives like choreographed automatons.

  Rosie and I didn’t go to the funeral itself. To be honest, we both felt awkward about going to the mosque and Rosie thought the trauma of the burial might be too much for her. I decided to stay behind with her and make sandwiches. I pretended to myself that it was just as good a way as any to support the family but really, in my heart, I know it was because I’m a coward. Not only afraid of unfamiliar places, but of seeing the family go through so much pain and seeing Ayla buried. I still think that if I had been on time none of this would have happened.

  Loyalty to the Mehmets meant I could not run back to my mum’s house in Watford as I had been tempted to do, but I took the easier option, arriving with Rosie at the house just before they left, spending the day following food-preparation instructions from a neighbour and family friend while we waited for them to return.