by Paula Daly
‘Actually, we’re on our way out. It’s my birthday and my mother’s holding a party. We’re really keen to get going as fast as possible, Lawrence, because—’
‘Shan’t take a minute.’
Lawrence and Rose Williams were in their seventies, originally from Mold in North Wales, and had lived on the street for thirty years. He’d been the headmaster at an independent over the water in Birkenhead, and Rose had taught physics at the same establishment. They had one oddball son, were keen gardeners, and got very hot under the collar if people didn’t park in their proper places.
I turned to Lawrence and smiled. ‘Morning!’ I said cheerfully, too cheerfully perhaps, embarrassed he’d caught us in the midst of kissing, but Lawrence didn’t hear me. This happened often of late. He seemed to have something on his mind.
Last summer, we’d taken a cottage for two weeks on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset. And it was so idyllic, the weather so kind to us, that we extended our stay by another week when the people renting the cottage after us pulled out. Atypically, Leon was on a writing roll, and when that happened he could work just about anywhere. Mornings, I’d get the kids out from under his feet, spending my time paddling in the sea with them, making things in the sand behind a striped windbreaker. Afternoons, we napped or took turns pushing Martha in the pram if she was being fractious. In the evenings, we cooked. And once the children were asleep, we drank, watched an arty film, and got quite giddy in the bedroom. It was parenting perfection. The only time I could remember feeling absolutely at peace with my situation as the mother of two small people who had arrived in our lives and completely taken over.
We returned home tanned, healthy, and really rather pleased with ourselves. We’d managed to make a success out of our first proper holiday together and we felt bolstered. We were in love with each other and in love with our beautiful babies and we came back excitable and happy, ready to pick up our lives in Liverpool. What we found when we got there was a very angry Lawrence Williams, waiting for us.
It seemed we’d made the staggeringly grave error of leaving my car on Lawrence’s side of the street for Three Whole Weeks while we were away. What we should have done, according to Lawrence, was to leave my car in our own driveway, the single space usually occupied by Leon’s car. This would have shown proper consideration to the other residents and of course would have been the right thing to do.
We apologized. We didn’t see what the big deal was but we were new to the area and didn’t want any acrimony. We pretended we were sorry. We sent flowers to Rose, who was rather distressed after having been forced to look at my car for almost a month, and we did our utmost to placate them.
Unfortunately, though, their displeasure ran too deep. And since last summer we’d committed a number of other transgressions, quite innocently, which had caused further insult and indignation in the Williamses’ household. Lawrence and Rose had taken to speaking Welsh to one another now whenever one of us was within earshot – which made Leon’s blood boil. So, in response, Leon would address me in French. Loudly.
This was amusing. But since I knew not one word of French, aside from the standard greetings, it was really rather pointless all the same.
‘Hello, Jane,’ Lawrence said, as if I’d not spoken seconds earlier and so I had to say ‘Good morning, Lawrence’ in return all over again. He was a tall guy, thin and rangy, with a broad forehead. When expressing certain emotions, the corners of his lips would pucker, which could give the impression of him having a mean little mouth. He was twitchy and clearly upset about something today.
On account of his height, Lawrence had to dip over to his right slightly to get a good look at the children in the back seat. I saw his eyes narrow at the sight of their headphones and tablets but he fought the urge to comment, saying instead to Leon, ‘It’s the cat, I’m afraid. It’s taken to …’ and pausing, checking the children were quite deaf to his words. ‘It’s taken to crapping in the raised beds again.’
‘Can we do this later?’ Leon said.
‘No. We’re going to sort this out now. It won’t wait.’ Lawrence cleared his throat. ‘How would you feel plunging your hands into cat faeces daily, Leon? Rose’s near sick with the stress. It’s disgusting stuff and if you can’t control your animal then we’re going to have to—’
‘What, Lawrence?’ Leon snapped. ‘What will you have to do?’
Lawrence straightened his spine and took a step away from the car. ‘You’re being combative,’ he said gravely. ‘We’ve talked about this, Leon. I won’t deal with you when you’re being like this. It can be threatening.’
I stared straight ahead.
Leon could be combative. And he was six foot two inches tall with a shaved head and packed a lot of muscle, so yes, he could appear threatening.
‘So, don’t deal with me, then,’ Leon said. ‘I’ve already told you, Lawrence, cats are above the law. Look it up. If I had a dog and it was shitting in your garden you could have me prosecuted. But a cat, no. No one controls a cat. But you know all this. You know this and yet you continue to come around here and—’
‘Good that you should bring that up, because I have looked it up. Well, Rose did actually and she’s found a solution. A collar … Very reasonable. It has very good reviews and it might just put an end to this crisis.’
‘A collar,’ Leon said, flatly.
‘You’d need to set up the boundary wire around your property. And if the cat should try to stray across the said boundary, it would receive a small shock.’
‘An electric shock?’
‘Essentially, yes. But you’re making it sound far worse than it is. It won’t harm the animal, and, if you think about it, it will actually be safer. You won’t have to worry about it colliding with a car if it’s unable to cross the road.’
I had to kind of agree with Lawrence on this one. I loved our rescue tortoiseshell – Bonita. Loved her tiny, bird-like bones. Loved her to the extent that I found myself gritting my teeth whenever I picked her up, to stop myself from squeezing the life from her. I kissed her little head too hard and spoke to her in a ridiculous baby voice, calling her things like ‘Little Lady’ and ‘Principessa’. But when she began crapping in my potted plants, a few months ago, I did rather lose patience. It felt like a personal affront. Why must you punish me so when I give you everything you need?
In desperation, I went online. I needed to put a stop to it before I lost my temper with Bonita. All the cat experts said the same thing: the cats don’t do it in your potted plants to pain you, to get at you in some way, it’s just that the soft soil proves so irresistible to their little paws that they simply can’t help it.
That made me feel a whole lot better.
The site advised covering the surface of each pot with gravel, which I duly did, and the problem was solved instantly. Except now it seemed as if Bonita had found some equally irresistible, freshly tilled soil in which to do her business: Rose’s garden. And Rose’s garden was Rose’s medicine, Lawrence was keen on saying. Ever since she began suffering badly from migraines a few years ago, the garden was the only thing that brought relief.
‘I’m not leaving until we have this resolved,’ Lawrence said, putting his hands into his pockets and puffing his chest out a little.
‘Then you can wait there all day, Lawrence, because we’re leaving.’ Leon revved the engine loudly. Then he turned to me. ‘Run inside and get me four cans from the fridge. I’ll need a beer when we get to my mother’s and she’ll only have that rubbish from Lidl she gets in for Derek from next door.’
I got out of the car and headed to the front door, avoiding eye contact with Lawrence. I didn’t do confrontation.
Of course, I did it very well inside my own head. And in my writing I was marvellous: yelling at people, coming back with all manner of witty retorts. Saying the kinds of things you wished you could say in the moment but knew you never would.
In real life, I panicked. I tended to colour up and I’d get a
tinnitus-like ringing inside my ears. So I avoided confrontation. And if I had the choice I let Leon fight our battles.
‘Shut the garage door on your way back out, Jane,’ Leon yelled as I put the key in the lock.
Once inside the hallway, I let my back rest against the wall. Sweat was running between my shoulder blades, down to my underwear. Perhaps I should hide in here for a while, I thought. Let those two argue it out and head back to the car only once they’d come to some resolution and Lawrence had left.
Leon revved the engine again. Translation: hurry up.
I hated it when he got like this. Sure, he loved the cat but that had nothing to do with this. He’d reached the stage with Lawrence where he wouldn’t back down about anything. And Lawrence was old. I kept telling Leon that’s what old people were like. They got upset about things and complained. That’s what gave them purpose. Well, that, and taking drives out to garden centres for cups of coffee.
I grabbed a couple of cans from the bottom of the fridge and poured myself a glass of water. I drank it slowly. Then I refilled the glass and I drank again. I was giving Leon the chance to calm down because if he didn’t he’d be yelling at every other driver all the way to Formby.
I went into the hallway. I could still hear muffled voices from beyond the front door, so I delayed going out for a little longer and it was then that I noticed the telephone answer machine blinking.
I hit play.
‘It’s your mother …’ Then there was a long pause as my mother figured out what she needed to say next. She cleared her throat. ‘Can you pick me up some …’ Another pause. Her speech was slurred. ‘Christ,’ she said emphatically, ‘it’s gone clean out of my head what I needed. I’ll call you back in a bit.’
This wasn’t unusual because my mother took pills.
Lots of them.
Sometimes her speech was slow and laboured in the morning because of what she’d taken the night before. Sometimes because of what she’d taken that morning. She lived in a mid-terrace house in Tuebrook, its front façade painted an ugly shade of muddied red like every other house on the street, and she took the pills so she didn’t have to feel disappointed any more.
She was often quite out of it, but she could function pretty well. If you met her on the street you’d think her charming, an immaculately turned-out redhead – though more Rula Lenska than Rita Hayworth – and you might think her mildly eccentric. She liked to shock. She said outlandish things. This was how she hid her problem. If you expected a certain strangeness from her you weren’t then suspicious when she said or did something that didn’t quite add up. Such as if she held her gaze on you for a moment too long. Or laughed inappropriately. Or had lipstick on her teeth.
I didn’t wait for her to call back. Instead, I headed out.
Lawrence was now gone and so I shut the garage door. Leon had done his usual trick of pulling the car right up in front of the garage, which meant I had to lower the door from the side so I didn’t get squashed between the door and the bonnet – always tricky as there wasn’t a lot of space.
I climbed into the passenger side and fastened my seat belt. Leon was staring straight ahead, still with that hint of madness in his eyes that he got whenever he had to deal with Lawrence, so I said, ‘You’re not going to carry this on all day, are you?’
He didn’t reply.
‘You’re ignoring me now as well?’ I continued crossly. ‘What the hell did I do? It’s not like it’s my fault that Lawrence always—’
Without speaking, without checking his mirror, Leon stamped on the gas.
And the car flew backwards.
I cried out in terror. Cried out because my first thought was: Are the kids strapped in? Are they safe?
There was no time to check.
‘Leon!’ I shouted. ‘Leon, stop!’
But by now we were already stationary again. The car having smashed into Lawrence’s garden wall behind us.
Leon’s forehead was on the steering wheel and he was unresponsive.
The children began to cry.
2
I didn’t tell anyone about the argument.
I was frightened they would judge Leon. Think that this big, strong, clever man had been sent over the edge by a silly neighbourhood dispute and given himself a stroke. Or else a heart attack.
So when the paramedic asked me what had happened, I said, ‘Nothing.’ I told her nothing had happened, other than Leon looking marginally strange when I got into the car. She saw the beer in the footwell and asked if he’d been drinking. ‘No!’ I exclaimed, horrified. ‘Of course not! The kids …’
‘Sorry,’ she responded. ‘Had to ask.’
We were now on the pavement outside our house. Two ambulances were in attendance. Leon was in the back of one of the vehicles and they were preparing to leave. He was breathing but he was unconscious.
‘Breathing but unconscious.’ I said the words again, aloud, as if this might somehow settle me. Leon was unconscious and I didn’t know why. They couldn’t seem to tell me why. Jack, Martha and I had been examined inside the other vehicle but we were OK. The paramedics said I was probably more shocked than the kids. Martha sat in my lap now, thumb in her mouth, and Jack was at the kerb. Someone had given him a Coke and he was throwing his head back every few seconds trying to drain the last few drops from inside the can.
I stroked Martha’s hair as I gazed at the ambulance. I thought of Leon inside it and the space below my ribs began to ache. Martha made a small whimpering sound and I kissed the top of her head. Then I looked at Jack and the breath caught in my throat. This family was everything to me. Everything. And it just didn’t work without Leon in it.
A paramedic approached and squatted down beside me. ‘There’s some trauma to your husband’s head,’ she said gently.
‘Trauma?’
‘An injury,’ she said.
I felt confused. There was no trauma that I’d seen. No signs of any injury. ‘He’s not had a stroke?’
‘We don’t think so.’
For some reason, I felt momentarily relieved by this development. Leon was too young to have suffered a stroke. But then his dad had died young, from a heart attack due to high blood pressure. And hadn’t I read somewhere that black men developed high blood pressure younger than the rest of the population? I’d have to check, I thought, making a mental note. I didn’t think Leon had ever had his blood pressure measured, something we’d have to rectify in the future because—
‘Mrs Campbell. Did you hear what I said?’
My mind was drifting.
The paramedic’s accent was soft Scouse. Just a hint of where she was from. I wondered if she’d tried to lose it purposely. Or perhaps she’d had aspirational parents. Parents who’d corrected her speech and told her she sounded like a scally if she lapsed into the local vernacular.
Had I heard what she just said?
‘What did you say?’ I asked, dazed.
‘We’re going to transport him to Fazakerley.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We think your husband has a brain injury.’
I blinked slowly. ‘Like … inside his brain?’
She nodded. How could Leon be injured inside his brain? How was that possible when I was sitting right next to him?
Wouldn’t his skull be damaged? Wouldn’t there be signs of … something? Anything?
‘Do you have somebody who could take the children?’ she asked, and I didn’t respond. ‘Because, if so,’ she went on, ‘you can travel with us. I’m afraid there’s not room for all of you. We have your husband stabilized for now but—’
‘Why aren’t you taking him to the Royal?’
‘Fazakerley specializes in brain trauma. They have a neurosurgical team there.’ She placed one hand on my forearm. ‘Don’t worry. It’s where he needs to be.’
I looked past her. The scene was busy with bodies. The police were here, dealing with the car. I was aware of Lawrence shaking his head at hi
s crumbled wall, his wrecked standing roses, his felled bird-feeding station, his demolished flagpole that carried the Welsh flag … I couldn’t see Rose. The woman from number 24 was here as well. Her husband had left her last year and she wouldn’t let him see the kids. We’d hear banging in the early evening, him calling her a bitch from outside her front door, but no one ever complained because we all felt kind of sorry for him.
‘Mrs Campbell?’ the paramedic said. I couldn’t focus my gaze on her. Her voice sounded far away.
There were other people in the street. Some, I recognized: people who passed by our house on their way into town; dog walkers on their way to Sefton Park. But there was no one here that I could ask to take my children for me. No one I knew well enough to trust.
‘I can’t,’ I said weakly.
I looked again at the ambulance. The one with Leon inside. The rear doors were still open.
He had looked so unlike himself when they’d eventually lifted him from the car. His face had lost all of its tone and he looked both younger and older at the same time. Nothing like my husband. Nothing like the man I’d sat with only moments before. He’d also soiled himself, which made the whole thing shockingly, sickeningly real. I think up until that point I hadn’t properly registered what was happening, and it was only then, as I focused on Leon’s compromised body, that I heard myself yelling at the bystanders, ‘Get back! Get the hell away from him!’ I was scared suddenly that they would witness Leon in this state and commit it to memory. It would be the one thing they would take away with them from here today.
The paramedic made to stand. Her face glistened with sweat. The heavy green cotton of her uniform was too warm for this weather.
‘Will he die?’ I mouthed silently.
‘He appears to be very unwell,’ she replied carefully. ‘But … I always urge people to hope. It’s important to hope.’
‘What if something happens and I’m not with him?’
She saw my panic and she glanced towards the children before replying.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Do you have someone you can call who can take them?’