by Susan Lewis
It was no wonder her friends were pointing him to suicide sites and threatening all sorts of violence towards him; he would too if he was one of them. Her friend Donna had posted a video of herself on his Facebook page saying, ‘She had everything to look forward to, she loved life and we all love her, but you, you vile drunk, aren’t loved by anyone. I hope they lock you up and never let you out again.’
Her friend Melissa had posted another video saying, ‘On behalf of all Lauren’s friends here in Bristol, I hope someone does the same to you as you did to her, because it’s what you deserve. Why should you be out there living a normal life, when she might never know what one is again? We hate you, go away and die.’
He’d only watched those videos once, he’d have to be some sort of weirdo to have gone back for more, but he hadn’t forgotten what they’d said, and even wondered at times if he should go away and die. After all, what right did he have to anything, now that he’d taken everything from Lauren?
He wished, more than anything, that he could go to see her. He longed to tell her how sorry he was, and how he would do anything to be in her place so she no longer had to be. He felt sick with guilt and horror every time he thought of how he’d almost left her that night. Thank God he hadn’t, or she’d have died on the side of the road like an animal, and he’d be to blame.
‘Oliver! Are you in there?’ his father called from outside the door.
Quickly closing down the screen, Oliver said, ‘Yes, what do you want?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure, why not?’
Pushing open the door, Russ stepped into the room. Finding Oliver already showered and dressed, which he often wasn’t first thing in the morning, seemed to smooth some of the flintiness from his eyes. ‘Charlie and I are off now,’ he said.
Oliver swallowed dryly. ‘Do you think I should come?’ he asked.
‘No. Like I said last night, you should spend the day working with Paul. You don’t need to be dealing with your mother right now.’
‘I’m not a child.’
‘I’m aware of that, but this accident is taking over your life, and you need to let it go for a while. Doing some research for Paul should help focus you elsewhere for a few hours. Most particularly outside yourself.’
Oliver flushed. ‘If you were in my position ...’
‘That wasn’t a criticism, merely advice. Paul’s already here, he’s over in the office, and Charlie’s happy for you to drive his car if you need to go out today.’
Thrown in so casually, as if Oliver had been behind the wheel a hundred times since the night his and Lauren’s lives had collided with such terrible force. When we collide we come together. Not one of his favourite songs, but it was in his mind now and he guessed it would probably stay with him all day. ‘Thanks,’ he said, glad his father wasn’t making a big deal about him driving, the way he had the last time.
‘I’ll see you later then.’
‘OK, good luck with Mum.’ He was probably wishing it more for his father’s and Charlie’s sakes than he was for himself. They were desperate to get him off these charges, and obviously he wanted rid of them too, he’d have to be a serious loser if he didn’t. It just seemed so unfair to Lauren, though, that he stood a chance of extricating himself from the consequences of that night when she’d never be able to.
He’d have liked to post something on her wall about how sorry he was, but he knew that having his name there would sully the page, for her and everyone else, and he wasn’t prepared to do that. He wanted everything about her to stay as pure and lovely as it had been before he’d come along and smashed out all the lights.
‘Are you OK?’ Phyllis asked, coming into Lauren’s room where Emma was sitting on the bed taking books from a box. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘No, I don’t think so, thanks,’ Emma replied, feeling herself welling up as she looked at Lauren’s old copy of Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees. So many memories came rushing at her that she felt almost dizzied by the images that were too painfully joyful to hold on to for long. She quoted softly from Winnie-the-Pooh. ‘Can you remember which book that’s from?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t,’ Phyllis answered.
Why would she, Emma thought fleetingly, she’d never read the books to her children; Emma couldn’t remember her mother reading her any stories at all. ‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘It just came to my mind.’ She lifted her head, and seeing how uneasy her mother looked she straightened her shoulders to try and appear more together. ‘I told Will I’d dig out some of her old children’s books,’ she explained. ‘I think she’d like to have them read to her, so if he isn’t going to do it I will.’
‘I’d like to as well, if it’s OK,’ Phyllis offered.
Emma managed a smile. ‘Yes, of course.’ She paused. ‘I’ve been thinking, it must be quite a strain on you, spending all those hours sitting next to her, so if you need to go home ...’
‘I’m happy to do it,’ Phyllis assured her. Then she added, ‘For Lauren, and for you.’
Emma felt a jolt inside. Before she could stop herself, she’d tilted her head to one side and was saying, ‘Really? For me?’
Phyllis’s cheeks reddened. ‘Yes, really,’ she said quietly.
Emma didn’t know what to say to that, so she looked down at the book again and then held it out to her mother. ‘Why don’t you start with this one?’ she suggested.
Taking it, Phyllis stood looking down at it, keeping it closed. Finally she said, ‘I know now probably isn’t the time, but perhaps later we could talk about ... things ... I mean, you and me and how ...’
Embarrassed, and annoyed, Emma got to her feet. ‘You’re right, now isn’t a good time,’ she said shortly. Had her mother forgotten how often in the past she’d pushed aside Emma’s efforts to discuss what was wrong between them? Emma wasn’t doing this now to punish her, she was doing it because she genuinely couldn’t spare the time today, or the emotion. ‘What are you doing this morning?’ she asked, sliding the box of books back under the bed.
Forcing herself past the rebuff, Phyllis said, ‘Mrs Dempster, from along the road, is coming to help sort out the flowers and cards outside. I got talking to her when I was out there yesterday. She said you’ve been very kind to her.’
‘Not really,’ Emma responded, straightening Lauren’s pillows and feeling as though the day Mrs Dempster had received a visit from a golden angel had happened years, rather than weeks ago. ‘Would you mind asking her if she needs to go to the supermarket?’ she said. ‘They’ve cancelled the old people’s bus, so she struggles to get there on her own.’ Then it came to her who had been behind the golden angel scheme, and she felt her head starting to spin. ‘Nothing’s ever the way you think, is it?’ she said faintly.
Phyllis was watching her closely. ‘What is it?’ she asked gently.
Emma shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Phyllis turned away, then came back again. ‘If you’re going to try and keep Lauren alive through your own force of will,’ she said, ‘you’re going to need all the energy you can get, so please let me make you some breakfast.’
Emma’s eyes widened as she registered what her mother had said. She turned to look at her.
Phyllis held the look, and Emma felt unsteadied by the determination and emotion in her mother’s eyes. ‘You can do it,’ Phyllis told her, ‘and whether you like it or not, I’m going to be here making sure you do.’
*
Twenty minutes later, having eaten most of the bacon sandwich her mother had prepared, Emma was about to leave for the hospital when Clive Andrews arrived.
‘I don’t want to hold you up,’ he said, as she let him in, ‘but there’s something I need to discuss with you.’
Experiencing an all too familiar churn of fear, Emma showed him into the sitting room, looking curiously, anxiously, at the heavy box that he put down next to the coffee table.
‘I picked this up yesterday,�
�� he explained. ‘It’s from Lauren’s car; her flute case, handbag, shoes – and the laptop.’ As he said the last he lifted it out to show her.
Looking at the computer with Lauren’s name in thick pink pen across the front, along with stickers of her favourite musicians, Emma had to take a moment before she could thank him. Shoes? Why were her shoes there? They must have come off in the accident. What if they were broken? She wasn’t sure she could bear to see them.
As he handed the computer to her, she said, ‘Was it ...? Did it prove useful?’
‘If you mean did it yield up any deep, dark secrets,’ he replied with a smile, ‘then I don’t think so.’ His face started to colour, as though he was embarrassed by what he’d said and was wishing now that he hadn’t. ‘The car is ready to come back to you,’ he continued. ‘I’ll give you the address of where it is.’
‘We have to collect it?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Taking a quick decision to leave that to Will, she said, ‘Please sit down. Would you like a tea or coffee? I was just going to the hospital, but Lauren’s leg is being operated on this morning, so I don’t really have to be there until they bring her back to the ward.’
‘That’s very kind,’ he responded, ‘but I’ve just had a coffee.’ He cleared his throat. ‘A few things have happened, relevant to Lauren’s case ...’
Hating the reminder that her daughter was a case now in both a legal and medical sense, Emma heard herself saying, ‘She had a good night. I rang the hospital about an hour ago. No more sudden surges in pressure, or drops either – and she’s still breathing on her own.’
‘That’s encouraging,’ he said with a smile. ‘Ah, Mrs Stevens, how are you?’
‘Please call me Phyllis,’ she said, coming to shake his hand. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’
‘Emma already has, but I’m fine, thanks.’
‘Apparently a few things have come up,’ Emma told her.
Phyllis looked concerned. ‘I’ll let you have some privacy,’ she said, turning to leave.
‘No, stay,’ Emma insisted. She looked at Clive Andrews again. ‘It’s good for me to have someone with me when news is being broken,’ she explained. ‘I’m sure I’m taking it in, but then I can never seem to remember it all later.’
He smiled sympathetically, and waited for Phyllis to sit down. ‘Well, to begin with,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a mishap at the labs. It seems, for the moment at least, that the blood samples Oliver Lomax provided have been ... mislaid.’
Emma became very still. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’ she asked.
‘It means that without the results of his blood test a prosecution for drink-driving is going to be difficult to pursue.
The colour drained from Emma’s face.
‘Of course, we’re still hoping ...’
Emma wasn’t listening. ‘So my daughter is in a coma, and might even die, while the boy who put her there walks free? Is that what you’re saying? Is it? Are you seriously telling me that because some idiot has lost this blood, it’s all over for Oliver Lomax? Well, it’s not going to happen. I won’t let it, and nor will her father. That boy has to pay for what he’s done. He needs to learn that he’s not above the law, and that when he gets into a car, drunk, there are consequences to be paid, consequences my daughter is paying ...’ Her voice started to fracture with rising emotion. ‘He’s got to be taken off the road,’ she cried shrilly. ‘No one’s safe while people like him are around. I’m telling you, he has to be taken off the road and put behind bars.’
‘Believe me, I understand how you feel,’ Andrews said gently, ‘and I promise you, everyone’s looking for these samples, so they might yet turn up ...’
‘His father’s behind this!’ Emma shouted. ‘That newsreader. He’s used whatever contacts he has to make that blood disappear.’
‘I really don’t think that’s the case ...’
‘How do you know? They wouldn’t tell you.’
‘No, but ...’
‘And what about the breath tests? They were positive, weren’t they? Can’t you use them?’
‘Probably not on their own, I’m afraid, but I’m not going to rule it out, because I think prosecutions have gone ahead in the past based only on a breath test. And don’t forget, there’s still the charge of dangerous driving ...’
Emma was suddenly beside herself. ‘I can’t believe this,’ she cried, clutching her hands to her head as she shot to her feet. ‘That boy gets into his car, knowing he’s drunk, not giving a damn about anyone else, and now Lauren, my precious baby, is so badly injured that she’s barely able to hold on to her life, never mind fight for it.’
Looking as wretched as he felt, Andrews said, ‘Believe me, I’m not in the business of defending Oliver Lomax, but ... I’m not sure whether or not it’ll help you to know the reason he got into his car that night – it was because he thought his mother was about to commit suicide. He’d received a call from her, and was on his way to try and stop her when he ... when the accident happened.’
Emma’s eyes closed as her heart launched a dreadful beat. A strange darkness was coming over her, a weight that was unbearable, a fear that seemed to be sucking her into a terrible abyss.
‘Sit down,’ her mother told her, coming to her. ‘Take a deep breath ...’
Emma’s head was still spinning. Everything felt wrong; nothing was making any sense.
‘I’ll get some water,’ Andrews said.
As he went off to the kitchen he was willing his mobile to ring with news that the samples had been found, but of course it didn’t. He felt doubtful that the missing blood would ever reappear. Obviously the Lomax family would be hoping that it wouldn’t, and did it seem entirely fair for the boy to pay with a driving ban, even imprisonment, for dashing to his mother’s aid? On the other hand, he’d known very well he’d been drinking, and he could always have called the emergency services, but hadn’t, and since nothing in the world could justify the price Lauren Scott was already paying for his foolhardy errand of mercy, Andrews’s sympathies for the boy could only go so far.
For Lauren, it was a totally different story: his entire heart went out to her, in spite of now knowing how she’d come to be in Lomax’s path that night. Since learning the truth, he’d been trying hard to find a way to break it to Emma, and had decided in the end that she really wouldn’t want to hear it from him. She needed to read the diary for herself, so he was going to leave it with her and when she was ready they could decide together what should be done.
Something Russ really hadn’t counted on finding, when he and Charlie turned up at Sylvie’s flat, was a strange man slumped in the bed beside her. Just thank God he’d steered Charlie straight to the kitchen, and that Jolyon wasn’t due to join them for another hour – he was going to need every minute of that time to sort out this mess, plus a small miracle to get her compos mentis by then.
Connie, having found herself locked out last night, had been waiting at the door when he and Charlie arrived, still unaware at that point that Sylvie had a guest. The first she’d known of it was when she and Russ had walked into the bedroom, a moment ago, and nearly gagged at the stench that assailed them.
Chances were Sylvie’s one-night stand (if it had even got that far) had no idea that his willing conquest occasionally became incontinent when under the influence, and unfortunately for the middle-aged stud this was one of those occasions.
Shaking the poor bloke awake, Russ stood over him, waiting for his eyes to focus, while Connie went to check the state of the bathroom.
As he came round, the befuddled visitor peered at Russ, looked scared, groaned at his aching head, and tried to sit up. Catching the smell, he glanced down and almost leapt from the bed. ‘What the fuck?’
‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ Russ said quietly.
‘She’s only gone and ...’
‘I know, but you don’t need to shout about it. Just ...’
‘Who t
he hell are you? What the hell’s going on here?’
‘I’m her husband. Now I want you to put on your clothes and then I’m afraid you’ll need to leave by the fire escape.’ Although tragic, the scene contained the elements of farce, he thought, with the husband bundling the lover out of the window.
It happened pretty much that way, with Russ tossing a forgotten shoe down into the street after the humiliated, unwashed Romeo had made his unseemly descent.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Connie whispered as Russ returned to the bed. ‘I should have taken my keys ...’
‘I’m the one who should be sorry,’ Russ interrupted, turning Sylvie on to her back. She snuffled, moaned, but didn’t wake up. ‘When you rang to tell me she’d locked you out, I should have got straight in the car.’ Faced with the choice of preventing his wife from sinking herself in a vat of vodka last night, or stopping Oliver from going back to his computer to carry on tormenting himself over the girl, he’d chosen Oliver. Bad call, looking at this, but his sons would always come first.
Lifting an empty vodka bottle from under the pillow and placing it on the nightstand, he told Connie, ‘You might not want to watch what I’m going to do now.’
Connie said, ‘I’ll go and fetch some towels.’
As she went into the bathroom Russ took hold of Sylvie’s nightgown and ripped it right down the front. It was easier than trying to get it off her in the normal way.
The sight of her body shocked him, even though he’d been forced to bathe her recently. Today, the bruises she’d acquired from all the staggering about and crashing into furniture were livid purple clouds over her fragile bones, and her once pert breasts hung like empty pockets from her frame. The pubic hair that she’d always kept so neat had become a dry, grizzled patch of neglect.