A Life Without You

by Shari Low

  A roar as the souped-up engine of the Corsa started up, just as one of the cops reached its door. His hand grappled for the handle, the Corsa shot forward, out of the parking space, into the middle of the road.

  Dee had found her phone now, had it at her ear and I could see her lips moving. She was smiling, no longer watching the high drama, engrossed in the call.

  A roar of the engine as the Corsa accelerated, the cops on the road now, giving chase as it came back towards our direction, towards their parked car. I’d give anything to see them doing one of those stunt rolls across the bonnet before climbing in and roaring off in pursuit.

  Over on the other pavement, the noise made Dee turn, still chatting and grinning.

  Fast and Furious was about to make a clean getaway, when suddenly, over to my right, another police car appeared, blocking his escape.

  The two cops on foot stopped running, confident they had trapped their prey. I watched. Dee watched. The kids behind her watched.

  The Corsa would have to stop. Brake. And for a split second, I thought that’s what was happening, but then… It took me a moment to process… In one explosive move, the car shot to the left, towards the green.

  The boys realised it was coming, and started to run as it careered in their direction.

  Except one.

  The littlest one, Archie Kinross, couldn’t keep up with the others, despite the frantic screams of his pals.

  Dee saw him too. Now she was running, sprinting towards him. The car roared as it raced from one direction, Dee from the other, a terrified little guy in the middle.

  There was a bang as it mounted the kerb, the engine screaming now.

  I started running too. Across the lounge, out of the front door, just in time to see Dee reach the little boy, lift him, throw him to one side. Yes! She got him! She saved him! She…

  The bang was indescribable.

  The aftermath wasn’t.

  Gut-wrenching. Horrific. Brutal. Dee flying high in the air, and then… slow motion.

  From somewhere inside me, a primal, desperate scream. I was running towards her, she was still soaring, upwards, her hair fanning out like a red halo around her head. Archie sat on the grass, his eyes wide with disbelief. His fleeing buddies had stopped at the sound of the impact and turned, and now they stood, frozen to the spot, faces contorted in shock and horror.

  The car engine grinding as it raced forwards, under her, heading into the distance. Dee was soaring, then she twisted, like a high diver, and began to fall.

  Almost there. I could catch her. ‘Deeeeeeeeee!’ It was my voice, telling her I’m on my way. Wait for me. I’ll catch you. I’ll make it, Dee, just…

  The thud was barely audible, yet somehow the loudest noise I’d ever heard. She came down, head first, hit the small stone wall that bordered one of the flower beds. Then she was still.

  Screams. All mine.

  The police officers got there first, but I darted between them, slid to my knees, threw myself on her, shielding her. Too late.

  Someone’s voice. Maybe mine.

  ‘Dee! Oh, God, Dee. Dee!’

  The gorgeous, adventurous, wild, hilarious, adrenalin junkie, utterly irrepressible Dee Harper replied with nothing more than a slow, unfathomable trickle of red from the side of her mouth.

  On that oh-so ordinary, devastating day, my best friend died in my arms.

  Chapter 2

  Jen

  A crematorium, a room furnished with black fabric and tears.

  I reached for Pete’s hand, my trembling fingers wrapping around his. On the other side of me, Dee’s mum, Val, stood, her blonde beehive high and proud, staring at the coffin in front of us, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  Wiping them away would have seemed like an intrusion, so I didn’t. I put my hand on her arm, felt her hand cover mine, then drop as if the effort of movement had sapped her last ounce of strength. My heart broke for her. And for her husband, Don, a mammoth of man in both personality and size, on the other side of her. Next to Don, a younger version of the same DNA, Dee’s brother, Mark. Six years older than her, he’d gone backpacking to Australia when we were twelve, loved it there and never returned. He’d landed early this morning and his tanned complexion, and long, tied-back hair looked incongruous in this sombre setting. Next to Mark was… A sob escaped me. Luke. Yet it wasn’t him. The real Luke smiled. He laughed. He sang songs after a few pints. He was on a mission to enjoy life and he was crazy madly in love with my gorgeous friend. But that gorgeous friend wasn’t here anymore. She’d been tossed in the air like a rag doll by a drugged-up driver, sustaining fatal injuries at either the point of impact or when her head crashed against a stone wall. The postmortem wasn’t entirely clear, and it didn’t really matter.

  Either way, she wasn’t here.

  And this empty, broken man bore little resemblance to that guy who had loved her so much.

  A nod from the humanist minister conducting the service, and Luke stepped forward, his motions slow and trance-like, waiting to wake up from a nightmare more horrific than he could contemplate.

  He climbed two steps to the altar… not an altar… because there would be no worship to any God that could allow this to happen. It was more of a lectern. A podium. Luke turned to face the crowd, the contrast between the jet-black curls of his hair and his deathly pale skin never more stark, his suit jacket suddenly slack against the broad shoulders that had filled it only a couple of weeks before. Before this…

  ‘Dee would love this. All her favourite people in one place,’ he began. An instant ripple of heartbroken smiles concurred. ‘This is the second time I’ve stood up in front of you all. The first time was at our wedding, and I told you how incredibly happy I was that we were going to be together until the end of forever. I’m not sure I’ve got the words to say how devastated I am that forever came so soon.’ He choked on the last word, then took a deep breath, and continued.

  ‘Before my wedding speech,’ he said, with a smile so forced another piece of my shattered heart broke for him, ‘Dee warned me that there was to be a suitable amount of soppy stuff, but nothing too cheesy. I’m not sure that I got the balance right, because I said that day what an incredible woman my wife was. How she made me laugh like no one else. Except Ant and Dec.’

  We laughed then because she’d have expected it of us, even though none of us felt like we would ever want to laugh again.

  He went on. ‘I said that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Except Cameron Diaz.’

  In my head I heard Dee laughing the loudest, which only made the well of sorrow even deeper.

  ‘I said how she had the biggest heart, and loved her family, her friends, and me more than anyone. Except Gary Barlow.’

  He paused, breathed, set his jaw, determined to finish, to honour his girl. It took a moment before he found his voice again, stronger this time.

  ‘And I said that she made me the happiest man ever. Except no one.’

  A breath.

  ‘There was nobody like my wife. And she’d be furious at us for being sad. So please don’t be. Because every single person in this room got to meet her, and love her, and laugh with her, and that makes us luckier than anyone else.’ He looked skywards, including Dee in the conversation. ‘I know, too cheesy,’ he told her.

  His gaze returned to the mourners.

  ‘Thank you for coming to say goodbye to Val and Don’s daughter, to Jen’s best friend…’ My throat constricted at the sound of my name. ‘…and to my wife. Dee Harper, we love you, my darling. We always will.’

  He walked back towards us, head high, hugged Val, squeezing her tightly, then returned to his seat, right about the same time as my heart broke in two. I didn’t want to live in a world where there was no Dee. No one did. The pain caught in my chest, a sense of disbelief holding it back. This couldn’t be happening.

  Someone, somewhere took the cue, and music started, Dee’s favourite song, ‘Sitting On The Dock of The Bay’. It
had been the soundtrack to everything we’d ever done. As sunburned, hung-over eighteen-year-olds, we’d played it on the balcony of a hotel in Ayai Napa on our first holiday without her parents. We’d sang it at the top of our voices driving down Santa Monica Boulevard in a red convertible on her pre-wedding hen holiday for two. It had been the first dance at her wedding. It was the song she played to cheer herself up or to celebrate great times.

  It didn’t seem possible that she would never play it again.

  Chapter 3

  Jen

  The wake was held in the lounge of Weirbank’s only hotel, The Tulip. The name was an homage to the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who had once worked in the area and whose designs inspired much of the old architecture in the town. The Tulip was the venue for most weddings, christenings, birthday parties and funerals in the town, as if it had the capacity for both joy and heartache carved into its foundations.

  Pete and I travelled back in the official car with Dee’s parents, her brother Mark, Luke, and her Auntie Ida, resplendent in her fur finery, wailing into her pressed hankie. Ida was never one for understatement of emotion. At Dee’s wedding, she’d grabbed the microphone, sung a medley of Cilla Black hits, and was only teased off the stage when someone said the sausage rolls were almost done on the midnight buffet.

  ‘I can’t believe it. I don’t know how I’ll cope. How will I cope?’ Ida wailed.

  Val’s eyes caught mine and no words were necessary. I knew what she was thinking. Val had lost her daughter, but of course, Ida was making it all about her.

  Dee’s dad, Don, rolled his eyes at his sister’s performance, but Mark ignored her, continuing to stare out of the window at the landscape he’d left almost twenty years ago. The tension was only broken when the driver took a wrong turn and went around the same roundabout three times.

  ‘Aye, our girl never did have a sense of direction,’ Don mused, our saddest moment suddenly elevated with the feeling that somewhere Dee was watching us, her irrepressible laugh demanding that we get over ourselves and pull it together.

  Ida didn’t get the message. Her snuffles continued all the way to the hotel.

  In the foyer, the staff was lined up, respectively sombre, holding trays with a choice of wine, whisky or orange juice. Ida took a whisky, for each hand, and headed into the function suite.

  Val pulled me to one side, her tears dried, her shoulders pulled back, determined to be strong until the day was over. ‘Jen, do something for me.’

  ‘Anything.’ There was nothing she could ask that I wouldn’t do. My mum had died when I was twelve, cancer, and Val had stepped right into the shoes that her best friend left behind, easing the burden for my dad, allowing him to take a job working offshore, a month on the rigs, a month off the rigs but on the beer.

  I could never replace Dee – but I could make sure that I did everything I could to make this easier for the woman who had effectively fostered a devastated teenager, taking me in and making me part of their family. She’d gained a surrogate daughter to feed and take care of, and I’d gained a network of people who cared. I got the better deal.

  But, oh God, I just hoped she wasn’t going to ask me to say something at the wake. Or share my memories of my friend. Or tell her, yet again, second by second, what happened that day. The guilt was already crushing me. Why hadn’t I banged the window, caught Dee’s attention? Why hadn’t I run out at the first sign of that fucker from next door and dragged Dee back in? Why couldn’t I see what would happen, stopped it, screamed, done anything instead of just standing there, watching as some scumbag moron, high on booze and drugs, rammed his car right through my best friend?

  ‘Anything at all,’ I repeated.

  Val gestured in the direction of the flapping double doors. ‘Find Josie,’ she said. When Dee and I had opened our shop, Val had met our cleaner, Josie and they’d been best mates ever since. The two of them were like Dee and I, only twenty years older. I had to clench my jaw really tight so that my lip didn’t start trembling at the realisation we’d never become them, never get to be two women in their later years, still pals and making each other’s lives better. It was just me now.

  Val squeezed my hand. ‘Find Josie,’ she repeated, ‘and I need you both to keep an eye on Ida. If she makes any attempt to make a spectacle of herself, take her down.’

  I could see that the humour was her way of trying to keep it together and it should have made me laugh, but it was so reminiscent of Dee I had to bite back a sob. ‘I’m on it.’

  She hugged me, and went back to the door, to stand next to her husband, son and son-in-law and greet the mourners who had come to share their loss.

  I liberated a glass of wine from one of the trays and headed through to the hall. A picture of Dee stood on an easel at the door, as if we needed any reminding what she looked like. This was how I wanted to remember her – not the broken, bleeding Dee lying on the cold, wet grass. I recognised the image. It had been taken on her wedding day, as she and Luke were heading out of the church, and a shower of confetti had rained down on them. Dee was looking skyward, arms outstretched, grin wide.

  I had to look away. Priority number one, be here for Val, Don and Luke. There would be plenty of time to sob my heart out into a vat of cheap wine later.

  ‘Hey, how are you bearing up?’ Pete asked, appearing at my side.

  ‘Val has put me on Ida-watch,’ I told him, gesturing to the plumes of Ida’s feather fascinator, now poking out above the heads of a few friends who had gathered around her as she continued to lament her loss. Dee would be rolling her eyes right now, pointing out that the closeness of her relationship with Ida extended to weddings, funerals, and sporadic cards at Christmas.

  ‘Good luck with that, but you’ll probably need backup,’ he said, as a loud wail from the feathered one cut through the subdued dignity of the room.

  ‘I know. I’ve to find Josie to help. Have you seen her?’

  ‘She was talking to the minister last time I saw her.’

  There were black circles under his eyes and, for the first time, I noticed lines etched on his forehead. He looked exhausted. He’d been a rock, not only for me but for Luke too. That first night, we’d stayed with Luke and we’d barely left in the two weeks since then. I don’t think any of us had had more than a few hours’ sleep a night. We’d sit up late, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, putting off the moment that we’d have to lie in a dark room, sleep evading us, thoughts of loss and death filling our minds. Yet, it was the best option for all of us. I wanted to be there to support him, and to be around a world that had Dee stamped on every ornament, blanket and CD, her presence so vivid I could almost pretend she’d just popped out to the shops or nipped away on one of her many business jaunts. I also couldn’t face staying at home, seeing the crime scene tape, the skid marks on the grass, the curious stares of passers-by who’d come to gawp, the mark on the neighbour’s wall where the car had finally crashed after spinning around, and racing out of control, back towards our row of houses. I didn’t want a reminder that the bastard who’d done this to Dee had walked away unscathed. I’d heard the landlord had turfed out his mates next door, but I didn’t want to see for myself. So instead, we’d stayed at Luke’s, ostensibly for him, but really for us too. I’d cooked, cleaned, cried… Pete had been the go-to guy, the one who made arrangements, sorted stuff out, got us to where we needed to be, shuttled us back and forwards to Val and Don’s house. Yet, he was hurting too. He’d known Dee almost as long as I had. She was the sister he didn’t have, and his running partner in crime, fiercely disputing my theory (shared by Luke) that Spandex was an invention of evil.

  Pete and Luke had rubbed along happily for years, on a blokedom level. As soon as Dee had introduced them, they’d discovered a mutual addiction to watching any type of sport that had led to five years of West of Scotland male friendship. Although, I wasn’t sure that they’d ever discussed anything more meaningful than the half-time results of a league cup deci
der.

  We were a four. Two couples that would go through life together, share holidays, paint each other’s new houses, throw parties at Christmas, eat together every week, raise our kids as best friends, then deal with empty-nest syndrome by developing a love for cruising, where we’d soothe our ancient bones in the sun before heading inside to show the young ones that – arthritis permitting – we could still swing our pants in the disco.

  That had been the life on the horizon for us four. Not anymore. Now we were a three. It didn’t fit. Wasn’t how it was meant to be.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I asked him. ‘I’m really sorry. I feel like we’ve just all been getting through this and this is the first time I’ve asked if you’re OK. I’m a crap girlfriend,’ I finished with a rueful smile, expecting him to come back with an objection.

  He didn’t.

  The room was filling up now. I knew I should really go and find Josie, then talk to Dee’s extended family, our other friends, make sure their drinks were full and point them in the direction of the crust-less sandwiches and coronation chicken vol-au-vents on the buffet table. But my feet were incapable of movement as I watched the tiny subtleties of movement cross his face. We’d been together for fifteen years, half our lives. There was nothing about this man, no gesture, no energy that I didn’t recognise.

  Except this one. I reached out and touched the black wool of his suit jacket, deciding this unfamiliarity was only natural. We’d never dealt with death together, never had someone we loved taken away from us. My mum had died before we’d met. This was a set of reactions and situations that was new to us both.

  ‘Babe, I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘Let’s just get through today and then go home and we’ll talk.’ Reluctantly, I’d already planned to go back home tonight. Luke’s brothers Matt and Calum both lived in London, but had come back up this morning for their sister-in-law’s funeral. I was glad for Luke that they were going to stick around for a few days. The Harper brothers were a considerable team when they were all in the same place. Dee had adored them all.