If I Die Before I Wake

by Emily Koch

  And that day a new question crept up on me: What if I don’t want to?

  But I talked myself down. Have to. Have to. Have to.

  I forced myself to remember my reasons. My old reporter-self sat my new bedridden-self down for an interview.

  Every so often, I would have these conversations with myself and they always made me remember what I’d called my ‘radio interview series’. I’d liked asking questions as a kid, so I suppose I didn’t become a journalist just because of my mum; maybe it was in me all along. I would use tape interviews I did with family members and neighbours to make a radio show, with Philippa and I as the only two listeners. I called it ‘The Al and Phil Super Radio Show’ – I must have been about nine at the time; Philippa could only have been seven. In fact, the first ‘show’ – featuring an interview with my best friend American Paul about his baseball card collection – was just called ‘The Alex Jackson Super Radio Show,’ but Philippa begged and begged to be involved and I finally gave in. It would have been a long summer holiday of tears and tantrums if she hadn’t got her own way.

  The interview with Dad was my favourite to listen back to when I found the tapes in the loft, many years later. I thought about calling Philippa to tell her to come over and listen with me. She probably would have done – but I envisioned her making disparaging remarks and spoiling the memories for me, so I didn’t bother. We made Dad our main interview of the week, and I asked him about how he learned to play guitar (‘from my brother’), why he liked rocks so much (‘they hold so many secrets’) and how he met Mum. That was always one of our favourite stories, and you could hear Philippa squeaking happily in the background of the recording when I asked that question.

  ‘I was playing in a band at a small festival somewhere in Somerset,’ Dad said.

  ‘What instrument were you playing?’ I asked. My interview style left something to be desired – I hadn’t learned the art of letting someone answer as fully as possible before interrupting them. I thought the thing to do was ask as many questions as possible.

  ‘You know the answer to that,’ Dad replied.

  ‘Yeah, but, Dad, come on. For the rest of our listeners. What instrument?’

  ‘Guitar.’

  ‘And what was Mum doing?’

  Philippa squealed again, and you could hear me shushing her on the tape.

  ‘Mum was a bit of a hippy chick back then, and she was at the festival with some friends, making daisy chains or something.’

  You could hear Mum shouting from the next room at that point. ‘I heard that, Graham!’

  The questioning continued, painfully, as I extracted every tiny detail from him. Eventually he ran out of patience and excused himself.

  I couldn’t help but remember that summer holiday with fondness, so it felt reassuring to go back to that activity from my childhood. It also helped to clarify my thinking.

  So, Alex, reporter-me asked hospital-me. Talk me through the emotions you experienced in the lead-up to you making the decision to die.

  The main thing (hospital-me answered) is that I spend a lot of time remembering what it felt like to do things. I miss doing. Everyone uses that word all the time – just another verb. Do this, do that. But I had never fully appreciated the joy that doing brings. Especially physical things. I was always running, climbing, playing five-a-side. I miss the feeling of tired muscles. My body used to be strong and now I’m just a bundle of feeble limbs.

  And when did you decide? I asked myself.

  It was Christmas Day, last year. My first Christmas had been hazy, because I wasn’t properly awake yet. The day I decided was my second Christmas in hospital. They had carol singers come round to each bed on the ward. I got ‘Silent Night’.

  Bea didn’t visit, because she was in Brighton seeing Megan and Rick. But Dad and Philippa came by. It was miserable. Dad sounded on the edge of tears the whole time, and Philippa wanted to leave almost as soon as they walked in. ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come here,’ she said. ‘It’s only going to upset you.’ It wasn’t what I remembered of Christmases, growing up. No Jackson family Happy Christmas kisses. No gifts, no joy.

  From that day, I knew that by staying alive I was ruining their lives. That’s the day I stopped trying.

  It’s a huge decision. Are you sure about it?

  My accident was fate. A punishment, for everything I’d ever done wrong. I should have kept Mum alive. I never doubted that I was doing the right thing when I took her side – she was so convincing. She was so sure of what she wanted. I never doubted it, not even at the funeral, not when Philippa stopped talking to me, not in all those years afterwards. It was only after I woke up here that I started thinking about it differently. What if that treatment could have saved her? They wanted to cut away more of her tongue – maybe that would have got rid of the rest of the cancer.

  Confined to this bed, wishing for another chance at my own life, I started to get the horrible feeling that I had misread the situation. What if Mum had wanted me to persuade her the other way? When she wrote that note to me had she actually wanted me to talk her out of it?

  I should have made her have the treatment. I should have made more effort to fix things between me and Philippa, I should have paid closer attention to those kids, I should have been more careful about who I slept with, I should have spent more time with my dad, I should never have gone home with Josie, I shouldn’t have been so arrogant at work. I should have been there for Bea more. I should have left my ego at home when I went climbing and worn a fucking helmet. Stupid, stupid Alex. Careless. Asking for trouble.

  Everyone’s done things they regret.

  I can’t speak for anyone else. All I know is that it was fate. And I have to pay for what I’ve done.

  After finishing up on an interview, you always think of things you should have asked. If it’s within a few hours, you can call the person back, see if they’ll spare you a few more minutes. But there are times when new information comes to light, weeks after the piece goes to print, which makes you wish you’d had the foresight to ask the one question which could have really stirred things up.

  The question I would have asked myself back then, if I’d known what I know now, was: But what if it wasn’t fate that made you fall?

  18

  I REMEMBER THAT day.

  My memory is a panelled door frame made up of panes of distorting glass, each revealing a different twenty-four hours – but one of them has been kicked through to reveal what’s behind it in sharp definition. That particular day – the day after Tom and Rosie were here – is strong in my mind.

  I woke up with cold feet – the kind I wouldn’t have been allowed to join Bea in bed with. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she would’ve shrieked, curling herself into a defensive ball on the edge of the mattress. I wanted a nurse to rub them for me, get the blood going. I woke up with cold feet and the sound of television, which must have been on since the night before. An American sitcom – canned laughter. Laughing at me? I woke up with cold feet, the television on, and the smell of dying flowers. Philippa’s latest bouquet had decayed quickly. What were these ones? Carnations? Daisies? Daffodils? I never knew. Identifying flowers wasn’t a skill of mine – not even when I could see them properly. I woke up with cold feet, the sound of the television, the smell of decay, and a coil of apprehension in my stomach.

  It was a normal morning, apart from my nervousness. A huge storm raged outside my window, dulling the sound of ambulances coming and going. Rain drove in at the glass – waves of pitter-patters blown in by the wind, as if someone was turning the volume dial up and down every few seconds. It was only interrupted by several minutes’ worth of hail so noisy that I entertained the possibility that we were, in fact, under machine gun fire.

  When Connie and Pauline came in, they had plenty to say about the weather.

  ‘Alex, I’m going to roll you onto your side now so that we can give you a wipe down,’ Pauline said loudly into my ear as she turned me away
from the window. ‘I’ve never seen hailstones the size of these, Con. Honest to God. They were like golf balls. No – tennis balls.’

  One of them pulled up my pyjama top and wiped a warm wet cloth over my back. ‘The Daily Mail is calling it the zombie apocalypse, according to Dan in the kitchen,’ said Connie.

  ‘They never are!’ Pauline said. The cloth moved around to my chest and rubbed my stomach, underarms, neck.

  ‘Zombie apocalypse,’ repeated Connie. ‘That’s what they said. I don’t know where the zombies come into it but I’m not looking forward to driving home tonight.’

  At that moment a huge clap of thunder shook the building like an explosion beneath us. I felt the pair of them jump.

  ‘Shitting hell,’ said Connie.

  In the middle of another deafening hail shower I missed the sound of footsteps. With my eyes closed, I only noticed I had a visitor when a wet hand landed on mine. I felt the edge of a sopping sleeve on my fingers. When it lifted away, the sheet was still damp – a cold, wet patch spreading towards my left hip.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ It was Bea, sounding upset.

  What for?

  She unzipped her coat and took it off noisily, shaking drops of water onto my skin. As she moved I thought I could just about smell the remnants of her orangey shampoo. No vanilla perfume today? I tried to detect it – but no, it wasn’t there.

  ‘Who did this to you?’

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and cupped a cool, moist hand under my chin, holding my jaw.

  You’re touching me again.

  ‘All this time,’ she said. ‘We’ve assumed it was an accident.’

  Her fingers slid from my face, down onto my chest. My heart beat insistently against her, reaching out for more.

  ‘Why would anyone want to kill you?’

  What are you talking about?

  ‘Why won’t they tell me anything?’

  Slow down –

  ‘Why tell me they think it was deliberate, if they can’t tell me how it happened?’ She tutted and then put on a deep, mimicking voice. ‘“New information has come to light, Miss Romero.”’

  Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

  ‘They must have tampered with your kit.’

  In my mind’s eye, I saw the walls of the room pushing in on me.

  It’s all right – I’m dreaming. This is just a dream.

  ‘It has to be linked to the letter,’ she muttered to herself.

  Wake up, Alex. Bad dream, just a bad dream. Wake up.

  She tapped her fingers on my collarbone. She felt too real to be a dream version of herself.

  ‘What did you do to that woman that was so bad she wanted to kill you?’

  This can’t be happening to me.

  ‘I can’t imagine how you’ve hurt someone that badly. You’re a good guy. Even I think that, even after this letter.’ She sighed heavily. ‘A cheat, maybe. But you don’t deserve to die for that. All you’ve ever done is try to help people. Jesus, listen to me. You’ve had a kid with some other woman and here I am sticking up for you.’

  My mind split in two. On one side, I rejected the whole idea. This was the kind of thing that happened to other people – not to someone like me. No one would want me dead. On the other side, I knew the police wouldn’t open a case from more than eighteen months ago on a whim. Not the Avon and Somerset Constabulary that I had dealt with as a reporter. What did they know that we didn’t?

  ‘She must have tampered with your rope, or your harness.’

  I’d have noticed if my kit was dodgy. There must be another explanation.

  I shivered.

  Eleanor?

  No.

  She was the only person who would have been close enough to make me fall.

  No.

  What are you thinking? There’s no way she would do that to you. She told you she loved you, remember?

  But what if it was some kind of jealous thing? What if she was angry because she couldn’t have me?

  No, Alex. This is Eleanor you’re talking about. She wouldn’t do that.

  I was sweating. My pyjamas stuck to the insides of my arms and liquid trickled down the back of my neck.

  Bea kept tapping.

  ‘I’ve looked at home. There’s no matches on the handwriting from the envelope. I’ve been through birthday cards, letters, everything.’

  ‘You will pay.’ That’s what the letter said. You think this is what it meant?

  Her hand stopped tapping on my chest.

  I thought of Clare. The letter could be her. But this? Even with her shrieking and tears and fists flailing against me, I couldn’t see her wanting to kill me, let alone trying.

  ‘Christ, Alex. Who is she? Is this why the police were asking about who visits you?’

  Another trickle of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. Other girls’ faces flashed through my mind: half-memories, blurred and hazy. It still didn’t make any sense. Was it really one of them? Again, I asked – why wait so long?

  Someone tried to kill me.

  The hairs on my arms stood on end and a horrible shiver passed along my sweat-damp body. What if we’d both been thinking along the wrong tracks with the letter? What if it was someone else entirely – not the mother of my supposedly illegitimate child?

  Because if that was the case, I could think of one person who might have wanted me dead on that September day.

  I thought again about my parallel prisoner, William Ormond. Jailed more than ten years ago for the brutal murder of Holly King – a murder I didn’t think he was guilty of. Whoever had really done it had walked away free. I thought of how that man might feel if he knew a journalist was digging into the case again, and supporting the campaign for an appeal. How he might feel about my paper asking for anybody with information to come forward. I couldn’t imagine Clare trying to kill anyone, but here was somebody who was definitely capable – he’d done it once, he could do it again, couldn’t he? A murderer, someone who had beaten a woman to death with a spade in broad daylight, clearly wouldn’t need much of a reason to decide to take another person’s life. And I’d given him plenty of reason to focus on me.

  ‘You will pay.’

  Was that what the letter meant? That I had to pay for attempting to expose the truth? But then, what did the baby in the photo have to do with any of it? Why did whoever sent it ‘deserve better’ than me?

  Bea’s weight shifted on the mattress as she stood up. The sound of a zip, and something smooth against fabric. I heard the air escape from the cushion in the chair by my side as she sat back down, and a beep and whir I recognised as a laptop being switched on.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Right. I need to –’

  This was her practical, let’s-get-things-done voice.

  Tell me more. You must know more. What exactly made them suddenly reopen the case?

  Tap, tap, tap. Her fingers on the laptop keys.

  ‘They said to make sure I could remember everything that happened that day.’

  Tap, tap, tap: strangely soothing.

  ‘Ready for my new witness statement.’

  Tap, tap, tap. Her fingers on the keys mingled with the backdrop of the rain on the window, now that the hail had stopped. It was a calming white noise. My head rattled with thoughts. Someone tried to kill me. It wasn’t an accident.

  Could it really have been Holly King’s murderer? ‘New document.’ There was the knock of metal against wood as Bea patted her ringed hand on the arm of the chair.

  ‘September – the – eighth,’ she said, keying in the words as she went. Tap, tap, tap. ‘The day of Alex’s accid—’

  Taptaptaptaptap – a word being deleted.

  ‘Attempted murder.’

  She talked as she typed, and for the first time I heard a full account of what she had been doing on that day. I had images in my head of uniformed police in our flat, Bea grabbing her things to take to hospital. Of her, breaking down in tears by my side in intensive c
are. The hours of waiting, her draining polystyrene cups of tea while I was in theatre. But these details must have been created by my imagination. The events she described were different.

  September 8: The day of Alex’s attempted murder

  It was a Saturday. I left the flat first. Alex would have been close behind me, going to meet Eleanor, Tom and Alberto and head down to the Gorge for a day’s climbing.

  I wanted to make the most of the last warm days of the year. Drove into Somerset for a walk in the Quantocks, parked at Cothelstone. I took a bottle of water, and ham and coleslaw sandwiches. I remember because I threw them back up later.

  I walked for a couple of hours – a seven-mile loop including Lydeard Hill. My phone was switched off to save the battery. I forgot to switch it back on when I got back to my car.

  If I had turned it on, I would have seen the text and voicemails. Tom, Rosie, Eleanor. Dad and Philippa. Even my parents. According to what the police later told me, about two miles into my walk, Alex had fallen.

  How our days unfolded:

  Time Alex Me

  Eleven o’clock He fell. Two miles into my walk.

  Midday He was in hospital. Four miles in, I was stopping for lunch.

  One o’clock They were taking Alex in for emergency surgery. They set his broken arm. Did something to help reduce the swelling in his brain. Six miles in, I remember crouching for at least five minutes on the path, watching a bold field mouse scurrying around on the bank, looking for food.

  Two o’clock Alex was still in theatre. His dad and Philippa waited in the hospital café for news. I was finishing my walk, coming back to the car.

  Three o’clock Alex was coming out of surgery, but being kept in a coma to help reduce swelling and pressure on his brain. I was nearly home. The traffic was good on the M5, for once. I felt happy – it had been a good day.

  When I arrived back at the flat, expecting to walk in the door and see Alex on the sofa, I saw Rosie’s car parked outside. She jumped out as soon as she saw me. She was crying.

  She told me what had happened, and told me to prepare myself for the worst.