towards me, blood-curdling screams battling with the sound of car horns; fire engines, with foam whiter than the snow, curdling with thick, red blood. I can smell the petrol, smell the arrival of death as it embalmed itself on my wife’s mangled body. Suddenly, and without warning, I vomit, spraying the remains of my lunch along with a dozen tablets across the room.
‘Fuck!’
‘Liam?’ Her voice is trying to reach me again. I temporarily forget her name as I heave for a second time. ‘Liam, you need to call an ambulance. You’re being sick, aren’t you? That’s good, that’s really good.’
She’s laughing in a manic kind of way, grateful that my feeble attempt at suicide is now splattered across my kitchen wall.
‘No,’ I splutter. ‘It’s not good, it’s anything but good! I wipe the sick from my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘Don’t you get it? Don’t you get I have to do this? It’s too late now, too late to turn back. Jessica… she’s ruined everything.’
‘But why?’ Her voice is pleading with me down the line. I instantly feel guilty for snapping at her but she doesn’t seem to care. She continues to speak: ‘I know Alice and Summer have died but think about your new wife, Jessica. Think about Elliott.’
Flashes of my boy’s trusting face pierce through my brain; an entanglement of Elliott’s smile and Summer’s tiny white coffin merge into one. I can’t lose another child. I can’t go on living in a world where I will never see Elliott again. I just can’t.
‘I am thinking about him, Lana; believe me when I tell you that I am.’
I collapse down on to my hands and knees just in time for the sick to erupt out of me once again. I choke as the snot congeals with the bile in my throat. My stomach muscles crunch and I take in deep breaths, like I’ve been taught to do in situations like this. Feeling slightly calmer, I wipe my brow, which is cold with sweat. I take a glance down at my watch. I don’t have long. I need to end this!
‘The boy?’ I suddenly hear from across the kitchen. ‘What happened to the boy in the car crash?’ It’s then I realise the phone has slid out of my hand. Feeling weak and dizzy, I make a grab for it.
‘You want to know about the boy?’ I wheeze down the receiver.
‘Yes, Liam, tell me about the boy.’
Liam’s Story, January 2009
The snow had continued to fall for another eight days, which was one of the longest in British history. Schools had long since closed their doors, much to the delight of every child. The same could not be said for their frazzled parents, who were now having to juggle work with childcare and make sledges and snowmen in their spare time.
The graveyard looked particularly beautiful on the day of the funeral. Fresh snow had fallen overnight, giving the place an unearthly glow. Mourners arrived in droves thanks to the newspaper coverage on the accident along with an advert giving the time and place of the proceedings. A horse and carriage glided elegantly through the streets, the horses seemingly unaffected by the stark brightness of the sky and the wintry chill on their hooves as they crunched their way towards the church.
Outside the entrance lay heaps of floral tributes: roses, lilies and carnations all sculpted together to create butterflies, love hearts and teddy bears. As the carriage reached its destination, onlookers sniffed and snivelled as two more wreaths were carried out and placed gently in front of the others. Simple and elegant white roses depicted two names: ‘Alice’ and ‘Summer’.
I threw up the second I stepped out of the car.
Earlier that morning, I had dragged on my grey suit, the very suit I had worn five years earlier to the same church to marry the woman of my dreams. I’d vowed then to love and protect her… now I was attending her funeral because I had broken that vow. I made a mental note to burn the suit the second I got home.
Stumbling into the church, I kept my head bowed, unable to look at the pitying half-smiles of people I barely knew. ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams floated towards me, the lyric just out of reach. I’d picked the song the week previous, when well-meaning neighbours had offered up suggestions while sipping at weak, lukewarm tea out of battered old mugs. The half-empty vessels still littered the draining board but I barely noticed. Slumping myself down on the front pew, I closed my eyes and allowed the tears to flow as Alice’s father patted me awkwardly on the back.
‘It will be okay, lad, we will get through this.’
I couldn’t look at him, not after what I had done. Instead, I glanced over at my birth mother, who sat in the pew opposite me. I only saw her periodically due to her being a complete and utter drunken arsehole. She was dressed in a tight-fitting black dress and an enormous silver fascinator, like she was attending a wedding as opposed to a funeral. Crying hysterically, she blew her nose noisily into a handkerchief. She hadn’t even met Alice, for fuck’s sake! I thought then of my foster mum, Barbara, who I had lived with from the age of nine. She’d always been more of a mother to me than my real one ever had. Unfortunately, she had died a year previously of breast cancer. It gave me some peace that she was up in heaven, looking after Alice and Summer.
‘Liam, are you all right?’
The distant mumblings of my sister, Patty, floated towards me. Patty, an overweight, autistic, middle-aged woman, had a heart of gold. She lived alone with nothing but six cats, two dogs, three budgies and a guinea pig for company. I looked into her open, trusting moon face and noticed a single tear slip from her eye.
‘No, Patty, I’m really not.’
As she stroked my arm softly, like she used to do when I was just a boy, when our dear old mother was frolicking in the next room with another of her conquests, or smashing vodka bottles against the walls and threatening to slice her wrists clean open, I knew I couldn’t take much more. I stood up quickly, just as the two matching ivory coffins were disappearing beyond the curtain to Alice’s favourite song, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ by Eva Cassidy.
Walking, and then running, I didn’t stop for air until I was sitting a good two hundred metres away, on a bench covered in snow under an elm tree at the entrance to the church grounds.
It was then that I saw her.
She looked different to last time. Her hair, neatly placed under a glittery bobby hat, looked fresh and clean. She wore little make-up: a simple, pink lipstick and a dash of mascara opened up her naturally pretty face. I noticed that she was treading carefully, cautious not to slip on the icy driveway and drop the beautifully presented bouquet of flowers she was clutching tightly to her chest with one hand while gripping hold of her daughter’s arm with the other.
Seeing me sat there, my face wet with tears, she hesitated for just a second before walking towards me with her head lowered in what appeared to be an act of shame.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you to be here.’ She winced at her own words. ‘I mean, obviously, I knew you’d be here but not on the bench. Not that you shouldn’t be but I just thought…’ She thrust the flowers at me before continuing.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come but I saw it in the paper and…’ Her words trailed off.
‘It’s all right,’ I offered, somewhat tongue-tied. ‘Thank you for the flowers; they’re beautiful.’
There was an awkward silence that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Mourners were starting to flow out of the church, their faces disguised with handkerchiefs and Kleenex.
‘How is your boy?’ I choked, unable to hide the fear behind the question.
‘Fighting hard,’ she offered, her eyes downcast. ‘I’m sorry about last week. It was just such a shock.’
‘There’s no need to apologise.’ I genuinely meant it. Who could blame her for acting in such a way? I certainly didn’t. It was all my fault.
‘So, how is he really?’ I looked her