Everything but the Truth

by Gillian McAllister

  I close my eyes. Oh, please let me go back to Before. Before we met Sadiq. Before we left. Before he followed me. Before I pushed him.

  But we can’t. I can’t. And now … It is After. I look down at Sadiq. His left arm is underneath him, twisted strangely. He’s fallen only seven steps, but they’re concrete, and wet. His right arm must have reached out in front of him. It’s landed just to the side of his face. He hasn’t moved at all. I should go to help him. Call an ambulance. Confess. Or I should run away, in case he’s about to get up again. Sprint home. Pretend I never did it. Go back to Before, even though I know I can’t.

  The streetlights are too bright, illuminated once by themselves and a hundred times in each drop of misty rain. I can see moisture on the concrete steps like thousands of beads of sweat. I can feel the cold air seeping in to my coat and Sadiq is lying still but breathing in and out in and out and I look down at him and then around me and think: I could run or I could stay and call him an ambulance and … and now it is decision time.

  2

  Truth

  I stand and stare at Sadiq. I could walk away. Avoid it, like I’ve done for my entire life.

  I turn around, my back to him, and take three steps away. And then I stop, looking over my shoulder, sure that he will have risen up behind me like a villain in a fable. But he hasn’t. He’s still there. Still lying down. Still not moving.

  It starts raining more heavily, the drops fat, striking my nose and leaving a trail of smaller drops as though they’ve been shattered apart.

  I am still looking over my shoulder as I think it: I could leave. I look around me. Little Venice is deserted. I look up and down the length of the canal. Nobody.

  And that’s when the sweating gets worse. I puff air in to my cheeks and raise my eyes heavenwards and try to think, but all I’m doing is panicking. It’s as though all of the world’s dread and fear and madness have been set free inside my abdomen. My mind is racing, but saying nothing – empty chatter – and my hands are flexing and making fists, alternating clenched and open, like starfish, and my legs are wobbling.

  I look down at Sadiq. Are those headphones? One earbud has fallen out of his ear, the cord white against the concrete like a worm.

  I wonder what Reuben would do. Perhaps I can call him back, and ask him. No. I am certain of what he would say. He always does the right thing. His favourite poem is If. His favourite TV show is The West Wing. He is a social worker for Islamic Relief. My mind throws up these headline points in support of its application to make me leave, now, and never tell him, and it won’t stop. Reuben stacks chairs up at the end of the working day even though it is the cleaners’ job. He was adopted, thirty-two years ago, and has never once held a grudge. I scraped another car’s door, once – so lightly as to be almost imperceptible – and reached to rub at the scratch with a tissue, and Reuben was on his feet and writing a detailed note, leaving our details, before I could even protest. He chooses, again and again, the right thing, even though it is hardly ever the easy thing.

  For God’s sake, ring 999, he would say, panicked, astonished I was even asking the question. Perhaps it would forever change how he looked at me; that I had to even ask. He would – finally – see me as I truly am; flawed, selfish, pathetic.

  No. I can’t be like that. I venture down two steps. I can hear something. A voice. I stop again, sombre for a moment, saying a mournful goodbye to my life as I know it. Am I sure? If I call now, there’ll be a procedure. An ambulance, dispatched immediately. I’ll be in a system. Not Joanna anymore, but … somebody else. A number.

  It’s been over a minute. Maybe two. One hundred and twenty seconds of staring.

  Where is that noise coming from? I am sure it is a woman’s voice. I creep two steps closer, and realise: the headphones.

  And even though I have decided what to do, I am procrastinating. Trying to stall the moment when I have to make that phone call, even though I know that makes things harder, not easier. I’ve been procrastinating my entire life, and I’m not stopping now.

  One more minute passes. The rain gets heavier.

  I don’t know what spurs me in to action. Perhaps I needed those three minutes to come to terms with how things will be; to move in to the After. Perhaps it was to make sure he wasn’t about to reach for me, grab me. I don’t know, but I pull out my phone, standing almost at the bottom of the stairs, and dial 999. I have never dialled these numbers in my life, though it feels as though I have, from BBC dramas and books and films.

  It doesn’t ring. There’s a strange noise, then an operator answers immediately. I descend gingerly down the remaining stairs as I hear a Scottish voice, as if I can only get close to him now I have her protection.

  ‘What’s your emergency?’ the woman says.

  ‘I … there’s a man who’s been injured,’ I say.

  As I stop, above his body, I can hear the noise again. It is a voice. Take a deep breath in for five counts, it is saying. Some sort of hypnotherapy. Meditation, maybe.

  ‘Okay, my love, how badly injured is he?’ she says.

  ‘I … don’t know.’

  ‘All right – what’s your name?’

  ‘Joanna Oliva,’ I say, though I wonder after uttering it whether I should have used a false one.

  ‘Okay, Joanna. We’re going to send a first responder,’ she says. Her tone is neutral. She doesn’t provide reassurance. She doesn’t explain what a first responder is. I wonder what her hopes and dreams are. Maybe she had an emergency, once, and now she wants to help others. I close my eyes, imagining I am somewhere else, and on the phone to a friend. Perhaps I am by the sea, somewhere, on holiday, and calling a friend because I am bored. Or maybe I am idly calling Reuben on the way home to him, which he hates me doing.

  I give her the address. Well, an address of sorts. One of the side bridges. The centre of Little Venice. The canal. I can hear her typing.

  ‘And now I’d like you to assess the man, is that going to be all right?’ she lilts. I wonder if she was hired because of the soothing quality of her voice. Maybe she does television adverts in her spare time. I cannot stop the thoughts. It strikes me as strange that I am still me; still overly imaginative Joanna, even when thrown into these most extraordinary of circumstances.

  I lean down and tentatively touch his shoulder, his black jacket. It’s softer than I thought it would be, almost fleecy. Wait – were those his trousers? He’s in tight black trousers, almost leggings. I was sure he wasn’t wearing those, that he was in jeans, in the bar. But there are the red trainers. Just the same.

  ‘He’s face down,’ I say. ‘On some concrete – he fell … he fell down some steps. Seven,’ I add uselessly, because my guilt has made me count them.

  ‘Okay and is he breathing? I don’t want you to move his neck. Okay? Okay Joanna?’

  Her tone frightens me. Everything frightens me. It’s like the world’s been filtered, black, and I can feel the hot, sweaty nausea again. I say nothing.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. There’s a man lying injured beneath my fingertips and I did it. I can hardly dare think about it. It’s like looking at the sun.

  I can’t turn him over. I can’t do it.

  The voice from the headphones is still speaking, about imagining a beach scene, waves rolling in and out, and I listen to that instead.

  ‘Can you look, listen, and feel for whether he’s breathing? Do you know his name?’

  She enunciates these words like a primary school teacher. Look, listen, and feel. I do not know what these words mean. I look over my shoulder, at the illuminated street, slick with rain, and along the canal, to the bridges stacking behind us, almost all aligning, tessellating, like my vision has gone blurred.

  Look.

  Listen.

  Feel.

  I stare down at him, face-down on the pavement.

  I run my fingers underneath his shoulder and crouch down to look at him. ‘Oh, oh,’ I say to her, involuntarily. His fa
ce is sopping. At first I think it’s blood, when my fingers touch the wetness, but it’s cold and thin-feeling.

  And then I realise. My eyes see it as they adjust to the dark. It grows in front of me: a puddle at the bottom of the steps. Caused by a tree a few feet away. Its roots pulling up the pavement, cracking it, making it uneven, creating great craters.

  One of which is filled with water.

  He’s totally submerged, in dark water, on the dark ground – I didn’t realise.

  ‘He’s face down, in a puddle,’ I say. Surely she will help? She is on my side; she must be. She is a good person, working in the 999 call centre.

  ‘Roll him on to his side, quick as you can, out of the water,’ she says. ‘Does he have a head or neck injury?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I pushed him. And he fell, down the stairs,’ I say. Nobody can blame anybody for being honest. Nobody can prosecute for an innocent mistake.

  ‘Quick as you can,’ she repeats. I roll him over.

  His black hood is still drawn partially over his face. The rest is in shadow.

  ‘Now I need you to check he’s breathing. Look, listen and feel, remember? Can you repeat that back?’

  ‘Look, listen and feel,’ I say woodenly.

  ‘Look for his chest rising. Listen with your ear at his airways. Feel for his breath.’

  I stare at his chest. I lean my head down. I can hear everything, suddenly. The roar of distant traffic. The trickle of water into the canal. The sound of the raindrops splattering on the concrete. But nothing from him.

  I take my glove off and rest my hand against his nose. There is nothing against my fingers. It is unnatural, like looking at somebody with a vital detail missing, like eyelashes or fingernails. My knees hit the concrete, and the contents of my handbag scatters over the ground. Lipsticks I never wear because they make me self-conscious roll all over the place. It’s a state. ‘He’s not breathing,’ I say. Panic rushes in again.

  ‘And now it’s very important to get him breathing. Is he definitely not?’ she says. ‘Put your cheek to his mouth. I want you to tell me whether you can feel his breath against your face.’

  I wince. I don’t want to lean down, expose my vulnerable cheek, my neck, to his mouth., as though he might be a predator playing dead. But I have to.

  There’s nothing against my cheek. No movement. No warmth. No rustling of the strands of my hair by a breath. Nothing.

  ‘He’s definitely not breathing,’ I say.

  Her voice is crisp, patient, sympathetic. ‘We’re going to do five rescue breaths first,’ she says. ‘Because he’s been drowning.’

  Drowning. Drowning.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Open his mouth. Lie him on his back. Tilt his chin back. Being careful of his neck. Chin lifted high, all right, Joanna? Tilt his head back. Are you ready?’

  I move him onto slightly flatter ground, and onto his back, and as I do so, his hood falls away and I see his face.

  It’s not Sadiq.

  His eyes are widely spaced, but that’s where the similarities end. His features are delicate. There’s no heavy brow. He’s got hollows underneath his cheekbones. It’s not Sadiq. It’s not Sadiq. It’s not Sadiq.

  ‘I …’ I don’t say any more, though maybe I should. ‘Shit. I’m – I’ll do it now,’ I say, but inside, my thoughts are rushing like water through a burst pipe. It’s not him. It’s not him. I have pushed – I have injured – a stranger. This man wasn’t harassing me. He didn’t follow me. I look at his trainers again. They’re the same. The same stupid trainers.

  But of course: he was out running. Trainers. Headphones. All black. How could I have made such a catastrophic error? How could I not have checked? How could I have presumed there was a pursuit where there was nothing? Merely a man – another man, a different man. It is hard to re-orientate my thoughts, away from having been pursued to … something else. That didn’t happen. Like a dream, it wasn’t real.

  The voice keeps coming out of the headphones, getting louder and quieter as I move.

  I could hang up the phone. I could run away. Get a flight somewhere before I’m stopped. Would I be stopped? All of my knowledge has come from the television. I can’t remember the last time I cracked open a newspaper. I know nothing about the real world, I think bitterly. Reuben would know what to do. He is a Proper Person who knows about global politics and can point to Iran on a map and knows what sautéing is. But of course, Reuben would never be in this situation. Good Reuben.

  My body feels strange. My eyes are dry and heavy. The world shifts as I look at it, like I’m in a kaleidoscope. Perhaps I am drunk. I have had four drinks. Maybe I am drunk and soon I will wake up, blinking, in Laura’s bed with the crazy seventies-printed orange duvet cover, and Jonty will bring me a cup of coffee he’s made with slightly curdled milk, and we’ll wonder at how I could’ve got so drunk. I’ll explain it was because I’d had no dinner. And we’ll laugh. Jonty will be painting his perfume bottles – he’ll be behind, and doing them sloppily. Or maybe I’ll wake up and Laura will say, over Cocopops, No, we didn’t even go to Little Venice …

  I lean over and breath into his mouth. It’s strangely intimate. My lips have only touched Reuben’s, for seven years, and now here I am, touching another man’s lips.

  Five breaths. Nothing happens.

  She tells me to start chest compressions. There are no signs of life, she says.

  I lean down and lace my fingers as she tells me to, the phone on speaker on a step. His chest yields under them, surprisingly so, and I compress a few inches easily.

  It happens suddenly, after five chest compresses. He reacts to me, his lips tightening. He sucks in a breath, his slim chest expanding and his body jerking as though the ground’s moved beneath him.

  ‘He’s … something’s happening,’ I shout. And then he’s coughing. Hacking, productive coughs. I look away, not wanting to be privy to these moments. Maybe he’ll open his eyes. Maybe he’ll stand and walk away, disgruntled and inconvenienced, but fine, like we are motorists who’ve damaged the other’s bumpers. Maybe. Maybe. I close my eyes and wish for it.

  ‘He’s coughing,’ I say. My voice is wooden. I can’t tell her I got the wrong man. I can’t tell her anything.

  ‘Okay, good. The ambulance is nearly with you,’ she says. Sadiq – no, not Sadiq – is still lying there. His eyes closed. Chest rising steadily. ‘Can you put him in the recovery position?’ she says. Another surge of fear rushes through me like the tide’s coming in and I try to ignore it, biting my lip. It is no longer fear of Sadiq. It is fear for what will happen to me, now.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay.’ I heave him over. There is no sign he’s conscious. His eyelids don’t flutter like Reuben’s do just before he wakes on Sunday mornings – the only morning of the whole week that we always spend together; the one where he is not with his charges or helping his MP or leading protests. This man’s arms don’t hold their own weight like Reuben’s do when he rolls over and beckons to me, wanting to hold me, even in his sleep; instead, they flop on to the ground like they’re weighed down unnaturally, curling like an ape’s.

  And then, when he’s in the recovery position, one knee bent up as the woman tells me to, I see the ambulance. The lights are flashing in the glass-fronted shop windows along the street above us. I see the ambulance’s light mirrored in the windows across the street, a few seconds behind itself, reflected and refracted across each display. No. No. I am wrong. I see that it’s not an ambulance. Not at all. I see – I see now – that it’s the police. There’s a police car, just behind the ambulance.

  The ambulance is for him, but the police car is for me.

  THE BEGINNING

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  PENGUIN BOOKS

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  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  First published 2017

  Text copyright © Gillian McAllister, 2017

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Cover images: © Zoltan Toth/Trevillion Images and © Getty Images

  ISBN: 978-1-405-92825-0