Grow

by Luke Palmer

  The lady turns around.

  At first, she smiles at me, thinking me to be a customer, or that I’m reading one of the many posters in the window.

  Then she sees the hammer.

  I bring it down with as much force as I can just as the wash of terror floods across her face. I raise my left arm as the blow strikes, shielding myself from the shower of shards that explode from the centre of the window. My gloveless hand follows the hammer through its trajectory, through the window, the falling glass all around me. Then I’m raising my hand again, back through the gaping, ragged hole, bringing the hammer down somewhere else. I hear the scream from inside but I keep smashing and smashing, the glass raining down onto the pavement and inside the shop. In what must be the fourth or fifth slash at the window, the hammer slips from my grip, flying straight at the smallest child mannequin and knocking it over. The handle of the hammer is red with blood. My blood. I didn’t feel the cuts. I spin on my heels and sprint in the direction I have been told as, behind me, I hear the roar of an engine fading into the distance, going the other way.

  The whole thing takes less than ten seconds.

  FORTY EIGHT

  At the bus station, I wrap my hand in my coat as best I can, which makes paying the driver difficult. I have to reach my left hand across my body to my opposite trouser pocket. My lungs are burning from the run, my legs and head woozy from shock or blood loss or both. Inside the sleeve of my coat, I can feel the warm wetness increasing.

  The bus is mercifully empty, and I sit on my own at the back of the lower level. Once the bus pulls out of the bus station, with no blue flashing lights in sight, I gingerly remove my hand from the sleeve.

  Two pieces of glass are sticking out of my red right hand. One, about the size of a two pound coin, is wedged into the place where my thumb meets my palm. The other, longer but thinner, sticks out from the knuckle of my middle finger. I take hold of this longer piece first and try to pull. The pain makes my head swim.

  Transferring my attention to the other shard, I brace myself as I try to clasp its wet, sticky sides in my left hand. With the smallest possible movements, I ease it clear of my flesh and let it fall to the floor. I’m whimpering like an animal. Sweat is rapidly cooling under my arms and across the top of my back. I feel like I’m congealing in a feverish puddle.

  It’s another five minutes before I can touch the other piece again; five minutes in which I cradle my hand as the bus lurches around corners and jolts over speed bumps. I grit my teeth, this time gripping the sharp edges of the glass to get a better hold. I feel the bulb of my thumb give way against the shard, and this new pain lessens the pain in my knuckle as I gently pull upwards. I yelp as the glass slips loose, tears filling my eyes. A fresh bloom of blood weeps from the deep gash as the second blade of glass falls to the floor. I wrap my hand tightly inside my coat sleeve again, and lean my forehead against the cool comfort of the window.

  The bus journey takes almost an hour. Maybe some people get on and some people get off, but I spend most of the journey with my eyes closed.

  It’s getting dark as we get to recognisable streets. When we’re within walking distance of home, I press the bell and lurch towards the front, my right hand gripped under my left arm. I step from the cold bus into the even colder evening, and am surprised at how quickly the pavement comes up to meet me.

  It would be so much easier to lie here all night, but I force myself back to my feet. The bus driver is standing in the door of the bus, shouting something after me as I hobble and stagger down the road. After a while, I hear the bus pull away.

  But it isn’t over. Not yet.

  As I veer towards my driveway and my merciful front door, headlights flash at me from across the road.

  ‘In here. Now.’ It’s Carl’s voice.

  It’s all I can do to lurch into the back seat. Alan is there, and takes my hand gingerly, unpeeling my fingers and flicking on the door light to get a better look.

  ‘You’ve really fucked yourself here Josh. You feeling OK?’

  I mutter a response; my throat feels like it’s full of cotton wool.

  ‘Here.’ Alan takes a bottle of water from the footwell, opens it for me. I drink in large gulps, each one seeming to bring new life back into my numbed arm and, with it, more pain. ‘Easy. Go slow. Small sips, yeah?’

  Alan has a roll of kitchen towel and he’s wrapping my hand slowly, making wide circles around the wounds. He’s almost tender.

  ‘Don’t get blood on my seats.’ Carl’s eyes are slits in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘He did it though, Bro. Didn’t he? Smashed that window right up. Did you see that old bint’s face? Priceless!’

  ‘Yeah. I saw.’ Carl is quiet for a moment. Alan continues to wrap my hand, slightly tighter now. In the stark white light I see the faintest crimson blush appear on the top layer of paper towel. He admires his handiwork and lays my hand back in my lap.

  Carl continues. ‘You did alright, soldier. How do you feel?’

  ‘Like shit.’

  ‘It’ll pass. Listen. I want you to know I don’t do these things lightly. Martin has reservations, and when your superiors give orders, you follow them, right?’

  I’d almost forgotten about Martin.

  ‘Told you he was a good soldier,’ Alan adds. I’m not sure whether he’s talking about me or Carl.

  ‘I’m proud of you, son.’ Hearing that word from Carl’s mouth is like another wound opening. The pain is electric. ‘I’m sorry I said those things about your dad, too. You are doing something to honour him.’ He turns in his seat, facing me. ‘When I was in, y’know in the army, it felt like a family to me. The first one I’d really known. And when … what happened, happened, they were all taken from me. So I know what it’s like. The Lions can be your new family, Josh. They’re my new family. We can look after you, get you through this, make you feel like you again.’

  I already have a family, is what I want to say. But I can only nod.

  ‘I don’t tell many people this, but I was the reconnaissance guy on that mission. It was me who was supposed to spot those IEDs, recognise the tricks those bastards were using. But I didn’t. I failed.’

  Next to me, Alan seems to shiver, almost as if he’s willing Carl to stop talking.

  He doesn’t. ‘Five men lost their lives because of me. Five members of my family. Every time I see one of those people it makes me so angry. The people who kidnapped my family, cut their throats on camera and broadcast it to the world like they were cattle, like they were animals. Well, they’re less than animals to me. All of them. We should be smashing all their windows in. Ripping down everything they’re trying to build in this country. Our country. They’re trying to take it away from us.’ Carl’s eyes are hard, cold.

  Alan is growing jittery, shaking his head and his body from side to side. Each bounce of his leg rocks the car, sends more stabs of pain through my hand and up into my shoulder.

  ‘So I know how you feel to have lost someone, OK? I know what it’s like to be responsible for it. We’re connected by that, Josh. There’s a link there. We’ve both suffered, you and me, because of being responsible. And so I don’t like doing what I had to do this evening. But I had to. Martin called it. And he’s in charge. You understand that, don’t you?’

  Again, just a single nod.

  ‘One more thing. There’s another guy, another Lion, someone I should have been able to trust. You met him. He bought you a drink.’

  The man in the blue jumper. Kind face. Lost eyes. Dan.

  ‘He wasn’t committed. He wouldn’t show his loyalty like you did today. He was more likely to do a runner. Tell the police. Well I won’t tell you what I did so you won’t have to lie. Suffice to say he won’t be running off anywhere for a while.’

  ‘Running off, yeah.’ Vince laughs. A terrible, low growl of a laugh.

  Alan is fiddling with the door handle, the window button, a thread on the knee of his jeans.

  ‘I’m glad
I didn’t have to do that twice.’ Carl points a finger at me. ‘You find a way to keep in touch, so we can avoid this happening again.’ He turns in his seat, reaches awkwardly behind, and places a hand on my shoulder. ‘Especially as we’re all doing this for you.’ Then he turns back towards the road, starts the engine and places both hands tightly on the wheel. ‘Now, out.’

  For the third time that day, the roar of the engine, the squeal of tyres in the cold air.

  *

  At home, I pull the under-stairs cupboard apart looking for the first aid kit. Inside, there are a couple of large bandages. I peel off Alan’s effort, careful not to rip the kitchen towel where it’s stuck to my skin. I run my hand very briefly under the cold tap to get rid of the worst of the blood and the few scraps of paper that I couldn’t peel off. The pain is so deep I almost pass out. What little blood is still coming from the wounds is thicker now, the flow slowing down. It’s difficult to bandage my right hand with my left, but I manage it eventually before wiping down the bathroom with the anti-bac wipes that are kept under the sink.

  Visions of the shop woman’s face, and Dan’s – what have they done to him? – swim in front of me as I put my coat, my jumper and T-shirt into the washing machine. Questions come, and I hear them in Dad’s voice. What did I do to her? What did Carl do to Dan? I hear again and again her scream, the deafening crash of the glass, feel the weight of the hammer in my hand, which is Carl’s hand, covered in my blood, the woman’s blood. Dan’s blood? What did they do to Dan? Was that for me, too? My legs are about to buckle under me, my stomach lurches to one side. I see my dad pulling glass from his bloody hands. Half of his body is burned away. I’m halfway up the stairs, still standing in front of that shop window. The hammer in my hand is in Dad’s hand. He’s asking what I’ve done. He’s smashing at glass, screaming in a voice which is the woman’s voice. Responsible, they scream. Responsible. Responsible!

  With what feels like the last of my strength, I haul my pale form up the rest of the stairs and pass out on the bed.

  FORTY NINE

  The next day – a Sunday – I wake up late. Despite the complete black-out for about sixteen hours, I feel like I’ve barely slept at all. One word has gone around and around my mind: responsible. Does Carl think I was responsible for Dad’s death? Was I responsible? I try to shrug the thoughts off. I fail. Am I responsible for everything they’re doing, now? For Carl’s plan? Is it really … mine?

  There’s just enough time to check I cleaned the bathroom properly (I didn’t, but quickly make amends) and to take my clothes from the washing machine before Mum comes home. I’ve no idea if I managed to get all the blood out, but the coat, jumper and T-shirt are all dark colours, so it shouldn’t show too much if I haven’t.

  I haven’t had time to think of a suitable story about my injuries, so have to make one up on the spot.

  ‘I was trying to get a beer from the shed and slipped. I smashed a bottle and it went through my hand.’

  Mum is too sympathetic. Perhaps she didn’t hear that I was hunting booze. Or maybe it’s because of this, or because she wasn’t at home but off somewhere with Mr Walters again. She doesn’t even tell me off for not calling her, but demands to look, unwrapping me carefully.

  The bleeding has stopped, but both cuts are very deep and seem to scream from my hand like open mouths. When I clench my fist as Mum asks, the deeper one starts to ooze again. Mum gets another bandage from under the stairs.

  ‘Right, in the car. You need stitches.’

  I don’t argue.

  I feel Mum’s eyes on me from time to time as we drive to the hospital. I slip in and out of a kind of sleep where my eyes are open, or where my eyes are closed but I can hear everything that’s going on; the groan of the engine, the swish of other cars passing by, the happy voice of the radio DJ. That word: responsible.

  It’s not a long wait in A&E, and the doctor is quite impressed by how clean the cuts are, and how deep, and by how little I seem to be phased by the four numbing injections and the ten stitches – six in the thumb, four in the knuckle – that go towards sealing up my shredded hand.

  Back in the car, it feels like my hand is floating – detached from my body. It feels like someone else’s hand.

  *

  It’s when we get home that the questions start. Mum makes two cups of tea and ushers me into the lounge. She even opens a packet of biscuits as a sign, maybe, that she is not a threat.

  ‘How does it feel?’ She starts gently, not probing too much.

  There’s a huge part of me that just wants to spill my guts; to tell her everything that’s happened in the past few months and to declare, once and for all, that I’m not coping. I don’t want to be responsible. I want to make this all someone else’s problem, and be told what to do.

  But I don’t. Instead, I say, ‘It’s OK.’

  A silence follows. I take a biscuit, pinching it gently between the bound fingers of my right hand.

  ‘Can you tell me what’s going on please, Josh?’ Mum’s voice is starting to quiver already. ‘First it was that bruise on your face … I know you said you fell up the stairs, and I believe you … but I’m trying to find a place where this all started. Are you getting bullied at school?’

  ‘No, Mum.’

  ‘And you coming out with that line a few weeks back about… about ‘us’ and ‘them’, and how what happened to your dad somehow means that—’

  ‘Don’t talk about him, please.’ I have to really concentrate to stop my voice from cracking.

  ‘Who? Your dad? Why?’

  ‘I just … I don’t want to think about him with all of … all of this …’

  ‘All of what, Josh?’ There’s a pause; the silence getting louder the longer it lasts. ‘Look, I know what you mean. And I know I’ve hardly been a model parent since he died.’

  I hear Mum swallow, hard. It’s the first time I’ve heard her use those last two words.

  ‘But I need to know what this is. I want to help. You’re not you at the moment, Josh. You’ve turned into somebody else. And it seems that that bruise on your cheek was the starting point.’

  ‘I fell up the stairs.’

  ‘I know you did, love. But the beer that keeps disappearing from the shed, and the vodka gone from the cabinet, your late-night stints on your computer… And not to mention what happened with you and Jamie. All of those things. What’s going on?’

  I can’t look at Mum. If I take my eyes off of the square inch of carpet between my feet the world will end.

  ‘Are you angry? God knows you’ve got a right to be angry, Josh. With me, with your dad, with—’

  I interrupt. I want her to stop speaking. ‘Why would I be angry with Dad? It’s not his fault,’ I ask, because I also want so much for her to carry on.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s no one’s fault but the person that did it, Josh. Some small-minded fool who was brainwashed and … I don’t know what else. But I’ve been angry at your dad since it happened.’

  ‘Why?’ I think again about Dad’s tree, about that final leaf, about my dreams.

  ‘For not being here. For dying. For leaving me, us, on our own. I’m still angry with him. Helplessly angry, sometimes.’

  ‘But you can’t blame Dad for—’

  ‘I don’t blame him. Of course I don’t. But I’m still angry. Angry that he won’t come back. That he’s gone forever.’ Tears are streaming down Mum’s face, falling from her chin into her lap. But her voice doesn’t falter, and she’s looking straight at me. ‘And what makes me angriest is that I can’t do anything with that anger.’

  ‘But why not?’ I speak through gritted teeth. ‘Why can’t you do something? No one else is doing anything, and we should be out in the streets demanding—’

  ‘Demanding what, Josh? Blood? Heads on spikes? That’s the thinking that killed your dad. Do you really want that thinking to win? I can’t do anything with my anger, Josh, because it’s toxic. Anger kills things, either straight aw
ay or it makes them wither away to nothingness.’

  Another long pause. I watch the tears dropping from my own face and seeping into the carpet between my feet.

  I’m shocked by my next words. ‘I could have stopped it.’

  Mum’s response is instant, ‘Don’t you dare start thinking like that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You couldn’t have stopped it. Not at all. You couldn’t have known, couldn’t have imagined. So don’t start talking to me about it being your fault.’

  ‘But I…’

  ‘That science test? That conversation you two had about taking the day off, ditching work and doing the gutters? It wasn’t real, Josh. It was never an option. It was you two playing together, the way you always did. Every time before he went to London.’

  ‘How do you—’

  Mum’s eyes are fierce and red. I don’t need to finish the question. She’s thought those thoughts too. Relived that last night as many times as I have. More. Has made herself responsible for something she couldn’t have stopped, hated herself, and come out the other side.

  I decide right then what I have to do. It’s going to be difficult, turning things around, but I have to do it. I know where things need to go from here. I’m thinking again of the bucket rising slowly up the well, like it was in Jamie’s hospital room. Maybe I need help to haul it up the rest of the way. I reach out and take Mum’s hand across the coffee table.