Conrad has been left behind to sort everything out, to coordinate what happens with the police interviewing people, and overseeing everyone who wants to stay and say goodbye to those who are leaving. It’s a big responsibility, but Con can do it. He and his mates – the Brain’s Trust I affectionately call them because they are all intelligent but clueless – will charm the remaining partygoers and make sure everything is settled properly.
It is a normal Saturday night in an A&E department: the whole of the human experience seen through the damage people do to themselves outside of ‘business’ hours. We watch them arrive, the people from nights out who can’t hold their alcohol or keep themselves upright; the parents cradling young children who’ve come to the wrong department and are directed elsewhere; the ones who’ve been stoic and hung on and hung on but can’t take it any longer and have had to seek help; the accidents that have left huge gashes and broken bones and bruised spirits. They arrive and arrive and arrive, wave after wave after wave of humanity hurt, people pained. They are seen, they are triaged, they take their seats around us. And wait. Like us, they wait. I suspect we might be waiting all night, since none of us is saying anything about leaving.
After what feels like a forever, the doors swoosh open and another blast of night air is swept in, bringing her with it. Them.
I know who she is straight away. She is aged, like my mother is aged, but she looks the same as she did in the original photo.
Poppy Carlisle.
Behind her is a younger version of her, a feminine version of Logan. Poppy dashes to the reception desk with protective ceiling-to-waist-height glass, the gaps strategically positioned so you can speak but no one can reach in and grab the person on the other side.
The moment she appears, Mum stiffens, her body suddenly ramrod straight, as though a huge current has been sent through her body.
Poppy Carlisle can barely get the words out she is so upset. Her sister stands behind her, biting her bottom lip and clenching her own hands.
Eventually, Poppy Carlisle stops questioning the woman behind the counter when the receptionist points in our direction as the people who came in with her brother. I watch her whole body inflate with a breath, deflate with an out breath. She’s desperate to do something.
It takes a moment for me to realise Mum is getting to her feet. That she is stepping forward, towards the Carlisle sisters.
Poppy Carlisle is already turning towards her as she looks for the person who can possibly tell her what happened to her sibling.
Her face and whole body recoil when she realises who is standing in front of her.
serena
Now
From the moment I found out who he was, I knew this was coming.
It was that moment, racing towards me at speed, that I couldn’t avoid, couldn’t duck out on and had to face with my whole being.
While Verity and Evan have been sitting there in their own little worlds, not talking and thinking, I have been counting. Counting up the seconds and turning them into minutes and turning them into hours before I am back there. Back in the world of The Ice Cream Girls with Poppy Carlisle.
She’s older.
Her face is fuller, her hair is neater and shinier and, if I’m not mistaken, a few strands of grey have found their way into her brown locks. Under the harsh strip lighting, which bleaches everything a shade or two brighter and paler, she looks ready to collapse. Shock. I’ve had nearly two hours to get used to this. I’ve had over an hour of counting to brace myself for this and I’m still not there. I’m still floored.
My daughter has been having sex. Not something I really thought about or wanted to think about. Once she went to university, once she left home, it was one of those things she was most likely to do and I would never have to think about until she told me she was pregnant. When/if she ever told me she was pregnant, I’d have confirmation that she was sexually active. But until then, it was not my problem. But now I know. Now I know she has been having sex and the person who she was last doing that with was a Carlisle.
Poppy Carlisle’s brother.
Poppy’s hazel-brown eyes move over my face, my hair, my body. Scrutinising every element on display with the horror of someone who cannot believe what is happening to them. She takes me in and I can see she is wondering why I look like I do. How come someone who was quite dowdy the last time she saw them suddenly be so gaudy and showy with fancy hair and make-up and an outfit designed to flatter her body in every way? I’m embarrassed to look like this. Ashamed that I was obviously out having a good time when something like this was happening to someone in her family.
When I can’t stand it any longer. When the staring and assessment and shock have gone on for long enough, I have to speak. I have to say something to bring us both into the present, into this unexpected moment.
I open my mouth, ready to say a few words about what has happened, what we know, how Evan knows a little more than they probably told her at the reception desk. I open my mouth, reaching for the words that are efficient and necessary and informative.
And out comes, ‘Hello, Poppy,’ instead. There is nothing more I can say. Nothing more I can utter that would feel appropriate or even possible right now because my mind is confusion, my tongue is tied.
She silently but visibly deflates, her whole body giving in to the action.
‘Hello, Serena,’ she replies.
poppy
Now
Once Alain arrived at my flat, I called a taxi because even if I had been able to drive, parking would have been a nightmare and I didn’t want to spend precious minutes driving around and around looking for somewhere to dump the car.
Ten years ago it would have seemed impossible that I could drive a car let alone own one, but lots has changed since I came out. Mobile phones weren’t little boxes of witchcraft to me any longer. Having keys to my own place was normal. And owning a car was vital to my life running smoothly.
Bella was a wreck, standing outside the wide glass doors when I got out of the taxi. She was wringing her hands and she was shaking, her clothes were dishevelled and her hair was escaping its haphazardly formed ponytail. I threw my arms around her, trying to calm her down. Her heart was racing and her whole body was trembling as I held her against me. ‘What if he dies?’ she kept saying. ‘What if he dies?’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘I don’t . . . They said he was on the seafront. They found my number on his phone. I was the last person he called. They said he was at the hospital. What if he dies?’
I didn’t want to think about that. Not even in abstract. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go in.’
She hesitated, refused to move from the spot. ‘This is like when you went to prison, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It’s meant to turn out all right but it doesn’t. It goes horribly wrong and our family is never going to be the same again.’
‘No,’ I said sternly. ‘No, it’s not like that at all. Come on, let’s go and see him.’ I don’t add, before it’s too late, which is exactly what it felt like.
I remember coming here with Serena that time. That time is seared into my memory like the scorch lines in a steak. The terror I felt then that she was going to die is nothing like this terror now. If Logan is taken from me now, like this, I don’t know what I’ll do. I really don’t know what I’ll do.