A Sky Full of Stars

by Dani Atkins

  ‘Lisa,’ he began, in a voice that even his wife would have struggled to recognise as his. ‘Lisa, are you all right? I’ve just seen on the news that there’s been an accident. Please tell me you’re okay. Ring me. Oh, baby, please ring me.’

  He hung up.

  He didn’t let go of his phone, just gripped it tightly within his sweat-slickened palm, and yet still it remained stubbornly silent. A number had flashed up across the TV screen, the kind he’d seen on numerous other incidents, the kind everyone hopes they’ll never have to call. For information about family or friends who may have been travelling on the train this morning, please call the emergency helpline number on the screen.

  Alex’s fingers trembled uncontrollably as he scrabbled through the kitchen drawer for an elusive pen, coming up only with one of Connor’s wax crayons. Terrified of tearing his eyes from the TV for even a single moment, he yanked a sheet of paper from the fridge door, sending its magnet flying across the kitchen. Defiling his son’s drawing with the phone number felt wrong, but then so did everything else that had happened in the last five minutes.

  His first attempt at dialling the number ended in failure, as did his second. It was as though all his motor skills had shut down. In contrast his brain was racing; scenarios and images were flashing through it at lightning speed, with a horrible degree of clarity he could only pray wasn’t real.

  It took seven rings before they answered him and he died a little bit inside with every one of them. The voice on the end of the line was calm and professional, but his panic was now an inferno that nothing could extinguish.

  ‘Slow down, sir,’ the man said gently. Alex tried, but within him everything was racing: his heart, his imagination, and his terror. ‘You believe your wife was a passenger on the train that crashed this morning?’

  Alex almost swore in frustration. Of course he believed that. Why the hell else would he be calling this number? ‘Yes. Yes,’ he said, interrupting the man before he could speak again. ‘Lisa Stevens. She was definitely travelling to London on the 7.48. Do you know if she’s okay?’

  There was a pause and everything in the kitchen seemed to stop. This was the frozen moment in time he knew he would remember for the rest of his life.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Stevens. She’s not on our list.’

  ‘What does that mean? That she’s not been hurt? That she’s okay?’

  Beneath the professionalism, Alex could hear the sympathy in the man’s voice. ‘It means that the list of passengers we’ve been given by the transport police does not include her name, but as I am sure you can appreciate, the situation is changing minute by minute. We are continually being updated with details of further passengers.’

  ‘So what do I do now?’ Alex asked desperately. There were tears coursing down his cheeks and he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was crying.

  ‘Have you tried reaching her on a mobile, if she has one?’

  ‘It was the first thing I did,’ he half sobbed, half yelled into the phone. ‘I… I’m sorry. I left her a message earlier, but it’s not been marked as read, and she’s not picking up the phone or replying to her voicemail. If she was okay, she’d have got in touch straight away. She wouldn’t want to leave me worrying like this.’

  ‘I understand how concerned you must be. I’m going to give you the names and phone numbers of the three hospitals where the casualties are being taken for treatment. You’ll be able to check directly with them to see if she has been admitted to one of them. And please don’t assume the worst because she’s not answering her phone. Possessions often get separated from their owners at times like this. We have your contact details now, so if we receive any news of your wife, we’ll call you straight back.’

  Alex made it to the downstairs cloakroom with only seconds to spare. The last time he’d been that sick he’d blamed it on Lisa’s heavy hand with the tequila when she’d mixed a jug of margaritas. He’d staggered out of the cloakroom just the way he was doing right now, only this time he wasn’t drunk and Lisa wasn’t waiting for him in the kitchen with a smiling apology and a cool cloth for his forehead. She was… She was… He didn’t know where the hell she was, and for a terrible moment he thought he was going to have to race back to the downstairs WC. But throwing up in terror was an indulgence he couldn’t allow himself. He had phone calls to make.

  Typically, each of the hospitals kept him on hold for an excruciatingly long time. And when eventually they came back to him, they all had the same response. No patient had been admitted with his wife’s name. Alex stood swaying in the kitchen after ending the final phone call. Was this good news or bad? The switchboard operators had made it clear that the situation was ongoing and that ambulances were still arriving in a continuous stream to their A & E departments. ‘What should I do?’ he’d asked. ‘Keep phoning back,’ he was told.

  The television was still playing, its volume turned down to a whisper. ‘Wait,’ they all said, every time he phoned back. Were they joking? How could he possibly do that when the woman who was his entire world was lost in their system, possibly hurt, possibly… No, he wouldn’t let his mind go there, even though he’d staggered as though punched when the tickertape on the screen was updated with the dreadful news that the number of confirmed fatalities had now risen to eight.

  *

  ‘Hey, Alex, what are you doing calling us in the middle of the day?’

  He liked Dee, his sister-in-law; he had done from the moment Todd had introduced them, but right now he had no desire to talk to her.

  ‘Is Todd there?’

  How she could tell from just those three words that something awful had happened, he had no idea, but clearly she was way more perceptive than he’d realised.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  The words were stuck in his throat. He didn’t think he could get them out more than once. ‘Dee, please, put Todd on the phone.’

  The phone clattered in his ear and he heard voices, followed quickly by the sound of feet pounding down their hallway towards the phone.

  ‘Alex?’ Concern was in his older brother’s voice, and perhaps that was what made the tears he’d hoped to hold back begin to fall once more.

  ‘It’s Lisa,’ Alex said in a hoarse whisper. ‘There’s been an accident.’

  ‘What? At the exhibition?’

  Todd was confused, and suddenly Alex knew he couldn’t say the words that were lodged in his throat, in danger of choking him. ‘Turn on the news channel,’ he said weakly, propping himself up against the wall as he heard his brother relay that message to Dee.

  He heard his sister-in-law’s cry and then a muffled sound, the kind people make when they’re biting down hard on a clenched fist to stifle a sob.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ breathed Todd on a shaky sigh.

  ‘I can’t get any information out of the authorities. She might have been taken to any one of three hospitals, or she could still be trapped in the wreckage, or she… or she…’ There was no way he was ever going to be able to finish that sentence.

  ‘What can we do?’

  This was why he’d made this call. Because Todd had always been the one who thought things through, who instinctively knew the right course of action. Alex, by his own admission, had been a hothead when they were younger. It had taken the arrival of a certain beautiful young woman with a love of astronomy, books and him to change him into the man he was today.

  ‘I know you’re off work for a few days, so do you think you could collect Connor from school this afternoon? I need to get there.’

  ‘Get where?’

  ‘To the hospitals. To where the train crashed. I don’t know… I just need to find her.’

  ‘Whoa. Slow down, mate. Take a breath.’

  ‘I can’t. Not till I know she’s okay.’

  The phone went muffled and Alex knew the handset was being held tightly against his brother’s body as he spoke to Dee.

  ‘Okay, this is what’s going to happen. Dee will go to Conn
or’s school and pick him up and bring him here. He can play with Maisie until you get back – until you and Lisa get back,’ he corrected rapidly. The slip didn’t go unnoticed.

  Todd continued in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘No way am I letting you go off in a car on this search by yourself. You hang on twenty minutes and I’ll pick you up. We’ll go together.’

  Alex didn’t feel his knees give way, he just knew they must have done because he’d slid down to the bottom of the wall.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

  ‘Stay strong, little brother. I’m on my way.’

  4

  Alex

  Todd was as good as his word. They lived far enough apart for twenty minutes to have been an optimistic ETA, and yet Todd was there in seventeen.

  Alex had spent most of that time pacing the confines of his kitchen, terrified of watching the news but powerless to tear his eyes from it. There was nothing new to report, on the TV or online, yet he scanned the same piece of footage over and over again, straining his eyes to find his wife’s face among the casualties being helped from the wreckage. Each time he failed to find her, his panic went up another notch.

  A flurry of gravel flew up on the drive as Todd swung his car in at speed, bringing it to a halt beside Alex’s. Through the window Alex saw him leap out and run towards the front door, at a pace he’d never seen him use on the squash courts. Alex had the door open before he had a chance to lift the polished brass knocker.

  They fell like magnets against each other, embracing in a way they hadn’t done since their father’s funeral four years earlier. ‘Everything’s going to be okay, Alex. I’m sure of it.’

  It took a brother to know from the gruffness of Todd’s voice that he was in fact far from sure about anything. When they were boys, Alex had idolised his older brother, believing everything he ever told him. He longed to do the same now, but the evidence was pointing to an entirely different outcome.

  ‘You ready to go?’

  Alex nodded and pulled the door to a close behind him, not even bothering to go back in to switch off the television or make sure the doors were locked. His disregard for home security would have appalled Lisa, who routinely double-checked everything. Why had he always found that trait so irritating? Alex wondered as he climbed into the passenger seat. He promised himself he’d never be annoyed by it again. This was the first of many bargains he struck with himself during the two-and-a-half-hour drive to London. Lisa would scarcely recognise the paragon of virtue he planned to morph into, he thought. His mouth twisted into a spasm that was the closest he’d be able to get to a smile until he saw her again.

  Todd had always been a careful driver, a law-abiding individual, which had nothing to do with his profession as a lawyer, it was just the way he was wired. If Alex hadn’t been so distracted, he’d have been shocked to see how his brother quickly reached the speed limit on every road and then pressed his foot down a little harder on the accelerator. But while Todd was busy gathering potential speeding fines, Alex was preoccupied with his phone. He contacted the hospitals in turn, allowing himself only a ten-minute respite between each round of calls before doing it all over again.

  Todd said nothing, but his hands tightened on the wheel after every abortive call. They were still twenty miles outside London when Alex finally received the news he’d been waiting for.

  ‘Lisa Stevens? Yes. She’s just been admitted to St Mark’s Hospital.’

  The relief hit Alex like a punch, making him gasp as though winded. ‘She’s there? Oh, thank God. How is she? Can you tell me if she’s been hurt?’

  Todd briefly took his eyes from the motorway and flashed a look of relief Alex’s way.

  There was a pause, too long to be comfortable, before the operator came back on the line. ‘I’m very sorry, but I don’t have any further information on her condition. But the notes show that she’s about to be moved to the ICU.’

  Alex’s hopes of minor cuts and bruises or even a broken limb or two were whipped away like confetti in a tornado, leaving a new level of concern in their place.

  ‘It’s got to be bad if they’re taking her to Intensive Care.’

  Todd’s eyes were on the road and the speedometer showed that they were now doing eighty miles an hour. ‘Not necessarily,’ he replied carefully. ‘It could be that they need to keep a closer eye on her, to assess her better.’

  As they reached the outer suburbs of London, the inevitable snarl-ups slowed them down to a maddening stop-start crawl.

  ‘Do you think I should phone them again?’ Alex asked, his eyes flitting worriedly from the traffic to his watch. There was practically nothing left of Alex the confident husband and father, a man used to making decisions without the need to confer. The events of the morning had stripped him raw, leaving him with little capacity to process information, let alone think clearly. He hoped he wouldn’t be asked to make any important decisions today, because he very much doubted he’d be capable of doing so.

  ‘According to Google Maps we’re only twelve minutes away. Let’s hang tight and see what the situation is when we get there.’

  Even before the tyres had come to a complete stop outside the main doors of St Mark’s, Alex had leapt from the car and was racing towards the entrance.

  ‘I’ll park in the multi-storey and be right behind you,’ Todd said, lifting his voice to be heard above the sound of sirens that seemed to be coming from every direction. But Alex was already sprinting through the hospital’s revolving doors.

  If there was orderliness in the foyer, Alex couldn’t see it. All he could see was chaos and clusters of people standing helplessly around, most wearing expressions very similar to his own. Some of them were clutching photographs of their loved ones, desperately showing them to anyone who passed by in the hope that they had seen them. Others were huddled together in groups, quietly weeping.

  A separate enquiry desk had been set up, with a handwritten sign stuck crookedly on the wall behind it for anyone enquiring about passengers on the train. Alex’s heart thundered like a jackhammer as he crossed the foyer. There were two people manning the desk and they looked like they were having one of the worst days of their working lives.

  An elderly couple were already at the desk, their arms wound tightly around each other, making it impossible to tell who was holding who up.

  ‘Our son, he was on the train,’ Alex heard the man say brokenly. ‘No one has been able to tell us where he is. Can you help us?’

  The receptionist checked her computer screen and then picked up one of several clipboards on the desk. The list of names was shockingly long. Alex glanced sideways and locked eyes with the desperate couple, who looked far too old and frail to withstand bad news. He shuddered, imagining how he’d feel if it was Connor and not Lisa he was looking for. He thought he’d plumbed the depths of this waking nightmare and was surprised to discover it actually had a whole other level.

  The second receptionist beckoned him to approach and the words were already tumbling from him before he reached her. She reached for her keyboard in response, her fingers moving nowhere near as fast as Alex would have liked. It had taken him so many hours to get here, and now he was only minutes away from seeing Lisa, being separated from her felt like an act of torture.

  ‘Ah, yes, here she is.’ The receptionist lifted the phone on her desk. ‘Let me call the unit and ask someone to come down and take you up to her.’

  Alex shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. Just tell me which floor she’s on. I’ll make my own way there.’

  The receptionist looked troubled, but Alex didn’t give a toss that he was probably breaking hospital regulations. He couldn’t wait a moment longer. The elderly man gave him a small nod of approval before turning back to his quietly weeping wife.

  ‘It’s on the fifth floor, but really you should—’

  Alex had already turned from the desk, his eyes scoping the foyer for the lifts or a staircase. He paused for a second to a
ddress the elderly couple. ‘I hope it’s good news for you.’

  The man with the sparse white hair and the fear-filled eyes nodded sympathetically. ‘For you too, son.’

  There was a crowd at the bank of lifts. Visitors with bunches of flowers waited patiently beside staff going about their everyday duties, as though this wasn’t the day when the world changed. No one seemed the slightest bit bothered that every lift was still at least ten floors away from the foyer. But Alex minded. He minded a lot.

  He turned away and barrelled through a pair of swing doors that led to the stairwell. After hours of impotence in the car, it felt good to push himself as he bounded up the steel-edged treads, taking the stairs two or even three at a time. He was running to her, finally closing the distance between them, and when he reached her side he had absolutely no intention of ever leaving it.

  The ward was harder to infiltrate than Alcatraz. There were two sets of doors that required buzzed-in entry, and when he’d passed through them Alex was almost immediately stopped by a nurse whose bulging forearms said ‘nightclub bouncer’ more than ‘healthcare professional’. Alex had a sudden vision of ducking past him and running down the corridor calling out Lisa’s name. He shook his head, wondering if it was possible for a person to actually go crazy from anxiety.

  ‘Mr Stevens?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘I… Yes, I’m Alex Stevens. You have my wife here.’

  That the receptionist had phoned ahead to forestall his arrival was a minor irritation which only gained significance much later. For now, Alex’s sole concern was reaching Lisa without a further second of delay.

  ‘Yes, we do. Let me take you to her.’

  These were the words Alex had been waiting all morning to hear, and yet his footsteps dragged inexplicably as he followed the nurse down the squeaky, linoleum-floored corridor.

  ‘How is she? How badly is she hurt?’