One Split Second: A thought-provoking novel about the limits of love and our astonishing capacity to heal

by Caroline Bond

  There was something in Dom’s tone, his immediate acquiescence, that bothered Harry. Dom hated being told ‘no’ – normally. Harry opened his eyes and caught an expression of satisfaction on his dad’s face. It disappeared a split second later, to be replaced by a look of concern.

  ‘Harry?’ Dom’s hand on his arm, attempting to usher him away, was the trigger.

  Harry shrugged it off and walked over to the lifts. He had no intention of leaving.

  Dom followed him. ‘Harry, you heard the lady. I’m sorry we’ve had wasted trip. We’ll come back later or arrange it for another day.’

  There it was again, that greasy tone. Harry felt he was being manipulated, though he didn’t know why. He studied his dad. The sudden offer to come to the hospital, the showy flowers, the messages on the cards, the photos, the mix-up about visiting times – something was off.

  ‘I’m going up to the ward anyway. If I ask to see Jess Fran will let me.’

  Dom’s expression shifted to something less conciliatory. ‘Not now, Harry.’

  ‘Yes. Now. You spoke to her. She knows I’m coming. It’ll be okay.’

  Dom put his hand on Harry’s arm again. ‘Actually, she doesn’t know. I couldn’t get hold of her this morning. I left a message asking her to call me back, but she hasn’t yet.’ He made a show of getting his phone out and checking. ‘No. Nothing yet. Let’s leave it for now, eh, Harry? Today maybe isn’t a good day. They’ll get your note. The lady said she’ll send them up to the ward. They’ll know we were here.’

  ‘No.’ The lift doors opened and Harry got in. Dom had no other choice but to follow him.

  The presence of others put a stop to the argument for a minute and, when the doors opened, Harry didn’t waste any more words on his dad. He hurried along to the entrance to the ICU and, before Dom could stop him, pressed the buzzer.

  Dom pleaded twice more for him to leave it, and twice more Harry pushed the buzzer. He had to see them. He had to get inside. On the third buzz a disembodied voice answered. Harry began to explain who he was, but the voice from inside the ward cut him off. ‘We aren’t open to visitors at present. Please ask at reception for details about how to arrange a visit.’ A crackle, and that was it.

  Harry wanted to cry, or hit something, hard. Instead he turned on his dad. ‘Why did you lie about talking to Fran? Why bring me here, if you knew I wouldn’t be allowed in? Why?’ Dom went to hug him, but Harry shrugged him off. ‘Why?’

  Dom finally spoke up. ‘I honestly didn’t know we wouldn’t be allowed in.’ His expression grew more belligerent – a sure sign that he knew he was in the wrong, but also that there was no way he was going to admit it. ‘And besides, I thought it was important to make the gesture.’

  ‘An empty gesture. You never really wanted me to actually see them, did you?’ Harry shouted.

  Dom sighed. ‘You think what you want, Harry. You always do. But believe this: I have your best interests at heart. I always do. I’m your dad.’

  Harry turned and started walking away towards the lifts, not knowing whether his dad having his back was a good or a bad thing.

  Chapter 27

  MARCUS AND Fran were taking it in turns to go home every other night in order to break down the fatigue and, more pragmatically, because the hospital simply did not have the facilities for more than one of them to stay.

  The surprising thing was that Marcus was sleeping, deeply and solidly, during his nights at home. His routine was always the same. He would let himself into the house, scoop up the piles of cards from friends and complete strangers and go straight through into the kitchen. There he would microwave a portion of whatever had been left by the neighbours. He’d stand by the back door, cradling the ballistically hot bowl with a tea towel, shovelling the food into his mouth with a spoon until it was all gone. As everyone kept saying, It was important to keep his strength up. Then he would climb the stairs, get into bed and fall into a deep pit of sleep. No nightmares, no sudden waking up bathed in sweat, no heart-crushing dreams of Jess, whole and happy. Nothing. In the morning the alarm would wake him. He would shower, then eat a bowl of cereal, aware that the quicker he ate, the quicker he could get back to the place he least wanted to be.

  Fran looked up from her phone as he approached the bay. ‘You’re late back,’ she said. He wasn’t. Not really. He didn’t greet or kiss his daughter. Neither of them spoke or touched Jess much any more. Precisely when they’d stopped, he couldn’t say for sure. The physical distance between them was the same, a hand-span between bed and chair, but emotionally the separation was much wider and deeper.

  ‘Has something happened?’ He shrugged off his jacket.

  Fran nodded, stood up and walked away from Jess’s bed, indicating that he should follow, which he did, his mouth sawdust-dry. They picked a spot near the noticeboard in the corridor. ‘Harry and Dom came to the hospital yesterday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I had a message passed on to me from some woman downstairs, saying a man and his son had brought some flowers to reception and that they’d left a message.’ She passed him an envelope. Inside was a florist’s card, and written on it was, ‘There are no words. Harry x.’

  Marcus didn’t know what to say, but he knew why Fran was upset. His response was cautious. ‘At least it’s a sign that Harry must be willing to come in and talk to us.’

  Fran’s agitation increased. ‘So you’d have thought. But no. Look!’ She thrust her phone at him.

  Marcus found himself looking at a photo posted to the local Facebook group thread about the crash. The photo clearly showed Harry handing over a huge bouquet at the hospital reception. There was a comment underneath from Dom, expressing their fervent wishes for Jess’s and Tish’s recovery. Marcus felt his head begin to thud. It was a crass thing to do, but he really didn’t care – couldn’t care.

  ‘Please, Fran. Does it really matter?’ Marcus didn’t have any energy left over for anger. ‘We have far bigger problems than what Harry and Dom are, or aren’t, doing.’ He immediately regretted his comment, but it was too late. He saw Fran flinch and move away from him, a tiny retraction, but a noticeable one.

  ‘It matters,’ Fran gathered herself, ‘because Dom is more concerned with how Harry looks than with what Harry has done.’ Blotches of red mottled her cheeks. ‘It was his car. He was driving.’

  Marcus was weary, but he forced himself to speak his mind. ‘Fran, it was a horrendous accident.’

  She stared at him. ‘Are you telling me just to accept it?’ She struggled to compose herself. ‘Accidents happen! Is that it? Is that all we are going to get? Look at Jess, Marcus. Look at her!’ She gestured back towards the ward. ‘Look at the state she’s in. Harry was driving.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean it was his fault.’

  Fran stood completely still. ‘Well, if it wasn’t his fault, whose was it?’

  Marcus had no answer for that. They had reached an impasse.

  After a few awkward moments he said he needed to go to the toilet. Fran went back to Jess’s bedside without him. It was a lie, he didn’t really need the loo; what he wanted was a moment on his own. Time to breathe and for Fran to calm down.

  In the Gents he depressed the tap and held his hands in the stream of water. Five seconds of release. He allowed himself another press. It was a tiny comfort. Liquid warmth, the smell of soap, a fraction of a pause from the harsh imperative of watching and hoping and worrying. When the water stopped, Marcus looked up and studied his reflection in the mirror. He looked shocking. Old. Grey. He rested his head against the glass, just to take the weight off the stretched sinews in his neck for a few moments. It was an accident. They had all been hurt. Jess and Tish took the brunt of it. It was unfair. Life was. It was cruel and arbitrary, but blaming others wouldn’t change that. It would only add another huge weight to the burden they were already having to carry.

  The door opened and someone entered the bathroom, but Marcus didn’t move. He could tell, by the s
lowing of the footsteps, that whoever it was, they were curious, concerned about him even. Then one of the toilet doors banged – so not concerned enough to say anything. He wasn’t surprised. Distress didn’t invite company. He peeled himself away from the mirror, straightened his spine and headed back to his post.

  The minute he came through onto the ward he could tell that something was wrong. The energy was different. In the place of careful concentration there was a sense of urgency and action. He ran on to the ward.

  They were gathered in the bay, a swarm of white coats and busy hands. Instructions were being issued and acted upon with an efficiency that didn’t seem human. One voice dominated; the others assented, quickly, with the minimum of words. The moment after the doctor shouted, ‘CLEAR’, there was a millisecond of nothing and Marcus felt his heart stop.

  Then the violence of the shock.

  The jerk and rise of her inert body.

  The collapse back onto the bed.

  The awful quiet.

  The urgent queries.

  The second ‘CLEAR!’

  The application of the second shock.

  Marcus stood rooted to the spot, as the battle between life and death raged in front of him – nothing more than a bystander.

  There was a suspended moment, then the mood shunted.

  The staff started moving around the bed, as professional and efficient as ever, but the tension had changed. The instructions were softer now, though no less urgent. Something was injected into her drip, and the spaghetti of wires were reattached to her chest. There were a few moments of collective stillness as the heart monitor was studied – time stood still, again – then the doctor confirmed, in a calm, firm voice, that she was stable.

  They had succeeded in yanking her back over the line.

  She had gone, but they had brought her back.

  Crisis over.

  Marcus felt the blood slam back into his heart and his pulse surge, but the rigidity in his muscles remained. The scene in front of him blurred and swayed, but he could do nothing but stand and stare. This was too much.

  As he watched, one of the nurses realised that Sal was standing motionless at the end of her daughter’s bed. She left her colleagues to their tasks and came to Sal’s side. Cautiously, and with a tenderness they had not afforded poor Tish, she put her arm round Sal’s shoulders. The nurse didn’t say anything – what was there to say? – but just stood there, anchoring Sal, as death took a small step backwards away from her daughter.

  Marcus turned away, too shocked to offer Sal any comfort. His eyes met Fran’s. She was standing beside Jess’s bed, her hand pressed against her mouth in horror. He rushed over and pulled his wife close.

  Please, God, he prayed, let that never be us.

  Chapter 28

  SIXTEEN DAYS after the crash a small team of council workers in hi-vis jackets turned up to make good the damage. They collected up the last remnants of police tape and threw it away. Then they replaced the two smashed kerbstones and shored up the factory wall. It was a bit of a bodge, but at least it was safe. The factory owner was supposed to be sorting it out properly, once the insurance came through. The workmen left the grass alone, other than stomping on the worst divots in their heavy boots – grass was resilient stuff. It would recover soon enough. Job done, they bumped their van off the side of the road and went on to their next job.

  When Pete got home, he was pleased to see that the view out of the front of his house no longer looked like a crime scene. In fact unless you knew what you were looking for, you might very well not have noticed the scars left by the crash.

  It was good that things were getting back to normal.

  The press had stopped contacting him about his involvement in the accident, and there’d been no further follow-up from the police, other than a letter of thanks from the PCC. The letter praised Pete’s swift actions and his attempts to comfort the injured on the night of the incident. Pete had stuffed the letter away in a drawer in the kitchen. It had made him flush with embarrassment. And besides, even had he wanted to, there was no one to show it to.

  Work was as busy ever. He was glad. It was better to be occupied.

  There was one spot of sunlight amid the daily grind. A new woman had started with the Community Inclusion Team, and the two of them were spending quite a bit of time together, working on a strategy to promote the gym to a broader demographic. The woman, Claire, had the nicest laugh Pete had ever heard.

  Yes, life was back to normal. Eat, sleep, work, repeat.

  That didn’t mean Pete didn’t occasionally, in a quiet moment – often when he was letting Cleo back into the house last thing at night – pause, look across the road and see himself back on the verge, in the dark, holding the hand of the girl with the sparkly top, praying that she would hang on in there.

  Chapter 29

  LIFE WAS supposed to getting back normal for Mo, as well. He was back at sixth form – expected to crack on and focus on getting the grades he needed, as if nothing had changed. Although, with all the anxiety still churning around inside him, respiration and photosynthesis were the last things on his mind. An A in biology and two Bs in his other subjects were what he needed, if he wanted to get into Liverpool. His heart had been set on going away to university, before the accident. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Harry had not returned to college, though there was plenty of gossip about him doing the rounds. There were two schools of thought: one that he was so upset by what had happened that he was having mental health problems; and the second, that he felt so ashamed that he couldn’t face anyone. Mo defended Harry as best he could, but it was difficult, given that he’d not seen or spoken to him since the night of the crash. Harry’s silence – he hadn’t responded to any of Mo’s texts or calls – was worrying. Mo kept replaying the night in his head, trying to make sense of it, but he couldn’t. He still didn’t know what he’d done to make Harry so mad; but he did worry that it was Harry’s anger that had led to the crash. In desperation, Mo texted Jake and arranged to call round. Perhaps Harry had talked to him.

  Jake was getting better, slowly, but it was a long haul. He was not the same; nor were people’s reactions to him. On the few occasions he’d managed to get out of the house, people had stopped him and asked how he was doing, offering sympathy – the wheelchair prompted that – but what they actually wanted was to know was…what really happened? They always got round to that eventually. A brush with death wasn’t an everyday occurrence. They were fascinated, wanting to know what it felt like to be involved in something so awful. The rumours about charges being brought against Harry came up a lot, but Jake always said he thought that wasn’t going to happen, implying that the police didn’t have either the grounds or the evidence. He was confident about that; as confident as someone could be who couldn’t remember more than a blur of bright lights, dancing and shouting…then nothing.

  He said the same thing to Mo, when he turned up on the doorstep. His request to call round had come out of the blue. Jake couldn’t remember every really being on his own with Mo for any length of time, despite them knowing each other for so long – certainly not when he was sober anyway. Harry was normally there, the glue in their relationship.

  After the standard questions about his leg, Mo went quiet. Jake was tempted to turn the TV back up, indeed was about to, when Mo blurted out his real reason for coming.

  ‘You heard anything from Harry?’

  Jake hadn’t, not a dicky bird for weeks, but some pathetic sense of rivalry with Mo for Harry’s friendship made him lie. ‘A bit.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Stressed, but who wouldn’t be, in the circumstances?’

  ‘Is he not going to come back to college?’

  Jake shrugged; what did he know?

  ‘Do you know if he’s still pissed off with me?’ Mo asked.

  Jeez, what did that matter, given everything else? Jake didn’t feel he owed Mo any reassurances. He had dodged a bullet, after
all. ‘I’m not sure he’s thinking about you at the moment, mate. He’s got other priorities.’

  Mo took the hint, though he looked disappointed. Then he asked, ‘You heard any more about how the girls are getting on?’

  He really was beginning to tick Jake off. ‘The girls’ – as if they were shared property. Tish was his girl. No one else’s. ‘It’s touch and go. Jess still hasn’t woken up, and Tish has had to have another operation on her face. A skin graft, to cover up where they had to wire up her jaw.’ Anita had told him. It had made Jake feel sick.

  Mo blinked and didn’t ask anything else. They stared at the TV in silence. It was totally awkward. Jake was glad when his mum – who had no doubt been listening in the hall – came in and announced that Jake needed to take his meds. Mo stood up, politely said his goodbyes and left.

  After he’d gone, Jake swallowed his pills and he told his mum he felt rough. She helped him through to the back room, where they’d made him up a bed. When he was settled, Anita kissed his forehead, despite it being covered in a sheen of sweat from the exertion of transferring himself onto the bed. She left the door ajar on her way out – just in case he needed her.

  When she’d gone, Jake pushed down the duvet and looked at the damage. His leg was well and truly fucked – the question was whether it would ever get back to normal. The puckered skin, the screws, the pain that pulsed inside his bones. The sheer ugliness and uselessness of his body frightened Jake. Going back to work at the golf club was a distant prospect – he wasn’t going to be mowing the hilly seventh tee anytime soon; kicking a ball was a pipe dream; getting it on with a girl, ever again, a fantasy. And he’d been lucky. Not as lucky as Mo and Harry, obviously, but very lucky – compared to the girls. The image of them lying in their hospital beds, like pieces of meat, haunted Jake. A horror film, but real. He couldn’t imagine there was any way of coming back from that type of damage. And even if they did, what sort of shape would they be in? He couldn’t bear to think about it.