trouble.’
The line goes silent. I check the caller display to see if the seconds are still ticking away. They are, tick-tock, tick-tock, like little beats of a heart.
‘Please tell me more, Liam? I want to know.’
Liam’s Story, January 2009
‘Hi, Summer… I knew you’d be a little beauty.’
I reached out to touch my daughter’s delicate hand, which was the size of a fingernail. Her skin was red and almost translucent but she was perfectly formed. The tiny incubator was positioned in the corner of the room, next to a window that looked out onto a small park, below. Through the window, I saw the thick blanket of snow draped over the trees and hedges, the weak sunshine shimmering over it, offering small mirrors of colourful light to the otherwise white canvas.
I looked down again at Summer, and traced my little finger over her nose and lips, the feel of her skin soft to the touch. Her mouth was turned downwards slightly at the corners, just like mine. She had Alice’s nose and chin. At the thought of Alice, tears threatened my eyes once again, but I pushed them back, screwing my face up tightly so as to not let myself completely crack up. My broken arm hung limply in a makeshift cast, but I felt no pain.
A young nurse entered the room and placed a cup of something hot down onto the table. She looked up at me through thickly rimmed spectacles, her expression hard to read.
‘Thanks,’ I muttered, the words barely audible through my grief. I noticed how the nurse hovered around at the doorway, like she was desperate to say something else and, yet, at the same time, terrified to speak. I looked over at her, nodding my head slightly.
‘Would you like to dress her?’ she whispered, her eyes buried into the floor. I got the impression she hadn’t been doing the job for very long.
‘That would be nice,’ I choked, the heartache crushing my vocal cords.
Ten minutes later, I held Summer in my arms for the first time. Her skin was cold to the touch and I pulled her tightly against me in an attempt to warm her up. ‘Hush, little baby, don’t you cry…’ Fat tears dripped from my eyes, landing on top of her tiny pink babygro. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to die.
Eventually, after what seemed like seconds, the morning light seeped through the curtains of the hospital room. I’d been sitting there all night, talking to my daughter, telling her how much I loved her. And how truly sorry I was for not protecting her like a father should.
Kissing her lightly on the top of her head, I handed her over to the nurse.
‘Fly away, my darling… fly away to Mummy.’
Liam’s Story, January 2009
I went straight from the hospital room to a waiting room busier than a toy shop on Christmas Eve: children running carelessly up and down the corridors, tripping over bandaged legs and crutches; drunks screaming obscenities; and old folks clutching plastic cups of diluted hot chocolate. I stared at the scene without properly seeing it. As far as I was concerned, my world had ceased to exist.
A harassed nurse waltzed past me, told me to sit down and wait on my X-ray, to see how badly my arm was broken. As I lowered myself down onto the floor, I surveyed my surroundings for a second time, trying to grab at a reality that I knew still existed behind the fog of my mind. All around me, people squashed themselves together on faded plastic chairs, their hair bedraggled and damp from the snow that had continued to fall overnight. The sound of chatter fused together with the whirring of the snack machine, as it dished out endless chocolate bars and crisps. How dare they, I inwardly fumed. How dare they eat a Twix when my wife and baby were dead!
I sat waiting for a few hours. I couldn’t tell you how many exactly because my mind seemed to be erasing events as they happened. But I didn’t care any more. I no longer needed a clock.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a woman, cut and bruised. On reflection, I suppose I initially honed in on her because she was wearing a sling like my own. Her hair was dirty and limp and her face puffy and blotchy. On closer inspection, I realised she was crying and shaking as she spoke to a doctor who looked rushed off his feet and was backing slowly away from her. Next to her stood a girl, no more than twelve years old. She was snuggled into the woman’s side, her thumb dangling out of her mouth. It was then that a fleeting memory raced past me. As I continued to stare at both the woman and the girl, the woman glanced over at me, perhaps due to a sixth sense that she was being watched. As our eyes met, I noticed how wide hers had suddenly become. I turned my head away, but I could feel her glare had become fixed upon me. Glancing back up, I offered a half-smile over to her before looking off into the distance. I chewed on my lip as I fumbled around inside my brain for an answer I knew was there. How did I know them? The memory was there, floating around at the back of my brain, but, each time I grabbed at it, it fluttered away once more, as if my mind was refusing to switch back on to reality. The chaos of the waiting room faded to dust as Alice’s lifeless body consumed me once again; her screams ringing inside my head as we practically freefell down that hill, her eyes, bulging from their sockets as her spirit fought to stay with me on that roadside.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’
Without warning, the woman of a few moments earlier was standing over me. I jolted back with the shock, which made a sharp pain cut diagonally across my shoulder blade. Wincing, I looked up and noticed a lump the size of a small potato on her forehead. Her eyes, glazed over, were flittering all over the place.
‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’
As she absorbed my question, the air around us became electrically charged. Her lip twitched and yet she didn’t speak. I widened my eyes in anticipation and pursed my lips. ‘What do you want?’ I snapped, unable to deal with any kind of communication.
It was then that she screamed. Before I could respond, she lashed out at me, whacking me over the head with all her strength. Completely dazed, I tried to stand, while moving my broken arm out of reach.
‘What the fuck?’ I choked as my head hit the wall. All at once, people dashed to my aid, a hospital porter of African origin pulling the woman off me as if she was nothing more than a flea. She kicked out at me as she was lifted in the air but, luckily, her feet failed to connect with my face. Finally, finding my feet, I stood up and leant my hand against the wall, taking deep breaths in order to calm myself.
‘It’s all your fault,’ she screamed, despite being physically restrained. The girl, obviously her daughter, was crying hysterically and pulling on her mother’s arm.
A crowd of people now swarmed around us, their boredom lifted for a few moments. ‘What’s your problem?’ I shouted, having found my voice. I could just about make out her words over the pounding of my heart in my ears.
‘My son’s fighting for his life because of you.’
It was then that I realised. The other car. Suddenly, an image took root in my mind. Screaming by the roadside, watching my wife being stretchered away, my subconscious memory had stored away the image of a fire crew, working on the other vehicle, desperately trying to prise away the roof. A woman, battered and bruised, was sobbing while clutching a skinny little girl. Through the car window, I saw somebody else, a little boy, no more than five, trapped in the back and unconscious.
Liam, 3.05 pm
‘You see, Lana? I fucked up everything.’
I’m not sure what her reply is. I can hear her speaking a succession of words but their meanings are melting away before my brain, foggy with tablets, has time to process them. It’s probably some platitude that it was an accident, that it wasn’t my fault. I’ve heard it countless times and yet I still can’t fully believe it.
‘Liam, can you hear me? Are you still there?’
I