The House

by Tom Watson

  ‘Let me take over, my friend,’ he says gently. ‘You’ve done good.’

  Owen falls away from him, then feels Phil take his arm and yank him out of the tent. The other paramedic goes in. Owen’s sweating and the sudden chill of the night air makes him shiver. He can hear the paramedics talking to each other, saying things into their radios.

  One of the medics reappears, tells them to stay where they are and heads off at a jog for the ambulance. It’s twenty yards away where the tents are more thickly pitched. The lights flicker over the nylon and canvas, highlighting the sleep-soaked faces peering out and the unsteady couples and groups meandering up the pathways, staring at it with dazed curiosity.

  Owen looks at his hands; they glimmer red and blue. The crowd are still cheering in Shangri-La. The night smells of damp grass. He shivers again and Phil gives him his coat.

  ‘Where’s Georgina?’

  ‘Here!’ She steps out of the shadows. Her voice is strangled and she has lost her flower crown somewhere. ‘Is he dead? Is Jay dead, Owen? Oh, God!’

  Another set of flashing lights. The paramedic is coming back with a stretcher and in her wake is a pair of policemen.

  ‘Georgina?’ Phil says quietly.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she snaps.

  Owen is not sure what is happening. The stretcher is at the entrance to the tent, then Jay is on it. There is an oxygen mask over his face. That has to be good, doesn’t it? Now Owen is watching them push it over the uneven ground and, stupidly, he thinks it looks uncomfortable, being rattled around like that.

  ‘Is he OK?’ Phil shouts. ‘Can we come with you?’

  ‘He’s in a bad way,’ the one with the hair gel shouts back. ‘No room for you in the ambulance.’

  ‘But that means he’s alive, doesn’t he?’ Georgina is pulling on Owen’s arm. ‘I mean, “a bad way” means he’s alive?’

  He wants to tell her he did a day course in first aid, not a medical degree. He wants to tell her Jay’s skin felt wrong, strange, that he couldn’t see if his breath was getting into Jay’s lungs. He just shakes his head.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The ambulance is on the move now, the siren burping occasionally to force the returning campers off the track. Owen watches it turn onto the tarmac road and pick up speed. Its sirens wail continuously over the horizon.

  ‘We should call his family,’ he says. His voice feels strange and he wipes his mouth, convulsively, angrily.

  They both look at Georgie. She shakes her head. ‘I can’t! I can’t. There’s no point waking them. We should wait until we know something.’

  Phil takes out his phone. ‘I’ve got their number.’

  ‘Evening.’ One of the policemen is with them now. His fluorescents are too bright. Owen finds himself studying the details of his uniform, the handcuffs on his belt. He takes their names and Jay’s. Owen is aware of Phil telling him what happened.

  Owen interrupts to remind Phil of what Minnie said about his inhaler being empty. He hears the policeman ask about drugs.

  ‘He might have taken an E,’ Owen says. ‘I don’t know for sure.’ Georgina is clinging to him, half-burying her head in his jacket. Phil’s jacket.

  ‘I have to call his dad,’ Phil says.

  ‘If you give me their details, sir,’ the policeman replies, ‘we can take care of that.’

  ‘But don’t you think I should … ’ Phil protests.

  The policeman shakes his head. ‘We can give them the news from the hospital, son. Now, were you all sharing the one tent?’

  Owen lifts his head. ‘Jay, Phil and I were in the big one. Georgina’s got the small one next door.’

  ‘OK if we just take a look, sir? Just to get the lie of the land.’

  Owen doesn’t care.

  The policeman sticks his head in, then re-emerges.

  ‘Bit of a mess in there. Was it like that before?’

  ‘No,’ Phil says. ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Looking for his inhaler?’ the policeman says.

  ‘He always keeps a spare in his washbag,’ Owen says. ‘Carries another. And he had it. It was in his hand, Phil said it was empty … ’

  And he can’t speak anymore. The policeman nods to his colleague. He’s asking about their jobs now and when Phil tells them, he raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Advisor at the Treasury? Young lad like that?’

  ‘Junior advisor,’ Georgina mutters. ‘And he got fired a month ago.’

  ‘Owen,’ Phil says. ‘We’ve got to tell London. You’ve got to. This will be a story.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Georgina squeals.

  ‘Officer,’ Owen says. ‘Phil’s right. It’s important I let the government know what’s happening, and we want to keep this out of the press until we know how Jay is and his parents have been informed.’

  ‘Naturally, sir.’ Has the quality of that ‘sir’ changed? Owen can’t tell if it’s more careful, or has a sneer on it. He wonders if this is the sort of man who is going to get in his car and sell the story to the Sun for a grand. Take the kiddies somewhere nice.

  ‘I think we should take you all down to the station to take your statements, though, do this properly. A sudden collapse like this, at an event like this. Especially if the young man might have taken a pill. I’m sure the government would agree.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Sure. Whatever you need.’

  He nods and speaks into his radio, ordering up another car.

  ‘Sarge?’

  Owen twists round. The other policeman is holding something up and Owen catches sight of it in the twist of the blue lights. A small pencil case, silvered leather but with LVs written all over it. He recognises it, it’s Jay’s: he’s seen it on the dining-room table a dozen times.

  The policeman unzips it and fishes inside, extracts a clear baggy and holds it up delicately with his blue-gloved fingertips. Owen glimpses half a dozen pills in the blue wash of light.

  ‘Just on the inside. Plain view.’

  ‘That’s not my tent,’ Georgina says in a sort of yelp. ‘My tent’s on the other side.’

  The two policemen are looking at each other.

  ‘Oi!’ The squaddie who helped them put up their tents. He’s powering towards them.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  The policeman is putting the pencil case and baggy into an evidence envelope. The one who has been questioning them steps between the squaddie and his colleague. ‘We found what appear to be drugs in your tent, sir?’ He points at the pencil case. ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘No, it isn’t!’ he rages. ‘Now piss off out of my stuff!’

  ‘If you would just calm down, sir.’

  Of course it’s not his, Owen thinks. And now this bloke is going to get himself in trouble. He takes the magic half-step forward. ‘Officer … ’

  Georgina’s grip suddenly tightens on his arm. ‘Owen, don’t!’

  He looks down at her. ‘But that case is Jay’s. I’ve seen it at home.’

  He tries to pull his arm free of Georgina, but she holds on.

  ‘Millions of people have cases like that. It must be that guy’s. God, you’ve already said Jay might have had a pill. Now you’re going to get him done for intent to supply or something!’

  ‘This is an illegal search,’ the squaddie is shouting. ‘I serve my country and I come home to this. You bastards! Get away from me!’

  ‘If you would just calm down, sir.’

  One of the younger coppers comes up behind the squaddie and puts a hand on his shoulder. Bad mistake. The reaction is instantaneous.

  The squaddie swings at the guy who touches him and his fist catches him on the side of his head and sends him stumbling. For a second the squaddie looks confused, like he doesn’t understand where he is, or how he got here. The policeman who had been searching the tent tries to get the squaddie round the chest, pinning his arms to his side. Again, as soon as he is touched, the squaddie reacts. He elbows the man behind him hard in the gut.
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  All hell has broken loose. A crowd has gathered to see the show.

  ‘Christ,’ Phil says.

  ‘It’s not his fault,’ Owen says. ‘They need to back off.’

  A girl in flip-flops is running towards them from the main trail. ‘Babe, stop!’

  Another wail of a siren and another two more fluorescent jackets are crossing the field at a sprint after her. The squaddie pauses, turns towards the woman’s voice and the first officer grabs something from his belt and sprays him. He grunts, swears, falls to his knees.

  The lads in the crowd jeer. Shout, ‘Bad luck, mate!’ Someone grabs hold of the squaddie’s arm; he’s trying to get the pepper spray out of his eyes and lashes out.

  ‘Baby! Stop!’

  One of the police has pulled a taser from his belt.

  ‘Jesus!’ Owen shakes Georgina off his arm. ‘Give him some space!’

  The girl in flip-flops rushes past the man with the taser and drops onto her hands and knees in front of the squaddie.

  ‘Baby, stop fighting!’

  And he does. Owen can see his shoulders go limp.

  He is dragged to his feet again.

  ‘That case. Do you recognise it, Phil?’ Owen says.

  ‘I told you, Owen, there are millions of cases like that,’ Georgina interrupts. ‘Have you seen Jay with it here? No, of course you haven’t. Because his is still in London.’

  ‘Phil?’

  Phil hesitates. ‘Leave it. He just assaulted a police officer. He’s got bigger problems now.’

  They have led the squaddie off to one of the squad cars: he’s shaking his head, trying to get the crap out of his eyes. They guide him into the back seat. Slam the door.

  The older policeman is coming back towards them. Georgina grabs hold of Owen’s arm again.

  ‘I swear, Owen, it’s not Jay’s! Don’t complicate things! The press will have a field day with this without you dragging in some random guy’s drugs into it. What will they say about Jay? What about me? What about my seat? What are you doing?’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Phil asks the policeman as he gets closer. ‘Is there any news on our friend?’

  The policeman avoids his eye. ‘I’m to take you to the station. Let’s go.’

  ‘Our stuff!’ Georgina says. ‘I can’t remember where my wallet is. Did Jay have his wallet on him? What if someone steals it?’

  ‘We’ll leave someone here to keep an eye on everything, don’t worry, miss.’

  ‘But our friend … ’ Owen tries again. ‘Any word on our friend?’

  The policeman wets his lips. ‘Let’s just get you to the station.’

  Phil covers his face with his hands, and Georgina releases a sort of moan. Owen’s mind suddenly feels empty, as if the bowl of his skull has been hollowed out. He takes out his phone and dials.

  ‘Owen McKenna here, I need to speak to the Duty Press Officer immediately. Yes, it’s urgent. Who is on call?’

  Chapter 34

  Tuesday 15 March 2022

  Owen finishes. Stares at his hands.

  ‘And when you got to the police station, did you try and do anything to help the soldier?’ Chloe asks.

  Owen shakes his head. ‘I was on the phone to the press office in the waiting area most of the time. It seemed to take hours for them to take our statements and then we heard the news about Jay. We gave our witness statements for the assault, that’s all. I didn’t tell them what I suspected about the pill case. It was easier to tell myself I might have been mistaken. I asked if they thought he might be suffering from PTSD. It was something about the way he reacted. They said they’d consider it.’

  ‘Poor man,’ Sabal says. Owen feels it, the grace it must take to think that, say that, think of anything else, having heard the details of what happened to Jay.

  ‘He was going through a difficult time,’ Owen says. ‘He’d seen two of his friends killed by an IED, was injured himself at the same time and left the army. He was finding it hard to adjust. Anger issues. He served six months and got treatment for his PTSD after his release. Re-trained. He’s a great deal better now. Married his girlfriend and they have two kids.’

  ‘You know a lot about him, Mr McKenna,’ Lefiami says.

  ‘Yes. I tracked him down after the 2010 election. He works for Citizens Advice, in my constituency. We’re friends. His name is Liam Holdsworth.’

  ‘And he has forgiven you?’ Sabal asks.

  Owen shrugs. ‘I told him I was sorry once, for not stepping up. He told me it wasn’t my fault he lost it and hit the policeman.’

  ‘A generous man,’ Sabal replies and Owen agrees. ‘Owen, it is up to God to forgive, not me. Perhaps if you had been a better friend, my son would be alive. But he was not without fault. And we cannot ask forgiveness for our own sins and expect perfection from everyone else. Again, I thank you for coming to speak to me.’

  It feels like a conclusion, so Owen gets to his feet. ‘I’m sorry it took me so long to do so. I think I assumed Georgina would have told you everything. But that’s just an excuse. I failed Jay, and I didn’t want to face you.’

  Sabal stands too and bows. ‘Georgina and I concentrate on happier times. Would you like to come and see him, Owen? Would you like to come and visit Jay? We can go now. The home is not far away. I wanted him close.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll come.’

  Chapter 35

  Sunday 28 June 2009

  They give Owen tea in an actual mug, and the policewoman assigned to take his statement has a Somerset burr to her voice. As soon as he sits down, Owen realises how exhausted he is. Beyond exhausted. Shattered. The fabric of him feels cracked, like a broken mirror still held together by its frame, in spite of the terminal damage. The grind of the last months, the fear of the last few hours. His hand is shaking and the tea tastes of cardboard.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Owen,’ the policewoman says, tucking a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Normally we wouldn’t be so formal in the circumstances, but the young man is quite important, and of course there are always some who want to paint the festival as some sort of crime and drugs farrago, so we have to watch ourselves a little. Isn’t it a shame about Michael Jackson? I just love his music.’

  Owen likes the way she says ‘farrago’. He even finds comfort in the tea. Maybe they’ll let him stay here. He doesn’t want to go outside, look at the others.

  ‘Do you have any news on Jay?’ he asks.

  She puts down her pen and folds her hands over each other on the table.

  ‘He’s very poorly, I’m afraid. The doctors are working away, but we don’t know how long he was like that before you found him.’

  Owen tells himself to breathe. They should have gone looking for him earlier. They should have taken better care of him. They should have been taking better care of him weeks ago. He has an impulse to weep. No. If he starts, he won’t be able to stop.

  The policewoman asks him questions and he answers them. They go through the assault first ‘while it is fresh’. He tells her about how the squaddie reacted and his conclusions. She nods understandingly. Then they go through the rest of the weekend. When he arrived at the campsite, what sets they saw, the times when they were with Jay and when they weren’t.

  ‘Now, I know in your line of work this is a bit delicate, Owen, but were any drugs taken? Beyond a few ciders, I mean.’

  ‘Not by me,’ he says. ‘It’s not just being in politics; I don’t trust them.’

  ‘You should watch the cider too,’ she says dryly. ‘Especially the organic stuff, in my opinion. Now, what about Jay? Did he ever dabble?’

  ‘It was an asthma attack, wasn’t it?’ Owen puts down the tea. The colder it gets, the more the cardboard flavour comes through. ‘If it was an asthma attack why are you asking about drugs?’

  ‘Sort of thing the coroner likes to know,’ she says, then sees his expression, ‘and of course we are all praying like ballyhoo it doesn’t come to that, dear. But we still have to
ask. In case it does.’ She pauses. ‘So did he? Dabble?’

  Owen stares at the mug. ‘I don’t know. A bit, perhaps. He’s been drinking more. Lost his job recently.’

  She looks at her notes. ‘But you’ve never actually seen him take anything? He never offered you a pill?’

  He shakes his head. ‘He knows what I think about all that.’

  ‘You’re a sensible lad,’ she replies.

  Suddenly he wishes she was more aggressive, more challenging. This gentleness is going to kill him.

  ‘How come you weren’t together this afternoon and evening? Sounds like you’d been sticking pretty close before then.’

  ‘We had a fight. Not a bad one, not really. But he was talking about work. Very intense, sort of hectoring.’ The words start tumbling out of him. ‘He’s been like that all year. He marched off and we let him go.’

  She purses her mouth. Her lipstick is the coral pink Owen’s mum used to wear in the nineties.

  ‘So your friend – who’s been depressed for a while, not looking after himself and has had quite bad asthma since he was a child – and you had a bit of a set-to, then he marched off into the festival, upset, and stopped answering his phone. And you and your friends only thought to go looking for him,’ she glances at her pad, ‘ten hours later?’

  ‘He’s been really hard to live with.’

  Owen feels as if he’s folding in on himself, he’s going to disappear into the dark.

  She keeps writing. ‘My sister has depression, Owen. And you know sometimes I could just slap her. Makes people awfully self-centred, doesn’t it? You trying to live your life and there’s them refusing to put one foot in front of the other. That’s when they need us most, of course, when they need us to listen however much we’d like them to quiet down. Not much virtue in being kind to people if they make it easy for you, is it?’

  Owen covers his eyes. He is not going to cry. This is not fair.

  ‘It’s not my job to look after Jay.’

  ‘Not sure whose job it was, then. We all have to try and look after each other, don’t we?’