Mrs Maple had moved across to me as I propped the ladder against the wall, a pair of secateurs that had been lying on the patio table now in my hand.
‘The wisteria needs cutting back,’ I said in a low voice, refusing to look at her. It was true, the vines seemed to have grown a hundred more shoots since I’d last been there.
‘You shouldn’t go up in those,’ she said, looking at my leather shoes. My trainers had got wet the day before and I was wearing my scruffy fake leather school shoes.
‘It’s fine,’ I snapped, rolling my eyes, adjusting the ladder.
She stepped back, not saying anything more, her mouth pressed together.
Typical, I thought as I gripped the ladder with two hands, placed my foot on the first rung.
I could be at our house lying on the sofa.
Another rung, another step.
Bossed around by Mum, or Mrs Maple, or whoever shunted me back and forward. I could have messaged Tilly, maybe she would have rescued me.
Another rung.
My mobile beeped in my pocket. Maybe it was that that distracted me.
I moved to the next rung but my foot slipped, my weight shifted, and suddenly I was falling, falling backwards, arms propelling to catch myself, grabbing air.
Somewhere below me someone shouted my name, the voice shrill, loud, frightened.
And then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ELSIE
Oh my God, oh my God!
The ambulance seemed to take forever.
She hadn’t known how to behave when his mum had appeared on her doorstep with him. Elsie had thought she was back to shout at her again, the boy stood behind her, arms folded, refusing to look her way. The glass in her windows shook as he’d slammed her front door behind him and then he was back in her kitchen, looking utterly furious. She felt her heart fill for this angry boy to whom she had been so hideous. It hadn’t been his fault, any of it.
Had she said sorry? Had she told him how much she had missed him? Of course not. Instead she had only prodded him until he was stroppier, wallowing about her house and then stomping to her garden.
If only she had said something, been nicer, calmed him, shared the tea and biscuits with him, it might not have happened. Instead she’d let him stay in his bad mood, watched him fetch that ladder, known he was wearing those slippery-bottomed shoes and start up the rungs in them.
A beep, a tinny noise, had made her turn as she was halfway across the grass to the flower bed she’d been working on. And she had seen it all: the way his head had half-turned, his foot missing the rung, and then his body, oh, his small body, twisting backwards in the air. His arms flailed as he fell, her own mouth opened, screeching his name, before the awful sight of him hitting the patio, the crumpled stillness of him as she had shouted ‘Billy’ again, run across to him, felt fear rise suddenly and hideously in her throat.
The world stopped as she crouched over him, scratches on her knees and palms she wouldn’t notice until later, spots of blood on her cotton trousers bright under the hospital lights as she sat in a plastic bucket seat. After leaving him to go inside, she picked up the telephone, dialled 999, babbled to the operator, this calm, efficient female voice extracting pointless information from her all the while he was out there on his own. Then racing back to him, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, a small noise. He was alive but what had he done to himself? Oh God!
Now here they were in this ambulance, Billy almost as pale as the sheet he was lying on. She held his hand, memories of another ambulance ride coursing through her as they swept through the roads to the town centre, the paramedics checking monitors and talking in undertones to each other. Did they seem worried? The male paramedic sat in a chair by the sliding door, throwing a reassuring smile at her, his designer stubble and caterpillar eyebrows too casual somehow for the seriousness of this moment.
She squeezed her eyes tight and made a fervent prayer: Let it be different this time, please.
His eyes were closed and Elsie found time hurtling backwards. The ambulance a little different back then, a bench running along one side where she sat, no seatbelt, fewer machines, a single monitor they had hooked him to, the paramedics both sat in the front, throwing worried looks over their shoulders as the vehicle roared through the streets.
There had been blood back then, so much blood, streaking their clothes, turning everything scarlet. She knew it was serious, his head sticky with it, obvious even in his dark brown hair, eyes half-closed, trying, trying to focus on her, mouth slack.
The low voices in the small space as the paramedics passed information back and forth, a beeping machine, another glance back – a good beep? Bad?
He was strong though and they were in love and only earlier that morning they had been walking through the village, making plans for Sunday lunch the next day. He was going to meet her at the pub, their pub, she was going to tell Mother she was out with friends after church. Sunday lunch. Could things really turn on a pin so suddenly? In less than twenty-four hours they were going to eat roast beef, crisp and puffy Yorkshire puddings dripping with gravy. He’d said it.
His other eye had closed there in the ambulance and she had held her breath, gripping his hand so tightly, she imagined the bones breaking in it.
‘Open your eyes,’ she’d cried. The paramedic gave her another look.
‘We’re two minutes away, keep talking to him, love.’ She had known he shouldn’t have looked as worried as he had.
‘They’ve told me to keep talking, I don’t know what to say. We’re going to have a roast, you love a roast,’ she’d babbled at his face, his eyes remaining shut. The ambulance blared, the noise surrounding her in the tinny space. His chest wasn’t going up and down.
‘His chest isn’t moving,’ she’d screeched, the ambulance pulling over as a beep rang out, relentless and shrill. He looked even thinner and smaller on the trolley. Why wasn’t his chest moving?
The paramedic had got out of the passenger side, rushed round to the back doors, ignoring her as he leaned over him, eyes glancing up at the monitor. The driver waiting for instructions.
Cars sped past, whooshing sounds as everyone else went about their day. She had looked from paramedic to him to paramedic, heart thudding.
‘Please,’ she’d begged, ‘please!’ Her face wet with tears, fear gripping her.
The paramedic had started to attach a mask to his face.
Oh my God!
His chest hadn’t been rising and falling.
His eyes had closed.
There had been so much blood.
Billy stirred, dragging her away from the deluge of her memories. His face flinched with pain as she drew an arm across his body to touch his wrist and he craned his neck to look at his feet.
‘You’re OK,’ she said, through watery eyes. ‘Lie there, you’re on your way to the hospital.’
‘Mum,’ he croaked, head tilted towards her.
Of course she needed to get through to Samantha, dreaded what she would say, think. It had been on her watch; her precious boy. Elsie’s hands shook as she placed them in her lap. ‘Of course, Billy, we will ring your mother. She’ll be worried.’
Elsie shook her head, determined now to stay in the present, to help, to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again. The hospital would have a phone, someone could help her get through to the restaurant, she was sure. His mother should be here, not her. She clamped her hands together again.
‘Ells,’ he whispered, struggling to move his head more than a centimetre or so. She leant forward, one hand on the edge of the silver contraption he was propped up on. ‘I’m sorry about your teapot,’ he said.
She dabbed at her eyes. ‘Don’t you be silly,’ she said in her no-nonsense voice, the crack on the last word, ‘you’re far more precious to me than a stupid teapot.’ She was unable to stop the break in her voice, realising how true those words were, how stupid she had been, how stubborn. What
an idiot to have ever pushed away a boy who had changed everything for her, who had reminded her of the wonderful things she still had in her life, who had made her laugh, given her hope.
Who needed her too. She reached out to stroke the dark hair from his forehead but the ambulance stopped and the man with the stubble was preparing to get Billy out.
They had wheeled him away, told her to wait in a yellow chair moulded to others on a silver pole. She had found a payphone, asked for help to track down the number of the restaurant in the village and a kind gentleman used his Google, the noises of the hospital, the squeak of trainers, rumble of trolleys, indistinct beeps and calls distracting as she thanked him, as the dial tone rang and rang.
‘Come on,’ she whispered, the receiver slippery in her palm. ‘Come on.’
‘Yeah,’ an impatient voice came on the line, banging, shouts and more in the background. It was almost impossible to hear.
‘Could you please pass on a message to Samantha?’ Elsie started, ‘I need to speak with her. Billy fell, that is, Billy is in the hospital in Reading. Can you tell her…’ Elsie was cringing as she got the words out, almost drowned out by saucepans clashing, water running.
‘Sam? Sorry, can you repeat that… SAM… phone!’
‘I… it’s her son, it’s…’
‘Hello?’ An uncertain female voice, stressed and distracted, came on the line. ‘This is Samantha.’
‘It’s El…’ Elsie almost choked on the word, ‘…sie. It’s Billy, he fell, he’s awake but they’ve taken him to get checked out.’
The voice changed, suddenly alert, loud, frightened, ‘Mrs Maple? What is that? What do you mean, fell? Where are you?’
Elsie wanted to weep. ‘The hospital… Reading,’ she said, her voice cracking, ‘I’m here and he’s with the doctors.’
The phone was dropped, just the drone of the dialling tone could be heard.
Elsie stared at the receiver and, with a shaking hand, placed it back on the hook.
Had Samantha heard? Should she ring her back?
She waited, sitting in the plastic bucket seat, unable to get comfortable, her palms and knees stinging from the uneven patio ground. She couldn’t stop recalling the image of Billy lying there, his eyes closed.
Twenty minutes later Samantha, an apron still tied round her waist, practically flew through the double doors, her eyes scanning the small room, past the teenage girl with the bandage on her hand, the boy sat quietly on his father’s lap, the elderly man holding one wrist gently in his hand.
‘I got a taxi,’ she said, rushing towards Elsie. ‘Where is he? What’s happened? Oh God… is he OK? Is he hurt?’
‘Oh, let me pay you back,’ Elsie replied, wanting to be practical, not sure how to answer the questions. Was he OK? Yes, he had spoken but since then she hadn’t really got an update, too frightened to ask the woman behind the glass screen of Reception. She remembered that other visit to the hospital, the hushed voice of the doctor as he drew her into a room, shattering her heart. She patted her sides, realising in that moment she had left her purse at her home, too shocked to pick up her handbag, just the house key in her cardigan pocket, her cardigan that she had put on inside out.
‘What happened?’
Elsie saw the elderly man looking across at them, Samantha’s voice loud and urgent in the space.
‘He fell,’ Elsie said, ‘he was on a ladder and he slipped.’
‘A ladder? What was he doing up a ladder?’
‘I… I…’ Elsie didn’t have an adequate response. What had he been doing up a ladder? And in those shoes. She remembered her warning, she should have insisted, should have forbidden him. And now this…
‘He shouldn’t be up ladders, he’s ten years old. Where have they taken him?’
Samantha was growing more and more hysterical and Elsie felt herself shrinking in the face of it.
‘They took him through those doors but I wasn’t sure I should go. I’m not family, I’m…’
What was she? Why hadn’t she joined him? The paramedic had looked at her as she had slunk back, made her excuses, loitered in the waiting room.
Samantha was already talking to the woman behind the screen, tapping now at her computer as she directed her to the doors.
Elsie went to follow and Samantha held up a hand. ‘I think you’ve done enough,’ she said, tears filling her eyes now the shock was wearing off. ‘If anything happens to him I will…’ Her face was white, her voice barely a whisper.
Elsie stepped backwards. ‘I would… I don’t know…’ What could she say? Samantha was right.
‘Just leave us alone.’
Elsie was left standing as the double doors swung back and Samantha disappeared through them. A glimpse of a long corridor, people in uniforms, benches, doors, a water cooler, and then nothing. The blank white double doors, a leaflet about the flu jab… she was alone.
She walked a while through the busy streets of Reading, directionless, jumping at the car horns as she stepped off the pavement, retreating backwards, someone tutting behind her. The bus stop sign made no sense and she didn’t know this part of town; it had been years really since she had felt familiar with the area, and she realised how little she had left the village in twenty-eight years.
She wound her way over the river, staring mutely into the surface, knowing if she followed it one way it would twist and turn back to her village, back to the spot they had leapt into the water. It made her eyes fill with tears. Where was he now? What had he done?
She didn’t have any money for a ticket and the guard on the gates took pity on her, letting her through as his colleague turned to deal with another customer, throwing her a small wink as she passed. The kindness set her off again; she didn’t deserve it. If she wasn’t so brittle, Billy wouldn’t be lying in a hospital. They would be sat on her patio admiring their work, the atmosphere relaxed and easy once more. She ruined everything.
The platform was empty, the stopping service slowing as it approached, the doors opening with a hiss. She stepped inside, the smell of cheese and onion in the air, the carriage needing airing. She felt her stomach rumble, realised she hadn’t eaten for hours, bile in her throat.
By the time she got home the day was almost through and she bit her lip as she walked up her garden path. It felt a lifetime ago that she had rushed down it, the paramedics wheeling Billy down the side path of her house, her heart hammering in her chest as she locked the door behind her.
Glancing across the fence she could see the windows of next door in darkness, the curtains still open. She clutched her chest, the other hand reaching for her door, her palm flat on the glass. How would she concentrate on anything else? How would she sleep tonight, not knowing what had happened to him?
She didn’t eat, didn’t make tea. She stood in the middle of the kitchen for an age, her frozen outline reflected back in the glass of the window opposite. ‘What if he’s not alright? What if…?’ she asked aloud, wishing as she often did that a reply would come, words from the woman who had always been able to comfort her.
She couldn’t face going outside, couldn’t face seeing the ladder diagonal on the patio, the scene of her earlier nightmare. She wandered silently around the rooms of the house, wanting to phone the hospital, craning to hear any noise from next door, twitching her curtain for sight of them.
Darkness fell and she was sat on her sofa facing the bay window, dabbing at her palms, the cuts stinging, giving her a strange relief from her thoughts. A car’s headlights swept past and she looked up, wanting them to stop outside her neighbour’s house. But they kept on going, up and away out of the village.
What could she do to keep herself from going mad? She paced the room, her eyes lighting on the silhouette of her desk in the dark, the one thing that often gave her comfort when everything else failed. Switching on the lamp, she picked up the fountain pen, twisting it in her hand, the blotting pad dotted with purple ink.
She sat, knowing this letter woul
d be different. This time she wouldn’t be thinking about him, her love, the man she poured her heart out to every Wednesday. The man who had almost whisked her out of her lonely life and into another one entirely.
She would be thinking about someone still living: someone she loved now, in the present. Someone she couldn’t bear to lose too.
I never thought I would be frightened again like I was that day, that terrible day. The day I still can’t bear to think about.
I think instead of the day we first met. How I had stumbled into you at the village fete. I’d been idling between stalls and you’d bent to replace the coconuts, a leg stuck out behind you that I didn’t see. You grabbed me just before I toppled and I gave a small yelp of surprise. You didn’t say anything for a second and later you told me you’d been panicking because I was so pretty. You always said things that made me blush and feel a foot taller.
‘I’m Philip.’ You’d held out a hand and I’d taken it wordlessly, staring up at you, worried I’d mussed my hair.
We met in secret at first, which was hard as I hated lying to Mother. I would take a walk, I would take my bicycle, I would need something from Reading town centre. Sometimes she would offer to come with me and I would panic and make some excuse.
Perhaps if I’d had the course to take a real job, in an office or the such, it might have been easier. But the thought of all those people, of navigating a room of them, terrified me. It felt safer to undertake the work from home. An antique dealer sent me blank replica paintings of battle scenes and I would paint in the details, posting the prints back to him when they were finished. Mother loved seeing me at the table in the kitchen, commented on the intricate detail of the soldiers’ jackets, the cobalt blue of the sky, the crimson red of their uniforms, and I could still join her in our haven, in the garden as it had always been.
Meeting you changed all that. I had a glimpse of another world that twinkled and hinted in the distance. Your earnest face, a wide mouth, ears that peeked out just slightly from your sandy hair. You were so kind that day at the fete, holding my arm as I tripped, concern etched on your features. I hadn’t realised you were still holding my arm and when we both looked down, I felt a tingling run right up it.
The Garden of Lost Memories Page 19