by E. Earle
“Ellie,” she whispered. “…You’ve got red all on you.”
“Ellena, you here?”
Calloway’s voice almost dragged me out of the confusion, as I looked from Emily down to my stained shirt. I reached to touch the spreading dampness from my middle and turned to see the Detective suck in a breath. My apologetic smile cracked my face.
“Nine lives, ay?”
“Ellena!”
I don’t know what it was, but I was suddenly unable to keep my balance. I fell away from Emily, her fingers slipping from mine as the freezing floor became a bed for my aching body.
Calloway’s white face floated above mine.
“I need an emergency unit here now!” he shouted, his hands on my stomach.
“Ben- find Ben-”
“Shut up, Ellena, just breathe.” He turned to shout more instructions at a colleague on a radio.
“Don’t... worry,” I said, my tongue feeling useless and numb. “It doesn’t...hurt.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s going to be...”
His voice dazed off, and all I could hear was that long mournful meow.
My Granddad was sitting in his favourite chair again, waiting for me, with an Alsatian asleep at his feet. I smiled, glad to finally be warm, surrounded by the safest place I knew. His house.
“Is this Shezzi?” I asked, giving the sleepy dog a tickle behind the ears.
“It is.”
“You found her then?”
“I think she found me!” my Granddad laughed.
“Where’s Ben?” I asked.
“He’s looking for you,” Granddad said. “Ere’ come give us a cuddle.”
I smiled and went over to him. His stubble rubbed my cheek, the scent of oil, tea, David Beckham (Granddad’s favourite aftershave, though I doubted he knew who he was) filled my senses. It was such a comforting smell and I didn’t want to let go.
His hand was huge in mine, and I found myself holding it to it tightly, letting his warmth flow into my skin.
“You asked me, Ellena, and I’m here.”
“Asked you what, Granddad?”
“To get you when it’s your turn.”
I would have felt panic, but it was hard to in this place. “Is it my turn?”
“That depends.”
“Is Ben still looking for me?”
Granddad nodded.
I sighed then, happy and content. “I love you, Granddad.”
He smiled at me, his hair neatly combed and newly cut. Pulling me into his thick armed embrace he squeezed me. “I love you too,” he said. “You are such a good granddaughter.”
Scratching was coming from the front door, incessant meows interrupting the moment.
“Don’t leave me, Granddad,” I started to cry.
He laughed softly and gave me another squeeze. “You silly girl,” he said. “Now why would I ever do that?”
The meowing was getting louder.
“Granddad?”
“He’s here to take you back.”
“Granddad!”
“Come on, Shez. Time to go.” Granddad was smiling as he gave me a kiss on my cheek, Shezzi standing to attention at his side. And as I watched him stand up from his chair, I noticed that there had been no winces, aches or pains. He needed no help at all.
I realised in the days after that, that I was in hospital. I was unable to talk, weak and on a lot of pain relief. I had never been on morphine before, but it was lovely.
Sometimes I imagined Ben lying on the bed with me, purring away, but I knew that couldn’t be the case. Calloway had told me in one of my conscious moments that they had been unable to find him. In one of my insane moments (which were more frequent) I had ranted and raved to my family to drive to Stratford to try and find him. Police were still in the area gathering evidence and had promised to pick him up if they found him.
But what if he was hurt? It was freezing outside, no houses around for miles!
I sank into a despairing pit that no one seemed able to drag me out of, and allowed sleep to be my new reality.
It was my sister that pulled me out of it.
She had brought Rowan in one day. That big bundle of scowls, pouted lips and various high pitched noises became my new lifeline.
“It was Ben, you know,” I said.
Kayleigh smiled sadly at me, eyeing my new morphine drip. Rowan sleeping in her arms, content in his Led Zeppelin baby grow I had bought him. I think she had put it on him to cheer me up.
“It was him Kayleigh. From Tamworth.” I started to cry. “It was him.”
“Go to sleep, Ellena.”
So I did.
I wished I could sleep forever. In my dreams Ben was there, lying next to me, purring softly. I could feel his fur against my skin as I slept. Sometimes when I awoke, I would find Calloway there. Face pale, shadows under his eyes and stubble getting longer.
“You need to shave,” I said groggily. Someone had told me the day before that I had gotten pneumonia as well as the broken ribs, concussion and a gunshot wound.
Lucky me.
“You need to get better,” he said seriously. His tie was in his hand, his shirt and grey suit rumpled.
“Emily?”
“She’s recovering with her family,” he said.
I nodded. “The perps?”
A sad smile broke his face, lightening it up for a moment. I liked it. “We got them, Ellena.”
“We did?”
“Yeah. Thanks to you.” He shifted then. “Although I don’t think Figgs and Daniels will be thankful to you.”
I laughed. “Stop it,” I wheezed. “It hurts!”
“Sorry.”
The paper soon wanted to interview me, and then surprisingly, the Manager of Foundation Learning did too. He spoke to me briefly, my mum tapping her shoe impatiently behind him.
“If you think she’s going back to work in that place, you’ve got another thing coming,” she snarled, arms crossed over her chest.
Jeff shifted uncomfortably. “We heard about Ben,” he said, “we are all really sorry-”
“He’s not gone,” I said icily, the morphine bringing a manic edge to my voice. “He’s not gone, he’s just lost!” The tears started to fall then again. God I was tired of crying.
“We, err, got you a card...” Jeff said, passing it me.
Mum helped me open it, and I saw it was actually a picture of Ben and me walking to work. One of the students had taken it and put it up on Facebook apparently. It was signed by all of the staff in student support, my fellow English Teachers, as well as my Learners. It made me wail all the more.
Jeff handed my mother another package then, quickly made his excuses and left. Mum held me as the nurse gave me something to calm me down.
I was very ill the next few days and I can’t remember much. If there was anything to catch at the hospital- I got it. I remembered my Granddad’s time at the hospital and suddenly wished I had asked him to take me with him.
But Ben had found me.
And I couldn’t find him now.
The scandal was still playing out when I finally got out of hospital. I had lost more weight and couldn’t go back to work for a while. Nuneaton Academy had sent me a letter, wishing for me to get better, saying they were looking forward to me delivering the Creative Writing Course, and University College of Warwickshire had assured me my job was still waiting for me when I got back.
Emily and I met up a couple of times. We didn’t have to say much. We just hugged and watched films together, mostly Disney.
“I think I’m going to go away travelling,” she said suddenly one day.
“Yeah?” I asked, seeing that the shadows under her eyes were as dark as my own.
“My sister wants to take me. I think I’m going to do it. Get away from here a while.”
I nodded numbly. “You should.”
That was all we said on the matter.
As for the Principal and Sabrina, they had been
apprehended at the airport, one at the bar and one clutching a toilet. I’ll leave you to decide who was doing what.
Rino and his chums were also being sentenced, as well for a bunch of other crimes. I hoped they got life. The Principal’s ex, Kirk Bowers and his fiancée Emma Cook were slowly getting back to their lives, but were first going to enjoy a long holiday in the Caribbean. He had successfully divorced his ex-wife and had donated the Aldrith Farm to a Donkey Sanctuary. He said that he had always seen his ex-wife as an ass, so it seemed fitting.
Jake O Hara was due to sentencing for his part in the case and for several others that had been brought to light. Calloway had a stack of files ready to be reviewed against O’Hara. He wasn’t going to miss a chance like this to let Jake walk away.
I stayed at home for a while before returning to my flat, much to my mother’s horror. Andy had come back from Australia in the wake of the drama and had spent some time with me.
“You need to get your life back,” he said sitting with me in Costa.
I stared down into my hot chocolate, not caring.
“Get some flesh on your bones.”
I shifted, uncomfortably. “I’m drinking the fattiest thing here, aren’t I?”
He frowned at me. “Why don’t you come back with me and your mum to Australia? Just for a few months? Could be good for you.”
I thought of Emily, remembering the look in her eyes when she spoke about leaving. She had gotten on a plane last week, had invited me to her going away party. I had gone, but hadn’t stayed for long. Every shout, laugh and clink of glasses made me jump. People had become uneasy around me unsure of what to say to the damaged goods.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally said.
My dad left it at that and started talking about Rowan.
Mum had sat down with me and opened the letter Jeff had given me. It was a proposal of starting a Creative Writing Course at the U.C.W. They hadn’t done A-Levels there for 2 years, but reading my emails and thinking it over, they had decided to give it a go- as long as I agreed to be Leader of the Course. It was to start in the Summer. My hands fingered the corners of the paper, breath catching. It was April now, the snow had gone and still no news of Ben.
Detective Figgs and Detective Daniels came to visit me with Calloway to brief me on what had happened. Calloway had sent a team to the farm as soon as he had gotten off the phone to me, and Figgs and Daniels took the rest of the week off work, having some rather severe food poisoning. I wasn’t sure whether Calloway had told them about the liquid laxative, so I kept quiet, planning to choose another moment to admit it if it ever cropped up again.
I wasn’t to get into any trouble about stealing the car in hindsight of what was at risk. They all agreed that if I hadn’t had done what I had done then Rino and Rick could have set the place alight with everyone in it, making a hasty getaway. We would have lost them.
Calloway had been liaising with the college for me, as I hadn’t the heart to talk to them about what had happened. He passed me an official letter of thanks from the New Acting Principal.
My mother had collected the news stories about the incident, although she never told me. The pile of papers in the shoe cupboard was evident, and not a very good hiding place.
I never regretted what had happened. I made a choice. I had done the right thing. But it had come at a cost. I had to rebuild my life, but I was finding every day more exhausting than the one previous. It was as if the entire situation had revealed so many people’s true colours. People called the house wanted a news story, friends came to the house wanting to know the gossip- not really concerned with me, but more because they wanted to be seen as the person who knew the chick who got shot.
I had become a novelty.
My real friends were the ones that allowed me to forget it for a while. Came over to try and give me normalcy, and when they saw that that sometimes was just too much, gave me space. I just wanted my family around me.
I became edgy, flinching at the door knocking or the bell ringing. I was suspicious of every car, convinced that Rino still had friends out there.
Calloway assured me that they had been taken care of and said that they had the place under surveillance. I wasn’t sure whether he was lying just to make me feel better, but it was a comfort in any case.
Chapter Nine
The day soon came to relive it all over again. I was sick telling people the same thing over and over again. The story had been all over the news now and I had even had a gossip magazine ask for an interview. Calloway was a calming presence, and talked me through it.
I had to give evidence.
I hated listening to when they questioned Calloway, but his strength gave me some hope. He threw me a wink as he went up.
“Can you please tell the jury what you saw when you first entered the barn,” The Prosecution said, her voice loud and booming off the Warwick Court walls.
Calloway straightened and folded his hands before him, and I could see there in his eyes the same horror that I had seen when he found me.
“I saw Mr Gavinchi being pulled from Miss Blackwell,” he said.
“And then?”
His jaw tightened. “Then she turned around when I called her name.” He paused, his expression unreadable. “She was covered in blood, but more so in the stomach area. I realised that she had been shot.”
“And what did you do then?”
“We secured Mr Gavinchi and called the emergency services,” Calloway answered.
Images of that moment filled my eyes. His face floating above mine. His skin whitening as he put pressure on my stomach. Shouting. Sirens. Radio signals. Swearing. Pleading.
Cat lives... I thought. I’m running out of cat lives.
Then it was my turn to give evidence. I used the last of my mental strength by blocking out the Principal’s lawyer from my mind. It was endless, full of questions about my conduct, how I had managed to find the USB, why I went through the computer, why did I go to Stratford. The defending Lawyer even suggested at one point that there was an ulterior motive in it for me.
Luckily, the jury knew bullshit when they smelt it. A news campaign later, a weekly drive down to Stratford, and several drunken binges later, the people who had nearly ruined my life were sentenced. I didn’t ask for how many years, just, “Is it a long time?” when Calloway came knocking on my door.
He nodded grimly.
“Do you want to come in?”
He cleared his throat and made a small nod, so I took that as a yes. I walked to the kitchen and started to boil the kettle.
“Tea or coffee?” I asked.
“Anything without liquid laxative.”
I laughed then, the sound strange to my own ears.
He came over quite a lot then, just to check up on me, he said.
I didn’t mind. It gave me a reason to shower and put a dab of makeup on. I realised after a while that my hair was getting on and my roots were showing. My mum was pleased when I had Skype called her to let her know I was going to the hairdressers. She had gone back to Australia with my dad after I had told them I wouldn’t be coming over- not yet anyway.
“It’s about time you started looking after yourself, Ellena,” she said tentatively. “Maybe it’s time to let Ben go.”
My breath caught and I mumbled something about missing my appointment before shutting off the call.
The women at the hairdressers cooed at me and trying egging me into conversation, but I couldn’t contribute. I told them I was suffering from a bug so couldn’t talk. I had my hair re highlighted and my roots touched up. I could tell they wanted me to talk to them about what had happened. My face had been splashed around the news enough for strangers to know my name.
I thanked them when I left, not sure if I should have gone for a complete change of style instead. Maybe people would stop recognising me then.
Sometimes in my bad moments, I thought I saw the flash of ginger when I was walking about. I had nearly stolen
a neighbour’s ginger cat, thinking it was Ben. The old lady had chased me down the street, shouting at me, before they realised who I was.
“Not that one, dear,” the old woman said cautiously, pulling the wriggling fur ball from my arms. “This is Milly.” Milly is my cat.”
“I’m looking for Ben,” I said numbly.
“Well maybe he’s looking for you too,” she said and walked away before I could apologise.
More days passed and my auntie came to visit me.
She sat me down on the sofa, my Nan and my brother in law in the kitchen, cooing over Rowan. Kayleigh was taking a rare afternoon off to have her nails seen to, and Sharon had come down especially to see me.
“How are you honey?” she asked. My auntie was the perfect person to open up to. I don’t know why, but whenever I saw her, everything poured out in a wave.
I stared at her, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. I used to think she and my mother were sisters when I was little. I think my mother liked that. My mother was one daughter with four brothers, and I didn’t have to guess twice to think that she may have wished for a sister.
“Ok,” I said. I paused, looking back up at her. I bit my lip. “I’ve lost him.”
“Who have you lost, honey?” she said, leaning over and taking my hand.
“Everything?” How could I describe the meaning of a cat to someone? How could I explain that I had lost the only person who truly knew what I was like? He had been sent here for a reason- and I had lost him. He had helped me so much, and I had left him in that freezing cold in Stratford. I had failed him again. He had filled the crater my Granddad had left behind. Who would guide me now?
“Granddad came to me,” I said then.
Sharon blinked in surprise. “Did he?”
“He asked if I wanted to go with him,” I said, swallowing more tears. “And I stayed. I stayed.”
Sharon took me back to the doctors, my mother waiting in Sharon’s office as I spoke to the expert. He diagnosed me with depression, and I suddenly felt it had all been for nothing.