Thirty-Five
Ruby
There’s a face looking down at me. Big and blurry, not quite in focus. I close my eyes and open them again, slowly, but it’s still there. Go away. I don’t know who you are. Let me sleep. I need to sleep.
Other faces now, working their way into shot, waving about around the edges like the petals of a daisy, opening and closing, opening and closing. My back feels cold, and I’m lying on something hard. And wet. I don’t know how I got here. Or where here is.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart. Don’t try to move.’
Mike. Mike always calls me sweetheart. Calls everybody sweetheart. Is he here?
‘You’ve been in an accident. Just hold on there. The ambulance is on its way.’
It’s a woman now, bending down next to me. What does she mean, hold on? What am I supposed to hold on to? I try to reach for her hand, but mine won’t move. It just lies there, like a piece of dead meat. Disconnected.
The woman’s knees are bony, pressed against my side, and there’s water running off her mac and dripping onto my hand. I’m lying in the road. And it’s raining. How did I end up in the road? She touches my shoulder. Her face is white, really white, as if she’s had a shock; seen a ghost or something.
Why do I feel so cold? Did I forget to put the heating on? Where’s my duvet? I just want everyone to go away and leave me alone, so I can close my eyes and go back to sleep. But there’s so much noise. People talking, whispering, crying. Why is someone crying? Sirens now. Getting louder, closer.
And a minute later – or is it five? ten? – the thumping of a door. Two people in bright yellow jackets are squatting in front of me, touching me, talking to me, asking me my name. I stare at the yellow. It’s the same yellow as Lily’s new pyjamas, but without the rabbits. Lily likes rabbits. My stomach lurches. Lily. Where’s Lily?
‘Your name, sweetheart,’ one of them says again. ‘Can you tell us your name?’
I try to lift my head, to look for her. She should be here, with me, but she isn’t. My head falls back down, hard, as if I can’t hold its weight. Someone is clamping something around my neck now, and I can’t move any more. The sky is everywhere. It’s all I can see, like a thick grey blanket falling over me. I can feel the wetness at the back of my head, running down my neck, creeping inside my hood. It’s warm, sticky. Not like rain at all. Something – everything – hurts. Really hurts.
‘Lily …’ I say. ‘Lily …’
And then I’m gone.
Archie was hungry. Lily let his wet ear slip out of her mouth. She rubbed a sweaty hand over her eyelids and yawned, cuddled Archie up tight to her chest, then threw the covers back and held him up at arm’s length, tugging his little knitted trousers off over his feet.
Archie should have pyjamas for when he went to bed. Or to wear in the daytime sometimes, when there was nothing special to get dressed for. Lily had been wearing hers all morning, and so had Mummy.
Lily’s pyjamas were yellow, with bunnies on, and yellow was her new favourite colour. When they got a garden of their own she would grow yellow daffodils, and have a real live bunny of her own too. Mummy had promised.
The curtains were half closed, but little shadows of light darted about like jumping frogs on the ceiling. There was a lot of noise outside. Loud noise. Lily didn’t like loud noise. When people shouted, or fireworks banged, or balloons popped. She hated those things. You had to close your eyes and put your hands over your ears when they happened. She didn’t want fireworks or balloons at her birthday party. Just presents. Mummy said she was going to be three. She’d held up her fingers to show Lily what three looked like. Baa baa black sheep. Three bags full. She’d like a bouncy castle too, at her party, but castles were very big and cost lots of money so she didn’t think Mummy would really get one. But maybe she’d get her a bunny, if they had a garden by then.
Out in the street, there was a wailing, screeching sound, like she imagined the big bad wolf would sound if he was very angry and coming after the pigs. Mummy had left one of the little windows open right up at the top, and the wind was blowing in, making the bottom of the curtain move. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down …
Lily remembered the story of the wolf and the pigs. One of the ladies at the nursery had read it to them, when they all sat in a circle before they went home, but Lily didn’t like it. She didn’t like the story, and she didn’t like the noise. She tried to cover her ears and pull the quilt up over her head all at the same time, making sure she hung on tightly to Archie to keep him safe, and to stop him from being scared.
The noise went away. She peeped cautiously over the top of the covers and, when she was sure there was no wolf, she settled Archie on the pillow beside her and sat up in bed. She’d only had a nap, not an all-night sleep, but her nappy felt heavy, and she was thirsty. She wanted some juice. Bena juice. That was her favourite, except maybe Coke, but she wasn’t allowed that very often. Only on special days. Lily didn’t think this was a special day.
Maybe Archie could have some juice too, as he’d been good. She yawned, and called out for Mummy, fiddling with a black thread that had come loose from Archie’s eye and was hanging down over his nose. Mummy would mend that, with something from her big red sewing tin that used to have biscuits in it, or with the glue that Lily wasn’t allowed to touch. Mummy was good at mending things. It saved buying new, she always said.
Lily waited but Mummy didn’t come, so she called again, louder this time.
Lily climbed out of bed, her foot springing onto the book she’d left open on the rug, flipping the pages over and making the spine snap shut. The baby in the flat upstairs was crying. It did that sometimes. Today it was doing it lots. It sounded sad, like Archie. Maybe it wanted some juice too. She walked over to the door, peered out into the empty hall, and called out again.
‘Mummy …’
But Mummy didn’t come. Nobody came.
*
Agnes Munro looked up from her crossword. There were sirens going off in the street again, the honking of horns, a motorcycle revving its engine and screeching off into the distance, probably bumping up and over the pavement in the process. That’s what they usually did when there was a jam.
That was the trouble with living in London. Even here, on the outskirts, it was too busy, too noisy. There was no real sense of community. Nobody seemed to care about anything much, let alone the state of the roads or trying to preserve a bit of peace and quiet. Always something going on, even at the weekend, and not always something good. What now? A broken-down bus, some impatient driver carelessly thumping his bonnet into somebody else’s boot, or yet another robbery on the high street?
She tried to push the sudden thought of her old home out of her mind and concentrate on the two final clues she’d