‘I know,’ he replies with a grin, before strolling up the path to the house.
Sam turns to me. ‘Can you remember anything else?’
I close my eyes and concentrate again. ‘Nothing. Except that underground logo.’
‘So, if Callum was on a tube train the night he died, that’s where we’ve got to start,’ he says, suddenly getting to his feet.
‘What d’you mean “start”?’ I ask nervously.
‘We’ve got to try and recreate his journey. Then maybe you’ll remember more.’
I can feel the blood draining from my face as I think of the hordes of bodies in the confined space of a tube station. Hundreds of people carrying a multitude of germs. My worst nightmare.
‘I . . . I don’t think I can do it.’
Sam looks at me, puzzled. ‘But you’re better now, aren’t you?’ he asks. ‘You said you were going back to school on Monday and everything.’
‘It’s not that.’ I sigh. ‘I’ve got this thing about being in crowded places. I can’t cope with them. I get really panicky.’
There’s an awkward silence.
‘So that’s why you never wanted to get a bus or tube to the park . . . I thought you just liked walking.’
I hang my head. ‘I didn’t want to tell you the real reason.’
‘I would have understood.’
‘Then please don’t ask me to do this.’
‘But if you don’t, you’re never going to find out what happened that night,’ says Sam urgently. ‘It’s our only clue.’
59
I toss and turn all that night, thinking about what to do. I know Sam is right. The only hope I have of finding out what really happened to Callum is to try to retrace his steps – but I’m petrified. By the time I’m dressed the following morning, I’ve come to a decision. Before I can change my mind, I text Sam to tell him I’ll meet him at the park at ten, then I cadge a lift from Joe, who’s taking Danny to football practice.
‘You sure you’re feeling OK, Becky?’ Joe asks, as we drop Danny off at his practice ground.
‘I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry. Just need a bit of fresh air.’
Despite my protestations, he insists on my staying with him in the car until we see Sam coming along the street.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ I say, hopping out of the car.
‘You mind how you go . . . Stay with Sam,’ he calls after me.
‘Don’t worry, I will!’ I reply, as I walk through the park gates and hurry over to Sam.
Sam takes my hand in his and holds it gently. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he says quietly. ‘I’ll be with you all the time.’
I give his hand a small squeeze and we head across the park, down past the still water of the boating lake and up to the gate on the opposite side. I think about the monster fish lurking beneath the surface and wonder if he’s still there.
We walk along the street to the crossroads where the little shop sits low and squat between two elegant terraces. Then, instead of turning left into Callum’s road, we go straight on for about a hundred metres, till we see the underground sign ahead of us.
‘Ready?’ asks Sam.
‘Yeah,’ I say, tightening my grip on his hand. ‘Let’s go.’
60
We walk together into the tube station foyer. I glance around nervously. There are a few people milling about, but it reassures me slightly to see that the place is pretty empty. We head over to the ticket machine and study the tube map on the wall.
‘So where do we go?’ Sam asks, turning to me.
As I scan the different stations, I try to weigh up whether one seems more important than any other, but nothing jumps out at me.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply with a bewildered shrug.
In the end we buy all-day travelcards. We go through the barrier and make our way down a winding tunnel until we reach an escalator, which I know will plunge us down into the depths of the station.
‘OK?’ asks Sam.
I’m not, but I nod as confidently as I can.
As we step onto the escalator and ride down on its silver grilled steps, a sooty draught blasts up at us and makes me shiver. I can hear the distant rumblings of trains travelling deep beneath us. I feel for Sam’s hand and hold it tightly. He turns back to me and gives a reassuring smile, but he looks different – the pale fluorescent lighting has sucked the colour from his skin.
At the bottom of the escalator we are confronted by two tunnels, snaking off in opposite directions. As we stand between them, trying to decide which one to take, a crowd of people comes flooding out from the left-hand tunnel, surging around us. Seconds later, more people emerge from the other tunnel. Over the tannoy, a voice is spouting something about ‘unavoidable delays’.
‘Sam?’ I say, looking at him fearfully.
‘Let’s go,’ he replies, and we start to weave our way down the second tunnel through the mass of people. I just manage to cling onto his hand until we get to the platform, but then we become separated by a few metres.
‘Go further along the platform,’ Sam calls to me urgently. ‘We’ll get on the next train . . .’
I try to catch him up, but two women pushing buggies come between us and I just can’t get past them. ‘Sam – wait!’ I call.
A train is pulling in now. Its doors swish open and, as people flood out, others surge forward, ready to climb on. Sam is about three metres away from me now. As he steps onto the train, people surge in front of me, filling the carriage and forcing Sam further down inside.
Before I can get any nearer, the doors to the carriage snap shut. For a few brief seconds, I catch a glimpse of Sam’s horrified face staring out at me from behind the grubby window, then I watch the train move slowly off, until it’s swallowed completely by the darkness of the tunnel ahead.
61
I spin around, wondering what to do. The platform is still crowded and I desperately feel the urge to run for the exit, to get right out of this dark cave and back up into the sunshine outside. But I force my feet to remain planted where they are. Within a couple of minutes, a second train draws up at the platform. I figure that Sam will get out at the next station and wait for me there. All I have to do, I tell myself, is to get on this train, then get out at the next stop and rejoin him.
But this is easier said than done. Even if I manage to summon up the courage to follow my plan, the train in front of me is packed. I glance around the busy platform. How on earth are all these extra bodies going to fit in there too, I wonder, as my heart starts to thump faster.
The doors to the carriages swish open and several passengers get out, then everyone surrounding me suddenly surges forward. Caught in the moving tide of people, I nervously edge towards the nearest carriage entrance, then take two more small steps and find myself inside the train.
I planned to stay as close to the doors as I can, but I’m carried deeper inside until I’m standing in the middle of the carriage between two facing rows of seats. The hot air smells stale. I cover my nose and mouth with my hand, in the hope that I can somehow avoid breathing in anything bad. The doors at each end of the carriage are wide open. I can still get off. But within seconds they swish shut and it’s too late. There’s no escape now.
The train lurches away from the platform. I can’t bear to hold onto anything, so I immediately fall sideways.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble stupidly into the back of a grey overcoat, whose owner doesn’t reply. Reluctantly, I reach my left arm above me and fix my hand around the handrail, which is coated, I know, with layers of invisible bacteria from the hundreds of hands that have touched it previously. It can’t be long until we get to the next stop, I try to reassure myself, as the carriage lurches and rattles its way through the dark tunnel.
With each passing second, I become more and more aware of a thick, choking sensation building in my throat. My skin prickles hot and cold, my heart is racing. I lower my head and stare at the floor, which seems to be moving up and down. My whol
e body feels unsteady and weak – I’m getting giddy. Desperately I look up and fix my eyes on a single spot on the ceiling of the carriage. Just a few more seconds, I tell myself over and over again. I just have to hang on for a tiny bit longer and I’ll make it.
But then something unexpected happens. The train grinds to a halt, its brakes squealing. We’re all jolted forward and I fight hard to stay on my feet. Outside, there is nothing but darkness. We’ve stopped in the middle of nowhere. There are low resigned groans and irritated mutters from people around me, followed by a subdued silence as everyone waits for something to happen.
A few minutes later, without warning, all the lights go out. The whole train is plunged into pitch black. There are gasps and a small child at the far end of the carriage starts to wail uncontrollably. Near to me I can hear the anxious voices of a French couple.
Then an elderly lady’s voice calls out, ‘Something terrible must have happened.’
As the long minutes pass, and no lights come back on, rumours of fires and bomb attacks start to spread around the carriage. Moment by moment, the air in the carriage feels hotter, stifling. Unbearable. A man near me mutters that he has to get out. Further down the carriage, I can hear someone banging on a window.
Then, just when I think I can’t bear it any longer, out of the darkness and the chaos around me, I suddenly hear a voice I recognise.
Someone clearly says, ‘Everything’s spangles.’
It’s the same voice I heard in the hospital, the night I almost died. The voice that, until this moment, I was sure belonged to one of the nurses. A wave of relief washes over me, and I hear myself calling loudly into the blackness surrounding me, ‘Please, everyone . . . there’s no need to be frightened!’
To my surprise, the whole carriage slowly quietens. Even the little toddler at the far end hushes.
‘Everything is going to be all right.’
62
Within seconds, the lights in the carriage come on again, and everyone peers around, blinking and half-dazed by the harsh fluorescent glare. Feelings of relief are visible on people’s faces, and a self-conscious cheer goes up from a group of lads bunched in the far corner. Perhaps it’s just me, but everyone seems to be smiling.
Finally, the train starts moving again. As we pull into the station some minutes later, I peer through the window, searching for Sam. There’s no sign of him. The platform is empty, except for a group of Japanese tourists trundling suitcases behind them. The carriage doors open and people start getting off the train.
I’m about to follow, when something stops me in my tracks. I don’t see or hear anything – I just have an incredibly strong feeling that this isn’t the right place. Callum’s journey isn’t over here. I turn around and go and sit down on one of the now empty seats.
A little boy of about two sits down next to me followed by a girl. It’s Leah. We stare at each other in shock. Neither of us speaks for a moment. The little boy kneels on the seat beside me and bounces a small plastic dinosaur along the shelf behind. I realise he is the toddler who was so frightened earlier.
‘My little brother, Ben,’ Leah says finally.
‘Last time I saw him he wasn’t even walking,’ I reply.
We sit side by side, in total embarrassment. Shyly, the little boy smiles up at me. I smile back.
‘I was petrified when all the lights went out,’ Leah says quietly.
‘Me too.’
‘Everything all right,’ says the little boy.
‘Was that you, Becky?’ asks Leah. ‘I thought I recognised your voice.’
I nod.
We pull into a station. Leah picks up Ben and stands up.
‘I’m getting off here. Got to drop Ben off at my auntie’s. Dad’s working all next week. Where are you going?’
‘Um . . . I’m not sure.’
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, don’t worry. I’m fine. Really.’
We wait awkwardly for the doors to open.
‘See you back at school, then.’
I look up at her. ‘Bye.’
‘You take care,’ she says, looking me straight in the eye.
‘And you.’ I watch her get off the train and walk up the platform as the train moves off.
I look around the carriage and recognise the voice of the old lady who thought something terrible had happened. She’s talking to the young lad next to her. At the other end of the carriage, the man in a grey overcoat is offering a bottle of water to the French couple.
As we travel on, I gradually become aware that this is what Callum was doing when he went off on his own. He was riding the tube trains all day. And then I realise the truth. I no longer have my own heart, I have someone else’s. I’ll be connected to him for as long as I live, just as he is connected to me – but I’m not afraid of that any more.
I look around at my fellow travellers and realise that our carriage, trundling along on the rails beneath us, is just one of hundreds, each full of people whose stories interweave as they journey through life. And no matter how hard we may try to go it alone, it doesn’t work – we still need one another, as we all hurtle through space on the same crowded planet.
63
The train pulls into the next station, my heart misses a beat and I know this is where I have to get off. I step out of the carriage and make my way through the gloomy tunnel. I hurry up the escalator and rush out of the station into the stark sunshine, then quickly text Sam and tell him I’m OK.
I have no idea where I am, but this isn’t going to stop me. Turning left, I start running along the street, dodging passers-by, ignoring their wary looks. The soles of my trainers strike the pavement with a satisfying thudding sound, and I give in to the urge to run faster and faster. Soon I’m sprinting flat out like a shot from a gun, and my heart is beating fit to burst. But I feel no fear. No panic. I’m totally exhilarated. The last time I felt like this was approaching the finishing tape at the cross-country race I won a few days before I got ill.
The enormity of what Callum has done for me hits me now with a force that stuns me. He thought beyond himself, his own life, his own death and reached out to help a fellow human being. Someone he’d never even met. He’s given me the precious gift of new life. How on earth could I have wasted so much time already?
Out of the blue, a sharp pain stabs into my heart and stops me dead in my tracks. As I rub my chest, trying to ease it, I glance around confused.
Then I see them. On the opposite pavement, leaning against the foot of a lamp-post are the withered remnants of a bunch of flowers. As I cross the road, I know this is where Callum died. I feel overwhelmed by sadness, but there’s something stronger gnawing at me too. A terrible yearning. I’m still not at the right place. Something inside me insists that Callum wasn’t being chased the night he died. He wasn’t mad or bad, and he hadn’t been running away from anything. He was running towards something.
He’d been so desperate to get to his destination that he wasn’t looking, and he’d run out in front of a car. His death had been a terrible event that he hadn’t seen coming. Just like my infection and Alice’s heart failing, bad, unfair things sometimes happen. But because of Callum’s death, I’m now alive. Unwittingly, he’s saved me and I’m totally and utterly grateful. And now, I realise I need to do something for him in return.
64
I start walking. I have no idea where I’m going, but this is a minor detail. I just need to get there. I thread my way through the back streets. At one point, I’m about to take a right turning, but hesitate, then take the opposite turning. The one I somehow know is correct.
Ten minutes later, I stop in front of a pub. Its door is half open, and the smell of beer and cooked food comes wafting out. Puzzled, I look up, then give a surprised gasp. Painted on the sign hanging over the pavement is a white swan – the name of the pub. I know I’ve arrived. I’m finally in the right place.
I step inside. The room is almost empty. There’s just one old man in t
he corner, nursing a mug of beer and the landlord standing behind the bar polishing a glass.
‘Yes, love?’ asks the landlord.
I stand here not knowing what to do or say.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ the old man sniggers.
‘Callum Hunter . . .’ I say hesitantly.
‘Callum Hunter?’ The landlord looks puzzled. ‘Nick Hunter, you mean?’
‘Um. Yes . . . is he here?’
‘Out the back. I’ll give him a shout. You’d better wait outside – you’re underage, love . . . Nick, someone here for you!’ he calls as I scurry back outside and wait. Seconds later, a man appears. I feel I know him.
‘Who are you?’ he asks.
‘My name’s Becky Simmons.’
‘Do I know you?’ He’s frowning now.
‘No. But I need to tell you something.’
‘Oh yeah . . . tell me what?’
‘Callum —’
His face suddenly changes. ‘What about Callum?’ he demands. ‘Look, love, if this is some kind of wind up, I don’t need it, all right?’
He turns and is almost back through the pub door. I have to say something, quickly. ‘I need to tell you that . . . that . . . everything’s spangles —’ I blurt out.
He stops and turns to face me. His eyes search my face and meet mine. ‘Say again?’ he says suspiciously.
‘Everything . . . is . . . spangles?’
He glares at me. I can feel myself blushing.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . .’ My voice trails away as I notice the tears welling up in his eyes.
‘That’s what Callum used to say,’ he says quietly. ‘Every time we’d had an argument. “Everything’s spangles, Dad,” he’d say, and then I knew our bust-up was over and everything was all right.’ He wipes his face with the palm of his hand. ‘It was our code. No one else knew about it – not even his mum.’ He stops and stares at me. ‘So how on earth do you know that and what do you want?’
Heartbeat Away Page 12