He got up and arched his back. Time for a brew. A last bit of cutting-in, then the room would be finished. It would be dry by the morning. Blind up, furniture back in, new bed linen on. All ready for Thursday. They had a long weekend together planned. It was amazing how time that used to drag now zoomed by.
Tea brewed, Pete decided to reward himself for his labours with ten minutes outside. He opened the front door, intending to sit on the wall. The back yard was in shade in the afternoon and, cold as it was, he wanted the sun on his face.
He saw them straight away.
It was such a long time since anyone had visited the spot that Pete was taken aback. He succeeded in not remembering the crash and the aftermath – most of the time. Things had changed so much for the better for him since that night that he’d been able to file it away in a locked drawer inside his head. He hadn’t spoken to Claire about what had happened, he hadn’t wanted to. He knew it was probably stupid, but he didn’t want to take the risk of her associating his little house with anything bad, or him with anything so dark. Deep down, he knew that if he did speak to her about it, she would be sympathetic; that was her nature – she might even be a little bit proud of him. But he didn’t want to nix their developing relationship with something so horrible.
Pete watched the people across the road with a tightness in his throat.
It was a small gathering. Not like the crowds that had congregated on the verge in the weeks after the girl’s death. The sight of them had upset Pete at the time. The clusters of teenagers sprawling on the grass, playing sad songs, hugging each other and drinking, had been a very visible reminder of what had happened – and the consequences of it. The drinking in particular had bothered him. How they could pass round a bottle at the very spot where the consequences of drink-driving had been so spectacularly and terribly demonstrated, was beyond him. He’d been relieved when the vigils had dwindled and eventually stopped; pleased when the council removed the mound of dead floral tributes. He wanted the road to be just the ring road. His house, just a house. Himself, just a bloke who lived in a house near the ring road.
Pete stood in his now-tidy front garden – Claire’s influence again – feeling trapped by the sudden appearance of the mourners. He didn’t touch his tea. It didn’t seem right. He wanted to go back inside, but felt compelled to stay. Because, for all his practised avoidance of dwelling on the accident, he was intimately connected to it and, therefore, indirectly, to these people, whoever they were. Thankfully, due to the distance and the steady stream of cars, they could have no idea that once again he was playing his part as witness.
For an awful moment it struck Pete that he couldn’t remember the name of the girl who had died. He could see her face: the flawless skin, the trendy dark glasses, the blonde, almost-white hair. A face full of energy and life, and potential. Photos of her had been everywhere after her death. On TV, online, on the placards the kids brought with them to the vigils. But her name. No. He couldn’t retrieve it.
The night of the crash he hadn’t seen her face, just the back of her head. That night her hair hadn’t been blonde, it had been black.
Pete suddenly felt cold.
It came to him. She’d been called Jessica. Jess. This had to be her family. It must be an anniversary of sorts. Or perhaps it would have been her birthday – if she’d survived. Jesus! He couldn’t begin to imagine.
The younger man went forward to lay his flowers first, his steps slow, his head hung low. When he knelt down, Pete had a strong, very clear flashback of the driver kneeling by the wreckage of the car. His name Pete hadn’t forgotten: Harry Westwood. Pete didn’t want the images in his head, but that was how memory worked, against your will, defying time and intention. He concentrated on the family on the other side of the ring road, the victims of the tragedy. For them, the past would always be part of their present. The lad stayed on his knees for a long time. He only got to his feet when the older woman touched his shoulder, summoning him back to the group. The older man and the young girl laid their flowers next, then a young couple, Jess’s friends presumably. A little way off, a bald man in a sharp suit looked on – an observer, not a participant.
As the quiet ritual took place and the traffic flowed past, Pete stayed put, paying his respects. After the flowers were laid and the silent prayers said, the group closed in on themselves, exchanging hugs. Pete looked away. This was, after all, private grief despite the very public location. When he looked back, they had broken apart and started to walk away along the verge, all except the mother and the son. They stood close together, their arms around each other.
Pete had seen and felt enough.
He turned and headed back inside his house. Just as he was about to pull the door closed, he heard the blare of a car horn. His heart thudded. There was a screech of brakes. He looked up, but the traffic was flowing normally. The mother and son and the observing man were gone. He saw a flash of black-and-white streak through his garden gate.
Cleo shot past his legs into the house.
There went another of her nine lives.
THIRTY-TWO DAYS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
PERHAPS THERE was a God after all.
The call they’d hoped for, prayed for, feared would never happen, finally came on the morning of Wednesday 3 April. Angela didn’t recognise the number when it popped up on her phone. Of course she didn’t; they’d never phoned her before. She listened carefully as Heather, their link worker, told her that a donor had been found. Five very small, simple words. It was, apparently, an excellent match. The surgical team was being contacted as they spoke. The transplant was a definite ‘go’.
After the call ended, Angela gave herself a few minutes to digest the news. It was happening. Becky would be in surgery before the day was out. Her diseased, failing heart was going to be taken out and replaced with a healthy one.
They had found a donor.
Two years on the register was a lifetime to wait for something that was such a long shot. It was a percentages game with dwindling odds, but their number had finally come up. Becky’s life would be transformed. She could – no, she would – live. And live well: without pain, without the debilitating constriction of her floundering, insufficient heart. She would be healthy and happy, at last. She would have a normal life.
They had found a donor.
It was the best possible news – for them.
Angela sat on the bottom stair and allowed the shadow of that donor, and their family, to come and sit down next to her.
Someone had died. Someone young. Someone loved. Someone who had had their whole life ahead of them – until it was snatched away. Somewhere there was a mother, a father, a brother, a sister mourning an unbearable loss. And in the midst of that devastation they’d had the humanity, and bravery, to say ‘Yes’. They had honoured the death of their loved one with the gift of life for a complete stranger.
The enormity of it flooded through Angela.
She sat in their narrow, silent hall and rode the waves of emotion, trying hard not to drown in the joy and the sadness.
When she felt stable enough, she rang Noel.
They were a team. That’s how they got through stuff. They stuck together, no matter what. They took it in turns being chief cheerleader when Becky had had enough and couldn’t face yet another necessary procedure or drugs regime change, with all the attendant side-effects. They shared the time off work, the sleeplessness, the anger, the endless hope-peddling and the despair-denial. They had stomped and stamped and jumped on the right side of the scales for their daughter, determined to balance out the dragging weight of her chronic heart condition, for so long that it had become a way of life. No more.