“You watch me too much. Close your eyes when you look at me.”
She closes her eyes.
“Don’t do what I tell you to do.”
She doesn’t and so she does. Trapped in the mesh of his will. And as for Toby, caught in another repeating pattern, he grows bored.
I’m so fucking bored of being bored. Let’s play a game. “Pretend you hate me,” he says.
“Pretend you despise me. Tell me stuff to hurt me.”
“You’re a cunt,” she says.
That makes him laugh. She says it so carefully, like it’s a technical term. Then she’s happy she’s made him laugh, which isn’t the idea of the game at all.
“Try harder,” he says.
“You have no emotions. You love only yourself.”
“If only that were so,” he says.
“You’re a narcissist. All you see in other people are mirrors of yourself.”
“Closer,” he says.
“I don’t hate you,” she says. “You hate yourself.”
“Closer,” he says.
But still it doesn’t hurt.
I am invulnerable. This is my deformity.
These are dangerous thoughts, these glimpses of the demon. He rations them, because always they come with an intoxication of the blood, a beautiful poisoning, that makes him thirsty for pain. His own pain, the pain of others. The demon feeds on shock and dismay.
I am one sick fuck.
All you can do is move on. You don’t ask people to love you. You don’t make promises. You don’t offer gifts. You don’t deceive. But they want the demon, that’s the truth. They long for the demon’s hurting kiss. So we’re all sick together.
She says, “Come out in the car with me.”
They go out driving.
Every time they come out in the car Toby is possessed by an urge to take the wheel and drive them into the oncoming traffic. So it’s good that it’s Carrie who’s driving.
“Imagine driving on the wrong side of the road,” he says. “All those cars coming straight at you. All those moments you could die.”
“You want to die?”
“No. I want to be inside those moments when I could die.”
“What happened to you, Toby? Why are you such a freak?”
“Usual story,” says Toby. “Too much of this. Too little of that.”
Over the Phoenix Causeway, the river running low.
“I’ve stayed long enough,” he says. “Time to be on the road again.”
“What road?”
“The road away.”
She drives in silence, past the old bus station to the traffic lights at the bottom of the High Street. Her body has gone stiff. She grinds the gears into neutral, brakes at the red light.
“So that’s what you do,” she says. “You start things you don’t finish. You hit and run.”
“What were you expecting? Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind?”
“Oh, fuck off, Toby.”
So of course he finds her pain exciting. It’s not wanting to hurt, it’s wanting to be in the place where pain happens.
“You know self-harming?” he says.
“Yeah,” she says. “I know self-harming. That your next cool idea?”
“People can do it without razors.”
“You don’t say.”
The lights change, the traffic rolls on up Friars Walk. Ahead is the tricky intersection where Station Road crosses and cars come from all directions.
“So just tell me, Toby. Where do I come in? I mean, like, what is this? What are we doing here? I’d just like to know.”
“Me too,” he says.
“Not good enough. Try harder.”
Now she’s negotiating the intersection, heading across into Southover Road. There are cars parked all down one side, which makes it a tight squeeze for two-way traffic. She has tears waiting in her eyes.
Bad situation. Trapped in a moving car, under pressure from demands you can’t meet. The urge to break out can make you crazy. Time to kick doors, break windows.
“Don’t push me,” he says.
“No, you owe me. You don’t just walk away. Jesus, did I ever ask you for a fucking thing? All I want to know is, do I exist for you? Do you have any feelings for me of any kind whatsoever? On the road again. Jesus!”
“What do you want, Carrie? I stay in Jack’s room for the rest of my life?”
“No! Of course you’ll go! I know that! I’m not a child!”
“So I’ll go.”
“Do you love anyone, Toby? Have you ever loved anyone?”
Why don’t you love me? Make me suffer more. Cut my arms with your blades.
“You tell me what that means,” he says, “I’ll tell you if I’ve got it.”
“It means it hurts to leave,” she says fiercely.
“You could put that in a song. Loving means it hurts to leave.”
She gasps at that, as if he’s hit her. The demon did that to her. Now she’s driving too fast.
“Leaving means it hurts to love,” he says. “Hurting means it loves to leave.”
He can’t help himself. The demon is running free and he must follow.
“On the road again,” she says, staring ahead as she drives. “On the road again. On the road again.”
Her mantra against pain. But she’s the one who summoned the demon. You get what you ask for in this world.
“You know what, Toby.” Talking fast now, driving fast. “This is all a joke, because I don’t do the girly thing, I don’t do flirting, I’m just fine being who I am. I’m not saying I’m any better than anyone else, I’m just saying I’m me and I’m good with that and I don’t dress up as not-me for anyone. And you show up and I’m, how about this? Here’s someone I can be me around, here’s someone who does a really good imitation of connecting with actual me. So I let myself think maybe connections do happen, maybe we’re not all me, maybe sometimes we can be us, and you give me this shit about being on the road again. And that’s quite a joke, isn’t it? That really is a good one. Because you’re going nowhere. So why do I care? I’m such a fucking mess-up, look at me, Jesus! Why don’t we just all roll over and die? I mean, what is there out there worth sticking round for? There’s no party, right? So why am I crying? Why am I humiliating myself when you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself? Oh sure, I’ll put it in a song, I’ll put it all in a song. Only when I sing it you won’t be there to hear, you’ll be on the fucking road again—”
Rattle of noise, blur of motion, a boy on a bike smack across the front of the car, crump on the bonnet and punch through the air, bike spinning away, boy vaulting skyward, lands on a parked car, bounces, hits the tarmac, doesn’t move.
Carrie jams on the brakes, she’s uttering these small panic cries, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” People appear out of nowhere, mobile phones out, calling for help, taking pictures. Toby’s out of the car, going to the boy.
“Don’t move him!” A passer-by, an instant expert. “Could’ve broken his back.”
“Crazy kid,” says another. “Accident waiting to happen.”
“Nothing you could do,” they say. “Came down Keere Street like a runaway train.”
Carrie out of the car now, shaking violently.
“Is he—is he . . .?”
The man who has taken charge says, “He’s breathing. He’s concussed.”
“Have they—has the—”
“Ambulance on its way.”
Toby says to Carrie, “Give me your phone.”
He calls Carrie’s mum, tells her briefly and clearly what’s happened.
“She’s coming right over,” he says to Carrie.
Carrie nods, white-faced, shivering. The sun shines out of a clear sky, glinting on the spokes of the buckled bike as it lies on its side in the road. From far away they hear the siren of an ambulance, faint at first, but growing louder. The boy’s body doesn’t move.
36
Laura is trying to contro
l her panic but the problem is she has no car. Carrie took hers for driving practice and Henry has taken his to Haywards Heath for the meeting in London. She calls Alison Critchell, gets her answer machine. Can she call Martin Linton? She stands in the kitchen looking out into the garden struggling not to picture the car crashed and what might have happened and Carrie frightened, needing her, when she sees Terry Sutton go by, carrying a roll of wire netting.
“Terry!” she calls from the back door. “Terry!”
He comes over, and as she tells him Carrie’s been in an accident she finds she’s crying.
Terry turns out to be a wonder. He drops everything, offers to take her in his car, and within minutes they’re on their way.
“I don’t think it was Carrie’s fault,” Laura says, needing to talk. “This boy on his bike came out of nowhere. But what must Carrie be feeling? What if the boy dies?”
“These biker boys don’t die,” says Terry. “They bounce.”
He drives fast and skillfully, almost to the scene of the accident. A small crowd has formed where the police have closed the road. People are holding their phones above their heads taking photographs.
Terry acts as Laura’s minder, pushing a way through for her.
“Sorry, mate. Family here. Family.”
To the policeman barring their way he says, “Hello, Ron. This is Mrs. Broad. It’s her daughter over there.”
Carrie and Toby are standing just beyond Laura’s car, talking to a policewoman. The boy’s bike still lies where it fell on the road. Laura is let through and runs to Carrie, takes her in her arms.
“Darling, darling, sweetheart.”
Carrie cries a little. Toby speaks quietly, with reassuring steadiness.
“It wasn’t Carrie’s fault. The boy came out of nowhere.”
“How is he?”
“They’ve taken him in an ambulance.”
Laura turns to the policewoman.
“Can I take her home?”
“Your daughter can go. We’ll be in touch tomorrow. But I’m afraid the car has to stay. There’s an FCI unit on the way.”
“I don’t care about the car.” She holds Carrie close. “Will someone let us know about—about everything?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’ll be kept informed.”
Laura keeps her arm round Carrie all the way back to Terry’s car, as if she’s cold. They get into the back. Toby sits in the front, beside Terry.
“I’ve not got a car at home,” says Laura. “Terry’s been an angel.”
“Mum,” says Carrie. “I want to go to the hospital.”
“There’s nothing we can do, darling.”
“I want to go to the hospital.”
“Sweetheart, we can’t ask Terry to take us all the way to Brighton.”
“No problem,” says Terry.
So they head out onto the A27 west. Carrie starts to talk about the accident.
“I was on the right side of the road,” she says. “I was watching where I was going. I never saw him.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” says Toby.
“They breathalyzed me,” says Carrie. “But they were nice.”
“Why didn’t he use his brakes?” says Laura.
“Don’t have brakes,” Terry interjects. “That was a BMX bike. They don’t have brakes.”
“Don’t have brakes!”
“I felt it when he hit the car,” says Carrie. “The car kind of rocked. Mum—” she starts to cry again—“what if he dies?”
“It’s not your fault, darling. It just isn’t.”
They drive over the Downs, past the building site for the new stadium, to the Woodingdean crossroads. Here the traffic tails back, waiting for the lights to change. Laura keeps Carrie’s hand in hers. Ahead the land swoops down in curving folds to the straight line of the sea, and Carrie’s hand shivers in hers. Then they’re moving again, past the dummy fisherman in his yellow trawler coat on the roof of the Woodingdean Fish Shop, and Carrie’s holding her breath, thinking the boy’s going to die.
Into Brighton over the racecourse.
“Parking at the hospital’s a joke,” says Terry. “Both our kiddies were born here. Julie can push ’em out faster than I can find a parking space.”
“Carrie was born here too,” says Laura. “Weren’t you, darling?”
Terry drives right up to A&E like he’s an ambulance.
“You go in,” he says. “I’ll park and come and find you.”
“No, go home now, Terry,” says Laura. “We can get a taxi back.”
“Have to go back the same way as you,” says Terry. “Might as well wait.”
“You’re being amazing,” says Laura.
“Got to look out for each other, haven’t we?” says Terry.
Laura and Carrie and Toby go through the automatic sliding glass doors into A&E. There’s a reception window with a receptionist talking on the phone. She comes off the phone and Laura tells her about the accident.
“Are you next of kin?” she says.
“My daughter was in the accident. She was driving the car the boy hit.”
“So she’s not next of kin?”
“No, but she’s terribly worried. She just wants to know how the boy is.”
“Do you know the name of the boy?”
“No.”
The receptionist looks at them blankly.
“Can’t help, can I?” she says.
“All we want to know is that he’s—well, all right. He must have only just been brought in. Maybe half an hour ago at the most. From Lewes, a boy of eleven or twelve. Couldn’t you ask someone?”
“Can’t do that,” says the receptionist. “It’s patient confidentiality, see?”
She looks past them to the people waiting behind.
Carrie goes to the window, speaks in a whisper.
“I just want to know I’ve not killed him,” she says.
“Sorry,” says the receptionist.
The people behind cough and murmur. They move away from the window.
“There’s a waiting room through there,” Toby says. “Sit down and I’ll get us all a cup of coffee.”
The waiting room has lavender walls and mauve chairs and a big mural on one wall, of dolphins. There’s a hot-drinks machine and a sign pointing to the WRVS Coffee Shop.
“I’ll go to the coffee shop,” says Toby. “It’ll be better coffee.”
A middle-aged woman is waiting with her husband. She has a heavily bandaged hand held up above her head, as if she’s hailing a taxi. She sighs and groans and says to her husband, “Tell the nurse it’s still coming through.” Catching Laura’s eye she says, “Won’t stop bleeding.”
Terry now rejoins them.
“It’s a joke, that car park,” he says.
“They won’t tell us anything,” says Laura. “We’re having a hot drink. Then we might as well get home.”
“He’ll be through there,” says Terry, pointing down the corridor. “You could walk in. No one’s going to stop you.”
As he speaks a large woman with a shock of black hair appears from the wards and heads across the reception area to the exit. Terry sees her.
“Hey, Sheena!”
“Terry?” she says. “Oh, Terry! My Chipper’s hurt so bad.”
“Chipper!”
“Only nearly killed himself on his bike, hasn’t he?” Her face contorts with pain. “Christ knows, I told him often enough.”
Terry points to Carrie.
“She was driving the car,” he says. “She’s come because she was so worried about him.”
The woman stares at Carrie in confusion. “You was in the car?”
“How is he?” says Carrie. “Is he going to be all right?”
“Only broken three ribs and fractured his pelvis, hasn’t he? If he had any brains he might have knocked them out too.”
“So he’s not—I mean, he’s not . . .”
The boy’s mother sees the anguish in Carrie’s eyes
and she’s moved. She goes to Carrie and takes her hand.
“He’s not going to die, love. You mustn’t blame yourself. The police told me, he was way out of control.” Carrie starts to cry. “Oh, aren’t you a love! But he’s my boy, see. He’s a bloody idiot, but he’s my baby boy. And he’s a good kid, too, in his way.”
“I thought I’d killed him.”
“No, no. You never. He’s going to be in hospital a few weeks. Six months he’ll be as good as new. That’s what they’re telling me. Good as new. And maybe better. Maybe not such a fool any more. That’s what I’m hoping.”
Laura is staring at the boy’s mother’s hand. She wears a ruby ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.
“Listen, I’m dying for a smoke,” she says. “That’s why I come out.”
She looks at Laura, sensing her close attention.
“Gave up years ago, didn’t I? But a shock like this and it’s back on the old fags.”
“So he’s going to be all right?” says Laura.
“That’s what they’re telling me. They got him all pumped up with morphine for now.”
“We’re so, so sorry,” says Laura.
She’s thinking how she’d feel if it was Jack. Or Carrie.
“Good of you to come,” says the boy’s mother. “Decent of you. Shows there are still good people in the world. Though God knows what you’re doing with this tosser.”
She gives a tired grin at Terry.
“Terry brought us over in his car,” says Laura. “He’s one of the good people.”
“He’s all right, is Tel. Gotta get my nicotine now.”
She goes out through the double set of doors to the open air.
Toby reappears with a cardboard tray on which he carries four cardboard cups of coffee. He hands out the coffees.
“Sugar, Terry? I thought you’d be one for sugar.”
“We met the boy’s mum,” Carrie tells him. “The boy on the bike. He’s going to be all right.”
“That’s great.”
“He’s broken his ribs and his pelvis. But he’s going to be all right.”
“And you were so sure you’d killed him.”