by Maria Goodin
This is too much. It’s all too weird – this niceness, this pretending. Plus, when did any of us ever refer to him as Barclay? Not since we were ten and Tom decided Barclay was a naff name that would surely see him bullied at secondary school. We tried out Macintyre for a couple of weeks, but it was just too much effort. Max. That was so much cooler. Jay, Tom, Max. We butchered the names we were christened with – the ones our parents had so carefully chosen – until we were no more than a syllable each.
We sit down, and Carole hands out the mugs. Michael seems to have ordered me a black tea. Or did I do that myself?
Peter holds out the plate of biscuits.
Tom touches the soft swell of his belly and looks like he’s going to resist, but swiftly changes his mind. “Oh, go on then,” he says, taking a Hobnob, “I think it’s what Max would have wanted.”
They laugh. All of them laugh. I can’t stand this anymore. It’s sick.
“Ah, shit!” I breathe, spilling hot tea all over my shaking hands and my thigh. I stand up quickly. “Sorry,” I say, realising I’ve just committed the deadly sin of swearing in front of a friend’s parents. And the churchgoing ones at that.
“Let me get you a cloth,” says Carole, shuffling forward in her chair.
“No! It’s fine,” I say, heading out of the room, flustered. “I just need to go to the bathroom.”
“On the right!” calls Peter.
I lock the door behind me and immediately run the cold tap, splashing water over my hands and face.
I can feel my chest starting to tighten, my breathing coming in short, sharp bursts.
I lean on the sink and try to count backwards from a hundred, but I can’t concentrate. I need to get out of here, but how can I leave? I remember – even though I’ve spent years trying to forget – the day of Max’s funeral. Carole – white as a sheet with dark circles under her eyes – asking us boys to stay in touch. I never did. I never even once called round to the house or picked up the phone or wrote a letter. I couldn’t. The one thing his parents asked of me and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. And neither did Michael. And neither did…
But then I wonder how Tom found them so quickly. How did he know where they’d moved to? And the familiar way in which Carole and Peter greeted him. Has he kept in contact all this time?
I lean on the sink, staring at myself in the mirror. I look pale, my eyes tinged pink with tiredness. I haven’t shaved in over a week.
I can’t do this anymore. Things aren’t getting better; they’re getting worse. I don’t know what will help me, but I need to do something. For me. For Josh. I want to be a better version of myself. A better father. A better brother. A better son. A better friend. But instead I’m sinking. I don’t want to reach the bottom. I want to swim.
I dry my face, my breathing slowed, my shaking calmed.
If it will do any good at all, then I need to tell them. I need to just get it out.
We sit silently, the only sound the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. No one’s laughing anymore. They’re just waiting.
“We left the fairground,” I start, quietly, “we were later than we should have been. I’d been… Tom… one of us had been trying to win a prize on this stall and we’d lost track of time. So we decided to take a shortcut.”
I tell them about the allotments, the darkness, the stinging nettles, the jokes.
The noise. A fox shagging? I think I say this. To Max’s parents. I think I actually say the word shagging.
A fire burning, a flickering light against the dark sky. We went to look. I don’t know why, but we went to look.
I hear myself talking, but my voice sounds far away…
… lying on the ground… a boot to the stomach…
… tried to run…
… hand on my shoulder…
… be our friends, they said…
… you are leader, like me…
And I remember other things. Things I’ve tried so hard to forget that I’ve almost blocked them out.
We were sitting by the fireside on upturned crates. Max and I were huddled on one, overseen by Muscles, who stood intimidatingly close behind us. Through the flickering flames, I could see Michael, sitting miserably on another crate next to Snake Eyes. And nearby stood Tom, overseen by the Leader, who was swigging from a bottle and raving in broken English about his country and leadership, his arm still draped round Tom’s shoulder, the knife dangling against Tom’s chest.
Max and I were whispering, barely moving our lips.
… don’t know what the hell to do…
… need to get out of here…
… make a run for it?…
… don’t know, don’t know…
When I next looked over at Michael, I could see he wasn’t there. I strained to see through the flames. My heart raced harder as I searched desperately. And then I saw him in the shadows, not far from the crate where he’d been sitting, being led slowly into the darkness by Snake Eyes, who had a hand on the back of his neck.
“Where’s he taking Michael?” I asked Max, forgetting to whisper, panic taking over me.
My question got the attention of the Leader, who swiftly turned and searched the darkness for Snake Eyes. The Leader called something, a question, in his native language.
“Just a little walk,” Snake Eyes called back over his shoulder, lazily. He sounded drunk. And there was something else in his voice, something smug and beyond ugly.
I suddenly felt sick to my core, my heart pounding so hard in my chest that I immediately felt dizzy.
“No!” I heard myself shout out. I jumped up from the crate but was immediately pushed down from behind by Muscles.
I don’t know what I thought was going to happen to Michael.
I suppose I thought… I don’t know…
I just know that those are the worst nightmares of all.
I put my head in my hands and press my fingertips against my eyelids until I see tiny flashes of light bursting out of the darkness. I feel two hands gripping at my wrists.
Michael’s there, crouched in front of me.
“It’s okay,” I hear him whisper. “I was scared, too. But nothing happened.”
I feel a warm hand on my back. Tom, sitting next to me.
“Look at where you are,” he says.
I open my eyes, take in the bright lounge, the floral sofas, the polka-dot mugs, the flowers on the mantelpiece, the crucifix on the wall.
I see Max’s parents sitting opposite me, holding hands on the two-seater sofa. They look so many things – sad, encouraging, shocked, weary – that I don’t know what they’re making of any of this.
Michael tilts his head towards me and I refocus on his face. He offers me a sad, gentle smile.
“Go on,” urges Tom.
The Leader yelled, barking something in his native language. He wasn’t happy. He wanted Snake Eyes to bring Michael back. And Muscles wasn’t happy about Snake Eyes’ behaviour either.
That’s how the shouting started. That’s why the fight broke out. Before we knew it, Michael was being dragged back to the fireside while the three men argued, shouting things in a language we didn’t understand.
… Rocket mouthed at me to run…
… blood was dripping from my hand…
… I stopped and looked back, but I couldn’t help him…
… we just ran…
All I could hear was our breathing, fast and heavy, as we bolted over the uneven ground in the darkness. Michael stumbled and fell beside me, and I turned to haul him up, panicking that he might have twisted his ankle on the clods of dried earth. But we kept heading forwards, barely able to see where we were going.
At first, Max kept up with us out of sheer fear and determination. But he couldn’t sustain it. He started flagging, slowing us down.
“Come on!” we shouted.
“I can’t,” he insisted, but he kept going all the same.
After what felt like an eternity but can’
t have been more than four or five minutes, as if from nowhere, the canal appeared before us. There are no moorings along that stretch of the canal and no lights along the path, but the moon was reflecting off the water’s black surface and I could see enough to figure out where we were.
“Left!” I yelled as our trainers hit the path.
“We can stop now,” Max called breathlessly, desperation in his voice.
“No!” I told him. “Just keep going!”
“I can’t,” he insisted.
“You can!” I shouted. “Just a bit further!”
And so we carried on running. Not for long – maybe thirty seconds – before Max finally gave out.
“Stop!” yelled Michael, and Tom and I ground to a halt.
Max was bent over, trying to catch his breath. I ran back to him, took him by the arm and dragged him forwards, determined that we should keep going. He was wheezing heavily, but propelled by fear and adrenaline all I could think was that we had to keep running.
We staggered into the darkness underneath a tall, concrete bridge, but just as we were coming out the other side, Max was done. He yanked at my arm, forcing me to stop and look at him, and for the first time I noticed just how wrong his breathing sounded. And then he slid to his knees.
“Max, come on, we can walk now,” urged Michael.
“No, something’s wrong,” I said, crouching down beside Max.
“Christ, he’s having an asthma attack,” said Tom, crouching down as well.
I shook my head, confused. It had been so long since I’d seen Max have an asthma attack that I’d forgotten he even had asthma. In fact, if anyone had asked, I’d have probably told them he’d grown out of it long ago.
“Okay, Max, just breathe slowly,” Michael said, his own breath laboured. “Just… um… just breathe deeply—”
“He can’t breathe deeply, you moron!” panted Tom. “That’s the whole point about asthma.”
“What do we do?” I asked Tom.
“I don’t know!”
“Well, does he have an inhaler?”
“How would I know?”
“You’re at school with him every day! I didn’t even know he still had asthma!”
“Max, do you have an inhaler?” asked Tom.
Max shook his head slowly. His breathing sounded painful and abnormally noisy, like air trying to force its way through a pinprick-sized hole.
“Let’s just stop for a minute so he can catch his breath,” said Michael, looking around anxiously. “I don’t think they’ve followed us.”
“He can’t just catch his breath!” snapped Tom. “This is serious!”
“He’ll be okay,” I said, my own breathing starting to regulate. “He just needs to stop for a minute.”
Suddenly I was jerked into a standing position by Tom yanking me up by the arm.
“This isn’t good!” he whispered harshly. “We need to get help!”
“But he’ll be okay,” I said, confused. “It’s not like you can die of it. He just needs—”
“Of course he can fucking die of it! What do you think happens if you can’t breathe?!”
I suddenly remembered that day in the school playground when Max had his first asthma attack, and how Tom and I had run to get Mrs Dray. At home time she told my mum there had been an “incident”, and that I might be unsettled by it. But I wasn’t. Because my mum had given me Nesquik and told me asthma was nothing to worry about.
“Guys, I think we need to get help,” Michael said, his voice full of concern.
We looked down at him crouching by Max’s side; Max who had sat down on the path and slumped to one side, propping himself up weakly on one shaky arm, his head barely off the ground. The noise of his laboured breathing filled the night air.
“Okay,” said Tom, gesturing into the darkness, “that’s the entrance to the nature reserve up there, right? So there’s a footbridge just past the weir. Look, I’m gonna go get help—”
“I’ll go,” I said, quickly. “I can run faster than you.”
Tom and I were both on our respective school’s athletics teams, and we stared at each other now as if this was our final competitive stand-off.
“Okay,” nodded Tom, conceding. “You know where you’re going, yeah?”
But I was already running, my trainers pounding the towpath, the warm night air whistling in my ears.
“I always thought you were the ones who ordered me to get help,” I say, perched on the edge of the sofa, my forehead resting in my hands. “But it wasn’t you, was it? It was me. I thought I was the fastest runner—”
“And you were,” says Tom beside me.
“Fractionally. Whenever we compared times—”
“I lied. Whenever we compared times, I lied. Of course I wasn’t as fast as you. I couldn’t run as fast and I couldn’t cover the distances you covered, and I hated the fact that you were so much better at it than me. In primary school we were on a level, I might have even been marginally ahead of you, but once you went to St John’s you outstripped me by a long way. But there was no way I was going to let you know that.”
“You were the right person to go, Jay,” says Michael. “It had to be you.”
I glance up briefly. He’s kneeling in front of me, his face a picture of concern. Beyond him, Max’s parents haven’t moved. They’re like statues, squeezed together on the sofa, listening with a look of silent distress on their faces. They’re clutching each other’s hand – perfectly together in their suffering. This loving, close-knit family which was torn apart.
“But I stopped,” I say. “I couldn’t choose which way to go. I remember now you even asked me if I knew where I was going, but I didn’t listen. You would have known which way to go, Tom, or you would have chosen quicker. You were always saying I was indecisive, and I was. I still am—”
“What difference would that have possibly made?” asks Tom. “We must be talking a matter of seconds.”
“Fifteen seconds. But then I chose the wrong way. And all together it cost me a minute and I know that because when I ran it again and timed myself I worked out—”
“It’s just one minute, Jay,” pleads Tom, looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“Exactly!” I exclaim, holding my hands out as if this is the whole point. “The minute that made all the difference!”
What happened in between my puking up candyfloss on the carpet of the Kingfisher and arriving back at Max’s side has always been a blur. There were lights and sirens, but, of course, the ambulance couldn’t get anywhere near the spot where the boys were waiting. I had to lead everyone – the paramedics, John Porter and Stan Finch who’d recognised me when I’d burst through the doors of the Kingfisher – to the place where Max had collapsed. I remember darkness, rushing, urgent questions I couldn’t answer.
And then we were there, under the bridge, torches flashing, radio controls crackling. Two paramedics – a man with a ginger beard and a pretty woman with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail – were leaning over Max, who was lying on the ground. When the ginger man looked up, I could see something sticky-looking in his beard, glistening in the torchlight. In my fretful state, I had the ridiculous thought that it must be jam, and that he’d been interrupted in the middle of his tea break.
I remember Tom and Michael crouched by Max, being ordered to move out of the way. Tom standing and staggering backwards, unable to tear his eyes away, and Michael frozen, his fingers being prised from Max’s arm by Stan Finch before John Porter took Michael around the waist and hauled him aside.
I don’t remember any of us talking, or even looking at each other. I think we just stood there, staring in shock. I don’t know why, but at that point I still believed everything was going to be okay. I suppose because anything else was inconceivable. A world without Max in it had never, and could never, exist in my lifetime.
And as my mum once told me, asthma is nothing to worry about.
There were mumblings and radioed message
s I didn’t understand, attempts at resuscitation, codes, numbers and acronyms that made no sense. No one used the word dead, I’m sure of it. But all of a sudden, I knew. It was clear. The bearded paramedic muttered sadly, something about “one minute earlier”. And I knew that I’d been sixty seconds too late.
“No, no, no!” I heard Tom screaming, his cries echoing against the vast night sky, and I turned to see John and Stan restraining him, trying to hold him back. “Keep trying!” he was ordering the paramedics. “Fucking keep trying!”
Michael was frozen in the pale light, unable to take his wide eyes off Max’s body.
I stepped forwards to look at Max’s face, half expecting to see his eyes were open and this was all a misunderstanding. He looked white in the moonlight, his lips parted slightly. His eyes were closed and his glasses had been removed. I wanted to ask where his glasses were. He couldn’t see without his glasses.
I didn’t cry or shout. I didn’t utter a sound or dare to breathe.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Come away, son,” a voice said behind me, taking me by the shoulders and turning me from the scene. “Don’t look.”
I’m brought back to the room by the ticking of the clock. I watch the second hand edging round, measuring the passage of time. Another second, minute, hour without him here, where he should be, with his friends and family. I don’t remember standing up, but here I am, over by the mantelpiece, my back to everyone. Maybe that’s the only way I could tell my story.
Everyone is still. Everyone is silent. I feel raw and exposed, and more vulnerable than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s like I’ve been turned inside out and every failure, insecurity and ugliness is there for all to see. I press my left thumb hard into the scar on my right palm, watching it blanch.
We made a decision at the time – me, Tom and Michael – not to tell anyone what had happened at the allotments and why we were running so fast. Our story was simply that we were late leaving the fairground, that Michael was worried about missing his curfew, and that’s why we were running. We lied, and, like most lies, once we’d said it, it felt impossible to retract.